Russia Initiated a Serious and Dangerous Process, Purpose of which is Taking the Life of the Civil Society in Armenia: Styopa Safaryan
“Russia initiated an attack against the civil society in Armenia,” Styopa Safaryan, founder and head of the Armenian Institute of International ad Security Affairs (AIISA), political analyst, told 168.am reflecting to deportation of Stepan Grigoryan, head of the Centre for Globalization and Regional Cooperation, from Russia, as well as “declassifications” disseminated by “the Armenian Diaspora representatives.”
Recently, Russian language publications emerged one after another from the name of the “Armenian Diaspora” what political, civil, foreign figures work in Armenia as if in favor of Armenia’s interests and the USA, qualifying them as U.S. agents. They called Armenia’s authorities to undertake measures against them. Moreover, it became known yesterday, that these days entry of Stepan Grigoryan to Russian Federation was denied until 2030.
Reflecting to these developments, Styopa Safaryan stated that from the very first defamatory post issued from the name of the Armenian community, which, of course, has no connection with the latter, simple Russian special services organize it in somebody’s name, and that we deal with simple politics. According to Safaryan this isn’t the initiative of anyone or any functionary.
“The point is, it’s been a few years that Russia attempted to hint Armenia’s authorities to persecute independent organizations. Let me remind statements by Volinkin on drawing a wedge of more than 100 organizations between Armenia-Russia relations. You also remember their position on the law on NGOs, when Volinkin urged Armenia’s authorities to follow the example of Russia, where organizations, cooperating with Western funds, are announced as foreign agents.
Russia’s reflections were rather noteworthy both during the protests following murder of Avetisyan family in Gyumri, and even linked to the activity of “Sasna Tsrer” group, when obviously, they were blaming organizations and institutes, cooperating with Western funds in heating anti-Russian moods.
Thus, they started to indirectly hint what should be done in Armenia. However, I see that in honor of them Armenia’s authorities don’t undertake tough steps to that end. Moreover, when right the contrary messages were received from Armenia, they have absolutely passed on to methods of an ax. Russia initiated an attack towards Armenia’s democracy. In a few interviews I had the opportunity to touch upon the fact, that there was an intention to direct Armenia through Azerbaijan’s way—Ilham Aliyev took that notorious way by arresting active representatives of the civil society. If you’d remember Richard Morningstar’s interview two years ago, where touching upon that issue, he says the following, “What Ilham Aliyev does, has nothing to do with power maintenance, but is linked to serving interests of a third country.” Thus, the USA obviously blames Azerbaijani president in serving interests of other country, of course, lists of Gulen’s supporters come from Ankara, and that of pro-Westerns—from Russia. And Armenia stubbornly refuses to go through Azerbaijani path, as a result of which Russian anger reached to its peak,” Styopa Safaryan said, adding that by barring Stepan Grigoryan’s entry to Russia, a message is being sent to all those expressing free opinions on Russia and its pursued policy.
However, according to the analyst, carriers of that message aren’t only representatives of the civil society, but Armenia’s authorities. In his conviction, if Armenia’s authorities don’t realize that they can’t simply satisfy Russia’s caprices, they may be qualified for Yanukovich’s fate and appear in the pocket of Russian authorities after such sharp steps. “I want to believe and hope that they have enough commonsense, they realize that throughout the last 2 years Moscow has repeatedly attempted to use hard power towards the civil society, it was acting that way during the “Electric Yerevan,” realizing that if blood is shed Serzh Sargsyan and Armenia’s authorities will appear in their pockets without any alternative,” Safaryan said.
The latter also reminded the occurrences of recent months. “Obviously they have sent a Russian citizen with Armenian roots to play a theater in the street, purpose of whose was change of public opinion towards himself, when he was demanding to be guided not by Armenia’s interests, but of Armenians living in Russia, considering them hostages in the hands of Russia. Obviously, that theater was a likewise message. They’ve already passed on to other ways of activity and through Stepan Grigoryan they also hint that deportations, arrests may be anticipated,” Safaryan said.
To the question whether it’s possible that Armenia-EU agreement is on the target of this activity, Styopa Safaryan replied to it, reminding the EaP Summit in Vilnius. “In Vilnius Armenia and the EU agreed the directions, in which they’d be able to continue their cooperation, one of which was the civil society. Later on, it was more highlighted by the EU, which made Moscow angry, as EEU, according to Nazarbayev and Lukashenko, became an economic organization, and Moscow’s chances for invasion into the political life were excluded, thus, these forms of struggle have remained unchanged.
These aggressive steps by Russia, which until now are mediated through people with Armenian origin, however, obviously documents of special services, under allocation of border service are provided to them, like, for instance, scans of passports of the staff of U.S. Embassy, make obvious that we deal with rather serious and dangerous process, purpose of which is taking the life of the civil society in Armenia. Finally, in this region, what Russia did with Azerbaijan is picturesque, even if it failed to more approach Azerbaijan to Russia, it succeeded to cut Azerbaijan from the West.
And this is the least, that Russia pursues in Armenia, and accordingly, of course, the target is the Association Agreement, so that Armenia didn’t go further with the EU in the field of civil society development,” Styopa Safaryan said. The latter attached attention also to the circumstance that Parliamentary elections are ahead, in 2017.
“I want to attach attention to one fact. I touched upon it at 2012 Parliamentary elections, when Valentina Matvienko, by visiting to Armenia in the summer of 2012, demanded that Armenia’s political and civil fields became open for Russia. This found its place in the statement issued by the National Assembly, it was one of the results of the meetings of Valentina Matvienko with NA speaker and RA president. Rather interesting situation was observed among the political parties in 2012, Russian wings were observed, which is also a part of the work, and I’m sure, currently, prior to the elections, they’ll work intensively to have pro-Russian people in the top list of the political parties, and not accidentally, Armenia was fluently involved in EEU as in 2012 Russia was working to that end, bringing Parliamentary rhetoricians, who would legitimize that process. They will also establish fake pro-Western powers to manage anti-Russian and pro-European electorates,” Styopa Safaryan concluded.
By Araks Martirosyan
