Author: Harut Sassounian

Even since Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan with his thousands of followers started marching towards Yerevan, many wondered what would happen on May 9 once they reached the Republic Square where Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s offices are located.

After arriving in Yerevan, Bagrat Srpazan gave one hour to Pashinyan to resign. When the hour was over and he did not resign, Srpazan announced that there would be acts of civil disobedience throughout the country beginning the next day. He urged his followers to act peacefully and not to commit any acts of violence.

Pashinyan was hoping that the number of protesters would dwindle over time and the movement would fizzle out. The regime did everything in its power to vilify and defame Srpazan and the protesters. Government propagandists announced that there were merely around 20,000 protesters in the Republic Square on May 9, whereas most observers estimated the crowd to be several times larger. After misleading the Armenian public for six years with thousands of lies, Pashinyan continued his deceptive practices by claiming without any evidence that the protesters are Kremlin’s agents who were paid money to participate in these protests. Government leaders ridiculed not only Srpazan, but also the Armenian Church, an institution that has shepherded the nation ever since 301 AD, particularly during the absence of an Armenian state.

To the disappointment of Prime Minister’s diminishing number of supporters, as his rating has gone down from 80% six years ago to 8% now, Srpazan held a second rally in the Republic Square with tens of thousands of followers in attendance. Despite the brutal actions of Pashinyan’s police which viciously attacked the peaceful protesters, the movement grew stronger rather than fizzling out. During the past week, Srpazan held separate meetings with groups of lawyers, doctors, retired military officers, artists, and dozens of opposition leaders.

Srpazan proved the falsehood of Pashinyan followers’ repeated mantra that no one else can replace the Prime Minister. Srpazan succeeded for the first time to unite the various opposition groups under his leadership. Large segments of the public, livid at Pashinyan’s defeatist concessions to Azerbaijan, responded enthusiastically to Srpazan’s peaceful, but urgent message for change.

Finally, Srpazan’s long-awaited big rally took place on May 26 during which several important announcements were made. The crowd was told that Srpazan would temporarily replace Pashinyan after which a coalition government will be formed, followed by parliamentary elections which will choose a new Prime Minister. Even though the Constitution requires that the Prime Minister be exclusively a citizen of Armenia for the preceding four years, Srpazan’s followers believe that his dual citizenship of Armenia and Canada would not prevent him from temporarily acting as Prime Minister. Srpazan made the commitment that he will be guided exclusively by legal requirements. Ironically, Pashinyan’s regime, which has violated just about every existing law, is demanding that the protesters comply with the laws of the country.

During the May 26 rally, Srpazan also announced that after consulting with other high-ranking clergymen and Catholicos Karekin II, it was decided that he will freeze his 30-year-long spiritual service in order not to combine political activities with his religious position.

Srpazan is attempting to topple Pashinyan the same way the latter toppled Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Pashinyan and his followers violated dozens of laws to come to power, blocking the streets, the Parliament building, the courthouse, and smashing the locked doors of the Armenian radio station. However, Pashinyan thinks that he is the only one who can get away with breaking the law. Amazingly, he even boastfully proclaimed: “is there a judge in Armenia who cannot do what the Prime Minister says?” If anyone else does what he did, his barbaric police are ordered, as he himself announced during the Parliamentary campaign in 2021 while holding a hammer in his hand, to smash the heads of his Armenian opponents, even though he falsely claims to be a democrat. Ironically, Pashinyan never uses such vile language against the real enemies of Armenia — Azerbaijan and Turkey — whose leaders make the most offensive comments about Armenia.

At the end of the mass rally in the Republic Square on May 26, Srpazan marched with his followers to the Prime Minister’s mansion and demanded that he meet with him and tell him to resign. However, it turned out that Pashinyan was not at home, visiting the flooded areas of Northern Armenia.

Srpazan then led the large crowd back to the Republic Square where the rally had started several hours earlier. He urged his followers to engage in acts of civil disobedience throughout the country to pressure Pashinyan to resign.

This is Armenia’s last chance to save the country from Pashinyan, a defeated and incompetent leader, who is willing to follow Aliyev’s and Azerbaijan’s orders, and make illegal and endless one-sided concessions, until the total loss of Armenia, after the loss of Artsakh!

A lot has happened in Armenia this past week that has shaken to the core the incompetent, inexperienced, defeatist and deceptive Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan who should have resigned on Nov. 10, 2020, the day he signed the capitulation agreement with Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan came to power by exploiting the people’s gullibility and their resentment of the former leaders. He claimed that he will bring peace to Armenia, their sons will no longer die in wars, they will live in prosperity with high-paying jobs, there will be no corruption, and a million other falsehoods with which he misled the public.

Drunk with his newly-found power, Pashinyan became completely unhinged. He arrogantly announced, while he and his mob of followers surrounded the Parliament building in 2018, that either he will become the Prime Minister or Armenia will not have a Prime Minister! This is the pronouncement of a self-declared democratic leader who became a dictator.

During the campaign for the parliamentary elections in 2021, Pashinyan stood on a stage holding a hammer and promising to crush the heads of his political opponents. He also pledged to slam his Armenian rivals to the wall and flatten them on the asphalt. This is his crude understanding of democracy.

Pashinyan told his crowd of followers in 2018 that he will leave his office when the people demand his resignation. Since then, he has ignored all demands for his resignation clinging to his seat of power. During one of the many demonstrations calling for his resignation, when a journalist asked him if he will keep his word and resign, he pompously replied, “they aren’t people,” implying that he considers only those who support him as “people.”

Even though Pashinyan’s supporters falsely claim that he was elected Prime Minister, the fact is that he was not, since the Prime Minister’s post is not an elective position. He was chosen by his parliamentary majority which is composed of equally incompetent and inexperienced young men and women.

Pashinyan has no tolerance for dissent. If anyone living in Armenia dares to criticize him, the Prime Minister orders his well-fed police squad to lay the critic on the ground, beat him up and arrest him. His top ally, Alen Simonyan, the Chairman of the Parliament, spit on the face of an Armenian in the street, just because he criticized him. And if a Diaspora Armenian disagrees with Pashinyan, he will not be allowed to enter Armenia after he arrives at the Yerevan Airport. Under Pashinyan, Armenia has become a dictatorship, ruled by the whims of one man.

Now comes Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the Primate of the Diocese of Tavoush, who opposes Pashinyan’s arbitrary decision to turn over to Azerbaijan four Armenian border villages without a referendum and parliamentary approval.

The Archbishop has come immediately under vicious attacks by Pashinyan himself and his cronies, including the thousands of fake Facebook followers who are paid to defame anyone who dares to criticize the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan called the Archbishop and his supporters “Drug Lords” and “Foreign Agents sent from overseas” without a shred of evidence. It is very ugly when the head of a government uses street language to denigrate his political opponents. Anyone who dares to criticize Pashinyan is immediately labeled “a Kremlin agent” who is paid thousands of dollars to “undermine the country.” Why should anyone get paid to undermine Armenia when Pashinyan is already undermining the country all by himself?

In a strange turn of events, the Archbishop has copied the same tactic Pashinyan used to come to power by marching from Gyumri to Yerevan in 2018. Thus Srpazan is giving Pashinyan a dose of his own medicine. The only difference is that Pashinyan violated many laws to come to power by smashing the doors of the Armenian Radio Station’s headquarters, surrounding a Court House with his followers to prevent the judges from entering the building, and blocking the entrances to the Parliament.

The Archbishop has advantages and disadvantages. Srpazan is a clergyman whose weapon is truth and morality. He preaches peace, love and non-violence. All attempts by various opposition groups to topple Pashinyan by street protests in the past six years have failed. The Archbishop is the only person who has gained the trust of a large number of Armenians who eagerly joined his march from Tavoush to Yerevan. Over 100,000 Armenians flooded the city’s main square to listen to his message.

When Srpazan arrived in Yerevan on May 9, he announced that he was giving Pashinyan one hour to resign. When the hour passed and there was no resignation, the Archbishop did not want to go to the next step of urging his 100,000 followers to storm the building and oust the Prime Minister. Instead, Srpazan announced a series of civil disobedience acts throughout the country.

Srpazan is now consulting with various opposition leaders to discuss the next steps. If and when Pashinyan resigns or is impeached, both unlikely scenarios, the Archbishop said that a transition government will be formed which will later hold elections for Parliament to choose a new Prime Minister. It remains to be seen if Srpazan’s peaceful plans will succeed to oust Pashinyan.

The best reason for getting rid of Pashinyan is that the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey have eagerly praised Pashinyan for his repeated and endless concessions. Prominent Azeri analyst Ali Hajizade even suggested the possibility of sending Azeri and Turkish troops to Yerevan to support Pashinyan’s government!

All patriotic Armenians, putting aside their internal differences, should form a coalition to establish a transitional government that will hold the next elections. Public pressure must be exerted on Pashinyan to resign as soon as possible before the country ceases to exist due to attacks by internal and external enemies. This may be the last chance to save Armenia.

Pashinyan Will Have Blood on His Hand If French-Armenian Dies at Yerevan Airport By Harut Sassounian The California Courier

French-Armenian journalist Leo Nicolian has been on a hunger strike at the Yerevan airport for 16 days, after being banned from entering Armenia.

Nicolian, 57, is an aggressive investigative journalist who has generated plenty of controversy due to his revelations about important figures. He has been on the frontlines of the conflict in Artsakh and the recent clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border. He was wounded during both conflicts.

In the past 30 years, Nicolian has visited Armenia and Artsakh dozens of times and interviewed key leaders. However, what he encountered at the Yerevan airport during his latest visit two weeks ago was completely unexpected and shocking.

In early April, Nicolian had gone to the village of Voskepar in the Tavoush District of Armenia and interviewed Primate of the Tavoush Diocese Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan who has been leading the popular movement in opposition to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recent decision to turn over four Armenian border villages to Azerbaijan.

Later in April, when Nicolian tried to return to Armenia, he was told by immigration officials at the Yerevan airport that he was not allowed to enter the country. When he asked why, he was told that he “presented a danger to Armenia’s security.” This is a ridiculous accusation because Nicolian is a professional journalist who has not violated any Armenian laws and committed no crimes.

Regrettably, Nicolian is not the only Diaspora Armenian who is banned from entering Armenia. There have been several others who were told after landing at the Yerevan airport that they are not allowed to visit the country. None of them has done anything illegal or criminal to warrant such a harsh measure. Besides, if they had violated any laws or presented a danger to Armenia’s security, they should have been arrested at the airport and turned over to the courts to decide their fate. No official, regardless of his rank or position, has the right to make arbitrary decisions on behalf of the judiciary.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Pashinyan has no right to decide who can enter the country. Armenia is not his private residence. He can’t decide whom to allow or not allow in. Armenia is the homeland of all 10 million Armenians worldwide and no official has the right to ban any one of them to enter the country in the absence of a legal reason.

Nicolian and several other Diaspora Armenians are banned from entering Armenia simply because they dared to criticize Pashinyan’s defeatist policies. The Prime Minister has repeatedly claimed to be a democrat. However, freedom of expression is one of the basic principles of democracy which is frequently violated by the authorities in Armenia who have turned the country into a one-man rule — a dictatorship.

To make matters worse, after Mourad Papazian, a prominent French-Armenian critic of Pashinyan, was not allowed to enter Armenia, he filed a lawsuit in an Armenian court which found the government’s ban illegal. Since Armenian officials had 30 days to file an appeal to reverse the lower court’s decision, no one knew if they would file such an appeal. Fortunately, when Pashinyan visited Paris in the midst of those 30 days, President Emmanuel Macron met privately with Papazian and Pashinyan and urged the Prime Minister to abandon his pursuit of Papazian. Pashinyan reluctantly agreed to drop the appeal, but it was shameful that the head of a foreign country had to intervene in an Armenian domestic matter.

Meanwhile, Nicolian has been languishing at the Yerevan airport for the past 16 days. During our multiple phone conversations, he told me that he will continue his hunger strike even if it leads to his death. His life is at risk because he has several serious ailments. From time to time, local medical staff comes to measure his blood pressure and gives him some injections. He is not allowed to leave the airport for any medical treatment. In recent days, an ambulance was sent to the airport to check his blood pressure, his heart, and give him another injection.

Nicolian’s status is in limbo. He tells me that because he is in the airport’s internationally protected “neutral zone,” Armenian officials cannot take any action against him. They have tried to convince him to board a flight to Paris which he has refused. They have also offered him sandwiches and water which he has turned down.

Nicolian told me that he is committed to starve himself to death at the Yerevan airport. He thinks that his death will bring shame to the Prime Minister. I am not sure he is correct. I think that it will bring shame to the reputation of the Republic of Armenia.

The French Embassy in Yerevan, contrary to its diplomatic obligations, has refused to visit its own citizen to inquire about his condition. This is the vindictive position of the local French Ambassador because Nicolian had exposed the Ambassador’s scandals in the media. The French Foreign Ministry has also not shown any interest in the welfare of Nicolian, since he has publicly criticized the French President in the past.

Even though Nicolian has antagonized many individuals and organizations due to his harsh criticisms and abrasive personality, Armenians have an obligation to do whatever they can to publicize his critical situation and save the life of a fellow Armenian before he starves to death.

I urge the citizens of Armenia to hold protests in front of Prime Minister’s building in Yerevan, demanding that Nicolian be allowed to enter Armenia. Protests should also be held in front of the French Embassy in Yerevan.

French-Armenians should also hold protests in Paris in front of the Foreign Ministry and the Presidential Palace seeking their intervention with the government of Armenia.

Should Nicolian die in the Yerevan airport due to his prolonged hunger strike, Prime Minister Pashinyan will have blood on his hands, so will French President Macron.

With each passing day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statements contradicting Armenia’s national interests are getting increasingly alarming

Pashinyan started by denigrating Mt. Ararat, the preeminent Armenian symbol. He then mocked Armenia’s coat of arms, questioning why there is a lion on it, claiming that there are no lions in Armenia. With this statement, Pashinyan made three factual errors:

1) He did not seem to realize that the lion symbolizes courage and strength. It has nothing to do with whether there are lions in Armenia or not;

2) There are over a dozen countries that have a lion on their coat of arms without having a single lion in their countries;

3) He is also incorrect that there are no lions in Armenia. A well-known oligarch has had several lions in his Yerevan mansion for many years.

The Prime Minister then made abusive remarks about Armenia’s national anthem using the excuse that it contains the word “enemy.” There are several other countries that have the word enemy in their national anthems.

Pashinyan went on to complain that what is now called “Army of Armenians” (Hayots Panag) should be “Armenia’s Army” (Hayastani Panag), and that textbooks on the “History of Armenians” (Hayots Badmoutyoun) should be called “Armenia’s History” (Hayastani Badmoutyoun). He also wants to distance today’s Armenia from its past by contrasting “Real Armenia” with “Historical Armenia.” He then suggested, in line with Pres. Aliyev’s demand, that Armenia adopt a new constitution deleting the references to Artsakh and the Armenian Genocide.

Last week, I wrote about one of Pashinyan’s top lieutenants’ incredible suggestion to make a list of all 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide. This is an indirect way of questioning the veracity of the Armenian Genocide.

All of these statements indicate that Pashinyan is retreating from Armenia’s and Armenians’ nationalistic stands to appease Azerbaijan and Turkey.

To make matters worse, on April 24, 2024, the Prime Minister issued a statement full of confusing words which reflect his unstable mental state. He referred to the Armenian Genocide as Meds Yeghern (Great Crime) 11 times and only four times as Genocide. Meds Yeghern is a term that Armenians used until the 1940’s to describe the Genocide before the term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin. Since then, the proper and legal term that should be used is Genocide or Tseghasbanoutyoun, in Armenian.

It does not come as a surprise that Pashinyan, in his April 24 statement, once again obfuscated the meaning of the term genocide thus continuing his attempts to downplay Armenian national symbols and terminology.

Pashinyan complained that due to the Meds Yeghern, Armenia often deals with other countries in a state of trauma or shock: “for this reason, sometimes we cannot correctly distinguish the realities and factors, historical processes and predictable horizons. Maybe this is also the reason why we get new shocks, reliving the trauma of the Armenian Genocide as a legacy and as a tradition.”

By making such a statement, Pashinyan is blaming the trauma from the Genocide of 1915 for his incompetent decisions and mismanagement of the State. While it is true that there is such a thing as transgenerational trauma, I would advise the Prime Minister to look at his own inability to rule rather than the trauma from the Genocide.

Pashinyan then surprisingly suggested that Armenians “stop searching for a homeland, because we have found that homeland, our Promised Land, where milk and honey flow.”

It appears that Pashinyan has lost all perceptions of reality! He is describing Armenia with its existential problems as “the Promised Land where milk and honey flow!” More likely, he and his family are the ones living a luxurious life at the Armenian taxpayers’ expense.

The only people who were pleased with Pashinyan’s April 24 message are the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An indication of that pleasure was the crowd of Turks gathered on April 24 in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., chanting: “Pashinyan, Pashinyan, Pashinyan,” in the faces of Armenian protesters.

The President of Turkey, as he has done on every April 24 ever since 2014, issued a statement trying to fool the international community that he is acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. He actually lumped together Armenians and Turks and everyone else “who passed away or were martyred as a consequence of armed conflicts, rebellions, gang violence and terrorist acts” during “World War I.” He thus misrepresented the Armenian victims of genocide as war casualties. He described “the 1915 events” not as genocide, but a “tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.”

In a direct message to Pashinyan, Erdogan stated that “Türkiye’s ties with Armenia … appear to depend on Yerevan’s stance on the issue [of genocide]… A new order is being established in the region, and it is time to set aside baseless claims. It is time to move forward with realities on the ground. It is better than moving forward with fabrications, tales.” This sounds very similar to what Pashinyan is trying to do. Erdogan made the intent of his message more obvious when he said: “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan understands this [reality].” As a final dig, Erdogan stated: “I hope Armenia escapes from the darkness it was condemned to, thanks to its diaspora, and chooses the path of new beginnings.”

The true meaning of Erdogan’s words was revealed when the Istanbul Governor’s Office once again banned the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24. Actions speak louder than words!