STEPANAKERT (A.W.)—On March 6, the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic (NKR) Police moved to sack 10 officers for their violent response to a Jan. 31 “car rally” near Berdzor. According to Azatutyun.am, RFE/RL’s Armenian service, an ad hoc police commission had petitioned NKR Police Chief Kamo Aghajanyan to relieve the 10 officers of their duties and to take disciplinary action against 15 other policemen.
The recommendation came after a month-long inquiry that found the officers had committed “blatant” abuses against leaders and members of the Yerevan-based group Founding Parliament (previously known as Pre-Parliament), an opposition group whose aim is regime change in Armenia. Police Chief Aghajanian is yet to act on the recommendation.
On Jan. 31, police and unidentified men blocked and assaulted around 40 cars traveling from Armenia to NKR on the Goris-Stepanakert Highway near Berdzor, preventing members of the group from crossing into Karabagh.
Following the attack, the Founding Parliament said in a statement that around a dozen participants of the car rally, under the banner of “100th Anniversary without This Regime,” had suffered injuries in an ambush by NKR police—some in uniform, others in civilian clothing, and some masked. Police wielded bayonets at the cars and at rally participants in an incident that was caught on film. Car windows were smashed, and the tricolor flags were snatched off the vehicles.
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Supreme Council Representative Aghvan Vardanyan told reporters on Feb. 2 that the incident in Berdzor was unacceptable, and that it must be condemned. Vardanyan also stressed that “the approaches, modus operandi, and goals of Pre-Parliament, especially its slogan ‘100th Anniversary without This Regime,’ are unacceptable to us. You can’t tie [the Centennial] with our domestic problems, because the Centennial of the [Armenian] Genocide is an entirely different issue, where national unity is needed. No good came out of the use of force. This is unacceptable for us. It is also dangerous. Certain forces within Armenia and abroad will try to use this intolerable incident to polarize the country, or to drive a wedge between Armenia and Karabagh.”
On Feb. 3, NKR President Bako Sahakyan held a meeting with Police Chief Aghajanyan, National Assembly Chairman Ashot Ghoulyan, Prime Minister Ara Harutyunyan, and other officials regarding the police blockade and assault.
After the meeting, Sahakyan’s office confirmed that he had commissioned Aghajanyan to conduct a detailed investigation of the incident. “Unfortunately, the subsequent development of events had an undesirable outcome. Tragically, it was impossible to avoid the disturbances and confrontation, which received public resonance,” read the statement.
Very sad that 10 dedicated heroes must lose their income because of this immoral group from Yerevan. I hope they get parachuted into better positions in other departments. One things for sure, no one from this so called “Founding Parliament”group will lose their income. They will probably get a bonus from the US embassy for causing this problem.
Yes, let’s beat up those we don’t agree with. That’s the civilized and morally superior way of dealing with things. In fact you’re feeding their arguments by acting like thugs. They should have dealt with them without violence.
Note, I’m not for this group. If I understand them correctly, they want to change things in Armenia in an undemocratic manner. But this is not how it should be handled. It’s more of a reflection on the police than the group.
Let’s analyze and put things in context instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction. First of all, both the NKR police and the Founding Parliament group went about handling their business in provocative and unlawful manner. The Founding Parliament group members had the right to show their discontent with a situation which they perceive to be detrimental to the welfare of the Armenian nation and dangerous to the future of the country. Even though often time dissent is the highest form of patriotism, the thing is they appeared to do this in more of a provocative than a democratic fashion and perhaps that was because they had felt their voices had fallen on deaf ears for a long time. Furthermore, I completely agree with the ARF Supreme Council Representative’s assertion that there can never be a link between the Armenian Genocide centennial commemoration and what this group is advocating. They are two separate things, one is an internal issue with opposing groups and must be dealt with democratically and peacefully and the other is a very serious and unresolved issue about which the entire world Armenian population is united as one and speaks in unison.
The NKR police for its part should either have made it clear to the group that their approach to express their grievances was unacceptable and had sent them back on their way without any physical altercation and conflict or simply should have set up a meeting with the leaders of the group to address their issues. I can certainly appreciate and understand the concern the NKR may have had in regards to this movement given the fact that it is still non-officially at war with the enemy and that the last thing it needs at its borders is to deal with issues internal to Armenia proper that could potentially affect the Artsakh region as well but it seems to me their actions against the group was preplanned and that they went too far.
P.S. every single Armenian who dedicates his career and his life to defending the borders of Armenia and Artsakh is considered a hero of one form or another but the real heroes in this particular case were not the officers who beat up the Founding Parliament group members but the many leading members of this group who had already fought in the Artsakh liberation war as soldiers and commanders some twenty plus years ago.
Artsakhi mech vostiganner bayonetner ounin?! Gurgen, bedk eh vor vostiganner orenknerin hnazantin, che?
I fail to understand why they were trying to enter NKR demanding regime change in Armenia,it doesn’t make sense,they should do that in Armenia not NKR which is a seperate country and also using the genocide centennial for their case,it’s ashame, and not a very smart and serious way to demonstrate.It looks like they wanted to make trouble in Artsakh, which already has its own problems and the state of not war not peace that it is in,now is not the time for such dangerous games.
Somewhat good result. Would be much better of these thugs were actually put in jail (as they deserved) for beating innocent protesters who were actually walking back to their cars. What these thugs and the authorities of NKR need to realize is that they exist because of the people of Armenia (and Diaspora). They would not be on the face of this earth if it weren’t for the huge sacrifices that the good people of Armenia made and are still making for them. They need to get the message that if they keep mistreating the people of Armenia, including on Armenia’s soil (remember October 27, 1999 and the rise of the Karabakh clan), the good people of Armenia may one day feel perfectly happy to throw them back to the lion’s mouth.
After the Berdzor incident, Mr. Sefilian had a press conference in Yerevan.
He acknowledged that prior to their unauthorized trip into NKR, he had a cordial meeting with authorities and others in NKR, some of whom are friends of his from the NKR war days.
Mr. Sefilian acknowledged that he was kindly asked – “ …. Այո, խնդրեցին … խնդրեցին….” (his words) – not to go ahead with the trip.
Mr. Sefilian said he refused.
The group was told beforehand that the popular feeling amongst the residents of Artsakh was very much against the group coming into NKR to promote their political agenda, and that several hundred of the residents would be on hand to prevent the group from entering and proselytizing.
On the day of the incident the 40-odd car convoy approached the clearly visible police lines and paramilitary personnel.
The leaders of the group could have held the rest of the cars at some distance and gone ahead in one car to discuss whatever they were going to discuss with the authorities.
Assuming they had in mind to avoid conflict.
But they chose to drive the entire convoy right into the midst of the large assembly of law enforcement officials.
The group chose to bring women and children with them, even though they were told beforehand that residents of Artsakh would confront them and there was a definite possibility of physical altercation.
So clearly, the so-called ‘pre-parliament’ group’s aim was to provoke an incident to gain publicity and to paint authorities in a bad light.
They succeeded.
The video produced by the group was obviously professionally edited to show their version of events.
There was no audio from the incident.
Something must have happened for things to suddenly get physical.
My guess is someone or more than one in the group said something provocative to police officers: what is known as “Fighting words”.
Anyone who has grown up in Armenia or lived there for any length of time knows that if you say something particular directed at one’s mother, you are asking for a violent reaction. Guaranteed.
People who defend this group’s actions need to step back and see the situation NKR is in.
Several of her young sons have been killed defending their sacred Armenian land from nomad invaders in 2015 alone.
In a population of 150,000 even a few young men KIA leaves an indelible mark on people’s psyche.
Barely 20 years ago, Artsakh lost several thousand of her people in a brutal war of survival.
Again, in a population base of 150,000 or so, losing that many is beyond comprehension: every Artsakh family was affected one way or another.
Many of those young Artsakh men have no fathers, uncles…or have friends who have lost fathers, family members.
Many of the young police officers who acted badly have no doubt served at the LOC and seen killings of their buddies up close.
I therefore understand the anger of the police officers, particularly the young ones, who probably had friends amongst the KIA in 2015, 2014, 2013,…..
However.
I agree with the decision of NKR authorities to dismiss several cops.
In the ‘pre-parliament’ video I see several young police chasing after cars that were leaving and smashing windows.
I have no problem with the other scuffles, because I do not know what was said or done: I give the benefit of the doubt to the police.
But cops chasing after cars that are clearly driving away cannot be tolerated.
You cannot have police officers, whose job it is to deal with the civilian public, lose control and go wild like that.
The organizers were at fault for bringing women and children along: but cops could have caused injury to kids by their uncontrolled actions.
Not acceptable.
Just the same, I agree with [Gurgen] that the dismissed men need to get other jobs, but not anything to do with the public.
Military Police maybe: but no civilian law enforcement authority.
Vahagn, what a lovely attitude, typical armenian, when has Armenia or the diaspora taken back one foot of land that was captured until Artsakh. If the people of Artsakh had not risen against their oppressors, nobody could have fought their wars. Artsakh’s victory brought dignity and self confidence to all the Armenian people whether in Armenia or diaspora, after years of suppression, occupation, loss of land, genocide, and survival. So please don’t throw words right and left.