Hayk Mamijanyan - Prospect of a Trump Presidency on the Caucasus, Update on Political Prisoners, PACE Report, Referendum on Joining EU, Bagrat Srbazan Tavush Movement | Ep 346, July 19, 2024 [EP346]

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Guest:

• Hayk Mamijanyan

Topics:

• Prospect of a Trump Presidency on the Caucasus
• Update on political prisoners
• PACE report
• Referendum on joining EU
• Bagrat Srbazan Tavush movement

Episode 346 | Recorded: July 18, 2024

Show Notes

Prospect of Trump Presidency On The Caucasus

We plan to ask this question to many of our guests, so we ask you as well. Ever since the assassination attempt on July 13, the prospect of a Trump presidency is now higher.

Question:

• How will a Trump presidency affect the US policy towards the Caucasus?
• Do you have any predictions?

Update on Political Prisoners

We last talked to you over a year and a half ago, during the early days of the Artsakh blockade. A lot of Armenians, especially Diaspora Armenians think of Armenia as a free, open, hospitable country, and it’s not natural for us to think that there are political prisoners in Armenia. People who are in jail simply because they don’t see eye to eye with this current government. Dozens of them.

In the past week there have been updates about some of them.

Mamikon Aslanyan

On Monday, Mamikon Aslanyan, an opposition member who won his re-election bid as Mayor of Vanadzor in the 2021 elections, was released from jail after 2.5 years. He was one of a half dozen opposition election winners who were harrassed and jailed pretty much for winning elections as non Civil Contract party members.

We’re not sure if this is a permanent or temporary release, but for the moment he’s out.

Questions

• Why is he released now, after 2 years and 7 months?
• Why haven’t these cases come under closer scrutiny from the European Union? Why hasn’t the PACE paid more attention to this anti-democratic posture of the Armenian government?

Armen Ashotyan

Armen Ashotyan is a leader of the RPA, the Republican Party of Armenia. He’s in that devil’s crack in Armenian law called “pre-trial detention”, which can be dragged on indefinitely. The trial keeps being postponed and Ashotyan lingers on in jail, without bail and without light at the end of the tunnel.

Questions:

• What are his conditions?
• How frequently is he allowed visitation with family?
• Are visitation rights with others limited?
• Ashotyan was an MP. Why is his case not in front of the parliament every day, and also in the EU parliament and PACE as well?
• And finally, why are western diplomats in Armenia, - in fact, ALL diplomats - silent on the issues of all these political prisoners in Armenia?
  • Are the reasons geopolitical? Are they protecting a government that is looking after their national interests, instead of Armenia’s?

PACE Report

Hayk, on June 26, you were in Strasbourg as part of your work in the PACE, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. On that day, the PACE voted unanimously to pass a resolution commending Armenia for its progress with its so-called “democratic commitments”.

We’ll put the link to your speech at the PACE in our show notes.

Hayk’s speech: https://pace.coe.int/en/verbatim/2024-06-26/pm/en#speech-28928

We covered the PACE report in our “Spotlight on Silence” series, with Rafael Ishkhanyan (Episode 343).

We noted that the report included individual instances of shortcomings but sugar-coated everything heavily, saying that Armenia did a good job despite the challenges it is facing.

They even went as far as to mention that elections are no longer being falsified and that as opposed to the protests of the past, when the bad evil “Nakhkins” were running the country, people are no longer dying during protests “as they did on March 1, 2008”.

Questions:

• Your response to this assessment…
• Did you have a chance to review the report before it was submitted to the PACE session?
• In your speech during the deliberations on the resolution, you say that Pashinyan is being given a ”carte blanche for brutality and judicial anarchy”… Why is the EU and the West giving Pashinyan this carte blanche, in your opinion?

Referendum on joining EU

Also in late June, a group of extra-parliamentary political parties held a hearing in a subcommittee of the Armenian National Assembly, pressing on the Civil Contract-led government to hold a referendum on joining the EU.

A week later, Alen Simonyan, on his trip to Latvia gave more credence to this possibility, but later his spokesperson had to backtrack and said that Simonyan was expressing his own political opinion. Later, Pashinyan also poured cold water on this idea, effectively saying that “the EU may not be ready to admit Armenia”.

Questions:

• What’s the deal with the Civil Contract flip-flop on this EU direction?
• Do you think this referendum will happen?
  • If not, why is this topic apparently being stoked by the ruling regime?

Internal Politics

Is Somebody Going To Match His Nasty?

Look, we hear that Azerbaijan is preparing for war in November, after the COP29. The author of that statement is not some low-ranking opposition member. It can be found in an official statement of the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, in a country that is months away from war - again that is according to the MFA - Pashinyan is taking a month-long vacation.

He’s not only taking a really long vacation, but he’s doing so overseas. He is posting videos of him riding a bike in Berlin, apparently with no care in the world. He attended a football match in Germany and posted a video of his face while watching the game, with his wife in the background, and the “Nasty” song.

MPG reported that according to their latest survey results, Pashinyan’s approval rating has risen to 35%.

Questions:

• Pashinyan has been in the media business his entire life. He knows how to manipulate public opinion. What is his messaging with these videos?
• Can we say that this is basically Pashinyan’s victory dance over the unconscious opposition and that the Armenian opposition has failed miserably to unseat Pashinyan?
• Has there been an honest accounting of the failures of the opposition so far? What are the failures? Why is success so elusive, given the outright catastrophe unfolding in front of us?

Srbazan Movement

Meanwhile the Bagrat Srbazan’s movement is regrouping or reorganizing… the MPG poll showed that there’s been a big drop in its popularity: over 20%. Our guest on the previous show said the poll shows that Pashinyan has won this round, and so people prefer to back a winner, so that’s where we stand.

Question:

• What’s your assessment of Srbazan’s Tavush Movement, where do you see this going?

Wrap-up

That’s our show, we hope you found it useful. Please find us on Social Media and follow us everywhere you get your Armenian news, the links are in the show notes. Thanks to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts. We’ll talk to you soon!

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