Epress.am News from Armenia
According to a secret cable dated Mar. 10, 2008, and released by WikiLeaks on Aug. 30, 2011, national security adviser to then president Robert Kocharian Garnik Isagulyan conceded that the Mar. 1 (2008) morning crackdown was authorized by Kocharian the day before, contrary to the government’s official line. “Isagulyan believes that [then PM, now president] Sargsyan — bolstered by hardline advisers and the security services — is likely to imprison opposition rival Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) in coming days, and in general treat the current situation as a security problem rather than a political one. Isagulyan commented that such a strategy would lead only to further unrest,” writes then US Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) to Armenia Joseph Pennington in the cable.
In Pennington’s view, Isagulyan is “loyal to President Kocharian, and claims friendship with PM Serzh Sargsyan, though it is clear that he is closer to Kocharian than Sargsyan and thinks more highly of the current president than the president-elect. He is dismayed by the path that both leaders have chosen in recent weeks, almost to the point of resigning from his position.”
“He is idealistic, pro-American, and with a somewhat romanticized view of the Armenian nation,” Pennington sums up his characterization of Isagulyan.
“Isagulyan was bitter about his own government’s role in the Mar. 1-2 violence, for which he deemed the authorities completely responsible. He said that Kocharian had been swayed by the police and security service leaders’ confidence that they could clean out Freedom Square in minutes, with a minimum of casualties, and had authorized the operation. Kocharian had been so confident it would go smoothly, he had planned to go skiing in the Armenian ski resort of Tsakhadzor that day. Isagulyan commented that the leaders of both services should have resigned afterward, but of course the regime would never endorse such a step, believing it would signal error or weakness. Isagulyan was pained by the brutality the police had employed in
gratuitously beating non-violent protesters in Freedom Square. This and the subsequent clashes later the evening of March 1, as well as the State of Emergency, were devastating blows against public trust and confidence in the government.
“Isagulyan felt that Public Television’s relentlessly and transparently partisan broadcasts were further deepening public cynicism of the government. He commented that ’90 percent of the people in the square were good people,’ who not only did not deserve to be so violently handled by their government, but who represent a critical constituency that the PM needs to win over in order to govern effectively. But the PM does not seem to recognize this reality.”
Pennington notes that the national security advisor told them he had recommended in writing, as well as during a meeting the week of Mar. 3 with the president, prime minister and deputy prime minister, a way to regain the public trust and gain legitimacy. “He advised lifting the press ban (which he said only fuels outrageous rumors), putting an end to the egregious pro-governmental partisanship on public television, granting the opposition access to television airtime, releasing from jail the vast majority of pro-LTP political figures, and starting work setting up a new cabinet whose composition would signal to the Armenian public a pro-reform orientation. He said he was very pessimistic, however, that this advice would be followed.”
The cable notes that Isagulyan also touched upon “the cynical ploy of buying off” Orinats Yerkir (“Rule of Law”) party leader Artur Baghdasaryan by bringing him into government. “Isagulyan commented ‘Everybody knows 80 percent of Artur’s voters hate the government.’ Co-opting Baghdasaryan into government only fueled popular disgust.”
“The one bright spot in the fiercely nationalistic Isagulyan’s mind was his confidence that Sargsyan is now so irrepairably damaged politically that he will never dare to negotiate away one inch of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) or the surrounding occupied territories (OT). Isagulyan said that if he tried to do so
now, he would be instantly toppled from power, just the way that LTP had been,” writes Pennington.
The US Deputy Chief of Mission concludes by stating that they take Isagulyan’s words with due caution —”recognizing his biases and his desire for self-aggrandizement.”
“However, this is a man who has known both the president and president-elect for a long time, and we would be wrong to dismiss out of hand his portrayal of the PM as determined to solve his political problems with force and criminal prosecutions, rather than the more democratic methods he has advanced with international envoys. The genuine evidence is slender for the ‘Sargsyan as frustrated democrat’ theory, which holds that if only the muscular Kocharian were not still president and calling the shots, things would be very different. We have urged the PM repeatedly over the past two weeks to take bold steps to reassure the public of his commitment to democratic reform and to distance himself from Kocharian’s draconian measures. We remain hopeful that he will move in that direction. Without such steps, however, betting on Sargsyan as a future reformer will be little more than a leap of faith.”