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Press Review


(Saturday, May 9)

In a commentary on the 17th anniversary of a key Armenian military victory in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, “Aravot” says that Armenian war veterans are not treated by the domestic public “without reservations.” “The reason for that is known,” says the paper. “After the 1994 truce, some of those veterans, who were close to the authorities, came to be called Yerkrapahs. They were given economic and political levers, retail markets, brothels and other businesses. Yerkrapahs were allowed to break laws, beat people with impunity, take away their property, take part in vote rigging. And they started driving around in jeeps and disregarding other citizens.”

“In the beginning of 1998, the Yerkrapahs became the driving force of a palace coup in which all opportunists in parliament became Yerkrapahs overnight,” continues “Aravot.” “The October 1999 killings in parliament marked another coup, and the new authorities did not need the Yerkrapahs anymore. They stopped being the regime’s pillar, giving way to bodyguards with shaven heads and other criminal elements. It is symbolic that several Yerkrapahs are being tried today or have been sentenced on trumped-up charges. Does that reduce the heroism of Karabakh war veterans and Yerkrapahs in particular? Of course not.”

“Zhamanak” complains that the absence of credible opinion polls makes extremely difficult for media to determine what Armenians think of the recent developments in Turkish-Armenian relations and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Just how they would react to “concrete actions” is therefore anybody’s guess, says the paper. It argues that the Karabakh issue has always been an important factor in political processes in Armenia.

“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” reports that the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will again discuss the political situation in Armenia at its next session in late June. This fact is construed by the opposition as the end of “Serzh Sarkisian’s honeymoon with the West.”

“Hayots Ashkhar” agrees with prominent politician Vazgen Manukian’s recent observation that it is now “safer” to criticize the authorities than the opposition led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian. The pro-government paper says that Manukian himself became a target of the pro-Ter-Petrosian media’s “propaganda terror” after refusing to back the ex-president’s bid to return to power. The same fate awaited Artur Baghdasarian, the leader of the Orinats Yerkir Party, it says.

(Aghasi Yenokian)
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