Shutterstock. Almaty, Kazakhstan – 02.03.2023 : Meeting of the heads of Government of the EAEU countries. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.
By Stepan Onyshchuk
On May 7, 2018, System of Down’s lead vocalist Serj Tankian joined thousands of protestors in Yerevan to celebrate the triumph of the Velvel Revolution.
Like many notable Armenians in the diaspora, Tankian came to his ancestral land to support the effort to end Armenia’s dictatorship. He stood on the stage with soon-to-be Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and sang the Armenian folk song ‘Bari Arakel’, “Kind Stroke”.
Instead, a black swan came to Armenia less than two years after the protestors’ victory. On Sep. 27, 2020, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev declared an “Iron Fist”, a military operation to destroy the Armenian enclave in Karabakh. A new outbreak of the frozen conflict led to massive turmoil inside Armenia.
The Azerbaijani offensive went against everything the Pashinyan-revolutioner stood for: normalisation of Armenian-Turkish relations, detachment from Russia, anti-corruption, and EU-Armenian cooperation. The Azerbaijani army used Bayraktar drones and modern military equipment provided by its closest partner, Turkey, to break through multi-level Armenian defense lines and retake Shusha, Karabakh’s second-largest city.
The next day Aliev and Pashinyan signed a peace treaty in the Kremlin, with Russia as their mediator. Many in the West saw it as indisputable Putin’s triumph who showed possible consequences to every post-Soviet nation that tries to break off from Russia and who showed again his indispensability in the Caucasus. Even more, many saw it as a symbol of Pashinyan’s political death.
Mass protests paralysed life in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. People protested about the defeat and against the Prime Minister, claimed to be a traitor. In contrast, Robert Kocharyan who served as the country’s second President from 1998 to 2008 rapidly increased his popularity.
Kocharyan who was investigated for the murder of ten protestors during the 2008 protests, promised to restore Armenian military glory and to restore past relations with Putin, whom he called his ‘close friend’. Allegedly, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan, and 40 high-ranked officers, attempted a coup d’état against the Prime Minister.
In response, Pashinyan went va banque. He declared his resignation to have the following parliamentary elections as soon as possible. Despite polls forecasting an even rivalry, Pashinyan’s party ‘Civil Contract’ received a supermajority in the national parliament. It guaranteed Pashinyan’s following reelection by the national assembly. Kocharyan’s party ‘Armenia Alliance’ promoted in the Russian-controlled media received only 21-percent in the general election.
Soon after the failed invasion of Ukraine, Azerbaijan decided to use Russia’s weakness to eliminate the breakaway republic in Karabakh. Imposed by Azerbaijani soldiers, Karabakh’s blockade showed the helplessness of the Russian peacekeepers. The former regional hegemon just lost Kherson, the only regional center occupied after the full-scale invasion, and was no longer able to control two wars at once. The Azerbaijani side received a green flag: it was their time to act.
The thirty-five-year story of Artsakh, the Armenian self-proclaimed republic in Karabakh, ended overnight. On September 19, President Aliev declared a ‘regional anti-terrorist operation’. Two days later, Artsakhi leadership declared a de-facto capitulation and dissolution of their armed forces.
Following the operation, almost all of Karabakh’s population evacuated to Armenia. In devastating pictures, people saw abandoned houses, furniture, and personal utilities. The United Nations mission estimates from 50 to 1,000 Armenians – mostly elderly – left in Karabakh and more than 100,000 evacuated to Armenia.
A new wave of anti-government protests did not last more than a few days. Meanwhile, Pashinyan spent days after the Arstakh’s fall talking to the Western leaders, including both American and European leadership. Most of them shared their active concerns about the refugee crisis.
Five years after the Velvet Revolution, Pashinyan had to undergo two wars, a coronavirus pandemic, a failed coup, and unplanned elections. Today many see him as the West’s best friend in the Caucasus and the Russian media call Armenia the ‘second Ukraine project’. Yet very few can predict Pashinyan’s future after the potential peace treaty with Aliev that aims to end a thirty-five-year conflict in Karabakh.
In his speech last week, Pashinyan ended his address to the representatives in the European Parliament by saying
‘Long live Democracy!’.
Sources:
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90857
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/armenias-velvet-revolution/
Liberty Lexington 