End of the Line

Amid Widespread Anger and Growing Opposition, Pashinyan’s Government Nears Final Days

Looking back at the heady days of jubilation that dominated the Armenian political landscape post-revolution, it is hard to believe there was ever a time that prospects for liberalization and democratization could have seemed so bright in our tiny post-Soviet vassal state.

Its equally hard to comprehend how the momentous turn of events Armenians brought to pass in 2018 has now led to our current predicament. With Pashinyan’s accession to power following a peaceful popular revolt, Armenia became a shining star among post-Soviet states long mired in the authoritarian doldrums of oligarchy. 

Suddenly, it became possible to hope again.

A true democracy – one that lived up to the ideals of transparency, accountability, and free speech which so many millions marched for in the 1980s and 1990s – finally seemed within reach. An ossified post-Soviet elite had finally been ejected from power, its representatives retreating, its edifices of power crumbling, and nary a shot had been fired.

It seemed like the best was yet to come for Armenia.

For so long, many seemed to have forfeited hope, dreaming instead of greener pastures in Germany, America, or some other distant land. An acidic cynicism gnawed away at everything. It corroded people’s trust in government, their faith in justice, and their hope for the future.

For the briefest and most beautiful of moments, it seemed like that cynicism was receding. The economic growth rate increased, some Armenians returned home from the foreign lands they had flocked to, and Armenia was lauded for its first major advances in human rights in thirty years.

Pashinyan’s government offered the prospects of real change; he was going to fight corruption, restore freedom of speech to Armenia’s suppressed journalists, and return the country towards a path of progress. He also vowed to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a protracted war that had locked Armenia into three decades of supplication to Russian arms dealers, and three decades of sending its best and brightest men to guard a border that was under constant threat. To be sure, the challenges facing the new government were monumental, and many mistakes were made along the way.

But, with every inept decision and comical misstep, Pashinyan showed he was more fit to serve as a firebrand of a grassroots movement than he was to lead a country. However, none of his errors were as incontrovertible, nor as consequential as his bungling of the biggest armed confrontation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since the battles of the early 1990s.  

Enemies      

In Armenia’s 3,000-year history, there are many heroes, visionary leaders and merciless tyrants. There has also been a plethora of enemies, always lurking over the horizon. Armenia’s history is in many respects one of constant conflict, of many wars against many kingdoms, empires, and tribes. Even today Armenia has not escaped this brutal cycle. It’s historic enemy – Turkey – continues to loom large, and its leaders actively work to weaken Armenia through its war with Azerbaijan.

So it was that in 2020 the historic enemies of Armenia’s existence reared their heads once more, launching an all-out assault on Artsakh, the last remnant of the ancient lands Armenia lost over the course of centuries of foreign imperial domination and ethnic cleansing. Pashinyan could not have predicted the situation that confronted Armenia as Azeri soldiers launched an all-out assault on the disputed enclave with the full logistical and tactical support of the Ottoman Empire’s successor.

It is also doubtful that Armenia – even with better coordination and more decisive leadership – could ever match Azerbaijan’s army. Thirty years has made a massive difference, and the Azeri army is now outfitted with weapons systems from Israel and Turkey, both of which benefit from state of the art technologies that Armenia could only dream of matching.

Thanks to Turkish support, Azeri troops were able to make use of NATO style tactics, effectively neutralizing Armenia’s Soviet style counter-offensives. Even if Armenia committed itself to the largescale production of drones – inevitably at the expense of renovating crumbling schools, maintaining critical infrastructures, and increasing quality of life – it could never match the military industrial capacity of Israel and Turkey. 

In many respects, Armenia’s deficiencies on the front were the product of decades of mismanagement, corruption, and ossification in the ranks of its armed forces. In this sense, there is very little Pashinyan could have done to reverse the tide of defeat.   

But there are many other things our soon to be former prime minister could have done – both in word and in policy – to ameliorate the war’s outcome. Pashinyan’s grotesque incompetence over the course of the war arguably cost lives, led to mass misinformation, and permanently damaged the faith of the populace in the prospect of reform.

#HUBRIS

#WeWillWin, #ArtsakhStrong, #HAKHTELUENQ. These were the slogans of a war of misinformation coordinated by the government in a bid to stave off the inevitable upswell of anger that accompanies any defeat.

Armenia’s leaders knew they were at a severe disadvantage, and they knew that the situation was indeed dire. So, naturally, they made sure that no one else could appreciate just how bad the war was going. Pashinyan imposed martial law shortly after the war broke out, thus ensuring that the state had control over what the press reported about the war. 

In some cases, this proved unnecessary, since certain Armenian news organizations seemed perfectly willing to spread false news or to “self-censure” of their own accord.

At the same time, a torrent of nationalist propaganda and toxic sectarian rhetoric bombarded Armenians through their TV sets and via social media networks. The people were treated to wall to wall scenes of Azeri tanks exploding, and disturbing footage of retreating Azeris getting shot in the back or blown up.

The destruction of human life was glorified in these disturbing montages. On top of this, nationalistic fervor meant that harboring any doubt of Armenian victory became tantamount to treason. Any news outlet or average person who dared to voice their concerns of the war’s trajectory became accused of betraying the motherland.

To be sure, this was not all the work of the government. In recent years, Armenia’s opposition parties have become steadily more radical, espousing hyper-traditionalist world views.

But the Azeris…

It cannot be ignored that the Azeris showed no restraint in glorifying the destruction of Armenian bodies. The torture and murder of innocent Armenian civilians and soldiers became a sport amongst some especially sadistic fucks, and many such individuals were rewarded by their government with money and medals for these horrific violations of human rights. 

To put it mildly, some Azeris gave ISIS a run for their money. 

Many of these brutal murders were proudly filmed and spread online by the Azeris. Some of these murderers even shared their crimes with relatives of their Armenian victims. So demented were these people, so consumed by hatred that they felt their murders were acts of righteousness. These crimes, and the utter silence of the international community is a dreadful sign of the state of human rights in our world today.

Azerbaijan is a brutal oligarchy which has long promulgated ethnonationalist rhetoric. Such is the anti-Armenian sentiment that even Azeris found guilty of the crime of voting for Armenia in Eurovision faced severe consequences. Azerbaijan's crimes far outstrip any abuses committed by the Armenians over the course of this conflict, but it has nevertheless maintained a squeaky clean reputation in Western countries. 

In fact, thanks to many millions of dollars in charm offensives, Azerbaijan has succeeded in portraying itself as a modern "Westernized" democracy fighting an authoritarian and backwards nation. The fact that few Western politicians fail to point out Azeri crimes against humanity does nothing to disabuse this illusion. In any case, it is safe to say that Washington, London, and Jerusalem alike have been awash in Azeri petrodollars in recent years. 

Double Standard?

So why then, do I gripe about "Armenian propaganda" when the Azeris are clearly so bad? Why hold Armenia and Azerbaijan to different standards, one may ask? 

Armenia should be held to a higher standard than its eastern neighbor, because Armenia is supposed to be a democracy and so should find no comfort in corrosive propaganda. In times of adversity, we should see the best of our society manifest to defend our values and ideals. 

But this is not what has happened. Instead, the war awakened the darker aspects of our culture, giving new life to the bigotry and intolerance that has dogged us throughout our history. Armenian society appears again to have receded into the depths of paranoia, resentment, and irrationality. 

Pashinyan did nothing to avert this. 

Instead, he exploited the authoritarian instinct that pervades society, and used it to his advantage. Even as Armenians contended with a deluge of updates about the state of the war, confusion, fear, and uncertainty abounded. Because of the inconsistency of the government’s tone, Armenia seemed at one moment to be on the verge of victory, and at another moment on the precipice of total collapse.  

Pashinyan repeatedly assured a worried public that victory was imminent, but also called for a mobilization equal to that the Battle of Sardarapat (1918) – a titanic struggle in which Armenia staged a successful last-ditch counter-offensive against the invading Ottomans in the wake of the Armenian Genocide.

Even as the perception of the war gradually became increasingly disconnected from reality, maps from the Armenian Ministry of Defense laid plain the deteriorating situation. Azeri-held territories in Artsakh, marked light blue, started as small splotches on the map of Artsakh. But much like a tumor, the lost lands grew and grew rapidly. 

Soon the southern provinces of Artsakh were lost, and the war was reaching the gates of Shushi, and threatening Syunik.  

As the Armenians were progressively forced back by the relentless Azeri advance, there was not even a whisper of defeat in the Armenian press. Instead, the conversation on social media and in many news outlets was dominated by talk of “strategic retreat”, “heavy battles” and of Armenian-inflicted casualties. Even as Shushi ignominiously collapsed, Pashinyan insisted in his own social media posts that “the fighting in Shushi continues”.

For most Armenians, the impending defeat only became apparent as Stepanakert came under direct threat, and Armenia’s armed forces began to collapse in the final days of war. The signing of the ceasefire thus came as a massive and deeply humiliating shock. It seemed that Pashinyan had somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The sad reality is that victory was always a fantasy, and Pashinyan knew this all along.

Worse still, it has now emerged that Armenia’s government overreported the casualties it inflicted on the battlefield and underreported its losses. The latter only became apparent later, when the exponential increase of tombstones at Yerablur – Armenia’s military cemetery – made the approximately 5,000 dead impossible to hide any longer. 

The net effect of this has been the complete decimation of any confidence Armenians may have had in their government post-2018. Speak to any Armenian on the street today, and in between shouts of “Nikol, traitor!” he will probably tell you about his plans to move his family to Germany. Scores of people have already left Armenia, and many more are preparing to leave. Much like prior to 2018, emigration rises as the toxic cynicism of the past comes flooding back.

People are outraged. And who can blame them? Since the end of the war, we have learnt that men were sent to the front without proper equipment, and without clear instructions. Soldiers in some cases were rumored to have been sent without firearms, helmets, or even ammunition. We have even heard of commanders who were absent from the battlefield. 

Mothers were forced to wait in agony to hear any information about their sons who had gone missing. People on the homefront had to contend with the immense emotional whiplash of confronting Armenian surrender after hearing 24/7 that victory was nigh. It's fair to say that the government betrayed its people.

It broke the democratic contract to be transparent and accountable to the people it served. It subjected them to enormous emotional torment out of cowardice, and pitiful incompetence. Pashinyan and his people feared the humiliating consequences of admitting defeat, and waited until the worst possible moment to do so. 

Fighting Words

Pashinyan’s antebellum rhetoric also did little to help the situation. Though he had promised to solve the question of Artsakh, he proved emphatically unwilling to compromise with the Azeris in any respect. It is common knowledge that much of the territory that comprised Artsakh was the land of Kurds and Azeris. 

The Armenians had historically lived in the highlands, but the lowlands had been the home of Kurdish and Azeri people. 

In retrospect, it would have been better for any Armenian leader to work towards a settlement that allowed for the return of these displaced peoples, who had been forced off the land in the 1990s. Pashinyan's decision to spout nationalistic statements such as “Artsakh is Armenia, yev verch! (and that’s that)” as he did on multiple occasions now seems deeply foolish.

Given the fact that these people are now returning to the land as part of a ceasefire that permanently weakens Armenian sovereignty, and spells the end of the Republic of Artsakh, Pashinyan would have done well to at least feign compromise with the Azeris. This may have resulted in a more favorable resolution than the one we have been forcibly served.

Baku had long grown frustrated with stalled diplomatic efforts towards peace, and Pashinyan’s stubborn rhetoric did not help matters.

Of course, there is no guarantee that compromise could have ever been possible with a mercurial tyrant such as Aliyev. But since we now face a much darker predicament, it seems that compromise might not have been so bad after all…

What Happens Now?

Protestors gather in Republic Square to stage sit-in and call for the resignation of Pashinyan (courtesy of Mateos Hayes)

The only thing that can be said with certainty in such uncertain times is that we are living in the final chapter of Pashinyan’s administration. Armenia’s president, Armen Sarkissian, along with the leadership of Armenia’s influential Apostolic Church, have all called for the Prime Minister’s resignation.

What comes next is anyone’s guess. But if we chance to glance at the prospective leaders who could take Pashinyan’s place, the future doesn’t look encouraging.  

A coterie of far-right ultra-nationalist parties known as the "Front of National Salvation" are among the most outspoken members of the opposition. Though these political groups have existed in one form or another since Armenia’s independence, they have become much more influential in recent months. The biggest marches in Yerevan have been organized by them, and they have long been clear opponents of Pashinyan and his policies.

This clique of conservative Armenian politicians is devoutly religious, unabashedly anti-LGBT, and steeped in a culture of ethnonationalism, racism, and militarism. Much of the rhetoric these parties spout is tellingly reminiscent of the language used by similar political groups in Putin’s Russia.

In fact, Edmon Marukian, leader of the opposition party known as Bright Armenia recently proposed that the Russian Federation should establish a second Russian military base in Armenia on the border with Azerbaijan. 

The apparent cordiality between the opposition and Russia's establishment parties is no coincidence, as some of these opposition parties are heavily influenced by Moscow.

Vladimir Putin has been decidedly lukewarm in his reception of Pashinyan since the 2018 Velvet Revolution. The lack of direct support from Russia over the course of the most recent confrontation with Azerbaijan betrays Moscow’s general disapproval of Pashinyan's talk of democratization and anti-corruption. There is much Russian capital invested in Armenia, and thus a vested strategic interest in keeping Armenia reliant on its former imperial master.

How convenient it is, then, that Armenia now finds itself weaker than before, its pro-democracy leader on his way out, and with Moscow-approved parties standing in the wings ready to take the reins?

No one can know what comes next, but this war likely spells the end of Armenia’s brief honeymoon with democracy. This is deeply saddening, not just because of the enormous setback it represents, but because it is a tragedy that Armenia has already endured.

In 1918 as in 2018, Armenia finally began the long march towards a freer, more democratic society. The dream of a democratic Armenian republic was always a fragile one. Like any dream, it could vanish, consumed by the fires of imperialism, corruption, and cowardice. 

And by December 1920, the dream had indeed vanished, subsumed by an act of Sovietization.

And as I write to you in December of 2020, I am witnessing that dream vanish again, stamped out by the boots of soldiers from Moscow once more.   

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