WILL THE RETINUE HARM THE KING?
The reboot in the relations between the West and the Orient, declared by Obama immediately after he became President of the USA, created only seeming warmth in the international political atmosphere. The bureaucracy of the US State Department, and particularly, American Special Services did not change at all: they continue “twisting their rope” as ever, and keep performing their mission - to secure the predominance of American industrial and financial companies in world economics - without deviating from their course. This very fact explains the activation of different “coloured” associations and movements that “flowered” in post-Soviet space. With enviable stability various ingenious centers come into being here and there, intended for the instruction and equipment of their activists allegedly recruited to defend our interests. With this regard, the latest remarkable event that is worth mentioning is the transformation of the Vanadzor Office of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly into a base for the training of “coloured” activists. It unfolds activity in the Armenian town of Vanadzor - this may be of interest to the readers of the Krimskoye Ekho given the fact that it directly concerns the Crimea. Let us touch upon the prehistory of these events. The aforementioned group was organized and ideologically fed by Arthur Sakunts, who was known as a crazy fellow in Vanadzor. In fact, several human rights advocates differ from ordinary people in this very “charisma” which helps them make a rapid career in the field of human rights protection. In 2001 Sakunts established a small group of fifteen men and declared himself the chief human rights protector in Armenia. As was written in the resume of the group, the sources of its financial means were grants from foreign funds. It also stressed that the group did not collaborate with the local powers. The following eloquent fact reveals the scope of the activity of the group. Vanadzor is an ordinary town in the north of Armenia. Named Kirovakan in the USSR, it became more known after the severe earthquake that struck it on 7 December 1988. As reported by the Amnesty International, it was in this very town that “Arthur Sakunts was arrested for having attempted to hold a mass rally for the imprisonments made by the branch of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly in the aftermath of the monitoring of the presidential elections. Mayor of Vanadzor did not grant permission for its organization, but Arthur Sakunts and his colleagues decided to ignore that fact and hold the rally without his sanction, thinking it their right to act so.” There is nothing extraordinary in this. The local police forces broke up the rally and took Arthur Sakunts into custody before the very eyes of his followers who were not very large in number. The local court sentenced Sakunts to a term of ten astronomical days. Then the organization of Amnesty International started commenting on the situation, expressing “...its anxiety over the security of the members of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, a human rights protection group in the town of Vanadzor, North Armenia. Coordinator of the group Arthur Sakunts is under arrest.” In addition, the declaration stated that “The Amnesty International considers Arthur Sakunts a prisoner of conscience who was incarcerated for his exercising his right to freedom of expression. His arrest is part of the campaign aimed at intimidating the human rights protection group and hindering it from performing its legal work.” Due to these comments, Sakunts’s group appeared in the field of vision of American special services which carried out transformation in the organization, “strengthened” its staff of professionals with their own people and made it a base for the training of “coloured” activists. The American financial groups which have interests in the post-Soviet territory and are considered leaders of neoconservators by D. Cheyni, P. Voolfovitse, D. Ramsfield and R. Perlu, are dissatisfied with B. Obama’s policy of “reboot,” and are busy working out scenarios for the optimization of the situation in the CIS countries. One of them is the strengthening of the protesting potential in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh and the Crimea. Consequently, Barack Obama seems to live on his own, whereas his suite pursues its affairs independently. What is typical of all this, the retinue may hurm an ill-starred king. During the course of training for “coloured” activists, planned for two months, the members of the Vanadzor Office of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly will teach volunteers from Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh and the Crimea methods of “non-violent protest” with the participation of instructors from the Warsaw Branch of the International Federation of Human Rights. The total programme is planned to be implemented by the end of February 2011. Until this deadline, 5 groups are to be trained, each of them comprising 20-30 members. The heads of the project intend to hold the first stage of practical application of the skills of the representatives of the organization of mass protests during the electoral campaign to be held in Nagorno Karabakh in May of the current year. Moreover, they are also planning to gain the support of the Armenian Opposition led by ex-President L. Ter-Petrossian to launch a campaign for the undermining of B. Sahakian’s and S. Sargissian’s reputation before the inhabitants of Karabakh, as well as the nationalist circles of Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora. Using the electoral campaign as a means for disseminating information, the members of the organization are going to raise hysteria in the press over the allegedly expected surrender of the seven districts of Karabakh to Azerbaijan, and large-scale concessions to be made to Turkey (also including some relating to the issue of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915), for the purpose of using this background to discredit the candidates of the party of the authorities and secure support for the members of the Opposition running for the Parliament of Nagorno Karabakh. All this will happen in Caucasia. In the Crimea the developments will have their specific scenario. Sergey SARGISSOV Reference: http://kr-eho.info/index.php?name=News&op=article&sid=4308
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