Heritage's Khurshudyan presents Armenian case in Brussels

Hovsep Khurshudyan, the Heritage Party's special envoy to the European People's Party (EPP), delivered two addresses to the EPP Political Assembly convened in the Belgian capital on December 10 and 11.

The first intervention comprised a presentation of Mountainous Karabagh's (Artsakh's) quest for liberty, self-determination, and recognized sovereignty and a critique of Europe's, and in particular the EPP's, conduct on this matter of European values and international principles against the background of the two prejudicially false draft resolutions on the docket at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.

Khurshudyan's second speech, oddly enough, treated the quest for the very same objectives, but this time in relation to the already-recognized Republic of Armenia. He focused on the so-called referendum, held on December 6, on amendments to the Armenian Constitution, detailing the systemic fraud in process and substance organized by Serzh Sargsyan and his crew of party hacks, all of which amounted yet again to a stolen election and thus a heinous crime against the Constitution, the Armenian nation, and all of its citizens.

Dear Chairman,

distinguished delegates of the EPP Political Assembly On behalf of the Heritage Party, one of the leaders of Armenia's democratic opposition, I have the honor to report the following: Recently a representative of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Milica Markovich (Socialist Group) drafted a resolution entitled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”. In this resolution Ms. Markovich merely repeated the falsehood of the Aliev regime’s official propaganda about so-called “occupation” of Mountainous (Nagorno-) Karabakh and other adjacent areas by Armenian armed forces. Such a duplicitous approach, which has nothing to do with European values, is especially strange because it has been demonstrated by one who represents Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country which itself was established via exercise of the right of people to self-determination after the collapse of the Soviet system—just as the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh did during the same period.

Again and again we are faced with double standards. Another draft resolution, based on a report by Robert Walter (United Kingdom, EC) approved by the Political Affairs Committee of PACE, is due to be debated by the Assembly at its January 2016 session. It calls for the so-called “withdrawal” of Armenian armed forces and other irregular armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the other “occupied” territories of Azerbaijan. And finally, the Report on Functioning of Democratic Institutions in Azerbaijan was prepared in June by the Monitoring Committee, the co-rapporteur of which is Pedro Agramunt from the Group of the European People's Party in PACE, someone who is well known for his pro-Azerbaijani position.

That document as well has falsely and prejudicially referred to “occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other provinces of Azerbaijan”. Such resolutions are unacceptable not only because of undue interference with the OSCE Minsk Group mandate, which is the only legitimate and specialized format for resolving this very sensitive and dangerously explosive issue, and which serves as guarantee of the right of the Nagorno-Karabakh people to self-determination and recognized sovereignty. They do not meet standard also because they encourage Aliev’s despotic regime, which has been very well equipped and armed by the Kremlin during the past years, to start new war in the South Caucasus and to prepare a “legal” if unfounded and unbinding basis for him in such a gamble. The authors of these resolutions perhaps gain some caviar for serving Aliev’s propaganda, but is Europe ready to pay for this in the form of hundreds of thousands of new refugees on her borders?

Does Europe need new destabilization along energy communication routes and rising oil prices? Who will benefit from this? And who is to answer for the continued violation of ceasefire and the escalation of hostilities that take the lives of soldiers and citizens alike--by snipers, long-range rockets, tanks, and other artillery, including the shooting down last year of a Karabakh helicopter on a civilian mission? By the way, the previous regime in Azerbaijan already had been trying to expel the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh from their homeland, but its aggression was rebuffed by the people of Karabakh who, together with the brave people of Germany who were tearing down the Berlin Wall at the very same time, defended their rights, dignity, identity, unity, and heritage against foreign occupation, thus preventing new genocide. Indeed, it was Germany which was able to become a great democratic leader by facing itself and its history and recognizing and making full reparation for the Holocaust--most unlike Turkey, Azerbaijan's senior ally, which continues to deny the Armenian Genocide and occupy the Armenian patrimony. Moreover, in December 2005 the Aliev regime took genocide to a new, anti-cultural level as it annihilated in broad daylight the Christian heritage of the medieval cemetery at Jugha/Julfa, destroying by tractor and explosive a thousand middle-age cross-stones (khachkars), each one a work of art, civilization, and faith.

The inability or unwillingness of the EPP, PACE, and the world community to prevent it, to condemn it, or even to send a monitoring mission to the site, now completely leveled and turned into an Azerbaijani military training ground and shooting range, boggles the mind. Lastly but not finally, Mr. Aliev, who does not hide his visceral hatred of Armenians all over the world, continues at the state level to glorify the convicted murderer in 2004 of a sleeping Armenian student-soldier in Budapest. And today, 20 years after the trilateral (Azerbaijan-Nagorno Karabakh-Armenia) signature of the ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan once again is trying to achieve the expulsion of the Armenians of Karabakh from their ancestral homeland with the help of some unprincipled and dishonest European politicians. I would like to strongly encourage PACE members from the EPP to raise their voices in favor of liberty and the rule of rights and to vote against such hypocritical reports and resolutions.

Hovsep Khurshudyan,

Heritage Party (Armenia) delegate to the EPP Political Assembly

Brussels, 10 December 2015

Dear Chairman, distinguished delegates of the EPP Political Assembly

On behalf of the Heritage Party, whose candidate Raffi Hovannisian actually won the

presidential elections of 2013 but with the EPP then-leadership's complicit knowledge was

stolen by Serzh Sarksyan, the current occupant of the presidential chair, I have the honor,

however painful, to report the following:

On December 6 of this year, a referendum on Amendments to the Constitution took place

in Armenia. As usual, the elections were rigged by the ruling Republican party. It is very

inconvenient for me to speak about this as that party is an EPP observer member together

with Heritage, which I represent. But the scale of violations of the referendum has

surpassed all previous elections.

Closest to home, Heritage Party board member Hrayr Manukyan was beaten right at the

polling station during the vote count only for the fact that he tried to prevent the violations

as member of the local electoral commission. And this crime was committed with the

complete indifference of the police, which was present at the polling station. This example

became reflective of the harsh reality that the crime of election theft was widespread and

multi-faceted and bore a systemic character.

So as not to seem biased, I quote the preliminary report of the Parliamentary Assembly of

the Council of Europe (PACE) observation mission, the independent observation mission of

the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), consisting of civic observers from

the European Union and Armenia as well as the considered position of the Civil Society of

Armenia as presented in an Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Armenian National

Platform statement.

As mentioned in the preliminary report of the cross-party observation delegation of PACE,

headed by Andreas Gross, “the referendum was driven by political interests instead of the

needs of the Armenian public” and “the core of the constitutional change - the shift from a

presidential to a parliamentary system - was understood by too many citizens as being a

means for the current president to remain in power after the end of his second (and what

would have been final) term.” The report also underscored seven points on the different

methods of election fraud employed by the authorities – from inaccuracy of the voting lists

and the misuse of administrative resources by executive bodies to the evidence of large-

scale organized vote buying and carousel voting, as well as confirmed reports of multiple

and open voting and pressure on, and attempts to corrupt, election officials, soldiers, and

average voters.

The Preliminary Statement of the Citizen Observer Initiative and the European Platform for

Democratic Elections, 700 observers of which were deployed to 500 precincts in all regions

of the country on voting day, concluded that “due to the high number of electoral violations

and crime, including intimidation of voters, falsification of protocols and numerous reports

on ballot box stuffing, we believe that the Referendum results do not reflect the free will of

Armenian citizens and should not be considered to be legitimate.”

Finally, the representatives of the Armenian National Platform (ANP) of the Eastern

Partnership Civil Society Forum expressed their deep frustration regarding numerous

violations recorded during the preparation, conduct, and vote counting of the December 6

referendum on Amendments to the Armenian Constitution. “We assert that the authorities

resorted to all possible leverages of influencing the outcome of the voting - use of

administrative resources, vote buying, instruction of voters, pressure and violence exerted

against opposition members of electoral commissions, proxies, observers and journalists,

ballot box stuffing, voting for absent and dead citizens, as well as multiple voting by the

same citizens, stealing of ballot boxes and voter registers, etc,” reads the statement.

I would also like to mention the unequal conditions under which opposition parties operate

in Armenia, where the ruling party, occupying governmental positions through fraudulent

elections and conflicts of interest, strangles all possible sources of funding for the political

opposition.

Whereas the ruling party uses tens of millions of euros from all possible sources of funding

- from the state budget itself to a web of oligarchs and the comprehensive abuse of

administrative resources - to fulfill not only its official functions but also for distribution of

election bribes and financing of the huge system of election frauds, the only source of

funding of the political opposition is the state budget, the overall amount of which, for

example for the Heritage Party, is 7,600 euros per year. Could you imagine? Another

source allowed by law is the voluntary contribution, but businessmen are afraid to donate

even small sums to opposition parties, having before their eyes recurring instances when

those citizens brave enough to make such donations (both publicly and even privately)

have been artificially and purposefully driven into bankruptcy or dispossession under the

administrative pressure of governmental structures which in reality provide a convenient

but unlawful façade for the ruling party.

Colleagues, it is our well-founded and time-tested suggestion that the EPP express its

value-anchored attitude toward the electoral violations committed by its member party,

breaches so rampant and organized as to amount to collective treason against the

Armenian Constitution and citizenry and to render the referendum null and void.

Hovsep Khurshudyan, Heritage Party (Armenia), delivered at Brussels, 11 December 2015

Dear Chairman, distinguished delegates of the EPP Political Assembly On behalf of the Heritage Party, whose candidate Raffi Hovannisian actually won the presidential elections of 2013 but with the EPP then-leadership's complicit knowledge was stolen by Serzh Sarksyan, the current occupant of the presidential chair, I have the honor, however painful, to report the following: On December 6 of this year, a referendum on Amendments to the Constitution took place in Armenia.

As usual, the elections were rigged by the ruling Republican party. It is very inconvenient for me to speak about this as that party is an EPP observer member together with Heritage, which I represent. But the scale of violations of the referendum has surpassed all previous elections. Closest to home, Heritage Party board member Hrayr Manukyan was beaten right at the polling station during the vote count only for the fact that he tried to prevent the violations as member of the local electoral commission. And this crime was committed with the complete indifference of the police, which was present at the polling station. This example became reflective of the harsh reality that the crime of election theft was widespread and multi-faceted and bore a systemic character. So as not to seem biased, I quote the preliminary report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) observation mission, the independent observation mission of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), consisting of civic observers from the European Union and Armenia as well as the considered position of the Civil Society of Armenia as presented in an Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Armenian National Platform statement. As mentioned in the preliminary report of the cross-party observation delegation of PACE, headed by Andreas Gross, “the referendum was driven by political interests instead of the needs of the Armenian public” and “the core of the constitutional change - the shift from a presidential to a parliamentary system - was understood by too many citizens as being a means for the current president to remain in power after the end of his second (and what would have been final) term.” The report also underscored seven points on the different methods of election fraud employed by the authorities – from inaccuracy of the voting lists and the misuse of administrative resources by executive bodies to the evidence of large- scale organized vote buying and carousel voting, as well as confirmed reports of multiple and open voting and pressure on, and attempts to corrupt, election officials, soldiers, and average voters. The Preliminary Statement of the Citizen Observer Initiative and the European Platform for Democratic Elections, 700 observers of which were deployed to 500 precincts in all regions of the country on voting day, concluded that “due to the high number of electoral violations and crime, including intimidation of voters, falsification of protocols and numerous reports on ballot box stuffing, we believe that the Referendum results do not reflect the free will of Armenian citizens and should not be considered to be legitimate.” Finally, the representatives of the Armenian National Platform (ANP) of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum expressed their deep frustration regarding numerous violations recorded during the preparation, conduct, and vote counting of the December 6 referendum on Amendments to the Armenian Constitution.

“We assert that the authorities resorted to all possible leverages of influencing the outcome of the voting - use of administrative resources, vote buying, instruction of voters, pressure and violence exerted against opposition members of electoral commissions, proxies, observers and journalists, ballot box stuffing, voting for absent and dead citizens, as well as multiple voting by the same citizens, stealing of ballot boxes and voter registers, etc,” reads the statement. I would also like to mention the unequal conditions under which opposition parties operate in Armenia, where the ruling party, occupying governmental positions through fraudulent elections and conflicts of interest, strangles all possible sources of funding for the political opposition. Whereas the ruling party uses tens of millions of euros from all possible sources of funding - from the state budget itself to a web of oligarchs and the comprehensive abuse of administrative resources - to fulfill not only its official functions but also for distribution of election bribes and financing of the huge system of election frauds, the only source of funding of the political opposition is the state budget, the overall amount of which, for example for the Heritage Party, is 7,600 euros per year.

Could you imagine? Another source allowed by law is the voluntary contribution, but businessmen are afraid to donate even small sums to opposition parties, having before their eyes recurring instances when those citizens brave enough to make such donations (both publicly and even privately) have been artificially and purposefully driven into bankruptcy or dispossession under the administrative pressure of governmental structures which in reality provide a convenient but unlawful façade for the ruling party. Colleagues, it is our well-founded and time-tested suggestion that the EPP express its value-anchored attitude toward the electoral violations committed by its member party, breaches so rampant and organized as to amount to collective treason against the Armenian Constitution and citizenry and to render the referendum null and void.

Hovsep Khurshudyan,

Heritage Party (Armenia) delegate to the EPP Political Assembly

Brussels, 10 December 2015

Heritage's Khurshudyan presents Armenian case in Brussels

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