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Armenia: 10th anniversary of a very bloody day
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On October 27th, 1999, at just a little after five pm, five individuals wearing security passes entered the Armenian National Assembly. Interrupting a question and answer session with Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, they pulled rifles from under their coats and open fired, killing the Prime Minister, the Parliamentary Speaker, two deputy speakers, a minister, and three others. Announcing that they were staging a coup, the gunmen castigated the government for corruption, then, with 40 people trapped in the room as hostages, they demanded a meeting with President Robert Kocharian. On the following morning, President Kocharian met with the gunmen, who then released their hostages and surrendered.
Ten years have passed since that bloody day, but, like President Kennedy’s assassination, the gunmen’s true motives remain a mystery.
Armenia was a young republic at war when its National Assembly was attacked. It was a nation whose governing institutions were still works in progress. At that time, Parliament was independent of the president and a democratic counterbalance to it. Following the attack, Parliament's power was destroyed and it was reduced to a presidential dependency. IParliament was no longer an independent source of power, a counter balance to the presidency. As a result of this incident, the Armenian presidency remains to this day an institution with no effective checks and balances.
On the morning of the attack, Prime Minister Sarksyan met with US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott to discuss the Nagorno Karabagh War. Reportedly, progress was made toward a US led peace initiative. With the assassination of the Prime Minister, this US led peace initiative was killed too.
There are two intriguing theories about the motives for this incident. The first one is by Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent who was gruesomely murdered by radioactive poisoning. Litvinenko claims that the Russian FSB organized it to derail the American led peace initiative. The second theory blames Armenian President Robet Kocharian. This theory posits that President Kocharian killed the Prime Minister to eliminate him as a rival for power.
Ten years have passed since that bloody day. Armenia is still at war with Azerbaijan, but now it is frozen war. Its political institutions are no longer works in progress. Following this terrible day in history, Armenia drifted into the corrupt authoritarian system that it is today.
Nonetheless, Armenians want a democracy. They want a parliamentary system in which your vote is counted. Ten years ago, their government may have been stolen, but soon they will take it back.
A bloody day in the Armenian Parliament
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