Even if recording it under duress, did he try to save his own skin, when people supporting him died for his quest “up until the end???”

My second question regarding his judgement: when he did not get the velvet revolution he was hoping for, did it really not occur to him that the current authorities had no scruples about using deadly force on their own people? Or is it possible that like the current authorities, LTP’s respect for fellow compatriot’s life ends at the beginning of his political skin?

Finally, as to his legitimacy: after Bagdasarian joined the ruling coalition, did he not have the judgement to call his rallies off, since his claim to any plurality victory was totally invalidated, and that it could give the authorities the legal excuse to use force, since LTP’s claim to legitimacy was totally abrogated? Where was his judgement, conscience, patriotism, etc???

I think the events of the last four days will set Armenia’s economy back for several years, since its image of stability, predictability, credit worthiness, investment suitability, and a hope for some semblance of the rule of law have been sooooo set back.

God help Armenia.

Many thanks to you all for caring and spending time to post messages, I read them all, my agreement or disagreement is not relevant at all.

My family went through a brutal revolution in Iran, we lost lives, homes, money, health, you name it and we pulled through, because “Iranian believed in democracy”, not to mention that mixing religion and politics is disasterous and unfortunately Iran fell a century back, if not two.

However, this is not a case with Armenia. I have been working in International Developemnt field for the past 25 years, traveled around the world, worked in the villages and mainly contributed my life to Armenia for the past 6 years building villages (you will never hear about me, as I keep a low profile), I know ARMENIAN people from inside out, I lived in the villages, I also know ANOTHER SET OF ARMENIAN people who will do anything to give the GOOD ones a bad name, after all “IT TAKES ONE BAD APPLE”. I have eye witnesses from front line (my Diaspora friends who joined the good crowd) who attested that all protestors in Mashdots and Republic square were polite, courteous, no violation, no gun fires, just expressing their anger through chanting, my friend said, and I quote “if this protestors were in Glendale or any other city in U.S., there would have been a blood shed”. On the other hand, a large group of “who knows from where” hired by the government (second hand information)looted all supermarkets and stores in Gomidas.

Now, think about it… people are out marching for one reason “DEMOCRACY”.

Our sisters lost their husbands, mothers lost their sons, children lost their fathers to free “Karabagh”, what have we gained in return, not a pat in the back, but a TANK in front of innocent people. They should learn from Iranian army, when all and each one, put their weapons down and joined the crowd.

From a professional stand point, I replace government of Armenia in the same level of “Nigeria” (the world’s worst corrupted government). From a personal stand point, my passion and compassion resides with people and I could careles about the government and public administration and all government machinery who are a group of cold hearted”blood sucker”, serving their own agenda. It should be noted that only a hand full honest public servers suffering under this regime, my advise to them : TURN IN YOUR RESIGNATION TODAY.

Armenia is suffering from “dependency” phenomena from Western donors and Diaspora, we never taught Armenia “how to fish to feed self”, we have been giving them “fish” for the past 16 years.

My point being, from an International Development stand point, DO YOUR SHARE to teach the government a valuable lesson and have western aids to pull the plug, until RULE OF LAW and DEMOCRACY is in place, raise your voice and write to the source:

The White House
U.S. State Department Secretary of State
Millenium Challenge Corporation ($236 MILLION dollar given to the government to implement project, contingent to RULE of LAW and DEMOCRACY)
Millenium Challenge Account in Armenia
USAID in Armenia
U.S. Ambassador in Armenia
ALL WESTERN AMBASSADORS in Yerevan
THE WORLD BANK
IMF
EUROPEAN COUNCIL
OSCE
ADB
JICA

These are organizations with power to put pressure on the government, while people play a vital role in democracy, donor’s have the influence to change a government (e.g., Georgia, Ukraine, Brazil).

In closing, DO NOT JUDGE people from miles and miles away in U.K., U.S. or any other country, living a good life, it’s always easy said than done. If you are a DIASPORA, it’s time to move forward, our motherland is not about a lavish life style which is portrayed in Republic Square, Abovyan, Nalbandian, Sayat Nova surrounding, Armenia is about PEOPLE and their fight for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.

Please do me and others a favor, DO NOT PASS ANY JUDGEMENT, you want to judge, buy a ticket and go to the middle of the action, see for yourself, that’s what I will be doing in two weeks.

We, as diaspora are at great fault, after all, we contributed to a “corrupt” government with over 1.5 billion dollars of contribution and never asked for “transparency”.

Thank you all for your love and care for Armenia, put your actions to word and start your own revolution to FIGHT CORRUPTION and dedicate yourself to build a village.

Jermoren

I share your thought, feelings, sadness and concerns. We, as Armenians always worry about the outside world and their reaction. What difference does it make “who thinks what” and do you honestly believe that our reputation is tarnished by “protesting for DEMOCRACY”, I can assure you it is not.

I have discussed Armenia events with higher ranking American and other western individuals who have a vast knowledge about Armenia, they applaude people for their action, but not the GoA for killing innocent people, after all killing two children with “ELECTRIC SHOCK” doesn’t go into Human Rights history book.

Dear Lucy; People are taking action, enough of words, they are fed up, have you ever travelled through rural villages to witness poverty, unemployment, despair, depression, I have, it’s not a pleaseant scene, I witnessed young Armenian girls walking the streets in DUBAI to earn a living…..put them all together, this is “21st century genocide”.

In your prayers, please ask GOD to grant a vision to our DIASPORA community members to understand the importance of PEOPLE in rebuilding Armenia. Millions of dollars are collected every year to do what? rebuild dysfunctional roads and spend over 2.0 million dollars to renovate a public park, across from Presidential Estate.

Armenia is as small or as big as STATE OF MARYLAND, it doesn’t take millions and billions to rebuild the motherland, it takes UNITY and thorough understanding of INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT to set priorities and work with PEOPLE to rebuild the motherland.

Be proud of our people and pray for them to win this battle, our sisters and brothers have only ONE AMMUNITION, THEIR VOICE and they will prevail.

May God continue to bless Armenia and people

I share your thought, feelings, sadness and concerns. We, as Armenians always worry about the outside world and their reaction. What difference does it make “who thinks what” and do you honestly believe that our reputation is tarnished by “protesting for DEMOCRACY”, I can assure you it is not.

I have discussed Armenia events with higher ranking American and other western individuals who have a vast knowledge about Armenia, they applaude people for their action, but not the GoA for killing innocent people, after all killing two children with “ELECTRIC SHOCK” doesn’t go into Human Rights history book.

Dear Lucy; People are taking action, enough of words, they are fed up, have you ever travelled through rural villages to witness poverty, unemployment, despair, depression, I have, it’s not a pleaseant scene, I witnessed young Armenian girls walking the streets in DUBAI to earn a living…..put them all together, this is “21st century genocide”.

In your prayers, please ask GOD to grant a vision to our DIASPORA community members to understand the importance of PEOPLE in rebuilding Armenia. Millions of dollars are collected every year to do what? rebuild dysfunctional roads and spend over 2.0 million dollars to renovate a public park, across from Presidential Estate.

Armenia is as small or as big as STATE OF MARYLAND, it doesn’t take millions and billions to rebuild the motherland, it takes UNITY and thorough understanding of INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT to set priorities and work with PEOPLE to rebuild the motherland.

Be proud of our people and pray for them to win this battle, our sisters and brothers have only ONE AMMUNITION, THEIR VOICE and they will prevail.

May God continue to bless Armenia and people

Let’s not lose our country once again. Destroying is easy, building asks for great effort and sacrifice.

Armenia, despite the problems placed upon it from our Turkic and Georgian neighbours, is one of the best performing nations from the CIS, in terms of media freedom (please look at stats with other CIS states), in terms of economic liberalism, in terms of economic growth (having double digit growth for so long, which isnt based on some sort of fossil fuel.

All these achievements have come in the last 10 years.

What did Levon give us?
-Energy Crisis
-Rampant Corruption
-Political Murders (thanks Vano)
-Oligarchs (yes, it was LEVON who gave us the oligarchs)
- A blundering Foreign Policy of giving concessions on Kharabagh when we had the strong hold. Thousands died for Levon to sell their blood? Again he does the same for his political power with these poor protestors.
-BALLOT STUFFING AND ELECTION RIGGING (remember this is why he was KICKED from power)

-Yes, there are MANY MANY problems, but bringing the country on its knees wont help
-Dividing this small nation wont help

If after all that, you still believe in Levon, you are either completely brainwashed, or you have no faith in the armenian system, and hope throuigh anarchy and chaos, there will be a new utopia.

Yes, the elections were rigged, BUT these were the BEST elections we have EVER had. why dont people realise this.

instead, we follow a donkey of a leader, who instead of recognizing this progress, uses the publics emotions, for his own political gain. WHO GOT KICKED OUT OF GOVERNMENT FOR ELECTION RIGGING in 1998??

Its funny, and sad, to hear people talking of independence being brilliant, yet on the other hand, writing nice little letters to charities in the EU and US, and organisations in the west who are nothing but tools for the wests geopolitical interests, for their “help”. Get over it, we are a new country, we need to be constructive and build our country.

As for this being “people power”, you have lost the plot. Levon, regardless of ballot stuffing, was NEVER going to win this election, unless 20% of votes shifted from Serj, to Levon. I.e. All of those huge 20% went to levon, and not any of the other 7 candidates. All these in a condition of “most fair” elections. Just because you dislike Serj, doesnt mean you can automatically call the elections a complete fraud if he wins. Levon didnt think he was going to win, why do you??

Reasons why Levon didnt win:

- Calling himself winner before votes were counted, he knew he wasnt going to win, so he had to rally up people already in preperation for rallies. He had called for a “victory rally” days before the election date himself.
- He had clearly spoken to influential politicians before the vote, so they could change sides, after he “won”. Notice how Manvel et al werent complaining when they were guzzling the peoples funds in previous elections, sudddenly Manvel has become a champion of free elections has he? (Please read into the background of Manvel Grigorian)
-These protests were TINY, if they are any sort of reflection of what voter turnout was. the protests averaged 25,000, thats including the 30-50,000 and the 10,000 turnouts which were there. that represents between 1-5% of Yerevan, that is truly pitiful. Lets not forget how it was common that many people simply went down to see what was happening…

Yes, there clearly would have been agent provaceurs from the state in the crowds, but to deny that any protestors had ANY weapons is ridiculous. No government in the West would have allowed a single piece of wood as a weapon, as they would have smashed the entire protest down.

Lets remember
-Seattle, where unarmed protestors were smashed to bits
-Genoa, where throwing a fire extinguisher equalled that protestor being shot in the head by police
-all G8 demos since.
-lets not forget how Western governments REGULARLY use agent provaceurs in demonstrations.
-Which government would allow illegal demonstrations, holding the capital to ransom for 10 DAYS????

this is our country, armenia, which isnt to be used for experiments of peoples dreams for what they want armenia to be in 24 hours.

If you want to improve our country, work there, participate there, pay taxes there, vote there.

Yes, armenia has rampant corruption (much much less than before, e.g. police), yes there are oligarchs (but remember how the US allowed oligarchs in the early 20th Century to help boost the countries economy), yes there is election rigging (but they have been the best we’ve ever had, and something many CIS states can only dream of).

Armenia is one of the quickest developing CIS countries, lets not let opportunists stop this.

Constructive criticism, and participation, instead of opportunist political gains and jeopordising the growth of this young country.