31 March 2006

THE POOR WILL SUFFER MOSTLY

The consequences of gas prices aren't so awful for Armenia as they think. According to "Mediamax" the head of Yerevan office of the World Bank Roger Robinson has expressed such an opinion. By his words the rise in gas price will have its influence on the pry of energy power and on poor strata of the society. Mr. Robinson also declared yesterday that the WB would give 8 million Dollars for development of energy power.

UNFAIR BUT PLEASANT ACCUSATIONS

Today Azerbaijanis commemorate the day of their "Genocide". Ilham Aliev cried a lot on that occasion remembering the real and invented by the historians of his country suffering of his nation. Perhaps we have spoken about Armenian Genocide so much that the Azerbaijanis, thinking that Genocide is a good thing, burst with black envy and decided to compete with us who had been slaughtered more. While affirming complexes in the own nation and making the powerful countries of the world feel pity will hardly correspondent to the challenges of the 21st century. On that occasion it is appropriate mention the thought expressed in the RA first President Levon Ter-Petrosian's book; "Sufferings of nations haven't had any influence in the decisions taken by the great super powers either in the past nor in modern times".
Not being a historian, I can't say what attitudes the Russian, and then Soviet Empires had towards Azerbaijan. Though it is obvious that including Nagorno Karabakh the 94 % of population of which were Armenians in the part of Azerbaijan was a great present to that republic. But the Russian Empire /soviet/ didn't have good attitudes towards Russians, too. If Ilham Aliev considers the actions of that Empire as "Genocide", it's his business. Let him accuse his own father who was one of the core figures of the Soviet Empire.
And what happened after 1991, we are responsible for it. And when Azerbaijanis complain of us to the world as if we are aggressors, occupiers etc., I feel pride. Armenian managed to defend their land and peaceful population by the power of their weapon for the first time. It's better to be an aggressor than to loose our land and peaceful population and then to sing nostalgic songs about Karabakh as we do about Van or Erzrum. So we shouldn't take offence of Ilham Aliev's accusations however they are unfair. Those accusations help us to get rid of national complexes and give complexes to neighbor nation.
Certainly, it is better not to be either a victim or hangman. But if you must choose one of them second is preferable. And if you aren't so strong and are a victim, you shouldn't cry about it for decades.

Aram Abrahamian