EurasiaNet.org
Jan 16 2015
Armenia: Will Murders Bring Change to Ties with Russia?
January 16, 2015 – 2:47pm, by Marianna Grigoryan
A little over a year ago, the northwestern Armenian city of Gyumri,
home to Russia’s 102nd army base, welcomed Russian President Vladimir
Putin to town with pomp, circumstance, and waving flags. Now,
protesters in the town are trampling Russian flags underfoot instead.
Armenia’s inability to secure the custody of a Russian conscript
charged with the January-12 murder of six members of a local family –
the youngest just two years old – contributed to this change of mood.
Although Armenian General Prosecutor Gevorg Kostanian has stated that
the defendant, Private Valery Permyakov, will face trial in Armenia,
which authority will conduct the trial remains unclear: a Russian
military tribunal at the 102nd base, where Permyakov is being held, or
an Armenian court.
The lack of a clear answer to this question is jeopardizing the strong
historical ties between Armenia, Moscow’s strongest ally in the South
Caucasus, and Russia, local analysts say.
Late on January 15, hours after the Avetisian family’s funeral,
clashes with police broke out outside the Russian consulate in Gyumri
as hundreds of protesters tried to enter the building to demand that
Permyakov be handed over to Armenian law-enforcement and tried in an
Armenian court.
At least 13 people reportedly were hospitalized as a result of the
scuffle, and around a dozen, including journalists and human-rights
activists, were arrested.
Russia claims that it has the right to try Permyakov since he had
deserted from the Gyumri base. Armenian government representatives
have been allowed into the 102nd army base to confirm his presence in
a solitary confinement-cell, RFE/RL reported. They have said that they
would pass on protesters’ concerns to Russian officials.
But many Armenians aren’t buying it. Families are arguably the most
sacred of social institutions in this tiny country of just under three
million people. That status exists elsewhere in the region, too, but
in Armenia, the tough-knocks survivor of war, alleged genocide and
vast migration, it exercises a particular pull.
Threats to families may come from neighboring Azerbaijan or Turkey,
the country’s traditional enemies, but are not expected to come from
Russia, Armenia’s longtime bodyguard.
For 65-year-old engineer Hrant Hambardzumian, the fact that the
Armenian government does not collect a fee from Russia for its
Gyumri-base and paid it 20.5-million drams (about $50,000) in November
for incurred expenses makes the murder of the Avetisian family an
insult as well as a tragedy.
“Is this the security promised by the government, when your family is
slaughtered while sleeping at home?” scoffed Hambardzumian, a resident
of the capital, Yerevan.
“This is a fight for personal security,” commented human-rights
activist Arthur Sakunts, an outspoken government-critic. “This is a
case when everyone feels threatened in their own homes, in their own
country.”
That sense of insecurity ultimately could lead to a change in
Armenians’ receptiveness toward a tight strategic partnership with
Russia, predicted Richard Giragosian, director of Yerevan’s Regional
Studies Center. “[I]t seems clear that this incident and the way the
Russian military handles it, may become a turning point for the
traditionally loyal and subservient Russian ally, Armenia,” he said.
The incident in Gyumri is not the first, however. In 1999, two drunken
Russian servicemen based at Gyumri, Denis Popov and Alexander Kamenev,
opened fire on random passers-by, killing at least two people and
injuring another ten. Then, the two men were tried in Armenia, where
Popov was sentenced to 14 years in prison and Kamenev to 15.
Whether or not the two served their entire terms in Armenia is
unclear. In an interview published on January 16 with News.am, Popov’s
lawyer, Tamara Yailoian claimed that her former client had been
transferred to Russia “after two to three years,” and, “we later
learned, set free.”
Russian officials were not immediately available to comment on her allegations.
Russia’s ambassador to Armenia, Ivan Volynkin, has pledged an
“objective” investigation into the Avetisians’ murders, but called on
locals not to “politicize” their deaths, the state-run Russian news
agency ITAR-TASS reported.
The spokesperson for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Eduard
Sharmazanov, ducking accusations that Yerevan fears Moscow, has
implied the same.
“A tragedy has occurred, and we should not be looking for enemies
[involved] in it in our country,” Sharmazanov said, Tert.am reported.
“It does not stem from the people’s interests.”
But with officials otherwise mute (“as mute as fish,” opined
Hambardzumian), some see the government’s statements as intended
primarily to serve their own interests rather than to secure a trial
for Permyakov in an Armenian court.
Anger over the Gyumri murders is building on wariness about Armenia’s
economic ties with Russia; namely, the loss of remittances from
migrants there after the sharp drop in the ruble’s value in 2014, and
the subsequent spike in retail prices in Armenia. The downturn
occurred just as Armenia was preparing to enter Moscow’s Eurasian
Economic Union on January 2.
But Russian Ambassador Volynkin emphasized that Armenian-Russian ties
will survive this downturn.
Some Armenian analysts agree. “The emotional must be separated from
the military-political” in evaluating Yerevan’s relationship with
Russia, advised Sergei Minasian, head of the political studies program
at Yerevan’s Caucasus Institute.
While Russia does not pay Yerevan for use of the Gyumri base, it does
sell Armenia gas, weapons and military material at below-market
prices, Minasian noted.
That’s not enough to convince Ruben Mehrabian, an analyst at the
Armenian Center for National and International Studies. Relations
between Armenia and Russia are now so “deformed and ugly,” he
commented, that they “have to be recalibrated.”
From: A. Papazian
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/71666