To Turn Today's Defeat into a Permanent Victory

Hagop Avedikian

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

 

Monte Melkonian was three times right when in one of the most hot days of the struggle for the liberation of Karabagh complained by phone to the then president of the Committee of Self-Defense of Karabagh, Serge Sargsian, that his combatants had abandoned the positions to go to the burial of one of their dead comrades. «Ասոնք էշ են, է՛շ» ("These are asses, asses"), he said. And when Serge Sargsian asked him why the Azerbaijanis did not advance and occupy our positions, the incomparable Avo [M. Melkonian's nom de guerre] had "explained": «Անոնք ա՛լ ավելի էշշ են» ("Those are even bigger asses")...

Unfortunately, we can only use Avo's terms to define Armenian inactivity in the case of Azerbaijani criminal Safarov. Despite Azerbaijani bragging going on for 8 years and the cautions received from different sources, our corresponding state bodies did nothing or almost nothing to keep the Azerbaijani criminal forever in the Hungarian jail. After 150 years in the diplomatic arena we have not yet learned that justice is very powerless without adequate protection. We have not understood that international legal and moral norms and agreements, treaties and conventions are void if are not followed by strong overseeing and control.

Now about Azerbaijani "even bigger" asinine attitude.

After returning the criminal to Baku with Hungary's perfidious complicity, Ilham Aliyev has immediately pardoned him and given a reception of "hero." He has done that, indeed, to obtain his share of the "glory" of the "hero" criminal and ensure his sultanate for the third time and forever. In that way, he has given us, Armenians, a wonderful opportunity, with the help of all our foreign friends, to show convincingly to the world who we are dealing with, what kind of country and state is Azerbaijan, who is promising "highest status of autonomy" to the Armenians of Artsakh, what it has meant and what it means to live together with an Azerbaijani criminal and with a criminal gang, and that the Armenian people can only feel safe withing the frontiers of the Republic of Armenia - Republic of Nagorno Karabagh, internationally recognized and under the vigilance of our soldiers.

We are thankful to Aliyev for having showed the collective persona of Azerbaijan in such a clear, remarkable and convincing way.

We may turn today's defeat into a permanent victory through an extensive diplomatic work, smart propaganda efforts and official and popular effective activity.

"Azg," September 1, 2012