Excerpts from an interview with writer Zori Balayan on glasnost and emigration
Q- Last week the citizens of Krasnodar demonstrated. . .
Balayan: And in Minsk.
Q- Yes, in Minsk too, against the building of a nuclear power plant there.
Balayan: Yes, a lot has changed with the advent of glasnost [openness] and perestroika [restructuring]. Who asked our opinion, the population of Armenia, when the Medzamor nuclear power plant was being built? No one! Those were different times. But let me tell you this: we need a nuclear power plant. Don’t get upset! It’s easy for you criticize and demand that there shouldn’t’t be nuclear power plants in Armenia. Then what is your alternative? Are we going to use Lake Sevan’s waters and kill it for good? How is Armenia to survive? Tell me. We have to have nuclear powers plants, provided we choose the best and least dangerous site. Erecting the Medzamor plant in heart of Armenia was a crime.
[…]
Q- . . . Now, what do you make of all these, and, more important, will the new policy of perestroika and glasnost prevail in Armenia?
Balayan: When discussing perestroika and glasnost, you cannot separate a single republic – in this case Armenia – from the general, overall process of reformation now going on in the Soviet Union. It’s a general and widespread process, and tiny Armenia is just a part of it. Perestroika and glasnost aim at bringing fundamental political, economic, and even national (ethnic) changes which would transform the standing and status of the human being — us. We didn’t have these possibilities during the time of Stalin, and that of Brezhnev and Suslov. Moral conditions in the 1970’s were far more deplorable than at any other time. In his major speech in June 1987 in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the government and Party leadership of Armenia, accusing them of encouraging graft and corruption, and hindering the process of perestroika. He even mentioned First Secretary Karen Demirjian by name. The truth was said, and by the highest authority. Following on the heels of that speech, the Communist Party Central Committee of Armenia held its plenary session in July 1987 in Yerevan, where, for the first time, Haik Kotanjian severely criticized the government and Party leadership and asked for the resignation of Karen Demirjian and the entire Central Committee. But this was not all. What was surprising and most refreshing was the fact that Kotanjian’s speech – without any changes or deletions – was published in Sovetekakn Hayastan. That was true glasnost. It means openness and restructuring had already been established in Armenia.
Q- What is next? When do you think Mr. Demirjian will resign?
Balayan: I don’t know, and actually, I am concerned with more serious problems. Perestroika and glasnost give us, Armenians, the means and opportunity to enhance our economic and civil well-being, and, furthermore, to pursue our political aims. But thus far we have been bickering over who said what about whom, and who did what to whom. Meanwhile, our main aims and aspirations are being forgotten and neglected, or, at best, not pursed with the necessary energy and planned action. It was in this atmosphere that the December 26, 1987 Plenary Session of our Communist Party Central Committee you mentioned earlier was held in Yerevan. Haik Kotanjian, and Sarkis Khachaderian repeated their criticism. And again, nothing was accomplished and this sad fact was emphasized in Pravda and Izvestia. People in Moscow ask us, ”What’s happening in Armenia, what’s going on, how is life there?” as if our homeland were a veritable hell. . . .
Q- . . . Now I am under the impression from what you and I discussed here that the government is almost powerless to do anything – Armenia cannot sustain an ever-increasing population, thousands already leave to settle in different regions of the Soviet Union, and economic and social changes have not yet materialized.
Balayan: It may be true, but I am confident that perestroika will bring in fundamental changes and, most importantly, will be instrumental in our efforts to have Nakhichevan and Karabagh reunited with Armenia. Then it will be a totally different situation, with infinite possibilities and opportunities for our people.
[…]
[The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, Boston, February 20, 1988]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 78-79.
