Friday, October 28 2016 15:18

ArmInfo. "The first thing you notice when you arrive in Yerevan is Mount Ararat, towering above the tin roofs and skyscrapers to the west.  It's a national symbol, yet  it's tantalisingly off-limits, being the other side of a closed  border with Turkey, so that Armenians see it as a constant reminder  of past glories and past atrocities - most especially the killing of  around 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915/16." With  these words starts the film by Al Jazeera about Armenia, some  fragments of which have already been uploaded on the Internet. 

The film stresses that 1/3 of Armenia's population migrated from the  country due to the hard socio- economic conditions. The film also  tells about the April war in the Karabakh conflict zone and the  seizure of a police compound in Yerevan in July by an armed group.   

"Having recently spent $5bn on state-of-the-art weapons, Azerbaijan  made significant inroads and captured precious territory. To rub salt  in the wound, the new arms that led to Azerbaijan's success had  actually been bought from Russia - Armenia's long-standing regional  ally. Yerevan-based political scientist Irina Ghaplanyan explained  the relationship to Russia: 'From its inception the Armenian  political arena was saturated with ... a strong narrative that we  need to survive at any expense, given the geopolitical situation, and  talking about Russia as the only strategic partner to be trusted',"  says the filmmakers' view. 

"When these summer rumours spread that Moscow wanted Armenia to  relinquish more lands around Nagorno-Karabakh and the president  declared that the territories lost during the April war were of no  tactical or strategic importance, it was too much for the charismatic  leader of Founding Parliament, Jirair Sefilian," the authors note.

According to the authors of the film, Jirair Sefilian's arrest led to  July unrest. "Within weeks, the country was in the grips of the  hostage crisis when armed men seeking Sefilian's freedom seized the  Erebuni police station, killing one person and taking nine hostages.  What surprised many was the outpouring of public support for the  armed group's demands, not just the release of Sefilian but also the  resignation of the president. Peaceful protests grew until some  20,000 people were demonstrating in the capital. State forces  responded aggressively with stun grenades, indiscriminate beatings  and mass detentions," the authors stress.

Touching upon the July events in Yerevan, Serzh Sargsyan said to the  film authors: "Is there a country which does not have an aggressive  minority?" "It's obvious that there are discontented people in our  country, and maybe the most discontented are the representatives of  civil society, and they have given their assessment, which does not  mean it's objective." According to the filmmakers, Sezh Sargsyan was  even more scathing about those behind Jirair Sefilian: "I need to  tell you that their demand was not just about releasing the person  you mentioned, but making him Armenia's dictator".