Demand of armed group that seized a police compound was not just about releasing Sefilyan, but making him Armenia`s dictator, Serzh Sargsyan told Al Jazeera
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".