By Appo Jabarian Managing Editor/Executive Publisher USA Armenian Life Magazine Hye Kiank Armenian Weekly Periodically, Armenians are stuck between their loyalty to Armenia and their urge to speak out on adverse intra-national realities affecting what is left of their ancestral Armenian homeland on the one hand, and the Diaspora on the other. Some reserved, yet deeply concerned Armenians opt for focusing on other burning issues, rather than presenting their intra-national "dirty laundry" in an international arena. Others, as reserved as they may be, are still troubled by these adverse realities affecting Armenia. They struggle to do the morally right thing without having to compound Armenia's problems. However, having no choice but to bring the urgently needed pro-Armenia public attention to a particular internal problem, they resort to publicly criticizing the existing regime in Yerevan. Some others, for valid philosophical differences and legitimate criticism of the governing regime, join the opposition. Some opposition members exercise their right to criticize those in power while remaining loyal to the Armenian state's national interests. Very few members cross the line at the risk of playing into the hands of an enemy state. Prof. Richard Hovannisian, a senior professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), recently told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "Watching from the outside, we follow with pain the continuing electoral and other illegalities committed in Armenia. We would have loved to see freedom of speech and thought in Armenia, instead of repression, secret police persecution, and lies spread by state media." RFE/RL also reported: "Hovannisian, who is arguably the most famous of Armenian-American historians, believes that in some respects Armenia is now an even less democratic state than Turkey, its historical foe regularly castigated by the West for its poor human and civil rights record. `Sometimes we condemn Turkey and call it a military dictatorship. But the fact is that the press is freer there,' he said. " Hovannisian was also reported as acknowledging that his perception of the Kocharian administration has been significantly affected by its controversial treatment of his equally famous son Raffi who served as independent Armenia's first foreign minister and is now the leader of an opposition party, called Zharangutyun (Heritage), which was locked out of its Yerevan offices this month, in what he considers retaliation for his harsh attacks on Kocharian, voiced late last year. The RFE/RL correspondent, Ruzanna Stepanian, also reported novelist and playwright Perj Zeytuntsian as deploring the situation during a roundtable discussion in Yerevan, last August. Zeytuntsian is also quoted as saying: "We must constantly hear friendly statements like `What the hell are you guys doing?' That's what is missing in the Diaspora." RFE/RL mentioned: "In a separate development, Armenian state television accused Raffi Hovannisian's wife earlier this year of illegally using U.S. government assistance to Armenia to finance opposition rallies in Yerevan. She strongly denied the charges." In the RFE/RL interview, while Prof. Hovannisian has made seemingly valid criticism of Kocharian's administration in an apparent effort to express his solidarity with his son's fledgling political career, he has unwittingly given ample ammunition to the Turkish media. The good Prof. failed to point out that Turkey is notorious in suppressing its media and definitely lags behind Armenia. Turkey has dissident writers under political siege and in exile. Armenia does not! Immediately, after the damaging article was webcast, the Journal of Turkish Weekly, a Turkish propaganda publication, seized the opportunity and created its own spin in a desperate attempt to garner maximum benefits to heal Turkey's chronically ill image in the international arena. The Turkish spin doctors also attempted to use Hovannisian's damaging statements to intimidate and coerce Armenians into accepting the Turkish fait-accomplit in the usurpation of historic Armenian lands, along with the personal and real properties of systematically killed or deported indigenous Armenians. These usurpations were implemented by the Turkish government during the 1915-23 state-sponsored genocide. These campaigns were devised by the ruling Young Turk regime to eliminate the Armenian presence on the ancestral lands of Western Armenia, what Turkey calls today, Eastern Anatolia. In its April 2 issue, the Journal of Turkish Weekly reported: "Associate Prof. Dr. Sedat Laciner, director of Ankara-based USAK, shares the idea of 'failed state': 'Armenians failed to preserve their first independent Armenia. They sacrificed it for the so-called revenge. If they seek to survive as a state, they should have good relations with the neigbours. That's the first and foremost thing they have to realise. They relied on the Russians, British, French, and Americans. Time passed and all of them went to their homes. And the Armenians with the Turks shared the same fate. Now the Armenians should not sacrifice their independent state. They need Turkey, if they want an independent Armenia. Otherwise, Armenia will be a tool in other nations' national interests.'" In emulating Zeituntsian's remarks, Diaspora Armenians may similarly ask the Hovannisians: "What the hell are you guys doing?" The overwhelming majority of Armenians in the homeland and the Diaspora would prefer to see their beloved republics of Armenia and Artsakh transform their soviet-era corrupt bureaucracies into healthy, fully functioning government bodies. But that desire, along with the urge to seek personal political gain, does not give the Hovannisians or anyone else a green light to make erroneous statements, unfairly belittling their fledgling new republics and provide damaging ammunition to the enemy.

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