LTP, an intellectual but not a merchant of his own ideas

Vaհe H Apelian

The attached is my translation of an article I wrote in Armenian, see the link below. 

 

In 1996, in Syunik, Sisian, the first president of the Republic of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, pointed out two prerequisites for ensuring peace. Those two prerequisites were, I quote:

1. Skillful diplomatic work with neighbors Iran, Georgia, Turkey and Russia, on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue,

2. Strengthening the military, the power of the army, which is “the supreme condition for ensuring peace.”

The remarks LTP made in Sisian are similar to Nikol Pashinyan’s crossroads for peace initiative. But  LTP is and was not a politician. The prerequisite for being a succesful political leader is to be able to sell his political “product”, his agenda,  to the people. Undoubtedly, he was more knowledgeable of history. He is an expert historian. Being a learned man, he was more aware of the issues and their probable implications and consequences, than his entourage. But his political convictions remained just that, an intelectual excercise. He could not “merchandize” them to the public, simply because, and unfortunately for Armenia, by his very nature, he was not a political salesman, but an intellectual. He remained convinced that the people, or the public, would recognize the validithy of his proposals and accept them on its merits.

In politics, in order for a politician to be able to carry on his agenda, he must step into the political arena or the political market and sell his “product”. In order to venture into the political arena, a political must be endowed with the proper disposition, physical and psychological endowments, and especially have a thick skin. The politician who expects that people will be convinced on their own, of the goodness of his agenda on its own merit, fail. 

The principles LDP outlined in Syunik, Sisyan, was in 1966. A year later, on November 1, 1997, LTP published his political stand, labeling it “War or Peace? Time to Get Serious”. He presented his agenda and sat on it, expecting that the public would perceive the necessity of implementing his political position. He even sounded the alarm, writing, “It is not about giving Karabakh or not. It is about keeping Karabakh Armenian. It has been inhabited by Armenians for 3000 years and it should be inhabited by Armenians after 3000 years.” But he did not enter the political arena to sell his agenda to the public. Note: you may read the whole document below by pressing the second link.

A few months later, on February 3, 1988, three months after putting forth his political stand that called for massive compromise, those whom he himself had brought onto the Armenian politics, Robert Kocharyan from Artsakh, Serzh Sargsyan from Artsakh, Vartan Voskanian from the Diaspora, joined forces with others and brought down their political boss, LTP.

At the present LTP is the least wealthy and politically the most ineffectual among the three  presidents who run Armenia. He lives in a house provided for him by the government. While Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan have amassed enormous wealth, having plundered the Republic of Armenia and its citizens, and squandered the LTP’s political “War or Peace? Time to Get Serious” political course

It is the harsh reality of life, that they - Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan - are currently politically more influential and much, much wealthier than the LTP, to the demise of Armenia. They are, simply because  LTP could not keep ownership and merchandize his own "product", his agenda for Armenia. When a person cannot retain the ownership of his own "product", and merchandize it,  it would be unnatural to expect that others will do it for him. On the contrary, they will more likely, abuse it for their own benefit, as Robert Kocharyan,Serzh Sargsyan and their cohorts from Karabagh did and did it big time.

The course of the Armenian history since regaining its independence on September 21, 1991, under LTP's watch, would have been much different, had LTP been the political leader Armenia needed at its historic crossoad.

1. Link: ԼՏՊ՝ մտաւորական բայց ոչ իր մտքին իսկ վաճառական՝ https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-post.html

2. Link: A document for history: “War or peace, time to get serious" - https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/10/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_29.html