MOSCOW (Combined Sources)—The Hayastan All-Armenia Fund hosted a benefit dinner with some 80 Russian-Armenian businessmen at the Ararat Park Hyatt Hotel in Moscow on Sunday to bolster fundraising activities for this year’s annual Thanksgiving day telethon.
Present at the dinner were members of the Armenia Fund board of trustees, including Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakian, and the Speaker of Armenia’s National Assembly, Hovik Abrahamyan.
All funds from the telethon, which will run all day on November 26, are being directed toward development programs in the war-torn city of Shoushi in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
“As you know the annual fund-raising of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund has started. This time the donations will be allocated to the development programs of Shoushi,” Sarkisian said, addressing the guests. “The city that was once one of the educational and cultural centers of Eastern Armenia, the city we have always been proud of, needs our support today.”
Sarkisian also urged guests to “generously participate” in the fund with hefty donations, which will be announced during the telethon.
It is true that Shushi was and is a very important city and educational and cultural center of Eastern Armenia as Sarkissian stated. And it is also true that this fundraising and reconstruction activity must succeed as much as possible with the partcipation of as many people as possible. But I couldn’t help but be intrigued at Sarkisian’s deliberate choosing to describe Shushi as an Eastern Armenian city. Doesn’t Armenia belong to all Armenians, particularly if so many are contributing to its existence? Some who live overseas have even done more to aleviate the plight of individual Armenians more than that very government has done for its citizens. Just look how war veterans and earthquake victims had been neglected for many many years, and no domestic aid was available to them from their own government. I find his choice of words hurtful after his behavior toward the Armenian Diaspora regarding the recent protocols. It is clear that the government of Eastern Armenia is involved in protecting only the interests of Eastern Armenians and is not concerned with the hopes and wishes of the Diaspora. If Eastern Armenia wishes to have economic relations with Turkey, which has shed the blood of so many Wesetrn Armenians, then one part of Armenia is betraying the other for money. In this most outrageous situation, at least the government of Eastern Armenia if not the people, is willing to become an accomplice in the crimes Turkey is still committing against Armenians in the Diaspora. Yet Sarkisian wants Diaspora support in the reconstruction of Eastern Armenia. If the Diaspora disappears in one hundred years, what will Armenia do? Will anyone there shed a tear for the millions of their brethren who are gone? Will Eastern Armenia still rely on telethons and fundraisers to take care of its domestic difficulties, when all its expatriates have been wiped out? Unless the government of Eastern Armenia begins to draw the Diaspora closer to its bosom and under the protection of its statehood, my predictions will have become reality.
Good move by President.
Are Diaspora Armenians going to help?