What is the Karabakh Committee?
1989Alexander Amerisov 1989-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
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(The following are excerpts from an artic appearing in the December 1988 issue of Soviet-American Review, which published in Chicago.)
In a widely publicized interview on Dec. 11 in Yerevan [capital of Armenia), Mikhail Gorbachev unleashed a barrage of attacks against the Karabakh Committee, calling them "unscrupulous ... demagogues corrupt... parasitical ... rumormongers."
The Soviet press went equally berserk. From "provocateurs" (Moscow Radio; Dec. 12) and "irresponsible extremists" (Izvestiya, Dec. 14), the language grew increasingly bizarre and ornate.
The members of the Committee were people "who have forgotten honor and conscience for the sake of their selfish ambitions (the Soviet Army daily, Krasnaya 12 SOCIAL collapsed like a house of cards with the first tremor.
freed itself from democratic control.—G.F.
Zvesda, Dec. 14); "Dark forces, representing a mishmash of opportunists, nationalists, prosperous conservatives, and mafiosi ... [whose] propaganda is clearly directed against CPSU leadership (Pravda, Dec. 14); or "Scum ... on the wave of growing democracy and glasnos!" (Izvestiya-TASS report, Dec. 18).
Who are these "scum" on the wave of Gorbachev's democracy and glasnost? And why does Gorbachev need to use "all our might" to stop them?
They are some of the best people today's Soviet Armenia has to offer. In October, the Karabakh Committee's 11 members included: Raphael Khazaryan, professor of engineering and director of the Institute of Physics of the Armenian Academy of Sciences; Vano Serateryan, writer and member of the Armenian Writers' Union; Vazgen Manukayan, doctor of physics and mathematics and professor at Yerevan State University; Alek.. IST ACTION FEBRUARY 1989