Separatist minister's tactics: throwing children into the fight Rally of minors in Khankandi

Today is the 12th day as environmentalists, civil activists and representatives of NGOs of Azerbaijan are holding a protest demonstration against the illegal exploitation of minerals in the Karabakh economic region. At the same time, the Armenians living in Khankandi are trying to show the world their national "long-suffering" and the declared “120 thousand” people. But this number is decreasing day by day and the effect of their "long-suffering" is getting dimmer.

So the day before, on December 22, a small group of Armenians gathered in the square in Khankandi to discuss the situation in Karabakh. "Let's determine the day and come out with placards and hold a protest action. We see that the so-called eco-activists of Azerbaijan are wrong, we should try to talk to them in a human way, show the world that we are right," said one of the protesters, Tigran Petrosyan.

"We have to form different units to talk about security. I propose the creation of an emergency committee," he added.

As can be understood from Petrosyan's idea, revanchist sentiments still roam the ranks of Karabakh Armenians. The passion to form illegal groups and create emergency committees hasn't yet completely eroded in Armenians’ brain, clouded by propaganda. In addition to a few outcasts who were still capable of dreaming, Ruben Vardanyan (a Russian-Armenian politician who serves as the “state minister” of the unrecognized republic of Artsakh in Azerbaijan’s territory) drove old people, women and children to the square - no more than a couple of hundred people in total.

Apparently, the Karabakh Armenians supporting Vardanyan have formed an unspoken schedule: they cry during the day and make speeches in the evening. But as we can see from the footage circulating on social networks, the number of the masses was humiliatingly small. Maybe that was the reason why the so-called "state minister" cancelled the rally originally planned for December 17, in hope that the Azerbaijani activists would disperse and he, like the last time, would fill the square with Armenians from Armenia. But later he realized that the Azerbaijanis were determined, and until all their demands were met, the civil activists would not budge.

In fact, the Azerbaijani activists unknowingly disrupted Vardanyan's grand plans. If the Moscow "infiltrator" managed to bring several buses with Armenians from Armenia to Khankandi to participate in the rally and to film the rally from copters on October 30, now for this rally Vardanian had to scrape together the participants literally by haystacks.

The Armenian newspaper Hraparak, citing its sources in Karabakh, wrote that "Vardanyan made the decision about the rally unilaterally, and then he was told that there was a problem with fuel, people would not use reserve gasoline for the rally. Therefore, Ruben began to travel to the regions to explain his tactics" and to gather an illusory society for the rally. He could no longer refuse to hold the rally, as this could discredit him in the eyes of the Armenian population of Karabakh. However, yesterday's [December 22] rally in Khankandi showed that Vardanyan lost the trust of Karabakh Armenians and other representatives of the separatist regime.

In order to somehow save the situation and make Khankandi look like "a besieged Leningrad", the participants of the sub-meeting decided to use the traditional Armenian instrument of manipulation - the children. Children were holding banners with political slogans instead of toys: "Open the way of life", "Stop Azerbaijani aggression", "We are not a minority of Azerbaijan", "No peace treaty at the expense of 'Artsakh'". Some of the children were so young that they could hardly read yet, let alone write narratives. Anyway, this didn't stop the parents of the kids from using them for political purposes. Having let the children go to the embrasure, the adult participants armed themselves with terry towels and waited for the world community, touched by the heartbreaking picture, to shed bitter tears and just in case, threaten Azerbaijan with their index finger.

But time passed, the children fell asleep, and the world community opened their eyes, and did not even notice the theatrical performance, in which sleepy children and revanchist slogans strangely combined.