04 Aug EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SARKIS SHAHINIAN, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF ARMENIAN AND ARMENOPHILE ASSOCIATIONS OF SWITZERLAND
In a press release dated May 24, 2024, we were informed of the creation of the Council of Armenian and Armenophile Associations of Switzerland (CAAS)*, whose constitutive general meeting took place on May 7, 2024. You were elected the first Chairman of the Board for a two-year term. Could you tell us how this organization came into being?
The idea of an umbrella structure for Armenian and Armenophile organizations in Switzerland was born out of the political and military silence and solitude surrounding the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in autumn 2020. The need to speak to Swiss public opinion, Armenian or otherwise, in a unified way, remains fundamental. But it is above all the desire to create a common reflection, not in the sense of erasing each association’s own ideas, but rather of a firm will to develop, to open up and to have a certain weight from an intellectual and cultural point of view first and then political vis-à-vis others. The visit to Switzerland by the High Commissioner for the Diaspora, Mr Zareh Sinanyan, last March, made us realize, if proof were needed, that we are light years away from understanding concrete support for Armenia on the part of the diaspora, but also in the opposite direction. Everyone thinks they’re right, and we haven’t even tried to understand each other. We just want to outdo them. The visit of a joint delegation from Armenia, Belgium and the USA from July 7 to 10, 2024, led by former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian – President of the Commission for the Defense of the Fundamental Rights of the Nagorno-Karabakh People – who spoke at a Side-Event of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and his meeting with the heads of Armenian organizations and foundations in Switzerland (receiving a personal invitation to attend the July 9 evening event at the Geneva Armenian Centre) goes in this direction, i.e. to push people out of their comfort zone and reflect on real values, in particular on what for us is of inestimable value: the Armenian state and Nagorno-Karabakh. I have my own convictions about the way the Prime Minister of Armenia is running his government. They are not positive. But my role, as president of CAAS, is to guarantee a plurality of viewpoints and to help create a political culture within our community, which is sorely lacking, both in Armenia and in the Diaspora.