User:Yerevantsi/sandbox/SamvelBabayan

Samvel Babayan

Samvel Babayan
Minister of Defence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic
In office January 1995 – August 1999
President	Leonard Petrosyan Arkadi Ghukasyan
Preceded by	position established
Succeeded by	Seyran Ohanyan
Personal details
Born	(1965-03-05) 5 March 1965 Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, Azerbaijani SSR, Soviet Union
Political party	Dashink
Occupation	Auto mechanic
Awards	Hero of Artsakh
Military service
Branch/service	Artsakh Defense Army
Years of service	1988—2000 1983—85
Rank	Lieutenant General
Battles/wars	Nagorno-Karabakh War

Samvel Babayan (Armenian: Սամվել Բաբայան; born 5 March 1965) is an Armenian military commander and politician. He became a hero during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Following the war, he served as the Defense Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1994 to 2000. During this period, Babayan "became not only the military leader but the most powerful man in Karabakh overall, controlling its government and economy."

Early life

Babayan was born on 5 March 1965 in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1982, he finished Armenian secondary school # 7 named after Eghishe Charents in Stepanakert. From 1983 to 1985, he served in the Soviet military contingent in East Germany.

Nagorno-Karabakh War

In 1988, Samvel Babayan enlisted in a paramilitary unit and rose to command his own unit and leading it professionally. From 1989 to 1991 he was the commander of the Stepanakert second Volunteers Company and a member of the Stepanakert underground central headquarters. Lieutenant General Samvel Babayan rose to prominence during the military phase of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in 1991-1994. Babayan carried out coordination of Armenian operations in Karabakh, participated in the development of the plan to capture Shusha and was the commander of the front of Lachin. As unified military command began to be established in Nagorno Karabakh in 1992-1993, Babayan became the Commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army in 1993, after his predecessor Serzh Sargsyan left to become Armenia's Defense Minister. Under his command, the Karabakhi military succeeded in winning a number of strategic battles against the Azerbaijani military and regained control over most of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as partially controlling 7 districts of Azerbaijan.

Samvel Babayan has been the holder of such titles as Commander of Self-Defense Forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Minister of Defense. Babayan has been awarded with the army ranks of lieutenant colonel (1992), colonel (1993), major general (1994) and lieutenant general (1996). He has been awarded with the Golden Eagle medal of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (1997) and has been declared a Hero of Artsakh. He is married and has three children. His brother Karen is the former Mayor of Stepanakert and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Post-war years

Coup attempt and imprisonment

By December 1999, Babayan was forced to relinquish his position as the Self-Defense Forces Commander. Armenian president Robert Kocharyan's precarious position in post-27 October political environment did not allow him to tackle the Babayan issue directly, leaving it to the unrecognized government of Nagorno-Karabakh under president Arkadi Ghukasyan and the new Karabakh Army leadership. On 22 March 2000, Babayan allegedly launched an assassination attempt on Arkadi Ghukasyan, leaving the president seriously wounded but alive.

At the 26 February session on the case of the 22 March 2000 assassination attempt against Arkadi Ghukasyan in Stepanakert, the sentences for the 16 defendants were read out loud. Babayan was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

1999 17 DECEMBER Babayan sacked as commander of Nagorny Karabakh armed forces.

2000 22 MARCH Assassination attempt on Gukasian in Stepanakert. Babayan arrested.

2001 26 FEBRUARY Babayan sentenced to fourteen years in jail for attack on Gukasian.

Release and return to politics

During the investigation and in jail, Babayan's health greatly deteriorated. He was said to suffer from hepatitis and other ailments which could not be treated in prison. On 18 September 2004, Samvel Babayan was released from maximum-security prison in Shusha due to health concerns, with the terms of release including a probationary period and continued disenfranchisement.

In November 2005, Samvel Babayan founded the Dashink political party with his supporters. The party did not achieve any major success.

Inactivity and return

Babayan returned to Armenia in May 2016 after a de facto exile in Moscow, shortly after major clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact. He stated, "Whether I was in Karabakh, Armenia or abroad, the security concerns of my country, my people have always been on my mind. I have the full grasp of the military situation, the problems at the frontlines and possess all necessary information."

Reputation and image

The same could be said of Samvel Babayan, a man without higher education, but with innate sense, original ideas and exceptional organisational skills.

Especially since 2001, when a local bully and racketeer, Samvel Babayan, was put in jail, Karabakh— which calls itself independent but is in practice virtually joined to Armenia-has had something recognisable as local politics and a mixed economy.

Out of the conflict two significant figures rose to power in Armenia and NagornoKarabakh: Vazgen Sarkisyan, Armenia’s first defense minister, and Samvel Babayan, the “golden hero of Artsakh” (the Armenian term for Nagorno-Karabakh).

sources

https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/83781/posts/36524

Paralleling Sarkisyan’s rise and tragic fall was the career of Samvel Babayan (born 1965), one of the brightest and most talented commanders of the Karabakh war. Writing in the newspaper Golos Armenii, one observer noted that Babayan “made courageous and uncommon decisions without any academic and military knowledge.” Despite his young age, Babayan became the commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army (1992) and later de facto minister of defense (1995). In the late 1990s, he founded the political party “Right and Accord” and competed in Armenia’s 1999 parliamentary elections. For his merit in organizing the protection of Nagorno-Karabakh and for his courage and personal bravery, Babayan was awarded “The Gold Eagle” and “The Hero of Artsakh,” Nagorno-Karabakh’s highest rank.

Babayan epitomized the coming together of black markets and war.

Trading hostages during the war also became a business. Later, Babayan established a monopoly over all cigarettes and gasoline imported to the isolated region. Together with his brothers and other relatives, Babayan also oversaw most local job appointments, all the way down to the most insignificant (including nurses, teachers, and prison inspectors). Babayan’s family members extorted bribes to release from prison those they themselves took into custody. Extremely suspicious of all around him, Babayan eliminated all his opponents, many of whom also combined politics with business, through intimidation, shootings, and grenade attacks.

In 1999, Babayan was dismissed from his posts. The following year he was arrested and charged with organizing an attempt on the life of Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto president Arkady Ghukasyan. Sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, he served four years before receiving a presidential pardon. After his release, Babayan moved to Yerevan where he continued his career as a minor politician. He founded the “Dashink” (Alliance) party, which later merged with three other parties.

In film, his memoirs, and media interviews, Babayan’s comments depict a man with extreme confidence in the virtue of his position. In remarks to a journalist who asked if he took money belonging to the army, he replied, “The only thing I wish to note is that when I was leaving, the ministry's auditors uttered only 'thank you!' and 'Ketstses!' [Well done!]. This is because we did work that cost twice the amount of money that was allocated to the army budget.” He also observed that “if there is a single sign of mistrust towards me, I will leave. I am the very Samvel Babayan on whose shoulders the destiny of the nation was laid down in 1992. Thanks to God, I have managed with honor.” His “main mistake,” he concluded, “was continuing to work with people who did not accept my views after the cessation of military action.”

Such an attitude was not an obstacle to his enjoying considerable popularity. This was especially so at the start of the war, when he distinguished himself through bravery and talent at a time when such qualities were in high demand. In later years, Babayan’s popularity remained high among veterans and villagers, nowhere more so than in his native mountain village of Mysmyna.

When in 2000 Babayan’s family house was confiscated and converted into a rural school, parents refused to send their child to the school on September 1 as a sign of honor and appreciation for the “glorious family.” The same type of honor was displayed when the orchards of Babayan’s clan were confiscated for public use. “Not a single fruit or berry was picked from the trees. No human foot stepped into those gardens. This belongs to him only, and to no one else,” said one of the locals. This kind of obstinance in the face of official edict speaks of a kind of primordial loyalty to a patron.

Many consider the overcoming of Babayan’s personality cult to be a turning point in the political history of the de facto state, a unique check of its durability. This test seems to have been successful. Despite Babayan's warlordish behavior, which in a short period of time managed to offend a large number of people, he was treated quite softly in light of his infinite popularity stemming from his wartime leadership. Ghukasian later argued that “Babayan’s trial was an ‘exam’ that proved how ‘Karabakh is developing as a society’” (de Waal, Black Garden).

One might say that Nagorno-Karabakh became a model of legitimized and institutionalized warlordism, where some warlords gained high political office and enjoyed great social renown. Many people still perceive their abuses of power to be “deserved.” But the fact that Babayan could “joke that if he did not like what the Armenian government was up to, he would move his tanks on Yerevan” (de Waal, Black Garden) speaks to the continued gangsterish and usurper-type character of this authority, which is based on intimidation and force.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/babayan-remains-defiant

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/freeing-karabakh-military-chief-stirs-debate

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/karabakh-shooting-sparks-witch-hunt

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/karabakh-war-leaders-differ-over-peace-process

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/karabakh-police-seize-journalist

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/post-election-backlash-nagorny-karabakh

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/freedom-speech-threatened-karabakh

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/kocharian-allies-under-attack

https://iwpr.net/global-voices/talks-spell-hope-karabakh-accord

ArmeniaNow https://www.google.com/search?q=Samvel+Babayan+site%3Aarmenianow.com&oq=Samvel+Babayan+site%3Aarmenianow.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.8053j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

In both Karabakh and Armenia, an irregular fighting force became more organized. In Karabakh, the creation of the Defense Committee began to have an effect. The twenty-seven-year-old former garage mechanic Samvel Babayan employed ruthless tactics to form a Karabakh Armenian “army” of at least ten thousand men. Other commanders, such as Arkady Ter-Tatevosian, the conqueror of Shusha, went back to Armenia because they were unable to work with Babayan.

The main Karabakh army commander, Samvel Babayan, had become, at the age of twenty-eight, the most powerful man in the region and had ambitions to be reckoned with. Small in build, this “little Napoleon” was a creature of the war. He was uneducated and had previously made his living washing cars and working in a café. In 1991, he had been arrested and jailed by the Azerbaijanis, becoming a local hero on his release (although according to the Azerbaijani prosecutor Yusif Agayev, his offense had been criminal, not political).6 In 1992, Babayan acquired the reputation of being a ruthless military commander and an excellent military organizer. Later on, he and many of his comrades in arms treated the seized Azerbaijani territories as an endless source of plunder.

With the principle of a cease-fire agreed to by both sides, it now had to be put into effect on the ground. This was done by a round of what Kazimirov called “fax diplomacy” conducted through his office in Moscow. The Azerbaijani defense minister, Mamedrafi Mamedov, signed his commitment to a cease-fire in Baku on 9 May. The next day the Armenian defense minister, Serzh Sarkisian, signed the same document in Yerevan. Samvel Babayan, the Karabakh Armenian commander, signed on 11 May in Stepanakert. At midnight on 11–12 May 1994, the ceasefire took effect and—despite a shaky start—it held.

THE SMALL AUSTERE room was lined with wooden benches and illuminated by a bank of strip lights. But for the floor-to-ceiling metal cage on the left side, it could have been a school classroom. Inside, two rows of young men sat together under guard; seated at a short distance from them was Samvel Babayan, a small man with a wispy moustache and an inscrutable expression. The former commander of the Karabakh Armenian armed forces was on trial for attempted murder and high treason. Babayan had a swift fall from power. For five years after the 1994 cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan, still not yet thirty years old, he was acclaimed as the all-Armenian hero. Combining the posts of minister of defense and commander of the army in the self-proclaimed statelet of Nagorny Karabakh, Babayan had been the de facto overlord and master of the territory. Then at the end of 1999, a power struggle with the rest of the leadership broke into the open and he was sacked from his posts. Three months later, in March 2000, the region’s elected leader, Arkady Gukasian, was riding home late one night through Stepanakert when his Mercedes sustained a fusillade of bullets fired by two gunmen. Gukasian was hit in the legs, and his bodyguard and driver were wounded. Babayan and his associates were arrested and accused of plotting to assassinate Gukasian and seize power.

Outside the courtroom other facts about Babayan were emerging into the daylight. The list of assets held by him and his family and confiscated when he was arrested included eight foreign cars, among them a Mercedes, a BMW, and a Landrover; two farms; two houses; five apartments; around forty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry and sixty thousand dollars’ worth of cash.1 By world standards, that may not have been excessive; in Nagorny Karabakh, that made him unimaginably wealthy.

Babayan and his family had made money out of both war and peace. In wartime, the wealth came from the “occupied territories,” when everything they contained was stripped, taken away, and sold, generally to Iran. The marauders missed nothing, whether it was scrap metal, factory equipment, copper wire, or roof beams. An Armenian friend described to me how he went to the ravaged city of Aghdam one June day after the war and saw the Felliniesque sight of men filling a line of flattop Iranian trucks to the brim with rose petals. The petals came from the thousands of rosebushes scrambling over the ruins of the deserted town, and the Iranians bought them to make jam.

In peacetime, Babayan and his family exploited the economic isolation of Nagorny Karabakh. He founded a company called Jupiter, registered in his wife’s name, which earned vast sums by acquiring the monopoly on cigarette and fuel imports to the enclave. Economic power was only half of it. “You couldn’t open a kiosk or be appointed as a schoolteacher without Babayan’s say-so,” said one disgruntled local. All political rivals were neutralized. A feud between Babayan and one military commander named “Vacho” ended in an armed showdown and Vacho’s fleeing Karabakh. Anyone who got in Babayan’s way risked ending up in Shusha jail and being ordered to pay a large bribe to secure his or her release. One father was asked to pay a much higher price: the delivery of either of his teenage daughters to Babayan. He told his daughters to stay at home while he frantically raised a ransom of five thousand dollars.

This part of the Babayan story was the most disgusting and also the hardest to report on because no Stepanakert girl would go on the record about Babayan’s rapist propensities. But several people told me how young women were afraid to go out in the evenings because Babayan and his friends would crawl the streets in their Mercedes at five miles an hour, in the manner of Stalin’s henchman Lavrenty Beria, looking for female prey. Some parents sent their daughters to Yerevan to escape his rapacity; other young women bore children who were nicknamed “little Samo.”

A repellent man certainly—but was Babayan plotting to seize power in March 2000? Some said that if Babayan, a proven military professional, had organized the assassination attempt on Gukasian, it would not have failed. The Bulgarian journalist Cvetana Paskaleva, a keen Babayan supporter, said that when she visited him just before his arrest, he was entirely focused on rebuilding his career peacefully, as a politician. Most of Stepanakert, however, seemed to believe him guilty. “If not him, then who?” people said. The veteran activist Zhanna Galstian declared that the trial was the logical culmination of the commander’s ambitions: “Samvel Babayan took away our initiative, he made people slaves. If this trial wasn’t happening, it would all have been in vain.”

Postwar Armenian Karabakh faced a fundamental problem: What kind of future was there for an economically isolated statelet, unrecognized by the outside world, while the dispute with Azerbaijan was unresolved? What was the price of lasting peace? When I met Babayan for the first and only time, a few weeks after he had been sacked as army commander and a few weeks before he was arrested, he showed he had started thinking about these issues. Physically, the commander looked more like Marcel Proust than a fearsome warlord. He was small, dapper, and neat, and had a shiny black moustache. Yet I was also struck by his uncanny resemblance—in short stature, soft voice, and the almost identical name and age—to another famous Caucasian loose cannon, the Chechen warrior leader Shamil Basayev. As with Basayev, the hard black eyes gave a clue to the breaker of human lives underneath.

Babayan talked about war and peace in the same breath. He mused that what he called a “fourth round” of the war might finally bring Azerbaijan to its knees. “If there is this fourth round, it will be decisive and then we won’t have to stop the war and sit down at the negotiating table. If we stop again, as we did in 1994, then we will forget again that this problem existed.”3 Yet he also wanted to cut a deal with Azerbaijan. Perhaps as a result of several years in charge of Nagorny Karabakh’s feeble and isolated economy, Babayan recognized that economic development could come only through trade with the eastern neighbor. “We are very interested

in the Azerbaijani market.” He added that as a man who had won territory on the battlefield, he was the best man to give it up at the negotiating table. Then, in an offhand manner but evidently wanting to gauge my reaction, he threw out one sensational tidbit. “Ilham Aliev keeps wanting to meet me in Paris,” he said, referring to the son and heir of the Azerbaijani president. “So far I haven’t said yes.”

Babayan was never able to keep his rendezvous with Ilham Aliev— if indeed it was a real proposal, not just a fantasy. He was arrested three weeks later, and in February 2001 he was sentenced to fourteen years in jail for organizing the assassination plot against Gukasian.

“We kept this myth [of Babayan] for the outside world. Unfortunately it didn’t work.” Nagorny Karabakh’s elected “president” Arkady Gukasian was propped up on a divan in his residence. More than six months after the attack, one of his feet was still bare and bound with bandages. Gukasian is a former journalist, but with his round balding head, neat moustache, and cheerful countenance he looks more like a bank manager. In 1997, he took over as Nagorny Karabakh’s elected leader when Robert Kocharian moved to Yerevan to become prime minister of Armenia. I wanted his explanation for why he had promoted the cult of Samvel Babayan the hero, who had then become his enemy. “Many people are guilty for the way he became what he is,” Gukasian conceded.4

Nagorny Karabakh’s military success was hailed by Armenians as a rare and historic victory. This gave Karabakh and its leaders a heroic reputation and great influence in Armenia. Robert Kocharian, the head of the State Defense Committee, became Nagorny Karabakh’s first “president” in December 1994 after a vote in the local parliament. He was reelected, by popular vote, in November 1996. In May 1994, the Karabakhi military leader, Samvel Babayan, was made a major-general in the Armenian army and began to gather economic and political power beyond Karabakh itself. He helped form a parliamentary party named “Right and Accord” to fight the 1999 parliamentary elections in Armenia. Babayan was heard to joke that if he did not like what the Armenian government was up to, he would move his tanks on Yerevan.

Robert Kocharyan may nominally be President, but the strongest nationalism comes from Samvel Babayan, the 31-year-old "Defense Minister," and real Commander of Karabakh.

"Why should we give up the occupied territories?," he asked me with a steely glare. "Give me one example in the history of the world when a nation, after winning a war of independence, had to capitulate?"

Babayan is the youngest general in the former Soviet Union. He was an indisputable hero of Karabakh's partisan war, even earning an extended stay in a Baku torture chamber during "Operation Ring," the 1991 Azeri crackdown on underground paramilitary groups.

Another area prone to conflict is the district of Kelbajar in the former corridor region, which, according to the Karabakh Minister of Defence, Samvel Babayan, must also be kept off the negotiating table.

https://eurasianet.org/armenia-war-hero-sentenced-to-six-years-in-prison

https://eurasianet.org/armenia-arrest-missile-smuggling-allegations-amid-election-campaign

https://eurasianet.org/armenia-former-karabakh-military-leader-takes-to-politics

In his turn, Samvel Babayan, Ohanian's predecessor, now the leader of Armenia's Dashink Party, told the Chorrord Ishkhanutiun newspaper that he has information that indicates serious disagreements exist between Yerevan and Stepanakert over which occupied territories should be freed, the positions to be held by any international peacekeeping forces and on the timing of the referendum on the territory's status. https://eurasianet.org/karabakh-talks-for-armenia-more-questions-than-answers

http://asbarez.com/38419/ill-never-turn-my-back-against-robert-kocharian-says-defense-minister/ "My relations with Vano Siradeghian. Vano is my friend like Levon (Ter-Petrosyan)–Robert (Kocharian)–Serge (Sarkissian)–Samvel (Babayan)–Babken (Ararktsian) and others. Together we traveled a terrible way. There were days when the fate of our country and our fates hung by a thread.

http://asbarez.com/36316/ghoukassian-announces-new-cabinet/

An article in the Armenian state newspaper "Hayastani Hanrapetutyun" on August 6 argued that the Armenian society must accept that "mutual concessions on key issues" are necessary to resolve the conflict. The article sparked widespread speculation that the Armenian leadership is preparing to make substantive concessions. Writing in "Hayots Ashkhar" on August 7–Samvel Babayan–the commander-in-chief of the Karabakh Armenian armed forces–rejected such speculation. He asserted that "even if such a document is signed–it won’t be implemented." http://asbarez.com/34130/further-karabakh-peace-talks-scheduled/

Petrossian presented a group of Karabakh servicemen with government awards. Karabakh Defense Minister Samvel Babayan was conferred the title of the Hero of Karabakh. He was also awarded the Order of the Golden Eagle. http://asbarez.com/33588/shoushi-liberation-anniversary-marked-in-armenia-karabakh/

Tensions with Ghukasyan

Two weeks ago (Jan. 7-8)–the Armenian Security Council held a meeting in Yerevan attended by the NKR’s top leadership–including Ghoukassian and Defense Minister Samvel Babayan–who in an interview last fall had suggested that new hostilities may be inevitable if a peace agreement is not signed soon.

Armenian government media published no details of the meeting–but the independent newspaper "Aravot" last week ( Jan. 14) reported that serious differences of opinion emerged within the Armenian leadership–with Kocharian and the two Sarkisians backing the Karabakh leadership in defiance of Ter-Petrosyan.

http://asbarez.com/34930/differences-on-karabakh-conflict-precipitate-crisis/

http://asbarez.com/37741/local-elections-in-karabakh-conclude/

http://asbarez.com/36930/tobacco-company-faces-competition/

http://asbarez.com/36143/ghoukassian-to-assume-duties-of-prime-minister/

http://asbarez.com/40258/karabakh-military-elite-relinquish-their-honors/

http://asbarez.com/40241/kocharian-warns-against-challenges-to-ghoukassian/

http://asbarez.com/40249/ghoukassian-consult-with-karabakh-officials/

http://asbarez.com/40231/political-tensions-escalate-in-karabakh/

http://asbarez.com/40181/bugging-scandal-said-to-cause-karabakh-firings/

http://asbarez.com/39861/pro-karabakh-bloc-alleges-threats-from-unity/

http://asbarez.com/38186/karabakh-minister-discusses-conflict-with-students/

http://asbarez.com/41676/ghoukassian-says-no-opposition-in-karabakh/

http://asbarez.com/40918/ghoukassian-tells-cabinet-to-work-as-team/

http://asbarez.com/40902/defense-chief-says-karabakh-crisis-over/

http://asbarez.com/40419/defense-interior-ministers-appointed-in-karabakh/

http://asbarez.com/40266/armenian-president-wont-be-indifferent-if-crisis-develops-in-karabakh-says-spokesperson/

http://asbarez.com/40267/kocharian-travels-to-karabakh-to-mediate-standoff-supports-ghoukassian/

http://asbarez.com/41803/karabakh-extends-martial-law-opposition-boycotts/

http://asbarez.com/42373/ghoukassian-stabilized-investigation-continues-into-assassination-attempt/

http://asbarez.com/42362/assassination-attempt-on-ghoukassian-fails-28-arrested-including-former-armed-forces-chief/

http://asbarez.com/42302/karabakh-parliament-backs-new-election-bill/

http://asbarez.com/42025/former-karabakh-army-commander-assistant-arrested/

http://asbarez.com/41871/new-union-formed-to-ward-off-opposition/

http://asbarez.com/41775/kocharian-says-oct-27-killers-mislead-inquiryfather-parsegh/

http://asbarez.com/41765/nagorno-karabakh-military-will-not-oppose-ghoukassian/

http://asbarez.com/41755/ghoukassian-fires-karabakh-army-commander-tensions-continue-to-rise/

http://asbarez.com/43782/interrogation-of-witnesses-in-march-22-case-continues/

http://asbarez.com/43762/head-of-presidential-human-rights-commission-back-from-karabakh/

http://asbarez.com/43380/march-22-defendant-cant-stand-trial-due-to-physical-mental-duress/

http://asbarez.com/42606/armenian-parliamentarians-comment-on-karabakh-elections/

http://asbarez.com/42381/interim-stepanakert-mayor-appointed/

http://asbarez.com/42388/assailants-revealed-in-ghoukassian-murder-attempt/

http://asbarez.com/42378/naira-melkumian-discusses-assassination-attempt/

http://asbarez.com/45786/former-mayor-of-stepanakert-sentenced-to-jail/

http://asbarez.com/44986/ghukasian-skeptical-about-peace-claims-success-in-karabakh-democratization/

http://asbarez.com/44505/former-karabakh-defense-minister-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison/

http://asbarez.com/44261/physical-altercation-in-karabakh-court/

http://asbarez.com/43969/key-suspect-joins-karabakh-trial/

http://asbarez.com/41734/karabakh-prime-minister-attacked-government-blasts-babayan-for-attempt/

http://asbarez.com/41089/karabakh-parliament-rejects-prosecution-of-babayan-ally/

http://asbarez.com/40170/babayan-seen-as-likely-karabakh-prime-minister/

http://asbarez.com/36208/ghoukassian-says-babayan-being-eyed-for-premiership/

http://asbarez.com/34983/babayan-responds-to-aravot-allegations/

http://asbarez.com/36173/babayan-discusses-changes-in-karabakh/

http://asbarez.com/36200/karabakh-rally-wants-babayan-as-prime-minister/

http://asbarez.com/39671/babayan-blames-media-for-distorting-recent-radio-interview/

http://asbarez.com/41749/karabakhs-senior-officers-demand-ghoukassian-babayan-resignations/

http://asbarez.com/42804/prosecutors-call-babayans-hunger-strike-provocation/

http://asbarez.com/42452/babayan-charged-with-and-accepts-plotting-coup/

http://asbarez.com/42422/karabakhs-babayan-to-face-more-charges/

http://asbarez.com/43747/babayan-denies-murder-charges-in-court-testimony/

http://asbarez.com/43735/paskaleva-determined-to-defend-babayan/

http://asbarez.com/43737/babayan-trial-continues/

http://asbarez.com/43637/babayan-trial-begins-in-stepanakert/

http://asbarez.com/43615/karabakh-supreme-court-rejects-petition-to-move-babayan-trial/

http://asbarez.com/42435/samvel-babayan-may-be-charged-in-connection-with-march-22-attack/

http://asbarez.com/41552/samvel-babayan-denies-interference-in-armenian-politics/

http://asbarez.com/44621/gen-arkady-ter-tadevosian-urges-clemency-for-babayan/

http://asbarez.com/44240/amnesty-international-observes-violations-of-human-rights-in-cases-of-samvel-babayan/

http://asbarez.com/42774/samvel-babayan-goes-on-hunger-strike/

http://asbarez.com/42828/samvel-babayan-stops-hunger-strike/

Imprisonment

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1567220.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1567768.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1574471.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1574481.html

http://asbarez.com/47232/ghoukassian-says-building-democratic-state-is-priority/

http://asbarez.com/50702/former-karabagh-army-chief-released-from-jail/

2005-07

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1576128.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1577392.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1579200.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1582813.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1587146.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1587458.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1589059.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1590005.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1591394.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1591733.html

http://asbarez.com/55683/will-the-ramkavars-merge-with-babayan-and-bazeyan/

2008-17

http://asbarez.com/59696/mediators-renew-calls-for-karabakh-peace/

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1783097.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1598714.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28059334.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/27938467.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/27782139.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/27784572.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/27761333.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/27759446.html

2017-18

https://web.archive.org/web/20180904225857/https://www.armenianow.com/en/news/politics/2016/05/26/armenia-samvel-babayan-karabakh-return-politics-security/3893/

2017 Armenian parliamentary election

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28307009.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/29291996.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/29065440.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28990212.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28883982.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28651107.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28403764.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28396538.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28386469.html

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/28384674.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSOtRkJDJcg&t=20s

http://asbarez.com/172813/former-karabakh-commander-samvel-babayan-freed-by-high-court/

views

http://asbarez.com/34278/war-imminent-in-karabakh-says-babayan/

http://asbarez.com/40124/babayan-sees-azeri-illusions-to-end-conflict-by-force/

Bibliography

• de Waal, Thomas (2003). Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1945-9.
• Shahnazarian, Nona (June 2010). "The Making of a De Facto State: Warlords and Militarized Society in NagornoKarabakh" (PDF). PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 103. Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2019.

{{Authority control}} {{National Heroes of Artsakh}} {{Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Babayan, Samvel}} [[Category:1965 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People from Stepanakert]] [[Category:Armenian generals]] [[Category:Politicians from the Republic of Artsakh]] [[Category:Armenian military personnel of the Nagorno-Karabakh War]] [[Category:Artsakh military personnel]]