Friday, June 14, 2002

Living here in Artsakh most of the time is very rewarding, but from time to time as in any place one may live can be a little frustrating.

Almost 2 years ago, I applied for citizenship here in Artsakh. Though I never really saw a need for doing this, being I have the 10 year visa, I did it only because the Prime Minister encouraged me to do so with the promise that he would do everything to make sure that it would be a smooth process and he would personally make sure no one caused me problems along the way.

At that time I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and picked up an application. I asked the person working their how long the process would take and she told me that it takes from 3 to 6 months, this all depending on how helpful I have been to the country. From the descriptions of helpfulness, I thought I fell in the 3 month category.

After completing the form and providing all the necessary documentation, I waited and waited and waited�

I called the MFA the first time after the 6 months had passed and was told that they were waiting for the papers to come back from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). I called the MIA a few times and was told that they were waiting for some papers to complete my application. This sounded like a reasonable answer so I waited again.

After a few more calls to the MIA and no results, I took the opportunity during a meeting with the Prime Minister to tell him about my experience with the citizenship process and how it was not going as we had anticipated. I asked him if he could please intervene and see what we could collectively do to finally get the process completed? He agreed and made some notation.

A couple of months passed and I got an e-mail from my mother telling me that a friend at the Armenian Consulate Generals office in Los Angeles contacted her to ask if she could give a name of someone that is not a family member, but knows me and can give some kind of letter of recommendation, as the MFA has requested information about me and my background from them. From that e-mail, I knew that the Prime Minister was on the job and the process would surly be completed soon.

In June, my cousin and his wife had completed the process of qualifying to adopt a child from Armenia or Artsakh and asked that I help them out with finding a child and be their �agent� to deal with the red-tape they had heard about of from others that had adopted from Armenia. Being that I know the Prime Minister and practically everyone else in government here in Artsakh, it was only natural to choose Artsakh over Armenia for attempting to adopt a child.

My cousin and his wife arrived in mid-July and during the adoption process, the committee that was to determine if my cousin and his wife were fit to adopt, made some mention of my citizenship and in a way as if they were congratulating me on receiving it.

I was a bit puzzled and asked them what they had to do with it? They told me that they were the committee that reviewed and approved my citizenship and sent it off to the President for a signature 6 months earlier. Well this was certainly news to me and something worth looking into.

When my cousin and his wife completed the adoption process 12 days after we applied to the Artsakh Government and they were back in the states a week later and that baby received its American citizenship 24 hours after landing on American soil, I was on the phone to the President�s office looking for my papers that should have been ready and signed.

After a couple of weeks of phone calls and no results, I contacted the Prime Minister�s representative, who was on the committee that approved me for citizenship and told me about them sending the papers for signature. He told me he would look into it and get back to me.

Months passed with me making many phone calls and visits to various people.

I finally located my papers at the MIA. I asked in the most civil way I could as to what the problem was and why they have my papers and not the President so he could sign it? They told me that they were waiting for one paper from the MFA. A letter of approval.

I immediately got on the phone to the MFA to talk to the minister herself, but was told that she was out of the country. I spoke to her deputy and asked him what was needed from me so we could get a letter of approval so we could finish this process by New Years? He told me he would take care of it in the next few days and not to worry. I thanked him and waited.

I called the MIA a few time before New Years and was told they are still waiting for the letter of approval from the MFA.

I called the MFA and talked to the deputy and he told me that they were waiting for a letter from the KGB so they could send the letter of approval. Boy was I getting the run around or what?

I called the KGB to see if they were up to speed with this letter that the MFA needed from them so they could send their letter of approval off to the MIA? When I finally talked to the head of the KGB, he gave me the impression that he just got the request and said that they need time to do this and are waiting for some information from the Armenian Embassy in the US. I asked if that could be something like the letter that was requested back in June? He said yes and as soon as he gets that, he would effectively be done with what he needed so he could give his report to the MFA.

I called the MFA and talked to the deputy telling him that the KGB needs the letter they got from the US. He said he would look into it.

I didn�t wait a minute and e-mailed my mother to contact the embassy and find out if and when they sent the letter.

She got back to me the next day and said it was sent in June and they were going to send it again to the MFA just in case they lost it.

I called the MFA the next day and before I could say anything, the deputy told me that he had the letter and was getting it off to the KGB. He added that nothing gets lost at the MFA and if for some reason I think I�m getting the run around, the MFA is the one place in government that does not give anyone the run around, you can be sure of this.

I waited again and decided that this time I was going to give everyone a month to get things in order, figuring that they had everything they needed and this hellish process would be done and over with soon.

Well a month passed and since I didn�t hear from anyone to tell me that I was a citizen, I knew the run around was still going strong.

I wrote a letter to the President to tell him what had transpired and to ask for his help. I explained to him in the letter that I not only called or visited different people over 80 times, but on 6 different occasions I was promised that the process was effectively done.

I didn�t hear back from the President�s office, so I called a couple of times and finally was put in contact with one of his advisers. I set up an appointment to see what we could do to get the problem solved.

I met with the adviser and he explained to me that 6 months after I applied for citizenship, the law changed and as of the date of our meeting, there was no working law in place for granting citizenship. Whatever the MFA, MIA and KGB told me were effectively lies and nothing more then a big waste of my time. The adviser was not happy at all and said he would call each one of them to I guess yell at them and relay my dissatisfaction with each one of them.

He went on to say that there will be no problem with me getting my citizenship and the new law was going to be heard and adopted my Parliament soon and I should be a citizen by April or May at the latest. I told him I would wait and would contact him at the end of May to see what happened.

Well, it�s now June 14th and my attempt to call the adviser has produced no results. When I called him around 11AM, he was in but busy and I was told to call back after 5PM. My call at 5:50PM went unanswered, but you can be sure I�ll be calling on him until I get some answer or idea as to what is going on.

I know for sure that Parliament has not yet heard my citizenship issue, as yesterday at lunch one of Parliamentarians was sitting across from me and I asked him. He did say, as so many before him, that it will not be a problem. He did add that Parliament is going to be meeting some time from the 15th to the 20th of this month, so maybe they will be talking about the citizenship issue.

One thing that I find very disturbing is that there are so many people that just want to pack up and leave this place and here I am, trying to replant my roots here. It took only 12 days for an Artsakh citizen to get approval to leave and become an American citizen, but for me to come here and become a citizen, it looks like it�s going to take more than 2 years.

Is there something wrong with this picture, or what?

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