Today I went to visit the mayor of Martuni to discuss our street, which once upon a time I had fixed when I first purchased my house by covering the clay (mud) with gravel so when it would rain, one could actually drive their car on it without it sliding all over the place and getting stuck.
The road was again repaired 3 years ago by the mayor’s office, at which time I also repaired ½ a kilometer of roads that connected to the road the mayor’s office fixed, just to see how much it really cost to make similar repairs and by doing so, deprived the contractor of the road of $4,000 that he was over charging.
Last year, they redid our water system and ripped up our road and then never recovered it with gravel as they were suppose to before the USAID contractor CRS left Karabagh, leaving us with a muddy mess of a road that when it rains you are bound to slip and fall in (if on foot), which my neighbor the commander of one of our bases wife and son have done.
So my visit to the mayor today was to discuss what we are going to do to repair our road and me making the offer to once again help out, but this time I would like some participation from the mayor’s office, which he committed 30 to 40 thousand dram. This means that I will supply the earthmoving equipment and he will provide the fuel. I will also trying to get my neighbor’s to participate with manpower.
As we were talking, the assistant Martuni prosecutor came by to the mayor’s house to invite him to a small birthday lunch for the head of the tax office, inviting me along also.
We went to a restaurant, where the birthday boy and 4 others sat (including me) and shared a meal.
During the end of our meal I shared with them the story of the last time I had sat in the room we were sitting in which took place January 30 or 31, 2001, when I was invited to a meal with the former Regional Minister after I had met with the Prime Minister to have the Regional Minister, Chief of Police and Prosecutor removed from their posts, which a month began to happen.
The head of the tax office asked me what the Regional Minister had done to me to make me want to remove him? I said he had not done anything directly to me, but what he was doing to the greater population and the fact that it was the wish of the people for 4 years to remove him and they were not successful justified the need for me to try.
One of the other guests told him that I do what I do here for the people and the head of the tax office didn’t want to believe that and said that someone from the outside told me to do this and for that reason I did that. I didn’t argue with him and said that he could believe what he wanted to, but my reasons were as the other guest had said.
He then went on to ask if the Regional Minister was all that bad and was the Regional Minister we have today any better?
I said that in fact when I had gone to see the Prime Minister, there had been another person I wanted to remove, which happened to be the present day Regional Minister who at the time was the head of the bank and I had documented his taking of bribes, but had not figured that the Prime Minister would not take me up on my offer to work together and place me in the post of Regional Minister, where at that time I would have very quickly removed the head of the bank.
The head of the tax office said that now he understands why I don’t like the present day government. I don’t like them because they didn’t make me Regional Minister. I disagreed and read off a list of reasons why they were not governing this country properly (you have read many of those reasons in my logs over the years) and noted that Kocharian and Serg Sarkissyan were at the head of our mismanaged government.
He went on to say that if I don’t like them that much, I could have never been able to work with them and they would not have let me work. I disagreed with him and said that I would have made them work if they liked it or not and they would have.
He continued to disagree until I told him that the biggest problem today is that Robert Kocharian and the people around him are all prostitutes (a title the locals give quite often to our officials and people who kiss up to them). I guess I said it loud enough that he quickly went to the door to shut it all the way so no one else in the restaurant could hear me. He then said that he bet that I had never said anything like that outside of the room we were sitting in. I said I had and would say it to their faces if given the chance because we all know it’s true. I added that the recent Armenian Fund telethon was part of the proof that very few in the Diaspora trusted them and even the money they raised here if not forced out of the people, they would have raised practically nothing. I then educated them that the president of the Armenian Fund is Robert Kocharian, something it’s seem very few here know. I added that since he knows Kocharian and his friends, he can feel free to share everything I have said with him, as I had said before, I would have no problem to document that the title of prostitute I give to Kocharian and his friends is fully justified.
Though he still tried to counter what I was saying, the look on his face had changed and it seemed that I planted a seed of doubt in his head. As I was walking out, one of his friends told me that even if he did agree with me, he could never say it as his job would then be on the line, just like the prosecutor who replace the one I had removed, who a couple of years back continued a toast I started to remind the people in power that they need to think a little bit more about our people, which he added that all they think about is the soft chair they sit in, this in front of some high ranking officials from Armenia as well. A month later, they tried to remove him for a month before they gave up and then recently found their chance (maybe for some other reason) and transferred him out of Martuni.
Anyway, in my book, today was a good day to practice my communication skills with the people who are part of our problem and plant seeds of change in them. If the seeds take is another issue.
The road was again repaired 3 years ago by the mayor’s office, at which time I also repaired ½ a kilometer of roads that connected to the road the mayor’s office fixed, just to see how much it really cost to make similar repairs and by doing so, deprived the contractor of the road of $4,000 that he was over charging.
Last year, they redid our water system and ripped up our road and then never recovered it with gravel as they were suppose to before the USAID contractor CRS left Karabagh, leaving us with a muddy mess of a road that when it rains you are bound to slip and fall in (if on foot), which my neighbor the commander of one of our bases wife and son have done.
So my visit to the mayor today was to discuss what we are going to do to repair our road and me making the offer to once again help out, but this time I would like some participation from the mayor’s office, which he committed 30 to 40 thousand dram. This means that I will supply the earthmoving equipment and he will provide the fuel. I will also trying to get my neighbor’s to participate with manpower.
As we were talking, the assistant Martuni prosecutor came by to the mayor’s house to invite him to a small birthday lunch for the head of the tax office, inviting me along also.
We went to a restaurant, where the birthday boy and 4 others sat (including me) and shared a meal.
During the end of our meal I shared with them the story of the last time I had sat in the room we were sitting in which took place January 30 or 31, 2001, when I was invited to a meal with the former Regional Minister after I had met with the Prime Minister to have the Regional Minister, Chief of Police and Prosecutor removed from their posts, which a month began to happen.
The head of the tax office asked me what the Regional Minister had done to me to make me want to remove him? I said he had not done anything directly to me, but what he was doing to the greater population and the fact that it was the wish of the people for 4 years to remove him and they were not successful justified the need for me to try.
One of the other guests told him that I do what I do here for the people and the head of the tax office didn’t want to believe that and said that someone from the outside told me to do this and for that reason I did that. I didn’t argue with him and said that he could believe what he wanted to, but my reasons were as the other guest had said.
He then went on to ask if the Regional Minister was all that bad and was the Regional Minister we have today any better?
I said that in fact when I had gone to see the Prime Minister, there had been another person I wanted to remove, which happened to be the present day Regional Minister who at the time was the head of the bank and I had documented his taking of bribes, but had not figured that the Prime Minister would not take me up on my offer to work together and place me in the post of Regional Minister, where at that time I would have very quickly removed the head of the bank.
The head of the tax office said that now he understands why I don’t like the present day government. I don’t like them because they didn’t make me Regional Minister. I disagreed and read off a list of reasons why they were not governing this country properly (you have read many of those reasons in my logs over the years) and noted that Kocharian and Serg Sarkissyan were at the head of our mismanaged government.
He went on to say that if I don’t like them that much, I could have never been able to work with them and they would not have let me work. I disagreed with him and said that I would have made them work if they liked it or not and they would have.
He continued to disagree until I told him that the biggest problem today is that Robert Kocharian and the people around him are all prostitutes (a title the locals give quite often to our officials and people who kiss up to them). I guess I said it loud enough that he quickly went to the door to shut it all the way so no one else in the restaurant could hear me. He then said that he bet that I had never said anything like that outside of the room we were sitting in. I said I had and would say it to their faces if given the chance because we all know it’s true. I added that the recent Armenian Fund telethon was part of the proof that very few in the Diaspora trusted them and even the money they raised here if not forced out of the people, they would have raised practically nothing. I then educated them that the president of the Armenian Fund is Robert Kocharian, something it’s seem very few here know. I added that since he knows Kocharian and his friends, he can feel free to share everything I have said with him, as I had said before, I would have no problem to document that the title of prostitute I give to Kocharian and his friends is fully justified.
Though he still tried to counter what I was saying, the look on his face had changed and it seemed that I planted a seed of doubt in his head. As I was walking out, one of his friends told me that even if he did agree with me, he could never say it as his job would then be on the line, just like the prosecutor who replace the one I had removed, who a couple of years back continued a toast I started to remind the people in power that they need to think a little bit more about our people, which he added that all they think about is the soft chair they sit in, this in front of some high ranking officials from Armenia as well. A month later, they tried to remove him for a month before they gave up and then recently found their chance (maybe for some other reason) and transferred him out of Martuni.
Anyway, in my book, today was a good day to practice my communication skills with the people who are part of our problem and plant seeds of change in them. If the seeds take is another issue.
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