Monday, July 21, 2003

Though I dislike writing about the dark side of life in Armenia and Artsakh, it seems that following the presidential and parliament elections, things are getting worse as those elected and appointed officials in power are abusing their authority in the worst possible ways.

When I was in Yerevan, I was talking to a friend who he and his brother had leased a stone mine from the forestry service in Yerevan and entered into a 10-year agreement to allow them to mine for stone.

He was telling me of all the equipment they had purchased worth tens of thousands of dollars and the countless hours they put in to their mining operation to had finally in the month of June started to excavate good quality stones.

The day following our meeting, I learned that my friend and his brother were contacted by someone in the Armenian army telling them they had 24 hours to vacate the stone mine, as the army, who has a military academy next to their mine, had privatized their land and were planning on expanding the academy.

Since we know generals at the ministry of defense and other government officials in high places, a few phone calls were made to find out how someone who has a legal agreement with the government could be given 24 hours notice to vacate land, years before their agreement expires?

It seems that someone from the department of defense went to see the mayor of Yerevan on the 23rd or 24th of June and requested to privatize the land in question and was given title to that land the following day (this in itself is legally impossible).

The mother of my friends had asked one of our friends in the ministry of defense for a meeting with the minister to discuss this issue and was told he was out of the country and was due back on July 7th.

On July 9th, we made a call to our contact at the ministry of defense to see what had become of our request to meet with the minister and were told that the minister does not want to meet with anyone in regards to this subject and that it has been decided that the academy will be expanded and the minister himself is in on this deal.

When asked what will come of the stone mine, we were told that the army will work it for their own use.

So here is just another example of Armenian democracy at work. Every government official out for themselves and their pockets at the price of someone trying to make an honest living in the homeland.

In all the Armenian history I�ve read, I can�t say that we have ever experience so many acts of treason and abuse of power by such a wide range of our leaders, leaders who I can clearly document are traders to our developing nation.

In the past 5 years I�ve been hearing people talk about the need for revolution, but in all these years have I never felt that revolution could take place here, not until recently.

When blood starts to flow in the recently renovated street of Yerevan (on a very small scale, it has already started), Armenians from all over will come to realize that the energy spent on getting the Armenian genocide recognized (as important as this is) should have been spent on preventing the recent self-inflicted Armenian genocide which it taking place right now in the motherland.

It�s still not to late to centralize our resources and for those that share my concerns, please e-mail me and let�s do something to prevent a real tragedy from hitting our homeland. Trust me, it can be done, but has to be done now.

No comments:

Post a Comment