Yesterday morning I got a call at 10:46:05 from a very upset Minister of Territorial Administration, Armo Tsaturyan. According to him, he got a call from the director of the Armenia Fund regarding our Haygazyan update (see MOB’s January 8, 2007 log).
Armo seemed to be in a panic over what he was told I wrote about the problems with the Armenia Fund and the misrepresentation of donations from Kirk Krikorian, Cafesjian and Vahe Garabedian, totaling $4.5 million. Of the many things Armo told me during our January 7, 2007 meeting that lasted for 1 hour and 20 minutes, he admitted to know about the $1 million from Vahe Garabedian not being part of the fund, saying that Garabedian has his own fund and went on to say he was surprised as to how much the Armenia Fund had raised, as the government for the most part believed that the Diaspora during the November 2006 Thanksgiving day telethon would not make many contributions. Of course from what we now know, at very least, $4.5 million of the reported contributions were not made to the Armenia Fund and this was just a scam perpetrated by the President of Artsakh to motivate the Diaspora to give. There is a good chance that they didn’t raise the whole $9.1 million balance as there were other large donation that may not exist. In addition to this, my research following the telethon indicates that most of the donations from Artsakh and Armenia were not from willing donors (as in the past), but forced out of common people who work for the Armenian and Artsakh governments and money was automatically deducted from their salaries.
So no one accuses me of being rude, I would like to take a moment to welcome the director of the All Armenia Fund to Martuni or Bust. I would like to take the liberty to speak for the majority of our readers and say that we are honored that you take what is posted on MOB seriously (this implied by your need to call Armo to complain to him about what was posted on MOB) and also hope you take the information posted here into consideration when formulating your future plans, as what you have done during the last telethon is a really embarrassment to all of us. Also it is not becoming of the director to terrorize Armo for speaking the truth about your dishonest actions.
Though I would guess that Armo’s days as a minister are numbered, since his comments of executing all the corrupt officials and business persons who have high jacked our economy, need to audit past work in Lachin and Antranik Markaryan being the reason for our inability of removing the present day regional minister of Lachin, I want to say that those person in power like Armo really do gave me hope that there are people in government that have had enough with all the corruption and are ready do what needs to be done to make things right, even if that means lining up those that are causing hardship for the greater population and shoot them down (though I think this is a bit extreme).
In the 1 hour and 20 minute meeting, Armo spoke to my heart, echoing many of the things I have posted in the past on MOB. I really liked his interpretation of how people in government skim funds and how there really needs to be a limit to how much they skim.
If Armo is dismissed from his post (which I hope he is not), he will be another example of what happens to someone who wants to really serve the people, speak his mind as an Armenian and in the end for speaking the truth is destroyed by those that are at the very top.
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