Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
During the last month social activity has intensified in Armenia – various social groups of the population conduct protests.
The protests reflect unsettled social problems, first of all. Moreover, the flames of people’s anger were caused by the fact that the authorities have no will to undertake necessary reforms which could solve such old problems as unemployment, the rise in the numbers of poor and those leaving the country.
Probably, a constraining factor of the pressure existing in society was the presidential and municipal elections, because the majority of people were counting on them. However, a series of events demonstrated that their hopes for changing the situation in the country couldn’t come true. The government has almost remained the same; despite heavy criticism by the opposition, the parliamentary majority literally rushed the program of the new government; the row over the mayor of Taron, Marganyan, who possessed property which cost $6 million more than his official income, but he was appointed mayor again, and so on.
One activator of people’s dissatisfaction was, on the one hand, the authorities’ decision to raise gas and electricity rates; on the other hand, the power of nature: heavy hail fell in May several times and damaged agriculture in some regions, primarily Armavir, where the power of nature destroyed harvests in 46 village communities. The initial hesitation of the officials, their attempts to postpone a settlement of the issue on compensation and freezing bank credits taken by farmers caused a storm of protest.
Desperate farmers twice shut off the highway between Armevir and Yerevan, demanding settlement of the problems that had appeared. As a result, the government decided to allocate seeds, fertilizers and diesel fuel to residents of the 46 village communities as compensation. 22 communities are completely exempt from land taxes and water payments; 44 communities are partially free; negotiations with banks on the time-out on repayment and possible decrease of interest rates are being held. The behavior of the village residents is significant. It was the first time in the history of Armenia that a group of people had taken such a radical step as shutting off a highway on order for the authorities to fulfil their demands.
The civil disobedience shown by farmers in Armavir became an example for residents of several villages in the Shirak region, who shut off a road for milk tank vehicles on June 11. The reason for this was decrease of the milk purchase value by 10 drams and increase of milk product prices by 10%. And none of representatives of the agricultural department in the regional administration and of the Ministry of Agriculture could explain why milk products rose in price in a season of price decrease.
Employees of the company Armavia (which went bankrupt in late March) conducted peaceful protests and demanded payment of salary owed for 7 months. In the course of a month the former staff of the company held three protests in front of the government’s house and the presidential palace. After the third protest, which took place on June 7, the press secretary of the company. Nana Avetisova, stated that debt payment would begin in the very near future.
In May and early June people protested against increasing gas and electricity rates, which are set to grow by 20-25% since July 7th.
Since May a group of veterans of the Karabakh war have been demanding that the leadership pay attention to social and other problems of veterans and provide their rights. They demanded a meeting with Premier Tigran Sarkisyan, who met veterans on June 7th and promised to order the corresponding departments to settle their problems.
On June 10-11 200 lawyers declared a two-day strike against the work of the Court of Cassation. Therefore, Armenia has never seen so many flashes of people’s anger in its history. The protests were a reaction by citizens to the passivity of the authorities.
It seems the leadership has to think about the reality. If they don’t take real rather than shallow and declarative steps on changing the situation in the socio-economic sphere, the atmosphere in the country could become very tense. Declarations that economic growth is 7.2% and all problems can be settled sound unconvincing, because people continue to leave the “affluent” country.
