OPPOSITION PARTIES MULL ‘ANTI-CRIMINAL MOVEMENT’
By Karine Kalantarian and Hovannes Shoghikian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 11 2006
Leaders of a dozen opposition parties gathered in Yerevan on Monday to
discuss ways of countering what they called a growing role of "criminal
elements" in Armenia’s government and political life in general.
Some of them called for a broad-based "anti-criminal movement"
that would try to bring those elements into line and strive for the
freedom and fairness of next year’s parliamentary elections. However,
no agreements on its creation were announced after the one-hour
discussion, with participants saying only that they will hold more
such meetings in the coming weeks.
"We are witnessing a growing role of criminal elements in the country’s
political life," Aram Karapetian, the leader of the radical Nor
Zhamanakner (New Times) party and one of the meeting’s initiators,
told RFE/RL. "They carry out murders and other actions that can not
leave us indifferent."
By "criminal elements" the oppositionists as well as some political
commentators and journalists often mean wealthy and influential
individuals with questionable reputations and close government
connections. A number of such individuals have joined recently the
governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) along with Defense Minister
Serzh Sarkisian, raising fears that the HHK is intent on winning the
2007 elections at any cost.
Sarkisian angrily dismissed such concerns late last month, insisting
that those of his loyalists who are not well-educated, can only
speak the slangy language and have notorious nicknames are not crime
figures. "The criminal elements are those who spread such slander,"
he said.
However, the oppositionists who attended the discussion think
otherwise. One of them, Garnik Markarian, said his small opposition
party called Fatherland and Honor will initiate a meeting of prominent
Armenian intellectuals soon to publicly name "criminal elements"
holding senior positions in government. "We will put compelling
evidence on the table," he said.
In a bid to substantiate its allegations, the opposition also points
to recent months’ upsurge in high-profile murders committed in
Armenia. Their latest victim, senior tax collection official Shahen
Hovasapian, was killed in a car bombing in broad daylight last week.
Aram Sargsian, a senior member of the opposition Artarutyun (Justice)
alliance, demanded on Monday that the Armenian parliament hold an
emergency debate on the law-enforcement authorities’ failure so
far to solve most of those murders. "The executive branch is simply
not performing its duties," he charged at the start of the National
Assembly’s autumn session.
The demand was rejected by the deputy chief of the Armenian police,
General Ararat Mahtesian, who insisted that the law-enforcers are
doing their best to solve those crimes and that the overall crime
rate in Armenia remains low. "The police are also worried and are
taking serious measures to solve these crimes," Mahtesian said.
"I don’t think that the situation with crime in Armenia is serious
now," he added. "I believe that on the contrary the situation is
under control. Serious crimes have always been committed here and
they must be solved."