UNITY IS THE SOLUTION OF NATION’S PROBLEMS
Christine Mnatsakanian

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Sept 22 2006

The third Armenia – Diaspora forum ended on September 20. On the second
day the New Answers to Old Questions: Armenia in the 21st Century
Forum took place, and our compatriots from India, Germany, Argentina
made reports. The forum was followed by the debate on the practical
aspect of the Armenia-Diaspora relations, in which famous businessmen
from Armenia and the Diaspora participated. In this context, they also
touched upon economic migration in an effort to seek possibilities
to battle this negative phenomenon. In answer to our question how
this could be carried out, Avetik Chalabian from Russia emphasized
the importance of this forum itself. He says the forum is unique
in the sense that it is intended to implement a definite project,
namely investments by Diasporan businessmen in the development of
rural communities, remote villages in Armenia. It is clear that this
will enable people to earn their living in their village. However,
everything is not that simple. The talk with Diasporan businessmen
reveals their worries about development of Armenia but they avoid
making big investments, and the reason is clear: in a number of cases
the funds provided by Diasporan benefactors were wasted. It appears,
however, that the formula of tackling this phenomenon was worked out
in the course of the forum.

Member of Parliament Khachatur Sukiassian, for instance, suggests
controlling the funds provided for a project to ensure its targeted
use. In other words, every businessman will attend to a separate
village. The Armenia-Diaspora relations will not be viewed as charity,
and two basic problems will be solved. Besides the targeted spending
of the funds provided by Diasporans, this project will enable
connecting each of the Diasporan communities to separate regions
and separate communities of Armenia and make them full participants
of the processes in different villages of Armenia. For its part,
the third Armenia-Diaspora forum has one purpose – view the program
of overcoming poverty as a project intended to establish mutually
profitable cooperation to replace charity. By bringing into being
this project our compatriots will be helped to overcome the feeling of
being guests in their homeland. The chair of the Union of Armenians of
Russia Ara Abrahamian said the idea of national unity should underlie
the implementation of this project. "Even if separate communities
are strong, and separate organizations of the Diaspora are strong, it
is impossible to guarantee the organizational and political unity of
the Armenians worldwide without the active engagement of the Republic
of Armenia."