NGO head accuses Armenian local officials of pillaging the villages

Arminfo
27 Feb 07

Yerevan, 27 December: Robert Simonyan, head of the Kashatagh
non-governmental organization for the protection of resettlers,
accuses the administration of the Kashatagh (Lacin) district of
embezzlement.

Speaking to journalists today [27 February], Robert Simonyan, who in
1990s was the head of the administration of five villages in the
Kashatagh district, accused both the former and the current heads of
the district administration, Aleksan Hakobyan and Hamlet Khachatryan,
of pillaging the villages and embezzling funds they had been given to
reconstruct the district.

The disagreement with the district administration over its policies
resulted in Simonyan’s persecution. A Yerevan resident, who had moved
to Kashatagh, was forced to go back again, but he claims that his
persecution did not stop there either.

Simonyan claims that he had repeatedly informed all possible instances
in Armenia – from the president to foreign diplomatic corps – of the
embezzlement by the district administration and the persecution of
himself and family members, but has not received a reasonable
answer. Today, Simonyan made a statement describing the talk about a
possible return of the liberated territories (security zone around the
Nagornyy Karabakh republic – Arminfo) as a crime and treason.

"On the one hand, they speak of keeping the Lacin corridor under the
Armenian control, but on the other hand, the local authorities and the
Armenian leadership create such inhuman conditions that the resettlers
run from those strategically important territories," Simonyan said. He
said that while 15,000 people lived in Kashatagh in 1988, only 2,500
people now remained there. He also said that the residents of the
border regions of Armenia – Ijevan, Tavush, Goris and Kapan – should
be entitled to a compensation for the damage caused by Azerbaijan.

"In addition, we demand that the Armenian and the NKR [Nagornyy
Karabakh republic] authorities did their best for both the protection
of the NKR borders with Iran and opening of bilateral communication
through it," the statement said.