Lragir, Armenia
Oct 19 2007

MILL IS BECOMING A POLITICAL FACTOR AT HOME

As the Armenian presidential election is drawing nearer, the mill is
becoming one of the core factors in the political life at home. The
former representative of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s central committee
Grisha Hairapetyan who was the director of this company and is
accused of embezzlement by the case of the mill of Stepanakert.
Recently the SIL Concern of Khachatur Sukiasyan was audited by the
case of the mill of Yerevan. These two events seem to have nothing in
common, and are economic cases. In Armenia, however, the economy is
only part of the political system and relations, and is guided by
quite another logic than the economic one.

The mill of Stepanakert and some other companies in Karabakh are run
by Diasporan businessmen, mainly members of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun,
and the representative of the investments in the mill is Abo
Poghikyan. He has already been interrogated for a few times, although
no official information has been released. On the other hand, Grisha
Hairapetyan, who has been arrested, is not a secondary figure in the
ARF Dashnaktsutyun. Many in Karabakh and Armenia think it is an
effort to push Dashnaktsutyun not to name president. This opinion is
not far from the truth, considering the prehistory and essence of the
Karabakh presidential election. Certainly, it is only one aspect of
this issue, and we will return to Grisha Hairapetyan’s case and the
behavior of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun later.

The events related to another mill, the mill of Yerevan, also stem
from the upcoming presidential election. The point is that Member of
Parliament Khachatur Sukiasyan, who bought the mill from another
member of parliament Levon Sargsyan, has never hidden his sympathy
for the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Now by
launching an audit at the mill bought by Khachatur Sukiasyan who was
trying to heal the company which was broke and plundered, the
government is trying to keep him away from Ter-Petrosyan.

By the way, Levon Sargsyan is now a member of the National Assembly
Committee of human rights.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress