Monday,
Sarkisian Calls For Immigration, Investments From Armenian Diaspora
(UPDATED)
. Anush Muradian
Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian addresses the Sixth
Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan, 18Sep2017.
Armenia's government will encourage ethnic Armenians living abroad to
relocate to their historical homeland in an effort to address its
demographic problems, President Serzh Sarkisian said on Monday.
Sarkisian urged Armenian Diaspora organizations to assist in that
endeavor as he addressed hundreds of their representatives attending a
government-organized conference in Yerevan. He also renewed his calls
for greater Diaspora investments in the struggling Armenian economy.
"We note that demographic trends in our country are extremely
concerning and result from many objective and subjective factors of
the last 25 years," he said in a long speech delivered at the Sixth
Armenia-Diaspora Conference. "In the coming years, our efforts will be
aimed at speeding up the natural growth of Armenia's population and
substantially changing the emigration-to-immigration ratio.
"We have declared that our goal is to ensure that Armenia has at least
4 million residents by 2040. Obviously we would have trouble attaining
that goal only by increasing the birth rate, prolonging life
expectancy and taking other steps to improve the demographic picture."
The ambitious goal, he went on, also requires "achieving serious
indicators of immigration into Armenia" in the next 25 years. "In my
view, the realization of this objective will be the main subject of
the next Armenia-Diaspora conferences," he said.
"I believe that we are ripe for seriously discussing the issue of
organizing repatriation," declared Sarkisian.
There are an estimated 8 million to 9 million ethnic Armenians around
the world. Only up to 3 million of them live in Armenia. Most of the
others reside in Russia, the United States, Europe and the Middle
East.
Throughout Sarkisian's nearly decade-long rule, scores of Armenia's
citizens have continued to leave their country for primarily economic
reasons. Opposition politicians and other critics of the Armenian
government blame the emigration on what they see as the Sarkisian
administration's failed economic policies and unwillingness to enforce
the rule of law in the country.
Some participants of the forum were skeptical about Sarkisian's
statement, saying that the authorities in Yerevan should ease
socioeconomic hardship in Armenia and stop people leaving the country
before setting such demographic targets.
"I don't believe in utopias," said Stepan Hovakimian, a representative
of the Armenian labor unions in Los Angeles. "I only believe in real
work."
"Thirty thousand Syrian Armenians came to Armenia. How many of them
stayed here?" said Vasken Kasemjian, head of the Social Democrat
Hnchakian Party in Britain. "There are still problems in Gyumri. More
than 25 years have passed since the [1988] earthquake but there are
still homeless people there."
"Let them solve those problems before speaking of grandiose programs,"
he added.
In his speech, Sarkisian again called on wealthy entrepreneurs from
the Diaspora to invest in Armenia. "All necessary conditions for doing
that and the right business environment have been created in Armenia,"
he claimed.
Greater Diaspora investments in the Armenian economy have been
hampered by the country's flawed business environment. While some
wealthy ethnic Armenian entrepreneurs from Russia, the United States
and other parts of the world have set up shop in the country, many
others have been scared away by government corruption and a lack of
judicial independence.
Those problems are apparently not on the agenda of the
Diaspora-Armenia conference that got underway on
Monday.Representatives of Armenia's main opposition groups were not
invited to participate in the forum.
Nikol Pashinian, a leader of the opposition Yelk bloc, condemned the
snub. "This and several other facts prove that the event is meant to
be a PR stunt by Serzh Sarkisian," he claimed.
U.S. Congressman Visits Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh - A representative of the HALO Trust briefs
U.S. congressman David Valadao (C) on its demining activities in
Karabakh, 18Sep2017. (Photo by the Amenian National Committee of
America.)
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives visited Nagorno-Karabakh
on Monday about two weeks after helping to ensure continued
U.S. government funding for humanitarian demining operations conducted
there by a British charity.
Representatives of the HALO Trust reportedly briefed the congressman,
David Valadao, on their land-clearing activities in Karabakh that
began 16 years ago.
The organization has since cleared around 90 percent of the
territory's minefields dangerously close to civilian areas. It has
destroyed more than 11,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines
mostly left over from the 1991-1994 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The
U.S. Congress has financed the effort as part of its direct
humanitarian assistance to Karabakh allocated over strong Azerbaijani
objectives.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives accepted Valadao's
proposal to allocate another $1.5 million to the HALO Trust's demining
program in Karabakh. The measure was also strongly backed by several
other pro-Armenian lawmakers, notably Ed Royce, the chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"It is a grave reality that families in Nagorno Karabakh live under
the very real threat of landmine accidents each and every day,"
Valadao said on September 7. "However, with the funding secured in my
amendment, I am optimistic significant strides will be made to ensure
the region is landmine free by 2020."
A Republican from California, Valadao is a member of the congressional
Armenian Caucasus. His constituency is home to a large number of
Armenian Americans.
The congressman travelled to Karabakh together with Raffi Hamparian,
the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a
Washington-based lobbying group.
An ANCA statement said Valadao will join five other U.S. lawmakers on
Thursday in attending official ceremonies in Yerevan to mark the 26th
anniversary of Armenia's independence.
Anti-Government Activist Again On Hunger Strike In Jail
. Sisak Gabrielian
Armenia - Hayk Kyureghian is overpowered by police officers after
firing gunshots outside a court in Yerevan, 12Jun2014.
A maverick activist controversially jailed in Armenia has again gone
on hunger strike in an apparent show of defiance against the
authorities.
The 33-year-old man, Hayk Kyureghian, was arrested in June 2014 and
sentenced the following year to 9 years in prison for firing gunshots
to protest against the trial of 14 other activists that staged a
violent anti-government demonstration in Yerevan.
Kyureghian fired from an air pistol towards police officers guarding a
court building in Yerevan after expressing indignation at what he saw
as an unfair trial of those men. He was overpowered and detained by
the policemen. The Armenian police said afterwards that the gunfire
left several officers lightly injured.
The harsh punishment handed to Kyureghian was denounced as unfair and
politically motivated by his family, friends and human rights
activists. He has repeatedly gone on hunger strikes since his arrest.
Kyureghian again began refusing food in his Armavir prison cell on
September 13. Nikol Pashinian, a leader of the mainstream opposition
Yelk alliance, said after visiting the activist on Monday that his
latest protest is timed to coincide with Armenia's approaching
independence anniversary. Kyureghian described the hunger strike as
"resistance against enemies of our independence," Pashinian wrote on
his Facebook page.
Gor Ghlechian, a spokesman for a Justice Ministry division managing
Armenia's prisons, said Kyureghian was moved to a special cell
immediately after notifying the prison administration about the hunger
strike. He gave no reason for the protest, Ghlechian told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
Kyureghian'stwo brothers were among three dozen members and supporters
of a fringe opposition group that seized a police station in Yerevan
in July 2015. The gunmen laid down their arms after a two-week
standoff with security forces which left three police officers
dead. They went on two separate trials in June.
Press Review
(Saturday, September 16)
"It is nave, to say the least, to think that if Serzh Sarkisian does
not become prime minister [in April] the [government] system will face
a collapse and the opposition will be able to step in," writes
"Zhamanak." "On the contrary, the fact that the opposition is again
targeting a single person means that basically the opposition itself
does not know what to do and is again doing something that will at
best leave it with an illusion of victory."
"Zhoghovurd" says that a series of shootings that outraged many in
Armenia in recent weeks were mainly revenge killings. The paper says
many are now also wondering whether Armenian law-enforcement bodies
were really unable to disarm those criminal groups beforehand. "If
they were not, then this is a tragedy for any state," it says. "It
would mean that there is no law-enforcement system as such. And if the
law-enforcers do control the situation and do not even try to take
away illegal weapons from criminal elements then it's a tragedy too."
"Haykakan Zhamanak" claims that such criminal groups have a government
"license" to act with impunity. "In return for that, they assume one
key obligation: to earn the [ruling] HHK votes during the elections,"
writes the paper. "That is also an additional source of revenue. The
center provides large sums of money for the distribution of vote
bribes. Part of it does not get distributed and is channeled into new
villas and expensive cars for local chieftains." The paper likens such
individuals to "gladiators whose only aim is to stay alive."
"Hraparak" speculates that European Union officials are now somewhat
worried that Armenia may not sign the Comprehensive and Enhanced
Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU as planed in November. "The
fact that Armenia dropped out of a [U.S.-led] military exercise in
Georgia at the last minute created fertile ground for those worries,"
the paper says. Armenian pundits, meanwhile, are confident that
Yerevan will not walk away from the deal with the EU this time around.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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