HELLO… CAN I SPEAK TO ALEXANDRE VARBEDIAN?

Hetq Online
September 17, 2007
Armenia

This is what the telephone caller to the "Hetq" office asked. Our
first reaction was that the call was a prank since "Hetq" has published
several articles about Alexandre Varbedian and the fact that for the
past five years he has been denied an entry visa for Armenia. He has
never been told the exact reason why.

Mr. Varbedian, a French citizen, has a son and grandchild in Yerevan
whom he cannot see.

It was later revealed that the caller was one Minasyan, an employee
of the Consular Department of the Armenian Foreign Ministry. In May
of this year "Hetq" had sent a letter to Foreign Minister Oskanian
requesting the reasons why Alexandre Varbedian was being denied entry
into Armenia. For three months we were bounced from one office to
another. Only recently were we able to find out to whom the letter
had been entrusted. It appears that the result of all our telephone
calls was that Foreign Ministry employee Minasyan decided to give us
a phone call and ask to speak to Alexandre Varbedian. A week before
receiving this call we again attempted to ascertain the whereabouts
of our letter and why no one deemed it necessary to respond to it. An
employee of the Foreign Ministry’s General Division again told us
that our letter had been forwarded to the Consular Department and
that it was no longer their responsibility.

It took us a full five minutes and much effort to get the complete name
of the employee at the Foreign Ministry’s General Division with whom
we were speaking. When asked to identify himself, the person replied
that it wasn’t important. When we said that we were ready to take the
matter to court and that we needed to get some answers to our numerous
inquiries, he seemed to take a bit more notice. After some more coaxing
from us he finally relented and said his name was Vahagn Papoyan.

There are people working at the Foreign Ministry who are adept at the
art of deception. They gave us the run-around with answers such as,
"We’ll call you back in fifteen minutes" or "That person is away on
vacation". That vacation seemed to have lasted for a whole three
months. Other responses to our phone calls included phrases such
as, "I won’t answer. I don’t know anything so call the General
Division". And when we did so we were told to "Call such and such a
number". Are these just lies conveyed in "diplomatic guise" to fool
the unsuspecting common citizen or a well-honed method the staff uses
to do absolutely nothing in the way of real work?

Should we go to the courts based solely on the fact that the Foreign
Ministry staff seems to be incompetent? When we picture the years the
matter would be dragged out in the court system we remove the thought
from our minds. The only recourse left would be to employ our "personal
contacts". If you want to get anything done in Armenia you must use
your "personal contacts". On August 12th we finally received a reply
to our letter sent out at the end of May. This time we didn’t have
to play the "personal contacts" card. That can wait till next time.

In his letter dated September 11th, Tigran Seyranyan, Director of
the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Division, wrote that, " We wish to
inform you that in accordance with internationally accepted norms,
the reasons for denying someone an entry visa are not revealed. We
also wish to inform you that the general conditions under which entry
visas for the Republic of Armenia can be denied and the circumstances
involved are clearly spelt out in the Republic of Armenia’s law
entitled "In Regards to Foreign Nationals".

In previous articles we’ve discussed this law and those aspects of
it, which pertain to the case of Alexandre Varbedian. In fact, the
few lines that Seyranyan sent to us in response contained nothing in
the way of pertinent information. Such a reply could have and should
have been sent out back in June in order to comply with the five-day
time limit as prescribed by the Republic of Armenia law regarding the
"Freedom of Information".

We would strongly suggest that employees of all government
institutions, especially the staff at the Foreign Ministry, familiarize
themselves with this law, in addition to all other pertinent laws on
the books regarding the disclosure of information.