Tuesday,
Former Armenian Defense Chief’s Russian Citizenship Confirmed
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - President Robert Kocharian (R) and Defense Minister Mikael
Harutiunian, 15 November 2007.
Russia has officially confirmed that a former Armenian defense minister wanted
by Yerevan on coup charges is a Russian citizen, an Armenian law-enforcement
agency said on Tuesday.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) issued an international arrest warrant
for retired Colonel-General Mikael Harutiunian in July. The SIS charged
Harutiunian with illegally using the armed forces against opposition supporters
who demonstrated in Yerevan against alleged fraud in a 2008 presidential
election. It said that amounted to an “overthrow of the constitutional order.”
The SIS brought the same coup charges against former President Robert Kocharian
and Yuri Khachaturov, the then secretary general of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO). Both men strongly denied them.
It emerged afterwards that Harutiunian now lives in Russia. Russian
law-enforcement authorities notified the Armenian police in September that they
will not arrest him.
The Interfax news agency reported at the time that Harutiunian has been a
Russian citizen since 2002. Russia’s constitution forbids the extradition of
Russian nationals to foreign states.
A spokeswoman for the SIS, Marina Ohanjanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
that it has received a formal confirmation of Harutiunian’s Russian citizenship
from relevant Russian authorities. She said the SIS has responded by asking
them to clarify when the ex-general received a Russian passport.
The Armenian constitution did not allow dual citizenship until 2006.
Harutiunian, 72, served as defense minister from 2007-2008. He was previously
the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff.
Moscow was quick to denounce the prosecutions of Kocharian, Harutiunian and
Khachaturov. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in July that they run
counter to the new Armenian leadership’s earlier pledges not to “persecute its
predecessors for political motives.”
Eight protesters and two police servicemen died when Armenian security forces
quelled the post-election protests on March 1-2, 2008. Kocharian declared a
state of emergency on that night, ordering troops into Yerevan.
The crackdown came just over a month before he handed over power to Serzh
Sarkisian, his preferred successor. Kocharian has repeatedly defended the use
of lethal force, saying that it prevented a violent seizure of power by Levon
Ter-Petrosian, the main opposition presidential candidate.
The SIS essentially backed Kocharian’s version of events until this spring’s
dramatic change of Armenia’s government. The law-enforcement agency now says
that Armenian army units were secretly told to move into the capital before the
declaration of emergency rule in violation of the Armenian constitution.
Armenian Police Corruption ‘Eliminated’
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - The chief of the Armenian police, Valeri Osipian, speaks to
journalists in Yerevan, December 20, 2018.
Valeri Osipian, the chief of the Armenian police, on Monday claimed to have
eliminated corruption in the police ranks since taking office after this
spring’s “velvet revolution” in the country.
Osipian made the statement as he answered questions from Facebook users at the
RFE/RL studio in Yerevan. He was asked to comment on critics’ claims that he
has been “weak” on crime and traffic rule violations.
“I’m very weak,” Osipian replied with sarcasm. “But I have managed to eliminate
corruption in the [police] system.”
He also cited in that regard the recent arrests and prosecutions of prominent
individuals connected to Armenia’s former leadership and claimed credit for the
fact that there were virtually no reports of vote buying or violence in the
December 9 parliamentary elections.
Nikol Pashinian named Osipian to run the national police service on May 10 two
days after being elected Armenia’s prime minister following weeks of
anti-government protests led by him. Osipian was until then a deputy head of
Yerevan’s police department responsible for public order and crowd control.
Introducing Osipian to high-ranking police officials on May 11, Pashinian said
one of his main tasks will be to crack down on police corruption which has long
been endemic. Osipian replaced virtually deputy chiefs of the police in the
following days.
The police chief admitted on Monday there has been a major increase in the
number of officially registered crimes in Armenia since then. But he blamed it
on objective factors such as a general amnesty declared by the authorities in
late October.
The controversial amnesty led to the release of hundreds of convicts. According
to the police, some of them have already been arrested for committing
burglaries and other crimes.
Osipian also repeated his recent claims that many crimes were underreported by
the police under his predecessors. Besides, he said, victims of petty crimes
are now less reluctant to report them because of greater public trust in the
police.
Syrian Armenians Also Protest Against Diaspora Ministry Closure
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - A demonstrator in Yerevan holds a poster objecting to government
plans to close the Ministry of Diaspora, .
A group of ethnic Armenian migrants from Syria joined on Tuesday employees of
Armenia’s Ministry of Diaspora in protesting against its closure planned by the
government.
A government bill publicized this week calls for reducing the number of
ministries in the country from 17 to 12 in line with Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s pledges to streamline the state bureaucracy. The Ministry of
Diaspora would be liquidated as a result.
The ministry employing 90 or so people was set up in 2008 by then President
Serzh Sarkisian. It is tasked with maintaining and strengthening the country’s
cultural, educational and other ties with the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.
Some ministry officials again marched to the prime minister’s office in Yerevan
to demand that the government reconsider its plans. They were joined by Syrian
Armenians who have taken refuge in their ancestral homeland after the outbreak
of the bloody conflict in Syria. One of them, Aleksan Garatanayan, is the
deputy chairman of a non-governmental organization representing such migrants.
“We are not staging a political demonstration,” Garatanayan told reporters.
“This is our sole means of gratitude to the ministry and its staff that have
patiently helped us for the last seven years. For seven years we have
approached the ministry on a daily basis.”
“It’s wrong to scrap this ministry without taking into account the opinion of
major Diaspora organizations,” said another Syrian Armenian man taking part in
the demonstration.
Thousands of Syrian Armenians have relocated to Armenia since 2012. The
Armenian government’s modest financial assistance to them has been mostly
channeled through the Ministry of Diaspora.
Hovannes Aleksanian, the head of a ministry desk dealing the “repatriation” of
ethnic Armenians from Syria and other countries, was also among the protesters.
“We will need the Ministry of Diaspora as long as we have a Diaspora,” he said.
“The repatriation desk has only two employees: myself and its leading
specialist,” argued Aleksanian. “Hundreds of families come [to the ministry]
and all that work is done by our small division.”
“Our expenditures are so modest that they cannot serve as an argument [in favor
of closing the ministry,]” he said, adding that the ministry’s annual budget is
an equivalent of just $500,000.
Ex-Ally Criticizes Pashinian’s ‘Excessive Powers’
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Bright Armenia party leader Edmon Marukian speaks at an election
campaign rally in Masis, November 28, 2018.
The leader of an Armenian parliamentary opposition party criticized Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian on Tuesday for not curtailing his sweeping executive
powers inherited from the country’s former leaders.
Edmon Marukian pointed to a government bill that would keep Armenia’s police,
National Security Service (NSS) and tax and customs services accountable to the
prime minister, rather than his cabinet or the parliament.
These agencies were directly controlled by the presidents of the republic under
the previous, presidential system of government. Former President Serzh
Sarkisian made sure that they will be subordinate to the prime minister when he
enacted controversial constitutional changes that turned Armenia into a
parliamentary republic.
Sarkisian planned to stay in power as prime minister after serving out his
second presidential term in April this year.
Pashinian, Marukian and other leaders of the now defunct Yelk alliance strongly
criticized a corresponding bill which Sarkisian pushed through the parliament
as recently as in March. They accused him of introducing a “super
prime-ministerial” system of government with the aim of maintaining a tight
grip on power.
Armenia - Nikol Pashinian (L) and other deputies from the opposition Yelk
alliance attend a parliament session in Yerevan, 3Oct2017.
Pashinian did not alter that system after he swept to power in May on a wave of
mass protests that toppled Sarkisian. Under a new bill on the government’s
structure drafted by his office, the heads of the police, the NSS and the State
Revenue Committee would continue to report to the prime minister and not be
part of the ruling cabinet.
Armenia’s newly elected parliament dominated by Pashinian’s supporters is
expected to debate the bill at its first session next month.
Marukian, whose Bright Armenia party will have 18 seats in the 132-member
parliament, complained that Pashinian is now intent on retaining what he
described as excessive executive powers.
“The agencies that were placed beyond parliamentary oversight under [former
President] Robert Kocharian remain beyond it,” Marukian told reporters. “Those
are the police, the National Security Service and the State Revenue Committee
…The country is not becoming a parliamentary republic, it remains super
prime-ministerial, something which we criticized during Serzh Sarkisian’s rule.”
“In the institutional sense, this is wrong, terribly wrong … There are no
parliamentary republics in the world where the chiefs of security agencies
operate outside parliamentary oversight,” he said.
The government has yet to explain why it is not planning to limit the
prime-ministerial powers. A spokesperson for outgoing First Deputy Prime
Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Tuesday that it is ready to consider
opposition proposals on the issue.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” reports that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian made two important
statements at Monday’s yearend reception which he hosted for leading Armenian
businesspeople. Pashinian made clear that no member of his entourage or any
other senior government official will have business interests. He also
reiterated that all companies operating in Armenia are now free from “any kind
of corruptions obligations” to any official. The paper says that neither Robert
Kocharian nor Serzh Sarkisian made such assurances while in power because they
and their cronies had “clear economic interests.” “The country’s economy was
for years divided among a handful of individuals,” it says.
“Zhamanak” quotes Russia’s Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov as
telling a Russian news agency that Moscow has stopped using the U.S. dollar in
major foreign trade deals. The paper notes that Armenia has for years been
proposing to Russia to set the price of Russian natural gas in rubles, as
opposed to dollars. “This proposal was first made during Prime Minister Tigran
Sarkisian’s tenure,” it says. “[His successor] Hovik Abrahamian also made this
proposal.”
“Aravot” disapproves of angry street protests against the retired General
Manvel Grigorian’s release from custody and former President Kocharian’s
attempts to regain his freedom in a similar fashion. The paper says that
participants of these protests do not seem to be advocates of the rule of law
guaranteed by the Armenian constitution. “Any person, even the most terrible
criminal, deserves humane treatment,” it says in an editorial. “In the 21st
century this means that a person convicted of a crime is punished by being
isolated from the society, rather than being forced to endure harsh prison
conditions or deprived of medical treatment and legal counseling.”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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