Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Anger As Traders Cleared From Yerevan Streets

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Anger As Traders Cleared From Yerevan Streets

    ANGER AS TRADERS CLEARED FROM YEREVAN STREETS
    Naira Melkumyan

    IWPR
    August 23, 2011
    UK

    Authorities accused of victimising small businesses while leaving
    large ones untouched.

    The authorities in the Armenian capital Yerevan have begun demolishing
    street stalls and kiosks, in what opposition politicians allege is
    a step designed to protect large supermarkets from competition.

    Workers backed up by police units dismantled several stalls in the
    city's Central and Arabkir districts last week, without even giving
    owners a chance to remove goods from display.

    Leva Hakobyan said he was ruined after losing the kiosk where he sold
    souvenirs and cosmetics in Arabkir district.

    "I took out a bank loan until 2015 to start a business. I've paid
    all my taxes and kept up with the repayments all this time, but how
    am I going to pay the bank now?" he asked. "This stall supports two
    families. I have all the requisite documents and a license. How can
    they just take our property and destroy it?"

    The city authorities say they are not going to extend current
    stallholder licenses, except for newspaper sellers. They argue that the
    stalls and kiosks break planning rules and make the capital look ugly.

    "If there's an order to remove stalls on these streets, then that order
    will be carried out," city hall spokesperson Shushan Sardaryan said.

    The campaign to clear street traders off the streets has been going on
    since the beginning of the year, under mayor Karen Karapetian. (See
    Yerevan Street Sellers Protest Trading Ban.) So far over 900 of the
    nearly 4,000 stalls and kiosks have gone.

    The issue has become politicised as opposition parties take up
    the stallholders' cause. The city authorities are dominated by the
    governing Republican Party. (See Armenian Opposition Seizes on Street
    Traders' Anger.)

    Opposition politicians say Karapetian's predecessor as mayor gave
    stallholders permission to remain until next year, so the current
    administration cannot simply cancel that arrangement.

    "They cannot deem that a document saying stalls in Arabkir district
    can remain until 2010 is illegal. If the mayor says they were built
    illegally, then everyone must answer for it, from the former mayor
    downwards," Stepa Safaryan of the Heritage party said.

    Arevik Ghazaryan, who owns a flower stand on Mashtots Avenue, said
    she had been assured she would have a guaranteed pitch until 2015
    and had made her plans accordingly.

    "We are asking them not to take our work away from us, not to create
    unemployment, and not to bankrupt us," she said. "Is the aesthetic
    improvement for which the mayor has decided to destroy these stalls
    worth depriving people of work and reducing their circumstances?"

    Safaryan accused city officials of lulling stallholders into a false
    sense of security by suggesting their premises would not be removed
    immediately. They deny this, insisting they kept traders informed of
    their plans.

    The opposition Armenian National Congress, ANC, has accused the
    government of eliminating competition on behalf of its allies in
    big business.

    A statement from the ANC said that there was a policy to "concentrate
    trading in the supermarkets and large shops belonging to oligarchs",
    and that the authorities were ignoring the social consequences -
    "the future of thousands of people, an increase in social tensions,
    and extra impetus for emigration".

    The city authorities have insisted they are not against small
    businesses. Mayor Karapetian told a government meeting that stalls
    would only disappear from central streets where they blocked pedestrian
    traffic or looked unsightly.

    "I don't think the owners of kiosks on central streets are
    impoverished, so the mayor's office has no obligations to them,"
    he said. "There was a deadline... We don't have to offer them an
    alternative [site] or compensation."

    The mayor added that in cases where traders needed help, local
    officials were under instructions to provide financial compensation,
    job offers, or alternative sites.

    At a recent meeting with stallholders, Arabkir district government
    chief Edgar Musheghyan offered them new sites, but they dismissed this,
    saying they would have to pay for the relocation out of their own
    pockets, and the sites on offer would not attract any passing trade.

    Armenia's human rights ombudsman has stepped into the fray, saying
    the demolitions were unlawful and marred by violations of human rights.

    Among the concerns raised by the ombudsman's office were the failure
    to notify stallholders of demolitions in advance, and the use of
    force by police drafted in to help.

    The ombudsman urged the mayor's office to remember that Yerevan
    belonged to everyone, not just to the wealthy.

    "Several recent urban renewal initiatives have had a negative effect
    on disadvantaged sections of the population, and benefited only those
    with a medium to high standard of living," the watchdog concluded.

    The Heritage party and the stallholders say they are considering
    what to do next. This may include protests outside the offices of the
    president and the city mayor. Heritage has also urged the speaker of
    parliament to recall legislators from their summer break to debate
    the issue.

    Hovsep Khurshudyan, an analyst with the Armenian Centre for National
    and Strategic Studies, says targeting street traders is manifestly
    unfair.

    "Of course the city should be beautiful and construction standards
    adhered to," Khurshudyan said. "But is it really only stalls that
    affect this? What about big shops on the streets, or cafes in green
    areas? Nothing gets done about them, and that's because there are
    big businessmen behind them. That's double standards."

    Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Yerevan.

Working...
X