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"CHOIR OF INNOCENT ANGELS"
June 18 2013
The head of ANC faction Levon Zurabyan describes the Deputies of the
fifth convocation as such. - Though the 2012 report of the Control
Chamber has been in the center of interests and analysis by media for
several months, and the passions around it seemed to have settled
down, but recently the passions of the said report again inflamed at
the Parliament. It was interesting that it especially become the
target of the Republican Party. Why or with what the said report was
not liked by the political majority. - For years, the Control Chamber
has submitted much stricter documents, but no one had talked about
them. I would like to remind you that for the first time there were
references made to the scandalous findings of the Control Chamber,
when in 2011during the dialogue with the authorities, the Armenian
National Congress prepared a well-grounded document, including the
findings of the Control Chamber regarding the budget misspend.
Moreover, the ANC, our faction often uses the CC's findings and
justifications. No matter you want to consider it immodest, but the
attention of the CC report started from the time when we entered the
parliament and began to criticize looting, theft, wastes of budget of
the country intensively using the CC reports. In other words,
something that was made silent, now they can not make it silent,
because on every occasion we are reminding about these findings. And a
strange situation started. First, no matter how they tried to make it
silent, the public realized that simply looting of the state budget is
going on. In 2009, the report clearly states that randomly chosen four
per cent of budget expenditures were checked and a theft and waste of
eight billion Armenian drams was discovered. This means that if we
take all the stats, and do extrapolation, it will turn out that during
one year, in 2008, a half-billion dollars was stolen, which was proved
by CC auditing. In fact, the report of 2012, in this respect, was much
weaker: there are facts of the cable and bio-toilets, that were
flagrant facts, because it was proved that ten times more money was
spent than was necessary. But no matter how shameful examples are
brought, one can always counter that they are simply episodes or
individual cases. The strong point in the report of 2009 was that not
a few cases were brought but inspections by statistical sampling were
performed. Only after when we mentioned it in our report of 2011, they
did not refer to it anymore. The CC, unfortunately, stopped giving
general assessments of how much is wastes from the budget. But at
least they gave an assessment to which everyone referred. That is, 701
billion Armenian drams misspent from the budget was estimated by CC
President as money available in the field of severe corruption risk.
If we translate it in a human language, it means that the main part of
the budget is simply robbed, misspent, and stolen. Everyone understood
it. Now the Republican Party is trying to get out from it. It seems
that there are two opinions about their viewpoints as to how it can be
done. One wing has decided that the best way to self-justification is
to shout ahead of the opposition - catch the thief, like all thieves
are going. It's a known step. The other side, however, is trying to
follow the way of denial and lessen the effect of these findings. It
is obvious that this is a war going on between the two parties. But
I'm pleased with it. Both tactics are beneficial to us: one the one
hand, they are trying to conceal the truth, on the other hand, however
they take it on themselves, the issue gets a great public response. -
And who is to blame, especially when Gagik Jhangiryan said in his
speech that during the discussion with the ANC faction the CC
President has told that during the last two years he is not sending
the results of CC studies to the RA Prosecutor's Office, because he is
disappointed from the said body. The CC President said that for
criminal responsibility the law places restrictions on their part. The
Deputies recommended that the government introduce legislative
changes, and the Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan said that it
would be better if MPs do it. So, why are these findings for? - In
general, the current parliament looks like a choir of innocent angels,
where everyone speaks about the fat and lucky bureaucrats, about
robbers. They have fully adopted the vocabulary of the opposition, the
ANC. As one of the Deputies said very correctly that they no longer
consider such statements as correct, they are already using such
expressions. But they give no names. And they want us, the naives, or
our people, naive society think that, let's say, this multi-billion
dollar plunder is taking place during the management of Serzh
Sargsyan, and the general authorities and leaders of this country as
Serzh Sargsyan, Tigran Sargsyan, Hovik Abrahamyan and others, are not
aware of it. Here, there are two options. Option number one - I really
do not know. Although in that case, I am sorry, we deal with insanity
loafers who are absolutely no competent and generally do not know the
ways to govern this country. This option, of course, is very difficult
to believe because the statements publicized by them prove that along
with the plunder of the state budget, they are gradually accumulating
millions. Well, let's synthesize, this proven looting of the budget
and simultaneous enrichment of the country's general authorities. I do
not think there will be someone who will convince the option that
these people do not understand anything, do not know the situation,
and this looting proceeds by itself, and for some reason, they become
wealthy. What conclusion we arrive at: we deal with, as Levon
Ter-Petrosyan says, corrupt from top to bottom, with the systematic
looting. Using the state authoritative system, they plunder the nation
in a systematic and comprehensive manner, and, by the way, the law
enforcement bodies who were supposed to stop looting also serve for
this purpose. What are we supposed to do with such a regime? Is there
another way left to do rather than to stand up side-by-side with
people and send these thieves to the landfill of history? - And when
is ANC going for active operations, rallies, protests, etc., as you
said to send the thieves to the landfill of history? - If there is a
political force, who can be blamed at least for being passive or not
organizing rallies is ANC. For five years we are engaged in
unprecedented activity of organizing mass rallies in Armenia. We had
cycles of several breaks, but in the same 2011, we held more than 20
rallies, including 24-hours rallies. This is normal in policy. If you
constantly deal with rallies, you can outwear the political wave.
That's why we always calculate and hold rallies along with political
processes. Now, yes, we are in the period of pause that is conditioned
by a few facts, and one of them is that people are simply tired of
constant rallies and elections. Although the ANC has held several
meetings during summer, because the political processes had been hot,
but now this is not the situation that we must ignore the fact of
summer. And, indeed, it turns out that deterioration of the social
situation, very often, as they say, must reach the bone, so that the
people will stand up. We keep our hands on the pulse and from the
moment when we see that we can start the effective political process,
do not think that we will straight away enter into fight. - People
will really feel the wave of increase of price from July on their
skins. Do you think that a social riot, however, will take place in
Armenia, in the fall, because the history showed that social riots can
not happen in our country? - I agree with you that, for some reason,
such a dogma is brought to the head of people that social riots can
not happen in Armenia. Social riots were restrained in Armenia with
the consciousness of people and with prudence of the opposition
because we all understand that there is an issue of Karabakh. Armenia
can not afford that the state machine, the army, the police, etc., are
dissolved for months, as it happened in Egypt or Tunisia. Now these
springs are available in Armenia, they operate, but it seems that the
authorities do not learn lessons from it. They do not realize that
they can bring the process of oppression to such a degree that even
these springs may no longer function. Now they are bringing our
country closer to that border, when a collapse of the state and
financial system may happen. But in this case the opposition will not
be able to stop anyone. The role of the opposition in this case would
be trying to transfer all these to a civilized and organized channel,
and trying to build a political process where the transfer of power is
made smoother and without shock. Conversation held by Nelly
GRIGORYAN "Aravot" Daily
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/06/18/154933/
© 1998 - 2013 Aravot - News from Armenia
June 18 2013
The head of ANC faction Levon Zurabyan describes the Deputies of the
fifth convocation as such. - Though the 2012 report of the Control
Chamber has been in the center of interests and analysis by media for
several months, and the passions around it seemed to have settled
down, but recently the passions of the said report again inflamed at
the Parliament. It was interesting that it especially become the
target of the Republican Party. Why or with what the said report was
not liked by the political majority. - For years, the Control Chamber
has submitted much stricter documents, but no one had talked about
them. I would like to remind you that for the first time there were
references made to the scandalous findings of the Control Chamber,
when in 2011during the dialogue with the authorities, the Armenian
National Congress prepared a well-grounded document, including the
findings of the Control Chamber regarding the budget misspend.
Moreover, the ANC, our faction often uses the CC's findings and
justifications. No matter you want to consider it immodest, but the
attention of the CC report started from the time when we entered the
parliament and began to criticize looting, theft, wastes of budget of
the country intensively using the CC reports. In other words,
something that was made silent, now they can not make it silent,
because on every occasion we are reminding about these findings. And a
strange situation started. First, no matter how they tried to make it
silent, the public realized that simply looting of the state budget is
going on. In 2009, the report clearly states that randomly chosen four
per cent of budget expenditures were checked and a theft and waste of
eight billion Armenian drams was discovered. This means that if we
take all the stats, and do extrapolation, it will turn out that during
one year, in 2008, a half-billion dollars was stolen, which was proved
by CC auditing. In fact, the report of 2012, in this respect, was much
weaker: there are facts of the cable and bio-toilets, that were
flagrant facts, because it was proved that ten times more money was
spent than was necessary. But no matter how shameful examples are
brought, one can always counter that they are simply episodes or
individual cases. The strong point in the report of 2009 was that not
a few cases were brought but inspections by statistical sampling were
performed. Only after when we mentioned it in our report of 2011, they
did not refer to it anymore. The CC, unfortunately, stopped giving
general assessments of how much is wastes from the budget. But at
least they gave an assessment to which everyone referred. That is, 701
billion Armenian drams misspent from the budget was estimated by CC
President as money available in the field of severe corruption risk.
If we translate it in a human language, it means that the main part of
the budget is simply robbed, misspent, and stolen. Everyone understood
it. Now the Republican Party is trying to get out from it. It seems
that there are two opinions about their viewpoints as to how it can be
done. One wing has decided that the best way to self-justification is
to shout ahead of the opposition - catch the thief, like all thieves
are going. It's a known step. The other side, however, is trying to
follow the way of denial and lessen the effect of these findings. It
is obvious that this is a war going on between the two parties. But
I'm pleased with it. Both tactics are beneficial to us: one the one
hand, they are trying to conceal the truth, on the other hand, however
they take it on themselves, the issue gets a great public response. -
And who is to blame, especially when Gagik Jhangiryan said in his
speech that during the discussion with the ANC faction the CC
President has told that during the last two years he is not sending
the results of CC studies to the RA Prosecutor's Office, because he is
disappointed from the said body. The CC President said that for
criminal responsibility the law places restrictions on their part. The
Deputies recommended that the government introduce legislative
changes, and the Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan said that it
would be better if MPs do it. So, why are these findings for? - In
general, the current parliament looks like a choir of innocent angels,
where everyone speaks about the fat and lucky bureaucrats, about
robbers. They have fully adopted the vocabulary of the opposition, the
ANC. As one of the Deputies said very correctly that they no longer
consider such statements as correct, they are already using such
expressions. But they give no names. And they want us, the naives, or
our people, naive society think that, let's say, this multi-billion
dollar plunder is taking place during the management of Serzh
Sargsyan, and the general authorities and leaders of this country as
Serzh Sargsyan, Tigran Sargsyan, Hovik Abrahamyan and others, are not
aware of it. Here, there are two options. Option number one - I really
do not know. Although in that case, I am sorry, we deal with insanity
loafers who are absolutely no competent and generally do not know the
ways to govern this country. This option, of course, is very difficult
to believe because the statements publicized by them prove that along
with the plunder of the state budget, they are gradually accumulating
millions. Well, let's synthesize, this proven looting of the budget
and simultaneous enrichment of the country's general authorities. I do
not think there will be someone who will convince the option that
these people do not understand anything, do not know the situation,
and this looting proceeds by itself, and for some reason, they become
wealthy. What conclusion we arrive at: we deal with, as Levon
Ter-Petrosyan says, corrupt from top to bottom, with the systematic
looting. Using the state authoritative system, they plunder the nation
in a systematic and comprehensive manner, and, by the way, the law
enforcement bodies who were supposed to stop looting also serve for
this purpose. What are we supposed to do with such a regime? Is there
another way left to do rather than to stand up side-by-side with
people and send these thieves to the landfill of history? - And when
is ANC going for active operations, rallies, protests, etc., as you
said to send the thieves to the landfill of history? - If there is a
political force, who can be blamed at least for being passive or not
organizing rallies is ANC. For five years we are engaged in
unprecedented activity of organizing mass rallies in Armenia. We had
cycles of several breaks, but in the same 2011, we held more than 20
rallies, including 24-hours rallies. This is normal in policy. If you
constantly deal with rallies, you can outwear the political wave.
That's why we always calculate and hold rallies along with political
processes. Now, yes, we are in the period of pause that is conditioned
by a few facts, and one of them is that people are simply tired of
constant rallies and elections. Although the ANC has held several
meetings during summer, because the political processes had been hot,
but now this is not the situation that we must ignore the fact of
summer. And, indeed, it turns out that deterioration of the social
situation, very often, as they say, must reach the bone, so that the
people will stand up. We keep our hands on the pulse and from the
moment when we see that we can start the effective political process,
do not think that we will straight away enter into fight. - People
will really feel the wave of increase of price from July on their
skins. Do you think that a social riot, however, will take place in
Armenia, in the fall, because the history showed that social riots can
not happen in our country? - I agree with you that, for some reason,
such a dogma is brought to the head of people that social riots can
not happen in Armenia. Social riots were restrained in Armenia with
the consciousness of people and with prudence of the opposition
because we all understand that there is an issue of Karabakh. Armenia
can not afford that the state machine, the army, the police, etc., are
dissolved for months, as it happened in Egypt or Tunisia. Now these
springs are available in Armenia, they operate, but it seems that the
authorities do not learn lessons from it. They do not realize that
they can bring the process of oppression to such a degree that even
these springs may no longer function. Now they are bringing our
country closer to that border, when a collapse of the state and
financial system may happen. But in this case the opposition will not
be able to stop anyone. The role of the opposition in this case would
be trying to transfer all these to a civilized and organized channel,
and trying to build a political process where the transfer of power is
made smoother and without shock. Conversation held by Nelly
GRIGORYAN "Aravot" Daily
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/06/18/154933/
© 1998 - 2013 Aravot - News from Armenia