|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|||||
|
April 20, 2006 NCI Targets Corruption in Armenia Yerevan—The National Citizens’ Initiative (NCI) today convened a roundtable on “Corrupt Society: Who is to Blame?” The meeting brought together social and political activists, human rights advocates, analysts, experts, and media representatives. Members of world donor organizations were likewise invited to the event. NCI coordinator Hovsep Khurshudian welcomed the audience with opening remarks. “One of the key problems facing Armenian society is corruption by the ruling authorities, and this vice has also spread onto a large segment of the body politic like a virus. The mentality of and mode of operation by many have become fraudulent and based upon petty self-interest. The deception, the swindling, and the abuse of official and social status have grown to be ordinary and even acceptable occurrences,” he said.
In Khurshudian’s words, the first to fight against this phenomenon which directly jeopardizes different social strata must be the media, the NGOs, the political parties, and in particular the international donor community by whose support civil society is largely promoted. At times, however, the funding offered by these associations is itself turning into grounds for corruption, and this is impermissible. In the opening intervention, chairman Karen Hakobian of the “Huis” NGO briefly presented the history behind and the cases of corruption inside the “Professionals for Civil Society” NGO. He stated that they had even gone to court in order to tackle this evil, but it had become clear that the court’s ruling was already made prior to hearing of the case. This is not a singular instance, rather this trend has become prevalent and increasingly accepted in encouraging the incorrect handling of grants. He also pointed out that since the Machiavellian precept of “the ends justifying the means” is still widespread and constitutional amendments are passed by way of falsifications in Armenia, these allotments cannot serve their true purpose: the better protection of human rights and societal interests.
During his talk concerning “Legalized Arbitrariness at the National Academy of Sciences,” the next speaker, Academician Anry Nersessian, charged the Academy’s former president with violating numerous rules and regulations, unlawfully privatizing property belonging to the Academy, and inefficiently managing the state subsidies made to the Academy. In her speech on “Art and the ‘Distribution’ of Funding,” art expert Susanna Giulamirian related the experience of an unsuccessful attempt at realizing a grant. As the story goes, since individual petitions were not being directly accepted for unknown reasons, Giulamirian had to apply to a predetermined local association in order to jointly petition the Open Society Institute of Armenia for the sponsorship of a project called “European-style Remodeling in the Post-Soviet Space.” After winning the grant she started the project, which also included the holding of an exhibition of works by artists and craftsmen of the region. However, the chairman of the “Actual Art” local organization, through which the funding request had been introduced to the Open Society Institute, demanded a kickback of ten percent of the total grant amount. Giulamirian naturally refused. Then “Actual Art’s” chairman started to threaten her, and so she appealed to the donor to change her partnering association. But she was denied, on the grounds that her evidence concerning the local NGO’s misconduct was impossible to confirm. Subsequently, Susanna Giulamirian was compelled to discontinue her project under the grant.
The remainder of the session was devoted to exchanges of views and policy recommendations among the public figures and policy specialists in attendance. Noteworthy were interventions by Armenia’s first Ombudswoman Larisa Alaverdian; Yerevan State Linguistic University professor Hrach Tatevian; defense attorney Zaruhi Postanjian; research director Stiopa Safarian of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies; chairman Mikael Danielian of the Armenian Helsinki Association; Ruzan Khachaturian of the People’s Party of Armenia; Tamar Gevorgian of the United Labor Party; Gevorg Kalenchian from the Heritage Party; Vazgen Karapetian of the Catholic Relief Services; Gohar Armenakian from the Soldier’s Protection Committee; chairwoman Artemis Lepejian of the “St. Sandukht” NGO; Vakhtang Siradeghian from Transparency International; members of other public organizations; men and women of the arts and letters; and several others.
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
