Starting from last year, when many foreign diplomats were saying that 2006 will be a crucial year for the Karabagh conflict settlement, our government (headed by President Kocharyan) was not only agreeing with this opinion, but was also giving some positive hints.
The negotiations in Rambouillet showed that they were wrong for being optimistic. If in the past, after such meetings certain comments would be heard, this time, there was nothing like that. After that, the rally on February 28th took place, where we, Armenians showed our patriotism and decisiveness by burning the Azerbaijani flag. No one said that organizing such an event was a mistake, but why do we remember about this 18 years later? Where is the sense of national pride and patriotism, which could be seen during the previous years? Why wasn’t anything like this organized on the 10th anniversary of Sumgait? The most humorous answer to this question was that they say that it was organized this year because the children who were born in 1988 were going to be drafted into the army in 2006; that is why 2006 is a symbolic year. We still do not understand what is symbolic about that and what the difference is if the young man was born in, 1987, 1988, or 1989.
In a word, they are trying to create an image of national renaissance. Paruyr Hairikyan, is also getting pretty active recently; meanwhile, Kocharyan is making bold announcements by warning Azerbaijan. Recently, Armenian TV is full of patriotic programs.
All this would be clear if such things occurred over the past 18 years, and not right after the negotiations in Rambouillet; in 2006-the year, which three months ago was considered crucial for the resolution.
It is hard to understand the point. Maybe, the 100,000 person rally was organized to show that Armenian regional highways are not closed and maybe Kocharyan needs to prove that the Armenian people are united and support him prior to the negotiations in Washington D.C. This will hardly be convincing for the co-chairmen of the Minsk Group.
And if all this is organized just to raise the level of patriotism of young people, it sounds ridiculous. In order to raise the sprit of patriotism it would be much better to pay more attention to the families of war victims and to improve the social and economic conditions of the handicapped. What does the government do for these people? They just give them alms, talk a lot and give them medals. No one can say that the young men who went to war voluntarily would still do that if they knew that the government would be so indifferent to their families.
With this in mind, the decision made by the government on March 2, 2006 is a very interesting one. The executive branch has made changes to the decision of February 5, 2004, which has to do with “fixing new subsidies for handicapped military veterans and the families of war victims.” According to this decision, 6,000 AMD (instead of 5,000) will be given monthly to handicapped military veterans and families of way victims to pay for gas, water and transportation. 2,000 AMD (instead of 1,000) will be additionally given to each family member of the war victim if the family has more than five members.
Thus, besides TV campaigns they want to show that they are in fact doing something. They only give 6,000 AMD to families who lost a man to pay for gas, water and transportation. If each of those family members uses public transportation twice a day, the money will be spent at a rapid pace. And this 1,000 AMD increase is just a pity. It’s interesting to know if the authors of this decision would turn it into 6,000 AMD a month. It is clear that the state cannot afford too much, but the same state can afford to pay 600 USD to NA deputies for not doing anything. Most of those deputies spend this money overnight. They speak about poverty reduction and patriotism and after that they get into their “Hummers”, which they bought with their honest salary, and take a spin around the city with an escort to solve the crucial issues of the country.
Therefore, if they need to speak about the 1 billion AMD budget, or speak about the 10% economical growth, and finally when they need to, they can speak about handicapped military veterans and war victims, and give them only 1,000 AMD.
The interesting thing is that, they seem to believe that they can still have the people’s trust with 1,000 AMD.