The Armenian opposition has taken another initiative, but they are going to fail once again. I mean the new movement that they have called “anti-criminal”. The problem is that the oppositional doesn’t have any leverages or resources to fight against criminal groups. Besides that, it is not their responsibility to do that. Of course, the term “anti-criminal” sounds well and speeches may seem very impressive, but fighting against criminals is not their responsibility, but rather the responsibility of the police and other corresponding bodies. For that purpose purpose the state provides financial resources, buys weapons, constructs prisons, etc. If after all that the police still can’t do the job well and if the authorities go along with the situation at hand and don’t take any steps, then the opposition should fight against the authorities and not the police. In a word, they failed to choose a right target again.
Besides that, it is just an “illusion” to say that people will gather for the purpose of fighting against crime. How do you imagine that? Are people going to form groups, walk on the streets and break the cars with hand weapons? Besides that, Armenian society has accepted the fact that passing laws is just formal but not regulatory. Does the Armenian reader remember 1998, when President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan brought a document from a territorial community management body showing that he had been a resident of Armenia for the past ten years? The mentioned document even contained an address in Ajapnyak community of Yerevan. Everyone knew that he hadn’t been a resident of Armenia during that period, but no one cared about that. Most people thought like this: “It does not matter; the most important thing is to be a good president”. In fact, the partiess that want to fight against criminal groups did not do anything that time. They didn’t need a lot to know to understand that if in a countrry where candidates are nominated not based on the law, but on the basis of criminal negotiations, many issues will be solved through criminal negotiations and there will be many victims. Society consideres murders of people and other crimes just like the passing of time. As a rule, society does not worry about the fact that people are killed, but about the fact that those crimes are done out in the open in midday and with killing their targets they kill innocent people as well. They get surprised when they see how criminals act, and some time later they start discussing the issue “whether it was worth it or not”.
The most amazing thing is the fact that neither of the political powers has announced so far that the activation of crimes is in the political context, at the same time, it is the logical continuation of the internal and external policy implemented by the current authorities. It is a direct result of that policy.
Accordingly, it was announced that Armenia is being forced out of the regional integration processes and should fight with the international challenges only with its internal resources. This means that Armenia should become “a well-organized state”. How can we become a well-organized state if we have liberal laws? The solution is very simple: the laws should stay on the paper and all the problems should be solved “through criminal negotiations”. For instance, everyone has a right to import oil, but only the president can decide who is entitled to do that. Or, for instance, MPs are elected by people, but the president decides who can get enough votes to be elected. For instance, according to the law, currency exchange rates are controlled by the market, but in fact it is controlled by the head of the Central Bank. It is clear that those who violate these rules that are not written on the paper are punished as well. Since many of those rules that are not written on the paper are illegal, the violators may be punished illegally as well.
In other words, as soon as it was decided that Armenia should survive with its own internal resources and should become an organized state, it was clear that the criminals had a freeway and the only way to make the state organized was to go along with illegal mechanisms. For instance, the internal political stability was kept through crimes as well. During the oppositional rallies, both the policemen and the skinheads were fighting against the participants together.
There is only one solution to this problem. They should not organize any “anti-criminal” movements, but should fight against the policy of developing with only internal resources. They should understand that while implementing the mentioned policy criminals are entitled to leading roles. Accordingly, there is no sense to fight against criminals without changing the policy.