“The corrupted are the ones who fight against corruption”

24/07/2005

“The method of measuring and eliminating corruption still hasn’t been
discovered,” said presidential adviser, member of the anti-corruption
council and president of the anti-corruption monitoring board Mr.
Bagrat Yesayan during the “Political debates club” meeting. However,
this doesn’t’ mean that Armenia should not fight against corruption.
“Even if Armenia does not want to fight against it, sooner or later it
will be forced to,” because our country is a member of different
international organizations fighting against corruption. In any case,
we have at least found the ways of doing that-education, prevention,
revelation and punishment. Bagrat Yesayan is not in favor of the method
of revealing criminal acts. If people want to reveal the criminal acts,
they should recall what happened with the Tavush region and Ijevan
courts. According to the presidential adviser, the anti-corruption
movement took shape after the formation of the coalition. There were
some disagreements between the opposition and B. Yesayan. “There is an
Armenian saying that says “the fish’s head gets rotten first”, meaning
that bad things are a result of something that has happened before
that. I consider corruption a sickness. The only one who can cure that
illness is a healthy doctor. The people fighting against corruption are
just putting on a show. The people who have actually been corrupted are
the ones fighting”, said president of the ȸΠ(Liberal Democratic
Political Party) Vigen Khachaturyan. President of the “Steady
Development” NGO Karine Danielyan added that there can be no discussion
of an anti-corruption movement when there is still the problem of
monopolization in Armenia. “Ten to fifteen people have distributed the
country among themselves. I am afraid that they might consider raising
the level of Sevan lake to six meters too high, since they think that
two meters is enough. They have mixed everything up. If the level of
the lake rises to six meters, some businesses will remain under water.
How can we let this happen? In order to instill faith in the people, we
need to start from the president. Take the events in Georgia.” B.
Yesayan stated that the cause of corruption mainly has to do with the
fact that the people don’t know the laws of the country.  

A.A.