On Monday the Khachatryans made a strike near the city administration office to make them pay attention to the activities of the “Diakonia” philanthropic foundation. Vahagn and Angin Khachatryans have ten children and they are also going to go out on a hunger strike.
We promised to help them and advised them to take their children home, because it was too cold there. The Khachatryans live in the “Huysi Avan” community not far from the highway of Ashtarak, which was built by the “Diakonia” philanthropic organization in 2001 to give shelters to poor people. Several years ago this family sold their apartment in the second community of Massive in order to pay this money for conducting an operation on their daughter’s head. They had nothing to do but to stay in the territory of the restaurant on the ground floor of that building. Except their ten children, the mother, brother and Vachagan’s crippled sister lived there too. Two of their children are crippled too. This family lived in the territory of the restaurant for ten years, where there wasn’t even any drinking water or toilette. In 2003 the ex community head of Nor Nork community, Mkrtich Minasyan advised Vachagan to apply to the municipality to help them get a place to live with the help of the “Diakonia” foundation. They gave three rooms to the family of Vachagan, but according to him at first the senior advisor of the mayor, Vanik Zakaryan and the president of the foundation, Paruyr Jambazyan told him that they would give them five rooms. Then Paruyr Jambazyan gave them three rooms in the “Huysi Avan” community and asked them to stay there until they built another house consisting of five rooms so they can move there later. This family still lives in a house consisting of three rooms and now they have decided to impose a boycott and blame the foundation for being corrupted. According to Vahagn and Angin Khachatryan, these houses are built with financing provided by the Swiss sponsors, but the representatives of this foundation that work here don’t spend the money in a duly manner and keep some of that money for themselves. Vahagn doesn’t have any official facts but assures that the Swiss sponsors provide huge money to build houses for needy families, but instead of giving these houses to the needy families as their property they let these families live there for free on a temporary basis. According to Vachagan the foundation has provided about 48.000 dollars to build the house where they live with another family, but the foundation used cheap materials and windows for building it. But it is worth to mention that we visited this district and it seems to be very good and they have even put up posters on each house and written the names of their sponsors on them. In order to prove his opinion Vahagn says: “I asked the addresses of the sponsors in Switzerland so I can find out some information from them directly, but they refused to give me such information. They don’t give me any contact addresses, because I may find out some facts. Vanik Zakaryan told us that these houses were intended for needy families and would be furnished, but they have given us an empty apartment”.
The foundation has applied to the first instance court of Ajapnyak and Davitashen communities to make the Khachatryans sign an agreement of temporary possession. The Khachatryans have refused to sign this agreement by saying that the provisions don’t comply with their interests and that they are obligated to do this. According to the Khachatryans the violation consists in the fact that the real territory of their apartment is 65 s.m., but they wrote 86,9 s.m. in the agreement presented to the court. “I have called a specialist to my place and he told us that our apartment territory is 65 s.m., but they wrote 86,9 s.m. in the agreement. And later they may ask me to pay money for the rest of the territory that is mentioned in the agreement that I don’t use”, says V. Khachatryan. According to the Khachatryans the officials of the foundation want to make them make this violation so to have a document to show to the sponsors and assure them that the work is done. They say that the executive director of the foundation, Vazgen Hambardzumyan has built a villa in Hrzadan city and used that money for his own needs; he has also populated this district with his relatives who are not needy. As for the certain provisions of the contract, we will write about some of those provisions: the one deprived has a right to stop the force of the agreement in case 1. the leaser doesn’t use the apartment in a duly manner as defined for apartment usage, 2. disturbs neighbors with his/her behavior (uses drugs, alcohol, etc) 3. seriously damages or 4. gives the apartment to a third party without notifying the deprived beforehand. Though Vachagan hasn’t violated any of these provisions he is sure that they will be obliged to leave their house after the judicial process. They say that they have applied to the president’s office for several times asking to consider their letter and inspect the foundation, but they haven’t received any answer because as Vachagan says, the head of the corresponding department of the president’s office Aida, doesn’t consider these letters in a duly manner. “We have sent letters to the president’s office control department head Barseghyan, but it didn’t reach there because the director of the foundation, Hambardzumyan has good contacts and they told us that this issue concerned the philanthropic foundation and they didn’t have a right to interfere”, says V. Khachatryan. Anyway the Khachatryans still live in this district and complain that they have been cheated, they want to get a right of property, they complain that Vachagan’s mother and sister can’t live with them because their apartment doesn’t have five rooms and that the walls are wet, etc. They say that the foundation makes violations.
The president of the foundation, Paruyr Jambazyan says that when they visited the restaurant territory the Khachatryans used to live in, Angin told him about how a rat had bitten the fingers of one of her children. After this he decided to do his best to help this family. As for being corrupted, Mr. Jambazyan advises the Khachtryans to apply to the correspondingt bodies and present facts, if they have any. “When giving apartments to people we founded a commission in the way we like and include representatives of different bodies in this commission. We take photos of the places where they live and then decide whether they are needy or not. We know that bribery is widespread in Armenia. There is a provision in the contract according to which if a member of the committee takes bribe he doesn’t have a right to be included in it any more. The same concerns us too. When they say that their children feel bad that the house is not their property I feel very pity, because we don’t have a right to make them leave it in case they don’t violate the provisions of the agreement. I only feel pity for the children, I can’t do that… Concerning this I can say only one thing: why do I have to steal the money which I give from my own pocket?” Mr. Jambazyan says that in most cases the parents use their children. According to him a lot of families have tried to falsify the documents and sell their houses. Most of these families want to get property ownership in order to sell the houses later; that is why all these houses belong to the foundation. This is done to protect children, because their parents may do something wrong, sell their apartment and then leave children on the streets.
According to lawyer Shogher Danielyan people have to make an agreement of free usage, which is not in contradiction with the RA law. “There are about 40 families in the district who are normal people. Vachagn Khachatryan says that he will hurt the foundation if he has to. They don’t want to make an agreement by saying that their rights will be violated. He wants to get property ownership but not a right to live there for free”. According to Sh. Danialyan the committee members have taken certain actions in regard to this and have found out that these announcements are absurd. There are representatives of the president’s office, municipality and the government involved in the commission. Besides this committee, the members of the Swiss “Diakonia” foundation also control the job being done in Armenia. “He wants us to give them five rooms, but this is not the municipality, this is a philanthropic organization that helps people as much as it can. If they don’t want, they can give the house back, there are a lot of people that need an apartment and will be grateful for that. We are not able to come to a conclusion with these people, they refused whatever we offered. They use their children to make us do what they want”. The executive director of the foundation, Vazgen Hambardzumyan says that the Khachatryans have always been complaining abut things. “When we arranged free medical treatment for him doctors told me that Vachagan was a drug addict”, says Mr. Hambardzumyan. “I told them that they wanted us to do something that contradicted the agreement provisions. I didn’t know that before. I found that out after the operation. He wants to sell this house. His wife doesn’t want to privatize the house either, because she is sure that her husband will sell it and will run away. If he wants to get more territory, he can ask Ervand Zakharyan. He has been judged for several times for being involved in drug business abroad”, says Mr. Hambardzumyan. According to him they want to use their children and get as much as they can get from the “Diakonia” foundation.