Despite the allegations of the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan that the fire on March 1 wasn’t opened by the police and the army a member of the Armenian National Congress Hrant Bagratyan ensures that on March 1 no single policeman, soldier or statesman slipped.
“The most surprising thing about March 1 was that during that period all the structures of the government behaved in a very consolidated manner. They didn’t make any omissions on any statesman, policeman, and army representatives except for cases when these people came to the Liberty Square. The perfectness of their functioning was 110%. I used to be a Prime Minister and have to say that the state structures must be really intimidated to work in such an organized way. There may have been several loyal ministers but I don’t mean those. I mean the soldiers, officers, policemen, commanders, who shot and killed,” yesterday stated Hrant Bagratyan during the public investigation roundtable. He also assured that the government didn’t “bribe” them. The thing is that they are connected to each other by “economic monopolies.” To our remark that Levon Ter-Petrosyan said that the policemen or the army didn’t shoot at people and those were just the bodyguards of the oligarchs, who opened fire at the people Bagratyan said, “It’s not only about shooting. They have fully obeyed the instructions and orders. Moreover, they were trying to be more noticed and demonstrate to their bosses that they had done a great job. The government and the oligarchs are tied with such firm links that cannot be separate and therefore their activities are unanimous.” The public investigation body formed by the opposition, which has 7 working groups, yesterday discussed the economic system of Armenia, which according to them conduced to the events of March 1. The main speaker Bagratyan is sure that the March 1 events were a consequence of the extreme centralization of the economy in the country. “Don’t ever think that there was no system behind that. There was,” he stated and added that the government succeeded in using that whole system on their criminal behalf. According to Bagratyan the government has taken the Copper Producing Factory of Kajaran, which according to him, is equivalent to the oil of Azerbaijan because makes 25% of it. “Do you see how the oil of Azrebaijan is being used? A person doesn’t own it. He may be stealing some of the oil but doesn’t put in his own pocket. But in our country no one says anything about the fact that the Copper Factory is owned by some people,” he said and added that as of the Factory of Kajaran he considers himself a socialist because he cannot imagine such privatization process. Bagratyan is not able to imagine how can 72 flights be given to a single person and always thank him for bringing over airplanes (he means Armavia). “This is just wild burglary,” stated the former Prime Minister. When speaking of importation he also noted, “The importation of bread, natural oil and sugar is done by a single person, fuel is imported by two people, airplane fuel is imported by one person, cell phone importation again is done by a single person, vehicles are imported by only two companies. The interesting part of this sector is that the consumers are the ones, who receive monetary transfers (about 2.5 billion USD annually) from their relatives living abroad. 1 billion of that is taken out and it’s taken out by nearly 10 families. Here we have 100% monopolization.” “There is no mechanism that could glue this sector. Their privilege is that they have used the whole state system to glue their own sector,” he mentioned. According to Bagratyan the government is doing its best to keep the people poor and make them look at the hands of the rich ones. “This is their approach. Thus they are trying to make everyone manageable,” stated Bagratyan and added that next time the government will be even more hostile to people. When returning to the events of March 1 and why the branches of government were so harmoniously cooperating with each other Bagratyan mentioned, “The first thesis of governance is that the government should be somehow linked to the economy, to property. That is the first thing they did through the NA was to include many businessmen in the Parliament. They don’t even hide it. They even brag about it. The majority of the 131 MPs of the NA are businessmen. Mr. Prosecutor General, launch a criminal case against them… And now one of the vodka producers is appointed minister of agriculture (he means Aramayis Grigoryan – L.S.). It means the purpose of the government is to mix the state and the economy and make everyone manageable in that muddy water.” According to Bagratyan when deputy chief of police Alexander Afyan works against the people it means that he is totally manageable because he has businesses and properties. “No one has ever thought of this in Europe. They think changes are taking place right now. But nothing good is happening here. Next time they will be more savage to the people,” he said. To the question how we can get rid of this government structure Bagratyan responded, “If the government sees that the Congress is able to manage the masses it will weaken. I don’t mean the calls made at the rallies but the actual management of people. If the people of Armenia don’t succeed in forming their own government then we will have what we have had four times during the period of our history – opening the doors to the foreigners.” As an example Bagratyan reminded of 1920. It is when the Armenian people opened their doors to the Turks in Alexandria.