Yesterday Aravot reported from village of Karaberd, region of Shirak. The name of settlement can be replaced by another one and the problems enumerated by the villagers will not change substantially as a result of that. The road leading to the village is destructed and it has not been repaired for 25 years, the cost price of the agricultural produce – in this case dairy products – is lower than the price paid by the buyer (factory), villagers cannot pay off loans, it is pointless to cultivate the land, there is no club in the village, no kindergarten, the majority of men are in Russia. Even if we take into account that we are inclined to exaggerate the misfortunes we undergo, the description of the situation is basically objective.
This situation hasn’t been created today, nor yesterday – it is a result of a combination of at least 22-year-long subjective and objective circumstances. Therefore, one should consider arguments of the supporters of the first, second and third presidents when everything was fine and when, due to whom everything was spoiled with reservations – it has never been wonderful. The problem is that oppositionists meet with our dissatisfied citizens (90% of them have grounds to be dissatisfied) and then summarize those complaints during rallies and TV speeches asserting that the country is going to wrack and ruin and demanding immediate change of power. The establishment goes to the same places, but they usually do that with bodyguards, their interlocutors are representatives of the “party officials and senior executives” (the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) and also different coalitions), as well as the local bureaucracy, as a rule, and they listen to roughly the same stories, but more “simplified,” less dramatic, after which they summarize their impressions in TV speeches with phrases like “yes, there are serious problems, but….” It has been so for 20 years. People’s condition doesn’t improve as result of such mutual standard responses. The condition of farmers, in particular, surely becomes worse.
In the most liberal countries, the state pursues a special policy in the field of agriculture, it doesn’t leave everything to the market, to the so-called “invisible hand.” This policy includes certain subsidies, low credit rates, tax privileges etc. Why do the states behave like that? For a very simple reason – it is a national security issue everywhere – in the US, Belgium, Brazil and Australia – where the man’s property and source of income is land and not some money put in the bank, he hangs on that like grim death and wants his children and grandchildren to live on that land. He is also ready to defend that land.
When people were deported from the Shahumyan region 20 years ago, I was in Haterk, where the refugees used to gather. The first concern of those people was their harvest and cattle.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
