Prince Charles will be met with a protest; the prince plans to visit Matenadaran at 5 p.m., and environmentalists have decided to meet him outside Matenadaran with placards, which read in English and Armenian “Armenia without British cyanide,” “Our nature is our gold,” “British mining industry kills us, stop it.” Environmentalists intended to meet the prince outside the Presidential Palace in the morning, but then they found out that the royal family member would visit Matenadaran; therefore, environmentalists had already gathered outside Matenadaran in the afternoon. Anna Shahnazaryan, a member of the Teghut Protection Civic Initiative, explained during a conversation with www.aravot.am why they had decided to meet the prince with a protest. “We are concerned that he comes here at the invitation of Armen Sargsyan [former Prime Minister of Armenia – N.B.] who is involved in mining industry projects and is a rather influential person abroad and in Great Britain; he was recently involved in the project related to the Amulsar Mine, in order that he could use his influence. It is strange for us that such a person invites a royal family member, and we suspect that it may have been done to advertise the Amulsar project.”
Environmentalists will try to show the prince dangers and risks that exploitation of the Amulsar Mine might cause. “In particular, it will completely eliminate health tourism in Jermuk, no one knows what will happen to water reserves, because subsoil water is not examined; Amulsar itself is not examined. If the gold factory is operated – and the factory is located in the Lake Sevan basin – any kind of leakage will impact Sevan and all Armenia. We want to inform the prince about that, we know that he is an environmentalist – in particular, he is a proponent of wildlife conservation, he is also the UK head of the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) – and we think that although we will not touch Armen Sargsyan’s heart, since he has nothing to do with nature protection and will not have, but the prince has, he will understand our concerns.” Protesters hope that the Prince of Wales will understand them, since the British Embassy had informed environmentalists that the prince hadn’t even known about British investment in Amulsar, and as Anna Shahnazaryan said, perhaps environmentalist Charles will find out that his friend Armen Sargsyan is an anti-environmentalist. According to the environmentalist, “At the beginning, there was talk that he was coming to open a mine, and it is basically outrageous. However, if he is not going to do that during this visit, we would like him to abstain from being involved in the operation of the mine, if he cannot contribute to its prevention.”
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Inga Zarafyan, the head of the Ecolur information center, stated that a few negative opinions were expressed by officials on the project of exploiting the Amulsar Mine. According to Ms. Zarafyan, the Sevan Act, the Subsurface Act, and a set of international conventions are violated. During a conversation with us, Anna Shahnazaryan expressed concern that as far back as in 2002, the Cabinet made a decision to turn Amulsar into a national park, and work on that had been done till 2008, but it has been ceased today, and they actually intend to open a mine instead of a national park.
Nelly BABAYAN
