Once again, on December 9 and 10, Armenia marked the international days of the Fight against Corruption and Protection of Human Rights. It is highly symbolic that these days follow one another because they are deeply interrelated. Especially in Armenia where unfortunately it seems to be the opposite: corruption is protected and fighting against the human.
Corruption which translated from Latin means “spoilage”, “perversion”, “gangrene”, as the international experience showed can either be overcome or remain without being overcome and involving the entire government system gives birth and cannot but give birth to a solid and centralized system of human rights violations.
According to UN data, the turnover of bribery in the world is about one trillion dollars and the global economy as a result loses another 2.5 trillion. By its nature, it is a phenomenon which is impossible without the involvement of government and state system. Without such an involvement, it is just called a corruption, and there is a corresponding article in the Criminal Code of any country and any type of country.
Therefore, corruption cannot but have political grounds, and this “spoilage” and “perversion” does not refer to some marginal groups but extends over the whole society. And depending on the degree of impunity and the coverage, it can just transform the state into a “mafia state” where the organized criminal group has directly subjected the state to usurpation and uses it as a tool of crimes.
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The US Ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, named the corruption as a threat to national security of Armenia. Many people, of course, paid no attention to it by considering the statement as “subsequent” and “everyday working”. It must be said that the ambassador was modest in his words as it is just a mortal threat to a state which is located in the unsettled relations with its neighbors, and whose “strategic ally” is a classical “mafia state”.
Incidentally, the Moscow correspondent of The Guardian newspaper, Luke Harding, is an author of a book with this headline. The journalist describes the Russian state apparatus as a machine transporting the money from the country to abroad by the intelligence agents. Moreover, he concludes that the government in Russia is the mafia itself which is headed by capo di tutti capi, the boss of the bosses, as it is accepted in the Sicilian “Cosa Nostra”, and the law enforcement and judicial systems are servicing it. Spanish prosecutor José Grinda González who has investigated the operation of the Russian mafia in Spain, calls Russia just a virtual mafia state where it is difficult to find a difference between the operations of official and mafia organizations. Incidentally, as we know, heads of a number of law enforcement agencies of Russia who refrain from justice in Spain are “broadly observed” in mafia operations but are awarded state awards in Armenia.
Naturally, keeping own positions unshaken without massive and systematic violations of human rights is impossible. And have such a quality “strategic ally”, our political task becomes criminal-political, and without the weighty anti-criminal component, this task just has no solution. And the political will here, if one day it appears as a miracle, facing the public indifference, will shortly step back. The society itself should be the main client of the anti-corruption activities, the main bearer of the anti-corruption culture, and only then, there will be both a political will and an outcome without a miracle.
And today, in the public transport of the capital of Armenia, you can still hear songs of the so-called “Russian chanson” style is some restaurants which propagate criminal “morality”, today, the public approaches even the simple corruption with “understanding”, and a certain layer of it is waiting for the election day in order to take a bribe.
The Global Magnitsky Act passed by the Congress is waiting for US President Barack Obama’s signature which enables the US government to define tough sanctions against the officials involved in corruption and human rights violations in all countries…
… One of senior government representatives of Armenia called “son of a bitch” to those who will allow themselves to pocket money from the foundation created to help the families of fallen soldiers. In the moral sense, this characterization is fully opportune, but the legal aspect of it is different, as the RA Criminal Code does not stipulate any punishment for it. And how to call those who using the official position not only pocket the taxpayers’ money but also pervert the society, spoil and pervert the state, and when the own position is jeopardized, they violate the law, human rights and freedoms. Perhaps, they are already at least double “sons of a bitch” because they pocket the future too.
Ruben MEHRABYAN
P.S. And you were saying a “Eurasian Economic Union” …
