The workers at the Ministry of Diaspora are also protesting. According to a draft initiated by the government, the ministry is supposed to dissolve. One of the workers on strike, Sirvard Hambaryan, told reporters, “This ministry was established in 2008 at the demand of the diaspora and has been working on developing Armenian-Diasporan strategic collaboration over the past ten years. Those years have shown that this ministry that developed from thin air has worked day and night. Are the young workers of the government aware of the work that was done during this period? Why haven’t they asked figures working at massive diasporan structures for their opinions?”
Sirvard Hambaryan angrily said that not having a structure for the eight million-strong diaspora is simply unacceptable. Reporters asked her if she spoke with the acting minister, Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, and if so, what his opinion is on the plan to close the ministry. Hambaryan answered, “He spoke to us and he is very upset and pained over all of this, because through working and seeing the work that is being done… he was in the Diaspora Ministry and understood the work of this ministry. The minister said that he simply couldn’t keep it…”
Sirvard Hambaryan approached the issue from another perspective, too. “How could they have left 90 people without work right before the New Year, and congratulate us on the New Year through introducing a plan to dissolve the ministry? They fed us with promises that we will become, for example, a committee.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
