YEREVAN—The Armenian Special Investigation Service (SIS) announced on Wednesday that it had charged former President Serge Sarkisian with embezzlement of state funds. According to the terms of the indictment, in 2013 Sarkisian used his position as President to orchestrate a scheme to subsidize petrol imported by the conglomerate Flash LTD at
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Anyone who has lived in Armenia for even a short time suspects that SS (like the other presidents) has probably been involved with dozens (if not hundreds) of such schemes during his presidency and in the last 30 years in general. Whether it was to help family members or friends get rich, to have ‘compromat’ on key business/political figures, to exchange favours in the form of money vs. political/financial/material/intelligence support deals, etc … and these would only be his financial sins, god knows what may have happened during the war: assassinations, huge scale corruption of soviet military for weapons, large scale embezzlement to fund the war, black market shady deals, etc.
This is how Armenia was managed since soviet times, it’s a new republic with scarce resources, little tradition of self-governance, and the example of soviet public administration as its only real-life reference. LTP, RK, SS were not educated in statesmanship at the Harvard Kennedy School, ENA, or other top ranked western institutions. They did what they knew and could … if you ask me with, more success than failure.
In other words and at the risk of sounding cynical: it’s not really big news that Armenia is not Denmark.
In my view, the current administration’s approach is a textbook example of Machiavellian moves: punish former leaders/opponents so that the rest will fear you, show who’s boss by making examples and thus gaining allies, start strong so that you can be nice later on, etc. It’s petty politics, at best, disguised as justice!
They could have established a truth commission where everything could have been discussed openly, in depth, and much more substantially than the cheap reality show we’re witnessing; sins admitted, explained, put in context, and repented publicly for everyone to see; money and assets returned, at least partially, to the government; moral standards set for the future and core message transmitted to the new generation, etc … but no: they’re going the way of the confrontation and revenge. They’re Armenians (not Danish) after all!
We’ll see where it leads.
With the exception of his sarcastic comparisons between Armenians and Danes, I’m in agreement with nearly everything that Jackson said here. The historical storylines of the two countries and people is so different that it’s ludicrous to try to assert that something innate shaped the two Peoples. Come now, and smell the coffee: Denmark didn’t suffer a century old genocide, which caused tumors that shook the very foundation of the People. .
The corruption in Armenia continues. The new regime is paid from the allocated funds. Pashinian is shutting down anyone who disagrees. He is a tyrant.
Well Pashinyans daughter was gifted with a new car, and NO ONE knows where the money came from.
Some kind of mysterious funds……Pashinyan himself could Not answer about the funding of his daughters car.
One plus year on, and he has done NOTHING but jail his former adversaries.
Laurence Kueffer, what does GENOCIDE to do with CORRUPTION?
I could’ve listed other things, but that seemed foremost, because it’s not only about a population perishing, it’s also about cultural genocide, and its aftershock “tremors” (not how it was misspelled). How you can even ask how, makes me wonder whether such people even know about our historical geography.
But, I wasn’t saying there that the century old genocide was the cause of present day corruption, I was saying that the genocide has established different historical circumstances between Danes and Armenians. If people here want to buy the baloney about Armenians being innately inferior to Danes, then be my guest.
Ask yourself whether Denmark suffered from the things I’ll proceed to list here, because this is what the genocide did do to the cultural fabric of the Armenia People: (1) It greatly diminished the area of the Armenian Highlands currently inhabited by Christian Armenians. (2) It resulted in more than a century of destructive activities against Armenian Cultural Landmarks. (3) It systematically eliminated leadership personalities with Armenian Communities throughout the Armenian Highlands, whether they be the clergy, political leaders, educators, intellectuals, or other such people. (4) It replaced millennia old Armenian Communities with a tiny Republic of the USSR, dominated by Socialists and Communists. (5) The newly independent landlocked Armenia (1991) is surrounded by hostility Turkey and Azerbaijan, indifferent Georgia, and a worldwide ostracized Iran. Yet, they’re expected to do as well as Baltic Coastline Denmark. (6) I can go on with more things, but this is probably enough.
One of the goals of the American University of Armenia (AUA) was to change the culture and governmental practices of the Republic of Armenia. I worked for AUA (US office) for 20 years and think that the overall thrust was and is positive, However,as the old saying goes ” old habits die hard “.
The bottom line, no one in the governmental position should be using their position for personal gains at the expense of the Armenian people. what SS and his family have done, is set Armenia back many many years. Granted, this is a normal occurrence in almost every country in the world, but this is no excuse for this to occur in Armenia by Armenians. If the evidence shows that SS stole money at the expense of the national security of Armenia and Artsakh then there should only be one form of punishment. SS and his family should receive the same punishment that Katch Antranig provided to the traitors who betrayed Saroup Pasha.
Laurence Kueffer, I agree with everything you wrote in your last message, my comparison with Denmark was an exaggerated example to hammer in the point that Armenia (like most countries of the region) does not have the political culture/tradition of stable and prosperous western democracies (to put it mildly and politely) and hence judging Armenia’s leadership with metrics/standards we use to evaluate western governments is not fair. The question as to why would require a long and multifaceted analysis of historical and social factors, which you accurately and partially referred to. So bottom line, we may agree more than disagree.
Yes, the Armenian Genocide wiped out a lot of Armenian leadership structure that had been around for centuries and could be traced back to the last Armenian monarchies. This was replaced by a completely new foreign soviet structure. With that gone for the most part we are starting from scratch with only that limited system with its cynical traits as our only reference.
We only have that and what we are learning from the west as a means to go forward. I hope the good qualities from the west, individual civil rights, fair justice, and the idea of country first, win out.