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NGO head accuses Armenian local officials of pillaging the villages

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  • NGO head accuses Armenian local officials of pillaging the villages

    NGO head accuses Armenian local officials of pillaging the villages

    Arminfo
    27 Feb 07


    Yerevan, 27 December: Robert Simonyan, head of the Kashatagh
    non-governmental organization for the protection of resettlers,
    accuses the administration of the Kashatagh (Lacin) district of
    embezzlement.

    Speaking to journalists today [27 February], Robert Simonyan, who in
    1990s was the head of the administration of five villages in the
    Kashatagh district, accused both the former and the current heads of
    the district administration, Aleksan Hakobyan and Hamlet Khachatryan,
    of pillaging the villages and embezzling funds they had been given to
    reconstruct the district.

    The disagreement with the district administration over its policies
    resulted in Simonyan's persecution. A Yerevan resident, who had moved
    to Kashatagh, was forced to go back again, but he claims that his
    persecution did not stop there either.

    Simonyan claims that he had repeatedly informed all possible instances
    in Armenia - from the president to foreign diplomatic corps - of the
    embezzlement by the district administration and the persecution of
    himself and family members, but has not received a reasonable
    answer. Today, Simonyan made a statement describing the talk about a
    possible return of the liberated territories (security zone around the
    Nagornyy Karabakh republic - Arminfo) as a crime and treason.

    "On the one hand, they speak of keeping the Lacin corridor under the
    Armenian control, but on the other hand, the local authorities and the
    Armenian leadership create such inhuman conditions that the resettlers
    run from those strategically important territories," Simonyan said. He
    said that while 15,000 people lived in Kashatagh in 1988, only 2,500
    people now remained there. He also said that the residents of the
    border regions of Armenia - Ijevan, Tavush, Goris and Kapan - should
    be entitled to a compensation for the damage caused by Azerbaijan.

    "In addition, we demand that the Armenian and the NKR [Nagornyy
    Karabakh republic] authorities did their best for both the protection
    of the NKR borders with Iran and opening of bilateral communication
    through it," the statement said.
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