Anti-humanistic solidarity
During yesterday’s session in the parliament there was a very interesting dialogue between Alexander Arzumanyan, MP representing the Heritage faction, and prime-minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The former foreign minister announced that it was four years since the Russian “Compatriots” project started its operation in Armenia, which is involved in legal immigration of Armenian people in Russia. According to Arzumanyan, during these four years in total 26,000 people have applied for immigration and 1500 out of them were approved. They legally refused the Armenian citizenship and adopted Russian citizenship. Arzumanyan said it was an open “man-hunting” and it was unacceptable to let any country to recruit people from Armenia for immigration using legal mechanisms.
In answer to this statement the prime-minister said that the government was concerned of that project as well and had raised that issue during their meetings with Russian officials at different levels. “We have not given permission for that Russian service to operate in Armenia,” said Tigran Sargsyan. Tigran Sargsyan assured that he had raised that issue during a meeting with co-chairman of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental committee Igor Levetin, when the latter visited the government with the Ambassador. In other words, the prime-minister shared Arzumanyan’s concerns and Arzumanyan said that he was satisfied.
This dialogue shows that Armenia does not have sovereignty. Russia is organizing legal immigration of Armenian citizens, the government of Armenia expresses concerns about it and does not like it, but the Russians do not close their office and continue the same way. If Armenia had sovereignty, instead of expressing concerns would simply shut those organizations down in Armenia and say that it is against the national interests of Armenia.
However, it is not about the Russians only. Every year 1000-1500 people from Armenia win Green cards and leave for the US for permanent residence. However, during Clinton’s visit to Armenia hardly the prime-minister would ever tackle the issue of immigration. For many countries, including the US and Russia Armenia is a place for selling products and taking raw materials. The US and Russia need the human resources, and they take it, and it doesn’t really matter what the government thinks about that. The only thing the government can do to oppose to these immigration programs is creation of better living conditions in Armenia so that those people live good in their own country and do not go to other places for residence. As far as such good living conditions are not provided in Armenia, opposing to such immigration programs would be an anti-humanistic action because those are simply sources to save their families.
