The two-week-long protest of Greens against the kiosks being installed at Mashtots Park, downtown Yerevan, has received large public resonance involving various political forces which simply speak for or against.
Opinions have been voiced among the government circles that the issue is needlessly being politicized, accusing environmentalist protestors of attempts to justify the grants received from international organizations.
The green activists, however, breaking the line of police officers who had chained the park entered the construction site and forced to a stop to the work.
Manvel Sargsyan, heading the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, says this people are fighting against an illegal activity.
“Police officers are not suspending it, so the society has taken the struggle in its hands protecting public property. It shows that there can be a purely green movement and influence this or that issue,” says Sargsyan.
Yerevan mayor Taron Margaryan made a statement in this respect on Tuesday saying that stalls are being placed in the park as compensation to the owners of dismantled structures from Abovyan street.
“They are given temporarily until the Old Yerevan project is completed,” he said, stressing that he is, in fact, happy, Yerevan residents show so much interest in their city's problems and are protective of its future.
Environmentalist Karine Danielyan, heading the Association for Stable Human Development NGO, believes that the mayor’s statement is a suggestion of mutual concessions, and says environmentalists will make some as well.
“At this moment I cannot say what kind of concessions there might be, but there is a hope for progress. The problem is that the mayor is surrounded by bad advisers, people who allowed those illegalities and violations at the time. I don’t want to name them, but I hope that the mayor will do the same for the city as he once did for Avan district,” says Danielyan. “The mayor’s explanatory statement is a proof that the environmentalists’ sit-in protest is effective.”
Margaryan said in his statement that everything is legal, however any important decree, no matter how grounded it is, needs extra legitimacy, which can be best achieved through public involvement and awareness.
Sargsyan from ACNIS says the authorities have suffered a defeat in this issue and have found themselves in a trap.
“Eighty young people have managed to catch the oligarchic regime into a legal and political trap, which is a fact now. This shows that the society has realized how to deal with this regime. The new generation understands that the law has a huge political power,” says Sargsyan. “And, by the way, environmentalists stood at the spring of the 1988 mighty pan-national movement.”
Experts say the green movement has power, whereas the authorities don’t when it comes to such issues: violations are mainly committed in the environmental sector, and money is “drained” from that sector.
“And note that there are no political forces by their side, they are the decision-makers, this is what civil society is. Naturally, any political force can take advantage of their movement, but those times are gone now. Society has crossed a bigger road in their mind than the current regime,” Sargsyan says.
In two days the issue will be discussed at the Public Council's session.
Freelance reporter Bayandur Poghosyan has been on hunger strike since Tuesday with a demand to stop the construction. He said by his actions he wants to show to the authorities that the protest against the stalls in the park should be taken seriously.
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