EcoLur
The affair with illegal construction of a small hydropower plant on the Argitchi River took an unexpected turn. As Verin Getashen Villagers informed EcoLur, they were called to appear in the prosecutor’s office in Martouni Town on 25 August in order to give evidence. It was village administration head Rubik Ghukasyan who called them without presenting any official summons with the reason for investigative actions. The prosecutor’s office provided a list of 15 people to be interrogated.
The residents already know they are called in regard with the protest demonstration held on 19 July accompanied by blocking Martouni – Yerevan highway for 4 hours. The protest demonstration was directed against taking away Gayladzor riverbed, the main tributary to the Argitchi River, to Vayots Dzor Region for the purposes of constructing a small hydropower plant. As a result, five communities, i.e. Verin Getashen, Nerkin Getashen, Madina, Geghovit and Vaghashen with a population of 30 thousand people will be deprived of the only source of water.
In order to reveal circumstances the Nature Protection Ministry set up an interdepartmental committee who recognized this construction illegitimate. The Committee on Lake Sevan Issues by the President of Armenia also reached a decision about unlawfulness.
Several problems were left unsolved: for example how the dams built and a two-kilometer-long canal laid to take away the Gayladzor riverbed will be dismantled and how “Zangezour Eximp” Company, guilty of this illegal construction, will be punished.
Still we don’t have official information in this regard. What about the law enforcement bodies,one thing is known: two weeks ago police investigator Ousik Baghdasaryan questioned locals about who organized the protest demonstration. At present the Prosecutor’s Office investigator Artur Manoukyan is questioning the locals.
August 25, 2010