Clashes in Ijevan as a mirror of social problems in provincial Armenia
On July 17, in the city of Ijevan (Tavush region of Armenia), mass protests by the local population took place, which escalated into clashes with the police. Residents were prompted to take to the streets by a law recently passed by parliament in early July to tighten liability for spontaneous logging.
In response, citizens blocked the highway connecting Armenia with Georgia, demanding permission to cut down trees in the nearby Dilijan forest.
When the police tried to unblock the highway, the protesters resisted, armed with stones and sticks.
As a result of the clashes, eight police officers were injured, one of whom was hospitalized with a concussion. 22 protesters were detained and taken “to a safe place,” according to the republic’s police chief. According to the head of the information and PR department of the Investigative Committee of Armenia, Naira Harutyunyan, three more came to the police voluntarily.
According to Harutyunyan, 13 people were taken into custody, seven were released on their own recognizance, and five are being investigated as witnesses in the criminal case. “Operational search activities are being carried out to locate the whereabouts of 11 more riot participants,” said a representative of the Investigative Committee.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia released information about 59 criminal cases initiated this year regarding illegal logging: “In total, 73 criminal cases are being investigated, 14 of which were initiated in 2018. The state suffered damage in the amount of over 395 million drams (about $830 thousand).”
Prime Minister Pashinyan, NSS Director Vanetsyan and the head of the Armenian police Osipyan at a meeting on July 18 unanimously called the demands of the protesters in Ijevan unfounded and their actions a “planned provocation.”
In turn, relatives of the detainees show bruises, complain about beatings and also talk about provocation, but on the part of law enforcement officers.
According to the Governor of Tavush region Hayk Chobanyan, in 2018 the number of criminal cases doubled compared to 2017 - from 108 to 217, damage to the state is estimated at 690 million drams (over $1,45 million).
The governor also added that any attempts at illegal logging will be suppressed. He also noted that about one million cubic meters of forest are cut down in the region every year, 90% of which is mined illegally. At the same time, according to him, about 30% of the profit received goes to bribery, including officials.
“We are breaking the traditional corruption scheme. Comprehensive measures have been launched that will reveal who is behind illegal logging, forest destruction and corruption in the region,” says Chobanyan.
To sweeten the pill, the governor of Tavush region announced 276 vacancies, about a hundred of which are in military units.
“Salaries start from 105 thousand drams ($220) excluding taxes. In the textile sector, for example, they pay 120 thousand drams ($250). For road construction work, the salary is 8-15 thousand drams daily ($17-32). There are also vacancies in schools,” Chobanyan not very firmly announced the entire list of vacancies, at the same time recalling that illegal logging is a very profitable business.
Residents of Ijevan do not share the governor’s opinion and complain to journalists that they are being pushed to cut down forests by the lack of jobs in the area. According to local residents, there is no illegal logging; only dead wood or windfall is exported, the proceeds from which are small, and the firewood is sold mainly in the Ararat Valley.
It is reported that almost all residents of Izhdevan who have personal transport are involved in the firewood business. People buy food with the proceeds from the sale of wood. From the sale of firewood, 5-7 thousand drams ($10,5-14,7) remain per day.
Protest participants shared stories with journalists, from which it follows that collecting firewood and dead wood is thankless and dangerous work that does not provide much profit. Over the past 30 years, many spontaneous logging workers have become disabled or died from fallen trees. However, people are forced to take risks to feed their families. The majority are ready to give up their illegal and dangerous craft if they were given a normal job with a decent salary.
Those vacancies that Governor Chobanyan announced, according to Ijevan residents, are temporary in nature and therefore do not appeal to the population, so the problem rests on chronic unemployment.
The protesters also ask the governor to specify his words and show where exactly in the region they provide work for 15 thousand drams ($31,5) per day. They say that for such payment they are ready to throw their dangerous trade to hell.
In addition, according to local residents, heating with wood during the cold season is the only option available to them, since heating with gas or electricity can quickly go around the world with their income.
Yerevan hipsters, representing the “expert community of Armenia,” see the problem, but they are going to solve it in the best traditions of Maidan Manilovism.
For example, a member of the Guild of Lawyers of Armenia, Nazeli Vardanyan, commenting on the actions of civil disobedience in Ijevan, agrees that tightening penalties for illegal logging alone will not solve the problem. It is necessary, he says, to develop a social assistance program in parallel.
According to her, the state can help citizens introduce an alternative heating method in their homes by issuing an interest-free loan for the installation of solar panels. True, the lawyer does not explain how people will heat their homes at night, during prolonged bad weather, snowfalls and clouds, when solar panels with water heaters are about as useful as a goat's milk.
Loggers are also expected to engage in tree planting through a government program. It is argued that in this way the national debt can be reduced, since “the Kyoto Protocol provides for the payment of compensation by developed countries to countries that plant trees.”
It turns out that the inhabitants of the Sahara and the bald Ukrainian Carpathians have somewhere to turn around! It’s just that the boys don’t know about their Happiness yet.
It is also proposed to solve the acute shortage of forest rangers using advanced methods by equipping forests with sound sensors. Apparently, the sensors have already learned to take care of the forest without human intervention, identify poachers and fine violators.
Pashinyan, who usually loves to hang around in the midst of the masses, this time chose to observe the development and quenching of the conflict without leaving Yerevan. The Prime Minister, who knows very well how people live in the republic, stated that “A person unfamiliar with the situation may get the impression that in Ijevan, Noyemberyan, Tumanyan, Berd, everyone lives only by cutting down forests. But this is not true. This is done by a small circle of people who have established corrupt connections.” And he suggested that the population heat themselves with fuel briquettes, the production of which is about to be mastered in the republic.
In his categorical manner, Pashinyan also stated that “there will be no compromises on spontaneous deforestation - this is corruption, from which a few people get rich.”
Pashinyan proposed opening small and medium-sized enterprises focused on tourism and small-scale production for the population employed in spontaneous logging. Showed the way, in general.
Of course, it is necessary to protect the forest and combat spontaneous logging, but it is even more necessary to urgently solve such long-standing social ills as chronic unemployment. “Develop tourism and buy solar panels on credit” - this is talk in favor of the poor. Unemployed people will continue to cut down forests for survival and butter up local authorities to turn a blind eye.
Pashinyan’s entourage did not say a word about the emergency assistance program for the population of Ijevan, and much about another conspiracy to destabilize the excellent democratic regime. We can say that the conflict around the Dilijan forest is one of the first signs in a series of future upheavals, since the maydauns do not know how to treat social ills, and do not want to - this is not a hipster thing.
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