Epress.am News from Armenia
Residents of the Yerevan neighborhood of Kond protesting outside the Armenian government building today told reporters that they have hope their problems will be solved. In Dec. 2007, the protesting residents say, 215 families signed a contract with the municipality and a Lebanese businessman that stipulated they would receive apartments in the new building constructed in place of their demolished homes. According to the plan, the buildings were to be ready 30 months after they signed the contract, but 4 years have passed and only the first floor of the building has been constructed and abandoned, since the Lebanese businessman, whose name the residents don’t know, has authorized a company called Downtown for land development; however, the company has since dissolved.
The protesting Kond residents say they are preparing to boycott the May 6 parliamentary election and next year’s presidential election.
“We’ll have a rally on Election Day. We won’t let them enter our school and hold elections. Everyone is deceiving us! For four years, 220 families, nearly 1,000 people, have been homeless,” one of the residents informed Epress.am.
Recall, at the residents’ last rally, RA Human Rights Defender Karen Andreasyan listened to protestors, but said the issue is very complicated and the residents should take the matter to court.
“The state stepped in as the third party, and we, believing it, signed a contract with the company. Let the state take Downtown to court. Why isn’t it? It hides behind the skirt of the people and says you go and take [the company] to court because I [i.e. the state] don’t want to be a bad guy, I got just as much out of it as him [i.e. the company],” said one middle-aged female Kond resident.