The Government of Armenia announced the start of the third phase of the program for the housing of Artsakh residents. Registration for the first phase started on June 15, but, as the government admits, only 250 families applied for the first phase, and only 30 of them were given a certificate to purchase an apartment.
The government believes that the pace will increase soon, as the people of Artsakh have started slowly applying for RA citizenship, and in a few months, hundreds of families will appear who will be able to apply for a certificate through the residency program.
Let’s remind that with this program, 3-5 million drams are allocated to each Artsakh citizen, depending on the place of purchase of the apartment, but as a mandatory condition, all members of the given family must obtain RA citizenship.
Obtaining RA citizenship is quite a lengthy process: it takes several months, in addition, documents are needed, for example, birth certificates, which not all of Artsakh residents have. Many people left their homes under fire, some did not have any documents to begin with, and others have discrepancies: the passport has one patronymic and the birth certificate has another. People have to spend months running through the Department of Civil Acts Resigtration, archives and even courts to restore their legal biography.
The government of Armenia has not explained yet why the citizens of Artsakh need Armenian citizenship in order to apply for a housing certificate in Armenia. It is clear that the condition was set to prevent the influx and to delay the process as much as possible. The government is trying to prevent Artsakh citizens from asserting political rights and political activism as long as possible.
10 months have passed since the forced deportation of Artsakh people, and there are still no state, municipal, public and legal organizations representing the collective rights and interests of Artsakh people in Armenia. The Armenian government suppresses any attempt of self-organization of the people of Artsakh, categorically rejecting any attempt by them to participate in decision-making.
The manifestation of such a “categorical” attitude can be found everywhere, starting with the refusal to communicate with the people of Artsakh (during these 10 months, Nikol Pashinyan never once met with the people of Artsakh, neither with the leadership, nor with representatives of society), and ending with arbitrary accusations against the military-political leadership of Artsakh.
But the problem is not the moral aspect, but the fact that the documentary and legal confusion undertaken by the Armenian government can become the basis for depriving the people of Artsakh of their political rights and status, as well as their private and collective demands, return and ownership.
After all, the people of Artsakh left not only their homes and businesses in the homeland, but also natural resources, forests, water resources, communications such as roads, pipelines, power lines. All this was the collective property of the people of Artsakh, and the demands can also be only collective.
Armenia should be the provider of the collective demands of the people of Artsakh, but the RA government reduces its responsibility to the level of social support for individual families, nullifying the collective rights of the people of Artsakh. It is in this context that the people of Artsakh are pervieving the seemingly absurd requirements – the certificates of “temporary protection” and then of obtaining RA citizenship.
When receiving “temporary protection”, Artsakh residents are forced to sign a document stating that they are not citizens of any country.
100,000 applications of “stateless persons” are a collective renunciation of rights to Artsakh, national goods and property. And, getting RA citizenship and participating in the housing construction program means giving up the private property left in Artsakh.
The people of Artsakh perfectly understand the goals of such a policy, but the hopelessness of the situation and the lack of self-government force many to submit to the demands of the RA government, often under harsh blackmail. For example, the people of Artsakh were forced to accept refugee status, threatening that otherwise they will not pay their pensions and benefits. Now they are forcing them to get citizenship by blackmailing them with a housing program.
Of course, all these tricks cannot nullify the property rights of Artsakh residents and allow the occupying forces to dispose of their property. But the policy of the Armenian government regarding the status and rights of the Artsakh people can be a good support for the neighboring state [Azerbaijan] to appropriate their property and refuse the future demands of the Artsakh people.
Naira Hayrumyan