EcoLur
The Armenian Environmental Front has disseminated the appeal of the citizens having blocked the roads leading to Amulsar to Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, which says,
'Dear Mr. Pashinyan,
It's already not the first time we feel offended because you qualify our actions aimed at the protection of Amulsar as a sabotage and non-confidence towards the government. The statements made by you and Deputy PM Tigran Avinyan disqualify our fight for such fundamental rights as the right to life, water and living in the healthy environment. Civil disobedience, which is one of the methods used in the Velvet Revolution, is not only a method of fighting but also a fundamental right: we consider this disobedience towards the mining injustice violating our rights to be our right and civic responsibility. Furthermore, Article 12 (2) of the Armenian Constitution says that everyone shall care about the environment, so we are performing our constitutional commitments.
We, fighters for Amulsar and residents of Vayots Dzor Region, are following all the developments on Amulsar and are well aware of technical, legal and environmental professional assessments. Last week after their visit to Amulsar international experts gave assessments, which showed that Lydian company even made project changes, which the company was not entitled to make without submitting an EIA and having the approval of the Armenian Government. Moreover, we can eyewitness that already in the construction stage Lydian can't keep its promises and assurances on little effect, particularly the dust from ground works is disseminated not at the distance of 1 but 10 km reaching Jermuk Town, the Arpa River has been polluted with the clay water leaked from the area of the HLF, the drinking water basin and pipelines of Gndevaz community have been damaged several times. We are happy to learn that a working group has been formed to discuss all mining-related problems and the first tasks of this group will be the examination of Amulsar problems.
We have concerns that some officials having remained from Serzh Sargsyan's reign are misinforming you and misrepresent the situation. We are inviting you to personally visit Jermuk and to learn the situation on the spot. You can see we are not just 20 people, as Lydian says, but hundreds of people from the villages and towns of Vayots Dzor Region, Yerevan and different regions of Armenia. We hope you will accept this invitation and the Government will be able to mobilize its professional resources to find a solution to this problem is tight deadlines. We will return home and open the roads leading to the mine when we will have guarantees that the activities of Lydian Company will be temporarily suspended. It is our will and demand to stop the current illegal mining activities in Amulsar and not to have any mining perspective in the region at all.
Armenian proud citizens.'
June 27, 2018 at 18:40