Nikol Pashinyan Violates the Interests of the People: 'Armenian Environmental Front'

On September 9, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that following negotiations with Lydian, he is prepared to allow the company to complete the construction process of the mine, and only if problems arise during that time, will he consider halting its operations.

The 'Armenian Environmental Front' initiative issued a statement regarding this announcement, stating: 'With this statement, Pashinyan contradicts his previous statements and promises. For over a year, he assured the public that if it turned out that the project posed even a 0.01% environmental risk to the surrounding area, it would not be launched. Ignoring the numerous reports and studies from both domestic and international independent experts, approximately $400,000 of the state budget was spent under Pashinyan's directive for an independent study by a third party. When the results of the study were released, based on a later commissioned memorandum by the Investigative Committee and excluding crucial assessments from the hundreds of pages of the report, Pashinyan announced on August 19 his decision to open the mine after a few hasty and formal 'consultations' and began disseminating the company's videos and texts echoing the company's positions.

This announcement by Pashinyan was met with public and professional backlash, resulting in the government being forced to organize a public Skype meeting with ELARD-TRC experts to personally comment on their evaluations to avoid misinterpretations of the report. During the Skype meeting on August 29, ELARD-TRC experts noted that Lydian's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was fraught with inaccuracies, errors, and underestimations, making it impossible to accurately predict the extent of adverse impacts on this sensitive ecological site. Lydian's approaches to mitigate these negative impacts are not only insufficient but also lack various elements (such as mine closure and acidic water treatment).

The ELARD-TRC expert group repeatedly stated that at this moment, any guarantees from Lydian regarding the safe exploitation of the mine lack empirical support, therefore any attempt to trust these guarantees is exclusively a political decision devoid of scientific foundation.

On September 9, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, effectively circumventing numerous warnings from the professional community, proceeded with his unilateral political decision to open the mine, disregarding the evaluations of the independent expert study commissioned and funded by the state budget of $400,000, along with all clarifications provided by ELARD-TRC during the Skype meeting.

This decision is justified primarily by the allegedly nonexistent legal grounds for ceasing Lydian's operations, as well as the interests of the 'economic community' and an unexplained threat to the security of Armenia.

We declare that Pashinyan has made an abusive and illegal statement, intentionally disregarding the numerous existing legal grounds and furthermore, claiming that no such grounds exist. Through the findings of the international expertise, which reveal that Lydian has misled both the government and the people of Armenia, as well as its investors and lenders, Pashinyan, in fact, does not see legal grounds to cease Lydian’s operations, and such a statement limits the possibility for other state entities to operate independently within their own powers.

The Law on EIA has been fundamentally violated by both Lydian and former members of the government who endorsed Lydian’s project, yet Pashinyan ignores this blatant illegality.

Professional studies have uncovered new ecological circumstances and confirmed that Lydian did not ensure the completeness, reliability, and scientific justification of the facts in its EIA, thereby violating the requirements of the Environmental Impact Assessment and Expertise Law of Armenia Articles 5, Section 4, Article 27, Section 3, and Article 21, Section 5.

Effectively, after seven months of failing to conclude an investigation led by the Investigative Committee, Pashinyan is making such an announcement and taking on the grave responsibility of providing the highest level of patronage for the company.

Additionally, to this day, the public has been kept in the dark about and not informed of the conclusions presented by the Ministry of Environment on September 4, along with all related documents (e.g., the conclusions from the Academy of Sciences institutions) regarding the grounds for nullifying Lydian's EIA.

Prior to June 2018, at the very construction stage, Lydian had already committed multiple violations that were recorded both by local residents and by the Inspectorate for Environmental and Subsoil Monitoring. Furthermore, in 2018, administrative actions were already taken to suspend Lydian's activities, a criminal case was initiated concerning illegal mining, and a letter to nullify the EIA conclusions was sent to the Ministry of Environment back in 2018, but the government has remained silent on this matter and is essentially allowing for continuous violations.

Moreover, the government continues to cover up the issue concerning the violated rights of the residents of Jermuk, despite the fact that public hearings in Jermuk have not been held, nor is there any document available (or at least accessible to the public) confirming the prior agreement of the Jermuk community's leader and council.

We declare that Nikol Pashinyan, with this decision overlooking existing and repeatedly presented expert and legal grounds, enabling a program with numerous legal violations and shortcomings, is providing high-level patronage to a private company, which is a blatant fact of abuse of power and a betrayal of public trust.

Thus, Nikol Pashinyan and his government are responsible for creating the opportunity for a corporation to make enormous profits at the expense of the entire population of Armenia through extortion. We have repeatedly stated that at this moment, the offshore Lydian cannot enter into investment arbitration, since entering arbitration through its newly established subsidiary companies is a procedural abuse. None of the companies created in August 2018 can enter arbitration against Armenia.

By calling for pathways to be opened for the mine, Pashinyan is creating fertile ground for Lydian to overcome the procedural barriers of corporate arbitration, despite the fact that the Armenian government's positions in this dispute are so strong that it can even file a counterclaim against Lydian.

Nikol Pashinyan and his government are today trampling and betraying the popular revolution, making possible the resurgence of anti-revolutionary forces that are part of the previous regime. Pashinyan's government and those parliamentarians who support him unconditionally or silently are fully responsible for plunging the country into turmoil.

In the current situation, where it is evident that large segments of the Armenian population do not trust the justifications for opening the mine and will resist, the Prime Minister's call to open pathways for Lydian inherently suggests the application of state violence, thereby creating a threat to the legitimacy crisis of the government.

We reaffirm our commitment to protecting Amulsar and declare that we will exert every effort in that direction and will continue to support all citizens defending their rights.

We call on the public to join the march in Yerevan on Wednesday, September 11, at 18:30, which will start from the Public Park of the National Assembly, as well as to self-organize in other ways and raise public awareness about this issue. The statement is open for joining; please send a message to the Facebook page of the ‘Armenian Environmental Front’ to join.