Protests Continue Against Iron Mining in Armenia

The crowd ral­lied in Hrazdan’s cen­tral square before head­ing to a near­by hill rich in iron ore in a con­voy of bus­es and cars.

Boun­ty Resources Arme­nia Lim­it­ed (BRAL), a com­pa­ny part­ly owned by a Chi­nese firm, plans to launch open-pit oper­a­tions there and in two oth­er, larg­er iron deposits else­where in the coun­try in the com­ing years. A team of geol­o­gists hired by BRAL is cur­rent­ly work­ing there to ascer­tain iron reserves hid­den under­ground through test drilling.

Envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion groups are strong­ly opposed to iron min­ing in the area, say­ing that it would pol­lute air, agri­cul­tur­al land and the Hraz­dan riv­er, the main sup­pli­er of irri­ga­tion water to the fer­tile Ararat Val­ley in the country’s south.

Many Hraz­dan res­i­dents share these con­cerns. Some of them already demon­strat­ed against the project late last month.

“There is a ghost town in Chi­na near a sim­i­lar­ly exploit­ed mine,” said one woman tak­ing part in the protest. “We would have the same sit­u­a­tion here.”

Mias­nik Malkhasian, a geol­o­gist coor­di­nat­ing test drilling at the site, dis­missed such con­cerns as he and his work­ers were con­front­ed by the angry crowd. “There is no dan­ger what­so­ev­er,” he said.

The pro­test­ers remained uncon­vinced. Some of them smashed wood­en box­es con­tain­ing drilling sam­ples. Police offi­cers mon­i­tor­ing the demon­stra­tion did not inter­vene.

“Such crim­i­nal deci­sions are not made in Hraz­dan,” Karine Hako­bian, a leader of the oppo­si­tion Zha­rangutyun (Her­itage) par­ty, told the pro­test­ers before the march. “They are made in Yere­van, at the pres­i­den­tial palace and the gov­ern­ment build­ing. They have turned us into slaves in our own coun­try.”

Sasun Mikaelian, a Hraz­dan-based for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an affil­i­at­ed with the oppo­si­tion Armen­ian Nation­al Con­gress (HAK), sin­gled out for­mer Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Var­tan Ayvaz­ian for blame.

The Hetq.am news ser­vice report­ed last Jan­u­ary that by Ayvaz­ian and his fam­i­ly at least part­ly con­trol BRAL. The ex-min­is­ter, who now chairs one of the stand­ing com­mit­tees of the Armen­ian par­lia­ment, did not deny that.

The Hetq report fol­lowed the announce­ment by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny For­tune Oil that it has paid $24 mil­lion to acquire a 35 per­cent share in BRAL. For­tune Oil has the option of rais­ing the stake to 50 per­cent for an addi­tion­al $16 mil­lion.

Ayvaz­ian had con­sid­er­able reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ty over the min­ing indus­try when he served as envi­ron­ment min­is­ter from 2001–2007.