Activists Hope to Put End to Amulsar Gold Mine

For the residents of Vayotz Dzor province, black water in their taps proved to be the straw which broke the camel’s back.

Catalyzed by the results of the peaceful revolution in Yerevan, local villagers began to organize resistance to Lydian. A round-the-clock blockade was put in place on the May 18, blocking roads leading to the mine. This time local police did not intervene, and the blockade continues to the present day and construction has halted. However, the crisis is far from resolved, as Lydian has now resorted to threats of arbitration. The mining company is considering litigation against Armenia in a $-billion investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). Such corporate court cases are often handled via a process of secret tribunals whose decision cannot be appealed. Since this means that Armenia – whose allotted government budget in 2020 was $4 billion— could face up to 2 billion dollars in fines, this threat has been quite a potent weapon for Lydian.

Government Response/ Political Division.

Following the 2018 Velvet Revolution, the government was generally uncooperative with Lydian. It refused to remove the blockade, and temporarily suspended Lydian’s rights to operate in Armenia, pending an environmental audit of the Amulsar mine by an international consultancy group. The consultancy group hired for this audit, Earth Link and Advanced Resources Development (ELARD), released its report to the public in a live teleconference in August of 2019. In summarizing its findings, ELARD found that the data collected by Lydian in surveys of Amulsar was insufficient for a mining project of the proposed size. Furthermore, it found that Lydian had used this incomplete data to make oversimplified and unsupported conclusions.

The report also found that the potential risks of water pollution were small and could be mitigated. In this vein, ELARD issued 16 recommendations for Lydian concerning mitigating measures. Following the release of the ELARD report, the Armenian government appeared to side with Lydian, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced his intention later in August to restore rights of operation. Pashinyan argued that the ELARD report proved conclusively that the risks of water contamination were minimal and could be mitigated. To bolster these claims, the incumbent government pointed to the environmental audit’s 16 recommendations, and the fact that Lydian claimed to be working towards compliance with them.

Incidentally, there are past connections between the current government and Lydian. Current President Armen Sarkissian previously served as director of Lydian International Ltd. Amidst rumors that he remained a Lydian shareholder, President Sarkissian categorically denied any connections to Lydian in a conversation with protestors in 2018.

On the Ground

Disagreements continue to abound with regards to how ELARD’s report should be interpreted.

When speaking to rally goers this Thursday, the discord between the government and activists seemed palpable. Whereas Pashinyan’s government has argued that the ELARD report gives them no recourse to bar Lydian from operating in Armenia, the activists at the rally disagreed with that assertion. To them, the report was far from a glowing recommendation of Lydian’s operations, but was rather an indictment of their substandard practices. Activists also argued that the report indicated that Lydian had failed to enact necessary mitigating practices to reduce the risk of their mine causing environmental pollution. They saw no reason to trust that Lydian would now become compliant in its mining operations it hadn’t observed prior to the environmental audit.

Several people interviewed from both Jermuk and Yerevan said they wanted nothing less than the total cessation of the companies’ mining operations in the country. As Anna Nikoghosyan of AEF stated, “the government has all the necessary facts and reports to unconditionally close Lydian’s mine.” Nikoghosyan also pointed to Lydian’s dealings in Georgia and their lack of an established reputation as further red flags.

Prime Minister Pashinyan at one point supported the mine by stating that booting Lydian out of the country would reduce the incentive for foreign investment in Armenia. But the rally-goers were not swayed by this angle either. Levon Galstyan, a coordinator who has been with AEF for a decade and is a postgraduate candidate of the National Academy of Sciences, balked at this argument. Galstyan retorted, “I will support any foreign investment that brings growth to Armenia and builds its future. I will never accept however an investment that would poison our water, destroy our nature, and destroy our future in the name of profit. To me that is akin to selling one of my kidneys for a buck.” Garik, a demonstrator from Jermuk chimed in, saying “We all know this mine is a real threat to people’s health and to nature. We must defend our land and our mountains, as we have lost so much [land], we cannot lose more.”

Intersectionality

An interesting aspect of this rally was that it revealed a wide range of different causes finding common purpose in the Save Amulsar movement. Whilst the most prominent faction of demonstrators was environmentalists, the rally also included a significant number of LGBT+ activists. This issue resonates with other activist groups due to the common themes it shares. In their minds, the movement to save Amulsar is also a movement to preserve democracy, and to ensure the dignity and health of all human beings.

In other words, the rally-goers seek more than just to save a mountain: they seek to normalize a narrative in Armenian society that values the lives of people over profit, that elevates the voices of the voiceless, and calls to account those that abuse their power. As one self-proclaimed queer activist named Artak explained, “this movement affects all vulnerable people, and all those who oppose a lack of privacy, and police brutality.”

In the eyes of demonstrators, the post-revolution government had squandered a great deal of good will on this issue, not only by siding with Lydian, but also by remaining generally silent. As Nikoghosyan, an AEF activist, explained, “We are very disappointed with our government, our MPs, and our PM [Pashinyan]. They have had time to see the truth, but they aren’t holding Lydian accountable. This is quite embarrassing, and it shows that real democracy lives in Amulsar, not in Yerevan”.

Only time will tell if all that glitters is gold in the outcome of this crisis.