Where Is the Country Going

When I heard about the Haiti earthquake, the second thought, right after donating to the Red Cross, was whether the emergency rescue team from Armenia was going to be on site to help find survivors in the rubble. After an earthquake, there is only limited time that you can find a survivor. Without food, water and air to breathe, the chances of staying alive become slimmer as time passes. When I read the news that the rescue team was ready to be dispatched to Haiti, I was happy.

Armenia has a special moral duty to help during calamities like this. We were the beneficiary of tremendous outpouring of help in 1988 when the nations of the world came to our help, and some of them did not return home (a Yugoslavian airplane carrying aid crashed near Gyumri with no survivors on board).

So imagine my outrage when I learned that the team did not get to go to help the people of Haiti. Due to piss poor planning, they remained in the Yerevan airport and did not go to Moscow to fly together with the Russians to Port-au-Prince. The Russians left without them.

This underlines the fact that there probably are no people with a sense of duty or a sense of morality left in the Armenian government. Given our past, everything and anything should have been done to make sure that we extend a helping hand to those in need.