Even though billboards advertising Bjni mineral water continue to remind of the once popular refreshment, the beverage has become scarce in shops, and is on its way to being extinct.

Bjni (along with Noy) water bottling company is owned by the family of Khachatur “Grzo” Sukiasyan. Sukiasyan himself has been in hiding (believed to be outside Armenia) since last March when he became “wanted” by authorities for his participation in opposition uprisings.

Last month the popular mineral water plant was shut down by authorities, who cite “environmental” reasons for the closure.

Few here, though, believe that a tax bill is the issue, but rather that Sukiasyan sealed the fate of his businesses (he is founder of the multi-million dollar SIL company) when he threw his support to opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan last year.

“I will always be next to Levon Ter-Petrosian,” said Sukiasian during one of the first opposition rallies in Yerevan last fall. “I am ready to face all persecutions. When your choice is ideological, when you are sure that the choice is right, you are prepared then. I will endure any possible persecution and pressure with great pleasure.”

Sukiasyan, 47, one of the top businessmen in Armenia, went into hiding after the deadly clashes between opposition protesters and security forces on March 1 and a subsequent government crackdown on the opposition. The crackdown on Sukiasyan family-owned SIL Concern only intensified in the wake of the deadly breakup of ten-day opposition protests.

“It is obvious that Khachatur Sukiasyan has political views that are different from the government viewpoint, and in an authoritarian country like Armenia it is a sufficient condition for a person to become a target for persecution regardless of his social status,” pro-opposition political analyst Suren Surenyants told ArmeniaNow.

In late October, as a result of multiple tax and environmental inspections that lasted for nearly a year bailiffs of the Justice Ministry sealed the Yerevan base of Bjni mineral waters and the plant located in Charentsavan, just north of Yerevan. Trucks belonging to the company were confiscated.

According to the representative of the company’s legal interests, Ara Zohrabyan, numerous marshals and masked men clad in undesignated black uniforms invaded the plant and the base belonging to the Bjni company.

“Since that day, the company’s workers have been laid off. The company’s activities is suspended. The property of the company is to be put to a mandatory auction,” says Zohrabyan.

SIL Concern spokesman Anna Mkrtchyan tells ArmeniaNow that without finding any tax violation after long-lasting inspections, they found the company’s “abuses” in the form of violations in environment use, saying that the Bjni Charentsavan-based plant’s water meters were installed in such a way as to cause “considerable damage to the state.”

(The plant’s water meters were installed in 2005 by the Environment Ministry and no violation had been revealed until January 2008).

“It’s ridiculous, you know,” says Mkrtchyan. “The meters have nothing to do with the plant, the well and the meters belong to the Ministry of Environment and under a contract Bjni must pay for the ministerial water pumped through the pipe from the well, like all other mineral water producers. However, they force Bjni to pay also for the water that is poured off to the river. That is, Bjni has to pay for the whole volume of mineral water that went out of the entrails and poured off to the river – a fine of about $13 million. Can you imagine that?”

Zaruhi Postanjyan, a member of the opposition Heritage party’s parliamentary faction, says that all human rights upheld by the European Convention are being violated in Armenia.

“All those businessmen who are to make environmental payments to the state budget operate in the same regime that was used by Bjni, but a discriminative attitude was shown to the latter and the plant was shut, as a result of which more than 400 workers became jobless,” Postanjyan says.

“During 2006-2008, the company achieved unprecedented success in terms of exporting its products. During these years the average growth of Bjni exports made 200 percent,” the 483-member staff of the Bjni company writes in a joint open letter addressed to the country’s president, prime minister, ombudsman, embassies of foreign states in Yerevan as well as other structures. “We ask you to show political will and not to allow the destruction of the Bjni company, administer objective justice. If you find it inappropriate to return the means of transportation, we are ready to carry on our own backs the boxes and get them to suppliers, only to ensure that the plant works.”

Postanjyan cites that for decades the businessmen that have had a good reputation and never committed violations now suddenly they contract millions in debt to the state, as a result of which they lose their ownership rights.

“Why has the government applied a discriminative approach as a result of which the Bjni plant is closed today?” says Postanjyan. “I would ask them to show the laws that one businessman is allowed to work on the same terms and Bjni is not allowed.”

However, in reply to Postanjyan’s question, Environment Minister Aram Harutyunyan said at the National Assembly last week that “all presented estimations correspond to the reality.”

“Even if there are violations there, it would be desirable that such violations should also be exposed at other economic agents and not only for us to see that they deal with you much more seriously only when you show a certain political position,” says Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan.

Senior member and spokesman for the governing Republican Party of Armenia Eduard Sharmazanov tells ArmeniaNow that “patience is needed” on the way of reforms.

“I don’t think that problems have a political implication, their motives are economic,” says MP Sharmazanov. “As President Serzh Sargsyan declared, there must be no ‘privileged’ in Armenia.”

However, SIL Concern issued a statement saying that not only its Bjni mineral waters plant, but also Pares Armenia Company, Philip Morris official representative in Armenia, Pizza Di Roma, Sport Time companies, Adidas official representative in Armenia, Yerevan Alraghats and Nor Shin companies have become victims of “political vendetta”.

“These organizations obviously bear damages of considerable sizes,” the statement says. “As an organization with many years of experience in business, we find condemnable all methods, means and mechanisms that are aimed at ruining operating enterprises. The authorities acting with this approach have shown one thing that the businessmen who will dare not to be guided by the rules of the game will be strictly and arbitrarily punished.”