Residents of the borderland village of Kajaran in Armenia’s southern Syunik province are opposing a government decision under which about 180 hectares of Kajaran land have been allotted to the local Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum enterprise for mining purposes.

Collecting as many as 600 signatures, community residents have sent a written complaint to Armenia’s president, parliament speaker and prime minister asking them to stop the enforcement of the decision.

“If the decision is enforced, we will lose our village, our sacred places will be defiled. Prospecting and exploratory work has already been launched, which means that in some time the whole community will be removed from this territory. We ask for your help; we will resort to all forms of struggle,” says Kajaran community leader Rafik Atalyan, addressing his words to the country’s leadership.

In their grievance letter Kajaran residents stress their indignation at what they describe as the plant owners’ unreasonable aspirations. They also voice their astonishment at the government’s behavior.

“Should the Armenian government sacrifice the Kajaran village that has a history of thousands of years and has been proudly safeguarding Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan for the sake of satisfying the appetites of a few enterprise owners?” the letter says.

The Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Plant Closed Joint-Stock Company is the country’s leading mining company located in the town of Kajaran. Developing the region’s largest open mine the company extracts copper and molybdenum ore and in the processing of this ore it obtains two separate concentrates of copper and molybdenum. The Plant tops the country’s large taxpayer list.

Among the organizations that have joined the protest of Kajaran residents are the Kapan Regional Development Foundation, the “Azatamart” Committee and Kapan’s Aarhus Center. They demand that the Plant’s Director General Maxim Hakobyan organize public hearings on mining projects.

“We have made the appeal taking into account the provisions of the Armenian Code, the law on environmental impact assessment and the Aarhus Convention,” says Kapan Regional Development Foundation Director Armen Paradyan.