Squabbles Cause Delays in Aid to Homeland : L.A.’s Armenia Quake Relief Stuck in Pipeline

More than seven months after Los Angeles-area Armenians mobilized to help their earthquake-ravaged homeland, the bulk of the more than $6 million in relief money raised has yet to be spent, and Armenian organizations are only now making concrete plans about what to do with it.

Last week, the largest single coalition of Southern California Armenian groups formed to coordinate disaster relief--the Glendale-based Earthquake Relief Fund for Armenia--announced that it is allocating $1.5 million to construct prefabricated housing in a small Armenian village destroyed by the quake.

But the group has not yet signed a contract with a housing manufacturer, and the money has yet to be spent. In addition, more than $4 million that local Armenian leaders estimate has been raised by other Los Angeles-area Armenian organizations is still sitting in U.S. bank accounts while Armenian leaders squabble about what to do with the funds.

Armenian organizations in the United States have been slow to spend the money because they are not accustomed to dealing with disaster on such a vast scale and they are skeptical about turning over money to the Soviet government, which most Armenians feel has done them wrong, Armenian community leaders said.

“When you’re the Red Cross or something, you’re all set up to help,” said Flora Dunaian, a wholesale veterinary distributor active in the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church. “For us, in the beginning it was a little difficult. We didn’t know which way was up, and there was dissension as to how the money would be controlled. It’s just been one thing after another.”

Now, Armenian community leaders say that most of the money collected for earthquake relief is earmarked for projects not directly related to the quake itself. Those leaders say their relief efforts are now entering a new phase--away from sending food, blankets and medical equipment and toward taking advantage of perestroika --the Soviet government’s policy of political and economic restructuring--to inject money and knowledge into the sagging Armenian economy.

“Our church collected a quarter of a million dollars, and those people responsible for suggesting how it would be spent were very cautious,” said Joseph Zeronian, deacon of the United Armenian Congregational Church in Hollywood. “Meanwhile, relief was going on and decisions were not made properly. So consequently, here we are down eight months, there’s no immediate relief need left, so people are changing their perspectives to projects that will improve the lives of these people over the long term.”

The debate that slowed the Armenian-American response to the Dec. 7 earthquake was marked by fiscal conservatism, Armenian officials involved in the discussions said.

At the Earthquake Relief Fund for Armenia, for example, disagreements arose over whether the bulk of the collected money should be used to supply food, medical supplies or housing. More than $500,000 worth of food and medical equipment was sent by the organization immediately after the quake, but since then, the idea of spending money on housing seems to have won out.

“We have enough money to build about 50 houses initially,” said Berdj Karapetian, spokesman for the Earthquake Relief Fund. “The arguments started over doing that versus sending blankets to 20,000 people. We realized that no matter which way we go, with $1.3 million we will not satisfy all the people who need help over there. But if we initiate a process, maybe it can have a snowball effect.”

The process of giving has been further slowed by the difficulty of dealing with the Soviet government, Armenian officials here said. Among Armenians, a diaspora people traditionally skeptical of those in power, decisions on where to spend their money have been hampered by their deep-rooted distrust of the Soviet government.

Worry Over Disbursement

“There has always been a concern about handing the moneys over to a Communist country, about whether it would be disbursed properly,” Zeronian said. “Right now things are open, but with that country, you never know.”

At the Armenian Assembly of America, for example, officials finally decided in April to donate the $3 million the organization raised nationwide to equip four factories in Soviet Armenia. But what a spokeswoman for the assembly called “Soviet roadblocks” have so slowed the process that the factories are far from being built.

The Armenian Protestants in the United States, a minority in the predominantly Roman Catholic community, have collected more than $2 million in donations for earthquake relief, and little of that has been spent, church officials said. Those officials said they plan eventually to invest the money in construction projects.

The intense discussions about how to use the relief funds are the outgrowth, perhaps more than anything else, of the consuming and passionate interest Armenians have in their homeland.

Since Armenians in Southern California first heard of the disaster, talk of the earthquake and its victims has occupied almost every community event, religious gathering and family get-together. Southern California is home to more than 250,000 Armenians, the largest community of this scattered people in the world outside Soviet Armenia. In the tight-knit community, there are few who don’t have some connection to someone affected by the tragedy.

That near-obsession has translated into astonishing stories of generosity. In the weeks after the quake, Armenian-American businessmen donated private planes to carry cargo to the devastated country, and more than 50 tons of medical equipment were sent by Los Angeles-area doctors, who also paid their own plane fare to get to the earthquake zone.

So many Armenian engineers, architects and businessmen in the United States have plans to donate money toward the revitalization of the Armenian economy that an Armenian-American engineering association has set up an office in Yerevan, complete with phone and facsimile machine.

Armenian students in Los Angeles and elsewhere are signing up for summer volunteer jobs reconstructing buildings in Armenia. And more than a dozen Soviet Armenian children injured in the earthquake have been flown to Los Angeles for treatment.

Armenian-American leaders say that questions about the deliberate pace of their relief efforts miss the mark. They say that they are trying their best to help their people; the money they have collected was donated to help Soviet Armenia, they say, and that is what it will do.

“One may judge that the relief effort should have happened faster, but there is no perfect solution,” Karapetian said. “It’s frustrating. We are getting the feeling that they are sinking deeper and deeper over there and there is very little that you can do. With our little bit of money, we just want to restore a little bit of hope.”