Says Yerjanik Abgaryan, adding that the army is busy making money
Oppositionist Yerjanik Abgaryan thought relevant to talk about the “procession” of murders already committed and continuing abuses in the army, during a conversation with “Aravot” yesterday. Let me remind that our society had not yet gotten over the fact of a cruel murder of soldier Aghasi Abrahamyan committed in “Yeghnikner” military base in Nagorno-Karabakh, when yesterday “We Will Not Be Silent” young initiative published in its message along with other exposures another monstrous fact. According to the message, at the beginning of August in “Askeran” military base 20-year-old Hovhannes Vardanyan, a soldier that had served for 12 months was driven crazy, sent to the mental asylum, kept there for 9 days without informing his parents, demobilized before term and thrown to the dogs. It turned out later that Military Attorney of the Republic of Armenia Gevorg Kostanyan ordered to open a case, according to Paragraph 1 of Article 375 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, based on the publication of Hovhannes Vardanyan’s father, former serviceman Hovhannes Vardanyan in the mass media about the violence used against his son by an officer. It is reported that the opened criminal case will be sent to the respective department of the investigation agency of the Ministry of Defense to conduct a preliminary investigation. They also promised that the details would appear after the preliminary investigation and they would inform the public about those at the proper time. Y. Abgaryan was not only concerned, to say the least, about this information about the army, but also observed that the cases of using violence against soldiers, raping them and generally mutilating them mainly took place in the military bases situated in Nagorno-Karabakh and the people who used violence were mainly officers and NCOs “who have sadistic inclinations, and using physical force against a soldier is common and normal thing for those criminals.” He observed that there are underlying reasons for that derived from as early as the years of Artsakh war, when in Karabakh, they were seriously arguing whether the guys from Armenia or from Karabakh fought more courageously or better, when in Karabakh, they were treating people from Armenia with contempt and mockery. As to the murders of servicemen in the Nagorno-Karabakh military bases under peaceful conditions Y. Abgaryan said, “Do they want a demand to be made to concentrate all the servicemen from Armenia mobilized to serve in Artsakh in the same military bases, in order that the Republic of Armenia may have its own military bases in Nagorno-Karabakh that will not be subordinate to the defense army of Artsakh?”
In response to my question whether that rhetoric question did not make additional division between the people from Karabakh and Armenia and whether he thought that it might be perceived as an attempt to drive a wedge between two parts of the Armenian people, Abgaryan responded as follows, “Excuse me, but the fact is more important for me than people who perceive that, whether they are people from Karabakh or Armenia. I ascertain the fact. Murders take place; should we allow those to continue? Don’t we see what a disgrace takes place in the army and nobody does anything to prevent that, to punish. One does not join the army; go to war with that psychology. During a fight everybody must feel that the man next to him will defend him. How can we close our eyes on that and think that this one will perceive this way and that one that way. Let them perceive however they like. If they don’t want that to happen, then they have to eradicate that phenomenon. I don’t see such steps taken; I don’t have facts of such steps.”
Y. Abgaryan is convinced that the war can knock at our doors every day and especially for that reason one must take strict action to prevent violence in the army and to establish law and order. I asked whether it was that easy to establish law and order in the army that it was not done. “Yes, it is. If we get information every day that murders are committed in the army, then there is no army, it is anarchy”, said Abgaryan, adding that today the commanding officers in the army encourage those soldiers who are guided by the law of “the underworld”: immoral people are promoted; the commanding officers appoint local commanders out of trusted people, “They make money and as a result, the anarchy rages in the army; they fight each other. Can you name a commander of a battalion who was fired and held responsible for negligence of work?”