Gevorg Gorgisyan touched upon the draft on the “Military Service and the Status of the Servicemen”, submitted by Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan and the discussions on it: “All the problems, that people avoid from the army, do not understand why they should serve, are the result of injustice. One sees that the neighbor’s son was exempted from the army, and thinks why he can’t do that either, instead of thinking why he can serve, what advantages he has so that he can serve. Soldiers often hurt one another in the army, or hurt themselves, these are problems, and when the Minister of Defense says people would sell their house and all possessions in order to exempt their son from the army, this means that the Minister of Defense admits that there is such an extreme situation in the army that the citizens are ready to do anything to get their son out of there.
This is the worst message that the Defense Minister could address to the public. He had no right to talk like that, and he had to resign immediately after saying that. What does it mean to sell everything to avoid military service? Of course, there are problems in the army which need to be solved, but we do not believe that the power which partly obeys the law, the power formed by the higher class, wants to or can change anything. They are not equal and do not want to be. Obligations are applied on ordinary people while advantages only on them”.
Gevorg Gorgisyan stated that if everyone is taken to the army, then there should be equality, without exception, whereas the children of officials are exempted by the government’s decision as an exception: “In this case, bringing a change and stating that we will do our best to make sure that everyone is equal is something we do not believe in”.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
