Civil Contract members keep talking about looting in the army. Andranik Kocharyan, Chairman of the NA Committee on Defense and Security, says that there is the fate and blood of a soldier in every stone of the generals’ private houses. And when Armenia’s defeat in the war is discussed, they point to theft in the army.
Aravot Daily spoke to Gagik Melkonyan, a member of the Civil Contract faction, about whether there had been theft in the army before. He worked as the head of the RA Ministry of Defense’s homefront department during Robert Kocharyan’s administration, as well as the deputy minister of defense regarding homefront affairs during Serzh Sargsyan’s administration. Gagik Melkonyan answered, “That theft is the theft where everyone does not steal openly, or where you can see if someone stole or not. Everyone was able to do something in some way, to steal. Everyone was able to steal something.
What was the result of the theft? We did not have normal weapons. In recent years, the army has simply been neglected. I have been hearing for 20 years that the President of Azerbaijan keeps saying the same thing: we must take back our lands by fighting, we will go to war. And over these 20 years, we keep hearing and saying, let them try. On the contrary, when we hear that Russia took 5 billion worth of equipment, armaments, and Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Israel purchased so many billions- we listen to all this and do not draw conclusions from it. Why didn’t we do it? We could have acquired the appropriate weapons every year, right? If they had UAVs, we could have had the opposite equipment and increased air defense. It did not even occur to us to buy UAVs.
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During a visit while we were in Iran, they showed us samples of the UAVs, and we agreed that we would pay the same price they did when they purchased the UAVs for their army. This was in 2002. We turned a blind eye and did not buy those UAVs. We slept. If we had concrete walls on the first, second, and third defensive lines, no Bayraktar would have destroyed our blindages no matter how many times they struck.” In response to the question of if we were so unprepared, why did Davit Tonoyan say ‘new war, new territories,’ Gagik Melkonyan said, “Now ask Davit Tonoyan. How many times did David Tonoyan go to the first, second, and the third lines to see if those lines existed? Let them talk about it for once. The same thing happened then: we spent billions on defense lines. Now is not the time to speak, but to act. Do we have those regions now? Let’s go and see what was done then? Let them speak and give answers.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
