Artur Sakunts: “The Defense Minister must explain how it happens that there are no children of officials among those who commit suicide or are murdered in the army”
15:41, February 3, 2017 | News, Other news | Rights of Soldiers/Recruits | Armed Forces
Examination of the deaths cases in the army makes it clear that the practices of drafting children from disadvantaged families to border posts still persist and the responsible authorities do not exercise proper control. This was observed by human rights activist Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, in his interview to ‘Medialab’ referring to another incident recorded the other day.
Note that on January 25, conscript soldier Shavash Galstyan’s body with a fatal gunshot wound in the jaw was found at the combat positions of Tavush. The Investigative Committee reported that a criminal case was initiated under the article of causing a person to commit suicide. Once information of the death case was published, it became known that Shavarsh Galstyan came from a one-parent family and was a single child. His father died 5 years ago and his mother lives at a dormitory in Abovyan town.
According to Artur Sakunts, this is another example when children from socially disadvantaged families without a roof over their heads appear in the hottest spots when drafted in the army.
“It is a pattern that is never changed and is consistently followed; surprisingly, only the children from such families go to the border by draw,” Artur Sakunts said in his interview to ‘Medialab’.
The human rights activist reminds that the law requires drafting young orphaned draftees to military units at a distance of 150 km from their place of residence and in this case this requirement was violated as the area from Abovyan to borderline Tavush exceeded 150 km.
While the criminal case was initiated under the Article on causing a person to commit suicide, the serviceman’s family insist that there are signs of violence on his body. Shavarsh Galstyan’s grandmother said that he got into some messy affairs but gave no details to his family members. And his aunt insists that Shavarsh was killed and then the gun was put into his hands.
“Everything makes it clear for us that this is no suicide. The inner part of our child’s hands is bruised and bandaged. It appears that our child was tortured, beaten up and then the gun was put into his hands. His face is all swollen,” Shavarsh Galstyan’s aunt said in her interview to ‘Azatutyun’ (‘Liberty’) radio station.
Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan argues that as it was reported to him on this case no violation of conscription procedure was detected. Along with the criminal proceedings, an official internal investigation is carried out on this case.
“Regardless of their family and social status, the injury, death and suicide of any soldier are of major concern to us and something we find difficult to accept. In any case we try to fully understand the causes of the incident,” the Minister stated.
He also hinted that this incident was suicide by saying that suicide is no borders.
“If it were possible to exclude suicides in any system, it would be very desirable. But regretfully, suicides are committed both in and outside the armed forces. But looking through the statistics of the years, I have seen something simple; the number of suicides in the armed forces is about 4 times smaller than outside the army,” the Minister said.
Artur Sakunts says that as long as the investigation is in progress, no one and the more so the Defense Minister has any right to suggest a hypothesis on whether it was a suicide.
“The Defense Minister must explain how it happens that there are no children of officials among those who commit suicide or are murdered in the army,” Sakunts says.
This issue became quite obvious especially during the April war when the servicemen who appeared on the border and died mostly came from socially disadvantaged families. The human rights activist noted that as of today, not only there have been no changes in the situation but also there is no desire to make any change.
“Vigen Sargsyan is not an ordinary person, but he used to be the Head of the Staff of the President, attended the Government sessions and possessed all the necessary information. Yet, since he has been in office we have never heard any statement or position on violations of statutory relations and death cases in the army as an urgent issue,” Artur Sakunts adds.
Referring to another incident recorded the other day, Artur Sakunts focuses on the issue of medical examination during the call-up.
On January 26, 19-year-old conscript soldier cadet Sargis Apinyan died suddenly at a military unit. According to the preliminary data, on that day at about 4:20 pm, Apinyan at once felt bad on the drill ground at the military unit. He was taken to the first-aid post at the military unit where at about 5:35 pm his biological death was registered.
“Some issues in this incident arouse concern. True, the Investigative Committee stated that the soldier’s health deteriorated on the drill ground, but I assume that he was doing some exercises on that ground. What exercises did they do that led to the cadet’s cardiac arrest? If his heart beat normally, i.e. no such problem was detected by the medical examination before the call-up, then the drill exercises they did are very strange and because of them the young man could not survive such a physical stress,” Sakunts said to ‘Medialab’.
He noted that they had voiced on numerous occasions that that medical examination should not only concern examining the serviceman’s state of health in the given conditions but also issuing a certain medical opinion about the physical stress the person may survive.
“And if he did common drill exercises, the problem concerns the inadequate medical examination. In both cases, this is one of the most concerning issues about which we regretfully receive no comment from the Defense Minister,” the human rights activist says.