Artur Sakunts: “They want to lure the poor to solve the state’s defense problems”
18:50, April 22, 2017 | News, Other news
Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan should present to the public the grounds underlying his army models, but he has not done it so far. In his interview to ‘Medialab’, human rights activist Artur Sakunts said this in reference to Vigen Sargsyan’s suggestions at the ‘Nation-Army’ Conference. According to Sakunts, such suggestions are in fact based on the fact that the armed forces are not attractive to people to serve there and our country faces serious demographic problems.
Note that Vigen Sargsyan put into circulation 2 models on service in the army. Model 1 plans to extend the service period from 2 years to 3 years. The conscripts who choose to serve at the combat duty military unit will be entitled to pass to a new type of service, namely fixed-term and contractual. The service will last 3 years, but the serviceman will spend a total of 7 months on leave.
At the end of the service, around 5 million AMD will be transferred to their personal account.
Model 2 plans to link the draft deferment at higher educational institutions to the future military officer service. Every young man who enters a higher educational institution (public or private) accredited by the state is entitled to apply for this program. Thus, citizens with higher education will be able to offer to the country a service of a higher level for a competitive salary making at least 260 AMD monthly.
“No grounds for introducing these 2 concepts are provided. They are merely suggested. And such presentation of the suggestion is deception as it was presented without explaining its necessity, reason and the causes underlying the need for such solutions that suddenly arose right now unlike the previous times when it was possible to ensure the activities of the armed forces without any such system”, Sakunts said to ‘Medialab’.
According to him, as there is no justification, it is not clear whether this program will solve the problems voiced.
“So this is the whole mechanics of deception”, the human right activist added.
According to Sakunts, in fact it is clear to all of us that the causes of such suggestions are as follows. First, the armed forces are not attractive for service. Second, our country faces serious demographic problems as it was during Serzh Sargsyan’s presidency that large numbers of RA citizens permanently left the country.
“In other words, they implement a very inefficient policy and as a result, the country in itself is not attractive for living and people have to leave it for their existence; on the other hand, they suggest serving in the armed forces. That is, the whole nature of such suggestion is vicious as instead of making any changes in the policy, economy, social sector, education and the armed forces after all, you simply try to implement some program without making such changes and solve the problems in this way”, the human rights activist said.
According to Artur Sakunts, given the growing poverty rate in the country, it appears that this suggestion would be accepted mostly by the members of socially disadvantages groups who have no resources to earn a living. And it turns out that people suffer double and triple exploitation.
“In other words, ignoring the fact that those people cannot afford proper education and earn a living, the authorities still want to lure them to solve the state’s defense problems. This means that the entire burden of this vicious and criminal policy falls on the poor groups. And again it is the members of such socially disadvantaged groups that will protect the country for pennies”, he said.
According to Sakunts, this reinforces the social inequality and injustice at a national level that will make even worse the crisis in both economic and social and political sectors.
“This is a program to destroy the very concept of the state. This is a clear manifestation of totally parasitic thinking and policy”, the human rights activist says.