Mines aren’t used during Military Drills: Did Armenian Side know and allow application of military mines?
13:45, April 10, 2013 | News | Children's rights, Right to Life, Rights of Soldiers/Recruits | Armed Forces
Both Armenian and Russian sides are responsible for the death circumstances of 2 underage children, 10-year-old Artur Mkrtchyan and 15-year-old Mushegh Gevorgyan, who died as a result of a blast, which occurred in the tank shooting area of Russian army located in Vahramaberd.
Human rights defender, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor expressed his opinion over the incident in an interview with GALLA.
It should be noted that the Armenian and Russian governments have signed a contract to allocate the village pastures to the Russian side for free without compensation.
“Provision of areas for lease implies defining certain conditions. What are conditions whereby those territories are given out for lease to another state to carry out some functions?
Irrespective of the type of activities, the RA should impose a number of demands including sticking to certain safety rules, specifically in this case, as the use of the territory by military army groups is meant.
Certain conditions related to safety rules should be determined and it cannot be avoided. I am well aware of the contract, which foresees the provision of that territory for lease and etc., however, the demands emerging from this contract aren’t known”, noted Artur Sakunts.
According to the human rights defender, if that area serves as a site for military drills and it means that any detail related to performing of military drills should be reported to the RA authorities by them.
“Apart from providing information, measures should be undertaken to clean-up the territory for safety reasons. Even if tanks were used on that area, reconstruction work must be carried out at least regarding the quality of the land, while, if weapons and ammunition are applied, they must eliminate all traces and clean up after them.
I wonder how come military mines were used, since use of mines during military drills is not implied. The main issue is how it happened that military mined were used and on what grounds they were used.”
Artur Sakunts is convinced, the relevant state must be informed about the overall goal of the military drills. In this case, the Russian side should have informed the RA authorities that mines were going to be used during military drills as well as should have explained why.
“If they have informed, than, what do our authorities do in this respect? The RA authorities should answer all these questions. The Russian side is responsible so much as the disseminated activities in the report complied with the implemented ones, whereas, the Armenian side is responsible for carrying out proper monitoring and if the activities carried out by the Russian side are in line with the ones presented in the report. This mechanism operates in any country and anywhere. If there is a military base of another country, it implies a set of certain conditions and reciprocal commitments. There is also another problem. Those children died, but who is in charge of compensation? The RA authorities have direct liability in front of the RA citizens, at least for allocating that land to the Russian side for use.