What caused casualties?
20:37, June 4, 2016 | News, Other news
The dismissals and arrests in the field of defense should be accompanied by provision to the public of full information about such incidents. Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, expressed this opinion in his interview to Lragir.am.
While there are certain details, according to Sakunts, the public needs to know the entire substantiation. “In the absence of substantiations, I consider all this to be arbitrariness. Why arbitrariness? Because after the April war, all the facts that became subject of public discussion required that the authorities, specifically Serzh Sargsyan, provided clear arguments on each dismissal. And the law enforcement agencies should give clear explanations on each case as to the bases and well-grounded suspicions serving as a foundation for initiating criminal proceedings and criminal prosecutions against such people,” said Sakunts.
He reminds Serzh Sargsyan and the leadership of the army that when the same issues were raised just before the April war, everybody unanimously declared that there was no corruption in the army.
“And now they come to prove with these actions that “no, there is something”. We don’t know what it is, but there is something. That is, then they concealed corruption crimes and now they conceal the specific crimes of which such persons are suspected. Therefore, I think that these are merely scenes staged to ease the public discontent to some extent,” the human rights defender said.
He states that the persons primarily responsible for all this are the Commander-in-Chief, the Chief of the General Staff and the Defense Minister.
Those issues in the system could be revealed without any war; such issues were raised repeatedly, but they did not stir a finger.
“That is to say, finding scapegoats now for their inaction and failure to take timely measures is only a visible part. They are executing perpetrators and could not have committed such crimes without authorization. It is proven more than definitely that commanders, namely the Chief of the General Staff, the Defense Minister and Serzh Sargsyan personally, are responsible. Without their knowledge, not a single cent can be spent from the Ministry of Defense”, he said.
Referring to the 92 casualties of the 4-day April war, Artur Sakunts says that he carries on voicing the requirement that a clear investigation should be conducted on each single death case. Not only the enemy is responsible for the casualties, but also the Armenian authorities that failed to take adequate measures.
“The death cases during the four-day war should be investigated, and the victims’ families and the public at large should be informed accurately of the circumstances in which they perished. I would like to remind that before the April war, the Investigative Committee consistently initiated criminal cases on the deaths caused by the enemy fire. And it turns out that on every of these 92 death cases, criminal proceedings should be initiated and an impartial and comprehensive investigation should be carried out that should not only consider the hypothesis of national and religious hatred, but also the impact of the commanders, the defense department and corruption crimes. They should consider the improper management, including the issue of improper communication, arms and security measures that played an essential part in the 92 death cases”, he said.
According to Sakunts, relevant investigation should be carried out to explain to the public how 18 soldiers or their corpses appeared to be under the enemy’s control. “They cannot be let to disguise their complicity, inaction and improper management by military and patriotic pathos or various compensations. As long as these circumstances remain non-clarified, the risk that we will have more casualties persists”, he added.
According to the human rights defender, internal command investigation only is insufficient in this case; Serzh Sargsyan and Prosecutor General should start fulfilling their functions prescribed by law and initiate criminal proceedings on each death case. “Then it would be not them but us to determine who is to blame; we will see that the real persons responsible are not only those colonels and mayors, but also the Commander-in-Chief who finds that everything is all right on papers. This approach of “everything is all right on the paper” led to casualties”, Sakunts said.