Epress.am News from Armenia
Asked by Epress.am what the RA Ministry of Defense isn’t doing to put an end to the questionable deaths in the Armenian army, member of the Defense Minister’s Public Council and military expert David Jamalyan said:
“There are issues for which objective time is required to heal [and] resolve [those issues]. In a human sense, we all had feelings of sorrow. The conclusions are made, a sharp reaction was received. But time is necessary so that, through proper human resources [and] good policies, such cases are omitted in the future. That which is being done, the beginning, is very reassuring because I can’t recall a single case whereby, as a result of an omission by the department, dozens of individuals were discharged, and it’s not only through such sanctions that the problem will be solved.”
He also noted, “It can’t be said what hasn’t been done, the important thing is that the conclusions have been made.”
After Jamalyan’s response, journalists reminded the military expert that after the dismissals, there was another case of a conscript dying while serving in the army.
It turned out that Jamalyan wasn’t aware of this August 17 incident, and he asked for details from the journalists present, asking whether the incident occurred within the the military unit’s territory. Then he “particularly stressed” journalists’ role in the work of correcting these situations.
“We must be vigilant so that those individuals, those officials, who’ve neglected their duties and, as we know, criminal cases have been filed against them… the entire investigation process must be controlled. If we don’t now satisfy the public’s expectation of due punishment, not only are we [contributing to] the public’s despair toward the army, but also there’s the threat of an atmosphere of anarchy, which will be created if the guilty are not punished. In order to prevent the tragedy, those guilty, those officials who neglected their duties, must receive their due punishment,” he said.