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Sunday 7 June 2009

Alleged photo evidence on beating in the Armenian army

On 25 May 2009 Ankakh.am posted a report on corruption in the Armenian army. Report ends with photos (below) which allegedly made via mobile phone and show how an officer was beating a conscript, presumably at one of the Armenian army bases.

Why no one is investigating these claims? Why no other Armenian media reports on this case demanding an investigation? OK, Ankakh.am is a very recent addition to the growing number of Armenian online news outlets, people may not be aware of it yet, but some should have noticed it. When reports on video evidence of violence and bullying revealed re Azerbaijani army (see here and here), these cases got immediately publicised via Armenian news outlets too. And rightly so. Officials from the Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan were initially casting doubts on that online evidence saying that it was staged to discredit the Azeri army etc. etc. However, they were eventually forced to open an investigation, and arrests were made.

So why is this silence about the allegations on our own cases?

4 comments:

Ankakh_Hayastan said...

A buddy of mine was executed by his superior officer in 1992. It is no surprise that families who can afford try to have their sons serve in safer bases. Rotten people like this officer not only do not have compassion for a fellow human being but they also create a toxic environment inside a very important public institution in charge of protecting the nation.

With an environment like that, how will you guarantee an effective defense and offence against an enemy is beyond me.

artmika said...

What is also sad is that these sorts of revelations are considered something 'routine', not very news worthy, and do not cause outrage...

Anonymous said...

It's like anything else I'm afraid -it's the norm, the unwritten way of doing things, accepted as such on all levels. Another example of jekyll&hyde nature of our society - the reality as it is: criminal MPs, corrupt bureaucracy, rotten education system and army; and the reality we're presented from the TV screens: Constitutional democracy, reformed army and education, one nation, one culture, one church and similiar bullshit.
Your Azeri example is not very good one either though as the reaction to the video came about as a result of Azeri society living in denial. They try to create a credible image of a non-existent civil society but the punishment of the soldiers in the Azeri video didn't grow into any sort of reform or a larger debate on the topic of violence in the army. Everyone was happy to consider the problem solved even though everyone knows there is mass violence in the whole of the army.

Anonymous said...

soviet legacy + ltp's failure as a statesman to bring about any culture change + kocharian (and now sargsyan) acquiescence is what we have today.