Armenian army records more outrageous crimes

/Azernews/

By Nazrin Gadimova

The death of three Armenian soldiers in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region shocked Armenia last week, but why asks the society, does these murders still do not worry the authorities?

19-year-old David Terteryan died under suspicious circumstances in a military unit dislocated in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region on February 18. Armenia’s Defense Ministry announced that the soldier committed suicide. The very next day the country was shaken by two other murders – Temur Suloyan shot 44-years old officer, Kamo Hovhannisyan, and then committed suicide.

Local media reports that Suloyan was an ethnic Kurd and possibly subjected to ethnic discrimination in the army.

In the post-Soviet space Armenia is the only country, which expelled all national minorities and ethnic groups, except Yezidi Kurds. It is obvious that this ethnic minority is subjected to discrimination as well.

Reports of physical abuse and suicides in the Armenian army are not new. The growing number of non-combat deaths in the army focused public attention on the military abuse issue.

Poor relations among soldiers and officers in the Armenian army have already turned into a driving factor behind non-combat deaths. Officers' willful treatment of soldiers, the humiliations they continue to bare on them often result in armed incident that ultimately claim the lives of servicemen.

A recent research covering the first half of 2015 revealed 98 accidents in the Armenian army, including 51 fatal incidents.

The Defense Ministry deliberately hides the motives of the servicemen’s deaths. Mothers of those killed in the army say that accusing a soldier family of the murders, suicides and violence in the army is the popular method of Armenia's Defense Ministry, the very body that is responsible for the ongoing chaos and disorder in the army.

The Armenian army has become a meat grinder for young men. Obviously, the authorities do not control this meat grinder, says analyst Hovhannes Mandakuni. He believes that total crisis in the Armenian statehood reached the army, and simply horrific events take place there.