Murders of the Avetisyans’ family, the Russian No 102 military base in
Gyumri and the worth of Gyumri residents
January 19 2015
On January 12, hours after shooting of the Avetisyan’s family in
Gyumri, it was already noticed that the case of felony is intended to
be handed over into the hands of Russian law enforcement. “The Russian
government bodies provide every kind of necessary support to Armenian
government authorities to track down the culprits and bring them to
justice,” says the Russian Foreign Ministry press release a few hours
after the crime. On the same day, Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh
Kocharyan received the Russian Ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volynkin who
mentioned that the Russian side is interested in sooner disclosure of
the crime details and punishment of the culprits and bring the culprit
to justice, and stressed, “The management of the Russian military base
deployed in Gyumri is fully cooperating with the Armenian
law-enforcers and supports the investigation.” While under the
Agreement on deployment of the Russian military base signed between
Armenia and the Russian Federation, Article 4, the crimes committed by
persons involved in the Russian military base in the territory of
Armenia are subject to investigation by competent authorities of
Armenia in a manner prescribed by the legislation, and Armenian
competent bodies can also be used with regard to such persons. Though
the investigation of felony in Gyumri by RA law enforcers is still no
guarantee that the true causes of the crime, the organizers, if any,
will be identified, nevertheless, many believes that the RA
authorities will simply demonstrate principality in terms of
protecting the interests of the citizens of Armenia, at least from the
standpoint of propaganda reasons. On January 14, after the meeting at
the President’s residency followed by the multi-crowd protest in
Yerevan and Gyumri, the Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan said, “I
assure you that the criminal will be held criminally liable in the
territory of the Republic of Armenia, and we will all see and have the
chance to follow the entire procedure and see how he is brought to
justice. The Republic of Armenia does not yield anything to anybody.”
At the meeting with the First Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan,
Russian First Deputy Defense Minister Arkady Bakhin said that the
Russian Defense Ministry Commission has completed its internal service
investigation conducted at the Russian No 102 military base, and all
the culprits are revealed. Bakhin also said that according to the
Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, Valery Permyakov, a soldier
of the Russian No 102 military base involved as a culprit by the filed
criminal case, is in the territory of the Republic of Armenia, and
under the criminal case, further works will be carried out by the
relevant law enforcement agencies of Armenia and the Russian
Federation. Bloody pages in the history of the Russian military base
in Gyumri The January 12 murders refreshed the tragic events of the
Russian military base in Gyumri happened in the past few years. On
April 7, 2013, an incident happened in Vahramaberd community, Shirak
Marz. Two children of village Vahramaberd, Mushegh Gevorgyan and
Arthur Lazarian, were killed by the landmine explosion in the
territory of Russian troops’ tank shooting. It turned out that the
landmine explosive in the site of the shooting took the lives of two
village residents of Vahramaberd Village, A. Lazarian, born in 2001,
and M. Gevorgyan, born in 1997. Arthur Lazarian’s father had gone to
the field to shepherd the sheep and the children had joined him. At
the time of the incidents, the father had gone to fetch water, the
children had seen the wheels and had gone close to play with them,
when hitting, the mines exploded. Both families were large and live in
extreme living conditions, the men of the families are shepherds. The
Lazarians’ family has 8 children, and the Gevorgyans’ family – 6
children. The mentioned area was given to the Russian Federation Armed
Forces by interstate leasing agreement for 45 years. However, so far
there are no punished, brought to liability, even in the event when
the incident was an accident. So far, it is not clear why the
territory was not cleared from the armor, or why the access there for
unauthorized persons was not properly blocked. In April 19, 2013, GALA
had informed the families of the two killed teenagers are unhappy. “As
they said, the Russians had convinced, even frightened that “if they
keep doing it,” the case will be turned on them, and they managed to
make the 10-year-old Arthur Lazarian’s and 15-year-old Mushegh
Gevorgyan’s families to sign a document that allegedly they have no
complaint and dissatisfaction. Thus, the job is completed, and the
village continues to live as usual, taking the cattle to graze in the
same territories where it is dangerous, and where the two juveniles
were killed. God forbid, in the event of recurrence, they will
declare, “The ones killed are to be blamed.” In the interview with
GALA, Vahramaberd Village Mayor Aghvan Martirosyan referred to the
question that the families had signed underneath a paper that they do
not complain. “If they have made such statements that they were made
to sign that nothing of the kind has happened. They have said that
they have written that they have no complaints. What remains to close
the case is up to the Russian investigative bodies. We are not the
ones to decide whether to close the case or not. No one from the
Armenian side was involved in the investigation group, simply to be
able to understand the language, there was one representative, who was
for the translation work.” The incident happened in April 1999 was
more horrible by its cruelty, when two drunken Russian soldiers from
the military base had come out to the town with rifles and had opened
irregular fire right and left on people and the houses. In the result
of these irregular firing, more than a dozen people were seriously
injured and two were killed. The drunken soldiers were found guilty in
the incident happened in 1999, but were extradited to Russia, now, we
do not anything about their fates. Helplessness of the political field
The mysterious silence that our society has witnessed in these days
after the brutal murder of January 12 is just incredible. Even in
responding to the crime, it turned out that our political parties and
party leaders consider the “circumstances” of what nationality has the
suspect in the crime. Even when expressing condolence to the relatives
of the Avetisyan’s family, it turns out that the political parties of
Armenia, with some exceptions, are thinking about not offending the
Kremlin. Social networks compared it to the incident happened in
Podolsk in July 13 when the driver of the truck, RA citizen Hrachya
Harutyunyan, was brought to the court dressed in a woman’s gown, and
until now, it is not possible to solve the issue of his transportation
to Armenia. Or, they recalled Gurgen Margaryan’s murder in 2004, when
the murderer Ramil Safarov has been sentenced to life imprisonment for
taking the axe and bludgeoning the Armenian army officer Gurgen
Margaryan to death in 2007 during the NATO training course, later in
August 31, 2012, Hungary extradited him to Azerbaijan, after which the
Armenian government authorities froze their diplomatic relations with
Hungary. Patriotic manifestations by Armenia’s political parties, the
occasion for organizing torchlight processions, are always the same.
We, the Armenians, are united when remembering the genocide issue. For
instance, Armen Rustamyan, commenting on the tragic murders in Gyumri,
mentioned in this context that he is happy that “the anti-Russian
manifestations are prevented.” But on the other hand, what to expect
for a political arena, where the majority considers justified and
legitimate, or turns a blind eye on the selling of several billion
dollars of weapon to Azerbaijan by the “strategic partner”, but at the
same time, “arguments” that “the Russians protect us from Turks” and
ensures the security of Armenia and Karabakh. A protest action took
place on January 14 in Gyumri; the public was frustrated. The Gyumri
people were demanding to handover the Russian military soldier to the
justice of the Armenian side in order to bring the responsible
entities of the Russian side to a meeting, the protestors had dropped
the Russian flags onto the ground and had thrown eggs at the building
of the Russian Consulate. The protesters had reached the Russian No
102 military base, where a fight had occurred between protesters and
the police. While the “force” of the Armenian law enforcement falls on
the Armenian citizens. Evidently, the Armenia-Russia relations are
affected by the brutal murders of January 12, which is a negative
fact. The murder of the Gyumri peaceful family members created tension
between the Gyumri military base and the Gyumri residents, as well as
caused uncertainty in the Armenian-Russian relationships. Yes, the
Gyumri murders should not be politicized, but we can tell this when
there are persuasive evidences that its being organized in the
specific crime is excluded, or there are substantiations that the
crime has not been committed on the background of national hatred.
But, in many cases, our society is not interested in such minor
things, and people have more convincing hypothesis. The profound
explanation that the Turks are involved in the Gyumri murder, or the
one from the West, seems that the Armenian and Russian law enforcement
agencies have already presented facts on this, and what is left for us
now is to believe them or not. The citizens, who had come out to
protest in Yerevan and Gyumri on January 14, stood for the right of
the RA citizen to live and our independent state. Unlike government
and non-government, as said in a popular language, they kept the worth
of our country.
Emma GABRIELYAN
Read more at:
From: Baghdasarian
http://en.aravot.am/2015/01/19/168450/