Armenia seeking ways to save army

By AzerNews

With economic conditions of Armenian deteriorating day by day, a growing number of Armenians are reaching to this conclusion that migration is the only way out of the current plight. The trend has gained momentum in recent years.

This has sounded the alarm for the army particularly because most of the migrants are young people who leave the country in search of better life.

Now the government is looking for ways to keep the young people in the country to cope with the problem of shortage of soldiers.

The government supported on January 23 a draft law developed by the Ministry of Education and Science to amend the law on Military Service to stop the migration of young men.

The ministry believes that students studying abroad with the deferment right avoid compulsory military service which promotes people's migration and stimulates the desire not to return home. The bill envisages eliminating a deferment right for students who study in the universities of foreign countries based on government order, interstate and interagency agreements.

The ministry also proposed to apply a special procedure for granting a deferment, and a deposit in the amount of 8.5 million drams ($20,885).

Azerbaijani military expert Uzeyir Jafarov believes that the Armenian parliament will not only adopt the draft law, but also will toughen the law "On military service".

"Armenia faces serious problems in army formation due to intense demographic situation and such a step targets to stop young people from escaping," Jafarov told AzerNews.

The Armenian families are afraid of sending their sons to the military service, as the Defense Ministry cannot guarantee a soldier's safety.

The number of dead soldiers in non-combat conditions has increased since the beginning of 2014. Several Armenian soldiers died due to illnesses, suicide and beating during the first months of the military service.

Father of a died Armenian soldier desperately attempted to commit suicide. Some parents of died soldiers even plan to appeal to European Court of Human Rights after a failure to see justice in Armenia.

Mothers of died soldiers held several protests outside the government and the Defense Ministry demanding the public punishment of the guilty. Even Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan is forced to go out from back door of ministry's building to avoid the protesting mothers. They call Ohanyan as "bubble", because "none of what Ohanyan promised has been fulfilled."

Ohanyan accused the society of acts of violence in the army. He said that these acts will continue until relevant work is carried out in the society.

"The acts of violence will stop when there will be no playful child in secondary and high schools," he said.

The Azerbaijani expert believes that Ohanyan made statements for inland.

"With these statements he only hides the real situation in the army. The cases of deviation from military service increases in Armenia due to the acts of violence in the army," he underscored.

In case with Armenia, the army has turned into a destabilizing factor, while in normal societies it is an instrument at the hand of the state and nation. Poor living conditions in the country and lawlessness in the army will inevitably leave Armenia without power.