At the September 17 rally of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) in Yerevan, the former military prosecutor of Armenia Gagik Jhangiryan addressed the recent army incidents.

He particularly said: “The army is a most delicate subject for the ANC. The ANC Leader is the founder of the Armenian army, and it is under Ter-Petrosyan that the army was gaining its victories.

“For me the army is a most delicate subject, as I worked with the army for ten years and know about progress in army construction and all the aspects of army life. However, what we have been witnessing over recent months sometimes defies imagination of even experienced people. “I could never imagine that an Armenian soldier’s dignity and life might be so valueless that he would be regularly humiliated and beaten up and get pleasure from it [the Youtube video is meant],” Jhangiryan said. “It is criminal and permissiveness that is the real enemy,” he said.

Jhangiryan linked the recent events with the March 1, 2008 tragedy. It was because of permissiveness that the officer used arms against his own people, “turning from a defender into a criminal in his mind.”

Jhangiryan stressed that the situation is so serious that even an officer committed suicide as he is unable to bear the situation any longer. “Barbarity and illiteracy! And commanders will go on murdering Armenian soldiers, without even understanding the ban. It is because this country is the property of khans, and commanders are slave drivers. Who has seen slave drivers are banned from beating up the khan’s slaves?” Jhangiryan concluded.