Forms of Compensation Stipulated by Law are not Realized for Parents who Lost Their Sons in the Army

According to the decision of the RA Government, annual financial aid for the families that lost their sons in the army in time of peace makes only 9100 AMD.

Families that lost their sons during their service in the army are allocated after their death 700,000 AMD for funeral and 1,400,000 AMD for arranging the grave, making and installing the gravestone. Later parents get only 9,100 drams from the state (if there are more than 5 people in the family, the allowance equals to 3000 AMD for each member). It is the only aid if the family members do not get any old- age or disability pension or “do not knock different doors” demanding to respect the letter of the law.

There are decisions of which parents of deceased soldiers are not even aware. For example, according to the decision N778 of the RA Government on November 27, 2000 and the order N225 of the RA Ministry of Defense of March 04, 2008, once a year families can get social assistance of up to 100,000 AMD. However, families either do not get that sum or get only if they specially apply for it and the sum mainly does not exceed 10,000 AMD.

According to the RA legislation, parents are exempted from 50% of land tax, though this law not always works.

"At first, the village council told me that I was exempted from irrigation water and land taxes but after several years I was told that I had huge debts. The debt was covered only after applying to the Ministry of Defense and going through much trouble. However, after that the payment was not halved, and I continue paying 9000 AMD of land tax for 1500 square meters of land," says Anahit Avetisyan from Baghramyan village (Echmiadzin region) who is the mother of Araik Avetisyan, who, by official version, died 9 years ago due to negligence and in the mother's opinion for not taking 100 dollars to the military unit. (Avetisyan has passed all judicial instances in Armenia and on January 10 applied to the European Court of Human Rights since she is sure that her son was killed deliberately.)
She is said to be lucky to have a job at the Scientific Center for Agriculture and Plant Protection and get salary of 30,000 AMD, while her husband's income together with the disability pension makes 57,000 AMD.

Another parent - Robert Mirzoyan, whose son died in army 4 years ago, is also convinced that the law does not socially provide support for parents. Mirzoyan, who used to be a criminal intelligence officer, now keeps his family with 71,000 AMD pension.

"And my wife gets another 60,000 AMD salary for teaching. Or else how could we live with that 9100 AMD allowance? I gave my only son, with university education, to the army and I am sure that today he would have some high rank position, and they give us that miserable sum." Mirzoyan also suffers from a heart disease for which he gets additional 20,000 AMD.

But if members of these two families have jobs, the same cannot be said about other families, for instance, the Ohanjanyan family. The father of the family lived in Russia and was earning 5-6 thousand US dollars but on learning about his son's death, he sold everything and returned to Armenia, as he says “to find his son's murderer”. Now neither he, nor his wife has a job.
"The money I brought from Russia finished and now we do not work... only 20,000 AMD disability pension and this 9100 AMD. We have applied to the Prime Minister and other officials many times. The Prime Minister said that he couldn't accept people of our age, and in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, when we asked for some job with 60,000 AMD salary, we were told that we want a salary equal to that of the minister," Ohanjanyan says.
Only once the Ohanjanyans got some assistance when the Ministry of Defense agreed (after their application) to pay tuition fee for their second son's education at the European Academy in Armenia.

"We were healthy and well-to-do people but lost everything after that accident. We got some health problems and it continues because we cannot prove till now that our son was not electrocuted in the army at the location where, according to the expertise, there was no electric current, but was killed in conspiracy," say the parents.

Artur Sakunts, Head of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor, says that this law does not work, and parents of servicemen are socially unprotected.

"I know some cases when the parents were given only 600 dollars for funeral," Sakunts says.

He adds that in Vanadzor the cemetery for the military is in a terrible state, and no one addresses such issues.

"Others provisions of the law do not work either since there is no distinctly defined regulation on the compensation that is paid to the families of servicemen who were killed or died in the army in time of peace. So it turns out that law works only for families of servicemen who died in hostilities," Sakunts clarifies.

According to the non-official data published by Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor, 44 people died in the army this year. About 100-170 people have died annually during 1998-2005. In the recent years, the number of victims does not exceed 100.

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