Former members of the fact-finding group on March 1 Andranik Kocharyan and Seda Safaryan will come up with a new report in January.
We were informed about it by Seda Safaryan, former representative of Heritage party in the fact-finding group. “The content of the report will touch upon a number of issues such as killings, conclusions concerning people with body injuries, use of special means or weapons and articles about people who grabbed and embezzled, as well as their chiefs. We have materials received from the police, security services and ordinary people, including video recordings which have not been shown so far,” says S.Safaryan. As the ad hoc looking into the March 1 did not take into consideration the facts submitted by the fact-finding group, the mentioned report, according to S.Safaryan, will also contain analysis of the facts submitted to the mentioned commission. “They have not used our facts at all, and even they have told about this,” said Mr. Safaryan about the ad hoc chairman Samvel Nikoyan. The mentioned video recordings are about the answers and questions of high rank officials, army officers and members of the fact-finding group. Mr. Safaryan says that they will also publish the answers of former defense minister Mikayel Harutyunyan, in which he failed to give a direct answer to some questions. Safaryan says that M.Harutyunyan has failed to show any document on the fact of using some military units in Yerevan. Recently the media published Mikayel Harutyunyan’s order dated February 23, 2008, and the first provision of this order writes the following: “Establish separate military units of officers in the RA ministry of defense central administration office and give government-issue weapons.” By the same order another body was formed and was named “administration of Yerevan military unit” under the control of Youri Khachaturov for the purpose of the work of the mentioned unit. The military commissar of Yerevan was under Khachaturov’s control as well. “Mikayel Harutyunyan failed to answer to the question whether he had signed such order on using armed forces. We have the video recordings when he was asked these questions and also the unanswered question on which articles of the Constitution they referred to when they decided to use the armed forces against their people. We have other facts as well and we will publish these facts with comments soon,” says Safaryan and asks why Harutyunyan wants to hide the fact of this order from the fact-finding group if his actions were not unconstitutional. In answer to the question whether the former minister’s order was unconstitutional Safaryan said “army forces should be neutral in relation to political issues”. “It is not about who will be charged for it but I believe that they will always keep silence about the real content of the March 1. I don’t want to say what the illegal decision was or which one was not. Unconstitutional laws are different and illegal ones are different. There are things that are unconstitutional but not criminally non-prosecutable. It is clear that this order was not based on the norms of the Constitution,” said S.Safaryan. Following the publication of this document the defense ministry published an official explanation with the following text: “In the periods before and after the presidential election 2008 not only the inner political situation of the country was tense but the situation in Karabakh and the surrounding areas too. The goal of the former defense minister was to prepare the armed forces to be ready for the purpose of providing the security and preventing any undesirable developments.” S. Safaryan believes it is very strange that for the purpose of making the armed forces to be ready for resisting any external attacks they are preparing the armed forces in Yerevan and bringing extra forces too. “The defense minister’s signature under that document with the mentioned context lets me assume that the March 1 was a result of the fact that some officials did not know their place and their powers and did not know that it was not the place of army forces. And definitely it helped to strengthen the power the authorities had, thus they did what they did. Due to the defense minister’s behavior the authorities felt strong. I think that not only the authorities should be responsible for March 1, but these allegedly loyal officials should feel responsibility as well,” said S.Safaryan.
In answer to the question whether this would be the last report of the fact-finding group or there might be other reports as well Mr. Safaryan said, “I can’t say. If life shows that people wan to entrust us other materials, we may find comments for those new facts as well. But for now we will publish the facts we have at our hand,” said S. Safaryan.