The dictate is a slap in the face to the Armenian people.
Thousands of us had demonstrated after the murders in mid-January to demand that 19-year-old Valeri Permyakov be tried in Armenia. Russian officials rubbed salt in the wound by declaring that the offense Permyakov is accused of is a “military crime.”
It is nothing of the sort, many Armenians contend.
The murders were committed off Russia’s military base at Gyumri, where Permyakov was stationed, and had nothing to do with any military matter. Russia’s defiance of Armenian popular will in refusing to hand Permyakov over for trial in Armenia has prompted many of us to contend that our government’s kowtowing to this powerful neighbor has gone too far.
One thing the skeptics have asked is why the government handed Permyakov over to Russia in the first place. Armenian border guards arrested him the day after the murders as he was trying to slip across the border into Turkey.
Rather than surrender the soldier to Armenian police, the border guards gave him to Russian authorities. He is now in confinement on the base at Gyumri, where Russian authorities said he will be tried.
Critics of Permyakov’s handover to the Russians want to know who in the Armenian government authorized it. They also fault the government for not admitting it made a mistake and demanding that the soldier be returned to Armenian jurisdiction.
Instead, the critics contend, it has tiptoed around the issue of where Permyakov would be tried out of fear of angering the Kremlin. Moscow has promised that Permyakov, one of 3,000 soldiers stationed at its northern Armenian base, will face the full measure of justice.
The solider is accused of the off-base killing of a husband and wife, their two toddlers — a girl 2 and a boy 6 months — the couple’s parents and a sister in-law. To try to assuage the anger of Armenia’s public, Russian officials made conciliatory statements in the weeks after the murders, although the first ones didn’t come until several days after the crime.
President Vladimir Putin even apologized about the atrocity in a phone call to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.
Now it appears that Russian authorities were intent on trying Permyakov in a Russian court all along, and were just letting Armenians’ anger simmer down before announcing it.Those who wanted the soldier tried in Armenia feared that a Russian court would be too lenient with him, perhaps freeing him after he’d served only a few years.
One reason some Armenians think Russia decided from the start to try Permyakov in a Russian court is that few major Russian news organizations covered the murders in the days immediately after they occurred.
Because those media are closely aligned with the Russian government, Armenian skeptics think their lack of coverage was a sign the soldier would be tried in Russia and get off easy.
Another bad sign about what the trial venue would be was that the Armenian media was timid about covering the story, according to Levon Barseghyan of the Gyumri-based Asbarez Club of Journalists.Armenian television networks “with large audiences” were “extremely cautious in covering the developments,” even though they knew Armenians were thirsting for news about the story, Barseghyan said.
The reason for the timidity, he alleged, was Armenian officials’ fear of offending Moscow.Not only are many Armenians critical of our government’s refusal to demand that Permyakov be tried in Armenia, they are also upset about the government’s heavy-handedness with those demonstrating about the matter.
Thousands of demonstrators flocked to the Russian Consulate in Gyumri and marched in the streets in the days after the murders to demand that Permyakov be handed over to Armenian authorities. Police beat several of them and arrested dozens more.
Critics see the police as being on Russia’s side rather than the side of our people, who are legitimately outraged about Permyakov being tried in a Russian court.The situation shows that the government is doing the Kremlin’s bidding rather than watching out for its own people’s interests, they say.
Many Armenians have watched the government agree to Russia’s demand that Armenia join the Eurasian Economic Union rather than the European Union, and take other steps that they see as in Moscow’s interest rather than Armenia’s.
The question of Permyakov’s trial venue doesn’t have the geopolitical ramifications of joining the European Union or the Eurasian Economic Union, but it speaks volumes about whether the Armenian government is standing up for the interests of my fellow citizens or being a lapdog of Russia.
Armine Sahakyan is a human rights activist based in Armenia.
