Wednesday, May 13, 2009

"This is not what we fought for... this country can't go on like this."

From YouTube a1plus:


The first few segments are witnesses describing how they had been forced and beaten into giving false testimony. Sadly, nothing new these days - that is, not the first, and probably not the last. Regardless of how many come forth, for each individual, it takes a great show of strength and courage to come forth, and publicly describe what happened.

The last segment, starting at 6:00m, is Razmik Petrosyan, former Commander of the Aparan Regiment, giving his opinion. It was passionate, and went straight to the core. And it was true. Here is a rough translation:

The worst of it, what hurts the most, with these court cases, beyond the absurdity of it, we are witnessing the degradation of the values of a entire victorious nation.
If our soldiers, people who have defended this country, fought for this country, now have to flee from their homes, or are forced to give false testimony against their military commanders and their heroes, well, then it’s already the end of the world. It doesn’t get any lower than that, in the world, I can’t imagine it. If the person who defended the nation, now himself needs to be defended, in his country, in the country that he created, then that’s already [??].
Myself, as a former fighter, I am convinced this is not what we fought for.
If suddenly our friends who perished lifted up their heads, they would not forgive us for having created this kind of country. I ask forgiveness from all of our guys who are sitting now in prison, that we have been unable to help them; those men who saved this people. And as if that’s not bad enough, that we can’t help them, we can’t even help our invalid, free-living, friends, whom by forcing and by turning invalid, they’ve forced them to give false testimony against their brothers in arms.
We’re going to clean this up, this country won’t stay like this. If we don’t clean it up, our children will not forgive us. We owe, from top to bottom, we all have our share of guilt in this. We can’t leave this country like this. I am ashamed of even just being alive. Stand up straight, straighten up. We need justice in this country, it can’t go on like this. We can’t allow ourselves to be so degraded, it is not possible to live like this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I missed this video. Thanks a lot for uploading here and for translation. I will repost it there and on my blog...His speech says it all and makes me cry...