Colonel Aleksan Minasyan: 'My son was in the last vehicle to leave Shushi; there was no examination'

Second President Robert Kocharian stated after the snap parliamentary elections that the crisis created in the country was not resolved through early elections, because, under this team in power, we cannot get answers to important questions about why we lost the war, why we lost Shushi and Hadrut, and why there were numerous casualties. “In the absence of answers to all these questions, it is impossible to live in harmony within the conditions of internal political life in Armenia.”

We see that there is tension at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the Yeraskh section, with gunfire and new questions arising under these crisis conditions—are these operations or not, is it part of an agreement or not?

In an interview with “Aravot,” Colonel Aleksan Minasyan, the head of the “Verelk” party and founder of the Monte Melkonian Military Sports School, was asked if he had answers, especially regarding Shushi and Hadrut, and whether there would be an objective investigation or if these issues would accumulate and turn into a new crisis. He responded, “That is unpredictable. I am not in power and am not part of the government; I do not know if they will take that step to objectively address those questions.”

When asked from a military perspective if these questions arise, for instance, how Shushi, which was an impregnable fortress, ended up in the hands of the enemy, Minasyan replied, “Of course, they arise. My son, I, we have all been on the battlefield as a family. My son was in the last vehicle that left Shushi. The Bayraktar hit that first vehicle; I was fortunate my son was unharmed, but he said there was no warning. Vehicles with Armenian license plates were entering Shushi, and there was no examination or control over that. I believe that is precisely why what happened occurred. Our disarray led to this. In reality, we did not work or do what we were supposed to do.”

When asked if this was a result of carelessness or whether there was indeed betrayal, Minasyan replied, “I still blame it on carelessness 99% of the time. That is what I saw; my eyes, my heart, and conversations with people showed that.”

When asked about the capture or surrender of Shushi—there is a viewpoint that it was surrendered rather than captured—and if he links it to specific officials like Seyran Ohanyan, Movses Hakobyan, etc., the colonel responded, “No, I do not associate it with individuals. I only associate it with the fact that we did not have the quality army that was supposed to have discipline. And discipline was supposed to include what is called control posts, which would have helped us verify who entered and exited Shushi, which we did not have. I say my entire family was on the battlefield. My son said, ‘Father, we are disarrayed; beyond that, there is no world of disarray.’ And whether that is betrayal or not, I do not have such serious information.”

In the snap parliamentary elections, the “Verelk” party received 0.1% of the vote. Minasyan explained the reason through the campaign’s vocabulary, stating that the people did not look at who was who and what they had done for our state. “They only listened to who said nice things, who could stroke their ear.”

When asked whether he could have taken some hammer, sickle, or another tool and said, “I’ll smash this or that person’s head and gather more votes,” Aleksan Minasyan responded, “No, I didn’t even want to lie. Throughout my entire campaign, I tried to not speak falsely to those I met. I did not even turn the campaign funds into posters; instead, I sent them to the border with my detachments. I thought it was better for my detachment to be at the border than to have posters during the campaign. The poster would not determine the question of my homeland; the question of my homeland is determined by those guys who wanted to give their strength, energy, and love to their homeland.”

When it was remarked that those forces who spent money on posters entered parliament, Minasyan replied, “There is no need to deceive the people. If they understand, they understand; if they do not, then every people deserves what it has.”