Why is US State Department silent – military expert

The US Department of State is set to release its annual report on human rights. Its last year's report assessing the situation of the Azerbaijani army was far from realistic. In an interview with Capital daily, military expert David Jamalyan addressed the issue, saying that the assessment on the neighboring country's army could not be reliable because the document was based on open sources.

"Mr Jamalyan, do you think the Department of State's 2010 report will address the Armenian armed forces?"

"I don't think addressing Armenia's armed forces is an essential issue. I attach more importance to the content. For us, as a partner of the United States, it is important that the report be unbiased in the literal sense of the word. The 2009 report too, addressed our armed forces. It contained criticism, which has positive aspects. But this is not the issue. We are aware of the problems in our army; no one has ever attempted to conceal them. The strange thing was that the section concerning Azerbaijan's armed forces looked somewhat 'sterile'. The question is 'Why?' This question is interesting for us in terms of the reliability and impartiality of the report.

Obviously, the officials who prepared the report relied on open sources. But in a country like Azerbaijan, which has strict censorship, open sources cannot always be available. If they really relied on 'open' sources, they could, of course, have obtained sterile reports. The question is to what extent such report is credible. And this immediately gives rise to another question – why are our American partners unwilling to observe the absence of any information on human rights violations in the Azerbaijani army?"

"But what's the situation with our country?"

"I am not absolutely inclined to 'sterilize' the reality. It's obvious, however, that the 2009 report on Armenia, particularly its section concerning our armed forces, was full of dark colors just because our army had become more open for public control. But what I would like to emphasize in general is that the problems in our army are first of all interesting to us. But very little is done to eliminate those problems."

"What consequences can those reports have for our country?"

"The Department of State's annual reports on the human rights situation in different countries can have different impacts on the US Government in terms of deciding to provide financial assistance to this or that country. But the issue in this case is whether the reports will contribute to the democratization of the partner countries. And to achieve that it is important that the public perception of the reports be devoid of double standards in those countries. "