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But a leading human rights activist claims to possess a different statistic in this regard, which he says shows no real progress in army reforms.

Presenting to the media the statistics of accidents with lethal outcomes in the army during the past two years Armenia’s Military Prosecutor Gevorg Kostanyan on Thursday said the number of deaths was decreasing, but stressed that even one death in the ranks was too much.

Kostanyan said that in 2011, 36 death cases were registered, of them 30 were the result of crimes and [10] deaths by the enemy, against 54 cases registered in 2010 (a nearly 33 percent decrease). He added that last year two murders connected with military service were registered, against 17 in 2010 (a decrease by more than 80 percent).

“For us, every death, especially a soldier’s death, is a great pain and a great tragedy, but it is obvious that the number of deaths in the armed forces has decreased. All these indicators, however, are not yet satisfactory for us, and the Military Prosecutor’s Office will continue to take consistent steps to control crime in the armed forces more effectively,” said Kostanyan.

Without presenting absolute figures, the official also said that the overall crime rate had fallen by 10 percent against the previous year’s level. He added, however, that military prosecutors would have a lot more to do after changes were made in a number of laws to provide for new types of crime and forms of punishment for offending officers.

Army deaths in 2010 and 2011 caused a tide of public discontent in Armenia. In response, several civic groups were set up, including “Women in Black”, “The Army in Reality”, etc. Every Thursday, the day of the week when the government usually holds its sessions, representatives of these groups stage protests near the government building. The parents of soldiers who died in the army join these protests, too.

Kostanyan links the positive shift in recent army crime statistics to the more open and transparent work of the Ministry of Defense.

“The Ministry began to work in a much more transparent and open way in any case relating to the society. If the public and media criticism is adequate to the reality, then it only brings benefits, but badmouthing and misinformation cause damage to the country,” he said.

Artur Sakunts, head of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor office, who in recent years has paid closer attention to army death and abuse cases, says that despite greater civil activity and pressure in 2011 no essential change has taken place in the military.

“While the Ministry of Defense invested significant resources to redress the situation, we still do not see any real change. They haven’t become transparent, the level of secrecy remains the same, alerts about corruption risks are not considered duly, and so on,” says Sakunts.

The human rights activist says that according to the data possessed by his office the number of cases with a lethal outcome in the army in 2010 (without combat deaths) was 22, while in 2011 there were 25 such cases.

“For the sake of justice I should say that last year the number of deaths proper decreased, as in 2010 there was a case in which four soldiers died at one time,” he says.