Armenia’s opposition throws down gauntlet to President Kocharian
By CHRISTIAN LOWE
Agence France Presse
April 16, 2004
YEREVAN, April 16 – Opposition supporters in the tiny former Soviet
republic of Armenia were preparing on Friday to stage a mass rally
calling for the resignation of President Robert Kocharian, in defiance
of a government ban on the protest.
The demonstration in the capital Yerevan is the first show of strength
by the opposition since a sit-in protest was dispersed by police
wielding truncheons, stun grenades and water cannon in the early
hours of Tuesday morning.
Opposition leaders have called on their supporters to gather
in the city’s Freedom Square, and may march from there on the
government compound housing the parliament building and presidential
administration — the scene of last Tuesday’s clashes with police.
“For as long as the regime of Robert Kocharian exists there will not
be a day without demonstrations. Things are not going to be quiet,”
said Aram Sarkissian, a former Armenian prime minister who is now an
opposition leader.
As the authorities readied for trouble, several busloads of police
and interior ministry troops were stationed at Freedom Square Friday
afternoon. The parliament building was being patrolled by police with
Kalashnikov automatic weapons.
Armenia’s wave of opposition rallies has been fuelled by discontent
about low living standards and claims that Kocharian rigged a
presidential election last spring which secured him a second term
in office.
The protest movement has been compared to the “rose revolution” in
neighbouring Georgia last year which ousted that country’s president
Eduard Shevardnadze.
Analysts say Kocharian is too strong, and the opposition too weak,
for that scenario to be repeated in Armenia. But Friday’s protest,
scheduled to start at 6:00 pm (1300 GMT), puts the demonstrators in
a potentially explosive stand-off with police.
The authorities have so far not granted permission for the rally in
Freedom Square, and the president has designated the area around the
government compound as strictly off limits to demonstrators.
Speaking earlier this week, Kocharian, a 50-year-old former factory
worker, said he would take a tough line with the protesters, who he
described as “extremists.”
Kocharian’s supporters say the opposition is recklessly trying to
provoke a confrontation to revive its flagging popularity.
The opposition though, is defiant. “We want to go (to the presidential
administration) to express our view to the president that he should
resign,” said Albert Bazeyan, a leading opposition figure. “No one
has the right to stop us.”
Kocharian’s government has come under fire from the international
community after the strong-arm tactics used by police at the last
rally. Dozens of people were injured.
“Physical assaults, raids on political party offices and widespread
arrests and detentions of opposition activists by the police do not
contribute to creating an atmosphere conducive to political dialogue,”
the US State Department said in a statement.
Armenia, a nation of three million people in the Caucasus mountains,
was the world’s first state to adopt Christianity.
Its economy is now crippled by an economic blockade imposed by two
of its neighbours, Turkey and Azerbaijan, because of historical
disagreements.
Kocharian has won credit for stabilising the economy. But critics
say he has trampled on democratic freedoms and surrounded himself by
corrupt cronies while ordinary people live in poverty.
Armenia has a history of political violence. The speaker of parliament
and prime minister were killed in 1999 when gunmen burst into the
parliament chamber.
Western governments are anxious to see stability in the region. The
Caucasus is becoming a strategic crossroads for oil exports from the
landlocked Caspian Sea to western markets.