Opposition Again Blames Kocharian For 1999 Parliament Attack
By Hrach Melkumian and Ruzanna Khachatrian 27/10/2004 12:21
Radio Free Europe, Czech
27 Oct. 2004
The opposition Artarutyun (Justice) alliance rallied several thousand
supporters on Tuesday to mark the fifth anniversary of a shock
terrorist attack on the Armenian parliament and again hold President
Robert Kocharian responsible for it.
Eight officials, including then Prime Vazgen Sarkisian and parliament
speaker Karen Demirchian, were shot dead on October 27, 1999 moments
after five gunmen burst into the assembly and sprayed it with bullets.
Artarutyun, Armenia’s largest opposition group, is led by Demirchian’s
son Stepan and Sarkisian’s brother Aram. “Kocharian and [Defense
Minister] Serzh Sarkisian are directly responsible not only for
not preventing the October 27 crime but also obstructing the search
for its masterminds and covering up the crime,” the bloc said in a
statement read out to the demonstrators.
“A precedent of usurping power through terrorism was created in
Armenia,” the statement said, reiterating implicit opposition
allegations that Kocharian had a hand in the parliament killings.
“Practically speaking, [the shootings] made Kocharian’s rule
uncontrolled and laid the foundations of the clan-based system and
dictatorship in the country,” charged Albert Bazeyan, a senior member
of Artarutyun.
Such allegations accompanied an official investigation into the crime
and the subsequent trial of its perpetrators led by Nairi Hunanian,
a former journalist. Hunanian, who blamed the late Sarkisian for
widespread corruption and poverty in Armenia, and the four other
gunmen were sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2003.
Hunanian insisted throughout the nearly three-year trial that the
decision to seize the National Assembly was entirely his, denying
that more powerful forces were behind the plot. However, his final
court speech, cut short by the presiding judge, was more ambiguous
in that regard.
Kocharian, Serzh Sarkisian and their political allies have repeatedly
denied any involvement in the parliament massacre. The Armenian
law-enforcement authorities, for their part, say they have done their
best to solve the crime and punish the guilty — a claim strongly
disputed by relatives of the assassinated leaders.
“The authorities have done everything to cover up the case,” Stepan
Demirchian told RFE/RL. “The trial did not dispel the suspicions
existing among the people. On the contrary, it deepened them.
The Artarutyun supporters, some of them carrying pictures of the
assassinated leaders and wearing white T-shirts with “No to Terrorism”
written on them, marched to the parliament building in central Yerevan.
The march was not sanctioned by the municipal authorities.
About 60 demonstrators, most of them Artarutyun leaders were allowed
to enter the parliament compound and lay flowers at a memorial
to the attack victims. They were joined there by several dozen
pro-government parliamentarians led by speaker Artur Baghdasarian. In
an ensued speech, Baghdasarian urged Armenian political factions to
“consolidate against evil” and make sure that the parliament attack
case is “fully solved.”