TER-PETROSIAN KEEPS UP PROTESTS
By Ruzanna Stepanian and Ruben Meloyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Feb 27 2008
Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian told tens of thousands of his
supporters Wednesday to continue to challenge the official results of
Armenia’s controversial presidential election, dismissing President
Robert Kocharian’s threats to end the non-stop demonstrations by force.
In televised comments aired late Tuesday, Kocharian warned that his
patience with protesters camped in Yerevan’s Liberty Square is wearing
thin. He said Ter-Petrosian’s rallies and overnight vigils have not
been sanctioned by the authorities and can therefore be broken up by
security forces.
The Armenian police issued a similar warning the next day, saying
in a statement that they are determined to "protect the country’s
constitutional order and public security."
Addressing the massive crowd in Liberty Square, Ter-Petrosian claimed
that Kocharian has no moral right to attack his opponents because he
himself has repeatedly broken law during his decade-long presidency.
"Robert Kocharian’s authority has been illegal right from
the beginning," said the former Armenian president. "Under the
constitution, he was not even eligible to run for president neither
in 1998, nor in 2003."
"A person who breached the constitution in such a blatant manner can
not criticize or threaten anyone," he added before the crowd marched
to the Office of the Prosecutor-General to demand the release of
Ter-Petrosian allies arrested by the authorities in recent days.
The protesters also walked past the Russian Embassy in Yerevan,
urging Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to back their remands for
a re-run of the February 19 presidential election.
In his speech, Ter-Petrosian said that the round-the-clock protests
against the alleged falsification of election results are gaining
growing momentum but would not say how long he intends to keep
his supporters on the streets. "What is happening now is a pure,
classic bourgeois democratic revolution to free the economy from a
feudal yoke," he said, adding that his movement is tacitly backed by
"thousands of representatives of state structures, ministries and
even the presidential staff."
The Armenian Ministry of Trade and Economic Development said on
Wednesday that it has fired two senior ministry officials who openly
described the presidential election as fraudulent and voiced support
for Ter-Petrosian. The chief of the ministry staff, Emil Tarasian,
cited an Armenian law that bans civil servants from engaging in
political activities. In an interview with RFE/RL, Tarasian downplayed
the officials’ defiant stance, saying that one of them effectively
quit the ministry last October while the other is a longtime member
of Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian Pan-National Movement.