Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK
Oct 30 2009
FEAR OF POLICE CURBS ARMENIAN DISSENT
Opposition say they are subjected to police persecution and their
business supporters are intimidated.
By Gegham Vardanian in Yerevan
Armenia’s political opposition, which was strong enough to dominate
the streets of the capital just last year, has withered away, the
result, its activists say, of heavy-handed police repression.
During mass protests against the results of 2008 presidential
elections, in which official results recorded opposition candidate
Levon Ter-Petrosian as losing heavily, clashes between activists and
police resulted in ten deaths.
Dozens of activists from the Armenian National Congress, ANC, which
backed Ter-Petrosian, were arrested. Most have now been released, but
Armin Musinian, Ter-Petrosian’s spokesman, said 16 were still behind
bars.
`In Armenia, being in the opposition means working in conditions of
complete terror. The special services are monitoring your actions; the
police are following you; your comrades are imprisoned and beaten up;
small, medium and large businessmen supporting you are faced with
economic terror; and television is practically closed to you,’ he
said.
The ANC is considered the more radical wing of the country’s
opposition, while two opposition parties ` Heritage and Dashnaktsutiun
` both have seats in parliament. They all say they face police
persecution, although Dashnaktsutiun left the ruling coalition only
this year in protest against a peace deal with Turkey.
Ter-Petrosian’s spokesman said crime in the country had risen by 40-50
per cent in the last year as a direct result of the surveillance.
`Instead of doing their jobs, the police are only taking action
against political nonconformists. Naturally, thieves, pickpockets and
fraudsters are taking to this like fish to water,’ Musinian said.
`The police have fully become a political instrument. Under the
current regime the concepts of the state and the government have
become the same.’
The opposition, he said, was frustrated by this constant attention. He
said that in 2008 the ANC had 94 times asked for permission from the
Yerevan administration to hold a demonstration, and been refused every
single time. It is a serious accusation, but not one taken seriously
by President Serzh Sargsian’s allies.
`At these protests they always repeat the same words about the bright
future of the nation and the country. They say that as soon as they
come to power, everything will be set right. But people do not believe
these protests and actions,’ said Galust Sahakian, who heads the
parliamentary deputies of the president’s Republican Party, with heavy
sarcasm.
`The government also does not pay too much attention to these protests
and actions. These are repetitive, boring and ineffective acts.
Therefore control by the authorities is unnecessary.’
At the Yerevan municipal elections this summer, the ANC received a
solid 17.4 per cent of the vote, ahead of Dashnaktsutiun, which polled
just 4.5 per cent, but far behind the Republican Party, which won 47.3
per cent, and Prosperous Armenia, the other pro-government party, with
22.7 per cent.
The authorities this year began to allow the ANC to hold occasional
protests, although these have become rarer in recent months. Analysts
say the movement, which is made up of 17 small parties, has given up
hoping for Sargsian’s resignation and was preserving its strength for
parliamentary elections in 2012.
The ANC’s leading position in opposition has been taken by
Dashnaktsutiun, which was so angered by the signing of a `road map’
towards peace with Turkey in April that it left the ruling coalition.
The party is particularly strong in the Armenian diaspora, and its
supporters see the deal as a betrayal of the demand that Turkey
recognise as genocide the mass killings of Armenians at the end of the
Ottoman period.
However, analysts say it is not an effective opposition force.
`This party for ten years was in power and was connected in different
ways to the government, so it cannot go into deep opposition,’ Yervand
Bozoian, a political analyst, said.
Armen Badalian, another analyst, said, `People see that when there are
ANC protests all the roads into Yerevan are closed so people from the
regions cannot get to the demonstrations. When there are
Dashnaktsutiun protests, this has not happened. Everyone sees that no
one interferes with Dashnaktsutiun in holding its protests. This might
be normal in a civilised country, but we have other ideas here.’
Dashnaktsutiun is currently pushing for the resignation of Foreign
Minister Edward Nalbandian, who spearheaded the peace negotiations
with Turkey and signed the protocols that should lead to diplomatic
relations being established. Vahan Hovhannisian, head of
Dashnaktsutiun’s parliamentary group, dismissed any suggestion that it
was less sincere in its opposition than the ANC.
`The opposition is divided into those who want regime change, because
they themselves want to be head of the state, and those who just want
to change the course of the current authorities. We are the latter,’
he told IWPR.
He said that the opposition’s freedom of action was severely
restricted, especially when it came to getting their points across to
a television audience.
`There is censorship, and bans on the broadcast of certain opinions
and themes by certain people. This affects, in particular, the six
weeks of so-called discussion of the Armenia-Turkey protocols,’ he
said, adding that only Erkir Media, the party’s own television
station, had broadcast his party’s point of view.
Badalian, the political analyst, said that, while Dashnaktsutiun had
its television channel, ANC had access to the printed media, and
several newspapers supported its position.
`This gives a certain amount of power, which ANC has used well. But in
Armenia the press has little weight,’ he said, adding that the most
widely-read opposition paper, The Armenian Times, has a circulation of
just 7,000, and that does not amount to much in a country with three
million people.
`The printed media is more party-political. However, it is also freer.
The audience is small, which is why the authorities have left it in
peace,’ said Stepan Safarian, head of the parliamentary group of the
opposition Heritage party.
His party has seven deputies, which, along with the 16 from
Dashnaktsutiun make up a small opposition corner in the 131-member
chamber.
`Formally speaking, a political group calling itself the opposition
can work well in parliament. However, parliament itself does not play
a large role in social and political life,’ he said.
Levon Zurabian, a representative of the ANC, cast doubt on the motives
of Dashnaktsutyun, suggesting it was still allied with the government,
but raised hopes that the whole opposition could unite behind one
figure to challenge Sargsian in the future.
`Many people in that party are definitely against [the government’s]
course, and it is possible that the party could move from these
theatrical actions to more serious activities with an aim to restore
legitimate government in the country,’ he said, suggesting that the
ANC could cooperate with its opposition rivals.
But Bozoian, the analyst, doubted any union between the opposition
groups could succeed. He said Armenia lacked the strong institutions
it requires to tolerate a strong opposition.
`In Armenia there is a strong executive branch with broad powers,
which does not let the state develop politically and economically,’ he
said.
Gegham Vardanian is a journalist from Internews Armenia.