TANKS PATROL ARMENIAN CAPITAL AFTER PROTESTS, 8 KILLED AND 131 INJURED
Journal of Turkish Weekly
March 3 2008
Turkey
* Armenian Health Ministry says around 72 police officials, 59
civilians injured
* A dozen armored personnel carriers and around 100 soldiers stood
guard outside the main government building and foreign ministry.
Several tanks could be seen at the scene of the nighttime clashes.
Sevgi ARICAM (JTW and wires) – Tanks and troops patrolled the Armenian
capital Yerevan on Sunday after eight people were killed and dozens
injured during violent protests against the results of the presidential
elections. A state of emergency was declared in the country on Sunday
after clashes between riot police and protesters.
After 11 days of peaceful protests, the demonstrations became violent
on Saturday. The rioters clashing with armed police set fire to cars
in the capital, Yerevan.
Levon Ter-Petrossian, the opposition leader blamed the government for
the violence, saying it had sent provocateurs into the crowd. The
tensions in Armenia started with the presidential election on
February 19, the fifth since the independent. Sargsyan (Sarkisyan), a
political insider and the prime minister, ran against Ter-Petrossian,
an academic who was the country’s first elected president. Sargsyan,
like Kocharian, was one of the commanders who ordered bloody massacres
in the Karabakh War. The experts say that Kocharian whould also run
in the elections and definetly whould win if the term limits do not
bar Mr. Kocharian, from running.
The election conformed completely to the old Soviet standards or
‘Armenian style’: As International Herald Tribune underlines "Votes
were bought. Television coverage was embarrassingly skewed. Big men
in large cars bossed vote counters. As a result, the party in power
stayed in power, with 52 percent of the vote."
* "THE COUNT WAS BAD, VERY BAD"
Its government usually allows more dissent than most.
Election results have still not been fully recognized by the United
States and from the beginning, there were disturbing signs about
the presidential election: The OSCE for example, which deployed 333
observers, concluded that 16 percent of the count was "bad" or "very
bad." At one polling station, a quarter of all ballots were declared
invalid. In another, all but one of 1,449 voters in a set of polling
stations were for Sargsyan.
"We won the election," Ter-Petrossian said Thursday. He claimed that
he had received 65 percent of the vote, a figure that Ahrens said
was "not grounded in any factual evidence." Ter-Petrossian’s aides,
however, refer to him as "the president."
Europe’s top security watchdog said on Sunday it was sending an envoy
to promote talks between the authorities and the opposition.
Burnt-out cars, stones and poles littered the streets after the 11th
straight day of protests against alleged rigging of the February 19
elections. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said seven civilians and
one police officer had been killed. She said one police officer was
in critical condition and 17 had been hospitalized for gunshot wounds.
The state of emergency will be in effect in the capital until March
20 under a decree signed by President Robert Kocharian. The state
of emergency bans public demonstrations and requires the media to
publish or broadcast only information from government sources.
Armenia has thorny problems with neighboring Azerbaijan, Georgia
and Turkey. Armenian forces have been occupying almost 20 percent of
Azeri territories and about 1 million Azeris are still refugees due
to the Armenian occupation. The European Union and OSCE officially
named Armenia as occupier in Azeri territories. Yerevan also rejects
to recognize Turkey’s territorial integrity and supports all kind
of anti-Turkey activities in the world. The irredentist Armenian
nationalism also disturbs neighboring Georgia. Despite of the close
economic cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia
prefers Iran and Russia in the region.