Yerevan Protests Resume Despite Government Crackdown
By Emil Danielyan, Ruzanna Khachatrian and Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
March 1 2008
The post-election unrest in Armenia deepened on Saturday evening as
thousands of people rallied and barricaded themselves on a major
street intersection in central Yerevan in anticipation of another
government attempt to forcibly end the ongoing opposition protests.
President Robert Kocharian, meanwhile, threatened to call a state of
emergency in the country.
The crowd, furious with the brutal break-up earlier in the day of
an overnight protest by fellow supporters of former President Levon
Ter-Petrosian, blocked all streets leading to the area with buses and
other vehicles seized from riot police that tried unsuccessfully to
disperse them several hours earlier. Ter-Petrosian associates urged
the protesters not go home until the authorities end the opposition
leader’s de facto house arrest.
"Levon Ter-Petrosian told us to stay here and wait for him," one of
them, Aram Sarkisian, said.
Ter-Petrosian’s election campaign headquarters said in a separate
statement that only the ex-president’s presence "could calm tempers"
and prevent a further escalation of the situation. It warned that
the Armenian authorities will be responsible for that escalation if
they refuse to let Ter-Petrosian leave his house where he claims to
have been forcibly taken from Liberty Square.
However, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian denied that Ter-Petrosian
was placed under house arrest, saying that officers of the State
Protection Service (SPS) were deployed outside his house only to ensure
his personal security. Oskanian said they will be removed from there
if Ter-Petrosian renounces the services of his bodyguards employed
by the SPS.
Speaking at a joint news conference with a deputy chief of the Armenian
police, Oskanian also warned that Kocharian will declare a state of
emergency if the demonstrations continue. He echoed in that regard
police claims that the more than one thousand opposition supporters
camped in Liberty Square themselves attacked security forces before
being dispersed by the latter.
Meanwhile, another opposition leader, Nikol Pashinian, urged the
protesters massing in the vast area outside the Yerevan municipality
and the French Embassy in Armenia to boost their "self-defense" and
brace themselves for a possible police attack. He also told them to
reinforce the barricades set up there following the police attempt
to disperse several hundred opposition supporters who gathered there
by noon.
"The authorities made a big mistake this morning," said Pashinian.
"Believe me, we will make the most of that mistake."
Many protesters were already armed with metal and wooden sticks
and sounded bullish about taking on security forces. Some held
truncheons and shields seized from riot police. Angry protesters also
set ablaze a police jeep which eyewitnesses said raced through the
street intersection and ran over two women. They said a policeman
that drove it escaped the scene unharmed.
In another incident, Armen Martirosian, a parliamdent deputy from
the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party, was stabbed in the
same area by one of several men who he said were trying to beat up
a police officer. He was immediately hospitalized.
"As they hit the police officer, I lay on him to protect his head
and back," Martirosian told RFE/RL from his hospital bed. "At that
point I felt pain in my leg."
Martirosian said he believes the attackers were "agents
provocateurs." "I think the attackers were not opposition demonstrators
because we say something demonstrators usually listen to us."