ARMENIA’S BLOODY SATURDAY
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
March 3 2008
UK
Violence stuns the country, denting its image further after a
controversial election.
Armenia is counting the cost of what is already being called "Bloody
Saturday," after several people were killed in running battles between
police and opposition demonstrators in the capital Yerevan.
After a day of violence on March 1 which stunned this normally peaceful
city, outgoing president Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency
in Yerevan.
The protesters were calling for the cancellation of the February 19
election in which Kocharian’s ally and prime minister Serzh Sarkisian
was voted in as president, when the security forces moved in with
force to break up the demonstration.
The opposition says its supporters were engaged in lawful protests
and were subjected to an unprovoked attack, despite calls from the
international community for a peaceful resolution of the political
crisis.
The authorities say they were forced to act after receiving information
that weapons had been distributed among the demonstrators and that
"mass riots" were planned for March 1.
The trouble began early on the morning of March 1, when police moved
in on several hundred protestors sleeping in tents pitched on Freedom
Square in central Yerevan.
According to an official statement, it was the protesters who started
fighting the police.
"The demonstrators began to throw stones, branches from trees, metal
bars and bottles of inflammable liquid at the police. There were
calls to overthrow the authorities with violence, and the police were
abused," said the statement.
Not so, say opposition activists like Hovhanes, who told IWPR that
the police made the first move, beating protestors and setting fire
to their tents. Hovhanes said he heard them speaking Armenian with
a distinct Karabakh accent, indicating that they came from that region.
One of the protesters who got beaten up, Haik Yeritsian, said the
assault began at around 6.30 am. "Men armed to the teeth attacked
without warning and began to beat people brutally," he said.
At this point, Yeritsian said, Levon Ter-Petrosian, the former
president who lost the election to Sarkisian, said, "Let’s wait and
see what the military want to say." He continued, "They said nothing
and just attacked."
Yeritsian concluded, "Now I am looking for my brother Soghoman –
I’ve been looking for him for two hours."
Many people were detained and taken away in police vehicles.
The clashes continued for several hours. By nine in the morning,
Freedom Square and surrounding streets were completely occupied by
armed security forces.
A cameraman told IWPR said he came to Freedom Square to film on
hearing that protests were continuing there.
"The police had flooded the square," he recalled. "The tents had
already been pulled down. Suddenly a group of people began to chant
‘Levon! Levon!’ Police with electric stun-guns attacked them; the
people began to run and the police chased them and began beating them."
The cameraman said he shot footage of the incident but it was seized
from him.
Opposition protestors continued to gather wherever they could. An
IWPR reporter saw policemen with truncheons attacking and dispersing
groups of people who had started collecting on Mashtots Avenue. Some
were forced into cars and taken away.
Ter-Petrosian was escorted home and found himself effectively held
under house arrest by the bodyguards the government had provided
to protect him. Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian later said the
opposition politician was not under arrest and was free to go out,
as long as he made his own security arrangements.
At around 11 am, Ter-Petrosian held a press conference for those
journalists whom the guards would let through – mainly foreigners.
"It all happened very quickly," he told the reporters. "In ten or
15 minutes the square was cleared, there were no people left on it,
and it was full of police engaged in this operation."
Ter-Petrosian said that much of the violence committed against the
police was the work of "provocateurs", and that the police themselves
had distributed improvised weapons.
He stressed that he enjoyed immunity because he had formally filed
a protest with the constitutional court the day before challenging
the results of the election.
In the meantime, thousands of opposition supporters converged on the
French embassy in the centre of Yerevan – a place they considered
relatively safe because of the proximity of western diplomats —
and continued their protests outside it.
Large groups of armed police units moved to the scene, and there were
fears that further violence would break out.
After Armenia’s human rights ombudsman and members of parliament
from the opposition Heritage Party arrived on the scene, the police
withdrew.
The protestors built a barricade out of buses and armed themselves
with metal spikes and stones. A rubbish truck tried to pass through
but was stopped and pelted with clothes and shoes.
At around 3 pm, a police jeep drove into the crowd, and two people
were injured. Furious protestors smashed and burned the vehicle. Not
far away, a clash broke out near the mayor’s office and opposition
parliamentarian Armen Martirosian was injured as he tried to calm
things down.
Despite being urged to disperse, more protesters arrived on the
scene for a rally which started at around 4 pm. The streets around
the embassy filled up with armoured vehicles and armed men.
President Kocharian called a press conference for eight in the evening,
but it was conducted in the end by foreign minister Oskanian, who
warned that a state of emergency might be imposed and called on
protestors to go home.
An hour later, shots were heard in the streets and a group of
opposition protestors were dispersed with tear gas.
On Leo Street, a fight broke out between local residents and
demonstrators, on the one hand, and armed police on the other. A
supermarket had its windows smashed and the contents were stolen. The
authorities said it was the work of looters, although one local
resident said she saw goods being taken away in a police car.
Clashes continued into the evening, with dozens of wounded on both
sides.
At around ten in the evening of March 1, President Kocharian imposed a
state of emergency in Yerevan, restricting the rights of free assembly,
media, parties and public organisations.
The protests continued until five the next morning.
The protestors finally dispersed when Ter-Petrosian urged them to go
home and continue their fight by other means.
A special session of parliament was convened at six that morning,
which approved a state of emergency for a 20-day period.
"If we hadn’t taken the appropriate measures we would simply have
allowed supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosian to continue their rioting
in our city," said the speaker of parliament, Tigran Torosian.
"The decision to impose a state of emergency was not taken lightly;
there was no other solution."
An official police statement issued on March 2 said that an
"uncontrollable crowd" of 7,000 had been looting and attacking cars
and shops.
Official figures said eight people died – seven of them protestors
and one a policeman. As of March 3, 59 people remained in hospital,
27 of them police.
One of those who died was opposition activist Gor Kloyan, a 29-year-old
father of two, who was hit in the stomach by a bullet.
Gor had been in the crowd next to a statue near both the mayor’s office
and the French embassy. He was taken to hospital but died early on
March 2. His relatives were angry with medical staff, saying that
they did not treat him swiftly enough.
Armen Soghoyan, head of the Health and Social Security Department at
the mayor’s office in Yerevan, told IWPR that he was aware of four
dead bodies being brought in to the hospitals controlled by his office.
"The health ministry has all the figures," he said. "We sent our
figures to them, but they do not share their figures with us."
"Only ten per cent of hospitals are under the mayor’s office so I
really cannot say anything about other hospitals in town", he said,
adding that, "whenever there is a state of emergency, a lot of
different rumours go around."
International bodies and politicians expressed alarm at the news
from Yerevan, and the OSCE’s Finnish presidency dispatched Finnish
diplomat Heikki Talvitie to Armenia to act as a mediator.
Many Armenians are still reeling at the sudden outbreak of violence
in their capital.
"Whoever’s fault it is, this bloodshed will cost us all dearly,"
said Aram Grigorian, a 56-year-old native of Yerevan, reflecting the
shock felt by many. "It has set us back for several decades."
The head of the Armenian church, Catholicos Garegin II, urged his
compatriots to show restraint.
"Today the Armenian people are grieving for their dead sons. We never
expected that the innate common sense of our people would give way
to hatred and enmity," he said.
"We are answerable to history and to future generations; we therefore
cannot allow further irrational acts to take place which would threaten
the stability of our country."
Of major world leaders, the Russian and French presidents, Vladimir
Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy, have congratulated Serzh Sarkisian on
his victory but other western governments have not yet sent formal
messages as they are waiting for a final observers’ report on the
February 19 poll.