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Ter-Petrosian, Allies Discuss Next Steps

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  • Ter-Petrosian, Allies Discuss Next Steps

    TER-PETROSIAN, ALLIES DISCUSS NEXT STEPS

    Radio Liberty
    March 17 2008
    Czech Republic

    Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian and his opposition allies
    remaining at large have met to discuss their further steps, saying
    that they will continue to strive for regime change in Armenia by
    "legal and democratic means."

    Ter-Petrosian's office said participants of the weekend meeting,
    apparently the first since the violent post-election unrest in Yerevan,
    "reaffirmed their determination to fight against the kleptocratic
    system."

    "All leaders of the [pro-Ter-Petrosian opposition] parties noted
    that the public is determined to get rid of the current authorities
    by legal and democratic means," it said in a short statement. No
    further details were reported.

    Ter-Petrosian said last week that he will continue to challenge the
    official results of Armenia's disputed presidential election and plans
    to resume demonstrations in the capital after the lifting of the state
    of emergency expected. His representatives had already notified the
    Yerevan mayor's office of their intention to hold a rally on March 21,
    the day after the anticipated end of emergency rule.

    However, municipal authorities banned the planned gathering, saying
    that it would pose a "serious threat to the life and health of
    citizens." In a written statement, an aide to Mayor Yervand Zakharian
    also argued that the last opposition rally held on March 1 was marred
    by deadly clashes between Ter-Petrosian supporters and riot police.

    More than one hundred opposition leaders and activists have been
    arrested on charges mainly stemming from those clashes which the
    Armenian authorities call a coup attempt. Dozens of others have
    gone into hiding. Many of the detained and fugitive oppositionists
    are senior members of opposition parties supporting Ter-Petrosian,
    notably the Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh) and Hanrapetutyun
    (Republic). According to Ter-Petrosian's office, most members of the
    two parties' governing boards are now in jail or on the run.

    An office spokesman, Armen Khachatrian, told RFE/RL on Monday that
    dozens of other, less known, opposition activists in Yerevan and
    other parts of the country have been taken to police stations in
    recent days. He said police officers are trying to force them to give
    incriminating testimony against opposition leaders and to promise
    not to participate in further Ter-Petrosian rallies. He said the
    interrogations are illegal because none of the activists received
    written summonses from the police and other law-enforcement agencies.

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and his ally Artur
    Baghdasarian, who finished third in the February 19 election,
    on Monday again defended the use of force against Ter-Petrosian
    supporters 1 and blamed the former president for the resulting
    casualties. "He radicalized a part of the opposition and guided it
    into a standoff with the state, which led to the March 1 riots in
    which armed demonstrators confronted police," they said in a joint
    article published by "The Washington Post."

    "Despite recent events, our country is still moving forward," wrote
    Sarkisian and Baghdasarian. "The international community has everything
    to gain through supporting a stable, transparent and elected government
    in Armenia."

    However, the Zharangutyun party of Raffi Hovannisian, the only
    opposition group represented in Armenia's parliament, had a completely
    different take on the post-election situation in the country, saying
    that "the schism between the Armenian people and its government
    continues to expand." In a statement, Zharangutyun, which endorsed
    Ter-Petrosian's presidential bid, said that the presidential ballot
    was fraudulent and that Armenians had a legitimate right to dispute
    its official results in the streets. It said the March 1 bloodshed
    resulted from the break-up of non-stop protests in Yerevan's Liberty
    Square staged by the Ter-Petrosian camp.

    "The unconscionability displayed on February 19 and the brutality
    used to protect it on March 1 remain unresolved issues," said
    the statement. "No state of emergency, accompanied as it is by an
    aggressive, one-sided 'public information' vertical which deepens
    the public divide rather than healing it, will succeed in securing
    the collective amnesia of state and society."
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