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Friday, 27 February, 2009
Armenian Police To Allow March 1 Rally
By Karine Kalantarian and Ruzanna Stepanian
The Armenian police indicated on Friday that they will not try to
disperse thousands of people who are expected to rally on Sunday to mark
the first anniversary of the 2008 post-election clashes in Yerevan.
The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) plans to rally
supporters outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts and
then stage a march through the city despite the municipal authorities'
refusal to authorize the protest.
Major-General Alik Sargsian, chief of the national police, made clear
that the police will not enforce the ban. `The police are very calm,' he
said. `Nothing [bad] is expected on March 1. Our people understand
everything.'
`We too will act like victims. We too suffered casualties, our people
also died on that day,' Sargsian told a news conference, referring to
the deaths of two police servicemen in the March 1, 2008 clashes with
opposition supporters that barricaded themselves outside the Yerevan
mayor's office. The violence also left eight civilians dead.
Sargsian said the police will use force only in the event of `any
violation of public order.' `But we are convinced that people will
calmly gather, pay their respects [to the March 1 victims] and go home,'
he said.
As the police chief spoke to journalists, the HAK issued a statement
urging law-enforcement bodies to work together with the opposition
alliance in making sure that the upcoming rally is peaceful. Levon
Zurabian, a senior HAK representative, said the organizers will take
`unprecedented measures to maintain order during rally' and warned the
police against taking `provocative actions.' `We are urging the police
to cooperate, not to create problems, not to provoke the people,' he
said.
Zurabian claimed that the police have so far avoided such cooperation
and are planning to seriously restrict Yerevan's transport communication
with the rest of the country to lower attendance at the rally. `The
authorities are terrified that their lies will be exposed,' Zurabian
told reporters. `They have tried to persuade the public and the
international community in that the [opposition] movement has died out,
that internal stability is restored, and that there is no political
crisis in Armenia.'
The HAK, which is led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, holds the
authorities solely responsible for the unprecedented post-election
unrest, saying that they deliberately used lethal force to crush street
protests against alleged vote rigging. The police actions on that day
were also criticized by New York-based Human Rights Watch in an
extensive report issued on Wednesday.
Sargsian, who was appointed as police chief in June 2008, dismissed the
criticism, saying that the police can only be faulted for being too slow
in reacting to the opposition actions on March 1. `I don't defend police
actions on March 1,' he said. ` `They may have been inactive at one
point. But the police found themselves in an unpredictable situation and
lost their orientation at that moment, as a result of which we too
became victims. I feel very sorry for that.'
`We will wait until this investigation is over and then have our say as
victims,' added Sargsian.
(Photolur photo)
Armenian Strife Still An Open Wound One Year On
By Emil Danielyan
The sudden calm in a vast square outside the Yerevan mayor's office
could hardly be more deceptive on the sunny afternoon of March 1, 2008.
Riot police had just left and thousands of people stood there in silent
anticipation of the unknown. The most bullish of them were busy arming
themselves with whatever they could find and blocking all the approaches
to the area with public transportation and police buses. Hundreds of
other men sat or lay on a nearby lawn dotted with iron bars stuck in the
ground.
The scene, surreal for a traditionally non-violent country like Armenia,
summed up the extent of their fury with the forcible break-up early in
the morning of non-stop demonstrations staged by opposition leader Levon
Ter-Petrosian and his supporters in another major Yerevan square in
protest against the alleged rigging of the February 19 presidential
election. One young man having a rest outside the high-rise municipality
building compared the pre-dawn police operation to the 1988 Armenian
pogrom in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan. `We are all ready to stand here until
the end, until the situation is sorted out according to law,' he said.
Just hours later, ten people were killed and more than 200 others
injured in vicious clashes between security forces and opposition
protesters. The Armenian political discourse is still dominated by
differing theories of the worst street violence in the country's
history. The Armenian authorities insist that it was the result of an
opposition conspiracy to illegally seize power in the wake of the
disputed election. Ter-Petrosian and his associates dismiss the coup
allegations and say the government deliberately used lethal force to
crush what they call a popular revolt against vote rigging. Both rival
camps continue to deny any responsibility for the bloodshed. The only
encouraging development in the past year was the formation last November
of a bipartisan fact-finding group tasked with conducting an independent
inquiry into the unrest. The group has since been working behind the
closed doors and has yet to issue any reports.
The events of March 1 marked the bloody end of massive demonstrations
staged by the Armenian opposition following the presidential ballot.
Official election results showed Serzh Sarkisian, the then prime
minister and outgoing President Robert Kocharian's favored successor,
cruising to a landslide victory with almost 53 percent of the vote.
According to the government-controlled Central Election Commission,
Ter-Petrosian came in in a distant second with 21.5 percent, followed by
two other candidates, Artur Baghdasarian and Vahan Hovannisian.
In their preliminary report, Western vote monitors mostly deployed by
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded
that despite serious problems observed during the counting of ballots,
the election was `administered mostly in line' with democratic
standards. The report gave a serious boost to the legitimacy of
Sarkisian's victory, even if the OSCE mission's final assessment
released in May was more critical of the Armenian authorities' handling
of the election.
Ter-Petrosian and his broad-based opposition coalition refused to
concede defeat, alleging a plethora of vote irregularities demanding a
re-run of the ballot. The opposition stepped up its pressure on the
authorities on February 21 as it set up a tent camp in Yerevan's Liberty
Square. Up to 2,000 people led by Ter-Petrosian spent nine consecutive
nights there in freezing temperatures, dancing in circles, setting off
fireworks and warming themselves in tents and around bonfires. Tens of
thousands of other Armenians joined them in daytime to listen to rousing
speeches by opposition leaders and take part in daily marches through
the city center.
Cracks within the ruling regime emerged already on February 22, with
Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian addressing the rally and
declaring Ter-Petrosian the rightful election winner. This was followed
by the defections to the opposition camp of seven parliament deputies
affiliated with the governing Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties.
Among them was a nephew of General Manvel Grigorian, one of the two
deputy ministers of defense who reportedly pledged allegiance to
Ter-Petrosian. The latter assured the Liberty Square crowd on February
22 that the generals will make sure that the Armenian military is not
used for suppressing the ongoing street protests in the capital. He also
claimed to have secured the backing of the `middle and lower echelons'
of the country's security apparatus.
Kocharian's response was not long in coming. Meeting with the top army
brass and other high-ranking security officials the next morning, the
departing president accused Ter-Petrosian of seeking to `seize power by
illegal means' and ordered them to take `all necessary measures to
maintain law and order in the country.' In a clear reference to General
Grigorian, who was conspicuously absent from the meeting, Kocharian said
he `will not allow anyone to play a shadowy role' in the deepening
standoff. The seven defecting lawmakers promptly withdrew support from
the opposition. Jahangirian was ambushed and arrested by a special
police squad later in the day. Several other prominent opposition
figures were detained in the following days.
Despite the wave of arrests, the opposition demonstrations continued
unabated and reached their peak on February 26, the day when Sarkisian
held his own rally in Yerevan's main Republic Square in an effort to
show that he enjoys greater public support. It proved to be a public
relations disaster as thousands of people bused there from across the
country walked over to Liberty Square and joined the opposition crowd
even before Sarkisian's rally was over. What the opposition plans to do
next was not clear, with Ter-Petrosian and his associates only telling
supporters to remain camped in the square. The authorities, for their
part, warned that their patience is wearing thin and that they can break
up the unsanctioned protests at any moment.
The United States and the European Union warned both sides not to resort
to force. `This peaceful exercise of the freedom of assembly, coupled
with effective, non-violent crowd management, is a notable achievement
and a sign of democratic progress,' the U.S. mission at the OSCE
headquarters in Vienna said in a February 28 statement. `We call on all
sides to ensure that this peaceful situation continues.' Kocharian said
the next day that the authorities are ready to `patiently wait until
that theatrical show dies out,' implying that they will clear Liberty
Square only if the opposition attempts to seize government buildings.
At around 6:30 a.m. on March 1, the square was surrounded by hundreds
and possibly thousands of riot police, interior troops and other
security units. Within 10-15 minutes it was cleared of protesters, who
put up fierce resistance before chaotically fleeing the scene. Dozens of
them were detained on the spot, while others were chased hundreds of
meters away from the square. Some protesters are known to have been
caught by the police near the Yerevan State Circus, about two kilometers
away from Liberty Square and just a few hundred meters from the
epicenter of opposition protests that would erupt later in the day.
The only protester allowed to stay in the square was Ter-Petrosian.
Wrapped in a blanket, Armenia's first president chain-smoked and watched
the police dismantle the remnants of the tent camp, the symbol of his
dramatic political comeback. `They want me to go but I told them that I
won't leave this square unless they handcuff me and show an arrest
warrant,' he told two RFE/RL correspondents that were allowed to
interview him there at around 8 a.m. Shortly afterwards he was forced
into his limousine and driven to his house overlooking the city center.
The Armenian government and police have said all along that security
forces dispersed the small crowd only after it refused to allow them to
search the square for weapons allegedly stashed there. The police claim,
in particular, that they received on February 29 `reliable information'
that the protesters will be handed firearms, explosives, iron bars and
other weapons to provoke `mass riots' in the capital on March 1. A
handful of such weapons, which the police claimed to have found in the
square, were shown by government-controlled TV channels.
Ter-Petrosian and other opposition leaders contend that the police
planted the weapons to justify the break-up of the peaceful sit-in. Like
many ordinary campers, they say that they did not receive any demands or
prior warnings from law-enforcement officials before being attacked. The
police, which filmed the Liberty Square clash, have not released any
video evidence to the contrary.
The official rationale for the pre-dawn operation has also been
challenged by Armen Harutiunian, the state human rights ombudsman. `If ¦
fleeing demonstrators left guns behind them, then why is it that during
their dispersal, which was accompanied by beatings and resistance, not a
single gunshot was fired?' he asked in an April report. The report said
that the purported search also violated Armenia's Code of Procedural
Justice that requires court warrants and the presence of witnesses in
such cases.
Despite being placed under de facto house arrest on March 1,
Ter-Petrosian was able to hold a news conference in his residence that
started at around 11:30 a.m. Exuding trademark calm, he gave a detailed
account of the previous night's events but was rather vague on what the
opposition plans to do next. `I don't know what further developments
there will be,' he said. `It is possible that a [rally] will erupt
spontaneously, and we are obliged to lead, to manage it. If I am allowed
to leave this house, I will naturally be with the people.'
`I think that Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian are finished,' added
Ter-Petrosian. `I have a feeling that they won't last even for 10 days
in Armenia.'
The charismatic ex-president was already informed that thousands of his
supporters, infuriated by the police actions, are converging on a
section of Grigor Lusavorich Street just outside the French Embassy in
Yerevan. Police units rushed to the area clashed with the rapidly
growing crowd but failed to disperse it. They could only cordon off area
for a while to keep the crowd from moving to Liberty Square and key
government buildings. None of the nine members of Ter-Petrosian's
election campaign board were spotted there at that time.
It was Vartan Khachatrian and Zaruhi Postanjian, parliament deputies
from the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party not directly involved
in the Ter-Petrosian campaign, that held first negotiations with
high-ranking police officials at the scene at around 1 p.m. It was
agreed that the crowd will be allowed to march through the city center
and rally outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts,
another traditional venue for public gatherings in Armenia.
The protesters rejected the agreement. `The people were extremely
agitated and did not listen to anyone at that point,' recalls
Khachatrian. `Many of them feared that the police would ambush and
attack them on their way to the Matenadaran.'
Major-General Sasha Afian, deputy chief of the national police,
reaffirmed the Matenadaran option during ensuing negotiations with David
Shahnazarian and Levon Zurabian, two close Ter-Petrosian associates who
arrived at the scene later in the afternoon. The crowd again refused to
budge. `The people felt that the police are trying to trap them,' says
Zurabian.
But Vahagn Harutiunian, a senior official at Armenia's Special
Investigative Service (SIS) leading the criminal investigation into the
March 1 events, dismisses this explanation, saying that the `organizers'
of the protest themselves did not let their supporters unblock Grigor
Lusavorich street in breach of an `explicit agreement' reached with
Afian. Harutiunian says police forces left the blocked street section,
as well as the adjacent square outside the Yerevan municipality, at
about 2 p.m. because of that agreement.
Shortly after the police pullout, groups of mainly young men blocked all
three streets crossing the square with buses and other vehicles mostly
seized from the police. Adding to their anger were rumors (that turned
out to be false) that the police killed protesters in Liberty Square.
Standing near the French Embassy, one middle-aged woman infamously held
up a shoe that she claimed belonged to a 12-year-old girl allegedly
killed in the police assault.
Later in the afternoon, the crowd was joined by other opposition leaders
that had gone into hiding following the Liberty Square clash. One of
them, Nikol Pashinian, took the center stage in the escalating standoff,
inspecting the barricades and urging activists to fortify them. `The
authorities attacked peaceful protesters, and we have grounds to assert
that their hostile actions will be repeated,' Pashinian declared at an
ensuing rally. `Our task now is to think about our defense.'
Many male protesters were already armed with metal and wooden sticks and
rocks. Some were busy preparing Molotov cocktails with petrol sucked out
of the seized police vehicles. Others began stopping public
transportation buses and using them for completing the blocking of all
streets, including Grigor Lusavorich, leading to the barricaded area.
In the meantime, Ter-Petrosian began negotiating with Kocharian through
the chief of the presidential security detail, Grigori Sarkisian, and
Western embassies in Yerevan. Ter-Petrosian would say afterwards that he
offered the authorities to calm his protesting supporters by addressing
them in person, leading them to the Matenadaran square and then telling
them to disperse until the next rally. Kocharian was only willing to let
the protesters move on to two locations outside the city center because,
as he would say at a March 5 news conference, the crowd would have gone
on a rampage had it been allowed to march through downtown Yerevan.
Speaking to foreign journalists on March 3, Ter-Petrosian said he
rejected Kocharian's offer because he believed the authorities are
trying to lure the crowd away from the center and attack it `far from
foreigners' eyes.'
The negotiations were apparently still going on when Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian and a senior police official held a news conference at
the presidential palace at 6:30-7 p.m. `The president is in serious
negotiations, but if these illegal actions continue the president will
have to declare a state of emergency to ensure public security,' warned
Oskanian.
As he spoke, hundreds of interior troops, other police forces and,
according to some eyewitness accounts, army units massed in and around
Yerevan. By 8 p.m. security forces took up positions on two of the five
approaches to the barricaded area. They never moved further forward from
one of those `frontlines,' only blocking two parallel streets and a park
leading to the Armenian prime minister's office in Republic Square.
Other police units were deployed at the junction of Mashtots Avenue and
Grigor Lusavorich Street, more than 300 meters from the nearest
opposition barricade. They mostly consisted of interior troops
(officially called Police Troops) wearing heavy riot gear. Regular and
special police units, some of them armed with AK-47 automatic rifles,
were positioned behind them.
The eerie silence there was broken at 9-9:15 p.m. by deafening
explosions of stun grenades thrown by the police and stones and Molotov
cocktails coming from the barricade. The rows of interior troops then
began slowly advancing towards the barricade, backed up by tracer
bullets fired in the air by the special police moments later. The
continuing hail of rocks and petrol bombs forced them to move back. In
the meantime, opposition leaders delivered fiery speeches to thousands
of people who rallied less than 200 meters down Grigor Lusavorich
Street. All that the demonstrators could see from there were tracer
bullets flying overhead and lighting up the night sky for about an hour.
They responded to the gunfire with `Struggle to the end!' and `Levon!
Levon!' chants.
`We will not retreat from this square,' Pashinian told the crowd. `But
we will not attack anyone either. If they attack us, they will get an
adequate response.'
`Dear people, they are simply trying to spread panic,' said Miasnik
Malkhasian, an opposition parliament who was subsequently arrested and
accused of organizing the `mass disorders.' `Please do not panic, stand
firm like men, and we will win.'
As the violence intensified, Pashinian issued orders to barricade
fighters and urged the security forces (both through loudspeakers and a
police radio seized by protesters) to switch sides. `Take up your arms
and redirect them against Kocharian's and Serzh's criminal clan. We will
stand to the end, even if all of us die in this square,' said the young
editor of Armenia's best-selling daily newspaper, `Haykakan Zhamanak.'
`People, we must finish the job tonight, enough is enough,' Pashinian
told the thinning crowd later on.
According to Vahagn Harutiunian, the chief unrest investigator, the
authorities never attempted to disperse the peaceful demonstrators and
that the police forces charged towards the barricade only after
stick-wielding protesters `came out of the barricades and pushed
forward.' `The law-enforcement forces tried to advance in order to stop
that movement and immediately came under attack,' he tells RFE/RL.
Opposition leaders deny this, saying that the first clash, which
occurred on a Grigor Lusavorich Street section next to the Russian
Embassy, was provoked by the police. Whatever the truth, Captain Hamlet
Tadevosian, commander of an interior troop company, appears to have been
its sole casualty and the first person killed in the unrest. The
investigators say he was killed by a hand grenade or another explosive
device thrown by a protester. They also claim that some of the
protesters had firearms, pointing to, among other things, to police
footage of the first street battle that shows what looks like a trail of
automatic gunfire coming from the opposition side. The opposition denies
that any of its supporters used guns or grenades and blames the police
for Tadevosian's death.
After the unsuccessful pitched battles the security forces retreated to
the Lusavorich-Mashtots intersection and then further back to Paronian
Street, leaving behind vehicles burned by the protesters. It was at that
crossroads that the protesters apparently suffered their first
fatalities. Three of them were shot dead there in still unclear
circumstances. Another protester was fatally wounded at the beginning of
Mashtots Avenue. Several shops in that area were looted by rioters after
10 p.m.
Not all speakers at the opposition rally condemned the looting and the
burning of cars parked nearby and blamed that on government `agents
provocateurs.' `Even if they are looting oligarchs' shop, they are
probably not committing a theft, they just found a way of punishing [the
authorities,]' declared Shant Harutiunian, an obscure extreme
nationalist who played no part in the Liberty Square protests but was
one of the main opposition orators late on March 1.
The investigators believe the four other civilian deaths occurred on
Paronian Street and at its intersection with Leo Street where the police
forces retreated later in the evening, unable to contain the advancing
protesters despite using water cannons and continuing to fire tracer
bullets. They suffered their second casualty on Leo Street when an
interior troop serviceman, Tigran Abgarian, was shot in the neck and
died without regaining consciousness a month later. Law-enforcement
authorities say Abgarian was killed by one of the protesters, a claim
denied by the opposition. None of more than 100 oppositionists arrested
in the following weeks was charged in connection with the deaths of the
19-year-old conscript and Captain Tadevosian.
The investigators have also shed little light on the circumstances in
which the eight civilians lost their lives, saying only that three of
them were hit by tear gas capsules fired by the police. Vahagn
Harutiunian asserts that the police forces involved in the March 1
clashes did not receive prior orders to shoot at the demonstrators,
dismissing opposition claims to the contrary. `They were only ordered to
fire tracer and blank rounds in the air,' he says.
Armenia's law on police service allows police officers to use lethal
force for `repelling an attack that threatens their life or health'
without their superiors' permission. The police believe the March 1
events posed such a risk but have so far stopped short of stating that
the deadly gunfire was necessary for neutralizing the danger. They have
stressed that more than 180 police officers and interior troop soldiers
received various injuries during the clashes. Forty-two of them were
injured by grenade explosions and required hospitalization, according to
law-enforcement authorities.
President Kocharian cited police casualties as he went on national
television at 10:30 p.m. to declare a three-week state of emergency and
order the Armenian military to restore `public order.' Army units backed
up by armored vehicles began rolling into the capital shortly after
midnight. About one square kilometer of the city center was under full
or partial opposition control at that point. At around 4 a.m. on March 2
Ter-Petrosian made a phone appeal to the demonstrators remaining outside
the municipality and urged them to go home. "I do not want any victims
and clashes between police and innocent people. That is why I am asking
you to leave," he said.
The Armenian government continues to stand by its claim that the clashes
were pre-planned by the opposition with the aim of `usurping state power
by force.' Seven of the arrested opposition members, among them
Ter-Petrosian's election campaign chief, three opposition
parliamentarians and Shant Harutiunian (no relation to Vahagn), are
currently on trial on corresponding charges. Why Ter-Petrosian himself
has not been prosecuted for the alleged coup bid remains unclear.
The SIS's Harutiunian says the criminal case against the seven
defendants contains `testimony by numerous people who clearly state that
they were told to go to the French Embassy.' He says the official theory
is also supported by wiretapped phone conversations of opposition
leaders and police video of the March 1 events. Late last, year
Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian shared these and other details of
the case with John Prescott and Georges Colombier, the two Armenia
rapporteurs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).
Prescott and Colombier described the purported evidence as unconvincing
in a January report to the Strasbourg-based assembly.
Opposition leaders insist that the street protests that followed the
police assault on Liberty Square were spontaneous. `After the dispersal
of the Liberty Square demonstration we lost control over the course of
events,' Zurabian tells RFE/RL, adding that Ter-Petrosian's campaign
team was too scattered and paralyzed to make decisions. `We didn't even
know what's going on,' he says.
Zurabian, widely considered as the ex-president's right-hand man, also
claims that the opposition had no contingency plans for a possible
break-up for its sit-in. Ter-Petrosian repeatedly assured supporters
camped in Liberty Square that Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian are `not
crazy' to disperse them by force. `You can now say that I was mistaken,'
he would tell journalists on March 11. `Our country is probably too
savage to be judged with rational categories.'
Zurabian believes that the opposition committed no `strategic blunders'
in the post-election period. `The only alternative was not to engage in
any political struggle in the first place,' he says.
Khachatrian, the Zharangutyun parliamentarian, is more self-critical.
`At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the fact that people
got killed in the streets of Yerevan,' he reckons. `One party more so,
the other less.'
There have been suggestions that Ter-Petrosian might have prevented
bloodshed had he been able to join the protesting crowd. The authorities
say that he was free to leave his house on March 1, but only without his
state-funded armed bodyguards. For Ter-Petrosian and his entourage, this
condition was illegal and amounted to a death threat.
`If he feared for his own security, then he should have also worried
about the security of the crowd,' Kocharian scoffed at the March 5 news
conference. `He should have had the courage ¦ to go there and
participate in that rally.'
(Photo courtesy of http://ditord.com)
U.S. Dollar In Short Supply In Armenia
By Anush Martirosian
Buying U.S. dollars was all but impossible in Yerevan on Friday in a
further sign that the exchange rate of Armenia's national currency, the
dram, is no longer market-based.
Unlike many other currencies, the dram has not depreciated against the
dollar since the onset of the global financial crisis late last year.
The government and the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) have since been
facing allegations by critics that they are using the country's hard
currency reserves to artificially bolster the dram.
The authorities deny any heavy intervention in the currency market. Many
Armenians seem unconvinced by these assurances and anxious to convert
their dram savings into dollars. Lines of dollar buyers could be seen
outside some Armenian banks and currency exchange shops on Friday.
`Dollars are not for sale in any currency shop,' one woman told RFE/RL.
`Everyone wants dollars, but we don't sell them,' complained one
currency trader at a food supermarket in downtown Yerevan. `It's a
panic. I have only $125 in cash right now. I used to have $20,000 at
this time of the day.'
`People would buy even as little as $20,' said another deal. `They are
panicking. The banks have not sold dollars in the last two days.'
`People are panicking,' confirmed a branch manager at the Ardshininvest
bank, one of the largest in Armenia. He claimed that people can buy
dollars at the bank unless they want large sums.
But bank clients interviewed by RFE/RL claimed the opposite. `They say
they don't have dollars,' one of them said.
A spokesman for the CBA, Zaruhi Barseghian, denied that the greenback is
in short supply in Armenia these days. She said there might only be
temporary shortages caused by currency retailers `catering for the
shadow economy' and engaged in `speculative games.'
`There are no problems,' Barseghian told RFE/RL. `The banking system is
functioning well.'
(Photolur photo)
Armenian Premier Visits Russia
By Aza Babayan in Moscow
Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian paid a one-day working visit to Moscow
on Friday that was expected to focus on economic issues and, in
particular, Russia's promised anti-crisis assistance to Armenia.
Sarkisian was meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin late in
the evening after holding talks with the governor of the Russian Central
Bank, Sergey Ignatiev, and Igor Levitin, the Russian co-chairman of an
inter-governmental commission on bilateral economic cooperation. He was
due to discuss with them, among other issues, the terms of a $500
million loan that Moscow has pledged to provide to Yerevan with the aim
of helping it cope with the global economic crisis, which is hitting the
Armenian economy increasingly hard.
Meeting with Moscow-based Armenian businessmen earlier in the day,
Sarkisian said the loan will be disbursed in March but did not specify
how his government plans to spend it. He also outlined the government's
broader strategy of mitigating the effects of the global downturn. The
government will not only seek to stimulate the economy with external
loans but also strengthen the rule of law, he said, describing
government corruption as a serious hurdle to Armenia's economic
development.
The prime minister also urged the entrepreneurs, may of them born in
Armenia, to invest more heavily in his country. `Welcome back to
Armenia,' he said, claiming that many Armenians are already returning
home because of worsened economic conditions in Russia.
(Photolur photo)
PRESS REVIEW
`Chorrord Ishkhanutyun' regards the economic situation in Armenia as
`disastrous.' The opposition paper claims that in the past few months
the Armenian government has borrowed more from foreign sources in the
previous 17 years taken together. `There is no guarantee that that will
rescue the situation,' it says.
`Haykakan Zhamanak' reports that the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
sharply cut back on sales of U.S. dollars to commercial banks at the
Yerevan stock exchange on Thursday in order to keep up the value of the
national currency, the dram, without using up more of its hard currency
reserves. `With blackmail and threats, the Central Bank banned the banks
from trying to purchase foreign currency at the stock exchange,' says
the paper.
`Zhamanak' editorializes that the idea of political dialogue in Armenia
has been `devaluated' because each of the rival political factions is
`pursuing maximalist goals.' The paper argues that the authorities say
such a dialogue can start only after the opposition stops holding
demonstrations, whereas the opposition says dialogue must definitely
lead to fresh parliamentary and presidential elections. It says both
approaches are wrong because `dialogue presupposes mutual concessions,
agreement, respect for the opposite side's view.' `In today's Armenia
the authorities are primarily unprepared for such tolerance,' it says,
adding that the opposition can not accept the government conditions.
Samvel Nikoyan, head of the parliamentary commission investigating the
March 1 clashes in Yerevan, notes in a `Hayots Ashkhar' interview that
Armenia's Criminal Code currently sets punishment only for completed
`usurpation of state power,' rather than attempts to expedite it. `A
question arises: if you have successfully seized power, who is going to
prosecute you?' argues Nikoyan.
`Yerkir' criticizes the way in which the Central Election Commission
(CEC) is preparing to hold the May 31 municipal elections in Yerevan. In
particular, the paper is skeptical about the effectiveness of training
courses for members of precinct election commissions which are planned
by the CEC.
(Aghasi Yenokian)
Armenian Police To Allow March 1 Rally
By Karine Kalantarian and Ruzanna Stepanian
The Armenian police indicated on Friday that they will not try to
disperse thousands of people who are expected to rally on Sunday to mark
the first anniversary of the 2008 post-election clashes in Yerevan.
The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) plans to rally
supporters outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts and
then stage a march through the city despite the municipal authorities'
refusal to authorize the protest.
Major-General Alik Sargsian, chief of the national police, made clear
that the police will not enforce the ban. `The police are very calm,' he
said. `Nothing [bad] is expected on March 1. Our people understand
everything.'
`We too will act like victims. We too suffered casualties, our people
also died on that day,' Sargsian told a news conference, referring to
the deaths of two police servicemen in the March 1, 2008 clashes with
opposition supporters that barricaded themselves outside the Yerevan
mayor's office. The violence also left eight civilians dead.
Sargsian said the police will use force only in the event of `any
violation of public order.' `But we are convinced that people will
calmly gather, pay their respects [to the March 1 victims] and go home,'
he said.
As the police chief spoke to journalists, the HAK issued a statement
urging law-enforcement bodies to work together with the opposition
alliance in making sure that the upcoming rally is peaceful. Levon
Zurabian, a senior HAK representative, said the organizers will take
`unprecedented measures to maintain order during rally' and warned the
police against taking `provocative actions.' `We are urging the police
to cooperate, not to create problems, not to provoke the people,' he
said.
Zurabian claimed that the police have so far avoided such cooperation
and are planning to seriously restrict Yerevan's transport communication
with the rest of the country to lower attendance at the rally. `The
authorities are terrified that their lies will be exposed,' Zurabian
told reporters. `They have tried to persuade the public and the
international community in that the [opposition] movement has died out,
that internal stability is restored, and that there is no political
crisis in Armenia.'
The HAK, which is led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, holds the
authorities solely responsible for the unprecedented post-election
unrest, saying that they deliberately used lethal force to crush street
protests against alleged vote rigging. The police actions on that day
were also criticized by New York-based Human Rights Watch in an
extensive report issued on Wednesday.
Sargsian, who was appointed as police chief in June 2008, dismissed the
criticism, saying that the police can only be faulted for being too slow
in reacting to the opposition actions on March 1. `I don't defend police
actions on March 1,' he said. ` `They may have been inactive at one
point. But the police found themselves in an unpredictable situation and
lost their orientation at that moment, as a result of which we too
became victims. I feel very sorry for that.'
`We will wait until this investigation is over and then have our say as
victims,' added Sargsian.
(Photolur photo)
Armenian Strife Still An Open Wound One Year On
By Emil Danielyan
The sudden calm in a vast square outside the Yerevan mayor's office
could hardly be more deceptive on the sunny afternoon of March 1, 2008.
Riot police had just left and thousands of people stood there in silent
anticipation of the unknown. The most bullish of them were busy arming
themselves with whatever they could find and blocking all the approaches
to the area with public transportation and police buses. Hundreds of
other men sat or lay on a nearby lawn dotted with iron bars stuck in the
ground.
The scene, surreal for a traditionally non-violent country like Armenia,
summed up the extent of their fury with the forcible break-up early in
the morning of non-stop demonstrations staged by opposition leader Levon
Ter-Petrosian and his supporters in another major Yerevan square in
protest against the alleged rigging of the February 19 presidential
election. One young man having a rest outside the high-rise municipality
building compared the pre-dawn police operation to the 1988 Armenian
pogrom in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan. `We are all ready to stand here until
the end, until the situation is sorted out according to law,' he said.
Just hours later, ten people were killed and more than 200 others
injured in vicious clashes between security forces and opposition
protesters. The Armenian political discourse is still dominated by
differing theories of the worst street violence in the country's
history. The Armenian authorities insist that it was the result of an
opposition conspiracy to illegally seize power in the wake of the
disputed election. Ter-Petrosian and his associates dismiss the coup
allegations and say the government deliberately used lethal force to
crush what they call a popular revolt against vote rigging. Both rival
camps continue to deny any responsibility for the bloodshed. The only
encouraging development in the past year was the formation last November
of a bipartisan fact-finding group tasked with conducting an independent
inquiry into the unrest. The group has since been working behind the
closed doors and has yet to issue any reports.
The events of March 1 marked the bloody end of massive demonstrations
staged by the Armenian opposition following the presidential ballot.
Official election results showed Serzh Sarkisian, the then prime
minister and outgoing President Robert Kocharian's favored successor,
cruising to a landslide victory with almost 53 percent of the vote.
According to the government-controlled Central Election Commission,
Ter-Petrosian came in in a distant second with 21.5 percent, followed by
two other candidates, Artur Baghdasarian and Vahan Hovannisian.
In their preliminary report, Western vote monitors mostly deployed by
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded
that despite serious problems observed during the counting of ballots,
the election was `administered mostly in line' with democratic
standards. The report gave a serious boost to the legitimacy of
Sarkisian's victory, even if the OSCE mission's final assessment
released in May was more critical of the Armenian authorities' handling
of the election.
Ter-Petrosian and his broad-based opposition coalition refused to
concede defeat, alleging a plethora of vote irregularities demanding a
re-run of the ballot. The opposition stepped up its pressure on the
authorities on February 21 as it set up a tent camp in Yerevan's Liberty
Square. Up to 2,000 people led by Ter-Petrosian spent nine consecutive
nights there in freezing temperatures, dancing in circles, setting off
fireworks and warming themselves in tents and around bonfires. Tens of
thousands of other Armenians joined them in daytime to listen to rousing
speeches by opposition leaders and take part in daily marches through
the city center.
Cracks within the ruling regime emerged already on February 22, with
Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian addressing the rally and
declaring Ter-Petrosian the rightful election winner. This was followed
by the defections to the opposition camp of seven parliament deputies
affiliated with the governing Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties.
Among them was a nephew of General Manvel Grigorian, one of the two
deputy ministers of defense who reportedly pledged allegiance to
Ter-Petrosian. The latter assured the Liberty Square crowd on February
22 that the generals will make sure that the Armenian military is not
used for suppressing the ongoing street protests in the capital. He also
claimed to have secured the backing of the `middle and lower echelons'
of the country's security apparatus.
Kocharian's response was not long in coming. Meeting with the top army
brass and other high-ranking security officials the next morning, the
departing president accused Ter-Petrosian of seeking to `seize power by
illegal means' and ordered them to take `all necessary measures to
maintain law and order in the country.' In a clear reference to General
Grigorian, who was conspicuously absent from the meeting, Kocharian said
he `will not allow anyone to play a shadowy role' in the deepening
standoff. The seven defecting lawmakers promptly withdrew support from
the opposition. Jahangirian was ambushed and arrested by a special
police squad later in the day. Several other prominent opposition
figures were detained in the following days.
Despite the wave of arrests, the opposition demonstrations continued
unabated and reached their peak on February 26, the day when Sarkisian
held his own rally in Yerevan's main Republic Square in an effort to
show that he enjoys greater public support. It proved to be a public
relations disaster as thousands of people bused there from across the
country walked over to Liberty Square and joined the opposition crowd
even before Sarkisian's rally was over. What the opposition plans to do
next was not clear, with Ter-Petrosian and his associates only telling
supporters to remain camped in the square. The authorities, for their
part, warned that their patience is wearing thin and that they can break
up the unsanctioned protests at any moment.
The United States and the European Union warned both sides not to resort
to force. `This peaceful exercise of the freedom of assembly, coupled
with effective, non-violent crowd management, is a notable achievement
and a sign of democratic progress,' the U.S. mission at the OSCE
headquarters in Vienna said in a February 28 statement. `We call on all
sides to ensure that this peaceful situation continues.' Kocharian said
the next day that the authorities are ready to `patiently wait until
that theatrical show dies out,' implying that they will clear Liberty
Square only if the opposition attempts to seize government buildings.
At around 6:30 a.m. on March 1, the square was surrounded by hundreds
and possibly thousands of riot police, interior troops and other
security units. Within 10-15 minutes it was cleared of protesters, who
put up fierce resistance before chaotically fleeing the scene. Dozens of
them were detained on the spot, while others were chased hundreds of
meters away from the square. Some protesters are known to have been
caught by the police near the Yerevan State Circus, about two kilometers
away from Liberty Square and just a few hundred meters from the
epicenter of opposition protests that would erupt later in the day.
The only protester allowed to stay in the square was Ter-Petrosian.
Wrapped in a blanket, Armenia's first president chain-smoked and watched
the police dismantle the remnants of the tent camp, the symbol of his
dramatic political comeback. `They want me to go but I told them that I
won't leave this square unless they handcuff me and show an arrest
warrant,' he told two RFE/RL correspondents that were allowed to
interview him there at around 8 a.m. Shortly afterwards he was forced
into his limousine and driven to his house overlooking the city center.
The Armenian government and police have said all along that security
forces dispersed the small crowd only after it refused to allow them to
search the square for weapons allegedly stashed there. The police claim,
in particular, that they received on February 29 `reliable information'
that the protesters will be handed firearms, explosives, iron bars and
other weapons to provoke `mass riots' in the capital on March 1. A
handful of such weapons, which the police claimed to have found in the
square, were shown by government-controlled TV channels.
Ter-Petrosian and other opposition leaders contend that the police
planted the weapons to justify the break-up of the peaceful sit-in. Like
many ordinary campers, they say that they did not receive any demands or
prior warnings from law-enforcement officials before being attacked. The
police, which filmed the Liberty Square clash, have not released any
video evidence to the contrary.
The official rationale for the pre-dawn operation has also been
challenged by Armen Harutiunian, the state human rights ombudsman. `If ¦
fleeing demonstrators left guns behind them, then why is it that during
their dispersal, which was accompanied by beatings and resistance, not a
single gunshot was fired?' he asked in an April report. The report said
that the purported search also violated Armenia's Code of Procedural
Justice that requires court warrants and the presence of witnesses in
such cases.
Despite being placed under de facto house arrest on March 1,
Ter-Petrosian was able to hold a news conference in his residence that
started at around 11:30 a.m. Exuding trademark calm, he gave a detailed
account of the previous night's events but was rather vague on what the
opposition plans to do next. `I don't know what further developments
there will be,' he said. `It is possible that a [rally] will erupt
spontaneously, and we are obliged to lead, to manage it. If I am allowed
to leave this house, I will naturally be with the people.'
`I think that Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian are finished,' added
Ter-Petrosian. `I have a feeling that they won't last even for 10 days
in Armenia.'
The charismatic ex-president was already informed that thousands of his
supporters, infuriated by the police actions, are converging on a
section of Grigor Lusavorich Street just outside the French Embassy in
Yerevan. Police units rushed to the area clashed with the rapidly
growing crowd but failed to disperse it. They could only cordon off area
for a while to keep the crowd from moving to Liberty Square and key
government buildings. None of the nine members of Ter-Petrosian's
election campaign board were spotted there at that time.
It was Vartan Khachatrian and Zaruhi Postanjian, parliament deputies
from the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party not directly involved
in the Ter-Petrosian campaign, that held first negotiations with
high-ranking police officials at the scene at around 1 p.m. It was
agreed that the crowd will be allowed to march through the city center
and rally outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts,
another traditional venue for public gatherings in Armenia.
The protesters rejected the agreement. `The people were extremely
agitated and did not listen to anyone at that point,' recalls
Khachatrian. `Many of them feared that the police would ambush and
attack them on their way to the Matenadaran.'
Major-General Sasha Afian, deputy chief of the national police,
reaffirmed the Matenadaran option during ensuing negotiations with David
Shahnazarian and Levon Zurabian, two close Ter-Petrosian associates who
arrived at the scene later in the afternoon. The crowd again refused to
budge. `The people felt that the police are trying to trap them,' says
Zurabian.
But Vahagn Harutiunian, a senior official at Armenia's Special
Investigative Service (SIS) leading the criminal investigation into the
March 1 events, dismisses this explanation, saying that the `organizers'
of the protest themselves did not let their supporters unblock Grigor
Lusavorich street in breach of an `explicit agreement' reached with
Afian. Harutiunian says police forces left the blocked street section,
as well as the adjacent square outside the Yerevan municipality, at
about 2 p.m. because of that agreement.
Shortly after the police pullout, groups of mainly young men blocked all
three streets crossing the square with buses and other vehicles mostly
seized from the police. Adding to their anger were rumors (that turned
out to be false) that the police killed protesters in Liberty Square.
Standing near the French Embassy, one middle-aged woman infamously held
up a shoe that she claimed belonged to a 12-year-old girl allegedly
killed in the police assault.
Later in the afternoon, the crowd was joined by other opposition leaders
that had gone into hiding following the Liberty Square clash. One of
them, Nikol Pashinian, took the center stage in the escalating standoff,
inspecting the barricades and urging activists to fortify them. `The
authorities attacked peaceful protesters, and we have grounds to assert
that their hostile actions will be repeated,' Pashinian declared at an
ensuing rally. `Our task now is to think about our defense.'
Many male protesters were already armed with metal and wooden sticks and
rocks. Some were busy preparing Molotov cocktails with petrol sucked out
of the seized police vehicles. Others began stopping public
transportation buses and using them for completing the blocking of all
streets, including Grigor Lusavorich, leading to the barricaded area.
In the meantime, Ter-Petrosian began negotiating with Kocharian through
the chief of the presidential security detail, Grigori Sarkisian, and
Western embassies in Yerevan. Ter-Petrosian would say afterwards that he
offered the authorities to calm his protesting supporters by addressing
them in person, leading them to the Matenadaran square and then telling
them to disperse until the next rally. Kocharian was only willing to let
the protesters move on to two locations outside the city center because,
as he would say at a March 5 news conference, the crowd would have gone
on a rampage had it been allowed to march through downtown Yerevan.
Speaking to foreign journalists on March 3, Ter-Petrosian said he
rejected Kocharian's offer because he believed the authorities are
trying to lure the crowd away from the center and attack it `far from
foreigners' eyes.'
The negotiations were apparently still going on when Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian and a senior police official held a news conference at
the presidential palace at 6:30-7 p.m. `The president is in serious
negotiations, but if these illegal actions continue the president will
have to declare a state of emergency to ensure public security,' warned
Oskanian.
As he spoke, hundreds of interior troops, other police forces and,
according to some eyewitness accounts, army units massed in and around
Yerevan. By 8 p.m. security forces took up positions on two of the five
approaches to the barricaded area. They never moved further forward from
one of those `frontlines,' only blocking two parallel streets and a park
leading to the Armenian prime minister's office in Republic Square.
Other police units were deployed at the junction of Mashtots Avenue and
Grigor Lusavorich Street, more than 300 meters from the nearest
opposition barricade. They mostly consisted of interior troops
(officially called Police Troops) wearing heavy riot gear. Regular and
special police units, some of them armed with AK-47 automatic rifles,
were positioned behind them.
The eerie silence there was broken at 9-9:15 p.m. by deafening
explosions of stun grenades thrown by the police and stones and Molotov
cocktails coming from the barricade. The rows of interior troops then
began slowly advancing towards the barricade, backed up by tracer
bullets fired in the air by the special police moments later. The
continuing hail of rocks and petrol bombs forced them to move back. In
the meantime, opposition leaders delivered fiery speeches to thousands
of people who rallied less than 200 meters down Grigor Lusavorich
Street. All that the demonstrators could see from there were tracer
bullets flying overhead and lighting up the night sky for about an hour.
They responded to the gunfire with `Struggle to the end!' and `Levon!
Levon!' chants.
`We will not retreat from this square,' Pashinian told the crowd. `But
we will not attack anyone either. If they attack us, they will get an
adequate response.'
`Dear people, they are simply trying to spread panic,' said Miasnik
Malkhasian, an opposition parliament who was subsequently arrested and
accused of organizing the `mass disorders.' `Please do not panic, stand
firm like men, and we will win.'
As the violence intensified, Pashinian issued orders to barricade
fighters and urged the security forces (both through loudspeakers and a
police radio seized by protesters) to switch sides. `Take up your arms
and redirect them against Kocharian's and Serzh's criminal clan. We will
stand to the end, even if all of us die in this square,' said the young
editor of Armenia's best-selling daily newspaper, `Haykakan Zhamanak.'
`People, we must finish the job tonight, enough is enough,' Pashinian
told the thinning crowd later on.
According to Vahagn Harutiunian, the chief unrest investigator, the
authorities never attempted to disperse the peaceful demonstrators and
that the police forces charged towards the barricade only after
stick-wielding protesters `came out of the barricades and pushed
forward.' `The law-enforcement forces tried to advance in order to stop
that movement and immediately came under attack,' he tells RFE/RL.
Opposition leaders deny this, saying that the first clash, which
occurred on a Grigor Lusavorich Street section next to the Russian
Embassy, was provoked by the police. Whatever the truth, Captain Hamlet
Tadevosian, commander of an interior troop company, appears to have been
its sole casualty and the first person killed in the unrest. The
investigators say he was killed by a hand grenade or another explosive
device thrown by a protester. They also claim that some of the
protesters had firearms, pointing to, among other things, to police
footage of the first street battle that shows what looks like a trail of
automatic gunfire coming from the opposition side. The opposition denies
that any of its supporters used guns or grenades and blames the police
for Tadevosian's death.
After the unsuccessful pitched battles the security forces retreated to
the Lusavorich-Mashtots intersection and then further back to Paronian
Street, leaving behind vehicles burned by the protesters. It was at that
crossroads that the protesters apparently suffered their first
fatalities. Three of them were shot dead there in still unclear
circumstances. Another protester was fatally wounded at the beginning of
Mashtots Avenue. Several shops in that area were looted by rioters after
10 p.m.
Not all speakers at the opposition rally condemned the looting and the
burning of cars parked nearby and blamed that on government `agents
provocateurs.' `Even if they are looting oligarchs' shop, they are
probably not committing a theft, they just found a way of punishing [the
authorities,]' declared Shant Harutiunian, an obscure extreme
nationalist who played no part in the Liberty Square protests but was
one of the main opposition orators late on March 1.
The investigators believe the four other civilian deaths occurred on
Paronian Street and at its intersection with Leo Street where the police
forces retreated later in the evening, unable to contain the advancing
protesters despite using water cannons and continuing to fire tracer
bullets. They suffered their second casualty on Leo Street when an
interior troop serviceman, Tigran Abgarian, was shot in the neck and
died without regaining consciousness a month later. Law-enforcement
authorities say Abgarian was killed by one of the protesters, a claim
denied by the opposition. None of more than 100 oppositionists arrested
in the following weeks was charged in connection with the deaths of the
19-year-old conscript and Captain Tadevosian.
The investigators have also shed little light on the circumstances in
which the eight civilians lost their lives, saying only that three of
them were hit by tear gas capsules fired by the police. Vahagn
Harutiunian asserts that the police forces involved in the March 1
clashes did not receive prior orders to shoot at the demonstrators,
dismissing opposition claims to the contrary. `They were only ordered to
fire tracer and blank rounds in the air,' he says.
Armenia's law on police service allows police officers to use lethal
force for `repelling an attack that threatens their life or health'
without their superiors' permission. The police believe the March 1
events posed such a risk but have so far stopped short of stating that
the deadly gunfire was necessary for neutralizing the danger. They have
stressed that more than 180 police officers and interior troop soldiers
received various injuries during the clashes. Forty-two of them were
injured by grenade explosions and required hospitalization, according to
law-enforcement authorities.
President Kocharian cited police casualties as he went on national
television at 10:30 p.m. to declare a three-week state of emergency and
order the Armenian military to restore `public order.' Army units backed
up by armored vehicles began rolling into the capital shortly after
midnight. About one square kilometer of the city center was under full
or partial opposition control at that point. At around 4 a.m. on March 2
Ter-Petrosian made a phone appeal to the demonstrators remaining outside
the municipality and urged them to go home. "I do not want any victims
and clashes between police and innocent people. That is why I am asking
you to leave," he said.
The Armenian government continues to stand by its claim that the clashes
were pre-planned by the opposition with the aim of `usurping state power
by force.' Seven of the arrested opposition members, among them
Ter-Petrosian's election campaign chief, three opposition
parliamentarians and Shant Harutiunian (no relation to Vahagn), are
currently on trial on corresponding charges. Why Ter-Petrosian himself
has not been prosecuted for the alleged coup bid remains unclear.
The SIS's Harutiunian says the criminal case against the seven
defendants contains `testimony by numerous people who clearly state that
they were told to go to the French Embassy.' He says the official theory
is also supported by wiretapped phone conversations of opposition
leaders and police video of the March 1 events. Late last, year
Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian shared these and other details of
the case with John Prescott and Georges Colombier, the two Armenia
rapporteurs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).
Prescott and Colombier described the purported evidence as unconvincing
in a January report to the Strasbourg-based assembly.
Opposition leaders insist that the street protests that followed the
police assault on Liberty Square were spontaneous. `After the dispersal
of the Liberty Square demonstration we lost control over the course of
events,' Zurabian tells RFE/RL, adding that Ter-Petrosian's campaign
team was too scattered and paralyzed to make decisions. `We didn't even
know what's going on,' he says.
Zurabian, widely considered as the ex-president's right-hand man, also
claims that the opposition had no contingency plans for a possible
break-up for its sit-in. Ter-Petrosian repeatedly assured supporters
camped in Liberty Square that Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian are `not
crazy' to disperse them by force. `You can now say that I was mistaken,'
he would tell journalists on March 11. `Our country is probably too
savage to be judged with rational categories.'
Zurabian believes that the opposition committed no `strategic blunders'
in the post-election period. `The only alternative was not to engage in
any political struggle in the first place,' he says.
Khachatrian, the Zharangutyun parliamentarian, is more self-critical.
`At the end of the day, we are all responsible for the fact that people
got killed in the streets of Yerevan,' he reckons. `One party more so,
the other less.'
There have been suggestions that Ter-Petrosian might have prevented
bloodshed had he been able to join the protesting crowd. The authorities
say that he was free to leave his house on March 1, but only without his
state-funded armed bodyguards. For Ter-Petrosian and his entourage, this
condition was illegal and amounted to a death threat.
`If he feared for his own security, then he should have also worried
about the security of the crowd,' Kocharian scoffed at the March 5 news
conference. `He should have had the courage ¦ to go there and
participate in that rally.'
(Photo courtesy of http://ditord.com)
U.S. Dollar In Short Supply In Armenia
By Anush Martirosian
Buying U.S. dollars was all but impossible in Yerevan on Friday in a
further sign that the exchange rate of Armenia's national currency, the
dram, is no longer market-based.
Unlike many other currencies, the dram has not depreciated against the
dollar since the onset of the global financial crisis late last year.
The government and the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) have since been
facing allegations by critics that they are using the country's hard
currency reserves to artificially bolster the dram.
The authorities deny any heavy intervention in the currency market. Many
Armenians seem unconvinced by these assurances and anxious to convert
their dram savings into dollars. Lines of dollar buyers could be seen
outside some Armenian banks and currency exchange shops on Friday.
`Dollars are not for sale in any currency shop,' one woman told RFE/RL.
`Everyone wants dollars, but we don't sell them,' complained one
currency trader at a food supermarket in downtown Yerevan. `It's a
panic. I have only $125 in cash right now. I used to have $20,000 at
this time of the day.'
`People would buy even as little as $20,' said another deal. `They are
panicking. The banks have not sold dollars in the last two days.'
`People are panicking,' confirmed a branch manager at the Ardshininvest
bank, one of the largest in Armenia. He claimed that people can buy
dollars at the bank unless they want large sums.
But bank clients interviewed by RFE/RL claimed the opposite. `They say
they don't have dollars,' one of them said.
A spokesman for the CBA, Zaruhi Barseghian, denied that the greenback is
in short supply in Armenia these days. She said there might only be
temporary shortages caused by currency retailers `catering for the
shadow economy' and engaged in `speculative games.'
`There are no problems,' Barseghian told RFE/RL. `The banking system is
functioning well.'
(Photolur photo)
Armenian Premier Visits Russia
By Aza Babayan in Moscow
Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian paid a one-day working visit to Moscow
on Friday that was expected to focus on economic issues and, in
particular, Russia's promised anti-crisis assistance to Armenia.
Sarkisian was meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin late in
the evening after holding talks with the governor of the Russian Central
Bank, Sergey Ignatiev, and Igor Levitin, the Russian co-chairman of an
inter-governmental commission on bilateral economic cooperation. He was
due to discuss with them, among other issues, the terms of a $500
million loan that Moscow has pledged to provide to Yerevan with the aim
of helping it cope with the global economic crisis, which is hitting the
Armenian economy increasingly hard.
Meeting with Moscow-based Armenian businessmen earlier in the day,
Sarkisian said the loan will be disbursed in March but did not specify
how his government plans to spend it. He also outlined the government's
broader strategy of mitigating the effects of the global downturn. The
government will not only seek to stimulate the economy with external
loans but also strengthen the rule of law, he said, describing
government corruption as a serious hurdle to Armenia's economic
development.
The prime minister also urged the entrepreneurs, may of them born in
Armenia, to invest more heavily in his country. `Welcome back to
Armenia,' he said, claiming that many Armenians are already returning
home because of worsened economic conditions in Russia.
(Photolur photo)
PRESS REVIEW
`Chorrord Ishkhanutyun' regards the economic situation in Armenia as
`disastrous.' The opposition paper claims that in the past few months
the Armenian government has borrowed more from foreign sources in the
previous 17 years taken together. `There is no guarantee that that will
rescue the situation,' it says.
`Haykakan Zhamanak' reports that the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
sharply cut back on sales of U.S. dollars to commercial banks at the
Yerevan stock exchange on Thursday in order to keep up the value of the
national currency, the dram, without using up more of its hard currency
reserves. `With blackmail and threats, the Central Bank banned the banks
from trying to purchase foreign currency at the stock exchange,' says
the paper.
`Zhamanak' editorializes that the idea of political dialogue in Armenia
has been `devaluated' because each of the rival political factions is
`pursuing maximalist goals.' The paper argues that the authorities say
such a dialogue can start only after the opposition stops holding
demonstrations, whereas the opposition says dialogue must definitely
lead to fresh parliamentary and presidential elections. It says both
approaches are wrong because `dialogue presupposes mutual concessions,
agreement, respect for the opposite side's view.' `In today's Armenia
the authorities are primarily unprepared for such tolerance,' it says,
adding that the opposition can not accept the government conditions.
Samvel Nikoyan, head of the parliamentary commission investigating the
March 1 clashes in Yerevan, notes in a `Hayots Ashkhar' interview that
Armenia's Criminal Code currently sets punishment only for completed
`usurpation of state power,' rather than attempts to expedite it. `A
question arises: if you have successfully seized power, who is going to
prosecute you?' argues Nikoyan.
`Yerkir' criticizes the way in which the Central Election Commission
(CEC) is preparing to hold the May 31 municipal elections in Yerevan. In
particular, the paper is skeptical about the effectiveness of training
courses for members of precinct election commissions which are planned
by the CEC.
(Aghasi Yenokian)