IWPR - Armenia's Bloody Saturday‏

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Amenia’s Bloody Saturday

Violence stuns the country, denting its image further after a controversial election.

By IWPR reporters in Yerevan (CRS No. 434, 03-Mar-08)

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.

Photo Essay

Street Battles in Yerevan

On March 1 the Armenian authorities sent in police who used force to break up opposition rallies protesting against the result of the February 19 presidential election, in which prime minister Serzh Sarkisian was declared the winner. Eight people were reported killed and scores were injured. The authorities declared a state of emergency and imposed a news blackout.

(CRS No. 434, 03-Mar-08)

1. On the early morning of March 1 riot police gained control of most of central Yerevan after breaking up an opposition tent-city in the middle of the city.

2. On Saturday March 1 riot police move in on a crowd of opposition protestors who had remained defiantly near the French embassy. There were clashes before most of the crowd agreed to disperse.

3. A woman slightly hurt after violence near the French embassy.

4. A woman taken ill near the French embassy.

5. A soldier in central Yerevan near a burnt-out bus.

6. A state of emergency was declared on the evening of March 1. Riot police move onto the crossing of Leo and Paronian Streets in central Yerevan.

7. Opposition protestors seized a bus, slashed the tires and turned it into a barricade to try and hang on to the streets.

8. Cars were wrecked and shops smashed in an evening of clashes. At least seven protestors and one policemen were reported killed in the course of the day.

Eyewitnesses Tell of Violence, Shootings

Amidst a virtual media blackout, witnesses tell their own stories of street fighting in Yerevan.

By IWPR staff in Yerevan (CRS No. 434, 03-Mar-08)

Armenia is under a virtual news blackout because of the state of emergency imposed in Yerevan on March 1, which placed tight restrictions on local media.

As people struggle to form a clear picture of the violence that has shaken the Armenian capital, rumours are circulating rapidly.

Amid the rumour and half-truths, several direct witnesses have given accounts of what they saw to IWPR.

Yerevan residents have resorted to telephoning one another or coming out onto the streets to swap information. Taxi drivers, in particular, have become a good source of “alternative news”.

Internet providers have all but shut down access to two independent sources of information – the websites of Radio Liberty and A1+ television.

Much of the video footage shot during the protests was confiscated by police, but some is being released on the internet, as Armenians exchange information on sites such as Youtube and Facebook.

Rumours that the number of dead was not eight – as officials say - but 40 or even 100 have fuelled anger among opposition supporters already infuriated by official television reports that placed all the blame on the protestors.

Eyewitnesses who observed clashes at various points in the day on March have told IWPR of running battles and police violence.

When the trouble began early on March 1, as the opposition’s tent city on Freedom Square was broken up and protestors were rounded up., one young woman named Suzie managed to capture on film footage in which ten policemen attacked and kicked a man.

Later in the day, another clash took place close to the French embassy and the office of Yerevan’s mayor. A foreigner living in Yerevan, who asked not to be named, told IWPR he observed the ensuing confrontation, and alleged that men armed with rifles deliberately fired on civilians.

“I was on a balcony overlooking the epicentre of the battle last night. I was within 10 metres of the entire fight,” he said.

“There were special-forces snipers with black ski-masks mixed in with the young, scared policemen, who were not masked. While the police shot tracers into the air, these riflemen directly aimed at and shot protesters. I saw two men fall on the ground below me, one with a massive haemorrhage to his head. He was unconscious and carried off by other protesters.”

At the start of the police action against the crowd assembled near the embassy building, he said, “I saw a police captain and his lieutenants drinking in celebration as they sent the first attack of terrified, ill-trained riot police to the front.”

As the police moved in, they set fire to a barricade that protesters had erected near the embassy. “Protesters lobbed fire back onto the streets and counter-charged. The police then panicked, and some were wounded in the melee, mostly from their own [colleagues] also trying to get away from the fight. I saw several police limp back, but none were bloody,” said the eyewitness, adding, “This is when I saw masked soldiers take aim and fire directly at the protesters.”

The eyewitness said the demonstrators had only makeshift weapons - rocks and metal bars. “A few had Molotov cocktails, but most simply took tear gas canisters and whatever police used to send fire into the protesters [and threw them] back,” he said.

In the second police charge, he said, the police brought in water-cannon trucks, but used them “ineptly”, running out of water before they reached the protesters.

The security forces then retreated again. “This is when the protesters began to give chase, chasing riot police and the water-cannon trucks all the way to Proshian and the Hrazdan gorge,” said the eyewitness.

He gave his own account of the looting incidents that followed, which have been widely reported in the media. He said protestors seemed to target only the security forces and those businesses whose owners were seen as close to the current government.

“Some elements broke into supermarkets owned by oligarchs and deputies of parliament who are widely seen to be among the most corrupt officials in the country,” he said. “This is the remarkable thing that occurred – they targeted only two oligarch supermarkets, one candy store, one high-scale shoe shop and a few windows. That's it. They did not touch a single other shop on the street.”

The same applied to vehicles, he continued, claiming, “The only cars torched were military or police vehicles. Fighting went back and forth in front of me and there were five cars unfortunately parked on the street by people living in the building, but there was not a scratch on them.”

KARABAKH ISSUE COLOURS ARMENIA POLL

Return of former president breaks political consensus on resolving the conflict.

By Tatul Hakopian in Yerevan

The future of Nagorny Karabakh has not previously been a contentious issue in the domestic politics of Armenia in recent years, but now it is being bitterly debated in the presidential election campaign, thanks to the return of the stage of former president Levon Ter-Petrosian.

On the campaign trail, supporters of Ter-Petrosian and his rival, the official candidate Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, are trading accusations of "sell-outs" in their respective negotiations with Azerbaijan to resolve the disputed territory's status.

Former president Ter-Petrosyan stepped down in 1998 after coming under pressure from a group of ministers including his successor as president, Robert Kocharian, and Sarkisian, who opposed his tactics for resolving the conflict with Azerbaijan.

There is normally an almost full consensus on the Karabakh issue in Armenian politics, and election campaigns focus instead on domestic issues such as the economy and corruption.

This campaign has proved to be the exception.

Vahan Hovannisian, who is running as a candidate for the nationalist Dashnaktsutiun party, diverges from the other eight contenders by asserting that there can be no negotiations with Azerbaijan until it signs a non-aggression pact with Armenia .

The main difference between the others is that Ter-Petrosian says that time is working against Armenia in the Karabakh dispute and settling it needs to be a priority.

Kocharian and Sarkisian have accused Ter-Petrosian of wanting to "surrender" Karabakh in 1998. These allegations have not been precisely worded, but the implication is that Ter-Petrosian was willing to compromise on the sovereignty claimed by Nagorny Karabakh.

Opposition member of parliament Shavarsh Kocharian (no relation of the president), a critic of Ter-Petrosian, said the former president's return to the political scene had rekindled the debate on Karabakh.

"The defeatist attitudes which were characteristic of the previous governing regime and which were the reason why it left office in 1998 have led to the issue of conflict resolution coming to the fore again, as this same administration is rearing its head again and is has not changed its position on Karabakh," he said.

Ter-Petrosian's supporters would vigorously deny that he has a "defeatist" attitude. At one rally, the candidate spoke in detail about the need to make a deal with Azerbaijan and change the status quo. He has said that time is not on Armenia's side in the dispute.

Political analyst Aghasi Yenokian said, "It's natural that with the return [of Ter-Petrosian] to politics, the issue is being raised again. It's only Ter-Petrosian who expresses a real readiness to settle the Karabakh conflict. All the other candidates would, if elected, continue the current policy and postpone a resolution."

On February 9, Ter-Petrosian raised the stakes with his opponents by directly linking the Karabakh issue with the most traumatic event in recent domestic political history, the murder of eight prominent politicians in parliament in October 1999.

At a rally on Yerevan's Freedom Square, Ter-Petrosian claimed that in autumn 1999, Kocharian, Sarkisian and current foreign minister Vardan Oskanian had been ready to sign a deal to exchange the southern Meghri region of Armenia for Nagorny Karabakh and the adjoining Lachin district.

Meghri stands between Azerbaijan to its exclave territory Nakhichevan, while Lachin connects Armenia and Karabakh. The idea of a swap has been dubbed the "Goble Plan" after the American scholar Paul Goble who first suggested it.

On the same day, the Haikakan Zhamanak newspaper which is supporting Ter-Petrosian's election bid published the text of an unofficial document produced by the American, French and Russian co-chairs of the Minsk Group - the mediators in the dispute - in autumn 1999, in which the first point states that Meghri should be exchanged for Lachin.

"I am making public a fact that has been hidden for ten years - a great conspiracy against Armenia - which Kocharian, Sarkisian and Oskanian have always denied," Ter-Petrosian told the crowd which listened in absolute silence. "This is the question of exchanging of Meghri for Lachin, through which Armenia would have lost its 35-kilometre border with Iran. Today this conspiracy has been exposed."

The candidate then went on to make an even more explosive allegation, linking this plan with the attack of October 27, 1999, in which eight leading politicians including the then prime minister Vazgen Sarkisian and speaker of parliament Karen Demirchian, were killed.

"This document will be the most important clue to solving the October 27 [murders]," said Ter-Petrosian.

"This conspiracy failed thanks to two people - Karen Demirchian and Vazgen Sarkisian, who exposed the plot at a session of the security council, and paid the highest price for it, their lives."

The Kocharian administration moved quickly to dismiss Ter-Petrosian's allegations, with presidential press secretary Viktor Soghomonian calling the claims "an electoral gambit".

"The radical opposition, having exhausted all attempts to discredit the authorities, has begun talking about this alleged peace plan," said Soghomonian. "This started in 2002. In actual fact we are talking about the so-called 'Goble Plan' which was never a topic for discussion in the negotiations over Karabakh. It's obvious that today's publication has the aim of heading off a new discussion about the very peculiar approach that ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian took to resolving the conflict."

Following the shootings in parliament, Kocharian said he had rejected the idea of a territorial exchange. Speaking on television in February 2000, he said there had indeed been a plan to exchange land but "this was not accepted by me".

Foreign minister Oskanian angrily rejected Ter-Petrosian's statements on the Karabakh issue.

"What Ter-Petrosyan is doing is a cheap pre-election trick, this is immoral. And when he tries to relate his statements to the terrorist act in the Armenian parliament, it becomes clear to me that Ter-Petrosyan will stop at nothing," said the minister.

Tatul Hakopian is a commentator on Public Radio in Armenia and correspondent for the New York newspaper The Armenian Reporter.

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