JAVAKHETI ARMENIANS URGED TO SHOW RESTRAINT
By Hovannes Shoghikian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 11 2006
The head of an organization uniting natives of Georgia’s restive
Javakheti province living in Armenia on Wednesday condemned a local
Armenian nationalist group that staged violent protests against the
alleged falsification of local election results.
The group called United Javakhk rallied hundreds of supporters in the
regional town of Akhalkalaki and briefly seized a local government
building on Monday, saying that they were robbed of victory in the
polls held across Georgia last Thursday. Their official results showed
the National Movement Party of President Mikhail Saakashvili winning
the majority of votes in most parts of the country, including the
Armenian-populated Javakheti. Observers from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation said the vote was "conducted with general
respect for fundamental freedoms."
The leaders of United Javakhk, who demand greater autonomy for
Javakheti, ran for the Akhalkalaki district council on the ticket of
Industry Will Save Georgia, a Tbilisi-based major opposition party.
They claim to have won 70 percent of the vote.
Maksim Mahtesian, the ethnic Armenian chairman of the district
election commission, denied the allegations on Tuesday, insisting
that vote irregularities were not serious enough to affect the
election outcome. "The situation here is calm now," he told RFE/RL
from Akhalkalaki.
In Yerevan, the head of the Javakhk Compatriots’ Union, Shirak
Torosian, denounced the United Javakhk actions as "treason." "We
are calling on all forces in Javakheti to show prudence, put aside
personal, factional interests and not serve third forces," he told
a news conference.
Torosian also urged Javakheti Armenian activists to drop their demands
for the impoverished region to be given the status of an autonomy. The
Georgian government and the international community associate the word
"autonomy" with separatism these days, he said.
Incidentally, another Akhalkalaki-based Armenian group demanding
autonomy, Virk, reportedly teamed up with Saakashvili’s party
to contest the polls and won several council seats. According to
Mahtesian, 27 of the 32 newly elected members of the legislative
council are ethnic Armenians.