ASSASINATIONS AND BLASTS IN ARMENIA CONTINUE
by Artur Papyan

Global Voices Online, MA
April 13 2007

Armenia has gone out of control these days with blasts, shooting and
assassination attempts following one another.

"2 offices of ‘Prosperous Armenia’ [one of the most powerful
pro-presidential political parties running for parliament in the
elections on May 12, 2007] were blown up" reported Kornelij Glas (ru)
about the blasts that rocked in Zeytun and Avan districts of Yerevan,
the capital of Armenia on the night of April 12. This report was soon
followed by more detailed posts by other bloggers: Oneworld Multimedia,
Hyelog. Soon Onnik Krikoryan of Oneworld Multimedia followed up with
photos from the site of bombings and more comments:

Indeed, almost everybody in Yerevan is already pointing the finger at
the Republican Party although a few say that either the incident was
manufactured to make believe a serious rift between the two exists
or that Prosperous Armenia staged the incident themselves. However,
as I said, most believe it was the work of the Republicans although
the ruling party effectively denies the accusation.

The bloggers can’t stop wondering just how far the assassinations
will go; Armenia Blog is comparing Armenia these days with Chicago
80 years ago and quoting ArmeniaNow, listing some of the recent high
profile assassination attempts and killings:

The assassination attempt against the Mayor of Gyumri Monday night,
leaving three dead and three wounded, is the eighth high-profile and
public attack within just over a year. In all the cases, only two
arrests have been made, and none brought to justice

JLiving notes (ru) writes about attacks on Parliment candidates:
shootings at Hakob Hakobyan’s (Choit) car past midnight and the arson
attack at the election office of Sousanna Haroutyunyan.

Well, as Kornelij Glas (ru) puts it in his election leaflet #7, the
"Kalashnikov guns have already become the number one brand of the
pre-election campaign" in Armenia.

The terrible statistics make this pre-election campaign seem like
the most dangerous one since Armenia’s independence in 1991 …and
the official campaign has just started on 8th April!!!