ARF-EXPELLED POET SLAMS EX-PRESIDENT

ARMENPRESS
Feb 14, 2008

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS: A well-known poet and a former
longtime member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF),
expelled from it after endorsing publicly prime minister Serzh
Sarkisian’s presidential bid, denounced today ex-president Levon
Ter-Petrosian for ‘disseminating hatred and anger.’ Speaking at a
news conference, the poet, Razmik Davoyan, blamed also presidential
candidates for their lavish election promises irrespective of whether
they are able to fulfill them. He said what Ter-Petrosian promises
is infeasible at all.

Davoyan said when in 1989 Soviet tanks were brought to Yerevan to
thwart rising popular movement for unification of Nagorno-Karabakh
with Armenia and when a crowd on Freedom Square wanted to break the
cordon of Soviet troops he was one of few people to hold them back
realizing that it was a provocation that could cost tens of lives.

"Some time later I met Levon Ter-Petrosian and spoke about that day’s
events and he said even if 200,000 people had died that day that would
not have been a big loss.’ Davoyan argued that these words prove that
Ter-Petrosian must not be allowed to become president of this country.

Razmik Davoyan was expelled from the ARF after in an interview with
Public Radio he said that prime minister Serzh Sarkisian was the only
candidate with a weighty track record deserving to be the country’s
next president.

His remarks ran counter to ARF’s laws that ban party members from
defying or acting against party decision. Earlier this year ARF
nominated a deputy parliament chairman Vahan Hovhanesian as its
residential candidate to contest the February 19 election.