ARMENIAN OPPOSITION PREPARES FOR MASS RALLY

ABC Online
Feb 28 2008
Australia

Thousands of Opposition supporters have camped out in the
Armenian capital Yerevan, ahead of a planned mass rally in growing
round-the-clock protests against last week’s presidential election.

Protesters are calling for Armenian authorities to annul the result
of the February 19 election, which handed victory to Prime Minister
Serzh Sarkisian over Opposition challenger Levon Ter-Petrosian,
over alleged fraud.

Wednesday was the eighth straight day of protests for the Opposition.

Activists were planning a mass rally later in the day, following a
protest on Tuesday that brought tens of thousands into the streets
of Yerevan – a higher number than rallies held in previous days.

Several thousand Opposition supporters spent the night at a protest
camp set up on Freedom Square in central Yerevan. Their numbers
dwindled to around 1,500 people later on Wednesday ahead of the rally.

The activists slept in more than 40 tents marked with the names of
the regions from which they had come or sat around campfires on the
asphalt, talking into the night. Some slept in cars parked nearby.

"It’s the fifth day I’m sleeping out here," said Styopa Sargsian,
22, a musician from the city of Vanadzor in northern Armenia.

"My friends and I brought our instruments with us. We play folk songs
at night. It’s very emotional here. It inspires us," he added.

Sargis Avetian said he was protesting in the square for the seventh
day running, taking turns with some friends to sleep for a few hours
in a three-person tent nearby.

"We’re ready to stay here as long as we have to," Avetian said.

The protests are not sanctioned by the authorities, and President
Robert Kocharian, who backed Sarkisian in the election, warned in
an address on national television that the Government’s patience was
wearing thin.

In a sign of rising tensions, Armenia’s security services also said
earlier that two groups of opposition activists have been arrested
for illegal weapons possession and plotting against the government.

Several former officials have also joined the protests.

Ter-Petrosian, a former president of this mountainous former Soviet
republic, ran on an anti-corruption platform and alleges massive vote
fraud and beatings of his supporters.

He has so far rejected an offer of talks made by Sarkisian at a
pro-Government rally on Tuesday in which the President-elect mentioned
the possibility of a coalition deal with the Opposition.

"We appeal to all former presidential candidates and all political
forces supporting them: let us cooperate right up to the formation
of a coalition government," Mr Sarkisian said at Tuesday’s rally.

The Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) have called for restraint. OSCE observers said
earlier that the election "mostly" met international standards.