EX-KGB ADMITS SENDING AGENTS TO OPPOSITION RALLY
By Emil Danielyan and Hovannes Shoghikian

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Feb 28 2008

Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) acknowledged on Thursday
that the two men detained in Yerevan’s Liberty Square the previous
night for allegedly urging opposition supporters to resort to violence
were its employees.

Organizers of the non-stop rallies held there by supporters of
former President Levon Ter-Petrosian for the past nine days said the
men agitated for a violent overthrow of the government and secretly
recorded protesters’ reaction to their calls. Their recording devices
were laid out on a table in a nearby cafe where the two NSS agents
were forcibly taken by opposition activists before being handed over
to senior police officers.

In a written statement, the NSS condemned the detention and exposure
of its two agents and warned organizers of the "illegal rally"
against making further attempts to hamper "professional activities"
of these and other security officers. The statement said NSS agents
are in fact helping to ensure the security of the protesters.

Also, the Armenian successor to the Soviet KGB again claimed to
have arrested six "extremist-minded" participants of Ter-Petrosian
rallies and confiscated large quantities of weapons, ammunition and
explosives from them in recent days. But it did not identify any of
those individuals.

Ter-Petrosian and his top allies insisted on Thursday that the exposed
NSS agents were tasked with provoking the peaceful demonstrators
into taking violent actions and thereby substantiating government
allegations that the ex-president is bent on seizing power by
force. Nikol Pashinian, a top Ter-Petrosian backer, also poured scorn
on the former KGB and its director, Gorik Hakobian, in particular. "If
our guys can detect their agents so easily, how are they fighting
against Azerbaijani and Turkish special services?" he told thousands
of protesters in Liberty Square.

Also on Wednesday night, police detained two young opposition
supporters near the square in downtown Yerevan. They were set free two
hours later after the intervention of two parliament deputies from the
opposition Zharangutyun party. Stepan Safarian and Zaruhi Postanjian
arrived at the police headquarters of Yerevan’s central administrative
district with several journalists. All of them were forcibly removed
from the building before the police agreed to release the detainees.

The Armenian authorities’ crackdown on the radical opposition has
until now focused on prominent figures close to Ter-Petrosian. At
least six of them have already been remanded in pre-trial on a string
of criminal charges, including illegal arms possession and assault.

The police also began on Thursday impounding cars parked around Liberty
Square. Vartan Boyajian, an opposition supporter, told RFE/RL that
traffic police stopped him two blocks away from the square and said
they are taking away his car for "examination. "One officer said I
won’t have my car back until most of the cars get out of the area,"
he said.

A police spokesman defended these actions, saying that they are legal.