Armenia opposition backs down after violent clashes
By Margarita Antidze
Reuters
Sat Mar 1, 2008 11:37pm GMT
YEREVAN, March 2 (Reuters) – Most of the opposition supporters locked
in a standoff with police in Armenia’s capital ended their protest
on Sunday but a group of around 60 refused to go home and set fire
to abandoned police vehicles.
Most of the crowd, which numbered about 2,000, headed away from a
square in the Armenian capital where they had been demonstrating after
a message was read out from opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan
urging them to go home.
Armenian leader Robert Kocharyan had declared a state of emergency late
on Saturday and said he would send in the army to end the standoff
with opposition supporters, who earlier in the day fought pitched
battles with police.
In a message read out by one of his supporters, Ter-Petrosyan told
the demonstrators to go home until the 20-day state of emergency
had expired.
"I do not want any victims and clashes between police and innocent
people. That is why I am asking you to leave," said the message from
Ter-Petrosyan, who has been barred by police from leaving his home.
His supporters had been staging daily protests since a Feb. 19 election
they said had been rigged to hand victory to Prime Minister Serzh
Sarksyan, a close Kocharyan ally.
A Reuters reporter at the scene of the protest said about 60
people refused to go, with some accusing Ter-Petrosyan of being
a traitor. They set fire to police jeeps left there following the
clashes on Saturday.
Armenia is an ex-Soviet republic of 3.2 million people in a Caucasus
mountains region that is emerging as a key transit route for oil
and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea. (Writing by Christian Lowe;
editing by Keith Weir)