ARMENIA CRACKDOWN: AN EX-SOVIET PATTERN?
By Fred Weir

Christian Science Monitor
March 5 2008
MA

A state of emergency remains in place, after protesters alleging
election fraud were dispersed last week.

Moscow – Call it the post-color revolution syndrome.

Armenia is the latest in a string of ex-Soviet countries to crack down
hard on peaceful protesters alleging electoral fraud. Last weekend,
security forces – using truncheons, tear gas, and stun guns – dispersed
several thousand supporters of former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

They’d been camped out in the capital Yerevan’s Freedom Square to
challenge the results of Feb. 19 presidential polls, which were won
by the pro-government candidate Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Eight
people were killed in the violence, 130 injured, and more than 100
arrested.

President Robert Kocharyan declared a 20-day state of emergency,
which was followed by a shutdown on independent news reporting and
further waves of arrests, including 30 on Tuesday.

"The situation in the country is really very serious; society is
deeply polarized" over these events, says Alexander Iskanderyan,
director of the independent Center for Caucasian Studies in Yerevan.

"We have never seen anything like this before, and it has been a
huge shock."

But it’s becoming a familiar story around the former Soviet Union.

Armenian oppositionists allege that officials stole the election by
harassing opposition activists, coercing voters, and stuffing ballot
boxes, leading to Mr. Sargsyan’s 53 percent to 21 percent victory
over Mr. Ter-Petrosyan.

The opposition mounted nearly two weeks of protests, apparently
following the playbook established in three "color revolutions" –
in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan – that took place between 2003
and 2005, in which protesters overthrew governments and forced fresh
elections.

"In the post-Soviet region, it’s becoming almost a tradition to
disagree with election results and take to the streets," says Alexei
Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information
in Moscow. "There is a definite feeling of deja vu" in the Armenian
events, he says.

But no government has been overthrown since Kyrgyzstan’s President
Askar Akayev was forced out in a revolt over alleged poll fraud
in March 2005. Experts say that’s because leaders have become much
tougher and more savvy. They’ve moved to strengthen laws blocking
opposition activity and been much quicker to deploy massive police
force on the streets to crush protests.

Russian security forces quashed an opposition rally in Moscow Monday,
following presidential polls that were handily won by Kremlin-backed
candidate Dmitry Medvedev. A handful of protesters alleging
electoral fraud were manhandled and arrested by police. Even the
Kremlin-appointed human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, complained,
"I see this [police behavior] as a strange and not entirely appropriate
overreaction."

Fearing a popular revolt like the one that had recently occurred in
Kyrgyzstan, security forces in Uzbekistan gunned down hundreds of
protesters in May 2005.

Later that year, authorities in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, violently
crushed street rallies protesting alleged fraud in polls that brought
Ilham Aliyev, the son of the country’s longtime strongman, to power.

The next year, Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko followed
up his massive but disputed reelection victory by smashing opposition
rallies in Minsk and putting hundreds of protesters in jail.

In November, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered police
to end weeks of opposition rallies with a harsh show of force that
injured scores and saw dozens arrested. Independent media outlets were
put on notice; at least one, shut down. But Mr. Saakashvili quickly
reversed himself: He ended the state of emergency and called fresh
elections – and won handily in January. The opposition again cried
foul, but Georgian society has, for now, settled down.

Few experts expect a similar outcome in Armenia, where political
antagonisms are even sharper. The government this week closed down
two local stations for continuing to report uncensored news. The
independent English-language online ArmeniaNow news service complied
with the ban, but ran a statement protesting state press controls that
"could lead to the sort of propagandized media that re-unites Armenia
with its Soviet past."

Most observers think that Sargsyan’s victory was probably genuine, if
not entirely fair. But they say the polls’ bitter, violent aftermath
may have fatally undermined the country’s fragile democracy.

"The authorities have put a lid on a boiling pot, but the pot is still
boiling," says Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the official
Institute of Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress