TER-PETROSIAN ACCUSES ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES OF RIOTS

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS
March 3, 2008
Russia

Former candidate for the Armenian presidency Levon Ter-Petrosian has
accused the authorities, which cracked down on a demonstration in
Yerevan on March 1, of unjustified cruelty.

"The violence that the authorities used yesterday [March 1] to crack
down on the demonstration is slaughter," Ter-Petrosian told journalists
on Sunday.

"I was the only one who can have taken control of the situation,
people demanded my presence; however, the authorities denied this to
me," Ter-Petrosian said commenting on dramatic events that prompted
the introduction of the state of emergency.

"The authorities began to storm peaceful protesters, and resistance
was offered in return," he said.

Provocateurs, who opened gunfire, were among the crowd, he said.

"Then, teammates of oligarchs, the satellites of the authorities, came.

They organized the riots, whose aftermath the authorities showed
to the world, in order to say that the opposition used violence,"
Ter-Petrosian said.

"Thus, they had a reason to introduce the state of emergency," he said.

Ter-Petrosian regretted that people were killed in riots. "I regret
about victims, not only among my supporters, but also police and
collateral damage," Ter-Petrosian said, noting that he hopes to come up
with official condolences to the relatives and friends of those killed.

"They are all victims of the regime," Ter-Petrosian said.

It was reported earlier that police cracked down on a rally of Ter-
Petrosian’s supporters on Liberty square on March 1. This prompted
riots near the Yerevan City Hall. Mass riots stopped only after the
Armenian president signed a decree introducing the state of emergency
in the Armenian capital.