ARMENIAN LEADER REGRETS HUMAN CASUALTIES DURING OPPOSITION RALLY DISPERSAL

Public TV
March 5 2008
Armenia

[Presenter] Armenian President Robert Kocharyan met journalists
today and promised them that his meetings withjournalists will be
held continually until the stabilization of the domestic political
situation in the country.Kocharyan expressed his deep regret that it
was not possible to avoid human casualties during the events [that
happened in Yerevan on 1 March] and expressed his condolences to the
families of the victims.

Kocharyan also noted that a decision to introduce a state of emergency
in the capital was a necessity and it wasdeclared in time.

[Kocharyan] The course of the events showed that the introduction of
the state of emergency was a necessity and I am sure that if it had
not been introduced, our casualties would have been much greater and
the consequences of the events would have been more dangerous to the
Republic of Armenia.

The whole picture of the events will be established minute after
minute. There are different video materials on theevents and they
[events] should be established in order to have an opportunity to
assess the situation correctly. Thiswill give the law-enforcement
agencies an opportunity to investigate these cases. The volume of the
cases is greater.The number of people who were involved in these events
and the venue where the events happened are also great.Therefore,
it is necessary to ensure that the group of investigators work day
and night to have the full picture. On my instruction, they should
also regularly brief residents on the work they carry out. This will
also give you anopportunity to follow the work that has been done
and inform our population about the situation.

We can already say today that the rally participants divided into
three groups. The first group is those whoorganized gatherings outside
the Yerevan mayor’s office, as a result of which the population
was provoked. Theorganizers of the rallies were also divided into
two parts. The fist part of this group was those who provoked the
rallyparticipants into starting clashes. A remarkable person in
this group was [the editor of opposition Haykakan Zhamanaknewspaper]
Nikol Pashinyan.

Certainly, you had an opportunity to watch video materials broadcast
on television recently. But there were alsopeople among them who
understood that the situation was beyond their control and tried to
calm down the rallyparticipants. For an example, [the former chief of
the National Security Service] Davit Shahnazaryan was one of thosewho
tried to calm down the rally participants, but the overwhelming
majority of the participants obeyed the provocative group.

The second group of rally participants was those who organized
attacks on the police, using arms and explosives.Responsibility
for the deaths lies mainly with members of this group because, as a
result of their activities, therewere human casualties and numerous
people were injured, i.e. over 130 people were wounded, and most of
them werepolicemen.

And the third group of rally participants was those who took an active
part in looting shops. The extent of the guiltof these three groups
is different and they should be punished differently.

[Passage omitted: Kocharyan urged law-enforcement agencies to punish
the organizers of the riots]

The recent events seriously damaged Armenia’s international
reputation. We all said that Armenia is a muchstable and faster
developing country in the region. To be honest, I feel ashamed when
I see these video materials. I do not want to believe that these
events were possible in our country. We should try to restore both
the country’sreputation and the attitude towards our people that has
taken shape in the world.