MORE TER-PETROSIAN SUPPORTERS ARRESTED

Radio Liberty
March 12 2008
Czech Rep.

The Armenian government’s unprecedented crackdown on the opposition
continued unabated on Wednesday, with law-enforcement bodies arresting
12 more supporters of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian and
searching the offices of a major opposition party.

The arrests raised to at least 96 the total number of opposition
leaders and activists jailed since last month’s disputed presidential
election. According to the Office of the Prosecutor-General, 90
of them have been formally charged with plotting a coup d’etat,
organizing and participating in "mass riots," assaulting security
officers and other grave crimes.

The accusations mainly stem from the March 1 violent confrontation in
Yerevan between riot police and thousands of opposition protesters
demanding a re-run of what they see as a rigged election. Senior
prosecutors insisted on Wednesday that the clashes, which left at
least eight people dead, were part of Ter-Petrosian’s plot to return
to power by "destabilizing the situation in the country." But they
would not say whether the opposition leader too will be arrested and
prosecuted on relevant charges.

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, the official election winner, did
not rule out such possibility as he meet with university students in
Yerevan. "Levon Ter-Petrosian’s fate will be primarily decided by the
people, not now, because in addition to legal responsibility there is
also moral responsibility, there is also historical responsibility,"
he said.

"Talk of Levon Ter-Petrosian to be arrested today or tomorrow is not
true. Neither are the claims that nobody will dare to arrest Levon
Ter-Petrosian," added Sarkisian.

Outgoing President Robert Kocharian was also vague on the matter,
stressing the need to punish "all those who created this situation."

"If we don’t do that, these provocative actions will continue. There
are people who regard Armenia’s weakness and instability as beneficial
for their political interests," he said without naming anyone.

Most of the detainees are senior members of opposition parties who ran
Ter-Petrosian’s national and local election campaign offices. One of
them, Ararat Zurabian, is the chairman of the Armenian Pan-National
Movement (HHSh), the country’s former ruling party of which the
ex-president remains a member. Most members of the HHSh’s governing
board are also under arrest. The party’s largely deserted headquarters
was being searched by officers of the National Security Service
late Wednesday.

Ter-Petrosian on Tuesday condemned the charges brought against his
loyalists as politically motivated and said the "political repressions"
unleashed by the ruling regime will further heighten post-election
tensions in Armenia. He also reiterated his claims that the authorities
themselves orchestrated the March 1 violence to crush his campaign
for the holding of a repeat presidential election.

But Hakob Gharakhanian, a senior prosecutor involved in the ongoing
criminal investigation, denied any political motives behind the
crackdown. He claimed that some of the demonstrators who barricaded
themselves outside the Yerevan mayor’s office opened fired at and
wounded several dozen police and interior troops in accordance with
Ter-Petrosian’s alleged coup plan.

Journalists at the scene, including an RFE/RL correspondent, did not
witness any opposition supporters carrying firearms both during and
after their fierce pitched battles with security forces. The latter
fled the scene shortly after failing to disperse the crowd with
truncheons, water cannons, tear gas and tracer bullets.

The law-enforcement authorities insist that they fired live rounds only
into the air. But they have yet to explain just how at least seven of
the protesters were shot dead during the clashes. An interior troop
officer was also killed in still unclear circumstances.

Gharakhanian questioned the authenticity of a video clip of the
violence circulating on the Internet which shows a group of special
police officers opening automatic gunfire in the direction of
the demonstrators. Nonetheless, he said, Prosecutor-General Aghvan
Hovsepian has instructed his subordinates to examine the footage and
determine whether the police indeed shot at the crowd.

"Nobody fired live rounds at the demonstrators," Gharakhanian told
reporters. "Despite that, the prosecutor-general has issued a written
order to investigate and give legal assessment to the actions of
police officers."

Underscoring their distrust of the Armenian security apparatus, the
European Union and some international human rights organizations have
called for an independent investigation into the deadliest street
violence in Armenia’s history.

The Armenian government is unlikely to agree to such an
investigation. Hovsepian, according to his spokeswoman Sona Truzian,
told the head of the OSCE office in Yerevan late Tuesday that he is
only ready to let "international experts" take part in forensic tests
conducted by the investigators.