NEW ARMENIAN PRESIDENT TAKES OFFICE, KEEPS UP REPRESSION
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor
April 15 2008
DC
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian Serzh Sarkisian was sworn in as
Armenia’s new president on April 9 amid a lingering political crisis
triggered by his extremely controversial victory in last February’s
presidential election. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, the
53-year-old former prime minister sought to reach out to hundreds
of thousands of Armenians who voted for his main challenger, former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian, and who refuse to accept the official
outcome of the vote. His calls for national "reconciliation" rang
hollow, however, as the ruling regime continued its harsh crackdown
on the opposition, ignoring criticism from Western powers and human
rights organizations.
The crackdown began even before the deadly clashes between heavily
armed security forces and thousands of Ter-Petrosian supporters
in Yerevan on March 1. The official death toll from the country’s
worst street violence ever rose to ten on April 14 as a 29-year-old
opposition supporter died in the hospital of severe injuries sustained
during the clashes.. The precise circumstances of this and other,
mainly civilian, fatalities remain unclear. The Armenian authorities
defend the use of lethal force against the protesters, saying that they
had barricaded themselves outside the Yerevan mayor’s office as part
of Ter-Petrosian’s attempted coup d’etat. The opposition leader and
his allies insist, however, that the protest erupted spontaneously
following the brutal break-up earlier on March 1 of Ter-Petrosian
supporters’ 10-day peaceful sit-in in the city’s Liberty Square.
In his inauguration speech delivered during a special session of
parliament held in the national opera house, Sarkisian mentioned
the violent unrest and urged Armenians of differing political
convictions to "seek and find the path of reconciliation." "Even if a
wall of misunderstanding stands between us, I urge you to join us in
eliminating that wall," he said, appealing to the disgruntled segment
of the electorate (Armenian Public Television, April 9).
That "misunderstanding" was only deepened, however, by the
unprecedented security measures taken by the authorities on April 9.
In an effort to stave off opposition demonstrations in the vicinity
of the opera house, thousands of baton-wielding police cordoned off
much of downtown Yerevan hours before the swearing-in ceremony. The
area off limits to cars and pedestrians stretched for hundreds of
yards away from the building. "The impression was that all roads were
leading to a blind alley and that the new president was shielding
himself from his own people," the Yerevan newspaper 168 Zham commented
the next day. "Three hundred miles north of Baghdad, Yerevan had its
own ‘Green Zone’ on Inauguration Day," editorialized an independent
website,
In a coincidence that opposition leaders find symbolic, Sarkisian
took office 40 days after his government had put a bloody end to
the post-election demonstrations. By Armenian Christian tradition,
the souls of the deceased are remembered on the 40th day after their
death. As Sarkisian took oath and addressed the nation in his new
capacity, several hundred opposition supporters converged on the site
of the March 1 violence to pay their respects to the victims.
The first days of Sarkisian’s presidency produced no easing of the
government’s crackdown, with dozens more opposition activists rounded
up by the police across the country. Some of them were charged and put
under arrest, swelling the ranks of more than 100 opposition leaders
and activists jailed for their involvement in Ter-Petrosian’s bid to
return to power. Most of them are set to go on trial on coup charges,
while others stand accused of committing other crimes, including
illegal arms possession and vote rigging.
Ter-Petrosian supporters, rather than government loyalists, have become
the first Armenian citizens imprisoned for election-related crimes. A
court in the eastern town of Gavar sentenced two of them on April 11
to three years in prison for allegedly pressuring the chairwoman of a
local election commission to forge the vote protocol in Ter-Petrosian’s
(and strangely enough, other major candidates’) favor. The commission
chief got off with a suspended jail term in a trial denounced as a
travesty of justice by the oppositionists’ lawyers (Haykakan Zhamanak,
April 12). Nobody has been prosecuted so far, however, in connection
with the beatings of dozens of Ter-Petrosian supporters, vote buying,
multiple voting and other irregularities reported on election day,
irregularities that helped Sarkisian score a first-round victory in
what was arguably the most violent election in Armenia’s history.
Sarkisian has thus stuck to his hawkish predecessor Robert Kocharian’s
uncompromising stance on the opposition, betraying a deep sense of
insecurity and making a mockery of his pledges to "deepen democratic
reforms." The pledge was made in a power-sharing agreement signed
between his Republican Party and three other pro-establishment parties
on March 21. Their coalition cabinet is expected to be formed by
the end of this week. Sarkisian appointed the long-time chairman of
the Armenian Central Bank, Tigran Sarkisian (no relation to Serzh)
as prime minister immediately after his inauguration.
The new Armenian leader appears to have calculated that the benefits
of continued repression outweigh the resulting internal and external
risks. With the vast majority of his associates in jail or on the
run, Ter-Petrosian has so far refrained from defying a de facto
government ban on opposition rallies. He may well be waiting for
the regime to bow to mounting pressure from the European Union and
the United States to enter into discussions with the opposition,
release all political prisoners, restore civil liberties and agree
to an independent investigation into the unrest of March 1.
As always, the United States is more assertive than the EU, having
threatened to freeze multimillion-dollar economic assistance to
Armenia. And unlike European leaders, President George W. Bush
declined to send a congratulatory message to Sarkisian. Matthew
Bryza, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European
and Eurasian affairs, attended the inauguration but made it clear
to Sarkisian that he had to take "dramatic steps" to repair damage
caused to U.S.-Armenian relations (RFE/RL Armenia Report, April 9).
Bryza also used the occasion to meet with some of the few Ter-Petrosian
allies not arrested by the authorities as well as with the wives of
several prominent detainees.
In separate statements issued on April 8, the International Crisis
Group (ICG) and Human Rights Watch again condemned the Armenian
crackdown and urged the West to put pressure on Yerevan. "Unless
prompt steps are taken to address the crisis, the United States and
EU should suspend foreign aid and put on hold negotiations on further
and closer cooperation," said the ICG.