Ombudsman of Armenia Armen Harutyunyan has published an extraordinary report on the presidential election of February 19 and the post-election developments.
The report contains separate parts about the rallies and demonstrations following the election, the events in the Liberty square and in the Square after Myasnikyan not far from the Embassy of France, the state of emergency after those events, cases of arrest, and, as described in the report, groundless persecution and criminal cases. To note, on March 3 Armen Harutyunyan came up with a statement on the situation in the country, in which he criticized the government, as a result Robert Kocharyan said that the latter was the worse specialist promoted by him. The evaluations of the post-election developments are critical as well, in contrast with the observations of the pre-election period. Accordingly, the extraordinary report issued by the ombudsman can be divided into two parts – pre-election and post-election.
Extraordinary pre-election observations
In his observations of the pre-election situation the ombudsman mainly focused on the campaign of the first president of Armenia, presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Generally, when referring to the opposition in the report the ombudsman mainly means Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters. When reading the pre-election section of the report it seems that the ombudsman of Armenia has resumed the approaches and estimations of the Armenian government, pro-governmental media, sociologists and even the prosecutor’s office concerning the pre-election processes and the opposition. For example, the first president of Armenia is blamed of his announcement saying that “everyone who is not with them, is a traitor.” This idea is explained very smoothly in the report. The report writes that the opposition, in its turn, has divided the society into “insiders” and “outsiders”, the opposition broadly used manipulation tools.
After the events of March 1 an investigation officer from the prosecutor’s office announced that during the rallies the demonstrators used slogans such as “fatherland”, “family” and “victory”, which caused psychological affect and made people mad. The ombudsman’s report specifically writes, “It is important to pay attention to the corresponding psychological environment aimed at creating emotions to be able to manipulate through ideologies, which are spread in the public contagiously as the truth. As crowds are subject to external influence, their behavior is changing in correspondence to the content of such influence (they may applaud the police if someone announces that the police will never touch people, and can go against the police if they are told that the police may use power).” The report also specifies different manipulative methods, which, according to the ombudsman of Armenia, enabled not only to involve new people in the rallies, but also to activate and strengthen them. The report concludes the following way: “This is the way how the opposition constituency was being converted to intolerance against the representatives of the government and supporters of the authorities.” In a word, we may assume that the pre-election part of the ombudsman’s report is resuming the opinions of the government in that period.
The answer of the “best specialist”
As we have mentioned above, the ombudsman’s report analyzes only the campaign of opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan. There are no references in the report to the other candidates, neither there are any references to Serzh Sargsyan’s campaign. Even if there are any negative nuances in the report concerning the government, those mainly concern ex-president Robert Kocharyan. Specifically, the report writes that the announcements and actions on the part of Robert Kocharyan in fact supported the separation and division of the society into two poles and developing intolerance between those. According to A. Harutyunyan, Robert Kocharyan’s announcements such as “probably they see that the economy is developing and there are new things to embezzle, definitely they want to embezzle,” “Levon Ter-Petrosyan will become an ordinary oppositionist,” “show me at least one thing that was built during his tenure” and such other announcements have helped the first president’s rating grow. “From this point of view the representatives of the authorities chose a wrong strategy and were speaking of material values in case when the main struggle was in the political and moral sectors,” specified the ombudsman.
Post-election observations
This part of the ombudsman’s report is full of critics and open-end questions. “The polarization of the society could grow also due to unilateral interpretations of psychologists, sociologists, politicians and others, who said that the rally participants had become zombies, did not understand anything, were not literate, satisfied in their families, etc. Such approach keened to make the passive oppositionists and activists prove the vice versa,” writes the report. “In such conditions the media were broadcasting polarized interpretations with strict descriptions and threat,” the ombudsman says. Generally the ombudsman doesn’t like the activities of electronic media because, according to him, even during the state of emergency their broadcast was unilateral.
The report contains in-depth analyzes of the bloody events of March 1. “The events of March 1 started from an attempt to disperse the peaceful demonstration in the Liberty square; at 6:40 a.m. the police attacked the demonstrators in the Liberty square with shields and sticks,” writes the report. Consecutively, in order to find out the reasons of those events, the report writes cites the prosecutor’s office statement, which was presented at the National Assembly on March 4, saying that the police went there for the purpose of looking for illegal weapons, but the police actions grew in a clash. However, on March 1 the prosecutor’s office issued a statement writing that the purpose of the police was to stop the demonstration. “Which is the truth?” the ombudsman asks. The announcements of the police and prosecutor’s office are contradicting as well. General prosecutor Aghvan Hovsepyan said that during the clash between the demonstrators and the police the latter used sticks, metallic sticks and bottles with flammable liquids. On the same day, the spokesman of the police Sayad Shirinyan said that they used sticks and metallic sticks. Aghvan Hovsepyan also said that he had verified information about distributing weapons and grenades. “The mentioned facts are sufficient to assume that starting from the time of receiving information about illegal weapons criminal and judicial proceedings were launched, and according to the RA Criminal Justice Code, if the received information is verified, the corresponding body, i.e. the police, shall institute legal proceedings after receiving such information,” writes the report. “Thus, why did not the RA Police launch a criminal case? Whether they have followed the judicial policies of searching?” asks the ombudsman in the report. Later, in several hours people gathered near the Embassy of France to compliant and express their concerns about the events of that morning. The ombudsman describes the events of that day in details and asks whether there is real connection between the peaceful demonstrators near the Embassy of France and the people who did disorders in the neighboring streets. At least, who ordered to attack the demonstrators, who shoot with guns? The ombudsman says that Armenia has not yet adopted a law on state of emergency, which would define the limitations and the mechanisms of controlling such limitations. In such conditions the media misinterpreted even the announcements of international institutions and their representatives. “The actions during the state of emergency failed to resist the passions in the society,” concludes the ombudsman of Armenia.