After the bloody events of March 1 the people’s movement organized its first event recently. Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters organized a congress of the people’s movement, which was the second congress after the time when the first president decided to be involved in politics again. The congress took place in the government session hall and lasted 4 hours. During the congress the leaders of the political powers supporting Ter-Petrosyan came up with speeches.
As the city administration office had refused all the applications submitted by the opposition after March 1 for the purpose of organizing rallies and gatherings, the participants of the congress listened to the hymn of their movement and then commemorated the victims of March 1 events. Almost all speeches during the congress concerned the events of March 1. PPA chairman Stepan Demirchyan, who went up to the scene first, announced that the events of March 1 were provoked by the authorities. “The allegations that the opposition had planned to destabilize the situation in the country are baseless. The real organizer of those events is the authorities, which failed to provide a normal electoral process. There would be no rallies and no riot if the electoral rights and honor of people were not openly violated,” said Demirchyan and emphasized that such rallies were the society’s reaction to the activities of the government. “The events of March 1 were a crime against the society, thus each case of murder should be investigated,” he said. According to the PPA chairman, the suggestions of the government to organize a dialog can come true only in case if the authorities fulfill all the requirements set forth in the PACE resolution. “Now people are discussing the issue of overcoming the crisis. The PACE requirements fit with our requirements, and it will be possible to discuss ways how to overcome the crisis only after these requirements are fulfilled,” said Demirchyan. The latter believes that there will be no positive results if the society does not demand the government to do what they want and assures that the government cannot change anything with imitated activities and efforts. “There is need for drastic efforts,” said Demirchyan and added that it will be possible only after organizing a new presidential election. According to ANM board member Ashot Sargsyan during the past seven months (while Levon Ter-Petrosyan has been involved in politics) the political field has been clearly polarized and separated the powers serving for the criminal authorities from the powers serving for the interests of the society. A. Sargsyan believes that Levon Ter-Petrosyan has managed to make a drastic change in the society during a short period. “There is no doubt that minimum 65% of voters have voted for Levon Ter-Petrosyan,” said A.Sargsyan and added that even the movement of 1998 was not so active than the movement during the nine days after the election day.
The people in the hall applauded the head of the Armenian Marxists party David Hakobyan as well. The moderator of the congress was Levon Zurabyan, who said that David Hakobyan would make a speech and again the Karabakhi Vikings will have problems. David Hakobyan says that now the society is full of the inspirations of the October revolution. David Hakobyan said that the people in the hall were eagles and petitioned them to think with calm logic and hot heart. David Hakobyan assures that the only solution out of this crisis is “dissolving the infantile government”. He called on the president to dissolve the government and petitioned their supporters to occupy the parliament first and then to think about the future steps. “Our main struggle should be in the parliament. We must do our best to dissolve the parliament by all means, if it is done, it will mean that we have taken the Bastille,” he said. There wasn’t anyone else from Heritage party there but MP Vardan Khachatryan. We can’t say why Raffi Hovhannisyan did not attend the congress.