On March 1 the opposition held the long-expected rally. One year has passed since the bloody events of March 1. Thousands of people gathered near the Matenadaran to commemorate the victims of March 1.
The rally was more crowded than expected. There were more people at the rally than during the rallies in the fall of last year. As a rule, the city administration office failed to issue a permit for this rally as well. The police were doing their best to prevent people’s movement to the capital city from the regions. First, the authorities did their best to fail the operation of transport connecti0on between the regions and capital city this time as well. On Saturday there were no operating vehicle routes from the nearest regions to Yerevan. The police were stopping private cars and were not allowing them to come to Yerevan. Even the traffic police of Abovyan city kept war participant Arshaluys Bozinyan, who is a person with disabilities, and told him that they would not set him free till the end of the rally. He was set free at 5p.m. and could participate only in the march after the rally. From early morning Yerevan was under strict control of the police. There were a lot of policemen in all central streets and parks of Yerevan. There were dozens of big buses full of policemen near the Opera House. The plate numbers of the vehicles showed that they were brought from regions. There were many police cars near the monument of Myasnikyan as well. Near the Matenadaran high rank police officers were preventing citizens to go up to the place of the rally. After negotiations between coordinator Levon Zurabyan and deputy chief of the police Sashik Afyan the crowd of people was allowed to go up. The rally started with 40 minutes delay.
During the rally only Levon Ter-Petrosyan made a speech. Before Ter-Petrosyan’s speech Levon Zurabyan read the names of the victims of March 1 bloody events. The participants hold their hands up for one minute to respect the memory of the victims. Ter-Petrosyan started his speech with the information that there is a negative opinion concerning Armenia in the West. Later he spoke of the strategy of political struggle. He said that many people were expecting from him to make rapid steps but hence the words attack and revolution would not be used in the announcements of the Armenian National Congress. The first president spoke of the hard economic and political situation in the country, which he believes is becoming more complicated due to the inadequate policy of the government. “Armenia will be faced not with an economic difficulty, but a humanitarian tragedy and survival issue, which can be solved only due to very hard efforts on part of both the government and the society. I don’t want you to have an impression that I am making the colors dark. It is the vice versa: I am afraid that the reality may be more difficult than what I said. For many people all what I said is a reality already… I don’t exclude the possibility that in the future the regime may fall in such a bad situation that will have to resign with all the team. I don’t exclude the possibility that they may suggest us to form a government of national reconciliation or rescue either. If such suggestion is made, not the congress but the people will decide whether to accept such suggestion or no,” said Levon Ter-Petrosyan and emphasized that even as a result of objective reasons the ANC cannot slow down.
Upon concluding the speech the first president announced that the next rally will be held on April 1. On March 5 the ANC will celebrate Vazgen Sargsyan’s 50th anniversary in the Erablur and on April 17 – Karen Demirchyan’s 77th anniversary (the place has not been decided yet). On April 24 the opposition leaders will go the Tsitsernakaberd with people to commemorate the victims of the Genocide. Leaders of other opposition parties took part in the rally as well, but they did not speak. The leader of New Times party Karen Karapetyan was there too and he told journalists that he was not going to join the ANC. It is worth mentioning that during the rally he was talking only to the people that came with him. Heritage party representatives were not there during the rally. Armen Martirosyan later said that the fact that they had not been present at the rally did not mean that they did not participate in it. “Except for Raffi Hovhannisyan and Stepan Safaryan, who were not in Armenia, the other MPs from Heritage party were present at the rally. We have our place near the Matenadaran where we gather during all rallies,” said A. Martirosyan.
After the rally the demonstrators held a march through Mashtots avenue, put flowers at the monument of Myasnikyan to commemorate the victims of March 1, and continued their march to the North Avenue.
By the way, on the day of the rally the police chief Alik Sargsyan was walking in the Mashtots avenue and controlling the situation there.