Yesterday the chairman of the National Assembly’s Ad-Hoc Commission for the March 1-2, Samvel Nikoyan, with a one-day delay presented its final report (consisted of 138 pages) on last year’s post-election clashes in downtown Yerevan. Prior to the session the copies of the report were laid on the desks of the MPs and the NA chairman Hovik Abrahamyan suggested that the MPs get introduced to the report after the completion of the voting, to which he allotted 90 minutes. The Heritage MPs objected by saying that they received the report only 20 minutes ago and didn’t have time to read it. The presentation of the report ended up being delayed for two hours. But in general only two members of the RPA, Prosperous Armenia and ARF and some non-parliamentary parties’ representatives were familiar with the report. The other members of those parties didn’t even go through the contents of the report and after the voting left the voting hall and the report was presented in a semi-empty hall. After Abrahamyan left the hall was fully empty.
Monitoring of any taste
At the beginning of his broad speech Nikoyan stated that nobody can ever blame the commission in anything. The commission adverted to every single detail. They worked transparently, openly and in an environment of mutual understanding. Then the chairman of the ad hoc started to read the report, the first part of which would focus on the parts of speeches of the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Moreover there were quotations from the September 21, 2007 speech of Ter-Petrosyan. They have quite tenderly quoted such words, as “group of bandits, state of bandits, etc,” in order to create an impression that he was trying to deliberately create hostility and aggressiveness in the society, as a result of which the events of March 1 took place. The report said that the non-stop protests staged by the Ter-Petrosyan-led opposition in Yerevan’s Liberty Square “destabilized the situation in the country,” “periodically disrupted public order,” and “paralyzed the work of state bodies.” Accordingly, it justified a pre-dawn police assault on opposition supporters camped there. Their violent dispersal triggered more vicious clashes elsewhere in the city center later on March 1. The commission also approved of then President Robert Kocharyan’s decision to call a state of emergency and order troops into the capital. In a late-night televised address to the nation, Kocharyan described the opposition actions as a coup attempt. Scores of Ter-Petrosyan loyalists were arrested and prosecuted on corresponding charges in the following weeks. Ter-Petrosyan and his allies strongly deny attempting to seize power by force. They insist that the government deliberately resorted to lethal force in order to enforce the official results of what they consider a fraudulent election. Nikoyan’s commission essentially backed the coup claims, saying that the introduction of three-week emergency rule was justified. It criticized only some police actions such as the misuse of tear gas that caused three protesters’ deaths. “The commission condemns any case of unjustified use of force by police servicemen and believes that it must be properly investigated,” added its report. It was evident that the information about the statements of Ter-Petrosyan was provided to the commission by some state service. It is less possible that the members of the ad hoc would themselves examine the statements of Ter-Petrosyan and other representatives of the opposition from the period of September 21, 2007 till February 28, 2008. An ARF member of the commission Artsvik Minasyan said that they had taken the quotations from the report of the Ombudsman and publications of international structures. Perhaps in order to look objective they mentioned in the report that the campaign of other opposition candidates increased the tension in the society. However, everybody knows that during the presidential elections, besides Ter-Petrosyan, there was no other opposition candidate. Even during the campaign and afterwards it was clear that all the other candidates were just players from the side of the government in order to evaporate the votes of the actual opposition. Certain votes were stolen by the chairman of the Legal State Artur Baghdasaryan and the ARF candidate Vahan Hovhannisyan, who pretended the role of opposition. These two candidates, together with candidates Artashes Geghamyan, Aram Harutyunyan, Tigran Karapetyan and Vazgen Manukyan were mostly criticizing Ter-Petrosyan. Thus, the mentioned part of the report is far from reality. But the commission emphasized that the OSCE/ODIHR monitors stated on the next day of the election that the race proceeded in line with democratic standards and were a step forward compared to previous elections. But when the rallies started afterwards, the head of the monitoring mission Gird Arense stated on February 29 (on the threshold of March 1) that the word “mostly” was substituted by the word “basically”, which means that the elections were in line with democratic standards by 51%. And those two statements confused the commission, who ended up concluding that the difference of attitude on part of the monitors was stipulated by the criticizing statements of the opposition. Besides that the commission members were trying to indirectly emphasize the thought that the elections were not falsified and that Ter-Petrosyan lost the race. The Committee also suggests reviewing legal acts on police activities and use of force and conforming them to the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as to the UN basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law-enforcement agencies. The Committee concludes that if the state of emergency were declared after the first blasts and shots in Yerevan streets, the grave aftermaths could have been averted. The Committee finds that the presidential decree on the state emergency was belated. The conclusion is grounded for the fact that the mob gathered near the Yerevan City Hall gradually became uncontrollable and started plunder, arson burning hundreds of vehicles, breaking windows and robbing nearby shops and offices. In order to balance this quite one-sided report there was incomparably less criticism addressed to the government. The criticism of the opposition addressed to the government was considered black PR. But the commission considered the actual black PR on TV addressed to the opposition a one-sided broadcast. The commission also concluded that the rallies held after the elections proceeded with violation of public order. In other words, when one reads the report the impression is that it is built on the statements of the Prosecutor-General and some other statesmen. Perhaps, the opinions that the report was being written at the office of the Prosecutor-General were not in vain. And one day prior to the release of the report an advisor to the President of RA Gevorg Kostanyan met with Nikoyan.