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Dashnaktsutyun Warns Against Tension, Clashes

The Supreme Body of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) has warned against encouraging tension in the country ahead of the 19 February 2008 presidential election in Armenia. The concerns can perhaps be perceived as very real indeed with some pro-government sympathizers alleging that former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, plans to come to power not through the ballot box, but through street protests.

Of course, Ter-Petrossian is not the only candidate guilty of effectively polarizing society and turning Armenians against each other. Both the prime minister and the former president’s supporters have been guilty of violence and intolerance towards the other. Perhaps in a message to both sides, the statement says that conducting the election transparently and according to the law is the “only way out from the present situation.”

However, some of us are basically not looking forward to election day or the days following it. Let’s hope that we’re all worrying over nothing.

Mediamax reports that the statement reads that generation tension in the political situation and the polarization of the society in period of electoral processes are natural and inevitable phenomena, however it is unacceptable when the pre-election struggle oversteps the limits of civilized manners.

“We note with regret that today the pre-election campaign in Armenia is of this very nature. Unhealthy tendencies, which were felt in the very beginning of the pre-election campaign, day by day obtain new forms of manifestation”, the statement reads.

The Supreme Body of “Dashnaktsutiun” party notes that there is an atmosphere of intolerance heated in the society, rules of political struggle and elementary norms are violated, presidential candidates and their teams make personal insults against each other, open urges and revenge threats are voiced, reciprocal hatred and hostility are developing in the society.

[…]

“All these phenomena give a green light to the intervention of non-political elements and external forces, which is pregnant with unforeseen consequences”, the statement reads.

Well, there seems to be some conflicting reports on Dro, but most seem to indicate that the court case was not conducted properly and that serious doubts remain about the charges.

The party’s activities in Armenia were suspended by President Ter-Petrosian in December 1994. The Armenia president accused the ARF of sheltering a secret terrorist cell, “Dro,” whose members allegedly engaged in terrorism, sabotage and narcotics-smuggling with the aim of destabilizing the situation in the country and pave the way for the ARF to come to power. A dozen ARF members were arrested in connection with the Dro case and put on trial, charged with drug-trafficking and murder. Although a year-long investigation by a Yerevan court found no connection between the party and the alleged terrorist group, the government closed a number of Dashnak-funded newspapers, raided their offices and seized their equipment. In January 1995, the Armenian Supreme Court formally suspended the party’s activities. The court ignored Ter-Petrosian’s charges of terrorism, however, and instead suspended the party on the grounds that it had violated a ban against foreign nationals belonging to Armenian political parties.

http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=4&issue_id=235&article_id=2672

In 1997, there were three separate sets of trials in which the government prosecuted members of the opposition alleged to have participated in three attempted coups, including those accused of membership in Dro. Three of eleven defendants found guilty of involvement in activities associated with Dro were given death sentences in December 1996. In July a Supreme Court appeals council reduced the death sentence to fifteen years of imprisonment for one of the defendants, Arsen Grigorian, convicted of murder and of drug trafficking. The appeals council denied the clemency petitions of two other defendants in the case who were similarly convicted of murder and drug trafficking.

[…]

The government continued prosecuting thirty-one defendants in a second Dashnak-related set of trials. The defendants stand accused of involvement in a July 1995 coup attempt that the government alleges was intended to disrupt by-elections. The trial of the lead defendant, Dashnak party chief Vahan Hovannisyan, charged with organizing activities aimed at the overthrow of the government and terrorism, dragged on through 1997. Throughout the proceedings Hovannisyan alleged, with good reason, that deliberate delays and postponements in the trial were intended to hinder the defense, that witnesses had been pressured into providing false evidence they later recanted, and that on several occasions he was refused access to his attorney. Earlier in the year Hovannisyan and other defendants on trial complained of pressure and beatings of some of their family members by Interior Ministry personnel.

http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/Helsinki-02.htm

Of course, others take the existence of Dro seriously. For example, in 2006, the pro-opposition Aravot newspaper published the following on the group. However, much of the focus is on one Zhirayr Sefilyan who is now in prison for allegedly planning a coup last year against Kocharian and Serge and who is now one of Ter-Petrossian’s supporters.

We have published in time those materials of “Dro” case which prove that Jirayr Sefilian was the member of department body of that terrorist group if not its leader. Mr. Sefilian was Dashnak at that time. Then Mr. Sefilian left for Lebanon successfully and came back only after changeover of political powers. Mr. Sefilian refuses of speaking of “Dro” case.

http://www.aravot.am/2006/aravot_eng/March/29/st01.htm

It’s quite ironic, although bitterly depressing, to see that actually this system in place today in Armenia does stem from the 1990s and that many of the names are still the same. Already rumors are circulating in Yerevan that Vano will be returning.

Regardless, one hopes there won’t be an attempt at a coup d’etat and that if there is, Sargsyan won’t follow Levon Ter-Petrossian’s precedent after a disputed election by ordering the army out onto the streets of Yerevan.

nazarian 02.13.08 / 10pm

I wonder if ARF has matured enough to realize things like this and would not again create groups like ‘Dro’.

Onnik 02.13.08 / 11pm

Armenia Election Monitor 2008 » Blog Archive » Vahan Hovannisian: An Alternative? 02.14.08 / 1am

[…] it fails to mention one very dark aspect of Ter-Petrossian’s time in power — the banning of Dashnaktsutyun and the imprisonment of dozens of its members including Hovannisian. “We are the alternative,” declared Armenian Revolutionary […]

Armenia Election Monitor 2008 » Blog Archive » U.S. Embassy Post-Election Warning 02.15.08 / 1pm

[…] protest demonstrations. Although such warnings are customary and to be expected, some observers and some political groups fear that there is the danger of possible demonstrations turning nasty depending on the outcome of […]

Armenia Election Monitor 2008 » Blog Archive » Post-Election Bloodshed Possible 02.16.08 / 8pm

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Dashnaktsutyun Warns Against Tension, Clashes

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