Armenia: New President Inaugurated, Opposition Protests
With the area around Yerevan’s Opera in almost total lock down, prime minister Serge Sargsyan was inaugurated as president in a ceremony and military parade that few citizens could get even remotely close to. As it happened, myself and another photographer managed to eventually break the police blockade and get right outside the Opera building, but a lot of good that did us. Sargsyan was already inside and all we managed to get was the back of the head of the outgoing president, Robert Kocharian, as he arrived to enter via a side door.
Despite press passes and being in a public area, we were eventually told in no uncertain terms to clear off by plain-clothes security personnel, probably National Security Service (NSS), when we moved to just opposite Northern Avenue to attempt to photograph the podium erected in Liberty Square from a distance. This wasn’t a surprise as the whole ceremony was conducted hundreds of meters away from any representative of the general public — i.e. the electorate — and the only media present was apparently that authorized by the government.
As it happened, and this was later confirmed by one journalist, Armenia Now reports that even those allowed to attend were not permitted into the main concert hall where the inauguration took place. So much for the “media moment” that most politicians desperately crave.
A small group of photojournalists were allowed credentials to the inauguration. Upon arriving at the Opera House, however, the press pack was sequestered in a room where they – like everyone else in Armenia – could only watch on TV.
Still, if the new president doesn’t want photographs of his inauguration published then so be it. Prevented from covering that event, as was the case for almost every other photographer in Yerevan, there was always the opposition memorial to the eight killed during post-election clashes on 1 March occurring adjacent to the French Embassy. Somewhat unfortunately for Sargsyan, not only did 9 April mark the day of the start of his presidency, but it was also the traditionally observed 40th day after the deaths.
Police hadn’t cordoned off approaches to the Square where the opposition gathered that day at the beginning of March, but there was a sizable number of riot police and a few hundred women out to remember the dead, protest Sargsyan’s inauguration and chant the name of the former president and candidate in the 19 February election, Levon Ter-Petrossian. RFE/RL reports on the day’s events.
The new president spoke of “wounds” inflicted on Armenia by the March 1 clashes in Yerevan between riot police and Ter-Petrosian supporters that left at least eight people dead. “Today, I urge to look forward, together to seek and find the path of reconciliation, that of development for the Armenia of future,” he said. “I am confident that we cannot have real and tangible success, unless we learn lessons from the past.”
One of those lessons, according to Sarkisian, is that there must be “limitations of fundamental rights” of Armenian citizens, notably their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of assembly. Still, he said those limitations “can not be absolute” and pledged to “revisit” soon the recently enacted legal amendments that effectively banned opposition demonstrations.
The authorities were especially keen to prevent such demonstrations in the vicinity of the Opera building on Wednesday, shutting down a large section of central Yerevan for traffic and even pedestrians. Sarkisian’s inauguration took place 40 days after the worst street violence in Armenia’s history. By Armenian tradition the souls of the deceased are remembered on the 40th day after their death.
With this in mind, several hundred Ter-Petrosian gathered at the site of the deadly violence, over one kilometer away from Liberty Square, to remember its victims. Scores of police in riot gear looked on as they lit candles and lay flowers at a granite podium from which opposition leaders addressed a much bigger crowd on March 1. The silent remembrance quickly turned into an anti-government rally, with mostly female participants chanting “Freedom!” and “Levon!”
E-Channel reports that various political figures also joined what was effectively a protest by Levon Ter-Petrossian’s supporters. These included opposition MPs such as Victor Dallakian and Raffi Hovannisian, and even controversial TV company owner and presidential candidiate, Tigran Karapetian.
Dallakyan, as an NA deputy, had participated in the first part of Serzh Sargsyan’s inauguration and had also managed to implement his “civil duty.” He once again reminded the gathered people that he had offered at NA to launch a temporary commission to examine the events on March 1 and to present a parliamentary conclusion. When asked what kind of attitude he had to today’s festive event at the Republic Square, he answered that he would not like to comment on it, “I am responsible only for my own actions.”
[…]
For the whole period, the deputies of Heritage faction were with the people gathered at Myasnikyan monument. Only the faction leader Raffi Hovhannisyan had taken part in the president’s inauguration.
Apart from a few times when the police seemed to panic and push people away from blocking the roads, the protest was peaceful if angry. It dispersed on its own accord about two hours after it began with most of the few hundred women saying they would gather at Republic Square in the evening to chant anti-Sargsyan slogans during a public event due to be held there. Elsewhere, a handful of youth, seemingly from the Sksela youth movement judging by the pictures, held their own protests.
Meanwhile, whether you support the new president, Ter-Petrossian or are indifferent or against both, the very idea of holding an inauguration away from the very people the new head of state is meant to serve has to be questioned. All in all, and even though the same was the case in 2003, not a good start to a new presidency, I’d say.
Photos: © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008
- Published:
- 04.10.08 / 12am by Onnik
- Category:
- Armenia, Armenia Presidential Election 2008, Blogs, Demonstrations, Photojournalism, Police, Rallies, Revolution
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