Hovannisian Still Hopeful on Mediation Efforts

Despite an earlier report suggesting that attempts by Heritage’s Raffi Hovannisian to mediate between the former president and radical opposition leader, Levon Ter-Petrossian, and the new president, Serge Sargsyan, had failed, RFE/RL now reports that the U.S.-born former foreign minister is still hopeful that dialogue between the two sides can occur. The popular leader of the albeit small parliamentary opposition party had initially said that preconditions set by both Ter-Petrossian and Sargsyan had frustrated previous efforts.

“I think it important that those two important leaders meet face to face and tackle problems like real Armenian men,” Hovannisian told a news conference. “They may have not met and assumed political responsibility for the death of ten of our fellow citizens on March 1 until now, but I do bear such responsibility.”

“So I will continue to try to organize not only that but also dialogues between the government and Zharangutyun, the broader opposition and public,” he said, expressing hope that his efforts will yield results “in the coming weeks.”

In particular, the basis for dialogue appears to be that outlined in the resolution passed on 17 April by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The resolution makes certain demands of both the radical opposition as well as the authorities. Among other demands, it said:

8.4. freedom of assembly must be guaranteed in both law and practice, in compliance with Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights; this requires that the amendments recently adopted by the National Assembly on the Law on conducting meetings, assemblies, rallies and demonstrations be revoked in line with the recommendations of the Venice Commission with immediate effect;

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8.6. arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as the ill-treatment of detainees, in particular during police custody, should be stopped. An effective public control mechanism over the police must be guaranteed both in law and practice.

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9. For their part, all opposition forces should recognise the Constitutional Court’s decision which confirmed the results of the elections as announced by the Central Electoral Commission. This should not be interpreted as the obligation to agree with the merits of the court’s decision. All electoral contestants have the right to challenge this decision by the legal means available to them, including the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

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10. The Assembly believes that the only way to allow the country to move forward with the above-mentioned urgently needed reforms is the initiation of an open and constructive dialogue between the political forces in Armenian society. The Assembly had already pointed out the need for such a dialogue as a requirement to ensure the effective implementation of the constitutional reform when adopting its Resolution 1532 (2007) more than a year ago.

However, according to yesterday’s report from RFE/RL neither Ter-Petrossian or Sargsyan appear willing to agree to the two main demands of either, namely that the opposition accept the ruling of the Constitutional Court and that the government release all those detained for purely political reasons. There has already been improvement in terms of allowing opposition meetings, marches and demonstrations, but not nearly enough and in most cases, somewhat reluctantly.

Perhaps the most important issue of all, however, is also the most problematic as well as the most important. That is, the immediate independent investigation with complete oversight of the 1 March clashes between Ter-Petrossian’s supporters and the internal security forces which left at least 10 people dead. It is imperative that such a report has the full trust of all the political forces in Armenia as well as society itself and the international community.

Photo: Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007