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ANKARA: Tanks Patrol Armenian Capital After Protests, 8 Killed And 1

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  • ANKARA: Tanks Patrol Armenian Capital After Protests, 8 Killed And 1

    TANKS PATROL ARMENIAN CAPITAL AFTER PROTESTS, 8 KILLED AND 131 INJURED

    Journal of Turkish Weekly
    March 3 2008
    Turkey

    * Armenian Health Ministry says around 72 police officials, 59
    civilians injured

    * A dozen armored personnel carriers and around 100 soldiers stood
    guard outside the main government building and foreign ministry.

    Several tanks could be seen at the scene of the nighttime clashes.

    Sevgi ARICAM (JTW and wires) - Tanks and troops patrolled the Armenian
    capital Yerevan on Sunday after eight people were killed and dozens
    injured during violent protests against the results of the presidential
    elections. A state of emergency was declared in the country on Sunday
    after clashes between riot police and protesters.

    After 11 days of peaceful protests, the demonstrations became violent
    on Saturday. The rioters clashing with armed police set fire to cars
    in the capital, Yerevan.

    Levon Ter-Petrossian, the opposition leader blamed the government for
    the violence, saying it had sent provocateurs into the crowd. The
    tensions in Armenia started with the presidential election on
    February 19, the fifth since the independent. Sargsyan (Sarkisyan), a
    political insider and the prime minister, ran against Ter-Petrossian,
    an academic who was the country's first elected president. Sargsyan,
    like Kocharian, was one of the commanders who ordered bloody massacres
    in the Karabakh War. The experts say that Kocharian whould also run
    in the elections and definetly whould win if the term limits do not
    bar Mr. Kocharian, from running.

    The election conformed completely to the old Soviet standards or
    'Armenian style': As International Herald Tribune underlines "Votes
    were bought. Television coverage was embarrassingly skewed. Big men
    in large cars bossed vote counters. As a result, the party in power
    stayed in power, with 52 percent of the vote."

    * "THE COUNT WAS BAD, VERY BAD"

    Its government usually allows more dissent than most.

    Election results have still not been fully recognized by the United
    States and from the beginning, there were disturbing signs about
    the presidential election: The OSCE for example, which deployed 333
    observers, concluded that 16 percent of the count was "bad" or "very
    bad." At one polling station, a quarter of all ballots were declared
    invalid. In another, all but one of 1,449 voters in a set of polling
    stations were for Sargsyan.

    "We won the election," Ter-Petrossian said Thursday. He claimed that
    he had received 65 percent of the vote, a figure that Ahrens said
    was "not grounded in any factual evidence." Ter-Petrossian's aides,
    however, refer to him as "the president."

    Europe's top security watchdog said on Sunday it was sending an envoy
    to promote talks between the authorities and the opposition.

    Burnt-out cars, stones and poles littered the streets after the 11th
    straight day of protests against alleged rigging of the February 19
    elections. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said seven civilians and
    one police officer had been killed. She said one police officer was
    in critical condition and 17 had been hospitalized for gunshot wounds.

    The state of emergency will be in effect in the capital until March
    20 under a decree signed by President Robert Kocharian. The state
    of emergency bans public demonstrations and requires the media to
    publish or broadcast only information from government sources.

    Armenia has thorny problems with neighboring Azerbaijan, Georgia
    and Turkey. Armenian forces have been occupying almost 20 percent of
    Azeri territories and about 1 million Azeris are still refugees due
    to the Armenian occupation. The European Union and OSCE officially
    named Armenia as occupier in Azeri territories. Yerevan also rejects
    to recognize Turkey's territorial integrity and supports all kind
    of anti-Turkey activities in the world. The irredentist Armenian
    nationalism also disturbs neighboring Georgia. Despite of the close
    economic cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia
    prefers Iran and Russia in the region.
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