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Fresno-born Armenian Leader Ends Hunger Strike

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  • Fresno-born Armenian Leader Ends Hunger Strike

    Fresno-born Armenian Leader Ends Hunger Strike

    John Hughes / Special to The Bee
    Published: Mar 31, 2011

    YEREVAN, Armenia -- A political leader here with family ties to Fresno
    has just come off a 15-day public hunger strike in the center of the
    city that has energized thousands.

    Fresno-born Raffi K. Hovannisian, 51, who moved to Armenia in 1991, had
    been on a fast since March 15 in demonstration against the government of
    President Serzh Sargsyan. Hovannisian is calling for regime change of
    authorities who Hovannisian's and other opposition parties say have held
    illegitimate power since fraudulent elections in 2007 (parliamentary)
    and 2008 (presidential).

    Hovannisian camped out in Liberty Square in the nation's capital. He
    spent the first nine days of his fast sitting and sleeping on a park
    bench until being allowed to erect a tent -- a concession authorities
    had earlier refused.

    Members of Hovannisian's Heritage Party and supporters were surprised by
    his fast; opponents derided it as a publicity stunt.

    Hovannisian ended the strike Wednesday, a day after a doctor advised
    that further lack of nourishment could result in liver and kidney
    damage.

    According to members of the Heritage Party, over the course of the 15
    days of the hunger strike, more than 20,000 people signed a guest book
    in support of Hovannisian's position.

    Two days into his fast, an anti-government rally was allowed on the
    grounds of Liberty Square, the first such event in three years. Although
    led by the largest opposition party, the Armenian National Congress of
    first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan (1991-96), many in the crowd of
    about 20,000 (although reported at 9,000 by state authorities and
    100,000 by organizers) rushed to the park to greet and thank Hovannisian
    for "reclaiming" their revered square.

    On March 1, 2008, a violent police raid of an opposition protest
    encampment in Liberty Square sparked a day of clashes that left 10 dead,
    hundreds wounded and dozens arrested. Since that day, Ter-Petrosyan's
    party had filed more than 100 requests with City Hall for permission to
    gather at Liberty Square. All had been rejected.

    When demonstrators marched there March 17, they met a barricade of riot
    police. After a few tense minutes and several cell phone conversations
    between opposition leaders and authorities, police stood down and the
    crowd flooded the square.

    A request to hold another rally on April 8 has been denied.

    Hovannisian had vowed to continue his fast until he is satisfied that
    his party's call for early elections, among other demands, is seriously
    considered -- "as long as my health allows." Regular elections are
    slated for 2012 and 2013 for parliament and president, respectively.

    Hovannisian, a descendant of genocide survivors and a 1980 graduate of
    the University of California at Los Angeles, relinquished his American
    citizenship for an Armenian passport in 2001, after moving his family of
    seven there just before the former Soviet republic gained independence
    in 1991.

    He was named foreign minister when Ter-Petrosyan won the country's first
    presidential election.

    Hovannisian resigned after just over a year. He later founded Armenia's
    first political "think tank" and in 2002 founded the Heritage Party,
    which won seven seats in parliament in 2007.

    Now, Hovannisian has become something of a folk hero for Armenia's
    disenfranchised and a wedge dividing conflicting opposition camps.

    He says that he is pleased with his role in re-invigorating a segment of
    the population that has been muted by the dominance of the Sargsyan
    coalition -- which holds 91 of the National Assembly's 131 seats, with
    an additional 17 "independents" typically voting with the coalition --
    and has been put off by Ter-Petrosyan's abrasive and unfulfilled
    promises to unseat the current leaders. Hovannisian's future influence
    rests on the yet-unknown size of that demographic.

    "By my modest sacrifice, I did not seek a reaction, but sought to signal
    an alarm of the state against the 'rule-lessness of law' by this
    government, against the legacy of false elections and ultimately in the
    face of these challenges to return power to the people," Hovannisian
    said.

    His protest comes as many in Armenia struggle against 10% inflation, a
    12% rise in overall cost of living and an increase in the cost of
    consumable goods of up to 40%. A result of the worsening economy has
    been a new wave of emigration, most of it to Russia, where the number of
    Armenians approaches the same unofficial estimate of 2.5 million left in
    Armenia.

    Hovannisian said Armenia is now living in "an emergency." He is
    especially distressed by a recent memorandum of understanding signed by
    the ruling coalition in which the three parties agreed to cooperate with
    each other to expand even more their overwhelming majority in the coming
    elections -- thus creating, Hovannisian said, an undemocratic "single
    party state."

    "There is a danger of re-investing the population with a sense of
    fatalism that everything is pre-determined by the powers that be,"
    Hovannisian said. "I wanted to raise an alarm to Armenian society with a
    message and expectation that only through people's civic action and
    their rights of public assembly would it be possible to expect any
    transformation for the Republic of Armenia."

    Hovannisian himself has experienced transformation, having last year
    shed more than 80 pounds. And just before starting his fast, he shaved
    his bushy mustache that had been a distinctive feature for decades --
    which by strike's end had become a 15-day white beard.

    His wife, Armenuhi, founder of Junior Achievement in Armenia and of
    Orran, an aid center for Yerevan street orphans, sat with her husband
    most days; relieved by their son Garin, a UCLA graduate who recently
    wrote a memoir, "Family of Shadows," published by Harper. He stayed at
    night while his father slept under an afghan knitted in the orange, red
    and blue of the Armenian flag.

    Throughout the days, supporters left random mementos on the bench -- a
    candle, a biography of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands, a 1980s-era
    record album cover of favored son of Armenia, Charles Aznavour.

    On Monday, he was visited by the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, Marie L.
    Yovanovitch.

    Hovannisian said in jest that the welcomed but odd and continuous
    gathering of the prominent and the unknown is "a bit like learning who
    would attend your funeral." He was attended by war veterans and by old
    women who scolded him when he didn't wear a stocking cap.

    Last week, a group of university students gathered with guitar to
    serenade in a scene Hovannisian likened to 1960s Haight-Ashbury.




    From: A. Papazian
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