However, while I also find Kocharian’s word choice to be poor, I see no problem blaming radical oppositon organizers for the events leading up to and occuring on March 1. Had there been no call to arms, no hate-mongering, no dismissing of all democratic institutions, and instead a resorting to a call to “dig in and fight,” we would not have had deaths that day, neither of protesters nor of civil servants.

Clearly, the authorities could and should have handled things differently then. This does not absolve the guilt of those who did everything possible to bring about clashes.

To this day, I have not read anywhere in the Armenian press any sense of apology from the radical opposition organizers nor from their press. For all the daily criticisms of and attacks on the authorities, at least several of the leadership among the authories has had the courage to acknowledge some responsibility for what happened on March 1. Nearly all political forces (pro or not pro-gov) have posed the question to LTP himself, who has categorically refused to own up to the disaster he led. To me this is sad, and yet again shows how incapable he is of leading this nation anywhere.

Looking at the phrase in my post:

I clearly recall at least one case, when Levon Ter-Petrossian spoke on the rallies, saying, that they will go till the end, even if there’s a need for human casualties, which is exactly what he has done.

Indeed, it is another thing for opposition to say that they’ll fight till the end, but quite another the way authorities handled the riots, shooting citizens, incapable of using any of the 100s of other means for calming down the protests. i guess I’ll have to edit the text of the post above, to bring it up to decent level.

Try to analyse the violence early in the morning on March 1st, and try to come to some obvious conclusions, in a non-biased and objective manner.

I followed your blog very closely. you were there as an observer and you did an excelent job reporting it.

Blaming the oppressed and taking the current fascistic regime for granted is not right.
This movement is a pacifist movement, it has been like that and it will be like that.

http://qbhima.blogspot.com/2008/04/blog-post_6946.html

It is interesting that Larisa Alaverdian is not standing in this committee

And Zaruhi Postanjian, for that matter. Pity.

Did you know that there is a Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs in the parliament? Well, whats interesting is that there is no one from heritage. What does this committee do? I guess they just remain standing while human rights are being violated. It is interesting that Larisa Alaverdian is not standing in this committee but she is standing in Standing Committee on European Integration. Maybe she got tired of standing :).

Also what is this rule of law fraction?

http://www.parliament.am/deputies.php?sel=details&ID=26&lang=eng

Here is what they say.

[...] On May 25, 2003 he was elected to the NA from the proportional list of the Justice Alliance and he is currently on the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations. He is a member of the Justice Faction and the founding president of the Armenia Democratic Party. [...]

If you say he is not in the parliament then it must be that they don’t update their info, which is not good.

Aram, the problem with Armenia is that everyone has declared themselves president since 1996. The only difference is that Serge had the CEC and Constitutional Court declare it, while Levon declared himself to have been “elected” by 65 percent in Liberty Square.

Meanwhile, most Armenians recognize Serge as the president regardless of whether we believe the vote should have gone to a second round. The rest of us (probably a minority) despair at the way both Levon and Serge displayed such cynicism towards the democratic process.

I think A1+ looks more like “quchi norutjunner” than anything serious these days, but that interview was somewhat interesting.

Looking back, I think back in those days there was more active opposition representation in the parliament than now. Vazgen Manukyan’s party had people there, Shavarsh Qocharyan and Sadoyan come to mind, and Hajrikyan’s party had people there too, and communists too. True, Dashnaks were all in the prison, but more or less most of the opposition had people in the parliament. Even that party led by Aram Sargsyan had seats (not this Aram Sargsyan but some other). Anyway. I am not sure if this is off topic or not as I don’t know if the interview was this week or last week.

By the way have you asked the opinion of the people who were infront of the French embassy or at Liberty Sq? It is immoral to talk on their / our behalf.

In those days everybody is an expert in blaming the victimes as if it was their fault that they have been attacked.

It is even horrible that now people take it for granted that the regime will attack and oppress. So it is the fault of the ones who struggle for their rights, for eqaulity and freedom.

Ditord I expected this from likes of Nune Yesayan but not from you.

All humans are born free and equal. Have Armenian moved back by 200 years?