Epress.am News from Armenia
Former president of Armenia Robert Kocharian called a meeting on Feb. 28, 2008, to discuss “election-related violations, recent opposition arrests and the possible use of force to clear the square,” writes then US Charges d’Affaires in Yerevan Joseph Pennington in a confidential cable sent to the US State Department on the same day.
Also present at the meeting was former foreign affairs minister Vartan Oskanian, presidential chief of staff Armen Gevorgyan, and presidential interpreter/adviser Vigen Sargsyan. Pennington notes that Kocharian was “in typical form: relaxed, friendly, joking-but-not-really, and completely monopolizing the conversation, despite his avowed goal to hear from us. FM Oskanian’s body language told an interesting story of its own, as he alternated between leaned-back, staring at the ceiling, and hunched forward, staring at his shoes. Oskanian then left halfway through the meeting in order to keep an appointment with EU envoy Peter Semneby,” reads the cable made public by WikiLeaks late last month.
According to the US diplomat, Kocharian alleged that “the recent arrests were necessary to deter oppositionists from bringing firearms to the square, and said this had been successful. He said the opposition had tried to launch a military coup to seize power on Feb. 22, but this had been thoroughly suppressed. Kocharian commented that the GOAM [Government of Armenia] cannot allow itself to look weak; while he would prefer to let the Freedom [Liberty] Square rallies dwindle away naturally, the point may come when authorities must impose law and order. Kocharian insisted the elections had been quite clean and fair, with just a few very isolated problems which were being addressed. He expressed the view that US reaction to Armenia’s election was unfair, especially in comparison to how we had evaluated the Georgian election last month. He refused to admit that there were any significant problems with the Feb. 19 election, which he insisted was the best in Armenia’s history.”
In the meeting Kocharian apparently expressed concern that the US Embassy in Armenia was taking sides. Pennington said of course not, and that the embassy is in touch with Levon Ter-Petrossian only to find out what is going on, but they never advise or coordinate with him or his opposition alliance, the Armenian National Congress.
Kocharian also implied that events in Liberty Square might get out of hand and the opposition was prepared to engage in armed conflict. In particular, he said there was a “‘dangerous moment’ with Yerkrapah (the influential group of veterans from the Karabakh war) several days before, when there was a risk that events might ‘get out of the political domain and turn into another domain’.” However, Kocharian said, “I solved it in one day,” adding that he is now much more at ease about the security situation.
“He said Yerkrapah leaders now understand that if they attempt to use force in support of LTP [Levon Ter-Petrossian], they will be opposed not just by the police, but by the ‘full capabilities’ of the Armenian army. Bringing up our expressed concern about opposition activists being arrested, Kocharian said, ‘What do you do in the US with your terrorists? The whole world criticized you the last few years, but you still do what you have to do to stop the terrorists. We never criticize you for that’.”
On the matter of suppressing opposition rallies at Liberty Square, Pennington notes that throughout the meeting Kocharian sent “mixed signals” about whether he would send police to clear the square.
“One minute he would suggest that time is on authorites’ side and LTP can and should be waited out. But in the next sentence would talk about the importance of not appearing weak, the need to enforce the law, and ask how he could let an illegal rally continue to disrupt the peace and create a public nuisance in the center of Yerevan. The public will make an outcry, he argued, and demand that the law be enforced. Kocharian said that if he decides to clear the square, he can have it done in less than 40 minutes. He knows, though, that would result in people getting hurt, something he says he does not want. However, he also argued that if the protests drag on too long the LTP supporters, and maybe the general public, may think that the law enforcement bodies are incapable of clearing the square, and this would only encourage them to consider further illegal acts. People must know that the authorities are strong and have the necessary capabilities to uphold the law,” writes the US diplomat.
In a side comment in the cable, Pennington notes that “Kocharian and his aides seem to relish signaling that they know, from their intel reports, a great deal about what we do. At the end of the meeting, Kocharian also said he knew that we had held a mock election within the embassy for our LES staff, and that LTP had won. We acknowledged that LTP had indeed won a plurality of about 40 percent of the mock votes.”
Despite concerns raised on the contrary, Kocharian refused to admit there were any problems with the election, except for one Territorial Election Commission and in one PEC [polling station] where the official recount reported fraud and the PEC members were arrested, wrote Pennington. However, aside from these two specific cases, Kocharian insisted nothing else was wrong, claiming “as evidence” that no cases had been filed before the administrative court. Though Pennington conceded that the opposition “had not always been as diligent as it could have been in availing itself of formal avenues of appeal, and that we had criticized opposition figures for that failure,” Kocharian continued to insist that the lack of court filings was proof that “the opposition had no real evidence of anything wrong, or else they would have filed complaints.”
Pennington wraps up the cable with his comments on Kocharian, “who dominated the conversation” and gave a “self-indulgent performance,” setting up arguments only to knock them down.
“It is not clear to us whether he believes this kind of conversation is effective in convincing us that we are mistaken or whether it is just his way of asserting control and maintaining the pretense that all the facts are on his side. That said, there is no denying that Kocharian has a roguish charisma and a certain brilliance at deploying arguments and assertions in a way that can be very difficult to dispute without directly challenging the integrity of the man and his government,” he writes.