OPPOSITION FIGURE'S ARREST DRAWS PROTEST MARCHERS

C O N F I D E N T I A L YEREVAN 000608

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/10/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM ASEC AM
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION FIGURE'S ARREST DRAWS PROTEST MARCHERS

Classified By: Steve Banks, pol/econ chief, reasons 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The May 7 arrest of a minor oppostion
personality led to a protest march on the National Security
Service headquarters May 9. Police were poorly prepared for
the unscheduled event. When several officers unwisely
interposed themselves in front of -- then got swallowed by --
the crowd, other police apparently waded into the fray with
batons and tear gas. However, more senior police officials
negotiated with protest leaders, and a moer or less peaceful
disengagement was soon reached, though not before some
injuries were sustained on both sides. END SUMMARY


2. (C) The authorities arrested Alexander Arzumanian May 7
on suspicion of money laundering Arzumanian was former
President Ter-Petrossian's last foreign minister, stepping
down in 1998 when Ter-Petrossian resigned. Press reports
indicate that 55,400 dollars in cash was found in
Arzumanian's apartment, which had recently been transferred
from Moscow. A similar sum was reportedly seized from an
Arzumanian ally, Vahan Shirkhanian, who seems not to have
been arrested. A family representative tacitly acknowledged
that approximately this amount of cash was seized from the
Arzumanian home, and suggested that it may have been intended
to pay for costs associated with public demonstrations.


3. (C) Arzumanian is a leader of a previously
little-remarked opposition movement called "Civil
Disobedience." Arzumanian apparently has links to a wide
variety of opposition politicians, though he apparently no
longer considers himself a member of Ter-Petrossian's
Armenian National Movement. The government presumably
believes that Arzumanian and his cohorts may have hoped to
help fund a "rose revolution-style" uprising in Armenia, and
the authorities may well not be wrong about this. Arzumanian
has already been visited several times in detention by his
lawyer and a human rights NGO, and his wife tells us they
report he is in good health and has suffered no mistreatment.


3. (C) The Impeachment Bloc's latest rally, May 9, (in
cooperation with its opposition allies, the Republic and the
New Times parties) led to a briefly-chaotic melee with
police. Police deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd; a
small number of demonstrators and several policemen were
reported injured in the fracas. At least one protester was
beaten in the face. The demonstrators had marched from
Matenadaran Square (where they had held valid permits for a
rally) to the National Security Service (NSS) headquarters,
where they intended to protest the detention of minor
opposition figure: former Prime Minister Alexander Arzumanian
(see paragraph 6).


4. (C) Republic Party leader Aram Sargsian, one of the
leaders of the rally, told us that the trouble ensued when a
row of about ten mid-ranking (captains and lieutenants)
police officers attempted to prevent the large mass of
demonstrators from approaching the NSS building. When these
officers were swept back by the weight of the crowd, other
police rushed to retrieve them from the crowd, brandishing
batons. When the Yerevan chief of police and the local
police district commander arrived on the scene soon after,
the two sides quickly negotiated a peaceful disentanglement
of the melee. The ralliers were permitted to read their
prepared statement on Arzumanian, and then they promptly
withdrew back to the Matenadaran, Sargsian said.
Arzumanian's AmCit wife was also present at the protest, and
she also told us later that the police seemed overall to
behave honorably and simply to want to preserve order.
Leaders on both sides dealt with each other in good faith.

GODFREY