ARMENIA SITREP: VIOLENT PROTESTS AFTER DAWN RAID

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000179 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/28/2018 TAGS: PGOV ASEC CASC PREL PHUM KDEM AM SUBJECT: ARMENIA SITREP: VIOLENT PROTESTS AFTER DAWN RAID DRIVES DEMONSTRATORS FROM SQUARE INTO THE STREETS; RIOT ERUPTS IN FRONT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN EMBASSIES YEREVAN 00000179 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: CDA Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) Riot police drove opposition squatters from Freedom Square at about 06:45 local time on March 1. Former President Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) was taken home, and apparently placed under house arrest. Police established perimeter around Freedom Square, and forcefully dispersed media, would-be protesters, and onlookers. By mid-day, a spontaneous crowd gathered in front of the French and Italian embassies, and quickly turned into a large (roughly 3500 people) angry mob, which threw stones and bottles at police, and commandeered buses as barricades. The mob eventually settled into a peaceable stand-off with police, who eventually withdrew, while the crowd continued to grow as the day wore on. A snap opposition rally called for 15:00 instead crystallized around this crowd, which then swelled to some 20-30,000 people and was still growing at 18:00 local. The crowd continues to build improvised barricades from buses, park benches, and other ready to hand items. ¶2. (C) Separately, starting some time after 17:00, another group of protesters armed with make-shift cudgels, chains, and improvised weapons took control of Victory Bridge -- roughly half a kilometer from the main crowd -- commandeering buses, trucks, and minibuses as barricades. ARSO reports that gas-soaked rags have been stuck into fuel tank openings of these vehicles to facilitate setting them rapidly alight. (C) During the early afternoon, two LTP lieutenants (Levon Zurabian and David Shahnazarian),negotiating with police, attempted to lead the crowd to the large plaza in front of the Matenaderan museum, which would be somewhat more self-contained site and less disruptive to normal city traffic. The crowd refused, demanding instead that LTP himself come to lead them. Zurabian reports that LTP has now relayed instructions that the crowd should not move without his (LTP's) personal presence. ¶3. (C) Zurabian called polchief at about 17:00, asking that the U.S. Embassy send a message to the GOAM. LTP is prepared to come to the mass uprising and control the crowd if authorities will allow him to leave home, and if authorities immediately provide a 10-day permission for legal rallies. CDA put this request to Presidency adviser Vigen Sargsian. Sargsian first said that LTP is not under house arrest, but free to leave at any time he wishes. However, LTP's GOAM-supplied protective security detail recommends against this. On the second point, Sarsgian said "it is too late for that. The government will be taking more serious measures." We relayed back to Zurabian the presidency's words about LTP's personal status, and simply that they declined to authorize additional rallies. Sargsian called back some half hour later to say that President Kocharian was prepared to convey LTP to the crowd, if LTP would disperse them or lead them to the Dynamo Stadium on the eastern edge of downtown Yerevan. Kocharian further promised to grant any application filed for continuing rallies requested to take place in Dynamo Stadium. We relayed this revised answer back to Zurabian, who said he would speak with LTP. At about 17:50, Zurabian called back to say that LTP had entered into direct negotiations with the Presidency, hoping to secure 15 days' permission for rallies at Matenaderan. Dynamo is disliked as too self-contained and far from downtown, compared with the Matenaderan site which is completely open-air. Zurabian was uncertain of the precise channel being used in the discussions, but believed it was most likely via the chief of Kocharian's security detail, who has spent much of the day outside LTP's house. ¶4. (U) The international CNN and Euronews programming are being systematically blacked out with local programming any time they turn to news from Armenia. EARLIER TODAY -------------- ¶5. (C) Two members of parliament from the LTP-aligned Heritage Party, Stepan Safarian and Anahit Bakshian, called on PolChief to criticize the police action in driving protesters from the square, They claimed that three people have been killed during the day. First, a small boy was reportedly killed in Freedom Square during the dawn raid. Then two old men were killed when struck by police. They said that this is what sparked the angry mob in front of the French and Italian Embassies -- bystanders had witnesses a policeman hit an elderly man on the head with a baton, killing him, and the crowd had reacted in anger. A bit later a police car was reported to have, probably accidentally, run YEREVAN 00000179 002.2 OF 002 over several protesters. The car was set upon, and eventually set ablaze, though the policemen seem to have escaped. (NOTE: All of this information remains unconfirmed, though reports of between three and six dead have circulated widely among the crowd and media reporters, with none apparently having real evidence. END NOTE) Safarian and Bakshian called on the U.S. Embassy to intervene with the GOAM to call for restraint. Polchief replied that we had done so, and asked them to convey a similar message of restraint to opposition leaders, which they promised to do. ¶5. (C) In early afternoon, Emboffs communicated with Presidency adviser Vigen Sargsian, PM adviser Levon Martirosyan, 6nd Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakossian to urge restraint and non-violence in reacting to the latest crisis. RSO also conveyed the same message through working channels to police. ¶7. (C) Unconfirmed reports from a media source tell us that Heritage Party MP Armen Martirosyan received a seriuos stab wound during the day, reportedly while at a police station, attempting to learn the whereabouts of detained LTP lieutenants. PENNINGTON