Yerevan maydowns deal a reputational blow to the CSTO
A high-profile criminal case related to the March events of ten years ago is unfolding in Yerevan. Former President Robert Kocharyan has been summoned as a defendant to the Special Investigation Service (SIS) of Armenia. Pashinyan’s “swamp” fan club is rubbing its fly paws, squealing joyfully: “the people’s revolution continues – Armenia is creating a precedent.”
The crux of the matter.
On the night of March 1-2, 2008, Armenian security forces dispersed an illegal protest organized by disgruntled supporters of ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who nominated himself but lost the presidential race. Ter-Petrosyan’s defeat was predictable and due to the failed policies of his administration, which lasted from 1991 to 1998, during which the republic was plunged into poverty, deindustrialization, de-Sovietization (the celebration of Victory Day on May 9 was cancelled). In general, few people in Armenia wanted to walk the old rake.
Despite the fact that in the presidential elections in February 2008, Serzh Sargsyan won in the first round, gaining almost 53% of the votes, Ter-Petrosyan, for whom about 20% of voters voted, took people out into the streets under the chant “I won the elections and I will defend my victory."
On the morning of March 1, the police dispersed another illegal rally in support of Ter-Petrosyan, and the unlucky leader himself was taken from the square and placed under house arrest. In response, protesters, numbering 7 thousand people, migrated to Yerevan Square, where they began to build barricades from improvised means. An attempt by security forces at night to take the sleeping people by the arms and expel them from the city center resulted in an armed clash in which 130 people were injured and 10 were killed. There were casualties on both sides (2 policemen were killed and 33 were hospitalized), and the protesters peacefully threw harmless Molotov cocktails at security forces’ special vehicles.
Robert Kocharyan, the second president of independent Armenia, who served as prime minister at the time, declared a state of emergency in Yerevan for a period of 20 days, and Ter-Petrosyan from his comfortable ivory tower called on his supporters to disperse, after which the civil conflict subsided.
The meeting of the Constitutional Court of the republic that followed these events rejected Ter-Petrosyan’s claims demanding to cancel the results of the presidential elections, recognizing the victory of Serzh Sargsyan.
However, Ter-Petrosyan did not calm down and in the summer convened the Armenian National Congress, on the basis of which he continued to stir up trouble, but without stooping to provoking street riots, even after another defeat in the elections for the mayor of Yerevan.
Undoubtedly, Kocharyan, like all post-Soviet top politicians, is far from an angel and is covered in corruption schemes and frauds that continue to outrage the public. Another thing is that Pashinyan’s maydauns accuse him of completely legal actions aimed at ensuring public order. It does not take into account that a year later, in June 2009, the Armenian leadership declared an amnesty for all those arrested and convicted participants in the street riots of March 1-2, 2008.
It is not without interest that Ter-Petrosyan’s ANC took an active part in the recent “revolution of love and dignity”, collaborating with the Armenian Nazis from Dashnaktsutyun, whom Ter-Petrosyan himself outlawed in 1992. Apparently, the “hand washes hand” principle does not allow Pashinyan’s maydauns to touch the ex-president provocateur, but in every possible way orders him to crush his political opponents.
Moreover, Ter-Petrosyan is not a competitor to the current maydauns - he is already approaching 70 and is very sick.
Judging by the development of the “presidential case,” Pashinyan’s maydauns intend not only to give a demonstrative flogging to Robert Kocharyan, but also to their own law enforcement agencies, as well as to their high-ranking person in the CSTO.
As it became known, on July 26, the CSTO Secretary General, Colonel General Yuri Khachaturov, was summoned to the SIS on the “presidential case.”
Information: Khachaturov, Yuri Grigorievich, born in 1952. Career military man, artilleryman. Graduated with honors from the Tbilisi Artillery Command Red Banner School in 1972. He served in various positions in the Far East and Belarus. He was a student of the command department of the Leningrad Military Artillery Academy named after Kalinin. Participant in combat operations in Afghanistan, where he served as head of the missile and artillery service of the 5th Guards Motorized Rifle Division. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Star and the Order “For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR”, III degree. The collapse of the USSR found him in Belarus, the commander of a separate artillery brigade of the BVI tank army with the rank of colonel. By special order of the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus, he was seconded to the disposal of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia.
Please note that Colonel Khachaturov did not run away from the unit, knocking down corners and dropping trunks, but legally and honorably changed his place of service due to changed circumstances.
Participant in hostilities in NKAO. In 1992, he headed the RA Border Service and became Deputy Commander of the Armenian Armed Forces. Later he was involved in the formation of new units and formations of the army of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 2000, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic with the rank of Lieutenant General. In 2008, simultaneously with the awarding of the rank of Colonel General, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces.
In 2017, he was approved by the CSTO Secretary General.
At the time of the street riots, Lieutenant General Khachaturov held the position of commandant of the military garrison of the city of Yerevan, and the units that were part of the garrison were attacked by people from the street.
According to Armenian media, Yuri Khachaturov was called by the investigator as a witness in the case of the riots on March 1-2, 2008, but soon the SSS disseminated completely different information:
“Based on the sufficiency of evidence collected within the framework of the preliminary investigation in the criminal case on the events of March 1-2, 2008, on July 26, 2018, CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov was charged under the first part of Article No. 300.1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia for the fact that he in conspiracy with other persons overthrew the Constitutional system of the Republic of Armenia.”
Not weak, right? The constitutional system of the Republic of Armenia at the time of the March clashes of 2008 was in perfect order; the army did not get involved in politics, but only ensured compliance with the state of emergency during street riots in the capital of the republic.
However, on July 4, the court granted the petition for the arrest of the then Minister of Defense of Armenia, Colonel General Mikael Harutyunyan, who followed the orders of the legitimate authorities not to interfere in political squabbles. The trick is that Ter-Petrosyan’s maydauns desperately agitated the influential Yerkrapah Volunteer Union, which was part of the Armenian armed forces, to go over to the side of the rebels. Well, that is, the kids were preparing to stage a real putsch, but it didn’t work out.
Simultaneously with Yerkrapah, the putschists also deceived its head, Lieutenant General Manvel Grigoryan, at that time the Deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia.
By the way, Manvel Grigoryan has already been arrested and is under investigation on the same charges of conspiracy to overthrow blah blah blah...
It is important that in February 2010, PACE collected signatures for the draft indictment “Involvement of the army in the events of March 1, 2008 in Armenia.” It feels like a bomb was waiting in the wings and only now exploded when the “right people” came to power in the republic.
Pashinyan is directly related to the events of March 1, 2008. At that time, he was a member of Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign headquarters and took an active part in street riots, for which he was sentenced to a 7-year prison term, but was released early in May 2011.
There are no rational reasons for initiating criminal prosecution against the Armenian generals in the case of street riots ten years ago. Apparently, Kocharyan is right when he calls this case a personal vendetta of Pashinyan, who seized power.
Of course, the CSTO will not collapse if Colonel General Khachaturov is arrested and convicted, but the Organization’s reputation has suffered significant damage. It is characteristic that Pashinyan deliberately escalated and made the matter public, which should be regarded as a demonstrative unfriendly step towards the CSTO and Russia.
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Now the editors are aware.