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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