There Was Blood All Over

I just finished reading an excellent article of eyewitness accounts and stories as told by victims of the brutal crackdown at Liberty Square which occurred early morning on March 1. ArmeniaLiberty.org is no longer accessible in Armenia, for the time being at least, but RFE/RL Armenia reports can still be read online. Here are some excerpts of the story:

Chakhoyan and his wife Naira were among more than 2,000 Ter-Petrosian supporters camped out in Yerevan's Liberty Square since February 20, the day after Armenia's disputed presidential election. Hundreds and possibly thousands of riot police, interior troops and other security units surrounded the tent camp at around of 6:30 a.m. on March 1. The square outside the city's massive Opera House was cleared within 10-15 minutes. Overwhelmed by the onslaught, the protesters chaotically fled the scene only to be ambushed and attacked by more security forces deployed in adjacent streets. Eyewitnesses say the protesters were chased even hundreds of meters away from the square, suggesting that the purpose of the security operation was not only to disperse participants of the 11-day vigil but to beat, intimidate and arrest as many of them as possible.

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Like many other tent campers, Chakhoyan claims to have not heard any warnings. `All I heard was, `Guys, attack them,'' he tells RFE/RL. `They started hitting us, we hit back and then tried to retreat. But they were already surrounding us.'

`No arrests were made in the square. People were arrested outside the square,' he says.

Chakhoyan says he somehow managed to sneak out of the square with his wife, catch a taxi and drive her to a friend's apartment before spotting and joining a large group of fleeing oppositionists near the Yerevan State Circus, about two kilometers away from Liberty Square. Moments later they were surrounded by about a dozen police vehicles.

`Ten to fifteen of us managed to escape to a nearby courtyard,' he says. `We got in an apartment building, walked upstairs and asked residents to give us refuge. Half of us were let in, while the others, myself included, walked up to the roof. We got out of there at around 8 a.m., thinking that the police are gone.

`I saw two injured people downstairs. One of them had a broken arm and foot, the other serious wounds on his head. A resident of the building brought a bandage and cotton wool so I could provide first medical aid. We then put one of the wounded in a yellow car that took him to hospital.'

`As I bandaged the other man's head, police came and arrested all of us,' adds the father of one.

The oppositionists were taken to the headquarters of the police department of Yerevan's central Kentron district. `All of us were beaten up in both the police car and the police station,' Chakhoyan recounts calmly. `They hit me in the legs, the head, the sides and other parts of my body. I asked them not to hit me in the abdomen because it bleeds. I also asked them not to touch my head because my eyes had been operated on. But they kept hitting the same parts of the body on purpose.'

According to Chakhoyan, Kentron policemen were anxious not to leave traces of violence on his and other detainees' bodies, putting books on their backs, stomachs and sides before hitting them with truncheons. The `insulation,' as the young man discovered, prevents bruises but does not reduce pain. `As they beat us, they yelled, `You Levon supporters, who do you think you are to hold illegal rallies and defy us? Don't you know that Serzh won [the election?]'' he says.

Chakhoyan becomes more emotional when describing the experiences of other opposition supporters brought to the Kentron police long before the outbreak of the deadly clashes in Yerevan. `At around 10 o'clock in the morning, I saw a bleeding young man brought over to the police station,' he says. `He lay on the floor and they dragged him from his feet to the registration desk. The guy was convulsing in shock. No police officer would approach him. I said, `Let me help him, I can do that, I've worked for the rescue squad of the Armenian Red Cross.' But they refused, saying, `You bastard, stay where you are and don't move, we know what to do.'

`But I said, `If this guy dies, you will have to answer for that. So let me help him before it's too late.''

The officers relented. `I put him in an anti-shock position, pulled his tongue back and gave him water,' Chakhoyan says, adding that an ambulance arrived shortly afterwards to take away the young man and three other beaten detainees.

Click here to read the full article.

By Friday the state of emergency will hopefully be lifted.