PERSPECTIVE: ENFORCEMENTS TALK FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF VIOLENCE

“Our soldiers and policemen, I swear, were not prepared for such an assault by the armed, drunk and uncontrollable mob. Of course, we were ordered to resist, but the troops were not prepared like the rabble that acted in fact separate from the people,” says Armen an assistant commander of one of the military units of Armenia, who, like other soldiers and policemen asked not to publicize their names. Armen says the morning events in the Liberty Square were possibly tough for the people, but the situation was even tougher for the military in the territory close to the Yerevan municipality on March 1. He insists this time again the demonstrators initiated the attack instigating a battle that turned into all-permissiveness.
“If the soldiers knew they were fighting against the Turks, they would beat them, but how could they shoot at their own people?! Those poor soldiers didn’t know what to do. They even retreated for a while; some escaped as if they had appeared in the hands of Turks,” Armen continues.
He also tried to describe what happened the morning of March 1 in the Liberty Square: “True, it was decided to disperse the demonstrators at dawn, but not because the people would be asleep then and would be easily beaten,” he says. “It was simply necessary to do everything to have the domestic life go on to exclude unconnected persons.”
The assistant commander says there have been neither women nor children in the square then, as they had checked the place beforehand.
“The police really warned the people for several times to disperse, but they stayed there and attacked the policemen with their truncheons and bottles ready. I don’t say police are fully innocent and has not counter attacked the people. But they were forced to, because they had no choice,” he tells. “Let the people not think we are happy with the incumbent authorities; we criticize them as well; we don’t accept them either. But the things Levon Ter-Petrosyan did were a simple disgrace and we were forced to prevent it.”
Whether unwillingly or preparedly the soldiers and the policemen who took part in the March 1 civil disturbances and beatings say they were sandwiched between the imposed interests of the state and their own people.
Hayk, a serviceman of about 35 years of age, in the police troops, an immediate participant to the March 1 events tells how his anger reached its apogee when the crowd began calling him a Turk and an enemy.
“My relatives are among the people and we may well shoot them without knowing, can you understand that, we are just defending ourselves trying to prevent it all,” Hayk was shouting. “Do you think I want to go against my own people? But that’s my job.”
Mikayel, 53, a demonstrator in the square, opposes the policemen saying: “they were throwing and beating the people so indifferently as if they were watermelons.”
“I have seen it with my own eyes how the policemen were beating people around, then taking them and throwing them into the cars,” Mikayel says.
And the soldiers tell in their turn the events they witnessed and participated in on March 1 first of all discredit the demonstrators, not the Armed Forces.
Armen says they had information group of bandits was formed beforehand. “They say the major part of them were young men from prisons, who were well armed and ordered beforehand. And brutally beating our guys has been part of that order, I suppose. They would beat anyone alone to death,” he mentions.
Karen, a policeman, also describes how the mob had really turned uncontrollable.
“They were throwing on us everything they had, they had even kidnapped a soldier who was later found stabbed to death,” says Karen with anxiety adding their snipers were all around, but they never shot a bullet. (Like many events of that day, rumor conflicts with official reports, so it is not clear whether Karen’s observation is accurate.)
“We have mainly used gas weapons that could not kill people, while the mob used anything underhand; the mad mob would crush the policemen and the soldiers,” he says.
A classmate girl of one of the soldiers tells how a commander took a group of soldiers including her friend to the St. Sargis Church to save them so that the mob does not crush it.
Garik, a policeman and a father of two daughters, who has not been at home for the last ten days, talks to his family only by phone: “The things we saw can’t be described. It was cruel, terrible.”
Arpi Harutyunyan

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