A short statement by the presidential press service said Sarkisian annulled his October executive order on the establishment of the Fact-Finding Group of Experts tasked with shedding more light on the worst street violence in the Armenia’s history. It gave no reasons for the decision.
The move was announced less than a week after Sarkisian stated through a spokesman that he considers the six-month inquiry to have been a failure. “Time has shown that … members of the Fact-Finding Group have unfortunately failed to rid themselves of their political agendas and to act as truly independent experts,” the presidential press secretary, Samvel Farmanian, told RFE/RL last Wednesday.
The work of the group was effectively paralyzed in early May by mounting tensions among its five members. Two of them were chosen by Sarkisian and his governing coalition, while two others by the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) and Zharangutyun party. Its fifth member and chairman, Vahe Stepanian, was picked by the state human rights ombudsman, Armen Harutiunian, in accordance with the October directive signed by the Armenian president.
Stepanian resigned from the group late last month, saying that he has failed to reconcile his wrangling colleagues. The latter have traded more accusations in public since then. In particular, the group’s pro-opposition members, Andranik Kocharian and Seda Safarian, have accused the Armenian authorities of deliberately sabotaging the probe to prevent further embarrassing revelations about their bloody suppression of opposition demonstrations sparked by the disputed presidential election of February 2008.
“The whole process was going to end like that,” Kocharian told RFE/RL, commenting on the group’s dissolution. “So what happened was anticipated.” “For some forces, further activities of the Fact-Finding Group became inexpedient,” he said.
“With this decision Serzh Sarkisian confirmed my belief that nobody wants the truth about March 1,” Safarian said, for her part.
But Stepanian found the presidential order logical. “It can be said that the Fact-Finding Group was not a success,” he said. The two other group members could not be reached for comment.
The group’s formation last fall reflected a lack of domestic and international trust in the official criminal investigation as well as a separate parliamentary inquiry into the March 2008 clashes between security forces and opposition protesters that barricaded themselves in downtown Yerevan. The clashes left ten people dead and more than 200 others injured.
The Armenian authorities have claimed all along that the massive post-election demonstrations in Yerevan were part of an opposition plot to stage a coup d’etat. The opposition strongly denies this, saying that the authorities deliberately used lethal force to crush what say was a popular revolt against vote rigging.
In its first and only report submitted to parliament in late April, the Fact-Finding Group disputed the official version of the death of Captain Hamlet Tadevosian, one of the two police servicemen killed in the violence. According to the law-enforcement authorities, Tadevosian was killed by an explosive device thrown by one of the protesters. The group’s report, signed only by Stepanian and the two pro-opposition members, effectively denied this assertion.
Stepanian confirmed that the group has also prepared other, unpublicized documents relating to the unrest. He expressed hope that they will be used by the special commission of the Armenian parliament conducting a similar probe.
The commission on Monday urged non-governmental organizations, political parties and the opposition HAK in particular to submit “all kinds of facts and information regarding the events of March 1-2” that they might have by July 1. The commission said it would incorporate those facts into its final report due later this summer.