Armenia: Protests Grow

Putting aside decades of hostility, Armenia and Turkey signed a framework agreement on October 10 that will pave the way for the reopening of their borders and the reestablishment of diplomatic ties. But while the Armenian government has promoted the deal as a peacemaking tool, popular opposition to the agreement among ordinary Armenians shows no sign of dying down.

The central streets of downtown Yerevan were blocked early on the morning of October 11. Some residents took the barricades as a sign that the government feared further demonstrations against the protocols.

"What are we celebrating when they don't care a fig about the people's opinion?" complained 60-year-old Yerevan cab driver Hamazasp Manukian. "Did anybody ever listen to the people before signing these protocols?"

The day before the protocol signing ceremony, hundreds of anti-protocol demonstrators marched to Yerevan's Tsitsernakaberd monument to the victims of Ottoman Turkey's 1915 slaughter of ethnic Armenians. At the rally, a leader of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun warned that opponents will force the government to step down, if need be, to stop the protocols' ratification.

"If they drive us to resort to that measure, we will do it," declared Vahan Hovhannisian, a onetime presidential candidate. "We want to change the system, the government, the National Assembly and the president. If they don't listen to the people's voice, we won't demand that someone just resigns. We will go for a total change of power. "

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation dropped out of the government coalition in May to protest President Serzh Sargsyan's attempted reconciliation with Turkey.

But even less nationalist opposition members insist that giving up now is not an option. The consequences of signing the protocols "will be no less severe than the results of March 1 [2008 - when ten people were killed in clashes between police and presidential election protestors], which resulted in the authorities becoming weak and totally vulnerable to outside pressure, " predicted Stepan Safarian, head of the Heritage Party's parliamentary faction.

In a bid to soothe public anger at the protocols, President Sargsyan took to the airwaves on October 10 shortly before the Zurich signing ceremony.

Saying that setting up ties with Turkey has "no alternative," Sargsyan acknowledged in reference to the events of 1915 that "[t]he genocide wound does not heal." But time, he said, dictates that Armenia should move forward.

"The memory of these victims and our future generations require a stable and strong statehood, a powerful and prosperous country, a motherland comprising the dreams of all Armenians, " Sargsyan said. "We consider the establishment of normal ties with all our neighbors, including Turkey, an important step on this path."

Many Armenians, however, view the future through the past. "How can one believe the Turks and extend a hand to them? " asked 70-year-old Yerevan pensioner Marta Petrosian. "How can one forget what happened in the past?"

Those feelings run particularly strong among Armenia's influential Diaspora, many of whom protested President Sargsyan's visits to Los Angeles and Paris to discuss the protocols with ethnic Armenian communities.

"I'm choking with shame," commented Anush Mkrtchian, a 31-year-old literature scholar from Los Angeles who joined the protests. More time should have been taken for discussions, and, potentially, a referendum on the question, she argued. Diaspora Armenians now "everywhere accuse those living in Armenia of treason," she claimed.

One French Diaspora member, however, calls the treason charges "nonsense."

"I can understand people getting angry, but if you do not live in your motherland you have no moral right to call a person a traitor . . . " commented Vardan Nersisian, who left Armenia for France ten years ago. "Another question is whether the authorities are pursuing the right policy or not. I hope they will be reasonable enough."

Some Yerevan political analysts caution that the controversy will only increase as the protocols go to parliament for ratification.

"Armenian-Turkish relations and the genocide issue are sore points for our people," said Stepan Grigorian, director of the Analytical Center on Globalization and Regional Cooperation. "Taking this into consideration, as well as the problem of trusting the authorities and other issues, tensions might increase. "

Some observers, citing a statement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that reconciliation with Armenia pins on an Armenian withdrawal from territories surrounding the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh, contend that Turkey itself may attempt to put pressure on Armenia.

"If Turkey puts forward conditions and starts pressing Armenia, an emergency situation may emerge in terms of [a bid to force a] change of power," opined independent political analyst Yerevand Bozoian.

Ruling Republican Party spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov, a member of parliament, discounts the notion. Every marathon must start with a first step, he said.

"We must take this step," Sharmazanov said of the government's agreement to reconciliation with Turkey. "Nobody should say they're better patriots than we are."