OSCE raps police action at Armenia opposition rally

By Hasmik Mkrtchyan

YEREVAN (Reuters) - Armenia's opposition called on its supporters to hold a new protest on Saturday, hours after baton-wielding police broke up its 10-day sit-in, drawing a rebuke from Europe's main democracy and security watchdog.

Several thousand opposition supporters had protested daily in Yerevan's Freedom Square since Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan was elected to replace his ally Robert Kocharyan as president in a February 19 vote, seen as rigged by the opposition.

Riot police moved into the square early on Saturday after authorities warned they were losing patience with the protests led by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia's first president after independence from the Soviet Union who ran against Sarksyan.

Several hours later, hundreds of opposition supporters were pouring into a diplomatic area off the city centre fallowing a call from Ter-Petrosyan's headquarters to hold a peaceful rally.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it "condemned the use of force against peaceful demonstrators".

"I urge the authorities to use maximum restraint," OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva, said in a statement.

"I am troubled that there are reports of casualties. I urge the authorities to release those detained, and I again call on the government and the opposition to engage in dialogue."

COUP ATTEMPT?

Police said they moved in after receiving information a coup was being prepared. In a statement, they said they had seized pistols and grenades.

One of Ter-Petrosyan's top allies dismissed this. "This information totally contradicts the reality," Stepan Demirchayn, leader of the opposition People's Party, told Reuters. "We use only peaceful means, and Ter-Petrosyan has reiterated this."

A Reuters correspondent saw two police cars with smashed windows and flat tires near the venue of the planned rally.

The protests had risked destabilizing Armenia, an ex-Soviet republic of 3.22 million people in the Caucasus mountains that is now emerging as a key transit route for oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea to world markets.

Disputed presidential elections sparked mass unrest in two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Ukraine, that ultimately toppled two long-serving leaders.

"Permission or no permission (from the authorities), we will all the same press ahead with protests, because rallies and marches can only be banned when there is a state of emergency," Ter-Petrosyan told reporters.

"I am deeply convinced that even if Sarksyan stays on, he won't be a legitimate president," he said. "I have no doubt the people won't tolerate this."