But it is a cynical ploy — a desperate attempt to take the steam out of the protesters’ movement without addressing their underlying concerns.
In addition to the announced rate hike, the concerns include the widespread poverty and corruption here in Armenia and Russia’s stranglehold on much of the economy, including the electric grid.
The latest example of the change in tactics toward the demonstrators is the restraint police showed when clearing dumpsters that protesters had strung together to block a major thoroughfare.
Officers did not use force.
They detained 45 demonstrators, but let them go immediately.
A key objective of the change in tactics appears to be preventing the ranks of protesters from swelling, as they did the day after police used water cannons on demonstrators, roughed up some of them and arrested about 250.
That heavy-handedness not only led to a surge in protesters’ ranks in Yerevan, but also to the demonstrations spreading to other Armenian cities.Authorities obviously hope that a softer approach will bring a collapse in the protests over time.
Yerevan Police Chief Vladimir Garparian has made combative comments about the demonstrators, but he is holding his tongue these days.
He obviously got the message from on high not to provoke the protesters.Another objective of the change in tactics besides trying to sap the protest movement is reassuring our government’s proverbial master, Russia.
Moscow has feared from the start that the economic-rooted uprising would grow into a political one like the Maidan movement that ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
One of the first signs of the new, conciliatory approach was President Serhz Sargsyan’s pronouncement that the public would not have to pay the 17-percent electricity-price hike that takes effect in August.
Instead, he said, the government would cover the increase for a time. He did not say how long — and he made it clear that consumers would have to pay it some day.This attempt at conciliation failed to gain traction. Protesters vowed to continue demonstrating until the price hikes were cancelled.
A conciliatory gesture that did gain traction was the government’s announcement that a Russian soldier who killed all seven members of an Armenian family in January will be tried in an Armenian court, not a Russian one, as originally planned.
Many Armenians view the move cynically, however, as too little too late.The soldier charged in the case, Valeri Permyakov, was stationed at the Russian military base at Gyumri, but committed the murders off-base, in the Armenian victims’ home.
Moscow’s early insistence that he be tried in a Russian military court at the Gyumri base or on Russian soil, rather than an Armenian court, sparked protests across Armenia.
Many of the demonstrators were so energized that police used force on them, and made hundreds of arrests.The Russians held their ground on the trial-venue question until the electricity-rate demonstrations erupted.In late June, fearful the rate protests could get out of hand, Russian officials and Sargsyan announced that Permyakov would be tried in an Armenian court.Armenians welcomed the news, but asked: Why was this not done in the first place? Most of us view it, rightfully, as just a combined Russian and Armenian-government attempt to keep a lid on the rate protests.
Believing from the muted public reaction to the trial-venue announcement that its conciliatory and restrained approach was working, the government decided to employ it again in clearing the dumpsters.
A few days before the clearing, the protesters had issued a provocative challenge to the authorities — one that in the early days of the demonstrations would have brought a hard-nosed response.
They said that unless the electricity-price increase was cancelled, they would begin pushing the dumpster wall down the street toward Sargsyan’s official residence.
Police did not rise to the bait and, a few days later, cleared the dumpsters without force and with no arrests. Protest leaders called for a demonstration against the clearing of the dumpsters that evening, but fewer than 1,000 people showed up, and the event was peaceful.
Whether the government’s softer approach leads to the protests petering out remains to be seen.
If it does, the authorities should not congratulate themselves, however. They will still have not addressed the poverty, corruption and Russian stranglehold on the economy that figure in almost every demonstration that erupts in Armenia.Until authorities fix those underlying problems, you can be sure that the next outbreak of protests is just around the corner.
Armine Sahakyan is a human rights activist based in Armenia.
