US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN1394

UNCLAS YEREVAN 001394 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, AM 
SUBJECT:  PUSHING THE WRONG BUTTONS, OR HOW NOT TO 
PLAY LIKE DEMOCRATS 
 
Sensitive But Unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
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PARTY TRAINING DISRUPTED 
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1. (SBU) Opposition leader Aram Sargsian and his 
Republic Party have been among the most vocal 
opponents of the current government in Armenia and 
have recently announced an August revolution in the 
press, along with claims that the USG will support 
Sargsian's presidential and revolutionary ambitions. 
Against that backdrop, security services disrupted a 
regularly-scheduled National Democratic Institute 
(NDI) "train the trainer" session (on direct voter 
contact and voter identification) in the Armavir 
region west of Yerevan July 30.  According to 
Republic Party activists, the training session was 
disrupted without violence (the in-country NDI 
representative was not present at the time). 
 
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KEEPING CLOSE WATCH 
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2. (SBU) Opposition newspapers Iravunk and Aravot 
ran stories detailing the events in Armavir in their 
August 2 editions, and the Republic Party made a 
formal complaint to the Prosecutor General August 3 
(with copies provided to the human rights ombudsman, 
media outlets, international organizations and 
resident embassies).  Local NDI representative noted 
that NDI was conducting similar training 
simultaneously with the Dashnak, National Democratic 
Union, Liberal Ramkavar and Orinats Yerkir (Country 
of Law) parties -- i.e., with both government and 
opposition parties.  NDI also told us that four 
other training sessions proceeded without incident 
over the weekend. 
 
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COMMENT:  THE SKY'S NOT FALLING YET 
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3. (SBU) Although the local Armavir authorities' 
decision to disrupt the NDI training was clearly out 
of line, we are encouraged that there was no 
violence.  Given the fact that NDI successfully 
carried out training in four other regions of 
Armenia on the same day, we doubt that there was a 
centralized order to shut them down, and believe 
that the Armavir events were likely isolated 
incidents. 
GODFREY