All speakers at the opposition rally in Yerevan Monday evening offered words of sympathy to the families of ten people who were killed in street battles between demonstrators and security forces two years ago that day.

Ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, whose supporters staged nonstop street demonstrations in the wake of a disputed presidential election in late February 2008, once again accused the government of murdering innocent people.

“Hadn’t the election been rigged, the government would not have had to attack people on March 1. That murder had been planned and carried out by the authorities from beginning to end,” said Ter-Petrosyan, who currently leads the opposition alliance Armenian National Congress (ANC), addressing a crowd of supporters in front of an ancient manuscripts depositary, Matenadaran, in downtown Yerevan. (This was ANC’s first rally since last September).

ANC member and leader of the Hanrapetutyun party Aram Sargsyan said in his speech that while people two years ago were defending their voting right then the authorities were defending their desire to continue to govern.

“It is naïve to expect that the authorities will expose the real circumstances of the March 1 events. This will be possible only through a power change,” said Sargsyan.

In his speech at the rally Ter-Petrosyan reminded about the recent revelation of the defense minister’s order which showed that “still on February 23, 2008 there existed a decision to suppress the nationwide wave.”

“But the authorities made the final decision on that only after they noticed with horror the cracks within the state system and especially when the participants of a large rally in support of Serzh Sagsyan on February 26 [2008] left their leader and joined the protesters in Liberty Square,” said Ter-Petrosyan, adding that the revealed document attracted the attention of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and will have “serious consequences”.

Ter-Petrosyan voiced five major challenges that the opposition deems Armenia is facing today. Namely: improvement of Armenian-Turkish relations, settlement of the Karabakh conflict, restoration of democracy, establishment of rule of law and overcoming corruption.

“Meanwhile, the international community is interested only in the first two issues, that is, the Armenia-Turkey normalization and Karabakh settlement. I do not mean to say that this way the international community wants something bad for Armenia…. One should admit that the behavior of super powers is dictated by priorities, and the remaining issues are made inferior to these priorities,” said Ter-Petrosyan.

Regarding the Karabakh process, the opposition leader said it had entered “the denouement stage”. He added that Turkey would not be in a rush to ratify the diplomatic protocols with Armenia and will not address this matter until after a Karabakh solution.

At its Monday rally the opposition presented its “calendar of overcoming the post-March 1 crisis” in accordance with which it demands that the authorities release all of whom the opposition views as political prisoners and reinstates an independent probe, with participation of international observers, into the 2008 post-election events already in March; by April get the law on public assemblies changed in the wake of the 2008 opposition protests to the form it existed in as of February 2008; by May – allow the resumption of A1+, an independent TV station controversially taken off the air in 2002.

“By the end of May, to carry out reform of the electoral code in order to make it more transparent and organize preterm presidential and parliamentary elections from June to September,” stated ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan.

The rally was followed by a march led by Ter-Petrosyan and other opposition leaders towards the area near the monument to Myasnikyan, which was the scene of the fiercest clashes between demonstrators and security forces two years ago. The march participants laid flowers at the place in memory of the dead.

Members of the opposition Heritage party, meanwhile, had staged a separate march to Myasnikyan monument where they laid flowers and wreaths in memory of the 03/08 victims.