The eighth congress of the Yerkrapah Union of Volunteers that took place in the government session hall on Tuesday reelected former deputy defense minister Manvel Grigoryan as union leader. Meanwhile, all Yerkrapah members who supported the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan during the 2008 presidential election were left out of Yerkrapah’s governing body.

The Yerkrapah congress was to be held still in December 2008, but was repeatedly delayed, mostly over differences among Yerkrapah members, as the organization embracing Karabakh war veterans split into two poles, “pro-government” and “anti-government’ following the March 1 events.

“They were afraid of calling a convention, because they were not sure that they would be able to make this structure controllable, get the person they want to be elected, and now everything is clear, the scenario is written, there are those who will follow it, from a powerful structure Yerkrapah will be reduced to another Public Council,” Karabakh war veteran, Yerkrapah member Mkrtich Mirzoyan, 65, tells ArmeniaNow.

Yerkrapah members who supported the opposition during the 2008 presidential election and the subsequent street protests had not been invited to attend the convention. Even the founding member, former MP and former Yerkrapah deputy chairman Myasnik Malkhasyan was not invited.

Among the guests, meanwhile, were Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, Audit Chamber Chairman Iskhan Zakaryan, Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukyan, Gyumri mayor Vardan Ghukasyan, Yerevan Vice-Mayor Taron Margaryan (son of late Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan), and others

Hayk Asatryan, a Yerkrapah member who supports the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC), told ArmeniaNow that “even if we had been invited to the congress, those who were in jail following the March 1-2, 2008 events, would not come, because they could not be present next to people who fired at people on March 1.”

Leader of the opposition Republic party Aram Sargsyan, the brother of Yerkrapah founder Vazgen Sargsyan (slain in the 1999 parliament shootout), was the only representative of forces supporting the ANC present at the gathering. In his speech Sargsyan address rhetoric questions to Yerkrapah members:

“When you meet Vazgen, what will be your answer? Will you be able to say that you did all what you could? Is your conscience clear?” Sargsyan was asking in reference to the ‘neutrality’ shown by the Yerkrapah leader (Gen. Manvel Grigorian) during the March 1-2, 2008 clashes between opposition supporters and security forces that resulted in ten deaths, including eight among civilians.

The Yerkrapah Union of Volunteers was established in 1993 by then Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan. While originally Yerkrapah was designed as a public organization supposed to provide help to the families of war veterans and attend to their problems, later it became a powerful structure that very often was called “a state within the state”.

The union that has more than 30,000 members has its substructures all over the republic and in all large cities and towns, thus having a serious impact on the country’s political and pubic life.

Manvel Grigoryan, 54, appeared in the top echelons of power after the terrorist act committed in the Armenian parliament in 1999 (in which eight top statesmen were assassinated).

After the October 27, 1999 events, then President Robert Kocharyan appointed Grigoryan deputy defense minister in order to ‘neutralize’ Yerkrapah that was demanding the president’s resignation over the terrorist assault and thus restore control that political leadership had over the structure.

But Kocharyan appeared to have lost control of the structure after the 2008 presidential election when one day during a non-stop opposition protest in late February opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan stated that Manvel Grigoryan and another general Gagik Melkonyan joined their movement. Grigoryan never publicly confirmed that and later was dismissed from the Defense Ministry position despite denying his links with the opposition.

For about two years after losing his post in the Ministry Grigoryan kept silent and did not react to the arrests of about 25 members of the structure led by him. Many thought this was a deliberate step to weaken Yerkrapah.

Breaking that silence, General Grigoryan stated on Tuesday that Yerkrapah could not intervene in the 03/08 events.

“If you think that Yerevan is Fizuli or a training center so that we beat and destroy on March 1, you are wrong. Had I gone to the square, very bad things would have happened for the country,” said Grigoryan.