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Eyewitness to History
How Armenia's Opposition Tactics Led to Bloodshed in Yerevan Streets
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Page 1 of 20
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Prologue, Friday, February 15, 2008
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The day after Valentine's day found me Armenia-bound once more, arriving a scant two days before the nation went to the polls to elect its next president. Despite ten previous trips to my homeland, spanning the months of April through October, I was excited to be flying into uncharted territory… a bitter cold gripped the nation, so much so that Lake Sevan had frozen over completely and many of the roads outside the capital were simply impassable. My usual modus operandi of driving through hundreds of kilometers of the landscape I adored and avoiding Yerevan as much as possible would have to be modified.
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The presidential elections themselves were also a centerpiece of my trip. I had hoped to act as an international observer at the elections, but the number of observers sent from overseas was less than 600 and limited to diplomats, and this opportunity did not materialize. Armenia would be taking yet another step, we all hoped, on the road to Democracy, that shining ideal that few nations, if any, had yet to achieve. Photographs and pixilated videos of thousands of people filling this square or that, advocating for their candidate, do not do justice to being immersed in that throng, in that crush of humanity yearning to have a say in the nation's future. Not even sub-zero temperatures could keep them away. How I longed to be part of this… |
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Text and Photographs Copyright © 2008 Vahé Peroomian. All Rights Reserved
Duplication and use of photographs and text without permission strictly prohibited.
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