News account of events in Yerevan at the height of demonstrations
Despite Kremlin efforts to halt them, massive demonstrations continued Thursday in Soviet Armenia over a disputed region in the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan. According to some reports, as many as 1 million people have taken to the streets in an unprecedented show of defiance.
Moscow sent three members of the Politburo to Armenia, the smallest of the Soviet republics, along with a Communists Party secretary in an effort to stop the demonstrations.
The Associated Press quoted sources in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, as saying that troops had been alerted and tanks moved to the outskirts of the city.
Foreign correspondents were prohibited from traveling to Armenia.
[…]
Pyotr N. Demichev, a non-voting Politburo member was sent to Armenia with Georgiy P. Razumovsky, a party secretary elevated to membership in the Politburo last week. Later, another member of the Poliburo, Vladimir I. Dolghikh, and Anatoly I. Lukyanov, a party secretary, were also sent.
Reports from Yerevan indicate that the number of demonstrators is far greater than earlier in the week. The Associated Press quoted a source in Yerevan as saying that 1 million people-nearly one-third of the city’s [country’s] population-joined the protest Thursday.
[Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1988]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 93-94.
