Eight people were killed and 33 police injured in Armenia?s capital during overnight protests, which ended after the government declared a state of emergency and mobilized the army.

The state of emergency, effective until March 20, followed the worst unrest in a decade, sparked by opposition protests against a February 19 presidential election they said was rigged. Police fought pitched battles with opposition supporters who have held daily protests since Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan was elected president.

The state of emergency bans protests and imposes censorship. Outgoing President Robert Kocharyan said he introduced the restrictions «to prevent a threat to constitutional order». He accused demonstrators of firing weapons and grenades and planning a coup d?Etat. The opposition rejected this, saying police had attacked a peaceful protest. A police statement said the deaths were under investigation, adding: «We don?t know if they were policemen or protesters.»

About 2,000 protesters stayed on in a square in the centre of Yerevan armed with metal rods and Molotov cocktails as army trucks headed towards the capital of the former Soviet republic, lying in a Caucasus mountains region emerging as a key transit route for Caspian Sea oil and gas supplies.

But the crowd melted away after a message was read out from Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the protest leader and defeated challenger in the election, urging his supporters to go home. «I do not want any victims and clashes between police and innocent people», said Ter-Petrosyan, a former president who since Saturday has been barred by police from leaving his home.

He said he would negotiate with the government, reversing a previous stance that talks were out of the question unless the election result was overturned.

Deaths investigated

A hard-core of about 60 protesters initially refused to go home and set fire to police jeeps abandoned after the clashes.

By early morning, the army had taken over all main state buildings in Yerevan. Several military trucks and dozens of soldiers patrolled the city centre, a Reuters witness said. Protesters had burned cars, looted grocery stores and smashed windows in main streets. «It?s a nightmare. Look at what they?ve done to our city», 25-year-old student Emma Karapetyan said. «I hate both opposition leaders and our authorities.»

The violence was the worst in the country of 3.2 million since 1998, when a mass uprising forced Ter-Petrosyan to resign. Sarksyan?s opponents accuse him of winning the presidential vote by ballot-rigging and intimidation. He denies this and Western observers said the vote had been broadly fair. The political fault-line centers on accusations by Ter-Petrosyan?s supporters that Kocharyan has run a crony state where only those with ties to the ruling elite have access to business opportunities and decent jobs.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States had contacted both sides and was urging them to «avoid further violence, act fully within the law, exercise maximum restraint, and resume political dialogue». The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it «condemned the use of force against peaceful demonstrators».

When the violence erupted on Saturday, demonstrators armed with metal rods and sticks pelted police with Molotov cocktails, setting cars ablaze.

Margarita ANTIDZE