Interfax
Nov 17 2004
Armenia against UN involvement in Nagorno-Karabakh issue
Yerevan. (Interfax-AVN) – Armenia expressed disapproval on Tuesday of
any international body except the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) being involved in efforts to settle the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“Either Armenia continues negotiations with Azerbaijan within the
framework of the Minsk Group of the OSCE and in the context of the
agreements that have been reached or Azerbaijan should hold
negotiations with Nagorno-Karabakh or with Armenia with the
participation of the Karabakh side,” Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanian told reporters.
He said UN resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh proposed by Azerbaijan
would be an obstacle to the settlement process.
“If Azerbaijan wishes to remove individual tasks and solutions from
the total package of the Karabakh settlement process and to lobby
them with organizations that have nothing to do with the settlement
of the Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan should in that case hold
negotiations either with Nagorno-Karabakh or with Armenia with the
participation of the Karabakh side,” he said.
Earlier, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammedyarov told
Interfax: “The inclusion of an item on the situation on the occupied
territories of Azerbaijan in the UN General Assembly agenda will
exercise nothing but a positive effect on the negotiation process.”
“We take the view that the debate in the UN by no means replaces
debates in the OSCE Minsk Group,” he said.
“It is difficult to see the negotiations as frank when, along with
them, the Armenian side is populating occupied territories in
Azerbaijan, including beyond the administrative border of Nagorno-
Karabakh,” he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Interfax
Nov 17 2004
Armenia to sign 50% ZMMK sale deal with Cronimet soon
Yerevan. (Interfax) – During a working visit to Germany November
17-19, Armenian President Robert Kocharian is expected to sign a deal
with the German company Cronimet for 50% of the stock in Zangezursky
Copper and Molybdenum Plant, or ZMMK, a source familiar with the
negotiation process told Interfax.
Cronimet and Comsup Commodities, which is in line to buy the other
50% stake in ZMMK, each paid the Armenian government $12.5 million in
security for exclusive negotiations for the enterprise.
The government set ZMMK’s price at $130 million, and each of the two
companies is to pay half that for their 50% stakes.
Cronimet owns 48% of the stock in Yerevan’s Chistoye Zhelezo (Pure
Iron), which processes molybdenum concentrate produced by ZMMK.

New Britain Herald, CT
Nov 17 2004
Fay Vincent may speak at chamber event
By SCOTT WHIPPLE, Staff Writer
NEW BRITAIN — At Yale Law School, they were as close as the three
musketeers. Following graduation, they went their separate ways.
Bart Giamatti became commissioner of Major League Baseball. Fay
Vincent, a securities lawyer, ran Columbia Pictures for nearly 10
years before succeeding Giamatti as commissioner in 1989 following
his death. Harry Mazadoorian became a published author and law
professor at Quinnipiac University.

On Thursday, Mazadoorian will receive the New Britain Chamber of
Commerce’s prestigious Distinguished Community Service Award. Vincent
will be on hand for the celebration, and may say a few words on
behalf of his long-time friend.
“There are few people you meet in life about whom nobody says
anything bad,” Vincent said Tuesday. “To my knowledge, nobody has
ever said anything bad about Harry. Everyone likes him.”
Vincent said he and Giamatti used to call Mazadoorian “the designated
friend” after baseball’s designated hitter.
“The three of us had a lot in common,” Vincent said. “We’re all
ethnic. Harry’s Armenian; Bart was Italian; I’m Irish. We were all
from families that didn’t have much to start with. Harry’s family
worked for (The) Stanley Works; my grandfather worked for Scoville’s
in the factory.”
Vincent said that although Mazadoorian has become a significant
figure, he’s never changed.
“He’s always been very likable, very smart,” he said. “And he loves
New Britain.”
Mazadoorian and Vincent talk every day. Often, they chat about
baseball.
In September 1992, baseball owners voted 18-9 for Vincent’s
resignation. Vincent had ordered New York Yankees owner George
Steinbrenner to resign as the club’s general partner. Steinbrenner
had made a $40,000 payment to confessed gambler Howard Spira for
damaging information about Yankee star Dave Winfield.
“I liked having a job where part of it was going to baseball games,”
Vincent said. “I liked hanging around the ballparks, talking to the
umpires, managers and players.”
What he didn’t like were “the politics, the back-stabbing owners, and
all the anonymous quotes about me in the newspapers.”
Vincent spent the summer of 1956 at George W. Bush’s boyhood home in
Midland, Texas. He worked for George H.W. Bush in the oil fields that
summer and lived with the Bushes. The president was 9 years old then,
playing Little League baseball, and hardly a major league scout’s
dream candidate. When Bush owned the Texas Rangers, Vincent told him,
“You’d better be nice to me. Remember, I saw you play Little League
baseball.”
Barbara and George Bush were hospitable to Vincent that summer.
When Vincent got elected baseball commissioner, President George H.W.
Bush called to wish him well.
“If I had known you were going to become baseball commissioner when
you were working for me in the oil fields back in Texas, I would have
been a lot nicer to you,” Bush allegedly said.
Vincent replied, “Mr. President, if I had known you were going to be
president, I would have been a lot nicer to you.”
To Vincent, George H.W. Bush has always been a hero.
“I look up to him,” he said. “And, Georgie, his son — as we used to
call him — has come on to be a great man. I admire him, too.”
On Thursday, Vincent’s wife, Christina, will accompany him to the
awards dinner at the Student Center ballroom of Central Connecticut
State University. He said he hopes Mike Halloran, another Yale Law
School grad and gridiron great from New Britain High School, will be
at his table to cheer Mazadoorian on.

Daily Californian, California
Nov 17 2004
Efficient Vertical Wind Turbines Developed
Wind Turbines Provide More Power, Reduced Maintenance Compared To
Traditional Models
By NATALIYA ROVENSKAYA
Contributing Writer

Berkeley researchers have helped to fashion a wind turbine that can
provide power at a more efficient rate, with lower noise and
maintenance and fewer bird fatalities than traditional windmills.
This month, the researchers collaborated with engineers in Russia,
who have been working to establish 1-kilowatt and 3-kilowatt wind
turbines in barren locations.
The vertical turbine blades spin at about twice the speed of the
wind, much lower than the tip speeds of horizontal turbine blades.
The faster tip speed makes the blade both noisy and dangerous to
birds – many species of birds are being killed by wind farms, leading
land stakeholders to find a solution.
`The blades travel at roughly 40 mph in a 20 mph wind, so if the
blades are made plainly visible, birds should be able to see and
avoid the blades most of the time,’ said Glen Dahlbacka, researcher
in the Department of Energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory.
Dahlbacka and fellow researcher Joseph Rasson traveled to Russia to
inspect the 3-kilowatt turbine unit.
Infrequent high storm winds cause the blades to spin faster than
researchers intend, so the turbines are shut down on storm days.
The vertical turbine system has an alternator designed to spin at the
speed of the turbine and generate about 200 volts of energy. The
alternator and turbine are a single moving part of the system and
lead to reduced maintenance requirements.
A computer controls the speed of the turbine and keeps it operating
at a maximum efficiency for a given wind speed.
The researchers are expecting success and they believe the Russian
market alone will guarantee this. Projects are also being conducted
in Khazistan, Armenia, Ukraine and Georgia, and all have a U.S.
industrial partner involved. Empire Magnets will attempt to
commercialize the wind turbines in the United States and in
California and New York especially, as these states, according to
Dahlbacka, have good rebate and tax structures for renewable energy.
The researchers are expecting the first windmills to arrive in
February and March.
`The city of Berkeley has even offered a site for a demonstration
wind turbine near the Marina. Around the Bay Area the environmental
conditions are among the most favorable you can imagine.’ Dahlbacka
said.
The windmills are also convenient because they are suitable for both
residential and ranch areas. Since Russia has a lot of remote open
space that can be used for wind power generation, there have been
many requests from people who live in Russian country houses or
villas, called dachas.
`The 1-kilowatt wind turbine is very good for nomadic cultures
because it is designed to be disassembled and put in the trunk of a
car or equivalent space and taken from place to place,’ Dahlbacka
said.
In the next year researchers plan to field 30 of the units in
environments from Siberia to the Altai Mountains and from British
Columbia to the Mohave to test the systems in extreme conditions of
wind, temperature and precipitation.

Baku Today
Nov 17 2004
Energy Ministers of Caspian/Black Sea Region Discuss Cooperation with
EU
The international conference with the participation of Energy
Ministers of the Caspian/Black Sea basin countries, opened in the
Hyatt Regency Hotel in Baku, last Saturday.
The conference was organized at the initiative of Francois Lamorod,
General Director of the Euroðean Commission for Transðort and Energy,
Turan reported today.
The conference was aimed at the development of cooperation for
increasing the safety of power suððlies from the Casðian/Black Sea
region to the EU countries, as well as at develoðment of energy
sector of countries of the region under the EU assistance.
The conference was attended by Energy Ministers of Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkey,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekstan. Armenia was reðresented by Levon
Vardanyan, head of foreign relations deðartment of the Ministry for
Energy of Armenia. In his interview with Azeri journalists, he said
that Armenia was ready to sell its electricity to the Nakhchivan
Autonomous Reðublic in Azerbaijan.
A joint declaration was adoðted by the results of the meeting.

PRESS RELEASE
Ref: PR/04/11/014
Assembly of Armenians of Europe
Contact: Armine Grigoryan
Rue de Trèves 10, 1050, Brussels
Tel : +32 2 647 08 01
Fax : +32 2 647 02 00
Turkish denialism of Armenians in the capital of Europe
“Mothers, Goddesses and Sultans”- but not Armenians
17/11/2004, Brussels – The Palace of Fine Arts of Brussels (Belgium)
hosts the exhibition on Turkey `Mothers, Goddesses and Sultans’ which
will last from October 06 2004 to January 16 2005. The exhibition
accounts pieces from the collection of the Topkapi Palace (Turkey),
Louvre, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the museums of Berlin and
the most important museums in Turkey. This exhibition is organized
with the mutual agreement of the prime ministers of Belgium and Turkey
in order to introduce the Belgian and European society with the
cultural values and the history of Turkey and intends to emphasize the
European vocation of Turkey.
The leaflet on the exhibition distributed to the visitors at the
entrance of the Palace of Fine Arts says `We encounter the peoples,
who have left their traces in Anatolia in the course of 9000
years. The journey takes us through such renowned cultures as the
Hitties, Greek and Roman antiquity, Byzantium and the Ottomans’. From
the first sight one may find the absence of the Armenians and Armenian
culture in Anatolia very strange, since for centuries the Eastern
Anatolia was the cradle of Armenians and it is also called the
Armenian Plateau[i]. Even during the Ottoman Empire Armenians
represented a sizeable and dynamic part of the ottoman population,
particularly in Istanbul and other urban centre, and their omission in
this exhibition is quite deliberate on the part of the Turkish
organizers. But the most interesting piece of the exhibition is the
map of the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1923, without any mention of
the Armenians or Armenian Republic (the first Armenian Republic, 1918
– 1920) and Greece (independence of Greece recognized by the Ottoman
Empire in 1832). No expert or historian would dare to make a single
map to represent such a complex region over for such a long period of
time (1299 – 1923), since the movement of borders has been radical
over the period considered, and at times extremely rapid.
The Ottomans fought against the neighboring Byzantine State, crossed
into Rumelia and then captured Constantinople in 1453 during the reign
of Sultan Mehmed II (1451-1481)[ii], putting an end to the Byzantine
Empire. The Ottomans fought with the Serbs, Bulgarians, Hungarians,
Venetians, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Britain, the Vatican, Spain
and also France and Russia. During the reign of Sultan Selim I
(1512-1520), Egypt was conquered and the “Caliphate” passed from the
Abbasids to the Ottoman dynasty. During the reign of Suleyman the
Magnificent (1520-1566) the borders of the Empire extended from the
Crimea in the North to Yemen and Sudan in the South, and from Iran and
the Caspian Sea in the East to Vienna in the Northwest and Spain in
the Southwest[iii].
However, the Ottoman Empire lost its economic and military superiority
vis-a-vis Europe, which had developed rapidly with the Renaissance and
the geographical discoveries starting with the sixteenth century and
failed to adapt to the new developments. Thus, the balance of power
shifted in favor of the European States starting in the same century.
The nationalist movements that started in the nineteenth century and
the rebellions of the Balkan nations organized and supported by the
European States and Russia, brought about the emergence of independent
states within the Ottoman territories in the Balkans.
The Russian field marshal M.I. Kutuzov’s victorious campaign of
1811-12 forced the Turks to cede Bessarabia to Russia by the Treaty of
Bucharest (May 28, 1812).
Agha Mohammad Khan (Iran, reigned 1779-97), had reasserted Iranian
sovereignty over the former Iranian territories in Georgia and the
Caucasus. Fath ‘Ali (Iran, reigned 1797-1834). attempted to maintain
Iran’s sovereignty over its new territories, but he was disastrously
defeated by Russia in two wars (1804-13, 1826-28) and thus lost
Georgia, Armenia.
Subsequent wars of Russia with Turkey were fought to gain influence in
the Ottoman Balkans, win control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus
straits, and expand into the Caucasus. The Greeks’ struggle for
independence sparked the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, in which
Russian forces advanced into Bulgaria, the Caucasus, and northeastern
Anatolia itself before the Turks sued for peace. The resulting Treaty
of Edirne (Sept. 14, 1829) gave Russia most of the eastern shore of
the Black Sea, and Turkey recognized Russian sovereignty over Georgia
and parts of present-day Armenia. Furthermore, in the Balkans, the
Ottomans acknowledged Greece as an autonomous but tributary state,
granting autonomy to Serbia, and recognized the autonomy of the
Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Walachia under Russian
tutelage. In 1832, the Turkish Sultan finally recognized the Greek
Independence and Prince Otto had accepted the crown
In 1918 the Republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan declared
their independence from Russia which lasted until 1920. From 1920 to
1923 the three countries of South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Georgia) were merged into Transcaucasian Federated Republic. The first
independent Republic of Armenia was also recognized by the Ottoman
Empire.
The above-mentioned historical facts prove the presence of the
Armenians in the region which should not be ignored. It is very
strange to see the name of `Azerbaijan’ on the map, while the names of
Armenia and Greece are absent. As reported by Radio Free Europe, the
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman called for Azerbaijan’s (the
closest ally of the Republic of Turkey) takeover of the entire
territory of Armenia and removal of the entire Armenian population
from the Caucasus. He went so far as to say, and we quote, `Within the
next 25 years there will exist no state of Armenia in the South
Caucasus’. This inevitably reminds of the intentions of the
perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. In this context the negationism
of the Armenians is not a simple mistake or lack of professionalism by
the organizers of the exhibition, but has its roots go back into the
beginning of the 20th century – the Armenian Genocide committed by the
Ottoman Empire in 1915. The Armenian Genocide is still denied by the
Republic of Turkey, which also imposes a blockade on the Republic of
Armenia for more than 10 years. Therefore, the radical exclusion of
Armenians from ottoman history is consistent with the genocide carried
out in 1915-1916 and it has been the practice in Turkey since the
establishment of the republic in 1923.
The negationism and the denial of the Armenian Genocide are also
reflected in the premeditated annihilation of Armenian cultural
heritage in the territory of the actual Republic of
Turkey. Sourb. Arakelots[iv] (of the Holy Apostles) Church of Kars
turned into a mosque in 1998. The church of Tekor[v] which was erected
in the 5th c. and was standing until 1956 served as a target during
the artillery trainings of the Turkish army. The monastery of
St. Karapet[vi] was plundered and partly devastated in 1915. During
the artillery trainings of the Turkish troops in the 1960s the
monument turned into a heap of stones which were later used for the
foundation of a village in the same place; the carvings of the
Akhatamar Church (Lake Van, Eastern Turkey) is nowadays used for
shooting practice for the visitors, etc. So, after some decades there
will not be any evidence or trace of the Armenians in the region.
The Assembly of Armenians of Europe considers such negationist and
revisionist attitude of the Republic of Turkey, aspiring to the EU
full membership unacceptable. We believe that such behaviour
destabilizes the whole region of South Caucasus and impedes the
normalization of Armeno-Turkish relations. Moreover, the extension of
this denialist approach to an exhibition carried out in Belgium, in
partnership with Belgian institutions, is a worrying sign at a moment
when Turkey is pressing to join the European community of values. The
Assembly of Armenians of Europe is sure that this is an attempt of the
Turkish authorities to force their own denialist approach on an
unsuspecting European public.
_____
[i] Mustafa Ibn-Abdullah (1609-57), the first and foremost Turkish
goegrapher. In his most important oeuvre `Miror of the World’ (Jehan
Numa) he writes about Armenia (folio 121a) – `Armenia consists of 2
parts, Maior and Minor=85.’
[ii]
[iii] < 0index.html>
sh/sultans/10index.html
[iv] < ots_Galery.htm>
rakelots/Arakelots_Galery.htm
[v] < ry.htm>
or_Galery.htm
[vi] < t_Galery.htm>
arapet/Karapet_Galery.htm

Shattered lives
Le Monde diplomatique
November 2004
Since the “war against terrorism” has been allowed to dominate the
international agenda, we would expect a rekindled interest in arms
controls and renewed efforts to prevent arms reaching those who commit
abuses. Yet the reverse has happened. European countries, and others,
claim to base their arms-export criteria on respect for human rights;
the US has a specific law, the Leahy Amendments, to ban military aid and
training for units of foreign security forces that commit human rights
abuses. Yet these principles are swept aside in the “war against terrorism”.
In June 2002 the G8 (1) allocated $20bn and agreed a global partnership
to prevent terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction. But it
failed to address the proliferation of conventional weapons, including
small arms, to states and armed groups that it knows will use such
weapons to terrorise civilian populations.
After 9/11 the US government massively increased military aid to many
countries. Some recipients are armed forces that have gravely violated
human rights and have been identified in the State Department’s human
rights report as having a poor record or worse. Recipients include
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Israel, Nepal,
Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.
In Azerbaijan, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Yugoslavia, sanctions
were lifted. In other countries, restrictions were relaxed. In the year
after 9/11 security assistance and related aid from the US to Uzbekistan
increased by $45m. In Pakistan it soared from $3.5m to $1.3bn.
Violations of human rights – torture, deaths in custody and
extra-judicial killings – by members of security and paramilitary forces
in those countries continue. In March 2002 the US administration
introduced an emergency supplemental defence authorisation bill that
sought to lift restrictions on Indonesia and Colombia.
Close US allies, such as the UK government, appeared to follow. The
value of British arms cleared for export to Indonesia rose from £2m in
2000 to over £40m in 2002 (2). The main arms exporters in Europe –
Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Sweden – accounted for 33% of
international contracts for transfers signed between 1994 and 2001 (3).
The EU’s market share was smaller than that of the US or Russia, but it
has increased since 1 May, with enlargement adding 10 new members. Some
new states are large arms producers and exporters. The EU is now home to
more than 400 companies in 23 countries manufacturing small arms and
light weapons – hardly less than the US.
The EU code of conduct adopted in 1998, and its application, leave much
to be desired. Many reports have been received of (old or new) EU member
states exporting military, security or police equipment and know-how,
often in great secrecy, to countries that use these things to violate
human rights. At the same time private military companies contracted to
carry out tasks on behalf of governments or opposition forces
increasingly play a critical part in the supply of arms and support for
regimes. PMCs are often ideally placed to import arms. They are in
contact with governments, arms dealers and manufacturers and air freight
companies. One firm supplied arms to both parties in the conflict in
Sierra Leone.
PMCs are gaining in number and influence, and many commentators think
that the war on terror will speed this up. During the 1990s the US
government often used private military consultants or authorised them to
train police forces and troops in 24 countries; it failed to ensure that
training encouraged strict compliance with international humanitarian
law and law on human rights.
Taken from Amnesty International sources, including “Shattered Lives”,
published in 2003 by Amnesty International and Oxfam. The full text is
at <;. NOTES (1) Germany, Canada, US, Russia, France, Italy, Japan, UK. (2) The Guardian, London, 1 July 2003. (3) See "Conventional arms transfers to developing nations, 1994-2001", Congressional Research Service, Washington, August 2002.

The business of war
World domination with horse and bow
The collective memory of Asia remembers the apocalyptic advances of the
Mongol armies of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who rode out of the steppes
and eventually dominated the Euro-Asian landmass from Poland to the
southern tip of Korea, Siberia to India.
Le Monde diplomatique
November 2004
By Christian de Brie
We usually agree that the 20th century was the most murderous in human
history. Certainly the death toll amounted to many millions in two world
wars and other conflicts. War crimes and crimes against humanity
culminated in the genocide of Europe’s Jews. Weapons of mass
destruction, including the nuclear bomb, were used against civilians who
had come to be regarded as legitimate targets. It seems logical to call
the century the “age of extremes” given the scale of devastation, the
number of victims and the barbarity of their killers (1).
But extreme compared to what? Surveying the past millennium, it is
possible to discover short periods of peace in specific areas or at
least to subscribe to the myth that war was once clean. But examining
the whole globe over the same time produces a less appealing overview.
In all of those thousand years, there was not one when the whole world
was at peace. We find instead a list of conflicts: invasions and
conquests; tribal, ethnic, feudal, dynastic, nationalist, colonial and
imperialist struggles; civil and religious wars; peasant revolts;
guerrilla campaigns; wars of liberation; revolts and revolutions;
banditry and piracy. Most of the estimated 40 billion human beings who
lived during the past millennium would have had to endure at least one
war in their short lives (2) The shared experiences of all – and 90% of
that 40 billion have been peasants (3) – were exploitation, poverty,
ignorance and subjection. They lived in permanent insecurity, burdened
by toil and taxation, scraping a living between one destructive conflict
and the next, the prey and the booty of a minority of greedy predators:
feudal lords, landowners and money-lenders.
A succession of tyrants rode on their backs: kings and emperors,
sultans, shahs and shoguns, generalissimos and caudillos, desirous of
glory, power and riches, and prepared to commit any atrocity to secure
or hang on to them; there were presidents, princes, barons, ministers
and viziers, popes and caliphs driven by unappeasable hatreds. All of
them perpetually at war in the name of God, civilisation, flag or party.
Nothing was different then from now. Peace and relative prosperity have
always been the fleeting privilege of the few. The fortunate 10% of
humanity who have lived in western Europe and North America during the
past 50 years should have no illusions; even during that time more than
100 wars have raged over the rest of the planet. Some have been savage
(4); others of what we choose to call “low intensity”. All have spared
the westerners who so often instigated and participated in them and who
should ask themselves what “low intensity” really means when half a
family has been killed and the other half brutally exiled, left to rot
in a refugee camp with no hope of return to a destroyed home.
Despite 200 wars and a 200 million bodycount – 2% of world population
(5) – the 20th century did not differ much from those that went before.
The whole millennium shared what we regard as the unique characteristics
of the 20th century: massacres of populations; deportations and death
marches; extermination camps and the systematic murder of prisoners;
rape, torture and summary executions; the use of terror to extinguish
resistance; the subjection and enslavement of survivors. Towns,
villages, fields and means of production were looted and burned.
Survivors, prey to banditry and civil war, fled from famines and
epidemics more deadly than the initial carnage.
In the West many of these horrors were perpetrated in the name of
messianic and racist ideologies, following a precedent set by the god of
the Judaeo-Christian Old Testament, who might today be liable to
prosecution before the International Criminal Tribunal (6).
At any time and in any place, war and mass death were the common
denominators of an inhuman history that did not have to wait for
industrialised warfare, improvements in lethal technology and the
invention of factories of death to make fast and easy the killing of so
many. The last genocide of the 20th century was that of 900,000 Rwandan
Tutsis, which lasted 90 days between April and June 1994; 10,000 a day
exterminated by the machete just as efficiently as by the gas chamber.
Two apocalyptic progressions in the past millennium deserve special
mention for their duration, extent and cruelty. From the 13th to the
15th centuries, the armies of Genghis Khan and Timur Lenk – Tamerlane –
successfully globalised misery across Eurasia from the Pacific to the
Danube, and through China, India and the Middle East, where the biggest
populations and the most advanced civilisations were concentrated. The
Mongols do not haunt western European history: but Chinese, Hindu,
Persian, Arab and Slav chroniclers and historians all described their
contribution to the collective memory of the East (7). (The second
apocalypse, just as destructive, accompanied the conquest of the world
by great European powers between the 16th and 20th centuries.) Genghis
Khan took almost 30 years to force Mongolia’s many tribes to stop
warring with each other and unite under his iron rule, but barely 20
years, between 1205 and 1227, for his 150,000-strong unified tribal
forces to sweep from the Pacific to the Black Sea, leaving tens of
millions dead. (In fact western Europe was spared invasion only at the
last moment by his death.) The destruction began with the genocide of
the Tangut people of the Western Xia empire in northwest China. The
Mongols razed many prosperous towns and reduced provinces to arid
steppes, killing as they passed through: eventually they slaughtered
some 600,000 Tanguts.
Then they threatened the Jin empire in northeast China. In the spring of
1211 the Mongols destroyed a Jin army of 500,000 north of the Great
Wall; their sun-bleached bones could still be seen stretching to the
horizon a decade later. The Mongols descended upon the empire itself,
massacring the inhabitants of its capital and driving terror-stricken
refugees before them as they devastated its provinces.
In 1215 the Mongols besieged and captured Beijing; 60,000 women were
said to have jumped to their deaths from the 50km walls that encircled
the vast city. Tens of thousands, weakened by famine and even reduced to
cannibalism, were butchered, while just as many died in epidemics,
particularly of typhus. The invaders stopped only long enough to loot
and burn the city before abandoning it, leaving encumbered by their
stolen women, boys, gold, precious stones and silks. The few citizens
left alive struggled to survive among ashes and corpses, without food,
water or shelter.
Famine spread to other provinces. Millions of Chinese joined those who
had fled the Mongols. The chaos bred corruption, banditry and guerrilla
warfare. Peasant risings were put down viciously. For decades
afterwards, the area under cultivation in China shrank, towns and
villages were ruined and insecurity and force dominated social
relations. The pattern had been set and repeated itself across the world
to the present day.
Genghis Khan’s third campaign was the worst. It was directed against the
vast empire of Khwarizm that covered Iran, Uzbekistan, southwest
Kazakhstan and Afghanistan and included magnificent cities: Samarkand,
Bukhara, Balkh, Merv, Nishapur, Herat and Ghazni. Khwarizm was an
advanced civilisation 1,000 years old, but it took the Mongols a mere
two years, 1220-22, to obliterate it. They destroyed long-established
irrigation systems, looted and burned flourishing cities, eradicated
trade and industry, enslaved and deported populations and massacred
millions.
Mongols did not take prisoners. Armies or garrisons who did not die in
battle were executed, usually decapitated. The inhabitants of besieged
cities that had not capitulated quickly enough were dispatched the same
way; their bodies were left as carrion and their heads stacked in huge
pyramids – men in one, women and children in another – a practice
continued by the Ottoman empire (there were echoes of this in the recent
Balkan conflicts). In Nishapur and Herat it was recorded that no head
was left attached to its body; no body retained its head. Every living
being had been killed, even the cats and dogs.
Another Mongol horde rode west to lay waste to Azerbaijan and then they
extirpated the cities of Qom, Zanjan and Qazvin. All the citizens of
Hamadan had their throats cut. Georgia was destroyed, its armies cut to
pieces; a coalition of Russian princes was annihilated at the Battle of
the Kalka River on 31 May 1222. Common prisoners were executed as usual;
captive princes were trampled to death by the Mongols’ horses. Russian
history remembers the battle as the beginning of two centuries of
subjection to the Golden Horde.
Genghis died in 1227. But after carving up his empire, his successors
expanded it through the same methods. For a century and a half local
feudal lords, collaborators keen to serve their new masters, helped them
impose their dominion upon subject nations and exact tribute. Between
1237 and 1241 the Mongols rode across central Europe. Elite knights and
formidable armies could not save the kings and princes of Bulgaria,
Hungary, Russia, Poland and Germany. The Mongols swept north into
Russia; half the citizens of fallen Ryazan had their throats cut, the
rest were burned. Belgorod, Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal, Rostov, Yaroslavl
fell and were destroyed.
Western Europe had remained indifferent until the refugees brought their
stories of a race of cruel monsters from the other side of the world;
they responded by mobilising 40,000 soldiers and Teutonic knights. The
Mongol army outnumbered them two to one and wiped them out near Legnica
in southwest Poland. The Mongols paraded the head of the western leader,
Henry of Silesia, on a lance and sent the Khan Ogedei 500 sackfuls of
ears. In just three weeks the Mongols reduced the countryside to
infertility and killed much of its population. King Bela IV of Hungary
had sent 100,000 warriors; they all died, and half Hungary’s population
perished in months. The Mongols were within striking distance of the
Rhine, Vienna and Venice, when they paused to gather their forces for a
final offensive. History would have been different but for the death of
Ogedei and the dynastic disputes that ensued.
The Mongols invaded the powerful Seljuk empire and laid waste to
Anatolia. From conquered Khwarizm they launched devastating expeditions
against Kashmir and Punjab, although they did not manage to subdue the
sultanate of Delhi, despite a 25-year campaign.
The Abbasid caliphate was next. In 1258, after destroying its armies,
the Mongols besieged its capital Baghdad, a wealthy city of almost 1
million inhabitants. Once inside they looted for eight days, killed the
citizens and tortured the caliph, leader of the faithful and descendant
of the Prophet. (Christendom rejoiced to see Islam defeated.) The
Ayyubid dynasty of Syria fell in 1259-60. The Mongols burned their way
from Aleppo to Gaza by way of Damascus and its Great Mosque, with the
enthusiastic support of Christian troops from Armenia and the complicity
of the vestigial crusader kingdom (8) along the Mediterranean coast. The
only country to escape was Egypt, the last bastion of Islam, where Saint
Louis (9) had been captured by the Mamluks 10 years earlier.
However, the Mongols’ success in southeast Asia was limited; despite
destructive campaigns, they were unable to hold Burma, Cambodia, Champa
or Annam. Korea mobilised every man aged between 16 and 60, a force of
300,000. The Mongols destroyed this drafted army, but it took them
another decade to subdue the guerrillas and suppress Korean national
resistance.
In 1234 the remnants of the Jin empire in northern China finally
collapsed; famine and plague had killed a million people. The Mongols
stormed on south to attack the Song empire, cradle of Chinese culture
and the densest concentration of people on the planet. The Mongols
occupied its great cities. But it took them decades to unify all China
under their rule; the resulting Yuan dynasty lasted only from 1279-1367
and was never accepted by a constantly rebellious population, which was
reduced from 100 million to 60 million during 75 years of war. A former
Buddhist monk, Zhu Yuanzhang, led a revolt that started in the south and
finally, after years of guerrilla warfare, expelled the Mongols. He
proclaimed himself emperor and inaugurated the Ming dynasty, which
lasted three centuries. His own 30-year reign was one of the most
tyrannical and bloody in China’s history.
Although the decadent Mongol empire then became locked in internal
disputes and dynastic murder, its role was taken by a new horde: the
nomadic Turkish riders led by Timur Lenk (Timur the Lame, known in the
West as Tamerlane, or Tamburlaine in Christopher Marlowe’s play
Tamburlaine the Great) after 1370. They followed the route of another
scourge, the Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague that had
originated in the steppes of the northern Crimea in 1347, spread through
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to Byzantium, Syria, Egypt, North
Africa and western Europe.
In two years the plague killed between a third and a half of affected
populations; even Timur, who was a master of treachery, took 35 years to
achieve a body count equal to the bacilli. His black legend surpassed
even that of the Mongols, from whom he claimed descent. He combined
their savagery with the fanaticism of a proclaimed warrior for Islam.
However, most of his victims were Muslims. He carved his way through
Iran, the Caucasus, Russia, India, Syria and the Ottoman empire,
levelling them all to unpeopled deserts and never stopping for a moment
to occupy or exploit the conquered territories. He had only two
interests: the combat between nomadic horsemen and settlement-based
infantry and the subsequent destruction of the latter. The conclusion
was foregone: “What”, he is said to have wondered, “can foals and
heifers do against tigers and wolves?” His hordes employed the same
methods as the Mongols. Had not both been divinely appointed to wage war
in order to proclaim a universal peace under their authority? Behind
their horses and baggage carts walked thousands of captives, looted
human beings – mostly skilled artisans, women and trainable boys, who
might be sold into slavery or killed if they proved more trouble than
they were worth; Timur once ordered 100,000 slaughtered in a session
outside Delhi. Or they might be used as human shields, driven before the
front line to cushion the enemy’s charge or pushed in waves towards the
walls of besieged cities.
Timur’s hordes used terror and rumours of terror to project themselves
as inhuman and invincible, thus destroying any will to resist. “One
day,” according to the historian Ibn al-Athir, “a single Mongol horseman
rode into a village and began to kill its inhabitants one by one. Yet
nobody dared to defend themselves. On another occasion an unarmed Mongol
instructed a man who had surrendered to him to lie on the ground and not
to move. He fetched a sabre and killed him” (10).
Herat, Sabzevar, Zahedan, Kandahar, Shiraz, Isfahan, Baghdad, Moscow,
Vladimir, Astrakhan, Sarai, Lahore, Multan, Delhi, Aleppo, Homs,
Baalbek, Damascus and Izmir were looted and destroyed; anything of
beauty, animal or mineral, was plundered. Timur liked to build towers
and pyramids with human heads mortared in spaces between their stones or
bricks; 90,000 at Baghdad, 70,000 at Isfahan, 100,000 at Delhi. He
flayed Hindus alive. He amputated the hands and feet of Christians
before decapitating them or buried them alive (4,000 Armenians in
Anatolia), or burned them inside their churches. Of course we can
comfort ourselves by saying the hordes were savage outsiders; but
Genghis Khan’s European contemporaries, the Christian knights of the
Crusades, behaved no better. King Richard I, the Lionheart, was proud to
hang the heads of his enemies round the neck of his horse; at Acre he
immediately went back on his sworn word and had 5,000 Saracen prisoners
beheaded.
And the European continent was eager to take up the expansive cruelties
of Genghis and Timur, to terrifying effect. From the 16th to the 20th
centuries – just as Europe was tearing itself apart in religious,
dynastic and nationalist wars – the hordes of European Christendom laid
waste to the planet, massacring, deporting, enslaving and exploiting the
populations of America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. All in the name of God
and civilisation.
NOTES
(1) See Eric J Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, The Short Twentieth
Century, 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London, 1994, and Abacus, London, 1995.
(2) Gaston Bouthoul, Les Guerres, éléments de polémologie, Payot, Paris,
1951.
(3) This was true until the middle of the 19th century. However, by the
end of the millennium, demographic pressures and the worldwide exodus
from the countryside had reduced the figure to 50%.
(4) Three million were killed in Korea 1950-53; 3.5 million in
Indochina/ Vietnam, 1945-75; 2 million in Algeria, 1954-62.
(5) Some 10 billion individuals are estimated to have lived during the
20th century.
(6) See, in particular, the Book of Deuteronomy.
(7) See René Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, A History of Central
Asia, Barnes & Noble, 1997; and Jean-Paul Roux, Genghis Khan and the
Mongol Empire, Thames & Hudson, London, 2003.
(8) The kingdom in Jerusalem had been established in 1099 after the
First Crusade. In 1187 Jerusalem fell to Saladin and by 1260 the
crusaders controlled only a narrow strip along the eastern coast of the
Mediterranean.
(9) Louis IX, king of France from 1226 to 1270, led the unsuccessful
seventh Crusade against Egypt, where he was captured and ransomed in 1250.
(10) Jean-Paul Roux, Histoire de l’empire mongol, Fayard, Paris, 1993.
Translated by Donald Hounam

Turkey: welcome to Europe
Le Monde diplomatique
November 2004
By Ignacio Ramonet
The debate about Turkey’s impending membership of the European Union –
planned for 2015 – has been characterised by overblown rhetoric and lack
of finesse. Framed in terms of the “clash of civilisations”, it
testifies to the identity crisis of western societies when faced with
Islam. It also reveals the anti-Islamic sentiment lurking in almost
every sector of the political classes.
Some have advanced “technical” arguments against Turkish entry,
reckoning that Europe will instinctively reject the membership of a
large country with a Muslim majority. They argue that Turkey should be
disqualified because of its geography, since much of the country is in
Asia Minor. This is absurd. French Guyana in Latin America and Réunion
in the middle of the Indian Ocean are both part of the European Union.
We should remember that the Aegean coast of Turkey, the location of
ancient Troy, was the east wing of ancient Greece, the cradle of
European civilisation. (We wonder what “technical” arguments will be put
forward to prevent the membership of two other countries with Muslim
majorities, Bosnia and Albania, whose geographic place in Europe is
undeniable.)
Others invoke history. The European commissioner Frits Bolkestein
recently went so far as to say that if Turkey is admitted to the EU “the
liberation of Vienna [after the siege by the Turks] in 1683 will have
been in vain” (1). (During that siege the Viennese, known for their
excellent bakeries, had to ration flour; they made small bread rolls
shaped like the crescent moon symbol of the Ottoman empire. Most people
think of these familiar pastries – croissants – as typically French.)
The Ottoman empire, as successor to the Byzantine empire, had ambitions
to dominate the Mediterranean and Europe, a project that was shattered
several times, especially at the Battle of Lepanto in 1521. But such
ambitions do not mean that Turkey is anti-European by nature. Other
countries – notably Spain, France and Germany – also cherished projects
for subjugating the continent, and nobody would suggest that they are
not truly European.
Like the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, which vanished from
history, and the colonial empires, which were all dismembered,
overextended military campaigns wore out the Ottoman empire by the
beginning of the 20th century (which is why it was called “the sick man
of Europe”). Having lost its possessions in the Balkans and the Arab
world, the new Turkey founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk embarked
resolutely on Europeanisation.
No country has ever agreed to sacrifice so many fundamental aspects of
its culture in order to affirm its European identity. Modern Turkey went
so far as to abandon its old Arabic alphabet, replacing it with Roman
letters; Turks were obliged to abandon traditional dress and wear
western clothing; and, in the name of an official secularism inspired by
a law passed in France in 1905, Islam ceased to be the state religion.
Throughout the 20th century Turkey continually consolidated its European
character. In the early 1950s it joined Nato and later the Council of
Europe. By 1963 General de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer had recognised
its suitability as a candidate for membership of Europe. A customs
treaty was signed in 1995. Once the European Council meetings in
Helsinki (1999) and Copenhagen (2002) had confirmed that Turkey could
apply for membership (2), Ankara embarked on silent revolution to fulfil
the necessary criteria.
Turkey has made progress in enacting democratic reforms. The state
security courts are about to be dismantled; the death penalty has been
abolished; juridical tolerance of crimes of honour against women is no
longer allowed; a proposed law for criminalising adultery has been
abandoned. In Kurdish territories the state of emergency has been
lifted; teaching in the Kurdish language is now permitted; a
Kurdish-language TV channel has been set up; and four former MPs
imprisoned for political activity have been released.
There is still much to be done on civil liberties and basic human
rights. Turkey also needs to recognise formally the genocide of the
Armenians in 1915. And an amnesty will be required for ex-fighters of
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to release more than 3,000 of its
imprisoned activists, including its leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
But the prospect of EU membership has already reinforced Turkey’s
democratisation, secularism and respect for human rights. For the other
major countries of the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey’s membership will
provide a concrete message of hope, peace, prosperity and democracy.
NOTES
(1) Financial Times, 8 September 2004.
(2) Under the proposed timetable, negotiations will begin in 2006 and
conclude in 2015.
Translated by Ed Emery

Romania held to 1-1 draw in Armenia
17 November 2004
by Reuters
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Group One leaders Romania, beset by injuries and suspensions, were
held to a 1-1 draw by Armenia in a World Cup qualifier on Wednesday.
A second-half equaliser from Krylya Sovietov Samara defender Karen
Dokhoyan handed hosts Armenia their first point in the group.
Romania lead with 10 points from five games but could be overhauled
later on Wednesday if the Netherlands, as expected, win in Andorra.
Shakhtar Donetsk forward Ciprian Marica fired Romania into a 29th
minute lead after being put clean through. Armenia keeper Edela Bete
got a hand to Marica’s low shot but could not keep the ball out.
Armenia upped their game after the break and were rewarded when
Dokhhoyan’s curling shot from a narrow angle flew in on 63 minutes.