Mathaba.Net, Africa
Aug 23 2004
First World Hegemony and Mass Mortality – from Bengal to Afghanistan
and Iraq
Posted: 08/23
From: Muslim Weekly
The world has now been confronted for a dozen years by the continuing
devastation of strategically-located, oil-rich Iraq by Anglo-American
armies and their allies. Afghanistan has been devastated by a quarter
century of war intimately connected with First World rivalries and
both Russian and US desires for Indian Ocean access to Central Asia.
These extensions of what was once called the “Great Game” between
Britain and Russia have had an appalling human cost.
Using United Nations population statistics for the period 1950 to the
present it has been possible to calculate the “excess mortality” (or,
essentially, the avoidable mortality) for every country in the world
for this period. “Excess mortality” is simply the difference between
the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a
decently-run, peaceful country with the same demographic
characteristics. The results are startling and horrifying. The total
post-1950 “excess mortality” has been 5.2 million for Iraq, 16.2
million for Afghanistan, 550 million for the Muslim world, 1,230
million for the non-European world – and 54 million in total for all
the countries of Europe, North America and Australasia.
The French have a saying “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
(the more things change, the more they stay the same). We can go back
in history and see that the same greed, violence, racism, dishonesty
and criminal immorality involved in continuation of First World
hegemony in the world today is closely mirrored in the European
expansion into the non-European world over the last 500 years.
Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British and French expansion into the
Americas brought disease that, in addition to egregious violence,
wiped out millions and destroyed sophisticated civilisations. The
subsequent slave trade from Africa transported 15 million to America
but associated deaths in Africa may have been much greater. While
knowing of the deadly transmissibility of disease in the Americas (23
million victims) and from the medieval Black Death (24 million
victims), the Europeans happily devastated Australasia and the
Pacific through disease in the 19th century (1-2 million victims).
The Europeans carved up Africa in the 19th century and imposed
horrendous colonial regimes. Thus the Belgians butchered some 10
million Congolese in exacting rubber supplies; colonial wars
slaughtered millions more. The Europeans left a crippled continent in
the 1960s.
Two hundred and fifty years ago Bengal was a prosperous province of
the Muslim Mughal Empire in India. Bengal led the world in its
agriculture, civil administration and textiles. The textiles were so
fine it was said that you could pass a sari of Dacca silk through a
wedding ring. However in the mid-18th century the East India Company
turned its attention seriously to Bengal and the British set up a
trading post called Fort William at the site of what is now Calcutta.
Steady pressure from the British (as well as from the French, Dutch,
Portuguese and Danes) eventually elicited Bengali resistance and in
1756 the Muslim Nawab (or Prince) of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah,
captured Fort William.
British-Bengali machinations may have meant that the Nawab was merely
supposed to besiege Fort William and then a palace revolution would
secure “régime change” in favour of the British. In the event, Fort
William was taken and all school children in the British Empire were
subsequently told the dreadful story of the Black Hole of Calcutta –
how, supposedly, 146 British prisoners were incarcerated overnight in
a small prison cell in captured Fort William and in the morning only
23 survivors (including the one woman) emerged alive. This story is
believed by many historians to have been greatly exaggerated. However
for a quarter of a millennium it has very successfully demonised
Indians and, by extension, all non-Europeans who resisted European
hegemony.
In 1757 the British returned with a vengeance, bribed important
Bengali princes to withhold their troops and, at the Battle of
Plassey, Robert Clive won a stunning victory over numerically vastly
greater Bengali forces. Siraj-ud-daulah was hunted down, captured,
chopped into pieces and demonised forever. A key plotter was Mir
Jafar and he was rewarded by being made the next Nawab by the British
(just as the US helped install the Shah in Iran and Saddam Hussein in
Iraq). After the British had installed their puppet Nawab they set
about taxing the Bengalis. Taxes that formally would go successively
through collectors, zamindars and the Nawab to the Mughal Emperor to
pay for civil administration now started to flow to the East India
Company and its officers. Robert Clive returned to Britain in 1767 as
its richest man. In responding to Parliamentary cross-examination in
1773 about his excessive wealth from the down-trodden Bengalis, Clive
declared “By God, Mr Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at
my own moderation”. The vast wealth flowing from India with the East
India Company and its returning officers (the so-called “nabobs”, a
corruption of “nawab”) helped fund the Industrial Revolution and 2
centuries of British global domination that has variously devastated
peoples and cultures on 6 continents.
Unfortunately the British exceeded themselves and a mere 12 years
after the Battle of Plassey a temporary food shortage in Bengal
translated inexorably into the man-made Great Bengal Famine of
1769-1770 that killed 10 million Bengalis, one third of the
population. Over-taxed Bengalis who could not meet the escalating
price of grain simply starved. The East India Company, concerned
about its diminishing profits, sent Warren Hastings out to Calcutta
to reorganise taxation of the half-starved, surviving Bengalis.
Hastings succeeded and indeed greatly extended British control in
India. However his rapacious excesses (from the robbery of the Begums
of Oudh to famine in the Gangetic plain) led to his impeachment by
Parliament after his return to England and a protracted trial.
Hastings was acquitted in 1795 in what has been Britain’s only war
crimes trial of a major colonial administrator. He has been lionised
by British historians as a great founder of Empire.
Two centuries of British rule in India saw recurrent famines that
killed scores of millions. Further, the British railways, irrigation
canals and shipping spread cholera (endemic to Bengal) throughout
British India at the cost of an estimated 25 million lives in the
19th century. The British taxation system deprived indigenous Indian
institutes of support (noting that education is vital in the war on
disease and want). The Bengal textile industry was destroyed and
Britain exported textiles to India. Well-watered, warm Bengal with an
energetic population is a part of the sub-continent that should never
suffer famine. Nevertheless Bengal suffered repeated famine in the
1860s and 1870s and at the turn of the century.
Of course Bengal was part of an empire “on which the sun never sets”.
The British traded Bengali opium to China for tea and silver, this
trade precipitating the 19th century China Opium Wars and the
subsequent Tai Ping rebellion that took 20-100 million lives.
In 1918-1919 Indian soldiers returning from World War 1 brought
influenza to India (this causing 17 million deaths). Indeed the
global influenza death toll of some 40 million greatly exceeded the
military casualties of World War 1 (8 million). However in the middle
of World War 2 the price of rice begin to rise in Bengal for a
variety of reasons (cessation of supplies from Japanese-occupied
Burma, small seasonal losses from fungal infection and storm damage,
the divide-and-rule granting of food supply autonomy to Indian
provinces, sequestration of some rice stocks and decreased grain
imports via Indian Ocean shipping because of shipping losses in the
Atlantic). However, as analysed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen,
Calcutta was experiencing a war-time boom and effectively sucked food
out of a food-producing countryside. Those who could not afford rice
at 4 times the normal price simply starved under a callous British
administration.
The death toll from the man-made Bengal famine was 4 million as
compared to the deaths from the Jewish Holocaust (6 million), the
Namibian genocide (0.1 million), the Rwandan Tutsi genocide (1
million), the World War 1 Armenian Holocaust (1 million), the Polish
(6 million), Soviet (20 million) and Chinese (35 million) losses in
World War 2, the Chinese Great Leap Forward (16-30 million victims)
and the millions who died in the Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian
famines between the World Wars, the Soviet Gulags and Pakistan-Indian
Partition.
In an astonishing collective act of racist white-washing, the Bengal
famine has been largely expunged from British historical writing.
History ignored yields history repeated and the Bengalis have
continued to suffer: post-Independence Partition massacres and
displacements in 1947, US-backed West Pakistan invasion in 1971 (3
million dead, 0.3 million women raped, 10 million refugees) and
further famine and murderous US-backed régime change (1974). However
the biggest killers in Bengal since 1950 have been deprivation,
malnourishment, disease and illiteracy – the post-1950 “excess
mortality” has been 51 million in Bangladesh (present population 150
million) and about 27 million in West Bengal (population about 80
million).
What can be learned from this sorry tale? The biggest message is that
ignoring or white-washing mass mortality simply allows unimpeded
continuance or repetition. Indeed Bengal is now facing a devastating
prospect of inundation from global warming-induced sea level rises.
The US and Australia, variously linked with Bengal’s previous
man-made disasters, refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol while being
among the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters. In the past month
over two thirds of Bangladesh has been under water from international
monsoon run-off. Afghanistan and Iraq simply illustrate the same
sorts of First World impositions that devastated Bengal for over a
quarter of a millennium in the interests of profit, power and
imperial satisfaction – manipulation, corruption of indigenous
leaders, régime change, vilification and demonization of indigenous
opponents, militarization, debt, economic distortion, economic
exclusion, divide-and-rule, support for intra- and international war,
sanctions, invasion, occupation, extirpation of undesired indigenous
opponents, installation of unelected governments and inclusion into a
new order of global, violence-backed hegemony. Of course, just like
the mythology of the Black Hole of Calcutta, the demonization of
Indians and the asserted nobility of British civilisation and Pax
Britannica, today we have the non-existent weapons of mass
destruction, the demonization of Muslims and the violent and
massively deadly imposition of an Anglo-American vision of “freedom”.
Sensible analysis of the horrendous mass mortality in the world over
the last half century indicates that the First World imposes war for
profit and that war kills massively – but mainly through deprivation
and malnourishment-exacerbated disease that sweeps away 20 million
people a year or 60,000 a day and overwhelmingly in the non-European
world. It is the IGNORING of horrendous global mass mortality that is
the fundamental cause of this continuing tragedy.
About the author: Dr Gideon Polya is a Melbourne-based scientist and
writer. Over a 4 decade scientific career he published some 130
works, most recently a huge, pharmacological reference text
“Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (Taylor &
Francis/CRC Press, London & New York, 2003).

Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
Aug 23 2004
In defense of Turkish cigarettes
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Reviewed by Spengler
“Like mist rising from cracked asphalt, smoke swirls slowly in a mute
vortex from the shallowness of the ashtray’s bowl, like the silent
deadfall of snow, except that it floats up rather than down …” I do
not remember now whether this passage actually appears in Orhan
Pamuk’s latest novel, Snow, but if it does not, there are hundreds
that sound just like it in Maureen Freely’s translation. It is late
at night, and I have lit another Turkish Special, crimping in its
oval shape just enough to ease the draft, but not too much, or the
outpouring of its incense would overwhelm the senses. Turkish
cigarettes, like Turkish coffee and raki, define Turkish culture as
much as English culture is defined by “Wensleydale cheese, boiled
cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, 19th-century Gothic
churches and the music of Elgar”, in T S Eliot’s enumeration (see
What is American culture?, November 18, 2003).
Marlboro Reds, however, are Orhan Pamuk’s cigarette of choice, an
intimation that Turkey’s most celebrated chronicler always will stand
outside the window of the Turkish soul looking in. The book has only
one hero, an Islamist radical identified as “Blue”, who sadly praises
Marlboro Reds as America’s one real gift to the world. Preferring
Marlboros to Turkish tobacco is as bad as choosing McDonald’s over
meze (traditional Turkish appetizers).
None of this would merit the attention of Asia Times Online readers
except that Turkey has taken Orhan Pamuk as its reigning bard to the
point that US President George W Bush hailed Pamuk as a bridge
between East and West during his recent visit to Turkey. Pamuk threw
contempt on Bush’s praise in an August 15 interview with Alexander
Star in the New York Times:
Star: When George Bush was in Istanbul recently for the NATO [North
Atlantic Treaty Organization] summit, he referred to you as a “great
writer” who has helped bridge the divide between East and West.
Citing your own statements about how people around the world are very
much alike, he defended American efforts to help people in the Middle
East enjoy their “birthright of freedom”. Did you think he understood
what you meant?
Pamuk: I think George Bush put a lot of distance between East and
West with this war. He made the whole Islamic community unnecessarily
angry with the United States, and in fact with the West. This will
pave the way to lots of horrors and inflict cruel and unnecessary
pain to lots of people. It will raise the tension between East and
West. These are things I never hoped would happen. In my books I
always looked for a sort of harmony between the so-called East and
West. In short, what I wrote in my books for years was misquoted, and
used as a sort of apology for what had been done. And what had been
done was a cruel thing.
Turkey, I have argued in the past (Careful what you Bush for, August
3), once again is the sick man of Europe, and its loss of grip frees
the dogs of a new Great War. Those in the West who still view Turkey
as a pillar of Western influence in a troubled region should read
Snow sitting down. At length, American policy analysts have sounded
the alarm over Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s perceived Islamist
agenda, eg Michael Rubin in National Review Online on August 10.
Pamuk portrays a Turkey whose center cannot hold because it has
rotted away.
Suicide is the recurring theme of Pamuk’s new novel. Franz Kafka’s
“K” provides the archetype for his protagonist, the poet “Ka”, with
characters and situations borrowed explicitly from The Trial and The
Castle, down to the setting in a snowbound provincial town. But the
town in this case is Kars, where Armenians outnumbered Turks 14-1 at
the outbreak of World War I. After the extermination or exile of the
local Armenian population, their monuments and churches remain as a
ghastly admonition to the impoverished and largely idle Turkish
inhabitants. The Turks of Kars live on foreign ground, buffeted by
the Westernizing ideas of Kemal Ataturk and the Arabic ideas of the
Koran. Ultimately they have nothing of their own, and dwell on the
idea of suicide.
Ka is there to look up an old girlfriend, but as a pretext secures an
assignment to report on an epidemic of suicides among young women.
Female suicide is widespread in the Islamic world; such an epidemic
occurred in Turkey during the early 1990s, and another one claimed
the lives of several dozen young women in the Afghan city of Herat
during 2002.
Not only the women want to die. Another character explains, “You see
hundreds of these jobless, luckless, hopeless, motionless poor
creatures in every town … They’ve forgotten how to keep themselves
tidy, they’ve lost the will to button up their stained jackets …
their powers of concentration are so weak they can’t follow a story
to its conclusion … they watched TV not because they liked or
enjoyed the programs but because they couldn’t bear to hear about
their fellows’ depression, and television helped to show them out;
what they really wanted was to die, but they didn’t think themselves
worthy of suicide,” that is, unlike their women.
Not only the unemployed but the intelligentsia hover at the edge of a
suicide’s grave. Ka’s love interest divorced her husband who embraced
Islam after attempting to freeze himself to death in the street. The
young seminarians who puppy-like approach Ka cannot understand why
he, an atheist, wants to live: “If a person knows and loves God, he
never doubts God’s existence,” one of them says to Ka. “It seems to
me you’re not giving me an answer because you’re too timid to admit
that you’re an atheist. But we knew this already … Do you suffer
the same pangs as the poor atheist in the story? Do you want to kill
yourself?”
Pamuk’s plot appears as slender embroidery around this abysmal
background. By attempting to understand both the Islamist opposition
and the repressive military, Ka unwillingly becomes a double agent.
He wins the girl, who as it turns out was the mistress of the
Islamist Marlboro Man “Blue”, and then loses the girl when his
duplicity comes to light. The local military stages a bloody coup in
order to prevent an Islamist victory in forthcoming elections. The
confrontation between the secularist military and the Islamists plays
out in a grotesque piece of public theater. Ka, who has written
nothing for years, writes a series of inspired poems, none of which
Pamuk chooses to share with his readers. Ka returns to Frankfurt and
eventually is shot down in the street by one or another of the sides
he offended during his visit to Kars.
Absence of actual poetry in a novel whose apparent subject is the
reawakening of the national muse under crisis cannot be dismissed as
mere post-modern irony. Like the city of Kars itself, the novel Snow
leaves one with the impression that there is no there there; it is
the Kafka-like meandering of characters trapped in a malign labyrinth
with no way out but self-destruction. If Pamuk’s metaphor for modern
Turkey holds true, Iraq will not be the greatest of its worries
during the next several years.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk. Faber and Faber Ltd, August 2004. ISBN:
057121830X. Price: 17 pounds (US$31.85), 448 pages.

Cordis News, EU
Aug 23 2004
Superconducting technology selected for International Linear Collider
[Date: 2004-08-23]
A key decision on the technology to be used for the future
international particle accelerator has been made, clearing the way
for work on the project to commence.
An international panel of physicists recommended the use of
superconducting accelerating structures that operate at 2 Kelvin for
the International Linear Collider (ILC), rather than ‘X-band’
accelerating structures that operate at room temperature. The
recommendation was accepted by the International Committee for Future
Accelerators at a conference in Beijing, China, on 20 August.
‘Both the ‘warm’ X-band technology and the ‘cold’ superconducting
technology would work for a linear collider,’ said the chair of the
panel charged with making a recommendation, Barry Barish. ‘Each
offers its own advantages, and each represents many years of R&D
[research and development] by teams of extremely talented and
dedicated scientists and engineers. At this stage it would be too
costly and time consuming to develop both technologies toward
construction.’
The ‘winning’ technology was developed by the TESLA consortium, which
brings together researchers from Armenia, China, Finland, France,
Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the
US. As stated in the recommendation text, however, the selection of
one technology over another is based entirely on the technology, and
not on design. ‘We expect the final design to be developed by a team
drawn from the combined warm and cold linear collider communities,
taking full advantage of the experience and expertise of both.’
The superconducting technology uses L-band (1.3GHz) radio frequency
power for accelerating the electron and positron beams in the two
opposing linear accelerators that make up the collider. The
advantages of this technology, outlined in the recommendation,
include: a large cavity aperture and long bunch interval that
simplify operations, reduce sensitivity to ground motion, permit
inter-bunch feedback and may enable increased beam current; the
largest technical cost elements – the main linac and rf systems – are
of comparatively lower risk; and the use of superconducting cavities
significantly reduces power consumption.
The collider will first be used to find the Higgs boson –
hypothetical elementary particles predicted by the Standard Model of
particle physics – or any alternative mechanism that takes its place.
If it exists, the Higgs boson should be discovered at the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, but measuring
its properties with precision will require a TeV-scale
electron-positron linear collider.
But work on the Higgs particle will be ‘just the beginning’,
according to Hirotaka Sugawara, also a member of the recommendation
panel. ‘We anticipate that some of the tantalising superparticles
will be within the range of discovery, opening the door to an
understanding of one of the great mysteries of the universe – dark
matter. We may also be able to probe extra space-time dimensions,
which have so far eluded us,’ he said.
Now that a decision has been made, the international particle physics
community can begin work on a design for the linear collider. At the
same time, science funding agencies from Europe and elsewhere must
reach an agreement on the funding of the project.
For further information on the International Linear Collider, please
visit:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian Prelacy of Canada Press Office
3401 Olivar Asselin
Montreal, Quebec H4J 1L5
Tel: (514) 856-1200
Fax (514) 856-1805
E-mail: [email protected]
Archbishop Khajag Hagopian, Prelate of the Armenian Prelacy of Canada
bestows the prestigious “Sourp Mesrob Mashdots” medal to Canadian Armenian
soprano, Isabel Bayrakdarian
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy Sea of Cilicia, acting upon the
request of His Eminence, Archbishop Khajag Hagopian, Prelate of the Armenian
Prelacy of Canada, bestows the prestigious “Sourp Mesrob Mashdots” medal to
Canadian Armenian soprano, Isabel Bayrakdarian.
The official awarding ceremony of the “Sourp Mesrob Mashdots” medal took
place on Sunday, August 15, 2004 during the celebrations of Assumption of
the Holy Mother of God at the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, Toronto by
His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Hagopian.
Born in Beirut, Ms. Bayrakdarian began singing Armenian liturgical music in
the church choir at the age of three, and even continues to do so today. Her
debut album, Joyous Light, was a collection of medieval Armenian sacred
music dating from the 5th century onwards. It reached no.1 in the classical
charts across Canada within days of its release.
Ms. Bayrakdarian has received numerous awards throughout her career, most
recently taking home a Juno for her second album, Azulão. She can also be
heard on the Grammy award-winning soundtrack, Lord of the Rings, The Two
Towers, as well as Atom Egoyan’s Ararat.
Ms. Bayrakdarian’s upcoming engagements include Suzanna in a new production
of Le nozze di Figaro with Los Angeles Opera, a debut with the San Francisco
Symphony (Mahler’s 2nd Symphony) and a recording project this summer. During
the 2004/2005 she returns to the Metropolitan Opera, to the Lyric Opera of
Chicago twice, and she makes her debut with the Pittsburgh Opera. In
concerts and recitals she appears in Montreal, Washington, Toronto,
Victoria, Edmonton and Vancouver, Yerevan, Armenian among other cities.
Management: Ronald A. Wilford and Elizabeth Crittenden; Columbia Artists
Management Inc.; Tel: (212) 841-9501; Fax: (212) 841-9687.
Armenian Prelacy of Canada Press Office
3401 Olivar Asselin, Montreal, Quebec H4J 1L5 Tel: (514) 856-1200; Fax (514)
856-1805; E-mail: [email protected]
Isabel Bayrakdarian’s publicist: Barbora Krsek; Tel: (416) 534-3337;
Fax: (416) 534-5661; E-mail: [email protected]

ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Monday, August 23, 2004
REFORMIST CANDIDATE PREVAILS IN STEPANAKERT MAYORAL ELECTION
In a development hailed as an important step towards full-fledged democracy,
Stepanakert voters rewarded a candidate running on a reform platform in a
run-off election held last Sunday. Non-partisan parliamentarian Eduard
Aghabekian collected nearly 55 percent of the vote scoring an upset victory
over the ruling party’s favorite, Pavel Najarian. The two mayoral candidates
went into the run-off election after none of the five candidates collected
more than 50 percent of the vote in Nagorno Karabakh Republic’s (NKR) local
self-government poll held on August 8.

Following the first round of elections, observers from the Stepanakert Press
Club and Artsakh Association for Defense of Human Rights praised the overall
conduct of the poll as fair and transparent. They credited the authorities
with creating a generally positive election atmosphere, while criticizing
instances of pressure on the media, unfair use of administrative resources
and inaccuracies in voter lists. In the second round, the authorities
campaigned hard for Najarian, but did not interfere with the vote count.

Najarian led in the first round with 43 percent, while Aghabekian was a
strong second with 35 percent. But Aghabekian’s supporters rallied before
the second round, receiving endorsements from other mayoral candidates,
including the outgoing incumbent Hamik Avanesian, the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (HHD) and several other groups. Over 50 percent of Stepanakert’s
eligible voters came to the polls, up from 40 percent in the first round.
Aghabekian’s victory is the first major upset for the Democratic Artsakh
Union (ZhAM), which is the main political support base of President Arkady
Ghoukasian. Ghoukasian, himself, did not publicly endorse any of the
candidates.

In other municipal races, 134 out of 179 incumbent town and village heads
held their posts. Some 50 of these officials belong to ZhAM, 20 to HHD and
10 to Communist Party. While most of the rest are officially non-partisan,
observers saw a trend in favor of opposition groups, even before
Aghabekian’s second round victory. These observers suggest that gains in the
municipal elections have improved the local opposition’s chances at the
parliamentary elections due next spring.

In 1997, NKR became a first entity in the Caucasus to elect its local
administration officials and is the only regional entity, where the
capital’s mayor is chosen through elections. In a report last week, the
London-based Economist compared Karabakh favorably to other unrecognized
republics in the former Soviet Union. The newspaper noted that despite a
devastating war, Karabakh is close to being a normal society, with law and
order, a budding civil society, foreign economic investment and de-facto
unification with Armenia. The Economist sees a “decent future” for Karabakh
as long as the conflict with Azerbaijan is settled and points to the 2001
deal, when the late President Heydar Aliyev came close to agreeing to
de-jure unification of Armenia and Karabakh. (Sources: Arminfo 8-13, 21;
8-14, 23; Armenia This Week 8-9; The Economist 8-19;
Noyan Tapan 8-20, 21)
GOVERNMENT RENEWS PLEDGE TO END COMMUNICATIONS MONOPOLY
The Armenian government is determined to break Armentel’s monopoly on
communications, the official in charge of negotiations on the matter,
Justice Minister David Harutiunian said last Thursday. The government had
earlier planned to abolish the monopoly rights of the Greek-owned company on
cellular and Internet communications by June, but postponed the decision due
to ongoing litigation with the company.

Armenian officials have long accused Armentel of “abusing” its monopoly
rights by setting unusually high tariffs and failing to significantly
improve services it provides. Armentel had in turn claimed that state
regulators were “violating” the terms of the company’s 1998 privatization.
Both sides have now apparently agreed to reach an out-of-court settlement.

According to a report by an Armenian opposition daily, Armentel has already
agreed to competition in cellular communications, but in exchange it wants
to increase tariffs for fixed-line phone service. Government regulators had
blocked a similar hike last January.

According to a study conducted by Yerevan’s Armenian-European Policy and
Legal Advice Center (AEPLAC), Armentel is one of the largest companies in
Armenia. Armentel reported $35 million in profits in the first four months
of the year. In terms of sales and employment, it is second only to the
Electric Power Networks (EPN), another monopoly privatized last year.

AEPLAC surveyed trends in the Armenian economy in 2003, focusing on EPN,
Armentel, and eight other largest Armenian companies: Armenian Aluminum,
Yerevan Brandy Plant, Flash (fuel imports), Apaven (cargo), Armenian Copper
Program, Yerevan Jewelry Factory, Ararat Cement and Diamond Company of
Armenia. The study noted the fast pace of development of the private sector
in Armenia in terms of output and export (primarily to Europe). But it also
pointed to significant staff cuts in EPN and other companies, following
their privatization.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) estimates that
60 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and more than 70 percent of all
jobs in Armenia are provided for by the private sector. (Sources: Armenia
This Week 1-16, 3-5; Noyan Tapan 6-11, 7-21; Arminfo 6-28, 29, 7-10, 8-19;
RFE/RL Armenia Report 6-21, 7-28, 8-19; 8-5)
Visit to read Armenia This Week
issues since 1997.
A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY THE ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA
122 C Street, N.W., Suite 350, Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 393-3434 FAX
(202) 638-4904
E-Mail [email protected] WEB

Mail & Guardian Online , South Africa
Aug 23 2004
Call for death penalty for SA ‘mercenary’

Malabo, Equatorial Guinea

The prosecutor in the trial of a group of suspected foreign
mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea said on
Monday he will call for the death penalty for the coup plotters’
alleged leader, South African Nick du Toit.
Attorney General Jose olo Obono also said at the start of the trial
that he will call for prison terms ranging from 26 years to 86 years
for the South African’s co-defendants.
Du Toit and 13 other suspected mercenaries from South Africa and
Armenia appeared in court on Monday, along with four Equatorial
Guinean defendants, on charges of plotting to oust the long-time
leader of the Central African country, President Teodoro Obiang
Nguema.
The eight South Africans, six Armenians and four Equato-Guineans,
including former economic planning minister Antonio Javier Nguema
Nchama, were charged with “crimes against the head of state, against
the form of government” and “crimes which compromise peace and
independence of the state, treason, illegal possession of arms and
ammunition, terrorism and possessing explosives”.
The involvement of the Equato-Guineans in the alleged plot to topple
Obiang, who has ruled the tiny Central African state since 1979, was
not mentioned until the court case got under way.
Obiang announced the arrests of the alleged mercenaries in early
March, saying they had been hired by exiled opposition leader Severo
Moto to oust him.
Handcuffed and in leg irons, the accused were brought by military
vehicles to the international conference hall in Banapa, a suburb of
Malabo, which has been transformed into a makeshift courtroom for the
trial.
About 80 people, including two of the suspected mercenaries’ wives,
human-rights activists and foreign diplomats, were in the public
gallery for the trial.
The South African and Armenian suspects have been held at Malabo’s
notorious Black Beach prison since March. Their arrests coincided
almost to the day with that of 70 suspected mercenaries detained at
Harare International airport in Zimbabwe following a tip-off from the
South African government.
The men in Equatorial Guinea, led by South African Nick du Toit, were
allegedly an advance group responsible for the preparations of the
coup d’état before the arrival of the 70 suspected soldiers of
fortune who took off from South Africa and stopped in Zimbabwe to
pick up weapons.
Family members of the men held in Equatorial Guinea say the suspects
have been tortured.
Fifteen foreign suspects were arrested on March 6 in Malabo, but one,
German Eugen Nershz, died on March 17, with the Equato-Guinean
authorities saying the cause of death was cerebral malaria.
But Amnesty International has said Nershz “died … apparently as a
result of torture”.
Three more men have since contracted malaria. Two have recovered but
a third is still ill.
The men have for most of their incarceration been held incommunicado,
according to Amnesty International, and two wives from South Africa
were only allowed to visit them for the first time earlier this
month.
A verdict is expected next week, defence lawyer Lucie Bourthomieux said

Xinhua, China
Aug 23 2004
Foreign leaders commemorate centenary of Deng Xiaoping’s birth

BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) — Top leaders of Armenia,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Moldova have paid homage to late Chinese
leader Deng Xiaoping on the occasion of his 100th birthday.
In separate telegraphs sent to Chinese President Hu Jintao,
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Turkman President Saparmurat
Niyazov, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov and Moldovan President
Vladimir Voronin said what Deng had done significantly contributedto
China’s rise in the international arena.
The leaders highly valued Deng’s “one country, two systems”
policy and China’s reform and opening up drive which kicked off
China’s battle for modernization.
China’s rise provided a model for other countries and its
experience was rated as a treasure for the entire world, they said.
The leaders also expected more achievements to be made by Chinese
people who are striving to put Deng Xiaoping’s theory intofurther
practice.

Reporters without borders, France
Aug 23 2004
Armenia
Population : 3,072,000
Internet users : 60,000 (2002)
Average charge for 20 hours of connection : 35 euros
DAI* : 0.30
Situation** : middling
Armenia is one of the few countries in the sub-region where the
Internet is not censored. But the government is slow to develop
Internet activity and not many people have access. A law to regulate
it has been passed that broadly respects freedom of expression
despite several inconsistencies.
With only 60,000 users and about 3,500 websites registered under an
“.am” domain-name, the Internet is not yet important in Armenia. The
high price of connection is the main obstacle to its growth, with a
private line costing nearly 50 euros a month. Line quality is also
poor, slowing access to webpages.
The 15-year telecom monopoly granted to the Greek firm OTE in 1998
also slows progress because the company has not made the investment
needed to improve access. Its charges to customers are unduly high
and it demands an exorbitant price for renting access to other ISPs.
Internet users pay the price for this lack of commercial competition.
Access is also largely confined to the capital, where most cybercafés
are.
Online media prevented from covering elections
No online media were accredited by the central elections commission
to cover the presidential and parliamentary elections between
February and May 2003. The commission decreed on 22 August 2002 that
only media duly registered with the justice ministry could be
accredited. Since websites were not at the time legally classed as
media, none could register and thus qualify.
Legal situation
A media law passed on 13 December 2003 by parliament gave websites
media status. The measure, more liberal than previous legislation,
defined media very broadly, with even posters included as such. The
Internet was exempted however from some requirements made of the
traditional media, such as registering with the government.
The law seems similar at first sight to those passed in the
sub-region’s more repressive countries, such as Belarus and
Kazakhstan, but is not such a threat to freedom of expression.
However it does contain some inconsistencies that might harm the
growth of the Internet, including a requirement that online
publications must provide the government with details of income and
expenditure. This is seen locally as completely impractical and a
heavy burden on website editors.
An online journalist threatened
John Hughes, editor of the online weekly Armenianow, informed
military prosecutor Gagik Jhangirian in a 4 November 2003 letter that
one of his journalists, Janna Alexanian, had received phone threats
from the father of two soldiers murdered on 6 August in Vanadzor and
about whom the journalist had written an article on 15 August. Their
father accused her of defending the killers. Hughes said the
complaint was in fact triggered by Alexanian writing that the
soldiers’ family was involved in petrol racketeering. The threats
stopped soon after the letter was sent.
Links
The Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI) site about Armenia
?i6
* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the
International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a
country’s inhabitants to information and communication technology. It
ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).
** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling,
difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment
of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites,
existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs
and deliberately high connection charges.
From: Baghdasarian

Centre for Public Opinion and Democracy, Canada
Aug 23 2004
Armenians Fear Government Abuses, Electoral Fraud

(CPOD) Aug. 23, 2004 – Some residents of Armenia are worried about
potential government abuses and electoral fraud, according to a poll
by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies
(ACNIS). 21.8 per cent of respondents believe a confrontation between
authorities and the people would be the main political danger in the
country, while 20.7 per cent mention the falsification of election
results.
According to a Human Rights Watch report, hundreds of demonstrators
were detained in April and May during a series of protests against
the government. The offices of at least three opposition political
parties were raided.
President Robert Kocharyan was re-elected to a new four-year term in
March 2003 in an election marred by fraud allegations.
Political tension provoked by the opposition, a possible attempt of
revolt and the limitation of political and civil rights are also
cited as key concerns.
Polling Data
What is the major political danger that will threaten Armenia in the
next five years?
Confrontations between authorities and the people
21.8%

Falsification of election results
20.7%

Provocation of political tension by the opposition
14.2%

Possible attempt of revolt
11.6%

Limitation of political and civil rights
9.8%

Political terrorism
6.5%

Restriction of Armenia’s sovereignty
4.0%

Armenia’s absence from regional programs
2.9%

There is no political danger
6.8%

Other
1.4%

Source: Armenian Center for National and International Studies
(ACNIS)
Methodology: Interviews with 2,021 Armenian adults, conducted from
Jul. 15 to Aug. 2, 2004. No margin of error was provided.

Business Wire (press release), CA
Aug 23 2004
Firebird Global Master Fund, Ltd. Invests in Indusmin
VANCOUVER, British Columbia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 23, 2004–Indusmin
Energy Corp.. (TSX Venture:IDM) announces that further to its news
release dated July 27, 2004, related to a proposed private placement,
the Corporation is pleased to announce that the Corporation has
received $ 1,000,000.00 from Firebird Global Master Fund, Ltd.
() Firebird Global Master Fund, Ltd. is a contrarian
portfolio equity fund that invests in exotic markets and sectors
around the world. Firebird Global Master Fund, Ltd. is associated
with Firebird, which manages approximately $625 million in six funds
dedicated primarily to equity investment in Russia, Eastern Europe
and Central Asia. A total of 3,333,333 units will be issued to
Firebird Global Master Fund, Ltd each unit will consist of one (1)
common share and one (1) share purchase warrant. each share purchase
warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one (1) common
share of the Corporation at a purchase price of $0.30 per common
share in year one and $ 0.40 in year two from the date of issuance of
the share purchase warrants.
The proceeds of the private placement will be used for exploration
and development of the newly acquired licenses in the Republic of
Armenia and further development of the Kerch project in Ukraine. For
information on these projects please visit our website
.
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.