[Congressional Record: June 2, 2004 (Extensions)]
[Page E993-E994]
>>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr02jn04-73]
STATEMENT OF ERIC ROSENTHAL, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON DISABILITIES (USCID) AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF
MENTAL DISABILITY RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL, ON “INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY
RIGHTS: THE PROPOSED UN CONVENTION”
______
HON. TOM LANTOS
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on March 30th, the Congressional Human
Rights Caucus held a groundbreaking Members’ Briefing entitled,
“International Disability Rights: The Proposed UN Convention.” This
discussion of the global situation of people with disabilities was
intended to help establish disability rights issues as an integral part
of the general human rights discourse. The briefing brought together
the human rights community and the disability rights community, and it
raised awareness in Congress of the need to protect disability rights
under international law to the same extent as other human rights
through a binding UN convention on the rights of people with
disabilities.
Our expert witnesses included Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Mark P. Lagon; the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Ecuador
to the United Nations, Ambassador Luis Gallegos; the United Nations
Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development in the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Johan Scholvinck; the
distinguished former Attorney General of the United States, former
Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and former Governor of
Pennsylvania, the Honorable Dick Thornburgh; the President of the
National Organization on Disability (NOD), Alan A. Reich; Kathy
Martinez, a member of the National Council on Disabilities (NCD); and a
representative of the United States International Council on
Disabilities (USCID) and Executive Director of Mental Disability Rights
International, Eric Rosenthal.
As I had announced earlier, I intend to place the important
statements of our witnesses in the Congressional Record, so that all of
my colleagues may profit from their expertise, and I ask that the
statement of Eric Rosenthal be placed at this point in the
Congressional Record.
The U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus: Members’ Briefing on the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is a great pleasure to be here for this historic
occasion. I would like to thank Representative Lantos, the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and the Disability Rights
Caucus for making this possible.
I’m a member of the board of the U.S. International Council
on Disability (USICD) and executive director of Mental
Disability Rights International (MDRI). I have spent more
than ten years in the field doing international human rights
work for people with disabilities–documenting human rights
abuses and training activists. There has been little
recognition of the vast worldwide pattern of human rights
abuses against people with disabilities that exists in the
world today–either by the U.S. government or the United
Nations. Thus, it is a great step forward to bring these
concerns to public attention today. This hearing provides an
invaluable opportunity to discuss what practical next steps
the U.S. Government can take to bring long over-due attention
to the rights of people with disabilities worldwide.
The most important leadership by a U.S. Agency, to date,
has been the work of the U.S. National Council on Disability
(NCD). Over the last few years, NCD has made an invaluable
contribution to advancing discussion and action on
international disability issues by convening International
Watch, a group of experts and leaders in the U.S. disability
community involved in international activities. In addition,
NCD has brought attention to this issue by commissioning two
important reports. In 2002, NCD commissioned Janet Lord of
the Landmine Survivors Network to write a detailed legal and
policy analysis of the need for a new UN disability rights
convention. I recommend that report as essential background
to today’s discussion about the need for a UN convention.
[[Page E994]]
In 2003, Professor Arlene Kanter and I had the honor of
serving as consultants to NCD as authors of a report, Foreign
Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil
Rights Protection to Ensure Inclusion of People with
Disabilities. In this report, released at a U.S. Senate
briefing on September 9th, 2003, NCD cites numerous reports
over the last 10 years identifying the failure of U.S.
foreign assistance programs to respond to the needs of people
with disabilities. Not only have construction projects been
inaccessible to people with disabilities but many programs
have not been accessible to people with physical or mental
disabilities. More broadly, there has not been a concerted
effort to document, challenge, or overcome the vast problem
of human rights abuses to which people with disabilities are
subject worldwide.
NCD has called for the reform of U.S. foreign policy and
foreign assistance to ensure the inclusion of people with
disabilities in U.S. foreign policy, foreign assistance, and
all U.S. government and its activities abroad.
If we stand for the human rights of people with
disabilities, we must stand for it in our own actions as the
U.S. government. We must ensure that U.S. funded assistance
programs don’t discriminate. Indeed, we must ensure that
foreign assistance programs respond to needs and are fully
inclusive of people with disabilities.
We have recently made tremendous progress in Congress. I
would particularly like to acknowledge the work of Senator
Tom Harkin who championed historic new legislation in the
last session of Congress. The new legislation requires any
construction funded by USAID around the world to be
accessible to people with disabilities. It requires all U.S.
programs in Afghanistan and Iraq to be accessible to people
with disabilities, in conformity with USAID’s Policy Paper on
Disability. The most innovative new provision of legislation
makes enforcement of disability rights a precondition for
countries to receive funding under the new Millennium
Challenge Account. By creating financial incentives for
governments to take action on disablity rights, this law
establishes a specialized tool of foreign policy that will
help bring attention and pressure on governments to take
action. In the spirit of the NCD report, it is my hope that
MCA views this as more than a tool to use against
governments. It should be viewed as a mandate to help
governments, and non-governmental disability organizations
around the world, to meet these human rights and disability
rights goals. The NCD report calls on Congress to create a
“Fund for Inclusion,” setting aside funds to support for
the development of non-governmental disability rights
organizations.
Turning now to the question: why a convention? In ten
years, MDRI has documented human rights abuses against people
with mental disabilities in 21 countries on three continents.
I have seen untold human suffering in every country I have
visited. I’ve seen people locked away for their whole lives
in psychiatric hospitals, as well as institutions for people
with developmental or other disabilities. I have seen
children and I’ve seen grown men and women left naked,
covered in their own feces. MDRI recently documented a
situation in Paraguay where two boys were placed in an
institution by family members unable to care for them at home
without any form of governmental support. When the boys were
placed in the institution they probably had some form of
intellectual disability, but they wore clothing, they talked,
they interacted with people around them. For at least four
years, these boys were held naked in isolation with no
clothes, no toilet, no place to sleep other than a mat the
floor of a barren cell. They ate their food off the floor.
According to doctors at the facility, they became psychotic
as a result of the years of isolation and abuse. When we
visited them, they could no longer speak. All they did was
scream, howl, and grunt.
Their lives had been thrown away. The lives of 400 men and
women in that same psychiatric facility have been thrown
away. They live in isolation with little hope of returning to
society. Many are denied basic medical care, much less the
dignity of some privacy or their own clothing. In wealthier
countries, people may be detained in clean institutions with
new clothing. But their isolation from society and their pain
at being denied human contact may be much the same. Does the
international community speak out about these abuses? No. In
almost every country of the world, you can find people
relegated to the bleak, back wards of institutions–or
abandoned on the streets. That same experience has been going
on in many societies throughout the world. And the world has
failed to speak out time and time again.
The U.S. administration has said that the proper way to
deal with this is through domestic legislation, rather than
international human rights legislation. I beg to differ on
this point. As a matter of international law, there is a very
important difference between matters of purely domestic
concern and issues of international human rights. The
international legal framework is built upon the notion of
state sovereignty. Matters of social policy and of
educational policy, are protected by state sovereignty. And a
government may do what it will in that area. But the
international community has come to realize there are certain
principles of government practice that are not just matters
of state sovereignty. When governments deny their citizens
basic human dignity and autonomy, when they subject them to
extremes of suffering, when they segregate them from
society–we call these violations of fundamental human
rights. And when a country sinks so low as to deny the
fundamental rights of its citizen, the world will speak out.
We will hold governments accountable for the most extreme
abuses. That is why we need a convention. It’s not enough to
offer technical assistance on how to improve the law, we must
hold governments accountable for their violations.
Based on my observations as a human rights investigator
over the last ten years–and based on the near void of
activity by established human rights oversight bodies–I
believe that the abuses experienced by people with
disabilities around the world are the greatest international
human rights problem that goes unacknowledged in the world
today.
There are at least 600 million people with disabilities in
the world. How many thousands of people are segregated from
society in closed psychiatric facilities? By the thousands,
children and young adults with disabilities are placed in
orphanages and other institutions. I have met families in
Armenia, Turkey, Russia, and Mexico who were heart-broken
about placing their child in an institution–or who were
afraid that they might have to do so one day if they could no
longer provide care. I have met adults with mental
disabilities living a life of terror that they may be one day
forced into an institution if they cannot keep it together to
fend for themselves. I have met fathers, mothers, brothers,
husbands, wives who wanted to keep a relative at home with
them, but their governments do not provide services that will
allow families to stay together in the community. Heart
breaking as it is, parents are often forced to put their
children in orphanages. These are not orphans. These are
children orphaned by social and medical policy that say
they’re different and shouldn’t have a chance to live as a
part of society at large. Social policies that needlessly
segregate people from society are a form of discrimination.
Legal systems that do not protect against arbitrary detention
permit ongoing violations of human rights.
These are just a few of the abuses that can be addressed by
a disability rights convention. This is why we must commit
ourselves to speaking out. We must make it a priority of our
human rights agenda to end such intolerable abuses against
people with disabilities everywhere.
This Congress has adopted legislation establishing that
human rights will be the core of our foreign policy. We must
ensure that this promise extends to people with disabilities.
When governments strip whole groups of citizens of their
rights because of a disability, when governments put people
away, or when they allow them to die on the streets with no
dignified form of assistance, those are human rights abuses.
Challenging such abuses should becomes the core of our
foreign policy.
In its last session, this Congress made invaluable steps in
the right direction by revising our foreign assistance laws.
Now let us explicitly recognize the concerns of people with
disabilities as part of the pantheon of international human
rights issues. I strongly encourage and appreciate the work
of those members of Congress who have supported resolution
169. I call on all members to do the same.
I would like to leave you with one last thought. Over the
years, I have personally encountered hundreds of children and
adults, old men and old women who have spent most of their
life behind bars. It is amazingly easy to write these people
off as subhuman. As if they are already the walking dead. Yet
I have also seen a glimpse of hope in their eyes. With the
smallest amount of respect for their dignity, people come to
life. The tiniest hint of a possibility that a man or woman
might one day leave the institution can give that person a
reason to go on living. What does it matter that people far
across the waters care about them and their rights? It is a
reason to go on living. Members of Congress, you have a
chance to contribute to their reason for living. You have an
ability to contribute to give them hope. In your careers,
this may be one of the least costly and greatest
opportunities to challenge abuses of hundreds of millions of
people. Please take that action. Please support Resolution
169. And please support the U.N. Disability Rights
Convention.
____________________

Saturday Review: Paperbacks: Fiction
ISOBEL MONTGOMERY AND DAVID JAYS
The Guardian – United Kingdom
Jun 05, 2004
A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies, by John Murray (Penguin, pounds
7.99)
A writer of short stories who has a medical background at once
suggests comparisons to Chekhov, but in the case of John Murray
they are worth drawing. The viewpoints in this collection are richer
than one would expect in a debut and the stories have an austerity,
almost a severity, born, one suspects, of Murray’s experiences as a
doctor in the developing world. Second-generation immigrants to the
US, often of Indian parentage, crisis-raddled or simply confused,
his characters struggle with what it means to be human. Murray grants
them epiphanies in Indian cholera treatment centres or refugee camps
on the Rwandan border; his stories are old-fashioned, yet refreshingly
bold when so many writing-school graduates do not venture beyond the
insular discontents of consumer culture. “What difference can any
of us make?” is a question worth raising, and one that Murray forces
his characters to face head on.
Isobel Montgomery
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury, pounds 6.99)
It is easy to see why Sam Mendes wants to film this wonderfully
vivid debut, which sets a coming-of-age story against Afghanistan’s
recent history. Amir and Hassan are motherless boys growing up in
Kabul just before the coup that deposed the last Afghan king. Amir
is Pashtun, a Sunni and privileged, while Hassan is the son of the
family servant, Shia and a member of the Hazara minority – making
theirs a friendship that cannot survive childhood. Its climax is
Kabul’s yearly kite-fighting festival in which the pair’s victory
culminates in Amir’s betrayal of Hassan. Amir is haunted by his
cowardice throughout invasion, escape and exile in America, and it
is only the fall of the Taliban that offers him an opportunity to
redress the wrong he has done his best friend. Hosseini brilliantly
personalises a place and a history for a western audience, but his
eagerness to match political upheaval with emotional crisis makes
the narrative over-determined. Isobel Montgomery
Buddha Da, by Anne Donovan (Canongate, pounds 7.99)
You can get used to anything . . . almost. But a dad who would “dae
anythin for a laugh so he wid; went doon the shops wi a perra knickers
on his heid” is much easier to cope with than one who announces “Ah’m
gaun doon the Buddhist Centre for a couple of hours”. Next thing he is
chasing round Glasgow with a trio of monks trying to track down the
reincarnation of a lama; then, before his family realises that this
is more than one of his fads, he has swapped drink for meditation and
is telling his wife he wants to practise celibacy. Told in a rich
Glaswegian through the alternating voices of Jimmy, his wife and
their 12-year-old daughter, Anne Donovan’s portrayal of a Damascene
conversion in an ordinary household is warm, if not always funny. She
not only makes the practical problems of religious fervour central
to the story, but within pages the dialect writing becomes something
to savour rather than stumble over. Isobel Montgomery
Gilgamesh, by Joan London (Atlantic Books, pounds 7.99)
Nunderup only just makes it on to the map of Australia; there’s nothing
there but hard work and hard faces. When Edith’s plump British cousin
and his handsome Armenian friend visit, imaginative horizons open –
and she gets pregnant. Armenia nags at her like a necessary dream,
until she slips away, baby in one arm, suitcase in the other. Edith
makes it to a dispiriting England and on to the Orient Express,
defying the approaching war until she attains her fabled Armenia. She
finds a disconcertingly real place, its hazy air laden with petrol
and protest. The ancient epic Gilgamesh , about friends who travel
the world and dare death together, haunts this book, even though
Edith feels it’s a Boys’ Own legend. Nothing happens to women, she
protests: “It’s not their story . . . women get stuck.” Her quest
is none the less achingly brave, and in this beautiful first novel,
the deceptively calm pages contain a turbulent, heroic longing.
David Jays
The Stranger at the Palazzo d’Oro, by Paul Theroux (Penguin, pounds
7.99)
In the title tale of Theroux’s collection, American artist Gil Mariner
returns to a snooty hotel in Taormina. He remembers a Sicilian summer
40 years earlier, when as a young traveller he was uncomfortably
coopted by a wealthy German countess. Softened up by luxury and
teased by the Countess’s breast with its “lovely smooth snout”, Gil
became a bedroom flunkey, playing self-hating sexual games. Theroux is
known for travel writing and fiction set abroad – other stories here
visit South Africa, Vegas and Hawaii – but this novella is stained by
grubby braggadocio. Better are the bewildering intimations of sexual
knowledge in “A Judas Memoir”. In four linked episodes, a Catholic boy
stumbles towards queasy adult knowledge in small-town America. Guilt,
disgust and betrayal snag his imagination, prompted by vicious nuns,
stagnant holy water and a priest pawing his scout troop with scaly
hands. David Jays
Living Nowhere, by John Burnside (Vintage, pounds 7.99)
Don’t believe the death certificates, says Burnside – everyone
in Corby dies of disappointment. The Northamptonshire town was
hollowed out when its steel plant closed in the 80s, but this novel
opens 20 years earlier, with the families who sought a new life
there. Everyone comes from somewhere else, no one considers it home –
not the Scottish Camerons nor the Latvian Ruckerts, each a family at
sea, especially after the friendship between teenage Francis and Jan
ends violently. The plant steeps the community in “a miasma of steel
and carbon and ore”, the smuts and stink staining even the snow. The
characters maintain a conviction that home is somewhere in the past
or future, but Burnside writes so forcefully about the pitiless town
that you miss it when Francis does a bunk, wandering from Scotland
to California. Writing with a poet’s electric apprehension of the
material world, Burnside puts the ghosts back into a town without
history. David Jays

One-Minute Interview: Kurds know how they view the world but how does the world view them?
By Bashdar Ismaeel
London (KurdishMedia.com)
5nd June 2004:
Interview with Margot R. Main.
Margot R. Main is an American lady currently residing in New York City.
Margot comes from a legal background and is a great supporter of the
Kurds and Kurdish issue and is active in KurdishMedia.com.
When did you first hear about the Kurds and how?
In 1991 when American news reported on the uprising in Northern Iraq by
Iraqi Kurds and the subsequent “no fly zone” that was enforced by NATO.
Where is Kurdistan?
Smack dab in the middle of a rock and a hard place; S. Turkey, N. Iraq,
Syria and Iran, up to the tip of Armenia.
Briefly, what do you know about Kurdistan, its history and itâ^À^Ùs
people?
Briefly? Well, I am a writer!
To hide and protect the most beautiful women in the world from
vengeful deities; in the beginning, angles gathered the most beautiful
women from all over the planet and hid them in the mountains of
Kurdistan. The angels blessed the land and chose the original Kurdish
tribe (Yezidis) to protect these beautiful women. Itâ^À^Ùs from
these beautiful women Kurds were born. This is why all Kurdish women
are beautiful and why Kurdish men respect and adore beautiful women
today.
However, this theory of origination may also help to explain why Kurds
have been continually persecuted for over 7,000 years. Originally,
the fighting began when Arabs and Turks tried to steal the beautiful
women away from the Kurds. The Kurds fought them off and forever
sealed the trust of the beautiful women. However, over time Arabs
and Turks became increasingly jealous that all the beautiful women
in the entire world chose to remain with their “guardian angels” –
the Kurds. This jealousy eventually turned to racism then later to
full-on rage and hate.
As the years wore on the fighting continued. Kurds began to use
ever more of their blessed resources to effectively do their duty to
protect their beautiful women. Unfortunately, the resources started
to become scarce and the Kurdish men become vulnerable to the plague
of “inferiority complex”. The beautiful women, having sealed their
trust to Kurds, committed themselves to fighting this plague that
was eating their Kurdish protectors alive.
They began to take up arms and weapons and help protect the land
that housed their guardians who had protected them from vengeful
deities thousands of years earlier. The Kurds (who now included all
the Kurdish descendants of the world â^À^Ùs most beautiful women)
became forever bound to themselves and their land. They took a vow
to protect each other and the land the angels had blessed for them
thousands of years earlier. This vow was heard by the angels and
demonstrated the depth of commitment by the Kurds. However, even
though the angels approved, they knew to bless the Kurds with even
more physical beauty and strength would be to increase the hate and
jealousy of Turks and Arabs. Thus, the angels blessed the Kurds hearts
with an abundance of compassion, empathy and love.
And that is why the Kurds are the most beautiful souls on the planet
today.
Today, Kurds stand strong in the face of opposition; but, also,
know when to yield to not completely destroy the land.
What is you opinion about the Kurdish issue and how to you propose
it to be resolved? In a series of steps. The first step will be the
inclusion of Kurd Federalism in the New Iraq Constitution/Transitional
Law. The second step will be the establishment of Kurdistan as a
protectorate of either the US, NATO or a shared protectorate US/EU. The
third and final step will be the final establishment of a Kurdistan
and an independent nation.
Where you for or against the war in Iraq?
Way FOR!
Do you blame U.S foreign policy for the problems in Iraq and the
Middle East?
No. U.S. foreign policy is developed and encouraged by and with the
consent of Middle East “leaders” and Europe.
Whatâ^À^Ùs your view on the current situation in Iraq e.g. violence
and killings in Falluja?
Iraq has a lot of problems that Iraq has to work out. Itâ^À^Ùs
easier to hate a faceless America than it is to try to get along with
your neighbours.

School to welcome new principal
Metz to take reins at SoPas Middle
By Mary Bender , Staff Writer
Friday, June 04, 2004
Pasadena Star News
SOUTH PASADENA — A school that has become the district’s focal
point will get a new principal this summer, as the board of
education Thursday night unanimously hired a Glendale assistant
principal. Mercedes Metz, who works at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in
Glendale, will take the reins of South Pasadena Middle School, perhaps
as early as July 1. Her salary will range from $85,344 to $92,379.
“Her students describe her as ‘cool,’ ‘ Superintendent Mike Hendricks
said, introducing Metz to the five-member board, also noting that
she is “highly organized.’ Metz was one of 25 candidates.
“Thank you for this vote of confidence. I’m thrilled to be here,’
Metz told the board.
“The future is going to be bright,’ she said, pledging to uphold
“rigorous standards’ at the middle school, “in an environment that’s
going to be truly nurturing.’
About 1,000 sixth- , seventh- and eighth-graders are enrolled at South
Pasadena Middle School. The campus will undergo a major expansion
and renovation in the coming years, a project to be paid for with a
$29 million bond approved by voters in 2002.
The school board and district staff are in the thick of planning and
environmental review for the project.
Metz is a 10-year veteran of Glendale Unified, where she began her
career as a substitute teacher. She then won a permanent teaching
post at John Muir Elementary School in 1995.
She began transitioning into administrative work in 1999, with posts at
Eleanor Toll Middle School, before moving to the assistant principal’s
office at Wilson in 2001.
“She’s a very hard worker (and) she’s very bright. I’m losing a very
good person. She’ll certainly be missed here,’ said Richard Lucas,
principal at Wilson.
“I’ve seen her grow in three years quite a bit, and I think she’ll
be a wonderful principal there.’
Wilson has 1,286 students, mostly seventh- and eighth-graders, with
just a smattering of sixth- graders who win the right to enroll under
a district lottery, Lucas said.
The Glendale campus is racially diverse, with Armenian students
accounting for 34 percent of the enrollment, Latinos 24 percent, Asians
predominantly Korean 12 percent, and Filipinos 7 percent, Lucas said.
It’s not clear when Metz’s duties will be complete at Wilson, because
she had been named principal of the summer school, which runs June
30 to Aug. 6.
The principal’s post at South Pasadena Middle School had been
the center of controversy as the April 28 application deadline
approached. Parents and a open-meeting watchdog criticized the work
of an eight- member committee, appointed by school board President
Tammy Godley to help encourage qualified candidates to apply.
In recent years, there has been considerable turnover among the
middle school’s principals: Rich Boccia served one year before
returning to the Pasadena Unified School District, and Katy Schneider,
his successor, won the job two years ago. Schneider submitted her
resignation in March.
Meanwhile, 28 people applied to become South Pasadena Unified School
District’s next superintendent. The application deadline was May 27.
Hendricks’ last day is June 30; in a closed-door meeting in February,
the school board decided not to renew his contract. Godley said
Thursday night that the field will be whittled to 10 superintendent
candidates, who will be interviewed next week.
— Mary Bender can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4456 or by
e-mail at [email protected] .

Missionaries retire in peace
RICHARD DYMOND
Herald Staff Writer
Posted on Sat, Jun. 05, 2004
EAST MANATEE – In a village of salmon and pale green duplexes just
off State Road 64, roughly 100 retired missionaries and their spouses
live quiet lives surrounded by swaying palms and four man-made lakes
stocked with fish.
But the stillness of Bradenton Missionary Village doesn’t silence
the strong emotions these retirees feel for their brethren serving
in missionary fields around the world.
“On Thursday, missionary doctors were killed in north Afghanistan,”
said Berge Najarian, 79, who had a 25-year missionary career in the
Middle East, Caribbean and Africa. “But this is a calling. Even though
we are always in danger, we feel safe in the center of God’s will.”
Established in 1980 by Anthony T. Rossi, the founder of Tropicana
Products Inc., Bradenton Missionary Village allows needy retired
missionaries to live rent-free for as long as they can live
independently. Many of these residents worked 20 to 40 years as
Christian missionaries and came away with no money for rent or to
buy a home.
Najarian, whose parents escaped the Armenian massacres in Turkey,
estimates he earned only $3,000 or $4,000 yearly in his missionary
life. When he began in the 1960s, he and his family received only
$100 a month plus free rent.
“I thank God for this place every day,” said Najarian, who has a
duplex on the 300-acre tract, about 200 acres of which are scheduled
to be sold to developers.
Rossi was a born-again Christian whose second wife, Sanna, was a
missionary, said Ken Solomon, 77, a Pennsylvania-born resident who
spent 14 years in Argentina and 11 years in Colombia.
“Before Mr. Rossi passed away, he sold Tropicana and a large part
of that money went to create the Aurora Foundation that supports
Missionary Village,” Solomon said.
Rossi, who was 92 when he died in 1993, left the president’s chair at
Tropicana a year after the company’s stock was purchased by Beatrice
Food Co. in 1978 for $490 million.
There is a handsome picture of him in the Rossi Activities Center,
which includes a large cafeteria, a well-stocked library and offices.
The cafeteria serves a sumptuous lunch meal for residents and their
guests every day for $3.
“We are all a lot more plump than we were in the field,” Solomon
kids. “The food is great here.”
Every Friday morning, many retirees attend a worship service and
prayer requests. Most residents spend their days volunteering at
area hospitals, churches and nursing homes. On Sundays, there are
no services in the Village, allowing the retirees to attend their
own churches.
There are also two swimming pools, shuffleboard courts and a Jacuzzi.
But the pleasant surroundings and the sound of birds in the trees
that rim the Village don’t keep out the outside world and all its news.
“Recently I read about the killing of one of our pastors in Colombia,”
Solomon said. “It was discovered that he was slain by Satan worshippers
who were opposing the spread of the gospel.”
Solomon dodged bullets himself during 11 years in Medellin, Colombia,
from 1973 to 1984. Fights between guerrillas and government troops
would lead to scattered gunfire.
“Once we had to duck in the doorway of a shop while bullets were
flying,” Solomon said. “Sometimes I would have to keep parishioners
at our church inside until the shooting was over.
“But you know, I never experienced any great fear,” Solomon added. “I’m
not especially brave. But we knew our lives were in his hands.”
Fred Kowalchuk, 79, served 30 years in Peru and 12 in Spain. One year
a rumor spread through the jungles of Peru that the U.S. government
was rendering people into grease for atomic weapons, Kowalchuk said.
“We were told that people would greet us with shotguns when we came,”
Kowalchuk said. “We never had trouble. But I was at peace. When you
place yourself in God’s hands, if he wants to take you, he takes you.”
Richard Dymond, East Manatee reporter, can be reached at
[email protected] and 782-5517.

AZERI TV ACCUSES US ENVOY OF MAKING IRRESPONSIBLE STATEMENTS ON KARABAKH
Lider TV, Baku
30 May 04
A commercial Azerbaijani TV channel has accused the US ambassador of
making inconsistent statements on the unrecognized Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic and on the role of US companies in Karabakh’s economy. As
part of its weekly analytical programme “167th hour”, broadcast on
30 May, Lider TV looked at some of the ambassador’s remarks and named
US companies which it said were active in Karabakh.
Introducing the topic, the presenter said, “And now we would like to
show you an analysis of how and why the US ambassador to Azerbaijan,
Reno Harnish, is making contradictory statements.”
A correspondent’s report followed over video of the US embassy
compound. “The US ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to
Azerbaijan, Reno Harnish, has been creating truly extraordinary
situations recently,” the correspondent said. “Diplomats are usually
noted for not saying what they actually think, but this is true of
situations when at issue are the national interests of the state they
represent. In the case of Reno Harnish it is the other way round,
as the scandalous and inconsistent statements he has recently made
have discredited not only him, but also his country. A professional
diplomat should at least be able not to create such tension and
misunderstandings. For instance, let’s recall his answer to the
question about the work of US companies in Nagornyy Karabakh.”
A clip was then shown of Reno Harnish speaking to microphone in
English, with an Azeri voice-over. “The United States government
believes in free trade,” the ambassador said. “We do not believe in
applying trade restrictions on any country.”
The correspondent continued: “Not only does Harnish support economic
relations with Karabakh, it even appears from his words that he
considers the self-styled entity to be an independent state. He goes
on to say that no sanctions will be applied against the companies
cooperating with Karabakh. According to the ambassador, the sanctions
should have been applied against Azerbaijan. In other words, Harnish
considers that a country which is recognized all over the world and is
a member of most of the international organizations, including the UN,
is equal in status to a separatist entity which is not recognized by
anyone in the world. No other US ambassadors have made such illogical
statements since the establishment of the US embassy in Azerbaijan.
“But the lack of logic does not end here. When the ambassador was
asked immediately after all these statements whether he recognized
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity after all, he said there was no
point in discussing politics. It seems, doesn’t it, that the support
for Nagornyy Karabakh on the part of American companies is more of an
economic issue, while the expression of an attitude to Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity is a political matter.
“Quite naturally, this position of the head of the US diplomatic
mission in Azerbaijan has caused profound public outrage in
the country. The issue was even brought up in the Milli Maclis
(parliament). And after all this, Reno Harnish denied having said
anything to this effect at a meeting with students of Baku State
University.”
Another clip shows Harnish, speaking to camera, again with an Azeri
voice-over: “The United States does not support or encourage investment
or trade in Nagornyy Karabakh. I would like to emphasize again that
whether the issue is raised by Parliament Speaker Murtuz Alasgarov
or by others, the gist of the issue is that the USA does not have or
support any investment in Nagornyy Karabakh.”
“Apparently, the statements made by Harnish were either nothing but
a collective hallucination of journalists, or the ambassador has a
short memory,” the correspondent said. “A normal diplomat representing
a superstate such as the United States of America cannot and must
not make such irresponsible and contradictory statements, not least
because any careless statement by a representative of a superpower
is capable of undermining all the ongoing processes. It is highly
unlikely that Harnish is unaware of that. If so, then how can his
actions be explained? Maybe the fact that he used to lead the State
Department’s political and economic programmes in Central Asia and
then worked as environment, science and technology counsellor in Rome
has overshadowed his diplomatic skills. Or maybe the ambassador, who
came to Baku directly from Kosovo, got so carried away by his previous
mission that he cannot distinguish between Karabakh and Kosovo.”
Another correspondent’s report then looked into companies cooperating
with the separatist Karabakh regime. These include the Karabakh Telecom
mobile communication operator, which maintains roaming cooperation
with 65 companies in 43 countries worldwide.
The presenter than interviewed the director of the international
strategic research centre in Azerbaijan, Rovsan Novruzoglu. Novruzoglu
said that US companies had invested in gold mining, the timber industry
and carpet-weaving in Karabakh.

WORKING GROUP SET UP TO DRAW UP KARABAKH CONSTITUTION
Mediamax news agency
3 Jun 04
Yerevan, 3 June: The first sitting of the new composition of the
constitutional commission of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic (NKR)
was held in Stepanakert (Xankandi) today.
According to a Mediamax correspondent in Stepanakert, NKR President
Arkadiy Gukasyan told the sitting that “life dictates the urgent need
to adopt the NKR constitution”. According to Gukasyan, the adoption
of the constitution will become another important step in establishing
the NKR’s statehood.
Gukasyan said that the delay in the elaboration of the NKR constitution
could be explained by a number of objective domestic and foreign
policy reasons, including with regard to the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.
“We cannot wait forever until Azerbaijan deigns to start a direct
dialogue with Nagornyy Karabakh for a political settlement to the
problem. The NKR should develop in line with the norms of a modern
democratic society where the supremacy of the law is a must,”
Gukasyan said.
He said that there were all opportunities in the republic today to
prepare and adopt the NKR constitution.
At Gukasyan’s proposal, the sitting made a decision to establish
a working group to elaborate a draft NKR constitution. The NKR
presidential adviser for state and legal issues, Armen Zalinyan,
was appointed head of the group. He was instructed to submit a list
of the working group members to the constitutional commission for
consideration.

US MEDIATOR, ARMENIAN PRESIDENT DISCUSS KARABAKH SETTLEMENT
Mediamax news agency
3 Jun 04
Yerevan, 3 June: The US co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, Steven
Mann, and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan discussed the settlement
of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict in Yerevan today.
Mediamax learnt from the Armenian presidential press service today
that Mann had arrived in Yerevan from Baku where he attended the
Caspian Oil & Gas 2004 International Exhibition and Conference. He
informed Kocharyan about his meetings with the Azerbaijani leaders.
(In a separate report on the same day, Mediamax said that Mann and
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan had also discussed the
forthcoming meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers in Prague on 21 June)

ARMENIAN TV CHANNELS REFRAIN FROM COVERING PROTEST ACTION
A1 Plus | 13:53:23 | 04-06-2004 | Politics |
Every-day protest action outside the Prosecutor General Office in
Yerevan continued Friday. Protesters keep on demanding a number of
political prisoners to be released from jail.
Only Aravot TV Company is highlighting the event.
Armenia’s other TV channels prefer to keep silence about that,
despite the organisations that staged the picket have repeatedly
invited crews from all TVs.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The PM: After the first six months
Windsor Star (Ontario)
June 2, 2004 Wednesday Final Edition
Prime Minister Paul Martin, like all politicians mired in an election
campaign, is running on a slew of promises. In his first week on the
hustings, Martin promised to hand cities at least $2 billion annually
from the federal gasoline tax and dump nine billion new dollars into
health care without raising taxes or introducing premiums to pay
for either.
But promises come cheap. Ontarians learned that the hard way when
Premier Dalton McGuinty whacked them with the biggest tax hike in a
decade just months after vowing on the stump to not raise taxes and
to balance the books.
With that in mind, prudent voters have no choice but to assess
politicians — particularly those who’ve governed and had the chance
to make changes — on past performances just as much as future pledges.
So how does Martin’s performance stack up? What did he accomplish in
his 163 days as prime minister before dropping the writ that might
convince Canadians to vote for him?
Sadly, very little. First, Parliament under Martin was a legislative
wasteland. His government passed only one major new bill — a piece
of legislation handing municipalities a 100-per-cent rebate on
the GST. Most of the other bills it passed, like one to establish
independent ethics officers for the House and Senate and another to
change the Patent Act so generic companies could sell cheap AIDS drugs
to Africa, were recycled offerings introduced in Jean Chretien’s final
term. The few major bills Martin’s government actually introduced
died on the order paper when the election was called.
Second, Martin failed to slay what he termed the “democratic
deficit.” He consulted with more people, more often, to be sure; but
his efforts at democratic reform were half-baked. After promising more
free votes in the House, he cracked the whip on a vote to continue
funding the rifle and shotgun registry and forbade his cabinet
ministers from voting in favour of a motion condemning Turkey for
the 1915 Armenian genocide. On the Supreme Court front, Martin hasn’t
given any clear indication how he’ll pick judges, despite the fact two
vacancies are pending. Martin gave no indication he’s about to engage
in meaningful Senate reform that would take the appointment process out
of the PMO. And Martin’s plans to expand the powers of parliamentary
committees produced only the farce that was the sponsorship hearings.
That brings us to another of Martin’s failures. He bungled the
investigation into the advertising money scandal. After he pledged
to get to the bottom of the mess, the Liberal majority on the public
accounts committee cut short its inquiry into the alleged scam 12
days before the election call.
All this ignores a host of other positive changes Martin might have
made as prime minister. He could have scrapped the gun registry, began
work on Senate reform and started the ball rolling on a much-needed
retooling of the High Court. But he didn’t. Overall, he has little
to show for nearly six months at the country’s helm.
A Martin performance review would be unfair and incomplete if it
ignored his nearly nine years as finance minister. As a fiscal manager
he did trim spending and cut taxes to revitalize Canada’s economy
and balance the country’s books for five straight years. But his
record was hardly blemish free. His balanced budgets were largely the
result of slashed transfer payments to the provinces. The sponsorship,
HRDC and gun registry fiascos occurred on his watch.
Since winning the top job, Martin has proved relatively inept; he
talks a good game but takes no action.
For that reason Canadians are right to question if Martin might not
be better suited to playing second fiddle than leading the band. At
the very least they have to question the veracity of his election
promises. He hasn’t delivered as prime minister. Canadians have a
right to wonder if Martin would morph into the mailman if re-elected.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress