ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
08/02/2004
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP://
1) Armenian Church Among Five Bombed over Weekend in Iraq
2) Judge Approves $20M Armenian Settlement Against New York Life
3) Karabagh Armenian Army to Hold Annual Maneuvers
4) Weekend Gunfire Leaves Casualties
1) Armenian Church Among Five Bombed over Weekend in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Combined Sources)–The Armenian Apostolic Church condemned on Monday
the weekend wave of bomb attacks on an Armenian Catholic church and four other
Christian worship sites in Iraq that left 11 people dead and more than 50
others wounded.
The series of coordinated explosions rocked five churches across Baghdad and
the northern city of Mosul on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and injuring
dozens more in the first attacks targeting the country’s Christian minority
since the 15-month violent insurgency here began.
The attacks began just after 18:00 local time, when an attack parked a
vehicle
packed with explosives and mortar bombs in front of an Armenian church in the
Karada neighborhood of Baghdad. The blast, just 15 minutes into the evening
service, blew out windows and damaged cars and nearby houses.
Some 20 minutes later, as survivors gathered in the streets and rescue
workers
streamed to the scene, a second blast occurred in front of the Assyrian
Catholic church only 500 meters away.
There was no word on whether there were any Armenians among the dead. “I saw
injured women and children and men, the church’s glass shattered everywhere,”
Juliette Agob, a woman who was inside the Armenian church during the first
explosion, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
The church’s governing Mother See in Etchmiadzin, said although none of its
churches and other property in Iraq was targeted in the apparently coordinated
series of explosions on Sunday, it is deeply saddened by the loss of life.
“The Armenian Apostolic Holy Church expresses her sympathies to the families
of the victims and all Iraqi people, and wishes complete recovery to the
wounded and injured,” the office of Catholicos Garegin II said in a statement.
“We pray that the centuries of friendship and peaceful co-existence among
Christian and Muslim peoples in the East will not be endangered by similar
condemnable violence; for peace to be re-established in the region; and that
the Iraqi people continue with the creation of their safe and progressing
lives.”
“I saw wounded women and children and men, the church’s glass shattered
everywhere. There’s glass all over the floor,” said Juliette Agob, who was
inside the Armenian church during the first explosion.
After the second bombing, Iraqi police rushed to search other churches in the
city. The sweeps turned up a sixth bomb, which was neutralized by American
sappers. However, as police hunted for more bombs, two more explosions
occurred, one outside the Chaldean Patriarchate in the southern district of
Dora and the other in New Baghdad in the eastern part of the city.
The attack on the Chaldean Patriarchate occurred as worshippers began
arriving
for Mass around sunset. Five people were killed, including a child. The LA
Times quoted witnesses who described seeing two men pull up in separate cars,
park them near the church, then casually walk away. Minutes later, the
vehicles
exploded, hurling shrapnel in all directions and leaving gaping craters in the
road.
The apparent target of the attack in New Baghdad was St. Elya’s Chaldean
Church. However, a nearby Shiite mosque bore the brunt of the blast. Both the
mosque and the church were holding funerals at the time of the attacks.
In the Mosul attack, insurgents parked a white Toyota Supra packed with
explosives and mortar shells outside a Catholic church. The assailants first
launched a rocket toward the building and then detonated the car bomb,
according to a US military statement. The blast killed a passing motorist and
wounded four other people. The church office was badly damaged, but there was
little damage to the church itself. Police said the toll could have been
higher
if all the mortar shells in the car had detonated.
The attacks all used similar modus operandi; carbombs filled with explosives
and crude bombs made of mortar shells were parked in front of the churches.
The
drivers left the vehicles and detonated the explosives by remote control. None
of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers. The methods and materials
used were a departure from the high-profile attacks on Shiite targets earlier
this year, leading some experts to believe they were carried out by a
different
group.
Numbering some 750,000, the minority Christians were already concerned about
the growing tide of Islamic fundamentalism, so long repressed under Saddam
Hussein. The majority of the Christians are Chaldean Roman Catholic, the rest
Syrian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox and Assyrian. Most live in Baghdad and its
outskirts and some dwell further to the north.
Islamic radicals have warned Christians running liquor stores to shut down
their businesses, and have turned their sights on fashion stores and beauty
salons. The increasing attention on this minority community has many within
looking for a way out. Many are in neighboring Jordan and Syria waiting for
the
security situation to settle, while others have applied to leave the country.
2) Judge Approves $20M Armenian Settlement Against New York Life
LOS ANGELES (AP)–A judge Friday formally approved a $20 million settlement in
a class action lawsuit between New York Life Insurance Co. and the descendants
of Armenians killed nearly 90 years ago in the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
The landmark legal agreement approved by US District Court Judge Christina A.
Snyder is believed to be the first ever in connection to the Armenian
genocide.
Snyder granted preliminary approval for the unpaid death benefits earlier
this
year.
“As lawyers and descendants of victims of the genocide, we were able to bring
to court a lawsuit that brings some recognition of the genocide,” said
attorney Brian S. Kabateck, who, like co-counsel Mark Geragos, is
Armenian-American.
One of the plaintiffs, 89-year-old Martin Marootian, will receive $250,000
stemming from his efforts to bring about the lawsuit. His mother first sought
benefits in 1923 for Marootian’s uncle, who bought a policy in 1910 and was
killed in 1915.
“What it really is an insurance case and not an Armenian genocide case, but
the two are interwoven together,” Marootian said Friday.
New York Life sold about 8,000 policies in the Ottoman Empire beginning in
the
1880s, with less than half of those bought by Armenians. It stopped selling
insurance there in 1915.
Many of the policies languished because remaining heirs could not be found,
the firm said. The company has located about one-third of the policyholders’
descendants to pay benefits.
About $11 million will be set aside for potential claims by heirs of some
2,400 policyholders, $3 million will go to Armenian charities and the rest
will
pay attorneys’ fees and administrative costs.
3) Karabagh Armenian Army to Hold Annual Maneuvers
YEREVAN (RFE-RL)–Mountainous Karabagh’s armed forces will start on Tuesday
annual exercises which the leadership of the Armenian-populated disputed
region
says are aimed at testing and improving their strength.
In a statement on Monday, the Defense Ministry of Mountainous Karabagh
Republic said the ten-day war games will take place to “review the combat
readiness of the Defense Army when it is brought to a state of highest alert.”
They are also meant to improve “the process of troops’ inter-operability
during
defensive and counter-offensive operations,” the statement said.
The Karabagh military also said that the exercises are part of its regular
training plan for this year. Officials in Stepanakert said the exercises would
be attended by army reservists and involve the use of live ammunition by light
and heavy weapons.
The precise venue of the drills was not specified.
4) Weekend Gunfire Leaves Casualties
(Messenger)–Six Ossetian paramilitaries were killed and two Georgian
policemen
were wounded as a result of shooting in the conflict zone early on August 1,
according to Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to the ministry, gunmen opened fire against the Georgian village
Tamarasheni around 5:00 AM Sunday morning from territory controlled by the
de-facto republic of South Ossetia.
“The attack started in the morning and we decided to respond,” said the head
of the press office of Ministry of Internal Affairs Guram Donadze.
He stressed the units that attacked the Georgian village were formed by hired
paramilitaries of a variety of nationalities. During his visit to Moscow last
week, the leader of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoiti told the Russian press that
although illegally armed formations were withdrawn from the territory of South
Ossetia, the separatist government still pinned substantial hopes on their
support and would use it whenever needed.
Also on Sunday, former residents of Ossetia living in Moscow led a protest in
front of the Russian Federation’s Duma demanding that Russia annex the region.
As reported by Rustavi-2, the protesters carried posters stating, “The
so-called Georgia is fiction and her territorial integrity is nonsense.”
Shortly before the shootings, representatives of the four-member Joint
Control
Commission (JCC) had taken measures to curtail the sporadic gunfights that
have
erupted in the region recently. According to the Georgian government,
separatists used mortars, grenade launchers and machine guns in an early
morning attack on Tamarasheni Friday, although the South Ossetian officials
blamed Georgian troops for starting attacks.
On Saturday members of the JCC met in Tskhinvali bringing together the
Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and North Ossetian sides. State Minister
Goga
Khaindrava and Minister of Internal Affairs Irakli Okruashvili represented the
position of the Georgian government.
According to reports, the sides decided to set up a joint checkpoint near
Tskhinvali to avoid any future attacks.
It is unclear if Georgian or Russian troops were stationed at the checkpoint
at the time of Sunday’s shooting.
In Georgia’s latest bid to gain diplomatic support, Minister of Foreign
Affairs Salome Zurabishvili addressed the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna,
Austria, on Thursday July 29 and asked the organization to increase its
activity in the region and even set up a joint check point at the Roki tunnel
into Russia.
Her appeal was welcomed by the US Ambassador to the OSCE Stephan Minikes who
said his government “noted with great interest the proposal of the Foreign
Minister which was made today to expand the mandate of the OSCE Mission to
Georgia.”
“We stand willing to work with the Government of Georgia and other key
interested parties and participating States to come to agreement early this
fall on how best to amend the mandate of the OSCE Mission in Georgia so as to
promote greater stability in South Ossetia and a more rapid settlement of the
conflict there that is fully in line with OSCE principles,” he said in
published remarks.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rebuffed the proposal, saying,
“Unbiased assessment of the situation is essential and not the increase of
number of observers,” as reported by Civil Georgia. The Russian government has
frequently accused the OSCE of giving Georgia preferential treatment while
carrying out its existing–limited–monitoring mission in South Ossetia.
The Russian ministry added that overtures like Zurabishvili’s “aim at
switching attention from the major problem and hinder reaching decision that
would really foster putting an end to escalation of tensions in the region.”
All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier
and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and
subscription requests.
(c) 2004 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved.
ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for
academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through
mass media outlets.