Month: June 2005

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From: “Katia M. Peltekian”
Subject: The Great Game gone
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New Yorker, NY
June 6 2005
THE GREAT GAME GONE
by JOHN UPDIKE
The post-Cold War spy novel.
Issue of 2005-06-13 and 20
Posted 2005-06-06
The spy thriller still pines for the Soviet Union. No post-Iron
Curtain intrigue, no replay of the British Empire’s Great Game in
Afghanistan or its intrusions into the Middle East, no elaborate
`security measures,’ no double-double cross in the murk of
C.I.A.-F.B.I. rivalry can match, for heart-stoppingly high
geopolitical stakes, the good old days when, in terms of John le
Carré’s fiction, M.I.6’s Smiley matched wits with the K.G.B.’s Karla
on the global chessboard. There was an intelligibility if not a
friendly intimacy in the old contest, one between two large,
idealistic, rough-mannered nations seeking to maintain their spheres
of influence short of tripping nuclear war. As one hardened
undercover functionary cozily tells another in Robert Littell’s new
book, `Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation’ (Overlook; $25.95), `We all
came of age in the cold war. We all fought the good fight. I’m sure
we can work something out.’ The so-called war on terror has no such
surety; `working out’ is just what the other side, or sides, doesn’t
want. Littell conscientiously covers the new ground – the post-Soviet
Russia of the oligarchs; the potential for financial shenanigans
opened up by worldwide computerization; the stagnant antipathy
between Israel and its neighbors; Bosnia; Chechnya; and (news to me)
an international smugglers’ cove where the borders of Paraguay,
Brazil, and Argentina meet and whores dance sleepily in one another’s
arms – but he remains most excited by, and most at home with, occupants
of the old U.S.S.R. as they strike up fresh relations with capitalism
and the C.I.A.
Littell, a former Newsweek reporter now resident in France, began his
career as a fictional spymaster with `The Defection of A. J.
Lewinter: A Novel of Duplicity’ (1973), a deft and lighthearted
performance on the edge of parody, and capped it, a dozen books
later, with the best-selling magnum opus `The Company: A Novel of the
C.I.A.’ (2002), a nostalgic recapitulation, in nearly nine hundred
pages, of the Cold War intelligence marathon from 1950 to 1995.
Littell is not the only author to scent an epic here; Norman Mailer’s
giant, possibly ongoing saga `Harlot’s Ghost’ deals also with this
secretive struggle and evokes the striking historical figure of
gaunt, erudite James Jesus Angleton, for some twenty years the head
of C.I.A. counterintelligence. `Legends,’ though falling short of
Tolstoyan, or Maileresque, amplitude, does not scant, expertly
roaming the continents and offering a psychological puzzle to go with
all the deception and violence.
Martin Odum, to give the novel’s confusing hero his most often used
name, is an ex-C.I.A. operative who has, he feels, lost his real
identity in the shuffle of `legends’ – false identities, with carefully
worked-out histories and trade skills, assumed for particular
episodes of espionage. Odum has paid a personal price for doing his
devious patriotic duty: he suffers from migraine headaches; his
occasional lover finds her side of their relationship `like
sleepwalking through a string of one-night stands that were
physically satisfying but emotionally frustrating’; he plans to spend
the rest of his life, he confesses to her, `boring himself to death.’
The C.I.A. retired him after his psychoanalysis at the taxpayers’
expense was abruptly terminated. His diagnosis was MPD,
multiplepersonality disorder. Along with his well-remembered roles of
Dante Pippen, an I.R.A. dynamiter training Hezbollah jihadists in
Lebanon, and Lincoln Dittman, a Civil War buff doubling as an arms
dealer in Brazil, there are hints of a legend, an alter ego, beyond
his memory’s reach. These impersonations having served their
dangerous purpose, and Odum having outlived his usefulness to the
C.I.A., he makes ends meet as a private detective in the Crown
Heights section of Brooklyn, using two pool tables as his office
furniture. Well, one day in walks this dame called Stella, wearing a
long raincoat and `a ghost of a smile’ on her lips . . .
It’s a long story, and Littell should be allowed to tell it, twist
after twist after twist. This reviewer put up some initial resistance
against the plot’s ruthless manipulations of chronological sequence,
the arch chapter titles (`1997: Oskar Alexandrovich Kastner Discovers
the Weight of a Cigarette’), the excessively vivid verbs (`The
jetliner elbowed through the towering clouds’; `He heard Stella’s
voice breasting the static’), the occasional fusillade of clichés
(`He must have been off his rocker to think he could trace a husband
who had jumped ship. Finding a needle in a haystack would be child’s
play by comparison’), the clammy, overcooked atmospherics (`eyes
burning with excitement’; `the muscles on her face contorting with
heartache’), and the heavy-breathing ruminations about identity, that
critical modern problem. Almost all the characters, including stray
taxi-drivers and hookers (maybe especially hookers, adept at
dissimulation and undercover work), are pretending to be somebody
else, under another name. In a `nightmarish world,’ we are left to
conclude, `people who are broken have several selves.’ Why does this
theme feel tired? Is it just the Jason Bourne movies, starring Matt
Damon?
But, as I rounded page 300 and headed into the book’s last quarter,
the pieces of the puzzle began to click together and I felt myself
sinking into an earlier assumed identity: I became a
fourteen-year-old boy lying on a red cane-back sofa in Pennsylvania
eating peanut-butter-and-raisin sandwiches (a site-specific ethnic
treat) and reading one mystery novel after another. Not just
mysteries – Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ngaio
Marsh, Erle Stanley Gardner – but an occasional international thriller,
like Eric Ambler’s `A Coffin for Dimitrios’ and Graham Greene’s `The
Third Man.’ The idea of reading a non-genre novel, with its stodgy
domestic realism and sissy fuss over female heartbreak, repelled me,
but I could lose myself all morning and afternoon in narratives of
skulduggery, detection, and eventual triumphant justice. And so, to
judge from the best-seller lists, can millions still. Thrillers, as
we shall call them, offer the reader a firm contract: there will be
violent events, we will go places our parents didn’t take us, the
protagonist will conquer and survive, and social order will, however
temporarily, be restored. The reader’s essential safety, as he
reclines on his red sofa, will not be breached. The world around him
and the world he reads about remain distinct; the partition between
them is not undermined by any connection to depths within himself. At
this same age, I remember, I looked into Joyce’s `Ulysses’ and
Orwell’s `1984′ and was badly shaken by the unmistakable impression
that these suffocating, inescapable worlds were the same one I lived
in.
To complain of thrillers, or romances, that they are less than real
is to invite several counter-charges. It could be said that a book
like `Legends’ consummately achieves a novel’s basic purpose,
implicit in its name, of bearing news. Littell, a former reporter, is
generous in the amount of data he provides about not just guns,
explosives, and the procedures of terrorism (how to plant a bomb in a
dead dog), the battle of Fredericksburg, the Civil War nursing career
of Walt (known to his soldier friends as Walter) Whitman, chess,
Lithuanian history, Russian as spoken with a Polish accent, and so
on; he persuasively conjures up a desolate ruined island in the sadly
depleted Aral Sea, top-secret conference rooms in Washington and Tel
Aviv, and a medically vivid simulacrum of Osama bin Laden. Facts,
fascinating facts, are the bones of his fable, and who doubts that
the C.I.A. really exists and that describing how nations and
corporate entities relate to one another brings more important news
than describing the relations of mere individuals? On the other hand,
it could be argued that all fiction is escapist: by its means we
escape our own heads and lives and enter into other heads and lives.
Whether the head belongs to a Hobbit in Tolkien or to one of Virginia
Woolf’s sensitive, externally unadventurous women does not change the
nature of the escape: what gives relief and pleasure in fiction is
its otherness. It can hardly help being other, no two sets of
experience being identical: an American finds in English fiction a
different slant and social atmosphere, and a realistic Victorian
novel like `Middlemarch’ develops, as electricity and automobiles
overtake reality, a refreshing strangeness.
The slippery difference between a thriller and a non-thriller would
hardly be worth groping for did not the thriller-writers themselves
seem to be restive – chafing to escape, yearning for a less restrictive
contract with the reader. They write longer than they used to, with
more flourishes. Nothing in Agatha Christie’s brilliantly compact,
stylized, and efficient mysteries suggests that larger ambitions
would have served her; the genre in its lean classic English form fit
her like a cat burglar’s thin black glove. But Littell and le Carré
and the estimable P. D. James give signs of wanting to be `real’
novelists, free to follow character where it takes them and to
display their knowledge of the world without the obligation to
provide a thrill in every chapter. The hero of `Legends’ at times
shows sympathetic depths but in the end turns into a killing machine
as remorseless as the novel’s savage opening vignette. The heroine
never comes clearer than that ghost of a smile and the three shirt
buttons she tends to leave undone. The villainess, Bondishly named
Crystal Quest, chews ice, literally – cold-blooded, eh? The amorous
dialogue, the little there is of it, feels painfully awkward, if not
at bottom hostile, and the rest creaks like an oxcart under its
burden of conveying data. A random sample:
`In the early nineteen-eighties,’ Kastner explained, `Ugor-Zhilov was
a small-time hoodlum in a small pond – he ran a used-car dealership in
Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. He had a KGB record: He’d been
arrested in the early seventies for bribery and black market
activities and sent to a gulag in the Kolyma Mountains for eight
years’ [and so on, for sixteen more lines of type].
`You seem to know an awful lot about Tzvetan Ugor-Zhilov,’ Martin
observed.
`I was the conducting officer in charge of the investigation into the
Oligarkh’s affairs.’
Martin saw where the story was going. `I’ll take a wild guess – he paid
off the Sixth Directorate.’
`Legends’ patiently details the labor of espionage; in turn, the
reading of it can be laborious. Various checkpoints of the intricate
plot are repeated almost in toto, lest the reader carefreely lose
track and, like a scholar in springtime, gaze out the window at the
birds and trees of the non-espionage world. Espionage, this novel
implies, borders on the tragic, hollowing out a man so that he no
longer feels real to himself. The games the C.I.A. would play with
the world take on, in the plot’s developments, a megalomaniacal
hubris. Littell, and history with him, has come a long way since
1973, when `The Defection of A. J. Lewinter’ marked his début. That
novel is airy and comic, speedy and understated; it shares many grim
ingredients with `Legends,’ including a C.I.A. whose presumptuous
meddling destroys lives, but it has a warmth in its portraits of
Russia and individual Russians that extends to the American heroine
and her romantic involvement in the machinations of the state. The
passage of time, too, as with `Middlemarch,’ has added a nostalgic
patina. More than thirty years later, the mirvs and missile defense
at the heart of the intrigues around Lewinter have faded from the
foreground of our anxieties. The Cold War, surprisingly, had an end,
and the U.S.-U.S.S.R. rivalry did not produce a nuclear holocaust.
Now we fear not missiles sent forth by a government playing at
brinkmanship but loosely sponsored suicide missions that turn
passenger jets into missiles. An opaque seethe of religious animus
and insatiable grievance has replaced the hidden counsels of the
Kremlin, whose inhabitants, in softening retrospect, became over time
fellow-conspirators of a sort, enemies whose fears and aspirations
mirrored our own.

Hay Dat expands activities
Editorial
Yerkir/arm
3 June 05
Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s (ARF) Hay Dat Central Council
opens in Yerevan on June 4. Hay Dat has offices in Washington,
Brussels, and Moscow.
The latest addition was the Beirut office, opened last year, to pursue
the Hay Dat goals in the Middle East. Over 30 local and regional
committees operate across the globe. The Central Council comprises the
representatives of the mentioned offices, as well as representatives
from Artsakh, Javakhk and Armenia.
ARF Bureau members Karo Armenian and Hakop Ter-Khachatrian shared
their views with Yerkir on the coming forum, the works of the offices
and committees, as well as the results of the Hay Dat conference held
in Yerevan in 2003.
Touching upon the 2003 conference, Karo Armenian noted that it helped
better understand the tasks to be undertaken in order to keep up with
the international processes and present our views. New directions have
been adopted in the United States, Canada, Europe, Moscow and the
Middle East, and a completely new program has been put together.
The Hay Dat activities were carried out in two fields: the
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and supporting the
Armenian economy development process.
When asked why the economy was included in the Hay Dat agenda,
Armenian said, “It was included in our agenda because the development
of the Armenian economy greatly hinges on foreign aid and
international loans. These processes happen everywhere. We realized
that the Hay Dat offices and committees could play a substantial part
in supporting Armenia’s diplomacy.”
In his turn, Bureau member Hakop Ter-Khachatrian noted that this issue
was put on the Hay Dat agenda since Armenia’s independence as an
additional factor to support the basis of the Armenian state.
“The Hay Dat offices and committees immediately engaged in the
process, and a lot is being done today. Under the resolutions of the
ARF General Convention, the Armenian Genocide recognition is no more
the only goal of the Hay Dat. Supporting the development of the
economy became an issue of our agenda. We backed the Armenian foreign
diplomacy, in accordance to the ARF decisions, to aid Armenia as much
as we can and to reinforce its international positions,” said
Ter-Khachatrian, adding also that the voice of the Armenian
communities sound in all these processes, often having a vital role in
the policies of governments.

Hay Dat: New stage
By Karine Mangassarian
Yerkir/arm
3 June 05
Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s (ARF) Hay Dat Council is scheduled
to hold its meeting in Yerevan on June 3 and 4. The Council comprises
members of the ARF Bureau in charge of Hay Dat activities, heads of
the Hay Dat committees of U.S. and Europe, directors of the Hay Dat
offices in Washington, Brussels, Moscow, and Beirut as well as the
Yerevan central office, and representatives of the ARF Supreme Body of
Armenia and ARF Artsakh Central Committee.
The Council is to discuss additions to the Hay Dat strategy in the
light of the recent international and regional developments, and shape
the action plans for the Hay Dat offices worldwide.
ARF Bureau members Karo Armenian and Hakop Ter-Khachatrian shared
their views with Yerkir on the coming forum, the works of the offices
and committees, as well as the results of the Hay Dat conference held
in Yerevan in 2003.
Touching upon the 2003 conference, Karo Armenian noted that it helped
better understand the tasks to be undertaken in order to keep up with
the international processes and present our views. New directions have
been adopted in the United States, Canada, Europe, Moscow and the
Middle East, and a completelynew program has been put together.
The Hay Dat activities were carried out in two fields: the
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and supporting the
Armenian economy development process. When asked why the economy was
included in the Hay Datagenda, Armenian said, “It was included in our
agenda because the development of the Armenian economy greatly hinges
on foreign aid and international loans. These processes happen
everywhere.
We realized that the Hay Dat offices and committees could play a
substantial part in supporting Armenia’s diplomacy.” In his turn,
Bureau member Hakop Ter-Khachatrian noted that this issue was put on
the Hay Dat agenda since Armenia’s independence as an additional
factor to support the basis of the Armenian state. “The Hay Dat
offices and committees immediately engaged in the process, and a lot
is being done today.
Under the resolutions of the ARF General Convention, the Armenian
Genocide recognition is no more the only goal of the Hay
Dat. Supporting the development of the economy became an issue of our
agenda. We backed the Armenian foreign diplomacy, in accordance to the
ARF decisions, to aid Armenia as much as wecan and to reinforce its
international positions,” said Ter-Khachatrian, adding also that the
voice of the Armenian communities sound in all these processes, often
having a vital role in the policies of governments.
Further commenting on the economic factors involved in foreign policy,
Armenian emphasized the importance of developing bilateral economic
relations. As an example, he pointed out the creation of the
American-Armenian intergovernmental economic committee noting that Hay
Dat office has laid the foundation for the committee’s
creation. Armenian said similar activities are being carried out in
other countries that provide international assistance packages,
including Canada, European countries.
It’s not easy to counter the Turkish propaganda machine
The problem of Artsakh occupies a unique position in the activities of
Hay Dat offices and committees. `Due to some recent global processes
this problem has had very slow development. However, Armenia has
always preserved its position of being ready for open
negotiations. But Azerbaijan’s behavior as well as some regional
developments hindered this process,’ ARF Bureau member Karo Armenian
said. Armenian believes that even though there are no new developments
in Armenia’s foreign policy, this does not mean that Hay Dat offices
do not pursue this issue. Hay Dat offices and committees daily monitor
the developments related to Artsakh and keep this issue on their
agenda.
Of course, international recognition and denunciation of the Armenian
Genocide are the main objectives of Hay Dat activities. In this
respect, Armenian stressed the importance of countering the Turkish
and Azeri propaganda and neutralizing the public opinion
disinformation campaigns launched by these countries.
Bureau member Ter-Khachatrian noted that international recognition of
the Armenian Genocide has been activated on a wider scale and many
countries have recognized the Genocide. `We had never had such rapid
developments before. This means that our activities of the past years
are yielding their results. Of course, Armenia’s official position is
very important in this respect since international recognition of the
Armenian Genocide has a special position on Armenia’ s foreign policy
agenda’.
`One of the most important challenges we have to face is counteringthe
diplomatic campaign Turkey has launched around its application for
membership in the European Union.
When we speak about stopping Turkey’s policies of denial we should
keep in mind that it is not an easy task. We can succeed gradually,
step by step. We are dealing with a powerful state machine which gets
support from several powerful countries. And we have to counter this
machine,’ Armenian said. He believes Turkey’s aspirations for EU
membership were a good opportunity for Hay Dat activities. `We had to
include recognition of the Armenian Genocideinto the list of
preconditions set before Turkey.
I have to make a clarification here. When we say recognition, our
organization and our nation cannot accept so-called `passive
recognition’. We are dealing with a state that is still bearing the
guilt of committing genocide. This is not the guilt of the Ottoman
Empire. The modern Turkey has participated in the Armenian Genocide
from the very first day of its creation. This countryis founded on the
consequences of the Genocide and it owes to our nation. Thisis the
issue we are raising on the international political arena as an urgent
issue,’ Armenian stated. Ter-Khachatrian noted that Turkey is trying
to counter Hay Dat activities very skillfully. It is pursuing its
policy of denial both in politics and in economics.
`We could see this when Turkey was trying to exert pressure on Canada
saying that the Canadian companies working in Turkey could suffer
damages. The Turkish embassies in different countries have formed a
network attracting anumber of suspicious organizations that are
implementing Turkey’s policies’. Ter-Khachatrian believes this is a
very flexible policy since on the one hand it pursues absolute denial
while on the other hand proposals are made for the historians to start
a dialog. `It’s interesting that this approach has become a part of
Western policies. Let’s remember the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation
Committee, an initiative that did not come from the states
involved. Who can be against a dialog? However, in reality, the
Committee had absolutely different objectives which derived from its
non-representative composition.
The Committee members had a certain bias that had been determined by
Turkey. The Committee’s obvious objective was to counter the
increasing international pressure on Turkey. When we were trying to
raise the question of recognition of the Genocide representatives of
various countries in Europe and North America were saying, why are you
raising this question if a reconciliation process has already started?
In this respect, the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Committee
significantly hindered international recognition of the Genocide,’
Ter-Khachatrian said. Karo Armenian pointed out that TARC was unmasked
by the Hay Dat Committee. Hay Dat activists revealed the fact that
TARC was financed by the US State Department, a fact that previously
had been kept secret. Finally, the State Department had to accept this
fact and the Committee was discredited.
The issue of Genocide does not have religious grounds Karo Armenian
commented on the peculiarities of the activities of Hay Dat Middle
East office in Beirut noting that Armenia is a Christian country
surrounded by Muslim countries. Thus, as a Christian country, Armenia
has to understand the peculiarities of the Islamic world and establish
proper relations with it. `Armenia is facing a serious challenge. In
this respect, it is very important that Armenia preserve its values
that are largely in line with European values on the one hand, and be
able to develop its relations with the Islamic world on the
other. This is very difficult but at the same time very important from
the point of view of diplomacy.
We have a lot to do in this respect. We have to explain to the
countries in the region that our problem with Turkey does not have any
religious groundsbut is a result of nationalism and genocide. We have
to show to the Islamic world that the problem we have with our
neighbors, Turkey and Azerbaijan, does not derive from religious
differences (by the way, there are differences within Islam as well)
but from the fact that Turkey is grounded on a value system that has
no right to persist in the modern world,’ Armenian said.
The scope of Hay Dat supporters and activists is very wide ARF has
adopted a new approach of attracting new friends and supporters. One
of the results of this approach was the Pro-Armenia Conference held in
Paris. More than 150 friends of Armenia from different countries
participated in the conference.
`This is a symbol of our strength since the Conference attracted
different influential people, political leaders from different
countries,’ Ter-Khachatrian said. He pointed out that though Hay Day
offices and committees are political branches of ARF, they include a
large number of supporters, inducing many young people. And these
young people are the guarantors of accomplishment of Hay Dat goals,
Ter-Khachatrian concluded.

Would income declarations work?
Yerkir/arm
3 June 05
Though the draft law making it mandatory to file personal property and
income declarations has been adopted by the National Assembly in the
first reading, it is not yet a law.
The bill, included in the NA’s spring agenda, also envisages
amendments to the Criminal Code, according to which, persons not
filing declarations or deliberately misrepresenting data, would be
subjected to fines up to 600,000 drams (approx. $1,300) or a prison
time up to one year: under the current Criminal Code the maximum
prison time is 2 months.
However, the government was forced to take back the bill under the
pressure of businessmen represented in the NA. The government is not
likely to give up but are people ready to reveal their property and
income?
Under the law, property and/or annual income in excess of 3 million
drams (approx. $6,700) should be declared. People believe that
enacting such a law especially in the part of property makes no sense.
Most people are outraged by the methods of assessing the property tax,
and this is especially true for those who have extremely low incomes
but live in the central part of Yerevan, and, willingly or
unwillingly, owning expensive apartments and have to pay high property
taxes.
Besides, it seems that using the experience of the western countries
in regard with property/income declarations is unrealistic in Armenia.

ReliefWeb (press release), Switzerland
June 6 2005
Armenia: Tufenkian Foundation announces new sponsorship in Karabagh
resettlement program
Dr. Alber Karamanoukian joins effort to resettle Karabagh’s border
regions
STEPANAKERT – The Tufenkian Foundation this week announced a generous
gift by Dr. Alber Karamanoukian toward its ongoing efforts to promote
Mountainous Karabagh’s resettlement. Dr. Karamanoukian’s gift of
$20,000 will underwrite the construction of one house and associated
facilities in Arajamough, a new village the Foundation is building in
Karabagh’s border regions.
Begun in 2004, Arajamough currently houses 25 resettlers, consisting
of 6 families, most of them refugees from Azerbaijan. The village
will welcome another 6 families this fall. The Tufenkian Foundation
is committed to building and resettling at least 6 houses per year
until the Arajamough project is completed.
“We are grateful to Dr. Karamanoukian for his generous support of
this project,” stated Antranig Kasbarian, a Program Director with the
Foundation. “Indeed, his support for resettlement extends beyond this
project and toward the larger vision of fortifying
Artsakh–particularly its vulnerable border regions–as a crucial
component of our national security.”
In turn, Dr. Karamanoukian praised the Foundation for its efforts.
“Resettling Karabagh is of vital importance, particularly when many
people still lack decent housing, facilities, and especially jobs. I
commend the Foundation’s commitment to raising the bar in each of
these fields, and urge others to join the effort to consolidate our
victories on the ground.”
The Arajamough project features newly built houses with modern
amenities. Alongside these, the Tufenkian Foundation is providing
water, power lines, gravel roads, as well as administrative support
in bolstering the village. Future plans include animal husbandry and
land cultivation, in order to provide sustainable livelihoods and to
spur economic growth in surrounding areas.
“Our view of resettlement is an integrated one, and moves beyond the
usual humanitarian-subsistence approaches,” stated Kasbarian. “The
Karabagh war created many thousands of refugees and homeless persons;
some of these have left the area entirely, while many others continue
to eke out an existence in ruined areas amidst primitive conditions.
Under such circumstances, our very existence on these lands remains
tenuous. If we are to attract Armenians back and solidify our
presence, then clearly having a roof over one’s head is not enough.
Rather, people must gain hope that there is a future living on these
lands, which is why modern facilities, infrastructure, and the
promise of economic activity are essential as well.”
Dr. Karamanoukian is a prominent physician and businessman based in
Glendale, California. He has a long record of philanthropy toward
Armenian causes.
The Tufenkian Foundation was established in 1999 by New York-based
entrepreneur James Tufenkian. The Foundation currently pursues a wide
array of projects in Armenia and in Karabagh, and also sponsors the
“Armenian Forests” NGO, which addresses environmental issues. To
learn more about the Foundation’s efforts, please see the
Foundation’s website at , or contact
Antranig Kasbarian at [email protected]
source: Asbarez

Miami Herald, FL
June 6 2005
One of our favorite hosts plays guest of honor
Any party Lee Schrager throws is a highly coveted invitation in
Miami’s elite social circles. The affair is always lavish but
understated and elegant. It’s even better when the party is in honor
of the affable Schrager, the director of special events and media
relations for Southern Wine & Spirits.
His longtime friend, attorney Sam Blum, put on such a party at his
Coconut Grove penthouse, which has also been the site of many a
glamorous celebration. This was no exception. About 60 of Schrager’s
nearest and dearest were treated to a night of Latin American
delicacies, from the music to the food.
During cocktails, everyone caught up — his parties are always like
mini-reunions — while enjoying lively music from the Latin jazz trio
Brisas, who played mostly Cuban favorites to please Schrager’s
international taste.
Life is in the details and Blum saw to it that even the handsome wait
staff complemented the theme. They were outfitted in white jeans and
chic, brightly colored striped shirts. Champagne flowed as the guests
made their way around the three-level apartment with many ending up
on the rooftop terrace for dinner with a spectacular view of Miami’s
glittering lights in the breezy night.
The feast — created by Blum’s partner, chef Milenko Samardzich —
was an extraordinary culinary tour through Peru, Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Argentina and Venezuela. Restaurant publicist Terry Zarikian also
contributed to the menu with an artichoke, lemon dill dish and an
eggplant in cinnamon and cloves, sharing his Greek-Armenian
background. The desserts included decadent chocolate and buttery
masterpieces like Marquise cake and Bola de Oro, which left everyone
smiling but ready for a water fast the next day. If that were not
enough, out came the dulce de leche birthday cake, and the band led
the group in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday followed by the
Mexican birthday tradition of Las Mañanitas.
Happy guests included publicist Charlie Cinnamon; philanthropist
Marcy Lefton; Miami Herald writer Lydia Martin and attorney Elizabeth
Schwartz; Lola Jacobson; Mario Leon; star hairstylist Samy and Alex
Dominguez; Michael Katz; Dr. Larry Harmon; Ken Gorin, owner of The
Collection; Tara Gilani; Alan Roth and Netta Bell; Dr. Ricardo
Restrepo; Nick D’Annunzio; attorney Dan Weiss and wife Merle; Charlie
Hines; Richard Booth and Estee Mandel.
ART AUCTION
The Education Fund held its eighth silent art auction, ”The Art of
Found Objects,” at the Sonesta Beach Resort on Key Biscayne, raising
more than $50,000, a record. The event was attended by more than 200
supporters.
The auction sells artwork created by local students and artists to
help public school teachers, directly benefiting visual arts
programs. The art is created from unusual elements, which are
recycled. More than 200 pieces of art and luxury items like cruises,
trips and gourmet cooking lessons were auctioned off.
Many pieces were snapped up by noted collectors, such as Dr. Sanford
Ziff and wife Dolores. Philanthropist R. Kirk Landon won a piece
called Cargo Circus. Emcee Eliott Rodriguez, WFOR-CBS 4 news anchor,
was almost upstaged by 11-year-old student artist Melissa Quintana of
Banyan Elementary, who spoke of the ”greatness of the program” and
touted her artwork, Coconut Lizard, and her teacher Peter de Mercado.
Her piece sold for $105. Rodriguez won Asian cooking lessons.
Another hotly contested item was a party for 10 put together by
Johnson & Wales. A weekend lease for a Williamson Cadillac Hummer
donated by the company’s president, Trae Williamson, was won by Kim
Martin. Monica James and Co. donated a Venetian floor lamp.
Community leaders who hosted the event included José Concepción and
Merle Weiss. Collectors of auction art included Neisen Kasdin, Judy
Drucker, Ruth Greenfield, and Sherwood and Judy Weiser. Guests
included members of the advisory board Norma Quintero, Nancy
Batchelor, Carol Iacovelli and Brenda Nestor Castellano, plus Maggie
Hernández, Marisa Bergerano, Lourdes Cambo and Elena Milian.
TEMPLE HOUSE PARTY
Transplanted New Yorker Daniel Davidson is known for his lavish
parties there. After moving here three years ago, he made his home in
an unusual location, a former synagogue in Miami Beach, which was
built as a single-family home in 1933, then converted to a temple in
the late ’30s.
Davidson is the chair and CEO of the anti-aging skin care company
Genome Cosmetique. Lounge music set the tone for more than 250 guests
who enjoyed informal modeling with the latest collection from DKNY.
Longtime friend Peggy Pashayan, who is the vice president of stores
for The Donna Karan Co., flew in from New York for the event,
bringing the models and fashions.
The chic fete was attended by Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, who has been
making the rounds of all the right parties; Morris Chestnut; Tara
Solomon; Hal Rubenstein from InStyle magazine; star hairstylist Ric
Pipino and Ingrid Casares.

A1plus
| 13:38:56 | 06-06-2005 | Social |
ARAM KHACHATRYAN STILL REVEALING TALENTS
Yesterday the third and final tour of the Aram Khachatryan violin
International competition took place. 7 violinists from Armenia, Georgia,
France and USA played the violin concerto of Aram Khachatryan. Late in the
evening the Jury among which are famous violin players from different
countries, announced the results.
The first place was given to Yavryan Martin (Armenia) and Khourdoyan Satenik
(France), the second – to Gharabekyan Gevorg (Armenia) and Yeritsyan Suzy
(Armenia), and the third – to Muraki Aya (USA) and Asrieva Marianna
(Georgia).
By the way, prize fund of the competition was more than $30 000.
Eduard Tadevosyan, head of the Jury and professor of the Yerevan State
Conservatoire, was pleased with the level of organization of the
competition. He mentioned that the participants were really professionals.
Let us also add that today on the birthday of Aram Khachatryan, at 7:00 p.m.
in the Great Concert Hall the awarding ceremony and the Gala-concert will
take place, in which all the participants of the final will play.

Reuters South Africa, South Africa
June 6 2005
Armenia says Eq. Guinea coup plot pilots pardoned

Mon June 6, 2005 12:25 PM GMT+02:00
YEREVAN (Reuters) – Equatorial Guinea has pardoned six Armenian
flight crew convicted last year of plotting to overthrow the
president of the tiny West African country, Armenia’s Foreign
Ministry said on Monday.
The Armenians were among dozens of foreigners jailed in Equatorial
Guinea and Zimbabwe over the aborted coup, which Mark Thatcher, son
of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has been accused
of helping to finance.
The pardon was issued by Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang
Nguema Mbasogo, Hamlet Gasparyan, spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, told Reuters.
The six have been held in the notorious Black Beach prison in
Equatorial Guinea’s capital, Malabo. Rights group Amnesty
International said in April they risked starving to death.
Mark Thatcher has denied any role in the coup plot.
The Armenians were employed by an aircraft leasing company to fly
cargo around Africa. They have denied being involved in the plot and
Amnesty said their trial was “grossly unfair”.

WPTV, FL
June 6 2005
FAU hosts discussion on Holocaust’s role in study of global
atrocities
By TAL ABBADY, Sun-Sentinel
June 6, 2005
BOCA RATON — “I have long wrestled with the same nagging question,
which I try to brush aside but which keeps returning, insistent,
insolent, and harsh. Why me? Why did I survive when so many loved
ones around me perished? The answer emerged from the depths of my
being. I was spared so that I could be a witness.”
Those words preface artist Rupert Bazambanza’s illustrated storybook
account of the Rwandan genocide, Smile Through the Tears. The small
African nation is often evoked as the most glaring example of late
20th-century atrocities that rendered meaningless the dictum “Never
Again” that emerged from the Holocaust.
Yet the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis remains the
backdrop for the understanding and evaluation of modern genocide,
including Rwanda’s story. That sparked vigorous debate Sunday when
Bazambanza, who survived the Hutu-led massacres in his country, and
dozens of scholars and writers from around the world gathered to
discuss the Holocaust’s impact on genocide scholarship.
Michael Berenbaum, of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles,
raised the question of the Holocaust’s legacy in a lecture Sunday
that was part of the sixth biennial conference of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, “Ninety Years after the Armenian
Genocide and Sixty Years after the Holocaust: The Continuing Threat
and Legacy of Genocide.” Florida Atlantic University hosts the event,
which runs through Tuesday.
Universalized as “the paradigmatic manifestation of evil,” Berenbaum
argued the Holocaust’s usefulness as a way to “particularize” the
Jewish community, a process that led to the creation of Israel, has
regrettably waned. Today the Holocaust is considered the prevailing
reference in all discourse on genocide from Bosnia to Rwanda to
discussions of potential nuclear warfare. For some, that raises
troubling questions about whether the Holocaust should be preserved
as an example of the uniqueness of Jewish suffering that is not
comparable to any other event.
“The Holocaust has taken up so much time and so much space in the
20th century. … How do we furnish time, space, attention, affection
and empathy for others?” asked Robert Melson, a professor of
political science at Purdue University.
It is through exhaustive Holocaust inquiry and identification with
it, Berenbaum responded, that other atrocities have been acknowledged
as genocide.
“You can use the depth of understanding of one pain to speak to
another pain,” Berenbaum said.
The lecture sparked a few heated exchanges on the politics of
competitive suffering. It then turned to what for some is the most
bruising subject in Holocaust discourse: that genocides continue to
take place before a chorus of passive spectators around the world.
“Never Again,” Berenbaum said in his closing remarks, has long been a
moot point.
“The most that we can ask for now is `Not this time. Not on my
watch,'” he said.
With his art, Bazambanza, 30, hopes to remind the international
community that Rwanda did happen on its watch.
“I want to pass on my experiences to the world,” said Bazambanza, who
lost his father, cousins and dozens of friends in Rwanda in 1994.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Messenger, Georgia
June 6 2005
Tbilisi shows willingness for compromise on Abkhaz railway
Paper speculates that base agreement was in exchange for Trans
Caucasus Railroad
By M. Alkhazashvili
The Georgian government is reportedly ready to compromise on the long
awaited railroad project to reconnect Russia and Armenia via
Abkhazia. While political groups applaud the change, Georgian media
speculates that Russia stipulated the railroad as a condition to
close its military bases here.
The Georgian government has softened its position regarding the Trans
Caucasian Railway, which connects Armenia and Russia via Georgia
proper and separatist-controlled Abkhazia. According statements from
government officials, Georgia agrees to allow the railway to
operation, if Georgian refugees are simultaneously returned to
Abkhazia.
According to Speaker of Parliament Nino Burjanadze, this is a marked
changed; a few years ago the government’s position was unilaterally:
first the return of the refugees and then the railway. “But over the
last two years, we have changed our position and have agreed to
implementing these processes simultaneously,” she is quoted as saying
by the newspaper Alia.
The announcement was made after Burjanadze spoke with Armenian Prime
Minister Andranik Markarian. For years, Armenian officials have
underlined the importance of restoring the Trans Caucasian railway,
and Markarian’s June 2 visit was no exception.
The fact that he came to Tbilisi for a CIS summit places the issue in
a wider context. The newspaper Alia went so far as to report that
Russia is demanding the restoration of the railway in return for
withdrawing its military bases from Georgia.
However, according to Georgian officials, the government’s new
compromising attitude boils down to economics. MP Kote Gabashvili,
chair of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, explained it
as a simple change in tactics: unilateralism failed to produce
results. Now the accent will be placed on implementing profitable
economic projects.
Russia is Armenia’s main strategic and trade partner. Given Yerevan’s
vital interest in restoring the key link with Russia, Georgia has
frequently asked Armenia to use its leverage with Russia to resolve
the frozen Abkhazia conflict.
“We ask only ask that Russia adopts an objective position in regard
to Abkhazia. That Russia plays the role of mediator, speeds up the
negotiation process and the return of the Georgian refugees,”
Burjanadze was quoted by Khvalindeli Dghe as saying. “In such case,
clearly the railway restoration process will begin very quickly…our
formula is well known: the Trans Caucasus Railway will be restored in
parallel with the settlement of certain political processes and the
return of refugees, beginning with the Gali region,” she said.
According to reports by the Georgian media, an agreement is on the
horizon. “Tbilisi is being promised a minor breakthrough in the Gali
issue, namely the return of the refugees and an autonomous status for
the region [which has traditionally been inhabited largely by ethnic
Georgians]. Gali will come under the influence of Tbilisi and yet
remain in the interests of Sokhumi. They will leave the local
administration to a Georgian [in Gali],” Alia reports.
Opposition parties also support restoring the railway in conjunction
with returning refugees. According to a representative of the New
Rights Irakli Iashvili, opening the railroad without any political
justification would be unacceptable. “It would be wrong if we don’t
receive political benefits and open the railway for purely economic
reasons,” he said. But he added that returning the refugees to
Abkhazia is a viable benefit.
Republican Party leader Davit Berdzenishvili also agrees with the
government’s new position. According to him, the railway should be
opened, as should the highway. He added that Georgian-Abkhazian
companies should be created, because the more economically powerful
Georgia is, the easier it will be to regain Abkhazia.