Month: October 2005

Athens News Agency
Oct 6 2005

DM meets with Armenian political leaders
YEREVAN, 6/10/2005 (ANA)

Defense Minister Spilios Spiliotopoulos met with Armenian officials
on Wednesday during his visit to Erevan.
Spiliotopoulos met separately with Armenian President Robert
Kocharian, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan and Armenian
Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan.

The Greek minister reiterated Greece’s support regarding Armenia’s
aspirations to join NATO, while on a bilateral level, both sides
agreed to strengthen existing military cooperation.

A committee was created which will investigate how this can be
achieved.

Spiliotopoulos announced that Greece will provide defense materiel to
Armenia’s Peace Corps, while a Greek C-130 military plane will
transport Armenian soldiers who will replace peace-keeping forces
currently in Kosovo.

The defense minister also met with Patriarch of Armenia Garegin and
visited the Tsitsernakaberd Monument where he laid a wreath and
planted a tree in memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian is expected to visit Athens in
November.

Armenpress

ARMENIAN DM SAYS RUSSIAN BASE COMPONENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS: Addressing a NATO-sponsored Rose Roth
conference in Yerevan defense minister Serzh Sarkisian said the presence of
Russian bases in Armenia has no relation to the Karabakh conflict and
Armenian-Azeri relations.
Sarkisian said Russian troops are in Armenia at the request of Armenia
and “are a component of our national security and their presence is
contingent on Armenia’s relations with Turkey which is still hostile to us.”
Sarkisian said Armenia would agree to radically reform its defense system
given the final regulation of the Karabakh conflict and given Azerbaijan’s
accord to carry out similar reforms under the supervision of international
inspectors.
“Armenia’s major priority is to ensure its population’s physical
security, as we are a small country and even a middle-sized army can
encircle our territory,’ the defense minister said. He, however, said it is
a costly price to maintain army but added the country is not going to shift
to professional army in the foreseeable future.
Sarkisian also shrugged off speculations that Armenia’s cooperation with
NATO is detrimental to its participation in the Collective Security Treaty
Organization.

Angus Reid Global Scan, Canada
Oct 8 2005
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Armenians Want Elections to Choose Governors

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in Armenia believe their
regional heads of government should be selected through the ballot
box, according to a poll by the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies. 63.5 per cent of respondents say they would
like to elect their regional governor.

Armenia adopted its Constitution in July 1995. The document was
ratified in a referendum – deemed to have been fraudulent – and confers
virtually unrestrained powers on the president.

President Robert Kocharyan was re-elected to a new four-year term in
March 2003 in an election marred by fraud allegations. Armenia is
divided into 11 provinces. The provincial governors are appointed by
the head of state.

Under the current system, regional elections are limited to prefects
and aldermen. Each provincial governor retains the right to dismiss
elected officials. 36.7 per cent of respondents believe an elected
governor would be more accountable to the people, and 13 per cent
think he would be more interested in solving regional problems.

A nationwide referendum on proposed constitutional changes has been
scheduled for Nov. 27. The reform package would seek a balance of
power between the executive and legislative branches. At least
one-third of Armenia’s 2.4 million eligible voters must support the
amendments.

Polling Data

Would you like to elect your regional governor?

Yes
63.5%

No
10.4%

Difficult to answer
26.1%

If you elect the regional governor, then…

In the first place he would be
accountable to the people
36.7%

He would have more independence in
solving the problems of the region
12.5%

He would be more interested in solving
the problems of the region
13.0%

Nothing would change
15.2%

Difficult to answer
22.6%

Source: Armenian Center for National and International Studies
(ACNIS)
Methodology: Interviews with 1,000 Armenian adults, conducted in
September 2005. No margin of error was provided.

World Socialist Web Site, MI
Oct 8 2005
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Turkey: trampling on free speech continues
Novelist Orhan Pamuk faces jail terms
By Kerem Kaya
8 October 2005

The prominent Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk will be tried on December
16 and faces up to four years imprisonment on charges of `public
denigration’ of Turkish identity for publicly speaking out about the
Armenian genocide. It is estimated that more than one million
Armenian were killed between 1915-1918 during World War I when the
Ottoman Empire – the precursor of the Republic of Turkey – was crumbling.

In an interview with the Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger published on
February 6, Pamuk was quoted as saying, `Thirty thousand Kurds and a
million Armenians were killed in Turkey. Almost no one dares speak
but me, and the nationalists hate me for that.’ This was the evidence
of his `crime.’

On February 18, after filing charges at the Kayseri state
prosecutor’s office, Kayseri Bar Association attorney Orhan Pekmezci
said, `Pamuk has made groundless claims against the Turkish identity,
the Turkish military and Turkey as a whole. I think he should be
punished for violating Article 159 and 312 of the Turkish Penal
Code.’

Despite having made the statements in February, Orhan Pamuk is
expected to be tried under the new Turkish Penal Code Article 301/1
passed only last June. According to this article, a person who
`insults … the Republic’ can be jailed for between six months to
three years. If `the insult’ was executed abroad, as Pamuk has done,
then Article 301/3 imposes a one-third increase in the length of
sentence.

The new Turkish Penal Code was passed by the parliament after a
two-month delay due to widespread opposition. It includes harsh jail
terms not only for journalists (as in the old code) but also for all
members of the media deemed to have insulted the state and/or any of
its institutions, such as parliament, the army, etc. It also
introduces a new clause that equates any member of these institutions
with the institution itself, should they be individually insulted. A
clear definition of insult is not included in the law – the only escape
clause being Article 301/4, which declares that any `critical
opinion’ does not constitute a crime.

The actions taken against Pamuk come amidst a wave of nationalistic
sentiment whipped up by the Turkish establishment (See `Turkey:
military’s nationalist campaign conceals rapprochement with US’). The
Turkish press was full of attacks on Pamuk in recent months, which
resulted in his receiving death threats.

The killing of Armenians between 1915-1918 is not disputed by the
Turkish state, but the number of the dead and the definition of
genocide are. Successive Turkish governments, Britain and the United
States, have never acknowledged genocide. In the recent discussions
of Turkey’s possible entry into the European Union, France and other
countries demanded that Turkey acknowledge the Armenian genocide as a
pre-condition for entry.

The victimization of Pamuk throws light on Turkey’s rejection of even
the limited demands of the EU to improve its record on democratic
rights. In fact the opposite is the case. It is the EU that has made
the concessions regarding democratic rights during the negotiations
and allowed the recent penal code to pass without opposition. Human
right abuses in Turkey are hardly news in the Western media unless
they are extremely dramatic, such as the beating of women at the
Women’s Day celebrations this year, or unless they represent a timely
bargaining chip in the EU negotiations for France or other countries
that view Turkey as too close to Washington.

In Britain, a close ally of Washington and therefore a backer of
Turkey’s bid for EU membership, the press has reacted nervously to
the charges against Pamuk. The Sunday Times wrote that `Pamuk’s case
has been an embarrassment for the Turkish government.’ The
Independent was concerned that Turkey is giving excuses to her
enemies.

The last thing on the minds of Europe’s ruling elites is Pamuk’s
right to free speech.

Pamuk is a household name in Turkey and he has gained prominence in
international literature over the last decade and a half, with his
novels translated into 20 languages. When he won the Independent
Award for Foreign Fiction in 1990 the New York Times confidently
noted, `A new star has risen in the east.’ He went on to win
international literature’s most lucrative prize, the IMPAC Dublin
Award, for his novel, Benim Adim Kirmizi (My Name Is Red), published
in 2000.

Pamuk has consistently opposed right-wing forces in Turkey. He once
wrote in an academy journal, `Turks gripped by romantic myths of
nationalism are keen to establish that we come from Mongolia or
central Asia…. scholars have come no closer to offering definitive
or convincing evidence to link us with a particular time and place.’
Against this right-wing theory of Turkish identity reaching back
thousands of years, Pamuk, in his novel Kar (Snow), chose the venue
of Kars – a formerly Armenian city – and made sympathetic references to
Armenian culture.

In 1999, he refused to accept the highest cultural accolade awarded
by the Turkish government – the title of state artist. He said, `For
years I have been criticizing the state for putting authors in jail,
for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem by force, and for its
narrow-minded nationalism, I don’t know why they tried to give me the
prize.’

Turkey has never been a safe country for artists. Virtually every
prominent writer who has something to say about the repression in the
country has been targeted for persecution by the state. Nazim Hikmet,
arguably the best poet the country has ever produced, was charged in
1925 as a secret (Communist) party member and sentenced to 15 years
hard labor. His works were banned between 1938 and 1965, until two
years after his death in exile in Moscow.

In 1939, Orhan Kemal, one of the most prominent Turkish writers of
the last century, was sentenced to a five-year jail term for his
political views. Having stayed in the same jail as Nazim Hikmet,
Kemal was intensely influenced by him.

On 1 July 1993, the humorist Aziz Nesin barely escaped with his life
from Madimak Hotel where he was staying with other artists attending
the traditional Pir Sultan Abdal festival in Sivas. The hotel was set
on fire by fundamentalist mobs, killing 36 artists and injuring 24. A
6,000-strong military brigade situated near the hotel did nothing for
eight hours, until the mobs achieved their mission. A group of
artists was finally rescued by the fire brigade, but when they
realized that Aziz Nesin was amongst them the firemen and the police
joined the mob attack – inflicting injuries to his head and body.
Eventually the military moved in to stop the lynching. Nesin’s crime
was to speak out publicly and consistently on behalf of secularism.
He too was jailed several times as a result of his socialist views.

More recently, a local administrator in the city of Isparta, Mustafa
Altinpinar, sent a circular to all libraries in the region demanding
that Pamuk’s books be seized and burned. The government was
negotiating at the time with the EU over membership. It was spared
further embarrassment because none of the libraries in the region
actually stocked Pamuk’s books.

Apart from these high-profile cases, literally thousands of
journalists and writers have been prosecuted and jailed over the
years. Only recently, a few days after the new laws were passed,
journalist-writer Emin Karaca was charged with `condemning the
execution of the three leaders of revolutionary youth’ – referring to
the executions of Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin Inan, 30
years ago. PEN American Center, an organization that defends free
expression, reported that, according to their records, there are
today over 50 journalists, writers and publishers before the courts
in Turkey.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EducationGuardian.co.uk, UK
Oct 8 2005

Turkish delight?

Chris Morris’s The New Turkey is a brave attempt to chart the
challenges facing the EU’s new applicant, says Andrew Finkel

Saturday October 8, 2005
The Guardian

The New Turkey: The Quiet Revolution on the Edge of Europe?
by Chris Morris
288pp, Granta, £17.99

“Happy is the one who says ‘I am a Turk’,” is the much quoted maxim
of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. What sweet agony, by contrast, for the rest
of us trying to follow the corkscrew path to modernity taken by the
republic he founded. Ask the Pentagon, which confidently expected the
cash-strapped Turkish government to accept the multi-billion dollar
inducement to support the war in Iraq; or the Turco-sceptics in
Europe who never believed the ultra-nationalists would reprieve the
convicted leader of the PKK by voting to abolish the death penalty;
or Turkish liberals who still support a prime minister who, as a
youthful radical, sat at the feet of the proto al-Qaida warlord
Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, as the best way of safeguarding the country’s
secular democracy. Getting at the heart of contemporary Turkey is a
bit like peeling an onion modified by Escher.

Happy we all are, therefore, to have a new Turkish primer by Chris
Morris which cuts a brisk and lucid way through the great themes of
Turkish life today, from the army’s shrinking role in public life to
the dynamism of a business community that works hard and avoids
paying taxes. The eponymous New Turkey might even be able to come to
terms with its past. Morris is full of affection for his former beat
as BBC correspondent, but he enjoys poking the scars left by the
ancien régime. Why does Turkey find it hard to look at the Ottoman
empire’s treatment of its Armenian population in 1915 and treat even
the cultural expression of Kurdishness as subversive? “You never ask
the questions we want to answer,” one officer tells him, providing
him with an epiphany on a plate.

Morris has served in Brussels and is therefore better placed than
most to answer the most complicated question of all: can a
fast-evolving Turkey soft-land in 10 or 15 years’ time inside a
European Union whose institutions are also in a state of flux? This
really is rocket science and, not surprisingly, Morris hedges a few
bets.

He is unequivocal, however, in believing that the prospect of EU
membership has already prompted a “quiet revolution on the edge of
Europe”. Like other nations that stood in the enlargement queue,
Turkey is undergoing regime change by consent. The other factor in
this revolution is that the old system quite literally collapsed. The
1999 earthquake, not unlike the natural disaster in New Orleans,
sought out not just the fault lines in the Earth but in society as
well. Ordinary people, already impatient with a self-seeking
political class, discovered that the bureaucracy and military too
were late in helping them in their hour of need. The government kept
sawing away at reforms, never believing the branch on which it sat
would finally collapse. The twin financial crises of 2000 and 2001
sealed the politicians’ fate. The post-war political machine they
created had simply run out of fuel.

Morris describes the slow transfer of power from a democratically
elected but Soviet-style state to the institutions of civil society.
We are reminded of an attempt by military intelligence in January
2004 to collect information on “divisive” trouble makers, including
Satanists, ethnic minorities and “individuals known to support the
United States and the European Union” (ie the armed forces
themselves). It doesn’t pay to underestimate the professionalism of
the Turkish army – a mainstay of Nato which has polished its
peacekeeping skills in Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan, but every now
and then it shoots itself in the foot.

Yet another lesson of the earthquake was that Turkey needed not just
a less heavy-handed government but a more efficient and transparent
one. It was civil society itself that defied planning procedures and
building codes and nurtured corrupt politicians. It will come as a
rude shock to those who rant against the tyranny of Brussels that to
many Turks, EU membership holds out the promise of being better
ruled.

Europe is more inclined to see Turkey as a challenge to its entire
civilisation – one which many conservative parties in Europe balk at
but which the left is more eager to accept. Morris quotes Joschka
Fischer: “To modernise an Islamic country based on the shared values
of Europe would be almost a D-Day for Europe in the war against
terror.” This is not an argument that appeals to Turks, who feel
patronised by attempts to depict them as the well-behaved Muslim
nation. They already see themselves as an important part of the
European economic zone. Many, frankly, are less bothered about being
a full member than with the immediate rewards that simply being a
candidate can bring. Europe means stability and as the Turkish
economy grows so too will the demand for European goods and services.
At present Turkey consumes at the level of Belgium; in 15 years the
population will exceed that of Germany. Think about it, Turks tell
their European friends. It’s win-win.

And if it goes wrong? Morris recognises that Turks would be more
likely to react to a European rebuff with an excess of nationalism
rather than a retreat into religious fundamentalism. A Turkey in
isolationist mood would be more dangerous to regional stability than
a nation absorbed in its own piety.

In some ways Turks now have the advantage. They have long realised
there is no alternative to change. For those who still think Europe
should define itself by whom it can exclude, not whom it can embrace,
The New Turkey is an eloquent nudge in the ribs.

· Andrew Finkel was a correspondent in Istanbul for many years and
has just completed a fellowship at the National Endowment for
Democracy in Washington DC. To order The New Turkey for £16.99 with
free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.

,10595,1587422,00.html

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 10) 517 163
Fax: (374 10) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
October 8, 2005

Encyclical of His Holiness Karekin II on the
1600th Anniversary of the Creation of the Armenian Alphabet

On Saturday, October 8, 2005, the Armenian Church and Nation dispersed
throughout the world celebrated the Feast of the Holy Translators. The
Pontifical Encyclical of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians appears below:

Karekin II, Servant of Jesus Christ,
By the Mercy of God and the Will of the Nation,
Chief Bishop and Catholicos of All Armenians,
Supreme Patriarch of the Pan-National Pre-Eminent Araratian See,
the Apostolic Mother Church of Universal Holy Etchmiadzin

Christ-bequeathed greetings of love and Pontifical blessings
to the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia,
to the Armenian Patriarchates of Holy Jerusalem and Constantinople,
to the Archbishops, Bishops, Archimandrites, Priests and Deacons,
to the Diocesan Delegational Assemblies, Diocesan and Parochial Councils and
Officers,
and to All Beloved Faithful Armenian People.

“The Lord hath been mindful of us; he will bless us”
(Psalms 115:12)

Beloved devout Armenians,

The Grace of God and heavenly mercy visited our Nation and the Land of
Armenia through the remarkable creation of the Armenian Alphabet, the 1600th
Anniversary of which we celebrate today. Let us offer praises to heaven,
because “The Lord has been mindful of us; he will bless us”, granting us
crowning individuals, “who decorated the wisdom of the Uncreate,
establishing the living letters upon the earth.”

The memories which are called to mind are brilliant and praiseworthy.

>From a distance of sixteen centuries, that joyful day of Armenian history
becomes clear before our soul, when the Learned Doctor Mashtots was
returning to Vagharshapat, holding the newly discovered Armenian characters
near his heart – to his heart aching for his nation, for Armenia. He was
happily returning from the distant journey, for God had heard his unceasing
prayers and had blessed his vigilant endeavors, and had blessed his mission.
“²” and “ø” – beginning with “²ñ³ñÇã” (Creator) and ending with “øñÇëïáë”
(Christ), the alphabet of 36 characters was born, so that the Armenian
people could read the Breath of God in their native tongue, “and the
Christ-given salvation would reach all people”, wisdom and instruction be
recognized, and words of insight be understood.

Mashtots was passing through the stations of the road full of hope, because
he knew that they were awaiting him in the homeland to receive the fruits of
his efforts. Even Moses was not as happy, says Koriun – the disciple and
biographer of Mashtots, because when Moses descended Mount Sinai holding the
God-inspired tablets in his arms, the people were worshipping the gold-cast
idol. In contrast, waiting impatiently for Mashtots were Catholicos Sahak
Parthev, King Vramshapuh, the royal court, nobility and the compassionate
clergy; and when they heard that he had neared the capital, they went to
greet him with the multitude of people. Thus, the waters of the river Arax
became witness to the joys of the encounter, the songs of blessing, and the
prayers of praise and thanksgiving.

To make the timeless word of God be heard, the teaching of the Armenian
language was embarked upon. Schools were opened in all provinces of the
land of Armenia through the sponsorship of the king and the care of the
pontiff. Children and the Army of free nobles were educated, and the people
themselves were coming to the “opened source of divine knowledge”. The
letters of Mashtots became the stewards serving the Living Word, and “Moses
the lawgiver and the ranks of prophets; Paul leading the regiment of the
apostles, as well as the life-giving Gospel of Christ, began to speak in
Armenian, to utter in our native tongue.” And the endless stream of souls
was opened; disciples became teachers, translators, commentators,
hymn-writers, historians and philosophers. With the perceptible arch of
light, the dissociated national life and detached lands of Armenia were
united. In our homeland, the word of God adorned and ornamented souls; it
brought to life the hope of salvation and the faith in the resurrection.
God blessed His inheritance, which the holy apostles of the Lord and our
apostolic father of faith, Saint Gregory the Illuminator, had secured with
their witnessing lives. Truly, “the Lord has been mindful of us; he will
bless us.” In difficult times for Armenia, our loyal clergyman and lay
authorities became the guardians and leaders of the nation, “who by the
power of the Uncreate Being, the Wisdom of the Father, established the See
of Saint Gregory, by translating the writings.”

The blessed generation of the Sahak-Mesropian school molded Armenian history
of the fifth century with the inspired and ingenious awakening of mind and
soul, victorious in dedication and fidelity, and gloriously attired in
martyrdom. Those educated by the spirit educated others. All succeeding
centuries of our history were led by the generation of the golden harvest of
the Armenian culture, the Christ-loving and homeland-devoted, kindhearted,
enlightened and intellectual generation, who during times of trial did not
hesitate to defend their faith and homeland with their very lives. Fathers
and sons, recognizing the eternal within the temporal, journeyed the path
from Avarayr to Nvarsak with the sanctified, blessed name of our Lord on
their lips. “The Lord has been mindful of us; he will bless us”, granting
us a century of valor, a century of heroism, when among the few, many were
found to be virtuous, “who called the glorious earthly grandeur ‘darkness’,
relying on the hope of the immortal bridegroom, becoming worthy of the
Ineffable Word”. “The Lord has been mindful of us; he will bless us.” The
sun shone over the plain of Shavarshan and forever united the faith and the
homeland of the Armenians. Regardless if the land of Armenia was protected
or being trampled, if Armenian statehood was existing or overthrown, the
Armenian spirit remained steadfast and secure with the 36 letters of life,
because the characters of Mashtots aligned on parchment had written upon the
souls of our people the purpose and mystery of their very existence.

Through the letters of Mashtots, the exquisite Armenian language has been
immortalized and the fertile tree of Armenian culture has grown tall from
the seed of a golden root, and thereby the Armenian nation dispersed
throughout the world with its Christian identity and with its faithful,
creative and progress-driven spiritual introspection is forever one and
unified. In everything that our people have created throughout sixteen
centuries, our great and blessed learned doctors Saint Sahak and Saint
Mesrop – the first Armenian teachers – are present. As long as their
luminous memory and the spiritual mystery of the Armenian letters are still
alight, they will continue to live and work – preparing invincible minds and
liberated souls by dispensing infinite treasures and divine light that
overcomes the darkness.

Beloved Armenians, guard our native letters of Mashtots, holding them close
to your heart, and our homeland and Holy Church will always remain hallowed.
Love our mother tongue and the glories of our ancestors will be praised;
grace, noble and pure visions, and lofty aspirations will flourish in the
life of the homeland. Keep the Armenian school luminous and bright, and our
future generations will converse about eternity with Free Ararat, Mother
Arax and the Mother Cathedral, which always remember the bliss of those
happy days when our venerable teachers turned the land of Armenia into a
blessed, desirable and magnificent place through the words of God resounding
in Armenian.

>From the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, we exhort our hierarchal sees, our
diocesan primates, our oath-bound clerical order and all our faithful people
in Armenia and in the communities of the dispersion, to celebrate the
glorious memories of the God-sanctified discovery of the Armenian Alphabet
in the year 2005 with pan-national festivities and splendor. Let the
exultant prayers of our souls reach heaven from the four corners of the
world, because “The Lord has been mindful of us; he will bless us”, granting
us crowning individuals, “who decorated the wisdom of the Uncreate,
establishing the living letters upon the earth.”

May the peaceful and righteous gaze of God look upon Armenian life, in our
free and renewing homeland and in all corners of the Armenian Diaspora.

Before the Holy Altar of Descent, we offer prayers to heaven, asking that
God, through the intercession of our learned doctor-translators who dwell in
lights, bestow abundant grace upon our faithful people, so that love and
devotion to the homeland and to our Holy Church be everlasting and our faith
be unshaken that, “Yea, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will
yield its increase”. (Psalms 85:12).

May the grace, mercy and peace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, be with you in truth and in love. Amen.

KAREKIN II
CATHOLICOS OF ALL ARMENIANS

Encyclical given on the 29th of January
In the Year of our Lord 2005, and in the date of the Armenians 1454
At the Mother Monastery of Holy Etchmiadzin
Number 283

The International Herald Tribune (France)
Friday, September 23, 2005
page 5
(A full page advertisement)

A LETTER FROM THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS

President Vice-President Secretary-Treasurer
Israel Charney Gregory H. Stanton Steven Jacobs
(Israel) (USA) (USA)

TO PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN

TC Bashabanlik
Bakanlikir
Ankara, Turkey

June 16, 2005

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,

We are writing you this open letter in response to your call for an
`impartial study by historians’ concerning the fate of the Armenian
people in the Ottoman Empire during World War 1.

We represent the major body of scholars who study genocide in North
America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for an impartial
study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware of the
extent of the scholarly and intellectual record in the Armenian
Genocide and how this event conforms to the definition of the United
Nations Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that it is not
just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the
overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide: hundreds of
independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and
whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of
decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:

– On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War 1, the Young Turk
government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its
Armenian citizens, an unarmed Christian minority population. More
than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing,
starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the
Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient
civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.

– The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue
of its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the
United States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly
documented by thousands of official records of the United States and
nations around the world including Turkey’s wartime allies Germany,
Austria and Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness
accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by testimony of survivors,
and by decades of historical scholarship.

– The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the international
scholarly, legal, and human rights community:
1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in
1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi
extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by
genocide.
2) The killings of the Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide.
3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars, an
organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide,
unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian
Genocide
4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust inluding Elie Wiesel and
Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000
declaring the incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide and urging
western democracies to acknowledge it.
5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem) and the
Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed the
historical fact of the Armenian Genocide.
6) Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as William
A. Schabas’s Genocide in International Law (Cambridge University
Press, 2000) cite the Armenian Genocide as a precursor to the
Holocaust and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity.

We would also note that scholars who advise your government and who
are affiliated in other ways with your state controlled institutions
are not impartial. Such so-called `scholars’ work to serve the agenda
of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the
Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide. In preventing
a conference on the Armenian Genocide from taking place at Bogacizi
University in Istanbul on May 25, your government revealed its
aversion to academic and intellectual freedom – a fundamental
condition of democratic society.

We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the Turkish people
and their future as proud and equal participants in international,
democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous
government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just as the
German government and people have done in the case of the Holocaust.

Approved unanimously at the sixth biennial meeting of
The International Association of Genocide Scholars
June 7, 2005, Boca Raton, Florida

Contact:
Israel Charney, President, International Association of Genocide
Scholars; Editor in Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide.

Gregory H. Stanton, Vice President, International Association of
Genocide Scholars; President, Genocide Watch; James Farmer Visiting
Professor of Human Rights, University of Mary Washington;
[email protected]

Armenians find faith in words

Detroit Free Press
October 7, 2005

BY DAVID CRUMM, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

To the untrained eye, these sacred curves are merely cryptic rows of
hooks and notches. But to those who love them, these 38 arches form
the architecture that shelters one of the world’s oldest Christian
cultures.

Starting this weekend, the 38-character Armenian alphabet also is the
focus of a most unusual anniversary: a yearlong celebration of the
creation of this written language 1,600 years ago.

On Wednesday at the Alex and Marie Manoogian charter school in
Southfield, the 347 students were gearing up for the celebration.

Anahit Toumajian taught her fifth-graders a poem to recite at an
upcoming assembly. She reminded the students that, “Armenia never had
great armies to conquer the world, but the letters of our alphabet
were the soldiers that protected our culture.”

Girls and boys recited lines of an ode to the Armenian language that,
in translation, begins, “You give us light. You give us love. You give
us wings to fly.”

There aren’t many elementary school classes that speak so
affectionately about studying languages.

There’s a religious side to this observance, but because the Manoogian
school is a K-12 charter school, those aspects of the story are left
to Armenian churches, including the gold-domed St. John Armenian
Orthodox Church across the parking lot from the school.

These churches, including St. Sarkis Armenian Orthodox Church in
Dearborn, draw members from across the state. In the 2000 census,
15,746 Michigan adults indicated they were Armenian, although a
University of Michigan-Dearborn center for Armenian studies estimates
the population is twice that.

“Ethnic identity, culture, language and religion aren’t separate
threads for us. They are powerfully interwoven to preserve our
identity,” the Rev. Garabed Kochakian, pastor of St. John, said
Wednesday.

The creator of the alphabet was an Armenian priest, the Rev. Mesrob
Mashdotz, who needed a written form of it to spread the Bible among
the native speakers. Armenia proudly identifies itself as the first
nation to embrace Christianity as its state religion, which it did in
the year 301. But, for about 100 years, Armenian remained an oral
language and the country’s churches used copies of the Bible in other
languages.

When Mashdotz finally captured the local tongue with his dozens of
curving characters, the first words he transcribed were from the
Bible’s book of Proverbs: “That people may know wisdom.”

On Wednesday, Kochakian showed journalists as well as a group of
visiting teachers from public schools in metro Detroit through several
historical galleries at the church.

“Look, the alphabet is everywhere in our culture,” he
said. “Inscriptions are woven into our carpets; they’re on our
vestments and carved into wooden doors. And, look at this,” he said,
pointing to a case containing a 200-year-old bowed instrument, a
distant cousin of the violin. The instrument is inlaid with
mother-of-pearl inscriptions in Armenian.

“The language is such a big part of our life,” he said, though he
estimates it is regularly used by less than 20 percent of the several
thousand Armenian-Americans who consider St. John their parish.

Starting Sunday, Armenian churches and cultural organizations will
devote a year to special programs and classes about the language. In
kicking off the celebration, Catholicos Karekin II, head of the church
in Armenia, described the alphabet as so important that “the lush tree
of Armenian culture has grown tall from its gold-seeded root.”

There certainly seems to be fertile ground for this message in
Southfield. In a fourth-grade language class on Wednesday, 9-year-old
Ani Papazian explained to her class why they all must take this
seriously.

“If we don’t speak our language and keep it alive for the future,” she
said, “then it’s like there’s this long chain from Armenia that will
break. And we can’t be the ones to let that chain break.”

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

THIS WEEK: If you’re Armenian, tell us what your culture means to
you. If you’re not, tell us something about your own family’s cultural
heritage that’s important in your life today. E-mail
[email protected] or call 313-222-1456.

Thursday, October 06, 2005
**********************************
Tchaikovsky hated Brahms, Schopenhauer hated Hegel, and Nabokov hated Dostoevsky. If they could hate the competition, why can’t we hate the Turks? Because it is one thing to hate marginally and another to make of hatred a fixation. Most of their lives Tchaikovsky, Schopenhauer, and Nabokov concentrated their best efforts on creating masterpieces. Hatred for them was a transitory and ephemeral investment. With us it’s closer to monomania. Which is why it is damaging to our psyche and injurious to our creativity.
*
During the last few days I have read several commentaries by Canadian pundits on Turkey’s prospects of membership in the EU in which the Genocide is not even mentioned. Some countries in Europe may try to use Armenians as a political football, as they did at the turn of the last century, but Canadians know better. Canadians know that in politics and international affairs the deciding vote is always cast by self-interest and not love of justice. Such a pity that some of our leaders and pundits forget this or pretend not to be aware of it, as if their own actions were invariably motivated not by self-interest but by altruistic sentiments.
*
In his learned review of Annie and Jean-Pierre Mahé’s new book on Armenian History (L’ARMENIE A L’EPREUVE DES SIECLES), Claude Mutafian tells us that no historian is qualified to write a history of Armenia because no historian can claim to be an authority on all periods of Armenian history. And yet, historians like Spengler and Toynbee produced universal histories from ancient times to the present day. That’s because their aim was to understand history, not to describe it. One of our tragedies is that our historians have been of the descriptive kind, leading nowhere and understanding nothing. Hence our perception of the past as “a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, massacre, and deception” (Nigoghos Sarafian).
#
Friday, October 07, 2005
********************************
The most effective way of suppressing dissent and free speech is to support writers and publishers while at the same time exercising strict censorship. This is what all totalitarian regimes do. Under Stalin, for instance, dissenters like Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, and our own Zabel Yessayan, Bakounts, Mahari and many others) were silenced, sometimes permanently, but hundreds of other mediocrities (among them Sylva Kaputikian) were published, distributed, translated into many languages, and awarded the Stalin Prize. Most Soviet citizens didn’t care or were unaware of the fact that one of their most fundamental human rights was being violated.
*
I once had the following conversation with one of our publishers:
“I have had phone calls saying I should stop publishing you,” he began.
“By whom?” I wanted to know.
“By Jack S. Avanakian,” he replied.
“You mean the same Jack S. Avanakian who happens to be the personal secretary of one of our national benefactors?”
“The very same.”
“Are you going to follow his instructions?”
“Of course not!”
But he did. Shortly thereafter he stopped publishing me. What changed his mind? I have no idea and he never explained. But I can’t help remembering Brecht’s celebrated slogan: “Grub first, then ethics.”
#
Saturday, October 08, 2005
********************************
Fanatics in one camp will invariably create counter-fanatics in the opposite camp, and a fanatic’s favorite solution is extermination.
*
Those in power will tend to misrepresent their fanatics as moderates with the result that moderation and tolerance will be seen as treason and critics of extremism will be branded as enemies.
*
Whenever a fellow Armenian tells me, “Please, don’t write about this,” I think: Why shouldn’t I? It is my duty to do so. Let better men than myself deal with the problem of reforming and educating Turks. My ambitions are far more modest.
#

Regnum, Russia
Oct 8 2005

Armenia stands for establishing of budget monitoring mechanism to
limit warfare appetite of Baku

The Karabakh problem is a conflict between the people of Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan, and not a territorial dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, Head of the OSCE Department at the MFA
Varuzhan Nersisyan said at a NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan.

According to Nersisyan, even in the end of 20th century the UN
declined to recognize Nagorno Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan,
because it could pose danger to the people of Karabakh. Because of
this, liberation war was waged, during which people of Karabakh took
control over some of the nearest regions as a security measure. But
Azerbaijan still occupies some other Armenian territories, and that
should be a subject of peaceful negotiations, and nothing else,
stressed Nersisyan. `Karabakh is also a part of this conflict and
should participate in negotiations. The international community must
help people of Nagorno Karabakh Republic and find a solution between
two principles – peoples’ right for self-determination and
territorial unity of the state. This should be the main idea of OSCE
Minsk Group’, said Nersisyan. He also expressed his concerns about an
official statement made by Baku on the increase of war budget.

`Such statements can only lead to escalation of arms race in the
region’, noted Nersisyan. He also expressed his doubt whether an
increase of Azerbaijani war budget even to $600 million can help Baku
gain any advantages because of the corruption in Azerbaijani army. `I
think that the international community will formulate its opinion on
such statements. We are for the creation of budget monitoring
mechanism to limit warfare appetites.’

It should be noted, that Turkey did not participate in the seminar,
despite of the invitation, and Azerbaijan was presented unofficially
by chief of Azerbaijani Independent Research Center Leyla Aliyeva.