Month: October 2006

KOCHARYAN: WE ACCEPT BOTH INDEPENDENCE AND INCLUSION OF NK INTO ARMENIA

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Sept 28 2006

"We accept both Nagorno Garabagh’s independence and its inclusion into
Armenia," Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan said in his interview
to Al-Jazeera TV channel, APA reports.

Kocharyan did not rule out relations on federal bases with the alleged
"Nagorno Garabagh Republic".

"International community will recognize Nagorno Garabagh’s independence
one day. I do not think a problem of recognition in international
level can be solved easily," he said.

OSKANYAN DOES NOT RULES OUT POSSIBILITY OF CONTINUING NEGOTIATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 28 2006

YEREVAN, September 28. /ARKA/. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan does not rule out a possibility of continuing the negotiations
with Azerbaijan in the near future.

In the interview to Liberty radio station in New-York Oskanyan pointed
out that individual meetings with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on
the Karabakh issue will always be held.

"I do not rule out a possibility of the co-chairs’ visit to the
region," he said and added that after they reached a relevant
decision based on the results of the 61st UNO General Assembly,
Armenian intends to contact the mediators and plan further actions.

Oskanyan reported that resumption of direct negotiations between
Armenia and Azerbaijan both at the ministers’ and presidents’ level is
possible and desirable for all. He said that it is all in an uncertain
situation, and everything will be clarified with time.

EIF ANNOUNCES ARMENIAN 24-HOUR WEB OPEN SOURCE PROGRAMMING MARATHON

SYS-CON Media, NJ
Sept 28 2006

Sun Microsystems And Sourcio To Sponsor The Marathon
By: Enterprise Open Source News Desk

Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) and Open Soft Consult teams
announced the launch of first Armenian 24-hour Web Open Source (WebOS)
programming marathon which will take place 14 October 2006.

Armenia IT industry is considered one of the most prominent and
progressive economic sectors with deep historic roots and traditions
in high tech R&D areas. Armenian programmers and engineers had
long started forming alliances and getting engaged in international
contracts with companies in neighboring countries and off-shore.

Open Source 24-hour programming marathon is scheduled to launch 14
October 2006 with an ambitious but realistic goal to promote Armenia’s
potential as one of attractive destinations of highly developed
information technology sector and professional young specialists.

Open Source 24-hour Marathon will motivate the IT area professionals
and engage them in open source development. The objectives of the
marathon is to discover Armenian young IT talents, new ideas and
specialists, help to form businesses in open source technologies,
provide them modern knowledge as well as promote open source
programming in Armenia.

The participants of the Marathon can register at the webos2006 website
and within 24-hours submit their projects to the steering board. The
best projects will be rewarded with interesting prizes.

The event will be publicized both locally and internationally, via
the TV, newspapers, magazines and internet.

The Marathon is sponsored by IT Development Support Council, Union
of Information Technology Enterprise, Sun Microsystems and Sourcio.

LACHIN: THE EMPTYING LANDS
By Onnik Krikorian in Lachin

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Sept 28 2006

Landmines, neglect and uncertainty result in an Armenian exodus from
strategic corridor.

Suarassy, a mine-infested region.

Relics of war, south of Lachin.

Growing up in Ditsmayri, near Zangelan, Kashatagh Region.

What is left of the village of Malibeyli. All photographs by Onnik
Krikorian.

The local residents of Suarassy seem oblivious to the hidden danger
as they herd cattle down a road known to have been mined during the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war of the early Nineties. Despite the mangled
military lorry rusting in a ditch to one side, none of their cows
have so far detonated seven anti-tank mines still believed to be
buried underneath, so they reckon the road is safe.

Less than a metre away is forest and grazing land laden with at
least 900 anti-personnel landmines. Yura Sharamanian, operations
officer for the HALO Trust, compares the minefield to Cambodia and
says that the British de-mining charity considers Lachin to be the
most mine-infested region in Karabakh and surrounding regions, which
were fought over during the 1991-4 war.

Although considered by the international community to be occupied
Azerbaijani land, this territory is now marked on Armenian maps as
Kashatagh. Also including the formerly Azerbaijani regions of Kubatly
and Zangelan as well as Lachin itself, Kashatagh stretches down to
the Iranian border in the south.

This strip of land between Armenia and Karabakh is one of the key
points in dispute in the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

And it is also home to a few thousand hardy Armenian settlers who
have moved here since the 1994 ceasefire.

However, it is not just the danger of landmines that threatens the
existence of new settlements in the Kashatagh region. Although a 2005
census put the official population of Kashatagh at 9,800 Armenians,
with 2,200 residing in the town of Lachin, the actual figure is now
believed to be around fifty per cent less.

Five years ago, Kashatagh’s population was estimated by local
officials to be approximately 15,000. Before the Karabakh war, the
three Azerbaijani regions of Lachin, Kubatly and Zangelan had 129,000
residents, with over 60,000 Azerbaijanis and ethnic Kurds living in
the Lachin region alone.

Officials in the administrative town of Lachin, now renamed Berdzor,
are reluctant to admit out loud that these reports are true, but
privately confirm that the number of settlers is far below that
officially quoted. None estimate the population at over 6,000 and
most soon forget to maintain the official line that most of the new
settlers are refugees from Azerbaijan. Instead, they admit that most
are from Armenia proper.

Zorik Irkoyan, chief specialist at the education department for the
new Kashatagh region, for example, is a journalist from Yerevan who
was involved in the military operation to take the town. He says that
few refugees were among most of the new arrivals in Kashatagh.

"Not many came because they were used to their life in Baku and
Sumgait [in Azerbaijan]," he said. "Many now feel safer in Armenia,
and like a million other Armenians, some have left for Russia. Some
might have moved here because of the social conditions in Armenia
although others did not. I can’t guarantee that I will always live
in Lachin, but there is a connection with this land."

Some new arrivals are indeed refugees from Azerbaijan and Karabakh,
as well as the Diaspora, but most are vulnerable families from
Armenia. They were attracted by the promise of land, livestock and
social benefits averaging 4,000 Armenian drams (about ten US dollars)
per child.

But, since 2004, residents of Lachin say that government money is
being reduced and people are moving away. Even Robert Matevosian, head
of resettlement for Kashatagh, admits, "Recent reports [highlighting
out-migration] are raising various issues and concerns that do exist."

Samuel Kocharian, director of the AGAPE Children’s Home that
accommodates socially vulnerable children, is more open. "The process
of resettlement started on a large scale at the beginning because
of patriotism," he said, "but now, with the same enthusiasm and on
the same scale, Kashatagh is emptying." Like others in the region,
he estimates the population of the region to be about 5-6,000 people.

The most likely reason is not hard to spot. In the ongoing peace
negotiations over the future of Nagorny Karabakh, the Armenian
government seems committed to returning almost all of the seven
territories surrounding Karabakh currently under Armenian control. In
the event of a deal, Lachin is set to remain as the crucial land link
between Armenia and Karabakh – but it remains uncertain how wide the
"Lachin Corridor" would actually be.

This is bad news for those Armenian nationalists who want to resettle
the Kashatagh region – although it will encourage those who support
a peace settlement as it means relatively few Armenians will have to
make way for returning Azerbaijanis under a future deal.

The region is now administered by the internationally-unrecognised
Nagorny Karabakh Republic. Kocharian says the Armenian and Karabakh
authorities do not want settlements outside a 20-30 km radius of
Lachin and are obviously reluctant to finance any new construction
projects, saying that only a small amount of the 750 million drams
(around 1.7 million dollars) allocated to the entire region for house
construction has actually been spent.

Moreover, while many homes in Lachin proper have been refurbished at
the expense of the local authorities, little or nothing has happened
in the villages. Sources in the Kashatagh administration speaking to
IWPR on condition of anonymity confirm this.

Others also say that initial promises to provide free electricity up
to 200 kw per month for two years to new arrivals were broken at the
beginning of the year. Gagik Kosakian, deputy governor of the region,
does not deny this, saying, "Electricity used to be cheaper than it
is today and this allowance was stopped at the beginning of 2006.

However, electricity is still cheaper than in Armenia."

Karegah, three km from Lachin, has been presented to visitors as a
model village in the region, but its head, Marine Petoyan, is concerned
about its future. Sixty per cent of the village comprising 65 mainly
refugee families has no water, and 25 families have already had their
electricity cut off because of non-payment of outstanding debts.

"There was also a bus for schoolchildren which was used by others as
well, but it’s been six months since it last operated," she said. "No
money for petrol was provided."

On September 28, Jirair Sefilian, a former military commander from
the Karabakh war, called for the resignation of Kashatagh governor
Hamlet Khachatrian for alleged mismanagement, saying that 52 villages
in the region had neither electricity nor water.

IWPR was detained and prevented from visiting other villages
surrounding Lachin by officers of the Nagorny Karabakh National
Security Service, NSS. Samvel Kocharian says he believes this was
because "conditions were very bad in those villages [in 2001], but you
should understand that they don’t even exist now. The further away
you get from Berdzor [Lachin] the more they are forgotten and the
remotest villages are in a really bad condition. The closest regions
of Goris in Armenia and Hadrut in Karabakh have grown and developed
in the past ten years, but there’s been no change here.

"When the living conditions are improving there, and when people are
lied to for 12 years with promises that a house will be built for
them one day, it’s only natural that they want to leave."

Onnik Krikorian is a British-born freelance journalist
living and working in Armenia. He has a blog from Armenia
at with many photographs from
Lachin/Kashatagh.

NEW EFFORTS TO FIND KARABAKH MISSING
By Ashot Beglarian in Stepanakert

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Sept 28 2006

Council of Europe joins in search for those who disappeared during
the Karabakh war.

Efforts to establish the fate of thousands of people still listed as
missing-in-action in the 1991-4 Nagorny Karabakh conflict have been
given a much-needed boost.

The new impetus came from a visit to the region last week by Dutch
senator Leo Platvoet, rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe, or PACE, on the issue. He visited Nagorny Karabakh
itself as well as Yerevan and Baku and Tbilisi, where he is engaged
in similar work with regard to the Abkhazia conflict.

In Karabakh, Platvoet said he was planning to present a report on
missing-in-action at the winter session of PACE, "In writing the
report we will focus our attention only on the humanitarian aspect
of the problem."

He met officials from the de facto Karabakh government, who promised
support. "We hold the opinion that some issues, including the issue
of missing-in-action can be resolved before the signing of a peace
agreement," said deputy foreign minister Masis Mailian.

Platvoet was appointed to his position by the parliamentary assembly
last December. Collaboration on the issue has decreased in the last
few years, although the tri-partite International Working Group –
led by Bernhard Clasen of Germany, Russia’s Svetlana Gannushkina and
Paata Zakareishvili of Georgia – continues to investigate the problem.

Albert Voskanian, who is coordinator in Karabakh of the International
Working Group, welcomed the parliamentary assembly’s new-found interest
in the issue.

"Work on this problem at such a high level can extend the possibilities
of looking for missing- in-action, systematise the efforts of people
who work on this problem to improve the technology of identification
of remains that have been found," said Voskanian.

"Moreover PACE can compel the parties to cooperate on this humanitarian
issue and develop concrete mechanisms for all sides in the conflict
to work together."

Several thousand people are still listed as missing, more than 12
years after the ceasefire that halted the Nagorny Karabakh war in
1994. Many of them are believed to be dead and most of the work on
the issue concentrates on checking lists, searching for burial sites
and working on identifying remains.

Platvoet told journalists he was hopeful that the issue could be
de-politicised and methods elaborated by the Red Cross to search
lists and check the remains of the dead could be deployed successfully.

However, many relatives of those who have disappeared complain that
very little has actually been done to trace their missing loved ones.

"What can we expect from them?" said 80-year-old Garasim, whose son
went missing 14 years ago during the war. "Nothing. How many years
have I been crossing the thresholds of all possible offices and
without result."

Vera Grigorian, head of the Union of Relatives of Warriors Missing
in Action in the Nagorny Karabakh Republic, says that journalists
should be more active in covering the problem.

"We have to use all levers and any possibilities to discover the fates
of people, to find and extract our compatriots from captivity," she
said. "But unfortunately I can feel there is an information vacuum
in this sphere."

There are recurring reports on both sides of missing soldiers
apparently still being held in captivity but these are almost never
confirmed as true.

"The search for missing-in-action is an exclusively humanitarian,
complex and delicate problem," said Karen Ohanjanian of the human
rights organisation Helsinki Initiative-92. "It is very important to
check all rumours very scrupulously and without emotion, we must not
agitate the wounded souls of the relatives of the missing."

Voskanian says that all Azerbaijani prisoners-of-war were returned
home in the two years that followed the 1994 ceasefire. "Personally,
in collaboration with the Azerbaijani state commission of that time,
several hundred captives, dozens of corpses and remains were exchanged
or handed over to the Azerbaijani side."

The Red Cross has lists of the disappeared, numbering 4,132 people.

Karabakh Armenians argue that many of the latter were Azerbaijani
deserters or that they are now migrants in Russia.

In July this year, an international conference was held in Karabakh
to come up with new initiatives on locating the missing, whether
living or dead. Afterwards, Karen Ohanjanian, one of the organisers,
said, "The parliaments of the region ought to adopt legislation on
missing-in-action to force the state to begin serious work on solving
this problem."

Arzu Abdullayeva, coordinator of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in
Azerbaijan, said, "We have developed a good working relationship
with Mr Platvoet, whom we met in Holland. He is interested in a
whole range of issues in the sphere of missing-in-action and that is
encouraging. On the other hand, we are working to combine the efforts
of the relatives of the missing so they can help people from both
sides. We have to understand both the positions and the desires of
each other to come to an agreement that suits both sides."

Ashot Beglarian is a freelance journalist and IWPR contributor in
Stepanakert, Nagorny Karabakh.

ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN MULL THEÅLAND MODEL
By Emil Danielian and Kenan Guluzade in the land Islands

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Sept 28 2006

Could the Finnish-Swedish arrangement for the land Islands work for
Nagorny Karabakh?

Finland’s Åland Islands, an archipelago mainly populated by ethnic
Swedes, enjoy extensive self-government that makes them effectively
independent of Helsinki. It is an example that has long been proposed
for the resolution of the Nagorny Karabakh dispute, yet never found
universal acceptance.

A visit to the islands by a group of Armenian and Azerbaijani
IWPR journalists, supported by the Åland Islands Peace Institute,
highlighted the success of the formula of autonomy found for the
islands themselves as well as lessons for the unresolved Karabakh
dispute.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is that Finland and Sweden never
went to war over the cluster of more than 6,000 islands and islets
in the Baltic Sea. The heavily wooded region was for centuries part
of the Swedish Kingdom before being incorporated into the Russian
Empire (along with modern-day Finland) in 1809. Its overwhelmingly
Swedish-speaking population demanded reunification with Sweden as
the empire crumbled and Finland became independent in 1917. The Finns
rejected these demands and turned to the League of Nations for support.

Under a compromise solution forged in 1921, the islands were declared
part of Finland but granted a considerable degree of independence. As
Peter Lindback, the territory’s Helsinki-appointed governor, puts it,
"Åland is not an autonomous region. It’s a partly independent state."

In line with its internationally-guaranteed status, Åland has
an elected legislative assembly, Lagtinget, that forms the local
government responsible for economic development, education, healthcare,
and policing. Even the region’s governor, whose powers are largely
ceremonial, cannot be named by the president of Finland without the
assembly’s consent. With Swedish being the islands’ sole official
language, few locals speak Finnish or have social or cultural links
with mainland Finland. Three-quarters of young Ålanders choose to get
higher education in nearby Sweden. Ethnic Finns now make up just five
per cent of the 27,000-strong local population.

The picturesque archipelago is also a demilitarised zone, meaning
that Finnish troops cannot be stationed there in peacetime.

Furthermore, international treaties signed by Finland have to
be ratified by Lagtinget if they are to have a legal force on the
islands. Finland, for example, had to negotiate a special membership
"protocol" for Åland when it joined the European Union in 1995.

Ålanders, who are not just at peace but also prosperous, readily share
their success story with visitors, while stressing that their status
is not necessarily a blueprint for conflict resolution. "Åland is
not a model. It’s just an example," Robert Jansson, director of the
Åland Islands Peace Institute, told visiting IWPR journalists.

Mediators trying to resolve the Karabakh conflict first tried to use
the example of the islands when the war was still raging. In December
1993, with the support of the Finnish government, a symposium was
held in the islands’ capital Marienhamn for parliamentarians from
the region.

Later, a representative of the Peace Institute attended the talks
that led to the May 1994 ceasefire and in 1995, Finland, as then
joint mediators with Russia of the Karabakh dispute, invited the
parties to negotiations in the Åland Islands.

Three years later, the American, French and Russian co-chairs of the
OSCE Minsk Group clearly drew on the example of the islands when they
presented a new peace plan under which Azerbaijan and Karabakh would
form a "common state" made up of two essentially equal entities.

Karabakh would be able to maintain a "national guard" and police force
independent of Baku, establish direct ties with foreign states, block
the entry into force of any Azerbaijani law on its territory, issue
internationally- recognised passports and even have its own currency.

The Armenian authorities in Yerevan and Nagorny Karabakh accepted the
proposed deal with some reservations at the time, while Azerbaijani
leaders rejected it, saying they are only ready to give the Karabakh
Armenians a high degree of conventional autonomy.

However, some are still inspired by the detailed formula for peaceful
co-existence provided by the Åland Islands.

"Even twelve years after the end of fighting in Karabakh, the Åland
model has not lost its meaning as a symbol of resolving disputes
through reason and not through bloodshed and as an intellectual
rebuke to those who call for new bloodshed," Russian diplomat Vladimir
Kazimirov, who negotiated the 1994 ceasefire, wrote recently.

"We should use accumulated international experience to settle the
Karabakh conflict, taking into account the preservation of the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," said Fuad Mustafiev, deputy
leader of Azerbaijan’s opposition Popular Front party.

Azerbaijani opposition political analyst Zardusht Alizade told IWPR
that the principles of the Åland Island dispute "can create a basis
for both peoples – Armenians and Azerbaijanis – to get themselves
out of the trap we have been driven into".

Alizade argues that the Åland model would benefit the Armenians
by giving them a guarantee of permanent democracy and would suit
Azerbaijan in so far as everything would be decided within a legal
framework, "Besides Karabakh will not be detached from the territory
of our state. The international community will act as a guarantor of
security. And most importantly, peace will be established."

However, some Azerbaijanis see the Åland model as a betrayal of
Azerbaijan’s basic interests.

"I am categorically against using the possibility of using any
models of autonomy in relation to Karabakh," Vafa Guluzade, formerly
Azerbaijani state foreign affairs aide, told IWPR. "It is Azerbaijani
land and there are four UN resolutions on the occupation of our
territory."

And most Armenian politicians are also sceptical, holding out for an
even higher level of sovereignty for Nagorny Karabakh.

"In the case of Karabakh, anything falling short of full independence
is unacceptable to us," said Armen Rustamian, a leader of the governing
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (or Dashnak) party who heads the
foreign relations committee of Armenia’s parliament.

Karabakh Armenians, who remain deeply distrustful of Azerbaijan,
argue that the Caucasus is very different from the Baltic.

"May be I would agree to this model if the democratic level in our
countries was the same as in Scandinavia for example," said Karen
Ohanjanian, head of the Helsinki Initiative-92 group in Karabakh,
calling it a "step backwards".

"Azerbaijan is no Finland, and Azerbaijan’s demands and actions
have been very different from Finland’s," said Arman Melikian,
a Yerevan-based senior aide to Arkady Ghukasian, leader of
the unrecognised Nagorny Karabakh Republic (which is still
internationally-recognised Azerbaijani territory.)

In his turn former Azerbaijani foreign minister Tofik Zulfugarov
responded to the statement that "Azerbaijan is not Finland," by saying,
"And the Armenians are not Swedes."

Melikian claims that the Åland model would also not work in Karabakh
because of the often conflicting interests of major world powers
tussling for influence in the South Caucasus. "The Åland islands
were not of strategic importance to Finland, Sweden or any external
power," he said. "The Karabakh problem has much more far-reaching
regional ramifications."

The most recent proposal to resolve the issue of the disputed status
of Nagorny Karabakh proposes a different path. It is for a referendum
on self-determination in Karabakh that would be held years after the
liberation of most of the Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territories
surrounding the disputed enclave.

However, this plan is now in trouble following the breakdown of the
latest peace talks and the final status of Nagorny Karabakh seems as
elusive as ever.

Emil Danielian is a Yerevan-based journalist at Radio Liberty Armenia;
Kenan Guluzade is editor of Zerkalo Newspaper in Baku.

Nagorny Karabakh journalist Karine Ohanian contributed to this report.

–Boundary_(ID_PVyv4rFz2J/O1CtbRwlytA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRENCH PRESIDENT ARRIVES IN ARMENIA

Regnum, Russia
Sept 28 2006

French President Jacques Chirac and the first lady will visit Armenia
from September 29 till October 1, being invited by Armenian President
Robert Kocharyan.

As REGNUM is informed at the Armenian presidential press office,
following French officials belong to official French delegation:
Minister of Foreign Affairs Philippe Doust-Blazy, Minister of
Transport, Tourism, and Marine Affairs Dominique Perben, Minister
for the Civil Service Christian Jacob, Minister for Culture and
Communication Renaud Donnadieu de Vabres. French businessmen,
representatives of French science, education, and sport, members of
Armenian community in France, journalists will visit Armenia, too.

The French president’s ceremonial welcome will take place at
Zvartnots Airport. Heads of the two states will meet at presidential
residence. The French delegation will visit Memorial to Victims of
the Armenian Genocide in 1915, Museum of Armenian Genocide. Supreme
Patriarch of all Armenians Karekin II will receive the French
president. Also, Jacques Chirac will visit the French Embassy to
Armenia.

Ceremony of unveiling France Square in Yerevan will take place in
frames of the visit. Presidents of France and Armenia will attend
concert ‘Sharle Aznavour and his friends,’ which will start the Year
of Armenia in France, called ‘Armenie, mon ami!’.

ALLEGED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE NOT A HISTORICAL REALITY: TAN

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Sept 28 2006

A number of electoral candidates of Turkish origin have been struck
off their party’s lists to contest the November 22 ballot.

Guncelleme: 17:51 TSÝ 28 Eylul 2006 PerþembeANKARA – It is a worrying
development that some political parties in Holland have banned ethnic
Turkish candidates from standing in elections unless they accept that
the Ottoman Empire committed an act of genocide against its Armenian
community during World War One, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign
Ministry said.

"We are deeply worried about the one-sided approach of our ally
Netherlands’ political parties on the so-called Armenian genocide as
this puts a limit on the freedom of expression" said Foreign Ministry
spokesman Namik Tan said Thursday. "It is not possible to accept
allegations on so-called Armenian genocide as historical reality."

Three candidates of Turkish origin were removed from party lists for
the forthcoming elections on November 22 as a result of lobbying by
Holland’s Armenian community.

Tan said that Turkey had done all that had been asked of it to assist
in looking into the incidents of 1915.

"Turkey has opened all archives, including military ones, so that
the incidents of 1915 can be studied from a scientific perspective,"
he said.

"Turkey offered to establish a committee of historians from both
Turkey and Armenia to study the incidents of 1915."

–Boundary_(ID_OI/qhuuza0728eH0UjpYfQ )–

WE WILL NOT CENSOR OUR SPEECH
John Mark Reynolds [author, academic]

theOneRepublic, CA
Sept 28 2006

This story is why elaborately constructed reasons that Pope Benedict
XVI was wrong in the most recent flap with radical Islam are wrong.

Radical Islam wants no criticism of its major figures or of its
truth claims.

I do not believe that we should gratuitously insult persons others
revere. There is no place in a multi-cultural society at war for
thoughtless offense.

Contributor John Mark Reynolds

John Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of the Torrey
Honors Institute, and Associate Professor of Philosophy,
at Biola University. His personal website can be found
at and his blog can be found at

Christians live in a public square where they are happy to defend
the freedom of atheists to state their views about the divinity of
Christ. The free and open society built mostly by Christians over the
last two hundred years demands this. We respect those who disagree
enough to engage in polite and reasoned discourse.

But we will not give up our right to make reasonable, but tough
arguments against ideas we think are bad.

As usual the story is in plain type below and my comments are in
italics:

Censor comments on Islam to avoid violence: Muslim expert 20th
September 2006, 11:00 WST

As the Byzantines discovered, even becoming the servants of the
Islamic invaders did not appease radical Moslem aggression. Not all
Moslems were radical in history, but many that were not were killed
by Moslems who were.

Did the victims of 9/11 say offensive things? Did they deserve to
die for anything they had said?

Non-Muslims should practise self-censorship to avoid triggering
violent reactions, a prominent Perth Muslim says.

Why? If we do, then Muslims will have removed themselves from
the civilized nations of the world. No person should trigger a
violent reaction when he or she speaks at an academic conference on
controversial items.

The civilized world cannot practice science or any form of academic
discourse in such an environment. Just as Christians and non-Christians
can criticize the origins of the New Testament, so we must all have
the right to do textual criticism (for good or bad) of the Koran. Just
as Christian history and ethics come under (sometimes) withering fire
from academics, some even employed in Christian colleges, so Islamic
scholars must allow the same sort of free and reasoned look at their
own history and ethics to be part of the free world.

In the wake of violent attacks over a speech by Pope Benedict XVI
that linked the Prophet Mohammed’s teachings to violence, Perth
academic Samina Yasmeen said religious and community leaders should
stop speaking about Islamic icons to avoid causing offence.

No. We will never give up the right to follow the truth where it leads
us. That is the heritage of Socrates and Plato that is precious to
us and has brought such great advances to the world.

No Christian, indeed no gentleman, would condone giving needless
offense, but we will not stop saying what we believe the truth to be.

Associate Professor Yasmeen, director of the University of WA’s centre
for Muslim states and societies, accused the Pope of deliberately
provoking the aggression by inviting criticism of Mohammed.

The Holy Father did not invite criticism of Mohammed, but even if he
had that is the right of a free person living in a free society. The
Pope needless to say thinks that Islam has false beliefs. Moslem
followers have a right to those beliefs and there is much to admire
in the Islamic resistance to secularist decadence in the modern world.

But better a bit of Vegas than a society where free men cannot freely
say in a calm and rational way what they think the truth to be.

She said the Pope and other religious leaders had the same
responsibility as Islamic clerics to avoid encouraging violence
by followers.

What violence by the Pope’s followers? I deplore violence against
innocent Moslems but I know of no Christian provoked to violence by
the Pope’s speech.

Just as it is unjust to blame the victim in a crime ("She was asking
for it, coming into this neighborhood."), so it is unjust to blame
the Pope for wickedness caused by others based on a reasonable speech.

Stalin was not provoked to murder by the writings of the dissidents.

Islamic extremists need no real excuse to kill. The question is this:
will Islamic moderates defend the Pope’s right to make what they feel
is a bad speech and courageously attack the violent?

To make any moral equivalence between a speech like that of the Holy
Father and the burning of churches, the murder of a nun, and other
acts of violence is morally bankrupt.

Attack the content of the speech. Call the Pope names if you must,
but violence is the fault of the violent not of the man who gave a
paper making an argument.

Previous emotive reactions, such as the violence following the
publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed and Salman Rushdie’s 1988
novel The Satanic Verses, should have warned people not to criticise
Islam.

Do the Islamic radicals of Egypt really need an excuse to torch a
Coptic Church?

Here is the future if we do not take this War seriously: first
non-Moslems will be afraid to criticize Islam, then we will be forced
to adhere to Moslem practice to avoid offense. Outrageous tyranny
of those willing to be violent for their beliefs will force even
the majority in the West to adhere to the will of the most extreme
members of a minority unwilling to police its own.

As the Christians of the Middle East know from practice, there
are no equal rights for a religious minority in the Islamic east
today. If this Australian professor is the voice of moderate Islam,
then my critics are correct and there is no moderate Islam. This is
not neither moderate nor tolerable in a free society like Australia.

I refuse to believe my friends, Moslems of good will, would say this
thing. Let’s argue about the truth of the Pope’s speech, but give no
ground to those who loot and murder in its name.

Professor Yasmeen denied that the first reaction of many Muslims to
perceived insults was violence, despite calls by some clerics to kill
those who insult Islam and the murder of an Italian nun in Somalia.

If it is not the first reaction, then is it acceptable as a second
or third reaction? No matter how often the "provocation" violence
cannot be tolerated based on free speech.

We are war not because we do not like the views of Radical Islam or
the speeches the leaders of Radical Islam make, but because we are
defending our way of life.

This article in which an academic, paid by the West to teach our
children is the best example of our tolerance. This Moslem scholar
has the right to her views. . . we should publish them . . . and
argue against them, but we must not allow them to silence us.

Right now, this very night, seminary faculty all over America in
places like Harvard defame my beliefs. I lose no sleep over it and
I contemplate no violence even though such an assault on my view of
my precious Lord has gone on for decades.

"I am not supportive of people killing and blowing things up, but
people need to start looking at self censorship," she said.

If only that would end the murder, but the Christian Armenians know
it would not because they were a defeated minority and the radicals
killed them anyway.

They were silent and they died in the hundreds of thousands and the
Turkish government still will not admit they were murdered.

Professor Yasmeen said aggressive reactions were mainly limited to
countries with low literacy rates and limited understanding of global
politics, where Mohammed was seen to be the most important figure in
a person’s life.

Do Christians kill as Moslem newspapers print defaming articles about
Christianity and the Holy Father? Even in countries with low literacy
rates? Would this Professor rather hold an Islamic cartoon about the
Pope in a low literacy rate Catholic nation or be a Christian with
the Pope’s academic address in hand in any Islamic state?

The Pope’s apology and explanation would have had little impact,
she said.

Why? Does Islam seek dialogue or only silent serfdom on the part of
Christians and Jews? Can we evangelize Moslems? I would give her the
chance to make her best case for Islam, if I can do the same safely
in a similar size Islamic university. But then, if my students convert
to Islam, their parents will be very sad, but if most Moslems convert
to Christianity, they must fear for their very lives in the Moslem
controlled world.

umns/ReynoldsJ/20060927ReynoldsCensor.html

ARMENIA: RUSSIAN BASE WILL NOT EXPAND

Stratfor
Sept 28 2006

The Russian military will not augment operations at its Gyumri base in
Armenia, Armenian armed forces general staff chief Mikael Arutyunyan
said Sept. 28. Arutyunyan said the base’s weapons will be upgraded,
its combat training will be enhanced and equipment will be transferred
from Russian bases in Georgia to the Gyumri base by 2008.

The base is manned by 5,000 Russians and forms part of the joint air
defense system for the Commonwealth of Independent States.