Month: April 2007

CHRISTIAN BIBLE PUBLISHERS MURDERED IN TURKEY
by Daniel Blake

ChristianToday, UK
April 19 2007

Three Bible publishing house workers have been killed in the latest
attack on Turkey’s minority Christian community on Wednesday.

Three Bible publishing house workers have been killed in the latest
attack on Turkey’s minority Christian community on Wednesday.

Photo: Turkish police officers wrestle an unidentified man down
following an attack at a publishing house in the south-eastern Turkish
city of Malatya, April 18, 2007. Attackers slit the throats of three…

(REUTERS/Ihlas News Agency)

The attackers bound their victims before slitting their throats
in the publishing house in Malatya, a city in central Turkey and a
nationalist stronghold.

Four people are believed to have been detained for questioning
regarding the killings, and one other suspect that fell from the
building was taken to the hospital with head trauma.

It has emerged that one of those murdered was of German nationality,
German Ambassador to Turkey Eckart Cuntz said.

Images appeared on television stations showing police leading several
young men out of the building where the killings took place.

Political tensions are rising in the secular but largely Sunni Muslim
country over the past year, with Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink
being shot dead by an ultranationalist youth earlier this year.

Late last year the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict
XVI, paid a short visit to Turkey to ease relations, but during the
visit a number of protests broke out in Istanbul. There have been
reports of an increase in violence against Christian clergy since
the visit.

Christian missionaries are routinely accused by Turkish nationalists
of attempting to undermine Turkey’s political and religious order.

The EU has clamped down on hostilities towards Christian missionaries
in Turkey, however, telling the country that the Christian minority
must be given more religious freedom in order to reach the level of
religious freedom acceptable for entry to the EU.

Carlos Madrigal, an evangelical pastor in Turkey, told Reuters:
"We would like a government campaign to get rid of the myths, such
as that missionaries are trying to divide the country, these are the
things which feed such acts.

"In some ways the situation has improved because we have got
legal rights … but there are parts of society which have become
radicalised."

CORONA STUDENTS SET UP MEMORIAL FOR GENOCIDE VICTIMS
By Shirin Parsavand

Press-Enterprise , CA
April 19 2007

Video: Corona-Norco high school students plant small flags in
rememberence of the Holocaust

CORONA – Antonio Williams had heard only a little about the Rwandan
genocide before last month, when he started learning about it at Norco
High School. Now, he struggles with the idea that brutal violence
could kill so many so quickly — 800,000 in just 100 days in 1994.

"It was at least a thousand dying a day … it was just thousands,
thousands dying," Antonio, 16, said Wednesday. "It’s just women,
men, children, infants being slaughtered. It’s a horrible thing to
think about."

Yet rather than turn away, Antonio and about 50 other high school
students worked Wednesday to help themselves and the community
understand the toll hatred can exact.

Sebastian Hernandez, a teacher at Norco High School, and his daughter
Jane Hernandez, 3 ½ , attend a program about victims of genocide and
the Holocaust at Santana Regional Park in Corona.

The students, from six schools, met at Santana Regional Park to plant
more than 3,000 small flags. Each represents 5,000 people who lost
their lives in a mass killing that resulted from ethnic, national,
political or religious divisions.

The project was based on one Centennial High School did last year to
mark Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Just as they did last year, Centennial students on Wednesday planted
more than 2,000 flags of various colors to represent the 11 million
killed in the Holocaust.

This year, students from Buena Vista, Corona, Norco, Orange Grove
and Santiago high schools joined them.

The students put together a timeline of tragedy along Ontario Avenue.

It starts with 300 orange flags that mark the deaths of up to 1.5
million Armenians around 1915. It ends with 45 red flags to represent
the more than 200,000 people from the Darfur region of Sudan killed
during the past four years.

In between are flags representing those who died in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Cambodia and Rwanda, as well as in the Holocaust.

At the end of the display, affixed to the fence, is a sign that reads:
"Who’s next?"

Several students said Wednesday they were stunned when they began the
research that led to the flag project. They thought genocide ended
with the Holocaust.

"It breaks my heart, knowing that people in these kinds of numbers
died in such a short period of time," said Nick Craig, 17, a junior
at Norco High School.

Most of the students take part in Unity Forum, an elective class for
students who lead activities to help fellow students overcome bias.

Christina Romero, the Unity Forum teacher at Buena Vista, said the
flag project made her students more aware of world events and sensitive
to others’ suffering.

The students learned about the criteria for genocide under
international law, and they decided the tragedy that befell the
Armenians met the definition, Romero said. Many historians use the
term Armenian genocide, but Turkey maintains the deaths of Armenians
were the result of civil strife that also killed Turks.

Romero used a children’s book to personalize the tragedy of the
Armenians for her students. Buena Vista senior Bianca Huerta said
she could relate to what happened nearly a century ago.

"You realize that could have been your actual blood," said Bianca, 17.

The flags will remain on display until Sunday.

s/PE_News_Local_D_holocaust19.3d663f4.html

–Boun dary_(ID_anrOgrjEMHlePscI5gcpRg)–

HISTORY IS BUNK
by Sergei Boukhonine

Lew Rockwell, CA
April 19 2007

In early 1998 I had a very long (about four hours) business lunch
with a vice-president of a major Moscow bank (now defunct). My
interlocutor was a young and bright Armenian guy, born and educated
in Yerevan (Armenia’s capital). Unsurprisingly, he invited me to a
fancy Armenian restaurant. The meal was delectable – a never-ending
procession of meats, vegetables, cheeses, rice, etc., all washed
down with copious amounts of fine Armenian brandy. Armenian cuisine
in particular and Caucasian cuisine in general is outstanding –
try it if you have a chance. At one point, we were served a plate
of delicious dolma. Ah, said I, I know this dish – it’s Azeri –
the mother of an Azeri acquaintance cooked it once. At that point,
my lunch (dinner?) companion suddenly became livid. No, said he,
it’s Armenian through and through. Azeris and Turks may cook it,
but they are just usurpers who stole this and many other recipes from
Armenians! Moreover, added he, Armenians are the original Caucasians,
while Azeris are invaders and newcomers.

At that point I became confused. OK, so they are newcomers… how long
have they been around the Caucasus? The answer is around a thousand
years, give or take a century. To be sure, Urartu (Armenia’s ancient
name) is an extremely old civilization which originated over 3000
years ago! But "newcomers" after a thousand years??? Hmm… it is
often said that people in the Middle East have long memories; this
is but one confirming example.

This and many other examples strongly tempt me to agree with Henry
Ford’s assessment of history as bunk. To be sure, "history is bunk"
is an inappropriate and oversimplified generalization per se, but
Ford did not put it quite so bluntly. Instead, he said the following:

"History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want
tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that
is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago
Tribune, 1916).

This paragraph is still an oversimplification, but a more nuanced
one. It’s about thinking about the present and the future rather than
dwelling in the past. But here is a further quotation from Ford:

As a young man, I was very interested in how people lived in earlier
times; how they got from place to place, lighted their homes, cooked
their meals and so on. So I went to the history books. Well, I could
find out all about kings and presidents; but I could learn nothing
of their everyday lives. So I decided that history is bunk. (1935).

Now, this is a great observation! Many of us remember having to
memorize historic dates and how pointless it was. It is also a known
historical fact that the politicians who blundered into the WWI were
students of history, but look how much good did their historical
expertise do to them or millions of victims!

Human beings naturally try to use historical knowledge to predict
the future, often with disastrous results. Forecasters should rely
on a priori knowledge created by praxeology more than on contextual
historical experience. But historical experience is still a valid
forecasting base, since all human experience is historical in nature.

See my article about predictions.

What I find really bothersome and disturbing are attempts to inspire
and justify future actions relying on historic grievances. Look
what history did to former Yugoslavia. For over six centuries,
Serbs remembered the Battle of Kosovo, which marked the end of
their independence and centuries of the brutal Ottoman Turkish rule
(or misrule). Serbs remembered that the Turks converted Bosnian and
Albanian Christians to Islam. Serbs also remembered that Croatian
Ustashi allied with Nazi Germany exterminated hundreds of thousands
of Serbs. Here is Wikipedia:

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (citing the Encyclopedia
of the Holocaust): "Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled
250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. They murdered
thousands of Jews and Gypsies."

Now, history unequivocally proves that Serbs suffered terribly. So,
based on their knowledge of it, Serbs decided to strike first,
to remedy the past wrongs and prevent the future ones. As a result,
thousands and thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were
ethically cleansed. Kosovo and Kraina are all but lost to the Serbs.

The economy is in ruins. Much good did history do to them!

But what if the Serbs actually had prevailed? Albanians and Croats
would then have had a martyr history of their own, calling for action
and revenge (well, they actually do have that history). Sooner or
later, they would have stricken back.

The former Yugoslavia is but one example of history stoking the flames
of hatred and vengeance around the world. If this is all history is
useful (or used) for, then it is indeed bunk (or worse)!

Let’s stop using history as a trumpet call for revenge. "Vengeance is
mine" says the Lord and "do not be overcome with evil, but overcome
evil with good." I agree that the guilty should be punished, but
their children and grandchildren? Even Stalin said that a son is
not responsible for his father. Should we be more bloodthirsty than
this tyrant?

So let’s treat history as it should be treated – the past. It’s gone
forever (unless you reject the linearity of time). Let the dead bury
their dead. Even tragic history should be a matter of quiet meditation,
but never a call for a vendetta.

EU SET TO CRIMINALISE RACIAL HATRED

UK Express, UK
April 19 2007

European governments are on the brink of agreeing a deal on EU-wide
laws to criminalise racial hatred.

Proposals on the table after six years of fraught negotiations
call for jail terms of up to three years for "intentional conduct"
inciting violence or hatred against a person’s "race, colour, religion,
descent or national or ethnic origin."

The same would apply to "publicly condoning, denying or grossly
trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war
crimes… when the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to
incite to violence or hatred against such a group or a member of such
a group."

The proposals do not single out Holocaust denial, despite pressure
from Germany, where it is already a crime.

And UK government officials insist the EU provisions would mean no
changes because domestic law, including the 2006 Religious and Racial
Hatred Act, is already tougher.

Key to the latest EU plans is the test of incitement – avoiding
criminalising "academic" debate about the Holocaust or genocide unless
the intentional result is to stir up hatred.

Subject to appeasing the Poles and Baltic states, pressing for a
specific inclusion of "Stalinist" crimes in the document, a deal
should be agreed at talks between EU justice ministers in Luxembourg.

If approved, the new rules will introduce mandatory jail terms in
27 countries for intentional public incitement including for "public
dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material"
deemed to incite racial hatred.

But officials insist the wording has been painstakingly designed to
avoid criminalising films or plays about the Holocaust – and Turkey
would not find itself in the dock because of the government’s official
position denying that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman troops
nearly 100 years ago was "genocide".

A senior EU source said: "These plans leave flexibility for national
authorities to be tougher, and they avoid a blanket offence of
"denial": the test will be an intention to incite hatred by abusive
or insulting behaviour."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MAJORITY OF RESIDENTS OF ARMENIA CONSIDER THAT U.S. SHOULD BE ENGAGED IN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS JOINTLY WITH ANOTHER COUNTRIES

Noyan Tapan
Apr 19 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 19, NOYAN TAPAN. 58% respondents of the survey conducted
by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS)
in 2006 November considers that U.S. jointly with another countries
should make a contribution to solution of international problems
and in the opinion of 7%, U.S. should continue playing the part of
a world leader. Stepan Safarian, Head of Studies of ACNIS, reported
this at the April 19 discussion.

As regards the U.S.’ having the status of superpower, 27% residents
of Armenia considers that U.S. should renounce its efforts aimed at
solution of international problems. In the opinion of 70%, U.S. is
not obliged to play the role of "policeman of the world," i.e. to
struggle against violation of international law and aggression no
matter where they happen. The opinions about military presence of
U.S. abroad differ: 37% considers that U.S. should reduce the number of
its military bases, 26% considers that these bases should be maintained
and in the opinion of 16%, U.S. should increase their number.

In S. Safarian’s words, surveys on the same subject were held in
a number of other countries of the world, the total population
of which makes 56% of population of the world. The majority of
population of 13 out of 15 countries interrogated at the survey
considers that U.S. plays the role of "policeman of the world more than
necessary." 3/4 or more of population of France (89%), Australia (80%),
China (77%), Russia (76%) holds such opinion. Most of all residents
of Argentina, Palestine, France and China are for reduction of the
number of military bases of U.S.

ELMAR MAMMADYAROV AND VARDAN OSKANYAN DISCUSS PRAGUE PROCESS ELEMENTS

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 19 2007

Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and
Vardan Oskanyan had the next round of the negotiations for peaceful
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Belgrade, Khazar
Ibrahim, spokesman for Foreign Ministry told the APA.

At the meeting, the parties discussed all the eight elements of the
Prague process. OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Matthew Bryza, Yuri
Merzlyakov and Bernard Fassier gave proposals on two elements of the
negotiations. Moreover, the co-chairs’ visit to the region after the
parliamentary elections in Armenia was agreed.

TURKEY URGED TO PROTECT RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

Agence France Presse — English
April 19, 2007 Thursday

Current EU president Germany urged Ankara on Thursday to take
measures to protect religious freedoms after one German and two
Turkish protestants were killed in the east of the country.

The appeal followed a meeting in Istanbul of the ambassadors of the
27 European Union member countries to discuss the gruesome murders
in Malatya on Wednesday in the latest attack against minorities in
EU-hopeful Turkey.

"These despicable murders were strongly condemned and all member
countries expressed sympathy to the families of the victims, who
include a German national," German Ambassador Eckhart Cuntz said in
a statement.

"We see the murders as an attack not only against individuals, but
also against the principles of freedom and tolerance," he said.

The assailants tied the three men up and cut their throats at the
offices of a publishing house, which belongs to Turkey’s tiny
Protestant community and published Bibles and other books on
Christianity.

"I believe that Turkey will guarantee the safety and particularly the
religious freedoms of both Turkish and foreign nationals," Cuntz said.

He called for support for "the implementation of reforms that aim at
(ensuring) a modern, open and tolerant society" in Turkey.

The EU has often pressed Ankara to guarantee the freedoms of its
tiny non-Muslim communities, which consist mostly of Orthodox Greeks,
Armenians and Jews concentrated in Istanbul.

Wednesday’s murders followed the killings of Italian Roman Catholic
priest Andrea Santoro in the northern city of Trabzon in February 2006
and of prominent ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul
in January.

The attack raised concerns that nationalism and hostility towards
non-Muslims is on the rise in Turkey, which has long argued that its
EU membership would build a bridge between East and West.

SAIDA GOJAMANLI: "AZERBAIJANI HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS ACHIEVED THEIR GOAL IN COUNCIL OF EUROPE"

Today, Azerbaijan
April 19 2007

Azerbaijani human rights defenders, who attended the debates on
Azerbaijan in the spring session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly (PACE), arrived in Baku.

Saida Gojamanli, chief of the bureau of defense of human rights and
legislation told the APA that the rights defenders achieved their goal.

"We told the PACE members that we are satisfied with the
co-rapporteurs’ report and gave our proposals. Our proposals on
formation of election commissions on parity, independent operation
of Public Television, trial of former health minister Ali Insanov,
arrest of parliamentarian Huseyn Abdullaev, release of sick prisoners,
commuting lifers’ sentence to 15-year imprisonment were reflected in
PACE resolution," she said.

Saida Gojamanli said that their lobbyist activity with regard to the
Nagorno Karabakh was also a success.

"The points on Nagorno Karabakh in the resolution adopted about
Azerbaijan remained unchanged despite Armenian delegation. Taking into
account the Karabakh problem, we did not raise the issue on political
prisoners. We consider that the problem can be solved within the
working group on human rights," she said.

Human rights defenders Chingiz Ganizade, Saida Gojamanli, Saadat
Bananyarli, Novella Jafaroglu, Arzu Abdullayeva and Eldar Zeynalov
had meetings with Secretary of the Council of Europe Venice Commission
Giovanni Buquicchio, former PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan Andreas
Gross, co-rapporteurs Andres Herkel and Tony Lloyd.

URL:

PAPAL ENVOY LINKS MURDERS AT CHRISTIAN BOOK PUBLISHER TO ELECTIONS

Agence France Presse — English
April 19, 2007 Thursday

The papal envoy to Turkey has linked the grisly murders of three
men at a Christian Turkish publishing house to upcoming presidential
elections in the country, a press report said Thursday.

"Events like this have already happened during electoral campaigns,"
Monsignor Antonio Lucibello told the Italian daily La Stampa.

The papal nuncio linked the murders to Saturday’s protest in Ankara,
when half a million people demonstrated against any presidential bid
by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan’s critics fear he would seek to Islamicise Turkey if elected.

He announced Wednesday that he would announce his party’s nomination
for upcoming presidential elections next week.

Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist, must
step down on May 16.

Three men including a German had their throats slit Wednesday in the
eastern Turkish city of Malatya at the Zirve (Summit) publishing house,
which distributes bibles and Christian literature. The publishers
had already received threats.

Police have taken ten people into custody over the killings, which
shocked the mainly Muslim country and fuelled fears among Turkey’s
tiny Christian community.

Lucibello noted the "presence of well-known fanatical,
ultra-nationalist groups" in Turkey, but he urged against generalising
because "Turkish society has very different positions … from those
of the fanatics."

Christians of various denominations including Syriac, Armenian,
Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic or their places of worship have
come under attack in the past.

PAVILION OF REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA

E-Flux, NY
April 19 2007

Photo: Sonia Balassanian, "Who Is the Victim?", Stills from a
multi-screen, spatial video-installation, 2006/2007, Courtesy of the
artist and the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art,
"NPAK" in Armenian acronym, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Pavilion of Republic of Armenia
at 52nd Venice Biennale-2007

June 10 – November 21, 2007
Opening for press and friends:
Friday June 8, 2007 13:00-16:00
Palazzo Zenobio, (Collegio Armeno)
Dorsoduro 2596 T: 041 522-8770
Vaporetto No. 82: S. Basilio stop
Vaporetto No. 52: Zattere stop
For directions visit

Artist: Sonia Balassanian
Curator: Nina Montmann
Honorary Commissioner: Jean Boghossian
Organized by: The Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art
Hosted by: The Mekhitarian Armenian Congregation

Sonia Balassanian-Who Is the Victim?

War has changed. It has ceased to refer exclusively to war between
nations, but involves more complex structures and dislocations. The
information content the ubiquitous media images convey concerning
specific conflicts is thin, they present an unchanging picture of
misery as a universal constant of global crisis.

Memory assumes a central role in the lives of people who experience war
and henceforth shift between two extremes, the collective necessity
to remember and the individual desire to forget. For those who have
experienced war or live in fear of one, or who live with memories
of a war they actually took part in and survived, the question "who
is the victim" is never far from the surface in depictions of war’s
cruelty. But what is involved when a viewer of war images takes an
interest in or empathizes with human suffering in far-off conflict
zones? Not only those killed by war and their relatives are the
victims, but all whom the fear of war afflicts.

Compassion is an unstable emotion: "Our sympathy proclaims our
innocence as well as our impotence" (Susan Sontag). In overcoming
sympathy, a potential for action is released, a potential to lead-in
to critical protest against an economy of global war.

Wars and crisis areas are a constant feature of Sonia Balassanian’s
work. Her concern in her more recent video works are the ramifications
of a general war (albeit never referred to as such) being waged
against the individual. The images of Balassanian’s multipart video
work "Who Is the Victim?" for the Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia
at the 52nd Venice Biennale tap into this universalized misery and
suffering of war.

–Nina Montmann

Sonia Balassanian (b. 1942) is one of the most influential artists in
Armenia, working in the fields of video, performance, photo-collage
and writing. She lives in New York and Yerevan.

The Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art is publishing
an artist’s book by Rene Gabri on Sonia Balassanian on the occasion of
this project. It is also producing an accompanying Pavilion Catalogue.

Opening hours: Everyday except Monday, 10am – 6pm Press
contact: [email protected] For more information please visit:

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