Month: April 2007

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION AGREE ON JOINT EFFORTS AHEAD OF ELECTION

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
26 Apr 07 p 1

Text of unattributed report by Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak
on 26 April

The representatives of the Republican Party of Armenia, New Times Party
and the Impeachment bloc agreed to concerted action yesterday evening
[on 25 April]. The organizations did not elaborate on the specifics of
cooperation. They promised to tell about it in future. Incidentally,
observers notice that this cooperation is logical and a certain social
demand has been developed for it.

What do these organizations have in common? The beginning of the
campaign showed that they have no inhibitions about speaking out on any
individual or issue and that there are no taboo topics for them. This
is the reason why the campaign of these parties differs from others:
with its lack of inhibition which elicit serious response from the
public. They have improved their standings.

According to the results at this stage of the campaign, all other
parties, including pro-government ones, either have what they had
before the start of the campaign, or have weaker positions now. It is
not clear yet how the New Times Party, Republican Party of Armenia and
the Impeachment bloc will cooperate and how the public will respond
to it. The main issue is whether or not it will evolve into a new
opposition system and if others will join the system as well.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA’S MINISTRY OF FINANCE, EBRD TO SIGN EUR 5MLN CREDIT AGREEMENT

Arka News Agency, Armenia
April 26 2007

YEREVAN, April 26. /ARKA/. The RA Ministry of Finance and Economy
and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
are to sign a EUR 5mln credit agreement.

The Ministry’s press service reports that the agreement is supposed
to improve the operation of the sewage purification plants located
in five in the vicinity of Lake Sevan.

The agreement is to be signed by RA Minister of Economy and Finance
Vardan Khachantryan and Director General of the EBRD Infrastructure
Department Alexander Obec.

GUEST COMMENTARY: U.S. IGNORES GENOCIDE FOR ALLIANCE’S SAKE
By Robert Deranian, Ph.D.
Genocide Commemoration Committee of San Diego Member

The UCSD Guardian Online, CA
April 26 2007

America’s apathy over the Armenian genocide stems from a desire to
appease it’s ally, Turkey.

April 26, 2007 – Most would agree that America’s role in the world
is, of late, a bit in doubt. Our young men and women are sacrificing
their lives, and we believe, or at least hope, for good reasons.

Is it just about oil prices or even to protect America from terrorism?

Not quite.

There is something more, having to do with moral standing, that is
vitally important to America. Those of contrary opinion say that such
thinking is of little practical value and could even be detrimental
to America’s foreign interests. This is in fact just the point of
contention.

What is best for America’s interests is not always the immediate
indulgence of self-interest but rather the implications of moral
standard, what some call the high moral ground. Why is this
important? America today faces threats from those who choose terror.

They believe they are right, and by implication, America is wrong.

Their frequent argument is that America makes the wrong moral choices,
that we do not stand for what is right.

Do we have examples that prove the contrary?

One clear example of such a choice involves an issue that many have
tried to keep under the radar for 92 years, the Armenian genocide. At
first glance, the Armenian genocide seems to be just such an issue
that is not important to America’s self-interest and should therefore
be dismissed without further notice. However, much to the dismay of
those trying to keep the issue hidden, the Armenian genocide will
just not go away.

Why?

To answer this question, go back to the time of World War I. The year
is 1915, and the Ottoman Turkish Empire is fighting alongside Germany
and Austria-Hungary and against Britain and its allies, including
the United States in the later years of the war. Taking advantage of
the chaos and confusion of the war, the Ottoman government decided
to settle a long-standing problem occurring within its borders known
in those days throughout the world as the "Armenian Question."

It included human rights violations against the Armenians, a Christian
minority within the Islamic majority of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The
method employed to settle the problem was a mass extermination of
Armenian people – an Armenian genocide. Initiated on April 24, 1915,
the Armenian genocide was implemented through forced march, burning
of towns, starvation, rape and outright massacre.

So brutal were the events, with estimates of 1.5 million Armenians
killed, that despite the ongoing war, the world at large was horrified
and demanded the perpetrators be brought to justice. At the forefront
of this demand for justice was America, as personified by then-former
President Theodore Roosevelt, calling what happened to the Armenians
the worst crime of the war.

With such a clear acknowledgment of what happened to the Armenian
people, official recognition of the Armenian genocide seems to be the
right choice. However, Turkey categorically denies that a genocide ever
took place, even paying high-priced U.S. lobbyists to work fervently
at denying the Armenian genocide. That Turkey receives significant
foreign aid from the United States and so essentially pays for such
lobbying through U.S. taxpayer money is sadly ironic and perhaps not
so surprising.

What is, however, surprising is the debate about recognition of the
Armenian genocide that rages every year in the U.S. government. For
those who oppose recognition, it’s about not offending Turkey,
a country of geopolitical significance.

The logic goes that the United States cannot risk offending Turkey
by recognizing the Armenian genocide. Those favoring recognition
counter this argument by saying that the Cold War is over, and that
Turkey performed poorly as a U.S. ally during the initial stages of
the current Iraq war.

While Turkey’s geopolitical significance is debatable, what should
not be debatable is America’s position on issues of moral justice.

>From its beginnings, America has strived for the ideal that there
is something more than just self-interest, something that makes the
world a better place – the existence of a high moral ground.

Are we now to dismiss this high moral ground for reasons of
short-term self-interest? This is the central question of debate
within the U.S. government when it comes to recognizing the Armenian
genocide. Case in point: Currently, there are resolutions making
their way through both houses of Congress that would recognize the
Armenian genocide.

In response, Turkey has sent some of its top government and military
leaders to persuade the U.S. Congress otherwise. Their efforts seem not
to be wasted as was well demonstrated by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice’s recent congressional testimony. The following is an exchange
of that testimony between Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rice.

SCHIFF: Is there any historic debate outside of Turkey? Is there any
reputable historian you’re aware of that takes issue with the fact
that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians constituted genocide?

RICE: Congressman, I come out of academia, but I’m secretary of
state now and I think that the best way to have this proceed is for
the United States not to be in the position of making this judgment,
but rather for the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms
about this.

Rice completely dodges the very straightforward question concerning the
historic reality of the Armenian genocide by asserting that the United
States is not in the position to pass judgment. Put another way, the
United States should not make judgments about issues of moral justice.

What are the consequences of the United States not making these kinds
of judgments? In Turkey at least, the lack of a strong message from
America about the Armenian genocide emboldens those who would deny its
existence, to the point of passing laws that make it illegal to say
there was an Armenian genocide. This has resulted in trials and, in
some cases, imprisonment of leading Turkish intellectuals, including
Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk. Sadly this law also resulted
in the rousing of a 17-year-old Turkish boy to murder Hrant Dink,
a Turkish Armenian journalist dedicated to reconciliation between
Turks and Armenians.

Making a judgment about moral issues like this one is rarely without
cost. Throughout its history, America has had to make such choices.

These choices are not without consequence, as exemplified by the
firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans for just using the
word "genocide" to describe what happened to the Armenians. This man’s
career was essentially ended because he made a stand to say what was
right, to take the high moral ground. Without this high moral ground,
can we as Americans claim that we are any different than our enemies,
except that we have bigger guns?

America’s very credibility is on the line. It’s our choice.

tory=opinion03&year=2007&month=04&day= 26

FRENCH ARTIST IN HIS ORIENTAL PERIOD
By Jenny Hammond 2007-4-27

Shanghai Daily, China
April 27 2007

Bold canvases, sweeping writing, ghost-like faces and a large dash of
Asian influence – in the series of strong images, very close to Chinese
contemporary art, it is hard to believe a Frenchman is the artist.

This is the latest exhibition of Pierre Ohiguian, combining two themes:
faces and more graphic shapes, which he calls "purist graphicism."

"Taking the aesthetic nature of the human form and then moving over
to very simple graphic paintings, the idea is to have the most meaning
in less painting," says Ohiguian.

All the works in his solo show were created recently in China.

Ohiguian spent time in the country creating his Oriental-influenced
works.

"When people first see my paintings, they think they have been done
by a Chinese artist, but if they look longer they will see the Western
influence," he says.

Coming from the south of France, he has been visiting Shanghai off
and on for more than three years. "I really want to do something
important here, develop work that is technical and interesting."

Always having had a strong attraction to the Asian world, even his
surname is not completely European.

"Its origin is in Armenia, between the East and the West, which is
perhaps where my fascination for China comes from," Ohiguian says.

However, Armenian culture also plays a role in the creation, of
Ohiguian’s work.

"There are so many of this nationality living outside their country
that they feel as if they have no roots. This is why my paintings
are not fixed to a specific style.

"I pursued my reflection on the human condition. Nothing in man
is defined: his situation, his origins, not even his destiny. My
paintings do not have specific meanings, instead I hope to induce
emotions and pleasure, and inspire questions," he says.

During his stay in China, the calligraphy creation widened Ohiguian’s
horizons and gave him a glimpse of some answers in the pursuit of an
artistic ideal.

"It directed me to a new way: the translation of the gesture,
combined to an unconditioned thought. Thus, it has enriched my work
on gestures and instantaneity of movement to transcribe the power
of emotions. Acrylic painting allowed me to quickly transcribe the
expression of the gestures in different coats on canvas," he says.

Since then, the calligraphic gesture has always been part of his
paintings. He would like to learn the ancient art and combine it with
his own style to create something truly unique.

Now, the Western artist has a signature very reminiscent of a Chinese
character.

"The box holds every letter of my name but, like the writing in
my painting, they are not easily detectable to the eye. It is very
Chinese, which has developed since being here. This signature now
seems natural to me so it is the only one I use," he says.

The sweeping script written across many of his canvasses is in French,
but it is very stylized so it can no longer be read. "I used to put
the text horizontally but through being in China have adopted the
technique of writing vertically to offer new aspects to my work."

Finally, offering a last insight into his "art world," Ohiguian is
holding classes.

"I try not to just teach the technicalities but show how to feel
painting. Everyone has something inside them, no matter how shy or
reserved they are."

Always impressed by what his students can achieve, "I teach that
technique is not always everything, you can express yourself simply.

"I know painting is in my nature. By painting, I don’t tell my own
story; I try to describe life without words that limit it. This way,
I look into myself, not around," the artist says.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

U.S. REVERTS TO ‘PRO-AZERI’ WORDING OF RIGHTS REPORT
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech rep.
April 26 2007

In a move hailed by Azerbaijan, the U.S. State Department has restored
the original version of its annual human rights report that refers
to Nagorno-Karabakh as an Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia.

The reference was dropped from the report’s chapter on human rights
in Armenia last week following strong protests from official Yerevan
and Armenian lobby groups in the United States. Its revised version
stopped short of describing Karabakh as an internationally recognized
part of Azerbaijan.

The significant change in the report’s wording was condemned by
Azerbaijan which cancelled on Sunday a planned visit to Washington by
a high-level government delegation. The move prompted U.S. officials
to reassure Baku that Washington recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity in the Karabakh conflict.

The State Department denied on Thursday that it restored the
controversial passage under Azerbaijani pressure. "We didn’t do
anything under pressure," an official at the department’s Bureau of
European and Eurasian Affairs told RFE/RL from Washington. "We were
trying to correct some unclear language that led to confusion about
our policy. We’ve determined that our policy has not changed and that
we need to stand by the original human rights report."

"I think this whole thing from our side was a mistake in the way that
it was handled, and I’m sorry that that mistake has led to all of this
exaggerated press attention and has been blown out of proportion,"
said the official, who asked not to be identified.

The Azerbaijani government was quick to welcome the restored sentence
of the report which says, "Armenia continues to occupy the Azerbaijani
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani
territories." "This change is a very important news for me," Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Thursday, according to the Day.az
news service.

Predictably, Armenian reaction to the development was diametrically
opposite. "We thought the mistake [in the report’s original version]
was corrected and are bewildered by such an unserious approach to the
matter," Vladimir Karapetian, a spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, told RFE/RL.

Karapetian said Yerevan hopes that the State Department will again
revise the report, arguing that U.S. diplomats had "recognized their
mistake" during talks with Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and
other Armenian officials. He also pointed to comments made by Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza in an interview with the
Azerbaijani Azertaj news agency on Wednesday.

"We have admitted and corrected our mistake," Bryza was quoted as
saying. "We can not predetermine the outcome of negotiations on
Nagorno-Karabakh’s status."

Bryza, who is also the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group on
Karabakh, could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.

The State Department official stressed that U.S. policy on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute has not changed. "We support the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but we hold that the future status
of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations between the parties,"
he said.

The Minsk Group’s existing peace plan, strongly backed by the U.S.,
paves the way for international recognition of Karabakh’s secession
from Azerbaijan by envisaging a referendum of self-determined in the
Armenian-controlled disputed territory. Diplomats privy to the peace
process say the conflicting parties have already agreed on most basic
principles of the proposed settlement.

In a joint statement last week, the group’s American, French and
Russian co-chairs reiterated their hopes that the presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet and cut a framework peace deal shortly
after the May 12 Armenian parliamentary elections. They said another
Armenian-Azerbaijani summit "could mark an endpoint for negotiations
on basic principles and a starting point for a process to develop a
comprehensive settlement agreement."

BRITAIN CONDEMNS SECRET RECORDING OF DIPLOMAT’S COMMENTS
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech rep.
April 26 2007

The British embassy in Armenia condemned on Thursday the secret
recording of a recent conversation between one of its diplomats and
opposition leader Artur Baghdasarian that reportedly centered on the
upcoming parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, "Golos Armenii," a newspaper sympathetic to the country’s
leadership, published more excerpts from what it described as the
transcript of the meeting held in a popular Yerevan restaurant last
February. It also identified the diplomat in question as Richard Hyde,
the deputy chief of the British mission.

The paper did not specify the name of the "high-ranking embassy
official" who met Baghdasarian in its first report published on
Saturday. It quoted Baghdasarian as saying that the May 12 elections
can already be considered undemocratic and urging the European Union
to harshly criticize their conduct.

Hyde was said to have responded that the Armenian authorities are
very shrewd and cautious in ensuring a desirable outcome of the vote.

"I suppose that they are smarter and wiser than we. And many Europeans
understand that. There has to be some blatant violation in order for
the EU to come up with such a statement," he was quoted as saying.

In a statement, the British embassy admitted that the diplomat
quoted in the report was one of its officials but said his remarks
were distorted. "The British Embassy in Yerevan is dismayed that a
clandestine recording has been made, and recently released in part to
the press, of a conversation between an official of this Embassy and
the leader of an opposition party," it said. "We do not propose to
comment in detail on the gross misrepresentation of a conversation,
details of which appear to have been obtained through dishonest and
deplorable means."

The British mission denied "Golos Armenii" claims that such meetings
constitute an illegal interference in Armenia’s internal affairs,
saying that it maintains contacts with a broad range of Armenian
parties contesting the elections. "This enables us to form as complete
and objective a view as possible of the political process, and is in
line with the normal and accepted practice of any embassy anywhere
in the world," it said.

"It is not, never has been and cannot be, our business to support
the political platform of any specific political party," added the
statement.

The freedom and fairness of the upcoming polls is a major condition
for the success of Armenia’s drive to forge closer ties with the EU
under the European Neighbourhood Policy program. EU officials say
the bloc will now pay greater attention to democratic change in the
South Caucasus state.

Hyde allegedly told Baghdasarian that only three of the eight EU
countries having diplomatic missions in Yerevan — Britain, Germany,
and Poland — are genuinely interested in the freedom and fairness of
the Armenian elections. He was also cited as predicting that two other
prominent opposition leaders, Raffi Hovannisian and Vazgen Manukian,
could boycott the parliamentary elections and concentrate instead on
the presidential ballot due early next year. "This is what I would
do in this situation," the diplomat said, according to "Golos Armenii."

Manukian’s National Democratic Union (AZhM) subsequently opted for
an election boycott.

"Golos Armenii," which has long been rumored to be sponsored by Prime
Minister Serzh Sarkisian, claimed to have received the recording from
unknown individuals, suggesting that they were driven by "patriotic
motives." It said on Tuesday that the National Security Service
demanded and was given a copy of the audio, in an apparent effort to
dispel suspicions that the conversation was secretly recorded by the
Armenian successor to the Soviet KGB.

Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir Party condemned the report on Monday,
saying that it is part of a "well-prepared smear campaign" waged by
the government.

CHOOSING ALLIES OVER PRINCIPLES

The Jewish Exponent, PA
April 26 2007

Congressional fight over Turkish genocide of Armenians puts Jews in
a difficult spot

If you had the choice between telling the truth about 20th-century
genocide — and thereby alienating a contemporary strategic ally
of the United States and Israel — or ignoring or downplaying the
genocide and keeping the ally happy, which would you do?

Is this just an interesting hypothetical for grad students in ethics
or philosophy to chew on?

No. It is a real-life question that must be answered not only by
American lawmakers, but by Jewish organizations that are simultaneously
pledged to promote both the strategic interests of both the the
U.S.-Israel alliance, as well as speak out on issues of human rights.

A Faithful Ally The dilemma concerns the history of Turkey, a nation
that has in recent decades assumed tremendous importance in the
Middle East.

Turkey is a NATO ally that faithfully stood by the United States
during the Cold War, even sending troops to fight alongside ours
in Korea. It was also the first Islamic country in the region to
recognize the State of Israel.

More than that, its defense establishment has ties with the Israel
Defense Force, and the two nations form an informal, loose-alliance
of non-Arab states with a mutual interest in resisting the rise not
only of Islamist terror, but the malevolent influence of rogue states
like Syria and Iran.

That’s due primarily to the influence of Kemal Attaturk, who led the
Turkish state that emerged from the ruin of the Ottoman Empire after
World War I. Attaturk created a modern Turkish nationalism based on
strict secularism.

Relations between Israel and Turkey have cooled a bit in recent
years due to the election triumphs of Turkish Islamists who sought to
distance Ankara from Jerusalem. And in the aftermath of the country’s
refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and their embrace
last year of a Palestinian Hamas terrorists, they can no longer be
termed reliable.

But even pessimists about the future of Turkey understand its crucial
role as a firewall against jihadists. Turkey’s military — the most
powerful force in its society — is still an effective check on the
Islamists, and has participated in joint military exercises with
the Israelis.

But it does have one sensitive point that poses a problem. It refuses
to own up to the crimes committed by Ottoman forces against ethnic
Armenians during World War I.

Though the Turks like to act as if this episode is a great historical
mystery that defies explanation, the truth is relatively simple.

During the First World War, the Ottoman Turks fought the Russians.

Caught in the middle were Christian Armenians, who were despised as
dhimmi sympathizers with the foreign enemy. After a series of military
reverses, the so-called "Young Turk" government in Istanbul ordered
mass deportations of Armenians from parts of Anatolia. From 1915-17, as
many as 1 million Armenians died as result of the attending hardships,
as well as atrocities on the part of Turkish troops.

It was the first modern genocide, and the fact that the perpetrators
were never held accountable is often cited as a reason why the Nazis
thought they could get away with trying to exterminate the Jews.

But since their modern state came into being fighting for the hegemony
of Turkish ethnicity over the large non-Turkish enclaves inside
their country, the notion of owning up to the truth about that era
has always been anathema to the Turks. To this day, their government
denies that the deaths of Armenians were the result of a concerted
plan, and claim that it should only be understood in the context of
a war in which casualties were experienced by both sides.

The Turks would do better to acknowledge what happened and move on.

But living as they do with ongoing conflicts over land and identity
with Cypriot Greeks and Kurds, they cling to their policy of
stonewalling the Armenians and demand that their allies back them up.

For almost a century, Armenians have sought to keep the memory of
their suffering alive. That’s the point of a congressional resolution
on the question set to be passed by the House of Representatives that
will recognize the atrocities against the Armenians as "genocide."

You would think that a Jewish community that has expended so much
effort not only to enshrine the memory of the Holocaust but to ensure
that it serve as an example to warn against crimes against others
would be aligned with the Armenians, but that’s not entirely correct.

Truth or Survival?

Though many Jews support the genocide resolution, some of the biggest
Jewish communal players, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the
Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (which has worked for
years to build support for the Israel-Turkey alliance), are not. ADL
head Abe Foxman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that "the Jewish
community shouldn’t be the arbiter of that history, nor should the
U.S. Congress."

How do we balance the need to support historical truth against the
strategic imperative of the present?

The answer is that we can’t.

No one should expect Jews, of all people, to lie about mass murder.

The Turkish policy of official historical revisionism is as absurd as
it is counterproductive. The Turks’ stand on the Armenians only harms
their international standing and efforts to integrate with the West.

But their realpolitik apologists have one point worth considering.

Given the current state of the Middle East and the West’s ongoing
battle against the jihadists, is this really the best moment for us
to be pressing the Turks about their past?

In theory, a victory for historic truth ought to serve as insurance
for Jews and any other people who have faced annihilation and may
yet again. Moralists may be right to pose this question as one of
absolutes, but in wartime, you can’t always pick and choose your
allies. Would it be worth it to damage an alliance with Turkey just
to make a point about the truth of Armenian suffering? That might
makes us feel righteous, but if it leads to more deaths in the future,
would it be right?

Will an Armenian genocide resolution help us defend Israel against the
threat of, say, an Iranian attempt at nuclear genocide better than a
friendly Turkey? Some might believe that to be true. But can anyone
who cares about the possibility of another mass murder of a non-Muslim
population in the Middle East be indifferent to the possibility that
it won’t?

4/

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIANS NEED TO MOVE BEYOND GENOCIDE, OPEN DIALOGUE
Liana Aghajanian

Daily Sundial, CA
California State University, Northridge
April 26 2007

PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 1 Ninety-two years ago, 1.5
million Armenians were slaughtered in cold blood by the Ottoman
Empire. Ninety-two years after the fact, we still struggle to have
it recognized by not only the world, but by the very country and
government that carried out the mass killings.

What has happened in the 92 years after these killings? The Holocaust,
in which 6 million victims perished, the Cambodian Genocide, which
claimed 1.7 million victims in 1975, The Rwandan Genocide of 1994,
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia where over 8,000 victims were killed,
and most recently the crisis in Darfur, which has claimed 200,000 to
400,000 lives and displaced millions of others.

Have we not learned anything? Is history doomed to repeat itself
endlessly? Must governments turn their cheeks to human rights
violations because of politics?

I can only speak on behalf of one of the aforementioned tragedies,
and it is the one that the Armenian Diaspora and international
communities around the world remembered this week.

Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was assassinated in January
of this year, worked his entire life to establish relations and open
dialogue between Turks and Armenians. He was not only critical of
Turkey, but of the Armenian Diaspora. He once said, "Turkish-Armenian
relations should be taken out of a 1915 meters-deep well."

Hrant Dink’s view was that Turkey needed to come to terms with its
history, and accept that colossal wrongs were committed in the past.

At the same time however, he also had Turkish friends and supporters,
like author Orhan Pamuk, who has spoken openly about and in support
of bringing the Armenian Genocide to light. The difference between
him and Armenians abroad, Dink said, was that he was living with the
Turks of today, while they were still living with the Turks of 1915.

Dink’s funeral turned into a surprising reconciliation, if only for
that moment, between Turks and Armenians, as 100,000 people attended
and held up signs that read "We are all Hrant Dink" and "We are all
Armenian." In many ways, at that moment, the peace Dink had been
seeking between the people of the two neighboring countries had been
achieved. His killer’s motives to silence his voice and the voices of
his supporters backfired. If anything, they grew louder. Condemnation
came from the media, the president and prime ministers of Turkey and
many other government officials, not to mention a never-ending list
of international human rights organizations and countries.

"There are Turks who don’t admit that their ancestors committed
genocide," he said in the documentary "Screamers." "If you look at
it though, they seem to be nice people… So why don’t they admit it?

Because they think that genocide is a bad thing which they would never
want to commit, and because they can’t believe their ancestors would
do such a thing either."

May all the members of the Armenian Diaspora remember that an eye
for an eye makes the whole world blind. May all the denialists of
the Genocide one day realize the facts that have been right in front
of them for 92 years. May Hrant Dink’s dreams of open dialogue,
communication and good relations between these two groups of people
one day become a reality.

FACTS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IGNORED FOR TOO LONG
Armen Rostami

Daily Sundial, CA
California State University, Northridge
April 26 2007

PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 2 next > On a hot bloody day in
April, when the sun was causing red oasis in the sandy deserts of
Turkey and Syria, many Armenian intellectuals disappeared and never
came back. As it turned out later, they were among the one and a
half million that were slaughtered in the first genocide of the
20th century, "The Armenian Genocide." Although this massacre was
preplanned and derived by predetermined motives, it was not referred
to as genocide until the Turks started denying this clear historical
fact. Armenian genocide should be recognized because denying it
ignores the historical reality and outweighs the benefits for the
Turkish government.

Genocide is a misanthropic act that is intended to accomplish certain
incentives of a group of people through mass killing and extermination
of a race. The word itself stems from two Latin words, "gens" meaning
race or people and "cid" meaning "to destroy."

Genocides are generally composed of eight stages, and the last stage
is typically Denial. The eight stages of genocides are classification,
symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation,
extermination, and denial. Armenian Genocide of 1915 was preplanned
by the Nationalist Ottoman Empire and organized by Talaat Pasha. The
major incentive of the Armenian Genocide was to create a uniform
Turkish speaking Muslim territory by cleansing all the non-Turkish
minorities and conquering their lands and possessions. Such a
utopian territory was neither Turkey nor Turkistan. It was called
"Turan." Mehemd Ziya, the most influential thinker of the Turkish
government, who from 1909 to 1918 was a member of the secretive party
that ruled the Ottoman Empire for most of the period, the Central
Committee of the Union and Progress, said, "The land of the enemy
shall be devastated, Turkey shall be enlarged and become Turan." The
only way the Turkish Government could create their desired dreamland
"Turan" was by exterminating all the Armenians who were the Christian
minority in that region and deporting them to foreign lands. Today,
this sad reality has become incredibly hard and disrespectful for
the Turkish government to accept. After all, who would want to admit
a mass murder of two thirds of a nation?

Despite the Turkish Government’s constant crusade to destroy evidence
of the Genocide, there is still tons of evidence remaining to prove
it. When I physically went down to Ani, a holy Armenian city which
Turkey devastated and killed all its Armenian inhabitants during the
genocide, I observed how a government can kill history. All the burnt
churches that were evidence of the Genocide were being torn down,
or they were reconstructed and represented as Turkish mosques. If a
country is not ashamed of her past why would it change her history? A
simple answer to this question is that it is always easier to say
something did not exist rather than denying an actual fact. There is
also unbiased evidence compiled by world famous historians such as
Arnold Toynbee and James Bryce. In February 1916, these historians
began compiling information and evidence for a publication about
recent events in Armenia.

Resistance itself is the most valuable psychological evidence that can
lead to the unraveling of the untold and denied truth. If Turkey is
confident that the Armenian genocide did not happen and keeps denying
this historical fact, then why do they resist those who attempt to
produce documents about this fact? "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh"
(Mount of Moses), is literature that narrates the story of Armenians
inhabiting villages around Mount Moses during World War I.

Although, this story is mainly an artwork, it is yet based on true
facts, evidence, personal experiences and observations of the author
from the genocide. When MGM was trying to produce a movie based on
this book, Turkish government called the American authorities to
forbid MGM from producing such a movie. This clear resistance shows
the fear of the Turks from the popularity and fast transmittance of
the truth. If the world finds out about such an inhumane reality in
history, it will be a lot harder for Turkey to deny the genocide.

Like all the other genocides, racism is an inevitable factor of the
Armenian genocide. The Turks could not stand the Armenians advancements
in economy, and their involvement in the political system. Looking back
at history we find out that every murder has a murderer, especially
if the murders happen in a large amount and at a specific time
period. Armenians have been deprived of any meaningful and official
recognition of this bloody series of murders. Indeed, the world has
not taken the time to listen to the survivors, but this has not kept
them from speaking up and narrating bitter stories about the genocide.

Although the Turkish Government has been denying the Armenian
Genocide for 92 years, the world is getting more informed about this
genocide. Clearly, Turkey will be the last nation to acknowledge the
Armenian Genocide, because denying this historical reality outweighs
the benefits for the Turkish Government. Naturally, Armenians all
around the world will not sit silently. They will protest and fight
until they get the genocide recognized by the whole world. It is
definitely a possible thing to do, because similar cases such as the
Jewish Holocaust have been already tested and have successfully passed
this bloody test of recognition. His eminence, Ignatius Peter XVI
Batanian once said: "A million and a half Armenian victims horribly
massacred, all the Armenian people, shaken but not discouraged,
await an answer."

DARE WE CALL IT GENOCIDEGATE?
Kevin Roderick

LA Observed, CA
April 26 2007

Nah, but the LA Weekly’s Daniel Hernandez adds good new details in
the dispute we reported Tuesday between Times managing editor Doug
Frantz and West magazine staff writer Mark Arax. After Frantz killed
a story by Arax claiming that he had a bias conflict as an Armenian
American, Arax emailed some in the newsroom:

Colleagues, You should know that I had a Page One story killed this
week by Doug Frantz. His stated rationale for killing the piece had
nothing to do with any problems with the story itself. In an email
to me, he cited no bias, no factual errors, no contextual mishaps,
no glaring holes….

Because his logic is so illogical, questions must be raised about
Frantz’ own objectivity, his past statements to colleagues that he
personally opposes an Armenian genocide resolution and his friendship
with Turkish government officials, including the consul general in
Los Angeles who’s quoted in my story. Frantz is heavily involved and
invested in defending the policies of Turkey.

Frantz lived in Istanbul for the Times and the New York Times for
several years just before coming to L.A. in 2005 to be managing editor
for his close friend Dean Baquet. What happens now that the fight is
out in the open, and Baquet is gone, is hard to predict.

Arax’s assignment at West is ending – the magazine’s staff of
anointed lead writers is being disbanded as part of a downsizing of
West’s ambition – and he could have trouble finding a landing spot
within the paper during this era of buyouts and layoffs. There’s
also speculation about Frantz. He doesn’t seem to have gotten strong
backing in this episode from editor Jim O’Shea, who inherited Baquet’s
number two. Then there’s the question of why Frantz is moderating a
panel in Istanbul next month that includes a speaker that Armenians
consider a "notorious genocide denialist." The LA Weekly story talks
about previous Armenian community complaints about Frantz.

/dare_we_call_it_genocide.php

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress