Month: August 2008

ASSEMBLYMAN PAUL KREKORIAN CONDEMNS CONGRESSMAN FOR ANTI-ARMENIAN STATEMENTS

armradio.am
29.08.2008 11:19

California Assemblyman Paul Krekorian strongly condemned a US
Congressman from Tennessee who attacked an Armenian journalist and
made bigoted anti-Armenian statements last week.

Congressman Steven Cohen, one of the most strident opponents of
recognition of the Armenian Genocide, is seeking reelection to
represent a district in Memphis, Tennessee. On the eve of his
Democratic primary election last week, Cohen conducted a press
conference that was attended by Armenian-American journalist Peter
Musurlian. In a bizarre incident that was covered by the local
television news, Cohen physically assaulted Musurlian and forced him
out of the press conference. Cohen went on to justify his outrageous
conduct by referring to Armenians as assassins and murderers.

Assemblymember Krekorian, who represents the largest Armenian community
in the United States, was outraged by the inexcusable behavior of the
Congressman. In a strongly worded letter to Cohen, Krekorian demanded a
formal apology to the Armenian people. (A complete copy of Krekorian’s
letter is attached). Krekorian has also asked the Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to investigate possible disciplinary
actions that can be taken against Cohen for this misconduct.

"I cannot tolerate this kind of bigoted slander against the Armenian
people from anyone, and especially not from a member of Congress,"
Krekorian said.

"I’m deeply disappointed that a man with such intolerant and ignorant
views will be returning to Congress for another term."

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address:  Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact:  Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel:  +374-10-517163
Fax:  +374-10-517301
E-Mail:  [email protected]
Website: 
August 28, 2008

Services Leading to the Blessing of the Holy Muron

On Tuesday, August 19, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians, presided over the first of 40 prayer services,
which will culminate in the Blessing of the Holy Muron (Chrism) scheduled
for September 28 of this year.  The prayer service, which begins a 40-day
process of psalms, hymns, scripture readings and prayers, took place
following Evening Vesper Services in the Mother Cathedral of Holy
Etchmiadzin. 

The cauldron, which contains the Holy Muron, was placed on the bema of the
Holy Altar the previous evening, filled with pure olive oil.  Pure olive oil
is the first of the three primary substances that are mixed with the many
additional aromatic and floral ingredients, following the blessing of which
is transformed into the Muron.  For the subsequent 39 days, the members of
the Brotherhood of Holy Etchmiadzin, will follow the same procedure
according to the ancient Canons of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church.

The 40-day countdown began with His Holiness ascending the Altar of Holy
Etchmiadzin and reading from the Gospel of St. Mark.  The Catholicos then
read the main prayer dedicated to the blessing of Muron.  His Holiness
stated in his remarks, that he wishes for all faithful of the Armenian
Church to raise their prayers to the Almighty during this period of prayer
and preparation for Sunday, September 28, which also happens to be the Feast
of the Holy Cross of Varag.

The faithful of the Armenian Church are invited to join in prayer during
these coming days as Holy Muron is prepared for use in Armenian Churches in
Armenia and throughout the Diaspora. 

For further updates and schedule of events surrounding the festivities, the
faithful are encouraged to visit the website of the Mother See of Holy
Etchmiadzin, , to follow the progress and learn new
facts surrounding the Blessing of the Holy Muron.

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The Moscow Times
Friday, August 29, 2008
Stalin’s Poison Pills
By Paul Goble

A lot of attention was focused on the symbolic importance when Russian
forces occupied Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. Few reflected, however, that
this conflict, like many others in the post-Soviet states, is the product of
what many in business call "poison pills," arrangements that make it
difficult, if not dangerous, for anyone to try to takeover or even change
the basic arrangements of another firm.

If the peoples of the region and the international community are to overcome
this crisis and the others that are clearly on the horizon in this part of
the world, they need to understand the nature and location of the poison
pills Stalin inserted in his system and the dangers of swallowing them.

When Stalin created the Soviet Union — and it was his project far more than
anyone else’s — he built it on the basis of politicized, territorialized
and hierarchically arranged ethnicity, a system that could function only if
Moscow used the kind of force that Stalin deployed with such consistent
viciousness.

Before the 1917 Revolution, many people in the Russian Empire did not
identify themselves in ethnic terms. The tsarist state did not encourage
them to do so, and many saw themselves in terms of class or faith. But
Stalin insisted that everyone have an official nationality because he
understood that you cannot play the divide-and-rule politics of building an
empire if people don’t identify themselves as members of one or another
nationality.

Moreover, Stalin linked nationality to territory, something the tsars had
tried in almost every case to avoid. No book was more important during
Soviet times than the periodic editions of the administrative-territorial
divisions of the country. That is because your rights as a member of an
ethnic group depended on whether Moscow gave you the status of an autonomous
formation or a union republic.

But there was one more aspect to this. Many people believe that Stalin drew
the lines so as to put all or most members of a given nationality together.
This is nonsense. He drew lines to create tensions between ethnic groups,
ensuring there was always a local minority that would do Moscow’s bidding in
return for being protected by the Soviet center. The Armenian-dominated
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan is the most famous of these
arrangements, but it is far from the only one.

And finally, Stalin instituted the Orwellian principle that "all animals are
equal but some animals are more equal than others," an arrangement that
guarantees interethnic hatred. Members of small nationalities without a
territory got few or no ethnic or linguistic rights and were slated for
absorption by others. Members of larger groups got such rights on their
territories but nowhere else. But members of the largest nationality — the
Russians — got such rights regardless of where they lived.

What were the consequences of this system? First, Stalin’s system not only
raised the importance of nationality and borders, but it ensured that anyone
who sought to dismantle his totalitarianism would have to cope with ethnic
anger and borders that guaranteed it would likely get worse.

Second, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did reduce the level of
coercion and introduced glasnost, he guaranteed that the Soviet Union would
fall into pieces, not along economic lines or regional ones but precisely
along the lines Stalin had drawn.

And third, when the Soviet Union collapsed, both the Russian leadership and
the international community, largely because they hoped to make the process
of imperial decay as easy and peaceful as possible, decided to accept
certain aspects of Stalin’s system — namely, the borders he drew and the
ethnic hierarchy he established — while expecting that other aspects of
Stalin’s system, his tyranny, be jettisoned.

Why did this happen? For many, it was simpler and more convenient than doing
anything else. Many in Western governments had no idea about the location,
let along the character, of the union republics, and even fewer knew about
the autonomous ones. It was easier to accept the union republics as the only
possible countries and their borders as the only acceptable ones, especially
since addressing the bigger problems would have taken a long time.

And further, any focus on autonomous republics and their rights would have
put at risk in the first instance the Russian Federation. After all, maps
showed that 53 percent of the territory of that republic was covered by
non-Russian autonomies. Addressing its imperial nature, many feared, could
trigger "a nuclear Yugoslavia."

But what has that decision meant? Most obviously, it has meant that few have
been prepared to focus on the legitimate rights of ethnic minorities who
feel they are trapped within a larger country or to consider that Stalin’s
borders were not designed to resolve conflicts but to intensify them. Anyone
who looks around Eurasia will see that in many countries, and in Russia
above all, the demands of minorities are only growing, and border tensions
are on the increase.

But that 1991 decision has had another consequence, which continues to
reverberate throughout the region. Stalin made his system work by means of
an authoritarian state. Just because so many people wished for an end to
authoritarianism has not guaranteed in Russia or elsewhere that this would
happen, and his commitment to ethnocratic arrangements in which one ethnic
group dominates others continues as a policy imperative, again regardless of
what anyone wants.

The events in Georgia are only the latest example of what happens because
governments and peoples in the region continue to be forced 17 years after
the end of the Soviet Union to swallow Stalin’s poison pill. These events
will not be the last. And the ones ahead, including more ethnic conflicts
and more authoritarianism, will not only be more serious but will affect the
Russian Federation first of all.

Paul Goble is director of research at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in
Baku.

dianach.livejournal.com
PEACE IN GEORGIA
29 August 2008

TBILISI, GEORGIA – Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he
sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. `The warfare began
Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,’ the
Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any
other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its
fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons
banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the
same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on
Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of
the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before
Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started
the war.

Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official
Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media
advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in
downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events
told by someone on government payroll even when the government is as
friendly and democratic as Georgia’s. I was lucky, though, that another
regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms’
briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one
tiny quibble.
Goltz has been writing about the Caucasus region for almost 20 years, and he
isn’t on Georgian government payroll. He earns his living from the
University of Montana and from the sales of his books Azerbaijan Diary,
Georgia Diary and Chechnya Diary. Goltz experienced these three Caucasus
republics at their absolute worst, and he knows the players and the events
better than just about anyone. Every journalist in Tbilisi seeks him out as
the old hand who knows more than the rest of us put together, and he wanted
to hear Patrick Worms’ spiel to reporters in part to ensure its accuracy.
`You,’ Worms said to Goltz just before he started to flesh out the real
story to me, `are going to be bored because I’m going to give some back
story that you know better than I do.’
`Go,’ Goltz said. `Go.’
The back story began at least as early as the time of the Soviet Union. I
turned on my digital voice recorder so I wouldn’t miss anything that was
said.
`A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together,’ Worms
said to me, `was pitting ethnic groups against one another. They did this
extremely skillfully in the sense that they never generated ethnic wars
within their own territory. But when the Soviet Union collapsed it became an
essential Russian policy to weaken the states on its periphery by activating
the ethnic fuses they planted.
They tried that in a number of countries. They tried it in the Baltic
states, but the fuses were defused. Nothing much happened. They tried it in
Ukraine. It has not happened yet, but it’s getting hotter. They tried it in
Moldova. There it worked, and now we have Transnitria. They tried it in
Armenia and Azerbaijan and it went beyond their wildest dreams and we ended
up with a massive, massive war. And they tried it in two territories in
Georgia, which I’ll talk about in a minute. They didn’t try it in Central
Asia because basically all the presidents of the newly independent countries
were the former heads of the communist parties and they said we’re still
following your line, Kremlin, we haven’t changed very much.’

He’s right about the massive war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, though few
outside the region know much about it. Armenians and Azeris very thoroughly
transferred Azeris and Armenians `back’ to their respective mother countries
after the Soviet Union collapsed through pogroms, massacres, and
ethnic-cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled savage communal
warfare in terror. The Armenian military still occupies the ethnic-Armenian
Nagorno-Karabakh region in southwestern Azerbaijan. It’s another so-called
`frozen conflict’ in the Caucasus region waiting to thaw. Moscow takes the
Armenian side and could blow up Nagorno-Karabakh, and subsequently all of
Azerbaijan, at any time. After hearing the strident Azeri point of view on
the conflict for a week before I arrived in Georgia, I’d say that particular
ethnic-nationalist fuse is about one millimeter in length.
`Now the story starts really in 1992 when this fuse was lit in Georgia,’
Worms said. `Now, there’s two territories. There’s Abkhazia which has
clearly defined administrative borders, and there’s South Ossetia that
doesn’t. Before the troubles started, Abkhazia was an extremely ethnically
mixed area: about 60 percent Georgian, 20 percent Abkhaz, and 20 percent
assorted others – Greeks, Estonians, Armenians, Jews, what have you. In
Ossetia it was a completely integrated and completely mixed
Ossetian-Georgian population. The Ossetians and the Georgians have never
been apart in the sense that they were living in their own little villages
and doing their own little things. There has been inter-marriage and a sense
of common understanding going back to distant history. The Georgians will
tell you about King Tamar – that’s a woman, but they called her a king – and
she was married to an Ossetian. So the fuse was lit and two wars start, one
in Abkhazia and one in South Ossetia.’

Georgia
South Ossetia is inside Georgia, while North Ossetia is inside Russia.
`The fuse was not just lit in Moscow,’ he said. `It was also lit in Tbilisi.
There was a guy in charge here, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a little bit like
[Serbian Nationalist war criminal in Bosnia Radovan] Karadzic. He was a
poet. He was an intellectual. But he was one of these guys who veered off
into ethnic exclusivism. He made stupid declarations like Georgia is only
for the Georgians. If you’re running a multi-ethnic country, that is really
not a clever thing to say. The central control of the state was extremely
weak. The Russians were trying to make things worse. There was a civil war
between Georgians and Tbilisi. But the key thing is that here there were
militias, Georgian militias, and some of them pretty nasty.’
Thomas Goltz then interjected his only critique of Patrick Worms’
explanation of events that led to this war. `It started in 1991,’ he said,
`but it went into 1992 and 1993, as well.’ Then he turned to me. `This guy,
[Zviad] Gamsakhurdia, was driven from power from across the street. They
bombed this place.’ He meant the Marriott Hotel. We stood in the lobby where
Worms had set up his media relations operation. `There’s a horrible picture
in my Georgia book of this facade.’
`Of this building?’ I said.
`Yeah,’ Goltz said. `That was December 1991. He fled in December 1991.’
`Where did he go?’ I said.
`To Chechnya,’ Goltz said. `Of course. He led the government in exile until
he came back in 1993 then died obscurely in the mountains, of suicide some
people say, others say cancer. Then he was buried in Grozny.’ He turned then
again to Patrick Worms. `1991,’ he said. `Not 1992.’
`1991,’ Worms said. `Okay.’
So aside from that quibble, everything else Worms said to me was vouched for
as accurate by the man who literally wrote the book on this conflict from
the point of view of both academic and witness.
`So in 1991,’ Worms said, `things here explode. And basically it gets pretty
nasty. Thomas can tell you what happened. Read his book, it’s worth it. And
by the time the dust settles, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 dead. Many
atrocities committed by both sides, but mostly – at least that’s what the
Georgians say – by the Abkhaz. And the end result is everybody gets kicked
out. Everybody who is not Abkhaz or Russian gets kicked out. That’s about
400,000 people. 250,000 of those still live as Internally Displaced Persons
within Georgia. As for the rest: the Greeks have gone back to Greece, the
Armenians to Armenia, some Abkhaz to Turkey, etc.
`When it’s over,’ he said, `you’ve got two bits of Abkhazia which are not
ethnic Abkhazia. You’ve got Gali district which is filled with ethnic
Georgians. And you’ve got the Kodori Gorge which is filled with another
bunch of Georgians. So there the end result was a classic case of
ethnic-cleansing, but the world didn’t pay much attention because it was
happening at the same time as the Yugoslav wars. Ossetia was different.
Ossetia also had a war that started about the same time, and it was also
pretty nasty, but it never quite succeeded in generating a consolidated bit
of territory that Ossetians could keep their own. When the dust settled
there, you ended up with a patchwork of Georgian and Ossetian villages.
Before the war, Ossetians and Georgians lived together in the same villages.
After the war they lived in separate villages. But there were still
contacts. People were talking, people were trading. It wasn’t quite as nasty
as it was in Abkhazia.

`Now fast forward to the Rose Revolution,’ he said.
The Rose Revolution was a popular bloodless revolution that brought
Georgia’s current president Mikheil Saakashvili to power and replaced the
old man of Georgian politics Eduard Shevardnadze who basically ran the
country Soviet-style.
`The first thing that Misha [Mikheil Saakashvili] did was try to poke his
finger in [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s eyes as many times as
possible,’ Worms said, `most notably by wanting to join NATO. The West, in
my view, mishandled this situation. America gave the wrong signals. So did
Europe.’
`Can you elaborate on that a bit?’ I said.
`I will,’ he said. `But basically the encouragement was given despite
stronger and stronger Russian signals that a Georgian accession to NATO
would not be tolerated. Fast forward to 2008, to this year, to the meeting
of NATO heads of state that took place in Bucharest, Romania, where Georgia
was promised eventual membership of the organization but was refused what it
really wanted, which was the so-called Membership Action Plan. The
Membership Action Plan is the bureaucratic tool NATO uses to prepare
countries for membership. And this despite the fact that military experts
will tell you that the Georgian Army, which had been reformed root and
branch with American support, was now in better shape and more able to meet
NATO aspirations than the armies of Albania and Macedonia which got offered
membership at the same meeting.
`Just a little bit of back story again, in July of 2007 Russia withdrew from
the Conventional Forces Treaty in Europe. This is a Soviet era treaty that
dictates where NATO and the Warsaw Pact can keep their conventional armor
around their territories. Russia started moving a lot of materiel south.
After Bucharest, provocations started. Russian provocations started, and
they were mostly in Abkhazia.
`One provocation was to use the Russian media to launch shrill accusations
that the Georgian army was in Kodori preparing for an invasion of Abkhazia.
Now if you go up there – I took a bunch of journalists up there a few
times – when you get to the actual checkpoint you have a wall of crumbling
rock, a wooden bridge, another wall of crumbling rock, a raging torrent, and
a steep mountainside filled with woods. It’s not possible to invade out or
invade in unless you’ve got air support. Which is why the Abkhaz were never
able to kick these Georgians out. They just kept that bit of territory.’
He paused and looked over at Thomas Goltz as though he was bracing for a
critique.
`I’m just doing what I’ve done already,’ he said, `but this time I’m getting
advice from an expert on how I’m doing.’
Thomas Goltz silently nodded.
`Kodori provocations,’ Worms continued, `and other provocations. First the
Russians had a peacekeeping base under a 1994 agreement that allowed them to
keep the peace in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They added paratroopers,
crack paratroopers, with modern weaponry there. That doesn’t sound a lot
like peacekeeping. A further provocation: they start shooting unmanned
Georgian aircraft drones out the sky. One of them was caught on camera by
the drone as it was about to be destroyed. The United Nations confirmed that
it was a Russian plane that did this. It probably took off from an airbase
that the Russians were supposed to have vacated a few years ago, but they
never let the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] in
to check.
`The next provocation: On April 16 Putin signs a presidential decree
recognizing the documents of Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Russia and
vice versa. This effectively integrates these two territories into Russia’s
legal space. The Georgians were furious. So you have all these provocations
mounting and mounting and mounting. Meanwhile, as of July, various air corps
start moving from the rest of Russia to get closer to the Caucasus. These
are obscure details, but they are available.
`Starting in mid July the Russians launched the biggest military exercise in
the North Caucasus that they’ve held since the Chechnya war. That exercise
never stopped. It just turned into a war. They had all their elite troops
there, all their armor there, all their stuff there. Everyone still
foolishly thought the action was going to be in Abkhazia or in Chechnya,
which is still not as peaceful as they’d like it to be.
`The Georgians had their crack troops in Iraq. So what was left at their
central base in Gori? Not very much. Just Soviet era equipment and not their
best troops. They didn’t place troops on the border with Abkhazia because
they didn’t want to provoke the Abkhaz. They were expecting an attempt on
Kodori, but the gorge is in such a way that unless they’re going to use
massive air support – which the Abkhaz don’t have – it’s impossible to take
that place. Otherwise they would have done it already.
`So fast forward to early August. You have a town, Tskhinvali, which is
Ossetian, and a bunch of Georgian villages surrounding it in a crescent
shape. There are peacekeepers there. Both Russian peacekeepers and Georgian
peacekeepers under a 1994 accord. The Ossetians were dug in in the town, and
the Georgians were in the forests and the fields between the town and the
villages. The Ossetians start provoking and provoking and provoking by
shelling Georgian positions and Georgian villages around there. And it’s a
classic tit for tat thing. You shell, I shell back. The Georgians offered
repeated ceasefires, which the Ossetians broke.
`On August 3, the head of the local administration says he’s evacuating his
civilians. You also need to know one thing: you may be wondering what these
areas live off, especially in Ossetia, there’s no industry there. Georgia is
poor, but Ossetia is poorer. It’s basically a smuggler’s paradise. There was
a sting operation that netted three kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
There are fake hundred dollar bills to the tune of at least 50 million
dollars that have been printed. [South Ossetian `President’ Eduard] Kokoity
himself is a former wrestler and a former bodyguard who was promoted to the
presidency by powerful Ossetian families as their puppet. What does that
mean in practice? It means that if you are a young man, you have no choice.
You can either live in absolute misery, or you can take the government’s
dime and join the militia. It happened in both territories.
`On top of that, for the last four years the Russians have been dishing out
passports to anyone who asks in those areas. All you have to do is present
your Ossetian or Abkhaz papers and a photo and you get a Russian passport on
the spot. If you live in Moscow and try to get a Russian passport, you have
the normal procedure to follow, and it takes years. So suddenly you have a
lot of Ossetian militiamen and Abkhaz militiamen with Russian passports in
effect paid by Russian subsidies.
`So back to the 3rd of August. Kokoity announces women and children should
leave. As it later turned out, he made all the civilians leave who were not
fighting or did not have fighting capabilities. On the same day,
irregulars – Ingush, Chechen, Ossetians, and Cossacks – start coming in and
spreading out into the countryside but don’t do anything. They just sit and
wait. On the 6th of August the shelling intensifies from Ossetian positions.
And for the first time since the war finished in 1992, they are using 120mm
guns.’
`Can I stop you for a second?’ I said. I was still under the impression that
the war began on August 7 and that Georgian President Saakashvili started it
when he sent troops into South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali. What was all
this about the Ossetian violence on August 6 and before?
He raised his hand as if to say stop.
`That was the formal start of the war,’ he said. `Because of the peace
agreement they had, nobody was allowed to have guns bigger than 80mm. Okay,
so that’s the formal start of the war. It wasn’t the attack on Tskhinvali.
Now stop me.’
`Okay,’ I said. `All the reports I’ve read say Saakashvili started the war.’
`I’m not yet on the 7th,’ he said. `I’m on the 6th.’
`Okay,’ I said. He had given this explanation to reporters before, and he
knew exactly what I was thinking.
`Saakashvili is accused of starting this war on the 7th,’ he said.
`Right,’ I said. `But that sounds like complete bs to me if what you say is
true.’
Thomas Goltz nodded.
*
I later met wounded Georgian soldiers in a Tbilisi hospital who confirmed
what Patrick Worms had told me about what happened when the war actually
started. I felt apprehensive about meeting wounded soldiers. Would they
really want to talk to someone in the media or would they rather spend their
time healing in peace?
My translator spoke to some of the doctors in the hospital who directed us
to Georgian soldiers and a civilian who were wounded in South Ossetia and
felt okay enough to speak to a foreign reporter.
`Every day and every hour the Russian side lied,’ Georgian soldier Kaha
Bragadze said. `It must be stopped. If not today, then maybe tomorrow. My
troops were in our village, Avnevi. On the 6th of August they blew up our
troops’ four-wheel-drives, our pickups. They blew them up. Also in this
village – it was August 5th or 6th, I can’t remember – they started bombing
us with shells. Two soldiers died that day, our peacekeepers. The Ossetians
had a good position on the hill. They could see all our positions and our
villages, and they started bombing. They went to the top of the hill, bombed
us, then went down. We couldn’t see who was shooting at us.’
`Which day was this?’ I said. `The 5th or the 6th?’
`I don’t remember,’ he said. `But it started that day from that place when
two Georgians were killed.’
`Were they just bombing you the peacekeepers,’ I said, `or also civilians
and villages?’
`Before they started bombing us they took all the civilians out of their
villages,’ he said. `Then they started damaging our villages – houses, a gas
pipe, roads, yards. They killed our animals. They evacuated their villages,
then bombed our villages.’
Another Georgian soldier, Giorgi Khosiashvili, concurred.
`I was a peace keeper as well,’ he said, `but in another village. I was
fired upon on August 6th. On the 5th of August they started shooting. They
blew up our peacekeeping trucks. They put a bomb on the road and when they
were driving they were blown up. They also mined the roads used by
civilians. On the 6th of August they started bombing Avnevi. And at this
time they took the civilians out of Tskhinvali and sent them to North
Ossetia [inside Russia].’
`I saw this on TV,’ said Alex, my translator. `They took the civilians,
kids, women, and put them on the bus and sent them to North Ossetia.’
A civilian man, Koba Mindiashvili, shared the hospital room with the
Georgian soldiers. He, too, was in South Ossetia where he lived outside
Tskhinvali.
`When they started bombing my village,’ he said, `I was running away and the
soldiers wounded me. They robbed me and shot me in the leg with a
Kalashnikov. I don’t know if it was Russians or Ossetians. They took my car,
took my gold chain, and shot me.’
`They didn’t care if it was a house or a military camp,’ Giorgi Khosiashvili
said. `They bombed everything.’
`You actually saw this for yourself?’ I said.
`Yes,’ he said. `I saw it. It was the Russian military airplanes. If they
knew it was a Georgian village, they bombed all the houses. Many civilians
were killed from this bombing.’
`It was Russians or Ossetians who did this?’ I said.
`It was Russians,’ he said. `The Ossetians don’t have any jets.’
*
Back at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Tbilisi, Patrick Worms continued
fleshing out the rest of the story. `Let me tell you what happened on the
7th,’ he said. `On the 6th, while this is going on, the integration minister
who was until a few months ago an NGO guy and who believes in soft power
things, tried to go there and meet the separatist leadership. The meeting
doesn’t happen for farcical reasons. The shelling intensifies during the
night and there is, again, tit for tat, but this time with weapons coming
from the South Ossetian side which are not allowed under the agreement. By
that time, the Georgians were seriously worried. All their armor that was
near Abkhazia starts moving, but they are tanks, they don’t have tank
transporters, so they move slowly. They don’t make it back in time. On the
7th, this continues. That afternoon, the president announces a unilateral
ceasefire, a different one from the previous ones. It means I stop firing
first, and if you fire, I still won’t fire back. That holds until the next
part of the story.
`On the evening of the 7th, the Ossetians launch an all-out barrage focused
on Georgian villages, not on Georgian positions. Remember, these Georgian
villages inside South Ossetia – the Georgians have mostly evacuated those
villages, and three of them are completely pulverized. That evening, the
7th, the president gets information that a large Russian column is on the
move. Later that evening, somebody sees those vehicles emerging from the
Roki tunnel [into Georgia from Russia]. Then a little bit later, somebody
else sees them. That’s three confirmations. It was time to act.
`What they had in the area was peacekeeping stuff, not stuff for fighting a
war. They had to stop that column, and they had to stop it for two reasons.
It’s a pretty steep valley. If they could stop the Russians there, they
would be stuck in the tunnel and they couldn’t send the rest of their army
through. So they did two things. The first thing they did, and it happened
at roughly the same time, they tried to get through [South Ossetian capital]
Tskhinvali, and that’s when everybody says Saakashvili started the war. It
wasn’t about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through
that town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance. The second
thing they did, they dropped a team of paratroopers to destroy a bridge.
They got wiped out, but first they managed to destroy the bridge and about
15 Russian vehicles.
`The Georgians will tell you that they estimate that these two actions
together slowed the Russian advance by 24 to 48 hours. That is what the
world considered to be Misha’s game. And you know why the world considers it
that? Because here in South Ossetia was the head of the peacekeeping troops.
He hasn’t been in Iraq, he’s a peace keeper. What have they been told for
the last four years? They lived in a failed state, then there was the Rose
Revolution – it wasn’t perfect but, damn, now there’s electricity, there’s
jobs, roads have been fixed – and what the Georgians have had drummed into
them is that Georgia is now a constitutional state, a state of law and
order. And everybody here knows that Ossetia is a gangster’s smuggler’s
paradise. The whole world knows it, but here they know it particularly well.
The peacekeepers had a military objective, and the first rule of warfare
when you’re talking to the media is not to reveal to your enemy what you’re
going to do. So they weren’t going to blather into a microphone and say
well, actually, I’m trying to go through Tskhinvali in order to stop the
Russians. So what did he say instead? I’m here to restore constitutional
order in South Ossetia. And that’s it. With that, Georgia lost the
propaganda war and the world believes Saakashvili started it. And the rest
of the story…you know.’
`Let me make a couple of comments,’ Goltz said.
`That,’ Worms said, `to the best of my knowledge, is all true.’
`Let’s just start at the ass end,’ Goltz said to me. `This is your first
time to the lands of the former Soviet Union?’
`Yes,’ I said.
`The restoration of constitutional order,’ he said, `may sound just like a
rhetorical flourish with no echo in the American mindset. What it means in
the post-Soviet mindset is what Boris Yeltsin was doing in Chechnya. This
was the stupidest phrase this guy possibly could have used. That’s why
people want to lynch him.’
Goltz was referring to the head of the Georgian peacekeeping forces in South
Ossetia. He turned then to Patrick Worms. `Your presentation was deliciously
comprehensive. Perhaps it was…we’ll ask our new friend Michael…too much
information out of the gate to absorb.’
`I absorbed it,’ I said.
`Okay,’ Goltz said.
`Am I making any mistakes?’ Worms said to Goltz. `Am I forgetting anything?’
`Well,’ Goltz said, `there are some details that I would chip in. Who are
the Ossetians and where do they live? This is the question that has been
lost in all of the static from this story. This autonomy [South Ossetia] is
an autonomous district, as opposed to an autonomous republic, with about
60,000 people max. So, where are the rest of the Ossetians? Guess where they
live? Tbilisi. Here. There. Everywhere. There are more Ossetians – take a
look around this lobby. You will find Ossetians here. Of those Ossetians who
are theoretically citizens of the Republic of Georgia, 60,000 live there and
around 40,000 live here.’
`What do they think about all this?’ I said.
`They’re scared as shit,’ Goltz said.
`Are they on the side of those who live in South Ossetia?’ I said.
`No,’ he said. `One of them is Georgia’s Minister of Defense. [Correction:
Georgia’s Minister of Defense is Jewish, not Ossetian.] Georgia is a
multi-ethnic republic. And the whole point of the Ossetian ethnic question
is this: South Ossetia is part of Georgia.’
`Are reporters receptive to what you’re saying?’ I said to Worms.
`Everyone is receptive,’ he said. `Everyone, regardless of nationality, even
those who love Georgia, genuinely thought Saakashvili started it.’
`That’s what I thought,’ I said. `That’s what everyone has been writing.’
`Yes,’ he said. `Absolutely. We’ve been trying to tell the world about this
for months. If you go back and look at the archives you’ll see plenty of
calls from the Georgian government saying they’re really worried. Even some
Russian commentators agree that this is exactly what happened. Don’t forget,
they sent in a lot of irregulars, Chechens, Cossacks, Ossetians, Ingush –
basically thugs. Not normal Chechens or Ingush – thugs. Thugs out for a
holiday. Many Western camera crews were robbed at gunpoint ten meters from
Russian tanks while Russian commanders just stood there smoking their
cigarettes while the irregulars…that happened to a Turkish TV crew.
They’re lucky to still be alive. Some of the Georgians were picked up by the
irregulars. If they happened to be female, they got raped. If they happened
to be male, they got shot immediately, sometimes tortured. Injured people we
have in hospitals who managed to get out have had arms chopped off, eyes
gouged out, and their tongues ripped out.’
Russian rules of engagement, so to speak, go down harder than communism. And
the Soviet era habits of disinformation are alive and well.
`You also have to remember the propaganda campaign that came out,’ he said.
`Human Rights Watch is accusing the Russian authorities of being indirectly
responsible for the massive ethnic cleansing of Georgians that happened in
South Ossetia. The Ossetians are claiming that the Georgians killed 2,000
people in Tskhinvali, but when Human Rights Watch got in there a few days
ago and talked to the hospital director, he had received 44 bodies. There
was nobody left in that town. Plus it’s the oldest law of warfare: have your
guns in populated areas, and when the enemy responds, show the world your
dead women and children.
`Right,’ I said. `That goes on a lot where I usually work, in the Middle
East.’
`Yes,’ he said. `That’s exactly what the Russians were doing.’

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383, x118
Fax: 212.319.6507
Email: [email protected]
Website:

PRESS RELEASE

Friday, August 29, 2008

AGBU Hye Geen’s Third Annual Conference Examines Status of Armenian
Communities in the United States

AGBU Hye Geen’s Forum for Armenian Social and Cultural Studies (FACSS)
held a one-day conference on April 12, 2008 at California State
University of Los Angeles, in conjunction with the college’s School of
Social Work, College of Health and Human Services. The subject of the
conference was "The Status of Armenian Communities Living in the United
States."

Opening remarks were delivered by Talin Yacoubian of AGBU Hye Geen’s
Young Circle. She first expressed her gratitude to Dr. Karin A. Elliot
Brown of the university’s School of Social Work for her continued
cooperation. She also thanked three youth organizations, namely the
Armenian Social Work Caucus, the Cal. State Los Angeles Chapter of Alpha
Epsilon Omega Fraternity, as well as AGBU Generation Next, for their
close cooperation.

The first speaker was Rev. Fr. Sarkis Petoyan of St. John Armenian
Church in San Francisco, who spoke about "The Faith, Church Membership
and Attendance Practices of the Armenian Baby Boom Generation."

Next on the program was a panel presentation dealing with issues of
class conflict, social justice and oppression of vulnerable populations.
The panelists were introduced by Houri Keshishian, a member of Hye
Geen’s FACSS group.

The panelists presented their research on various fields, including Paul
Naccashian, owner and principal consultant with Collaborative Solutions
in Azusa, California, who spoke about "Conflict Mode Analysis of
Armenians in the United States: Similarities and Differences, a
Comparative Study"; Shakeh Baghdasarian, a graduate of the School of
Social Work at California State University of Los Angeles, broached the
subject of "Experiences of Armenian Homosexuals Living in the United
States"; and Dr. Martin J. Adamian, professor at California State
University of Los Angeles, spoke about "The Use of Law and Genocide: The
Armenian Experience."

The panel presentations were followed by the introduction of the guest
speaker, Boghos Levon Zekiyan, by AGBU Hye Geen founder and chairman,
Sona Yacoubian. Zekiyan is an ordained "vartabed" of the Armenian
Catholic Mekhitarist Order and the founder of the Venice Ca’foscari
University’s summer intensive course in Armenian language and culture
under the aegis of his Padus Araxes Cultural Association. Yacoubian paid
tribute to the scholar theologian, a professor of Armenian Church
institutions at the Pontifical Oriental Institute of Rome, as well as a
member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. Zekiyan spoke
about "Women’s Role in the Armenian Society as a Factor of Mutual
Integration."

After the lunch break, Saro Ayvazian, of the Alpha Epsilon Omega
Fraternity at CSU-LA, spoke about his organization’s range of
activities. The presentation was followed by a second session dealing
with "The State of Armenian Youth in Los Angeles." Ara Arzoumanian,
director of the prevention-based AGBU Generation Next Mentorship
Program, spoke expertly about his program in the Glendale-Pasadena
region; and Osheen Keshishian, publisher/editor of the English-language
The Armenian Observer weekly, faculty member of Glendale Community
College and guest lecturer at California State University, Northridge,
spoke about "The Reflection of the Genocide in the Works of Armenians
Who Write in English."

The final feature of the conference program was a roundtable discussion
focusing on issues facing the Armenian-American youth of Southern
California. Moderated by Tamar Kevorkian, columnist for The Armenian
Reporter, the participants were Fr. Vazken Movsesian, a priest serving
various Californian churches for the past 25 years and Executive
Director of In His Shoes Ministries, a faith-based organization to rally
support and assistance for people in areas hit by genocide; Melina
Sardar, educational director of Ark Center in Glendale and case manager
at the AGBU Generation Next Mentorship Program; and Arlette
DerHovanessian, a behavioral psychologist, program director in the
Department of Early Education and Extended Learning Programs in the
Glendale Unified School District.

This thought-provoking conference concluded with the closing remarks of
Nayiri Nahabedian, chairperson of FACCS.

AGBU Hye Geen’s mission is to preserve and honor the achievements of
Armenian women and to provide a forum for Armenian women throughout the
world. AGBU is the largest Armenian non-profit organization in the
world. It is dedicated to preserving and promoting the Armenian heritage
through humanitarian, educational, cultural and social programs that
serve some 400,000 Armenians annually. For more information on AGBU and
its worldwide chapters, please visit

This article is an abridged version of the one entitled "AGBU Hye Geen’s
Third Annual Conference on the Status of Armenian Communities Living in
the United States" by Sona Zeitlian, published in the May 14, 2008 issue
of "The Armenian Observer" and the May 23-29 issue of "USA Armenian Life
Magazine."

Part of the AGBU Southern California District, AGBU Hye Geen preserves
and honors the achievements of Armenian women around the world, promotes
the role of women in family and society through research, education and
advocacy and provides overall support for the empowerment of women as
guardians of the Armenian heritage. For more information on AGBU Hye
Geen, please call the AGBU Pasadena Center at (626) 794-7942.

For more information on AGBU and its worldwide chapters, please visit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Linda Yepoyan
August 29, 2008
Phone: 610-642-6633
[email protected]

BIRTHRIGHT ARMENIA ALUMNI
An Impressive Return on Investment

Every year Birthright Armenia alumni from around the world return to their
Homeland in growing numbers. Since 2004, 65 out of 300 participants have
gone back to Armenia at least once. Some return to pursue further volunteer
experience and internships, others to reconnect with old friends and family,
but in all cases, there seems to be a common tug, almost inexplicably
calling them back to Armenia.

"When you realize what most of these young adults forego in order to come
back to Armenia to continue doing more good work after their Birthright
Armenia experience, it truly speaks to the high level of commitment we have
been seeing overall in our post-community service follow-ups," says
executive director Linda Yepoyan. "And if you think about the fact that
there are over 1 million diasporan Armenians in the world who are currently
in their twenties, what a fantastic resource Armenia would have in them if
20% of them committed to working toward a stronger and more democratic
Homeland", adds Yepoyan.

Nelli Martirosyan (AAA 2007) is spending this summer in Tsamakahogh village
of Nagorno Karabagh. With the support of a $2,500 grant from the Birthright
Armenia "Next Step" Alumni Fund, she has started a Youth Development
Initiative in the village. Born and raised in Armenia, Nelli moved to the
United States when she was 18, but she knew that she would be back soon. She
has a strong resolve to devote her life’s work to Armenia’s development.
With a background in education, Nelli has created a program designed to
empower youth through knowledge-teaching them vital language and computer
skills and instilling within them the values of teamwork and volunteer work.
With Nelli’s guidance, the youth of Tsamakahogh have created several
committees charged with sports, social and cultural events which they run
completely independently. "I don’t volunteer for them," says Nelli, "I
volunteer with them." Contributing to Armenia’s development is not just a
passing phase for her – it’s a lifetime commitment.

Volunteering through Birthright Armenia and its sponsored organizations has
led many to positions of leadership both in their hometowns and in Armenia.
Garine Palandjian of Providence, RI (currently residing in Glendale, CA) was
an AYF volunteer in 2005. She spent the summer in Armenia, but this time
around, as the AYF Eastern Internship Coordinator. After spending the past
few months organizing internships, living arrangements and a schedule of
events for the eight-week program, Garine worked alongside the local AYF
office in Yerevan and Birthright Armenia to ensure the success of each
internship. She is proud to be working with organizations that hope to
bridge the gap between Armenia and the Diaspora.

For some alumni, like Ric Gazarian and Grace Yacoubian (both AVC 2004)
Armenia is nothing short of an addiction. Both have returned almost every
year since their internships. Ric, a Boston native now living in Chicago,
volunteered for close to four months at Zatik Orphanage, teaching English,
playing games, and spending time with the children. As a parting gift to the
kids and staff at Zatik, he organized and sponsored a festival. He has
returned every summer since 2004, making the Zatik Festival – complete with
face painting, moonbounce, cotton candy and pony rides – an annual
tradition. "As a volunteer," says Ric, "you come to donate your time, but of
course, you get more than you receive." The festival is his way of saying
thank you. He came back mid-August to sponsor the event for the fifth time,
and the children of Zatik Orphanage were anxiously awaiting his arrival.

Grace Yacoubian (AVC 2004) left Armenia wanting to come right back at all
costs. But she remembers an older volunteer’s counsel: "Take your time, work
on your portfolio, get something to offer this place. Just take your time.
Armenia will be waiting for you." Since then, she has learned grant writing
and has embarked on a Master’s degree in non-profit management. Yacoubian
has returned to Armenia three times since volunteering through Birthright
sponsorship in 2004. This summer, she is in the northern city of Gyumri on
an internship stipend award, working with the Economic Consulting Service,
an agency supporting the efforts of local farmers, businesses and non-profit
organizations. "Each time I return, I learn more about Armenia, myself, and
my place in it," says Yacoubian.

This desire to discover Armenia, and in turn, discover oneself is echoed in
several Birthright Armenia participants – and it doesn’t end with the
completion of their internships. Serli Hacikoglu (AVC 2006) and Areg
Maghakian (AVC 2007) are among the handful of Birthright alumni who have
decided to return to Armenia to stay, in hopes of enriching their lives and
the lives of others. Serli, a native of Washington D.C., has been living in
Yerevan since January. "I can’t imagine being anywhere else at this point in
my life," she says, "I really live my life here. I am constantly exploring
and discovering – things, people, a place, and most importantly, myself."

Areg Maghakian originally planned to volunteer for five months, extended his
stay twice, and in February 2008, decided to move to Armenia. "Birthright
enabled me to come here, see first-hand the potential Armenia has for
growth, and actually participate in its development," he says, "It was a
great starting point." Maghakian is currently looking to expand Armenia’s IT
sector through outsourcing projects.

Birthright Armenia’s continued quest to connect youth from the Diaspora with
the Homeland is proving extremely fruitful. With alumni returning to Armenia
every year to embark on exciting projects that further Armenia’s development
while enhancing their own "journey of self-discovery", the organization is
proud of its high rate of return on investments. For many, what begins as a
two-month volunteer opportunity becomes a lifelong commitment to, and
investment in, their Homeland.

PRESS RELEASE
August, 2008
Contact: Rick Barry
212.475.2475 x384
[email protected]<mailto:rbarry@tufenki an.com>

TUFENKIAN FOUNDATION GOES LIVE
Leading Venture Philanthropy Group Launches New Website

NEW YORK-The Tufenkian Foundation, one of the leading philanthropies
working toward a just, democratic, and vibrant Armenia, has launched a
new website at
; kianfoundation.org/>.

The website offers background information on the Foundation, its
history, and its guiding principles; it also provides the latest news
from the Foundation and its partners, as well as up-to-date reports on
every project it has in active development.

"We have anywhere from 10 to 20 projects going at a time," says
Antranig Kasbarian, the Foundation’s director of development. "So it
can be hard to keep our friends consistently up-to-date on everything
we do and learn on the ground."

The new website is designed not just as a way to track the
Foundation’s progress, but also to give people worldwide a more robust
understanding of the challenges facing Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh.
By providing information on the goals of each project and a regular
stream of news from the region, TufenkianFoundation.org promises to
grow into a solid resource promoting awareness and prompting action.

The website also guides individuals and groups that want to contribute
to building a more vibrant Armenia, matching them to projects that
meet specific, targeted needs. The website offers information on
upcoming projects in need of sponsorship, as well as information for
individuals and organizations interested in forming strategic
partnerships.

"We’ve encountered many people who want to get involved with the work
we are doing," says Kasbarian. "With this in mind, we’ve created a
‘Getting Involved’ section of the website, which provides an easy and
effective way for people to dedicate their time, talents, or gifts."

The Tufenkian Foundation was launched in 1999 by entrepreneur James
Tufenkian, seeking to empower local citizens’ initiatives, assist the
most vulnerable strata of society, promote environmental protection
and awareness, and advance social justice in Armenia. Since its
inception, the Foundation has broadened its scope to embattled
Nagorno-Karabagh, where it promotes resettlement and development
projects in the region’s vulnerable border zones. Operating with a
relatively small staff and budget, the Foundation specializes in
launching pilot programs and developing them until they can either be
handed off to larger benefactors or turned over to local citizens to
continue and manage.

The Tufenkian Foundation is part of the Tufenkian family of
companies-which also includes Tufenkian Artisan Carpets, Tufenkian
Heritage Hotels and Harvest Song Preserves
()-all<http://www.Tu fenkian.com)-all> of which are
dedicated to leading their fields in both quality and in social and
environmental responsibility.

For more information on the Tufenkian Foundation, please visit
; fenkianfoundation.org/>.
###

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SPIEGEL ONLINE

30. August 2008, 00:43 Uhr

BOXEN

"Killer Queen" Kentikian verteidigt ihre WM-Titel

,1518 ,575334,00.html

Es war ein harter und schmutziger Fight: Gegen die israelische Herausforderin
Hagar Shmoulefeld Finer musste Susi Kentikian so hart kämpfen wie noch nie, um
ihre beiden Weltmeistergürtel zu verteidigen. Am Ende siegte die Deutsche nach
Punkten.

Hamburg – Susi Kentikian gewann den Kampf über zehn Runden klar nach Punkten
gegen die Israelin Hagar Shmoulefeld Finer und bleibt WBA- und
WIBF-Weltmeisterin im Fliegengewicht. Für die Boxerin aus dem Hamburger
Spotlight-Stall war es der 22. Sieg im 22. Kampf. Die drei Punktrichter
votierten mit 97:93, 98:92 und 99:91 Punkten am Ende überraschend eindeutig für
die 20-Jährige.

Weltmeisterin Kentikian (Archivfoto): Tolle AufwärtshakenNach drei Runden hatte
Kentikian noch in der Punkt-Wertung der zurückgelegen. Die Titelverteidigerin
hatte einige Probleme, gegen die sehr unorthodox kämpfende und sieben Zentimeter
größere Israelin die richtige Distanz und die richtige Taktik zu finden. "Es war
sehr schwierig, gegen sie zu boxen", sagte Kentikian nach dem Kampf: "Aber ich
habe mit meinem Trainer besprochen, dass wir erst abwarten und scheuen, wo die
Lücken sind."

Die Herausforderin Shmoulefeld Finer setzte zudem mitunter unfaire Mittel wie
Kopfstöße und Tiefschläge ein. Mit Jubelgesten nach jeder Runde brachte sie das
Publikum im Düsseldorfer Burgwächter-Castello gegen sich auf und wurde
ausgepfiffen.

Doch etwa nach der Hälfte des Kampfes übernahm Kentikian das Kommando, fand die
Lücken und traf vor allem mit hervorragenden Aufwärtshaken und
Links-Rechts-Kombinationen. Ihre Gegnerin hatte auch konditionell nichts mehr
zuzusetzen und konnte am Ende froh sein, über die Runden gekommen zu sein.

Die in Armenien geborene, unter dem Kampfnamen "Killer Queen" bekannte
Kentikian, verteidigte ihre WM-Titel damit erstmals unter deutscher
Staatsbürgerschaft – vor wenigen Tagen erst war sie eingebürgert worden.
all/dpa

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NEW PRIEST ORDAINED IN THE IRAQI ARMENIAN DIOCESE

Azad-Hye
Aug 29 2008
Dubai, UAE

By Ara S. Ashjian

An Iraqi Armenian settled in Yerevan, Armenia

Father Torkom is the name of the newest priest of the Iraqi Armenian
Orthodox Church.

The celebrant of the Divine Liturgy and ordaining bishop was His
Eminence Archbishop Avak Asadourian, the Primate of the Diocese of the
Armenian Church of Iraq.

Father Torkom is the former deacon Vartan Torkomian. The ordination
took place at St. Mary Mother of God Church in the southern city of
Basra on 21-22 August 2008.

At the end of the sermon, His Eminence Archbishop Avak Asadourian
congratulated the newly ordained priest wishing him long and
prosperous years to serve in a better way our ancient Church and the
faithful put under his care.

Russia could build naval base in Abkhazia

Rus MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Black Sea Fleet may
eventually use the Abkhazian port of Sukhumi as a naval base, former fleet
commander said on Friday.
After Russia recognized the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh suggested
that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet could use one of the ports in the republic to
station its warships.
"Sukhumi could easily host Black Sea Fleet ships, for instance a naval
brigade of up to 30 vessels," said Admiral Eduard Baltin, commenting on
Bagapsh’s statement.
Baltin, 71, said a naval brigade might comprise a division of small ASW
ships, a division of small missile ships or boats, and a division of
minesweepers.
He said one of the large piers at the Sukhumi port had not been used since
the 1992 Georgian-Abkhazian conflict because several ships were sunk there.
"If we cleared up the harbor at the cargo terminal, we would be able to
station the ships from the naval brigade there," the admiral said.
A group of Russian warships led by the guided-missile cruiser Moskva visited
the Sukhumi port on Wednesday, as part of a peacekeeping mission in
Abkhazian territorial waters, according to the Russian Navy.
Russia has repeatedly said that it has no plans to withdraw its Black Sea
Fleet from the naval base in Sevastopol in Ukraine until the bilateral
agreement on the base’s lease expires in 2017, despite numerous statements
recently made by Ukraine that Russia should be prepared to withdraw its
fleet.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has stepped up security at its facilities in
Ukraine to deter possible provocative acts following the conclusion of
hostilities between Georgia and Russia over breakaway South Ossetia on
August 12.
Ukraine, which is seeking NATO membership along with Georgia, supported
Tbilisi in the conflict with Moscow.