Month: October 2008

ARMENIA WILL NO LONGER PLAY THE VICTIM

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2008 16:49 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The recent race of strategic realignments reflects
a real crisis in the world order and risks a dangerous recurrence
of history. Suffice the testimony of nearly all global and regional
actors, which have quickly shifted their gears and ushered in a new
cycle of reassessment of interests and, to that end, a diversification
of policy priorities and political partnerships, Raffi K. Hovannisian,
Armenia’s first minister of foreign affairs, founder of the Armenian
Center for National and International Studies and representative
of the opposition Heritage Party in Parliament, said in a statement
obtained by PanARMENIAN.Net.

"It matters little whether this geopolitical scramble was directly
triggered by the Russian-Georgian conflagration and the derivative
collapse of standing paradigms for the Caucasus, or whether it
crowned latently simmering scenarios in the halls of international
power. The fact is that the great game–for strategic resources,
control over communications and routes of transit, and long-term
leverage–is on again with renewed vigor, self-serving partisanship,
and duplicitous entanglement.

One of the signals of this unbrave new world is the apparent reciprocal
rediscovery of Russia and Turkey. Whatever its motivations and
manifestations, Turkey’s play behind the back of its transatlantic
bulwark and Russia’s dealings at the expense of its "strategic ally"
raise the specter of history’s return, recalling the days more
than 85 years ago when Bolshevik Russia and Nationalist Turkey,
not contenting themselves with the legacy of the great Genocide and
National Dispossession of 1915, partitioned the Armenian homeland in
Molotov-Ribbentrop fashion and to its fatal future detriment.

Mountainous Karabagh, or Artsakh in Armenian, was one of the
territorial victims of this 1921 plot of the pariahs, as it was placed
under Soviet Azerbaijani suzerainty together with Nakhichevan. The
latter province of the historical Armenian patrimony was subsequently
cleansed of its Armenian plurality and even of its Armenian cultural
heritage, the most contemporary evidence of which was the Azerbaijani
Republic’s (a Council of Europe member-state) total, Taliban-style
annihilation in December 2005 of the medieval cemetery and thousands
of Armenian cross-stones at Jugha.

Mountainous Karabagh, by way of exception, was able to turn the tide
on a past of genocide, dispossession, occupation and partition, as
it defended its identity, integrity, and territory against foreign
aggression and in 1991 declared its liberty, decolonization, and
sovereignty–long before Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia became
current–in compliance with the Montevideo standards of conventional
international law and with the controlling domestic legislation of
the Soviet Union.

Subsequent international practice on the recognition of Kosovo,
and later of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, demonstrates that in this
world there exists no real rule of law–applied evenly across the
board–but rather the rule of vital interests that are conveniently
couched under the selectively-interpreted guise of international legal
principles of choice and of exclusivist distinctions of fact which,
in fact, make no difference.

It’s time to face the farce.

That goes for Moscow and Ankara too. Judging from the contemporary
pronouncements of their high-level officials, they still don’t get
it. And if they are driven by need for a strategic new compact,
then at least their partners on the world stage should reshift their
gears and calculate their policy alternatives accordingly. Iran, the
United States and its European allies might find here an objective
intersection of their concerns.

Russia and Turkey must never again find unity of purpose at the expense
of Armenia and the Armenian people. The track record of genocide,
exile, death camps and gulags is enough for all of history.

These two important countries, as partners both real and potential,
must respect the Armenian nation’s tragic history, its sovereign
integrity and modern regional role, and Mountainous Karabagh’s
lawfully-gained freedom and independence.

Football diplomacy is fine, but Turkey can assume the desired new
level of global leadership and local legitimacy only by dealing
with Armenia from a "platform" of good faith and reconciliation
through truth; lifting its illegal blockade of the Republic and
opening the frontier which it unilaterally closed, instead of using
it as a bargaining tool; establishing diplomatic relations without
preconditions and working through that relationship to build mutual
confidence and give resolution to the many watershed issues dividing
the two neighbors; accepting and atoning, in the brilliant example
of postwar Germany, for the first genocide of the 20th century and
the national dispossession that attended it; committing to rebuild,
restore, and then celebrate the Armenian national heritage from
Mt. Ararat and the medieval capital city of Ani to the vast array
of churches, monasteries, schools, academies, fortresses, and other
cultural treasures of the ancestral Armenian homelands; initiating and
bringing to fruition a comprehensive program to guarantee the right
of secure voluntary return for the progeny and descendants of the
dispossessed to their places and properties of provenance; providing
full civil, human, and religious rights to the Armenian community of
Turkey, including completely doing away with the infamous Article 301
which has served for so long as an instrument of fear, suppression, and
even death with regard to those courageous citizens of good conscience
who dare to proclaim the historical fact of genocide; and finally
exercising greater circumspection in voicing incongruous and unfounded
allegations of "occupation" in the context of Mountainous Karabagh’s
David-and-Goliath struggle for life and justice, lest someone remind
it about more appropriate and more proximate applications of that term.

As for Russia, true strategic allies consult honestly with each other
and coordinate their policies pursuant to their common interests; they
do not address one another by negotiating adverse protocols with third
parties at each other’s back, they do not posture against each other
in public or in private, and they do not try to intimidate, arm-twist,
or otherwise pressure each other via the press clubs and newspapers
of the world. Russia as well must deal with Armenia in good faith,
recognizing the full depth and breadth of its national sovereignty and
the horizontal nature of their post-Soviet rapport, its right to seek
and realize a balanced, robust, and integral foreign policy, as well
as the non-negotiability – for any reason, including the sourcing and
supervision of Azerbaijani oil – of Mountainous Karabagh’s liberty,
security, and self-determination.

Official Yerevan, of course, must also step up to undertake its share
of responsibility for creating a region of peace and shared stability,
mutual respect and open borders, domestic democracy and international
cooperation. An ancient civilization with a new state, Armenia’s
national interests in the new era can best be served by achieving
in short order a republic run by the rule of law and due process,
an abiding respect for fundamental freedoms, good governance, and
fair elections. These, sadly, have not been the case to date.

Armenia requires the real deal, and forthwith. But history as
witness, it can and will no longer play the fool…or the victim,"
the statement says.

SIMMONS TO DISCUSS ARMENIA-NATO COOPERATION

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2008 17:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A delegation led by NATO’s Special Representative
for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Mr. Robert Simmons will be in
Armenia from Oct. 19 to 21.

Mr. Simmons is scheduled to meet with President Serzh Sargsyan,
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, Defense Minister Seyran Ohanya,
NSC Secretary Artur Baghdassaryan and other officials, the RA MFA
press office reported.

The delegation members will discuss the Armenia-NATO cooperation
with the RA leadership. They will also attend the final stage of
Cooperative Lancer/Longbow 2008 exercise.

RA NSC SECRETARY TO VISIT IRAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2008 17:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Secretary of the Armenian National Security Council
Atrur Baghdassaryan will pay a formal visit to Iran, the RA leader’s
press office reported.

The agreement was achieved during a meeting between Artur Baghdassaryan
and Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Ali Saqaiyan.

The agenda of the visit includes a wide scope of issues referring to
bilateral relations, regional cooperation and security.

RUSSIA NOT PLANNING TO JOIN EU

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2008 17:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia is a self-sufficient country and has no
intention to join the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, RF permanent
representative to the EU, said when commenting on Italian PM Silvio
Berlusconi’s statement.

"We have every reason to develop independently, but not as a part of
a union," Chizhov said, adding that Russia has some obligations to
its neighbors, the former USSR republics, Russian media reports.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday that he is in
favor of Russia becoming a member of the European Union, a "vision"
he has held for several years.

"I consider Russia to be a Western country and my plan is for the
Russian Federation to be able to become a member of the European
Union in the coming years," Berlusconi told reporters in Brussels.

DAN FRIED: OSCE MG MOST EFFICIENT FORMAT FOR KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2008 18:55 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Serzh Sarsgyan met Friday with
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs,
Daniel Fried, to discuss the U.S.-Armenia cooperation, regional
problems and the Karabakh conflict settlement, the RA leader’s press
office told PanARMENIAN.Net.

The two emphasized that the OSCE Minsk Group is most efficient format
for Karabakh conflict settlement and that the problem should resolved
on the basis of international law.

They also touched on possibilities to normalize Armenian-Turkish
relations.

MANDELA, OBAMA AND THE POST-RACIAL AGE
Prof. Ali A. Mazrui

Daily Monitor
October 18, 2008
Uganda

Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama are potential icons of a post-racial
age which is unfolding before our eyes. Mandela has become the most
respected Black man by all races in world history.

Obama stands a chance of becoming the most trusted Black man in US
history. No African-American has ever come so close to winning the
US presidency. But no African-American could have approached so close
to winning the US presidency without an unprecedented level of trust
from a sizable part of the white electorate.

A major cause of the Mandela-Obama respective successes lies in
their embodying a short memory of racial hatred, and their impressive
readiness to forgive historical adversaries. They have both illustrated
a remarkable capacity to transcend historical racial divides.

Cultures differ in hate retention. Some nurse their grievances for
generations. Others are intensely hostile in the midst of a conflict,
but as soon thereafter, they display a readiness to forgive, even
if not always to forget. The Armenians, Irish and Jews fall in this
category.

Armenians were butchered in large numbers by the Ottoman Turks in
1915 – 1916. This story of the Armenian martyrdom of World War I has
been transmitted with passion from generation to generation.

Armenians are still demanding justice from Turkey nearly a hundred
years after the massacres. Similarly, the Irish have long memories
of grievance. Clashes occur in Northern Ireland virtually every
year concerning marches that commemorate ‘Orange Conflicts’ in the
seventeenth century. Jews also have strong collective memories of
the Holocaust and other outbursts of European anti-Semitism.

Mandela came from a culture illustrative of Africa’s short memory of
hate. That culture is far from being pacifist. Wars and inter-ethnic
conflicts have been part of Africa’s experience before European
colonization and decades after independence.

What is different about African cultures is relatively low level
of hate retention. Obama’s tolerance may be due to personal
multi-culturalism. He had a white American mother, a Black Kenyan
father, and an Indonesian step-father.

His cultural ancestry includes Luo culture, Islam and Black American
Christianity. Mandela’s life passed through stages. His early
days as a nationalist were characterized by a belief in non-violent
resistance. In a sense, he carried the torch of South Africa’s Albert
Luthuli and Mahatma Gandhi. Sharpeville was a major blow to his belief
in passive resistance.

By the time that Mandela was having afternoon tea with the unrepentant
widow of the founder of apartheid, Hendrick Verwoerd, he had tough
acts to follow in African magnanimity. There were precedents of
forgiveness that he followed and improved upon.

Post-colonial Africa had produced other instances of short memory of
hate. Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, once condemned by a British colonialist
as a "leader of darkness and death" was unjustly imprisoned in a
remote part of the country.

When he finally emerged from prison on the eve of independence, he
proclaimed "suffering without bitterness." He proceeded to transform
Kenya into a staunchly pro-Western country.

In November 1965, colonial Southern Rhodesia’s Ian Smith launched
his Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, unleashing
a bitter Zimbabwe civil war. Yet, he lived to sit in a parliament of
Black-ruled Zimbabwe and was not subjected to postwar vendetta. Again,
Africa’s short memory of hate at work. In the late 1960s, Nigeria waged
a highly publicized civil war that cost nearly a million lives. The
Federal side won that war but was uniquely magnanimous towards the
defeated Biafrans. Yet, another manifestation of Africa’s short memory
of hatred.

For his part, when Mandela was finally released from prison in
1990, this most illustrious of all Africa’s liberation fighters
embarked on a mission of healing and forgiving. This former hero of
mobilization leadership became a paragon of the reconciliation style
of leadership. He became the greatest of all African examples of
prolonged reconciliation, an exemplar of African short memory of hate.

Obama illustrated his post-racial tolerance by denouncing his firebrand
pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and leaving his own radicalized church. Obama
is more of an ideological liberal than a moral Gandhian. Indeed,
Obama is less of a Gandhian than Martin Luther King, Jr. was. But in
their different ways, Mandela, Obama and King have all been part of
the search for a post-racial age.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SUPPORT FOR AZERBAIJAN DEFENSE URGED BY JINSA

MarketWatch
Oct. 17, 2008

Concern Expressed Over Armenian Organizational Leader’s Opposition

WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs (JINSA) today expressed deep concern over
those leaders of the Armenian Assembly of America who denounced a
reported arms sale by Israel to Azerbaijan.

"Azerbaijan is an important friend of the United States and is one
of the few Muslim countries that maintains a positive relationship
with Israel," said Tom Neumann, executive director of JINSA.

"Azerbaijan is in an unstable region, made even more dangerous by
Russia’s invasion of Georgia last August," Neumann noted. "In light
of all that is happening, the support of the U.S. — and that of the
entire free world — is appropriate and necessary."

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is an independent,
non-profit, non-partisan, non-sectarian educational organization
established in 1976 to educate the public on national and international
security issues, including the importance of an effective U.S. defense
capability and the key role of strategic allies, including Israel,
to promote democratic values in the Middle East.

ARMENIA SIGNS DEAL FOR MILITARY OVERSIGHT

Middle East Times
October 17, 2008
Egypt

YEREVAN, Armenia, Oct. 17 (UPI) — Armenian government officials
signed an agreement Friday that would allow new oversight of the
country’s armed forces.

The Armenian parliamentary committee on defense, national security
and internal affairs signed a deal to work with the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe on strengthening oversight of the
armed forces in Armenia, the OSCE reported.

The memorandum of understanding signed Friday is part of an OSCE
effort to establish better armed forces monitoring capabilities in
European countries. Official say the agreement will assist Armenia in
identifying areas in its armed forces that need reform and encourage
more transparency in the military.

"By signing this agreement with the Standing Parliamentary Committee
on Defense, National Security and Internal Affairs, the OSCE is
expressing its profound will to assist Armenia in exerting effective
parliamentary oversight over the armed forces," said Ambassador Sergey
Kapinos, head of the OSCE office in Armenia.

"Transparency, accountability and division of powers are the
cornerstones of good governance."

BIGOTRY MONITOR: VOLUME 8, NUMBER 41

Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union
October 17, 2008
DC

BIGOTRY MONITOR

A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and
Religious Persecution in the Former Communist World and Western Europe

EDITOR: CHARLES FENYVESI (News and Editorial Policy within the sole
discretion of the editor)

Published by UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet
Union __________________________________________________ _________

POLITKOVSKAYA MURDER TRIAL OPENS; HER LAWYER FINDS POISON IN HER
CAR. As the trial of three men charged with involvement in the
2006 murder of Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya was about to open
in Moscow, lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, scheduled to represent the
Politkovskaya family, announced that she could not attend the trial
because she found a large quantity of poisonous mercury pellets in
her car in Strasbourg, France and that she and her family must now
undergo treatment. According to Reuters’ medical sources, exposure
to high levels of mercury can damage the brain, heart, kidneys,
lungs, and the immune and nervous systems, and the consequences can
be fatal. At the moment, she and the members of her family are said
to be in satisfactory condition. Moskalenko believes the mercury
was meant as a warning to her. She told Ekho Moskvy radio station,
"People do not put mercury in your car to improve your health." On
October 13, Strasbourg assistant prosecutor Claude Palpacuer announced
that an investigation of the poisoning attempt had been opened.

Moskalenko has taken part in high-profile cases, representing former
Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky as well as Chechens who appealed to
the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg because of violations
of their constitutional rights in Russia.

Politkovskaya, whose reports on Chechnya revealing gross human
rights abuses infuriated the Kremlin, was shot dead outside her
Moscow apartment two years ago. Two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail
and Ibragim Makhmudov, are charged with conducting surveillance on
Politkovskaya and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov is
accused of providing technical help. All three claim innocence. The
court will soon decide whether the public and media will be allowed
to observe the trial, which is held in a military court because one
of the defendants was once a law enforcement officer. "The case the
prosecution has sent to court is a shameful disgrace," defense lawyer
Murat Musayev said. "We are sure that the prosecutors will try to
make the trial closed to the public to cover up this disgrace, but
we hope the court will not do this." He said he expects an acquittal.

Politkovskaya’s supporters say the principal culprits will not be in
the dock. A third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, who prosecutors suspect
of shooting Politkovskaya, is on the run, and even more important,
police have not found the person who ordered the murder.

Critics of the Kremlin point to the murder as a symbol of Russia’s
retreat from standards of democracy and human rights under former
President Vladimir Putin now prime minister. Putin dismissed
Politkovskaya as an "unimportant" person and categorically denied
any Kremlin link to the killing. But following a worldwide outcry
over the contract murder of the 48-year-old prize-winning writer,
Putin ordered "a thorough investigation."

Since then, the Kremlin trumpeted the charge that the murder
was organized by millionaire Boris Berezovsky, once a confidant
of then President Boris Yeltsin and now a British citizen living
London. However, the state investigation has no proof of the theory
that Berezovsky was behind the murder, Alexander Bastrykin, director
of the Prosecutor’s Office Investigative Committee, told the German
newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" this week. He added that his
investigation will not be over until the killer is found. "At the
moment we know that he is abroad; I can’t tell you where," he was
quoted as saying. "But we will definitely find him."

"Investigators have narrowed the field of suspects they believe
may have paid for the killing but have been frustrated by what
they consider deliberate obstruction by officials in the Russian
security services, according to Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of
Politkovskaya’s newspaper, ‘Novaya gazeta,"’ "The Washington Post"
correspondent wrote from Moscow on October 7. The dispatch also cited
"senior law enforcement officials" to the effect that the motive for
the murder had been to discredit the Kremlin and destabilize the state,
rather than to silence Politkovskaya.

"The Post" also quoted a retired teacher in the crowd of some
200 people who marked the second anniversary of the killing in a
rain-soaked vigil in Moscow on October 7. The teacher doubted that
the killers would ever be punished. "Not under Putin’s regime,"
she was quoted as saying. "That’s why I am here. This is my protest."

Discussing other high-profile cases with the German newspaper,
Bastrykin mentioned the killing of Ingush journalist Magomed
Yevloyev, the founder of the Ingushetiya.ru web site critical
of the Kremlin. "Our investigation shows that it was a reckless
manslaughter," the government investigator said. "A police officer
who was accompanying Yevloyev in a car with an unlocked firearm,
fearing that somebody might use force trying to release him, made
an accidental shot…The shot was fired at a close range and was
the result of recklessness–that is our conclusion. But the trial,
which will begin very soon, will dot all the ‘i’s."

BRITAIN UNRELENTING IN DEMANDING RUSSIAN COOPERATION IN LITVINENKO
CASE. London will not soften its position on the murder case of
Alexander Litvinenko and will also seek to resolve the conflict over
the British Council’s activities in Russia, Britain’s new ambassador
in Moscow Anne Pringle said on October 16, according to "The Moscow
Times." Britain will continue to press for the extradition of State
Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, accused of killing Litvinenko in 2006,
Pringle told reporters at the British Embassy.

Pringle rejected Russian prosecutors’ claims that Britain has provided
insufficient evidence to implicate Lugovoi in the crime. Discussing
another thorny issue with Moscow, Pringle expressed hope that the
British Council, the embassy’s cultural arm, could reopen in Russian
regions once an agreement over its legal status is reached.

RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS FEAR LOSS OF WESTERN GRANTS. Russian
human rights organizations fear a possible dip of grants for
nonprofit organizations, Interfax reported on October 13. "We do
fear that. There is such a problem," leader of the movement For Human
Rights Lev Ponomaryov told the news agency. He explained that Russian
human rights organizations live on foreign grants. "Russian business
does not provide for social and human rights organizations," he told
Interfax. "Budgetary funds assigned to non-profit organizations via
the Public Chamber are practically unattainable. I am ashamed to
depend on Western sponsors but there is no other source for funding
our organization, which gives aid to thousands of people."

The number of foreign funds which supply Russian nonprofit
organizations with grants reduced their contributions even prior to
the financial crisis, head of Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva
told Interfax. "We have been experiencing serious financial problems
for the past two years," she said. "The problem is that foreign funds
have been forced to pay taxes. The only grants exempt from taxes
come from the European Union. There is a financial crisis in Europe,
so European grants may shrink next year."

FOREIGNERS TARGETED IN MURDER SPREE IN MOSCOW. On October 9, a Tajik
national was killed in western Moscow. His body with 40 knife wounds
was found on a school compound, Viktoriya Tsyplenkova, representative
of the Investigations Committee of the Moscow Prosecutor-General’s
Office, told Interfax. The news agency also learned that on October 11,
an unemployed man living in Moscow stabbed an Uzbek woman, 29. She died
of wounds the same day. A suspect has been detained. On October 12, an
Armenian man was killed with a knife in northeastern Moscow. Criminal
proceedings have been instituted, the report said. Also on October 12,
two Tajik nationals, aged 25 and 28, were stabbed in central Moscow,
Interfax reported, quoting a law-enforcement source. Both men were
taken to a hospital, criminal proceedings have been instituted,
and an investigation is in progress.

On October 13, ten young men wearing ski masks beat and repeatedly
stabbed an Azeri man on a Moscow suburban train, according the
Sova Information-Analytical Center. He was taken to the hospital in
serious condition with wounds to the kidney and liver. Police are
investigating. On the same day in Moscow, a racist mob attacked four
men who appeared to be from the Caucasus, according to Sova. Up to
30 young people assaulted their victims while screaming the far-right
slogan "Russia for Russians!" Witnesses claim that police were nearby
but did nothing.

RUSSIAN GIRL MURDERED; FAR-RIGHT GROUP BLAMES MIGRANTS FOR VIOLENT
CRIMES. On October 12 in Moscow, the Movement Against Illegal
Migration, a far-right group linked to anti-migrant riots in Kondopoga
and other cities, staged a rally calling for harsher laws against
migrants, whom they blamed for the murder of a 15-year-old girl, Anna
Beshnova, according to the Newsru.com web site. Interfax added that
police detained 56 rally participants who were released a short time
later. The rally was held near the place where she was found dead
earlier this month. Rally participants made inflammatory speeches
linking migrants to crimes.

A migrant from Central Asia now faces charges of murder and rape in
connection with the Beshnova case.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL VANDALIZED IN KALININGRAD. An unidentified
individual painted antisemitic death threats and a swastika on a
memorial commemorating victims of the Holocaust in Kaliningrad, Russia,
according to an October 10 report by the Regnum news agency. The
memorial is in restored old Jewish cemetery which was vandalized
twice before in recent years.

COURT GIVES ANTISEMITE A SLAP ON WRIST. A court in Novosibirsk
sentenced a former police officer to a suspended sentence after finding
him guilty of engaging in extremist activity by inciting hatred against
Jews and calling for the overthrow of the government, according to
an October 6 report by Interfax. Responding to the lenient sentence,
defendant Aleksandr Budnikov publicly vowed to continue his illegal
incitement on local Internet forums.

TERRORIST ACT FOILED, 60 MIGRANTS DETAINED, CLAIMS TABLOID. Russia’s
special services foiled a "bloodbath" by foreign terrorists in the
center of Moscow, according to the Moscow tabloid "Tvoy Den" dated
October 10. "Had the terrorists carried out their plan, their crime
would have rocked not only Russia but the whole world," wrote the
sensationalist tabloid usually filled with political rumors. "The
Al-Qaeda and Caucasian extremists’ intention was to perpetrate mass
murder of civilians in Red Square, outside the Kremlin."

The tabloid cited the capital’s Emergencies Ministry press service to
the effect that during the evening of October 9, the FSB (the domestic
intelligence service and heir to the KGB) working with the Federal
Migration Service and the police detained 60 foreigners working
on the Moskva Hotel construction site. "They had no permission to
work in Russia," the press service is said to have disclosed. "Some
had forged permits. In the main, they are citizens of former USSR
republics. There are some Serbs, though."

According to police information obtained by the tabloid, the site had
been infiltrated by an Al-Qaeda emissary in the North Caucasus. The
special services were quoted as saying that the emissary had been
reconnoitering Red Square and noting when the police guards were
relieved. He was supposed to assemble a group of terrorists and
shooting people outside the Kremlin. According to a police source
quoted by the tabloid, there were to be about 50 terrorists, most of
them suicide gunmen who did not expect to survive the action.

Even if the information published by the tabloid is inaccurate,
its report suggests the spread of a xenophobic public mood that some
elements in the special services would like to encourage.

SYNAGOGUE BOMBING FOILED IN UKRAINE. A group of far-right extremists in
Kirovograd, Ukraine allegedly planned to blow up the local synagogue,
according to an October 7 report by Interfax. The head of the local
SBU, a successor to the KGB, told a press conference that a 38-year-old
former police officer had gathered around him a group of 14 youths
"ideologically prepared to commit crimes" such as blowing up the local
synagogue and attacking Jews and members of other minorities. The
SBU unmasked the group in early 2008 but only announced that fact
now. It is not clear what charges the alleged extremists face.

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) item on October 8,
local SBU director Sergey Tkachuk said that the target was Kirovograd’s
Choral Synagogue and the attackers included mainly university students
aged 18 to 20 who had been studying Nazi Germany and Hitler’s books.

"Some unidentified persons often shattered windows of the synagogue
and wrote antisemitic slogans," Emma Spektor, the leader of Kirovograd
Reform Congregation, told JTA. "We informed SBU about such facts and
worked closely with them. We appreciate the fact that SBU unmasked
the group of ultra-right extremists and hope they will be punished
according to the law."

TAJIK RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES REJECT GOVERNMENT CLAIMS. Tajik official
claims to the OSCE’s human rights conference in Warsaw regarding four
religious communities in Tajikistan have been contradicted by those
communities, Forum 18 news service reported.

Tajik officials categorically denied that the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Ehyo Protestant Church, and the Abundant Life Christian Center had
been banned. Yet on September 29 a Dushanbe court reaffirmed the ban
on the Jehovah’s Witnesses imposed in October 2007. "They are not
allowed to function in Tajikistan, period," Nazira Dodkhudoeva of the
Culture Ministry’s Religious Affairs Department told Forum 18. Ehyo
church members said that one year after being "suspended," officials
still will not approve new wording of their charter and have told
them they cannot function until the charter is finalized. Abundant
Life reluctantly halted all its activity in May, it told Forum 18.

The Tajik delegation also claimed at the OSCE conference that an
alternative plot of land "has been provided" to Dushanbe’s Jewish
community as a compensation for its synagogue, bulldozed earlier this
year. Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov expressed surprise at the official
claims, according to Forum 18.

FRENCH OFFICIAL DENIES EU COMPROMISE ON HUMAN RIGHTS. A few hours
after an October 13 announcement that the European Union (EU) will
ease sanctions against Belarus and Uzbekistan, a senior French
government official told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the
EU will continue to push for progress on human rights issues in
those countries. France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
and Human Rights Rama Yade stressed that "Europe seeks to foster
progress in Uzbekistan and Belarus. There have been gestures, such
as the release of several prisoners. In response, Europe is making a
gesture too. But we expect more from these countries. Yade denied that
the EU is throwing in the towel on human rights. "On the contrary,
we believe that making gestures may help bring change in Belarus
and Uzbekistan," she said. "If nothing comes in response, we will
draw conclusions. We are trying to push for the release of political
prisoners. We are trying to obtain more freedom of expression. We are
conducting a firm dialogue that doesn’t compromise on human rights."

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, MEDVEDEV ON THE OFFENSIVE * * * "Expansion of
NATO proceeds with a stunning fervor of some kind, as the extension of
membership to Georgia and Ukraine, and the question the way they put
it sounds like their getting into NATO will mean a victory over Russia,
while the failure to admit them will mean a capitulation," said Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev.on October 8 at an international political
conference in the French town of Evian, according to "Izvestiya." "But
the actual story has a totally different leitmotif, namely, that
the bloc is moving its infrastructures close to our borders and is
drawing new lines of division in Europe that run along our western
and southern frontier this time. Quite naturally, we regard this
activity as something targeted at damaging us."

EUROPEANS COUNTER RACISM The Rise of Xenophobia and Hate Crimes
Prompts New Actions

1. HATE CRIMES REPORT IN OSCE REGION PAINTS GRIM PICTURE. On October
6 in Warsaw, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) released a report detailing the continuing brutal attacks in
the OSCE region targeting "members of visibly identifiable groups
who stand out from majority populations because of their religion,
ethnicity or other perceived characteristics." The 83-page report
covers 2007. It was compiled by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and launched at the OSCE’s annual
conference on human rights and democracy. The report found that many
of the hate-driven incidents were characterized by "extreme brutality,
frequently resulting in serious injury or death."

The report called the continuing occurrence of violent manifestations
of hate and intolerance "extremely disturbing." Ambassador Lenarcic,
director of the ODIHR, said: "Hate crimes target individuals, but
they instill fear in entire communities. This has the potential to
destabilize and threaten the security of society as a whole."

According to the report, data on hate crimes remains "patchy and
inconsistent" across the OSCE region, making it difficult to determine
the frequency of hate crimes and to pinpoint groups most vulnerable
to attack. The report underlined that hate-motivated incidents
against Muslims, Christians, and other religious groups, as well as
homophobic hate crimes, continue to be significantly under-reported
and under-recorded.

The report identified several recurrent patterns. Religious
institutions, places of worship, and Holocaust memorials were frequent
targets of attacks. "Damage to Holocaust memorials echoes the emergence
of the Holocaust as a rhetorical means to threaten and to offend Jews,"
the report stated. Those defending human rights were also victims of
hate crimes. Another alarming phenomenon identified was the frequent
occurrence of attacks of a racist, antisemitic or xenophobic character
at sporting events.

2. NEW EUROPEAN AGENCY TO COMBAT RACISM. The European Council on
Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), a new non-governmental agency
launched in Paris, has called on Europeans to act against racism,
xenophobia, and antisemitism, the European Jewish Press (EJP)
reported on October 12. ECTR is chaired by former Polish President
Aleksander Kwasniewski, and its members include several other former
heads of European states and Nobel Peace laureates. The council’s
aim is that the average European citizen should not be a bystander
to intolerance but, instead, work against acts of racism, xenophobia,
and antisemitism.

"With the experience of many distinguished politicians from various
European countries, we believe that we can make a difference,"
Kwasniewski said. "We can’t change the past; our job is now to change
the future." He cautioned that the struggle for tolerance "is not a
one-year or 10-year effort but will take decades and generations."

"We are putting into the earth the first seeds of tolerance,"
Moshe Kantor, co-chairman of the ECTR and president of the European
Jewish Congress, stated at the inaugural meeting which took place
at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris. "The dangers
of intolerance, antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia are just as
pressing as the nuclear weaponization of countries like Iran and North
Korea." Kantor told journalists: "We will carry this fight to the
streets of Europe. We want Europe’s politicians to work together to
become the champions of tolerance. We demand action, not just words."

The council will recommend a European Framework Convention on Tolerance
to serve as a pan-European initiative to introduce anti-racist laws
and practices in every country. "It is better if we do this together,
as Europeans, rather than just as citizens of our own countries, or
as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, each one on their own," members of
the Council told the meeting.

According to EJP, the founders of the new organization include former
Slovenian President Milan Kucan, former Albanian president Alfred
Moisiu, and former Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, initiator
of the International Forum on the Holocaust. Among the initiatives
discussed was the establishment of a European Day of Tolerance which
will coincide with the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. A special
event promoting tolerance will be held in the European Parliament
on the anniversary, November 10, under the auspices of the European
parliament’s president.

–Boundary_(ID_ZYPkP8Xg8Zerh4LOFr+7eQ) —

IN MOSTLY GEORGIAN PART OF ABKHAZIA, ETHNIC LINES SEEM INDELIBLE
By Tara Bahrampour

Washington Post
October 18, 2008
United States

GALI, Georgia — The old women in the horse-drawn cart tensed up as
they approached the border.

"You watch, they’re going to yell and curse at us," one of them
murmured as they reached the crossing from undisputed Georgian
territory into the only district of the breakaway region Abkhazia
that is still populated mostly by Georgians. "They’re going to ask
us for money," the woman said before she got down and was escorted
out of earshot

The sum that Georgians such as the cart’s passengers must pay guards
to enter Abkhazia, where they live, has gone up recently, the women
said, making it harder to travel to the Georgian-controlled side,
where they shop, go to the hospital and visit relatives.

For the 50,000 or so Georgians living in Gali district, the recent war
between Russia and Georgia has cast new uncertainty over an already
shaky existence. In August, ethnic Abkhaz celebrated when Russia
recognized their land, along with South Ossetia, as independent
countries. Tougher frontier controls are one sign of the sometimes
triumphant confidence the Abkhazian authorities now display.

"The checkpoint is on the border of an enemy state that wants to
destroy us," said Ruslan Kishmaria, the district’s governor. "In the
future, we will be looking at each person individually to see if we
will let them into the country." He denied that the cost of crossing
had gone up.

The argument over whether Georgia has a legitimate claim to Abkhazia
goes back to communist and even czarist times. When the Soviet Union
collapsed a decade and a half ago, tensions here erupted into a vicious
separatist war that sent ethnic Georgians fleeing and locked Abkhazia
into political limbo. In most of Abkhazia, displaced Georgians have
never returned, but in this southernmost district, many did.

The district’s capital, also called Gali, is not the prosperous town
of supermarkets, hotels and wide, smooth roads that residents describe
from the days when Soviet Black Sea tourism brought in money. Unlike
the fixed-up towns of northern Abkhazia, where few Georgians remain,
the roads here are rutted, abandoned buildings are draped in weeds,
and commerce and city services are skeletal. Many young people have
left, and people who stay maintain an uneasy relationship with the
local government and the Abkhaz and Russian troops.

In interviews, several Gali residents complained that Abkhaz soldiers
often demand cash, as well as a significant portion of their hazelnut
crops, as "taxes." As members of a minority, the Georgians said,
they have no one to appeal to and no choice but to pay.

While Georgian language is still taught in some schools, along with
Russian, Abkhaz and English, it is illegal to hang up a sign in the
Georgian script.

Asked why, Kishmaria said, "We hate the Georgians. Why would we want
to use their language?"

Georgian residents cited pressure from the Abkhaz government to
give up their Georgian citizenship and take Abkhazian passports. "It
doesn’t matter what kind of passport I have — I am Georgian," said
a middle-aged woman named Aza, who like many Gali residents said she
was afraid to give her full name.

Citing a population shortage, the government is trying to draw in as
many ethnic Abkhaz as it can. After a vicious war caused the exodus
of about 250,000 Georgians in the early 1990s, an estimated 70,000
to 90,000 ethnic Abkhaz remained, along with a significant number of
ethnic Russians and Armenians.

Officials offer incentives such as houses and dual citizenship to
ethnic Abkhaz returning from abroad — including descendants of people
forcibly moved to Turkey in the 19th century by the Russian czars.

About 90 percent of Abkhaz people here have taken dual Russian
citizenship. But for people who are not ethnic Abkhaz, dual citizenship
is not allowed, and Georgian citizenship is frowned on.

"To have a huge district populated with noncitizens, that’s a problem,"
said Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gunjia. "It is in our interest
that they become citizens" of Abkhazia.

If they do, many say, it won’t be from a sense of newfound patriotism.

"If somebody takes Abkhaz citizenship, it’s because they’re afraid,"
said Nargiza Kvaratskelia Pavlovna, 55, a Georgian who was displaced
in the early 1990s war and returned two years later to find her
house burned. "We have a dog’s life here. . . . We can’t even tell
the truth."

Many people here say that so far, remaining in their own houses here
has been better than living elsewhere as refugees.

But a 25-year-old woman who did not want to be named said that if
pressed to decide, she, like many young people, would probably move
to Georgian-controlled territory, perhaps ahead of her parents. "But
what to do with this house?" she said, gesturing around her family’s
spacious living room. "Leave it to the Abkhaz or Russians? I said to
my parents, ‘If you leave, just burn down the house. It’s better.’ "

The United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia maintains a presence in
Gali, as well as in Sukhumi, Abkhazia’s capital. But Abkhaz officials
have said the group will need to change its name and mandate if it
wishes to continue.

During the August war, U.N. personnel left Abkhazia’s only other
Georgian-majority area, a wedge of mountain known as the Kodori
Gorge. Home to about 2,500 ethnic Georgians, it had been under
Georgian government control since 2006 and was the seat of the
Georgian-backed Abkhazian government-in-exile. It was a showcase,
with billboards extolling a "united" Georgia that included Abkhazia,
and with money poured into municipal buildings and a ski resort.

When the war started, Abkhaz forces retook the area and Georgian
forces retreated into undisputed Georgian territory, along with most
of the residents.

Georgian officials insist that the French-brokered cease-fire that
ended the war will not be fulfilled without the return of Kodori
to their control. With Russia having recognized Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, leaders of those places say they have no intention of
returning to pre-Aug. 7 lines. But Abkhaz officials say they are
encouraging the Georgian civilians who fled to return and take Abkhaz
citizenship.

In a refugee center in the Georgian city of Kutaisi, a group who fled
Kodori criticized the Georgian government for failing to protect them,
and pondered a return. "If the Georgian authorities are going to be
there, of course we’ll go, but if they’re not, why would I go?" said
Tristan Chketiani, 52, adding that he did not want to live like the
Georgians in Gali.

For now, Gali residents say they will harvest their crops and wait to
see what happens. On a warm October day, the district capital’s outdoor
market teemed with people buying peppers and melons and corn. Children
practiced traditional dances in a darkened and crumbling theater,
and teenagers strolled by the remains of a cafe where, in July,
a bomb killed several people.

However, Nino Mirtskhulava, 18, who recently returned from a year
abroad in Huber Heights, Ohio, as an exchange student, said Gali feels
like a dead end. "We don’t have movies to go watch, or a bowling
alley. We have no restaurants where we can sit," she said. In a
few days, she said, she and her mother would be moving to Tbilisi,
Georgia’s capital.