Month: October 2008

IRAQ: CHRISTIAN BUSINESSMAN KILLED IN MOSUL
By Kim Gamel

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The Associated Press
10/14/2008
United States

BAGHDAD — The music store owner had too many mouths to feed to
consider joining other Iraqi Christians fleeing from violence in
Mosul. The decision cost him his life as he became at least the 10th
Christian slaughtered by suspected Sunni extremists in the northern
city so far this month.

Gunmen stormed into Farques Batool’s store late Sunday in an eastern
part of the city, killing him and wounding his teenage nephew,
according to police and a neighbor.

Batool, an Armenian Christian, was supporting his mother, his wife,
a daughter, as well as the family of his dead brother, according to
his neighbor.

"He was a very kind man who refused to leave Mosul and insisted on
staying to take care of his family," Raid Bahnam said. The family fled
the city after his death, leaving his wounded nephew in the hospital.

They joined thousands of other Christians who have abandoned their
homes in Mosul to seek refuge in churches and with relatives in
neighboring villages or in relatively safe Kurdish-controlled areas
nearby.

Cars and trucks loaded with suitcases, mattresses and passengers
cradling baskets stuffed with clothing lined up Monday at a checkpoint
about 20 miles east of the city on their way to safety.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but local leaders
have blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, which maintains influence in the region
despite an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi military operation launched in May.

Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians and other
religious minorities since the 2003 U.S. invasion, forcing tens of
thousands to flee Iraq — although attacks slowed with a nationwide
decline in violence.

The reason for the latest surge in attacks was unclear. But it
coincides with strong lobbying by Christian leaders for Iraq’s
parliament to restore a quota system to give religious minorities
seats on provincial councils that will be chosen by voters before
the end of January.

U.N. special representative Staffan de Mistura strongly condemned
"the spike in violence that has targeted the Christian communities
in recent days" and warned the attacks were seeking to "fuel tensions
and exacerbate instability at a critical time."

Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk
denounced "a campaign of liquidation and violence, with political
objectives."

RIGHT ROYAL: SAUDI ARABIA

The Economist
October 4, 2008

THE Saudi kings have been a mixed bunch, ranging from the savvy to
the dissolute. But by common consent the one who set his country
on the road to modernity was Faisal, who reigned from 1964 until
his assassination by a nephew in 1975. It was Faisal who created a
bureaucracy, organised the oil industry and launched a development
plan that included the radical innovation of schools for girls.

Joseph Kéchichian is an American scholar of Lebanese-Armenian
descent. Though no stylist, he knows Arabia and its princes well. His
portrait does not dwell on Faisal the man–the frugal figure who
lived in a modest house, drove himself to the office and displayed
an almost puritan disdain for princely profligacy–but on Faisal the
policy practitioner. Hence two episodes dominate the story.

The first is Saudi Arabia?s bitter quarrel with Nasser?s Egypt, in
particular over the civil war in Yemen, in which they took opposing
sides. The second is the crucial period of 1973-74, when the habitually
cautious king threw in his lot with Egypt and Syria as they launched
their war on Israel, in the full knowledge that this would severely
strain his ties with America. The war and the subsequent oil embargo
brought to the Middle East a reluctant secretary of state, Henry
Kissinger, whose relations with Faisal were less than cordial.

Mr Kéchichian does not gloss over the rifts within the House of Saud
which accompanied Faisal?s ascent to the throne. Only when the family
and the ulema (religious establishment) finally lost patience with
his spendthrift brother, King Saud, did Faisal replace him. His task
was to restore unity to the family, order to the kingdom?s finances
and consistency to policymaking. The author also deals candidly with
internal unrest, in particular the coup attempts by air-force officers
and others inspired by Nasser?s pan-Arabist gospel.

But in other respects the book verges on hagiography. Faisal may indeed
have been a wise leader with a noble vision, but Mr Kéchichian is
rather too fulsome in saying so. Moreover he states categorically
that Faisal was not an anti-Semite, despite the testimony of Mr
Kissinger and others who were obliged to sit through royal rants
about the communist-Jewish conspiracy. For those left hungry for more,
a biography of Faisal by a Russian Arabist, Alexei Vassiliev, is due
out next year.

–Boundary_(ID_8gV+HtcljzYwvCtznfP9lA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IN 1920’S AND 30’S THOUSANDS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SURVIVORS WERE FORCED OUT FROM THEIR HOMES IN ANATOLIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
14.10.2008 19:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Those who want to shield today’s Turkey from
responsibility for the Armenian Genocide have sought to blame the
Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire rather than the Republic
of Turkey which was not established until 1923, Harut Sassounian,
Publisher of The California Courier, writes in his editorial titled
"U.S. Document Reveals Turkey Continued Ottoman Empire’s Anti-Armenian
Policies."

"One wonders then why Turkish officials, who have tried every trick
to deny the facts of the Armenian Genocide, have not taken the easy
way out by shifting the blame for the Genocide to the long defunct
Ottoman Empire. A frequently advanced explanation is that Turks, as a
proud people, cannot accept that their ancestors committed the heinous
crime of seeking to eliminate an entire nation. Others have argued
that should the Republic of Turkey blame the Ottomans for the Armenian
Genocide, it could be held legally liable as the successor state to
the Ottoman Empire," says the article obtained by PanARMENIAN.Net.

"In recent years, however, it has become clear, particularly through
the painstaking research conducted by Turkish scholar Taner Akcam,
that a key reason why today’s Turkish officials are not prepared to
face their history honestly and blame their Ottoman ancestors is that
the Republic of Turkey is actually the continuation of the Ottoman
state. Indeed, many of the early leaders of the Turkish Republic
had been high-ranking Ottoman officials personally involved in the
implementation of the Armenian Genocide. Such an unbroken transition
in leadership assured the continuity of the Ottomans’ anti-Armenian
policies.

In retrospect, it has become apparent that these genocidal policies
stretched over a half century, starting with Sultan Abdul Hamid’s
massacre of 300,000 Armenians in 1894-96, followed by the killings
of 30,000 Armenians in Adana by the Young Turk regime in 1909,
culminating in the Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-23,
and the subsequent policies of forced Turkification and deportation
of tens of thousands of Armenians by the Republic of Turkey.

An important document from the U.S. archives, known until now to
a handful of scholars, was recently posted on an Armenian/Turkish
website. It provides incontestable evidence that Armenians continued
to be uprooted from their native lands and deported by the Republic
of Turkey well into the 1930’s for purely racial reasons.

The document in question is a "Strictly Confidential" cable dated
March 2, 1934, sent by U.S. Ambassador Robert P. Skinner from Ankara
to the Secretary of State in Washington, reporting the deportation
of 600 Armenians from "the interior of Anatolia to Istanbul."

The Ambassador wrote: "It is assumed by most of the deportees
that their expulsion from their homes in Anatolia is a part of the
Government’s program of making Anatolia a pure Turkish district. They
relate that the Turkish police, in towns and villages where Armenians
lived, attempted to instigate local Moslem people to drive the
Armenians away. … The Armenians were told that they had to leave
at once for Istanbul. They sold their possessions receiving for them
ruinous prices. I have been told that cattle worth several hundred
liras a head had been sold for as little as five liras a head. My
informant stated that the Armenians were permitted to sell their
property in order that no one of them could say that they were forced
to abandon it. However, the sale under these conditions amounted to
a practical abandonment."

The Ambassador further reported: "The Armenians were obliged to
walk from their villages to the railways and then they were shipped
by train to Istanbul. … The real reason for the deportations is
unknown…. It is likely, though, that their removal is simply one step
in the government’s avowed policy of making Anatolia purely Turkish."

To be sure, in the 1920’s and 30’s thousands of Armenian survivors of
the Genocide were forced out from their homes in Anatolia to other
locations in Turkey or neighboring countries. These racist policies
were followed in the 1940’s by Varlik Vergisi, the imposition of
exorbitant wealth taxes on Armenians, Greeks and Jews, and the 1955
Istanbul pogroms during which many Greeks and some Armenians and Jews
were killed and their properties destroyed.

This barbaric continuum of massacre, genocide and deportation
highlights the existence of a long-term stratagem implemented by
successive Turkish regimes from the 1890’s to recent times in order
to solve the Armenian Question with finality.

Consequently, the Republic of Turkey is legally responsible for its
own crimes as well as those committed by its Ottoman predecessors,"
the article says.

EU COMMISSIONER SAYS OUTCOME OF EU TALKS DEPENDS ON TURKEY

Anatolia News Agency
Oct 3 2008
Turkey

Paris, 3 October: A European commissioner expressed thought on Friday
[3 October] that Turkey’s European Union (EU) accession negotiations
depended on the country itself.

Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for enlargement, said that
the rhythm and outcome of Turkey’s EU full membership negotiations
depended on Turkey.

The rhythm and outcome of entry talks was closely related with Turkey’s
fulfilling required reforms, Rehn said in a conference in the French
capital of Paris.

In the conference, Rehn thanked France, holding the rotating presidency
of the union, for its efforts to keep the regular momentum of full
membership negotiations with Turkey.

Rehn referred to Turkey’s strategic and diplomatic role, and said
that Turkey, with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, democratic and
secular model and diplomacy, was a significant actor in its region
and an important element of stability.

The commissioner referred to Turkey’s role as a mediator in
Israeli-Palestine and Israeli-Syrian disputes and Caucasus crisis,
and its new policy towards Armenia.

Rehn said those policies of Turkey reaffirmed its key role in the
region and its relations with the EU.

The commissioner also said that Turkey was sending troops to peace
operations of Europe, and contributing to EU’s fight against terrorism,
drug and human trafficking.

Turkey was actively contributing to security of EU citizens, he said.

Rehn drew attention to Turkey’s economic potential, and said Turkey
was offering significant trade perspectives before companies in EU
member states.

The commissioner also said that Turkey had a key role in ensuring the
security of energy routes towards the EU, and verifying those routes.

Turkey became an EU candidate country in December 1999. The union
launched accession talks with Turkey on 3 October 2005.

FOOTBALL: ARMENIA SQUAD FOR WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

Agence France Presse
October 4, 2008 Saturday 11:03 AM GMT

Armenia’s national coach Jan B Poulsen on Saturday named his 27-player
squad for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers against Belgium in Brussels
on October 11 and Bosnia-Herzegovina at Zenica on October 15:

Goalkeepers: Roman Berezovsky (Khimki/RUS), Gevork Kasparov (Uliss
Yerevan), Grigor Meliksetyan (Pyunik Yerevan)

Defenders: Sarkis Ovsepyan, Karen Khachatryan (both Pyunik Yerevan),
Robert Arzumanyan (Randers/DEN), Alexander Tadevosyan (Vitebsk/BLR),
Agvan Mkrtchan (Gomel/BLR), Grair Mkoyan, Vaagn Minasyan (both Ararat
Yerevan), Oganes Grigoryan (Banants Yerevan)

Midfielders: Ara Arakelyan (Metalurg Donetsk/UKR), Levon Pachadjan
(Gais/SWE), Artur Voskanyan (Vitebsk/BLR), Artavazd Karamyan
(Timisoara/ROM), Karen Aleksanyan (Torpedo Zhodino/BLR), Artur
Edigaryan, Genrikh Mkhitaryan, Karlen Mkrtchan (all Pyunik Yerevan)

Strikers: Gevork Kazaryan (Pyunik Yerevan), Samvel Melkonyan (Metalurg
Donetsk/UKR), Gamlet Mkhitaryan (Raahan/IRI), Ara Akoryan (Gomel/BLR),
Arman Karamyan (Timisoara/ROM), Robert Zebelyan (Kaliningrad/RUS),
Arsen Balabanyan Banants Yerevan), Narek Berglaryan (Mika Ashtarak)

POLAND ENDS IRAQ MISSION
by Amal Jayasinghe

Agence France Presse
October 4, 2008 Saturday 2:29 PM GMT

Poland formally ended its Iraq mission in the Shiite province of
Diwaniyah on Saturday leaving US troops to take their place, as an
Iraqi commander warned insurgency could re-emerge.

Poland’s final contingent of 900 troops would return home by end of
the month and the withdrawal process was already underway, a military
official told journalists at the ceremony in this central Iraqi town.

Warsaw’s Defence Minister Bogdan Klich attended the ceremony and
parade, where troops from Armenia, Mongolia, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States also participated.

"We feel responsible for the future of Iraq. The completion of our
mission does not mean end of our engagement," Klich said. "We hope
to cooperate in Iraq’s economic and financial areas."

Iraq’s top military commander, General Babaker Zebari, thanked Polish
troops for helping restore stability in the region, but warned that
security gains should not be taken for granted.

"We should not sit back. We have to preserve the security and stability
that we have achieved," Zebari said. "The terrorists have a way of
re-activating themselves."

The multinational forces flag was lowered at Diwaniyah’s Camp Echo
and presented to Klich by the Polish commander in Iraq, Major General
Andrzej Malinowski, an AFP correspondent reported.

Malinowski told reporters the 900 troops deployed in Diwaniyah and
its surroundings will be pulled out by end of the month.

Klich said that "the current security situation remains stable and
better," adding that Poland was happy to have been part of the US-led
coalition.

"Solidarity among friends. That is why we participated in a difficult
and dangerous mission in Iraq."

In its more than five years of military involvement in Iraq, Poland
has lost 21 soldiers and seen 70 others wounded, according to a US
military statement on Saturday.

Around 15,000 Polish soldiers had been deployed in Iraq since the
2003 war, it said.

"Today is a day of mixed emotions. I can’t help but feel a bit
of sadness," said the top US military commander in Iraq, General
Raymond Odierno.

"I have known seven out of the 10 (Polish) commanders personally. You
have been close and trusted friends."

Odierno told reporters that the timing of the Polish withdrawal was
"good," as security in the region has improved.

"We will be sending some troops to this place but not as much as
before," he added.

Odierno described the Polish contribution as "absolutely outstanding"
and said the sacrifices of Polish lives will not be forgotten.

Heavily armed troops guarded the main stage from where the dignitaries
watched the multinational forces together with Iraqi police and
army parade at a football-field size ground barricaded by concrete
blast walls.

US Apache attack helicopters and surveillance aircraft were seen
over the base. Local politicians and tribal leaders also attended
the ceremony.

After the formal Polish farewell, local Shiite lawmaker Sheikh Hussein
al-Shalan said all foreign troops must leave, but after training
Iraqi forces on how to deal with "terrorism and terrorists."

In July the Us-led forces handed over to the Iraqis security control
of Diwaniyah, which has seen occasional outbursts of intense Shiite
infighting.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in October 2007,
pledged a quick withdrawal from Iraq during his election campaign.

With the withdrawal by Warsaw, the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq
in 2003 has further shrunk.

In May 2003, two months after the US invasion, the occupying force
was made up of 150,000 Americans and 23,000 other troops from 40
countries. Now, US numbers are around 144,000 while the coalition
has shrunk to less than 10,000.

The coalition now is made up of Britain, Romania, El Salvador,
Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Mongolia, Czech Republic, Armenia,
Macedonia, Tonga, Lithuania, Bosnia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine,
Latvia and Moldova.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SONGS OF THE HOMELAND; SOPRANO ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN GOES BACK TO HER ARMENIAN ROOTS
by Lloyd Dykk, Vancouver Sun

The Vancouver Sun
October 6, 2008 Monday
British Columbia

She’s used to lending her ravishing soprano to Mozart all over the
world, but Isabel Bayrakdarian’s new interest is a virtually unknown
composer, at least to those outside her homeland of Armenia —
Gomidas Vartabed.

She’s just got off the plane from her home in Toronto and checked
into the hotel in Fresno, California, to begin a tour that includes
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Boston and New York’s Carnegie
Hall. Every concert will feature the songs of Gomidas, as arranged by
her pianist husband Serouj Kradjian for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
under its conductor Anne Manson. The concert comes to the Orpheum on
Oct. 7 at 8 p.m.

She says, "The program is woven around Gomidas and other nations and
cultures that have suffered persecution," so expect references to
Greece and Israel.

It’s called the Remembrance Tour. Dedicated to victims of all
genocides, it’s sponsored by the International Institute for Genocide
and Human Rights Studies. The concert virtually duplicates her new
Gomidas recording on the Nonesuch label with the Chamber Players
of the Armenian Philharmonic and Kradjian. Though some material was
recorded during the Soviet era, the release represents the very first
time that Gomidas songs have been presented on an international label.

I mention to Bayrakdarian that I’ve never heard Gomidas’s music. "It
may be a revelation," she says simply.

Gomidas, sometimes spelled Komitas, had a tragic life, a fact that
has no doubt gone into making him Armenia’s national composer.

He was born in 1869 to a musical, Turkish-speaking family, his mother
dying when he was one and his father when he was 11. He was brought
up by his grandmother. Educated in a seminary, he became a monk and
established a monastery choir. About 30 years before Bartok did the
same thing, he wandered about the countryside collecting the folk
songs of his Armenian people, notating it on paper, not recording it
like Bartok since recorders didn’t exist.

>From 1910 he lived in Istanbul. In 1915 at the beginning of the
Armenian genocide, he was arrested and deported on a train to central
Anatolia. He lived in concentration camp-like conditions for 15 days
until the intervention of highly-placed friends had him released.

In 1935 he died in a psychiatric clinic in Paris, having spent the
last 20 years of his life like the walking dead. Bayrakdarian thinks
it was caused by all the death and horrors he’d seen.

He wrote far more music than that which exists and had planned to
write an opera. Much of what he’d written was destroyed, she says. "His
legacy went into obscurity. What’s left of his songs resonates in the
Armenian psyche. He seemed to capture the essence of Armenian music
and for survivors, it seems to enforce in us the function of hanging
on to our identity and our past."

His music isn’t complicated, Bayrakdarian adds. "They’re folksongs, but
very unique — about love, nature, children. We haven’t reinterpreted
them."

Her favorite piece of all is a children’s prayer with its haunting
melody. "It was the last piece he wrote."

SOPRANO ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN ENCHANTS WITH GOMIDAS’ ARMENIAN FOLK MUSIC
by Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic

The San Francisco Chronicle
October 6, 2008 Monday
California

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many conservatory-trained
composers turned to their native folk traditions for inspiration,
collecting songs and dance melodies from the countryside and recasting
them in classical form. Bartok is the best-known example, but another
was the Armenian priest Gomidas Vartabed, whose music formed the
centerpiece of Saturday night’s transfixing recital by soprano Isabel
Bayrakdarian.

During the years before and after 1900, Gomidas whose name is
sometimes transliterated as Komitas assembled a large body of
traditional Armenian songs and arranged them for choir or solo voice
with piano accompaniment. They cover the gamut of folk expression,
from lullabies and love songs to moody reveries and vivacious jokes,
and to the unfamiliar listener they sound both comfortable and strange.

Bayrakdarian, the brilliant Armenian Canadian singer who has shone
here in music by Mahler, Handel and Jake Heggie, has made a project
of Gomidas’ songs in partnership with her husband, pianist Serouj
Kradjian. Saturday’s program, presented in Herbst Theatre by San
Francisco Performances, was a wondrous showcase for singer and
composer alike.

Accompanying Bayrakdarian was the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, an
excellent string ensemble conducted with crispiness and verve by Anne
Manson. Kradjian was on hand as a piano soloist for some numbers,
and Hampic Djabourian played the duduk, a traditional Armenian
double-reed instrument whose deep, mellow sound is like that of a
bassoon on Quaaludes.

But the evening’s main focus was Bayrakdarian herself, whose vivid,
dark-hued tone and sumptuous phrasing imbued every piece of music with
warmth and urgency. Her singing reached great heights of oratorical
splendor when necessary, but the simplicity of some of the more
straightforward songs was equally touching.

What’s striking about this material is how unpredictably the musical
elements go in and out of sync with Western expectations. Some of the
numbers, like the tiny "Song of the Partridge," are uncomplicated
ditties that draw on the same tonal harmonies of any European folk
song. Others venture off into distinctive melodic scales, as in the
"Lullaby," or unusual metric patterns, as in "Without a Home."

Kradjian’s arrangements of the songs for string orchestra are superbly
resourceful – sometimes answering the music’s twists and turns
with surprises of his own, sometimes content to serve as backdrop
to Bayrakdarian’s lustrous vocal turns. In one of the more overtly
dramatic songs, "The Crane," he inserted an eloquent solo for the
concertmaster, beautifully delivered by violinist Karl Stobbe.

Gomidas’ music represented the main body of work on the
program, but there were other offerings too that complemented it
nicely. Bayrakdarian delivered a majestic account of Ravel’s "Two
Hebrew Melodies," and Manson led the orchestra in three handsomely
varied sets of ethnomusicological dances.

Bartok’s "Romanian Folk Dances," arranged by Arthur Willner, led
off the evening in a spirited reading. They were followed later by a
set of "Greek Dances" by Nikos Skalkottas and, after intermission,
by the central movement of Gideon Klein’s "Partita for Strings" an
arrangement of his String Trio, which is based on a Moravian folk song.

OFFICIAL: FRANCE TELECOM FILES HIGHEST BID FOR ARMENIAN GSM LICENSE

Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
October 6, 2008 Monday 6:33 PM EET
Russia

France Telecom, which provides cellular services under the Orange
brand, has filed the highest bid for a GSM license in Armenia,
Andranik Manukyan, the chairman of the tender commission and an
adviser to the Armenian president, told reporters Monday.

France Telecom offered 51.5 million euros for the license, while
Sweden’s Tele2 offered 45.6 million euros and Anglo-Irish consortium
CEO Blackrock Communication offered 31.66 million euros, he said.

The license winner will be officially announced within three days,
Manukyan said.

"(Orange) will get a preliminary license for 10 days to register in
Armenia. All the formal procedures should be completed by December 15,"
Gurgen Sarkisyan, the transport minister of Armenia, said.

Armenia launched the tender for the country’s third GSM license in
June 2008. Seventeen companies applied for the tender, while only
three were shortlisted.

Armenia’s two GSM operators, ArmenTel and K-Telecom, are subsidiaries
of Russia’s VimpelCom and MTS, respectively.

IRAN’S GAS EXPORT TO ARMENIA SOON

Moj News Agency
October 6, 2008 Monday
Iran

Speaking on the sideline of the second international conference on
Iran`s gas export, director of the gas export operation department of
NIGC said that Armenia started electricity export to Iran on Sunday
and the Islamic Republic in turn will start its gas export to the
neighboring county by October 13. Rasoul Salmani said that Iran plans
to annually export some 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Armenia
and will increase the export volume gradually so much so that in 2019
the volume will reach 2.3 billion cubic meters. Iran will, in turn,
import annually some 3.3 billion kw/h of electricity from Armenia,
he added.