Month: December 2008

3000 CASES OF VIOLATION OF CEASE-FIRE

A1+
[07:43 pm] 26 December, 2008

"There have been over 3000 cases of violation of the cease-fire
regime on the contact line of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani Armed
Forces this year," said Andranik Mkrtumyan, head of the frontier
representation of the General Staff of RA Armed Forces.

Five people died and 22 servicemen got wounded in the result. A
gross violation of the ceasefire regime by the Azerbaijani side was
registered in the area of Mehrab village, Martakert. Azeris have
applied long-range artillery and bombed our frontier villages, roads
and bridges. Great harms were caused to the agriculture as peasants
are unable to till their lands for fear of being shot dead.

Andranik Mkrtumyan says the OSCE mission has conducted eleven
crisis-monitoring at the contact line but three of them failed
because of the Azeri efforts. Yet, during the monitoring the Armenian
side submitted the mission with the chronicle of the incidents and
unprecedented violations of the ceasefire. They also presented their
observations and notifications.

The Azeri side bombs Armenian villages at any time. We have suggested
the OSCE to help restore the telephone communication between the
military units of Ghazakh and Ijevan so that the commanders can
clear up the problems on the spot. The Azeri side keeps rejecting
this proposal.

We have also suggested monitoring the area of Chinari village, Tavush
marz, as it is one of the vulnerable territories in Armenia.

Six cases of a frontier violation have been reported this year –
two by Armenia and Karabakh and the other four by Azerbaijan. Upon
the mediation of the the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) four civilians, a serviceman and a cadaver were returned to
Armenia in 2008.

They returned the dead soldier 18 days later but we return their dead
servicemen immediately.

Mkrtumyan states the Armenian side has returned two servicemen and one
civilian to Azerbaijan. "Presently, our serviceman Paruyr Sahakyan is
held hostage in Azerbaijan. He was taken hostage on May 25. According
to the Azeri side Sahakyan doesn’t want to return to Armenia. He
has sent no letters to his parents so far. While Azeri serviceman
Rafik Hasanov who is presently in Armenia has already sent a few
letters to his parents. It is due to mention that during a special
television appearance Hasanov announced that he doesn’t want to go
back to Azerbaijan."

COMMISSION FORMED TO DEAL WITH ISSUES OF LAKE SEVAN

A1+
[04:39 pm] 26 December, 2008

On December 25 Serzh Sargsyan signed an order on establishing a
commission dealing with the issues of Lake Sevan. The order sets the
structure of the Commission.

Vladimir Movsisyan, Executive Director of the Forest Reforestation and
Development Fund has been appointed President of the Commission. Yuri
Javadyan, Director of the Hayjrnakhagits Institute is the Vice
President.

Today the President of the Republic held working consultations with
members of the Commission.

Noting that the consultations are aimed at launching the activity of
the Commission and coordinating its principles, Mr. Sargsyan said:
"I do not consider it necessary to dwell on the issue of importance of
Lake Sevan for Armenia. The issues connected with Sevan are of vital
importance for us. It is directly or indirectly linked to a number of
spheres – environmental protection, agriculture, energy, fish breeding,
drinking water, etc. It’s easier to say what it is not connected with.

Without any exaggeration, Sevan is one of the most valuable resources
of Armenia, and its importance will only be growing during the years
to come. We must be able to properly preserve and develop this gift
of nature. On the other hand, we should be able to make a reasonable
and full use of it. It is our duty.

I should note with appreciation that a great work has been done in
the direction of protecting Sevan over the past ten years. Today we
must make greater efforts to solve the issues Sevan faces. I think
the Commission is going to become a powerful engine of it. These are
my expectations. We must be able to achieve essential results in this
direction in 2009."

Serzh Sargsyan pointed to several issues that should be the main task
of the commission. He said it’s necessary to control all kinds of
economic activity that can have a negative influence on the ecosystem
of the lake.

President of the commission, Executive Director of the Forest
Reforestation and Development Fund Vladimir Movsisyan said the
establishment of such commission speaks about the resoluteness of
the Armenian authorities to solve the existing problems. According
to Vladimir Movsisyan, members of the Commission are professionals,
who have the experience and ability to solve the issues.

DJIGARKHANYAN CAREFUL WITH HIS ROLES

Panorama.am
15:32 26/12/2008

Armenian actor Armen Djigarkhanyan says he is careful with his roles
because he does not want to blush for them. It is evident that few
and few films are shot where Djigarkhanyan plays. The actor explains
that the film production has become unqualified. For the actor to
play many roles is something shameful.

"Once, they called me and offered a job, promised good money. It turned
out that a huge industry creates films on wedding parties, birthday
parties and funerals. My role was to say: "Dears, today we have
gathered to say good buy to Grigor Petrovich…" and full screen for
30 seconds. I thought if I took that role I should have to leave the
theatre, cinema and to change my surname at all," said Djigarkhanyan.

ETHNIC MINORITIES SATISFIED WITH ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES

Panorama.am
16:27 26/12/2008

"National Minorities are well treated in Armenia and we are satisfied
with the Government and authorities. If we don’t manage to solve our
problems we ask the local authorities and they help us," says Romania
Yavir, the head of Ukrainians’ Federation to Armenia.

The President of Assyrian Federation Irina Gasparyan said that the
major problem for them is the educational one. Though Mrs. Gasparyan
mentioned that one step forwarded has been fixed this year – a project
of Assyrian language is being drafted.

Vardan Ascatryan, the Head of the Department for Ethnic Minorities
and Religious Affairs of the Government said the Prime Minister has
received 40 representatives of ethnic minorities to discuss their
problems.

"ARMENIAN JAZZ 70" CONCLUDED THE YEAR

Panorama.am
16:44 26/12/2008

The members of "Armenian Jazz 70" projects has gathered to discuss
jazz year in Armenia and to say that jazz art development is not
limited with "Armenian Jazz 70" project.

The President of Jazz Committee Levon Malkhasyan said that the
project was a success and that all the concerts were held with full
concert halls.

"New and fresh concerts will be aired, CD-s and calendars will
be produced," said Ruben Djaghinyan, Academician of TV and Radio
International Academy. He said that a book will be published to tell
the way of Armenian jazz, moreover two films will be produced the
first will tell about "Armenian Jazz 70" and the second the history
of Armenian jazz.

The journalists were much interested in who received more
honoraria. The answer was that Al Jarreau received more honoraria. And
the jubilee concert devoted to Konstantin Orbelyan was held without
honoraria, but much more was spent on its organizational part. The
representatives of the committee told funny news – Al Jarreau’s shoe
maker was an Armenian.

YEAR WAS SUCCESS FOR OPERA AND BALLET ACADEMIC THEATRE

Panorama.am
17:22 26/12/2008

This year Opera and Ballet Academic Theatre named after Al. Spendiaryan
performed several premieres – "Vardanank" and "Tango" ballets, "White
symphony and earthquake" opera, said the director of the Academic
Theatre Kamo Hovhannisyan. According to him 67 performances were made
during the year – operas, ballets, jubilee concerts and other events.

Kamo Hovhannisyan said that the year was successful as Alin Gutan
and Karo Nshanyan from Canada arrived in Armenia and took part in
"Anush" opera, Vigen Hakobyan from Kharkov performed in "Quixote"
and "Jizzel" ballets. And our national ballet and opera groups had
concert tours in different countries of the world.

AT LEAST APOLOGY IF THERE IS NO LIBERTY, EQUALITY, BROTHERHOOD
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir.Am
12:43:52 – 26/12/2008

Summing Up The Political Year, The Deputy Leader Of The Orinats Yerkir
Party Heghine Bisharyan stated that it was a year of ordeal for their
political party but it ended positively because they have joined the
coalition government and are implementing their program. The question
occurs who had pushed them to secede from the coalition and undergo
an ordeal. They could have stayed and implemented their programs, and
those two years while the Orinats Yerkir was opposition would not have
been wasted, they would have managed a lot about their programs, for
instance, the could have fully reconstructed the area of the earthquake
and returned the lost savings of the Soviet Savings Bank. Besides,
Robert Kocharyan would not have called the leader of this party a
betrayer, and before March 1 the society would not have called him
a betrayer for the agreement made with Serge Sargsyan the day before
the clampdown on people. Thereby, not only the past year but the past
five years would have been positive for the Orinats Yerkir Party.

While these lines are being written, Galust Sahakyan, the deputy
leader of the Republican Party is holding a news conference. He will
sum up the year and will probably say that the past year was a year
of ordeal for the Republican Party but it ends positively because the
prospect of20 membership to the Muslim world has emerged, which opens
up new opportunities for the development of the country. Otherwise,
we are clinging to Europe and would not let it go, and have started
thinking about China recently, which is also wrong because China
will also start thinking that we have no other place to go. Hence,
it is time that we announced about the possibility of joining the
European countries for the world to know that it cannot impose its
values on usbecause we will always have another place to go.

The Bargavach Hayastan Party concludes the political year with
an oppositionist stance, voting against the amendments to the tax
legislation.

Although the amendments were passed, this is not what matters. The fact
is that the Bargavach Hayastan Party voted against the amendments,
which means it disagrees with the government policy. However, it is
difficult to tell whether it is a positive or undesired situation
for the Bargavach Hayastan Party. However, they will conclude the
year positively because Gagik Tsarukyan has brought several medals
to the country: 6 bronze medals from the Olympic Games, several Gold
medals from various European tournaments and several silver medals
from world tournaments, and one world cup. Maybe Serge Sargsyan is
ahead with his "two-tier" Chess crown but instead the forehead of
success of Gagik Tsarukyan is broader, the merits are greater, and
consequently the year is pos itive.

The ARF Dashnaktsutyun sums up its 118th year. It is a long time,
a very long time, when the given subject cannot distinguish what is
positive and what is not, and exists by inertia. However, the fact that
the ARF Dashnaktsutyun succeeded going on protest in Yerevan rather
close to Abdullah Gul allows assessing the year as positive. At least,
there is nothing negative, especially that an unprecedented thing is
underway when you take the fourth place in the presidential election
but remain government. What would be more positive?

It would be good, of course, if the success of the four political
parties of the coalition was measured by achievements in the life of
the society and the state. If so, the year 2008 would not be positive
for any political party because there was March 1, citizens died,
there are persons deprived of their liberty for political reasons,
reporters and civil society activists undergo violence, workers are
made redundant, this worrying phenomenon tends to last. Of course,
it is necessary to see positive things in everything but sometimes
it is necessary to silence it because it is painful for people who
lost their jobs on New Year’s eve and they know how to buy presents
for their children for them to think that the year was positive for
them, like for the Orinats Yerkir Party. Or like for the president
of the Central Bank, buy at least a car in a year, maybe not wo rth
100 thousand dollars but a toy car costing one thousand dollars.

Therefore, on New Year’s Eve the coalition must apologize to
people, the society, every single citizen for being unable to solve
any urgent and key issue: rule of law, equality, fair economic
opportunities, separation of government and business, political and
civil freedoms. People, the society, citizens may accept the apology
and consider that if the four parties of the coalition are aware of all
that and apologize, it is already positive, and the year was positive,
despite a number of unaddressed key issues of public life.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IS BARGAVACH HAYASTAN GOING TO BE OPPOSITION OR GOVERNMENT?
James Hakobyan

Lragir.am
14:14:31 – 24/12/2008

On December 23 the leader of the Bargavach Hayastan Party held
a briefing and made rather interesting statements about the home
political problems and particularly action against the economic
crisis. The meeting itself is interesting, considering that Gagik
Tsarukyan seldom shows up at the National Assembly, and in case he
does, he always holds briefings.

Ostensibly, Tsarukyan went to the National Assembly on December 23
for the briefing but he wanted the briefing appear as spontaneous
rather than the initiative of Gagik Tsarukyan.

The difference may not seem significant but this time it is. Most
statements by Gagik Tsarukyan are also significant. For instance,
the leader of the Bargavach Hayastan Party stated that he will not
participate in the auction of Bjni Company and does not advise anyone
to do. Or, Gagik Tsarukyan announced that in order to tackle the
economic crisis it is necessary to grant privileges to the Armenian
businessmen to enable them not to cut jobs.

According to Gagik Tsarukyan, after the crisis it will be possible
to return to the previous mode. In this context, Tsarukyan hinted at
the problem of beauty parlors, hotels, other facilities which offer
services. It is known that several weeks ago the government decided
to boost taxes on companies which offer services. In other words, the
Bargavach Hayastan Party disagrees with the policy of the government
because the government has not granted any privileges to the local
businessmen, except for the ones the businessmen coalesced with the
government have been enjoying for many years now.

By the way, according to a lot of press reports, Gagik Tsarukyan, who
is known as a close oligarch of Robert Kocharyan, also enjoys a number
of informal privileges. It is not ruled out that this circumstance is
the reason why Gagik Tsarukyan actually expresses disagreement with
the government policy, not fundamental but made of fine threads. It is
not ruled out that in February, when the conference of the Bargavach
Hayastan will be held during which a surprise is expected, the party
will turn its fine disagreement into tangible one, which will probably
be the surprise which Gagik Tsarukyan considered as possible a few
weeks ago on the Public Television. Certainly, it is hardly possible
that the Bargavach Hayastan Party will announce to leave the coalition
or demand the resignation of the prime minister. On the other hand,
what other surprise can the party give?

At least now it is difficult to imagine other surprise, except the
option that in February the second president Robert Kocharyan may
choose to join the party as the most convenient option of returning
to politics. However, in this case it is evident that the Bargavach
Hayastan Party must aspire to an important post because Robert
Kocharyan will hardly agree to be an ordinary member of the Bargavach
Hayastan Party and be limited to the post of leader of the party. Even
if he does, it will last too short.

In this context, the so-called external political expressions of the
Bargavach Hayastan Party appear rather interesting. The leader of the
party visited China, participated in the conference of the Russian
political party Yedinaya Rossia, missing the consultation of Serge
Sargsyan with political parties on the Karabakh issue. Afterwards,
Gagik Tsarukyan met with the president of Croatia, which is especially
interesting in the context of the press reports that Robert Kocharyan
has bought real estate in Croatia where he reportedly spent his summer
holiday. Afterwards Gagik Tsarukyan signs a document on cooperation
with the leader of the Party of Regions Yanukovich.

All this is evidence that the Bargavach Hayastan is preparing to give
a significant surprise in February.

NIXON’S CAMBODIAN SHOCK TREATMENT
By Howard Lisnoff

CounterPunch
lisnoff12262008.html
Dec 26 2008
CA

"Just Bomb the Hell Out of Them"

I recently stopped in at a Cambodian restaurant that I have been going
to for many years. Although eating the food for which a particular
group is known is perhaps the most superficial of ways to communicate
with people, I found myself involved in small talk with the people who
staffed the restaurant on this particular winter day in Providence,
Rhode Island. The young men and women who staffed the business were
indistinguishable from those of their peer group. They were about
my children’s ages. They spoke of their families, the holiday, and
their dislike for the annoying reality program that played on the
television meant to "entertain" those waiting for take-out orders.

When our conversations ended, I thought of the events of long ago that
propelled me to become a war resister. The incursions of Richard Nixon
into Cambodia in April 1970, purportedly to stop the flow of troops
and armaments traveling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam
into South Vietnam, unleashed consequences that even Nixon could
not have foreseen, but needed to avoid. National Security Archive
transcripts just released relate interchanges between Richard Nixon
and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Regarding the dropping of
millions of pounds of bombs on Cambodia by the U.S., Nixon responds
to Kissinger: "That shock treatment [is] cracking them. I tell you
the thing to do is pour it in there every place we can…just bomb
the hell out of them."

Mass demonstrations broke out spontaneously on campuses across the
U.S., students were killed at both Kent and Jackson State Universities,
and I decided that I had had enough and became a resister to the
war. The attacks inside Cambodia weakened the government of that
country and hastened the murderous regime of Pol Pot that resulted in
the massacre and torture of over two million people. The governments
of the world, knowing the lessons of Hitler’s Holocaust, did little
or nothing to stop the carnage!

In the early 1990s I asked one of the owners of the same restaurant
about a jar placed next to the cash register in the establishment
that bore a label about an agency working to support relief efforts
in Cambodia. The owner spoke about her family members who had been
killed during the Cambodian genocide.

What is the record of superpowers and world governmental organizations
coming to the aid and stopping holocausts in the contemporary
era? Holocausts and genocide are not to be confused with "traditional"
warfare that kills millions, but rather according to the United Nations
(1948):

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including:
(a) killing a member of the group (b) causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group (c) deliberately inflicting on
the group on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group (e) forcibly transferring
children of the group to another group."

Few are ever brought to justice for carrying out genocide. The history
of modern holocausts, contemporary with, and just prior to, the Nazi
Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews include:

Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1992-1995- 200,000 deaths; Rwanda: 1994- 800,000
deaths; Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979- 2 million deaths: Rape of
Nanking: 1937-1938- 300,000 deaths; Stalin’s Forced Famine: 1932-1933-
7 million deaths; Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918- 1.5 million deaths
(The History Place, 2000).

Added to the above are the more than 400,000 deaths in Darfur cited
by the Coalition for International Justice, a nongovernmental agency
working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (The
Washington Post, "Darfur’s Real Death Toll," April 24, 2005). Even
in the present, the fact of a holocaust seems to draw attention for a
short period of time and then fades from consciousness, both personal
and official. The conclusion is that humanity hasn’t become any more
advanced or humane in the 21st century in dealing with international
crises and wars since the barbarian hordes of the ancient world!

For many years I worked with a woman in public schools who was
instrumental in finding housing in Rhode Island for refugees as
they entered the U.S. from Cambodia and resettlement camps outside
of Cambodia. Her work made a lot of sense to me. It seemed more
practical than my resistance to the Vietnam War had been, but people
do what they can given their immediate circumstances. That the world,
governments, international organizations, and international laws have
become little better at preventing mass murder against a particular
group is of grave concern to those who value peace.

Howard Lisnoff teaches writing and is a freelance writer. He can be
reached at [email protected].

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SINGER CHARLES AZNAVOUR GRANTED ARMENIAN CITIZENSHIP

Agence France Presse
Dec 26 2008
France

YEREVAN (AFP) — The renowned French singer of Armenian origin Charles
Aznavour has been granted Armenian citizenship by presidential decree,
the presidency of the ex-Soviet republic said Friday.

"Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has signed a decree granting
Armenian citizenship to the prominent singer and public figure, a
hero of the Armenian people, Charles Aznavour," the presidency said
in a statement.

Born Shahnur Aznavourian, the 84-year-old singer is among the
best-known figures of France’s 400,000-strong Armenian diaspora. He
was born in Paris to Armenian parents.

After the 1988 earthquake in Armenia which killed 25,000 people,
Aznavour set up a foundation and organised a series of charity concerts
to help quake victims.

He also serves as Armenia’s permanent delegate to the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The author of over 1,000 songs, Aznavour is one of France’s most
popular singers and is the first French performer to have a recording
that went platinum in Europe. He sold over over 100 million records
worldwide.

In 1998 he was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN and Time Online.