Month: November 2009

"RUSSIA HAS EXTENSIVE INTERESTS IN SOUTH CAUCASUS"
BYLINE: Ivan Sukhov

WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
November 6, 2009 Friday
Russia

HIGHLIGHT: PETER SEMNEBY: RUSSIA’S BEHAVIOR SHOWS THAT IT EXPECTS
CHANGES IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS; An interview with EU Special
Representative for South Caucasus Peter Semneby.

Turkey and Armenia signed protocols on diplomatic relations
establishment in Zurich, Switzerland, on October 10. Here is an
interview with EU Special Representative for South Caucasus Peter
Semneby on what effect the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement will have
on its participants themselves and their neighbors.

Question: Moscow’s comments on the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement are
quite favorable even though the impression is that this rapprochement
will reduce Russian clout with the South Caucasus to a certain extent.

And what is your opinion of the process in question?

Peter Semneby: The situation with the relations between Armenia and
Turkey as it was so far could not last, of course. Something had to be
done about it in terms of the opening of borders, normalization, etc.

It is necessary to consider ways and means of promotion of one’s
interests in the region in this new situation. The war in Georgia
reminded everyone of the existence of grave risks in connection with
the latent territorial conflicts in the region. Awareness of these
risks provided an additional impetus to the Armenian-Turkish relations.

As for Russia, its very behavior shows that it has been expecting
changes in the situation in this part of the Caucasus. Russia invests
into Armenian economy. It builds railways there. Investments of this
kind are made only when the investor is fairly confident that he will
get his money’s worth back, and that means when the borders are open.

Question: Shall we assume that the rapprochement with Ankara is
something the Armenian diplomacy should take credit for? Did Yerevan
manage to disassociate the matter of rapprochement with Turkey from
the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh?

Peter Semneby: It was not Armenia alone providing the necessary push
that set things in motion. (Even though it was always clear that
doing so is in the interests of Armenia, that is.) We have to admit
meanwhile that some political forces in Armenia question expediency
of this move. Some heated debates are taking place in Turkey too,
as we know. Turkey understands that it may become one of the central
players in all of the region only if and when this particular matter is
addressed and taken care of. This conflict with Armenia tied Ankara’s
hands in the South Caucasus.

As for the Armenian-Turkish relations and the conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh, these are two different conflicts that should not be
mixed. An attempt to mix them will interfere with the normalization
trend we’ve been seeing. It is clear that any development in each of
these matters has an effect on the general atmosphere. It behooves
us therefore to do whatever it takes to make sure that this effect
is positive.

Question: What concessions can Armenia and Azerbaijan go for in the
matter of Karabakh conflict resolution right at this point?

Peter Semneby: By and large, I believe that it is necessary to aspire
to a situation where both parties will make some sort of concession
to the other and leave major issues including that of the status of
Karabakh for later.

Question: Is there a chance that this rapprochement with Turkey will
spark street protests and foment mass disturbances in Armenia?

Peter Semneby: Opposition to normalization of the relations with
Turkey is external rather than domestic. What I mean is that it is
mostly Armenian diasporas abroad that have been raising objections.

And yet, this is a serious problem for the Armenian administration
because of the part in the life of the country diasporas traditionally
play.

Question: When can we expect the opening of the Armenian-Turkish
border?

Peter Semneby: The countdown will begin with ratification of the
protocols by national parliaments. It should occur two months after
the exchange of ratifications.

Question: Will the protocols be ratified?

Peter Semneby: Nobody can say for sure, of course, but I’m convinced
that they will be ratified, all the same.

Question: What effect will this Armenian-Turkish rapprochement have
on the regional economic architecture based on and centered around
Azerbaijani and Central Asian oil and gas export?

Peter Semneby: Normalization of the relations will open new
opportunities, facilitate regional security, and have a generally
positive effect on the economy of the region.

Question: Leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and even Karabakh visit
Moscow in the wake of every new development in the Armenian-Turkish
rapprochement and in the course of the Karabakh talks. Why would they?

Whose initiative is it?

Peter Semneby: It is clear that Russia has extensive interests in the
South Caucasus and that it is prepared to defend and promote them. It
is natural. It is a positive factor, in general, that Russia clearly
associates its interests with progress in the matter of conflict
resolution. We can only welcome Russia’s resolve to play an energetic
role in these matters.

Question: And yet, the opening of the border is bound to turn Armenian
economy to Turkey. Lacking ground routes connecting it with Armenia,
Russia is bound to perceive a certain weakening of the ties with the
country it has regarded as its principal ally in the South Caucasus
for years. And yet, Moscow supports and abets the negotiations under
way. Isn’t that paradoxical?

Peter Semneby: Russia has vast interest in Armenia, and particularly
economic interests. Since Russia invested colossal sums in Armenia,
in its energy infrastructure and so on, it is naturally interested in
development of the Armenian economy. Its dynamic development meanwhile
necessitates certain conditions. An open border with Turkey is the
most important factor facilitating economic development of Armenia.

Even diversification of the Armenian economy will benefit Russia.

Question: This solution to the Armenian-Turkish problem… shall
we call it Armenia’s step in the direction of European and Atlantic
integration?

Peter Semneby: Armenia participates in a great deal of EU’s programs
like the neighborhood program or, for example, the Eastern Partnership
initiative. Negotiations over associated membership in the European
Union might begin soon because that’s what we offer to all Eastern
Partnership participants. It will continue regardless of whether or
not the border with Turkey is opened.

ACCORDING TO ANC, 2010 BUDGET IS BUDGET OF AUTHORITIES’ MISTAKES AND LACK OF FORESIGHT AND THEIR RESIGNATION

Noyan Tapan
Nov 6, 2009

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 6, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian National Congress
(ANC) on November 6 issued a statement, in which it expressed its
opinion about the 2010 state budget of Armenia.

The statement reads:

"The Armenian National Congress has repeatedly warned that the
steps undertaken by the Armenian government under the conditions
of the financial and economic crisis are quite inadequate for the
prevention or mitigation of the current negative developments. The
result of ignoring numerous warnings is that even after attracting
an unprecedented loan of 1.5 billion dollars from the outside world,
Armenia surpasses all CIS countries and nearly all countries of the
world in terms of the official index of its economic decline.

In fact, the so-called preventive economic measures taken by the
authorities are aimed at feeding, strengthening and maintaining the
corrupt power system rather than at protecting the interests of the
state and the citizens and at solving the existing problems.

Throughout 2009, concealing its failures and inability to deal with
any serious problem, the government – in various ways evading the
law – changed the National Assembly-adopted law on the budget and,
as a matter of fact, carried out shadow sequestration of the budget
post factum. Under such condutions, the 2010 draft state budget,
which ignores the real problems and challenges facing our country,
has been developed and presented to the National Assembly.

Thus:

– About 25% reduction in revenues is envisaged as compared to this
year, whereas economic growth is forecast for next year by the
authorities.

– Serious cuts have been announced in education (about 25%) and defence
(over 22%) compared to 2009, whereas expenditures on maintenance of
the state machinery have been left almost unchanged.

– An extremely low and declining level of taxes is programmed in the
taxes-GDP ratio, which in fact means that the authorities will not
fight the shadow economy and corruption.

– A huge budget deficit in the amount of 6.5% of GDP is envisaged.

The Armenian National Congress states that for any authorities, this
budget is a budget of their own mistakes and lack of foresight and
their resignation.

Being aware that the deepening of the economic downturn and the
financial crisis, as well as the inadequate steps on their prevention
are fraught even with the danger of a humanitarian disaster, the
Armenian National Congress once again considers it necessary to present
those principles and measures, whose use would only make it possible
to mitigate the current hard situation which is expected to worsen:

The principles of special anticrisis 5-year economic, social and
financial programming should form the basis of the 2010 state budget.

Realistic anticrisis measures rather than abstract and fairy-tale
promises and judgements should be the pivot of the indicated program.

These measures are:

– To gradually increase the revenue collection level in this 5-year
period, reaching a 22% level of the taxes-GDP ratio.

– To adopt a list of tax and customs reforms and the respective
documents, which should be aimed at introducing the principle of
progressive taxation when the tax burden is moved from the consumer
to the income consumer, from low-income consumers to high-income
consumers, the well-off stratum of society.

– To develop a package of system changes, which shall include a real
program of anticorruption and antimonopoly measures and specify a
fair economic competition atmosphere in Armenia.

– Instead of encouraging elite apartment construction, to envisage
programs on affordable apartments construction, including housing
for young families.

– To develop special programs on unemployment reduction, especially
measures on the rehabilitation of local inter-village roads,
infrastructure in rural areas and the development of communities,
and to envisage their financing from the budget.

– To allocate foreign loans for the extension of the demand rather than
the supply and to stop crediting (giving guarantees to) the so-called
"elite" developers, etc."

According to the statement, ANC has its program of measures for
overcoming the crisis, and in case of the existence of the respective
political will and the adoption of several dozen laws and decisions,
it will be possible to put the country on the development path again.

ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN VIE FOR SUPREMACY AT RUSSIA’S EXPENSE
Leonard Barden

The Guardian
7 November 2009

More than 150 nations are affiliated to the global chess body Fide,
yet team supremacy on the board is currently being fought out by two
small Caucasian republics. In the process the pair have humilated
their big neighbour Russia, for long the undisputed No1.

When Armenia won the 2006 Olympiad, the success was reckoned a surprise
one-off. Then its squad retained the crown in 2008, sparking street
celebrations in Erevan and the presidential plane home for the winning
team. On both occasions the top-seeded Russians failed, as they had
behind Ukraine in 2004.

These results infuriated politicians and grandmasters in Azerbaijan,
which has an ongoing acrimonious border dispute with Armenia. At last
week’s European team championship, the men from Baku came with a new
manager, a highly rated team and ambitious zeal. Russia were again
No1 seeds and at the start of the final round they led Azerbaijan by
a point, with easier opponents. But they blew it yet again. Russia
managed only 2-2 with Spain and the Azeris clinched the gold medals
when a Dutch GM blundered in a drawn rook ending.

Both nations have chess traditions from Soviet times. Erevan boasts a
statue of Tigran Petrosian, the Armenian world champion, while Garry
Kasparov was raised in Baku by his Armenian mother.

The battle now moves to next year’s world title candidate matches,
as Azeris and Armenians haggle with Fide over venues, qualifiers
and wild cards. The Azeris have three GMs in the world top 20, led
by Vugar Gashimov, 23, their Euro team star whose subtle play below
gives White first a strong pawn centre, then a winning attack.

V Gashimov v M Roiz

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3
O-O 9 d4 Bg4 10 d5 Na5 11 Bc2 c6 12 h3 Bc8 13 dxc6 Qc7 14 Nbd2 Qxc6 15
Nf1 Re8 16 Ng3 Be6 17 Ng5 Bd7 18 a4 Nc4 19 b3 Nb6 20 a5 Nc8 21 Bd2 Bd8
22 Bd3 Ne7 23 c4 Qb7 24 Nf3 b4 25 c5 dxc5 26 Nxe5 Bc7 27 Nxd7 Nxd7 28
f4 Nf8 29 Bc4 Rad8 30 e5 Nc6 31 Nf5 Nxa5 32 Rxa5 Bxa5 33 Qg4 g6 34 Nh6+
Kg7 35 f5 Ne6 36 fxe6 Rxd2 37 exf7 Rf8 38 e6 Bd8 39 Nf5+ Kh8 40 Qg3 1-0

EXPERT NOTES ARMENIAN PUBLIC’S INERTIA IN FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES

Aravot
Nov 4 2009
Armenia

An Armenian political analyst has said that the Armenian public
attach greater importance to domestic social and economic problems
and political freedoms than to the country’s foreign policies.

"Our public have pushed national issues to the sidelines and even
further," Armen Badalyan told the pro-opposition Aravot daily on 4
November. "At present social and economic problems, political freedoms,
and only then national issues – Nagornyy Karabakh, Armenian-Turkish
relations, recognition of the genocide and so on – are the priority
for it."

The expert predicted after the 19 February 2008 presidential election
that if the May 2009 election of Yerevan mayor was not "free and fair
either", then the public would become inert even to challenges in
foreign policy, including the Nagornyy Karabakh issue, Aravot said. As
a result, Armenia would lose its resistance to foreign challenges.

Badalyan believes his predictions have come true and that the Armenian
public are indifferent to processes which have been taking place after
the signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols in early October. The
expert said a low turnout by 1,000-1,500 people at rallies against
the protocols organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
-Dashnaktsutyun also corroborated this.

Badalyan said he believes Armenia has lost in Armenian-Turkish
relations due to lack of democracy in the country, the paper reported.

Badalyan said however, Armenian political leaders and experts are
discussing the protocols in the context of geopolitical and regional
processes only. Badalyan disagreed with statements that Turkey wants
to mend ties with Armenia in order to become an EU member, saying
that Turkey applied for EU membership a long time ago and could
wait for another five years. The expert believes that the process of
normalization of Armenian-Turkish ties is a result of the struggle
for the Caucasus as the USA, the EU and Turkey have economic interests
in the region, Aravot reported.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ROBERT FISK’S WORLD: THE GERMAN LAWRENCE OF ARABIA HAD MUCH TO LIVE UP TO – AND FAILED

Independent
Saturday, 7 November 2009
UK

The victors write the history, so Frobenius’s adventures are today
virtually unknown

His name was Captain Leo Frobenius and he was the German Lawrence
of Arabia, tasked to start an Arab Muslim insurgency against British
rule in Sudan and Egypt. Colonel Lawrence’s mission, of course, was
to persuade the Arabs of the Gulf to rebel against the German-allied
Turkish army of the Ottoman empire. There were a few differences. A
colonel Lawrence may have been; a captain Frobenius was not. His
military rank was a fraud. And unlike Lawrence, the secret Frobenius
mission in 1915 was a hopeless failure.

So come with me this Saturday morning – with the help of a brilliant
Catalan scholar called Rocío Da Riva – with the German Lawrence,
an archaeologist (like Lawrence), cultural historian, traveller and
adventurer (again like Lawrence) regarded by some as a genius and a
leading expert on Africa, by others as a charlatan guilty of abject
behaviour (yet again, like Lawrence). But he ended up back in Germany,
denounced to Chancellor Bethman-Hollweg as a "tactless" political
agent and a liar, stirring up trouble among Germans, Arabs and Turks
in equal measure because he did "not understand the Oriental way of
thinking". Unlike Lawrence.

The victors write the history, of course, so Frobenius’s adventures
are today virtually unknown. Already an explorer in pre-1914 Congo,
Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Morocco, Algeria (twice), Tunis, northern
Cameroon and Sudan, Frobenius of Arabia’s mission in 1915 was to make
his way across Ottoman Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Arabia
via still neutral Italian Eritrea to Ethiopia where the marooned
German legation in Addis Ababa had no radio or even postal contact
with the Reich. Frobenius was to take "mail" (the official version)
to the legation while in fact encouraging the Ethiopians to invade
Sudan, organise uprisings by the Mahdiya partisans against Britain
and challenge the British position in Suez.

He and his expedition – Germans, Turks, an interpreter and eventually
11 Palestinian Arabs, most of whom would be mysteriously put on rations
as "gardeners" from Jaffa – travelled across Turkey on those bits of
the Berlin-Baghdad railway already completed, the rest of the way by
camel through the great passes of the Taurus and Cilician mountains,
the road then being "improved by thousands of Armenians, who had been
drafted into the Ottoman army for this purpose…".

These, of course, were the remnants of the Ottoman army’s Armenian
soldiers, already disarmed in preparation for their slaughter by
Turkish forces in the 1915 genocide. Through Aleppo, Hama and Homs,
our heroic spies chuffed through Lebanon’s Bekaa valley by narrow-gauge
railway.

>From Damascus, Frobenius adopted the name of Abdul Karim Pasha, now
dressed like the rest of his amateur agents in Arab costume. They
took the Hejaz railway – soon to be destroyed by Lawrence – to al-Ula
where they travelled by camel to al-Wajh on the Red Sea. Then came
the tricky bit: they had to cross the Red Sea for Massawa and dodge
the British and French naval patrols all the way.

Spies had already tipped off the Brits that the Germans were coming;
first to stop their boat was the English Empress of Russia, followed
by the French cruiser Desaix whose captain failed to spot Frobenius
and his men because the crew was selling them picture postcards.

According to a later despatch from the British ambassador to Rome,
Frobenius and company "concealed themselves in a corner of the hold,
used, apparently, for the same purpose as the ‘Sanitary Tank’ in a
more civilised vessel, having reached this unromantic hiding place
through a hole, the uses of which it is difficult to describe in
polite language…". Through a crack in their shithole, the Germans
even took a photo of the Desaix which remains to this day in the
archives of the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt.

It took Frobenius of Arabia 42 days to reach Eritrea, where the
Italians – alerted by the Brits – refused to let him move on to
Ethiopia. The Germans then ensconced themselves on the luxury German
liner Christian X, a new vessel whose silver cutlery and grand piano
must have pleased the pseudo-aristocratic Frobenius. But while he was
optimistically trying to arrange a radio cipher to take to the German
legation in Addis whence they could communicate with Berlin via the
captain of the Christian X, Sir Edward Grey – he of "lights going
out all over Europe" fame – was giving permission for the Italians
to take the Germans under safe conduct to Rome via Suez.

Frobenius ended up in the Holy City, claiming in the Italian press
that he was a plenipotentiary of the Ottoman emperor before admitting
he was a secret agent, hoping he would receive an Italian decoration
and then entraining for Germany one day before Italy declared war
on the side of the Allies. Later German spy missions proved equally
dismal. One left for Arabia dressed as an Arab dance troupe; another
was betrayed as a German dressed as an Arab; the lack of corns on
his feet proved to Eritrean policemen that he had been wearing shoes.

When Frobenius tried to return to Africa after the war, he was
stopped in Cairo where the British colonial office, regarding him as
a "thieving scoundrel", memorably noted that he was "one of those
scientific Germans to whom the word ‘Hun’ can be applied without
raising any controversy". He ended up president of the Institute of
Cultural Morphology in Frankfurt, reportedly selling artefacts from
his expeditions, his scientific reputation (according to the Foreign
Office) "as second rate as his reputation for decent behaviour".

Frobenius of Arabia outlived Lawrence of Arabia by three years. But
then again, Frobenius never rode a motorbike.

ABAJI: ORIGINE ORIENTS
By David Honigmann

FT
November 6 2009 23:54

Origine Orients sees the Lebanese musician Abaji touring the Eastern
Mediterranean, singing in Turkish, Greek, French, Arabic and in his
grandfather’s Armenian.

But this is essentially an instrumentalist’s album: Abaji plays all
the instruments here, from a hybrid oud-guitar to a bamboo flute. All
mingle: ‘Menz Baba’, about his grandfather, has a strummed bouzouki
melody but hard on its heels follows ‘Hidden Soul’, with Armenia’s
characteristic mournful bass duduk; the bowed lyre of ‘Steppo’ chimes
with sequins tinkling around the hips of a dancer.

ELOQUENCE THROUGH IMITATION
By Ariella Budick

FT
November 3 2009 02:00

The case of Arshile Gorky proves that originality doesn’t matter much.

That is hardly surprising: imitation has regularly trumped innovation
throughout the history of art; it would not have occurred to most
medieval window-makers to do something that had never been done
before. The 20th-century avant-garde shared a worship of originality,
yet Gorky, one of its founding brothers, derived most of his style and
imagery from fellow pioneers. To follow his career is to surf waves
of indebtedness to Cezanne, Picasso, Miro, Matta and Tanguy. Their
examples nourished and comforted him.

The Armenian was born Vosdanik Adoian in an Ottoman village on the
shores of Lake Van around 1904. During the Armenian genocide in 1915,
the family was forced out of the region and the boy watched his
mother die of starvation. In 1920, he made his way to the US, where
his father had emigrated a decade earlier. But the teenager soon cut
the relationship off, blaming his father for abandoning the family.

By 1925 he had adopted a colourful pseudonym and a mythic past.

Arshile (or Arshele, as he spelled it then) is Russian for Achilles,
and Maxim Gorky was a literary titan whom the artist claimed as a
cousin – when he wasn’t declaring himself kin to a Georgian prince. An
annual report for New York’s Grand Central School of Art, where he
taught, conveyed that he had been born in Nizhny Novgorod and that he
had graduated from that city’s art school before going on to study at
the Academie Julian in Paris. Gorky was scrupulous about acquiring
prestige by association: he took Picasso’s birth date, October 25,
as his own.

Gorky put his awful past and true ancestry behind him. From the start,
the self-taught artist adopted a parade of father substitutes, men
he never met but whose implicit guidance he abjectly accepted. He
loved these strangers and he learnt to speak their languages with
increasing eloquence.

The first was Cezanne. Fascinated by the Frenchman’s notorious
perseverance in the face of failure, and inspired by his unique
command of spatial relationships, Gorky copied his paintings from
books and public collections. The first room of the show brims with
Cezanne lookalikes, including a slightly surreal rendering of Staten
Island as a suburb of Aix-en-Provence, with eucalyptus trees swaying
between ochre roofs and limpid Mediterranean skies.

By 1927, Gorky had switched allegiances. "I feel Picasso running
through my fingertips," he announced. The stark linearity of the
Spaniard’s neo-classical period inspired "The Artist and his Mother",
Gorky’s tender, tragic self-portrait with the parent who perished
in his arms. Fortunately, he had found himself a fantastically
chameleonic role model, which allowed him to produce a broad range
of tributes. "Organization", for example, is an ambitious reaction
to his idol’s surreal "Studio" of 1927-28. In it, Gorky mimics the
stylistic quirks, the signature distortions, the grid-like structure
and use of black lines to map out the composition. "If he drips,
I drip," Gorky supposedly declared.

As Picasso darted from synthetic cubism to linear classicism, Gorky
sprinted right behind. If Picasso did Ingres, Gorky did Picasso doing
Ingres. As Picasso dodged between abstraction and representation,
Gorky descended into multiple personality disorder, channelling
Picasso, Leger, Kandinsky, Miro and de Chirico all at once.

Gorky was a terrific draughtsman, though, with an imaginative eye and
meticulous technique and, by the 1940s, the multi-mentored disciple
had come into his own as the author of lavish symphonies of line and
colour. "The Liver is the Cock’s Comb", the masterpiece of Gorky’s
maturity, vibrates with warbling crimsons, oranges and golds, its
abstruse codes buried beneath layers of shimmering hues. "The Scent
of Apricots on the Fields" (1944) remakes Cezanne in molten washes
of citrus and mauve. Yet underlining those biomorphic swirls lay the
strokes of Gorky’s vigorous pencil. He overlaid linear, even academic
studies with opulent whorls of paint.

Gorky both invites and repels our efforts to understand his imagery.

Curvaceous and fleshy, intermittently jittery and languorous, it
implies specific meanings that we strain to decipher. But the work’s
power springs precisely from its elusiveness.

Even at his creative peak, Gorky was still looking and learning from
others. By the 1940s, it was the Surrealists, who arrived from Europe
hauling a darker, spikier conception of life’s snares. Gorky’s joyful
canvases began to brim with vampiric symbols of female sexuality
and erotic horror. The Surrealist sensibility chimed with Gorky’s
darkening temper. In January 1946, a studio fire destroyed a trove
of his work. In March, he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent
surgery. In June 1948, a car crash fractured his neck and left his
painting arm temporary useless. Soon afterwards, his wife slept with
his best friend. These events took their toll on his already fragile
psyche. He hanged himself in 1948.

Gorky may have mined and even mimed the discoveries of his
contemporaries, but he had his own singular flair. He could draw
better than almost any of them and he had an unrivalled sense of
colour. This retrospective makes clear that style is merely a form
of language, not its content. And just as Gorky adopted English, the
language of his new home, he also adapted his colleagues’ techniques,
using them to speak with his own inalienable passion.

Until January 10, tel +1 215 763 8100

ROBERT FISK’S WORLD: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST IS BURIED BENEATH THE HEADLINES

Independent
Saturday, 31 October 2009
UK

News bureau chiefs in Cairo know who their local spies are but can’t
dismiss them

Amira Hass was spot on when she said last week that her lifetime
women’s award was an award for failure. The West Bank correspondent of
the Israeli paper Haaretz eloquently explained herself on al-Jazeera’s
English channel. She received an award for failure, she said, because
despite all the facts that she and her journalistic colleagues had
explained about Israeli occupation in Palestine, the world still
did not understand what occupation meant and still used words like
"terror" and "war on terror". Amira was absolutely correct. Most of
our Western press and television are as gutless as ever when they
have to participate in what Noam Chomsky described as "the manufacture
of consent".

Once government and editors and television management have decided
on the "story", you can be sure that an Israeli "wall" will become
a "security barrier" or a "fence", a pro-Western Arab dictator a
"strongman" and "occupied" Israeli territory will become "disputed";
the unjustly treated will thus become generically violent, brutality
softened and occupation legalised. Fred Halliday of the LSE is
coming out next June with a book called Shocked and Awed about the
artillery and minefields used in the battlefield of language. The
"War on Terror" – yes, let’s give this trash the capital letters
it deserves, as in "South Sea Bubble" – has given us "Gitmo" and
"extraordinary rendition" ("extraordinary" indeed!) and imported,
as Halliday observes, perversions of imported words such as "jihad".

But I think the problem goes further than this. It’s not just a White
House-State Department-Pentagon-CNN-Downing Street-Defence Ministry-BBC
military-political-journalistic complex. Our masters prefer us not
to tangle with the bad guys as well as good guys. Years ago, a Time
magazine reporter in Cairo packed his note-book with facts about the
routine Egyptian police torture of prisoners. But the US ambassador
in Cairo persuaded the bureau chief to hold off because he understood
that Mubarak was going to "crack down" on such abuses. Ho ho! Time
didn’t run the story and, of course, the abuses got worse.

Shortly afterwards, jail guards were forcing Egyptian prisoners to
rape each other.

And nothing has changed. The big Western news agencies which have
headquartered their Middle East offices in Cairo are as loath to touch
these stories today as they were more than a decade ago. It’s just
the same in that other friendly Muslim ally of ours, Turkey. But let’s
start in Cairo. When the "peace process" – remember that tacky phrase?

– was about to reach fruition almost 15 years ago, the big wire
agencies poured millions into new offices and staffs in Mubarak’s
gleaming capital of democracy. And what happened? As usual, the
Egyptian Mukhabarat security agencies inserted their own lads into
the bureaux – or blackmailed Egyptian reporting staff – to spy on
the journalistic output. All bureau chiefs in Cairo know who their
local spies are. But, of course, they can’t dismiss them.

Nor can they report the news that their "news" agency is supposed to
be telling us about. The mere hint of an anti-Mubarak story – I am
omitting from this the courageous coverage of the shameful behaviour
of the cops in mauling and beating female as well as male protesters
during the anti-Mubarak "Enough movement’s demonstrations – and the
Ministry of Information will be calling in the relevant bureau chief
for a chat. Even a formal Egyptian denial won’t do you much good.

There will be serious consequences if there is a repeat. Closing down
the bureau, perhaps, having wasted all those millions on installing
the office in the first place?

Which is why almost all Cairo-datelined coverage of police savagery in
Egypt contains only reports on London-issued protests from Amnesty or
Human Rights Watch, followed by the necessary Egyptian condemnation
of the human rights groups. In other words, the investment in such
Western news bureaux has now become more important than the news
for which the original investment was made. But let’s move to my old
favourite, Turkey.

Now we all know that the Armenian genocide of 1915 was a fact of
history, that one and a half million Armenian men, women and children
were raped, knifed, burned and shot to death by the Ottoman Turks. But
I was reminded of the historical depths of this first holocaust of
the last century when a friend of mine, Catherine Sheridan, gave me a
leather-bound book from her late husband Don’s library. It’s called
Syria, the Holy Land and Asia Minor by John Carne Esq, printed by
Fisher, Son and Co of Newgate Street, London, in 1836. And what did
Mr Carne Esq see at Antioch?

"Among those visited by the cruelties of the Greek revolution was
an Armenian lady of Constantinople, a young and handsome widow,
whose husband was recently murdered… dejection and sorrow were
stamped on her pale… features… the blow had been too sudden and
ruthless; her home, her husband, her love, to all of which her heart
clung intensely, were cruelly taken…" Her husband, of course, was
a victim of the Greek war of independence against the Ottoman Turks –
the same war during which Lord Byron died at Missolonghi in 1823. So
Armenians were being murdered almost a century before their genocide;
and indeed were slaughtered by the tens of thousands towards the end
of the 19th century, again before the genocide.

So how do our defenders of the Western press refer to the Armenian
genocide? Here is Reuters on 13 October this year, referring to
"hostility stemming from the First World War mass killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Armenia says it was genocide, a term
Turkey rejects". And here’s the Associated Press next day: "Armenia
and many historians say Ottoman Turks committed genocide against
Armenians early in the last century, a charge that Turkey denies."

Can you imagine the uproar if Reuters referred to the "mass killing"
of Jews by Germans with the words: "Jews say it was a genocide, a term
right-wing Germans and neo-Nazis reject." Or if AP were to report that
"Israel and many historians say German Nazis committed genocide against
Jews in the Second World War, a charge (sic) German right-wingers,
etc, deny". It would be an outrage. But no one, of course, is going
to close the Reuters or AP bureaux in Berlin. In Ankara and Istanbul
bureaux, however, it’s clearly another matter.

Well, I suppose those staff could always ask to be transferred to their
Cairo offices – where they can indulge in the same kind of sophistry.

No, Chomsky was wrong. It’s not about consent. It’s about the
manufacture of social, political and historical denial. The motto is
familiar and simple: always give in to the bully.

IRAQI STAMP AUCTION POSTS RECORD PRICES
By Sammy Ketz

Daily Telegraph
11:28AM GMT 05 Nov 2009
UK

Reckoned to be Iraq’s top expert on cement, Anis Amjad does the rounds
of factories during the week but nothing can stop him conducting the
stamp auction in old Baghdad every Saturday.

A collection of stamps to be auctioned in Iraq. The Philatelic and
Numismatic Society of Iraq, established in 1951 at the time of the
King, has come to life again following the 2003 US-led invasion Photo:
AFP On that day the 56-year-old chemical engineer takes off his white
coat and raises his auctioneer’s gavel. The lots are knocked down in
an old Ottoman building dating from 1908 which, nine years later,
became the first British post office and where a traditional red
letter box still adorns the facade.

"I am head of the inspection department at the industry ministry and
I supervise Iraq’s cement works. But I have always declined foreign
assignments so as not to miss this meeting," says the confirmed
bachelor, who first ran the auction 12 years ago.

Interest is reviving fast at the Iraqi Philatelic and Numismatic
Society, founded in 1951, which has only recently resumed meeting
after three years of suspension because of a violent struggle between
Iraq’s Shia and Sunni populations and a strong al-Qaeda presence in
the neighbourhood.

Official membership of teh society stands at more than 2,000, though
only around 80 are active buyers and sellers.

Stamp prices are rising sharply, in particular those showing Saddam
Hussein, the dictator overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2003.

"Before 2003, the country was closed in on itself and we were cut
off from the international market. But now business is going well.

American and British collectors snap up stamps with Saddam on them,"
says Kamal Kamel, 46, who runs a stall in the Bab al-Muazzam district
where the society meets.

"Unlike us, they couldn’t get enough of him – they could not buy the
stamps, because of the embargo," he said, referring to UN sanctions on
trade with Iraq introduced after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"A series showing Saddam Hussein which was worth 200 dinars sells today
for 5,000 dinars (£2.60). My monthly revenues have passed from $200
(£121) to $1,500. Prices really have risen," Kamel said.

"Only Iraqis come into my shop but I have an intermediary with access
to the green zone who sells a lot to American soldiers and diplomats,"
he added.

Sitting round a long table, 30 or so dealers and collectors examine the
stamps, bank notes and coins which comprise the lots on offer that day.

Anis livens up the sale with auctioneer’s patter but all the bids
are below prices given in foreign catalogues.

Festooning walls of the room are photocopies of letters from the
British Philatelic Association dating from 1917, along with many
stamps from Iraq and other Arab countries.

Since Iraq’s first stamp in 1917, the postal service has issued 1,824
series of stamps, including 24 from after the fall of Saddam.

Garo Manaskan, a 51-year-old Iraqi of Armenian origin who is an
accountant and also runs a well-known Baghdad restaurant, is selling
several items from his collection of three million stamps.

"I started at the age of six. It is my passion – when some cease to
please me I sell them to buy others. As I am unmarried, I will leave
my collection to the Armenian church," he says.

Next to him, Haqqi Abdel Karim, a 45-year-old coin enthusiast, is at
the auction for the first time in three years since seeking exile in
Syria to avoid intercommunal violence.

"Today things are better and I am thinking of coming back but the
association should move. This is not a safe district," Karim said.

Members come from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds, but
old animosities have prevented the election of a committee for the
past six years.

"Two thirds of the people around this table made a lot of money
by taking part in or even leading the looting of post offices which
happened in the wake of the American invasion," confides Mohammed Dhia,
an active member of the society.

"When you accuse them, some go silent and others promise to give them
back without having any intention of doing so. Then there are those
who try to convince you the stamps are better off in their hands than
with philistines knowing nothing of philately," he added.

His point is illustrated by the society’s location at al-Koshla
("clock" in Turkish) post office, in Seraglio Street in Bab al-Muazzam
neighbourhood, where the stamp museum stood before 2003. The museum’s
collections were all stolen and sold… to stamp collectors.

KUWAIT’S AMIR RECEIVES ARMENIAN PRESIDENT

Qatar News Agency
November 3, 2009 Tuesday 10:17 PM EST

Kuwait, November 03 (QNA) -Emir of kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad
Al-Jaber Al-Sabah held talks here Tuesday night with Armenian President
Serzh Sargsian and his accompanying delegation now visting Kuwait.

Minister of kuwaiti emiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad
Al-Sabah said in a press release that the talks highlighted bilateral
relations and ways to bolster them at various levels, in addition to
discussion on issues of mutual concern.

Armenian president flew into kuwait earlier in the day on a two-day
state visit to Kuwait.(QNA)