The California Courier Online, November 8, 2018
1 - Commentary
Trump’s National Security Adviser Tries
To Distance Armenia from Russia and Iran
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Pashinyan Plan Proceeds, Armenian Parliament Triggers Snap Elections
3- Armenian-American Congresswoman Jackie Speier remembers Jim Jones,
Peoples Temple cult, and surviving the Jonestown massacre
4 - Armenia Parliament passes unprecedented amnesty bill
5 - Vartan Gregorian Receives Honorary Doctorate from King’s
College London
6- Sphere of Influence: Karma Ekmekji navigates international
politics, diplomacy
7- CK Garabed ‘Dictionary of Armenian Surnames’ to be Released Online
8- Commentary: Hrant Dink and Jamal Khashoggi
By Ergun Babahan
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1 - Commentary
Trump’s National Security Adviser Tries
To Distance Armenia from Russia and Iran
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
Not a week passes without the disclosure of another major scandal in
Azerbaijan or Turkey. The latest such scandal was exposed by the
Stockholm Center for Freedom in an article written by exiled Turkish
writer Abdullah Bozkurt, titled: “Utah case exposes more dirt on
Turkey’s Erdogan.”
The article reveals that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
corrupt tentacles reach into the United States, which makes the
subject of this scandal of particular interest to Special Counsel
Robert Mueller in connection with his Russia probe and “international
organized crime network,” according to Bozkurt.
“A federal grand jury in Utah returned a sealed indictment on Aug. 1,
2018, naming Erdogan as the leader of a foreign country who met with
highly controversial businesspeople in California and Utah in what was
claimed to be a major money laundering and tax fraud case,” Bozkurt
reported.
The indictment, unsealed on Aug. 24, 2018, charged that “Jacob Ortell
Kingston, the chief executive officer, and Isaiah Kingston, the chief
financial officer of Washakie Renewable Energy (WRE), by filing false
claims for tax credits, obtained over $511 million in renewable fuel
tax credits that were designed to increase the amount of renewable
fuel used and produced in the United States. Lev Aslan Dermen (Levon
Termendzhyan), owner of California-based fuel company NOIL Energy
Group with links to a transnational criminal enterprise, is also
identified as a partner in this grand scheme. From 2010 through 2016,
they fabricated documents and rotated products within the US as well
as overseas to make it appear that they were engaging in real trade to
qualify for the tax credits,” Bozkurt wrote.
The indictment stated that Jacob Kingston was arrested on Aug. 23,
2018, while on his way to Salt Lake City international airport headed
to Turkey after he was tipped off. Bozkurt reported: “The Kingstons
had already bought a luxury mansion in a seaside town in Turkey
according to a wire transfer from a WRE account to Termendzhyan’s
account at Turkey’s Garanti Bank on March 5, 2014. More wire transfers
to Turkey were listed in the indictment. Jacob Kingston, who
frequently traveled to Turkey to meet with top Turkish officials
including Erdogan, was often greeted like a VIP at the Turkish
airport, was provided a police escort and did not even use his
passport to enter Turkey according to witness testimony in the U.S.
indictment.”
Jacob Kingston first met Erdogan in New York in September 2017 when
the Turkish President came to the United States to attend the UN
General Assembly. This meeting took place “after FBI raided the
Kingston group’s properties on Feb. 10, 2016, and the revelations of
the fuel tax scam had already made the headlines in Utah,” according
to Bozkurt.
“In early November 2017, Jacob flew to Turkey to hold a series of
high-level meetings in both Ankara and Istanbul. He tapped Sezgin
Baran Korkmaz, the chairman of SBK Holding LLC, as the main conduit in
Turkey, while he kept a separate investment and asset management firm,
Mega Varlık Yönetim A.Ş., which was set up with equity of $450 million
in Turkey,” Bozkurt wrote.
“Termendzhyan also has a company named SBK Holdings USA, which is a
sister company to Korkmaz’s SBK Holding LLC in Turkey. Korkmaz was
quoted as telling the Turkish press that his partnership with WRE has
resulted in an investment valued at $1 billion and thanked Erdogan for
personally facilitating the business deals. According to the press
release issued on Sept. 9, 2016, by the Turkish government’s
Investment Support and Promotion Agency (ISPAT), WRE, the Noil Energy
Group and SBK Holding LLC have made significant investments in Turkey
and planned to do more. The partnership with SBK Holding began in 2013
with Noil Energy making the first batch of investments in real estate.
Construction and real estate businesses comprise the prime source for
ill-gotten proceeds for Erdogan’s massive multi-billion-dollar wealth.
The total investment reached $500 million with another half million
dollars assigned to a Mergers and Acquisitions fund for operations in
Turkey. The trio has made investments in all types of sectors
including pharmaceuticals, automotive, chemicals, technology, glass,
and food,” according to Bozkurt.
“With Erdogan’s political backing and cover, SBK Holding has expanded
its operations into various areas including finance, energy, real
estate, defense, mining, industry, tourism, technology, and logistics.
The company is mainly active in the finance industry through
investment banking, asset management, and raw materials financing. It
also has substantial interests in the energy sector that span both the
US and Russian markets. Erdogan was not bothered at all by the fact
that Termendzhyan was already implicated in a major probe that was
being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security for money
laundering, tax evasion, and stolen oil. Edgar Sargsyan, the
ex-president and former legal counsel for SBK Holdings USA, stated in
his declaration filed in court on July 14, 2017, that Termendzhyan, a
Russian [Armenian], is the head of a criminal organization. It is
worth remembering that he was arrested in 1993 for a gas tax scam in
the US, where the Russian mafia was known to have been actively
involved in similar scams in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He was also charged
with tax fraud and armed assault in the past and was convicted of
battery in 2013,” Bozkurt reported.
Interestingly, “Korkmaz appears to be the main conduit linking the
Kingstons and Termendzhyan to pro-Erdogan businessman Ekim Alptekin,
whose Dutch shell company Inovo BV hired former national security
advisor Mike Flynn’s Flynn Intel Group to run a smear campaign and
defame Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, a U.S.-based cleric who emerged
as the main critic of the Erdogan regime. Flynn tapped former CIA
director James Woolsey to do the work against Gülen in a meeting held
with Korkmaz in California in August 2016. Woolsey and his wife had a
meeting with both Korkmaz and Alptekin in New York City on Sept. 20,
2016, to discuss the proposal. On Sept. 19, 2016, Flynn met with
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the foreign minister of Turkey, and Berat Albayrak,
Erdogan’s son-in-law who is also a minister in his cabinet, to discuss
another proposal to kidnap Gülen and whisk him away from U.S. soil to
Turkey. Two months later, on Nov. 8, 2016, Flynn published a poorly
written, derogatory op-ed on The Hill news website about Gülen, which
many suspected was penned by Turkish operatives, not Flynn. Flynn
later admitted to making false statements including lying about the
fact that Turkish government officials were supervising and directing
the work. He also misrepresented his lobbying on behalf of the Erdogan
government and lied about the op-ed he published on The Hill website,”
Bozkurt wrote.
Alptekin fled to Turkey after he was interviewed by the Mueller team
in May 2017 and dodged the subpoena that was subsequently issued after
investigators concluded that he had lied to them. Korkmaz was also
ordered to testify before a grand jury in Washington on Sept. 22,
2017, over possible violations of federal criminal laws including the
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). He also did not comply with
this subpoena. “It was believed that money in the amount of some
$450,000 that Alptekin’s Dutch shell company paid to Flynn, in fact,
came from Korkmaz. The Utah indictment reveals that Termendzhyan fled
to Turkey in August 2017 on the day state search warrants were
executed on his home and office,” Bozkurt revealed.
“If there was an independent judiciary in Turkey, this would have been
addressed first and foremost by the Turkish criminal justice system,
and Erdogan would have been forced to leave office in disgrace, at the
very least. Most likely he and his thugs would have been sentenced to
prison for breaking about a dozen Turkish laws. That is no longer
possible since the corrupt Turkish president has crippled the
judiciary, destroyed the independent media and suspended the rule of
law in the aftermath of a major graft investigation in December 2013
that uncovered his corrupt practices involving highly controversial
Iranian and Saudi businesspeople. Now we see U.S. judicial action on
Erdogan’s crimes that extended all the way to American soil. This time
he won’t have the political clout to cash in to derail or hush up the
legal cases that implicate him. He unsuccessfully tried before in the
Hakan Atilla case in New York, and he will likely suffer the same fate
in the Utah case as well,” Bozkurt concluded.
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2- Pashinyan Plan Proceeds, Armenian Parliament Triggers Snap Elections
Snap parliamentary elections are to be held in Armenia after the
country’s National Assembly on October 31 for the second time in two
weeks failed to elect a new prime minister in accordance with a
political agreement. President Armen Sarkissian signed a decree on
November 1, calling for early elections on December 9.
The failure of the vote came amid a push by Nikol Pashinyan to force
fresh general elections in December in a bid to unseat his political
opponents, who have maintained a majority in parliament despite the
change of government last May.
Under the Armenian constitution, snap elections can be called only if
the National Assembly fails to elect a prime minister within two weeks
after the prime minister’s resignation. Pashinyan resigned for
tactical reasons on October 16.
The pro-government Yelk Alliance, which holds only nine seats in
parliament, and members of the second-largest parliamentary faction
controlled by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukyan formally nominated
Pashinyan for the second vote, which was held on the assumption that
it would fail due to prior political agreements.
From among 70 lawmakers registered for the session none voted “for” or
“against” Pashinyan’s candidacy. Thirteen lawmakers abstained.
As a result, Pashinyan’s formal bid did not gather enough votes and
the National Assembly will, therefore, be dissolved by virtue of law.
In his speech preceding the vote Pashinyan described the events of
October 31 as historical for Armenia. “What is historical about it is
not that for the first time a parliament in Armenia is dissolved and
we are going to have the first early parliamentary elections in our
country. What is historical about it is that after the nonviolent,
velvet, people’s revolution that took place in April and May, we fully
return the power in the Republic of Armenia to its citizens. We return
to the citizens and the people of the Republic of Armenia the power to
decide the fate of further political processes,” Pashinyan said.
Under the constitution, new elections shall be held no earlier than
within 30 days and no later than within 45 days. Pashinyan will
continue to perform his prime-ministerial duties in the interim.
The political team of Pashinyan, who came to power on the wave of
anti-government demonstrations last spring, is tipped to win the
upcoming polls by a landslide.
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3 - Armenian-American Congresswoman Jackie Speier remembers Jim Jones,
Peoples Temple cult, and surviving the Jonestown massacre
Since 1980, Congresswoman Jackie Speier—the daughter of Nancy
Kanchelian, a genocide survivor, and Manfred Speier—has ascended the
political ranks of California from the San Mateo County Board of
Supervisors, to State Assembly, to State Senate. Speier currently
serves as U.S. Representative for California’s 14th congressional
district. She is also the co-chair of the Congressional Armenian
Caucus, and has been a tireless advocate for the Armenian American
community.
Forty years ago, Speier was nearly killed in a savage attack in Guyana
while on a fact-finding mission into Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple
cult. On November 4, she told CBS Sunday Morning about how that
formative moment changed her.
In November 1978 I was an attorney on the staff of Congressman Leo
Ryan, part of the mission he brought to Guyana to investigate Jim
Jones, the wildly charismatic leader of the Peoples Temple.
We had received credible reports of his followers being abused and
held against their will. The compound was impressive. Members of
Jonestown were certainly saying all the right things, no matter how
rote. But someone slipped us a note asking for help. I felt my stomach
turn into hard knots of terror, as we realized our worst fears about
Jones and his followers were true—and we were in grave danger.
When cameras were rolling, he spoke of how he loved his followers and
would always have a place for them, but off camera he muttered about
treason and liars. He was cracking, and all I wanted to do was get out
of there. Ryan assigned me to escort the first airlift out of
Jonestown. As I was loading defectors on the two planes, a tractor
trailer with seven gunmen arrived at the airstrip.
The gunmen opened fire on us at point-blank range. Five bullets
pierced my body. Congressman Ryan and four others lay dead.
What I didn’t know then was that more than 900 followers of Jones
(including hundreds of children) would later that night ingest cyanide
at his command, an act some call suicide, but I call murder. On
November 18, 1978, 918 people—members of the Peoples Temple of the
Disciples of Christ—died in an act of mass murder-suicide.
I was helped into the baggage compartment for safety and later moved
to a tent on the airstrip where I waited 22 hours for help to arrive.
Surviving against unimaginable odds can make every day that follows
swell with a renewed sense of purpose.
We don’t get to choose our formative moments. Very often, adversity
and failure shape us more permanently than fortune and success. That
has certainly been the case in my life. Pain yields action; it can
introduce a fervor to speak out for those whose voices are not heard.
Surviving Jonestown crystallized where I needed to focus my energy. It
convinced me that I had a purpose: to devote my career to fighting for
the voiceless.
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4 - Armenia Parliament passes unprecedented amnesty bill
(Arka)—An extraordinary session of the National Assembly of Armenia
adopted on October 31 in the first reading a bill on granting the
largest ever amnesty in the history of the country. The bill was
backed by 72 lawmakers.
Acting Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan said amnesty will be
granted to several groups of convicts—including persons sentenced to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years; and persons
sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six years, who are
with disabilities. Amnesty will also extend to imprisoned pregnant
women; those who are parents of three or more children; or parents of
a child under three years of age. Amnesty will also apply to persons
over the age of 60 who committed first time crime under the age of 18.
Amnesty will be granted to persons who committed a crime through
negligence and who face up to five years of imprisonment, as well as
to persons who are accused or suspected of committing crimes that do
not provide for imprisonment.
Amnesty will also be extended to members of the armed group Sasna
Tsrer, who seized a police station in downtown Yerevan in summer 2016,
as well as to members of the Founding Parliament organization, who
were convicted of preparing mass protests in April 2015 led by Zhirayr
Sefilyan.
The amnesty bill does not apply to persons who have committed serious
crimes; to those who were engaged in human trafficking; who prevented
the professional activities of journalists; betrayed the state;
committed terrorist acts and sabotage; and a number of other serious
crimes.
Of the 2,888 convicts in Armenian prisons, 270 will be freed, or about
15 percent; for another 396 the rest of the prison term will be
eliminated. Overall, the amnesty will affect more than 660 convicts.
The amnesty will be extended also to another 2,720 persons sentenced
to probation punishment. It will also be applied to 1,096 out of 6,140
criminal cases being investigated. Some 6,500 people will be granted
amnesty.
As for those sentenced to life imprisonment, Zeynalyan said cases
would be reviewed on an individual basis, since the ministry does not
have the right to revise the sentences handed down.
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5- Vartan Gregorian Receives Honorary Doctorate from King’s
College London
LONDON—As a tribute to individual contributions in science, medicine,
humanities, arts, and mathematics, King’s College London presented
seven distinguished individuals with honorary doctorates during a
special ceremony on October 24 at the London Campus. Vartan Gregorian,
president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, was among the
recipients. King’s recognized him for his longstanding and steadfast
support of the college’s international programs, and in particular,
the Department of War Studies and the African Leadership Centre.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton, vice-chair of King’s College Council, and
Professor Edward Byrne, president and principal of the college,
presided over the award presentation honoring Gregorian and his fellow
honorary graduates.
Invited to speak on behalf of the honorees, Gregorian noted King’s
commitment to high standards, hard work, inspiration, and vision,
starting with its founding in 1829.
“Our universities, our colleges, our libraries, learned societies, and
think tanks, indeed our contemporary scholarship, more than ever, have
a fundamental historical and social responsibility to ensure that we
provide not training but education, not education but culture as well,
not information but its distillation, namely knowledge, in order to
protect our society against counterfeit information disguised as
knowledge,” said Gregorian. “The deeply held belief that knowledge is
essential to independence of mind and will, as well as to the essence
of a democratic society and nation, is a concept that has become a
living credo of educational institutions. As never before, the wealth
of nations now depends on the performance of higher education through
its contributions toward building human capital and accumulated
knowledge.”
King’s College London is a Corporation grantee. It is one of the
United Kingdom’s leading universities, serving more than 30,000
students across nine schools of study.
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6- Sphere of Influence: Karma Ekmekji navigates international
politics, diplomacy
(AGBU)—When Karma Ekmekji feels overwhelmed by the injustice she sees
in the world today, all it takes is an inspirational quote by famed
French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to help her regain her strength
and sense of purpose: “We cannot be responsible and hopeless at the
same time.”
As the head of the International Affairs and Relations Unit at the
Office of the President of the Council of Ministers of Lebanon,
Ekmekji has chosen to take on this great responsibility to help ward
off the potential for hopelessness in war-weary Lebanon of today and
stir hope in the Lebanese citizens of tomorrow. Since 2009, Ekmekji
has served as the international affairs and relations advisor to Saad
Hariri—the prime minister of Lebanon—on all international dossiers. In
addition, she has acted as the primary interface between his office
and the entire diplomatic community. Drawing on experience gained at
the United Nations Special Coordinator’s Office in Beirut and at the
United Nation Secretariat in New York, she jumped at the opportunity
to continue her career in public service by developing and running the
bustling international affairs unit.
Ekmekji’s interest in a political career came about during her
undergraduate years at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where
she now teaches a new generation of up-and-coming diplomats and
politicians in her role as a professor of international affairs and
public policy. “It was at AUB where I had my first experience with
politics—from running in student elections to learning conflict
resolution skills that I still make use of today,” she says. After
graduating from AUB, Ekmekji went on to earn her masters of public
administration in 2006 from Columbia University’s renowned School of
International and Public Affairs (SIPA). For her studies at SIPA, she
received the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award, having been
identified by the United States Department of State as a student with
great potential to improve intercultural relations in her future
career.
In her current position, Ekmekji has gone above and beyond fulfilling
this promise, driven in large part by an undying love for her country:
“I always wanted to find a way to serve Lebanon as best as I could,
and I consider this job the perfect way for me to do just that. I have
a profound conviction that Lebanon’s strong and healthy relations with
the international community are a crucial element for its security as
well as for its political and economic stability. I see my work as a
way to contribute to achieving this goal,” says Ekmekji.
But political and diplomatic work, she admits, also has its
challenges—even beyond the inherent difficulties of navigating
domestic and regional politics. While Ekmekji takes great pride in the
international network that she has worked tirelessly to build,
cultivate and maintain, she notes that it can take years—if not
decades—to see that network grow and mature: “Diplomacy is not a line
of work where there is an immediate reward or instant gratification.
It is very difficult to see day-to-day progress, so there is a
tremendous need for self-motivation. The fruits of our labor today may
only be reaped by our children or grandchildren.” In most sectors, the
key performance indicators are very direct. An entrepreneur, for
instance, can go home each night, open up a spreadsheet to see whether
he or she has made or lost money that day, and then adjust his or her
activities accordingly for the coming days. It is not like that in
diplomacy.
Despite this reality, Ekmekji has not been deterred. Recognized for
her leadership by the British government’s International Leaders
Programme in 2016 and named one of the 99 top foreign policy leaders
under 33 by the Diplomatic Courier in 2012, Ekmekji has never let the
frustrations of international politics get her down. Instead, she has
overcome them, guided by the strong work ethic of her parents and
grandparents, who, in her eyes, have been paragons of perseverance and
resilience in the face of hardship. “My parents and grandparents are
self-made people. Like so many other Armenians, they worked very hard
to flee genocide and war to be able to build their careers here in
Lebanon. They have always remained determined and these traits were
definitely sown and nurtured in me while I was growing up.”
AGBU also played a major role in helping to instill these essential
values in Ekmekji from an early age—values that she continues to draw
on both in her professional life and in her personal life, as a mother
to two young boys, Raï and Yann. “I learned about AGBU very early on
in my life. My family and I were very involved in the organization in
both Beirut and Paris. Being an AGBU scout and a member of the AGBU
Antranik girls’ basketball team as a child and teenager taught me
principles like teamwork, patience and discipline that have all served
me well in my career today,” says Ekmekji.
Throughout her career, however, she has noticed the gender imbalance
in her field and the scarcity of female role models around her. As a
way to improve and equalize this gender ratio, Ekmekji has taken it
upon herself to do her part by empowering women to be more engaged in
foreign policy and international affairs. Harnessing the power of
Instagram to reach a younger audience of burgeoning diplomats, Ekmekji
recently launched Diplowomen, an initiative that highlights the
accomplishments and day-to-day responsibilities of women politicians
and diplomats from around the world.
When talking to young men and women who aspire to enter the fields of
diplomacy and public service, Ekmekji has the same words of advice for
them both: “Diplomacy is a very demanding career that requires a lot
of passion and humility. You must work quietly and discreetly for the
collective good—not for self-recognition. If you are seeking fame and
glory, you would best look elsewhere. Time alone will be the greatest
judge of a diplomat’s work.”
This article appeared on August 1, 2018 in The Insider, a publication of AGBU.
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7- CK Garabed ‘Dictionary of Armenian Surnames’ to be Released Online
TEANECK, N.J.—After years in the making, The Dictionary of Armenian
Surnames, researched and compiled by Armenian Weekly newspaper
columnist C.K. Garabed, will be available online.
The occasion will be marked with a slide lecture called “What’s in a
Name? The Etymology of Armenian Surnames” to be delivered by Garabed
at St. Illuminator’s Pashalian Hall on Sunday, December 9, following
the Divine Liturgy.
Garabed will discuss the origins of Armenian surnames and the
detective work involved in researching name derivations with examples
of some highly unusual surnames. The program will start at 1 p.m. and
is sponsored by the Regional Executive of the Hamazkayin Armenian
Educational & Cultural Society and St. Illuminator’s Armenian
Apostolic Cathedral.
“C.K. Garabed,” pen name of Charles Garabed Kasbarian, is the
columnist behind “Uncle Garabed’s Notebook,” which is in its 30th year
in The Armenian Weekly.
This dictionary project first came about when, in the late 1970s,
Garabed started collecting names from church directories and donor
lists as a hobby. To date, more than 10,000 names have been compiled,
but not all of them defined. While curiosity was his first motivation
for exploring the subject of Armenian family names, Garabed then came
to appreciate the diverse nature of Armenian surnames, which appear to
cover the gamut of our ancestors’ life activities in the Old
Country.To make the Dictionary widely accessible, Garabed has decided
to post the work on Armeniapedia so that it will be available to all
at no charge, and he can continue to update it.
In due course, the Dictionary will be available here:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Armenian_Surnames_(In_Process)
To carry out his work, Garabed consults Hrachia Adjarian’s Root
Dictionary and Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Language;
Tigran Avetisyan’s Dictionary of Armenian Surnames; Stepan
Malkhasian’s Explanatory Dictionary; dictionaries in Arabic, Armenian,
Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Greek, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish;
other volumes; and many knowledgeable people to whom he is grateful.
“I was struck by how many Armenians didn’t know the meaning of their
names,” says Garabed. “While I am not a linguist nor philologist, it
still gives me great pleasure to conduct research in my modest amateur
capacity and then pass on the results. I feel gratified in helping
people learn more about their names.”
Whenever Garabed came across a particularly unusual name and he knew a
person carrying that name, he would ask that person what s/he knew
about its provenance. Those who were familiar with the origins of
their name would oblige Garabed by telling him what they knew. Garabed
had begun writing a column for The Armenian Weekly newspaper in 1989
but it wasn’t until 2004 that he began to include in each week’s
column an Armenian surname, its definition and background. This
resulted in many readers contacting him who wanted to know if he could
tell them what their own family names meant, as they didn’t know.
If Garabed was able to oblige, he did so. And so his ultimate aim
evolved from deciphering names for his own satisfaction to publishing
the results for the interest and pleasure of his fellow Armenians. In
recent years, people of part-Armenian ancestry have begun to discover
their ancestral roots via genealogy tests. As such, Garabed hopes that
they, too, may find this Dictionary helpful.
“With names like Bajaksouzian (which means legless; assigned to a
short man), Soghanyemezian (which means one who does not eat onions),
and Srmakeshkhanlian (which means owner/worker of a factory where
gold/ silver thread is drawn), I sometimes think we Armenians, more
than any other ethnic group, possess the most fascinating surnames,”
Garabed says. One can observe that an Armenian name can denote a
number of things about the carrier of that name: aristocracy,
patronymic, occupation; geographic origin; physical traits; other
special circumstances; and those assigned in derision by Turkish
officials.
Why would people perpetuate strange, unusual or uncomplimentary names
when it would be easy to just change them? Garabed explains, “People
often are attached to their names because it gives them a sense of
continuity and tradition. There’s also the desire to honor their
martyrs by perpetuating the memory of their identity as Armenian
Christians. We should be grateful to our fellow Armenians for
retaining their names as eloquent historical testimony to the
oppressions their ancestors suffered at the hands of the Turks. Had
the Armenians not clung to their names, I might not be working on such
a project today.”
Prior to publishing this Dictionary online, Garabed produced, in 2013,
The Dikranagerdtsi Vernacular Handbook. Other books by Garabed in the
publishing process include An Unusual Look at Biblical Subjects; The
Tales of Nasreddin Khodja; The Tale of Shah Ismail; and The
Dikranagerd Mystique Armenian Cookbook.
Says Garabed of The Dictionary of Armenian Surnames, “Like everything
else, there are bound to be missing names, explanations and even
errors, in which case readers are encouraged to bring them to the
attention of the author.” Garabed can be reached at [email protected].
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8- Commentary:
Hrant Dink and Jamal Khashoggi
By Ergun Babahan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reacted to murder of Saudi
dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul
consulate last month completely differently to the killing of Turkish
Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink in 2007.
Dink was not killed in a consulate, but rather openly in the heart of
Istanbul as a warning to Armenians. Dink had even predicted it would
happen and police also had intelligence ahead of the killing, but no
one raised so much as a finger to stop it. One more name was added to
the list of many thousands of Armenians killed in this country.
In the eyes of many in Turkey, Dink had committed a grave sin by
providing proof of the Armenian genocide through Cumhuriyet, one of
Turkey’s most prominent newspapers. Mentioning the Armenian genocide
in which the Ottoman government killed about 1.5 million Armenian
citizens during the First World War is taboo in Turkey.
So is bringing up links between the Republican People’s Party (CHP) of
Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the Committee of Union
and Progress, the Ottoman political party that ordered and organised
the genocide. Many of the committee’s members took up prominent posts
after the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
Dink broke these taboos. His lawyers allege he was killed by a network
that included members of the civilian and military bureaucracy,
intelligence agency and members of the Gülen movement, a shadowy group
of followers of U.S.-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gülen that
infiltrated the state and was eventually blamed for launching the 2016
failed coup.
As we approach the 12th anniversary of his murder, the ruling party
still has not made enough effort to shine a light on the reason for
his death. On the contrary, it has aided a cover up.
Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have not taken as
much responsibility for investigating the death of their fellow
citizen as they have for the murder of Khashoggi.
Dink’s murder was pinned on a hit man and those who were really
responsible have never been brought to justice. The case has been left
to rot.
This horrible murder left a deep wound in the collective psyche of
Turkish society and hundreds of thousands took to the streets, but
their rage and demand for justice was unanswered.
It was a copy of the murder of Ottoman journalist Hasan Fehmi Bey, a
critic of the Committee of Union and Progress, on the Galata Bridge in
Istanbul on April 6, 1909. The murderous mindset of those who made the
decision was the same.
Khashoggi, on the other hand, was a Saudi citizen. Strangely enough,
he chose Turkey, which violates press freedom and democratic norms, as
his base and Erdoğan as his protector while he tried to bring
democracy and freedom of the press to his home country. While he was a
U.S. resident, Khashoggi had recently purchased a home in Istanbul
where he planned to live with his Turkish fiancé.
Khashoggi’s murder, apparently recorded by Turkish intelligence
services, was a challenge to Erdoğan, who is likely to have felt
denigrated by the murder. The fact that the Saudis were brazen enough
to carry out such an act showed that they took neither Turkey nor
Erdoğan seriously. But Khashoggi was a writer for the Washington Post
who validated the liberal American media’s distaste for the Saudis.
Erdoğan expertly used leaks to squeeze Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman and U.S. President Donald Trump into a corner and forced the
Saudi prince to call the Turkish president and the head of the CIA to
visit in person.
After that day, the leaks stopped. Khashoggi’s murder disappeared from
the agenda of Turkish state media. The Turkish public, led by the
media, also stopped following the affair, along with the Turkish
opposition.
Erdoğan either got what he wanted from the Saudis, or as some have
claimed received a serious threat. Whatever the reason, he immediately
relinquished all responsibility for solving the murder.
It was foolish to expect an Islamist who has put hundreds of
journalists in prison, closed down dozens of newspapers and television
channels that opposed him to stick to principles. But the fact that
Erdoğan has defended the Saudi reputation by going silent and allowing
a protector of journalism and the free press to be killed is a crime
against history.
Erdoğan is an authoritarian leader who has extinguished freedom of
_expression_ and democracy. This is a fact that should be brought to the
fore and thrust in his face at every opportunity.
This article appeared in Ahval News on November 1, 2018.
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