Month: September 2020

Armenian Massacres Helped Shape U.S. Foreign Policy: Prof. CharlieLaderman

Bedik Zaminian
Kocharyan’s Sham Trial Must Come to an End
Published on 13 September 2020

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LONDON — Prof. Charlie Laderman and his path breaking work, “Sharing the Burden. The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order,” (OUP), 2019, were a topic of discussion among leading scholars working on the Armenian Genocide. Hosted by Ara Sarafian and Vincent Lima, this was an “In Conversation” session of the Gomidas Institute on 2 September 2020. Prof. Laderman was joined by two other distinguished guests, Prof. Vicken Cheterian, (University of Geneva and Webster University, Geneva) and John Evans, former US ambassador to Yerevan. The panel discussion is now available online.

Opening with an illustrated presentation, Prof. Laderman touched on three critical points which framed the debate that followed.

  1. The little known 1896 Congressional resolution protesting against the massacre of 100,000 Ottoman Armenians under Abdul Hamid II. This was a major milepost in US foreign policy and reflected important shifts in US politics, including an interest in the “Armenian Question” as it was known at the time.

  2. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 and United States efforts to save the victims during the killings or their aftermath. These efforts included the creation of Near East Relief by an Act of Congress (1918), as well as intense debates around the possibility of the United States assuming a mandate for an independent Armenian state (1920).

  3. The 2019 Congressional resolution affirming United States recognition of the Armenian Genocide and calling for “education and public understanding of the facts of the Armenian Genocide, including the role of the United States in humanitarian relief efforts…” The inclusion of “education and public understanding” in the resolution was seen as a significant opportunity. Serious engagement with scholars like Prof. Laderman who put the Genocide in the context of evolving U.S. foreign policy can be an important way of taking full advantage of the resolution.

Laderman’s discussion covered US domestic politics (and the position of senators, presidential candidates and presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding), imperial rivalries and alliances (mainly between Great Britain and the United States), and the impact of a devastating world war.

The discussion that followed touched on the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 and developing case law; the duty of states to act in genocidal and pre-genocidal cases for purposes of prevention or punishment; third party intervention and differing victimisers’ and victims perspectives; the persecution of Armenian, Assyrians, Yezidis and Kurds in the Middle East today; Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and its failure to oppose the 2019 Congressional resolution; the political significance of the latter resolution and the opportunities it presents lobbyists for future action; and the lessons one can draw from the failure of the United States and others to protect Armenians in a more successful manner between 1895 and 1923.

All participants thanked Prof. Laderman for his work as a critical reference for our understanding of the Armenian Question, humanitarian intervention, and Anglo-American visions of global order circa 1900-1923.
Gomidas Institute

“Armenian Massacres Helped Shape U.S. Foreign Policy: Laderman,” YouTube.

[see video]

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 09/17/2020

Ani Basmajian 
                                        Thursday, 

Former Armenian Police Chief Charged Over Threats To RFE/RL Reporters


Armenia - Armenian Police Chief Vladimir Gasparian meets with police officers in 
Kotayk region,23Feb,2017

Former Armenian Police Chief Vladimir Gasparian has been indicted for 
threatening two RFE/RL Armenian Service journalists and obstructing their work 
on a report about government plans to dismantle private houses illegally 
constructed near Lake Sevan.
Gasparian on August 8 drove his vehicle in the direction of the reporters, 
almost running over them, after seeing that they were filming his luxury house 
located in the lakeside area. He threatened them with violence and, using 
offensive language, forced them to erase their footage.

RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported the incident to the police, which Gasparian 
headed for seven years before being dismissed after the change of the country’s 
government in May 2018.

"We demand that police investigate the incident, and that Mr. Gasparian be held 
accountable for endangering journalists who were simply doing their jobs," 
RFE/RL's acting President Daisy Sindelar said in a statement.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee said on Thursday that Gasparian has been 
formally charged with “obstruction of legitimate professional activities of 
journalists,” a crime punishable by fines and up to year one of corrective 
labor. In a statement, the law-enforcement agency said the former police chief 
has signed a written pledge not to leave the country pending investigation.

Gasparian denied any wrongdoing following the incident. He did not immediately 
react to the indictment.


Armenia - A view of Lake Sevan, July 24, 2018.

The Investigative Committee announced on September 2 that it has launched a 
separate inquiry into the legality of Gasparian’s villa and other lakeside 
properties making up a vast compound. It said some of the properties may have 
been built and officially registered in violation of Armenian laws strictly 
regulating construction in the environmentally sensitive area.

Newly appointed Environment Minister Romanos Petrosian said last month that 
authorities will soon start dismantling illegal constructions near Lake Sevan. 
Several other former high-ranking officials also reportedly own houses located 
there.



NGO Activists Hit Back At Pashinian

        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (C) talks to deputies from hs My Step 
bloc during a parliament session, Yerevan, .

Representatives of several civic groups deplored on Thursday Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian’s angry reaction to their criticism of the choice of three new 
members of Armenia’s Constitutional Court confirmed by the parliament.

The Western-funded non-governmental organizations voiced earlier this week 
serious concerns over two of those justices nominated by Pashinian’s government 
and a national convention of judges, saying that they were linked to Armenia’s 
former leadership.

One of them, Yervand Khundkarian, has headed the Court of Cassation for the last 
two years while the other, Edgar Shatirian, taught law at a university. Some 
civic activists claim that their election on Tuesday by the Armenian parliament 
controlled by the ruling My Step bloc constituted a betrayal of the goals of the 
2018 “Velvet Revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.

The prime minister blasted the critics when he spoke in the National Assembly on 
Wednesday. He charged that they are primarily concerned with their own parochial 
interests, rather than the rule of law. He also said they cannot act like 
“ardent defenders of the revolution’s values” because they played no part in the 
popular uprising in the first place.

Daniel Ioannisian of the Union of Informed Citizens challenged Pashinian to name 
names instead of “talking abstractly about everyone.”

Ioannisian said he and other disgruntled activists have a moral right to speak 
up on the matter because of their history of human rights advocacy in the 
country. Besides, he said, many of Pashinian’s own loyalists used to work for 
the former regime or did not participate in the revolution for other reasons.

“Even if some group wanted to see some people join the Constitutional Court, 
what’s wrong with that?” said Levon Barseghian, the head of the Gyumri-based 
Asparez Journalists’ Club.

Barseghian insisted that Pashinian’s administration made “bad decisions” 
regarding the new Constitutional Court members. “The constitutional crisis in 
the country has not been solved,” he said. “The crisis was not about replacing 
three judges. At issue are radical reforms, including a reform of the 
Constitutional Court.”

For more than a year, Pashinian was locked in a standoff with seven of the nine 
Constitutional Court judges installed before the revolution. He pressured them 
to resign, accusing them of maintaining close ties to the country’s “corrupt” 
former rulers and impeding his judicial reforms.

Three of those judges were controversially ousted as a result of constitutional 
amendments enacted by the current authorities in June. The amendments also 
required Hrayr Tovmasian to quit as court chairman but remain a judge.

Tovmasian and the ousted judges refused to step down, saying that their removal 
is illegal and politically motivated. They appealed to the European Court of 
Human Rights (ECHR) to have them reinstated.



Parliament Majority Stands By Embattled Minister

        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia -- Supporters of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party demand 
Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian's resignation, Yerevan, .

The Armenian parliament voted down on Thursday an opposition motion to seek 
Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian’s dismissal after a heated debate that 
sparked a fresh war of words between the ruling political team and the 
opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK).

Harutiunian has faced in recent weeks small-scale street protests staged by 
various extra-parliamentary opposition groups and activists. They are 
particularly unhappy with new guidelines for the teaching of Armenian history, 
literature and other subjects in schools, which were issued by his ministry this 
summer.

The protesters claim that those guidelines are at odds at with traditional 
Armenian values. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports denies this and 
cites the need to update school curricula.

Harutiunian defended his policies at a news conference on Wednesday. He said 
that the ministry has been constructively discussing the guidelines with 
teachers across the country and has received more than 2,000 proposals from 
them. He also claimed that some veteran academics oppose the declared reforms 
because they have been stripped of lavish funding that had been provided to them 
by Armenia’s former government.


Armenia -- Education Minister Arayik Harutyunian at a news conference, Yerevan, 


The two opposition groups represented in the parliament added their voice to the 
calls for Harutiunian’s resignation. They forced later on Wednesday a parliament 
debate on their proposal to petition Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to sack the 
minister and his longtime political ally.

The National Assembly rejected the motion by 84 votes to 35. Deputies from 
Pashinian’s My Step bloc, which controls 88 parliament seats, voiced strong 
support for the embattled minister during the debate.

Their colleagues representing the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK) accused 
Harutiunian of mismanaging the country’s education system. One of them, Gevorg 
Gorgisian, alleged that the current authorities are bullying and firing 
schoolteachers for political reasons.

Harutiunian, who is a senior member of My Step, strongly denied that. “For the 
past 30 years our teachers have never been as free as they are now,” declared 
the 41-year-old former university lecturer.

Harutiunian went on to trade insults with lawmakers from the opposition 
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), who charged that he promoted “perversion” by 
meeting with a transgender activist in his office in 2018. He hit back by 
seemingly pointing to BHK leader Gagik Tsarukian’s past criminal record.


Armenia -- Prosperous Armena Party leader Gagik Tsarukian speaks to journalists 
in parliament, Yerevan, June 16, 2020.

A Soviet Armenian court had convicted Tsarukian of involvement in a 1979 gang 
rape of two women outside Yerevan and sentenced him to 7 years in prison. Newly 
independent Armenia’s Court of Cassation overturned the guilty verdict in the 
mid-1990s.

The BHK’s parliamentary group condemned Harutiunian and boycotted the 
government’s ensuing question-and-answer session in the National Assembly in 
protest.

Pashinian endorsed Harutiunian’s thinly veiled attack on Tsarukian the following 
morning. “It’s hard to disagree with the minister,” he wrote on Facebook.

Tsarukian responded by calling for a constitutional amendment that would bar 
“individuals with serious mental problems” from holding high-level government 
posts.

Tsarukian, who is also a wealthy businessman, was stripped of his parliamentary 
immunity from prosecution and charged with vote buying in June. He strongly 
denies the accusation, saying that Pashinian ordered it in response to his calls 
for the government’s resignation.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

CivilNet: iGorts Diaspora Program Kicks Off in Armenia

Elizabeth Jabejian
CIVILNET.AM

21:04

The iGorts program, designed by the Office of Armenia’s High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs, brings professional Armenians from various fields throughout the diaspora to work in Armenia’s government institutions.

CivilNet’s Ani Paitjan talks with High Commissioner Zareh Sinanyan and program participants from Austria and Canada about the goals and expectations of the program. 

CivilNet: Lebanese Armenians Became the Target of Azerbaijani Attacks

Karapet Navasardian
CIVILNET.AM

11:18

In a statement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Artsakh Masis Mayilian said that Lebanese Armenians families who have resettled in Nagorno Karabakh were an unacceptable target of Azerbaijani Attacks. 

"We consider it inadmissible for the victims of the Beirut humanitarian catastrophe to become the target of attacks and political manipulations by the Azerbaijani authorities.

The comments come in the wake of a recent complaint of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry submitted to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen, in which an attempt was made to present the decision of several Lebanese Armenian families to settle in Artsakh as a violation of international humanitarian law.

“The authorities of the Artsakh Republic are interested in the preservation of the Armenian community in Lebanon, but at the same time, within the framework of their sovereign right, we will provide the necessary support to our compatriots in a difficult situation, who will wish to come and settle in our republic,” Mayilian said.

Artsakh has joined the global effort to assist the Lebanese Armenian community since the August 4 blast in Beirut, which has left hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.  More than 1300 Lebanese-Armenians have flown to Armenia and Karabakh since early September, 850 intend to stay long-term, according to the Armenian High Commissioner of Diaspora  Affairs Zareh Sinanyan. Several more Lebanese-Armenian families have moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the President Arayik Harutyunyan. 

No verified information about resettlement of Lebanese Armenians in Karabakh, Maria Zakharova says

Yeghisabet Arthur
Panorama, Armenia
Sept 17 2020

"We have seen reports about the resettlement plans of the Nagorno Karabakh de facto authorities for Armenians who left Lebanon. We have also seen reports that two Lebanese-Armenian families have expressed desire to resettle in Nagorno Karabakh," Spokeswoman at Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told at a briefing on Thursday. "However, we do not possess verified information about the real influx of Lebanese Armenians into Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding territories," added Zakharova.

Her comments came at a request of Azerbaijani reporter to comment on the issues.

In the words of the Russian diplomat, the time is now to concentrate on resumption of the peace process, including on issues of refugees and internally displaced persons in Karabakh.

Zakharova next recalled the latest consultation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs with Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs and the proposal to hold separate talks with the Co-Chairs. The Russian diplomat expressed hope for a positive feedback from the sides.


European Commission urges Turkey not to intimidate neighboring countries

Yeghisabet Vorskanian
Panorama, Armenia
Sept 17 2020

The European Union understands Turkey’s difficulties, but does not consider them to be an excuse for its aggressive behavior in the region, Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday in the European Parliament.

"Yes, Turkey has a problematic neighborhood. And yes, it accepts millions of refugees, for which we support it with significant funding. But none of this can justify its attempts to intimidate its neighbors," von der Leyen said.

Head of the European Commission noted that although Turkey is geographically close to the European Union and will always be its close neighbor, the misunderstanding between Ankara and Brussels is growing.

"Turkey is and always will be an important neighbor, but although we are geographically close, the distance between us is likely to continue to grow," she said.

Von der Leyen also added that Greece and Cyprus "can always count on European solidarity in protecting their sovereign rights."

Turkey has recently been actively searching for deposits in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, which has led to tensions with Greece, Cyprus and other European countries, which believe that the Turkish side is looking for deposits in areas not belonging to it.



Armenia To Tighten Gambling Laws With Location Restrictions

Yeghisabet Arthur
inkedin
Sept 17 2020
17th September 2020 by Josh Stewart

It is confirmed that Armenia is tightening its gambling laws, with steps that affect both the location and size of betting venues.

Reported by Armenian media outlets, Finance Minister Atom Janjughazyan announced during a government meeting that bookmakers would now be allowed to operate only at locations that are some distance away from ‘heavily populated areas, as well as educational or cultural institutions, government offices or hospitals.’

As it stands, bookmakers are licenced to operate in Armenia, with most of the venues within heavily populated residential areas.

However, the new regulations mean that Yerevan bookmakers would need to move their offices to more than 150 metres away from the areas mentioned. Elsewhere, the distance is 100 metres, with the exception of the Syunik, Meghri and Tavush administrative centres, where the limit is set at 50 metres.

Janjughazyan said: “This is negatively impacting the society by creating the dangers of easily being allured with gambling. In particular, such facilities should have additional premises, in particular, a foyer, which is to be separated from the general gambling hall for checking the IDs of people.”


Armenia passes a law for keeping bookmakers away from populated areas

John Hovhannisian
The Indian Wire
Sept 17 2020
shrutichaturvedi

Government of Armenia on September 17 has passed a decision where bookmakers would be kept at a certain distance from main stream population. The Armenian Government has done so with the view to prevent the people from being allured by bookmakers and to prevent losses of money.

Bookmakers will have to relocate their offices which would be at least 150 meters away from populated areas such as educational institutions, historic-cultural institution, state and local self governing offices and hospitals. The distance is 100 meter elsewhere, with the exception of administrative centers of Syunik, Meghri and Tavush where the limit is set at 50 meters, reported ArmenPress.

Finance Minister of Armenia, Atom Janjughazyan said at the Cabinet meeting that, “Currently bookmakers have offices mostly in heavily populated areas. This is negatively impacting the society by creating the dangers of easily being allured with gambling”, reported ArmenPress.

The authorities stated that they have developed the law after studying international practices.