Author: Andres-Papazian

JEWISH PROFESSORS CALL TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

AZG DAILY #228
10-12-2010

Armenian Genocide

A group of Jewish professors in the United States and Israel has called
on the Jewish State to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide by
the Ottoman Turks during and just after World War I.

According to the Firat news agency, four professors from Washington’s
Georgetown University and Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan sent
their request in a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
after the clash between Israeli Naval commandos and Muslim
terrorists on the Turkish-sponsored flotilla ship, the Mavi Marmara,
israelnationalnews.com reported.

The petition included a call to grant autonomy for the millions of
Kurds who currently live in Turkey.

The Armenian massacres also included mass deportations consisting
of forced marches intended to kill the deportees. On April 24, 1915
the Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and
community leaders in Constantinople, igniting what eventually became
known as the Armenian Genocide.

The Ottoman military authorities subsequently proceeded to uproot
Armenians from their homes and forced them to march without food or
water for hundreds of miles to the desert of present-day Syria.

Some 1 to 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered between 1915 and
1923; subsequently those who fled formed the majority of Armenian
diaspora communities.

The Republic of Turkey, which later succeeded the Ottoman Empire,
refuses to validate Armenian claims that the events of their history
constituted a genocide.

However, 26 countries and 44 states of the United States of America
have recognized the massacres as a genocide, although as yet, the
State of Israel is not among them.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN MAYOR QUITS OVER BUST-UP AT DOMINGO CONCERT

Agence France Presse
December 8, 2010 Wednesday 4:28 PM GMT
YEREVAN

The mayor of the Armenian capital Yerevan tendered his resignation
on Wednesday after allegations that he assaulted a top presidential
aide during a concert by opera star Placido Domingo.

Gagik Beglarian “presented a statement of resignation from his post,”
said a statement released by Yerevan City Hall after the bust-up
last Friday.

The resignation still needs to be approved by the city council but
that is seen as a formality.

Armenian media have reported that the mayor abducted and beat the
presidential protocol officer, Aram Kandaian, after a disagreement
between the two men at a concert by Domingo in Yerevan.

Beglarian has come in for heavy criticism from President Serzh
Sarkisian over the incident, with his behaviour being described as
“unacceptable”.

“The president of Armenia has repeatedly expressed his position about
such action,” said presidency spokesman Armen Arzumanian.

“Such behaviour is unacceptable and intolerable, and even more so in
the case of a state official.”

The president’s spokesman confirmed that a violent incident had taken
place, but said it had been exaggerated by the media.

“In particular, there was no kidnapping and brutal beating, but the
incident definitely took place,” he said.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA JOINS WTO GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT AGREEMENT

Mediamax
Dec 7 2010
Armenia

Yerevan, 7 December: At its 7 December session in Geneva, the World
Trade Organization (WTO) Committee on Government Procurement made a
unanimous decision on Armenia’s accession to Agreement on Government
Procurements. Thus, the Armenian delegation has accomplished the
process of negotiations on the country’s membership of the WTO
Agreement on Government Procurements, the press service of the Armenian
Ministry of Economy told the Mediamax news agency.

In his speech, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said that the public
administration policy of the Armenian government is in line with main
principles of the WTO, in particular, in the sphere of government
purchases.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN INTEREST RATES REMAIN STEADY DESPITE ACCELERATING AND FAR ABOVE-TARGET INFLATION
BYLINE: Venla Sipila

Global Insight
December 8, 2010

The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) has in its December meeting decided
to keep its refinancing rate stable at 7.25%, Reuters reports. This
was the seventh month when a similar decision has been taken, and the
announcement came in spite of inflation continuing to run far above
the CBA’s target rate of 4% with a fluctuation corridor of 1.5% on
either side. Indeed, according to the latest inflation figures from
the Armenian National Statistical Agency, consumer prices in November
soared by 9.6% year-on-year (y/y), inflation thus still further
accelerating from the October rate of 9.1% y/y. In month-on-month
(m/m) comparison, prices rose by 1.6%, following a gain of 1.0%
m/m seen in October. As has been the case in the recent months,
the rapid price gain was lead by surging food prices.

Significance:The CBA has accompanied its recent announcements of stable
policy rates in conditions of high and acceleration inflation by its
notion that the strengthening of inflation pressures is expected to
be temporary. This is because they mainly are the result of external
effects. Indeed, the supply-side impact from soaring food prices
has played a key part in the recent marked inflation acceleration
in Armenia. While the same can be said for most countries in the
region, this phenomenon has played a particularly notable part in
Armenia, where food still features in a very large role in the overall
consumption basket. Meanwhile, demand pressures are still fairly weak
in the economy which is recovering from a devastatingly deep recession
in 2009. However, some inflation risks are also still present from
exchange-rate developments, given the wide external deficit.

From: A. Papazian

BAKU EQUATED KARABAKH RESIDENTS WITH TERRORISTS
by Yuri Roks

WPS Agency
December 8, 2010 Wednesday
Russia

Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 8, 2010, p. 7
[translated from Russian]

AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN MEDIA: FULL-SCALE WAR IS FEARED; Azerbaijan
and Armenia: political scientists tend to dismiss militarist calls
in the media as insignificant.

Azerbaijani and Armenian media outlets featured statements made by
senior functionaries of their respective states showing that the two
countries were prepared for a full-scale shooting war. Representatives
of the Azerbaijani establishment talked the necessity of an
counter-terrorism operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan and
Stepanakert promised “adequate response” to the aggression. Media
reports even indicated that Azerbaijani and Armenian diasporas were
mobilizing volunteers.

Restricted to the media for the time being, escalation of tension
began right after the OSCE summit in Astana on December 1 and 2 which
political scientists almost unanimously called a waste of time.

Renewal of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh might appear inevitable
to an outsider. Not even the rumored appearance of volunteers from
abroad is an exaggeration. After all, mercenaries already fought in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian Islamic Committee Chairman Heydar Jemal
meanwhile announced that the problem of Karabakh should have been
settled by force long ago, without endless and pointless negotiations.

That his statement did nothing to deescalate tension need not be said.

The situation does look like a stalemate. Azerbaijan remains unable
to achieve a breakthrough in talks and push into the foreground the
principle of territorial integrity under whose aegis, Baku believes,
Nagorno-Karabakh ought to invoke its right to self-determination.

Armenia keeps saying that Karabakh already invoked this right and
expressed its will in two referendums. Yerevan complains that the
international community is unwilling to honor the choice made by the
people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“I’m prepared to challenge the assumption that the OSCE summit was
an absolute failure. At the very least, some progress was made in
the process of Karabakh conflict resolution. What I mean is that
presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed the Muskoka Declaration
that outlines the Madrid Principles,” said Stepan Grigorjan, the head
of the Globalization and Regional Cooperation Center (Yerevan).

The G8 summit in Huntsville, Canada, this June adopted the so called
Muskoka Declaration of presidents of the countries comprising the OSCE
Minsk Group (Russia, France, United States). The document stands for
the return of territories around Nagorno-Karabakh; interim status for
Nagorno-Karabakh that will ensure its security and self-governance;
corridor linking Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh; final determination
of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh in a legally binding referendum;
return of refugees; international guarantees of security including
peacekeeping operation. The document advises the involved parties to
abstain from actions and statements that might compromise stability.

“In other words, Ilham Aliyev and Serj Sargsjan confirmed the resolve
to tackle the problem by peaceful means. And yet, Azerbaijani and
Armenian societies do include the so called irreconcilable, the people
who will object to all and any compromises. It is no wonder that we’ve
been hearing these militarist calls, and we will be hearing them yet,”
said Grigorjan.

A political scientist who visited both countries the other day
said that Azerbaijani and Armenian societies were quite radical and
determined not to make a single concession to the other country.

Experts in both countries are more or less evenly divided between
those who stand for negotiations and trust-building measures and
whose who object to them. “Remember the meeting of the presidents of
Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia in Astrakhan? It was called a waste
of time too, but it was not. The agreements made there did have a
healing effect on the situation in general… An Armenian church was
restored in Baku. That was a gesture aimed to build up trust between
the two countries. Many more steps like that are needed though,”
said Grigorjan.

Azerbaijani political scientist and lawmaker Rasim Musabekov said that
there had been periods of even worse tension between Baku and Yerevan
in the past. “Analysis of media reports plainly exposes this whole
campaign as a deliberate attempt to escalate tension. That’s not what
I call productive,” said Musabekov. “As for the summit in Astana…

all I can say is that the presidents joined the Muskoka Declaration
and thus pledged to continue to look for a compromise without going
to war.”

From: A. Papazian

TRIAL OF GERMAN-TURKISH AUTHOR SLAMMED AS ‘REVENGE’
by Volker Hage ; Daniel Steinvorth

Spiegel Online International
December 8, 2010 Wednesday 8:45 AM GMT+1
Germany

After living in exile in Germany for 19 years, German-Turkish writer
Dogan Akhanli flew to Istanbul to visit his dying father, but was
arrested at the airport. The Turkish state has a score to settle with
the author, who is accused of involvement in a robbery and a murder.

Akhanli’s supporters claim the trial, which begins Wednesday,
is politically motivated and a judicial disgrace.;
,1518,733447,00.html

The Tekirdag prison stands like a fortress in the barren, empty hills
of Thrace, the European part of Turkey. The facility, a two-hour drive
west of Istanbul, is one of the most modern and well-guarded prisons
in the country. The prisoners incarcerated there are usually members of
the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or were involved in organized
crime. Tekirdag is a place where enemies of the state are locked up.

Turkish prosecutors consider the man currently occupying cell AIT
77 in the prison’s Block A to also be a dangerous criminal. They
claim that Dogan Akhanli, a 53-year-old German-Turkish author,
attempted to “violently undermine the constitutional order,” and
was also responsible for a murder and an attempted robbery. If the
prosecutors prevail in court, the Cologne-based author could receive
a life sentence.

In reality, the Akhanli case is a judicial disgrace. Even by Turkish
standards, the evidence against a prominent prisoner has rarely been as
thin and the political motives for an arrest so obvious. German friends
of the writer, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass,
the legendary undercover journalist Günter Wallraff and leading Green
Party politician Claudia Roth, say the case is motivated by “revenge
on the part of certain Turkish legal circles.”

The trial begins on Wednesday in the Besiktas jury court in Istanbul.

Wallraff, who is highly respected in Turkey due to his famous book on
Turkish guest workers in Germany, “Ganz unten” (“Lowest of the Low”),
plans to attend. “I feel very much needed there, in a personal way,”
he says. “I hope that the court recognizes that there is no basis
whatsoever for a conviction.”

‘I Expected It’

On Aug. 10, 2010, Akhanli returned to Turkey after 19 years in German
exile. His father was on his deathbed. Akhanli was aware of the risk
he was taking, knowing that he is seen as a traitor to his country in
Turkey. He was arrested before he could even leave the airport. “I
expected it,” he said. “But I also expected to be released after a
short time and not to face the possibility of being locked up for
life. I thought my country was freer and more democratic today.”

Akhanli’s story begins in the turbulent 1980s. As a left-wing
political activist, he joined the illegal Revolutionary Communist
Party of Turkey (TDKP) after the 1980 military coup and became an
underground fighter against the ruling junta. He was arrested in 1985,
convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and tortured at
the notorious military prison in Istanbul.

The regime released Akhanli after three years, but it kept him under
surveillance as a potential enemy of the state. In 1991, he and his
wife and two children fled to Germany, where he was granted political
asylum. He began writing in Cologne, where he penned his trilogy
“Kayip Denizler” (“The Disappearance of the Sea”), in which he takes
an unsparing look at his country’s history.

In the trilogy, Akhanli deals at length with the question of why
violence, torture and despotism are still a reality in Turkey today.

The author is convinced that the reasons lie in Turkey’s denial
and repression of the Armenian genocide. In the third volume of the
trilogy, the only one that has been translated into German so far,
“Kiyamet Gunu Yargiclari” (“The Judges of the Last Judgment”), Akhanli
describes the first genocide of the 20th century. In doing so, he
commits an egregious violation of a Turkish taboo.

Confession Withdrawn

The author wasn’t exactly surprised when friends in Turkey told him
that his name was on a Turkish wanted list. Akhanli is suspected of
involvement in an armed robbery that resulted in the death of a person.

The robbery in question was committed at an Istanbul currency exchange
office in October 1989. A man was killed in the incident, but the
culprits got away and were never caught. The case was closed after
only three weeks.

Investigators reopened the case three years later, in 1992. Although
the robbery had never been treated as a politically motivated crime
in the past, members of the Turkish counterterrorism police were now
involved. They subpoenaed two principal prosecution witnesses. One
of them, a leftist activist named Hamza Kopal, testified that he and
Akhanli had planned and committed the 1989 crime together.

Kopal later said that the only reason he had given the police
Akhanli’s name was that he knew that his friend was safely in exile
in Germany. He also withdrew his confession a few months later, saying
that he had made it under duress because the police had tortured him.

Kopal and the other principal prosecution witness were acquitted of
all charges in 1994, but Akhanli remained a suspect.

For the Turkish counterterrorism police, the robbery was not a
criminal offence but a politically motivated one. The investigators
claim that Akhanli committed the robbery as a leading member of an
obscure terrorist group called THKP-YKB-HKG, and that the money was
to be used to finance a revolutionary overthrow of the government. The
officials completely ignored the fact that this organization, according
to the Turkish Interior Ministry, was only founded in 1991, or two
years after the armed robbery.

‘A Talent for Pinning Unsolved Crimes on Leftists’

For Akhanli’s attorney Haydar Erol, it is obvious that his client is
being set up. “Unfortunately, our police have a talent for pinning
unsolved crimes mainly on leftists. This is practical, because it
enables them to get rid of an unresolved case and a political enemy
at the same time.”

But in the Akhanli case, the two principal prosecution witnesses
weren’t the only ones to withdraw their statements. The sons of the
victims, who were in the currency exchange office at the time of the
crime, also said later that they had not identified the culprits.

Akhanli was certainly not one of them, one of the two sons said shortly
after the author’s arrest in August. Instead, he said, he hoped that
the authorities would finally find his father’s “real murderers.”

According to Erol, the prosecution’s case now contains just a single
piece of evidence against his client: the statement of the witness
Kopal, which was allegedly extracted through torture.

The prosecution’s evidence is so thin that it would probably not even
lead to a trial in any country of the European Union, which Turkey
wants to join. But it’s a different story in Istanbul. “Unfortunately,
this isn’t about solving a crime,” says Akhanli’s attorney. “It’s
about a show of power by revanchist circles in Turkey.”

A look at the jurists involved in the case illustrates what the
attorney is talking about. They include the judges Seref Akcay
and Oktay Acar, who one observer of the case characterizes as
“uncompromising steel-helmet Kemalists.” Both men attracted attention
at the beginning of the year when they acquitted dozens of Turkish
officers who had allegedly been involved in a plan to overthrow the
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

‘I Feel Like Josef K.’

Prosecutor Hüseyin Ayar is also refusing to acknowledge the witnesses’
withdrawal of their earlier testimony. “The coup leaders and their
supporters want to demonstrate that they are still in control of the
courts and can convict people at will,” says Halil Ibrahim Özcan of
the Turkish section of PEN, the worldwide association of writers.

“I feel like Kafka’s fictional character Josef K.,” Akhanli wrote to
spiegel in early October, from his cell in Tekirdag. “If I wasn’t
in danger of being sentenced to life in prison, this charge would
actually be an amusing piece of literature.”

Two months later, Akhanli has lost his last shred of humor. All he
feels today, he told his lawyer Erol, is anger and sadness. On Nov.

27, Erol brought his client a devastating piece of news: His father,
whom he had come to Turkey to visit, had died.

Akhanli was unable to attend the funeral. His petition for temporary
release was denied.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

From: A. Papazian

SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW DISAPPEARANCE OF ARMENIAN ARTIFACTS IN AZERBAIJAN

Targeted News Service
December 8, 2010 Wednesday 2:16 AM EST
WASHINGTON

The American Association for the Advancement of Science issued the
following news release:

A high-resolution satellite image of a medieval Armenian cemetery
in Azerbaijan taken in September 2003 shows hundreds of khachkars,
intricate 15th and 16th century burial monuments. In a satellite
image from May 2009, however, the khachkars are missing, suggesting
that they were either destroyed or removed.

A comparison of the images by analysts from the AAAS Geospatial
Technologies and Human Rights Project found evidence of significant
destruction and changes in the grade of the cemetery’s terrain. The
image from September 2003 shows rocky and uneven terrain, as well as
shadows cast by the khachkars, while the May 2009 image shows a much
flatter landscape and the khachkars’ absence.

“As can be seen in the 2009 image, the appearance of additional dirt
roads that traverse the cemetery and visibly smoother terrain suggest
that the khachkars may have been destroyed or removed by earthmoving
equipment,” said Susan Wolfinbarger, senior program associate for the
AAAS Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project. “Our analysis
of the satellite evidence is consistent with that of observers on the
ground who have attested to the destruction of the khachkars and the
leveling of the terrain in the Djulfa cemetery.”

The geospatial team, part of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program,
determined the exact location of the cemetery using a map hand-drawn
by those with local knowledge of the area. It is located in Djulfa,
part of Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave near the Iranian border.

Following reports that sledgehammer-wielding Azerbaijani soldiers
destroyed hundreds of khachkars, a delegation of European Parliament
members were rebuffed when they sought access to the cemetery in May
2006 to conduct a fact-finding mission. The International Council on
Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) also observed the phased destruction of
the khachkars in Djulfa in reports published in 2003 and 2006-2007.

“Geospatial images allow us to shed light on regions that are not
accessible, providing a visualization tool for events or circumstances
that are important to bring to the public’s attention but which,
without some visual evidence, are less likely to attract attention
and interest,” said Jessica Wyndham, senior project director of the
AAAS Science and Human Rights Program.

The AAAS team has used geospatial technology previously to document a
number of human rights violations, including the 2005 destruction of
structures and villages in Darfur, Sudan; civilian attacks in Burma
in 2006 and 2009; structure damage in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008;
and mortar fights in Sri Lanka.

Decreasing computing costs, the growth of available geospatial data,
and the increase of earth-imaging satellite sensors that provide
high-resolution images have coalesced to improve the potential
applications of geospatial technology in the field of human rights.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Department
of State, international governments, the United Nations, and
nongovernmental organizations including Human Rights Watch have all
used geospatial technology for humanitarian as well as human rights
purposes.

In the future, Wolfinbarger anticipates that the Geospatial
Technologies and Human Rights Project will use newer, higher resolution
satellites for detailed vegetation analysis, while lower resolution
satellites could facilitate deforestation analysis. “While in the past
we have focused on the destruction of structures, we may be able to
develop greater expertise in environment-related human rights through
the use of these other satellites,” she said.

The multispectral satellite images from September 2003 and May 2009
were taken by DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite. The AAAS analysts
used ERDAS Imagine and ESRI’s ArcMap software to do a side-by-side
comparison of the images.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT CHOCKED BY BEHAVIOR OF YEREVAN MAYOR – PRESS SECRETARY

Interfax
Dec 8 2010
Russia

Armenian President Serzh Sargsian has called impermissible the behavior
of Yerevan Mayor Gagik Beglarian who beat a presidential aide.

“The president of Armenia has expressed his attitude toward such
cases many times. Such behavior is unacceptable and impermissible.

Especially when a government official is in question,” presidential
press secretary Armen Arzumanian told Interfax on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday Arzumanian confirmed to Interfax the scandal
between Beglarian and a presidential protocol officer, Aram Kandaian.

“Unfortunately, the incident did take place. The descriptions in
our press are somewhat exaggerated, of course. For instance, there
was no abduction or severe beating but the conflict did take place,”
the press secretary said.

The Armenian media says that Beglarian beat Kandaian after a Placido
Domingo concert in Yerevan. The mayor’s wife and her friend had taken
seats next to the seat of President Serzh Sargsian before the concert
while in line with protocol only the Catholics of all Armenians, the
speaker of parliament and prime minister can sit next to the president.

“The protocol section officer, Kandaian, asked Beglarian’s wife to
move to another seat which aroused her indignation and she complained
to her husband and Beglarian decided to punish Kandaian,” one of the
reports said.

After the concert the mayor drove Kandaian in his car to a plant in
Yerevan and beat him.

“Deputy head of the presidential administration and the president’s
son-in-law Mikael Minasian talked to Beglarian and made it clear to him
that he had time until next Monday either to apologize to Kandaian and
the entire protocol service or to resign,” the Armenian media reported.

The Yerevan city administration has refrained from any comments on
the publications saying that the press secretary of the administration
is busy.

From: A. Papazian

SON OF KARABAKH WINS EURO SONG CONTEST
By Karine Ohanyan

IWPR Institute for War and Peace Reporting
CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 569
December 8, 2010
UK

Young singer entered as citizen of Armenia as Nagorny Karabakh remains
unrecognised.

Vladimir Arzumanyan was delighted with his victory in the Eurovision
youth song contest last month in Minsk, although for some people
in Nagorny Karabakh it was a reminder of the unresolved status of
their territory.

Although Vladimir entered as the contestant from the Republic
of Armenia, he is actually an Armenian from Nagorny Karabakh, a
self-proclaimed republic that enjoys no international recognition
and is considered part of Azerbaijan.

“It’s a great victory for our little Karabakh,” said Diana Arzumanyan,
Vladimir’s mother.

Lira Kocharyan, who trained Vladimir for the contest, said he received
a hero’s welcome on his return.

“Vladimir is just a boy like all others all over the world, with the
same desires and dreams. I would very much like him to have not just
the same dreams, but also the same rights as his peers all over the
world,” she said.

A generation of Karabakh Armenians has grown up in the legal limbo of
coming from a place that does not exist in terms of international law.

Nagorny Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan when the borders of the
three South Caucasus republics were drawn by the Soviet authorities,
although it was granted autonomous status in recognition of the
Armenians living there.

In 1988, Armenian residents appealed to Moscow to detach the region
from Azerbaijan. The campaign eventually led to war, ending with a
1994 ceasefire, but no formal peace deal.

Sportsmen, musicians and others from Karabakh who wish to compete
internationally are obliged to do so as representatives of the state
of Armenia.

Andre, a pop star from Karabakh, who represented Armenia in Eurovision
2006, told IWPR that more than half of Armenian musicians actually
come from Karabakh.

“When I got into the top ten at Eurovision, I went on stage holding
the Karabakh flag,” he recalled. “Although I was representing Armenia,
I was definitely representing my homeland as well.”

Pop star Razmik Amyan and pianist Anahit Arushanyan have also performed
under the Armenian flag

Ashot Danielyan recently won the world championship in “sambo”, a
martial art invented for soldiers in the Soviet Union which is now
popular throughout the former Eastern Bloc. He too appeared under
the flag of Armenia.

“When I returned from the world championship, I was greeted very warmly
in Karabakh. When I saw the flag of the Nagorny Karabakh Republic,
I was happier than ever. I think the day will come when I appear
under that flag,” he said.

At the same time, Danielyan said, “We sportsmen try not to interfere
in politics. I’ve often gone into the ring with guys from Azerbaijan
and Turkey, and it was always sportsmanlike. When I was made
world champion, the Azerbaijan trainer came up, shook my hand and
congratulated me on my win. Sport is sport; it’s outside politics.”

Narine Aghabalyan, culture minister in Karabakh’s government, said,
“If you acknowledge that Armenia and Karabakh are a single national
and cultural community, then it’s fine if we represent Armenia. But
of course we would like to appear under our own flag as a sovereign
state. At the moment, Armenia is our only window to the world.”

Aghabalyan said the most important thing was for Karabakh’s best and
brightest to shine.

“A true artist needs a big stage, awards and global recognition. I
don’t want our talented people to remain here. The environment is
too isolated from the world,” she said. “Let them go out and win –
we will be proud of them.”

Lilit Tovmasyan, a teacher in Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert,
agreed, saying her school had produced numerous singers, sportsmen,
mathematicians and theatre directors.

“If they’d all waited until Karabakh was recognised, they wouldn’t
have had much of a career,” she said.

Vladimir’s trainer Kocharyan said the problem for many was not which
country they represented, but the difficulty of making appearances
abroad.

“We need to show them off to the world, and that takes big money,” she
said. “Non-recognition, funding, isolation, an information blockade,
even a transport blockade. We find out about competitions late or not
at all. We can only go if we find a good sponsor. And on top of that,
we can only travel via Yerevan, and that’s six hours on the road,
then the airport and so on.”

Vladimir, who was born after the Karabakh war ended, has more
immediate demands.

“I want a brother – my mother promised me one if I won,” he said.

Karine Ohanyan is a freelance reporter in Nagorny Karabakh.

From: A. Papazian

PARENTS STRUGGLE AS ARMENIAN NURSERIES CLOSE
By Olga Yesayan

IWPR Institute for War and Peace Reporting
CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 569
December 8, 2010
UK

Once-ubiquitous kindergarten provision has shrunk due to funding
shortages.

Armenians are finding it hard to return to work because kindergartens
are closing down and places for pre-school children are becoming
harder to find.

The universal kindergarten provision of the Soviet era became
a casualty of the economic crisis that followed the collapse of
communism in 1991.

By 1996, when kindergartens were handed over to local authorities
to manage, more than one in ten had already closed. Municipal and
village administrations were unable to afford their upkeep, and the
decline has been even sharper since then.

Only 30 of the 94 districts in Armavir region, for example, now provide
nurseries. Parents there are reluctant to entrust their children to
those that remain.

“I really want my children to go to a decent nursery so they can
interact with their peers and learn something new,” mother-of-two
Karine Mkhitaryan, 26, told IWPR. “If I knew they’d be in safe hands,
I could find myself a job with a clear conscience. But sadly I don’t
have that option.”

Her local kindergarten in the village of Nalbandyan is in poor
condition, and the food given to the children is poor quality.

Some 55 children are currently attending the Nalbandyan kindergarten.

Built in 1970, it still has lockers from Soviet times, although the
doors on many have fallen off, plus some old desks, a ragged carpet
and a few toys. Even the water supply is intermittent.

“Of course, the head says staff are doing all they can to keep
everything clean. But they can’t work miracles when there are no
decent toilets, and when the children have to play in the courtyard
and roll about on the ground all summer, since there isn’t a decent
hall with toys inside,” Mkhitaryan said.

Some experts say the government was right to abolish the centralised
system for pre-school education, and that advanced countries generally
run nurseries at local level. However, the reform in Armenia was
implemented at a time when local authorities did not have the money
to cover costs.

Gayane Sayadyan, head of Armavir region’s education department, sees
decentralisation as the root of all the problems with pre-school
provision – the lack of heating, decent food, new furniture, and more.

“Municipalities don’t have the financial resources to provide for
all the kindergartens’ needs,” she said. “When funds are issued to
village administrations, the sum that must be earmarked for education
needs to be specified.”

Sayadyan says six kindergartens in Armavir region have been refurbished
and had their heating systems repaired in the last three years,
thanks to charity organisations.

Heating is a major problem for kindergartens, and only a handful in
Armavir can keep going through the winter. In urban areas, they take
a three-month break, while some in the villages stop for as long as
seven months.

This means they are little help to parents trying to find work or
hold down a job.

Psychologists like Lilit Grigoryan say such interruptions can also
cause problems for children by disruption the process of adaptation
and integration into education.

Despite assurances from the Nalbanyan kindergarten’s director, Susanna
Ghukasyan, that it will reopen after the winter break, some parents
will not be sending their children back there.

Armine Manukyan, for example, said she was concerned about sanitary
conditions there, and also the fact that her son had found it hard
to fit in.

Government officials said they were unaware of allegations of
insanitary conditions at kindergartens. The issue seems to fall
between the cracks in a system where kindergartens are run at local
level but regulated overall by the education ministry.

Since the government does not force municipalities to provide adequate
funding, Ghukasyan is placing her hopes in the local government chief
in Nalbandyan.

“The head of the village administration has promised to help solve
our problems during his term,” she said. “But they also say they
haven’t got the funds to do everything at once.”

Olga Yesayan is a freelance reporter in Armenia.

From: A. Papazian