Author: Andres-Papazian

The Violin Channel
Jan 18 2014

VC `Young Artist’ Sergey Khachatryan Awarded $82,000 Credit Suisse Bursary

Posted January 18, 2014

28 year old Armenian VC `Young Artist’ Sergey Khachatryan has today
been announced as the 2014 recipient of the highly coveted `Credit
Suisse Young Artist Award`, in Vienna.

A former 1st prize winner at the Sibelius and Queen Elisabeth
International Violin Competitions, Sergey will receive 75,000 Swiss
Francs (USD $82,000) – and a prestigious solo engagement withGustavo
Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic as part of this year’sLucerne
Festival.

The coveted bursary is awarded every two years to a highly talented
young soloist with the aim of providing the means and opportunity to
perform – thus enabling them to make the decisive breakthrough to a
major international career.

Previous recipients include: violist Antoine Tamestit, cellists
Nicolas Altstaedt and Sol Gabetta – and VC `Young Artist’ Vilde Frang.

From: A. Papazian

Knowledge important rather than degrees – Paravon Mirzoyan

15:57 – 19.01.14

Director of the National Gallery of Armenia Paravon Mirzoyan cannot
understand officials seeking PhDs.

`Last year I watched TV and heard about 149 new PhD theses! In the
USSR, only 10 to 15 people used to defend PhD theses after working for
many years,’ Mirzoyan told Tert.am.

Speaking of Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan and Minister of Transport
Gagik Beglaryan, both of whom recently defended their theses, Mirzoyan
said: `It is knowledge that is of importance. It must be a fashion now
when one is addressed as `doctor’ or `professor’.’

From: A. Papazian

On eve of 2015: a focus on academia and Turkish public

by Raffi Bedrosyan

Published: Monday January 13, 2014

Zoryan’s Greg Sarkissian (on right) with representatives of Canadian
Museum for Human Rights in Armenia in 2013. MuseumforHumanRights.ca/

As we approach 2015, the 100th anniversary of the 1915 annihilation of
Armenian presence from their historic homeland of four thousand years,
we see diverging activities being planned by Turkey and Armenians.

When Turkish acquaintances ask me what the Armenians, especially the
`evil Diaspora’, are planning to do in 2015, I answer that they are
planning programs to assert historical facts about the vanishing of
Armenians from Anatolia in 1915. Then I turn around with a question of
my own: `What are the Turks doing?’ Their short answer is that the
Turks will continue to dismiss the “misinformation” that the Armenians
are disseminating. Thus, the Armenians in Armenia and the Diaspora
redouble their efforts to have genocide recognition more widespread
worldwide, and the Turks continue pouring more money and resources to
entrench the official genocide denialist policy both within and
outside Turkey.

In an attempt to divert global attention from the 1915 Armenian
genocide commemoration, Turkey has decided to promote the 100th
anniversary of the First World War Gallipoli campaign, to be showcased
as a historic event through government supported activities worldwide
and hailed as the `heroic resistance of the Turkish forces against the
onslaught of the imperialistic powers at the Dardanelles.’

One can easily deduce from these opposing strategies and efforts that
the main stumbling block for Turkey and Armenia, as neighbors, in
normalizing their relationship and the reconciliation of their
respective civil societies, is the divergence of interpretation and
understanding of their shared history. The result is an impasse. By
this time next year, I doubt there will be much change and the impasse
will go on. The issue will continue to be treated as a political match
with points scored for Turkey if Obama continues saying `Medz
Yeghern’, or points for Armenia if he says `Genocide’.

There are geopolitical, military, and economic reasons for the status
quo to continue. Armenia may not be influential enough to overcome any
of these reasons at present. Be that as it may, I believe Armenians
can be more effective if they re-channel their resources, which are
extremely limited in comparison to Turkey, in this struggle. I see two
target areas for Armenians to make any headway on this issue, and in
my humble opinion, neither one is addressed properly by Armenia and
Armenians.

The first target in dealing with the genocide issue is the academic
field. It is supposed to arrive at indisputable historic facts, after
thorough and objective research of a multitude of state archives,
documents, communication records, and oral history findings. The
struggle in this field regarding the 1915 Armenian genocide can be
best summarized as forces of truth versus money and power. On one side
there is truth defended by almost all of the international academia,
and on the other side, falsification of truth by a handful of scholars
generously rewarded with funds provided by the Turkish state.

The second target in dealing with the genocide issue is the general
population of Turkey, with the objective of conveying to them the
historical truth of the 1915 events and all the consequences until
today. This truth is best served when delivered in to the people of
Turkey, in Turkish, based on archival material and historic facts
directly from Turkish sources and their allies, covering the period
from the 1880’s to 1922, as well as the factual consequences of the
on-going state cover-up and denial.

Academically, the only organization which spearheads and organizes
objective research by independent scholars on this topic is the Zoryan
Institute with its subsidiary, the International Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies. For the past thirty plus years, it
has provided the highest standards of scholarship and objectivity in
undertaking multi-disciplinary research and analysis. This includes
documentation, lectures, conferences and publications in 7 languages
related to human rights and genocide studies. The publications include
some 41 books, some of which in several languages and 2 major
periodicals, one dealing with genocide studies and the other with
diaspora.

In addition, the Institute provides research assistance to scholars,
writers, journalists, filmmakers, government agencies and other
organizations. It is noteworthy that when Zoryan published the
Wolfgang Gust book titled ‘The Armenian Genocide 1915/16: Documents
from the Diplomatic Archives of the German Office’, in German, English
and Turkish, prominent Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand could only
reflect: `When you read and study these documents, even if this is
your first venture into this subject, there is no way you will deny
the genocide and disagree with the Armenians’.

Even though the Turkish state defines Zoryan as a `propaganda centre’,
there have been several scholars from Turkey who have attended the
Genocide and Human Rights University Program run by the Zoryan
Institute at the University of Toronto, many of them becoming
outspoken advocates of historic truth within Turkey and the rest of
the world, regarding the 1915 Armenian genocide.

To best describe Zoryan’s contribution to scholarship is to quote from
A Plea from International Scholars of Genocide and Human Rights
Studies made last year in support of fundraising activities of the
Institute:
“For the past thirty years, the Institute has maintained an ambitious
program to collect archival documentation, conduct original research,
and publish books and periodicals. It also conducts university-level
educational programs in the field of Genocide and Human Rights
Studies, taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach in its
examination of the Jewish Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, and the
Rwandan Genocide, among others, using the Armenian Genocide as a point
of reference. In the process, using the highest academic standards,
the Institute has strived to understand the phenomenon of genocide,
establish the incontestable, historical truth of the Armenian
Genocide, and raise awareness of it among academics and
opinion-makers. In the face of the continuing problem of genocide in
the twenty-first century, the Institute is to be commended for its
service to the academic community and is recognized by scholars for
providing leadership and a support structure in promoting the cause of
universal human rights and the prevention of genocide.”

Despite the herculean effort and outstanding results, Zoryan Institute
receives no appreciable financial support or acknowledgment from major
Armenian organizations, parties or the state. The institute is
supported entirely by private donations. Against it, there exist the
full power and unlimited funds of the Turkish state, and more recently
the Azerbaijan state, who attempt to lure scholars to rewrite history
according to their versions. As a result, the Turkish State Historic
Society reduces the number of 1915 Armenian victims with every new
publication; at last count, a few thousand Armenians died of illness
and hunger, while the number of Turkish victims of ‘genocide’
perpetrated by the Armenians increases every year and is now more than
two million. By the same strategy, the number of Azeri dead in the
Khojalu ‘genocide’ keeps increasing with every publication.

Dialogue between two conflicting parties can be meaningful only after
both parties are aware of the truth and the facts. Even though the
Turkish state has not allowed the truth and the facts of 1915 to come
out until recently, there are now clear signs that the taboos about
1915 are finally broken and that there is an emerging `common body of
knowledge’ among the Turkish citizens and more importantly, among the
opinion makers. Zoryan contributed immensely to the development of
this ‘common body of knowledge’ through conferences, seminars, and the
books it helped publish, by authors such as Yair Auron, Taner Akcam,
Wolfgang Gust, Roger Smith, Vahakn Dadrian, Rifat Bali and many
others.

Given all this, I submit that Armenians should support the Zoryan
Institute so that it can continue its work developing the common body
of knowledge to be shared by the Armenians and Turks. Hopefully,
shared history will help these neighbouring people reconcile with
their pasts and such reconciliation will help secure a future for
generations to come.

I will elaborate on the second target of how to convey the truth to
the general population of Turkey, and its challenges, in a separate
article.

From: A. Papazian

Haykakan Zhamanak : 21 Armenia settlements to be renamed

January 18, 2014

YEREVAN. – In all likelihood, 21 communities in Armenia will have new
names in a foreseeable future, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reports.

`Three of these settlements are cities, eighteen are villages. Another
twenty communities will remain subject to renaming.

`The headship in twenty-one communities has agreed to the renaming,
whereas twenty communities preferred the old names.

`ES [i.e., Education and Science] Minister Armen Ashotyan expressed a
view that the name of Armenia should be changed [from the Republic of
Armenia to the Republic of Eastern Armenia].

`Ashotyan, however, should have known: the name of even a village is
not changed easily in Armenia,’ Haykakan Zhamanak writes.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

From: A. Papazian

Zohrabian: Law on pension system is betrayal of people

Saturday, January 18, 2014

A protest against the introduction of compulsory accumulative pension
system in Armenia is being held in Liberty Square of Yerevan.

The secretary of Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) parliamentary faction
Ms. Naira Zohrabian made a speech at the rally. She called the law
`cynicism and betrayal of the people’.

She made calls for unification and fight against injustice. `The
political forces believing that this situation cannot continue have
gathered here. The country has been driven to such a state that
political forces cannot undertake anything separately, therefore we
need to unite and fight together against the state racket,’ she
declared.

TODAY, 16:00
Aysor.am

From: A. Papazian

One in six couples suffers from infertility in Armenia – doctor

13:48 – 18.01.14

The infertility rate among the married couples in Armenia is one to
six, a specialist has said, introducing the activities of a new
foundation offering medical aid to those families.

At a news conference on Saturday, Edward Hambardzumyan, President of
the Armenian Society for Reproductive Medicine, said the foundation
Aragil(swallow) was established last year with the purpose of offering
free treatment to patients not affording the costs of paid healthcare
services.

`The foundation Aragil, which is adjunct to the Armenian Society for
Reproductive Medicine, has been functioning since 2013,’ he said.

The foundation’s means are generated from benefactors’ donations, said
Karine Tokhunts, an expert.

`The foundation Aragil is one of our key achievements in the sphere of
reproductive health. To date, we have 300 couples who have applied and
were registered. We take stock of the couples whose family income
isn’t above 200,000 Drams [$492],’ she said, adding that the
foundation presently has 22 registered beneficiaries.

The foundation has so far registered one newborn triple and two
pregnancies, according to the specialist.

Tokhunts said despite the large number of couples suffering from the
infertility problem, the foundation is doing its best to offer them
all a chance of one trial.

`The highest amount of money that we can transfer is 1.600.000 Drams
[approx. $395,000]. That covers the entire cycle of treatment,’ he
explained.

The internationally accepted age limit of treating infertility is 35,
but the foundation has decided to offer a chance to patients aged to
40, Tokhunts added.

From: A. Papazian

Heritage party member calls for consolidation to change situation in Armenia

January 18, 2014 | 14:57

YEREVAN. – Armenian MP from Heritage party Ruben Hakobyan is convinced
that consolidation of civil society and political forces is necessary
for dramatic changes in the country.

Speaking during the Saturday rally in Liberty Square, Hakobsyan noted
that the demonstration is an unprecedented action when the Armenian
citizens are dictating the agenda that was joined by non-coalition
parliamentary forces.

`This rally is led by the society. We must find the agenda that will
unite us, not vice versa,’ he said addressing the demonstrators.

`Unless we find a real solution to this problem, it will become a
political issue, and together we will form a political agenda that
will change the situation in Armenia,’ Hakobyan resumed.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

From: A. Papazian

MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARA GuLER HOSPITALIZED

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Jan 17 2014

ISTANBUL

Ara Guler, 86, has been receiving treatment due to renal failure.

Ara Guler, the photography master of Turkey, was taken to Istanbul’s
Å~^iÅ~_li Memorial Hospital on Jan. 14.

He has been receiving treatment for a long time due to renal failure.

Guler, 86, was moved Jan. 16 to the intensive care unit in the hospital
because of labile blood pressure. According to a statement made by
the hospital, Guler was expected to be moved to his room Jan.

17.

Born in 1928 in Istanbul, Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Guler is
one of Turkey’s internationally known artists.

Guler has held hundreds of exhibitions of his work all over the globe.

He has interviewed and photographed numerous celebrities, from Bertrand
Russell and Winston Churchill to Arnold Toynbee, Pablo Picasso and
Salvador Dali.

Many examples of Guler’s photography can be found in institutions such
as the French National Library in Paris and the Sheldon Collection
at Nebraska University, as well as in private collections in Boston,
Chicago and New York. Besides many other awards, he was honored
with the Culture and Arts Grand Award of the Ministry of Culture and
Tourism in 2011.

January/17/2014

From: A. Papazian

EDITORIAL: SISTER RECOGNITION

Highland Community News, CA
Jan 16 2014

Published: Thursday, January 16, 2014 8:05 PM PST

We often disagree with Councilwoman Jody Scott, but this time, she’s
right. The City Council should reconsider its resolution supporting
the breakaway republic of Nagorno Karabakh and the city’s sister city
affiliation with its capitol, Berdzor.

We understand that the fight for independence is Christian against
Moslem, and that we have more in common with Armenia, which is helping
the fight for independence, than we have with Azerbaijan, which still
claims the republic as part of its country.

However, as we have said in a past editorial, we do not believe
it is the business of Highland to get involved in foreign affairs,
especially one as heated and controversial as this.

Even if the U.S. government should recognize Nagorno Karabakh as
an independent nation, it would be foolhardy for us as a city to
get involved in another fight which probably will have no winners,
but many losers.

<img style=’display:none’ border=0 width=0 height=0
src=’;ra=9928104310.9768373868898237′>
There must be many other sister city opportunities where we could reach
across boundaries and help make a difference and improve relations
with people in other parts of the world.

Even more troubling is that supporters of the sister city resolution
do not even want to allow discussion of the issue.

It has been far too secretive and smells of back room politics,
not a good direction for the city.

From: A. Papazian

“BAKU” WAS THE RELAPSE OF “SUMGAIT”

Wednesday, 15 January 2014 17:07

Occupation of foreign territories is the essence of the Azeri-Turkish
policy

24 years have passed since the tragic events in Baku. Almost a quarter
of a century ago, from 13 to 19 January 1990, horrific events were
taking place in the capital of Azerbaijan – pogroms, during which
the Azeris killed, robbed, and violated the Armenian population with
sadistic cruelty.

For a whole week, the city was at the mercy of thugs, murderers, and
a disorderly crowd intoxicated with the blood of the innocent victims.

The January tragedy was the last stage in a series of bloody crimes
committed in 1988-1990 against the citizens of Soviet Azerbaijan of
Armenian nationality. This misanthropic and openly fascist policy
resulted in the outflow of half a million of indigenous Armenians who
had made a huge contribution to the establishment of the Azerbaijani
state and construction of its capital. Thus was put an end to the
Armenian presence in Baku and Azerbaijan in general.

Baku of January 1990 was the relapse of Sumgait of February 1988.

Although if we consider the issue in a broader historical range, then
we can state that the script of the Turkish-Azeri executioners during
the Armenian Genocide at the beginning and the Genocide at the end
of the twentieth century didn’t actually change. And it could not
change, since the genocidal essence of the authorities of Turkey
and Azerbaijan, which are still hatching the plans of occupying
the territories of historical residence of the Armenian people,
has remained unchanged.

However, both criminal states have in common not only this. Their
policy of the Genocide denial should be considered in the same
context. Today, Azerbaijan is unwilling to recall the bloody
bacchanalia committed 24 years ago against the Armenian population of
Baku. Meanwhile, it was a premeditated and well planned at the state
level nationalist campaign, the main role in the implementation of
which was assigned to the so-called Popular Front. There are many
undeniable facts proving the involvement of state agencies in the
organization of the mass pogroms, massacres, and forced deportation
of Armenian citizens. The Azerbaijani authorities prefer cynically
keeping silence about it. But, cynical is also the fact that January
20, when the Soviet Army units finally entered the Azerbaijani capital
a week after the massacre of the Armenian population, meeting fierce,
including armed resistance by the bandits, was declared in Azerbaijan
a national day of mourning, which is pompously commemorated every
year. Moreover, subsequently, the Azerbaijani authorities, remaining
true to themselves, falsified the events and presented the entry of
the Soviet troops in Baku and the suppression of the gang actions as
an act… of suppression of the democratic movement of the Azerbaijani
people for freedom and independence.

The organized nature of the pogroms and massacres in Baku is also
testified by the fact that in those days of January, acts of violence
against the Armenian population took place not only in the Azerbaijani
capital. It should be noted that on January 16, the day of the peak
of the massacres, the Armenian villages of Artsakh, the Khanlar and
Shahumian regions, especially Manashid, were also bombarded. All
this clearly indicates that the noted facts are links in the same
criminal chain, and the goal of such criminal actions was to draw
the attention from the bloody events in Baku.

We have already noted that Baku of 1990 was the relapse of Sumgait of
1988. However, it is important to note that the relapse was displayed
not only in the actions of the authorities of Azerbaijan, but also in
the actions, or rather inaction of the Soviet leadership. Like in the
days of Sumgait, the Kremlin government demonstrated its inability
(or unwillingness after all?) to stop the pogroms and massacres and
to take effective measures for saving the Armenian population. As is
known, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, being an ardent opponent
of the Karabakh Movement, stated the following on the eve of the
events: “The demand for self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh will
inevitably call into question the fate of the 250.000 Armenians in
Baku”. Thus, the head of such a powerful state as the Soviet Union
signed for his own helplessness. But, at the same time he actually
sent a corresponding message to the Pan-Turkic forces of Azerbaijan,
which interpreted Gorbachev’s words as the highest command to commit
the horrible crime with impunity. It was with the criminal connivance
of the top leadership of the USSR that the nationalist authorities and
the Popular Front of Azerbaijan managed to carry out their plans on
the extermination and deportation of the Armenian population of Baku.

Given the legal definition of Genocide, which is qualified as
consistent and purposeful extermination of any ethnic or religious
group, the repeated acts of violence against the Armenian population
in Azerbaijan can be rightfully qualified as genocidal actions. Alas,
today, even nearly a quarter of a century after the Baku events,
there is no hope for the Azerbaijani authorities’ realization of
their own guilt and responsibility for their actions. Moreover,
expelling the Armenian population,Azerbaijan did not put an end to
its racist policy. The war against the NagornoKarabakhRepublic was
the continuation of the policy of genocide started in Sumgait and Baku.

And currently, when Azerbaijaninsists on resolving the Karabakh
conflict within its own territorial integrity, there is no doubt that
it pursues a single goal – to carry out another act of genocide, now
against the Armenians of Artsakh. Let’s hope that the comprehension of
this objective truth will allow the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship
to prevent its being dangerously misled.

Leonid MARTIROSSIAN

Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper

From: A. Papazian