Author: Badalian Vardan

GERMANY’S EU LAW A DENIAL OF GENOCIDE
By Toivo Ndjebela

Informante
8080/informante/index.php?option=com_content&t ask=view&id=3302&Itemid=100
Dec 18 2008
Namibia

THE legislation proposed by Germany and approved by the European
Union (EU) on 12 April 2007 appears contradictory and even smacks
of hypocrisy.

The law tabled by the Germans would allow prosecution of anyone guilty
of "genocide denial" for questioning war crimes committed in either
Africa or the Balkans during the past 20 years.

The decision to limit the crime of "genocide denial" only to events
that took place during the past 20 years has raised widespread
suspicion.

Furthermore, it is a slap in the face for many who are trying to
address past human rights violations, particularly in Namibia.

Under German-proposed law, people who question Europe’s human rights
violations from 20 years and beyond in Africa and the Balkans could
be jailed for up to three years for "genocide denial".

Even the International Herald Tribune reported just after the approval
of the law that it was notable "for what it omitted".

Most people would consider any law that outlaws "intentional conduct"
that incites violence or hatred against a person’s "race, colour,
religion, descent or ethnic origin" a noble initiative.

The decision to limit the law to the events of the past 20 years
appears to be a disingenuous and cynical attempt by Germany to
indemnify itself against atrocities committed during its colonial rule,
particularly in Namibia.

By imposing the 20-year limit, the Germans avoid the discomfort of
having to embarrass powerful or important neighbours such as Russia
over Stalin’s atrocities in the Baltic countries, or the massacres
of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

The scope of the law does not cover many specific historical events,
but limits itself to recognising genocides that fall under the
statutes, such as the mass killing of Jews during World War II and
the massacre in Rwanda in 1994.

Above all, justice under the new EU law is highly selective, allowing
the EU to pick and choose what forms of "genocide denial" to outlaw,
leaving wide latitude for applying double standards.

It specifically excludes any justice for Namibia’s Herero and Nama
communities, who demand compensation for the killing of between 35,000
to 105,000 of their ancestors from 1904 to 1908, in the genocide by
German colonial forces in Namibia.

The genocidal killings by German troops drove thousands of Ovaherero
people into exile in Botswana, where many still remain after a
100 years.

In 2001, the Herero became the first ethnic group in Namibia to seek
reparations from Germany for that country’s colonial policies which
fit the definition of genocide.

The case was brought before a US federal court and the reparation
claims were based on the procedures of the Alien Torts Claim Act of
1789. The case is still ongoing, albeit with strong opposition from
the Germans.

International human rights bodies such as Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch and others have looked into violations of human
rights in the past, and have at times called for justice to be done.

Germany cannot escape scrutiny, and the proposal to have strict
limits on the definition of "genocide denial", while making special
provisions for the economically powerful Jewish community in its own
national laws, is hardly surprising.

The order by German colonial administrator in Namibia, Lothar von
Trotha, for the execution of thousands of Namibians stands out as a
classic example of why Germany would have a slim chance of escaping
any possible prosecution.

There is great condemnation of the envisaged law, not only in Africa
but Europe too. In Europe, Lithuania and Estonia were among the nations
against the proposal. They have pressed hard for the crimes committed
by the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin to be brought into the scope
of the law.

Most EU member states have resisted the two nations’ stance on the
matter, but a compromise was drawn up last year, to include a political
declaration condemning the mass murders committed under Stalin.

According to the draft proposal "…each (EU) member state shall take
the measures necessary to ensure that the following intentional conduct
is punishable: ‘publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising
of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as
defined in’… the Statute of the ICC."

RUSRUSGASPROM: ARMENIA SUCCESSFULLY SETTLES TASKS TO MAINTAIN ENERGY SAFETY

ArmInfo
2008-12-18 11:41:00

ArmInfo. Having no own reserves of hydrocarbon resources and access
to the sea, against the background of complicate and controversial
political and economic processes in the region, Armenia demonstrates
a bright example of successful settlement of tasks to maintain the
necessary level of energy safety, Karen Karapetyan, Chairman of
ArmRusgasprom CJSC Board – Director General, declared at Yerevan
State University, Thursday.

He also added one of the instruments for further improvement of energy
safety of Armenia is development of new export policy aimed at creation
of unique and good possibilities to boost foreign economic exchange
of Armenia and the neighbor-states. ‘Armenia should take an extremely
active stance on elaboration and consistent implementation of new
regional projects having common ‘points of convergence’ for the states
in the region. In conditions of global financial and economic crises,
there is simply no real alternative to regional cooperation, especially
in the sphere of energy. Having two gas pipelines and an underground
gas holder, as well as surplus competitive generating capacities,
Armenia has all the chances to become a peculiar liberal energy
platform in the region’, he said. K. Karapetyan is sure that settlement
of such an uneasy task implies ambitions programs in the economy of
Armenia, in particular, improvement of energy safety though formation
of a competitive export market; development and implementation of
state policy of Armenia on real support to export-targeted energy
projects based on flexible tariff policy and coordinated stances of
strategic partners on extension of regional energy cooperation that
would involve Turkmenistan, Iraq and other states. ‘Such are the key
conditions that would make Armenia the energy ‘base’ in the region
i.e. further liberalization of foreign economic exchange, better access
to innovative technologies, leading technical standards and methods
of state and corporate economy management, and real transfer to a new
quality export policy. The role of professional information support
to these ambitious programs is rather great>, K. Karapetyan said.

He thinks that everything above mentioned cannot be fully fulfilled if
all the countries of the region do not understand the uniting prospect
of the energy cooperation and are not ready to accept and observe
the legal regime coordinated with the fixed international norms.

‘Today Armenia assesses presence of the new energy situation in the
region as a fact which is very positive for itself and understands
the real opportunity to be involved in big regional energy projects
in which it has all the chances to become one of the key players at
the energy map of the south Caucasus. We think that it will be easier
to fulfill this large-scale task if our initiatives and projects are
supported on the needed informational level, which we rely on’, –
Karapetyan emphasized.

RUSSIAN SOLDIERS TO SERVE AS PEACEKEEPERS IN ARMENIA?

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.12.2008 12:23 GMT+04:00

The Russian Defense Minister has decided to send 700 draftees to
serve as peacekeepers in Armenia.

The number of servicemen is not sufficient in Armenia, so the draftees
will be sent to replenish the personnel," said Alexandra Vrakina,
chairperson of the council of parents of Prikamye, Russia.

"After a training course the soldiers will be sent to Armenia,
apparently early next year," she said, 59.ru reports.

TURKEY MAKES LITTLE PROGRESS TOWARDS EU DREAM
By Christopher Wade

Kuwait Times
sid=NDk1NDk3MDM4
Dec 16 2008
Kuwait

As political distractions go, the court case to close down Turkey’s
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was up there with the
biggest. Ever since the Constitutional Court, in a case called by the
party’s political opponents, decided in July not to close down the AKP,
momentum toward joining the EU seems to have stalled. In September,
the EU issued its progress report on Turkey’s membership bid. For
supporters of Turkish membership it was depressing reading.

The report lists in detail the areas where Turkey has failed to move:
no progress on lifting immunity of parliamentarians; no progress on
strengthening parliamentary oversight over public expenditure; limited
progress in the area of anti-corruption; no progress on ensuring
cultural diversity; and failure to adequately monitor legal changes
designed to stop torture. "Despite its strong political mandate,
the government did not put forward a consistent and comprehensive
program of political reforms," the rep ort said.

The failures have led to a loss in support from liberal circles,
who believed that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had
abandoned his party’s roots in Islamic politics and was truly committed
to pursuing Turkey’s bid to join the EU. Whilst the court case was
cited by pro-government circles as a major reason why reforms had
slowed down, one hint that the government was ready to junk major
reforms came separately, when the ruling administration abandoned
plans to overhaul the 1982 military- impose d constitution to focus
on legislation allowing women to wear Islamic-style headscarves
at universities.

With the help of a far-right party, which vehemently opposed a new
constitution, the AKP managed to make constitutional changes to allow
the headscarf to be worn at tertiary institutions. These changes were
later thrown out by the Constitutional Court, which said they were
against the principles of secular state. Some point out that the
government has made reforms to some of the most notorious articles
of the criminal code, in particular Article 301, which makes it a
crime to "insult Turkishness or state i nstitutions.

The article is often used to silence writers. But the reforms
have merely been window dressing, according to many commentators
and EU politicians. "They changed Article 301, but then opened 47
cases," European parliamentarian Joost Lagendijk said in Ankara in
November. Lagendijk was referring to the fact that it is now up to
the Justice Minister to personally approve any prosecutions. "The
prior authorization requirement opens up the possibility that the
article will become subject to political considerati on," the EU
progress report said.

In one case, authorization has been given for charges to be laid
against a Turkish writer who said that the massacres of Armenians
during the First World War constituted genocide. For some the
government’s lack of progress shows that the AKP has never really
believed in Turkey joining the European Union. "The (AKP) duck behind
the European Union negotiations so that no one can accuse them of
having Islamist tendencies," said Hasan Unal, a professor at Gazi
University in Ankaar, who argues that the AKP itse lf does not believe
in European values and culture.

They don’t believe in the European process, but they have to keep
it going." Local elections are coming up in March and the AKP
has high hopes of wrestling victories in some big municipalities
across Turkey. With polls showing a drop in the public’s support
for Turkey’s EU bid, it is doubtful the government will make any big
moves soon. That does not sit well with Europeans who would like to
see bolder moves out of Ankara. "The Turkish government does not have
the luxury of delaying reforms by using the l ocal elections as an
excuse," said Lagendijk.

Then there is the world financial crisis that may result in the
government going slow on reform. "The crisis couldn’t have come to
Turkey at any time worse than this for the AKP," Unal said. One issue
that has not been debated much in Turkey is the refusal of Turkey
to recognize EU member Cyprus, nor to allow Cypriot shipping to use
Turkish ports. The issue has resulted in the EU suspending accession
talks in eight policy areas and hampers Turkey’s efforts to push
membership talks further.

There is no prospect of the government budging on the issue until a
solution is found to the Cyprus problem. Unal says that the government
would be committing "political suicide" if it allowed Greek Cypriot
ships into Turkish ports. To use a phrase that was used over and over
again in the EU’s Sepember report, "little progress has been made." The
question now is whether the government, now seven years old and showing
increasing signs of tiredness, is ready for a new push in 2009. – dpa

UNEMPLOYMENT ARMENIA’S MAIN PROBLEM NEXT YEAR

ARKA
Dec 16, 2008

YEREVAN, December 16. /ARKA/. Unemployment will be problem number
one for Armenia next year, said Bagrat Asatryan, the ex-chairman of
the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA).

The RA Statistical Service reports that 90,800 jobseekers are
officially registered in Armenia, with 76,000 of them having
unemployment status.

"About 400,000 people left Armenia for Russian as seasonal workers
every year. The global crisis may cause them to return to Armenia,
but the authorities will not be able to create same-wage jobs for
them. So unemployment will be Armenia’s main problem next year,"
Asatryan told a press conference.

Sona Harutyunyan, Head of the RA State Employment Agency stated
earlier that the negative impact of the world economic crisis could
cause unemployment to rise by 1% at most in Armenia.

Asatryan said that most of the seasonal workers leaving for Russia
are employed in the construction, trade and services sectors, which
are the most vulnerable sectors. Referring to official statistical
data, he pointed out a decrease of 41% in the construction sector in
Armenia this October as compared with September.

According to Asatryan, resisting the global economic crisis and forming
a realistic picture of the impact the crisis has had on the national
economy will be the Armenian authorities’ priority task.

Vardan Bostanjyan, the Vice-Chairman of the Ec onomic Commission, RA
Parliament, member of the Prosperous Armenia parliamentary faction,
said that the resolution of prospective returnees’ employment problem
will require at least two or three years.

OPPOSITION FIGURE RELEASED IN ARMENIA

Interfax
Dec 11 2008
Russia

Vardan Malkhasian, a member of the Unity of Armenian Volunteers NGO
and a prominent figure in the Fatherland and Honor opposition party,
was released on Wednesday after two years of confinement.

The Armenian media report that after release Malkhasian said addressing
his supporters: "We will soon defeat the criminal regime and will give
long-awaited freedom to our political prisoners and our entire nation."

Malkhasian was arrested on December 9, 2006 on charges of public
calls for overthrowing the government.

His arrest was prompted by his speech at a congress of the Unity of
Armenian Volunteers several days earlier.

MIXED FEELINGS FOR "GENOCIDE" PETITION

Hurriyet
Dec 12 2008
Turkey

ISTANBUL – Over 300 Armenian professionals, including representatives
from the media, nongovernmental organizations, academia and the
artistic community, have sent a message to President Abdullah Gul
calling on him to recognize the events of 1915 as an act of genocide.

The message said the painful events of 1915 were keeping the people of
the two countries apart and that acceptance of the events as genocide
was not just a request of the Armenian people but of the whole global
community. The message also said relations between Armenia and Turkey
would only be normalized by such a recognition.

Turkish intellectuals A group of Turkish intellectuals have also
recently started a similar campaign. "We reject ignoring the disaster
the Ottoman Armenians faced in 1915 and share in the emotion and pain
of our Armenian brothers," the petition states. Already a target of
debate and attack, the petition will collect signatures online from
New Year’s Day.

"More important than Gul’s response is that this letter shows the
Armenian people’s attitude towards the issue. This has become an entire
social movement," the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaksutyun
Bureau’s International Secretariat Director Giro Manoian, told the
Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. He said relations between Turks
and Armenians would only normalize with the acceptance of the events
as genocide.

Brave but insufficient Stating the Turkish intellectual’s campaign was
"brave but insufficient," he said: "I say insufficient because any
imposition of genocide acceptance must be made directly by the state."

The oriental studies director from the Republic of Armenia National
Academy of Sciences Institute, Professor Ruben Safrastian, said Gul’s
response was important. "I hope that President Gul, known for his
intellectual leanings, will offer a different answer from those of
Turkey’s official statements."

Regarding the Turkish campaign, Safrastian said: "The Turkish people
want to know about their past and the genocide matter is a leading
issue. Turkish intellectuals, on their way to the European Union,
are able to approach these problems objectively."

OPENING OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH BORDER WILL BE ALSO USEFUL FOR BULGARIA, GEORGI PARVANOV SAYS

Noyan Tapan

Dec 11, 2008

SOFIA, DECEMBER 11, NOYAN TAPAN. On the first day of RA President
Serzh Sargsyan’s two-day official visit to Bulgaria, on December
10, he had a tete-a-tete talk with President of Bulgaria Georgi
Parvanov. The interlocutors highly evaluated the level of the current
political dialogue between the two countries. They said that economic
cooperation and commodity circulation, which amounts to over 150m USD,
are inferior to political dialogue’s level, and proper steps need to
be taken both to change the commodity circulation structure and to
further develop economic partnership.

S. Sargsyan and Georgi Parvanov were pleased to record the good
legal-contractual sphere between the two countries.

G. Parvanov welcomed the Armenian-Turkish dialogue expressing the
hope that the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border will be also
very useful for the Bulgarian side. The interlocutors held the
same opinion that if the border is opened, a possibility of direct
transport, motorway communication will be created between Armenia and
Bulgaria. S. Sargsyan also presented Armenia’s intention to build a
railway with Iran. Both sides mentioned the necessity to carry out
air communication, as well.

The President of Bulgaria expressed readiness to assist Armenia in
the respect of exchanging experience and providing expert assistance
within the framework of EU Eastern Partnership programs.

Four documents have been signed with the two countries’ Presidents’
participation: a protocol of intentions of organization and holding
of days of Bulgarian culture in 2009 in Armenia and days of Armenian
culture in 2010 in Bulgaria, 2009-2014 working plan of cooperation in
the state government sphere, agreement of cooperation in the sphere
of archives work, as well as a protocol on making amendments to
the agreement on excluding double taxation of revenues and property
between the two countries.

According to the report provided to Noyan Tapan by the RA President’s
Press Office, the same day S. Sargsyan had a working dinner with
Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, during which many problems
regarding cooperation prospects in the economic sphere were discussed.

Then S. Sargsyan met with Chairman of National Assembly of Bulgaria
Georgi Pirinski. Issues regarding Armenian-Bulgarian partnership
were discussed, in particular, importance was attached to further
deepening of interparliamentary cooperation’s positive traditions,
which is of considerable importance for keeping the political dialogue
between the two countries at the proper level.

MUSIC ENSEMBLES OF ISTANBUL TO HAVE CONCERTS IN YEREVAN AND VANADZOR

Noyan Tapan

Dec 11, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 11, NOYAN TAPAN. The Kardes Turkuler (Brother
Songs) music ensemble and the Sayat Nova Armenian choir of Istanbul
will have a joint concert program on December 12-13 in Yerevan
and Vanadzor. As Gayush Calikma-Gavrilov, a member of the Sayat
Nova ensemble, reported at the December 10 press conference, Kardes
Turkuler’s reportoire mainly includes Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish
folk songs. The ensemble will perform the Msho Akhchik, Kani Vur Janim,
and other Armenian songs.

It was also mentioned that Kardes Turkuler was created 15 years ago
with the mission to contribute to improval of friendly, brotherly
relations between the peoples of the countries being at war with
each other.

TRANSPORT MINISTER MOUTAFCHIEV PROPOSES INCREASE OF ROAD HAULAGE PERMITS TO ARMENIAN COUNTERPART SARGISIAN

BSANNA NEWS
Dec 10 2008
Ukraine

SOFIA, Dec 9. (BTA). Bulgarian Transport Minister Peter Moutafchiev
received Armenian Transport and Communication Minister Gurgen Sargisian
on Tuesday, the Transport Ministry said. Moutafchiev proposed an
increase of the number of universal permits for haulage by road up
to 500.

On his turn, the guest voiced hope for the launching of a direct
air service between Sofia and Yerevan. The Armenian national carrier
is ready to service this line, said Sargisian. Moutafchiev pledged
full support to the Armenian side noting that such a service would
be highly efficient.

During the talks the two ministers discussed the problem of the
inadequate capacity of the ferry lines. They were unanimous that
possibilities should be sought to intensify haulage in the Black
Sea region.

At a meeting with State Agency for ITC President Plamen Vachkov later
in the day, the guest showed interest in the Bulgarian experience
in the drafting of statutory instruments regarding the shift towards
digital television and the management of the radio frequency sector.

Vachkov familiarized the guest with one of the Agency’s priority
projects – on the establishment of an electronic communication
network. The project has promoted communication among parallel
departmental telecommunication networks and has made possible the
functioning of the 112 single emergency call system.