Author: Badalian Vardan

SIBERIAN CONSCRIPT ‘ADMITS’ KILLING SIX MEMBERS OF AN ARMENIAN FAMILY IN SHOCKING ATTACK

The Siberian Times, Russia
Jan 13 2015

By The Siberian Times reporter
13 January 2015

Baby boy aged six months, the sole survivor of massacre, fights for
his life.

Russian conscript Valery Permyakov, 18, has admitted killing a family
with his military Kalashnikov machine gun, say Armenian prosecutors.

He left his post and called at a house close to Gyumri at 6am on the
pretext of asking for a drink of water. The door was opened by Asmik
Avetisyan 51, who was shot dead on the spot.

Then the killer rushed inside and shot dead her husband Serzh
Avetisyan, 53, their daughter Aida, 35, son Armen, 33, and
daughter-in-law Araksiaya, 22.

Armen and Araksiya’s daughter Asmik, two, was stabbed with an army
knife in her bed. The conscript wounded the couple’s second child
Serezha, aged six months.

The massacre was discovered some hours later when a relative called
at the house. Miraculously the baby was still alive, but was said to
be in a ‘grave’ condition.

The child underwent emergency surgery on 12 January, and is on an
artificial lung. He has a knife wound to the chest, say medics.

The soldier left his army boots and Kalashnikov in the house,
along with his uniform, and fled the house in casual clothes. He was
arrested later by guards close to the Armenia border with Turkey. He
was handed to the commander of his military base, and is now held in
the camp’s jail.

Deputy Head of Armenian Police Hunan Poghosyan said that the Russian
serviceman had admitted to the murder of the Avetisyans’ family.

‘The suspect of the Avetisyans family murder in Gyumri, common soldier
of the 102nd Russian military base, Valery Permyakov, gave the first
testimonies and admitted to the murder,’ said Poghosyan.

He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted, said experts.

The Defence Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan met with the Deputy
Defense Minister of Russia Arkady Bakhin to discuss the case.

A protest outside the Russian Embassy in Yerevan with some demand
for Vladimir Putin to apologise to the Armenian people.

A friend of the detained man in Chita, called Andrei, was quoted
as saying: ‘I am shocked. Honestly, I do not think he is capable
of murder.’

Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in Russia reported that Permyakov had
a mental disorder in the past but still he was recruited to serve in
the army, where he was a tank driver.

RUSSIAN SOLDIER CONFESSES TO MASSACRING ENTIRE ARMENIAN FAMILY

The Moscow Times, Russia
Jan 13 2015

An 18-year-old Russian soldier suspected of waging a deadly attack
against an Armenian family, killing every member except a 6-month-old
baby, has reportedly confessed to the crime after being detained near
the Turkish border.

“[Valery] Permyakov, the suspect in the killing of six members of the
Avetisyan family in Gyumri, confessed his guilt. He said that he left
his military base to take a walk through the city and accidentally
wound up in the Avetisyans’ home,” Unan Pogosyan, deputy head of the
local police department, said in comments carried by state news agency
RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

It remains unclear what motivated the killings, but Permyakov said
he entered the family’s home because he wanted something to drink,
the report said.

Permyakov is suspected of killing six members of the family, which
lived near a Russian military base in the Armenian city of Gyumri,
including a 2-year-old child. The 6-month-old baby, who miraculously
survived the attack, remains in critical condition in a nearby
hospital.

The Kommersant newspaper reported that Permyakov first shot and killed
the 53-year-old father before shooting the remaining family members
while they slept. He reportedly stabbed the 2-year-old with a bayonet.

The incident seems to have caused some alarm among top officials in
the Defense Ministry, which is setting up a commission to investigate
the case that will be headed by Deputy Defense Minister Arkady Bakhin,
state news agency TASS reported.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reported that Permyakov previously
suffered from an undisclosed mental illness, though acquaintances
of the suspect who were interviewed by Armenian media expressed
shock at the heinous crime and said the young soldier could not have
committed it.

AZERBAIJAN’S PRESIDENT SAYS DOUBLE STANDARDS POLICY BEHIND UNRESOLVED KARABAKH CONFLICT

ITAR-TASS, Russia
January 10, 2015 Saturday 10

BAKU January 10.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has said in 2014 there was no
progress in settlement of the Karabakh conflict

He spoke on Saturday at an expanded cabinet meeting focusing on
results of the country’s social and economic growth in the past year.

“Last year there was no progress in the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict,” Aliyev said.

He blamed Armenia for not “wanting peace” and reproached international
mediators that their words about inadmissibility of the current status
quo in the conflict remain “just words, lacking serious politics
behind them.”

Aliyev recalled four resolutions on the Karabakh conflict adopted by
the UN Security Council that had remained unimplemented over the past
20 years.

Also, the Azeri president said documents like these tackling other
international problems often come into force without delay.

“It is injustice and a policy of double standards,” he said. “There
seem to be such forces which are interested in the conflict to be
frozen or half-frozen so that it could be used as a tool to pressure
Azerbaijan.”

In 2015 Azerbaijan will beef up its military potential, Aliyev said.

The mountainous area of Nagorno-Karabakh remains a so-called ‘frozen
conflict’ on the post-Soviet space as it is the subject of a dispute
between Azerbaijan where the region is located and its ethnic Armenian
population.

In 1988 a war broke out there between Azerbaijani troops and Armenian
residents, which resulted in the region’s de facto independence. In
1994 a ceasefire was reached but the relations between the two states
are still strained.

Russia, France and the U.S. co-chair the Minsk Group of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which attempts
to broker an end to hostilities and the conflict. –0-mil/

CROWE’S WATER DIVINER IS OUT OF HIS DEPTH

January 13, 2015

By Anthony McAdam

Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, the fact is the film’s lack
of any historical context is breathtaking. There are many, but there
is one really glaring omission.

It so happens that the well-documented genocide of the Armenians at
the hands of the Turks was initiated on the day immediately before
the Gallipoli landing, an overlap that traditionally receives hardly
a mention from Australian historians, and no reference whatsoever in
this film.

The Spectator – To much fanfare, Russell Crowe’s first film as a
director, The Water Diviner, was released on Boxing Day. It appears at
a key moment – the focus of the film, Gallipoli, is about to become
the centrepiece in an elaborate nation-wide commemoration to mark
the centenary of the landing in 1915.

If intentions are taken seriously, the film is a huge disappointment.

Its release came packaged to suggest that it presents a more honest
and more understanding appreciation of our then enemy, the Turks.

Besides being the director, Crowe is the star and driving force in
the film’s conception, and hence fully responsible for the result. His
intention: ‘It is time to teach our children the other side [i.e. the
Turkish side] of the Gallipoli story’.

Many of the media reviews have been just as presumptuous and
wrong-headed. The Age, for instance, tells us ‘This is perhaps the
first Australian war movie to deal honestly with the Turks and that
is one of its achievements’.

Well, not really. This highly sentimentalised and rather pointless
attempt to depict the human dimension of the Gallipoli campaign, as
experienced by an Aussie father (Crowe) searching for the bodies of
his three sons, fails both as plausible drama and as an honest attempt
to confront the actual behaviour of the enemy (the Ottoman empire),
not to mention the moral justification for the terrible sacrifice of
Allied lives.

On that last point, distinguished British historian Jeremy Black
recently wrote: ‘The current fashion for commemorating the dead
by honouring their struggle does not in fact honour them unless we
explain why they were fighting and facing the personal, moral and
religious challenges of risking and inflicting death. Why did men
volunteer in 1914? Why did they advance across the ‘killing ground’?

To mark the struggle without recalling its point and value is both
to lack a moral compass and, indeed, not really to seek one’.

And for those who believe, as Crowe seems to, that Britain and
Australia entered the war for ignoble reasons, or no reason at all,
it is worth ‘remembering’ that Britain was responding to a clear act
of German aggression against a neutral country, Belgium, with which
it was honour bound by treaty to defend, a decision overwhelmingly
supported at the time by the Australian government and the Australian
people. Turkey threw in its lot with the Germans and made itself
the enemy.

Not only does the film fail to show the slightest inkling of interest
as to why the allies fought and, for that matter, why the hero’s sons
died, but Crowe bathes the whole story in a painfully mawkish and
barely credible tale of a heart-broken water diviner (Crowe himself)
who miraculously emerges as a body diviner rambling around the rocky
cliffs of Gallipoli ‘bonding’ with the very soldiers responsible
for his sons’ deaths, with of course the now obligatory Aussie sneer
directed towards a British officer made out to be a right pompous git
(shades of Weir’s Gallipoli?).

Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, the fact is the film’s lack
of any historical context is breathtaking. There are many, but there
is one really glaring omission.

It so happens that the well-documented genocide of the Armenians at
the hands of the Turks was initiated on the day immediately before
the Gallipoli landing, an overlap that traditionally receives hardly
a mention from Australian historians, and no reference whatsoever in
this film.

What happened to the Armenians? Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, author of
The First World War in the Middle East (2014) paints the basic picture:

The Armenian genocide started in earnest on 24 April 1915 with the
arrest and deportation of thousands of Armenian political leaders
and intellectuals. This act triggered widespread massacres that
subsequently killed an estimated 1 million Armenians. The combination
of the outright killings and the forced marches through the Syrian
Desert constituted one of the earliest examples of a ‘crime against
humanity’…

The mass murder of this ancient Christian community made no exception
for women and children and was conducted with a barbarity that
shocked even officers of the Ottoman’s German allies, some of whom
witnessed the gruesome scenes first hand, as did missionaries and
other outsiders.

The legacy of what happened a hundred years ago in Turkey this April
is now taking on all the characteristics of a diplomatic perfect
storm. Obviously, the Australian centenary commemorations at Gallipoli
will be more elaborate than anything previous, the worldwide protests
by the Armenian Diaspora will be more vociferous than ever, and the
Turkish government’s fierce opposition to even the mention of the
word genocide will be as aggressive as ever.

This combination of factors is now coming to a head with Turkey
virtually ruling itself out of any hope of having its stalled
application to join the EU accepted, its position on the Armenian
issue being a major factor. If all this were not enough, more evidence
is emerging that highlights Turkey’s current machiavellian position
vis-a-vis the Islamic State’s forces on its borders, a savage army
currently trying to murder what’s left of Iraq’s and Syria’s Christian
communities, and other demonised faith communities.

Where does Australia sit in this gathering storm with its myriad
strategic and moral conundrums? Not well. While Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott did not hesitate to condemn the Armenian genocide, last
June Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a statement that called
the Armenian killings ‘a tragedy’ but added, quite unnecessarily,
‘we do not recognise the events as genocide’ for which, according to
(former Speccie Diarist) Geoffrey Robertson QC, ‘she was duly lauded
in Turkey as a genocide denier’.

The moral issue at stake is neatly captured in the subtitle of
Robertson’s recently published book on the genocide: ‘Who now remembers
the annihilation of the Armenians?’ It was Hitler’s comment to his
generals on the eve of the invasion of Poland urging them to show no
mercy as there would be no retribution. It’s all part of ‘the other
side of the Gallipoli story’ that Russell Crowe somehow didn’t get
around to even hinting at.

SEYRAN OHANYAN: OIL PRICES GRADUALLY BRING TO NAUGHT AZERBAIJAN’S ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OVER ARMENIA

by David Stepanyan

ARMINFO
Tuesday, January 13, 12:04

Baku escalates tensions on the border with Armenia and NKR for
domestic and foreign policy reasons. This bears no relation to the
winter call-up, Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanyan said on
the Public Television of Armenia.

“The authorities in Baku try to distract the attention of their our
citizens from their domestic problems that are arousing serious concern
among the people. These are, first of all, problems with democracy,
human rights, freedom of speed, and national minorities.

All these problems, undoubtedly, come from the ruling totalitarian
regime of Azerbaijan. Furthermore, Azerbaijan’s leadership has to
somehow justify the billions it spends on the arms race it launched
for nothing but self-affirmation,” the minister said.

In this light, Ohanyan believes that the authorities in Baku need to
prove the people that army is ready to settle the tasks set to it.

They need to test the combat efficiency of their army, considering
that the falling oil prices gradually bring to naught their economic
advantages over Armenia. Nevertheless, the minister believes that
even the diminishing oil dollars have not reduced the social gap
between the very rich and very poor in Azerbaijan.

“Baku tries to keep the situation on the borders tense also to somehow
influence the events timed to the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

In Baku they are very much concerned over possible normalization of
relations with Turkey in the light of the world community’s aspiration
to remove dividing lines between our countries,” Seyran Ohanyan said
for conclusion.

ARMENIAN MIGRANTS HAVE NO PLACE TO RETURN

Naira Hayrumyan, Political Commentator
Business – 13 January 2015, 12:34

The head of the Russian Federal Migration Service Constantine
Romodanovsky announced that in early 2015 the number of migrant
workers is down by 70% compared with the same period of last year.

This is a huge number and is determined by both tougher migration
legislation and economic problems in Russia, including the devaluation
of the dram, declining investments, construction and other projects.

The citizens of Armenia who worked in Russia for many years are now
waiting. Optimists are waiting until the situation in Russia improves;
pessimists are considering doing something in Armenia.

For the time being, there is no official information on the number
of arrivals and departures from Armenia but the fact that buying
Yerevan-Moscow tickets is easier than return tickets is evidence that
the citizens of Armenia are returning and not intending to leave.

Though on January 2 Armenia became a member of the Eurasian Union,
and the citizens of Armenia can freely leave and work in Russia,
the economic situation in Russia makes export of labor to this
country meaningless.

Encouraging migration to Russia is one of the priorities of the
Armenian government. First, it allows shedding state obligations for
employment on those “drowning”, second, push the civil-revolutionary
potential out of the country and, most importantly, receive remittances
which amount to the state budget.

Armenia exports labor and imports almost all consumer goods. And
as long as export exceeds import, Armenia can keep its political
and economic balance. As soon as the export gets closer to import,
the balance will be broken.

Now it is a time when the government may start thinking on how to fill
in the gap of remittances and address the people who will understand
that leaving for Russia is meaningless.

Thousands of people who earned their living while working in Armenia
cannot stay in Armenia jobless and they will first of all make claims
to the government. Does the government have any plan of actions for
this case or is the solution of these problems also delegated to the
Eurasian Commission?

The Armenian society underwent an invisible transformation last year.

The representatives of the Armenian government state with confidence
that there cannot be a revolution in Armenia because Armenians protest
with their suitcases and feet.

However, recently the government has started speaking about this
much lesser seeing the situation in Russia. Perhaps, the government
is trying to understand how the labor migrants will behave, whether
they will rally in front of the government or find another way out.

CHILD SURVIVOR OF GYUMRI MURDER MAY BE MOVED TO YEREVAN

11:22 * 13.01.15

The infant hospitalized in the wake of yesterday’s brutal murder in
Gyumri may be moved to Yerevan as his condition continues to remain
critical.

According to a press release by Armenia’s Ministry of Health,
the six-month-old Seryozha Avetisyan is now in an intensive care
department where he was moved Monday afternoon after a 40-minute
surgery. The child is switched to an artificial breathing device;
his condition is described as a post-operative shock.

A team of specialists from Yerevan’s Surb Astvatsamayr Medical Center
was in the second largest city on Monday. The doctors now consider
the possibility of hospitalizing the child in Yerevan.

Avetisyan, who is the only survivor of the deadly incident, was taken
to Gyumri’s Austrian hospital with stab wounds on the chest. A thorough
abdominal examination revealed no damages to vital organs.

The surgery was successful. The child is now under the health
minister’s direct observation.

RUSSIAN SIDE INCLINED TO REMIT MULTIPLE MURDER CASE TO ARMENIAN SIDE – HUNAN POGHOSYAN

13:57 * 13.01.15

The Russian side considers it advisable to remit the multiple murder
case to the Armenian side, First Vice-Chief of Armenia’s Police,
Lieutenant-General Hunan Poghosyan told reporters in Gyumri, Armenia.

According to him, relevant bodies of Armenia and Russia are deciding
on which side is to investigate the case. An official Russian delegated
led by Deputy Minister of Defense Arkady Bakhin arrived in Armenia.

“All high-ranking officials are inclined to think that the Armenian
side should investigate the case. After a decision has been made,
the arrestee will be handed over to the Armenian side,” Mr Poghosyan
said, according to Armenpress.

“Have no doubts that the culprit will receive deserved punishment. We
are studying his history, but it is clear that he has a low level of
education,” he said.

LE BUREAU DE RFE/RL A BAKOU A SON TOUR FRAPPE PAR LA REPRESSION

AZERBAIDJAN

Le 26 decembre 2014, le bureau a Bakou de Radio Azadliq, le service
azerbaïdjanais de Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a ete
perquisitionne et place sous scelles. Reporters sans frontières denonce
un nouveau coup porte a ce qui reste d’information independante dans
le pays.

Radio Azadliq est la dernière victime en date de la campagne
d’eradication du pluralisme menee par les autorites azerbaïdjanaises.

Le 26 decembre 2014, au terme d’une journee de perquisition, son bureau
de Bakou a ete place sous scelles. Après avoir force le coffre de la
redaction, les inspecteurs ont saisi des documents officiels ainsi
que deux ordinateurs portables, le serveur principal de la redaction,
des appareils photos, des cameras, des cartes memoire et autres outils
de stockage d’information.

“Les mots manquent pour qualifier l’ampleur de la repression a l’oeuvre
en Azerbaïdjan”, declare Johann Bihr, responsable du bureau Europe
de l’Est et Asie centrale de Reporters sans frontières. “L’une après
l’autre, chacune des dernières voix independantes est methodiquement
etouffee par le regime d’Ilham Aliev. Tant de determination et
si peu de scrupules appellent une reponse extremement ferme de la
part des institutions internationales et partenaires etrangers de
l’Azerbaïdjan.”

Les inspecteurs qui se sont presentes vers 10h30 pour perquisitionner
disposaient d’un mandat delivre dans le cadre d’une enquete
ouverte contre plusieurs organisations recevant des financements de
l’etranger. En revanche, ils n’ont aucunement justifie la mise sous
scelles des locaux et n’ont pas indique la duree de cette mesure. Dès
l’arrivee des inspecteurs, le telephone et Internet ont ete coupes
dans la redaction, et les journalistes ont ete enfermes dans une
pièce pendant plusieurs heures, avant d’etre conduits a l’exterieur.

“Cette manoeuvre est clairement destinee a bloquer les activites de
notre bureau de Bakou et a menacer nos journalistes”, a declare a
Reporters sans frontières le directeur de Radio Azadliq, Kenan Aliyev.

“L’ordre [de ce raid] provient d’en haut, en represailles contre notre
travail journalistique et dans un effort brutal pour reduire RFE/RL au
silence”, a ajoute le redacteur en chef et codirecteur de la radio,
Nenad Pejic, dans un communique officiel. La station a annonce son
intention de poursuivre son travail sur l’Azerbaïdjan. RFE/RL etait
deja bannie des ondes depuis 2009, mais continuait a atteindre son
public sur Internet.

Le 26 decembre egalement, un tribunal de Bakou a rejete la demande de
remise en liberte conditionnelle introduite par l’avocat de Khadija
Ismaïlova, ancienne chef du bureau de Bakou de Radio Azadliq. La
celèbre journaliste d’investigation, figure de la defense des droits
de l’homme en Azerbaïdjan, a ete arretee le 5 decembre dans une
affaire montee de toutes pièces. Reporters sans frontières appelle
de nouveau a signer sa petition, lancee le 15 decembre, pour demander
sa liberation immediate et inconditionnelle.

La fermeture du bureau de Radio Azadliq a Bakou rappelle les methodes
recemment employees contre les principales ONG de soutien des medias en
Azerbaïdjan. Les locaux de l’Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety
(IRFS), de Media Rights Institute (MRI) et d’International Research &
Exchanges Board (IREX) avaient tous ete perquisitionnes et mis sous
scelles courant août.

Une vague de repression sans precedent s’abat depuis plusieurs
mois sur les journalistes independants, blogueurs et net-citoyens
azerbaïdjanais, ainsi que sur les structures qui les soutiennent. Pas
moins de quinze journalistes et blogueurs, dont le droit a un procès
equitable n’est jamais respecte, sont actuellement incarceres en lien
avec leurs activites d’information, ce qui fait de l’Azerbaïdjan la
plus grande prison pour les acteurs de l’information sur le continent
europeen. Avant meme ce pic de repression, le pays figurait a la
160e place sur 180 dans le Classement 2014 de la liberte de la presse
publie par Reporters sans frontières.

mardi 13 janvier 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

LE PRESIDENT SARKISSIAN TIENT DES CONSULTATIONS SUR LE MASSACRE D’UNE FAMILLE A GYUMRI

ARMENIE

Le president armenien Serge Sarkissian a tenu lundi des consultations
urgentes avec les chefs de services de police dans le cadre de
l’assassinat d’une famille commis dans la deuxième ville du pays de
Gyumri dans la matinee.

Un militaire de la base militaire russe stationne a Gyumri est
soupconne du meurtre des six membres d’une famille, y compris un
enfant de deux ans, et de la blessure d’un enfant de six mois qui
est maintenant a l’hôpital.

La police armenienne a recherche Valeri Permyakov dès lundi après-midi,
avec une recherche etendue dans la capitale Erevan.

Selon le service de presse presidentiel, le commandement de la base
militaire russe en Armenie coopère pleinement avec les autorites
policières du pays, fournissant une aide active a l’enquete.

L’importance de clarifier les details du crime dès que possible,
d’identifier les responsables et de les traduire en justice avec toute
la rigueur de la loi a ete souligne lors des consultations convoquees
par le President Sarkissian.

“Actuellement, toutes les mesures necessaires sont prises pour trouver
l’auteur de cet acte barbare, et ces etapes sont sous le contrôle
direct du president,” a indique le communique.

mardi 13 janvier 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com