Author: Badalian Vardan

KESAB MAYOR DENIES MURDERS OF ARMENIANS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
April 2 2014

2 April 2014 – 2:13pm

Kesab Mayor Vazgen Chaparyan has denied information about mass murders
of Armenians depicted on photos and videos posted on the Internet,
RIA Novosti reports.

The mayor has not confirmed disappearance of 40 Armenian residence
in Kesab. He said that there were 38 old people in Kesab who were
moving to Latakia in groups. 20 of them have already moved. Chaparyan
clarified that about 700 Armenian families had found refuge in Kesab.

Chaparyan said that houses in Kesab were looted and belongings were
taken to Turkey by car. He admitted that the Turkish government was
involved in the perpetrations.

Kesab is a city on the Syrian-Turkish border. It has about a thousand
Armenian residents.

Militants fighting against the Syrian regime attack Armenian
residences.

SYRIA: KESSAB’S BATTLE AND ARMENIANS’ HISTORY

Open Democracy
April 2 2014

VICKEN CHETERIAN 2 April 2014

The takeover by anti-Damascus rebels of an Armenian village in northern
Syria, near the border with Turkey, has triggered a propaganda war
which focuses on the position of Syria’s Armenians.

This highlights core aspects of Armenians’ experience since the 1915
genocide, says Vicken Cheterian.

On 21 March 2014 a coalition of Syrian opposition fighters entered the
town of Kessab, which is an Armenian-inhabited location in north-west
Syria, bordering Turkey from the north and the Mediterranean from
the west. This followed the Syrian regime victory in Qalamoun, and
its attempt to control the Syrian-Lebanese frontier.

These twin military developments reveal once again that a certain
equilibrium has been created out of both internal Syrian realities,
but also on the international level, which will make a military victory
of one side over the other excluded on both short- and medium-term
perspectives. The Geneva-2 conference and preparations for a new 99%
presidential election also eliminate a negotiated solution, and the
only remaining alternative is the continuation of the destructive war.

The Kessab operation also triggered a new propaganda war between the
regime and the opposition by introducing the Armenian element into it.

The situation on the ground remains murky, though it is known that
620 Kessab families have been evacuated to the nearby port city of
Latakia, while some dozens of people (mostly elderly) seem to have
remained in the town. Pro-regime media talk about jihadists attacking
Christians, destroying churches, and pillaging private property;
these are often supported with horrible pictures and films originating
from elsewhere. They also accuse Turkey of having orchestrated the
attack, and portray it yet another anti-Armenian aggression, as well
as confirming Turkey’s hostile attitude towards Syria as a whole.

The recent media leaks in Turkey itself, where high-level officials
seem to be discussing an act of provocation as a cover for direct
Turkish military intervention, give some credit to the Syrian official
narrative. This latest scandal led to the shutting down of YouTube in
Turkey. The Syrian rebels have also posted footage showing a state of
normalcy in Kessab, notwithstanding abandoned streets where rebels
guard churches and the remaining population. Now, rebels have to
prove that they will secure both lives and property and that Kessab
will not become another Raqqa.

In a military sense, the opposition fighters could have taken Kessab
at any time over the past year, after they dominated the mountains
east of the town. They did not enter the town because it would have
embarrassed the Turkish government internationally. In order to
understand why Turkey’s official position shifted, I turned to Rober
KoptaÅ~_, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Agosin Istanbul. His
explanation centred on internal Turkish politics: namely, close to
the municipal elections, the ruling AKP needed to show a “victory”
in Syria to its constituency, something that became urgent after the
recent opposition losses in the centre of the country.

In a signed article in Agos, KoptaÅ~_ says that many Armenian
organisations both in Syria and Turkey think the attack could only
have happened with the agreement and logistical support of Turkey. The
Turkish military involvement was underlined by the shooting down of a
Syrian warplane – something the Turkish army did not do in 2012 when
the Syrian side downed a Turkish F-4 Phantom and killed its two pilots.

The past is present

It has been a while since Arab public opinion has been familiar
with the Armenians and their history, or at least they now have
“forgotten” it. When I was growing up in Beirut in the 1970s, the
dominant narrative was constructed around the Arab national struggle
with a focus on Palestine. In this discourse, Armenians were fellow
victims struggling for their national rights, and Turkey was on
the side of the enemy: Nato and Israel. In recent years things have
changed, and gradually – whenever there was political struggle between
Armenian organisations and Turkey around the question of genocide –
I found aggressive anti-Armenian discourse on the internet. The Arab
public reaction in most cases was extremely hostile to the Armenians.

This change was of course influenced by the tectonic political changes
in the middle east: national struggles had been defeated and emptied
of their content, and in their place a new Islamist discourse emerged
which is largely sectarian and lacking Islam’s universality. The coming
to power of the AKP in Turkey in 2002 inflamed large sections of Arab
public opinion, especially after the mediatised operation of the Mavi
Marmara to break Gaza blockade. This revealed how dispossessed Arab
public opinion felt, and that they needed an outside saviour. In the
emerging narratives, Armenians became the outsiders.

But I also think Armenian intellectuals in the middle east have a
great responsibility. What happened in 1915 is not just an Armenian
suffering, a pain we have to mourn alone. The Armenian experience
is of universal value, and the necessary lessons have still not
been learned by humanity – even now, ninety-nine years later. And I
specifically think that the Armenian experience is extremely relevant
to the current struggle in Syria.

Two reactions after the opposition seizure of Kessab illustrate
my point.

First, a week after the events in Kassab, on 28 March, a “save Kessab”
campaign was launched on social media, which quickly received a huge
volume.of attention and support. Armenian interest-groups in the
United States linked the Kessab events with the Armenian genocide in
1915. Some reports talked about “eighty Armenians killed” by Syrian
rebels. Video footage of massacres that happened in totally other
contexts were thrown into the amalgam.

The campaign took a political turn on 24 March, the Armenian National
Committee of America (ANCA), an influential Armenian pressure-group,
asked Barack Obama’s administration to press Turkey to prevent
“militant extremists streaming into Kessab from Turkey.” In
addition, a parliamentary delegation hastily flew from Yerevan
with the stated intention of checking the condition of the Kessab
inhabitants now displaced to Latakia. They also met Syria’s president,
Bashar al-Assad, and produced a declaration supporting his policies
“against terrorism”. For the first time since the start of the Syrian
conflict in 2011, the Armenian community was being perceived as being
“pro-Bashar”.

A pro-Syrian opposition publication had a short article entitled:
“American Armenians distort the image of Syrian revolutionaries
to settle old accounts with Turkey.” Armenians, says the article,
are accusing Turkey of “supporting ‘terrorist groups’ in Syria and
being responsible for the destruction of churches there. They see this
demarche as motivated by sectarian revenge, the result of deep-seated
national grudges dating back to the Ottoman massacres against the
Armenians in the second decade of the past century.”

Second, Fawwaz Tallo, a Syrian opposition figure, commented on
the developments in Kessab thus: “Kessab is a Syrian town and not
Armenian. The Armenians are guests whom we received one hundred years
ago on our Syrian land, and today we liberate our land.” In the same
interview, Tallo attacked the idea of federalism, considering it a
division of the country on sectarian lines.

The Armenians and Syria

Kessab Armenians are not “guests” who came to Syria a hundred years
ago. Kessab Armenians, as well as the Armenian villages of Jebel Musa
just across the border to the north, have been on their land for
over 1,000 years. They were part of the Cilician Armenian Kingdom
(1198-1375), although there are other accounts that indicate that
Jebel Mousa Armenians are present there even centuries earlier. Their
distinct dialect underlines this fact.

The history of Kessab and Jebel Musa is extremely interesting, as
Franz Werfel’s novel Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933) shows, though that
is another story. Only two other villages have survived to this day
whose people speak the Jebel Musa dialect. One is Anjar in Lebanon,
composed of villagers who preferred to leave their land when France
decided to transfer Alexandretta to Kemalist Turkey in 1939. The
other is Vakifli, a village of 135 individuals, who decided to remain.

Vakifli is the only surviving Armenian village in Turkey, from
thousands of villages, towns of cities that existed on historic
Armenian land before the genocide of 1915.

If Syrian politicians were interested in Armenian historic experience,
they would have known that great powers will never send their forces
to save a people from massacres. During the Hamidian massacres in
1894-96 in which some 300,000 Ottoman Armenians were killed (that
is, in the period of Sultan Abdul Hamid II), the European powers who
had legal obligations to defend the minorities of the Ottoman empire
condemned the crimes – but did nothing else. During the first world
war when the Young Turks deported the entire Armenian population in
“death marches”, the great powers promised to bring those responsible
to justice. But after the war they had to collaborate with Kemalist
Turkey in face of a rising Bolshevik Russia, and the Armenian victims
were soon forgotten.

Armenian history shows how notions of “minority” and “majority” are
political constructs that change over time. The Armenians were highly
appreciated by the Ottoman Sultans, and the Armenian nobility served
as the bankers, architects, and industrialists of the Sultan. In
eastern Anatolia the situation was different, as local Armenians
peasants and townspeople, were in a struggle with armed, nomadic,
mainly Kurdish tribes. After the Berlin treaty of 1878 – when the
great powers demanded the Ottoman Sultan introduce reforms in the
Armenian provinces – Sultan Abdul Hamid decided to eliminate the
“Armenian question” by massacres, often using the Kurdish tribes for
this operation.

The Young Turks took this policy to new levels by deporting and
killing the entire Armenian population. From the 2.2 million Ottoman
Armenians in 1914 there were only 250,000 left in Turkey in 1923, and
only 60,000 today. But once the Armenian “minority” was physically
eliminated, Kurds in Turkey became the new “minority” and victim of
repressive policies, in a conflict that still needs to be solved.

History and justice

The conclusion is twofold. First, that the problem is not the
existence of “majority” and “minority” – which are shifting and
political concepts – but eliminating violence as an instrument
of policy-making. Second, that rejecting federalism as a form of
“separatism” and insisting on a centralised state, as Fawwaz Tallo
does, may not be the best solution.

But there’s a third and even bigger conclusion: that the fight for
justice and memory continues after any war ends. The apologists of
a criminal regime will continue to accuse the victims, and justify
the criminals. Others will call you “revengeful” and your struggle
“deep-seated grudges”. Hence it is important today to document all
the crimes committed in Syria. In the case of the Armenians, the
struggle for justice is continuing for ninety-nine years now.

The clash of victimhoods? It does not have to be. In no way should
the first genocide of the 20th century be put in the service of a
regime massacring its people and a ruler destroying his country to
preserve their political monopoly.

ONCE A SOVIET HUB, ARMENIA LOOKS TO REVIVE ITS TECH SECTOR

Agence France Presse
April 1, 2014 Tuesday 3:37 AM GMT

: YEREVAN, April 01 2014

Once seen as a silicon valley of the Soviet Union, the tiny Caucasus
nation of Armenia is hoping the launch of its first tablet computer and
smartphone could kickstart a comeback for the country’s tech sector.

Designed — and soon set to be constructed — in Armenia, the ArmPhone
and ArmTab devices are seen as a key steppingstone as the landlocked
state seeks to overcome crippling trade blockades from its neighbours
to become an unlikely industry hub.

“The high-tech sector in Armenia already has a long existence and now
we need to take it back to an international level,” Vahan Chakarian,
president of the joint Armenian-US company Minno behind project,
told AFP.

“By building an Armenian tablet computer we’ll create a brand that will
make Armenia more recognisable on the world market,” Chakarian said.

Compared to major international brands funding and production targets
for the start-up are modest. The firm is spending some $6.5 million
over its first three years and aims to get manufacturing levels up
to some 100,000 items annually.

While the devices are designed by Armenian experts, up till now
production has been taking place in Hong Kong and the US. But those
behind the project hope that will change soon.

“We’ve been spending a lot of funds sending our Armenian specialists to
China to conduct quality tests where the tablets were being assembled,”
Chakarian said.

“Given the engineering capabilities in Armenia we plan in the near
future that all the work on the exterior and motherboard design and
software implementation will take place exclusively in Armenia.”

The company already has a contract with Armenia’s education ministry to
supply all first graders in the country with a tablet computer by 2015.

-Strong heritage, unfriendly neighbours-

For many the resurgence of the high-tech sector in Armenia comes as
no surprise. From computer systems in space ships to the electronics
in submarines, Armenia was at the heart of the USSR technology sector.

“One third of military electronics was designed and produced in
Armenia and there were several hundred thousand specialists worked
on developing and manufacturing computer technology,” says Karen
Vardanyan, executive director at the Union of Information Technology
Enterprises in Yerevan.

Armenia though faces considerable challenges if it is to compete on
the international level.

Festering disputes with its two neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan —
including over the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh — mean
that much of its borders are sealed off.

Those in the IT sector remain bullish about the prospects for
development and point to steady growth rates of over 20 percent
despite Armenia’s flagging overall economic performance.

“Our predictions show that by 2018 the IT sphere will become the
dominant sector in the country’s economy and will bring in around $1
billion,” said Vardanyan.

-Huge intellectual potential-

Some 500 tech firms are now working in the country and international
giants such as Microsoft have started getting involved.

“Our main task today is to maintain the current growth rates, increase
the number of specialists and then make sure they have well paid work
to stop them being attracted abroad,” Vardanyan said.

For its part Armenia’s government has thrown its weight behind the
industry by making it a priority economic sector and pledging that
more help is on the way.

“At this stage we have accumulated a huge potential for development,
but to move forward, we need to think and take new measures to help
new companies compete,” Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian said at a
recent unveiling ceremony for the ArmTab and ArmPhone.

“Now the government is preparing amendments to the legislation that
will mitigate tax conditions for Start-up companies,” Sarkisian said.

Despite the challenges, all this leaves those at the forefront sector
optimistic for the future.

“In Armenia there is a huge intellectual potential and favourable
legislation that can help develop this sphere,” says tablet producer
Chakharian.

“I am sure that in the next three to five years Armenia will become
famous for its IT production and the ArmTab and ArmPhone will be the
start of this.”

IS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HEADED TO EXTINCTION?

[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]

By Stein Ringen

April 01, 2014 “Information Clearing House – “Washington Post” —
Behind dysfunctional government, is democracy itself in decay?

It took only 250 years for democracy to disintegrate in ancient
Athens. A wholly new form of government was invented there in which
the people ruled themselves. That constitution proved marvelously
effective. Athens grew in wealth and capacity, saw off the Persian
challenge, established itself as the leading power in the known
world and produced treasures of architecture, philosophy and art that
bedazzle to this day. But when privilege, corruption and mismanagement
took hold, the lights went out.

It would be 2,000 years before democracy was reinvented in the U.S.

Constitution, now as representative democracy. Again, government
by popular consent proved ingenious. The United States grew into
the world’s leading power – economically, culturally and
militarily. In Europe, democracies overtook authoritarian monarchies
and fascist and communist dictatorships. In recent decades,
democracy’s spread has made the remaining autocracies a minority.

The second democratic experiment is approaching 250 years. It has
been as successful as the first. But the lesson from Athens is that
success does not breed success. Democracy is not the default. It is
a form of government that must be created with determination and that
will disintegrate unless nurtured. In the United States and Britain,
democracy is disintegrating when it should be nurtured by leadership.

If the lights go out in the model democracies, they will not stay
on elsewhere.

It’s not enough for governments to simply be democratic;
they must deliver or decay. In Britain, government is increasingly
ineffectual. The constitutional scholar Anthony King has described it
as declining from “order” to “mess” in less
than 30 years. During 10 years of New Labor rule, that proposition
was tested and confirmed. In 1997 a new government was voted in
with a mandate and determination to turn the tide on Thatcherite
inequality. It was given all the parliamentary power a democratic
government could dream of and benefited from 10 years of steady
economic growth. But a strong government was defeated by a weak
system of governance. It delivered nothing of what it intended and
left Britain more unequal than where the previous regime had left off.

The next government, a center-right coalition, has proved itself
equally unable. It was supposed to repair damage from the economic
crisis but has responded with inaction on the causes of crisis, in a
monopolistic financial-services sector, and with a brand of austerity
that protects the privileged at the expense of the poor. Again,
what has transpired is inability rather than ill will. Both these
governments came up against concentrations of economic power that
have become politically unmanageable.

Meanwhile, the health of the U.S. system is even worse than it looks.

The three branches of government are designed to deliver through
checks and balances. But balance has become gridlock, and the United
States is not getting the governance it needs. Here, the link between
inequality and inability is on sharp display. Power has been sucked
out of the constitutional system and usurped by actors such as PACs,
think tanks, media and lobbying organizations.

In the age of mega-expensive politics, candidates depend on sponsors
to fund permanent campaigns. When money is allowed to transgress from
markets, where it belongs, to politics, where it has no business, those
who control it gain power to decide who the successful candidates will
be – those they wish to fund – and what they can decide once they are
in office. Rich supporters get two swings at influencing politics,
one as voters and one as donors. Others have only the vote, a power
that diminishes as political inflation deflates its value. It is a
misunderstanding to think that candidates chase money. It is money
that chases candidates.

In Athens, democracy disintegrated when the rich grew super-rich,
refused to play by the rules and undermined the established system
of government. That is the point that the United States and Britain
have reached.

Nearly a century ago, when capitalist democracy was in a crisis not
unlike the present one, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned:
“We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in
the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Democracy
weathered that storm for two reasons: It is not inequality as such
that destroys democracy but the more recent combination of inequality
and transgression. Furthermore, democracy was then able to learn from
crisis. The New Deal tempered economic free-for-all, primarily through
the 1933 Banking Act, and gave the smallfolk new social securities.

The lesson from Athens is that success breeds complacency. People,
notably those in privilege, stopped caring and democracy was
neglected. Six years after the global economic crisis, the signs
from the model democracies are that those in privilege are unable to
care and that our systems are unable to learn. The crisis started in
out-of-control financial services industries in the United States and
Britain, but control has not been reasserted. Economic inequality has
followed through to political inequality, and democratic government
is bereft of power and capacity. Brandeis was not wrong; he was ahead
of his time.

Stein Ringen is an emeritus professor at Oxford University and the
author of “Nation of Devils: Democratic Leadership and the
Problem of Obedience.”

CRIMEA RUSSIA’S ARTSAKH

Editorial, 23 March 2014

For more than two decades Artsakh’s fate has hinged on
two contradictory international principles: the territorial
integrity of states versus the inviolable right of people for
self-determination. These two key principles are enshrined in the
United Nations charter and in a number of fundamental international
documents. Armenians don’t see a contradiction in the two schools of
thought when it comes to the status of Artsakh because they believe
that since Artsakh was illegally given to Azerbaijan, by Joseph Stalin
in the early ’20s, the territorial inviolability of Azerbaijan did
not apply when the Armenians of Artsakh declared independence. They
were merely exercising their right of self-determination.

Thus when Russian-speaking Crimeans opted for self-determination
and joined Russia, President Serge Sarkissian of Armenia recognized
the Crimean referendum within a few days. And even if Armenia hadn’t
believed in the principle of a people’s right to self-determination
or there was no Artsakh issue, Armenia had no choice but to accede
to Vladimir Putin’s wishes. That Armenia is dependent on Moscow
militarily, politically, and economically is no secret, especially
to neighboring countries such as Ukraine. Thus Kiev’s high dudgeon
against Armenia is ingenuous.

Soon after Sarkissian recognized the Crimean referendum to join
Russia, Kiev recalled its ambassadors from Yerevan and threatened
Ukraine/Armenia relations were about to go south. One would have
thought Kiev authorities, aware of Armenia’s circumstances and of
the centuries of friendship between the two people’s would have
been more circumspect in their condemnation. When Kazakhstanâ?”a
much-stronger state than Armenia and a Turkic country in sympathy
with the Crimean Tatarsâ?”recognized the results of the referendum,
why would Ukraine pick on tiny Armenia? As well, Kiev should remember
that despite Ukraine’s weapons sales to Azerbaijan, a country which
regularly threatens to invade Armenia, Yerevan did not complain,
let alone recall its ambassador from Ukraine.

It’s too early to determine whether the Crimea development would
buttress Artsakh’s assertion of people’s right to self-determination,
particularly when so much of international politics depends on who
has the power to get what it wants. Russia can recognize Artsakh in a
jiffy and cite the principle of self-determination. But since Russia is
concerned in NATO’s courtship of Baku, it sees no benefit in alienating
Azerbaijan to please Armenia, a small country dependent on Moscow.

The West will play similar games of self-interest: It backed
self-determination in Kosovo justifiably expecting that the
mini-state would be a Western puppet and a constant irritant
to hostile-to-the-West Serbia. Since an independent Artsakh or an
Artsakh united with Armenia is of no perceived benefit to the West,
it would let Artsakh’s remain in suspended animation.

Whether Artsakh becomes independent or joins Armenia depends on Baku,
but not in a martial sense. If Baku decides to go to bed with the West,
Russia will at first try to abort that plan. If it fails, it will give
up on the Azerbaijan’s rulers and punish them be recognizing Artsakh.

The story line might also change if Russian/European Union commercial
relations go into deep freeze and Germany, France, et al begin to
look for an alternative source for natural gas which they now buy from
Russia. A new natural gas source might be the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey
pipeline. But the Azeri wells are now shallower than they were believed
to be a few years ago. Would the Europeans invest billions of dollars
when the well might go dry in ten to 15 years? A much richer source
is Iran. It has the second-biggest proven natural gas sources. But
Iran is in the bad books of the West, particularly that of the United
States. If Iran and the West make peace, Iranian fuel can be exported
to Europe through Syria’s Mediterranean ports. If Iran and the West
make peace, Saudi Arabia and Qatar would halt their support of the
extremist Sunnis who want to topple Assad of Syria.

The next six months would be as unpredictable and suspenseful as a
chess match between two grandmasters. In this case the chess board is
three dimensional and the players a dozen or more. Armenia will be
a pawn in the match, but being a pawn isn’t necessarily a bad thing
when you are on the side which says “Check mate.”

KIM KARDASHIAN BUTTS INTO SYRIA’S (ONLINE) CIVIL WAR WITH #SAVEKESSAB CAMPAIGN

The Daily Beast
March 31 2014

The notorious vixen has been in her share of controversies before–and
had even supported the occasional dictator. But nothing like this.

On Sunday, sex tape vixen/reality TV starlet/entrepreneur
Kim Kardashian took a break from the #belfies to wade into
geopolitics–specifically, the ethically murky territory of the Syrian
civil war.

On Twitter, she made what seemed like a simple cry to save the citizens
of Kessab, a town in Syria that’s been the scene of intense fighting
in recent days. The tweet was even welcomed by one of the country’s
main rebel groups. But, as with all things Syria, the reality is far
more complicated. Kessab was, until recently, part of a stronghold for
Damascus dictator Bashar al-Assad. Some are accusing the campaign to
“save” the place of using fake images as part of a possible stealth
movement to support the Assad regime.

Her 72-day marriage and recent Vogue cover notwithstanding, this isn’t
the first time Kardashian has lent her sizeable name to a controversial
issue. Back in April 2011, Kim featured on the cover of the Turkish
edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Bad timing. Kim is, of course,
Armenian, and April is the month the Armenians pay remembrance to
Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians in the years during and following
World War I. Then, in Dec. 2012, Kim paid a (paid) visit to Bahrain,
one of the world’s more oppressive regimes, to help generate publicity
for a Millions of Milkshakes restaurant chain. She even lauded the
“amazing hospitality” of Sheikh Khalifa and the “Kingdom of Bahrain”
on Twitter (before deleting the tweets).

Then, on Sunday, Kardashian gave a massive social media bump to the
#SaveKessab campaign, tweeting out the following to her 20.4 million
Twitter acolytes:

In doing so, she joined political figures like Rep. Adam Schiff and
other celebrities like Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker in helping
the hashtag trend worldwide.

Unlike Barker, the issue hits closer to home for Kardashian.

The Kardashian clan helms from Karakale, a village situated in
Eastern Turkey close to the Armenian border. Karakale was, back
then, an ethnic Armenian village. Kim’s great-great grandparents on
her father’s side are Sam and Harom Kardaschoff, and “Kardaschoff”
is the Russian spelling of the Armenian name “Kardashian.” Her two
great-great-grandparents, along with her great-grandfather, fled
Karakale during what Armenians refer to as the Medz Yeghern (“great
crime”)–the genocide of Armenians and expulsion from their homeland,
which constitutes present-day Turkey, in the years following World
War I. Men were massacred, and Armenian women and children were taken
on death marches to the Syrian Desert.

Sam and Harom Kardaschoff, along with their son, Tatos, moved to Los
Angeles and started a waste management business. Then, Tatos changed
his name to Tom, and the family angled into the meatpacking business.

Robert Kardashian, the father of Kim and her celebrity siblings, who
was also a big-shot lawyer that served on the O.J. Simpson defense
team, is Tom’s grandson.

“I was raised with a huge Armenian influence, always hearing stories
of Armenia, celebrating Armenian holidays,” said Kim. “My father
taught us to never forget where we came from.”

Last week, that family history collided with today’s civil war
in Syria. Syrian rebels, including fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra,
the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, advanced into Latakia,
the northwestern coastal province that is the ancestral home to
the Assad family. Clashes between the rebels and regime loyalists,
including the Iranian-trained National Defense Forces, prompted the
flight of hundreds of Christian Armenians from the border town of
Kessab, into the provincial capital city of Latakia. Kessab has now
fallen to opposition fighters, giving them another strategic foothold
in the north through which they’ll no doubt seek to run weapons and
resupplies from the Turkish region of Hatay, which has served as a
de facto rebel barracks outside of Syria.

Armenians constitute about 1 percent of the total Syrian population,
making them the seventh-largest ethnicity in the country, which has
been torn apart by almost three years of civil war. And while it is
certainly true that Syrian Christians cannot be so easily divided
into pro- and anti-Assad camps (there are Christian units of the
rebel Free Syrian Army, for instance), the coastal enclaves of the
country tend to be more loyalist.

Most of Kessab’s Armenians do indeed back the Assad regime, seeing it
as their only guarantor against radical Islamists who now make up a
sizable part of the Syrian opposition. For this reason, rebels have
attempted to reassure the Armenians that they will not be persecuted
or harmed, nor will their holy sites be desecrated; they’ve allegedly
posted videos showing rebels protecting Armenian church in Kessab.

Nevertheless, such reassurances have failed to win over the local
population, much less the far-flung and influential Armenian diaspora,
which in the United States has a powerful lobbying arm. The fear
of another Armenian genocide, such as the one perpetrated by the
collapsing Ottoman Empire in 1915, is palpable, judging by the social
media campaigns to “Save Kessab” initiated by grassroots U.S. Armenian
grassroots organizations.

One of Syria’s main rebel groups is welcoming the attention from
Kardashian.

“We are glad Kim Kardashian is taking an interest in this issue, as we
too are concerned about extremist groups’ persecution of minorities,”
Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, told The
Daily Beast. “The Free Syrian Army has put out a statement committed
to protecting of citizens of Armenian descent and to maintaining
the integrity of their religious sites and protecting them from the
Assad’s attacks and use of indiscriminate fire, which continue against
innocent people.”

But while no one could argue with the goal of saving civilians caught
in a horrific crossfire, some of the tactics of the Save Kessab
campaign have come under heavy fire. One of the cornerstone images of
the movement purports to be of a Syrian Christian, slain by a crucifix
shoved down her throat. That image, in fact, taken from a horror movie,
according to the online debunkery site Snopes.com.

A second image, widely circulated by the movement, claims to show a
victim of a recent massacre in the region–a decapitated young girl
in a frilly blue dress. The girl lost her life in 2012, not during
the battles of the last few weeks.

The use of the images has led critics of the #SaveKessab effort to
brand it as nothing more than pro-Assad propaganda.

It’s unlikely, of course, that Kardashian took much time to investigate
these claims. As one wag on Twitter put it:

Read the tweets at

ARMENIAN NEWSPAPER, VICTIM OF FSS LIEUTENANT COLONEL, WILL APPLY TO ECTHR

Lragir.am
Law – Monday, 31 March 2014, 17:08

The scandal caused by the closure of the Armenian newspaper Third
Force Plus by the Russian authorities is gathering momentum. Recently
the editorial office has received a letter from the head of the mass
media freedom office of the OSCE Andrey Richter informing that the
illicit closure of the Armenian newspaper has been noted by the OSCE.

Mr. Richter advised the Armenian reporters to use the applicable
national legal mechanisms and apply to court. A court decision that
will violate the right to freedom of expression could be disputed at
the European Court of Human Rights.

The problem is, however, that the Armenian court is not competent
to examine this case because the crime against the newspaper has
been committed by the citizen of a foreign state (Russia) and in
the territory of a foreign state (Russian Federation). The Russian
law enforcement bodies refuse to investigate the crime against the
newspaper, N. Sargsyan of the Third Force writes in an article.

The Russian embassy to Armenia is silent. Once one of its officials
met with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Vahram Aghajanyan and
asked whether the Armenian reporters know what agency the Russian
official Vadim Pozdishev who stole the assets of the newspaper
represents. Having heard the answer, the representative of the Russian
embassy disappeared.

Later the ex-advisor to the Russian ambassador Victor Krivopuskov
met with the editor-in-chief and advised him to put up with the
embezzlement because there are very many similar cases in Russia and
it is meaningless to fight against it.

Note that the Russian official Vadim Posdishev has embezzled the
assets of the Armenian newspaper from one of the Moscow-based banks.

He introduced himself as a member of Putin’s team of political
strategists and an officer of the Russian Federal Council. Later it
turned out that Pozdishev is a FSS lieutenant colonel.

Some time later he informed the editorial board of the newspaper
that some circumstances caused dissatisfaction in Russian officials,
namely having a Jewish staff member on board, and the exclusive
interview with the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorsky.

By the way, the FSS dismissed Pozdishev from service in July 2011 and
banned his departure from the country until 2015 (according to other
information, until 2017). However, he has not returned the newspaper’s
assets. Moreover, the FSS has placed him in RBE GROUP as head of the
analytical unit.

The Third Force is preparing a letter to the first president of Armenia
Serzh Sargsyan to facilitate the solution of this problem within the
interstate relationship because the newspaper’s editorial board is
not able to apply to an Armenian court. The Armenian reporters are
preparing to apply to the ECHR upon the OSCE’s advice.

– See more at:

POLITICAL EXPERT: IF ARMENIA REFUSED OR ABSTAINED FROM VOTING ON UN RESOLUTION ON CRIMEA, THIS WOULD MAKE ARMENIA MORE VULNERABLE IN THE KARABAKH ISSUE

by Marianna Lazarian

ARMINFO
Monday, March 31, 17:49

If official Yerevan refused to vote or abstained from voting on UN
resolution on Crimea, this would make Armenia more vulnerable in the
Karabakh issue, Deputy Director of the Caucasus Institute, Sergey
Minasyan, said at today’s press-conference.

‘In this case, Armenia did not have an alternative. Moreover, this is
one of the exclusive cases when practically all the opposition forces
supported the voting of the official Yerevan”, – the expert said.

He also added that having fixed its position, Armenia may expect from
its strategic partner Russia positive results in the Karabakh issue.

But on the other hand,

Armenia has found itself among those 11 countries which voted against
the given resolution. “Armenia like Finland of the “cold war” times,
in some cases is forced to be very much careful so that not to damage
its own interests”, – Minasyan concluded.

AZERBAIJANI MP: OFFICIAL BAKU SHOULD ACT CAREFULLY AND NOT GIVE REASONS FOR MILITARY INTERVENTION

by Marianna Lazarian

arminfo
Monday, March 31, 17:59

Joining the Crimea to Russia does not mean that Moscow radically
changed its attitude to international law, recognizing the priority of
the principle of self-determination over territorial integrity. This
opinion was expressed in an interview with Turan by the Azerbaijani
MP , political scientist Rasim Musabekov, Turan reported.

“Otherwise , after the Crimea, Russia would recognize the independence
of Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh and others. Russia believes that the West
is using force to violate international law and now Moscow has shown
that it does what it wants,” said Musabekov.

However, he does not believe that Russia’s actions in relation to
the Crimea are the beginning of a new world order and a new system
of international law and relations.

To change the world order, Russia has neither the power nor the
resources, nor the ideology, the analyst believes.

“Russia can start the third world war, but it cannot wage a “cold
war” anymore. To do this, it does not have the financial resources,
or political blocs, or alternative ideology,” said Musabekov.

According to him, Russia’s military potential does not allow it to
conduct military operations far beyond its borders, and it can only
carry out military operations along its borders.

Does it not threaten Azerbaijan, and how should Baku behave in such
a situation?

In answering this question, Musabekov said: “Beware. Do not give the
reasons for military intervention.”

At the same time, Azerbaijan should exclude any threat to the
independence of the country from within.

Besides, it is necessary to build a strong relationship with regional
players: it is traditional relations with Turkey, the expansion of
cooperation with Georgia and improving relations with Iran. As for
the West, it tries to curb and restrain Russia, but it will not enter
into a military confrontation with Russia, Musabekov said.

Regarding the impact of the current situation on the West cooperation
with Russia in the OSCE Minsk Group, the political scientist said
he did not expect “serious pulses” on the Karabakh settlement during
the presidency of Hollande in France and Obama in the United States.

“American Cochairman Warlick periodically offers Azerbaijan to
negotiate with Nagorno-Karabakh. However, there is no need at all to
talk not only with Nagorno-Karabakh, but also with Armenia. The U.S.

and France are not active and in fact assent to Russia. In such a
situation, it is better for Azerbaijan to speak directly with Moscow
and seek mutual compromises,” said Musabekov.

TURKISH SPEAKER TO OFFER KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT CAPITOL HILL ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OBSERVANCE

19:09 31.03.2014

Armenian Genocide, Capitol Hill, Ragip Zarakolu

Ragip Zarakolu, a respected Turkish human rights activist and outspoken
champion of Armenian Genocide affirmation, will travel to Washington,
DC to speak at the April 9th Congressional remembrance program,
the Armenian National Committee of America reports.

Mr. Zarakolu has been writing and publishing about the Armenian
Genocide since the early 1990’s. His ‘Belge’ print house has published
over ten volumes on the topic, for which he and his family have been
consistently persecuted and jailed by Turkish authorities.