Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

LE POEME DE FRAPPE DE GUNTER GRASS CONTRE ISRAEL
Stephane

armenews.com
mercredi 11 avril 2012

L’ecrivain allemand et prix Nobel de litterature Gunter Grass a
provoque une immense vague d’indignation en publiant ce mercredi 4
avril un poème en prose dans le grand quotidien allemand Suddeutsche
Zeitung. Dans cette ~uvre intitulee Ce qui doit etre dit, Grass met
en cause le droit d’Israël d’une frappe preventive contre l’Iran et
declare : ” La puissance nucleaire d’Israël menace la paix mondiale
deja fragile. ”

pour lire la suite cliquer sur le lien

From: Baghdasarian

THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY: COMMON-SENSE AND CONSENSUS
BY ARAM SUREN HAMPARIAN

asbarez
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Common sense and consensus.

Words you don’t often hear in connection with the Armenian American
community.

But, all cynical and snarcky comments aside, by any fair reading
of our situation, wisdom and unity represent two of our great and
enduring strengths.

It’s far too often that some among us look outside our community for
validation when, in reality, our own community is a treasure of wisdom,
earned – often at great cost – during the trials of our long and hard
history. We should give ourselves the credit we deserve.

In the same sense, some among us overlook the powerful consensus that
we enjoy on our core challenges – like strengthening our homeland,
defending Artsakh, and seeking justice for the Genocide. They choose,
instead, to make a fetish of fixating on the normal differences
that naturally exist in any robust and diverse community seeking to
constructively address complex real-world challenges.

It’s a mistake to fall into either of these pity-party traps.

The truth is that our grassroots base, in addition to being the
well-spring of our energy, is also the source of the common-sense
insights and consensus issues that drive our common cause forward.

Consider just one example that so very clearly reflects our community’s
collective wisdom on a truly vital issue for the future of our nation:
Our youth.

In just about every community I visit, I’ll hear something along
these lines:

“You know, Aram, I believe in the ANCA’s work – and you can count
on my continued support for our advocacy – but I think that the real
key to moving our cause forward is getting more Armenians INSIDE the
American political system.”

“Look, we’ve got no shortage of bright young Armenians.”

“Lobbying is important. But it’s behind closed doors, deep inside
politics, government, and the media, that the real decisions are made.”

“Why don’t you work on that?”

It’s a good point, and an excellent question.

And I’m glad to say that the ANCA’s got a great answer!

The ANCA long ago accepted the profound truth of our community’s
common-sense consensus that the success of our cause hinges in great
measure on having more Armenian Americans working inside the American
political system.

More importantly, we’ve taken this insight to heart, developing a
world-class training and job-placement campaign, called the ANCA
Capital Gateway Program.

And, we’ve produced real results by helping young Armenians start
careers in government, politics, international affairs, and the media.

Here’s the simple formula: Our donors provide the finances. Our
community provides the talented young Armenians. The ANCA provides
free housing, resume-writing advice, interview training, professional
networking, and key introductions. And the young Armenians provide
the rest: hard-work, shoe-leather, and the talent, determination,
and ambition to succeed. Learn more about this great program.

The ANCA Capital Gateway Program has helped Armenian Americans get
started in dozens of U.S. Senate and House offices, as well as at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. Department of Commerce,
World Bank, U.S. Export-Import Bank, American Bar Association,
American Civil Liberties Union, American Lung Association, Booz Allen
Hamilton, Central Asia and Caucasus Analyst, Chemonics International,
Civilian Research and Development Foundation, Development Associates,
Fleishman-Hilliard, Human Rights Campaign, Law and Media Group,
Louis Berger, Political Media, Inc, and the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee.

Your generosity to ANCA Telethon 2012 on May 20th will allow us to
open doors of opportunity to hundreds of new Armenian Americans to
pursue full-time positions like these, as government and political
leaders, journalists, foreign policy experts, and elected officials.

Your financial support is vital to empowering our youth to realize
their dreams and to strengthening our community’s voice in the
nation’s capital.

There is no better investment in our future. With your financial
support, we can build on our ground-breaking success, and do so much
more, for our youth and for the future of the Armenian Cause.

We owe a special debt to the estate of the late Norair K. Deirmengian
(Norman Miller) for his family’s profound generosity in support the
Gateway Program, to the Cafesjian Foundation, which helped launch
officially this innovative program in 2003, and, of course, to the
vision and generosity of the family of the late Hovig Apo Saghdejian,
who established a Memorial Fellowship in his sacred memory, and after
whom the Capital Gateway House is named. We are, as well, appreciative
of major gifts from the family of Frank and Barbara Hekimian and the
Armenian American Veterans Post of Milford, Massachusetts.

Make a financial gift today to support the vital mission of the ANCA
Capital Gateway Program.

From: Baghdasarian

LE FILS DU MARCHAND D’OLIVES

L’Express

10 Mars 2012
France

Par Clement Sautet (Studio Cine Live), publie le 10/04/2012 a 18:00

Une quete d’identite sous forme de documentaire subjectif meritant.

Mathieu s’est toujours interroge sur ses origines armeniennes. Anna,
sa femme, veut savoir. Tous deux partent en Turquie pour trouver des
reponses. La, ils font face au negationnisme national et posent les
questions qui fâchent sur le genocide armenien. Une quete d’identite
sous forme de documentaire subjectif qui a le merite de soulever des
questions sur le devoir de memoire en s’immiscant dans le peuple
et les institutions d’Etat. La realisation pâtit d’un amateurisme
universitaire et de quelques etapes dispensables du voyage.

From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJANI PARLIAMENT DISCUSSES ADOPTING LAW ON KARABAKH

Trend
April 10 2012
Azerbaijan

An issue of adopting a separate law on Karabakh has been again
submitted to the Azerbaijani parliament’s discussion.

If Azerbaijan has a single law on occupied territories, Armenian
separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh won’t be able to participate in any
economic programs, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Security
and Defence, Zahid Oruj, told Trend on Tuesday. He stressed that it
will also make international organizations abandon the allocation of
funds to Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The Armenian separatists of Karabakh establish relations with
various foreign organizations. Through the embassies abroad Azerbaijan
sends notes, requests. But after the adoption of a specific law on
Karabakh as a territory of Azerbaijan its sovereign rights will be
taken into account implicitly, any foreign, economic and political
ties of Karabakh will not be recognized,” he said.

Under the provisions of the law, it will not be allowed to sign any
contracts with any of the structures with prejudice to Karabakh, any
international or national documents relating to the Karabakh will be
declared invalid, the MP said.

Often citizens of various foreign countries, culture and art workers,
and sometimes MPs go to Karabakh, Oruj said. Their names are entered
only in the “black list” prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Republic, while it can be implemented by law.

“I have prepared a similar bill on Karabakh,” a member of the
Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and State Building, MP Gudrat
Hasanguliyev told Trend on Tuesday.

He said he has repeatedly raised this issue at previous sessions
of Parliament, and stressed the importance of adopting a law on the
occupied territories. He said the prepared bill will be submitted to
the committee which it represents.

From: Baghdasarian

CAFESJIAN ACCUSES EMPLOYEE OF THEFT
DAN BROWNING

Minneapolis Star Tribune

April 10 2012

The namesake of a historic carousel in St. Paul’s Como Park alleges
that a trusted employee, who’s suing him for back wages, embezzled
millions over the years.

A former West Publishing Co. executive who has spent his retirement
years as a patron of the arts and promoter of Armenian causes has
accused a longtime employee of embezzling millions of dollars from
him and his companies.

Gerard Cafesjian, 86, now living in Naples, Fla., made the accusations
in federal lawsuit he filed Monday in St. Paul. The suit came as a
reply to a lawsuit filed last month by a former employee, John Joseph
Waters Jr., 55, of Eden Prairie.

Waters’ suit, filed without an attorney, alleges that Cafesjian has
become increasingly paranoid, miserly and vindictive as he has aged,
and stiffed him out of more than $5 million in salary.

“Waters believes that Cafesjian, angry with Waters over Waters’
[2009] departure from the day-to-day operations of the Cafesjian Family
Office, seeking to avoid paying his outstanding obligations to Waters,
fearful of the sensitive and confidential information Waters possesses
regarding Cafesjian, and bitter over the poor performance of the
Cafesjian Holdings subsequent to Waters’ departure, is intentionally
working to cause harm to Waters and to Waters’ reputation,” he wrote
in his suit.

Cafesjian, the primary benefactor of the historic State Fair carousel
that now bears his name in Como Park, fired back in a counterclaim
against Waters and his wife, Cheri Kuhn Waters.

“Waters initiated this lawsuit in an audacious gambit to rationalize
his illegal diversion of Mr. Cafesjian’s funds,” the suit says. The
suit, filed by Andrew Luger of the Greene Espel law firm in
Minneapolis, says that Waters exploited his position of trust to
embezzle nearly $3 million over five years.

Cafesjian alleges that Waters also may have engaged in tax fraud,
money laundering and illegal structuring of banking transactions to
conceal the alleged theft.

The FBI is investigating the allegations.

Waters started working for Cafesjian at West in 1994, when Cafesjian
oversaw sales and marketing. He says Cafesjian reaped about $300
million from his shares in West when Thomson Corp., now Thomson
Reuters, bought the company in 1996.

Waters worked for Cafesjian’s “family office” from mid-1998 until he
quit in March 2009, though he continued doing odd tasks for Cafesjian
until the middle of last year.

Over the years, Waters has represented Cafesjian in business deals
in Armenia and elsewhere around the world. He said he also served
as Cafesjian’s point man on a project to build a museum about the
Armenian genocide. The museum, in Washington, D.C., was stalled by
litigation in 2008.

Cafesjian’s lawsuit says that after Waters quit in 2009, his
replacement found previously unknown bank accounts and discovered
the alleged embezzlement.

An investigation found that from July 2004 through April 2009, Waters
transferred $2,987,148 of Cafesjian’s funds into an account Waters
controlled and then withdrew the money for his own use, the suit says.

Cafesjian alleges that Waters made numerous cash withdrawals on
consecutive days in amounts below $10,000, “a pattern that appears to
be illegal structuring,” the suit says. The money was then deposited
into accounts held by Waters or by Waters and his wife, it says.

Banking regulations require that cash transactions of $10,000 be
reported. It is a crime to deliberately conduct transactions to avoid
detection by the IRS, law enforcement or regulators.

From: Baghdasarian

ARF-D ORGANIZES A MARCH: FREEDOM FIGHTERS ALSO JOIN YOUTH

19:17 . 10/04

ARF-D started the second day of the election campaign with a march.

The representatives of ARF-D Student and Youth Unions, freedom
fighters and the activists of the movement “A Vote is Strength”
and the party supporters marched from Victory Park to Matenadaran,
joined those gathered here and moved to Azatutyun Square.

ARF-D rally participants were at Azatutyun Square. The participants
in the march noted they have come out to fight for fair and free
elections on which the future of our country depends.

The freedom fighters, who joined the march, in turn, noted their fight
hasn’t finished after freeing Artsakh. They must now fight within
the country against injustice. The guarantee for the success of the
fight is holding fair elections, the realization of the strength of
a vote by the citizens and the readiness to defend it.

According to the participants in the march, it is very important that
today’s youth realizes the seriousness of the moment and comes out
to streets for the formation of an authority in the country by means
of fair elections.

From: Baghdasarian

CALDERA GETS NEGATIVE DECISION FROM ARBITRATOR ON GGC CLAIM

PanARMENIAN.Net
April 10, 2012 – 22:00 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Caldera Resources Inc. (the “Company” or “Caldera”)
received a negative decision from the Arbitrator on its claim filed
against Global Gold Corporation relating to the joint venture agreement
between the parties, the Company said in a press release.

The Board has received advice that there are elements in this case,
which include misconduct, partiality and exceeding authority by the
Arbitrator, that could give rise to a successful application to vacate
(or overturn) the award. Under New York law Caldera has 90 days from
the date of the “final” award to move to vacate.

In light of this, Caldera will be making arrangements to file a motion
to vacate or modify the award. More details will be forthcoming over
the next few days. Arbitration awards must be confirmed by a Court
to become effective. Once Caldera’s motion to vacate is filed, the
Court will need to settle the claims before an award can be confirmed.

Caldera thus maintains its rights to the Marjan Project in Armenia
under the Joint Venture Agreement, pending a Court hearing of its
anticipated motion.

Meanwhile, Caldera’s President and CEO, Mr. Bill Mavridis has tendered
his resignation as officer and Director of the Company. He has agreed
to assist the Board during this transition period.

Caldera’s Board of Directors is working to ensure that this transition
period is properly managed for all of the Company’s stakeholders.

Caldera will review additional opportunities in Canada and elsewhere
and intends to continue to explore its 100% owned Marjan West Project
in Armenia.

The19 kilometer square Marjan West Project is an excellent exploration
target as it has a prophyritic tonalite as well as kaolinitic
alteration and copper mineralization. The license for the project is
held by Biomine LLC, which is owned 91% by Caldera. This project is
not subject to this arbitration.

The Arbitrator’s Award which was issued on March 29, 2012 focused on
whether the precedent conditions for establishing the joint venture
were met. The Arbitrator’s award states that:

(1) The property should revert to GGM within thirty (30) days from
the date hereof. Obviously, GGM may cause the appropriate governmental
bodies in Armenia to register the property in GGM’s name.

(2) Any sums actually paid by Caldera to GGM, should be returned to
Caldera. Said sums should be returned within thirty (30) days from
the date hereof.

(3) As to any sums spent by Caldera on the property, Caldera shall be
entitled to a Net Smelter Royalty 0.5 % for each tranche of $1,000,000
actually spent on the property.

Caldera’s independent geologist and Qualiï¬~Aed Person, Mr. Ricardo
Valls, M.Sc., P.Geo., identified the potential target of the Marjan
West property by completing the interpretation of a satellite data.

Mr. Valls, together with the local staff in Armenia, visited and
sampled selective outcrops within the limits of the license last
exploration season. The property has never been systematically explored
in the past.

The Qualified Person’s review of the license area indicates that the
Marjan West Project has a prophyritic tonalite as well as kaolinitic
alteration and copper mineralization. Caldera has presented an
exploration plan to the MENR and is waiting for final approval.

From: Baghdasarian

OPPOSITION LEADER SETS CONDITIONS FOR PRE-ELECTION COOPERATION
Sargis Harutyunyan, Irina Hovhannisyan

10.04.2012

Armenia – Opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian speaks at the Civilitas
Foundation in Yerevan, 10 Apr 2012.

Opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian set conditions on Tuesday for
his Zharangutyun (Heritage) party’s participation in a multi-party
structure meant to combat possible fraud in next month’s parliamentary
elections.

Zharangutyun, Armenia’s two other leading opposition forces as
well as the governing Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) announced the
establishment of the Inter-Party Center for Public Oversight of the
Elections in a joint statement signed by their senior members on April
4. They have yet to work out practical modalities of the unprecedented
joint effort.

Hovannisian said Zharangutyun believes that the task force can operate
successfully only if the four election contenders clarify what they
mean by free and fair elections. He also demanded the adoption of
another joint declaration that would be signed by their top leaders.

“Our proposals and conditions should be respected in the next two
days so that we can have a really functioning and effective joint
center,” he told a public discussion at the Civilitas Foundation,
a Yerevan-based think-tank. “We are not going to waste time.”

Representatives of the four political forces are expected to meet on
Wednesday to try to flesh out the initiative.

President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK)
was also offered to join the anti-fraud task force but rejected
the offer. HHK representatives proposed last week alternative
formats for multi-party cooperation on the proper conduct of the
May 6 elections. The opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK)
rejected them out of hand, questioning the Sarkisian government’s
stated commitment to democratic elections.

HAK leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, meanwhile, urged Armenians not to
sell their votes and bow to intimidation by government loyalists as
he launched his bloc’s election campaign in the central Aragatsotn
province. He at the same time dismissed suggestions that massive vote
buying by the HHK would be enough to earn President Serzh Sarkisian’s
party victory in the elections. The authorities are thus trying to
demoralize disgruntled voters, he claimed.

Speaking at a campaign rally in the town of Aparan, Ter-Petrosian
also assured supporters that the Armenian authorities would not get
away with fresh “repression” against his opposition movement.

“Today the international environment has changed,” Armenia’s first
president said. “The world would no longer put up with the kind of
abuses that were committed in Armenia. The events in Arab countries …

have taught the world a lesson and I’m sure the world will be looking
at our elections with totally different eyes.”

“That is a further guarantee that the authorities will not dare
to unleash the kind of repression against the people which they
perpetrated in the past,” he added. “So we shouldn’t be afraid of
anything.”

From: Baghdasarian

REMEMBERING THE MARAGHA MASSACRES

asbarez
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

The charred remains of an Armenian resident of Maragha village

On April 10, 1992, after a three-hour violent bombardment, the
subunits of the Azerbaijani army invaded the village of Maragha from
the Azerbaijani village of Mir-Bashir (now Tartar). As a result of this
aggression hundreds of people were killed-mostly women, children, and
elderly. Scores of people were taken hostages and later were exchanged,
but the fate of many of them still remains unknown. Two weeks later,
on April 22-23, the village was repeatedly attacked and the people
who had come back to their burnt homes were forced to abandon the
village once and for all.

The events in the village of Maragha became the precursor to more
bloodshed at the hands of the Azeri Armed Forces, who later attacked
Getashen, Martounashen, Buzlukh, Erkej and the other Armenian villages
in the northern part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

“In the history of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, fraught
with numerous acts of atrocity and vandalism by Azerbaijan, the
events in the village of Maragha in the Martakert district of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, are one of the most extreme manifestations
of sadism and barbarity ever known to humanity,” said a statement
issued Monday by the Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Reopublic.

One of the first eyewitnesses on the scene was long-time human rights
advocate and a Vice Speaker of the British House of Lords, Baroness
Cox, who visited the village a day later.

“It was like Golgotha…” she said after witnessing the atrocities
committed by the Azeri armed forces.

“They are not of the human race,” said the Baroness about the
Azerbaijani servicemen who had carried out the slaughter. Baroness
Cox took pictures and videotaped the atrocities committed by the
Azerbaijanis in the village of Maragha and also described them in
her book “Ethnic Cleansing in Progress,” as well as in her numerous
interviews.

“It is impossible to describe what we saw there. The village was
completely destroyed. The people were burying the dead, rather to say
anything that was possible to bury, charred human remains, tortured,
cut or sawed parts of bodies. We saw the bloody swords by which
they had done all these brutalities. After killing the villagers
the Azeris robbed and burnt the village. By the way, they told us
that the servicemen were followed by the civilians with trunks who
were going to finish the robbery, – and we saw some of those trunks
scattered all over the land, which the looters did not manage to take
away with them,” Baroness Cox said in describing the atrocities.

“In 1997, a number of human rights organizations conjointly prepared
a comprehensive reference on the events in Maragha and submitted it
to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Helsinki Watch International
Human Rights Organization officially confirmed that scores of civilians
were killed and tens of women and children were taken hostage. However,
the international media did not cover the massacre of the Armenians
in Maragha at all and the international community has not given yet
a corresponding assessment to these tragic events,” said the Karabakh
Foreign Ministry statement.

“You have the most powerful weapon – the truth,” said Baroness Cox.

“You should bring it to the international structures’ attention that
Azerbaijan attempted to commit genocide against the population of
Karabakh. You must more actively present to the world the mass crimes
perpetrated against Armenians in Maragha, Sumgait, Baku, etc. These
are crimes against humanity. I support the Armenians and comprehend
that they will never be able to live under the Azerbaijani dominion, as
the Armenians of Karabakh, who lived under the control of Azerbaijan,
suffered much.”

“The massacre in the village of Maragha, which is still under
Azerbaijan’s occupation, cannot be called a military operation,
as there were no military bases in the village but only peaceful
citizens, who became the main target of the aggression. The crimes
were aimed at deporting the Armenian people from their homeland,”
the Ministry said, adding that “the slaughter of unarmed civil
population of Maragha is a crime against humanity and civilization,
without period of limitation, and the perpetrators of this crime must
carry punishment to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic parliamentary blocs of Fatherland,
Democracy parties and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, as well
as the “Artsakhatun” group issued a joint statement Tuesday to mark
the 20th anniversary of the brutal massacres in Maragha.

“The operation was aimed at slaughtering and deporting the peaceful
population of Maragha. As a result of the aggression hundreds of
people were killed, deported or taken hostage,” said the parliamentary
statement.

“Those responsible for the brutal crime committed in Maragha remain
unpunished, and the village remains occupied. More than 1,000 former
residents of Maragha now reside in different countries of the world,”
explained the statement.

“Strongly condemning the crime committed in Maragha, the caucuses
represented in the National Assembly categorize this as genocide and
declare that they will ensure that the perpetrators and organizers
of this crime against humanity are punished,” added the announcement.

The parliamentary blocs “will defend the rights of the Artsakh
Armenians, including the restoration of the territorial integrity
of the Republic of Artsakh, and will contribute to the continuous
strengthening of the republic, viewing it as the most reliable
guarantee of people’s security,” concluded the statement.

Watch videos of the afternath of the Maragha Massacres. WARNING: The
videos contain scenes of grapghic nature, which may not be suitable
for all viewers.

From: Baghdasarian

AZERI WAR PRISONER IN ARMENIA: I’M SAFE AND SOUND

PanARMENIAN.Net
April 10, 2012 – 21:00 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Representatives of the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited an Azeri war prisoner in Yerevan,
Azeri media reported.

ICRC representatives passed a letter to war prisoner Akhundzade
Mamedbagryu Talib-oglu, 22, and took a letter to be transferred to
his family.

The father of the war prisoner was invited to ICRC Azeri
representation, to be given the letter. According to the father, the
short letter said, “I’m safe and sound. Don’t worry about me. Give
my love to family and friends.”

On January 23, 2012, at 3:30 pm local time, Akhundzade Mamedbagryu
Talib-oglu, junior sergeant of the Azerbaijani army (1st corps,
brigade 703) yielded himself prisoner to NKR forces.

ICRC Armenian representation confirmed the information. However,
the father of the soldier distrusted the news that his son might have
willingly given himself up to Armenian side.

From: Baghdasarian