Author: Chakrian Hovsep

TIGRAN TOROSIAN: ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT IS READY FOR CLOSE AND COOPERATED WORK WITH CSTO

NOYAN TAPAN

JU LY 23

RA National Assembly Speaker Tigran Torosian receiving Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary General Nikolay
Bordyuzha on July 22 said that though the occasion for the meeting is
the Rubezh-2008 military training being held in Armenia, there are
many issues of mutual interest and those regarding the work of CSTO
Parliamentary Assembly to discuss. He attached importance to activity
of CSTO Parliamentary Assembly touching upon development prospects,
which, having clear-cut ideas and principles in their basis, outline
new and certain directions for cooperation. The NA Speaker also said
that the Armenian parliament has already ratified all agreements
regarding CSTO work and is ready fir further close and cooperated work.

Touching upon the work of CSTO PA, N. Bordyuzha attached importance
to deepening cooperation, within the framework of which he considered
it efficient to organize meetings of parliament speakers behind closed
doors, as well as meetings of heads of various countries’ parliamentary
delegations at international structures to get acquainted with each
other’s views.

Mentioning that Armenia assumes chairmanship in CSTO from September 5,
he said he would like the Armenian parliament to be also involved in
these processes.

As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA NA Public Relations Department,
T.

Torosian welcomed the practical steps proposed to raise CSTO
Parliamentary Assembly’s activity efficiency and expressed readiness
to assist their implementation. He attached importance to putting
forward concrete problems and establishment of solutions’ mechanisms,
to parliament’s role and significance in these processes.

THE ROLES WERE CAST IN A PRECISE MANNER
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on July 23, 2008
Armenia

The disorders were supervised by one centre

VAHAGN HAROUTYUNYAN, senior investigator of the Special Investigative
Service of the General Prosecutor’s Office and Head of the
Investigative Group, was invited to yesterday’s session of the NA
interim committee investigating the March 1-2 events. The purpose
of his participation was to give details on the circumstances of the
prosecution of the 3 MPs who are currently under arrest.

Judging by all, the committee members have finally started acting as
the advocates of the people accused of organizing the acts of violence
of March 1. Following this logic, yesterday they "cross-examined"
the Head of the Investigative Group, in an attempt to presume Sasoun
Mikayelyan, Myasnik Malkhasyan and Hakob Hakobyan innocent.

Let’s note at once that V. Haroutyunyan refuted the false allegations
that those people were deprived of immunity and arrested without
supporting facts and convincing arguments and are now kept in isolation
cells in the status of "hostages", without being interrogated.

With regard to the other defendants charged by Articles 300 and 225
(usurping state power and organizing mass disorders), Head of the
Investigative Group said that, "there are sufficient proofs and
assumptions that the crime was commit ted according to a previously
agreed plan. In particular, there were sufficient grounds to bring
charges against the three MPs, and later additional proofs were
obtained as a result of the inquest which is still in process."

The charge brought against Sasoun Mikayelyan are substantiated "both
by the testimonies of a number of witnesses and the large quantity of
ammunition recognized as material evidence." There are no policemen
among the witnesses interrogated in that connection; there are only
civilians whose testimonies were not published, considering the
interests of the inquest.

In any case, due to the "organizational efforts" of Sasoun Mikayelyan,
"Iron sticks and clubs were brought to the Freedom Square and were
later carried to the territory surrounding Myasnikyan’s Statue and
the Mayor’s Office. He called for continuing the acts of violence
against the representatives of the authorities with the purpose of
usurping power."

As regards the speculations that the MPs are interrogated in very
rare cases, this is simply misinformation, "All the three MPs were
interrogated, each of them – from 8 to 10 times. It’s a different
matter that all the three of them refused to take part in the
interrogation."

With regard to the fact that the MPs carried out their work in a
superficial manner, V Haroutyunyan noted, "How could the activities =0
D have lasted long if the person refuses to take part in the process
and is reluctant to give testimony. In particular, S Mikayelyan
left the interrogation room several times refusing to answer the
interrogator’s questions." All the investigative operations with the
accused, including the MPs, were recorded in the registration book
in a manner prescribed by law.

According to the Head of the Investigative Group, the MPs and the
other people were charged by Article 225, considering that "they
involved people in the operations, supplied them with ammunition,
called for mass disorders, incited the participants to violence and
disseminated provocative information."

Of the 15 witnesses who gave testimony in connection with Myasnik
Malkhasyan’s case, one person was an MP. One of the witnesses confessed
that right after the mass disorders, "M. Malkhasyan was seen by some
people while passing by the Circus and was asked why they had cancelled
the operations and gave an instruction discontinue the activities,
and what they were planning to do afterwards. And Malkhasyan answered
that this was the right thing to do at that moment, and everything
would be clear in future."

V. Haroutyunyan refuted the V. Malkhasyan’s allegation that no charges
were brought against him for 10 days following his arrest, and the
color of the "well-known" stick was changed the day after. Instead,
he confirmed the fact that their finger-prints were not to be found
there because, being in a state of confusion, the policemen passed
this attribute – the so-called material evidence, from hand to hand,
and conducting a fingerprint expertise was found unnecessary in such
circumstances.

There are more charges brought against Hakob Hakobyan. According to
the data obtained, he not only provoked the activists into disorders,
but also paid for the "special means" used by them. It was due to
his "funding" that "bottles filled with easily inflammable liquid
were thrown to the policemen, and the people were forced into mass
disorders under the threat of being dismissed from their jobs.

With regard to H. Hakobyan’s case, 100 witnesses were interrogated,
and there are testimonies substantiating his crime through direct
as well as circumstantial evidence. There is also a concrete person
who confessed that they had received weapons. Among the dead, there
are people who had direct connections with H. Hakobyan; they were
recruited by him and complied with his instructions.

All in all, there was a precise role-casting as to who was to incite
disorders, who was to procure iron sticks and weapons and who was
to distribute them among the "peaceful demonstrators". All this was
organized and supervised by some center, and one of the objectives
of the inquest is to find out what center it=2 0is," Head of the
investigative group assured the participants.

In response to the question of "Hayots Ashkharh", V. Haroutyunyan said
that the special measures had caused the death of three civilians, and
three more people had died as a result of receiving fire-arm injuries;
one person had died as a result of an injury caused by a blunt tool,
and one was killed by a transparent bullet of unknown calibers. Two
of the dead people were military servants; one of them was killed by
the explosion of a grenade and the other – by a transparent bullet.

The investigative body has not yet made any decision with regard to
the legality of the special measures undertaken; the investigation
of the case is in process.

WHEN SAVING LIVES MORPHS INTO TORTURE AND KILLING
Robert Kaplan

Sydney Morning Herald
July 23 2008
Australia

The arrest of the psychiatrist Radovan Karadzic raises a profound
question: was Karadzic merely a doctor who ran a genocide, or did his
profession as a doctor play a significant part in his genocidal role?

The evidence points incontrovertibly to the latter: Karadzic practised
as a psychiatrist at Kosovo Hospital until he became the president of
the Republika Srpska in 1992, taking some of his nurses and doctors
with him; he used his training to plan terror tactics for ethnic
cleansing; he never renounced his profession.

What do we know about this man who so brutally perverted his
medical oath to save lives? Karadzic, comimg from peasant origins
in Montenegro, lived in multi-ethnic Sarajevo from the age of 15,
mixing with Muslims, Croats and Bosniaks. He received his medical
degree in 1971 and qualified for psychiatry.

Karadzic saw himself as something of an artist, a view shared by few
others, performing as a troubadour, writing children’s stories and folk
songs. He published poetry rife with prophetic, if not apocalyptic,
visions; among the charmless titles were The Morning Hand Grenade
and Let’s Go Down To The Town And Kill Some Scum. He was jailed for
fraud but used his contacts to get his job back.

As the shadows of war loomed over the fragmenting Yugoslav Republic,
Karadzic surprised everyone when he emerged as Slobodan Milosovic’s
proxy, using extreme nationalist rhetoric of a kind not heard in
Europe since the Nazis. A new term entered the lexicon: "ethnic
cleansing". Karadzic, a central figure in the destruction, conducted
the siege of Sarajevo, shelling the hospital where he had worked,
killing colleagues and patients.

In 1995, Karadzic was indicted by an international war crimes
tribunal, making him the first doctor so indicted since the Nuremberg
doctors trial in 1946. In 1993, the American Psychiatric Association
passed a motion condemning Karadzic for "brutal and inhumane actions
… because, by membership and training, Dr Karadzic claims membership
in our profession".

What was Karadzic the psychiatrist like? His colleagues said
he provoked psychotic patients and his work was ordinary. When a
psychopathic patient with a knife rampaged through the ward, Karadzic
retreated to his room, leaving a nurse to disarm the patient. He
constantly regaled colleagues with grandiose plans; for example,
he would write the definitive textbook on depression.

Karadzic’s capacity for gross denial was pervasive. Following the
killing of 68 civilians by a mortar shell at Markale marketplace
on February 5, 1994, Karadzic said the corpses had been blown up by
Muslim forces to gain sympathy.

>>From his career as a psychiatrist to his apocalyptic reign
as genocidal leader, he displayed an extraordinary degree of
reckless opportunism in which the instincts of an extreme gambler
were unchallenged by restraint or fear of the consequences. Warren
Zimmerman, the last US ambassador to Yugoslavia, described Karadzic
as obsessed with violence, regarding him as mad.

As a genocidal murderer, Karadzic is an extreme but not
uncommon example of clinicide, the phenomenon of doctors who
kill. Clinicide includes serial killing, treatment killing and
political killing. Doctors murder more than any other professional
group; they kill their partners, relatives, patients or victims in
service of the state or an ideology. It is likely that the power over
life or death attracts them to the profession in the first place. Dr
Jean-Paul Marat, the bloodthirsty political serial killer behind the
French Revolution, was a dermatological and ophthalmic specialist. He
was followed by Turkish doctors who organised the Armenian genocide,
Nazi doctors who ran death camps and Japanese doctors who carried
out biological warfare.

Since 1945, the role of doctors in terrorism, torture, genocide and
abuse of prisoners is a growth industry. From communist Eastern Europe
to rightist regimes in South America, the list is extensive; each
new phase of insurrection, state repression or clash with opposing
forces invariably produces doctors engaged in serious human rights
abuses. Examples include Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti, Dr Hastings
Banda of Malawi, Dr Wouter Basson of South Africa and, cult-status
notwithstanding, Dr Che Guevara.

Karadzic’s trajectory shows uncanny resonances with that of
Hitler. Both came from a rural background to spend their early
youth in multi-ethnic cosmopolitan surroundings, Hitler in Vienna,
Karadzic in Sarajevo. Like Hitler, Karadzic suffered from psychosomatic
illness. During his early years in Vienna, Hitler mixed with people
of all backgrounds, including Jews, his murderous racism coming to
the fore only in 1919. Hitler regarded himself as an artist. While
able to qualify as a psychiatrist, Karadzic had a similar grandiose
and romantic vision of himself, despite evidence that he was never
more than an indifferent poet.

If nothing else, Karadzic shows that clinicide, from the killing
fields of Srebrenica to the growing epidemic of geriatric murder in
nursing homes, can no longer be ignored.

Robert Kaplan is a forensic psychiatrist at the Graduate School of
Medicine, Wollongong University. His book Medical Murder: An Analysis
Of The Disturbing Phenomenon Of Doctors Who Kill is due for publication
in February.

PRESS RELEASE
Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
Governmental Buiding 3, Yerevan, RA
Contact: Armen Ohanyan
Tel: +(3741) 56 01 06 ext. 105
Fax: +(3741) 52 15 05
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

22 July, 2008
Hayastan All Armenian Fund Provides Agricultural Machinery to Tavush Region’s
Border Villages

As part of the ongoing effort to reach out to the border villages of Armenia
and Artsakh, Hayastan All Armenian Fund is pleased to announce the
successful completion of yet another initiative. The project saw the
provision of a combine harvester and two tractors to six border communities
in Tavush region, courtesy of the Fund’s East Coast Affiliate.

The machinery will serve the needs of the communities of Aknaghbyur,
Azatamut, Ditavan, Lusahovit, Lusadzor and Khashtarak and will be a welcome
and much needed relief for the local farmers who, with the lack of adequate
machinery, were mostly restricted to manual labor for the cultivation of
their land. An energy and time consuming process, the prevalent reliance on
the manual labor decreased the productivity of the land, while also
increasing the market price of the end product.

The agricultural machinery will be co owned and jointly managed by the
community administrations of the six beneficiary communities, who will
together plan the cultivation and harvesting schedule, making sure that the
machinery adequately addresses the specific needs of all the villages. When
finished with the arable land in the six beneficiary communities, the
machinery will also be used to help farmers from the neighboring
communities.

A key aspect of this initiative is its long term sustainability. To tackle
this issue, Hayastan All Armenian Fund will perform continuous monitoring of
the project, to ensure efficient administration of the machinery and to help
the communities solve the problems that may arise in the early stages of the
project. The income generated by the enterprise will cover the maintenance
of the machinery and all other associated costs. The project will also see
the creation of a special bank account, where part of the income will be
accumulated to ensure the renewal and the long term enlargement of the
machinery park.

"We are very thankful to Hayastan All Armenian Fund for this initiative,"
says the mayor of Ditavan village Seyran Sargsyan. "The lack of agricultural
machinery was one of the biggest problems for the farmers in our small
communities. Today, thanks to the Fund, this problem is solved.

The arrival of the machinery in the border villages coincided with the peak
of the cultivation season and it immediately found its use in the field.

"This project is an integral part of Hayastan All Armenian Fund’s overall
development strategy that, along with addressing infrastructure issues, also
aims at alleviating the economic situation in the beneficiary communities,"
says Ara Vardanyan, the acting executive director of the Fund. "Our policy
here is to help people help themselves."

HEARINGS BEGIN FOR TEENS CHARGED IN RACIST ATTACKS
Yelena Shuster

The Moscow Times
July 22 2008
Russia

Preliminary hearings began Monday in the case of a dozen teenagers
charged in a series of racist attacks last year, including the murder
of a Sakha native that was filmed with a cell phone camera.

The 13 suspects, including 12 minors, will stand trial for two murders
and 10 attempted murders from August to October, Moscow City Court
spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said.

The suspects targeted dark-skinned foreigners, filmed the attacks
and shared the footage via ICQ, Usachyova said.

One of the attacks they are charged with is the murder of Sakha
native and tournament chess player Sergei Nikolayev, 46, who was
stabbed to death by drunken football fans on Oct. 20, following a
victory by the Spartak Moscow football club.

The suspects have been charged with premeditated murder, attempted
murder and inciting ethnic hatred.

Judge Vladimir Usov of the Moscow City Court on Monday ordered
a closed trial because all but one of the suspects are minors,
Usachyova said. City Prosecutor Yury Syomin has said previously that
the only adult suspect is 18 years old and that the others are 14 to
16 years old.

Usov set the opening trial date for July 28, Usachyova said.

Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head of the Sova Center, which tracks
hate crimes, said the case is unprecedented because the suspects
are the first group prosecutors have acknowledged as carrying out
"organized, large-scaled Nazi campaigns."

A preliminary hearing in the case of another racist attack is scheduled
Thursday at the Moscow City Court, Usachyova said.

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky were arrested in April 2007 on
suspicion of killing Armenian businessman Karen Abramyan. Abramyan,
46, was stabbed 20 times on the evening of April 16 in southwest
Moscow and died in the hospital.

Interfax News Agency, Russia
July 19 2008

Armenian party forbidden to hold rally in center of Yerevan

YEREVAN July 19

The Yerevan mayor’s office said on Saturday that it had turned down an
appeal from an opposition party for permission to hold a rally and
procession in the center of Armenia’s capital on August 1 and that it
had suggested that the planned events be held in outlying parts of the
city.

The appeal, filed on July 14, had come from the Armenian National
Movement, led by former president Levon Ter-Petrosian, who was
Armenian president from 1991 and 1998 and ran for re-election in
February 2008 but lost the presidential election to Serzh
Sargsyan. Ter-Petrosian accused the government of rigging the election
and led mass protests.

A National Movement spokesman said the rejection of the appeal by the
mayor’s office was "an illegal decision." "On Monday we will issue a
statement in which we will prove that, in actual fact, we have a
lawful right to hold a rally in the center of the city," Levon
Zurabian told Interfax.

PM TIGRAN SARGSYAN’S CONGRATULATION TO PERCH ZEYTUNTSYAN

armradio.am
18.07.2008 15:15

"Dear Mr. Zeytuntsyan,

I sincerely congratulate you on your 70th birthday.

You have built a brilliant creative biography. Entering the world
of literature in 1960, you brought new breath and assessed the inner
world and temperament of the contemporary man anew, which was largely
connected with the radical changes in public life and the immediate
carrier of which was the ideological image you created – the man and
the citizen.

You interests are various as regards genre and topics: literary prose,
historic novels, dramaturgy, political journalism, etc. For many years
your plays have been performed on the stage. They do not lose their
modernity and continue affording a feeling of spiritual pleasure to
the strictest audience.

Invaluable is your contribution as a public figure. Being Secretary
of the Union of Writers of Armenia and RA Minister of Culture, you
have made your great contribution to the cultural and public life.

Once again congratulating you on the occasion of your 70th birthday,
I wish you a long and health life full of new creative achievements."

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT ARMENIANS CONCERNING FIRES IN OCCUPIED LANDS OF AZERBAIJAN: MINISTER

Trend News Agency
July 18 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has accused international organizations of supporting
Armenians’ interests concerning fires set to the occupied lands of
Azerbaijan. "OSCE and NATO render financial support to Armenia and
make offers to stop fires instead of driving back the Armenian forces
together with Azerbaijan and taking ecological measures," Huseyn
Bagirov, minister of ecology and natural resources of Azerbaijan said
on 18 July.

The fires in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan have been intensified for
the last three years which inflicted great damage to Azerbaijan. The
Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan has informed
international organizations of this fact.

"We should not accept the position of the international organizations,"
he said. "It means that the Armenians pollute the environment and at
the same time they want to receive financial aid from the international
organizations," minister said.

According to Bagirov, the fact that international organizations
attribute the fires to the dry climate is not acceptable. "These fires
aim at destroying dwelling houses and to lose traces of burglary. There
are large dry lands in Azerbaijan, but there are usually no fires
in these lands," minister said and added that the ongoing fires show
that the Armenians are not interested in continuing peace talks. "We
inform the states who urge us for peace, of these fires, but they
do not take any steps, and the rhetoric on peace by Armenia is just
senseless propaganda," he said.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in
1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan
lost the Nagorno-Karabakh, except of Shusha and Khojali, in December
1991. In 1992-93, Armenian Armed Forces occupied Shusha, Khojali and
Nagorno-Karabakh’s seven surrounding regions. In 1994, Azerbaijan
and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active
hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia,
France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful, but fruitless
negotiations.

LIST OF PROGRAMS MEANT TO ASSIST ARMENIA IN ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION NOT CONFIRMED YET

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.07.2008 18:30 GMT+04:00

Presently, the programs within the ENP can be divided into two
categories – traditional technical assistance and joint programs that
will start this autumn, France’s Ambassador to Armenia Serge Smessov
said in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net.

"The list of programs has not been confirmed yet but they are
meant for consolidation of the Ombudsman’s institute, flight safety
(standardization of forms of civil aviation) and preliminary analysis
of financial consequences of any legislation," the Ambassador said.

WE HOPE ISSUE OF PKK TO BE OUT OF AGENDA IN RELATIONS WITH IRAQ, BABACAN

Turkish Press
July 17 2008

ANKARA – Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Wednesday the
Turkish government hopes the issue of terrorist organization PKK to
be out of the agenda in relations with Iraq.

Speaking at a program on state run TRT tv channel, Babacan said
that it is the wish of the Turkish government to normalize relations
with Armenia.

"Armenia is the only neighbor of Turkey with which Turkey has
problems with. Turkey has taken many unilateral steps in regard to
Armenia in the recent past. There are direct flights between several
Turkish provinces and Armenian capital of Yerevan. There is indirect
trade with Armenia. We, as Ankara, have sent messages to Armenia for
dialog. Armenian allegations in regard to the incidents of 1915 cause
problems in relations and actually poison Turkish-Armenian relations,"
Babacan said.

Touching on Turkish-Iraqi relations, Babacan said that "Turkey wishes
for the issue of terrorist organization PKK to drop out of the agenda
in relations with Iraq. This can be possible with the political will
of the central government in Baghdad and the regional administration
in north of Iraq."

In reference to Iran, Babacan stressed that "Turkey is against the use
of nuclear weapons in the region. However, we have respect for any
sovereign country to utilize nuclear technology. The international
community must be in dialog with Iran to overcome its suspicions on
Iran`s nuclear program."

On Cyprus, Babacan said that a new atmosphere of optimism has come
into existence following elections in the Greek Cypriot administration.

"The two leaders in Cyprus will hold talks on July 25th and evaluate
the works of the technical committees. We are the side that favors
a solution. The solution should be found within the framework of the
United Nations," Babacan also said.