Author: Chalian Meline

NO ELECTORAL BRIBE = NO PARTICIPATION
Anna Israelian

Aravot, Armenia
Nov 1 2006

One of the friends of Ruben Hovsepian who was elected as the head of
Ajapnyak community, spoke about the elections elucidating it.

– 18932 voters of Ajapnyak from 75188 took part in the elections.

This low figure is explained in the following way: people didn’t want
to participate in an election the results of which were determined
beforehand.

– I think this figure is exaggerated. Our adherents were visiting
homes and we knew that a lot of doors were closed. For example, 15-20%
of the inhabitants of the 16th block are out of Armenia. Not counting
those absent inhabitants the participation of 19000 voters is a usual
electoral process. Besides, Ruben Hovsepian’s electoral headquarter
had decided at the beginning that there would be no electoral bribe,
and free and transparent elections would be held.

– But let me cite Gagik Sargsian’s statement that was also the
candidate for the head of the community that Ruben Hovsepian’s
adherents gave 100000Drams to repair the elevator. This ARF candidate
was declaring before the elections that R. Hovsepian would threaten
the voters, and affirmed that he kept the voters in awe.

– It is simply shameful the behavior of some of our politicians who
declare without any proof about the awe the inhabitants of Ajapniak
were kept in, when the whole community was in peace on October 29. No
incident happened there, no problem was raised.

– Your rivals admit that there was no filling, falsifications. But
it is stressed that you have brought voters to the polling station
by cars.

– Some voters have been brought to the polling stations because the
school in the 15th block was repairing and the polling station was
removed to another school. By the way, those voters might vote in
favor of Gagik Sargsian or Ishkhan Arshakian. You know very well that
they can vote whom they want.

– You mentioned beforehand that this election proved that people
"were spoiled" by the electoral bribe.

– Our inhabitants aren’t guilty, they come, suggest, the citizens
take because of bad social conditions. I think a group of voters
didn’t come, as the electoral bribe hadn’t been given.

PROGRAM OF ARMENIAN-BULGARIAN COOPERATION IN SPHERE OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE IN 2007-09 SIGNED

Noyan Tapan
Nov 01 2006

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. On November 1, RA Minister of
Education and Science, Levon Mkrtchian and Bulgarian Deputy Minister of
Education and Science, Kircho Atanasov signed program of cooperation
between the two republics’ governments in the sphere of education
and science in 2007-2009. Exchange of information and implementation
of practical projects is envisaged by the program. In the sphere of
education they will include secondary and higher education levels. At
that, exchange programs among both students and specialists are
envisaged. Establishment of direct contacts among scientific-research
institutes is planned in the sphere of science. According to the
report of Press Service of RA Ministry of Education and Science,
the program attaches special importance to teaching of Bulgarian and
Armenian languages and other cultural subjects at universities of
the two countries.

CONFERENCE ON "NEW THREATS AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES IN THE 21ST CENTURY" TO BE HELD IN ARMENIA

ArmRadio.am
31.10.2006 10:43

An international conference on "New Threats and Global Challenges in
the 21st Century" will open in the Yerevan State University today. The
event is timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Byurakan
Astrophysical Observatory, therefore the second day of the conference
will be held in Byurakan.

The international conference will provide a theoretical overview of
new threats and global challenges of the 21st century; the methods
and measures for Armenia to adequately and effectively confront them
and the new threats and global challenges of the 21st century within
the context of the OSCE area. The main objective of this effort is
to carry this conference forward and to leverage this event as an
impetus for greater and continued co-operation.

Scientists, researchers and academia representatives from the USA,
Europe, Southern Caucasus and Armenia will participate in the event.

The event is organized by the OSCE Office in Yerevan in co-operation
with the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.

ABOUT 1000 FOREIGNERS FOUND TEMPORARY REFUGE IN ARMENIA

Panorama.am
16:41 30/10/06

‘I get at least 3-4 applications from Iraqi Armenian every day. We have
granted status of temporary protected individual to some 600 people,"
Gagik Yeaning, head of migration and refugee department, told reporters
today. In his words, another 350 citizens received this status who
came to Armenia as a result of Israel-Lebanon conflict. Sixty of them
are citizens of Israel and 250 – Lebanon. About 20 Lebanese are Arabs
by nationality, however, they believe Armenia is the safest country
for them.

Yeganyan does not have information how many of them have returned to
their countries because they are not obliged to report according to
law. However, he believes some of them have already left Armenia.

Yeganyan said the Armenian community in Lebanon has diminished to
120-130,000 from 500,000 because of constant tension in the region.

He also said Armenia provides no benefits to people who have received
the status of temporary protected individual.

THIS WAS GENOCIDE, BUT ARMENIANS WERE NOT ITS ONLY VICTIMS
Thea Halo

Guardian Unlimited, UK
Oct 31 2006

Forgetting the Christians who were slaughtered is nearly as bad as
denying it happened

Timothy Garton Ash mockingly suggests bills to criminalise the
denial of genocides committed by other countries, including France
(This is the moment for Europe to dismantle taboos, not erect them,
October 19). And he’s right. Let’s mention the absurdity of enforcing
the bill except against the powerless. Would France jail the prime
minister of Turkey?

But the double standard Garton Ash mentions should include the
mind-boggling omissions by the Armenian drafters of the bill, who
make no mention of the co-victims of the Armenian genocide: the Pontic
Greeks, who lost 353,000 out of their population of 700,000 in Turkey;
and the Assyrians, who lost three-quarters of their population –
some put the figure at 750,000.

There is also the matter of the other Asia Minor Greeks. At the
Lausanne conference in 1923, Lord Curzon stated that 1 million Greeks
had been slaughtered and 1 million more were exiled. These genocides
took place at the same time and place as that of the Armenians: in
Turkey between 1914 and 1923. The genocide was of the Christians of
Ottoman and Kemalist Turkey. By age 10, my Pontic Greek mother had lost
everyone and everything she had ever loved, including her name, on her
own death-march to exile from Turkey in 1920. My father was Assyrian.

The precursor to the Nazi Holocaust was not just the Armenian
genocide of 1915-16, but the pogroms, or early stages of what would
become a genocide, against the indigenous Greeks of Asia Minor in
1914. According to US Consul General George Horton, Greek businesses
were boycotted and Turks were encouraged to kill Greeks and drive
them out, reminiscent of Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany 24 years
later. Thousands were slaughtered or sent to islands in the Aegean
Sea. According to the US ambassador to the Ottoman empire, Henry
Morgenthau Sr, the Young Turks were so successful in their campaign
that they decided to target the other Christian "races" as well.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) picked up where the Young Turks left off.

The Armenian people are part of my extended family. My aunt was
Armenian, as was the family who rescued my mother in Turkey. In
Armenia, all victims of the genocide are honoured: Pontic Greeks,
Assyrians and Armenians. But the framers of the French bill, along
with numerous Armenian-descended historians in the US and elsewhere,
prefer exclusivity.

Thus, if the bill passes the upper house of the French parliament,
perhaps we should first jail its Armenian drafters, as well as those
who actively deny the other genocides.

These co-victims had inhabited the territory of what became Turkey
for three millennia. One must ask which is worse: genocidal denial,
or being invisible as if one never existed? At least with denial,
there is the possibility of debate. The expropriation by a single
group of such a monumental evil serves to strip the other, "nameless"
victims of that same evil of their rightful place in history –
thereby assuring that their genocide is complete.

· Thea Halo is the author of Not Even My Name, a memoir of her Pontic
Greek mother, and has lectured for the International Association of
Genocide Scholars

[email protected]

· If you wish to respond, at greater length than in a letter, to an
article in which you have featured either directly or indirectly,
email [email protected] or write to Response, The Guardian,
119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. We cannot guarantee to publish
all responses, and we reserve the right to edit pieces for both length
and content

tory/0,,1935652,00.html

–Boundary_(ID_xsFzvUltvB J0oLJdEiMCVQ)–

PREVENTIVE PUNISHMENT TOWARDS VAHAGN CHAKHALIAN CHANGED

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Oct 30 2006

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 30, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On October 30,
Vahagn Chakhalian, Presidency member of the United Javakhk democratic
bloc and Chairman of the Javakhk Youth Sport and Cultural Union,
was released from the isolation cell of the National Security
Service. The Appeal Court on Criminal and Military Cases chose as
a preventive punishment a signature on not leaving the country. To
recap, V.Chakhalian had been arrested on October 11 on the charge of
crossing RA state frontier illegally and was in the isolation cell of
the National Security Service. Arrest had been chosen as a preventive
punishment towards him by the decision of the first instance court.

ARMENIA’S PRESIDENT DUE IN MOSCOW

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 30 2006

(RBC) – RBC, 30.10.2006, Moscow 10:26:59.Armenia’s President Robert
Kocharian is expected in Russia for an official visit on October
30-31, 2006. In Moscow, President Kocharian will have talks with his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two presidents are scheduled
to consider the most urgent cooperation issues and the performance of
top-level agreements with regards to enhancing the Russian-Armenian
interaction, specifically, in fuel and energy and transportation
spheres, as well as direct economic ties between various regions of
Russia and Armenia, reports Trend.

The two heads of states will also share their views concerning
the intensification of interaction in the context of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization. Efforts for the recovery in the Caucasus
as well as for the fostering of confidence and cooperation will also
be in the focus.

As reported earlier, 2005 was the Year of Russia in Armenia, and the
year 2006 will be celebrated in Russia as the Year of Armenia.

From: Sebouh Z Tashjian <[email protected]>
Subject: RA Academy of Fine Arts Is Already 60 Years Old

A1+

RA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS IS ALREADY 60YEARS OLD
[07:20 pm] 26 October, 2006

The Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts will celebrate its 60th
anniversary of October 27 – 28.

A number of events are scheduled on that day – the statue of Ara
Sargsyan will be unveiled inside the building, there will be an
exhibition of students’ works and a concert will be held in
Philharmonic hall on October 28.

The academy was founded in 1944.

The new building of the academy was in a miserable state. And the RA
Government allocated 145 million AMD for the reconstruction, says
Rector Aram Isabekyan. The current building can hardly be compared
with the one we had 10 years ago.

The academy has got departments in Gyumri and Vanadzor, and its
students outnumber nine hundred.

Every year the students of the academy go to study in Paris where a
workshop was opened by the financial assistance of an Armenian deputy.

ARRET LE 13 DECEMBRE POUR LE QUID ATTAQUE SUR SA PRESENTATION DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN

Agence France Presse
25 octobre 2006 mercredi 4:59 PM GMT

La cour d’appel de Paris se prononcera le 13 decembre sur l’action
en justice intentee par plusieurs associations contre le Quid pour
sa presentation jugee contestable du genocide armenien dans son
edition 2003.

Quelques jours après le vote en première lecture de la proposition de
loi socialiste rendant passible de prison la negation de ce genocide,
la 11e chambre de la cour d’appel de Paris a examine mercredi l’appel
forme par le Quid contre sa condamnation civile prononcee par le
tribunal de grande instance (TGI) de Paris, le 6 juillet 2005.

Ce jour-la, le TGI de Paris avait estime que la presentation par le
Quid de cet episode historique etait fautive "au regard des exigences
attendues d’un ouvrage a vocation pedagogique qui se prevaut d’un
souci d’exactitude et de neutralite".

La societe Robert Laffont et la societe Quid avaient ete condamnees
a payer solidairement a chacune des associations un euro de
dommages-interets.

Le Comite de defense de la Cause armenienne (CDCA), auquel s’etaient
jointes plusieurs associations, dont J’accuse et Memoire 2000,
remettaient en cause la presentation faite par le Quid 2003 du massacre
des Armeniens par la Turquie, estimant qu’elle aboutissait a nier le
caractère genocidaire de cet evenement historique.

Le CDCA reprochait notamment aux auteurs de l’ouvrage d’avoir
ecrit pour l’annee 1915: "Transfert d’Armeniens vers les province
meridionales de l’Empire ottoman (…) nombreux decès (epidemie,
maladie) pendant le voyage".

Une presentation qui, selon la defense du CDCA, conduisait a gommer
"les massacres et donc forcement l’aspect genocidaire".

Devant la cour, les associations ont repris les memes arguments,
defendant par ailleurs le fondement juridique de leur action, etabli
sur l’une des dispositions majeures du Code civil, l’article 1382
("Tout fait quelconque de l’homme, qui cause a autrui un dommage,
oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrive, a le reparer") et qui
etait conteste par la defense du Quid, assuree par Me William Bourdon.

–Boundary_(ID_9/h6N7D+rbph8+Op1ZRRlA)–

FRENCH AMBASSADOR HENRY CUNY AWARDED MKHITAR GOSH MEDAL

ArmRadio.am
26.10.2006 13:36

RA President Robert Kocharyan had a farewell meeting with the
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France Henry Cuny.

With the presidential decree of 25 October Ambassador Cuny was
awarded a Mkhitar Gosh medal for the considerable contribution to
the reinforcement and development of Armenian-French friendship.

Handing the award to the Ambassador, Robert Kocharyan thanked him
for productive cooperation and noted that he is completing his job
having registered considerable progress in Armenia-France relations.

Henry Cuny expressed gratitude for the great honor and assured that
the award is very dear to him. He highly assessed the warm attitude
of Armenia toward France, considering the medal awarded to him as
the guarantee of Armenian-French friendship. Appreciating France’s
involvement in different spheres, the Ambassador said that every work
has been initiated with great devotion. Henry Cuny wished prosperity
to our country, well-being to the Armenian people and success to the
President in his activity.