Author: Chalian Meline

FEDERATION EURO-ARMENIENNE
pour la Justice et la Démocratie
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B – 1000 BRUXELLES
Tel: +32 (0) 2 732 70 26
Tel./Fax : +32 (0) 2 732 70 27
E-mail : [email protected]
Web :

COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE
13 décembre 2004
Contact: Talline Tachdjian
Tel.: +32 (0)2 732 70 27

LA FEDERATION EURO-ARMENIENNE INTERPELLE LE CONSEIL EUROPEEN

Bruxelles, Belgique – Dans la perspective du sommet européen qui se tiendra
les 16 et 17 décembre prochain, la Fédération Euro-Arménienne vient
d’adresser un courrier au Secrétaire Général du Conseil de l’Union
européenne, M. Javier Solana et à l’ensemble des chefs d’Etat et de
gouvernement des 25 pays de l’Union.

Dans cette lettre, la Fédération Euro-Arménienne demande « solennellement
que soit instamment mise en avant la nécessaire reconnaissance du génocide
des Arméniens par la Turquie et la levée du blocus de l’Arménie par ce pays
».

Ce courrier fait suite à l’appel lancé par la Convention des Arméniens
d’Europe, réunie au Parlement européen à Bruxelles les 18-19 octobre
derniers, aux 25 chefs d’Etat et de Gouvernements des pays membres de
l’Union européenne.

L’appel de la Convention des Arméniens d’Europe considérait comme
inadmissibles que:

1. Les Critères de Copenhague n’incluent pas la reconnaissance par
l’Etat turc du génocide des Arméniens, ainsi que la levée du blocus que la
Turquie impose à l’Arménie depuis plus de 10 ans

2. la Turquie mette en danger la sécurité et l’équilibre régional du
Sud du Caucase en opposant des conditions préalables à l’établissement des
relations avec l’Arménie et en s’immisçant dans le processus des
négociations de l’OSCE sur le conflit du Haut Karabagh.

3. l’Europe n’ait pas instamment et explicitement demandé à l’Etat turc
de cesser toute forme d’expressions négationnistes.

La Fédération informe également que plusieurs cabinets gouvernementaux ont
répondu à l’appel de la Convention.

« Les récentes propositions concernant la solution du partenariat privilégié
avec la Turquie, ainsi que les recommandations relatives à la nécessaire
reconnaissance préalable de Chypre et la résolution du litige de la mer
Egée, l’évocation inédite d’une possibilité d’interruption des négociations
de même que le questionnaire envoyé par la présidence néerlandaise aux
exécutifs européens ouvrent un espace de conditions politiques où nos
revendications doivent être entendues » a-t-elle poursuivi.

« Nous avons demandé au Conseil européen de ne pas dénaturer le projet des
pères de l’Europe en intégrant un pays négationniste, qui met en danger la
sécurité aux frontières de l’Europe » a conclu la présidente de la
Fédération Euro-Arménienne.

Derya Sazak Milliyet, Turkey, December 10

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Dec 13, 2004

“The European parliament will convene on December 14 in Strasbourg,
just three days before the December 17 EU summit, to approve a
decision to start membership talks with Turkey. The importance of this
decision in terms of the leaders’ summit is symbolic . . . not
binding. However, a majority of votes favouring Turkey might sway
European public opinion . . . However, if there’s disagreement among
the leaders concerning the nature of Turkey’s membership or a date for
talks, the problem will likely be left to the European
commission. Ankara wouldn’t want EU leaders to push the buck to the
commission. This is a worst-case scenario, and Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan would freeze the EU process . . .

“Obviously everything won’t end with the beginning of our talks. In
Brussels we might face shocks: demands to de facto recognise the
‘Cyprus Republic’, to find a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue,
and to improve relations with Armenia. Everybody in the European
parliament is saying different things.”

Agence France Presse — English
December 12, 2004 Sunday 11:23 AM GMT

German who died in Equatorial Guinea was tortured: report

BERLIN Dec 12

A German who died in March in Equatorial Guinea’s notorious Black
Beach prison, where he was held on suspicion of involvement in a coup
plot, had been tortured, a South African who was in jail with him
said in an interview published in the Frankfurter Rundschau daily.

Officials in Equatorial Guinea said on March 18 that Gerhard Eugen
Merz, a logistics expert who worked for a German air freight company
in the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo, had died of cerebral malaria
just over a week after being arrested along with 14 other suspected
putsch plotters.

But one of Merz’s co-accused, South African Mark Schmidt, told the
Frankfurter Rundschau in a report published on Saturday that the
German had been “beaten and burned on the soles of his feet” in the
few days he was in jail.

According to the paper, Merz’s body was repatriated to Germany in
June and the prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt had ordered a
post-mortem to be carried out to determine the cause of death.

But the prosecutor’s office has refused to say if the post-mortem
showed that Merz had been tortured, and even months after the
autopsy, has said its investigations are still ongoing, said the
paper.

“Incredible,” was Schmidt’s reaction in the paper.

“Didn’t they see the burn marks on Gerhard’s feet? The scrapes on the
tibia and the large scar on his chest?” he asked.

Schmidt dismissed reports that Merz had died of malaria.

“I’ve had malaria four times. The symptoms are completely different,”
he said.

Schmidt was released from prison last week after spending nine months
behind bars.

German-born Schmidt was one of three South Africans who were
acquitted late last month of plotting to oust President Teodoro
Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. Five South Africans and six
Armenians were given stiff jail sentences, as were an Equatorial
Guinean opposition leader and members of his government-in-exile.

During his time in jail, Schmidt said that he and his co-detainees
“all became religious and prayed four times a day.

“Otherwise, we would not have been able to stand the beatings, the
disease,” he told the paper.

PanArmenian News
Dec 11 2004

US NEEDS ARMENIA JUST WITHIN THESE BORDERS – AS A WINNER COUNTRY,
HAYKAKAN ZHAMANAK NEWSPAPER CONSIDERS

11.12.2004 15:54

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The US does not need at all for Armenia and
Nagorno Karabakh surrender security belt territories to Azerbaijan.
The US needs Armenia just within these borders and this status as a
winner country,” an anonymous influential representative of the
Armenian opposition told Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper. The
international activation around the Karabakh issue lately aims at
putting pressure on the Armenian authorities to change the
geo-political orientation of the country, he is sure.

Armenian leader urges Central Bank not to oppose “global change”

Mediamax news agency
10 Dec 04

YEREVAN

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has called on the Central Bank to
act “decisively and quickly” to prevent speculation in Armenia’s
financial market caused by fluctuations in the rate of the dollar
against the national currency.

Robert Kocharyan said this at a meeting with members of the Central
Bank’s council today, Mediamax reports.

The head of state pointed to an “extremely important stage in the work
of Armenia’s Central Bank” because the world’s financial markets are
undergoing a “global change” that could not but affect the Armenian
economy.

Robert Kocharyan said it is important for the Central Bank and the
Armenian government to adapt their policies and actions to world
processes instead of trying to oppose them “because in that case, we
will only lose”. The Armenian president said “the right and flexible
policy will even enable us to win”.

“The Central Bank is the body immediately responsible for the
country’s financial and credit policy, and a lot depends on you,” the
Armenian president said.

The business of supporting Yushchenko

The Irish Times
December 8, 2004

UKRAINE: If anyone was likely to raise the hackles of the ex-KGB
man in the Kremlin, it was the burly former shipyard worker with the
walrus moustache and taste for revolution, writes Dan McLaughlin

When Lech Walesa clambered onstage alongside Viktor Yushchenko in
Kiev, he conjured both the spirit of Poland’s anti-Soviet Solidarity
movement and the centuries-old ties linking Ukraine to its Western
neighbour. Mr Walesa’s political star has long-since waned in Poland,
but he was greeted as a hero by thousands of Ukrainians for whom
he still embodies a nation’s escape from the grip of Moscow and the
heady start of its journey into the European Union and NATO.

As President Vladimir Putin’s aides in the Kremlin muttered darkly
about Western meddling in Russia’s “sphere of influence”, the
high-profile role played by Polish politicians in Ukraine was a
reminder of the country’s schizophrenic past and present.

While the Russian language and Orthodox Church prevail in industrial
south-east Ukraine, where Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is
strongest, the largely agricultural west of the country has much
stronger links with Poland and is dominated by the Ukrainian language
and Catholicism.

Poland ruled this region until the second World War and, along with
Lithuania, controlled most of present-day Ukraine until the 17th
century, when tsarist Russia took over.

It has irked Moscow greatly that the two Baltic neighbours – both
former Soviet satellites and new EU members – have taken key roles
in talks to end the Ukrainian crisis.

Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and his Lithuanian counterpart,
Mr Valdas Adamkus, have been ever-present at negotiations in Kiev,
with Warsaw particularly keen to become the middle man between Brussels
and the old Soviet Union.

While Russia still calls the likes of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and
Armenia its “near-abroad”, the EU has made its interest in them plain
by declaring them part of its own “common neighbourhood”.

After Georgia slipped Moscow’s leash last year in the so-called rose
revolution, which brought a young, West-leaning leader to power, the
“loss” of Ukraine would be a bitter blow to Mr Putin, who presents
himself as a man capable of restoring global prestige to a fallen
superpower.

He has already been humiliated by having to withdraw the
congratulations he sent to Mr Yanukovich on his “victory”, and is
seen as having badly overplayed his hand by twice visiting Ukraine
to back his favoured candidate before the vote.

“That was an unprecedented move,” said Mr Kwasniewski. “It wouldn’t
have carried any risk if the result had been clear, but in the face
of deep divisions such as those in Ukraine there should have been
greater restraint.”

Poland’s press and public have strongly backed Mr Kwasniewski’s
efforts in Ukraine, inspired equally by memories of Solidarity’s
success and the chance to give Moscow a bloody nose while enjoying
EU and US protection.

“This is a huge defeat which the Kremlin has brought upon itself,”
wrote Poland’s influential Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper after the election
results were annulled.

“There’s no stopping freedom,” the newspaper proclaimed, amid something
of a pro-Yushchenko frenzy that saw it giving away copies with free
orange ribbons, the emblem of Ukraine’s opposition movement.

Historically torn apart and parcelled out by Germany and Russia,
Poland’s only worry now lies to the east, where pro-Kremlin Belarus and
Ukraine have offered no real buffer from Russia’s perceived antipathy
since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

“We have the feeling of sharing a common destiny with Ukrainians,”
said former Polish defence minister Mr Bronislaw Komorowski. “Our
past experiences show that we have every reason to fear Moscow.”

But that fear would diminish significantly should Ukraine become, as
appears possible should Mr Yushchenko win the St Stephen’s Day election
re-run, a stable democracy with a strong civil society and growing
economy boosted by Western investment. Ukraine’s 50 million-strong
consumer market would be hugely attractive to Polish business, as
would the opportunity for increased leverage in talks with Russia on
vital gas and oil imports that arrive through Ukraine’s pipelines.

A Westward shift in Ukraine would also benefit the economies of
its other EU neighbours, Hungary and Slovakia, provided it wasn’t
accompanied by violence that prompted a surge in asylum-seekers at
unprepared border crossings.

In most former Eastern Bloc states, a defeat for the Kremlin and its
allies is still often hailed as an automatic triumph for the nation.

A Yushchenko victory, therefore, would be welcomed throughout the
region, except by Moscow-backed regimes like those in Belarus and
Moldova, upon whom pressure would undoubtedly increase.

For men like Mr Walesa, addressing the orange-clad masses in Kiev,
the final battles of the Cold War are only now being decided.
“Twenty-four years ago, I was in the same situation as you are now,”
he told the cheering crowd. “I opposed the Soviet Union and I opposed
communism, and I came out victorious. Now Ukraine has a chance, too.”

Wiesel Urges Education To Combat Fanaticism
By NATALIE L. SHERMAN, Contributing Writer

Harvard Crimson, MA
Dec 7 2004

CRIMSON/ PHILIP A. ERNST
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Boston University professor Elie Wiesel
speaks at Memorial Church yesterday evening.

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Elie Wiesel, who won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his writings on
the Holocaust, spoke last night about the need to combat religious
fanaticism through education to a packed crowd in Memorial Church.
“The threat to the future of the world has a name and it’s
fanaticism,” said Wiesel, who is the Mellon Professor in the
Humanities at Boston University.

In his introductory remarks, University President Lawrence H. Summers
said that it was “high time” that Wiesel spoke to the entire Harvard
community and praised the author’s writings, which Summers said help
individuals “find the courage to stand up for what is right
everywhere.”

Wiesel is the author of almost three dozen books. His first, Night,
was published in English in 1960 and is a fictional story of a young
boy suffering in a concentration camp. He has also written two
memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea and And the Sea is Never Full.

Wiesel condemned the rise of religious fanaticism, and said he was an
advcate of non-violence. The education of potential radicals, he
said, is the best way to fight this threat.

But in his opening remarks, Wiesel also questioned the degree to
which education alone could fight indifference.

He noted that some of his darkest days following World War Two, when
he was imprisoned in Buchenwald and Auschwitz, had come when he
learned that the majority of killers possessed college degrees.

“Wasn’t culture meant to be a shield?” he asked. “What is culture,
what is civilization? It’s meant to be a limit.”

Opting for a conversational instead of a lecture format, Wiesel only
spoke for about 10 minutes before fielding a range of questions from
the audience.

Many of the questions asked concerned current events, like the crises
in Darfur and Chechnya.

But Wiesel cautioned the audience against using controversial terms
like genocide, Holocaust or anti-Semitic lightly.

“I believe in words and not to use them just like that,” he said. “If
it’s genocide the whole world has to intervene.”

Indeed, while responding to questions about genocides in Sudan,
Armenia and Chechnya, Wiesel shied away from the term, preferring to
call it “mass murder.”

The question and answer session was cut short due to time
constraints, but no one raised questions about either the
Israel-Palestine conflict or the American occupation of Iraq.

Wiesel was questioned, however, about his ability to maintain his
faith.

“God and I have our problems,” he siad. “In Night I said some harsh
things, but I never divorced God. I was ready to be an orphan…but
not a divorce.”

Wiesel also said that he tried to include at least one element of
hope in all his writings.

When asked how the lessons of the Holocaust would be maintained in
the face of time, Wiesel said that he believed his role was “to be a
witness, not a judge, and he who listens to a witness becomes a
witness.”

After the almost 90-minute talk, Bernard Steinberg, the executive
director of Harvard Hillel, which sponsored the event, called Weisel
“one of the great moral voices of his generation.”

“He is…a man profoundly grounded in the Jewish tradition who is
interested in the well-being of the world as a whole,” he said.

President of Hillel Anna M. Solomon-Schwartz ’06 said she had been
inspired by the author’s remarks.

“I think his message of passion and political action is the most
important lesson we can learn from him,” she said.

La Policía investiga a una doctora que denunció por acoso a los ginecólogos del Vall d’Hebron agredidos

El Mundo, España
Jueves, 25 de Noviembre de 2004

BARCELONA.- La Unidad de Drogas y Crimen Organizado (UDYCO) de la
Policía investiga el entorno de una doctora que en 2002 presentó
una demanda por acoso moral en el trabajo o ‘mobbing’ contra los
ginecólogos Ángel Martínez de la Riba y Luis Cabero para tratar de
encontrar un vínculo entre las agresiones de que han sido víctima
los dos médicos, según explicaron fuentes de la investigación.

Los investigadores trabajan con la hipótesis que las agresiones no
son casuales sino que existe un vínculo entre sí, por lo que centran
sus gestiones en una demanda por acoso moral presentada por la mujer,
que demandó a los médicos cuando trabajaba en el departamento de
Ginecología y Obstetricia del centro, del que Cabero y Martínez de
la Riba eran sus máximos responsables.

La mujer empezó a trabajar en la unidad de diagnóstico prenatal
en 1983 como médico adjunto, pero desde 1993 era la responsable de
dicha unidad. Según la demanda, fue víctima de acoso laboral, falta
de respeto y abuso de autoridad por parte de sus superiores y el 1
de julio de 2002 fue trasladada a otra unidad.

El cambio de destino, según consta en la demanda, fue acordado de
manera unilateral por Cabero, sin informar a la afectada previamente y
con el argumento de que se trataba de una reestructuración organizativa
de la unidad. Sin embargo, la demanda se saldó el 4 de noviembre de
2002 con la absolución de los dos ginecólogos.

Primera agresión

Martínez de la Riba recibió una primera agresión el 17 de julio de
2003, por parte de dos individuos, pero las investigaciones policiales
no llevaron a practicar ninguna detención.

Tras recibir varias llamadas telefónicas amenazantes, en la que le
invitaban a “cogerse la baja laboral” y ser víctima de una segunda
paliza, el 29 de octubre de 2003, Martínez de la Riba solicitó otro
destino y declaró ante la policía que los ataques eran fruto de un
proceso de acoso que sufría en el hospital, en referencia a la demanda
presentada por la mujer. En la actualidad, trabaja en otro hospital
del Institut Català de la Salut (ICS).

El mismo día de la segunda agresión a Martínez de la Riba, la Guardia
Urbana detuvo a un individuo extranjero, de 26 años, que dijo llamarse
Artur Jachatrian y que se encontraba en situación irregular en el
país. Desde entonces se encuentra ingresado en la cárcel Modelo de
Barcelona, después de que ha sido condenado a dos años de prisión
por un juez.

A raíz de esta segunda agresión, la UDYCO inició una investigación
para esclarecer los hechos, a pesar de que ya se había detenido a
una persona. Los investigadores, por orden del Juzgado de Instrucción
número 8 de Barcelona, ordenaron ‘pinchar’ los teléfonos de distintas
personas relacionadas con el detenido, entre ellas la novia del
detenido, Iryna H., así como los distintos teléfonos del doctor
Martínez de la Riba.

Ataque por encargo

Este detenido no ha delatado a nadie y, según se desprende de las
escuchas, la policía cree que se limitó a ejecutar un encargo de
otra persona.

Tras ser detenido, el sospechoso quiso ponerse en contacto con un
individuo armenio que reside en Madrid, Levon, y la policía identificó
a las personas íntimamente relacionadas con él, en concreto a Juan
Carlos A. y Emma M.D. En esta actuación intervino la Brigada de
Delincuencia Especializada de Madrid, según consta en el sumario
del caso.

Tras la segunda agresión al doctor Martínez de la Riba, Levon recibió
una llamada de Juan Carlos, en la que le dijo que había “mirado la
prensa” y “no había salido más, que las cosas iban muy bien”. Levon
también recibió una llamada del detenido desde la cárcel Modelo. El
armenio le pregunta “si se ha mirado la mano” y éste contesta que
“no hay nada”, en referencia a posibles manchas de sangre que le
podían haber quedado tras la agresión.

El 8 de noviembre, Levon y Juan Carlos viajaron juntos desde Madrid
hacia Barcelona en una furgoneta alquilada y desde la capital catalana
se desplazaron a Salou (Tarragona). En su visita a esta localidad,
los dos invididuos visitan el Clubhotel la Dorada S.L. y la empresa
Jardines Paraisol Servicios S.L., en cuyos órganos de administración
aparece María N.B.

Ésta última figura en la dirección de otras compañías, entre ellas
Quadis 2000 S.A., con sede en la calle Balmes de Barcelona y dedicada
a la compraventa y arrendamiento no financiero de bienes inmuebles.
La administradora de la empresa es la doctora que ahora está bajo
sospecha.

De la investigación judicial se desprendió que Juan Carlos A., su
esposa Emma M.D. y Levon estaban en contacto con estas compañías,
por lo que se considera “muy probable” que también estén relacionados
con las personas encargadas de estas empresas, entre ellas la doctora,
según consta en las diligencias judiciales.

Más detenciones

Asimismo, todo apuntó que Juan Carlos A. era el autor de estas llamadas
amenazantes y que su esposa “estaba al tanto de lo que sucedía”,
por lo que la Policía detuvo a la pareja, pero quedaron en libertad
tras declarar ante el juez.

Con esta investigación, la policía encontró “coincidencias entre la
subordinada del perjudicado y el agresor”, pero concluyó que “no hay
indicios sólidos de participación ni de inducción”.

Tras la nueva agresión sufrida por el ginecólogo Luis Cabero, la
policía investiga de nuevo el entorno de la doctora, cuya posible
implicación en los hechos “se ha reactivado”, según fuentes de la
investigación.

–Boundary_(ID_Q6HfSVXFeinpAnxdBLEyGQ)–

COMEBACK OF ARMENIAN EX-PRESIDENT TO BIG POLITICS CONDITIONED WITH PUBLIC
DEMAND, PAN REPRESENTATIVE SAYS

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 27. ARMINFO. “The comeback of ex-president of Armenia
Levon Ter-Petrossian to big politics is conditioned by rising public
demand,” deputy chairman of the former ruling party, Pan Armenian
National Movement, Aram Manukian told reporters today.

In his words, Levon Ter-Petrossian is the most pragmatic and realistic
politician in Armenia and will return into scene when he thinks it
necessary. “Our party is connected to him with common program and
ideology. There are three important conditions in political life:
does the party want to come to power – our answer is positive; does
it have anything to suggest to people-of course, we have; it remains
to check our rating among the public or to what level does the public
see the necessity of our comeback. In this regard, the public demand
is not high enough,” Aram Manukian said. -A-

NATO official regrets Armenian MPs’ absence from Azerbaijan-hosted seminar

Space TV, Baku
26 Nov 04

NATO has assessed the Armenians’ failure to attend the Rose-Roth
seminar [of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly] as a move which is far
from impartiality and serves other purposes.

NATO Parliamentary Assembly Secretary-General Simon Lunn regrets the
Armenian MPs’ absence from the aforesaid seminar, which is currently
under way in Baku.

He said that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Azerbaijan had created
all the necessary conditions for the Armenians’ participation. Their
security was guaranteed as well. Despite this, the Armenians opted
not to come.