Author: Chmshkian Vicken

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: STALIN’S SHADOW LOOMS OVER TRANS-CAUCASUS PIPELINE
by Rene Wadlow
World War 4 Report, NY
April 1 2006
The president of Azerbaijan, Ilhan Aliyev (son of the long-time
president Heydar Aliyev), and Robert Kocharian, president of Armenia,
met outside Paris, in Rambouillet Feb. 10-11, to discuss the stalemated
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Rambouillet had also been the scene
for the last-chance negotiations on Kosovo just before the NATO
bombing of Serbia began in 1999.
During the two years of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, 1992-1994,
at least 20,000 people were killed and more than a million
persons displaced from Armenia, Azerbaijan and the 12,000 square
miles of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Armenian forces now control
the Nagorno-Karabakh area-an Armenian-populated enclave within
Azerbaijan. Since 1994, there has been a relatively stable ceasefire.
Nagorno-Karabakh has declared its independence as a separate state.
No other state-including Armenia-has recognized this independent
status, but, in practice, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto state with
control over its population and its own military forces. Half of
the government’s revenue is raised locally; the other half comes
from the government of Armenia and especially the Armenian diaspora,
strong in the United States, Canada, Lebanon, and Russia.
In addition to Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian forces hold seven small
districts around the enclave, some 5,500 square kilometers that
had been populated by Azeris and that are considered as “occupied
territory.” One of the ideas being floated during these negotiations
is an Armenian withdrawal from these occupied territories accompanied
by international security guarantees and an international peacekeeping
force, probably under the control of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which has been the major forum for
negotiation on the Nagorno-Karabkh conflict.
The USA, France, and Russia are the co-chairmen of a mediating effort
called the “Minsk Group” after an OSCE conference on Nagorno-Karabakh
which was to have been held in Minsk-but then indefinitely postponed
as there was no clear basis for a compromise solution. Part of the
negotiating guidelines of the Minsk Group meetings is that no official
report is made on the negotiations, so that analysis is always an
effort at putting pieces together from partial statements, leaks,
and “off-the-record” interviews with the press. This blackout on
direct statements opens the door to highly partisan analysis in both
countries, where the press has always been hard line. There are those
who believe that both presidents are “ahead of their people” in their
willingness to compromise and to move beyond the current “no war,
no peace” situation which is a drain on economic and social resources.
However, in both countries, the media is under tight control of the
respective governments-so the militaristic tone of the press is not
against government policy. The blackout on press statements is also
due to the monopoly on both sides of a small, tight group of people
responsible for the negotiations. Informal “Track Two” meetings are
very difficult and the few held were met by general suspicion or
hostility. There is a need for a broader-based pubic peacemaking
effort to counter the current narrow, militant rhetoric.
The Nagorno-Karabakh issue arises from the post-Revolution/Civil
War period of Soviet history when Joseph Stalin was Commissioner
for Nationalities. Stalin came from neighboring Georgia and knew the
Caucasus well. His policy was a classic “divide and rule”-designed
so that national/ethnic groups would need to depend on the central
government in Moscow for protection. Thus in 1922, the frontiers
of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia were hammered out in what was
then the Transcaucasian Federative Republic. Nagorno-Karabakh,
an Armenian-majority area, was given a certain autonomy within
Azerbaijan but was geographically cut off from Armenia. Likewise,
an Azeri majority area, Nakkickevan, was created as an autonomous
republic within Armenia but cut off geographically from Azerbaijan.
Thus both enclaves had to look to Moscow for protection. This was
especially true for the Armenians. Many Armenians living in what
had been historic Armenia which came under Turkish control had
been killed during the First World War; Armenians living in “Soviet
Armenia” had relatives and friends among those killed by the Turks,
creating a permanent sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Russia
was considered a historic ally of Armenia.
These mixed administrative units worked well enough-or, one should
say, there were few criticisms allowed-until 1988 when the whole
Soviet model of nationalities and republics started to come apart. In
both Armenia and Azerbeijan, natioanlistic voices were raised, and a
strong “Karabakh Committee” began demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be
attached to Armenia. In Azerbaijan, anti-Armenian sentiment was set
aflame. Many Armenians who were working in the oil-related economy
of Baku were under tension and started leaving. This was followed
somewhat later by real anti-Armenian pogroms. Some 160,000 Armenians
left Azerbaijan for Armenia, and others went to live in Russia.
With the break up of the Soviet Union and the independence of Armenia
and Azerbaijan, tensions focused on Nagorno-Karabakh. By 1992,
full-scale conflict broke out in and around Nagorno-Karabkh and went
on for two years, causing large-scale damage. The Armenian forces of
Nagorno-Karabakh, aided by volunteers from Armenia, kept control of
the area, while Azerbaijan faced repeated political crises.
The condition of “no peace, no war” followed the ceasefire largely
negotiated by Russia in 1994. This status quo posed few problems to
the major regional states, all preoccupied by other geo-political
issues. Informal and illicit trade within the area has grown.
However, interest in a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
has grown as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened in May 2005.
The pipeline is scheduled to carry one million barrels of oil a day
from the Caspian to the Mediterranean by 2009. The pipeline passes
within 10 miles of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The crucial question for a settlement is the acceptance by
all parties and by the OSCE of an independent “mini-state.” An
independent Nagorno-Karabakh might become the “Liechtenstein of
the Caucasus.” After 15 years of independence, Karabakh Armenians
do not want to be at the mercy of decisions made in distant centers
of power but to decide their own destiny. However, the recognition
of Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent states raises the issue of the
status of other de facto mini-states of the region, such as Abkhazia
and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Kosovo in
Serbia. Close attention must be paid to the potential restructuring
of the area. Can mini-states be more than a policy of divide and
rule? The long shadow of Joseph Stalin still hovers over the land.
——
Rene Wadlow is editor of the online journal of world politics
Transnational Perspectives and an NGO representative to the UN,
Geneva. Formerly, he was professor and Director of Research of the
Graduate Institute of Development Studies, University of Geneva.
This piece originally appeared in Toward Freedom, March 21

LONDON TREASURES
By Rachel Belton
The Evening Standard (London)
March 31, 2006 Friday
Where: 70 Blythe Road, W14 Telephone: 020 7602 4843 Opening times:
Wed-Sat 7.30am-6.30pm. Closed Sun, Mon, Tues.
Background: Armenian Cypriot butcher Sid Kassabian, along with sister
Rosie and father Michael, started out in Caledonian Road 42 years ago.
Kassabian means “butcher” in Armenian.
Rent: Until 2000, the Kassabians were paying about Pounds 8,000 a
year rent.
That rose to nearer Pounds 10,000. In 2003 they almost went out of
business when Hammersmith and Fulham council threatened to put the
rent up to about Pounds 14,000. That was defeated after the Brook
Green Association organised a 500-name petition.
Why it’s special: An old-style family butcher, it has the custom of
high-profile chefs such as Ross Burden and Annie Bell, and foodwriter
Simon Hopkinson. Mr Kassabian knows all the locals – down to the
names of customers’ grandchildren. His sister will suggest recipes
and advise on cooking techniques for meat.
Bestsellers: Scotch ribs of beef, fresh chicken wings (great for
stock), and premium-quality sausages.
Owner says: “The business has been in the family for over 100 years.
Now we’re concerned the rise of the supermarket will kill off
traditional shops. Customers are lured by the convenience of everything
under one roof.
You won’t get the same quality, but a supermarket can cut prices
in a way a small shop with big overheads cannot. Family businesses
give the community personality. Each year we face a struggle to stay
in business.”

Belated History: Revisiting Atom Egoyan’s “Ararat”
By Hovig Tchalian
Critics’ Forum Article, 04.01.06
Critics’ Forum
Film and Music
It may seem unusual to review a film released almost four
years ago. But as we enter the first year of the tenth decade of
commemorating the Armenian Genocide, Atom Egoyan’s “Ararat” (2002)
presents an ideal opportunity to do so in the context of the film’s
central theme, the uncanny act of remembering~Wagain.
“Ararat” is a powerful, reverent and unquestionably personal look
at the ravages of the Genocide, both immediate and more distant. But
the film as a whole is also deeply flawed, precisely because of its
personal nature.
Like Egoyan’s other films, the premise of “Ararat” is complex and
multi-layered. It revolves ostensibly around the making of a film
about the Genocide by Edward Saroyan (played by Charles Aznavour),
a well-known director now well past his prime. In typical Egoyan
fashion, the stories of the other characters weave themselves into
the central story of the making of Saroyan’s film: Raffi, the main
character (played credibly by David Alpay), is in love with his
step- sister, Celia; she is locked in struggle with her mother, Ani
(played by Egoyan’s wife, Arsinée Khanjian); Ani is an art historian
interested in Arshile Gorky (played movingly by Simon Abkarian) and
his representation of himself and his mother, which Celia accuses her
of using as a way of coming to terms with the death (or, according to
Celia, her murder) of her second husband, Celia’s father; the film’s
producer, Rouben (played by Eric Bogosian), hires Ani as a consultant,
in order to help add elements of Gorky’s biography as a plotline in
the film.
The stories converge on Raffi’s attempt to bring (or perhaps sneak)
several rolls of film into the United States that he claims to have
shot in Anatolia (present-day Eastern Turkey, historically Western
Armenia) for use in the production. An aging customs officer, David
(played ably by Christopher Plummer), is the only person who stands
in his way. David is himself close to retirement and having trouble
adjusting to his divorced son’s relationship with his half-Turkish
gay lover (played by Elias Koteas), an actor who winds up playing
the part of the main Turkish antagonist in Saroyan’s film, Jevdet Bey.
As is clear from the extended synopsis above, the various elements
of the film make for a complex storyline. Though it can be argued
that some of the details are “wasted” here (other, better films, of
Egoyan’s are far more “efficient” and less heavy-handed), there is
still a clear purpose to them. For instance, the twin details of the
director’s waning talents~Wa fact mentioned off-handedly by Raffi~W
and the customs officer’s impending retirement~Wrevealed slowly
throughout~Ware subtle but significant. Together, they represent
the film’s central concern, what we might call the “latency” or
“belatedness” of history~Win other words, the difficulty of proving
after the fact an event that took place in the past. We understand
that the Genocide narrative in the imaginary film is told too late
to change the facts but, equally, struggling even to transmit them
meaningfully to posterity. Like its director, the film is tragically
past its prime. The same may be said of any attempt to capture the
full weight of history, a fact that Egoyan (as a director of the film
that tells its own, similar story) recognizes all too well.
The two aging characters and the structure of the film-within-a-film
repeat themselves across a host of other dualities: we find out
that Ani has been married twice, first to Raffi’s father, who was
killed in an attempt to assassinate a Turkish diplomat, and second
to Celia’s father, who apparently (and like Gorky) committed suicide;
we discover that Raffi is actually sneaking two sets of films across
the border, one set of rolls (that may in fact contain Heroin) given
to him by the Turkish soldier who helped him get into view of Ararat
and a roll of film that he took on his own camcorder that includes
a shot of the Madonna and child in Aghtamar that mirrors Gorky’s
painting; we are also told that Gorky painted that image in 1934,
as a way of coming to terms with the killing of his mother in 1915
(an act that Ani is trying to uncover and understand in the present).
Such parallels, sometimes subtle and sometimes less so, all build on
the idea of belatedness. They do not represent dualities so much as
an almost endless string of repetitions and revisions, of strange but
hopeful attempts, as I suggested earlier, to remember~Wagain. By the
end of the film, the sheer number and dizzying array of motifs in
the film come perilously close to overwhelming its subject as well
as its viewer.
A surprisingly effective repetition in the film is the one that
involves Ali, who plays the part of the Turkish official, Jevdet
Bey, in Saroyan’s film. He is a half-Turkish American citizen who
reveals during the course of filming that he has trouble believing
that the Genocide was ever more than a civil disturbance and those
killed much more than casualties of war. Raffi’s futile attempt to
convince him otherwise is more than an act of will. His all-too-
human response of confronting a Genocide denier~Win the person of
Ali~W becomes at the same time a heroic attempt to reach back into
and reverse history itself~Win the person of Jevdet Bey. History and
art collide in Raffi’s personal encounter with collective memory and
the reconstruction of historical experience.
The personal nature of Raffi’s encounter ensures the emotional and
artistic integrity of the film, its heart and soul. But surprisingly,
it also represents the film’s undoing. The delicate balance between
art and tragedy represented in Raffi’s experience begins to unravel
as we extend it to include Egoyan’s own experience of making a quite
personal film about the Genocide. From this broader perspective, the
film is unable to navigate the fine line between art and historical
commentary. In that sense, the complex associations among the film’s
various elements must be seen as a heroic but doomed attempt to capture
the fullness of the Genocide and its implications, both personal and
collective. To put it differently, the film puts forward the idea that
a historical event is infinitely complex, all the while attempting
to shed light on what actually happened. Not surprisingly, reviews
of the film have described it either as “slanted” or “committed,”
a distinction that even a filmmaker of Egoyan’s talents would be
hard-pressed to overcome.
As mentioned earlier, the film’s complex plot converges on Raffi’s
attempt to sneak the rolls of film out of Turkey and into the States,
and in the film’s rationale, into the light of day. The customs
officer, David, suspects that the roll given to Raffi by the soldier
contains drugs. David explains that many of those who ingest those
drugs to sneak them past the officers, when confronted with the crime,
get so nervous that the packets explode in their system, causing an
immediate overdose. The conversation parallels the very first scene
in the film, in which Aznavour’s character, Saroyan, tries to get a
pomegranate (“nour”) past customs. (It also parallels the imagined
story in Saroyan’s film, in which Gorky fails in his attempt to get
a letter about the Turkish siege on Van to the American authorities
and is caught by Jevdet Bey.) When David refuses to allow Saroyan to
bring the fruit across the border, Saroyan ingests the seeds instead,
explaining that he expects them to bring him luck. (We find out later
that his mother, a deportee, had a single pomegranate with her on
her journey and survived by ingesting a seed a day and considering
it a full meal.) The most obvious parallel in all these cases is to
the truth at the heart of the Genocide, which starts as a letter of
distress in Saroyan’s film and becomes, in Egoyan’s, both pomegranate
seed and packet of heroin, sustaining to those who would give it life
and a potentially explosive issue to those intent on suppressing it.
The film’s resolution, if there is one, comes in the form of Raffi’s
liberation. David releases him from customs, accepting the various
lies he has told as a way of getting at the truth, of imagining its
possibility. This act in turn leads to David’s acceptance of his
son and sets everything that has come before it awash in the light
of hope. It is reminiscent of perhaps the single most affecting
moment in the film, in which Gorky, struggling to paint his mother’s
portrait, gives himself over to the music playing on his phonograph
and dances to it, palette and paintbrush in hand. Egoyan has earlier
shown us captive Armenian women made to dance by Turkish soldiers,
a scene that transforms Gorky’s, by contrast, into the ultimate act
of imagination and hope, a dance on the grave of history itself.
The film’s final scene is of Gorky’s mother sewing a button back onto
her son’s jacket. The button is missing in Gorky’s famous portrait
but hidden from view, covered over by a flower his mother gives him
to hold over it just before the photograph is taken. The humble act
of sewing it back on stands in for the far more difficult goal of
setting history right, after the fact. It presents the film’s hopeful
answer to the problems posed by history’s belatedness.
“Ararat” is not Atom Egoyan’s finest film. That distinction belongs
to “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997), a simple, graceful and ultimately
more powerful meditation on the effects of a school bus crash on the
residents of a Midwestern town. The earlier film does not try as hard
to confront the full impact of its tragedy, though one admittedly
smaller in scope. Paradoxically, Egoyan’s personal feelings about the
events depicted in “Ararat” render it a painfully personal attempt to
address an unresolved historical tragedy in all its complexity. But
it is worth revisiting, if only to confront the immensity and hope
of the enterprise.
All Rights Reserved: Critics Forum, 2006
Hovig Tchalian holds a PhD in English literature from UCLA. He has
edited several journals and also published articles of his own.
You can reach him or any of the other contributors to Critics’ Forum
at [email protected]. This and all other articles published
in this series are available online at To
sign up for a weekly electronic version of new articles, go to
Critics’ Forum is a group created to
discuss issues relating to Armenian art and culture in the Diaspora.
–Boundary_(ID_B83jdvBDXp7QA75LyKLGPQ)- –

Representatives of Gazprom continue negotiations in Armenia
Regnum, Russia
March 31 2006
On March 31, representatives of Gazprom and Armenia are to conduct
negotiation regarding Russian gas supply to Armenia. As a REGNUM
correspondent has been informed in press office of the Armenian Energy
Ministry, the negotiations will continue, and specific conditions of
contact will be announced after the end of the negotiations.
Also, the ministry declined to comment on the information of transferal
to the Russian side of the 5th power generating unit of Hrazdan power
plant and Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. The ministry stated that all
information will be presented after the end of the negotiations.
The time of delay granted to the Armenian side by Gazprom expires
on April 1. From that date, the gas will be supplied to Armenia for
$110 per 1,000 cubic meters. Probably, today the sides will agree on
a gas price to Armenia and mechanisms of softening the consequences
for the Armenian population and the country~Rs economy.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT, GREEK DEPUTY MINISTER DISCUSS ECONOMIC COOPERATION
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
30 Mar 06
The level of the Armenian-Greek political relations is sufficiently
high, but economic cooperation is not satisfactory, Armenian President
Robert Kocharyan has said at a meeting with Greek Deputy Foreign
Minister Evripidhis Stilianidhis.
Evripidhis Stilianidhis is the co-chairman of the fourth session of
the Armenian-Greek intergovernment commission for economic, industrial,
scientific and technical cooperation.
Robert Kocharyan expressed gratitude for the programmes of the Greek
government implemented in various spheres [in Armenia]. Evripidhis
Stilianidhis said that Greece welcomed the Armenian president’s last
year visit to Greece which had opened a new page in the bilateral
relations.
The sides discussed agriculture, energy and tourism as priority
spheres for the development of bilateral cooperation.
[Video showed the meeting].

OSCE CANCELS MONITORING IN TERTER AFTER GUNFIRE
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 29 2006
Andrzej Kasprzyk, personal representative of the OSCE’s
Chairman-in-Office, has cancelled monitoring on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani frontline scheduled for today, a source from
Defense Ministry’s press office told TURAN.
The reason for this cancellation was shots fired from the Armenian
side before the monitoring.
Today’s OSCE monitoring was supposed to be held in the Terter region
and Kasprzyk was on the Armenian side of the front.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
—————————————— —-
PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
375010 Telephone: +37410. 544041 ext 202
Fax: +37410. 562543
Email: [email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
29-03-2006
Hrach Silvanian, Newly-Appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia
to Georgia, Presents his Credentials
On March 28, Hrach Silvanian, newly-appointed ambassador of the
Republic of Armenia to Georgia, presented his credentials to Mikheil
Saakashvili, President of Georgia.
During the friendly conversation that followed the ceremony, the two
discussed the prospects of bilateral relations development.

CBA HEAD: ARMENIAN BANKS MUST OFFER INSTRUMENTS REDUCING RISKS AND CONTRIBUTING TO SEARCH OF NEW PARTNERS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 28 2006
YEREVAN, March 28. /ARKA/. Armenian banks must offer instruments,
which will reduce risks and at the same time create possibilities of
finding new partners in foreign countries for exporters and importers,
as the Chairman of the CBA Tigran Sargsyan stated during the first
international bank conference on issues of financing foreign trade,
which has opened in Yerevan today.
“It is necessary to reduce risks and enlarge cooperation possibilities
for exporters and importers with the help of new instruments,
which will also increase the effectiveness of the economy system”,
Sargsyan stated.
He reminded that the EBRD implements an existing program in this
direction in Armenia.
In his words, this enables Armenian banks, which are still unknown
abroad and don’t have investment rating given by well-known
international structures, to offer such services.
“Entree of Armenian banks into international field and establishment of
direct relations with advanced banks by means of getting investment
rating is an important factor for the success of this process”,
Sargsyan stated.
“It is natural that formation of such relations will create most
favorable conditions for offering new instrument sin this sphere”,
Sargsyan added.

ARMENIA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE LIL’ LONGBAUGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FOR KIDS
ArmRadio.am
27.03.2006 17:52
The Lil’ Longbaugh International Film Festival for Kids begins
this weekend, celebrating the spirit, wit, and intrinsic goodness of
children. The 2006 Lil’ Longbaugh International Film Festival features
global cinema created for and by children from Japan, Norway, Mexico,
Argentina, England, Serbia Montenegro, Armenia, Belgium, Australia
and homegrown masterpieces from Oregon.

ACCORDING TO AGHASI ARSHAKIAN, WEST USES DOUBLE STANDARDS
Noyan Tapan
Mar 27 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Double standards are used by western
media and politicians in the issue of the elections held in Armenia
and Belarus.
Aghasi Arshakian, a member of the “Azgayin Miabanutiun” (National
Unity) faction stated about this at the March 24 parliamentary
briefing. Participating in the presidential elections of Belarus as an
observer, Arshakian congratulated citizens of Belarus in the interview
given to media of that country on the occasion of holding free and
just elections. The Deputy mentioned that when the authorities used
violence against the participants of the rally of many thousands
in Yerevan, nobody protested against it. But when in Minsk where
“no blood came from anybody’s nose and just 20-30 people were taken
their arms and taken away, it raised world yell.” According to Aghasi
Arshakian, “such total fillings as there were in Armenia, weren’t
in Belarus.” The deputy who visited more than 15 polling stations,
according to himself, saw no violation. Just the opposite, unlike the
Armenian elections, the voters stand in a queue and congratulate each
other on the occasion of the President’s being elected.