Author: Emil Lazarian

GEORGIANS WATCH THEIR FUTURE VANISH IN COURT
By David Nowak and Kevin O’Flynn Staff Writers
Moscow Times, Russia
Oct 12 2006
Chitadze appearing in court Wednesday. He has two weeks to leave
Russia.
Vekhvia Chitadze and his friend Gocha, both engineers, have been in
Moscow for six years — working, sending money home to their families,
making a life for themselves.
On Wednesday, a district court judge told them they had 14 days to
get out and pay 1,500 rubles.
Their crime? Working with forged documents, according to the judge
at the Gagarinsky court.
“We don’t want to go back,” Chitadze said in a loud whisper, before
a Federal Migration Service official could stop him from talking to
a reporter.
The two are part of a wave of Georgian nationals being deported as
part of the government’s ongoing conflict with Tbilisi, sparked late
last month after Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of
espionage. Since deportations began earlier this month, 480 Georgians
have been sent home, the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights said.
Chitadze appeared unfazed by the verdict. “We knew what was coming,”
he said.
But he insisted his documents were in order. “Listen, do you know how
many times in the last six years I’ve been stopped by the police?” he
said. “Hundreds. And every time the policeman said: ‘Sorry to bother
you. Off you go.'”
Chitadze and Gocha, who wouldn’t give his last name, were detained
in northern Moscow on Sunday and held in custody until the trial
Wednesday, which Chitadze said was his birthday. “What a present,”
he said. “That’s it. We’re not coming back to Russia.”
While a majority of Georgians living and working in Russia are thought
to be in the country illegally, authorities have mostly turned a
blind eye — until the recent standoff. Now the larger geopolitical
struggle between two post-Soviet states has been brought home on a
very real and emotional level.
“We don’t care about the politics,” Chitadze said. “None of us pays
attention to the news.”
Now, it appears that the thinly veiled crackdown on Georgians is
spreading well beyond Moscow, human rights activists said Wednesday.
In the city of Kaluga, police have received orders to run checks on
citizens with names ending in “idze” and “shvili,” endings normally
associated with Georgians, said Lyubov Moseeva-Helier, head of the
local branch of For Human Rights.
Moseeva-Helier declined to say where she obtained her information.
The Kaluga police department’s press service did not respond to phone
calls Wednesday.
In St. Petersburg, a senior city police official instructed officers
to redouble their efforts to deport illegal migrants, said a letter
cited on the city’s news web site, Fontanka.ru.
The northern capital has also seen raids on restaurants, casinos and
outdoor stalls owned or manned by Georgians.
In Tatarstan and Krasnoyarsk, there have been raids on Georgian
businesses, said Simon Charny of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights.
In Nizhny Novgorod, police waited outside a school to ambush the
parents of children from the Caucasus, said Almaz Chaloyan, head
of the Center for Help for Migrants in Nizhny Novgorod, Gazeta.ru
reported. Chaloyan said he had requests from at least 40 people from
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan but added that little could be done.
“We human rights defenders are afraid ourselves to go out onto the
street because if we do that, they’ll start to check our organization,”
he said Tuesday.
Moseeva-Helier noted that all natives of Georgia — who are
not necessarily ethnic Georgians — now face problems with the
authorities. She noted that she had heard complaints from frantic
Azeris and Armenians taken into custody because they were born
in Georgia.
Normally, Moseeva-Helier said, her office hears of three to four
deportation cases per month; this week, there have been at least 10.
Russians voiced mixed feelings about the government’s effort to rein
in illegal Georgian migrants in a poll conducted this week by the
All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion.
In the poll, 71 percent agreed with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov’s
characterization of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s
administration as a “bandit government.” But only 40 percent back
the economic blockade of Georgia imposed earlier this month. And a
slightly smaller figure, 37 percent, supported deporting all illegal
Georgian immigrants.
The poll included 1,600 respondents and had a margin of error of
3.4 percent.
Some Russians have displayed their support for Georgians by sporting
badges declaring: “I am Georgian.” A handful of mourners at the funeral
Tuesday of slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya were seen with them.
But this is cold comfort to Chitadze and Gocha and the other Georgian
nationals who have carved out a niche for themselves in Russia and
now see that coming to an end.
“We help our families in Georgia by sending them money,” Chitadze
said. He said he had no idea what he would do when he returned home.
“There is not much we can do work-wise there, but at least it is our
motherland. It will take care of us.”

ILHAM ALIEV: COMMON APPROACHES SHOULD BE APPLIED TO ALL CONFLICTS
Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 12 2006
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev considers it necessary to apply
common approaches based on international law to settlement of all
conflicts. The Azeri President said this in a joint press conference
with the President of Romania Traian Basescu,” INTERFAX agency reports.
“Such approach should be applied to all conflicts. There should be
no exceptions here, since otherwise it can lead to painful results,”
said Ilham Aliev. He underlined that there a re a number of this kind
of problems in the world, and the alternative resolution of these
not based on the norms of international law comprises danger for the
whole world. The Azerbaijani President stressed that “Baku stands for
withdrawal of Armenian troops from Nagorno Karabakh and restoration
of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and this approach is based
on norms f international law.” “Secession of Nagorno Karabakh from
Azerbaijan, creation of the second Armenia on Azerbaijani territory or
Karabakh’s joining Armenia are no topics for negotiation,” Ilham Aliev
underlined. By the way Ilham Aliev has reconfirmed Baku’s willingness
to provide security guarantees to Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh and
to grant the highest level of autonomy within Azerbaijan. “We would
organizations other than the OSCE to express their stance on this
conflict,” Aliev said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA HAS REPUTATION OF RELIABLE COUNTRY IN REGION
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2006
YEREVAN, October 11. /ARKA/. Armenia has reputation of a reliable
country in the region, stated RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan.
“Everybody is well aware that Armenia has its place and role in the
region, and our country can be relied on,” stated Oskanyan in his
interview to the “Hayastani Hanrapetutyun” newspaper.
According to him, the result is that Armenia receives large-scale
support in various issues. He said that among Armenia’s partners are
the countries interested in the region’s security and development.
“We are part of the international community, international family.
During its independence, Armenia has made its contribution to the
development of civilization, politics, culture, and this process is
continuing today,” Oskanyan said. He added that the deeper are the
relations between the countries the “more appreciable will be mutual
contribution.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIANS RALLY AGAINST TURKISH PARTICIPATION IN U.N. PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN LEBANON
NaharNet, Lebanon
Oct 12 2006
Thousands of Lebanon’s Armenians rallied in Beirut Thursday against
Turkish troops taking part in a U.N. peacekeeping force there, on
the same day France moved to make denial of the Ottoman genocide of
Armenians a crime.
Armenian political and religious leaders attended the demonstration,
which came just two days after the first contingent of Turkish
peacekeepers arrived to police a ceasefire between Israel and
Hizbullah.
The rally took place on Beirut’s downtown Place des Martyrs, which
honors six Lebanese nationalists who were hanged by the Ottomans
during World War I.
The crowd, drawn from an Armenian community of about 140,000 people,
held high banners denouncing the presence of Turkish troops as “an
insult to the collective memory of the Armenian people”, while waving
Armenian, Lebanese and French flags.
“Genocide, massacre, deportation: Turkey’s definition of peace,”
read another banner.
Earlier Thursday, French deputies approved a bill making it a crime
to deny that the 1915-1917 massacre of Armenians by the Ottomans was
genocide, provoking the fury of Turkey, the modern state that emerged
from the Ottoman Empire.
“What France has done is very good. The Lebanese government should
do the same instead of welcoming Turkish troops,” said an elderly
demonstrator who gave his name as Taurus.
“Chirac is on the right track,” said one of the organizers, Sarkis
Katchadorian, referring to French President Jacques Chirac.
Overriding widespread opposition, the Turkish parliament approved a
government motion on September 5 to contribute troops to the U.N.
Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) following a ceasefire that ended
34 days of fighting.
In total, Turkey is to deploy some 700 soldiers in Lebanon, including
troops aboard naval ships. Those that landed on Tuesday were the
first Muslim peacekeepers to arrive in the war-scarred country.
Turkey contests the term “genocide” and strongly opposed the French
bill.
It says 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in civil
strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided with
invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart during World
War I.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were slaughtered
in orchestrated killings, which they maintain can only be seen as
genocide.
The French bill must now go to the Senate, or upper house of
parliament, for another vote.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CONTROVERSIAL TURKISH WRITER WINS NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE
By Elsa McLaren and agencies
The Times, UK
Oct 12 2006
Novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose prosecution for “insulting Turkishness”
raised concerns about suppression of free speech in Turkey, has today
won the Nobel literature prize.
His novels that have been translated into dozens of languages include
My Name is Red, Snow and The White Castle and deal with the clash
between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism,
often against the colourful backdrop of his native Istanbul.
The Swedish Academy said that that the 54-year-old writer “in the
quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new
symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.”
Not one to avoid confrontation, Pamuk went on trial for telling a
Swiss newspaper that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most
painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians
during the First World War and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s
overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.
In an ironic twist the announcement today of his win comes at the
same time French MPs voted to approve a draft law that would make
it a criminal offence to deny that Turkish massacres of Armenians in
1915-17 constituted genocide.
Pamuk’s prize marked the first time that a writer from a predominantly
Muslim country has been honoured for literature since 1988, when the
award went to Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who died in August.
Pinar Kur, a leading female Turkish novelist said: “For years,
everybody has wished someone from Turkey would win the Nobel.
But it is also known, both in Turkey and abroad, that this prize is
much more related to politics than to literature, it is given more
for political reasons.
It is very unfortunate that this prize announcement was made on the
same day as the [Armenian genocide] Bill in France.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRENCH PARLIAMENT TO VOTE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LEGISLATION
By Lisa Bryant
Voice of America
Oct 12 2006
French deputies vote Thursday on an Armenian genocide bill that has
sparked warnings of economic sanctions from Turkey and concern from
Brussels.
French president Jacques Chirac (C), his wife Bernadette (white
coat)stand in front of the Memorial to the Armenian Genocide, September
30, 2006 in Yerevan The draft legislation would make it a crime to
deny that Armenians were victims of genocide in Turkey during World
War I. Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of them were victims
of orchestrated killings by Turkey between 1915 and 1917.
In 2001, France passed a bill recognizing the killings as a genocide.
But Armenians living in France – including this regional representative
– say that is not enough.
Speaking on French radio recently, the representative said French
Armenians have been fighting since 2001 to improve the law to sanction
those who deny the Armenian genocide. He accused Turkey of mounting
a large campaign against the issue, as part of its efforts to join
the European Union.
Turkey is indeed displeased with the French legislation. Ankara has
threatened to block French companies from investing in Turkey, among
other economic sanctions. Ankara argues that only 300 Armenians died –
as did just as many Turks – during civil strife nearly a century ago,
when Armenians fought for independence in the eastern Anatolia region.
The French vote also poses another obstacle to Turkey’s efforts to join
the European Union. The Reuters news agency reported Monday that the
EU’s enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn warned Paris against passing
the bill.
France’s conservative government has also called the bill unecessary –
the legislation was sponsored by the opposition Socialists. It would
still have to be passed by the French Senate and approved by French
President Jacques Chirac before it becomes law.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU CONCERNED BY FRENCH GENOCIDE VOTE
EUPolitix.com, Belgium
Oct 12 2006
The EU has warned that French moves to make denying the Armenian
genocide a crime could damage membership talks with Turkey.
The lower house of the French parliament voted on Thursday to back
plans that would make denying the WWI genocide by Turkish troops
a crime.
A spokeswoman for European commission enlargement chief Olli Rehn
stressed that the decision did not mean the law had been passed,
and that it still had to be approved by the upper house, the senate.
“But commissioner Rehn has made it clear in the last few days that he
believes the law will prohibit debate and dialogue on reconciliation
on this issue,” she said.
“Reconciliation is a very important EU value, but we have made it
clear that recognition of the Armenian genocide is not a prerequisite
of Turkish EU membership.”
But she did admit that the commission was worried that the French
action could hamper the burgeoning discussion on the genocide in
Turkey.
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has recently established
a commission of historians to establish the truth about the genocide,
which Ankara claims was not a planned extermination but due to the
fighting in WWI.
Some commentators have suggested that the French law would limit
freedom of expression – something for which Turkey has been criticised
in the past, and which Rehn believes still needs to be resolved.
The French vote comes on the same day that Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish
writer acquitted last year of denigrating the Turkish state, was
awarded the Nobel prize for literature.
Rehn called the award “good news for all those who want to speak,
search, learn the truth, pursue dialogue, exchange thoughts and
knowledge – not just in Turkey, but everywhere else, in Europe and
in the world”.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LE MONDE EDITORIAL ASKS FRENCH DEPUTIES TO REJECT BILL
By Ali Ihsan Aydin, Paris
Zaman Online, Turkey
Oct 12 2006
France’s Le Monde newspaper called on French deputies not to vote for
the Armenian draft bill before the session at the French parliament
today.
In an editorial, the newspaper termed the draft to penalize anyone who
denies the purported Armenian genocide as an “inappropriate discussion”
and said that politicians must not act as ministries of truth.
Before the critical session, Le Monde’s lead editorial column was on
the draft bill submitted by France’s Socialist Party.
Pointing out this initiative divided all political parties within
themselves, the newspaper said the bill would most probably pass but
it would never come to the agenda of the senate, which is the next
step before the bill becomes law.
In the article, it is said the purported Armenian genocide is not
equal to the Jewish genocide and denying the Jewish genocide was a
kind of anti-Semitism that is penalized by the French law as racism.
Le Monde said this had nothing to do with the so-called Armenian
genocide.
Reiterating that the so-called Armenian genocide had no place in the
penal code, Le Monde said “This is the memory work of the Turkish
nation.”
Quoting Nicolas Sarkozy, who supports the bill, the editorial read
“Freedom of expression is not manipulating history nor denying
historical evidence,” Le Monde replied to the ruling party leader
as follows: “Freedom of expression is neither taking the history and
the Armenian case hostage for political goals.”
Addressing the politicians, Le Monde said “We hope deputies will not
vote for this bill and correct this wrong step.”
In the article entitled “L’Armenie en otage” (Armenia in Hostage), it
is stated the bill puts forward a double problem in terms of history
and Turkey knocking at the door of the European Union. The article
handles the following points in summary:
First of all, the view that “history cannot be written down by laws,”
which was settled since the polemic on the law about “the positive
role of the colonization.”
French historians published a manifesto on this.
The bill opposes this consensus approved by President Jacques Chirac.
The other problem is that the bill will be counterproductive in Turkey,
where the alleged genocide has begun to be discussed, which will give
a trump to the nationalists.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Last Updated: Thursday, 12 October 2006, 22:47 GMT 23:47 UK
Why French MPs passed Armenian genocide bill
By Clive Myrie
BBC News, Paris
A dictionary will tell you that genocide is the organised killing of a
people to end their collective existence.
Because of its scope, it requires central planning and a machinery to
implement it.
Genocide was clearly Adolf Hitler’s aim – it was also what the Hutus
of Rwanda desired in 1994.
There are many Turks who will not deny hundreds of thousands of
Armenians were killed in 1915 during a resettlement programme to other
parts of the Ottoman Empire.
But people died, they say, in inter-communal warfare – it was not the
organised killing of a people to end their collective existence. It
was not genocide.
There are many others around the world who beg to differ but some here
in France want to enshrine their view in law.
The lower house of parliament has approved a bill making it a crime to
deny Armenians suffered genocide. No other country has tried this, so
why are the French doing so now?
“Everything is politics” they say and for critics of the French
initiative that is exactly what the controversy is about – politics.
Wooing voters
The bill was proposed by the minority Socialists in the French
Parliament.
There is a presidential election next year and cynics say pushing for
a law criminalising denial of an Armenian genocide plays well with
Armenians here who vote.
Jack Lang, a Socialist MP, believes he knows what is going on and has
broken ranks.
“I believe the Socialist party has adopted an electoralist point of
view. It is not sincere. It is only to get the electoral support of
the Armenian community.”
Cynics say there are others whom those who put forward the bill want
to impress: the majority of French people who do not want Turkey
joining the European Union.
Indeed many French politicians agree a mainly Muslim country has no
place in the EU and this may be driving the anti-Turkish bill.
Cross-party support
But is cynicism over the motives behind the bill fair?
For many French politicians denying the Armenian genocide is like
denying the Holocaust and it was not just Socialists who supported the
bill.
They were joined by a number of centre-right politicians too.
Herve Mariton of the ruling UMP party said:
“The genocide is a fact. It is an absolute disgrace for the 20th
Century, it is an absolute disgrace for humanity, it has to be stated
as such.”
The government of President Jacques Chirac is in a difficult position.
He has suggested Turkish recognition of the Armenian genocide should
be a pre-condition of entry into the EU, but he has distanced his
government from the bill.
Principle
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin says it is a bad idea and insists
France wants strong ties with Turkey.
French businesses fear trade will suffer. Exports to Turkey were worth
4.66bn euros last year.
That is why ultimately the bill will never become law.
It has to go to the Senate for a vote and with the government’s
majority in the upper house, it is highly unlikely to pass.
Gesture politics then and a cry from the heart by MPs who believe it
was genocide, or is all this politicking?
And does it make sense to criminalise Armenian genocide denial anyway?
French jails would be overcrowded with Turks, proud of their history.
Those in favour of the bill emphatically say yes, the horrors of the
past must not be forgotten or denied.
The new bill is not about politics, they say, but principle.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ADOPTION OF GENOCIDE BILL ONLY FIRST STEP
PanARMENIAN.Net
12.10.2006 15:32 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Adoption of the bill criminalizing the denial of
the Armenian Genocide was quite expected, Head of the Department of
Turkey of the NAS of RA, Doctor Ruben Safrastyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter. In his words, the passage of the bill evidences that the
public and political forces of Europe understand that Turkey may become
an EU member only in case it opens the dark pages of its history.
“The country should find the courage to face the past and accept it
properly,” Safrastyan said.
In his turn Head of Hay Dat Office Kiro Manoyan underscored in a
conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter that the adoption of
the Genocide bill is only the first step. “Ratification in the Senate
is the next, while the President has to sign it after that. I do not
think serious problems may arise in the Senate,” Manoyan remarked. As
for the threats by Turkey, the Head of Hay Dat Office underscored that
expected sanctions against France will hit as a boomerang upon Turkey
itself. “I believe that statements of the Turkish party within the past
week are bluff. It is in its own interest to recognize the Armenian
Genocide if it really wants to become an EU member,” Manoyan said.