Author: Emil Lazarian

African News Dimension, South Africa
June 10 2006

Kenya: Artur brothers arrested after airport gun drama

June 10, 2006,

By ANDnetwork .com

Alleged Armenian brothers Artur Margaryan and Artur Sagarsyan drew
guns and triggered a terror alert at the Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport (JKIA) on Thursday night.

And police yesterday afternoon recovered eight guns and 100 rounds of
ammunition in the compound of the brothers’ residence in Nairobi’s
up-market Runda estate.

The same afternoon in a dramatic turn of events the men who recently
addressed a news conference at the airport’s VIP Lounge, were back at
JKIA to face deportation.

The men who have previously swaggered into and out of the airport
without restriction were locked in the Prohibited Immigrants room to
await deportation.

That triggered fresh controversies for their acts were clearly of a
criminal nature which should have seen them arraigned, but they were
treated as if they had entered Kenya unlawfully.

That prompted the Leader of the Official Opposition, Mr Uhuru
Kenyatta, to accuse the Government of covering-up the illegal acts of
the Armenians.

The Liberal Democratic Party chairman, Mr David Musila, asked
President Kibaki to tell Kenyans the true story of the Armenian. It
emerged yesterday that the brothers had unrestricted access to
Kenya’s biggest airport given them by a senior Kenya Airport
Authority (KAA) official without surrendering their guns.

Margaryan and Sagarsyan forced their way out of the airport with over
12 bags they yanked from the baggage’s conveyor belt before they
could be opened up for inspection.

Investigations by the Saturday Standard revealed that the passes for
the brothers were issued on February 10 while the other three for
their “aides” were issued on Thursday morning hours before they
turned up at the airport to receive their “brother” and “sister”
from Dubai.

The man and woman arrived with the bags with unidentified cargo and
it was on their arrival that the airport drama began. Sagarsyan and
Margaryan were allowed into the airport without screening, a
privilege the KAA security booklet last revised in 2004 says is
reserved for President and Cabinet members. The only other category
of people exempted from this stringent rule is foreign envoys, and
special groups who must be escorted to the plane’s elevator by armed
police.

When the police later opened one of the bags following a commando
raid at their plush Runda home, they found several fake local,
foreign, diplomatic and Government vehicle registration plates.

They also found black balaclavas, the kind of which the hooded
policemen who raided the Standard and KTN offices donned. The bag was
also stuffed with pistol holsters and camouflage military jackets.

In the compound were 11 cars, some bearing GK plates. The vehicles
included a BMW, three Toyota Harriers and other luxurious saloon
cars.

An official Criminal Investigation Department (CID) letter granting
Margaryan the powers of a police officer was also found in the house.

The police team also seized three computers and videotapes, which
insiders revealed were similar to those taken away by the police
during the March 2 media raid on Standard Group offices.

The criminal acts by the Armenians are bound to lower the rating of
Kenya’s airport security. And Kenya will have to give a written
explanation to the International Civil Aviation Authority within
seven days for the acts of the foreigners were openly kid-gloved by
security forces.

After hours of procrastination and a ping-pong game of conflicting
orders, the police moved in.

Source : Eastandard

Daily Nation, Kenya
June 10, 2006

Speak out on country’s security, Opposition MPs tell President

Story by NATION Team
Publication Date: 6/10/2006
Opposition MPs yesterday asked President Kibaki to address the nation
on security in the country following the activities of two Armenian
brothers.

Residents of the city’s Runda estate gather outside the home of the
Artur brothers after a police raid yesterday.Photo by Joseph Mathenge

They also demanded the sacking of Internal Security minister John
Michuki for failing to guarantee the safety of the country from Mr
Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargsyan.

The leaders, who spoke separately to the Nation, said an incident in
which the two brothers stormed the Jomo Kenyatta International
Airport wielding guns must be explained by the President.

In addition, the Government should explain why it allowed the two
foreigners, who were two months ago accused by some politicians of
being mercenaries, to possess guns, fake number plates and to import
cars.

Protecting Armenians

Opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta, Liberal Democratic Party chairman
David Musila and secretary-general Joseph Kamotho, Orange Democratic
Movement spokesman Mutula Kilonzo and MPs Paul Muite, William Ruto,
William ole Ntimama and Charles Keter, want the Government to explain
who was protecting the Armenians.

Mr Margaryan and Mr Sargsyan should face criminal charges in court
alongside their Kenyan accomplices, the leaders said.

Attempts to deport them, they added, meant the Government was hiding
something sinister.

Said Mr Kilonzo: “These people must be arraigned in a court here for
committing an offence on Kenyan soil. They should not be deported.”

Mr Musila and Mr Kilonzo said the foreigners should have been taken
to court to explain why they allegedly had a GK vehicle, diplomatic
and government car number plates, 15 vehicles, and why they assaulted
Customs officials.

Mr Kilonzo said the two men could not be prosecuted anywhere else and
deporting them would merely be giving them safe passage.

Mr Muite said the Government was in a rush to deport the two Armenian
brothers to cover up for their activities, and accused top government
officials who were the brothers’ “god fathers and mothers” of being
behind a “stage-managed deportation”.

Mr Muite, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and
Administration, said: “We have learnt with regret that there are
plans to deport the two, and if that happens, it will amount to
obstruction of justice,” he told reporters at Parliament Buildings.

Mr Muite warned top officials that one day they would be called to
account for their actions, saying: “It does not matter how high up
those involved are, justice will prevail,” he said.

The conduct of the Armenians, said Mr Muite, was an affront to the
sovereignty and dignity of Kenyans.

The MP praised the commissioner of police, Major-General Hussein Ali,
for ordering the raid into the Runda home of the two brothers.

The leaders wanted to know how foreigners could force their way into
the country, threatening junior government officers and sneaking in
uncustomed goods, in total disregard of the law.

The leaders termed the action at the airport by the two men a threat
to national security and which must be explained by the President
since his Internal Security minister, Mr John Michuki, had done
nothing.

If there was no clear explanation, Kenyans would believe that the
country was under the rule of foreign mercenaries, they added. Mr
Musila said: “The President swore to defend the Constitution of the
country. We are left with no alternative but to ask him to give the
public an explanation as to why the security of this country has been
compromised.”

Mr Musila, Mr Kamotho and Mr Ruto said the Orange Democratic Movement
had questioned the presence of the Armenians but the Government had
dismissed them.

Mr Kamotho said: “We are now vindicated… we issued a statement as
ODM saying these people were up to no good… Kenyans saw them
forcing contraband goods into the country.”

He recalled that the Government defended the Armenians when he asked
a question in Parliament about their business in the country.

Mr Kilonzo added: “All this vindicates us in the Opposition that
there are mercenaries in the country who are here with the knowledge
of the Government.”

Mr Musila said they expected heads to roll and Kenyans would be
watching President Kibaki’s actions keenly in the next few days.

Mr Kenyatta said the activities of the two brothers could no longer
be tolerated.

Speaking at the Garden Hotel in Machakos, shortly before the start of
a Kanu workshop, Mr Kenyatta said the scuffle at Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport on Thursday night was enough justification that
the foreigners were engaged in questionable activities.

The leaders said it was a serious breach of security to allow
foreigners to threaten government officials meant to ensure the
country’s safety.

Law Society of Kenya council member Evans Monari said it was illegal
to deport the two brothers without first charging them.

Deportation should come after they have served a sentence, if
convicted, he said.

Reported by David Mugonyi, Tony Kago and Bob Odalo

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Standard, Kenya
June 10 2006

Expulsion isn’t all; explain this saga

June 8 will be remembered as the day foreigners intoxicated with
impunity tried to put our national security agents to shame – and
failed.

That night, foreigners who had hitherto strutted the length and
breath of our country with incomprehensible arrogance assaulted at
least one security agent and drew guns at others at the Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport – a restricted security area – thereby
triggering a terror alert.

The notorious foreigners of dubious origin claiming to be brothers
and investors from Armenia – Artur Margaryan and Artur Sagarsyan –
have many times asserted that no force in the land can touch them, at
least twice dared our Police Commissioner to visit their residence
and face unspecified consequences and once asked our internal
security minister to shut up.

All this time, nothing was done to them even as senior politicians,
led by LDP leader Raila Odinga, claimed that they were mercenaries on
hire. This paper even carried a Page One comment urging action on the
foreigners for asking our minister to shut up.

Shockingly though, that minister defended the foreigners in
Parliament where he said it was not his responsibility to act against
investors merely demanding their money back from their debtors.

While appreciating that someone has finally acted on the Armenian
menace, we wish to emphasise that their deportation is not enough to
put the matter to rest.

First, as we report elsewhere, the foreigners had been issued with
VIP Government passes giving them access to all areas of all our
airports. What was the compelling reason for the Government to issue
such passes to these two foreigners?

Second, after the Government-sponsored raid against the Standard
Group in March, Raila claimed that the two foreigners led the illegal
raid in which the entire raid crew was hooded. The Government has
failed to explain why official security agents had to wear hoods.

That notwithstanding, part of the arsenal police recovered at the
residence of the foreigners yesterday morning were balaclavas similar
to the ones the raiders wore. Is this a coincidence or is there a
link the Government needs to explain?

Third, the deportation of the foreigners before standing trial in
Kenyan courts raises a lot of questions. The foreigners had valid
permits to live and work in Kenya subject to our laws. Is the
Government trying to hide something by hurrying to deport them
without trial?

Fourth, the manner in which this whole saga was handled from the
start stinks to high heaven: Government officials contradicted each
other, and often themselves, over such minor details as the
nationality of the foreigners; the exact nature of their business
here has been kept secret; and the foreigners’ registered business
partners remain tight-lipped on what their business partnerships
entail. Who was protecting these foreigners? And what does that say
about the people tasked with guarding our internal and national
security?

Our position is that the country’s national security has been
seriously compromised. For a modicum of confidence in it to be
restored, the Government – specifically President Mwai Kibaki – must
immediately replace those tasked with its management beginning with
Mr John Njoroge Michuki, the internal security minister, if Michuki
himself fails to see it fit to resign.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IFEX, Canada
Int’l Freedom of Expression eXchange
June 10 2006

Court acquits fifth journalist who criticised conference ban

Français: Un cinquième chroniqueur accusé d’injure aux autorités
judiciaires a été acquitté
Country/Topic: Turkey
Date: 09 June 2006
Source: Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Person(s): Murat Belge
Target(s): journalist(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): acquitted
Urgency: Bulletin

(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has hailed an Istanbul court’s
decision on 8 June 2006 to acquit Murat Belge, a columnist with the
daily “Radikal”, of criticising a judicial ban on a conference about
the Armenian genocide, for which he had faced a sentence of up to 10
years in prison.

“Belge’s acquittal is good news for press freedom in Turkey,” the
organisation said. “The judges recognised that his criticism of the
judicial authorities was not a crime. As a result, he has avoided an
extremely severe sentence that would have been a disgrace.”

The court dismissed all the charges against Belge, who criticised the
ban in two articles in September 2005. Similar charges against four
other journalists were dropped in April.

MORE INFORMATION:

For further information, contact Annabelle Arki at RSF, 5, rue
Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 67, fax: +33
1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: [email protected], Internet:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Church Executive Magazine, AZ
June 9 2006

NCC joining world summit of religious leaders

MOSCOW, Russia–The National Council of Churches USA met here with
representatives of six major religious traditions from 28 countries
to plan the World Summit of Religious Leaders that will take place in
Moscow July 3-5 – two weeks prior to the St. Petersburg G8 summit.

The group, convened in late May at the invitation of the
Interreligious Council of Russia, was hosted by the Russian Orthodox
Church in the Moscow Patriarchate. It included Dr. Antonios
Kireopoulos, the NCC USA’s associate general secretary for
international affairs and peace, and representatives of other
Christian faith groups as well as Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist
and Hindu leaders.

“It is very important for the powerful world leaders meeting later
this summer to hear from a broad cross-section of the world’s
religious leaders,” said Dr. Kireopoulos. “We want to make sure the
G8 leaders hear the concerns of religious communities around the
globe,” he said on returning to his New York City office.

The G8 summit is attended by the leaders of the world’s top economic
powers — the U.S., Russia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy
and Japan.

“Ways of overcoming terrorism and extremism” was one of many
potential topics for the summit listed in a communique from the
planning group for the meeting next month. Other challenges they
listed as topics were overcoming poverty, morality in economy,
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, respect for other
religious traditions, human rights and ecological responsibility.
Communicating these concerns to political leaders illustrates the
fundamental role that faith plays in today’s societies.

“The role of religion in public life around the world has always been
important though recognition of its role is only now coming into
focus again,” said Dr. Kireopoulos. “Faith leaders can offer the
moral touchstone for political leaders as they come together to make
their decisions about the stewardship of this planet and all its
peoples,” he said.

The NCC will be represented at the July summit by Bishop Vicken
Aykazian, president-elect of the NCC and a bishop in the Armenian
Orthodox Church and by the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, chair of the
NCC’s Justice and Advocacy Commission. Kinnamon, a St. Louis
resident, member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and
professor of mission, peace and ecumenical studies at Eden
Theological Seminary.

The religious leaders attending the planning meeting came from
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Romania,
Russia, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and
the Vatican.

“There was an incredible spirit of cooperation within this planning
group,” said Dr. Kireopoulos. “It is inspiring to see people of such
varied faiths and backgrounds go beyond their many differences and
come together for a common purpose, the common good of all humankind
and the planet we all inhabit.”

The National Council of Churches is America’s Christian ecumenical
voice, encompassing 35 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and historic
African American and peace churches with nearly 45 million members in
100,000 congregations.
Source: NCC News at

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1+

AMALYAN’S EXCUSES WERE GROUNDLESS
[05:42 pm] 09 June, 2006

Grigor Amalyan, the president of the most «independent» Committee of
TV and Radio, insulted the journalists of for their
haste in accusing the Committee of violating the law and not letting
them know about their decisions within ten days, as it should have
been.

It is noteworthy that the material was placed on internet on June 6,
12 days after the competition, that is to say, two days after the
deadline, which means that Amalyan gets nervous in vain. It is better
to observe the law than to accuse others in order to explain away.

Mr. Amalyan told a news conference today that on June 5 he sent a
letter to Paronyan 22, the juridical address of «Meltex» LTD, but
there was no one there. `They talked to the neighbors and on learning
that there is usually no one living in that house they sent the letter
back.’

By the way, we learned from the neighbors that the only letter they
were offered was the one on June 8 (four days after the deadline), but
they were not given it without a seal, that is to say, the neighbors
were supposed to have the seal of `Meltex’ LTD.

Mr. Amalyan (and not only him) knows the address of `A1+’ pretty well
and has sent the previous ten letters to Gr. Lousavorich 15. In answer
to our question Amalyan wondered if `A1+’ was still there. Let us
inform you that the competition pack of `A1+’ had that very address on
its front page, and Mr. Amalyan’s excuses were absolutely groundless.

By the way, while Amalyan was wondering if `A1+’ was still in
Lousavorich 15, the court officers were trying to make `A1+’ leave the
building.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Fall of Mogadishu leaves US policy in ruins

Xan Rice in Asmara, Oliver Burkeman in Washington and Rory Carroll
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian

It was a rout. After months of fighting that left hundreds dead
Mogadishu fell suddenly this week: pick-up trucks with mounted
machine-guns and young warriors scrambled to leave the city.

The victors broadcast a triumphant announcement that the warlords had
been ousted. In their place a relatively disciplined militia promised
order and security after 15 years of mayhem. At a victory rally a
militia leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, made another promise: to create
an Islamic state.

Mogadishu is now largely ruled by the Islamic Courts Union, a powerful
movement that advocates a strict version of sharia law, including
public executions, and has alleged ties to al-Qaida terrorists. The
Horn of Africa, say some analysts, has just acquired its own Taliban.

News of the takeover broke like a thunderclap over Washington.

“This is worse than the worst-case scenarios – the exact opposite of
what the US government strategy, if there was one, would have wanted,”
said Ken Menkhaus, associate professor of political science and
Somalia expert at Davidson College, North Carolina.

It has emerged that the Bush administration bankrolled the warlords,
who are secular, to gain access to al-Qaida suspects and block the
rise of the Islamic militia. CIA operatives based in Nairobi funnelled
$100,000 to $150,000 (£80,000) a month to their proxies, according to
John Prendergast, an International Crisis Group expert on Somalia who
has interviewed warlords. “This was counter-terrorism on the
cheap. This is a backwater place that nobody really wants to get
involved in, so [they] thought, let’s just do this and maybe we’ll get
lucky.”

Instead Washington got burned. Amid recriminations policymakers are
asking how did the fiasco happen, and just how bad is it for US
interests? Somalia has been without effective government since
Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Warlords control ports,
airfields and roadblocks, gaining great wealth while offering little
but trouble to the average Somali.

In the vacuum of a failed state Islamic courts were established along
clan lines to dispense justice where no other method existed. With
financial support from local businessmen the courts, popular with
Mogadishu residents for curbing some of the anarchy and providing
basic services, built up a militia capable of taking on the warlords.

In recent years radicals used the courts to promote the idea of an
Islamic state. Cinemas accused of showing immoral western and Indian
films were closed and celebrating new year was made a capital offence.

Assassinations

It is alleged that terrorists became active in the movement. Sheikh
Hassan Dahir Aweys, closely allied to the court leadership, was the
most prominent leader of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a fundamentalist
group linked to al-Qaidaand blamed for a series of bombings in
Ethiopia and kidnappings and assassinations in Somalia in the 1990s.

There are rumours that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys could soon take over
the leadership of the courts. If that happens, there is the “very real
potential for serious violence”, according to a Horn of Africa
analyst, as it would pit him directly against President Abdullahi
Yusuf, who is avowedly against Somalia becoming a fundamentalist
state.

An unnamed network run by one of Aweys’s proteges, Aden Hashi Farah
‘Ayro, has been linked to the murder of four western aid workers and
more than a dozen Somalis who allegedly cooperated with counter-terror
organisations. The courts are allegedly protecting three al-Qaida
members indicted in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania, and possibly the team that staged attacks in Kenya in 2002.

The Bush administration faced a dilemma. It wanted to nab the al-Qaida
suspects but did not dare send US troops back to the scene of Black
Hawk Down, the ill-fated military mission that scarred Bill Clinton’s
presidency.

“The approach – strategy would be too generous a word – was to
strengthen [the warlords’] hand in order to try to eliminate the
threat posed by these individuals,” said Mr Prendergast.

In February a group of warlords formed a coalition called Alliance for
the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism and accused the courts
of harbouring al-Qaida. The courts called the alliance American
puppets. US diplomats in Nairobi who criticised the warlord payments
as shortsighted were ignored and, in one case, reassigned to another
country. The State Department, which favoured a wider policy of
nation-building, was trumped by the CIA and the Pentagon, which wanted
results fast.

“They didn’t realise their limited engagement would actually make
matters worse,” said Mr Prendergast. “It’s ignorance and
impecuniousness that have led us to be in a more difficult and
disadvantageous position than we were.” Alarmed by Washington’s
intervention, the militia escalated its operations in recent months,
culminating in this week’s seizure of the capital.

For the White House it was a humiliating reversal but not necessarily
a catastrophe. From their stronghold of Jowhar the warlords are
regrouping and talking of retaking Mogadishu. Revenue from smuggling
and business interests is likely still to flow, as will weapons from
Ethiopia in defiance of an international embargo.

Conciliatory

The courts would struggle to impose Taliban-type rule on a society
more wedded to clan than Islam. Their victory rally was countered by a
rival hostile demonstration. On Wednesday Sheikh Sharif Ahmed,
chairman of the joint Islamic Courts Union, softened his rhetoric. “We
want to restore peace and stability.

We are ready to meet and talk to anybody for the interest of our
people.” The ICU sent a conciliatory letter to the US and UN and
engaged with Somalia’s interim government, a feeble but potentially
significant player based in the provincial city of Baidoa. The
government is due to send a delegation to Mogadishu this weekend.

The Bush administration has offered an olive branch, of sorts, to
Mogadishu’s new rulers. “In terms of the Islamic courts, our
understanding is that this isn’t a monolithic group, that it is really
an effort on the part of some individuals to try to restore some
semblance of order in Mogadishu,” said a State Department spokesman.

Robert Rotberg, professor at the Kennedy School of Government and
director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict
Resolution, said the US must try to befriend the Islamists. “Most of
us suspect that if there are any real al-Qaida agents there, there are
handfuls, and these guys would turn them in for money in a heartbeat.”

This week’s worst-case scenario, said Professor Menkhaus, could yet
turn out well if the courts offer moderate leadership and participate
in a national unity government acceptable to Ethiopia. “We could get
lemonade from lemons.” However grateful for the relative calm,
Mogadishu’s residents know from experience to brace for something
bitter.

Backstory

Somalia, the product of the merger in 1960 between a former British
protectorate and an Italian colony, has had a violent and unstable
history.In 1970 President Mohamed Siad Barre proclaimed a socialist
state and started close relations with the Soviet Union. Frequent
conflicts with neighbours followed.

When the regime was overthrown in 1991, Barre went into hiding and the
country was carved up by heavily armed warlords. The long-suffering
population, which numbers more than 10 million, was plunged into
further misery when famine ravaged the country. In 1992 US Marines
arrived ahead of UN peacekeepers inan attempt to restore order, but
the “humanitarian intervention” ended in disaster when two US Black
Hawk helicopters were shot down. As warlords celebrated the death of
19 American soldiers the US beat a hasty retreat. Somalian clan elders
and other senior figures appointed Abdulkassim Salat Hassan president
at a conference in 2000, but little progress was made until 2004, when
a new parliament was created with Abdullahi Yusuf installed as
president. The fledgling regime soon stuttered and fighting between
the factions resumed.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA
June 10 2006

Celebration of nations

By Mike Wereschagin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, June 10, 2006

As World War II bled into Greece, John Travlos worked desperately to
keep one last promise.
The Greek architect had nearly finished two marble pilasters for a
classroom he designed to showcase Greek culture in the University of
Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, which celebrates the 80th
anniversary of the Nationality Room Program on Sunday.

While workers readied Travlos’ pilasters for shipping, one cracked.
Principles of classic Greek architecture demanded symmetry, but with
the Italian army massing on Greece’s border, Travlos didn’t have time
to cut a replacement. So he ordered his men to etch a matching crack
in the companion pilaster and load them onto the waiting ship,
Excalibur.

The Excalibur would be the last American ship allowed to leave the
Mediterranean Sea before Italian troops invaded Greece on Oct. 28,
1940. The Nazis followed in April 1941, and the Greek resistance,
ferocious but out-gunned, crumbled a few weeks later.

In November 1941, Travlos huddled under a blanket in his apartment
closet listening to banned radio broadcasts from the BBC.
Unexpectedly, Greek ecclesiastical music poured from the speaker, and
Travlos listened to the people of Pittsburgh consecrate his working
monument to Greece.

“We are known the world over,” said Maxine Bruhns, director of the 26
Nationality Rooms in Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning. Sunday’s
celebration runs from 2 to 4 p.m.

The first four rooms — German, Russian, Scottish and Swedish
classrooms — were dedicated July 8, 1938, the year after the
Cathedral opened. Another 15 rooms opened before 1958. Almost 30
years passed before the next room — the Israel Heritage Classroom —
was completed in 1987. Six have opened since then, and eight more are
in the works.

Each room serves as a museum, a working classroom and a way for
people to connect to their ancestral roots. Ethnic communities plan
and pay for a Nationality Room to be constructed inside one of the
Cathedral’s existing classrooms.

The idea, hatched in 1926 by then-Chancellor John Bowman and Ruth
Crawford Mitchell, Bruhns’ predecessor, was to pay tribute to
immigrants and give them a stake in the university by involving them
in the Cathedral’s creation.

“Bowman realized that these people had built the city, and many
planned to go back to Slovakia or the Ukraine,” Bruhns said. “If he
could get through to them that this was their building, then they
would stay and have their children study here.”

Mitchell invited the region’s ethnic communities to design the first
rooms; since then, groups have come to the university to propose
rooms.

To have a Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning conveys to
ethnic communities that their heritage merits pride, which is
reflected in the meticulous beauty and uniqueness of each room.

“I have two school-age children,” said Enigul Sonmez-Alpan, director
of fundraising for the committee planning a Turkish room. “I am so
thrilled they will be able to drive by the cathedral and know there
is a Turkish room and know that mom had something to do with it.”

At the dedication ceremony for the Ukrainian room in June 1990,the
year before Ukraine became a sovereign nation, “a woman tugs me on
the sleeve and says, ‘Maxine, now we’re as good as everybody else,'”
Bruhns said.

Creating a room takes years, and each presents its own challenges.

The committee planning the Welsh room, which is slated for completion
before 2008, formed five years ago. Designers have struggled to
reproduce a 17th century Longhouse church inside a modern classroom,
while integrating 21st century technology such as high-definition
projectors.

The Israel Heritage Classroom took 20 years to complete because every
time Israel went to war, donors sent their money to Israel rather
than to fundraising efforts for the room, Bruhns said.

Bruhns, a world traveler and West Virginia native, slides seamlessly
between languages and accents when telling stories of the rooms, such
as the time Nikita Khrushchev complained during his 1959 visit that
the Russian room looked nothing like Russia, or when the Dalai Lama
blissfully blessed the design for the Indian room during her private
audience with him in 1998.

The English room was built in part with rubble from the British House
of Commons, destroyed during World War II. When university carpenters
got the wood panels that now line the front of the room, they had to
clean off an outer layer blackened by the Luftwaffe’s bombs. Today,
the panels shine.

Sealed behind a stone in the Armenian room are the thumbprints of
Armenians who survived their forced exodus during World War I. Beside
their marks is the handprint of an infant.

Sometimes, a room outlasts its nation. Members of ethnic groups from
the former Yugoslavia, which unraveled in the 1990s, alternately
praise and deride Bruhns for continuing to call the room the Yugoslav
room. Chinese tourists often titter at the concrete sun above the
door to the Chinese room. When the room was dedicated in 1939, the
sun was China’s symbol, but after the communist revolution it became
rival Taiwan’s symbol.

That permanence inspires others, though.

“Something that’s going to be on permanent display is very
significant. Culture and history are very permanent,” Sonmez-Alpan
said.

The school is simply keeping a promise to people like John Travlos
who built the Nationality Rooms, Bruhns said.

Travlos died in 1981 without seeing the room he designed, Bruhns
said. Had he visited, however, there would have been no surprises. It
remains unchanged from the night he hunkered in his closet, listening
quietly to its dedication.

Bruhns said, “The rooms will be here as long as the building stands.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1+

CHECHELASHVILI VISITS ARMENIA
[05:59 pm] 09 June, 2006

RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan received Georgian deputy Foreign
Minister Valeri Chechelashvili who is in Armenia on official duty.

Expressing their content with the dynamic development of the
Armenian-Georgian relations the sides discussed a wide range of issues
of mutual interest.

They confirmed the dates of the official visit of the RA Foreign
Minister to Tbilisi (June 27-28) as well as referred to the agenda of
the visit.

The same day the Georgian deputy Foreign Minister was received by RA
deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanyan. The sides discussed the
issues included in the agenda of the relations of the countries. A
reference was made to the realization of the plans meant to improve
the social-economic situation in Samtskhe-Javakhq.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1+

RA PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE IS CONTENT WITH ITS WORK
[08:13 pm] 09 June, 2006

In the previous report of the US State Department about the victims of
human trafficking in Armenia several officers of the RA Prosecutor’s
office were accused of cooperation with those engaged in
trafficking. A special group comprising of the workers of the Foreign
Ministry, the NA and the National Security Administration was created
in order to investigate the matter.

Investigator of the RA Prosecutor’s office Aristakes Yeremyan was
accused of taking bribe from a woman engaged in human trafficking in
the United Arab Emirates. According to the Attorney General, they not
only failed to confirm the accusation but also revealed several other
criminals with his help.

`If we pay attention to the report of the current year of the US State
Department, they were milder about the trafficking issues. This year
more cases have been revealed. Thanks to the amendments to the
Criminal Code, trafficking is considered a criminal case now’,
Mr. Hovsepyan said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress