Author: Emil Lazarian

CONFERENCE : SOUTH CAUCASUS – BETWEEN FROZEN CONFLICTS AND FROZEN PEACE
Wilco de Jonge Bron: Press Now
Oneworld, Netherlands
March 16 2006
A program about the condition of the civil society in the emerging
democracies in the South Caucasus.
This area is one of the most complex and conflict-prone
regions of the former Soviet Union. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia; as
well as the disputed areas of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and
Nagorno-Karabakh are home to a true patchwork of ethnic and religious
groups.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union this has caused several
complex and long lasting conflicts. Furthermore the democratisation
process in these country’s is bothered by the everlasting strong
influence form Russia in this region. There are however also a few
positive developments. Azerbaijan and Armenian have taken the first
steps towards a peace process, and since the Rose Revolution of 2003
Georgia tries to outwrestle herself – with a fresh national awareness-
of the Russian sphere of influence.
The evening is mainly organised around two themes: the freedom of
press and expression in the South Caucasus, and the relation Caucasian
Countries have with Russia.
With: Akaki Gogichaishvili (Producer from Rustavi 2 – Georgia), Boris
Navasardian ( President of Yerevan Press Club – Armenia) and Arif
Aliyev (Editor in Chief of the Gun, daily newspaper in Azerbaijan).
Moving Worlds is an initiative of the debalie in co-production
with NCDO.
This evening is also in co-production with Press Now, Mira Media and
Media diversity Institute.
Ticketbox and reservations
prices: regular 7,50 / reduction 5,-
opening times
weekdays 14.00-18.00 or till an 1/2 hour after the start of the
last program
weekend 11/2 hour before the start of the first program of the day.
reservation number: 020 55 35 100 (during opening-times)
debalie / Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10 / 1017 RR / Amsterdam
_2&articleId=7882
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MEETING AT NA STANDING COMMITTEE
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
March 16 2006
On March 16 Hranush Hakobyan, Chairwoman of NA Standing Committee
on Science, Education, Culture and Youth Affairs, met with Erwin
Asenbauer, President of “AFIDE” Association of Former United Nations
Industrial and Development Experts and Arshaluys Tchgnavorian, Former
Deputy Director of UN General Issues. Mr. Erwin Asenbauer informed
that the goal of “AFIDE” Association is to support the countries
being on the road of economic development. It was mentioned that it
is envisaged to set up an Association office in Yerevan.
In Mrs. Hakobyan’s view the Association can start its activity
studying the government-submitted “Medium-Term Development” pogramme
and the “Armenia’s Future Till 2020,” made by the support of Diasporan
Armenians. Mrs. Hakobyan highlighted the investment of scientific
achievements in the sphere of economy. She proposed the experts of
“AFIDE” Association to study the problems of harmonizing economy with
ecology, the basin of lake Sevan, the social and economic situation
of the population of Armenia’s regions. The cooperation in the sphere
of economy and the organization of the conference on the problems of
harmonizing economy and science were highlighted.
Other issues were also discussed at the meeting.

GROUPS IN AKHALKALAKI WANT ARMENIAN AS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Civil Georgia, Georgia
March 16 2006
Akhalkalaki-based Virk and Javakhk organizations have requested the
Georgian authorities to announce Armenian as the second official
language in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, which is predominantly
populated by ethnic Armenians.
At a news conference on March 16 representatives of these
organizations said that they have already sent an appeal to those
four parliamentarians, who represent Armenian community, and asked
them to push the issue in the Georgian legislative body.
A group of non-governmental organizations based in Samtskhe-Javakheti
region requested last September the Georgian leadership to consider
possibility of granting the region autonomy with “broad authority
for self-governance, including the right to hold elections for all
bodies of governance.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PETER SEMNEBY: “I ASSUMED MY NEW OFFICE AS I BELIEVED SETTLEMENT OF NK CONFLICT”
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
March 16 2006
“I will regularly get in touch with the OSCE Mink Group co-chairs to
be sure that initiatives for the settlement of the Nagorno Garabagh
conflict are coordinated in a right way,” European Union special
representative for the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby reported. (APA).
He thinks there is much likelihood that the conflict will be settled
in 2006.
“Taking into account the high hopes that failed in the latest meeting
between Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents, it is difficult to say
how realistic these hopes were,” Mr. Semneby said.
“I have to visit Azerbaijan and Armenia and exchange of views with
the co-chairs to get full idea of the situation. However, I must
admit that if I had not believed the settlement of the conflict I
would not have agreed to my appointment to this position,” the EU
representative added.
According to him, the basic priority of his activities will be
promoting settlement of frozen conflicts in the region. He said that
there are expectations that the EU will play an important role after
attaining agreements over settlement of conflicts.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GEORGIAN RESIDENTS STAGE RALLY IN TSALKA
Prime News Agency, Georgia
March 16 2006
Tbilisi. March 16 (Prime News) – The residents of Georgian origin
of Tsalka District of Samtskhe-Javakheti Region staged a rally on
Thursday and called the Armenian population to peaceful coexistence.
Tens of thousand participants of the rally did not ask for any
privileges. They were supporting the local government and said that
the law enforcers must undertake more efficient measures for crime
prevention and bring the criminals to responsibility despite of
their origin, Prime-News was told by Mikheil Tskitishvili, head of
the local governmental unit.
They also said that record keeping must be in Georgian in the region
and called the local population of Armenian origin to peaceful
coexistence.
The local population of Armenian origin staged a protest rally in
Tsalka several days ago, after murder of the Armenian young man. They
were demeaning lynching of the suspected murderers.
The protest rallies were staged in Akhalkalaki for the same reason.
The participants of the rally raided the local governmental unit,
local branch of the TbilisiStateUniversity and court. They were
demanding Armenian record keeping too.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERI TV CRITICAL OF ARMENIAN PRESENCE AT BAKU-HOSTED OSCE FORUM
ANS TV, Baku
16 Mar 06
[Presenter] We have just learnt that representatives of the occupying
state [Armenia] have set foot in Azerbaijan. It is intriguing that
the government does not think this is a sign of Baku’s cooperation
with Yerevan.
[Correspondent] The 14th OSCE economic forum entitled
“Enhancing transport security in the OSCE area” was held in Baku
today. Regrettably, representatives of occupying Armenia have attended
this closed-door forum. The Armenian delegation led by a Nersesyan
of the Foreign Ministry includes this country’s representative to the
OSCE, Minasyan, and Vaan Badalyan of the Transport and Communications
Ministry.
Frank Geerkens, who represents the OSCE’s Belgian chairmanship, said
that the key aim of the forum was to ensure the security of transport
networks and develop transport in the OSCE area.
[Geerkens, talking to reporters with Azeri voice-over] We mainly
focused on regional cooperation. The OSCE mainly deals with three
key issues. First, political and military issues, second, economy
and environment, and third, human rights.
[Correspondent] The Belgian representative sees nothing extraordinary
in the fact that representatives of occupying Armenia are attending
official events in Baku.
[Geerkens] The OSCE deals with conflict settlement and crisis
management. From this point of view, the main priority of the OSCE
chairman-in-office is to find the best way, a diplomatic way, for the
resolution of a conflict and play a coordinating role in this sphere.
[Correspondent] What is more shocking is that Azerbaijani Deputy
Prime Minister Abid Sarifov, who is attending the forum, also sees
nothing extraordinary in the fact that Armenian representatives are
attending the Baku event.
[Sarifov] The presence of the Armenian representatives at the
conference does not mean that we cooperate with Armenia.
[Correspondent] Members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization
attempted to stage an unsanctioned protest but the police thwarted it.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN INTELLECTUALS DEMAND THAT 1921 MARCH 16 MOSCOW TREATY BE INVALIDATED
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Mar 16 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 16, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Treaty of
Sevres concluded by Europe and Japan with Armenia and sultan Turkey
on August 10 1920 was invalidated by the shameful Russian-Turkish
Treaty concluded 85 years ago, on March 21 1921, in Moscow. In
accordance with the Treaty of Sevres, Turkey was obliged to give
back more than 90 thousand sq.km. to Armenia from the occupied
lands. Rafael Hambartsumian, Executive of the National Council of
Armenian Intellectuals, declared this at the March 16 intellectuals’
meeting at RA National Academy of Sciences.
Armenian political parties’ and compatriot unions’ representatives
who were present at the meeting, touching upon the historical
facts of concluding the treaty, mentioned that the main goal of
the Russian-Turkish illegal bargain was to keep Armenian and Greek
territories annexed to Turkey, to preserve the state of Azerbaijan
established in 1918 for the Caucasian Tatars and to conclude the
Armenian Genocide by this: to kill and deport the rescued Eastern
Armenians from their historical homeland and to annihilate the Republic
of Armenia.
The Russian-Turkish Treaty of Moscow was signed without the presence
of the third, Armenian party, which was considered by historians
and lawyers illegal from point of view of the international law
norms. According to historians, today it can be fully considered
illegal at international judicial instances.
The participants of the intellectuals’ meeting made a statement at
the end of the event demanding that RA National Assembly consider
illegal and invalid the Russian-Turkish treaty of 1921 and invalidate
the Kars Treaty of 1921 October 13 compulsed by this bargain to the
Soviet Armenia by Soviet Russia.
The meeting participants also made another statement applying
to representatives of Russian Embassy in Armenia, in particular,
demanding that the “position to be adopted by Russia towards the
Russian-Turkish Treaty of Moscow be considered a precondition of
Armenian-Russian proper relations, a question to invalidate the Treaty
be raised before the Russian State Duma”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

,1-0@2-3476,36- 750535@51-734175,0.html
Gianikian et Ricci Lucchi, defricheurs d’archives
Couple singulier dans le petit monde du cinema experimental italien, Yervant
Gianikian et Angela Ricci Lucchi sont d’infatigables resistants qui filment,
retravaillent et recadrent des archives oubliees du debut du XXe siècle.
Pour en faire resurgir, photogramme après photogramme, l’histoire des
guerres, des maux, des cruautes. Mais aussi la siderante beaute de certains
paysages.
Dans leur Trilogie de la guerre, ils montrent des images de batailles a
Monte Pasubio entre soldats autrichiens et italiens pendant la première
guerre mondiale, des prisonniers de guerre qui errent comme des fantômes,
perdus dans la neige des Alpes. Des camps d’enfants orphelins, affames et
mourants en Russie. Des corps mutiles. Le pauvre rafistolage des gueules
cassees au nom d’une science positiviste. La silhouette si douce d’une
infirmière qui vient en aide a des aveugles. Des images recolorisees – en
bleu, rouge, jaune – a ne pas oublier pour ne plus permettre la repetition
des catastrophes. Pour nommer les bourreaux, les victimes, les survivants.
Leur oeuvre – diffusee dans le cadre d’une retrospective au Jeu de paume, a
Paris – est grave, violente, eblouissante.
Pourquoi voir et montrer autant de douleurs ? Savoir que dans chaque boîte
de pellicule les maux du siècle sont tapis et peuvent surgir comme un
serpent pret a mordre a nouveau. “Le monde est plein de dictateurs”, dit
Angela Ricci Lucchi, en ajoutant : “On a d’ailleurs notre propre dictateur
mediatique en Italie.” “Les artistes doivent montrer la guerre, affirmait
deja Leonard de Vinci”, explique Yervant Gianikian. Quitte a en tomber
simultanement malades, a peine termine Oh, Uomo, le plus effroyable de tous
leurs films, presente il y a deux ans au Festival de Cannes.
Tous les deux sont nes en fevrier 1942. Le père de Yervant, chimiste, est
armenien, l’un des rares survivants du genocide de 1915 en Turquie
orientale. Sa mère est autrichienne. Yervant etudie l’architecture a Venise
et passe une thèse atypique sur le cinema muet des annees 1920. De son côte,
Angela Ricci Lucchi suit une formation de peintre a Salzbourg aux côtes
d’Oskar Kokoschka avant de se lancer dans le mail art. Elle envoie des
questions, et les reponses composent ses expositions. Une amie poète lui
suggère d’aller voir quelqu’un qui travaille dans les Dolomites. “Tu me
diras, c’est un fou ou un genie”, la previent-elle. “C’est ainsi que j’ai
rencontre Yervant en 1975”, dit-elle. Ils ont decide de travailler ensemble
et de faire du cinema. Leur premier film a quatre mains se nomme Erat-Stora,
anagramme d’un poème d’Ezra Pound.
Dans les annees 1970, ils collectionnent des milliers d’objets, de jouets,
de cartes postales, des photographies qu’ils reorganisent dans des petites
boîtes, mi-theâtres de poche, mi-paysages duchampiens. Ces objets sont
filmes, catalogues. Fascines par cette idee de catalogue – qui leur vient
d’une inclination pour le Siècle des lumières et les encyclopedistes -,
Yervant Gianikian et Angela Ricci Lucchi se lancent dans ces films poetiques
de found footage (en retravaillant une pellicule deja impressionnee), comme
Catalogue 9,5 Karagoëz.
L’idee de liberer des parfums pendant la projection de ces films vient aussi
du siècle des Lumières, du Traite des sensations de Condillac. Les cineastes
s’inspirent des theories de ce philosophe contemporain de Diderot pour
chauffer et diffuser des essences de rose, d’oeillet ou de framboise, en
fonction des images diffusees a l’ecran. Le plus stupefiant, Cesare
Lombroso, sur le parfum d’oeillet, rend hommage a un criminologue italien,
convaincu que les femmes capables de tuer n’avaient pas d’odorat. Ces
performances d’alchimie et de cinema experimental fascinent le public
americain, mais lassent assez vite les cineastes. Ils ne veulent pas devenir
des magiciens qui promènent de ville en ville leurs valises de films et de
parfums.
Tout bascule quand ils trouvent en 1977 des films muets de format Pathe
Baby. Pour les lire, tous deux mettent au point une technique, “la camera
analytique”, qui leur permet de s'”approcher, de descendre en profondeur
dans le photogramme, d’intervenir sur la vitesse de defilement, sur le
detail, sur la couleur”. Une manière de faire emerger le sens cache des
actualites ou de decrypter des images de propagande. Personne ne connaît
mieux qu’eux les fonds d’archives. L’histoire et la memoire. Ils ont utilise
l’etonnante collection de Luca Comerio, pionnier du documentaire italien,
decrypte les fonds russes, pragois, madrilènes, berlinois autant que ceux de
la Cinemathèque francaise ou du Cinema des armees de Paris. Pour Du pôle a
l’equateur, 347 000 images sur le thème du voyage ont ete retravaillees pour
saisir un incroyable bazar d’exotisme où les marchandises peuvent etre aussi
humaines. On y voit des conquistadors, des chasseurs, des pretres, des
soldats et Mussolini.
Dans Animali criminali, on assiste a des combats de coqs, au festin d’un
serpent mangeant une grenouille ou celui, plus medusant, d’un boa avalant un
petit cochon. Vision tetue, sans intention ni a priori, des combats
effrayants comme des scènes de jours heureux. “Le travail, c’est une drogue.
On n’arrete jamais”, affirme ce couple qui presente desormais son oeuvre aux
quatre coins du monde dans des installations museales ou des retrospectives
cinematographiques.
“Il existe toujours une part d’enfance dans leurs films. Chaque generique
est d’ailleurs une etiquette d’un cahier d’ecolier”, souligne Patrice
Rollet, l’un des fondateurs de la revue de cinema Trafic. Danièle Hibon,
responsable de la programmation cinematographique du Jeu de paume, a montre,
la première, leur travail en France, en 1995. Elle a incite Yervant
Gianikian a filmer son père, dans le très emouvant Retour a Khodorciur. A
plus de 70 ans, ce dernier est retourne voir son pays perdu, a pied, seul,
et raconte la tragique histoire de sa famille. Angela Ricci Lucchi et
Yervant Gianikian sont, eux aussi, alles en Armenie. Ils ont ramene des
stocks d’images. Pour faire un jour un film, le leur, qui ne provienne plus
d’images d’archives. Sauf peut-etre celles laissees par le père de Yervant,
qui avait pris le soin d’emporter une camera Super-8 dans son pèlerinage.
Nicole Vulser
Article paru dans l’edition du 15.03.06
–Boundary_(ID_UoIl9R0PmpROnnZTJRhUYg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Press Release
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
HIS HOLINESS ARAM I MEETS WITH PATRIARCH SFEIR
His Holiness Aram I met with Patriarch Sfeir, Head of the Maronite
Church in Bekerki on March 15.
The two discussed issues related to the internal situation of Lebanon,
the ongoing dialogue in the Parliament and the future perspectives.
##
View photos here: tm
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BAKU NEEDS NOTHING “EXTRAORDINARY,” ALIYEV ASSURES
PanARMENIAN.Net
16.03.2006 19:37 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Yerevan’s withdrawal from occupied Azeri lands”
will result in establishment of neighborly relations with Armenia, said
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. “We need nothing extraordinary. We merely
demand releasing our lands from occupation and withdrawal of Armenian
troops, after which we can live as neighbors,” the Azeri leader said at
a meeting with a Turkish delegation, which arrived in Baku to take part
in the Second World Azerbaijanis Congress. “We live in this region,
we are neighbors, we are destined to live together. However, there is
a precondition of ending separatism, return of Azeri citizens to the
lands of their genuine residence and, of course, territorial claims,”
the Azeri President said, Interfax reports.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress