Author: Emil Lazarian

KREMLIN LOSING WAR FOR NORTH CAUCASUS
Mikhail Zygar
MosNews, Russia
Sept 5 2005
Kommersant.ru
The tragedy in Beslan happened four months after the start of Putin’s
second term. In fact, he began with this tragedy, and not with his
inauguration. Beslan has become a landmark that separates Putin-1
policy from Putin-2.
The Russian authorities learned several lessons after Beslan which
Vladimir Putin pointed out in his famous mourning speech. The Kremlin
decided not to change just its attitude towards security – it changed
all its policies. And it was successful in doing so.
The most important promise Putin made was to adopt “the complex of
measures that would unite the country.” He meant to replace elected
governors with appointed ones. This step made it impossible for the
regions to argue with the federal center. The heads of the local
administrations become more compliant, and the ones that didn’t left
their posts.
Another important goal for the authorities after Beslan became the
“mobilization of the nation in the face of a common threat.”
“Terrorists receive the most effective response when they encounter
not only a powerful state but also a united civil society,” the
president said.
This goal was also reached. Opposition in Russia disappeared. Not
a single opposition party reacted to Beslan. There was no kind of
independent commission created.
Moreover, the opposition totally missed Beslan. The past year proved
that the opposition is extinct. Neither the communists, nor the
liberals reacted to further political crises like the monetization
of welfare benefits, the events in Blagoveshchensk and the North
Caucasus. The opposition became a marginal body with the “face”
of Eduard Limonov.
One more element illustrating “the organization and unification of
civil society” was the final victory over television. Right after
Beslan the news in fact died. There were no discussions after Beslan.
Beslan changed Russia not only politically but psychologically as
well. Russians started to think that there cannot be democracy and
order at the same time. And to get the latter the people should be
ready to give up the first. In October of last year, a month after
Beslan, according to a poll by the Levada Center, 60 percent of
Russians were ready to sacrifice temporarily “some constitutional
freedoms” and 59 percent agreed with the closure of media that
questioned presidential policy. However, 79 percent recognized that
the authorities could not protect them from terrorism.
Beslan did not noticeably lower the rating of the president. However,
if the population supports the president, it does not necessarily mean
that it is happy with the current situation. According to the polls,
in May of this year 43 percent saw around them increased disorder,
chaos and anarchy. In other words, the authorities do not enforce
order enough.
The year after Beslan was very successful for the authorities. The
Kremlin got everything it wanted. However, it came with some losses.
The main problem, which led to Beslan was left unresolved – terrorism
in the Caucasus. Before Beslan all the troubling news was coming
from Chechnya and rarely from Ingushetia. After Beslan the war spread
across the entire North Caucasus.
Last September, the people of Beslan went into the streets to
demand the resignation of President Dzasokhov. Moscow refused. The
authorities thought if the Ossetians were able to remove their
president by street protests, tomorrow other Caucasus people would
follow their example. And they were right. A month later the crowd
seized the Government House in Karachaevo-Cherkesia and demanded the
resignation of the president. However, Moscow said “no” again. The
Kremlin was afraid that if it gave in, all the authorities in the
North Caucasus would be swept away.
It does not mean that the Kremlin trusts the local Caucasus rulers.
The now famous secret report of the presidential envoy to the North
Caucasus, Dmitry Kozak, describes a pretty bleak picture in the region.
“The authorities of the North Caucasus republics are detached from
society and turned into an enclosed class. The corporate society
that was formed in the power structures monopolized the political
and economical resources, which serves only their own interests. All
the high positions in the republics are occupied by relatives,” the
envoy told the president. In other words, the Kremlin knows what is
going on but cannot change anything.
By doing nothing Moscow ran itself into a dead end. So far, the main
struggle in the region is going against the local authorities. By
going against their local presidents and governments, the people of
the Caucasus are asking Moscow for help. They hope that President
Putin’s involvement will change the situation. However, if Moscow were
to replace those hated leaders and exchange them for similar ones,
the people would start struggling against Moscow.
The power crisis in the region has already created a local civil war.
News of conflicts is now coming not only from Chechnya and
Ingushetia, but also from Dagetsan, Karachaevo-Cherkessk, and
Kabardino-Balkaria. Tanks and heavy artillery are attacking houses
in the towns of Kaspiysk, Makhachkala, Nalchik and Nazran.
Law-enforcement officers are being killed almost every week.
In his “Beslan speech,” Vladimir Putin said that he won’t let “millions
of people submerge into a chain of bloody conflicts like in Karabakh,
Pri-Dnestrovie and other tragic places.”
However, it looks like the North Caucasus is sinking more and more
into conflict.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 10) 517 163
Fax: (374 10) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
September 3, 2005
His Holiness Karekin II Sends Condolences to President Bush
On September 1, 2005, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians, responding to the tragic loss of life and
property inflicted on the Gulf Coast of the southern United States by
Hurricane Katrina, sent a letter of condolence to U.S. President George
Bush.
In the letter, His Holiness states, “We learned of the recent devastating
hurricane which struck the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with
a heavy heart, and mourn the deaths of your citizens in cities and towns
near the Gulf of Mexico. From the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, we extend
to you, your government and all the people of the United States, the sorrow
and sincere condolences of the Armenian Church and all Armenians throughout
the world.
“The significant loss of life and the great number of missing and wounded
reminds us all of how precious and fragile the gift of life is, and that we
must always be vigilant in its protection and defense. As you are aware,
Armenia was greatly affected by a major earthquake in 1988, which devastated
the northern regions of the country and killed tens of thousands of our
population. Nevertheless, with a steadfast reliance on Our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Armenian people are overcoming their difficulties and losses,
and we are confident that through faith and hope, the American people will
triumph over this disaster as well.
“As head of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, we offer our solemn prayers
for eternal rest for all those who perished in this disaster, and solace and
comfort to their families and friends. We ask the Almighty to grant
recovery to the thousands of afflicted, hurt and homeless families, and
strength to you and your government at this difficult time.”
##
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Fresno Bee (California)
August 31, 2005, Wednesday FINAL EDITION
One special deli that’s a cut above To many of Armenian descent from
across the country, Fresno is best known for Ohanyan’s.
by Joan Obra The Fresno Bee
Fresno’s Armenians know Ohanyan’s. So do local Greeks, Lebanese
and Egyptians.
But the influence of this Fresno deli and factory stretches
nationwide. Armenians who love bastirma and soujouk — the cured
pastrami-like beef and sausage popular in the Middle East and Middle
Asia — trek to Ohanyan’s for these old-fashioned delicacies.
Last week, Manas Sherenian, an Oriental rug importer from Dallas,
visited Ohanyan’s Deli at Shields and West avenues to buy about 25
pounds of bastirma for his family.
“We’ve been buying [Ohanyan’s] products for a long time,” says
Sherenian, who went to the store to ask for direct shipping to
his home. In smaller Armenian communities like the one in Dallas,
Ohanyan’s meat isn’t readily available.
Not so in cities with larger Armenian populations.
“If I lived in New York or Boston,” Sherenian says, “it would be easy
to find it.”
Fresno residents, of course, have an ample supply of delicacies from
Ohanyan’s, which is the central San Joaquin Valley’s only manufacturer
of bastirma and soujouk.
In Nina’s Bakery at Shaw and West avenues, Nina Tashchian sells
Ohanyan’s soujouk and bastirma along with her Armenian pastries and
handmade meals. Most of her customers buy packaged Ohanyan’s products
to take home, but some also order the sliced meats in sandwiches with
pocket bread.
“They have the best bastirma and soujouk,” Tashchian says of
Ohanyan’s. “They’re famous. And the people like it so much.”
At MGA Liquor and Deli at Bullard Avenue and Figarden Drive, co-owners
Armen Pogosyan and Marine Gevorgyan started offering Ohanyan’s products
after customers began asking for them.
And other ethnic stores, such as Fresno Deli at Fresno Street and
Gettysburg Avenue, Hagopian International Deli in Visalia and Hye
Deli at Bullard and Marks avenues sell Ohanyan’s products.
It isn’t just Armenians who buy Ohanyan’s products, says Sevan
Havatian, owner of Fresno Deli. “Everybody likes it,” she says.
Together, bastirma and soujouk make up the base of Ohanyan’s business,
which is led by Jerry Hancer and his brother-in-law, Markos Garabetyan,
Armenians who grew up in Turkey.
The two were working at a belt-manufacturing company in Toledo, Ohio,
when a relative told them that Ohanyan’s, an Armenian deli at Shields
and West avenues, was up for sale.
Hancer and Garabetyan jumped at the chance to buy it, and they moved
their families to Fresno.
“We weren’t thinking about this,” Hancer says. “But the opportunity
came up suddenly.”
The two took over Ohanyan’s in 1981 and started tinkering with
soujouk and bastirma recipes. They wanted to improve the traditional,
Turkish-Armenian bastirma and soujouk made by Hancer’s grandparents,
who originated from Kastamonu, a central Turkish city near the
Black Sea.
They started out by making 400-500 pounds of bastirma and soujouk
a week. By the mid-1990s, they’d bought a factory on Sussex Way,
increasing their production to 15,000 pounds a week.
About five years ago, they added another Armenian specialty called
manti — tortellinilike pasta stuffed with ground meat and parsley,
typically served with a garlic-yogurt sauce and buttery tomato sauce.
The manti “was a very popular dish with the Greeks and Armenians,”
Hancer says. “We decided, ‘Why can’t we make this here?’ ”
“It’s so time-consuming,” he adds, “and not everybody is making it.”
These are foods with a lot of history. Legend has it that Turk
horsemen in central Asia created bastirma by squeezing cured meat
between their legs and saddles. In the Kayseri province of central
Turkey, bastirma and soujouk became culinary specialties.
The blend of spices reminiscent of Kayseri — fenugreek, cumin,
paprika and garlic — attracts customers such as Sherenian, who grew
up in that region of Turkey.
“My grandmother used to work in the bastirma and soujouk business in
Kayseri,” he says.
Sherenian says he loves the quality of the bastirma, which is made of
New York strip steak. “But it’s not just the beef,” Sherenian says.
“It’s that paste, those ingredients that [Ohanyan’s] uses.”
A tour through the factory on Sussex Way reveals the pungent odor
of various spices. Workers cut New York strip steak, throwing the
gristle in the trash and saving the trimmings in a separate bin to
make soujouk.
The slices of strip steak are then cured with salt and spices in the
first step of making bastirma. The meat then is cured with a wet
marinade to flavor its interior. Afterward, it’s dried again with
another spice paste.
The trimmings for soujouk are similarly spiced with garlic and cumin,
stuffed into sausage casings, then dried.
At Ohanyan’s Deli, Hayik Garabetyan, Markos’ son, thinly slices both
meats. Both are heavily spiced with garlic, but the bastirma has more
of a spicy flavor, especially when heated.
Currently, the factory is producing all the bastirma, soujouk and
manti it can. Ohanyan’s owners would like to expand — they already
have blueprints in hand and extra land to build on, but they say
they’re held back by their meat suppliers.
“We’re using New York strip steaks only, and it’s hard to find it as
lean as we want,” Hancer says.
They also hope to add new products, such as European sausages.
“I lived for 15 years in Germany,” says Markos Garabetyan, “I believe
we can do the same for those sausages as we did for bastirma and
soujouk. We have a better chance than someone new.”
The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (559) 441-6365.
INFOBOX
Ideas for serving soujouk and bastirma
Soujouk and bastirma are traditional Armenian meats that are eaten
in a number of simple ways:
As an appetizer, serve slices of soujouk with Armenian string cheese.
For breakfast, fry thin slices of bastirma as you would bacon. Serve
them with fried eggs. (Or mix the slices of bastirma with eggs in
an omelet.)
For a soujouk or bastirma wrap, layer slices of soujouk or bastirma
with Armenian string cheese on softened lahvosh, the Armenian cracker
bread. Roll the lahvosh around the meat.
Chop soujouk or bastirma into small pieces, and brown them in oil.
Add the browned meat to bulgur pilaf.
Instead of adding pepperoni to pizza, try using soujouk instead.
Cook pieces of bastirma with spinach, green beans or white beans to
flavor the vegetables.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE TEACHERS ARE TAUGHT TO SOW PEACE
By Liza Weisstuch, Globe Correspondent
The Boston Globe
August 28, 2005, Sunday THIRD EDITION
The conversation started with the Armenian genocide and flowed into
the Bosnian-Serbian conflict. Then came the matter of United Nations
intervention or lack thereof in Africa, which led to talk of the pros
and cons of international intervention in general.
They had come from Colombia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland.
For 10 days in Brookline this month, 40 educators from 11
countries made similar connections at a symposium organized by the
Brookline-based nonprofit foundation Facing History and Ourselves,
which uses the Holocaust to teach children about tolerance, democracy,
and human rights.
The symposium was the first time so many of the foundation’s
international partners have come together.
“Learning about problems in other places helps you reframe your own
perspective and challenge your assumptions,” said Tony Gallagher,
professor of education at Queen’s University in Belfast. “It’s helped
me see things in Northern Ireland that I didn’t notice.”
Rwandan educators Innocent Mugisha and John Rutayisire are developing
a history curriculum for their country, a subject that had been banned
nationwide in the years since the genocide. “Now we can go back and
ask teachers to debate and connect issues,” Rutayisire said. “It’s
a major shift in Rwandan teaching.”
Facing History opened in Brookline in 1976 after Margot Stern Strom,
then a public school teacher, was frustrated with the detached,
sanitary way textbooks imparted history. She and fellow Brookline
teacher Bill Parsons thought students should connect what they learn
to the realities around them.
Their goal: develop a curriculum that teaches children how societies
have failed, so they can play a role in wiping out discrimination
and preventing genocide.
Karen Murphy, director of international programs and one of the
symposium’s organizers, said: “There are basic issues, like how do you
deal with conflict in the classroom? How do you deal with a divided
society? How do you deal with legacy of violence? How [do you] help
students imagine democratic participation?
“If you want effectiveness in democratic society, if you want engaged,
thoughtful citizens, you have to invest in them.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Schweizerische Depeschenagentur AG (SDA)
SDA – Service de base français
1 septembre 2005
Développement Suisse-Turquie Dogu Perinçek entendu en septembre par
le parquet de Lausanne
nn ihst ll zj
Lausanne f
Istanbul (ats) Le nationaliste de gauche turc Dogu Perinçek est
attendu en Suisse dans le courant du mois de septembre. Il
comparaîtra le 20 septembre devant la justice vaudoise pour avoir nié
publiquement la réalité du génocide arménien.
“Je serai du 16 au 22 septembre en Suisse”, a indiqué M. Perinçek à
Ankara. “Je répéterai que le soi-disant génocide arménien est un
mensonge international”, a-t-il déjà annoncé.
Dogu Perinçek est la figure de proue du Parti des travailleurs (IP),
qui a obtenu 160 000 des 31,5 millions de voix aux dernières
élections parlementaires (0,51 %). Venu en Suisse fin juillet à
l’occasion de la célébration du 82e anniversaire du Traité de
Lausanne, il a critiqué à Lausanne et à Glattbrugg (ZH) “le mensonge
international” à propos des événements de 1915.
Enquête ouverte
La justice suisse a ouvert des enquêtes pour déterminer si ces propos
publics contrevenaient à la norme pénale contre le racisme. Le juge
d’instuction cantonal vaudois, Jacques Antenen, a été chargé
d’instruire toutes les procédures ouvertes.
Le juge aura la difficile tâche de déterminer si l’art 261 bis du
code pénal s’applique aux propos tenus en Suisse par Dogu Perinçek.
“La question fondamentale sera de définir si on est en présence d’un
génocide au sens de l’art 261 bis”, relève le juge.
Le Conseil national et le Grand Conseil vaudois ont reconnu le
génocide arménien. Plus prudents, le Conseil fédéral, comme le
Conseil d’Etat, ont choisi de laisser le débat aux historiens.
Le juge d’instruction examine aussi si d’autres personnalités ont
tenu des propos négationnistes lors de la célébration du Traité de
Lausanne. Pour l’instant, cela ne semble pas être le cas. Les
déclarations qui pourraient tomber sous le coup de la norme
antiraciste ont été tenues dans un cadre privé, au Beau-Rivage.
Tensions
La question arménienne provoque des tensions récurrentes entre Berne
et la Turquie. Si Ankara reconnaît la réalité des massacres perpétrés
par l’Empire ottoman contre la minorité arménienne, elle récuse le
terme de “génocide” et les chiffres de 1,2 à 1,3 million de morts
avancés par les Arméniens. La Turquie estime le nombre de victimes à
250 000 ou 300 000.
–Boundary_(ID_pWO7RWzwuKwOAgEoJMLabA)–

Neue Zürcher Zeitung
31. August 2005
Leugnung des Armeniermords ist rassistisch
Entgegnung zum Charakter des türkischen Nationalismus
Von Rupen Boyadjian*
Georg Kreis, Präsident der Eidgenössischen Kommission gegen
Rassismus, hat die Ansicht vertreten, die Leugnung des Genozids an
den Armeniern sei nicht rassistisch wie die Verneinung des Holocaust
(NZZ 11. 8. 05). In der folgenden Entgegnung wird der diffamierende
Charakter der Leugnung des Armeniermords hervorgehoben. Die
ideologische und faktische Diskriminierung sei zudem immer noch von
politischer Relevanz.
In einem Diskussionsbeitrag hat Georg Kreis festgehalten, die
Leugnung des Völkermords an den Armeniern sei nicht diffamierend wie
die Leugnung des Holocaust mit ihrer “stereotypen antisemitischen
Zuschreibung von Macht- und Geldgier und Ausbeutung anderer”. Es gebe
keine Ideologie, welche über die Leugnung dieses Genozids genährt
würde, und ihre Beurteilung im Hinblick auf die Wiederholungsgefahr
sei nicht “derart wichtig”. Der Präsident der Eidgenössischen
Kommission gegen Rassismus verkennt damit die Natur des Negationismus
in diesem Fall.
Armenierhass und Verschwörungstheorien
Georg Kreis räumt zwar ein, dass es für die Armenier beleidigend ist,
der Lüge bezichtigt zu werden, sieht aber keine Diffamierung. Der
suggerierte Unterschied ist hier irreführend. Wer sich mit dem
Armenier-Diskurs in der Türkei vertraut macht, sieht zudem, dass die
angeführten Stereotype auch auf Armenier angewandt werden. Die
Genozid-Leugnung ist, wie es Dominique Exquis und Marcel Niggli
formuliert haben, “der Versuch, das für den Völkermord
verantwortliche Regime und seine Täter weisszuwaschen, auf dass deren
verbrecherische Ideologie akzeptabler oder gar akzeptabel erscheine.
Im gleichen Zug werden die Opfer als Lügner qualifiziert. (. . .) Die
Leugnung bestärkt mithin jene, die die Opfer ohnehin ablehnen, und
wirbt für ihre Diskriminierung bei den anderen.” Die Bemühungen um
die Anerkennung des Völkermords an den Armeniern schürten nur den
“Hass unter den Türken”, stand selbst in der Petition, mit der die
Koordinationsstelle der türkischen Verbände in der Schweiz die
Anerkennung dieses Verbrechens im Nationalrat verhindern wollte.
Dass die Armenier aufgrund der Leugnung des Völkermords in der Türkei
verhasst sind, zeigt sich schon darin, dass die umfassend staatlich
kontrollierten Medien immer wieder verbreitet haben, Armenier stünden
hinter der kurdischen PKK. In einer 1999 in Deutschland unter
türkischen Einwandererkindern durchgeführten Studie nannten 76
Prozent die Armenier ein unbeliebtes Volk. “Intrigieren wie ein
Armenier” oder “armenische Krankheit”, als Umschreibung für Geiz,
waren bereits im Osmanischen Reich Redensarten, welche die Stereotype
verdeutlichen. Selbst dort tätige Ausländer übernahmen zuweilen
antiarmenisches Gedankengut. Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorf, der
deutsche Generalstabschef der osmanischen Armee im Ersten Weltkrieg,
schrieb etwa: “Der Armenier ist, wie der Jude, ausserhalb seiner
Heimat ein Parasit, der die Gesundheit eines anderen Landes, in dem
er sich niedergelassen hat, aufsaugt.”
Durch staatliche Propaganda genährt, ist auch heute das Bild der
sinistre Pläne verfolgenden Armenier virulent, die mit dem von den
“Imperialisten” unterstützten “Völkermordvorwurf” einen geheimen Plan
zur Zerstörung der Türkei verfolgten. Das Erziehungsministerium
ordnete im April 2003 an, Wettbewerbe abzuhalten, in denen alle
türkischen Schüler, auch Angehörige der Minderheiten, schriftlich die
“Völkermordlüge” widerlegen müssen. Diese Massnahme sei rassistisch,
stellte die türkische Lehrergewerkschaft fest.
Ideologie und Wiederholungsgefahr
Der Teil der jüngtürkischen Partei, der sich 1913 gegen den
demokratisch-osmanistischen Flügel durchsetzte und eine diktatorische
Regierung bildete, war vom Türkismus ergriffen. Diese rassistische
Ideologie hat einen ethnisch homogenen türkischen Staat zum Ziel. Die
1923 gemäss Lausanner Friedensvertrag gegründete Republik Türkei
übernahm wesentliche Teile des jungtürkischen Programms wie auch des
Personals. “Die Türkei den Türken” prangt auf jeder Ausgabe der
Tageszeitung “Hürriyet”. Massnahmen zur “Türkifizierung” ziehen eine
ununterbrochene Spur durch die Geschichte der Republik bis heute.
Bereits in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren kamen die Kurden ins Visier.
Zahlreiche Deportationen von nun vorwiegend muslimischen
Minderheitsgruppen dienten der Ideologie des ethnisch homogenen
Staates ebenso wie Vertreibungen von restlichen Christen in den
frühen Jahren der Republik (auf deren Gebiet waren vor dem Ersten
Weltkrieg 25 Prozent der Bevölkerung Christen gewesen; heute sind es
wenige Promille). Pogrome gegen die thrakischen Juden 1934 trugen
dazu bei, die 100″000 Angehörigen, welche die jüdische Gemeinde 1920
noch umfasste, auf gegenwärtig 15″000 bis 20″000 zu reduzieren. 1942
wurde eine fast ausschliesslich bei armenischen, griechischen und
jüdischen Minderheiten erhobene “Reichtumssteuer” eingeführt, welche
Tausende in Ruin und Emigration trieb. Selbst der für die Steuer
zuständige leitende Beamte, Faik Ökte, nannte diese Politik später
rassistisch.
Die offiziell propagierte Leugnung des Völkermords an den Armeniern
ist darauf angelegt, alles Armenische schlechtzumachen. Das
gesellschaftliche Umfeld, das so geschaffen wird, begünstigt verbale
und tätliche Angriffe. Steinwürfe auf armenische Kirchen,
Grabschändungen oder Aufrufe zum Boykott armenischer Geschäfte kommen
regelmässig vor. Die Täter werden ebenso regelmässig nicht ermittelt,
wobei sich die Behörden nicht nur in Zurückhaltung üben. Sie
betreiben diverse diskriminatorische Praktiken, die auf eine
Verhinderung von Gemeindeleben zielen. Das Verwaltungsgericht
Braunschweig lehnte deshalb die Rückführung zweier abgewiesener
armenischer Asylbewerber in die Türkei 1995 ab, denn es sah “die
erhöhte Gefahr erneuter pogromartiger Ausschreitungen gegen die
armenische Minderheit in der Türkei”.
Im Osmanischen Reich waren die Armenier Bürger zweiter Klasse und
galten als minderwertig. Um ihnen in der absehbaren Demokratisierung
keine gleichen Rechte gewähren zu müssen, hat man sie umgebracht,
denn nur Türken sollten in einem auf “Türkentum” basierenden Staat
eine Rechtsgemeinschaft bilden. Die Leugnung des Völkermords
schliesst die Armenier heute weiterhin von rechtlich-ethischer
Verbundenheit aus. Der rassistische Kern dieser Minderberechtigung
hat sich nicht einfach aufgelöst, auch nach 90 Jahren nicht. Wäre der
Rassismus überwunden, dann gäbe es dieser Tage weder die
Genozid-Leugnung noch andere Diskriminierungen der Armenier.
*”Der Autor war Leiter der Arbeitsgruppe der Gesellschaft
Schweiz-Armenien im ersten Prozess wegen Leugnung des Völkermords an
den Armeniern und Mitherausgeber von “Enteignet – Vertrieben –
Ermordet. Beiträge zur Genozidforschung” (Chronos-Verlag 2004).
–Boundary_(ID_yOIfWprqiJZxZxlKH8lP1A)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HELSINKI FINAL ACT AS GROUND TO SETTLE THE NKR CONFLICT
A1+
| 19:43:58 | 02-09-2005 | Politics |
“We are somehow obliged to the Helsinki final act in the settlement
of the Karabakh conflict, as well as in the winning of peace and
stability in the region”, this is the opinion of the RA Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanyan.
One of the main principles of the act is the unchangeableness of the
borders of the member countries. Asked the question how the document
will affect the settlement of the Karabakh conflict in this reference
Mr. Oskanyan answered, “There is no need to worry. The right of the
nations’ self-determination is also stipulated in the document,
and it is on this basis that the member countries try to settle
conflicts. In the settlement of the Karabakh conflict we refer to
the document quite often”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Romance and realism in Brassai’s Paris pictures
By Robert Reed / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)
September 1, 2005 Thursday
The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu is celebrating
its 10th year with a schedule of special exhibitions that reflect
its character as an institution dedicated to building and educating
an audience for the art of photography. After a series of three
exhibitions covering the history of photography in Japan up through
World War II, the museum now presents a show of the works of Brassai,
one of Europe’s best-known photographers of the 20th century.
This show is exemplary of the kind of high-quality presentations of
foreign artists the museum has sought to bring its audience over the
last 10 years and, in fact, is one that was assembled by the Pompidou
Centre, Paris, in 2000, to celebrate the centenary of the artist’s
birth and that has since toured to Britain and Italy.
Brassai is known today primarily as a photographer of the streets
and cafes of Paris at the time between the two world wars when the
city was the artistic capital of Europe. Like so many of the artists,
writers and thinkers gathered in Paris at that time, Brassai was not
a native Parisian but an expatriate drawn to the City of Light by
its irresistible intellectual and artistic gravity.
Born Gyula Halasz, the pseudonym Brassai that he chose after beginning
his artistic activities in Paris in the early 1930s means “of Brasso”
(Brasov), his native town in what was Hungarian Transylvania (now
part of Romania). His mother was Armenian and his father a Hungarian
professor of French literature with a degree from the Sorbonne. After
studying art in Budapest and Berlin, Brassai finally realized his
dream of living in Paris at the age of 25, in 1924.
During his first years in Paris, Brassai supported himself by writing
as a correspondent for Hungarian and German publications while devoting
himself to the study of French. In Berlin, he had counted artists
such as Kandinsky, Kokoschka and Moholy-Nagy among his friends,
and after moving to Paris he was again quick to make friends in art
circles. One of the first of these was the photographer Eugene Atget,
whose works Brassai came to admire deeply.
It was in 1929 that a friend lent Brassai a camera so that he could
take his own pictures to send back with his articles to Hungary and
Germany rather than having to rely on other photographer’s pictures.
As soon as he began to take and develop pictures, Brassai decided that
photography was a medium through which he could express his view of
the world.
In Brassai’s first serious portraits of Paris, beginning in 1930,
what we see is not the City of Light but the empty streets of the
Parisian night that he loved to wander. The collection of photographs
published late in 1932 under the title Paris du nuit (and in the
English edition as Paris After Dark in 1934) quickly caught the
attention of the Paris art world.
In the selection of works from this period on view in the Ebisu show,
we see the deserted night streets, peopled only occasionally by young
hoodlums from the slums and prostitutes on the Place d’Italie. In
these early years Brassai also photographed the nightlife of Paris,
in the cafes and bars, the dance halls and the brothels.
If the images appear stark it is because Brassai sought unadorned
reality above all else. If they seem unfinished it is because, like
that first camera that started him on his quest, Brassai always tried
to keep the spirit of the amateur, using no special equipment and
developing no new techniques.
In keeping with this stance, he also fervently denied the label of
artist throughout his career. The ground he broke was not in the
realm of technique or style but in the new subject matter he found
and the intimate knowledge of the fellow artists he photographed in
their studios. Brassai considered Goethe to be his true mentor and
he adopted the philosopher’s aphorism as his own: “Little by little,
objects have raised me to their own level.”
There is a striking photograph in this show titled A Subway Pillar
that exemplifies a series of photographs in which Brassai sought to
express the nobility of ordinary objects. He called this series Objets
a Grandes Echelles (Large-scale Objects) and it was these images that
caught the eye of Picasso and made him ask Brassai to photograph the
large stock of sculptures he had not yet shown the public.
Later, Brassai would be invited to the studios of many artists and
writers of the day, including Matisse, Giacometti, Pierre Bonnard,
George Braque, Georges Rouault, Bernard Buffet, Aristide Maillol,
Samuel Beckett, Thomas Mann and Olivier Messiaen. Particularly
memorable was a 1939 pictorial feature in Life magazine titled
“Picasso in his Studio.”
But this is not the side of Brassai’s career that the Ebisu show
focuses on. The Pompidou Centre collection from which his show is
compiled includes the vast archive of the Brassai estate and the
artist’s personal collection that his widow, Gilberte, donated to the
museum. From this, the show seeks to present the full spectrum of
Brassai’s own creative genius rather than his perhaps more visible
role as chronicler of the Paris art world. Thus, the show includes
Brassai drawings and sculpture as well as photographs.
As an art student, Brassai had naturally studied drawing, and he would
return to drawing as a medium of artistic expression in his 40s, partly
out of necessity. In the fateful month of June 1940, when the German
Army occupied Paris, Brassai was in Cannes, having fled before the
invasion with many of his artist friends. Although he had an invitation
to move to the United States, he boarded the last refugee train back
to Paris because he had forgotten to bring along his negatives.
Back in Paris, Brassai was told by the German occupation authority
to apply for a license to practice his profession as a photographer.
When he refused to do so, he was forbidden to work as a photographer
for the remainder of the war. This is when he returned to drawing and
made it a medium that he would continue to work in for the rest of
his life. This is also the period when Picasso asked him to photograph
his sculptures.
After the war, Brassai began making sculptures of his own, from the
stones he found during his frequent alpine treks in the French Alps.
Many of these charming works are stylized nudes that parallel his work
in drawing and photography–also on display in this show. Other works
seem to reflect the primitivism that had captured the imagination of
Picasso and many other artists of the day. And one humorous sculpture
is a Picassoesque bust in miniature of Picasso himself.
Another part of this show that is sure to impress visitors is the
selection of prints from Brassai’s Graffiti series, a collection
of photos of Paris wall graffiti that the artist sought out and
photographed over a period of more than 30 years. These images created
a sensation in New York when they were first shown together at the
Museum of Modern Art in a show organized by American photographer
Edward Steichen.
The reception was equally fervent in Europe when Brassai’s Graffiti
books were published in Germany and France. By this time, artists
like Picasso, Braque, Miro and Dubuffet were already avid collectors
of these prints, some of which came in pairs with a 10-year interval
between them to show how the graffiti had aged over the years. In
this show, these haunting images are grouped under Brassai’s original
themes of Love, Death, Magic and the Primitive.
Brassai–From the Pompidou Centre Collection
Until Sept. 25, open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Thursdays
and Fridays). Closed Mondays except Sept. 19, when the museum closes
the following day instead.
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, a seven-minute walk from
JR Ebisu Station.
Admission: 1,000 yen for adults, 900 yen for university students and
800 yen for high school and middle school students and seniors 65
and older.
Information: visit or call (03) 3280-0099.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkey must drop preconditions for diplomatic relations – Armenia
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 1, 2005 Thursday
YEREVAN, September 1 — Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic
relations with Turkey without any preliminary terms, the Armenian
president’s press secretary, Viktor Sogomonian said on Thursday.
“Armenia’s stand remains unchanged. We are ready to enter into a
constructive dialogue with Turkey at any time,” he said, adding that
the two leaders discussed these issues in messages they exchanged
lately.
“Yerevan has a very positive vision of the ever-stronger dialogue
between Moscow and Ankara, and of their efforts to enhance cooperation
and security,” Sogomonian said. “Relations between Russia and Armenia
have a strategic dimension to us. We believe that deeper cooperation
between Moscow and Ankara may prove a certain mediatory resource for
addressing our own issues,” he said.
Armenia and Turkey have a 330-kilometer-long common border,
but no diplomatic relations. Ankara says it is ready to normalize
bilateral relations with Yerevan, if it stops demanding international
acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915
and curtails support for Nagorno-Karabakh in the smoldering conflict
with Azerbaijan.

THEY DRIVE OUT PEOPLE FROM OWN HOUSES IN CENTER OF YEREVAN “FOR STATE NEEDS”
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 2. ARMINFO. More than 10 families living in the
center of Yerevan (Byuzand street) will find themselves without houses
within the nearest days. Some families living there were driven out
from their houses by an officer of justice. It should be noted that
the officer in justice acted without an appropriate order not waiting
the end of legal processes. As regards the rest families, they intend
to organize a sitting protest demonstration. The officer of justice
is going to clean this street on Sept 5 leaving the outcasts without
houses and adequate compensations