Author: Emil Lazarian

Armenian minister dismisses press reports as “slander”
Noyan Tapan news agency
21 Jun 04
Yerevan, 21 June: Minister of Culture and Youth Affairs Ovik Oveyan
broke his vow of silence of the past 100 days and made a “forced”
statement at a news conference on 21 June to which he was invited. He
refuted various publications, slander and statistical data about him
and the ministry he heads published by the Armenian press.
The minister said this was done to order by certain forces. “Since I
have held no meetings with any of the journalists and have given no
interviews, all the reports about me have been published to order to
put it mildly,” he said.
Ovik Oveyan also called on the journalists not to believe any of the
publications which will appear before a news conference scheduled
for September. He said that in September he would give his first
“major” news conference and would give interviews and hold meetings
with journalists after that.
Speaking about his membership of the Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed
Country] Party, he explained that it was not a hasty decision. It took
him several months or may even be a year to take the decision. “Having
familiarized myself with its charter, programme, its prospects and
constructive tasks it plans to tackle and having seen its list of
members, I decided to join the party,” the minister said.

ANTI-ARMENIAN IN ALL DIMENSIONS
Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
June 21 2004
Experts state that 1-3 million Azerbaijanis live in and near Moscow,
and 63 percent moved from Azerbaijan in recent years. 40 percent are
young and middle aged men who migrated without their relatives. A
small part arrived with their families. Only 5 percent run their own
business, 43 percent found high-salary jobs. 86 percent consider
they have already got accustomed or will soon get adjusted to the
new life, 45 percent with the assistance of their relatives living
in Moscow. 20 percent want to bring their families. What about those
who did not achieve success? Will they leave the capital of Russia in
the near future? 50 percent do not know, 33 will never leave despite
difficulties. Difficulties for 55 percent is home, for 35 percent
jobs, for 72 percent registration or status of refugee. For most of
them the negative attitude of the people and authorities of Moscow was
an unpleasant surprise. If we add the language factor and feeling of
loneliness the picture will become complete. The Russian newspaper
“Azerbaijani Congress” published since May 2003 is for supporting
and bringing together their compatriots. Recently I got one of the
editions of this monthly newspaper. Of the mentioned edition with
16 coloured pages one may get more information, such as that in the
large region of Primorye the Azerbaijani community is rather large,
whereas in Stavropolie they have only 45 thousand compatriots where
“unfortunately the majority prefers to trade in the market” (perhaps
they would wish to become at least senators, or governor or famous
cultural figures). And the community with 45 thousand members has not
a single Sunday school. The regional department of the All-Russia
Azerbaijani Congress which was registered on February 28, 2000
(soon after which accidentally or not the profane actions of ruining
Armenian cemeteries were launched) has such an aim. Instead they have
managed in other places. For example, in Chuvashia. On February 24 of
this year the statue of Nizami Gyanjiev was opened in Cheboksary. Are
there relations between Nizami Gyanjiev and Cheboksary? No. And why
must there be any relations. They wished to do they did. For it was
not done on the means of the Chuvash people. The deputy chairman of
the AAC Natik Aghamirov paid all the expenses from his pocket. By
the way this is the third statue of the Persian writer in Russia, the
first and the second are in Moscow and Sanct Petersburg. What can they
do? Only in Moscow there are 114 names indicating the contribution and
talent of Armenians in all spheres: memorial, street, a whole living
quarters, theatre, church, cemetery. Perhaps I would not write this
article if I did not read the article by certain Emin Mamedly “The
Khans of Nakhjvan” under the headline “History”. After reading it one
comes to the conclusion that the aim is not so conveying information
about this or that Caucasian Tatar who served in the Russian army
and achieved high ranks as extending to the Russian reader that the
Armenian lands are not Armenian. Mentioning about the fact that the
khanate of Nakhijevan was annexed to Russia by the famous agreement
of Turkemenchay (February 10, 1828) and that Persia once and for
all (the latter expression is taken in inverted commas) yielded –
the Azerbaijani khanates of Yerevan and Nakhjvan to Russia, and by
the Supreme Manifest Tsar Nikolay I named the united area – Armenian
region, which was followed due to the support and aid of the Russian
commanders by the mass resettlement of the Armenian population from
Persia to the mentioned region and the khanate of Karabakh. How is it
possible to name the only subject of the Russian empire in the Caucasus
after a concrete nation, exclaims the author with hysteric pity and
then states with unhidden hatred how the committee of resettlement
was headed by ethnic Armenian Colonel Lazarev and Lieutenant-Colonel
Arghutinski-Dolgorukov and how the former khans were deprived of
their rights. Moreover, by the fourth article of the same agreement
the khans, beks and clergymen of the other Russian provinces were
also deprived of rights and – they were not allowed to settle down
in the Armenian region. The pseudo-historian of our times calls the
fair and regular historical phenomenon “colonization of the region”
by forced resettlement of the Muslims and immigration of Christians,
mainly ethnic Armenians, as well as Russians, Ukrainians and – Germans,
Czechs, Polish (?). “In this situation the only means of preserving
the lands of the historical motherland was devoted service to the
house of Romanov,” writes the author. Here we are – Mamedli did not
hesitate to pour the poison of his heart on the excellent writer
of historical novels Valentin Pikul. He was especially furious with
the interpretation of the character of the Ismail khan (who plays a
dual game) in the film “Bayazet” on the novel of Pikul shown on the
second Russian channel. He labels this excellent film as “immoral
and illiterate”. By the way, one of his mentioned khans Kelbili
khan later fought against Andranik, and his brother, officer of the
division “Savage” Jumshud was at the same time the commander of the
Karabakh cavalry. In such cases it is accepted to say no comment but,
nevertheless, we shall try to comment on this. At the end of the
article the author says, “Allah rahmat eliasin” (Allah give peace to
their souls) and this is not in vain as they have shed the blood of
thousands of Armenian women and children. By the way, the editor of
the newspaper “Azerbaijani congress” is Afrang Dashdamirov not unknown
to the intelligentsia of Artsakh who once occupied the position of
the head of the department of propaganda of the Central Committee of
the Azerbaijani Communist Party under Heidar Aliev and the position
of the secretary of the Central Committee on propaganda under Kyamran
Bagirov. To conclude I will add the following: the propaganda machine
of our enemy is enviably active not only at home but also abroad. In
the brains of the growing generation they must seed the absurd and
brazen idea that there is no Armenian land in the world. And if
at one time a generation captured a greater part of the historical
motherland of the Armenians, the duty of the following generations
is to preserve it at any cost and not to yield back. And for this
sake they will not hesitate even to declare their prophet Mohammed
Christian. What do we oppose to this machine, with what success? But
this is already another subject for study.
NVARD AVAGIAN

AGBU PRESS OFFICE
55 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone (212) 319-6383
Fax (212) 319-6507
Email [email protected]
Webpage
PRESS RELEASE
Thursday, June 17, 2004
LIGHTS, CAMERA, SATAMIAN
New York – On the heels of the success of last year’s ‘Zvart’ operetta,
Krikor Satamian, along with collaborator Maestro Vatche Barsoumian,
is busy putting together another work by composer Dikran Tchouhadjian
originally titled ‘Leblebiji Horhor Agha’ and now incarnated as
‘Leblebiji’ for three performances this fall in Los Angeles.
A veteran of Beirut’s AGBU Vahan Papazian Theatre Group, a graduate
of England’s famous Bristol school, and an actor with a long line of
movie and network television credits under his belt, Satamian needs
no introduction to Armenian theatre lovers. His name is synonymous
with Armenian theatre in America. He continues to foster Armenian
language performances in a country where the tradition is confined
predominantly to first-generation Armenian Americans.
When Satamian first arrived in America, he settled in the New York area
and began drawing from the local talent pool. But as fluent Armenian
speakers became increasingly difficult to find on the East Coast,
he relocated to Los Angeles where he spotted more potential.
“There was fertile ground [in L.A.] for theatre with all the immigrants
from Armenia and the Middle East,” said Satamian. ” It caught on
like wildfire. I found a generation of actors and now I have a second
generation that is coming from the schools.”
He quickly tapped into the Armenian love of theatre, which has been
sustained by the Armenian immigrants from Armenia, Iran, Syria and
Lebanon. Now the head of the AGBU Ardavazt Theatre Group, Ardavazt is
the only full-time theatre company in Los Angeles. It often tours
other cities across the continent that are hungry for Armenian
theatrical productions.
Ardavazt is currently presenting Hagop Baronian’s ‘Honorable
Beggars’. Later this year, it will be mounting a play by Zareh
Melkonian, the production of ‘Leblebiji’ and five one-act plays
performed by the Ardavazt Junior’s company, created to cultivate a
new wave of talent.
Satamian has also created a series of highly successful one-man shows
that he toured to AGBU chapters across the continent. In Watertown
and Montreal, his performances helped in the fundraising effort for
local AGBU center renovation initiatives.
Since the San Francisco Opera’s ‘Arshak II’ production by Tchouhadjian
in 2001, Satamian has been mining his popular works, most of which
have not been performed since the late nineteenth century in Istanbul
and later in Beirut in the late sixties.
While Verdi influenced ‘Arshak II’, Tchouhadjian’s operettas were
popular pieces that provided people with the equivalent of the show
tunes of their era–works that combined Italian with Oriental music.
‘Leblebiji’ is Satamian’s most ambitious Ardavazt production and
is slated for three nights this fall in contrast to the two nights
reserved for ‘Zvart’.
“The reaction [to ‘Zvart’] was tremendous, it was more than we
expected,” Satamian said. “In fact, when we did our budget we
calculated sixty percent attendance income. It turned out that
attendance was over ninety-five percent.”
“We did two performances in a 3,000 person auditorium and both
performances were full,” he added, noting some people were turned
away from the Sunday performance because of space limitations.
“This time will be bigger. It’s big in scope, and everything needs
a lot of planning,” Satamian said of the preparation underway for
‘Leblebiji’,” he continued. “We will be getting more advertisers,
more donations this time. Those that were sitting on the fence last
time know we can do it and will be onboard.”
There will be new needs this time around, Satamian says, including
more advertising to the non-Armenian community who can easily enjoy
the production because of the ‘surtitles’ that electronically translate
the Armenian dialogue and music on a screen above the stage.
‘Leblebiji’ is the latest in Satamian’s repertoire, but as someone
who is always thinking and dreaming big, he hopes one day to up the
ante and produce more challenging productions.
“I have lots of plays in mind but I don’t have the talent power to
be able to do them. The people I have are competent who can do the
average play but the difficult ones like Shakespeare, Ibsen or Bernard
Shaw I can’t yet. I say ‘yet’ with the hope that maybe these people
will show up one day on the scene.”
If Satamian’s past successes are any indication, it won’t be long
before that happens. Until then, audiences can enjoy AGBU Ardavazt
Theatre Group’s 2004 line up. The company’s ‘Leblebiji’ performances
are scheduled for October 22-24, 2004 and for more information about
this and other shows please contact AGBU Pasadena at (626) 794-7942
or [email protected].

Sudan’s Final Solution
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 19, 2004
The New York Times
LONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — In my last column, I wrote about
Magboula Muhammad Khattar, a 24-year-old woman whose world began to
collapse in March, when the Janjaweed Arab militia burned her village
and slaughtered her parents.
Similar atrocities were happening all over Darfur, in western Sudan,
leaving 1.2 million people homeless. Refugees tell consistent tales of
murder, pillage and rape against the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit tribes
by the Arabs driving them away.
As this genocide unfolded, the West largely ignored it. That was not
an option for Ms. Khattar and her husband, Ali Daoud.
The night after the village massacre, survivors slipped out of the
forest to salvage any belongings and bury their dead. They found the
bodies of Ms. Khattar’s mother and father; her father’s corpse had
been thrown in a well to poison the water supply. Ms. Khattar was now
responsible for her 3-year-old sister as well as her own two children.
Then, as they prepared the bodies, one moved. Hussein Bashir Abakr, 19,
had been shot in the neck and mouth and left for dead, but he was still
alive. His parents had both been killed, along with all his siblings
except for one brother, who had been shot in the foot but escaped.
That brother, Nuradin, gave up his duty to bury their parents,
choosing instead to carry Hussein into the forest and to try to
nurse him with traditional medicines. Nuradin’s bullet wound made
every step agonizing, but he was determined to save the only member
of his family left. Over the next 46 nights, Nuradin dragged himself
and his brother toward Chad.
Finally, they staggered over the dry riverbed marking the border,
where I found them. Hussein has lost part of his tongue and many of
his teeth and cannot eat solid food. He is sick and inconsolable;
his wife and baby were carried off by the Janjaweed and haven’t been
seen since. As I interviewed him, he bent over to retch every couple
of minutes, Nuradin still cradling him tenderly.
Ms. Khattar and most of the other villagers decided they could not
make the long trek to Chad. So they inched forward at night to find
refuge on a nearby mountain.
Every other night, she crept down the mountain to fetch water, risking
kidnapping by the Janjaweed. “It was so hard in the mountains,”
Ms. Khattar recalled. “There were snakes and scorpions, and a
constant fear of the Janjaweed.” Six-foot cobras have killed some
of the refugees. To feed her children, Ms. Khattar boiled leaves and
plants normally eaten only by camels. Even so, her mother-in-law died.
Officially, Sudan had agreed to a cease-fire in Darfur. But at the
end of May, a Sudanese military plane spotted the villagers’ hideout,
and soon after, the Janjaweed attacked.
“Ali had told me: `If the Janjaweed attack, don’t try to save me. You
can’t help. Don’t get angry. Just keep the children and run away to
Bahai [in Chad]. Don’t shout or say anything,’ ” Ms. Khattar said. So
she hid in a hollow with the children, peeking out occasionally. She
saw the Janjaweed round up all the villagers, including her husband
and his three young brothers: Moussa, 8, Mochtar, 6, and Muhammad,
4. “Even the boys,” she remembers. “They tied their hands like this”
— she motioned with her arms in front of her — “and then forced
them to lie on the ground.” Then, she says, the males were all shot
to death, while women were taken away to be raped.
There were 45 corpses, all killed because of the color of their skin,
part of an officially sanctioned drive by Sudan’s Arab government to
purge the western Sudanese countryside of black-skinned non-Arabs.
The Sudanese authorities, much like the Turks in 1915 and the Nazis in
the 1930’s, apparently calculated that genocide offered considerable
domestic benefits — like the long-term stability to be achieved by
a “final solution” of conflicts between Arabs and non-Arabs — and
that the world would not really care very much. It looks as if the
Sudanese bet correctly.
Perhaps Americans truly don’t care about the hundreds of thousands of
lives at stake — we have other problems, and Darfur is far away. But
my hunch is that if we could just meet the victims, we would not be
willing to acquiesce in genocide.
After two Janjaweed attacks, Ms. Khattar was left a widow, responsible
for three small, starving children in a land where showing her face
would mean rape or death. I’ll continue her saga in Wednesday’s
column.  
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TALK OF THE TOWN
By SAM WILLIAMS
New York Post, NY
June 20 2004
June 20, 2004 — New York is a city lost in translation. Almost half of
the Big Apple’s residents do not speak English as their first language,
according to surprising new research.
The research, conducted by the Modern Language Association, gives the
first neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis of the languages spoken
across the five boroughs.
English, the official language in New York City since 1664, is spoken
as a first language by 3.9 million residents, while almost 3.6 million
people are more familiar with another tongue.
English is no longer the most widely spoken first language in more
than 30 New York neighborhoods, the research found.
Spanish has become the most widely spoken language in one-quarter of
the city’s neighborhoods.
The research, which uses data from the 2000 Census, allows linguists to
track everything from the number of Italian speakers in Tottenville,
S.I., (669) to the number of Gujarati speakers in Glen Oaks, Queens
(635).
“Our goal is to let people see what languages are spoken where,” says
Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association,
an organization dedicated to promoting the study and teaching of
languages.
David Goldberg, a Yiddish-language scholar who is MLA’s director
of foreign-language programs, said the research also breaks down
neighborhood language patterns into two major age groups — under 18
and over 18.
Such capabilities make it easy to spot the generation difference
between Manhattan’s Yiddish-speaking community, where less than 3
percent of speakers are under 18, and Brooklyn’s Yiddish-speaking
community, where the number of children speakers jumps to 35 percent.
Venture up to Rockland County, and the ratio of youthful speakers
rises to 47 percent.
“You can see a vibrant, relatively young Hasidic community moving in,”
says Goldberg.
A similar pattern appears to be emerging within the city’s
Chinese-speaking population.
Traditionally centered around Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the
community has formed two distinct offshoots in Brooklyn and Flushing,
Queens, over the last two decades.
Again, age data offer a hint at new immigration patterns: In Manhattan,
13 percent of Chinese speakers are under 18.
In Brooklyn and Queens, the numbers rise to 18 percent and 15 percent,
respectively.
When it comes to assessing the city’s two main language groups,
English and Spanish, The Bronx weighs in with the city’s largest
Spanish-speaking population (534,660), while Staten Island boasts
the largest percentage of English speakers — 74 percent.
Both boroughs have their surprises, however. The Bronx also happens
to be home to the city’s largest Tagalog community (3,981), while
Staten Island’s 10304 ZIP code hosts the largest concentration of
African-language speakers, 4.3 percent.
To really hear New York’s increasing linguistic diversity, one need
only visit Queens.
In addition to topping out in terms of native Chinese (126,904), Korean
(57,447), and Urdu (17,837) speakers, the city’s second-largest borough
boasts the most Armenian (3,531), Thai (2,794), and Navajo speakers
(11).
Perhaps the most significant evidence of linguistic diversity,
however, is the fact that English, while still predominant, registers
as a majority language in less than half — 28 out of 60 — Queens
ZIP codes.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Kabardino-Balkaria marks Aznavour’s 80th birthday
By Marina Chernysheva
ITAR-TASS News Agency
June 20, 2004 Sunday 1:27 PM Eastern Time
NALCHIK, June 20 — The Culture Fund of Kabardino-Balkaria had a
party marking the 80th birthday of singer Charles Aznavour on Sunday.
Representatives of 12 cultural and ethnic associations of the republic
were invited to attend the party by the republican organization of
the Russian Armenian Union.
More than 5,000 Armenians live in Kabardino-Balkaria nowadays, head
of the Armenian community of Kabardino-Balkaria Zherar Ioannesyan said.

Armenian trespasser detained on Azeri-Iranian border
ANS TV, Baku
19 Jun 04
The State Border Service said today that on 13 June they detained an
Armenian who tried to secretly cross the Iranian-Azerbaijani border
in the section supervised by a border outpost in Fuzuli District’s
village of Qazaxlar.
The border trespasser was 33 year-old Gerasim Grogoryevich
Lazarian. The Border Service’s investigation department has instituted
criminal proceedings into the case. The trespasser is in custody. An
investigation is under way.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Global Chaos, Just for Fun
terra lycos Network
Wired News
02:00 AM Jun. 17, 2004 PT
It was a sultry evening early last summer when 200 or so New Yorkers
marched into Macy’s department store and loudly informed bewildered
onlookers and one blasé sales clerk that they were looking for a
“love rug” for their communal suburban house.
That was the start of the Mob Project. And this Saturday,
at approximately 2 p.m. local time, people in 76 cities in 32
countries will participate in a global flash mob to celebrate the
first anniversary of what is now a worldwide phenomenon.
Since the first mob gathered in force last year on June 19 (there
was a small mob event in Manhattan a few weeks earlier, but it was a
failure due to police interference), flash mobs have been organized
around the world. People are evidently quite taken by the idea of using
e-mail, blogs and the Internet to gather together a group of people
who suddenly materialize in public places, do something absolutely
inane and then vanish.
Some mobs have joined together to sing Christmas carols. Others have
gathered to support then-Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean,
to attempt to link their laptops to form a supercomputer, to taunt
performance artist David Blaine when he was hanging in a box over
the River Thames in London or to protest local politics.
Mobs can do whatever they want; there is no mob boss, no Tony Soprano
running things. But it is worth pointing out that flash mobs were
supposed to be meaningless, silly, utterly pointless endeavors,
according to “Bill,” who conceived the whole Mob Project idea.
“It’s just a mob, for no reason. That’s it, that’s the whole point,”
said Bill, when Manhattan’s Mob Project ended Sept. 10, 2003.
The current political unrest in many areas of the world sparks a
desire to describe the global mob as a warm and fuzzy international
gathering. But in a return to the random roots of the mob as Bill
dreamed of it, organizers have firmly stated that the gathering will
have absolutely no political or social significance.
“The idea of the East greeting the West and the West greeting the East
and everyone coming together has nothing to do with a real flash mob
script. Mobs should be silly,” said one of the event’s main organizers,
who in the spirit of Bill just goes by the name “Dave.”
Dave, who describes himself as “a 36-year-old communications technician
from Moscow, who was born in Armenia, is Chinese by origin and has
been living in New York and Chicago for the past three years,” seems
to be a perfect person to host a global event.
The idea for the global mob was first posted May 21 on the Flash Mob
Association website run by Dave and his collaborator, “Capricorn.”
Twenty-five people from six countries were soon involved in the
planning.
Mobs follow a script that lets participants, many of whom don’t know
each other, synchronize their actions. In Manhattan, the scripts,
printed on slips of paper, were handed out to participants at
designated meeting places immediately before the beginning of each
event. Since then, many people have relied on e-mail or text messages
sent to mobile phones to deliver the scripts.
Participants in the global flash mob will receive their scripts
by e-mail immediately prior to the event. To participate, a local
organizer just needs to register. Once signed up, they will receive
the e-mail containing the script and will also have access to private
planning forums.
Organizers said they worked hard to come up with a script that
would work well for people in different locations. The various mobs
are encouraged to follow the script as closely as possible, but the
organizers also said that participants should feel free to alter the
script to suit cultural differences if needed.
“Planning this has been a lot of fun,” said “Tempest,” an organizer
from Sydney, Australia. “The script is pretty cool, I think. It should
confound a lot of people.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ethnic Armenian MPs gather in Yerevan to discuss national problems
Noyan Tapan news agency, Yerevan
18 Jun 04
Seventy deputies of Armenian origin from 25 countries have arrived
in Yerevan to attend the first session of the Armenian Parliamentary
Assembly of Friendship, Noyan Tapan news agency said on 18 June.
The session whose sole aim is to “join the efforts of the Armenian
National Assembly and MPs of Armenian origin from abroad” is discussing
“ways of resolving all-Armenian problems and expanding relations
between parliaments”, the agency said.
Armenian Speaker Artur Bagdasaryan, Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan,
the chairman of the Karabakh parliament, Oleg Yesayan, and Armenian
Prime Minister Vardan Oskanyan addressed the session and noted the
need to “maintain the assembly’s effective work” and regularly to
gather to discuss national issues.

Euro-Est
17 juin 2004
PARTICIPATION DE DIPLOMATES ARMENIENS A UN STAGE EN LITUANIE SUR
L’INTEGRATION EUROPEENNE .
Des diplomates arméniens ont participé an stage au ministère
lituanien des Affaires étrangères, du 31 mai au 11 juin, en vue d’en
apprendre davantage sur l’intégration européenne. Selon le ministre,
ces diplomates ont étudié l’expérience lituanienne en matière de
préparation à l’adhésion, divers aspects de la coordination d’activités
liées à l’UE ainsi que la formation de l’opinion publique quant à
l’intégration à l’Union européenne.
Ils ont également pris part à une série de réunions au sein des
institutions lituaniennes et ont visité l’Institut des Sciences
politiques et des Relations internationales de l’Université de
Vilnius. Le Ministre a expliqué que des représentants des pays du Sud
Caucase (Arménie, Azerbaïdjan et Géorgie) participeront à différentes
activités de formation en matière d’administration publique, en
Lituanie, en 2004-2005, dans le cadre d’un programme de transfert
vers ces pays de l’expérience lituanienne en matière d’intégration
européenne. Un stage similaire a été organisé en janvier à l’attention
de hauts responsables ukrainiens.