Author: Felekian Ara

A.GEGHAMIAN: BARGAVACH HAYASTAN PARTY WAS FOUNDED AFTER ATTEMPT UPON GAGIK TSARUKIAN’S LIFE BEING PREPARED BY SERGE SARGSIAN WAS DISCLOSED

Noyan Tapan
Jan 15 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The Bargavach Hayastan
(Prosperous Armenia) Party was founded after the attempt upon Gagik
Tsarukian’s life being prepared by Defence Minister Serge Sargsian
was disclosed. National Unity Party Chairman Artashes Geghamian
declared this at the January 15 press conference referring
to "rumors going persistently." It was mentioned that for the
purpose of killing G.Tsarukian, S.Sargsian had applied to a hired
assassin. In A.Geghamian’s words, these incidents show how dangerous
can be S.Sargsian’s possible victory at the forthcoming presidential
elections, and as a result a decision was made to create a political
force as a counterbalance to RPA.

In A.Geghamian’s words, after preparation for the attempt upon
G.Tsarukian’s life failed, R.Kocharian organized a "confrontation"
between S.Sargsian and G.Tsarukian, after which Head of National
Security Service of that time, Karlos Petrosian was dismissed from
his post and S.Sargsian’s brother, RA MP Alexander (Sashik) Sargsian
had to move his "construction activities" to Great Britain and U.S.

ICRC OFFICERS VISIT CAPTURED AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER SAMIR MAMMADOV FOR FIFTH TIME

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 11 2007

The officers of International Committee of Red Cross Armenia Office
(ICRC) visited Azerbaijani captured Soldier Samir Mammadov for
the fifth time that was captured on December 24 by Armenians, ICRC
Azerbaijan Office Public relations department officer Gulnaz Guliyeva
told the APA.

The first letter written by Azerbaijani soldier Eldeniz Nuriyev, who
was captured on December 31 by Armenians and at present being kept
in occupied Azerbaijani territory, was delivered to his family. The
officers of the committee met with the captured soldier the day
before yesterday.

It should be noted that, Samir Mammadov was drafted from Barda
Military Registration Department a year ago and captured in neutral
zone- Gazakh-Ijevan territory on December 24. Eldeniz Nuriyev, born
in 1976, was drafted from Aghsu Military Registration Department in
2005 and was captured in the territory of Fuzuli region on December
31. Azerbaijani Defense Ministry declared that the soldiers got lost.

OSCE MISSION HELD THE RECURRENT MONITORING OF THE CONTACT LINE

ArmRadio.am
11.01.2007 15:08

According to an earlier agreement with NKR authorities, the OSCE
Mission carried out planned monitoring of the contact line between
the Armed Forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the direction
of Aghdam, near Yusifjanli settlement.

NKR MFA informs that from the positions of the NKR Defense Army
the monitoring was carried out by Field Assistants of the Personal
Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Peter Kii (Great
Britain), Gunter Folk (Germany) and Miroslav Vimetal (Czech Republic).

The monitoring was held in compliance with the present schedule,
no cease-fire violations were registered.

>>From the Karabakh side, the Mission was accompanied by
representatives of NKR Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.

UNE FAMILLE ARMENIENNE DEPUIS CINQ ANS A BREST MENACEE D’EXPULSION

Le Telegramme
9 janvier 2007 mardi

La famille Ashkhbabyan, originaire d’Armenie, arrivee a Brest en
avril 2002, est aujourd’hui sous le coup d’une invitation a quitter
le territoire francais.

Depuis cinq ans, ce couple Ashkhbabyan avec trois enfants, aujourd’hui
âges de 20, 17 et 2 ans, s’etait insere dans la cite du Ponant,
s’astreignant a un suivi regulier de cours de francais, scolarisant
ses enfants, devenant meme benevoles dans des associations, notamment
au Secours populaire. Parallèlement, ils avaient sollicite l’Ofpra
afin d’obtenir l’asile politique mais leurs demandes et recours
ont ete rejetes (un recours datant du 4 mai 2006 est toujours en
cours). Entre-temps, leur fils aîne, devenu majeur, a sollicite
une demande de carte de sejour pour poursuivre ses etudes musicales
et sa pratique du violon au niveau professionnel. Il a, en effet,
trouve une oreille attentive de la part de l’association Penn-ar-Jazz,
de l’Ecole nationale de musique et d’art dramatique ou encore de la
chorale Khan-ar-Vag de Landerneau.

Petition de soutien

Mais, tous les projets sont aujourd’hui en suspens. Cette famille,
installee a Kergaradec, s’est vue signifier, le 2 decembre dernier,
une invitation a quitter le territoire francais, emanant de la
prefecture. Depuis le 2 janvier, elle ne beneficie plus de titre de
sejour et vit dans la peur d’une expulsion. Une petition de soutien
a vu le jour. Elle a recueilli plus de 1.500 signatures a ce jour.

Francois Cuillandre et Patricia Adam ont egalement adresse des lettres
de soutien. Un recours devant le tribunal administratif de Rennes est
en cours. M. et Mme Ashkhbabyan disent craindre un eventuel retour
dans leur pays, en raison des choix politiques qui avaient preside
a leur depart, en 2002 : M. Ashkhbabyan se serait a l’epoque oppose
a l’enrôlement des jeunes dans l’armee et aurait ete a plusieurs
reprises menace. Ses parents, restes en Armenie, subiraient toujours
des pressions du regime.

–Boundary_(ID_2ff/2m4zATtI5wCgQkRuDA)–

WORKS OF ARTAVAZD PELESHIAN’S NEW, "HOMO SAPIENS" FEATURE FILM TO START IN LATE 2007

Noyan Tapan
Jan 08 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Works on shooting world-famous film
director Artavazd Peleshian’s "Homo Sapiens" feature film will start
in late 2007.

Hasmik Poghosian, the RA Minister of Culture and Youth Issues informed
the Noyan Tapan correspondent about it.

The Minister stated that at present Artavazd Peleshian works on the
final variant of the film scenario, and when it is ready, works on
shooting will start.

Hasmik Poghosian mentioned that the preliminary agreement on financing
of the film is in force, according to what, according to former
Minister Gevorg Gevorgian’s promise, Armenia will attempt to allocate
at least 250 thousand U.S. dollars annually for that film of 1 mln
U.S. dollars. That money must be allocated from the year budget of the
National Film Center founded on the basis of the "Hayfilm" film studio.

In H.Poghosian’s words, the film director intends to make some changes
in the scenario because of what works on shooting will be postponed.

In Mrs.Poghosian’s words, she has been acquainted with the talented
director’s works still since early ages, just herself, when working
at the Cultural Committee for Coopeation with Foreign Countries, sent
Peleshian’s films countinuously for years to this or that country
for show.

Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran
Jan 7 2007

Martyrs, illuminating stars of Iran’s contemporary history: president

Tehran, Jan 7, IRNA

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday evening that Iranian
martyrs are the illuminating stars in the sky of the country’s
contemporary history leading to salvation.

Addressing a group of families of the martyrs from Iran’s Armenian
community who fell victims to Iraqi-imposed war (1980-1988), the
president said "We are all like members of a single family heading
for common goals," a reference to integration of the Christians in
the entire nation.

He said mothers of all Iranian martyrs, who have, so far, met him,
speak in similar way regardless of being Muslim, Christian, Jewish or
Zoroastrian.

"They all stressed that their children have sacrificed their lives
for sacred aspirations emanated from their religious beliefs," said
the president.

He expressed hope that the world would soon witness a day when peace,
justice and friendship would prevail over all human communities
adding that all nations should play an active role to help such a
dream come true.

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Jan 4 2007

Armenia: Potato Democracy

Politicians’ charitable activities – which include handing out
potatoes – are dismissed by some as attempts to win over voters.

By Marianna Grigorian and Gayane Abrahamian in Yerevan

Armenia is due to hold parliamentary elections this spring and
political parties have already begun a series of public relations
activities that they describe as `charity’ but their opponents say
amounts to buying votes.

The committee of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly
monitoring Armenia’s compliance with council standards has drafted a
resolution, to be put to the assembly in January, warning the
Armenian government that it will be paying close attention to the
coming poll.

The proposed resolution says that the assembly is `disappointed that,
since Armenia’s accession to the Council of Europe in 2001, not a
single election held there has been deemed fully free and fair’.

`It is essential that the next ballot should at last comply with
European standards for free and fair elections, as proof of Armenia’s
progress along the road to democracy and European integration,’
continues the text.

In Armenia itself, however, accusations of malpractice are already
beginning, several months ahead of polling day. In past elections
candidates were accused of buying votes by distributing sugar, flour
or money to voters, but this time a much more sophisticated campaign
is taking place.

In October, the Bargavach Hayastan (Flourishing Armenia) party led by
Gagik Tsarukian, a member of parliament and one of the richest and
most powerful men in Armenia, announced it was launching a programme
for developing villages.

On the grounds that drought had prevented peasants from storing
seeds, Tsarukian’s party began distributing winter wheat and potatoes
in ten regions of Armenia. Bargavach Hayastan also launched a
programme of providing free medical services for the residents of
these regions.

Pensioner Marusya Karapetian who lives in Aparan 60 kilometres
northwest of Yerevan is delighted.

"Neither my husband nor I have seen a doctor for 15 years,’ she said
excitedly. `We were dying of pain but we did not have enough money to
visit a doctor. Tsarukian is a good man. He is treating us medically
and he is giving out potatoes so at least we have something to
plant."

Tsarukisan’s political opponents are already attacking his
initiatives. Member of parliament Shavarsh Kocharian charged, "Hungry
people will swear by the name of the person who helps them. Of
course, they will vote for the man who helps them. Everything has
been very well thought out.’

Tsarukian responded in an interview on public television, "They are
just condemning a person who is getting things done. You need to
work, to present your programme to voters, learn their opinion and
only then can you start counting how many votes you’ll get."

His other initiatives have included sowing wheat and the setting up
of a fund for impoverished students. And all his charitable
activities are getting generous television coverage

Other political leaders have been employing their own television
channels to whip up support.

Tigran Karapetian, chairman of ALM holding company and chairman of
the People’s Party, has been using ALM television for four years to
promote his own charitable initiatives. The slogan "Be good to people
at all cost’ sounds out from television screens with an image of
Karapetian and soulful music. The channel declares that his
activities are private and not political.

In a programme entitled Music Box and funded by Karapetian, children
from villages are given the opportunity to perform on television,
irrespective of their singing or reading abilities.

Karapetian has also been organising trips for provincial residents,
mainly pensioners and the poor, in minibuses to visit Lake Sevan and
other sights. All the excursions are scrupulously covered by the
television station, which presents Karapetian as a "saviour with a
big heart and a kind person".

"As a private person, I have given 3,000 dentures to pensioners and
spectacles for those with poor eyesight," declared Karapetian.

Stepan Zakarian, a member of the Justice faction in parliament,
roundly condemns Karapetian’s activities.

"Tigran Karapetian has transformed the whole election process into a
farce,’ he said.

Zakarian has also criticised defence minister – and possible future
president – Serzh Sarkisian for his involvement in opening a water
supply system in the village of Tsakhkahovit last November instead of
dealing with his defence portfolio.

`Instead of thinking day and night about how to increase our
country’s military budget, the defence minister opened this water
system. In the meantime, Azerbaijan’s military budget is ten times as
large as ours,’ he said.

The governing Republican Party of Armenia has also been engaged in
controversial charitable initiatives, presenting provincial
educational centres with computers and laboratory equipment.

But the party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov denies it has anything to
do with the election campaign.
"This programme is just aimed at improving the quality of education.
We started it in 2006," he said.

It is hard to distinguish between genuine charity and political
exploitation of voters. Armenian political figures have begun their
charitable efforts six months before campaigning is allowed
officially, enabling them to present it as not being connected to the
coming poll.

Samvel Nikoyan, a leading member of the Republican Party, said that
he disapproves of the charitable initiatives, in particular the
distribution of potatoes and wheat, but there is no way of legally
preventing it.

"I am afraid that a political and ideological contest will become one
for the distribution of seeds," he said.

Armen Rustamian, a leading member of the Dashnaktsutiun party, said,
"If people get potatoes and go to the elections with them, these
people will have a potato government and a potato democracy."

Marianna Grigorian and Gayane Abrahamian are reporters for
Armenianow.com in Yerevan.

Dearborn Press and Guide, MI
Jan 3 2007

Open council seat a popular one in Heights

9 seeking appointment to post vacated by now Rep. Constan

By Sean Delaney, Press & Guide Newspapers

Residents could see a new face on the Dearborn Heights City Council
this month if members of the council choose to fill the vacancy left
by the recent departure of former Councilman Bob Constan.

According to Deputy City Clerk Donna Pawlukiewicz, nine individuals
intent on claiming the vacant seat submitted resumes and letters of
intent to the clerk’s office prior the 1 p.m. deadline Friday,
including Joseph Alcodray, Ned Apigian, Tim Emery, Maria Ellul
Langlois and Allan Shultz ~W who responded to requests for information
by the Press & Guide.

Other individuals who submitted their resume to the city clerk’s
office prior to Friday’s deadline include: Catherine Adamkiewicz, Dr.
Kallil Kazan, David Mack, Ed McDonald and Trevor Tutro-Anderson.

Alcodray, 47, has been a resident of Dearborn Heights for more than
15 years and currently serves as an account executive with PSCU
Financial Services of St. Petersburg, Fla.

He is an active member of the community and a former employee of
DaimlerChrysler’s marketing division. In 2003, he created an online
message board, , which serves as a forum for people
to air concerns about anything from world events to poor service at
local establishments.

His wife, Heyam, serves as a counselor at Dearborn High School. The
couple has four children together, ages 8 to 17.

Apigian, 68, has lived in Dearborn Heights for 34 years and is a
licensed architect, professional community planner and construction
manager.

A former Marine, Apigian has been married to his wife, Aroxie, for 41
years, and they have raised one daughter, Heather, who works as an
elementary school teacher in Boston.

He is an active member of St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church, the
Armenian Community Center, Military Hills Home Owners Association,
and serves on the Board of Directors of the St. Sarkis Senior
Citizens Tower. He is also a member of the Armenian Engineers and
Scientists of America-Michigan.

In his spare time, Apigian enjoys studying history and graphic
design.

Emery, 51, is a retired journeyman millwright who previously worked
for General Motors at the Powertrain-Willow Run Plant in Ypsilanti.
He has lived in the city of Dearborn Heights for more than 28 years.

A member of the Westwood Community School District Board of Education
for more than eight years, Emery also serves as a member of the
Michigan Association of School Boards, the National School Board, the
Wayne County Association of School Boards, the Dearborn Heights
Democratic Club and the UAW.

In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, photography and using
computers. His wife, Sherry, is a loan officer for Premier Mortgage
Funding, Inc. The couple has three grown children ~W Laura, Richard
and Michael.

Ellul Langlois, 51, works as an emergency department patient advocate
and has lived in the city for 34 years.

She has been active with many non-profit organizations, including the
American Legion Stitt Post Auxiliary, the Daughters of
Isabella-Knights of Columbus, the Dearborn Heights Garden Club,
Democratic Club, the General Federation of Women, Dearborn Heights
Kiwanis, the Red Hat Society, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary,
the Dearborn Heights Commission on Aging and on the president’s
council of the St. Theodore Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. She
has also served as president of the Dearborn Association for Retarded
Citizens.

Active in the community, Ellul Langlois has volunteered with the
United Foundation, Angela Hospice, Ms. Volunteers, Manresa Retreat,
Gleaners, Dearborn Heights Goodfellows, the Ford Community &
Performing Arts Center, the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, and organized the
Dearborn Heights City-wide Garage Sale. She also helped found "three
gifts for veterans week."

Ellul Langlois is married to Dennis, and has three children ~W Vincent
II, Erica and Anthony ~W as well as three stepchildren ~W Bridget,
Michele and Dustin.

Shultz, 71, is a retired employee of the food service industry and
has lived in the city of Dearborn Heights for more than 49 years.

Prior to his retirement, Shutlz spent more than 40 years working in
the food service industry. He previously owned and operated his own
drive-in restaurant in Detroit for more than 10 years and served as
food service director for state of Michigan hospital before opening
his own catering business in 1992.

Shultz sold the business in 1996, but has remained an active member
of the Dearborn Heights community. He has served on the city’s Cable
Commission for more than 20 years, and holds the distinction of being
the first to serve as president of the Dearborn Association for
Retarded Children without having a mentally disabled person in his
family.

In addition, Shultz has served on the board of the Personal Living
Assisted Services (PALS), the Dearborn Heights Salvation Army
Advisory Board, the Southfield Chapter of the Business Network Club
and as a member of the Dearborn Heights Kiwanis Club for more than 40
years.

Shultz has been married to Dorothy, for 49 years. In his spare time,
he enjoys playing golf and bowling.

According to City Councilwoman Janet Badalow, the council will review
each candidate’s qualifications and will choose to either appoint a
new member to serve on the council or leave the seat vacant until
Constan’s original term expires at the end of the year.

"I am personally looking for a candidate that has the necessary
skills and background to fill this position," Badalow said.

Constan announced his resignation from the council late last year
after being elected to the 16th District State Representative.

He represents the south end of Dearborn Heights, Garden City, Inkster
and a portion of Allen Park.

The next regular meeting of the Dearborn Heights City Council will be
held at 8 p.m. on Jan. 9 in Council Chambers at City Hall, 6045
Fenton. All regular meetings are open to the public.

Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America

The Independent/UK
30 December 2006

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more
deserving of that last walk to the scaffold – that crack of the neck
at the end of a rope – than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the
Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent
Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters
will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and
will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence
was signed – by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans
– on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the
moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed,
many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a
question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it
is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime
ministers – what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don’t gas our enemies. George W Bush
is not Saddam. He didn’t invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded
Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead – and
thousands of Western troops are dead – because Messrs Bush and Blair
and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the
Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and
mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001
we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the
innocent – we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam’s
shame at Abu Ghraib – and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible
crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest
war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a
half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons
with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the
Americans, who controlled Saddam’s weird trial, forbad any mention of
this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he
not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this
massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our
culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium
shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the
murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the
hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the
aftermath of our "victory" – our "mission accomplished" – who will be
found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no
doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in
comfortable and wealthy retirement.

Hours before Saddam’s death sentence, his family – his first wife,
Sajida, and Saddam’s daughter and their other relatives – had given up
hope.

"Whatever could be done has been done – we can only wait for time to
take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and
had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president
of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision:
to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever
dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on
earth. His last trial appearance – that wan smile that spread over the
mass-murderer’s face – showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to
the noose.

I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked
to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against
the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us – and
whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives,
were hanged like thrushes by Saddam’s executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib – only months,
it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few
tortures and killings of our own – and I have watched Iraqis pull
thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One
of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical
identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from
hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even
shaken the dictator’s soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal
finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman – now a messianic columnist for The
New York Times – who perfectly caught Saddam’s character just before
the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part
Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the
horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque,
unbelievable nature of their barbarity.

But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who
suffered from Saddam’s cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds
wanted to pull the hangman’s lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia
outside Iraq welcome his end. But they – and millions of other Muslims
– will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn
of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by
Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam
cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his
jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before
his death. But his execution will go down – correctly – as an American
affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this –
that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders
from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the
terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes)
Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against
American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will
redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of
Saddam’s return by his execution, the West’s enemies in Iraq have no
reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will
certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there’s a
thought. So many crimes avenged.

But we will have got away with it.

A BOOK OF CONDOLENCE TO OPEN AT US EMBASSY IN ARMENIA

ArmRadio.am
28.12.2006 17:15

Connected with the death of the 38th President of the United States
Gerald R. Ford a condolence book will be open at the US Embassy in
Yerevan from 13:00 – 17:00 on December 29, 2006.

In his message of condolence, US President George Bush noted in
particular that he was a great man who devoted the best years of
his life in serving the United States. "During his time in office,
the American people came to know President Ford as a man of complete
integrity who led our country with common sense and kind instincts.

Americans will always admire Gerald Ford’s unflinching performance of
duty and the honorable conduct of his administration, and the great
rectitude of the man himself, Bush says in his speech.