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07/15/2005
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1) Mediators Look Forward to Next Armenian-Azeri Summit
2) Reps. Matsui, Strickland Join Congressional Armenian Caucus
3) Intellectuals Concerned with Fate of Armenian Monuments in Turkey
4) Author Uncovers Armenian Genocide's Hollywood Link
5) Skeptik Sinikian
1) Mediators Look Forward to Next Armenian-Azeri Summit
(RFE/RL)--International mediators on Friday, ended another round of shuttle
diplomacy on a cautiously optimistic note.
The French, Russian, and US diplomats acting under the aegis of the OSCE
Minsk
Group reiterated, after longer-than-planned talks with Armenian President
Robert Kocharian, that though a compromise peace deal is visible, there are no
guarantees.
"We have made a considerable degree of progress in the past year in
discussing
these issues between the sides," the group's American co-chair, Steven Mann,
told a joint news conference in Yerevan. "We still have difficult issues
before
us, but I believe that objective conditions exist for that type of solution
before the end of the year."
"But there are very difficult issues that are still on the table and real
gaps
between the two sides," he added without elaborating. "So although the
possibility exists to resolve the conflict, there is no guarantee that it will
happen."
Mann's Russian counterpart, Yuri Merzlyakov, described the mediators' meeting
with Kocharian as "very open and substantive," saying that it focused on the
unspecified "key elements of the basis of the future settlement." Merzlyakov
said the main result of the troika's visit to Baku, Stepanakert and Yerevan
was
a confirmation of Kocharian's next meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev. The Armenian-Azerbaijani summit will take place in the Russian city of
Kazan in late August shortly after another meeting of the two countries'
foreign ministers, he said.
When asked whether the co-chairs anticipate a breakthrough in Kazan,
Merzlyakov replied, "We very much hope that this will happen, but not
everything depends on us."
"These are two very serious men," Mann said for his part. "So I, for one,
have
the expectation that this will be a detailed and, I hope, very productive
discussion."
Arkady Ghukasian, the president of the Mountainous Karabagh Republic, told
journalists in Stepanakert on Friday that Azerbaijan has adopted a "more
constructive" stance and has toned down its militant rhetoric.
"Today Azerbaijan is expressing readiness to discuss topics that were closed
for them in the past," Ghukasian said, singling out the pivotal issue of
Karabagh's future status. "The Azeri leadership is discussing that issue today
both with the mediators and the leadership of Armenia," he said.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov insisted on Friday that the
negotiating process is being held "on the basis of Azerbaijan's territorial
integrity and the country's constitution."
The search for peace, however, could be complicated by Azerbaijan's
parliamentary elections and a constitutional referendum in Armenia that are
scheduled for this November.
"Theoretically, these events should have no impact on the negotiating
process," said Bernard Fassier, France's chief Karabagh negotiator. "But that
is a theory. I can't predict what will happen in practice in the political
life
of both countries during the pre-election campaign."
2) Reps. Matsui, Strickland Join Congressional Armenian Caucus
WASHINGTON, DC (ANCA)--Support continued to grow for Armenian issues on
Capitol
Hill this week as Representatives Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Ted Strickland
(D-OH)
announced their membership in the Congressional Armenian Caucus. The latest
additions bring the Caucus to over 140 members.
"We are gratified that Representatives Strickland and Matsui have joined the
Congressional Caucus and look forward to continuing to work closely with the
body to further increase its membership and promote Armenian American
community
concerns," stated Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive
Director, Aram Hamparian.
Rep. Strickland joined 98 of his Congressional colleagues this week in
cosponsoring the Armenian Genocide resolution (H.Res.316), lead by
Representatives George Radanovich (R-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and
Congressional
Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ). In
1997, soon after his first election to office, Rep. Strickland voted in
support
of the Radanovich-Pallone amendment, which maintained US restrictions on
aid to
Azerbaijan until it lifts its blockades of Armenia and Mountainous Karabagh.
The six-term congressman serves on the powerful House Energy and Commerce as
well as the Veterans' Affairs committee. A native of Lucasville, Ohio, Rep.
Strickland received a Ph.D in Counseling and Psychology and served as a
minister, a psychologist, and a college professor prior to his election to the
House of Representatives.
"I am happy to be part of a group that supports a free and independent
Armenia," said Rep. Strickland. "It is important for Members of Congress to
recognize the tragic history of the Armenian people, and work toward a future
which allows for a secure, sovereign nation for all Armenians."
Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) is a first term congresswoman representing the
Sacramento area. She succeeded her husband, Rep. Robert Matsui, who had been a
long-time supporter of Armenian American concerns and a member of the Armenian
Caucus. Rep. Robert Matsui tragically lost his battle against a form of bone
marrow cancer in January, 2005. Within months of her election to office, Rep.
Doris Matsui began active support of Armenian American concerns, cosigning the
Congressional letter to President Bush urging him to properly characterize the
Armenian Genocide as 'genocide.' She is also a cosponsor of the Armenian
Genocide Resolution (H.Res.316).
"I am pleased to join the Armenian Caucus and look forward to working with
the
Caucus on a range of political and educational activities," noted Rep.
Matsui.
3) Intellectuals Concerned with Fate of Armenian Monuments in Turkey
YEREVAN (Armenpress)--Members of the Armenian intellectual community on Friday
welcomed the Armenian government's efforts seeking international
recognition of
the Armenian genocide, but urged it to condemn the wanton destruction of
Armenian monuments within the Turkey's borders.
Institute of Oriental Studies Turkish Division head, Ruben Safrastian, said
thousands of Armenian cultural monuments are today subject to a policy of
willful neglect and destruction on the part of Turkish authorities. This
policy
violates Turkey's commitments under the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, which clearly
notes that "the Turkish government undertakes to grant full protection to the
churches of Turkish nationals belonging to non-Moslem minorities."
Safrastian said Armenian authorities must make full use of relevant
international legislation to stop the barbaric policy of Turkey and urged
Armenian authorities to raise this issue at the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe (PACE), saying PACE would not hesitate to offer its support.
He said Turkey has also signed various treaties that provide for the
protection of monuments. These treaties include the 1954 Hague treaty and the
UNESCO treaties of 1970 and 1972. He said Turkey actively uses these treaties
to sue for possession of cultural artifacts that originate within its
territory.
4) Author Uncovers Armenian Genocide's Hollywood Link
Ed Minassian investigates why a big studio, poised to take on a big production
of Forty Days of Musa Dagh, dropped the project; he ventures not only into MGM
archives and the authors personal papers, but also the State Department's file
on the matter.
By Brooke Bryant
MORAGA( Knight Ridder)--As a child in the 1930s, Ed Minasian often found
refuge in the movie theater across the street from the three-story tenement
where he grew up in Massachusetts.
"From our window I could see the Grace Episcopal Church, and next to it was
the Capitol Theater. On some Sundays, I chose the latter over the former,"
Minasian said. At 10 cents a show, it was the best entertainment value of the
day, and the darkened theater offered an escape from everyday woes.
There was plenty to escape from: The Depression was in full swing on one side
of the ocean, Adolf Hitler was coming to power on the other, and in the
Armenian community he grew up in, the memory of the atrocities committed
against his people during the genocide that began in 1915 was still fresh.
Turkish forces, trying to purge Turkey of Armenians, caused the deaths of 1.5
million people in outright killings or in forced deportations that led to
starvation during World War I. The Turkish government denies the genocide
occurred.
For someone of Armenian descent, it rarely takes long for the conversation to
circle around to the genocide 90 years ago. For Minasian, it takes no time at
all for the conversation to circle around to movies.
The 80-year-old Moraga, California, resident, who lost siblings during the
mass killings, has spent 24 years researching the place where those two
circles
intersect: 1930s Hollywood. His findings, which he hopes to publish in a book,
detail how the Turkish government managed to squelch repeated attempts by MGM
studios to make a movie about the genocide.
The Armenian community--scattered throughout the world after the genocide -
had hoped the film would finally bring international attention to their
plight,
and he felt the loss keenly.
"All of us knew, yes, Turkey had something to do with stopping that movie
from
being made, but we never knew who, what, when, where, why?" Minasian said.
"Well, I found out."
He was 10 when the book that piqued MGM's interest--Franz Werfel's "The Forty
Days of Musa Dagh"--came out in 1934. It quickly topped the best-seller
charts,
but it was another 10 years before he finally sat down to read it.
By then Minasian was in the Air Force, "stationed in a godforsaken place in
west Texas called Rattlesnake Army Air Base," where they trucked in girls from
nearby towns on the weekends to dance with the GIs.
"None of us ever got to finish a dance, because we were always cut in, but I
had plenty of time to read in my off hours," he said. He found the book at the
base library. "I read that book more often than any other book. I used to read
it every April... because April is the anniversary of the genocide."
Werfel's novel is a fictionalized account of the following events:
Having heard about the soaring death tolls on the forced "death marches" to
the Syrian desert, the villagers of Musa Dagh decided to resist Turkish
forces.
Nearly two months later, the survivors were rescued by the French, who spotted
their distress banners from nearby ships.
The villagers were relocated to the Middle East, where they formed a
community
in the Anjar area of present-day Lebanon, says Barlow Der Mugrdechian, a
professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State University who knows of
Minasian's project. The incident is "a well-known story to the Armenians."
But the book, written by an Austrian Jew as Hitler was gaining influence, had
an even broader appeal. It was embraced with particular enthusiasm by Jews who
saw it as an inspirational tale, and Germany quickly banned the book.
"I say, look, if the world had responded to the Armenian genocide, there
might
not have been a Holocaust," Minasian says.
When MGM bought the rights, intending to bring the story to the screen with
the help of Hollywood greats like producer Irving Thalberg and Armenian
director Rouben Mamoulian, Armenians everywhere were ecstatic, he recalled.
"That wonderful book is going to be made into a movie, and that movie will
play
all over the world, and finally our story of the genocide will get out."
The celebration was short-lived.
MGM soon dropped that project and several subsequent attempts over the next
few decades. It was widely rumored that the deal collapsed under pressure from
the Turkish government, and in 1981, Minasian decided to find out exactly what
had happened.
Over the next decades, Minasian sifted through archives from Armenian
newspapers, Hollywood institutions and the US State Department to piece
together a picture of the doomed flick's fate.
Between raising a family and pursuing a teaching career, he has written
articles on the topic published by the National Association for Armenian
Studies and a 300-page manuscript he hopes to publish soon.
"He's done a rather thorough study of this whole issue," says UCLA professor
Richard Hovannisian, a leading scholar of Armenian studies.
Turkey's role in the movie's demise isn't a matter of speculation; it's
well-documented in diplomatic correspondences in the US State Department
archives, he said. "(The movie) would have attracted worldwide attention on
the
screen, so the quashing of the work was a blow to historical memory."
In his quest to document who dealt that blow, Minasian was granted rare
access
to MGM's archives by the studio's story editor Samuel Marx, and he spent more
than a week sifting through four grocery carts filled with files on the Musa
Dagh movie. He dictated the interesting bits into his tape recorder. It took
nearly three years after that to transcribe the recordings into notes.
Over the years, he also read through Werfel's papers housed at UCLA and the
scripts kept by the American Film Institute.
To cap it off, he used the Freedom of Information Act to get the State
Department's file on MGM and the Musa Dagh movie.
Minasian knows he faces a few publishing hurdles. To begin with, he's an
unknown author with no agent, and also, he's been told his subject is
"esoteric" and "passe." He figures he may end up self-publishing the book.
His passion for film is one of the forces driving the project, evident in the
old movie posters lining his walls. Conversations about almost anything can
lead back to movies, from the book Minasian just finished reading ("The Da
Vinci Code," whose movie version will star Tom Hanks) to Armenia's early
embrace of Christianity (which elicits a reference to the recent Crusades
flick
"Kingdom of Heaven").
When "Sideways" came out last year, Minasian was the first to spread the word
throughout the local Armenian community: Some of the final scenes feature an
Armenian-American wedding, filmed at a real Southern California Armenian
church.
For Minasian, the genocide isn't just history, it's family history.
His parents both survived the massacre but lost their first spouses and some
of their children. His mother was 19 when she watched the men in her village,
including her first husband, marched away by Turkish soldiers, carrying the
shovels to dig their own graves. His mother and sister joined the long line of
Armenians forced to march toward the Syrian desert with only as much food and
water as they could carry.
His father was already living in the United States, hoping to send for his
first wife and three children back in Turkey, when the massacre began. Only
one
daughter from that marriage survived, and when Minasian met her in 1976, she
told him about a brother he had never heard of, who died of typhus at age 3 on
one of the forced marches.
Minasian, who still wonders why his father never mentioned the little boy,
now
carries a copy of the child's picture in his wallet.
His work is a tribute to them.
"I see it as my legacy for my folks, who were survivors, and so many of the
people I came to know in my youth and even now," he said. "You see, we're not
fighting for vengeance, we're fighting for justice. We want the Turkish
government to own up to what they did."
5) Skeptik Sinikian
SILENCE OF THE TURKISH LAMBS
Attention: No sheep or other types of livestock were intentionally harmed in
the production of this column. However, I did spill some coffee on the wool
sweater I was wearing.
I've read my share of peculiar news in my lifetime and that's not
including my
regular dose of the Weekly World News. (This week's exclusive about a woman
who
was raped by a leprechaun is worth a read. There's even a picture of her green
baby. Don't believe me? Visit ).
But
I digress. I have to thank Armen Abrahamian for bringing to my attention the
news story that inspired this week's column. After reading his forwarded
article, and verifying the source, I laughed uncontrollably for 3 minutes
straight. Here's the headline from the Associated Press which appeared on
Friday, July 8, 2005. "450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey."
In what is probably the most ridiculous/peculiar news story of all time, 1500
sheep jumped off of a cliff in the village of Gevas, located in Van
province in
eastern Turkey, for absolutely no reason according to witnesses. Only 450 of
them died as the remainder of the flock who leaped to their demise came to
land
upon a soft, cuddly, fluffy PILE OF DEAD SHEEP! Again, I am not making this
up.
But seriously, am I the only one to suspect that the shepherds claiming
innocence in this incident might not be telling the entire story? I've seen
better liars while partying in Aruba! I'm waiting for reports to surface
detailing that the sheep were being chased by a shepherd with a penchant for
"buggery" and a video camera. I can just imagine the police interrogation.
Turkish Police: So Efendi, explain what happened again.
Gevas Shepherd: We were sitting on that hill over there, sipping coffee,
minding our own business, when all of a sudden we heard a series of "thud"
sounds--1500 to be exact.
TP: What were the sheep running away from? Was anything running after them?
GS: Uh?.I don't know. It happened very fast.
TP: And is this your DVD copy of "Sheeps Gone Wild" and "Very Baaaaad
Sheep?"
GS: Uh? (hanging head in shame)--yes. Yes, it is.
TP: Can I borrow it? I promise I'll get it back to you.
In spite of the "shear" stupidity and obscurity of this story, I do feel bad
for such a great loss of fine sheep. After all, Stalin once remarked that,
"One
death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." Just think of how many gyro or
shawerma sandwiches that would have made! But here's another sad statistic
that
made me think. According to AP, "the estimated loss to families in the town of
Gevas tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average
GDP per head is around $2,700." Every family had an average of 20 sheep and
now, only a few are left with sheep making times very difficult for the people
of Gevas.
A GDP per head of around $2,700--wow! Let the good times roll! Free Sheepskin
seat covers for EVERYONE!
Let me put that statistic in perspective. The average GDP for the European
Union is approximately $26,900. So Turkey, which aspires to become a member of
the European Union, has a GDP that is one tenth that of the EU. Needless to
say, our Turkish friends are not ready for Prime Time yet. In fact, I'd
suggest
they stabilize their economy by counseling their livestock in order to prevent
any other future mass suicide attempts.
Wait! I have a brilliant idea. Someone get the Turkish Foreign Minister on
the
phone right away! I checked to see how much a sheep would cost if I wanted to
buy one. (WHAT? I was curious! Like you've never wanted to buy a sheep? Stop
judging me and read on!) Apparently, a good sheep (who knows what constitutes
"good") costs anywhere between $200 to $1000. By my rough calculations, we can
buy back the province of Van or a few of the towns/villages or whatever with
about 1500 sheep or approximately anywhere between 300,000 to 1.5 million
dollars.
We can start a brand new program like the United Nations's Oil for Food
Program. Sheep for Land! It's so simple, it has to work. And after Armenians
have repatriated to their ancestral lands, the Europeans can have
Turkey--pathetic GDP, sheep and all.
Former US Ambassador to Turkey, William B. Macomber once wrote that "It has
always seemed unfortunate to me that the people of the United States and the
people of Turkey, whose nations are important allies, do not know one another
better. Too often each thinks of the other in the simplified terms of cultural
stereotype."
Simplified terms? Stereotypes? I am not a person who will prejudge or
generalize any individuals or groups. But you have to admit that the sheep
story doesn't really help Turkey gain points in the eyes of Europe. Much of
Turkey is still backwards, extremely rural, and apparently can't even raise
sheep.
How can a country that can't take care of livestock and much less its own
poverty stricken populace, expect to earn a seat in the EU? The Turks want to
play the race/religion card against the Europeans every chance they get. But
all a European has to do to see that there's incompatibility between Turkey
and
Europe is to visit Turkey's Ministry of Tourism Website. There's a whole
section on "Curses."
Yes, curses. Here's what the official government website has to say about
curses. "Curses are an essential component of everyday life, and an important
element of popular wisdom." Good to know. Next time I'm in Turkey I'll be sure
to use such cultural gems as "May your blood boil in August, but your cooking
pot in winter, mistaking a white dog for a sheep!" That was an actual Turkish
curse.
How is the average French or Irish citizen or any other EU member going to
relate to someone who hails from a nation whose official Ministry of Tourism
boasts four different curses about lice on its website. Lice! Here they are in
no particular order and here's the link ():
-May you be crawling with lice (pretty self explanatory if you ask me)
-May you get lice (apparently the first one was not very direct)
-May lice eat your back and a dog your bread (the dog's a nice touch in this
one, I didn't see it coming but it works well with the whole lice theme)
- I hope you get lice and fleas (just in case the dog that ate your bread was
wearing a flea collar)
I'm still perplexed by the whole story but it has provided me some food for
thought. In researching the validity of the facts, I came across some
information that has raised more questions than it has answered. In fact, I'm
going to delve deeper into Turkish culture and hopefully bring to you some
more
gems. Stay tuned!
Skeptik Sinikian is looking for a few good sheep to begin the Sheep for Land
Program. Any Turkish shepherds interested can contact him at
[email protected] or visit his blog at
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