Author: Hagop Kamalian

The urgent need to Westernize the Black Sea region
Ron Asmus, Project Syndicate
Jakarta Post, Indonesia
Sept 7 2004
The bloody end to the schoolhouse hostage crisis in North Ossetia,
and recent clashes in Georgia between government troops and separatist
forces, have put the troubled Black Sea region on the front pages of
newspapers once again. This rising violence is also a wake-up call
for the West, highlighting the need for a new Euro-Atlantic strategy
in a vitally important region that lies at the crossroads of Europe,
Eurasia, and the Middle East.
Indeed, the Black Sea region is the Euro-Atlantic community’s eastern
frontier with the wider Middle East. With Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran
topping the list of strategic challenges facing the West, anchoring
democracy and security in these new borderlands of the Euro-Atlantic
community has become imperative for both the United States and the
EU. Moreover, success here can provide lessons in how to facilitate the
daunting process of reform and modernization in the wider Middle East.
Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” last winter demonstrated that the will to
implement radical reform now exists. For the first time, a country in
the region is matching its aspirations with the concrete steps needed
to become a viable candidate for eventual membership in Euro-Atlantic
institutions. A visitor to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, now sees the
same level of determination to join the West that existed a decade
ago in the Baltic states.
America and Europe share an interest in the success of these efforts,
particularly as they seek to diversify energy supplies away from
Saudi Arabian and Persian Gulf oil. The Black Sea is poised to become
a key conduit for non-OPEC, non-Gulf oil and natural gas flowing
into European markets and beyond. The Black Sea region’s long-term
stability and integration with the West is thus critically important
to the long-term energy security strategy of EU and NATO members.
Anchoring these countries to the West will not be easy. Whether the end
result is better relations or full integration of these countries into
the EU and NATO is an open question. But both organizations need to
reach out to these countries, a process that should be seen as the
next phase in completing the wider Europe.
What should a new bold yet realistic EU and NATO outreach strategy
for the Black Sea region look like? Clearly, the regions countries
are weaker and further behind previous candidates for Western
integration. But the good news is that the EU and NATO are much better
positioned to develop an ambitious strategy than they were vis-…-vis
Central and Eastern Europe a decade ago. If the EU and NATO decide
to launch a bold outreach strategy for the region, they will be able
to draw on existing tools, conceptual talent, and practical experience.
For example, NATO already has three members — Bulgaria, Romania,
and Turkey — bordering the Black Sea. As for the EU, the candidacies
of Romania and Bulgaria need to be concluded successfully, together
with the issue of Turkey’s membership aspirations. An EU that includes
Sofia and Bucharest, and that is on track with Ankara, will be well
positioned to engage the wider region.
The EU also needs to put meat on the bones of its new Neighborhood
Policy, while NATO must apply new mechanisms for strengthening ties
with the region. As opposed to a 100- or 200-meter sprint, both
organizations need to think more in terms of a much longer race,
perhaps a marathon. If countries in the region embrace the idea, a
network of current EU and NATO members could step forward with projects
and assistance aimed at promoting a Black Sea identity and community.
Recent events in Georgia remind us that resolving the region’s “frozen
conflicts” — i.e., those in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia, of Transdneistria in Moldova, and Nagorno-Karabakh in
Azerbaijan — must be a priority. In reality, these conflicts are not
frozen; they are festering wounds that breed corruption and organized
crime. They inhibit democratization and incite instability. While
these conflicts involve historical grievances, outside actors —
particularly Russia — contribute to their lack of resolution, which
is essential for successful reform.
So far, neither America nor Europe has made these conflicts a top
priority. Resolving these semi-dormant wars requires stepped-up
political involvement, economic engagement, and a willingness to
provide Western peacekeeping forces and monitors if and when they
are needed.
But the long-term peace and stability needed to advance economic and
political reform in the region will also require either a change in
Russian behavior or a reduction in Russian influence. The experience
of the last decade suggests that a policy of engaging the Kremlin
intensely while protecting fundamental Western interests may be the
best way to proceed.
Developing a new Euro-Atlantic strategy for the Black Sea region must
start with the democracies of North America and Europe recognizing
their moral and political stake in the outcome. Projecting stability
and security in these countries is the next logical step in building
a Europe “whole and free” and securing the Euro-Atlantic community’s
eastern frontier with the Middle East. This task will be as important
over the next decade as integrating Central and Eastern Europe into
the West was in the 1990’s.
The writer is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall
Fund was America’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European
Affairs from 1997-2000.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Going back to war-torn armenia
by Amy Wilson
Bath Chronicle, UK
September 1, 2004
Abath woman is about to make her second voyage to help poverty-
stricken people in Eastern Europe. Briony Krikorian, 22, from Lansdown
Mansions, Bath, spent the last year doing voluntary work in Armenia –
just east of Turkey – for the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC).
She is returning this month to work once more for the organisation.
And she will spend a month in Armenia before going to Nagorno Karabakh,
a war-torn region nearby, to teach English, crafts and computer skills.
Miss Krikorian returned to Bath this summer for a friend’s wedding,
but says she is looking forward to getting back out to Armenia.
Last year she spent the majority of her time at a family centre
catering for around 50 families, providing a hot meal and tutoring
every day.
This time she will work as a volunteer in a city called Shushi, which
lies in ruins following battles between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
ownership of the land between 1991 and 1994.
She will spend her time establishing a community centre and identifying
projects that would benefit from future funding.
Miss Krikorian, who went to Kingswood School before doing a degree
in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, says she is looking
forward to the new challenge.
“My degree was a good background, especially because the political
situation is quite tense over there.
“I really enjoy the work we do, and I think that going to Nagorno
Karabakh will be very interesting, and challenging as well.” Miss
Krikorian is intending to either do a masters degree or go into paid
international work when she returns from the country next August.
The AVC was established by American-Armenians desperate to help the
country by making sure it regained self-sufficiency.
It places volunteers with new ideas, initiative and crucial English
skills in positions of responsibility in schools, charities and
local businesses.
“Armenia’s acceptance of new ideas is a slow process, and requires
personal relations of trust and understanding, rather than an enforced
programme of westernisation, and AVC really understands that,” Miss
Krikorian said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Miami Herald
August 25, 2004, Wednesday
Atrocity haunts “Birds Without Wings’
By Connie Ogle
_”Birds Without Wings,” by Louis de Bernieres; Knopf (553 pages,
$25.95)
“Arms aren’t wings,” a woman in Louis de Bernieres’ violent,
heart-breaking yet resplendent new anti-war novel tells a small boy
who longs to fly. “If we had wings, do you think we would suffer so
much in one place? Don’t you think we would fly away to paradise?”
Oh, yes, we would fly. We would soar. We would escape the bloody
whims of history; the terrifying inevitability of change; the fear,
horror and death that bloom when powerful forces decide that
invisible borders _ geographical, cultural, religious _ count more
than people.
In the grand, sweeping style of his international blockbuster
“Corelli’s Mandolin,” de Bernieres masterfully explores the terrible
price of love, politics and war _ a cost we still insist on paying.
“Birds Without Wings” is a breathtaking, sorrowful account of the
Ottoman Empire’s death seen through the eyes of the Turks and Greeks,
Christians and Muslims of a tiny coastal town in southwest Anatolia.
Like “Corelli’s Mandolin,” which features the inhabitants of the
Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II, “Birds Without
Wings” traces another turbulent era’s devastating effects on a simple
place and its people. Fueled by rich storytelling and superb
historical detail, the novel is set in “the age when everyone wanted
an empire and felt entitled to one, days of innocence perhaps, before
the world realised, if it yet has, that empires were pointless and
expensive, and their subject peoples rancorous and ungrateful.”
Turkey bridges the gap between East and West, its largely Islamic
population governed by a secular democratic government, and so the
novel feels disturbingly pertinent. But de Bernieres never fails to
keep his characters in sharp focus as he offers us an impassioned
argument against aggression and blind nationalism, lamenting its cost
with a fervor disturbingly relevant to our current war-heightened
sensibilities.
He is also a magnificent storyteller, bringing to life humble
Eskibahce and its rustic inhabitants, among them Ali the
Broken-Nosed, not to be confused with Ali the Snow-bringer; Mehmetcik
and Karatavuk, best friends who mimic birds as boys and grow up to
fight different battles; the homeless Dog, whose ravaged visage
frightens everyone; the lonely Rustem Bey, the town’s wealthy
landlord; and Ibrahim and Philothei, Muslim and Christian, betrothed
since childhood but doomed to tragedy.
Religion rarely polarizes. “Life was merrier when the Christians were
still among us, not least because almost every one of their days was
the feast of some saint,” Iskander the Potter, one of our narrators,
confides. The town’s imam and priest respectfully greet each other as
“Infidel Efendi.” Brides adopt their husbands’ faith without
argument. Muslims stand at the back of the church during Christian
services; Christian feet tread the clay that shapes Muslim pots. All
this will change with the rise of Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern
Turkey, whose story de Bernieres also tells in short, succinct
chapters that grow more complex as the soldier’s dreams expand.
De Bernieres, like Kemal, is a harsh critic of religious monomania.
“It is curious that the Russians, calling themselves Christians, and
like so many other nominal Christians throughout history, took no
notice whatsoever of the key parable of Jesus Christ himself, which
taught that you shall love your neighbor as yourself, and that even
those you have despised and hated are your neighbors. This has never
made any difference to Christians, since the primary epiphenomena of
any religion’s foundation are the production and flourishment of
hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy.” He is scornful of Islamic
extremists as well, decrying the “mad light of moral certainty in the
eyes of those who acted on God’s commands as laid down in holy books
that no one was able to read.”
War, quite simply, appalls de Bernieres. His lengthy, unnerving
descriptions of the battle of Gallipoli _ the book is dedicated
partly to his grandfather, who was severely wounded there _ detail
atrocities with brutal, numbing repetition. “There had been fighting
for one month, and the dead had never been collected,” Iskander’s son
Karatavuk tells us. “Some bodies were swollen up, and some were
black, and they were seething with maggots, and others were turning
to green slime, and others were fully rotted and shriveling up so
that the bones stuck out through the skin. A lot of them were built
into the parapets and fortifications, so that you might say they were
being employed as sandbags.”
“Birds Without Wings” is not without moments of humor, but atrocity
haunts it _ children crucified and disemboweled by the Greeks, the
Turkish slaughter of Armenians at Smyrna. “I blame men of God of both
faiths,” Iskander says. “I blame all those who gave their soldiers
permission to behave like wolves.” In the face of horror, de
Bernieres can offer only the meager comfort of man’s ability to
endure and adapt. But he has given us a marvelous novel nonetheless.
Its insight into the darkest human desires is unerring and indelible.
Oh, how we long for paradise. Oh, how we long to fly.
___
(Connie Ogle is The Miami Herald’s book editor.)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

28 FOOTBALL-PLAYERS WITHIN ARMENIAN NATIONAL TEAM
YEREVAN, August 11 (Noyan Tapan). The Armenian national team will hold
its first match of the qualifying tournament of the 2006 World
Football Championship with the national team of Macedonia in Skopie on
August 18. French Bernard Kazonie, newly appointed head coach of the
Armenian national team, included 28 football-players within the
national team. Two of them are goal-keepers, seven are full-backs, 8
half-backs, five are forwards. Nine of them perform in the Armenian
Championship, 13 other football-players perform in different foreign
countries. The Armenian national team will start preparation for the
match with the Macedonian national team on August 14.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IN FIRST HALF OF THIS YEAR CASES OF CRIMES INCREASE BY 4.5% IN ARMENIA
IN COMPARISON WITH SAME PERIOD OF LAST YEAR
YEREVAN, August 5 (Noyan Tapan). In the first half of this year the RA
Police fulfilled the problems put before it: stable public order and
rule was preserved, the operative situation was completely controlled
in the republic owing to the arrangements undertaken within the
framework of the authorities reserved by the law. It is reported in
the document on the results of the operative and official activities
of the RA Police Services and Territorial Bodies during the first half
of 2004. According to the document, 5,351 cases of crimes were
registered in the republic in the first half of 2004 as against 5,120
cases of the same period of last year, growth made 4.5%, or 231
cases. The number of crimes fallen on 10,000 residents made 16.7% in
the republic. It should be mentioned for comparison that this index
made 148% in Moldova, 98% in Russia, 80% in Belorussia, 57% in
Ukraine, 48% in Kazakhstan. In the general structure of crimes the
number of crimes committed against the people considerably increased
(13.8%-14%), as well as crimes committed against the public order and
security, health of people (14.2%-16%), property (39.1%-40.7%), crimes
committed against the economic activities (1.4%-2.8%). The share of
crimes committed against the state power, service and government order
decreased (26.2%-25.6%). According to the document, the process of
the disclosure of weapon and armament illegally kept by the population
and the process of voluntary yield became more active: 160 cases of
preparation of weapon and armament and illegal circulation were
disclosed during the period under review, which exceeds by 11.9%, or
17 cases, the index of the same period of last year. The indices of
struggle against illegal circulation of drugs also considerably
improved: 229 cases of crimes connected with drugs were disclosed in
the first half of 2004 as against 137 cases of the same period of last
year. As of the end of the first half of 2004, 2,585 transport means
imported to Armenia were checked-up in the issue of struggle against
the illegal circulation of transport means illegally obtained and
stolen in the foreign countries. 24 cars which are under international
investigation and seven cars (with re-pasted numbers of separate
aggregates) were disclosed as a result of these check-ups. 513
motor-transport accidents were registered in the territory of the
republic during the period under review, 97 people died and 672 people
received bodily injuries as a result of these accidents. The number of
cases increased by 151, or 41.7%, in comparison with the same period
of last year, and the number of victims increased by 9, the number of
casualties increased by 210 people. In the first half of 2004 the
number of people called to criminal account increased by 1.9% as
against 3,098 of the same period of last year and made 3,158. 665, or
21.1%, of people called to criminal account had previous
convictions. Stable share fell on women (6.8%, or 216) among the
people who were called to criminal account. In the first half of 2004
the number of minors among the people called to criminal account made
6.1% as against 6.3% of the same period of last year. The number of
crimes committed by minors also decreased by 15.9% and made 296 cases
as against 352 of the same period of last year. According to the
document of the RA Police, a 83.5% and 82.6% growth of the indices of
the disclosing of crimes registered on the line of general, as well as
criminal investigation was considered, respectively, during the period
under review (as against 83% and 80.8% of the same period of last
year). In the first half of 2004, 80.4% of especially grave crimes and
79.6% of grave crimes registered in the republic was dislosed. During
the indicated period material damage of 520.3 mln drams (about 946,000
dollars) was caused to the state by the completed criminal cases in
the staff of the police, as well as public organizations. 76.8% of
this sum was restored as against 51% of the same period of last year.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress