Author: Jalatian Sonya

TIME OF ARMENIAN AND AZERI FM MEETING NOT SPECIFIED YET
Pan Armenian News
19.04.2005 04:43
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The time of the meeting of Armenian and Azeri
Foreign Ministers Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mamedyarov is not
specified yet, Press Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia
Hamlet Gasparian told PanARMENIAN.Net correspondent. At that
he added that in a statement made in the course of the London
meeting the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs mentioned a meeting of the
FMs in Frankfurt. It should be noted that in his turn member of
Azeri delegation for settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
Hussein Husseinov stated that “Baku and Yerevan have agreed to hold
next round of talks over the Karabakh settlement in Frankfurt April
27.” In his words, Azerbaijan’s stand over the Nagorno Karabakh issue
has remained the same. “The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is
not subject to negotiation just like the matter cannot concern any
concessions by the Azeri party,” he underscored. In his turn Head of
the Press Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan
Mehtin Mirza noted that “if there is an arrangement to continue the
talks in Frankfurt, it means that there is certain progress and one
should view the negotiation process with optimism.”

SPIRITUAL SHEPHERD OF ARMENIANS CALLED POLAND TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Pan Armenian News
18.04.2005 04:36
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A solemn liturgy on occasion of the 1600-th anniversary of
the creation of the Armenian written language was chanted in the Church
of St. Mikolay in Krakow yesterday. As Archimandrite of the Krakow
monastery, Armenians’ spiritual shepherd Tadeus Isahakian-Zalezski
told PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the representatives of the Catholic
and Roman Catholic Churches as well as of the Armenian community of
Poland took part in the event. In his pray Isahakian-Zalezski called
to the Polish parliament to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

New York Times
April 16 2005
‘Forgotten Armies’: Their Lousiest Hour
By BENJAMIN SCHWARZ

FORGOTTEN ARMIES
The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945.
By Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper.
Illustrated. 555 pp. The Belknap Press/ Harvard University Press.
$29.95.

EVERAL hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941,
Japanese troops stormed the beaches of southeastern Thailand and
northern Malaya. Their goal was Singapore, some 400 miles south,
among the world’s richest and most cosmopolitan cities, and, along
with Gibraltar, the most heavily defended piece of land in the
British Empire. Just over two months later that supposedly
impregnable fortress was in Japanese hands. A garrison of more than
85,000 troops had surrendered to a Japanese assault force numbering
about 30,000. Singapore’s capture, Winston Churchill said, was ”the
worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.” By
April the Japanese were bombing Calcutta, and India was preparing to
be invaded. Britain’s ”great crescent,” which had stretched from
India’s border with Burma down the Malay peninsula, was lost.
In ”Forgotten Armies” Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, two
Cambridge historians, explore these events and their intricate and
often terrible repercussions from the perspectives of both the
British and the Asian peoples of the region. A work at once scholarly
and panoramic, it is as precise in dissecting, say, the logistical
problems the Japanese Army confronted during the 1944 campaign in
northern Burma (”the worst defeat in Japan’s military history”) as
it is arresting in examining such sweeping events as the 1942 trek of
some 600,000 Indian, Burmese and Anglo-Indian refugees from Burma
through the high passes of Assam into India, fleeing the advancing
Japanese.
Hundreds of monographs have examined aspects of this story, but Bayly
and Harper’s is the only history that matches the scope and nuance of
novels like J. G. Farrell’s ”Singapore Grip,” Paul Scott’s ”Raj
Quartet,” Anthony Burgess’s ”Enemy in the Blanket,” Orwell’s
”Burmese Days” and Amitov Ghosh’s ”Glass Palace.” Their 70-page
prologue is a triumph of scene setting. The great crescent between
Calcutta and Singapore was, Bayly and Harper show, a multinational
and multiethnic stew. Indians, Chinese, Malays and Burmese toiled in
the factories and oil fields of Burma and the rubber plantations and
tin mines of Malaya; Chinese merchant princes ruled the trading
houses of Penang and Malacca; Japanese owned shops in virtually every
small town on the Malay peninsula, controlled Malaya’s iron mines and
dominated Singapore’s fishing fleet.
At the apex of this world, of course, the British ruled. ”Forgotten
Armies” artfully evokes their prewar idyll: the string of posh
hotels; the mountaintop golf courses carved out of the jungle; the
torpor of the hill stations (exacerbated by chronic gin-swilling),
where expats speaking an ”outmoded English slang” saw to it that
”the ova of trout were carted up on ice” to stock the streams; and,
most memorably, what Lady Diana Cooper characterized as the
”Sino-Monte-Carlo” atmosphere of Singapore — a strikingly clean
and modern city of snobbish clubs, air-conditioned cinemas and a glut
of playing fields, populated by Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Parsis and
White Russians, as well as Indians, Malays, Burmese, Chinese,
Japanese and their British overlords.
The ignominious British and Australian rout down the length of the
Malay peninsula (the retreating soldiers sardonically adopted the
theme from the Hope and Crosby movie ”The Road to Singapore” as
their marching song) and Singapore’s subsequent fall have already
been described, memorably, in Farrell’s novel and in a host of
military histories, most notably Alan Warren’s ”Singapore 1942,”
but Bayly and Harper’s account is both vivid and authoritative. One
of their great contributions lies in their stinging appraisal of the
debacle — all but inevitable given Britain’s competing strategic
priorities, but made worse in every conceivable way by the
fecklessness, dithering, incompetence, jealousies and cowardice of
commanders on the spot. A second is their chronicle of the nearly
complete moral collapse of British colonial society and civil
administration throughout the great crescent. That collapse, they
convincingly show, began just eight days after the Japanese invasion,
with the shameful European evacuation of Penang, in which Britons
abandoned the Asians they ruled to an utterly vicious conqueror.
British imperialism certainly had its high-minded and responsible
aspects, but at the time and place ”Forgotten Armies” recounts it
revealed itself to be selfish, unlovely and, in the parlance of the
time, unmanly.
This British failure of nerve enormously strengthened the region’s
national independence movements during and after the war. The
Japanese, of course, tried to exploit anti-imperialist sentiment in
the name of pan-Asian solidarity, but Bayly and Harper, though
plainly unsympathetic to Britain’s imperialism, make clear that
Japan’s was incomparably worse. The Japanese systematically executed
70,000 ethnic Chinese in Singapore and southern Malaya. They sexually
enslaved well over 50,000 of the great crescent’s women, and raped
tens of thousands more; 14,000 Allied prisoners of war died as slave
laborers on the Thailand-Burma railway (an ordeal made famous in
”The Bridge on the River Kwai”), along with possibly 20 times as
many Indians, Burmese, Chinese and Malays, who were starved and
worked to death. (Bayly and Harper should be praised for making plain
a grim fact of war that nearly always goes unsaid: ”The scale of
animal fatality was colossal.”) The British of course temporarily
took back their Southeast Asian empire, but only with the help of
their erstwhile subjects (Asians and Africans made up 70 percent of
the soldiers in William Slim’s victorious 14th Army). In the terrible
choices war gave the inhabitants of the great crescent, the craven
hypocrisy of the British was infinitely preferable to the medieval
sadism of the Japanese.
Benjamin Schwarz is the literary editor and national editor of The
Atlantic Monthly.

Bells On Hungary Radio To Ring For Armenian Victims
Reuters
Friday, April 15, 2005

Hungary’s public radio will commemorate what it says is the Turkish
genocide of 1.5 million Armenians 90 years ago by broadcasting the
ringing of bells from Armenian churches in five countries next week.
“The radio is paying its respect to those killed in the first holocaust
of the 20th century by airing the ringing of bells from five different
churches at noon each day,” the radio’s Communication Director Katalin
Morvai told Reuters.
Hungary’s Kossuth radio has broadcast the sound of a different bell,
together with its description each week since 2000, and it sometimes
dedicates the ringing to special causes, most recently the death of Pope
John Paul, Morvai said. Next week’s bells will be from churches in
Budapest, Romania, Jerusalem, Beirut and Yerevan.
Ankara fears the anniversary, to be marked by Armenians and their
sympathizers on April 24, will trigger an outburst of anti-Turkish
feeling worldwide and dampen its aspirations for European Union
membership. The Turkish Embassy in Budapest said it had no comment, as
it was not aware of the radio station’s intentions.
Hungary’s government supports Turkey’s European Union accession bid, as
do a big majority of Hungarians.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITALIAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA MARCO KLEMENTE WILL PARTICIPATE IN
TOMORROW’S PLANTATION OF TREES IN YEREVAN COMMUNITY OF MALATIA-SEBASTIA
YEREVAN, APRIL 14. ARMINFO. Italian Ambassador to Armenia Marco
Klemente will participate in plantation of trees in the Yerevan
community of Malatia-Sebastia tomorrow. An Armenian-Italian
Rendezvous Park opened there in 2001. Italian Embassy in Armenia
informs ARMINFO. The park occupies a territory of 1 ha and is
neighboring the school No.11. The park was founded on the funds of
the Italian Embassy and with support of the organization “Armenia
Tree Project.” The solemn opening of the park was on Dec 1 2005. 200
fruit and decorative trees were planted in the park. This spring
another 40 plants of tress and bushes occurred there due to the ATP
organization. To note, the organization has implemented projects of
tree plantation in Armenia since 1994 and has organized plantation of
592,000 throughout Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
ROBERT KOCHARIAN TO DEPART FOR FRANCE ON WORKING VISIT APRIL 20
15.04.2005 05:15
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ April 20 Armenian President Robert Kocharian is departing
for France on a working visit, the President’s press service reported.
During the visit he is scheduled to meet with French President Jacques
Chirac, the Senate President and the Parliament Speaker. The Armenian leader
is expected back to Yerevan on April 23.

Les Echos , France
14 avril 2005
Génocide arménien: un geste de la Turquie vers l’Arménie
La Turquie a récemment adressé une lettre à l’Arménie proposant la
création d’une commission conjointe afin d’enquêter sur les massacres
des Arméniens de 1915, a déclaré, hier, le ministre des Affaires
étrangères, Abdullah Gul, lors d’un premier débat au Parlement turc
sur le sujet. Cette lettre du Premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, a été adressée au président arménien Robert Kotcharian,
a-t-il dit, indiquant que la mise en place de cette commission
constituera un premier pas vers la normalisation des relations avec
l’Arménie.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Athens News Agency, Greece
April 13, 2005
OPEN DISCUSSION ON DISPUTED 1915 SLAUGHTER OF ARMENIANS HELD ON
SIDELINES OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
STRASBOURG (ANA – O. Tsipira) An open discussion on the large-scale
killings of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, which are disputed by
Turkey, was held on the sidelines of the European Parliament assembly
for the first time on Wednesday
Entitled “The Future of the Past: Armenians in Turkey”, the
discussion did not make any direct reference to an Armenian genocide
as such, but the entire discussion revolved around this issue
The discussion was an initiative of the Green group and was led by
the German Green party MEP Cem Ozdemir, who is of Turkish descent
Guest speakers included Turkish intellectuals of Armenian descent,
such as Dr
Taner Akcam from Minnesota University, who presented evidence from
the study of Ottoman records that he claimed supported the view of
genocide
Other speakers were journalist Etyen Mahcupyan, a columnist for the
Istanbul daily ‘Zaman’, and Hrant Dink, chief editor of the
bi-lingual Turkish-Armenian Istanbul weekly ‘Agos’
Armenian expatriates throughout the world are campaigning to make it
a condition of Turkey’s accession to the European Union that it first
recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915
Organisers were criticised, particularly by Turkish journalists that
attended the discussion, for failing to present the counter-arguments
to the Armenian side and promised to arrange a new discussion that
would present the views of both sides.

Des intellectuels turcs s’émeuvent d’une “montée du nationalisme”
LE MONDE (Paris)
12.04.2005
Par Marie Jégo
Alarmés par ce qu’ils décrivent comme une “montée du nationalisme” en
Turquie, deux cents intellectuels ont publié, lundi 11 avril, dans les
journaux turcs une lettre ouverte dénonçant les entraves faites au
“processus de paix et de démocratisation” du pays, qui entamera le 3
octobre des négociations avec l’Union européenne.
Les musiciens Zulfi Livaneli et Senar Yurdatapan, l’écrivain Murat
Belge, l’acteur Halil Ergun, les journalistes Mehmet Ali Birand et
Oral Calislar, le secrétaire général de la Fondation des droits de
l’homme Yavuz Önen et beaucoup d’autres y mettent en garde les
autorités contre “l’hystérie collective née du nationalisme turc et
kurde”, une allusion aux tensions qui ont surgi récemment en Turquie
entre les deux communautés.
Tout a commencé le 20 mars à Mersin, ville kurde de Turquie, lorsque,
sur fond de célébration du Nevroz (le Nouvel An kurde), trois
adolescents kurdes ont tenté, devant des caméras, de mettre le feu au
drapeau turc. Si les jeunes trublions (de 12 à 14 ans), écroués
quelques jours, ont confié à leur libération avoir voulu “passer à la
télé”, l’outrage est constitué. D’autant que l’état-major de l’armée
dénonce, dans un communiqué, “un acte de trahison” dirigé contre le
peuple turc “par de soi-disant citoyens”.
La presse s’empare alors du sujet, les partis en appellent au
patriotisme de la population. En quelques jours, la rhétorique
nationaliste s’emballe, la fièvre du drapeau gagne. D’Istanbul à
Erzurum, l’emblème national – croissant et étoile blanches sur fond
rouge – est déployé partout: aux balcons, sur les voitures, aux
devantures des magasins.
“ON BRÛLE LE DRAPEAU !”
Deux semaines plus tard à Trabzon, une ville du littoral de la mer
Noire, c’est aux cris de “on brûle le drapeau !” qu’une foule de 2 000
personnes – arrivées prestement sur les lieux après avoir été
prévenues par SMS – va prendre en chasse cinq militants de Tayad, une
organisation liée à l’extrême gauche qui défend les droits des
détenus, occupés à distribuer des tracts dans la rue.
Jetés à terre, roués de coups de pied, les militants n’évitent le
lynchage que grce à la présence d’un fourgon blindé des forces de
police dans lequel ils se réfugient. Leurs camarades, qui tentent
d’organiser une conférence de presse quelques jours plus tard,
dimanche 10 avril, sont à leur tour molestés. “Ici, on n’est pas à
Mersin !”, expliquera l’un des assaillants.
Ce climat de vindicte populaire est encouragé car les agresseurs
agissent en toute impunité, déplore la lettre ouverte. Ainsi, aucun
des auteurs des agressions perpétrées à Trabzon n’a été mis en cause
tandis que les cinq victimes – les militants de Tayad – sont
aujourd’hui sous les verrous.
Et si les réactions de la population à l’incident de Mersin “ont
dérapé vers le racisme et le nationalisme”, c’est “avec le soutien des
officines de l’Etat”, expliquent les intellectuels, qui font appel au
“bon sens” des autorités.
L’équipe au pouvoir, celle du premier ministre Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
dont l’objectif affiché est de rejoindre la famille européenne,
restera-t-elle sans réaction ? Les événements de Trabzon ont été
passés sous silence. Aucune réaction non plus un mois plus tôt
lorsqu’un sous-préfet de Sutculer (région d’Isparta, au sud-ouest) a
ordonné la destruction de tous les livres de l’écrivain Orhan
Pamuk. Si rien ne fut finalement détruit, c’est avant tout parce que
les librairies et les bibliothèques de la région n’en avaient
aucun. Pour finir, une chaîne de la télévision locale lança un appel
pour retrouver une jeune étudiante qui avait déclaré avoir en sa
possession un livre de l’écrivain.
De quel crime Orhan Pamuk est-il donc coupable ? D’avoir déclaré à un
journal suisse qu'”un million d’Arméniens et 30 000 Kurdes ont été
tués en Turquie”. Comme la question du drapeau, objet d’un consensus
qui confine à l’hystérie, la question arménienne, tout comme celle des
Kurdes ou celle de Chypre, sont autant de “causes nationales” qui ne
souffrent pas de remise en cause.
C’est dans cette atmosphère d’hystérie que le Parlement turc s’apprête
à discuter, le 20 avril, des “mesures à prendre” pour contrer la
commémoration par les Arméniens du génocide de plus d’un million des
leurs, il y a quatre-vingt-dix ans.
article paru dans l’édition du 13.04.2005

A1plus
| 15:39:01 | 13-04-2005 | Official |
TIME TO GO TO THE ARMY
On April 12 Robert Kocharyan has signed a decree to carry out the 2005
spring call up and demobilization.