Author: Jirair Kafian

OSCE MINSK GROUP: MEDIATOR OR SIDE? – ANALYSIS

Azeri Press Agency
March 17 2008
Azerbaijan

The most unexpected point of the UN vote on Occupied Territories of
Azerbaijan is certainly that OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs – US, Russia
and France, which are directly involved in the problem, voted against
the document.

In fact the document demolished illusions around the solution of
Nagorno Karabakh conflict and clarified the issue. The question is
that OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs directly involved in the regulation
of Nagorno Karabakh conflict voted against the resolution, which
is recognizing territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and demanding
solution of the conflict on the basis of this principle. It provokes
a fair question: "If OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs votes against the
resolution, which recognizes territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,
how objective mediators can they be?" One of the interesting moments
is that the co-chair countries did not only vote against, but also
actively campaigned against the adoption of this document. This
situation clarifies two important results:

1) OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are not neutral mediators, they are
concrete SIDES. Their position coincides with the position of occupier
Armenia, but not Azerbaijan, whose rights have been violated as a
result of the conflict.

2) Solution models proposed by the co-chairs cannot be based on the
principle of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Their position shows
that co-chairs are trying to solve the conflict not on the basis of
territorial integrity, but on the principle of self-determination,
or mixed formula of both principles.

Both results show that OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will lose confidence
of Azerbaijani community. Even without that, the community has no
simple attitude to the Minsk Group, which couldn’t achieve any result
toward the solution of the conflict over the years. However the Minsk
Group Co-Chairs lost sight of one factor- their position in the UN
General Assembly has complicated not the situation of Azerbaijan,
but OSCE Minsk Group.

Certainly one of the decisive moments of regulation process, not
depending on the results, will be preparation of both communities for
the compromises. The Co-chairs have made statements on this issue for
many times and underlined the importance of public communities in
Azerbaijan and Armenia for the compromises. In current situation,
the co-chairs are restricting Azerbaijan’s opportunity to make
a compromise and not giving a chance to the community to accept
existing compromises.

Logic is simple – if the mediators do not recognize Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity, avoid the settlement of the conflict basing on
this principle, the society will reject any proposal of the co-chair
countries, thinking that their proposals meet Armenia’s interests.

Thus, the co-chairs, with their position in UN General Assembly expose
the society’s confidence to risk.

Can Azerbaijan refuse mediation mission of OSCE Minsk Group? It does
not seem real after the adoption of the resolution in UN. Even the
resolution supports the activity of OSCE Minsk Group and Deputy Foreign
Minister Araz Azimov said Azerbaijan was interested in continuing
the process of negotiations with mediation of OSCE Minsk Group. But
assessing both the resolution and official statements, we come to the
conclusion that Azerbaijan wants important changes in the negotiations.

However, if Azerbaijan really wants to achieve progress in the
process of negotiations and make use of the essence of the resolution
adopted in the UN General Assembly, then it should lay down a concrete
condition before the co-chair countries – settlement of the conflict
within the framework of the countries’ territorial integrity should
be determined and the negotiations should be carried out basing on
this concrete principle. The resolution adopted in the UN General
Assembly enables to lay down such a condition. The further stage
of the negotiations on the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict
depends on the acceptance of this condition by the co-chairs. It is
not convincing that the result of the negotiations, which do not base
on the principle of the countries’ territorial integrity, will differ
from the hitherto results.

BAKU TO ACCUSE YEREVAN IN SPREAD OF SECTARIANISM AND VAHABISM

demaz.org, Azerbaijan
Nov 13 2007

Baku accuses Yerevan in spread of sectarianism and vahabism in our
country. Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan made statement which
reads that "some missionary organizations and foreign intelligence
structures commit religious terror against Azerbaijan with financial
and moral support of Armenian church", DayAz. informs.

Following Information Section of Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan
"near and far plans of Armenian special services include intention
to cause religious discrimination, extremism and intolerance between
citizens of Azerbaijan". "Moreover, their plans include fight with
Muslim religious and ethnic idea via increase of the role of missionary
organizations, discrediting of Islam, turning Azerbaijan to the area
of religious operations".

"Activity of Armenian terrorists, – following to Baku officials,
– is to realize informational and sabotage activity with regard to
Azerbaijan, causing religiously motivated artificial confrontation,
systematic appearance provocative themes, attempt of inside split
of national and moral values, work, directed to renew sects’ forces
against secular system of Azerbaijan".

This statement was made against background of numerous information
on increase of activity of extremist vahabist groups in Azerbaijan.

Information on confrontation between police and radicals was leaked
out.

EC WELCOMES ARMENIA’S REFORMS WITHIN ENP

PanARMENIAN.Net
25.09.2007 17:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The work carried out by Armenia in the framework
of the European Neighborhood Policy was positively assessed by the
European Commission, RA Deputy Foreign Minister Armen Bayburdian told
a news conference in Yerevan.

The Republic of Armenia has covered the 1-year program and is ready
to proceed with the ENP implementation, he said.

The agenda of the EU-Armenia Cooperation Committee included
specification of cooperation mechanism and financing. We also referred
to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict resolution, the Armenian-Turkish
relations, regional integration and establishment of a regional center
of cooperation with the EU," Mr Bayburdian said.

The ENP Action Plan was adopted on 14 November 2006 and its
implementation is monitored by the joint bodies under the Partnership
and Cooperation Agreement.

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
31 Moscovian Street
Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 53.69.13
Fax: (+374 – 10) 53.26.97
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Website:

September 17, 2007

Heritage Statement on the Brutal Beating of Hovhannes Galajian

The Heritage Party and its parliamentary fraction deplore the vile act
committed, on September 15 against Hovhannes Galajian, editor-in-chief
of Iskakan Iravunk weekly. Galajian was attacked by two assailants and
beaten with metal bars near his place of work.

Regrettably, violent crimes committed against journalists are becoming
more commonplace. These actions take place more frequently during the
pre-election season and remain unexposed for the most part, whereas
their architects and perpetrators continue to enjoy liberty. This
particular malicious act might not have ocurred had our relevant state
bodies uncovered in the past the numerous encroachments upon the free
expression of thought and the right to receive information, and if
certain halls of power and high-level officials had not backed the
criminals and thus obstructed solution of the crimes.

Today, Larisa Alaverdian, Stepan Safarian, and Armen
Martirosian–members of Heritage’s parliamentary group–visited
Hovhannes Galajian, who had just undergone surgery and is still being
kept in the intensive care department at St. Gregory the Illuminator
Hospital. On behalf of the Heritage Party and its parliamentary
delegation, the MPs conveyed their solidarity with the journalist and
fellow citizen.

Condemning this heinous crime, the Heritage Party and parliamentary
group call on the Republic’s law enforcers to reveal the motives
behind, and the executors of, this grave felony. The legitimacy,
dignity, and reputation of the Armenian state, authorities, and all of
us depend on the full disclosure of this transgression and the
bringing of its engineers to justice. The promise of democracy for
Armenia demands no less.

September 17, 2007
Yerevan

Founded in 2002, Heritage has regional divisions throughout the land.
Its central office is located at 31 Moscovian Street, Yerevan 0002,
Armenia, with telephone contact at (374-10) 536.913, fax at (374-10)
532.697, email at [email protected] or [email protected], and website
at

ARMENPRESS

ARMENIAN OFFICER BACK HOME AFTER RECUPERATION IN USA

YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, ARMENPRESS: Armenian senior
lieutenant Gevork Nalbandian, who was wounded while on
duty in Iraq in 2006 November, is back home after
recuperating at a US-based hospital. The news was
announced by Seyran Ohanian, chief of the general
staff of the Armenian armed forces yesterday.
He said Gevork Nalbandian has now a position in the
Armenian peacekeeping battalion.
Gevork Nalbandian was wounded while on a mission to
defuse mines in Iraq. He lost his leg in a roadside
bomb explosion in which one Polish and one Slovak
soldier were killed in south-central Iraq. He was
first transported to an American military hospital in
Germany for treatment and then to the USA.

Acton Institute, MI
Aug 10 2007

The New Martyrs
Friday, August 10. 2007

`Martyrdom means a great deal to Orthodox people,’ writes historian
James Billington in `The Orthodox Frontier of Faith,’ an essay
collected in `Orthodoxy and Western Culture,’ a volume of essays
published in honor of Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 2005).

The 20th Century’s first genocide, the Armenian genocide, began with
terror and massacres in the late 19th century and culminated in the
great destruction of Christian minorities at the hands of Ottoman
Turks in 1915-1918. Some 1.5 million Armenian Christians perished,
according to Armenian sources. With the Russian Revolution and the
rise of totalitarian communism, the martrydom of Christians took on
unprecedented proportions in the gulags, killing fields and the
famines that resulted from forced collectivization of farming.

Billington, the Librarian of Congress and a historian who has written
several books on Russian culture, cites figures showing that
`something like 70 percent of all Christian martyrs were created in
the twentieth century, and the largest number of those were in
Russia. Religious persecution was quite ecumenical; all religions
suffered. However, since Orthodoxy was the main religion of the USSR,
it suffered specially. The same Russian expanses that saw amazing
frontier missionary activity in the early modern period suffered
enormous devastation in the twentieth century when millions of people
disappeared in the frozen wastes of the North and the East. The
concentration camps were spread across almost exactly the same places
– often using the monasteries for prisons.’

The world will never know all of the names of the millions of New
Martyrs, as they are known to the Church, who perished under
Communism, an oppression that lasted for most of the 20th Century.
But their martyria, their witness, will be forever known to God.

In Russia this week, according to AP, `Russian Orthodox priests
consecrated a wooden cross Wednesday at a site south of Moscow where
firing squads executed thousands of people 70 years ago at the height
of Josef Stalin’s political purges. Created at a monastery that
housed one of the first Soviet labor camps and brought by barge to
Moscow along a canal built on the bones of gulag inmates, the 40-foot
cross has been embraced as memorial to the mass suffering under
Stalin.’

Noticeably absent, the article said, were representatives of
President Vladimir Putin’s government. `This is in keeping with
efforts by … Putin, a former KGB officer, to restore Russians’
pride in their Soviet-era history by softening the public perception
of Stalin’s rule,’ wrote reporter Bagila Bukharbayeva. Nostalgia for
the Soviet era? Read remarks on the subject by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
in his recent Der Spiegel interview.

The site consecrated to the Russian martyrs this week marked the 70th
anniversary of Stalin’s Great Purge, when millions were labeled
`enemies of the state’ and executed without trial or sent to labor
camps. The Butovo range was used for executions in the 1930s and
until after Stalin’s death in 1953. Some 20,000 people, including
priests and artists, were killed there in 1937-38 alone. `We have
been ordered to be proud of our past,’ said Yan Rachinsky from
Memorial, a non-governmental group dedicated to investigating
Stalin’s repression. `I know no other example in history when 700,000
people were killed within 1 1/2 years only for political reasons.’

Follow the link below to read the entire report on the memorial to
victims of Stalin’s Purge.
Cross commemorates Stalin purge victims
By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA – Associated Press Writer
August 8, 2007

Russian Orthodox priests consecrated a wooden cross Wednesday at a
site south of Moscow where firing squads executed thousands of people
70 years ago at the height of Josef Stalin’s political purges.

Created at a monastery that housed one of the first Soviet labor
camps and brought by barge to Moscow along a canal built on the bones
of gulag inmates, the 40-foot cross has been embraced as memorial to
the mass suffering under Stalin.

The ceremony at the Church of New Martyrs and Confessors, built
recently at the Butovo site, is one of a series of events planned
throughout this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Great Purge
of 1937, when millions were labeled `enemies of the state’ and
executed without trial or sent to labor camps.

Hundreds of people, most of them women wearing colorful headscarves,
laid flowers and lit candles under the cross. The crowd, led by
priests carrying icons, continued to the execution and burial site
for a service. Some of the women were crying.

There were no representatives of the government, which has shown
little interest in the anniversary of the Great Purge. This is in
keeping with efforts by President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB
officer, to restore Russians’ pride in their Soviet-era history by
softening the public perception of Stalin’s rule.

`We have been ordered to be proud of our past,’ said Yan Rachinsky
from Memorial, a non-governmental group dedicated to investigating
Stalin’s repression.

`I know no other example in history when 700,000 people were killed
within 1 1/2 years only for political reasons,’ he said in an
interview.

The wooden cross was carved at a monastery on the Solovki Islands in
the White Sea, one of the earliest and most notorious camps in the
gulag.

It arrived in Moscow on Monday after a 13-day journey that took it
down the Belomorkanal, a 141-mile waterway linking the White Sea with
Lake Onega. The canal was built between 1931 and 1933 entirely by
gulag inmates.

An estimated 100,000 people, many of them victims of political
repression, died as they built the canal using only wheelbarrows,
sledgehammers and axes. The construction was supervised by the NKVD,
the predecessor of the KGB.

The Butovo range was used for executions in the 1930s and until after
Stalin’s death in 1953. Some 20,000 people, including priests and
artists, were killed there in 1937-38 alone.

Putin said in June that although the 1937 purge was one of the most
notorious episodes of the Stalin era, no one should try to make
Russia feel guilty about it because `in other countries even worse
things happened.’

The president, who was speaking to a gathering of history teachers,
suggested the United States’ use of atomic weapons against Japan at
the end of World War II was among those things.

Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said the
Kremlin was `almost completely ignoring’ the anniversary of the Great
Purge, which he said was `one of the most convincing pieces of
evidence that Russian authorities sympathize with Stalin’s regime.’

Features of Stalin’s rule such as `the physical removal of political
opponents, … spy mania, defamation of government critics and rights
activists, equating any dissent with anti-government activity’ remain
Russia’s political reality, Yavlinsky said in a statement Sunday.

Political arrests on dubious charges were common throughout Stalin’s
rule, resulting in the execution of hundreds of thousands. Millions
more became inmates of the gulag, the system of thousands of slave
labor camps.

Large-scale arrests of Communist Party members began in 1934 and
reached a peak in 1936-37, when a series of show trials was held in
Moscow featuring dramatic courtroom confessions.

Russia has never sought to bring to justice KGB officials implicated
in human rights abuses committed during the Communist era.

Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble: "Make music, not war"

??? by John Shulson | Gazette Staff Writer
??? March 13, 2006
????

The Virginia Arts Festival presents Yo-Yo Ma and the "Silk Road
Ensemble," in concert at Chrysler Hall, Feb. 25.

"Make music, not war" was easily the idealized subtext of the eagerly
anticipated appearance of celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his "Silk Road
Ensemble," performing as a prelude to the April opening of the Virginia
Arts Festival’s 10th season.

Ma formed the Silk Road Project in 1998 "…to promote collaboration and
a sense of community among institutions, artists, and audiences who
share a fascination with the transcultural artistic organization
symbolized by the ancient Silk Road" which, some 2100 years ago,
extended from Japan and China across Central Asia to India, Iran, and
the regions associated with the Mediterranean Sea.

The project evolved into the Ensemble, which first performed in 2000, at
the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts. Reportedly, the initial
invitees came together, mostly with no common language or common musical
scale. Yet, they assembled to make music. And, in making music, they
discovered commonalities among their individual cultures, elements that
spoke to the humanity of man. Since the start of the Ensemble, it has
continued to explore the relationship between music, culture,
instruments, and musicians. It has continued to embrace musicians from
throughout the Silk Road region, all of whom have joined together to
make music, despite the wars and unrest that have been and currently are
plaguing their countries.

The power of music to create unity is great, a theme which prompted such
paraphrased comments in the Chrysler Hall lobby as "if we can
collectively make music like this, we might not have wars." It may sound
like a John Lennon sentiment, but when you look at the extensive roster
of "Silk Road" musicians, many of whom come from countries that just
plain don’t get along, and see them working together, as a community,
you can’t help but think of possibilities. Sure, it’s just music, and,
sure, the seriousness of the global conflicts outweigh the silliness of
optimism. But, when you explore more thoroughly the "Silk Road Project"
and the "Silk Road Ensemble," one wonders that there’s more at play,
than play. Or so it seems.

The evening’s event featured performers from China, Israel, Iran,
Switzerland, and the United States, performing music from Armenia,
Persia, Romania, Iran, Lebanon, and the America, a true united nations
of music. And the instruments were equally diverse, ranging from the
familiar violin and bass to such exotics as the pipa (wooden lute),
santur (zither), bamboo flute, and the Persian drum. Some sat on chairs,
some sat on the floor on carpets. All were entertaining and intent on
carrying out the mission of the Project.

While political statements are not openly part of the parcel, they do
find eloquent reference points for the present and past. For example,
Komitas Vartabed’s somewhat plaintive "Armenian Folk Songs" suggest
dedication to the Armenians who were exterminated, arrested, or deported
in 1915. Iranian Kayhan Kalhor’s commissioned work, "Silent City," with
its somber, meditative beauty and Kurdish themes, attests to the
"nation-less nation" feel Kurds have living in western Iran, eastern
Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. Yet, beyond this, Kalhor suggests that
"Silent City" pays hommage to all who have been destroyed due to human
selfishness.

There were, however, cheerier themes at play. Lebanese composer Rabih
Abou-Khalil’s oddly named "Arabian Waltz," with anything but waltz-like
patterns, was filled with infectious rhythms, jazzy improvisational
moments, and exotic sounds that pulsed and drew the audience thoroughly
under its spell. Similarly was "Turceasca" a wonderfully appealing take
on a traditional Turkish folk song, as rendered by a Romanian gypsy
band. American Lou Harrison’s "Concerto fro Pipa and Strings" was
designed as a showpiece for the pipa and its player, Chinese virtuoso Wu
Man, who literally dazzled with her skill and technique.

Throughout the program, the worldly performers played as one team, no
star treatment here. Yo-Yo Ma was on equal billing with the likes of his
music compatriots-all doing their individual parts to share and
communicate through music the universality of man. The packed house was
readily captivated by the performance. It was ready and willing to be
transported across the sands of time and treated to a musical ride that
was wildly received with standing ovations throughout the evening and
lots of shouts and whistles of approval at the program’s end. One could
not imagine a more upbeat, successful and educational celebration for
the Festival’s 10th year. It bodes well for the season, which runs from
April 26 through June 4 and features an expanded Festival Williamsburg,
May 17-20, and five consecutive days of performances at the Ferguson
Center for the Arts, starting May 31, and concluding with the Festival
Finale, June 4. Without doubt, there’s something for everyone and plenty
of that to go around!

THE EMERGING ALLIANCE BETWEEN TURKEY, AZERBAIJAN AND GEORGIA
By Maria Beat*

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
June 25 2007

When 15 years ago, following the socioeconomic developments in the
region, the six Black Sea states, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia,
Turkey and Ukraine — joined by their neighbors Albania, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Greece and Moldova — established the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation Organization (BSEC), an organization for regional economic
cooperation in the wider Black Sea area, the world at large had a vague
idea about the better part of the newly emerged post-Soviet economies.

Being for some 70 years a part and parcel of the Soviet communist
empire, those countries had national specifics, cultural peculiarities
and natural resources that remained all those years a puzzle to the
world at large.

Back in 1992 the international community had still to discover that
Russian oil or gas could have origins in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or
Turkmenistan. Nevertheless when it did happen, the Caspian region
immediately turned into a focus of international attention and the US
administration announced it a zone of special interest. American energy
experts have quickly come to believe that the landlocked Caspian Sea
holds a projected 3 percent of world’s energy supplies, having 170
billion barrels of crude estimated as the world’s third-largest oil
deposits after the Persian Gulf and Siberia.

Of the Black Sea states Turkey was the only country 15 years ago not
to have passed through the transformation processes experienced by
the former Soviet countries and the European people’s democracies. As
such it became a natural center of an emerging regional integration
to replace the old ties of economic cooperation prevailing in the
Black Sea region in Soviet times. Enjoying an organic bond with the
post-Soviet Turkic republics, Turkey quickly established mutually
beneficial and fiduciary relations with the new states of Central
Asia and the Caucasus.

Though not a country of the southern Caucasus, Turkey for many
centuries has had close historic and cultural ties with the region,
specifically with Azerbaijan and Georgia. Their mutual links of
economic cooperation started actively developing after the Soviet
Union disintegration, and in a short time Turkey became a leading
trading partner both of Azerbaijan and Georgia. In addition Turkey
became greatly interested in the exploration and development of the
Azeri energy resources.

Regional integration gained its first success with the Baku-Supsa
oil pipeline, establishing a route for Azeri crude to the Black Sea
coast, passing through Georgia. The pipeline’s completion proved
to Western companies — who hadn’t been to the region since 1917 —
that Azerbaijan and Georgia could ensure a safe operation of their
regional pipelines regardless of the unresolved conflicts existing
in their territories. That was an important development, since the
accomplishment took away any remaining doubt about the feasibility of
the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) crude oil pipeline
and later on the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) natural gas pipeline.

Further on and in line with that development, Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey had come to an agreement to build a new railroad connecting
Baku with Kars in Turkey via Tbilisi.

In the mid ’90s Turkey offered an innovative solution to build a
1,700-kilometer-long pipeline from Baku through the territory of
Georgia and Turkey, terminating on the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea. The project received a boost with the US administration rendering
its strong support for the BTC’s construction.

Turkey took a part in the BTC pipeline construction through the Turkish
Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), holding a 9 percent participation
stake. The BTC was successfully completed and later inaugurated in
July 2006 to become the longest oil exporting pipeline in the world;
an event of paramount importance for the world community.

For the world at large the BTC commissioning terminated Russia’s
monopoly on crude exports to the West from the post-Soviet democracies,
while ensuring hopes for energy supply diversification.

For Azerbaijan it opened a direct way for selling Azeri crude to
the Western consumers, establishing a southern export route for oil
transportation through Turkey instead of Russia and forming a major
success in the independent development of Azerbaijan. In spring 2007,
following up on the BTC successfully gaining operational capacity,
President Ilham Aliev announced Azerbaijan’s decision to stop using
Russian oil export transportation networks, resorting instead to the
Azeri national system.

No doubt the BTC brings the greatest benefit to Azerbaijan: In a couple
of years it will be pumping up to 80 percent of the oil belonging
to Azerbaijan and originating from the Azeri Chirag-Guneshli oil
fields. Azerbaijan is expected to be collecting about $30 billion
per year in oil revenues, while as transit countries Georgia
will be collecting transit fees of $600 million, and Turkey $1.5
billion. According to the Anatolia news agency, by June 2007, Turkish
revenue from the BTC reached $620 million for the period starting
June 4, 2006.

Turkish-Azeri active cooperation has resulted in a number of
broad-scope initiatives to become transnational projects of paramount
importance. The BTC oil pipeline, to bear a major impact on regional
developments, was followed by the BTE natural gas pipeline that
started in March 2007, bringing gas from the Shah Deniz offshore
Caspian block to northern Turkey.

As a participating partner in the project and when the pipeline
reaches its full operational capacity, Turkey will be receiving 6.6
billion cubic meters of gas annually from Azerbaijan. By the end of
2007 Turkey will receive 3 billion cubic meters at a fixed price of
$120 per thousand cubic meters — half the price of Russian gas —
from Shah Deniz.

The BTC and BTE are the two pet US projects in the Caspian to have
reached success in terms of establishing an alternative export route to
the West from Azerbaijan. Actually, the only two projects — increasing
Russian activity in the Caspian region seems to leave no room there
for any more foreign initiative. Those realized during the past decade
will most probably remain the only Western accomplishments in the
Caspian region for the foreseeable future. At least as long as Russia
is determined to dominate the oil and gas sector of the Caspian region.

Successful construction and commissioning of the BTC and BTE pipeline
projects have further contributed to the regional integration
processes in the wider Black Sea area and given shape to the emerging
politico-strategic integration between Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey. Nevertheless skeptics believe that Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey are not equal partners within their emerging regional alliance.

Azerbaijan’s position is substantially stronger than Georgia’s due to
its possession of the energy resources trans-shipped through Georgia.

Turkey also outweighs Georgia, by means of its terminal on the
Mediterranean coast, while Georgia remains a transit country. Still
it is Georgia that ensures the viability of the projects by allowing
them transit through its territory, be it via pipeline or railroad.

Georgia’s strategic location on the way from the Caucasus to the West
through Turkey is its asset in terms of regional politics.

BSEC, an established institutionalized infrastructure for regional
development, is a natural framework for a successful development of
an emerging alliance of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia. It has become
even more logical in the light of the EU’s increased attention on
the Black Sea area and the EU Black Sea neighborhood policy unveiled
in April. Providing a platform for multilateral cooperation to its
member countries and the only regional institutionalized organization,
BSEC is successfully developing its own relations of cooperation with
the EU. As such it finds itself in a good position to organically
supplement the ongoing integration processes in the Black Sea region.

*Maria Beat is an international journalist and writer who specializes
in the CIS countries. Her email address is [email protected]

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
7 Vazgen Sargsian Street
Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 27.00.03, 27.16.00 (temporary)
Fax: (+374 – 10) 52.48.46 (temporary)
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Website:

January 29, 2007

Heritage Releases Armenian Civil Rights Assessment

Yerevan–The Heritage Party’s press department made public today a report
entitled "Brief Summary of Violations and Obstacles Against the Heritage
Party in 2005 and 2006." The evidentiary materials detailed in the document
bespeak the recent string of unlawful actions which the incumbent regime has
persistently carried out against party members in general and its founder
Raffi K. Hovannisian in particular.

The paper concisely presents the facts as they relate to the illegal locking
down of Heritage’s central headquarters; the unlawful entry into the party’s
database, theft of information therefrom, and the subsequent persecution of
party activists and supportive citizens; the deprivation of Heritage
representatives of their constitutional right to hold basic public
gatherings; defamatory manifestations in the official media and, still more,
the total blackout of Hovannisian, his image, and his word in all television
media; the detention of Hovannisian at Yerevan’s international airport and
the recurring meticulous inspection of his and his children’s personal
effects and papers; and in all matters concerning Heritage and Raffi
Hovannisian, the open bias by law enforcement and the judicial system and
their subservient disregard of the law and the egregious violations
orchestrated by the powers above.

In this light, Heritage:

— affirms that it finds itself, and now enters the pre-election season, in
patently unequal conditions;

— asserts that, because of these unequal conditions maintained in every
way by the incumbent authorities against their opponents, the organization
and conduct of free, fair, and transparent parliamentary and presidential
elections are now in real jeopardy; and

— states that this situation cannot, under any circumstance, be considered
congruent with the constitutional terms for respect of equal political and
civil rights.

"All this clearly calls into question the countless declarations made at
various tribunes, both domestic and international, by the current rulers
that they are interested in the holding of free and fair parliamentary
elections this year," said Heritage board chairman Vardan Khachatrian in
commenting on the release of the 2005-06 report.

The full text of the Heritage assessment can be accessed at

Founded in 2002, Heritage has regional divisions throughout the land. Its
central headquarters are located at 7 Vazgen Sargsian Street, Yerevan 0010,
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543.897, email at [email protected].

November 17, 2006
The Student Newspaper of Rice University
6/11/17/armenian_genocide
November 17, 2006
Armenian genocide must not be denied
Mhair Dekmezian
On April 15, 1915, 250 Armenians, including doctors, bankers,
businessmen and even a member of the parliament, were rounded up in the
Ottoman capital of Constantinople and sent to their executions. This
incident began the final portion of a systematic attempt at the
complete annihilation of the Armenian race by the Turkish rulers of
the Ottoman Empire – an event that is to this day denied by modern
Turkey in addition to an active denial movement.
While the Christian Armenians, having lived in the area for thousands
of years, experienced limited discrimination by the Muslim rulers
over many years, the paranoid Sultan Abdulhamid took this to a new
level, effectively attempting to ban the very existence of the word
“Armenian.” He began in the 1890s with the bloody slaughter of more
than 200,000 Armenians, stopped only after a coup by the Young Turk
regime in 1909. With their promise that “under the blue sky we are
all equal,” most Armenians hoped this would mark a new era.
However, by 1914, the War Office began a propaganda campaign to present
all Armenians as “subversive elements,” justified by actions of two
Armenians leading czarist battalions, as Russia was engaged in war
with the Ottomans.
The actions of a few individuals were used to formulate a fictional,
widespread “revolutionary uprising,” used from that point as a
carte blanche for the destruction of an entire race, guilty only
of being Armenian. From there, entire villages were cleared of men,
women and children, who were often killed brutally on the outskirts
of their towns or “deported” to concentration camps in the Syrian
deserts. Along the way, they were robbed, raped and murdered by
their Ottoman guards. Caves, rivers and fields filled with mutilated
bodies were left in the wake. By the end of the war, about 1.5 million
Armenians were killed.
The historical factuality of these occurrences is not even remotely
in question – there is consensus among modern scholars of all
nationalities.
Countless foreign archives and Turkish documents detail the approval
of these violent massacres of Armenians by their Ottoman rulers. The
New York Times published 145 articles in 1915 alone detailing the
campaign of “systematic race extermination.”
Reports by Henry Morgenthau, U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire, confirmed a systematic, unprovoked slaughter under the
full knowledge and approval of the Young Turk leaders. He detailed
numerous frustrating conversations with Talaat Pasha, Minister
of Interior Affairs, who justified the attacks by saying, “[the
Armenians] innocent today might be guilty tomorrow,” and that he
“accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months
than Abdulhamid accomplished in 30 years.”
There were hundreds of other eyewitness accounts by foreign
missionaries, travelers and diplomats. Several of these witnesses were
Germans – then allied with the Ottomans – and some were Americans,
who were neutral with the Turks. All reports confirm a systematic
plan of annihilation under the guise of deportation. Today, people
only need to look for a few of the numerous mass graves scattered
across eastern Turkey to see with their own eyes the still-present
remnants of these mass killings.
By the end of the war in 1918, Turkish tribunals in Constantinople
convicted hundreds of the leaders of the Young Turk regime – including
in absentia top leaders Talaat, Enver and Djemal Pasha due to their
post-war flight to Berlin – confirming the disaster was a “result of
a premeditated decision taken by a central body . and based on oral
and written orders issued by that body.” However, the rise to power
of Mustafa Kemal Atatuerk, the ultra-nationalist founder of modern
Turkey, caused these trials to fade into obscurity as to present an
image of Turkish unity and independence from the post-war agreements
imposed by the Allied powers. Declaring the post-war treaty requiring
the war crime trials as treasonous, Atatuerk secured the return of
remaining captives awaiting trial through an exchange of prisoners
of war with Britain, several of whom became high-ranking officials
in the new government.
At the time, the term “genocide” had yet to be created: Raphael Lemkin,
a Polish Jew driven by the atrocities committed against the Armenians,
then embarked on his mission to find the word sufficient to describe
the absolute horror of what had occurred.
“I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times,”
he said in a 1949 CBS interview. “First to the Armenians – then after
the Armenians, Hitler took action.” The UN Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted in 1951, far too
late to try the original perpetrators.
Denial of the occurrences of World War I has led to serious
consequences for humanity. In World War II, the Third Reich modeled the
Holocaust after what was observed in Turkey, with Hitler declaring a
week prior to invading Poland, “The aim of war is . to annihilate the
enemy physically. It is by this means that we shall obtain the vital
living space that we need. Who today still speaks of the massacre of
the Armenians?”
Modern Turkey has shown itself unable to implement basic human rights
protections by continually attempting to destroy Kurdish heritage and
culture. Freedom of speech is explicitly banned, with Article 305 of
the Penal Code defining acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide as an
“anti-national plot.” Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk openly spoke of
the atrocities and was subjected to a hate campaign and prosecution
in 2005.
Turkish historian Taner Akcam in 1978 was sentenced to 10 years in
prison for his attempts to contextualize the genocide within Turkish
history.
International relations are also crippled, with most European Union
states demanding massive human rights reforms and genocide recognition
as a precondition for membership. Turkey to this day refuses to
establish diplomatic ties with the Republic of Armenia, despite
President Robert Kocharian’s offer to “establish normal relations”
without any pre-conditions, as only then can the two governments
jointly try to resolve historical issues. The offer still remains
ignored. Until Turkey acknowledges history, it well be impossible
for it to reconcile with the rest of Europe.
Modern day deniers of genocide are also complicit in the act itself.
According to Emory University Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust
Studies Deborah Lipstadt, denial, the final stage of genocide,
“strives to reshape history in order to demonize the victims and
rehabilitate the perpetrators.”
Rather than blindly ignore all factual evidence and scholarly
discussion, I invite genocide deniers to examine the vast body of
evidence themselves.
Visit the local Holocaust Museum for a small view of the continued
horrors that occur as a result of society’s collective inability to
recognize crimes against humanity – not just in the Ottoman Empire,
but throughout the world.
Mhair Dekmezian is a Brown College junior.