Author: Kajoyan Gevork

GRIEVOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR TEGHOUT AND SHNOGH VILLAGES HAVING AGREED TO TEGHOUT MINING PROJECT

12:20 January 30, 2015

EcoLur

The further the more Shnogh and Teghout villages experience grievous
consequences of agreeing to Vallex Company Group for the development
of Teghout copper and molybdenum mine. They are deprived of any
opportunity to survive due to their main activities – agriculture. All
the necessary conditions are eliminated in a hastily manner. The more
Teghout project infrastructure develops, the faster the residents
lose water and land areas. This material has been prepared based on
the publications of the Hetq dedicated to Teghout.

PRESS RELEASE
Date: January 30, 2015

ARMENIAN NATIONAL INSTITUTE
Contact: Press Office
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (202) 383-9009

NEW EXHIBIT `The First Deportation: The German Railroad, the American
Hospital, and the Armenian Genocide’ RELEASED BY ANI, AGMA & Assembly

A Digital Exhibit Based on United States National Archives Photographs

Washington, DC – A third digital exhibit on the Armenian Genocide
consisting of 128 images on 24 panels entitled “The First Deportation: The
German Railroad, the American Hospital, and the Armenian Genocide” was
released today by the Armenian National Institute (ANI), Armenian Genocide
Museum of America (AGMA) and Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly).
Available on the ANI, AGMA, and Assembly websites, the exhibit focuses on
two localities, Zeytun, an Armenian city in the Taurus Mountains, and
Konya, a Turkish city in the central Anatolian plain, both linked by the
Armenian Genocide.

The remote and self-sustaining city of Zeytun was the first Armenian
community in Ottoman Turkey deported en masse in April 1915. To deprive the
Zeytun Armenians of any capacity to defy the deportation edicts, the Young
Turk government divided its population sending one part east toward the
Syrian Desert and another part west to the barren flats of the Konya Plain.

By this fate, the Zeytun deportees were routed down from their mountain
homes through the nearby city of Marash and the Cilician Plain and back up
through the high passes of the Cilician Gates of the Taurus Range, the only
accessible road from Cilicia to Anatolia. This route also placed them along
the Berlin-Bagdad rail line then under construction through those very same
passes.

By intersecting that rail line, Zeytun Armenians soon found themselves
among the rest of the Armenian population of western Anatolia being
deported east by train to the main terminus at Konya and substations
beyond, where they were offloaded from cattle cars to walk down the
mountain passes, while work crews led by German and Swiss engineers were
cutting open new roads and tunnels to complete the construction of the rail
system.

There also happened to be an American hospital in Konya manned by three
outstanding figures who soon found themselves in the midst of hundreds of
thousands of Armenian deportees and as such became witnesses to the
unfolding of the Armenian Genocide. The station at Konya was supposed to
serve only as a transit camp, but with all of the Armenians of western and
central Anatolia routed through the city, the open spaces beyond the
station transformed into a vast concentration camp. Because Konya was never
intended to exist as a destination camp and was evacuated within a short
time, it has been forgotten as a major site in the trail of deportation and
the central object of what transpired there overlooked. It was evident to
all observers in the city how rapidly the Ottoman Turkish government
reduced an industrious and prosperous people to misery. In Konya it was
already visible that all it took was a matter of days, not even weeks.

The testimony provided by Dr. Wilfred Post and Dr. William Dodd, and the
efforts of Miss Emma Cushman, all three American medical missionaries,
provide compelling information about the rapidly deteriorating conditions
along the rail line and the start of the process of extinguishing Armenian
life across the region. Their information is paralleled by the protests of
German civilians in the same area who sharply criticized the Ottoman
authorities and raised questions with their own government about the
morality of German wartime policies.

More compelling still were the photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post and
the German railroad engineers that documented the wartime reality on this
particular swath of Ottoman territory. While as wartime allies of the
Turks, Germans enjoyed a certain amount of liberty in their actions, Dr.
Post took a serious risk in defying the ban on photographing the Armenians.

Retrieved from the United States National Archives, the entire set of
photographs taken by Dr. Wilfred Post are being issued for the first time
in this exhibit. They constitute the central evidence around which the
entire exhibit is constructed.

Dr. Post captioned the photographs, and succeeded in delivering them to the
American Embassy in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, from where they
were sent by diplomatic pouch to Washington, DC. They might have been the
very first images of the Armenian Genocide to arrive into the hands of U.S.
officials. In this regard, the historic value of Dr. Post’s photographs are
matched only by those taken by U.S. consul Leslie Davis who documented the
Armenian Genocide in the region of Harput/Kharpert.

Because of the numbers of Armenians being deported and the pace at which
the western Anatolian cities were emptied of their Armenian inhabitants,
the Konya train station became a choke point in the deportation process.
Vast concentration camps of homeless Armenian families soon formed along
the tracks. The brutality of the process, the complete lack of sanitation,
and the absence of sources of food very rapidly created an explosive
situation threatening the spread of epidemics. Thousands of Armenians never
made it beyond the stations of the Konya line and conditions in the refugee
camps were so foul and violent that a train conductor is quoted by Dr. Dodd
describing the Bozanti station as “hell on earth.”

Consisting of 121 images, 7 maps, and containing a rich variety of
eyewitness testimony, the exhibit reconstructs Armenian life in Zeytun,
reproduces the two rare photographs showing the arrest of the Zeytun men,
outlines the deportation route to the degree that contemporary photographs
allow, depicts the city of Konya, showing the contrast between the rugged
mountains in which Zeytun Armenians were accustomed to living and the flat,
arid, and sparsely populated plain of Konya.

The exhibit includes previously unpublished photographs of Zeytun,
reproduces newly released images from German sources, and, in addition to
the United States National Archives material, presents images from the
Australian War Memorial; University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England,
Gertrude Bell Archives; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum;
Mennonite Church USA Archives; the Armenian Missionary Association of
America and the Haigazian University Archives of Beirut, Lebanon; Library
of Congress; Republic of Armenia National Archives; as well as online
resources and private individuals.

ANI especially recognizes the historian Aram Arkun whose close study of
documentary sources addressed the complex situation surrounding the
denouement in Zeytun and who served as project consultant for the exhibit.
ANI also thanks Gunter Hartnagel, a professional photographer, who provided
valuable guidance on German historical images, and whose researches in
historical geography helped understand the terrain that was covered by the
Zeytun deportees and appreciate the hardships endured by those who trudged
through the mountains of Cilicia at the point of a bayonet.

The location of Konya on the train line also helped to document the
post-war situation in the city. Accompanying a U.S. aid mission and relief
workers, the American photographer George Robert Swain recorded the efforts
of Miss Cushman to create a safe haven for surviving Armenian orphans. In
so doing Swain added another layer of documentation about the fate of the
Armenian population and helped create, in sum with Dr. Post’s pictures, one
of the more comprehensive photographic records of a single location so
directly impacted by the Armenian Genocide.

The final demise of the Armenians of Konya was sealed with the fate of Dr.
Armenag Haigazian who, as a highly-regarded educator, embodied the Armenian
Protestant community’s hope of recovery. He had survived the war years and
the violence of the Young Turk regime, but his restoration of the Apostolic
Institute made him the target of the Turkish Nationalist movement, which
saw to the shuttering of the school and the second exile and persecution of
Dr. Haigazian. World War I may have ended and the Young Turk government
overthrown, but the Armenian Genocide in Turkey continued, making the death
of Dr. Haigazian a most poignant tragedy, especially as he famously held a
doctorate from Yale University.

This third digital exhibit continues and builds upon the themes developed
in the exhibits released earlier, including the role and fate of Armenian
clergy, churches and schools, the role of American missionaries and relief
workers, and the role of Germans in Ottoman Turkey, while distinguishing
between the attitudes of civilian, military, and diplomatic representatives.

The exhibit highlights the unsolvable dilemma faced by the Armenian
Catholicos of Cilicia Sahag II Khabayan, who, unaware of the broader scheme
about to be implemented by the Young Turk regime, advised the Zeytun
population to cooperate with the authorities in the hope of avoiding a
repetition of the Cilician massacres that spread terror across the region a
mere six years earlier. The acts and observations of other clergymen,
including Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Zaven Der Yeghiayan, his
successor Archbishop Mesrob Naroyan, Archbishop Stepannos Hovagimian of
Ismit, Grigoris Balakian, and Reverend William Peet, are also explained as
part of the testimony on this specific aspect of the Armenian Genocide.

The exhibit also highlights the role of an exceptional Ottoman official,
who, as governor of Aleppo and of Konya, opposed the measures of the Young
Turk radicals. Jelal Bey was the highest ranking administrator in the
Ottoman Empire who disapproved of the policies of the triumvirate ruling
from Constantinople. A number of lower ranking officials who disagreed with
the regime were killed by Young Turk party henchmen. Opposing the Young
Turk regime required courage, and Jelal placed his life in jeopardy. He
may have been spared only because of his stature and lifelong service to
the state.

The exhibit also reveals the involvement of a German diplomat, who as an
embassy councilor in Constantinople played a role in maintaining
German-Turkish relations, and as such became among the recipients of the
flow of information being reported about the implementation of the Armenian
Genocide. A lesser official at the time, Konstantin von Neurath rose
through the ranks eventually to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs in
Nazi Germany and as governor of occupied Czechoslovakia, where Reinhard
Heydrich, one of the architects of the Holocaust, served as his deputy.

The exhibit concludes with testimony from Dr. Charles Mahjoubian, a native
of Konya who resettled in Philadelphia and entered the profession of
dentistry. As a survivor, he committed himself to testifying to the events
he witnessed in his hometown. He pointed with pride to his birthplace as
one of the earliest centers of Christianity, dating to St. Paul preaching
in Iconium (ancient name of Konya), and as a center of Turkish Islam where
religious piety restrained the hand of the local population, in sharp
relief to the political fanaticism of the Young Turk regime and the
brutality of its associates. According to Mahjoubian, by a strict reading
of the banishment legislation, Jelal Bey succeeded for a brief while in
delaying the deportation of Catholic and Protestant Armenians.

`The First Deportation: the German Railway, the American Hospital, and the
Armenian Genocide’ strengthens and clarifies the photographic documentation
of the Armenian Genocide in a manner consistent and supportive of third
party records, eyewitness accounts and survivor testimony. It expands the
scope of the evidence and attests to the horrors that unfolded in 1915.

`It did not escape contemporaries that there were immediate lessons to be
drawn from the example of Zeytun,’ observed Van Z. Krikorian, ANI chairman.
`Other communities grasped the methods by which the Young Turk regime
pressurized local politics and aggravated relations among religious and
ethnic groups in order to create conditions to justify the wholesale
depopulation of Armenian towns and cities. Reverend Ephraim Jernazian drew
a direct connection between the failure of the Zeytun Armenians to stand
their ground and the heroic defense of their neighborhood by Urfa
Armenians. Hopeless as their actions might have been at the time, the
Armenians of Urfa made the point that they would not be submitting to
tyranny willingly, nor give up their lives easily to help fulfill the
violent designs of the Young Turks.’

`The clarity of that lesson from the past resonates today with the
necessary defense of Nagorno Karabakh where Armenians yet again a century
later face another enemy whose objective remains their expulsion from their
homeland. The commitment of the Armenians of Artsakh to avoid the fate of
the Western Armenian population was inspired by the tragedies of the
Armenian Genocide and the pledge of survivors to avoid a repeat of such a
calamity,’ concluded Krikorian. `I want to thank Rouben Adalian for
uncovering these valuable records on the Armenian Genocide, and Joe Piatt
and Aline Maksoudian for working with Dr. Adalian in creating this
impressive exhibit,’ Krikorian added.

`Relief workers, educators, missionaries, orphanage administrators, and
other volunteers from the United States played a massive role in relieving
the plight of the survivors,’ stated ANI Director, Dr. Rouben Adalian.
`Many of the longtime American residents of Turkey also witnessed and
reported the deportations and massacres of 1915. Because of the remoteness
of Konya from the other major centers of the Armenian Genocide, Dr. Wilfred
Post, Dr. William Dodd, and Miss Emma Cushman may not have been extended
the recognition they deserve. The compelling evidence of this exhibit now
ranks them among the heroic Americans who helped save lives during the
Armenian Genocide.’

As with the exhibits previously released jointly by ANI, AGMA, and the
Assembly, titled Witness to the Armenian Genocide: Photographs by the
Perpetrators’ German and Austro-Hungarian Allies, and The First Refuge
and the Last Defense: The Armenian Church, Etchmiadzin, and The Armenian
Genocide, “The First Deportation: The German Railroad, the American
Hospital, and the Armenian Genocide,” is also being issued in digital
format for worldwide distribution free of charge on the occasion of the
centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

The digital exhibit “The First Deportation: The German Railroad, The
American Hospital, & The Armenian Genocide” is available online here:

Founded in 1997, the Armenian National Institute (ANI) is a 501(c)(3)
educational charity based in Washington, DC, and is dedicated to the study,
research, and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.

###

NR# 2014-03

Photo Caption 1: Teaching Staff of the Apostolic Institute in Konya.

Photo Caption 2: Ottoman Minister of War Enver at rail station in Taurus
Mountains.

Photo Caption 3: American Hospital in Konya.

Available online at:

ARMENIA: PROBLEM CHILD OF SOUTH CAUCASUS – OPED

Eurasia Review
Feb 3 2015

By Eurasia Review

By Mushvig Mehdiyev*

While many of the countries that formed the Soviet Union have found
peace and stability, this has not been the case in the south Caucasus
where Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

What is it that has prevented the two countries from resolving their
differences and find a solution to the 25-year old conflict? Why is it
that the Minsk Group, established by the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, and that comprises mediators from the U.S.,
France and Russia, have failed to achieve any breakthrough in more
than two decades?

Location and extent of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
(lighter color)

Armenia is the problem child of the South Caucasus. They have
repeatedly blocked the way to a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Close to the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1988, Azerbaijani troops
and Armenian separatists began a bloody war over the Nagorno-Karabakh
region, which is the part of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized
territory. Although the war ended in a truce in 1994, it fueled the
forcible occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh alongside seven other adjacent
Azerbaijani districts, killing dozens and displacing tens of thousands
of ethnic Azerbaijanis.

One reason why solving this dispute is important is because it provides
fuel to keep the fires of discord burning, a situation that may erupt
in open warfare at any moment pulling the rest of the region in a
deadly and disastrous chain of events.

“No one can ignore the simple fact that Armenia is an aggressor nation
that continues to occupy Azerbaijan’s territory, and constitutes a
belligerent threat to peace and security in the entire post-Soviet
region,” said the Hill, a Washington, DC-based newspaper.

Adding to the tension, Armenia’s rulers, its president and military
brass have periodically delivered threats against Azerbaijan.

For instance, on November 8, 2012, in an interview with The Wall
Street Journal, President Serzh Sargsyan said Armenia would strike
Azerbaijan in a disproportionately hard way.

Sargsyan’s regular speeches of intimidating Azerbaijan has become a
tradition, as on November 14, 2010, he threatened a devastating and
decisive air strike on the rival country, evoking not too-distant
memories of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), when Nazi war planes
bombarded parts of Azerbaijan.

Artak Davtyan, a high-ranking Armenian official added: “Armenian
forces can attack military units of the supposed rival with missiles,
as well as its strategic and economic objects at a distance of 300
kilometers and more.”

These words prove Armenia’s clear stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh
dispute – the post-Soviet country opts for constructive attempts
rather than coming with peace-building actions.

Georgia, another country in the South Caucasus region, faces severe
problems caused by Armenia. In the historical Georgian province
of Samtskhe-Javakheti Armenians triggered ethnic tension when they
claimed the regions and provinces belonged to Armenia.

The history of the compact Armenian population in Samtskhe-Javakheti
started 170 years ago, according to the Institute for Central Asian
and Caucasian Studies in Sweden and the Institute of Strategic Studies
of the South Caucasus in Azerbaijan. After winning the 1828-1829 war
against the Ottoman Empire and seizing the Black Sea coast between
the Kuban River and the port of Poti, as well as a large chunk of
Meskheti and Javakheti, Russia started to move Armenians from Turkey
to the Central Caucasus and Georgia in great numbers. The newcomers
who settled in the Akhalkalaki (Javakheti) soon outnumbered all the
local Georgians, says the source.

Since Samtskhe-Javakheti is a transit territory for the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which is called an “official enemy”
by all Armenians, the local Armenians present a potential threat to
the pipeline. Therefore, terrorism and subversion attempts cannot
be completely excluded. The Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, which
ends in Turkey, as well as the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline may also face
the same threats from Armenians.

The investigative institutes claim that today Javakheti is another
delayed action bomb in the South Caucasus region, as the insistent
demands from Armenians for autonomy fuels the region’s instability.

Moreover Yerevan is also very active behind the scenes, even resorting
to issuing threats and warning Georgia if it engages in acts of
violence against the Armenian political movements in Javakheti,
it will not remain impartial to the fate of its fellow countrymen
living in the region.

Meanwhile, the religious elite of Armenia have very recently urged
Georgia to return hundreds of Georgian Orthodox churches to Armenian
control. The Armenian side filed a claim against its neighbor demanding
for restoration of its ownership over 442 churches in the territory
of Georgia.

One of the churches, Zugdidi, has supposedly been built in in 70-80s
of the XVIII century, according to the Armenian historians and
scholars. But the scholars in Georgia claim that a documentary fact
proves that until the abolition of the Georgian statehood in 1801,
it has been strictly forbidden for the Armenians to build their
churches in the country’s territory.

* Mushvig Mehdiyev is a journalist at the Baku-based AzerNews
newspaper, and is engaged in developing regular analytical articles
about the South Caucasus region.

GUEST PIANIST JOINS SYMPHONY FOR EVENING OF ROMANCE

The Roanoke Star, VA
Feb 3 2015

The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming masterworks concert
features Armenian-American pianist Tanya Gabrielian, who will perform
Tchaikovsky’s romantic and inspiring first piano concerto, along with
pieces from Mozart and Ralph Vaughn Williams.

The program is set for 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 17 and is presented by the
Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech. It will be held in the Anne and
Ellen Fife Theatre, located within the Moss Arts Center’s Street and
Davis Performance Hall at 190 Alumni Mall.

Guest soloist Gabrielian has performed around the world and rose to
international acclaim after receiving first prizes in the Scottish
International Piano Competition and the Aram Khachaturyan International
Piano Competition, as well as the Pro Musicis International Award.

Gabrielian will join the orchestra, which is led by music director and
conductor David Stewart Wiley, for an evening of music that includes
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, in B-flat Minor, op. 23; Mozart’s
Symphony No. 36 in C, “Linz;” and Vaughn Williams’ “Fantasia on a
Theme by Thomas Tallis.”

Tchaikovsky’s work epitomizes the romantic piano concerto. It was the
first Russian piano concerto to enter the standard concert repertoire,
and it has remained one of the most popular concertos ever written.

The program is supported in part by a touring grant from the Virginia
Commission for the Arts.

Tickets can be purchased online; at the Moss Arts Center’s box office,
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on
Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300.

AMAL CLOONEY SHOWS OFF HER ‘EDE & RAVENSCROFT’ IN COURT

International Business Times AU, Australia
Feb 4 2015

By Barnali on February 04 2015 5:22 AM

The high profile human rights lawyer and Ms George Clooney with her
impeccable fashion sense had already made a name for herself in her
profession. Now, she is making waves as a fashionista on the red
carpet as well as in the courtroom, according to E Online.

At the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, a correspondent
made a joke at her expense, saying that she was “expected to turn up
in a Versace.” Pointing at her gown or robe and collar bands, Amal
Clooney said she was wearing Ede & Ravenscroft. “I’m wearing Ede &
Ravenscroft,” she said to the reporter, taking the joke very well
in her stride and laughing it off. For those who are not familiar
with the name, the London firm of tailors has been in the business
of making gowns for lawyers and other legal stuff since 1689.

Amal words went down very well on Twitter, where fans praised her for
the way she was able to handle her celebrity status, after getting
married to George Clooney. Later the journalist, who posed the
question, was forced to respond to the hype by writing an article
on it. Meanwhile, Geoffery Robertson, Amal’s senior, was visibly
pleased that the case would now shift focus from her private life to
her professional life as an attorney.

Amal is fighting a genocide denial case against a Turkish politician.

He was convicted for denying the massacre of 1915 that according
to estimates killed 1.5 million Armenians. The politician was found
guilty by a Swiss court in 2008 after he said that the killings were
an “international lie.” European Court of Human Rights, however,
gave a verdict in his favour.

Meanwhile, Clooney was recently spotted at the airport, donning a
red leather coat, on her way to the court. She is a barrister with
the London chamber, specialising in human rights, international law
and extradition. She is fluent in three languages English, French and
Arabic. Clooney is famous for representing Wikileaks founder Juilian
Assnge and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Apart from being a well-known lawyer, she is now in the public eye
for marrying actor, director, George Clooney in 2014. She had advised
Greece last year on how to get back the disputed statues named ‘Elgin
Marbles’ from Britain.

STEPANAKERT: JOURNALISTS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES VISITED KARABAKH ONLY AFTER GETTING AN OFFICIAL PERMISSION

by Ashot Safaryan

Monday, February 2, 18:13

Journalists of the New York Times visited Karabakh only after getting
an official permission of Stepanakert, press-secretary of the NKR
president, David Babayan, told Arminfo correspondent.

APA news agency has disseminated the information saying that
Azerbaijani MFA said that the New York Times representatives
visited Karabakh in compliance with Azerbaijan’s laws. They were
provided with the appropriate press accreditation cards issued by the
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. Complying with the laws of the Republic
of Azerbaijan, the representatives of the New York Times with the aim
of making reportage on Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict have paid a visit
to the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan by Armenia.

“The New York Times has informed the Republic of Azerbaijan in advance
about the visit intention and its representatives have obtained visas
for entering into the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan and they
were provided with the appropriate press accreditation cards issued
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan”,
– Azerbaijani MFA reported.

Actually, as Babayan said, a year ago the New York Times applied
to the official Stepanakert with a relevant request, and the latter
allowed journalists to arrive in the NKR. At the same time, the New
York Times sent a letter to Azerbaijani MFA with a same request. After
that, representatives of the NKR abandoned the journalists’s visit
making them understand that by applying to Baku with such a request
they violated the NKR legislation that regulates the process of access
the territory of the republic. “A year has passed and representatives
of the New York Times have again applied to Stepanakert, and this
time without applying to Baku. And the problem has been settled. In
this context, the publications in Azerbaijani mass media do not meet
reality and are false”, – press-secretary of the NKR president said.

PEACE INSTEAD OF NATO

02.02.2015

By CURRENT CONCERNS
28 JANUARY 2015
By Oskar Lafontaine, Current Concerns, No. 2/2015

For the vast majority of the population of the former Federal
Republic, NATO has been the guarantor of peace and freedom for a long
time. Anti-communism, fuelled by the fear of the Soviet Union operated
by the world revolution, the Berlin Blockade and the construction of
the Berlin Wall left little room to think about alternatives to NATO.

But in 1965 at the latest, when US President Lyndon B. Johnson
bombed North Vietnam and deployed more and more ground troops to
South Vietnam, a discussion about the policy and objectives of the
Western power started especially in the universities. The military
infrastructure of NATO, which has always been a US military structure
in its core, brought about Germany’s involvement in every US war like
that of other states’, which were integrated into it. That has not
changed until today. In his book “The Grand Chessboard” former security
adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, commented this dependence
as follows: “The brutal fact is that Western Europe and increasingly
also Central Europe, remains largely an American protectorate, with
its allied states reminiscent of ancient vassals and tributaries.”

The prevailing view, according to which Gerhard Schroder did not
participate in the Iraq war of George W. Bush is not the whole truth.

This war was also fought from US facilities in Germany. If Saddam
Hussein had been equipped with long range missiles, he would have been
entitled to attack US facilities like the German Ramstein Air Base.

As in the 80s, the peace movement took a stance against the
establishment of further nuclear missiles in East and West, the
calls for a withdrawal from the military infrastructure of NATO
became popular. Germany’s participation in the war in Afghanistan and
NATO’s eastward enlargement as a major cause of the Ukraine crisis
are meanwhile also discussed among politicians of the conservative
spectrum and raise the question whether a longer stay of Germany in
the NATO, may increasingly be setting the security of the Federal
Republic of Germany at risk. The so-called war on terror led by the
United States is a terrorist breeding programme and increases the
risk of terrorist attacks in Germany, as the former CDU MP Jurgen
Todenhofer properly analysed the situation.

Already in 2007, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated:
“For the peace of the world, today there is much less risk emanating
from Russia than from America. (!) Even if America’s hegemony will
endure for a long future, the European nations have nevertheless to
maintain their dignity. (!) The dignity is based on our adherence to
the responsibility of our own conscience.”

On 13 December 2014, at the occasion of the demonstration called the
“Friedenswinter” in Berlin, in front of the Federal President’s office,
the theologian Eugen Drewermann said: “NATO is the most aggressive
alliance of all times.”

So peace instead of NATO!

But if NATO will be resolved like the Warsaw Pact, then what? The Left
Party knows that the change of military alliances is not a sufficient
condition to keep peace. Foreign politics was and is fighting for
resources and markets. Euphemistic speeches about human rights,
democracy and free market economy cannot change this fact. The famous
phrase of Jean Jaurès “Capitalism carries war within itself like a
cloud carries rain” has been confirmed in recent decades over and over
again. As the battle for raw materials and markets is also discharged
by military action, such as the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya
have shown, Pope Francis comes to the conclusion: “We are in the
middle of the third world war, but in a war of instalments. There
are economies that must wage war in order to survive. Therefore,
they produce and sell weapons.”

Since for the Left, capitalism and democracy are incompatible with each
other, it knows that to build a democratic society with a different
economic order is essential. Another democratic economic order would
also change the present power structure of the world, in which the
US global dominance has reached an unprecedented scale.

Interestingly, this basic policy approach of the Left concerning
insurance for peacekeeping is also shared by US policy hardliners.

Brzezinski writes in the above-mentioned book “The Grand Chessboard”:

“Never before has a populist democracy attained international
supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands
popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge
to the public’s sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial
(that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even
among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to
democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”

This is the same idea that Immanuel Kant formulated in his essay
about “Perpetual Peace”. He demanded a republican constitution for
all states so that citizens would then be empowered to decide for
themselves whether or not there was to be war. They would have to
decide on “bringing all the calamities of war upon themselves”.

Translated to the current situation, this means that we would not be
involved in the Afghanistan war if the population had voted on it or
if politicians and journalists favourable to wars of intervention had
been exposed to the trials and tribulations of the war in Afghanistan
themselves.

Prerequisite for a structurally peaceful world is the development of
a truly democratic society, i.e. of an economic order that prevents
large amounts of capital leading to an accumulation of power, because
it leaves the capital to those who earn it by their labour.

But the Left cannot let itself be contented with this statement alone.

Even in this day and age and given the current social and power
structures, answers must be found. This brings a possible participation
of the Left in a Federal Government into focus. The mainstream media
and the regime parties SPD (Social Democrats) and The Greens look
upon the willingness of the Left to engage in wars of intervention
as a requirement for a common government. Should they hold on to this
condition, there can be no red-red-green government.

The years of bombardment have led to a certain degree of discomfiture
of several elected representatives of the Left and have caused them to
pass some comments which have given rise to annoyances and confusion.

Although the ban on arms exports had been a central promise of the
Lefts’ last federal election campaign, some members of the Left called
for arms sales to the Kurds to fight the IS. An elected representative
working to abolish a key campaign promise behaves like the system
parties and contributes to the continuous increase of abstentionism.

The political key mistake of this proposal, however, is that the demand
for arms sales to the Kurds means to submit to the US imperialism’s
logic of war. It is an open secret that US policy has the oil wells
in the Kurdish region in mind, and by means of destabilization of
the Middle East is working towards political structures that will
guarantee the exploitation of oil reserves by Western corporations.

Of similar quality was the attempt made by some members of the Left
to blue-pencil the call for Germany’s resignation from the military
infrastructure of NATO, i.e. the US, from the Left Party’s programme
for the European elections. Those who had made this proposal were
disregarding the fact that with this, they are in favour of maintaining
a US infrastructure on German soil, from where, amongst other things,
the United States’ drone war with its thousands of dead is being
controlled.

In the coming years the Left must make it absolutely clear that the
condition sine qua non of their participation in a federal government
is a foreign policy that withdraws from the military escalation for
which US imperialism is responsible. In its basic programme, the Left
calls for the conversion of NATO into a collective defense alliance
involving Russia. This is a rejection of the unilateral eastward
enlargement of NATO, which is a breach of the West’s promise and has
led to the current crisis in Ukraine. The following requirements are
a prerequisite for this security concept, which will overcome Cold
War structures and which was also advocated by the SPD (the Social
Democrats) for many years:

1. Merkel’s policy towards Russia must be replaced by an Eastern policy
of detente which is based on Willy Brandt’s successful foreign policy.

2. A federal government in which the Left participates will not
agree to Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO or any other states’ adjacent
to Russia.

3. A federal government in which the Left participates will reject the
stationing of NATO troop formations on the western border of Russia.

Moreover, our terms and conditions remain the same. The “Bundeswehr”
(German army) must not participate in military interventions abroad,
and arms exports to areas of tension are to be stopped immediately.

This list of demands is, of course, not exhaustive. So for instance
we must set about the construction of a Willy-Brandtcorps for disaster
relief and disease control.

It remains crucial that participation of The Left in a federal
government is only justifiable if the German foreign policy undergoes
a fundamental reorientation after the failures in Afghanistan, in
Ukraine and in Europe.

Source: “Junge Welt” of 8 January 2015,

(Translation Current Concerns )

Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician who served in the government
of Germany as Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999. Previously he
was Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and
he was also Chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 1995 to 1999.

>From 2007 to 2010, Lafontaine was co-chairman of The Left. He resigned
from federal political functions in January 2010.

GNDEVAZ VILLAGERS ADDRESSED OPEN LETTER TO OSCE AMBASSADOR ON AMULSAR

12:25 February 02, 2015

EcoLur

A group of Gndevaz Villagers, Vayots Dzor, has addressed an open letter
to the OSCE Ambassador Andrey Sorokin in regard with Amulsar project,
which says, “Dear Ambassador

“Lydian International” Company intends to mine gold in the area
adjacent to our community called Amulsar. The company intends to carry
out open pit mining and heap leaching for ore processing, which is
the most hazardous method for human health and environment. The heap
leach plant, under the project, will be located in Gndevaz community.

As there are disagreements with project both within our community and
between neighboring communities, the World Bank – a shareholder to
“Lydian International” Company, want to hold public discussions with
Gndevaz villagers on the hazards of the abovementioned mining project.

Nevertheless, our community doesn’t have experienced experts in mining,
who can submit subject-matter substantiations on geology, geochemistry,
legal and other issues.

Taking into consideration within its authorities the OSCE has been
carried out activities of environmental protection in Armenia for many
years and has sufficient experience and professional potential, we
would like to ask you to support us with specialists to get independent
opinion on probable damage to be caused to Gndevaz village, as well
as other communities and Lake Sevan by Amulsar mining project. Your
support is very important and urgent for us, as public discussions
are planned to be held with the World Bank experts in February.”

CONDEMNING VIOLENCE OVER JOURNALISTS AND PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES – VIDEO

15:28 February 02, 2015

EcoLur

EcoLur is condemning the violence over the journalists and public
representatives, which “law enforcement bodies” exercised in
Syunik-Artsakh borderline on 31 January.

We are calling for our authorities to perform their functions and to
protect the citizens of Armenia, journalists and their constitutional
rights in and beyond Armenia.

Reminder: on 31 January the Members of the Founding Parliament
were stopped by police troops on the Goris-Stepanakert highway
near Berdzor during the action organized by Founding Parliament’s
“Centennial without the Regime” movement. Former commander of Shushi
special battalion and Artsakh Defense Army Brigade Commander, Jirayr
Sefilian, and several other participants of the action, including
reporters and war veterans, were severely beaten up and hospitalized
as a result of police beating on Saturday.

WHAT TURNED ERDOGAN AGAINST THE WEST?

TURKEY PULSE

Turkce okuyun

TURKÄ°YE’NÄ°N NABZI

________________________________

Supporters hold up a portrait of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan while waving Turkish and Justice and Development Party (AKP)
flags during an election rally in Istanbul, March 23, 2014. (photo
by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

As any Turkey watcher would easily confirm, hostility to the West has
increasingly marked the rhetoric of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his
ruling Justice and Development (AKP) and pro-government media in the
past two years. Especially since the Gezi Park protests in June 2013,
the narrative of Erdogan and his entourage has revolved around Western
“conspiracies” and a “national will” that is bravely fighting them.

Summaryâ~N~Y Print The Turkish ruling party’s fast-rising anti-Western
rhetoric may be a reaction to Western “meddling in our domestic
affairs” rather than opposition to the West’s “imperialist” foreign
policy.

Author Mustafa AkyolPosted February 2, 2015 TranslatorSibel Utku Bila

Yet for those familiar with the AKP’s 14-year history, this may
have come as a surprising turn. When the AKP was created in 2001,
hostility to the West was not something with which it identified
itself. On the contrary, party founders claimed to have disowned the
Islamist, anti-Western “National View” tradition from which they
came. Likewise, in the first years after the AKP came to power in
2002, Westernization (i.e., integration with the European Union) was
the party’s prime objective. Back then, Europe was the source not of
treacherous conspiracies that had to be thwarted, but of democratic
criteria that had to be embraced.

Not surprisingly, the fiercest opposition to the AKP during that
period from 2002 to 2010 was mounted by the anti-Western breed of
Turkish secularists, known as neonationalists. This quarter — whose
slogan is “Neither the US nor the EU, but a fully independent Turkey”
— accused Erdogan’s government of “selling Turkey out to imperialism.”

In 2007, one of Turkey’s best-selling books was nonsense titled “Moses’
Children,” which declared Erdogan to be a “crypto-Jew” colluding with
the Elders of Zion. In the same era, the argument that Turkey should
move closer to Russia instead of the EU was promoted by neonationalist
generals, who would be implicated in the alleged Ergenekon coup plot
to overthrow the AKP.

So, what happened that things turned upside down in the past two
years? Why is the cry for a “fully independent Turkey” coming from AKP
quarters now? Why is a paranoia of “Jewish agents” seeking to undermine
Turkey being fueled by the pro-government press and social media?

Government quarters will likely answer these questions along those
lines: “The West is aggressive against Muslims. Palestine is bleeding.

Muslim blood is flowing in Syria. Egypt’s legitimate Islamist
government was overthrown in a bloody coup. The West is responsible
for all these and standing up against Western imperialism is our
justified reaction.”

This answer, however, is unconvincing for a plenty of reasons. Here
are some of them:

If “Western imperialist aggression against the Muslim world” is the
problem, then the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was its most tangible
example during the AKP’s rule. The invasion, however, did not turn the
AKP against the West. In fact, Erdogan, who was party leader but not
yet prime minister at the time, was eager to join the United States
in the war, but failed to persuade then-Prime Minister Abdullah Gul
and his party’s parliamentary group.

If the Syrian civil war is the key problem of the past several years,
how it leads to blaming the West is equally hard to comprehend. For
if the AKP is to be angry with someone because of its aversion to
Bashar al-Assad’s regime, this should be Vladimir Putin’s Russia,
Assad’s leading supporter. Yet, sympathy is the only sentiment for
Putin that one comes across in pro-government media. Erdogan’s angry
tirades against the international community never target Putin,
either. (AKP quarters seem also untroubled by Putin’s annexation of
Ukrainian territory, which has ruffled the Muslim Crimean Tatars).

When it comes to the military coup in Egypt, which truly unsettled the
AKP grassroots, it should have spawned reactions first and foremost
against Saudi Arabia, the most straightforward, resolute and powerful
supporter of coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Again, though, we
have heard no tirades from Erdogan blasting the Saudi monarchy. On
the contrary, last week we had a day of national mourning after King
Abdullah’s death.

In short, the strong anti-Western sentiment in the AKP world is hard
to explain with — or at least only with — the West’s “imperialist”
foreign policy. What could be the actual reason, then?

In my view, it’s the West’s continuous meddling in “our domestic
affairs.” In the past several years, not a month has passed without
a Western think tank issuing a report criticizing the state of press
freedom or judicial independence in Turkey. Western media are awash
with commentaries of a Turkey “moving toward authoritarianism.” The
EU’s progress reports warn of “regression” on democratic norms.

Washington often voices “concern” over the state of freedoms in Turkey.

Russia, on the other hand, never meddles in “our domestic affairs.”

Moreover, Putin — himself under Western fire over Russia’s grave
record on freedoms — praises Erdogan as a “tough man.” Erdogan’s
chief adviser, Yigit Bulut, in return, describes Putin and Erdogan
as the world’s “two greatest leaders” today.

But then here is another question: The West was similarly meddling
in “our domestic affairs” a decade ago as well. Why was Erdogan not
angry at the West at the time?

The answer is not that hard to find. A decade ago, the real power in
Turkey did not rest with Erdogan, but with the Kemalist establishment,
represented by the military and the judiciary. Erdogan was in fact
under the threat of their iron fist. Hence, the West’s meddling in
“our domestic affairs” and its pressure on Turkey to abide by European
norms was playing into Erdogan’s hands.

In 2008, for instance, the European Commission’s then-president Manuel
Barroso visited Turkey after a court case was opened to outlaw the
AKP. He urged the Turkish judiciary to respect the “Venice Criteria,”
which would rule out party closures merely based on ideology. It was
hard-core secularists keen to see the AKP banned who denounced this
“imperialist” meddling, while AKP members seemed quite happy with it.

Starting from 2010, the AKP subdued the old Kemalist establishment
and laid hands on “full power.” With its newly found self-confidence,
the party went back to its own ideological agenda. Its intimidating
response to reactions from Turkish society served only to intensify
those reactions. Growing political tensions dragged the AKP into
a sharp us-versus-them rhetoric, in which the West morphed into a
diabolical force behind “the enemies within” — such as secularists,
liberals and, especially, the Gulenists.

In sum, it’s not the West, but rather the AKP that has dramatically
changed since 2002. (If any key change took place in the West, the
United States has shifted in a positive sense, moving from Bush’s
aggressiveness to Obama’s moderation). The fundamental change was
Erdogan attaining “absolute power.” He refuses to tolerate any limits
imposed on his power by the international community and the liberal
values it promotes, hence he yearns for a “fully independent” Turkey.

In response to criticisms over press freedoms, for example, Erdogan
today tells the EU “to mind its own business.”

None of these mean that all Western criticism toward Erdogan and
his government is justified. Some in the Western media have used a
prejudiced tone against Ankara, driven by ideological bias against
“Islamists,” or as a reaction to Erdogan’s conspiratorial narrative.

There is also no doubt that the Western foreign policy has no shortage
of hypocrisy. Washington’s unconditional defense of Israel or leniency
for the coup in Egypt, for instance, deserve lots of criticism.

Moreover, some Western fiats on Turkey could be really driven by mere
interests, and resisting those fiats is certainly a rightful stance.

Yet still, none of these reasons fully explains, let alone justifies,
the categorical anti-Western rhetoric we hear from Turkey’s ruling
elite today. The real explanation, I think, is their rejection of
Western-style liberal democracy in favor of a self-styled authoritarian
democracy. It is no coincidence that Hungary’s anti-EU leader Victor
Orban agrees, for now he applauds Turkey, along with Putin’s Russia,
as a good model for “illiberal democracy.”

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