Author: Kajoyan Gevork

STATEMENT: POLICE AND CRIMINALS EXERT PRESSURE ON FAMILIES AND FRIENDS OF THE ACTIVISTS PICKETING THE YEREVAN MUNICIPALITY

by Ashot Safaryan

Wednesday, August 21, 12:12

The activists picketing the Yerevan Municipality building have declared
in a statement that force structures, criminals and statesmen try to
exert pressure on them, their relatives and friends.

“We are determined to fight till the end to achieve our goals. Nothing
will change our stance, even the attempts of pressure on our parents
and relatives. We condemn such methods. We will get the names of
those who exert pressure on us and interfere with our lives to be
exposed and made public,” the activists say in the statement.

“Guided with laws and methods of peaceful fight, we pursue dismissal
of the officials who violated the law and use illegal methods in their
activity,” the activists say. The statement was signed by activists
Vahagn Minasyan, Suren Sahakyan, and Gor Arakelyan.

To recall, the activists demand the Municipality to cancel its decision
to increase the public transport fare and dismiss Henrikh Navasardyan,
Head of the Municipal Transport Department, and Misak Hambartsoubnyan,
Head of Yerevantrans Company.

HEATED CLASH ERUPTS IN YEREVAN DISTRICT

12:15 21.08.13

Several residents of Yerevan’s Arabkir district came Wednesday morning
into a heated clash with the police who have cordoned off a development
square, leaving workers inside.

Tigran Khzmalyan, a film director and civic activist who contacted
Tert.am to report on the incident, said women on the site were trying
to break their way into the territory resisting the police. Loud
noise was being heard at the moment the activist was talking to our
correspondent.

It is now the fourth year the population of three residential buildings
in Komitas street have been protesting against the construction of
a multi-storey apartment block. The development company Liber is
responsible for the construction project.

Armenian News – Tert.am

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Studies Program
California State University, Fresno
Contact: Barlow Der Mugrdechian, 559-278-4930
ASP Office: 559-278-2669
Fax: 559-278-2129
Email: [email protected]

Visit the Armenian Studies Program Web Page at

Ara Sarafian to Speak on `The Armenians of Bitlis’

Ara Sarafian of the Gomidas Institute (London) will present an
illustrated lecture `A Hundred Years Ago… The Armenians of Bitlis’
at 7:30 PM on Thursday, September 5, 2013, in the Industrial
Technology Building, Room 101, at the South-East corner of Barstow and
Campus Drive, on the Fresno State campus.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Armenian Studies Program, the
Armenian Students Organization of Fresno State, and the Leon S. Peters
Foundation.

Bitlis was one of the great centers of Armenian civilization, with a
unique identity of its own. Armenians lived in this mountainous
region, in towns and villages with schools, churches, and
monasteries. Today, very little remains of the Armenian past. Most of
it was destroyed in the Armenian Genocide and the anti-Armenian
policies of the Turkish republic.

In this talk, `The Armenians of Bitlis,’ historian Ara Sarafian will
present a historical-and a contemporary-view of the Armenian presence
in Bitlis before 1915. His power-point presentation will draw on a
critical set of Ottoman, Armenian, and Russian sources from 1880 to
1915, as well as his latest trip to the region.

`The Armenians of Bitlis’ is part of a broader bridge building project
which the Gomidas Institute launched in Bitlis this year. The project
has already benefited from the support of many Kurds and Turks and
will lead to a public exhibition in Bitlis next year.

The lecture will end with the release of Thomas Mugerditchian’s, The
Diyarbekir Massacres and Kurdish Atrocities , (Gomidas Institute,
2013).

Ara Sarafian is an archival historian specializing on late Ottoman
history. He is the director of the Gomidas Institute, which is a
leading research and publication center related to modern Armenian
history.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking will be available
in Lots Q, K, and L the night of the lecture. Make sure to use parking
code 273401 to receive a free parking pass.

For more information on the lecture please contact the Armenian
Studies Program at 278-2669.

COLLECTIF VAN : L’EPHEMERIDE DU 21 AOUT

Publié le : 21-08-2013

Info Collectif VAN – – La rubrique “Ephéméride”
du Collectif VAN a été lancée le 6 décembre 2010. Elle recense
la liste d’événements survenus a une date donnée, a différentes
époques de l’Histoire, sur les thématiques que l’association suit au
quotidien. L’éphéméride du Collectif VAN repose sur des informations
en ligne sur de nombreux sites (les sources sont spécifiées sous
chaque entrée). Vous pouvez retrouver tous les éphémérides du
Collectif VAN dans la Rubrique Actions VAN, en cliquant sur ces liens:

Les éphémérides du Collectif VAN (1ère partie)

Les éphémérides du Collectif VAN (2ème partie)

Légende photo : 21 aoÔt 1942 — Au cours d’une Aktion sur une grande
échelle, déclenchée par les nazis a Minsk-Mazoviecki (Pologne),
où vivent 6 000 juifs, 1 000 d’entre eux sont fusillés par les SS
et environ 4 000 déportés au camp d’extermination de Treblinka,
où ils sont tués.

Ca s’est passé un 21 aoÔt (les événements sont classés du plus
ancien au plus récent) :

21 aoÔt 1321 — Accusés d’avoir empoisonné les puits afin de
provoquer une épidémie, tous les membres de la communauté juive de
la ville de Chinon, dans le centre de la France, soit 160 âmes, sont
brÔlés sur un bÔcher édifié sur une île hors de la ville. Des
siècles plus tard, l’endroit portait encore le nom d’ ” île des
Juifs ”.

Israelvivra.com

21 aoÔt 1914 — Empire ottoman : les 450 a 500 Arméniens de Malatia
et des environs qui se trouvaient parmi les hommes expédiés sur
le front a Garine, privés du droit de porter des armes, furent
enrôlés comme soldats ouvriers (amele tabouri) destinés a la
réfection des routes ou des bâtiments, soumis a des traitements
sévères, mal nourris, certains devant mourir du typhus. Ã~@
partir du 20 février 1915, furent appelés les hommes de 35 a 45
ans. L’arrivée des réfugiés kurdes sera l’occasion d’assujettir les
soldats arméniens a une surveillance accrue. Beaucoup désertaient en
raison des humiliations subies, malgré les risques qu’ils encouraient
pour eux-mêmes et pour ceux qui les protégeaient.

Le petit encyclopédie du génocide arménien : Les massacres et les
souffrances des Arméniens de Malatia

21 aoÔt 1915 — Empire ottoman/Konya : 3 000 Arméniens de la ville
sont déportés en un convoi vers la Syrie, sur ordre de Ferid bey,
surnommé Hamal Ferid, secrétaire-responsable du CUP a Konya.

*** (Kévorkian, 2006 :712).

Mass violence : Chronologie de l’extermination des Arméniens de
l’Empire ottoman par le régime jeune-turc (1915-1916)

21 aoÔt 1915 — La fuite au Caucase. Télégrammes adressés
au journal arménien ” Horizon ” de Tiflis par Mr. Samsoun
Haroutiounian, président du Bureau National Arménien de Tiflis,
qui alla en personne au-devant des réfugiés.

Télégramme d’Erivan, 21 aoÔt 1915 : “Le courant des fugitifs
continue, mais moins intensivement a l’heure qu’il est ; plus de 35.000
réfugiés sont concentrés a Etchmiadzine et 20.000 a Erivan. Malgré
le zèle dont sont animés le Comité de secours d’Etchmiadzine sous
la présidence du prélat Bagrad et les comités nationaux de Tiflis
et de Moscou avec leurs nombreux comités auxiliaires, la situation
est extraordinairement douloureuse ; il n’y a pas de pain en quantité
suffisante, ni nourriture chaude, ni secours médicaux. La majeure
partie des réfugiés sont malades. A Etchmiadzine et a Erivan sont
installés quelques hôpitaux où se trouvent environ 1.000 malades,
cependant nombre de réfugiés gravement atteints sont couchés sous
les murs, dans les cours et même dans les rues. Ils souffrent de
la dysenterie. Le nombre des décès est énorme : avant-hier l’on
a enterré 103 personnes et hier 80 a Etchmiadzine”.

Imprescriptible : Le livre bleu du gouvernement britannique concernant
le traitement des Arméniens dans l’Empire ottoman

21 aoÔt 1941 — Le romancier et dramaturge roumain Mihail Sebastian
tenait un journal qui nous est parvenu. Le 21 aoÔt 1941 il noteâ~@~I:
”â~@~IDéjeuner chez Alice, avec Vicky Hillard, lieutenant de
cavalerie [roumain], rentré hier du front d’Ukraine. Beaucoup [de
détails] concernaient les massacres de Juifs sur les deux rives du
Dniestr. Des dizaines, des centaines, des milliers de Juifs passés
par les armes.

Lui, un simple lieutenant aurait pu en tuer ou donner l’ordre d’en
tuer n’importe quel nombre. Le chauffeur qui l’a ramené a Iasi en
a abattu quatre.â~@~I” PHDN : L’extermination au jour le jour dans
les documents contemporains

21 aoÔt 1941 — Les 2 500 juifs de Czyzev (district de Varsovie)
sont conduits hors du ghetto pour être assassinés.

Israelvivra.com

21 aoÔt 1942 — Lors d’une Aktion de deux jours, 320 juifs sont
assassinés par les nazis a Krasnodar (R.S.S. d’Ukraine).

1 008 internés juifs sont déportés dans des wagons a bestiaux du
camp de regroupement de Westerbork au camp d’extermination d’Auschwitz.

4 000 juifs du ghetto de Turka (district de Lvov, R.S.S. d’Ukraine)
et 800 juifs du village de Goray (Pologne) sont déportés par les
SS au camp d’extermination de Belzec.

Un convoi dans lequel s’entassent 1 000 juifs, hommes et femmes,
quitte le camp de regroupement de Drancy (France) pour le camp
d’extermination d’Auschwitz, où 892 déportés sont aussitôt
gazés. 7 hommes seulement survivront aux atrocités du camp jusqu’a
sa libération par l’armée soviétique, en 1945.

Au cours de la liquidation du ghetto de Wieruszow (district de Wielun,
Pologne), 80 juifs sont fusillés par la police.

Au cours d’une Aktion sur une grande échelle, déclenchée par les
nazis a Minsk-Mazoviecki (Pologne), où vivent 6 000 juifs, 1 000
d’entre eux sont fusillés par les SS et environ 4 000 déportés au
camp d’extermination de Treblinka, où ils sont tués.

Des juifs habitaient la ville depuis le XVe siècle.

Israelvivra.com

21 aoÔt 1994 — Rwanda : un mois et demi après la fin du génocide
qui a frappé les Tutsis, les derniers soldats francais stationnés
au Rwanda sont évacués dans le cadre de l’opération Turquoise.

Nouvel Obs : L’éphéméride du mardi 21 aoÔt 2012

21 aoÔt 1998 — La baronne Caroline Cox, porte-parole adjoint de
la Chambre des Lords s’est rendu en Arménie pour la 38ème fois. Au
cours d’une conférence de presse a Erevan, elle a annoncé qu’elle
allait soulever la question du génocide arménien avec le gouvernement
britannique.

American University of Armenia : This day in Armenian history

21 aoÔt 2006 — Ouverture du deuxième procès de Saddam Hussein.

L’ex-président irakien comparaît avec six co-accusés devant le
Tribunal spécial irakien (TSI), présidé par le juge Abdallah
al-Ameri, pour avoir ordonné les campagnes de répression Anfal en
1987-1988 contre le Kurdistan. Ces campagnes militaires auraient fait
180 000 morts.

La documentation francaise : Chronologie

18 et 21 aoÔt 2007 — Le directeur de la Société d’Histoire
Turque, le professeur Halacoglu a déclaré : ” Afin d’éviter
les déportations de 1915, les Arméniens ont feint être Alévis
ou Kurdes, et se sont convertis a l’Islam. Dans les années 20 le
nombre de ces Arméniens atteignait les 100.000. Dans les années
1936-37 le gouvernement a tout révélé. J’ai ces listes ”. Le
16 novembre 2007, l’enquête judiciaire ouverte par le parquet de
Kayseri suite a ce discours, a été close : le parquet n’a pas trouvé
dans le discours de Halacoglu, d’éléments délictuels nécessitant
l’ouverture d’un procès.

Plusieurs associations turques s’étaient émues, Halacoglu cherchant a
réduire le nombre de Kurdes de Turquie en tentant de les représenter
en tant qu’anciens Arméniens ou Juifs. Dans le même temps Halacoglu
essaye de nier le génocide, en avancant que les Arméniens ”
massacrés ” sont en fait devenus des Alévis.

Collectif VAN РTurquie : Enqu̻te officielle contre Halacoglu

Compilation réalisée par le site

Retour a la rubrique

GEORGIA NEGOTIATING WITH ARMENIA ON RETURN OF ITS ETHNIC AZERBAIJANI CITIZEN

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Aug 20 2013

20 August 2013, 13:03 (GMT+05:00)

By Sara Rajabova

Georgia’s Foreign Ministry is holding talks with Armenia on returning
a captured ethnic Azerbaijani Georgian citizen, the ministry told
the Baku-based Trend news agency on August 19.

“At this stage the negotiations with Yerevan are being conducted by
the Georgian Foreign Ministry,” an official representative of the
Interior Ministry said.

According to the information, Allahverdi Pelengov, a resident of Burma
village in the Sadakhlo municipality in eastern Georgia, was captured
along with his two Armenian acquaintances in the neutral zone of the
Georgian-Armenian border. From there he was transferred to Yerevan
and his acquaintances were released.

The Georgian police took measures after an inquiry from the kidnapped
person’s family. The police took testimony of Pelengov’s wife, his
son and eyewitnesses.

According to the Georgian Interior Ministry, at this stage it turned
out that Pelengov was arrested for illegally crossing the Armenian
border.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry thus far has not commented on the
negotiations.

Evidently, the Armenian invaders commit provocative acts not only
against Azerbaijani citizens, but also the citizens of other countries
with Azerbaijani ethnicity.

In July, a soldier of the Azerbaijani army was captured by the Armenian
armed forces after he got lost on the contact line between Azerbaijani
and Armenian troops near Azerbaijan’s Tovuz region.

Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing
Persons registered 4,033 people as missing, including 46 children,
255 women, and 353 elderly, as of July 1.

According to the Commission, there are specific facts about 877
people, including 22 children, 99 women and 133 elderly, that they
were captured and are in the occupied territories, but Armenia does
not recognize the fact.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in
conflict which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the
beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 1,402 have been released
from Armenian captivity.

A precarious ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia was reached
after a lengthy war that displaced over a million Azerbaijanis and
has been in place between the two South Caucasus countries since 1994.

Since the hostilities, Armenian armed forces have occupied over
20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian
withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been
enforced to this day.

ARMENIAN LEADER BACKS RE-ELECTION BID OF AZERBAIJAN’S ALIEV

Transitions Online, Czech Rep.

Aug 20 2013

A rally for Azerbaijani opposition presidential candidate Rustam
Ibragimbekov 18 August drew about 3,000 people, even though Baku
city officials ordered it to be held 10 kilometers (six miles) from
downtown, according to AFP.

Demonstrators called for a free and fair process at the 9 October
election, which incumbent Ilham Aliev is expected to win easily.

Several participants were detained by police.

In early August the National Council of Democratic Forces, an
opposition coalition, nominated Ibragimbekov, an Oscar-winning
screenwriter. He fled abroad earlier this year. Ralliers on Sunday
urged the authorities to enable his return to Azerbaijan to participate
in the election, Caucasian Knot reports. Ibragimbekov has said he fears
being arrested on charges of tax evasion if he returns home and he is
still waiting for the Russian bureaucracy to cancel his citizenship
in that country – he is a dual Russian-Azerbaijani national – in
order to legally contest the presidency, Radio Free Europe reported
earlier this month.

Aliev is drawing support from an unexpected direction – the leader of
Armenia, which remains technically in a state of war with Azerbaijan
over the Nagorno-Karabakh region captured by Armenian forces in the
early 1990s. Aliev’s re-election would represent the best hope to
resolve the conflict, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in a
statement cited by Radio Free Europe.

Sargsyan said Aliev has the best chance of overcoming “Armenia-phobia”
in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani officials have mooted a military solution to
the conflict if the slow-moving, internationally moderated negotiations
fail to bear fruit, RFE writes.

SUNY NAMED WINNER OF 2013 DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTIONS AWARD

COMMUNITY | AUGUST 20, 2013 4:26 PM

BOSTON – The Distinguished Contributions to Slavic, East European
and Eurasian Studies Award (SEEES), which honors senior scholars
who have helped to build and develop the field through scholarship,
training and service to the profession, is presented annually, with
the prize going this year to Ronald Grigor Suny, the Charles Tilly
collegiate professor of social and political history and director of
the Eisenberg Institute of Historical Studies at the University of
Michigan and emeritus professor of political science and history at
the University of Chicago.

Suny is a renowned historian and political scientist interested
across the Eurasian field in both spatial and temporal terms. He is
particularly noted for his studies of the Caucasus in the Soviet and
post-Soviet period: he was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair
in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan (1981-1995),
and the founder and director of the Armenian Studies Program there. He
is the author of seven scholarly monographs, including The Baku
Commune 1917-1918 (Princeton University Press, 1972); The Making of
the Georgian Nation (Indiana University Press, 1988, 1994); Looking
Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History (Indiana University Press,
1993); The Revenge of the Past (Stanford University Press, 1993);
and The Soviet Experiment (Oxford University Press, 1998). He is also
the editor of many collections of essays, including Making Workers
Soviet (Cornell University Press, 1994); A State of Nations: Empire
and Nation-making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford University
Press, 2001) and A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the
End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Suny’s provocative and pioneering work on nationalism is an obligatory
citation not just across the Eurasian studies field, but also beyond,
and he has recently also made contributions to the developing field
of history of emotions.

Suny has served as chairman of the Society for Armenian Studies. He
has also served on the editorial boards of Slavic Review, International
Labor and Working-Class History, International Journal of Middle East
Studies, The Armenian Review, Journal of the Society for Armenian
Studies, Armenian Forum and Ab Imperio. He was elected president of
the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for
the year 2006.

Regarded with affection by former students and colleagues alike, he is
a model of collegiality, and an exemplum, in the truly international
scope of his interests, for the Association of Slavic, East European
and Eurasian Studies in its post-Soviet and post-Cold War present.

The Award will be presented on November 23, at the ASEEES 45th Annual
Convention, in Boston.

– See more at:

SHEPHERD KILLED ON ARMENIAN BORDER WAS FIRING AT RUSSIAN BORDER GUARDS – TURKISH DAILY

August 20, 2013 | 14:15

Turkish Taraf newspaper presented interesting details about a Turkish
shepherd who died as a result of actions by Russian border guards
after crossing the border with Armenia. The newspaper’s source said
shepherd made two attempts to attack the border guards.

According to the source, Turkish authorities completed the
investigation on Mustafa Ulker’s death. The preliminary report showed
Turkish shepherds are practicing tending flock in the Armenian
territory. In response, Russian border guards warned them against
crossing the border. They were forced to confiscate part of the cattle.

As a result of negotiations the Armenian side has returned cattle.

However, it turned out that some of the animals were affected, while
part of the cattle belonged to Mustafa Ulker.

In order to take revenge, he put on his uniform and crossed the border
at night, firing at the Russian border guards. Ulker was killed as
a result of reiterate efforts of Russian guards.

MINISTRY OF NATURE PROTECTION PROVIDES DETAILS ON ITS EMPLOYEE’S DEATH /COMPLETED/

13:53, 20 August, 2013

YEREVAN, AUGUST 20, ARMENPRESS: The man, who has thrown himself down
the window of the Ministry of Nature Protection located in the 3rd
building of the Government of the Republic of Armenia and died, is Haik
Hayrapetyan, born in 1991. As Armenpress was reported by the Department
for Mass Media and Public Relations of the Police of the Republic of
Armenia, the circumstances of the incident are being clarified.

The Press Secretary of the Ministry of Nature Protection Haik Hakobyan
confirmed that the man, who has thrown himself down the window, is the
employee of the Ministry of Nature Protection. “He left the office 5
minutes before the break, right after which the accident took place”,
– said Hakobyan without giving any evaluations on the incident.

During the talk with the journalists the employee of the Internal Audit
Department of the Ministry of Nature Protection, the colleague of Haik
Hayrapetyan, Samvel Galstyan emphasized that they did not notice any
change in the mood of Haik Hayrapetyan and everything seemed to be
fine. “Haik lived in Yerevan without his parents. It was a year that
Haik had worked at the Ministry. The Ministry of Nature Protection is
located on the fifth floor of the 3rd building of the Government of
the Republic of Armenia, but Haik raised to the sixth floor to talk
on the phone, after which he threw down”, – said Samvel Galstyan. To
the question of a journalist if Hayrapetyan threw himself because of a
girl, Galstyan stated that he has heard about it for the first time. He
also noted that there were no problems with the colleagues as well.

On August 20 at about 13:05 a man thrown down the window of the
Ministry of Nature Protection located in the 3rd building of the
Government of the Republic of Armenia and died.

US AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA SUMS UP HIS TAVUSH TRIP

August 20, 2013 | 12:53

YEREVAN. – U.S. Ambassador John Heffern continues touring Armeniaand
presenting results of his trips on his Twitter account.

John Heffern visited Tavush Region and presented 10 lessons he learnt
from the visit.

“With planning, cooperation, a little marketing and an attractive
product thousands of people will come! Do it like @HDIFarmenia
[Homeland Development Initiative Foundation HDIF] and Tavush
Revitalization Found did for Honey+Berry Festival and you will
succeed,” he tweeted.

He brought an example of Aparan Bakery as successful business, adding
that Armenia’s rivers, such as Debed in north, would be excellent
sites for rafting and kayaking in case of modest investment.

Ambassador Heffern pointed at cooperation of Peace Corps volunteers
and HDIF’s Timothy Straight who is also Norway’s Honorary Consul
in Armenia.

“Role of local authority is key. New Berd mayor boosted Honey
Festival.Approach of mayors in challenging spots sets tone. Mayors
face common challenges in every country. Association of mayors would
be good thing. Does Community Union work?”

He also underscored the role of local priests, adding “Ter Aram in
Berd works better with his people than any priest I have known.”

Ambassador Heffern believes agricultural cooperatives can work in
Armenia, just like FCA-funded tractor helps farmer coop in Varagavan.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am