Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Armenian paper says change “inevitable” in relations with Turkey
Ayots Ashkhar, Yerevan
29 Apr 05
Text of Sarkis Gevorkyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Ayots Ashkhar
on 29 April headlined “The Turkish gambit”
The delicate game of chess that has started between the Turkish and
Armenian leadership is still continuing with both sides exchanging
letters which indicates serious changes that might happen in
Armenian-Turkish relations.
US President George Bush’s message of 24 April and Council of Europe
Secretary General Terry Davis’s statement also proves that. They
proved the predictions about an inevitable change in Turkey’s
political behaviour. Turkey’s externally strange and illogical step
to publish Talat Pasa’s “Black Notebook” should also be seen within
the same context of developments. In fact, this is a demonstration of
“readiness” to discuss history freely and a kind of bait to kick-start
this process at the bilateral level.
The reason is evident: Turkey needs to get rid of the brand of
a country that carried out genocide by shedding crocodile tears
about a common Armenian-Turkish “tragedy” and to create a veneer
of repentance. And this should be done as soon as possible, i.e. by
October 2005 when the European Union and Turkey will start negotiations
where a demand for the recognition of the Armenian genocide will be
put forward.
Turkey wants to act on the basis of the formula “first history, then
policy” because it needs only two things: to avoid being branded
as a country that carried out the genocide and de jure confirm its
control over the territories it occupied in 1921 with the help of
the Lenin-Ataturk deal. It is obvious that at present, Turkey is
ready to make compromises on all the other problems, even on the
Karabakh issue, except for these two. But there is a strong rule
in diplomacy: first take, then give. For this reason, Turkey made
an attack by means of Prime Minister Erdogan’s letter and Armenia,
through President Robert Kocharyan’s reply, adopted the role of a
player who defends himself with the help of a certain counterattack.
Such chess-like moves showed that the Turkish gambit is entering its
critical phase when every step may be fateful for the parties.
How will the events develop? We think that after Kocharyan’s reply, the
Turkish party will make a fuss throughout the world about its readiness
to discuss the “painful pages” of history, but Armenia is trying to
re-direct the pressure that a third party is putting on Turkey, in the
belief that bilateral relations will allegedly improve as a result of
this. This means that the problem of the genocide hinders improvements
in these relations and Armenia has territorial claims to Turkey.
In order to predict Turkey’s next steps, Armenia itself should take
certain progressive steps that would stem from the spirit and contents
of President Kocharyan’s letter to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. They
may include:
A) An official offer to establish diplomatic relations between the
two countries;
B) An invitation to an Armenian-Turkish business forum in Yerevan;
C) A suggestion that all the disputable problems be put on the agenda
of an Armenian-Turkish high level meeting
D) To raise the problem of Armenia’s blockade more actively and
consistently.
It is obvious that Turkey is in a peculiar situation and launches
attacks by looking at the schedule all the time. Along with defending
itself, Armenia should also use its opportunities for counterattack by
October and try to neutralize Turkey’s attempts at promoting itself as
a constructive party in assessing history by putting forward positive
initiatives directed at improving relations.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pilgrims Mark Orthodox Easter in Jerusalem
By IAN DEITCH
.c The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) – A sea of flames illuminated Christianity’s holiest
shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as thousands of pilgrims
took part Saturday in the holy fire ceremony, a key event in the
Orthodox Easter rituals.
The event passed peacefully despite plans by protesters to block the
participation of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Irineos
I. Demonstrators, who object to the Patriarch’s alleged role in a
controversial land deal, were kept away by the hundreds of Israeli
police who set up barricades throughout the alleys leading to the
Jerusalem holy site.
The shrine, marking the site where tradition says Jesus was crucified
and buried, was filled with thousands of pilgrims. Hundreds more
waited outside.
At the start of the ceremony, church leaders descended into the
underground burial area. The faithful clutched their bundles of unlit
candles and torches while waiting in the darkened church for a flame
to emerge from the tomb.
Some Christians believe the flame appears spontaneously, as a message
from Jesus that he has not forgotten his followers.
When church leaders, including Irineos, emerged with a lighted torch,
a cheer arose, and the flames were passed around, illuminating the
church within seconds.
Tensions were high ahead of the ceremony.
The Greek Orthodox Church is in turmoil over a deal in which the
church reportedly leased prime property in disputed east Jerusalem to
Jewish investors.
The alleged land deal is politically explosive because Israel claims
all of Jerusalem, while Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the
capital of a future state. Jewish land purchases in east Jerusalem are
seen as bolstering Israel’s claim to that section of the city.
In the past the ceremony has also been a flashpoint between different
Orthodox denominations, who have argued over protocol at the ceremony.
About a dozen Greek and Armenian clergymen briefly scuffled over who
would be first to emerge with the flames, but they were quickly pulled
apart by Israeli police stationed inside the church.
Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is shared by a number of
denominations that jealously guard their responsibilities under a
fragile network of agreements hammered out over the last millennia.
“Every year there is always tight security, but maybe this year it is
even tighter because of the land deal,” said Matthew Doll, 30, a
pilgrim who waited outside the church.
Protesters had vowed to bar Irineos from the ceremony, but were kept
away by the police, said Dimitri Diliani, the head of a Palestinian
Christian coalition who have been spearheading the protests.
The reported deal has stirred anger among Palestinians who feel
betrayed by the church.
At a rare news conference last month, Irineos told reporters he was
unaware of the alleged transactions, and that he was not involved in
any deal which was reportedly signed by Nikos Papadimas, the church
financial officer who vanished three months ago.
Papadimas is wanted in Greece after Greek Orthodox Church officials in
Athens accused him of absconding with $800,000 in church funds. His
wife is wanted on separate charges of money laundering. Separately, a
European arrest warrant has been issued against Papadimas, Greek
officials said.
But as the flames emerged from the tomb, church bells pealed and
tensions melted away.
“This is one of the most beautiful and spiritual experience of my
life,” said Jonathan Parish, 42, of Boston. “I have dreamt of being
in the presence of the holy fire for a long time.”
04/30/05 17:51 EDT

Turkish Press
April 29 2005
Press Review
AKSAM
TUZMEN: `IF ARMENIA ENDS ITS AZERBAIJAN OCCUPATION AND GENOCIDE
CLAIMS, THEN WE CAN TRADE WITH IT’
State Minister Kursat Tuzmen and Turkish Union of Chambers and
Commodities Exchanges (TOBB) Chairman Rifat Hisarciklioglu said
yesterday that if Armenia wants to establish trade ties, then first
it should end its occupation in Azerbaijan and its genocide claims.
Speaking at a ceremony for the modernization of the Cilvegozu Border
Gate into Syria, Tuzmen said that if Armenia pulls its troops out of
Azerbaijan then the border gate between Turkey and Armenia could be
opened. /Aksam/

Turkey Renews Offer to Armenia for Joint Study of Genocide Claims
By VOA News
29 April 2005

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is ready
to build ties with neighboring Armenia, despite disagreements over
decades-old allegations of Turkish genocide against Armenians.

In an interview with the newspaper Milliyet, Mr. Erdogan renewed his
call for creation of a joint Turkish-Armenian commission to study the
disputed genocide issue. He said this could coincide with the
establishment of political relations between the two neighbors. The
countries share a border, but have no diplomatic ties.
Tuesday, Armenian President Robert Kocharian said his country could
take part in a commission, but he first called for improved ties.
Armenia says 1.5 million of its nationals were slaughtered by the
Turks during the final years of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago,
characterizing this as genocide. Turkey says 300,000 Armenians and
thousands of Turks were killed during a Russia-backed Armenian
uprising against Ottoman rule.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters, and AP.

A1plus
| 16:40:06 | 27-04-2005 | Politics |
ELECTIONS ARE TO COME AND THE LAW IS FULL OF SHORTCOMINGS
`The changes in the part about the Local self-governing bodies in the
Constitutional amendments show us clearly that they are inferior to the
present Constitution in many points and they have lost many important
things.’ This was the opinion of Sos Gimishyan, member of the Community
Financier Union Administration. According to him, the shortcomings are more
in the offered variant.
For example, non-confidence can be voiced not only to the community head but
also to the alderman. By the way, in 1995 when the Constitution was being
processed, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation criticized most the point
where the appointed government can voice non-confidence to the elected
people.
Another point: according to the present order community heads are elected
within a month. Now it is suggested that the elections should take 3 months.
Sos Gimishyan considers the changes about Yerevan inaccurate too. `Today’s
shortcoming is that Yerevan is a region and is governed by the appointed
governor. It is not ideal but at least it is accurate. Now they say it is a
community but the head is appointed. This is complete illiteracy. What
exists now is at least juridically correct.’ By the way Mr. Gimishyan notes
that both the present and the previous authorities were afraid of the
Yerevan elected mayor.
By the way, the point in the law adopted in 2002 according to which
check-ups are ceased in the communities a month before the elections is
offered to be excluded.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 26 2005
Bush shatters Armenians’ `genocide’ hopes

Baku, April 25, AssA-Irada
US President George Bush on Sunday expressed condolences to Armenians
living in the United States and other world countries over the day
they mark as `persecution and mass killings of up to 1.5 million
Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire’.
Bush pointed out the importance of the future and not past, called on
the Armenian government to develop freedoms in the country.
With regard to the Upper Garabagh conflict, the US president said `we
support a peaceful conflict resolution’.
Bush welcomed the initiatives of Turkey and Armenia in conducting
research on the historic developments of the 20th century. He
approved of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal to
establish the Turkish-Armenian joint commission, voicing a hope that
this will facilitate solving the problem.
Thus, Armenians’ hopes were shattered again. On the same day, the
National Armenian Committee on the US criticised Bush’s statement.
`The statement which did not term these historic developments as
genocide shows that the US President is participating in the
disgraceful campaign denying the crimes committed against humanity,
pursued the Turkish government’, its executive director Aram
Khamparian said.
Following active efforts of the Armenian lobby, several members of
the US Senate and House of Representatives sent a letter to President
Bush calling on him to recognize the killings of Armenians as the
so-called `genocide’. However, the US administration has never used
the term `genocide’ with regard to these historic events.*

;5287/
Lvi v Palace of Armenian Archbishops Privatized
26.04.2005, [11:55] // AAC //
Lviv- A historic building of Lviv, the Palace of Armenian Archbishops,
constructed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was recently
privatized. This was despite written appeals from the city’s Armenian
community, who want to see the building, constructed by their ancestors,
returned to them. gazeta.lviv.ua posted this news on 22 April 2005
`Since the palace was first built, it functioned as the Palace of Armenian
Archbishops,’ said Father Thaddeus Georgian, pastor of the city’s Armenian
church. `For centuries, it belonged to nobody but the Armenian community and
the Armenian Church. This is not the problem of a private citizen, not even
of the community, but of the entire Church, since this was the palace of
archbishops of the Cathedral of the Ukrainian Eparchy of the Armenian
Apostolic Church.’
The palace belongs to the ensemble of the Armenian church, which, in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the center of life of the Armenian
community in Lviv. The ensemble consists of the Church of the Dormition of
the Holy Mother of God, a former women’s monastery, and the archbishops’
palace. Both the church and the palace are among the most unique examples of
Armenian architecture with elements of the European Renaissance. Even today,
parts of the palace remaining under the roof and in its exterior are over
five centuries old, for instance, the symbol of Armenian archbishops on the
outside wall of the palace.
The palace belonged to the Armenian community until the Soviet regime
confiscated it, together with other Armenian buildings. And while the
cathedral was returned to the Armenians after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the palace remained in the communal property of the city, functioning
as a residential building. The situation is much the same today: the upper
story has apartments, where people live, while plans are being made to sell
the lower story, privatized in recent years.
`After Ukraine’s independence, we hoped the issue would be resolved
democratically,’ said Fr. Georgian. `But soon we saw that only the name of
the state changed, while the ruling style remained Soviet. We were not heard
in the City Council, or in the Regional Administration.’
Lviv Mayor Liubomyr Buniak ignored the address to him from Archbishop
Gregory Buniatian, head of the Ukrainian Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic
Church. The religious community of the Armenian Church requested to stop
`the illegal privatization and sale of apartments on the premises of the
Palace of Armenian Archbishops and begin a gradual transfer of the freed
rooms to the community of the Armenian Church.’ Instead, I. Kohut, deputy
head of the Halych district administration, responded to the address, saying
in his letter that `the building at 7 Virmenska (Armenian) St. is not a
building of worship. It is being used as a residential house.’
In turning to the mayor with its request, the Armenian community acted in
accordance with presidential decree #279, “On Urgent Measures for Combating
the Negative Consequences of Totalitarian Policies of the Former Soviet
Union regarding Religion and Restoration of the Violated Rights of Churches
and Religions Organizations.” Parts of the document speak of the return of
worship buildings and other church property, including buildings to the
communities they used to belong to before confiscation. In addition, the
Lviv City Council issued an order in February 1994, according to which the
City Administration was supposed to gradually return the Palace of Armenian
Archbishops as its residents moved out.
The Lviv City Council did not think it necessary to include the palace in
the list of Lviv’s cultural heritage monuments that are not subject to
privatization. Thus, it can be easily privatized, which was done. Now, the
owners can do whatever they please with their property.
Fr. Georgian says that the Armenian community is not planning to take the
palace illegally or by force. An Armenian archbishop who is spending several
days in Lviv intends to help the Armenian community to resolve the issue in
the nearest future.
The owners of the palace turned residential house are conducting renovation
work. Therefore, the `Lviv Gazette’ writes, it is doubtful, that the
Armenians’ attempts to return the buildings will be successful. The building
was privatized, and nobody is going to return the invested money to the
owners.
Source:
– 

Concert Review: System of a Down
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
April 25, 2005
By Tom Roland
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The disenfranchised have their own
franchise: It’s called System of a Down.
Commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the Los
Angeles-based band held its third annual Souls concert Sunday at the
newly renamed Gibson Amphitheater.
Proceeds from the $45 tickets were slated for a variety of
organizations, including Amnesty International, the Darfur Action
Committee and Genocide-Project.org.
But this was not a feel-good benefit. It was an exorcism.
Blending Middle Eastern folk music in a heavy metal, rap-rock package,
SOAD basically aided its audience in channeling pent-up anger for 95
minutes.
“Everybody’s coming to the party/Have a real good time,” they chanted
in the opening “B.Y.O.B.” — a phrase that means “Bring your own
bombs” in SOAD-speak — and the party ensued with fists in the air,
rambunctious dances through the aisles and more than one person crowd
surfing in the mosh pit. By the end of the show, the surfers would
include guitarist Daron Malakian.
The frenetic presentation found vocalist Serj Tankian operating as a
somewhat schizophrenic presence, leading the crowd through blistering
chants one moment, then segueing into a comically devilish voice in
the next.
Pulling not only from the band’s past but also from its future — SOAD
is releasing the much-anticipated “Mezmerize” album May 17 and the
related “Hypnotize” in the fall — the material was laced with
rapid-fire anthems, machine-gun drumbeats and strange twists on the
rebellious genre.
Opera, disco and even George Michael’s “Everything She Needs” were
blended weirdly into the stew, which skewered authority and the most
comfortable parts of culture with four-letter threats and guttural
intensity.
The audience was just as interesting as the band, dotted with walking
tattoo parlors, chemically altered students, mascara-wearing males and
one guy who had oddly matched camouflage shorts with emerald green
sneakers.
Of course, those bohemians had a hero to emulate, as Malakian — whose
long locks and receding hairline slightly recall the Riff Raff
character in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — performed a goosestep
across the stage, twirled maniacally with his guitar and threw strange
“Mr. Roboto”-style voicebox shadings into the proceedings. Truly,
dweebs have their place in rock ‘n’ roll.
There’s certainly a point to SOAD and its odd cartel of fans. Shouting
“Pull the tapeworm out of your ass” in “Needles,” threatening sexy
people in “Kill Rock & Roll” and excoriating the police with the
mantra “They like to push the weak around” in “Deer Dance,” SOAD gave
voice to the downtrodden.
System allowed the marginalized a chance to flaunt their contempt for
anyone who controls their lives, be it schoolyard bullies, negative
bosses, manipulative parents or arrogant political parties.
It was never pretty –in fact, the lyrics often devolved into
gibberish, and the melodies often were downright juvenile. But System
of a Down has harnessed the anger of an overlooked segment of America.
;u=/nm/20050426/review_nm/review_music_down_dc_1

Turkish Press
April 24 2005
Press Scan:
ELEKDAG: THE INCIDENTS OF 1915 WERE A TRAGEDY
MILLIYET- Retired Turkish Ambassador Sukru Elekdag stated that the
incidents of 1915 were a tragedy. ”Yet we can not term these
incidents as a ‘genocide’,” said Elekdag.

Times-Union, Albany, NY
April 24 2005
Who can stop the genocide that’s occurring today?

By WILLIAM S. PARSONS
First published: Sunday, April 24, 2005

Editor’s note: This article is based on a speech William S. Parsons
delivered April 14 at the Armenian Lecture Series at Russell Sage
College in Troy. Parsons is chief of staff at the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and editor of “Century of
Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts.”

Each generation has great accomplishments — and yet it seems like
we’re still in the Stone Age when it comes to how we treat one
another and how we behave toward one another, especially when it
becomes massacres and genocide and hate. Each generation, I think,
witnesses innocent people being slaughtered and yet each generation
is inept in preventing genocide.
The agony of this history is really looking at the fact that you have
individuals, groups and nations who make decisions on a daily basis
to let mass murder, crimes against humanity and genocide occur.
Genocide is not accidental. It doesn’t just come out of anywhere.
Genocide is purposeful. Genocide is planned in secrecy, but it often
is carried out publicly. That’s really been the history of 20th
century genocide.
Back in 1915, when the young Turk government took power, their slogan
was brotherhood, their slogan was humanity, their slogan was
something else aside from what they ended up doing. They ended up
creating a new order in Turkey and the new order was not going to
include Greeks. It was not going to include Christians. It was not
going to include Christian Armenians. It was definitely not going to
include Armenians. It was definitely not going to include a lot of
other folks. And this new order got put in place and the world
watched as that genocide took place.
It wasn’t called a genocide back then. The word genocide didn’t
evolve until Raphael Lempkin in 1948 who had survived the Holocaust
and lost his whole family struggled to find a word to talk about mass
slaughter on a scale that is perpetuated and perpetrated by a
government. There was no word called genocide in 1915.
Winston Churchill has a great quote where he calls the 20th century
the century of common man. And when he got asked “what do you mean
the century of common man,” his response was because common man has
suffered the most in the 20th century.
This is agonizing for those of us who have lost brothers and fathers
and daughters and mothers in war as soldiers, especially in Iraq
today. And that’s painful. But look at the records, folks. It is
safer to be a soldier in the 20th century than it is to be a
civilian.
Civilians are massacred on wholesale sizes throughout the world. Just
look at our own life spans; take my own life span.
In 1964, I went to college. I was away from home finally, having a
great time — and the Ache Indians in Paraguay are almost obliterated
from the face of the earth.
The next year, I’m a sophomore and Indonesia slaughters 500,000
people.
Almost to the day that I graduated in June 1967, President Nasser of
Egypt made his famous statement — we will annihilate the Jews of
Israel and we will annihilate the state of Israel.
I ended up teaching history and social studies in the public school
systems and as I’m teaching kids about World War II and World War I,
the slogan “never again” keeps coming up in the classroom. Never
again what?
In 1971, here I am teaching this history, 1 million to 3 million
Bengalis are slaughtered in Pakistan. A few years later, you get
Indonesia again. A few years after that, 200,000 Hutus are rounded up
and slaughtered by Tutsis in Burundi. What’s Burundi next door to?
Rwanda.
Do you think Rwanda in 1994 came out of nowhere? It came out of
revenge. The Tutsis killed the Hutus in Burundi. In 1994, the Hutus
turned on the Tutsis and wiped out 800,000 of them within three
months. A million to 3 million Cambodians in 1975-79 and I’m still
teaching, never again what. What does that mean?
Never again Armenians in the Middle East. Never again Jews in Europe.
Never again Cambodians in Cambodia. What is the word never again? Is
it just something we aspire to? Is it just something we hope for?
Just in my lifetime, we’ve lived through genocide after genocide,
after mass murder after mass murder.
And today we’re faced with Sudan. In the last 10 years, a little more
than 2 million people in southern Sudan were killed. We watched it.
It was in the news, we saw it and it continued.
And today we face another genocide in Darfur in western Sudan. There
are 700,000-800,000 people there and 400,000 have already gone across
the border in refugee camps and are dying from diseases. And the
Sudanese government today says it’s not genocide. It’s those groups
out there that we don’t have control of in the desert who are killing
them.
What was the Turkish government’s response after the Armenian
genocide? It wasn’t planned. It was just out in that desert there.
There were Kurds. There were people who were killing them. We
couldn’t control them.
Every government down through history has all the excuses in the
world. We’re so good at excuses — and we’re so good at the
memorials.
When our staff went over to the State Department next door to us in
Washington to argue with them this past month about Darfur, they
said: I don’t know. I don’t know if you can call it genocide now. If
you call it genocide, there’s this implication and this implication
and this implication.
And we’re sitting there saying if you’re waiting to call it genocide,
forget it. Just go build your memorial, it’s done. Call it imminent
genocide. Call it a threat to genocide. Call it a crime against
humanity. Call it anything you want on that scale, but do something
to stop it now.
And the tragedy is we’ve got the tools to stop genocide. The tragedy
is we choose not to do it. That’s the tragedy of this history.
So what are the facts, what are the answers to this, where does it
come from, what perpetuates it? One way you can start to look at it
is that you automatically think to stop genocide you need a
government … you need a nation. You can’t stop it. I can’t stop it.
Right? Wrong, I think. Governments don’t stop it because we don’t
force our governments to stop it and that’s true of every single
genocide that’s ever taken place.
The Ottoman government labeled the Armenians minorities, a minority
that is a vermin. The next generation, 20 years later in the
Holocaust, the Nazis are going to use the word vermin. Who’s working
with the young Turks in Turkey to kill the Armenians? Many of them
were German soldiers and German officials. … The people who
perpetrate genocide learn from each other and they learn they can get
away with it.
When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in 1993, all
the people were up at the Congress at the top of the hill, there in
the rotunda — never again must this history happen. And almost the
very next week, ethnic cleansing began in Bosnia by the Serbs.
The next year, all the congressmen, all the dignitaries, were all up
at the hill again. And almost to the day, a Rwandan plane was shot
down with the president and within three months, 800,000 Tutsis were
slaughtered.
The very next year … up at the rotunda … remembering —
remembering is the key — and the Serbs moved in on Bosnian Muslims
and 7,500 Muslim men and boys who were in a U.N. camp, a protection
zone camp to keep them protected from being slaughtered. The Serbs
negotiated with the U.N, and the United Nations turned them over to
the Serbs and 7,500 boys and men were slaughtered.
In six months, you will be reading on the front page of every
newspaper in this country about the Congo. Three million people have
already been killed there; seven armies are crisscrossing the Congo.
Nobody is stepping in; nobody is helping, except for Oxfam, except
for all these private groups that go in to try to make a difference
and put their names and their places on the line to try to save
people, just like those two Pakistani guards.
It all comes down to us, each of us … to just the fact that we have
to take some part of our life to care beyond ourselves, beyond our
group. Because if we don’t, we’re still going to be in the Stone Age
when it comes to human beings.