Author: Kalantarian Kevo

LONDON TO HOST ARMENIAN ART EXHIBITION
ArmenPress
Sept 14 2004
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS: The British capital will host an
exhibition of Armenian artifacts, dating back to 12-18th centuries-
manuscripts, books, icons and other artifacts. It will open on
September 23 and will run until October 15. The opening ceremony is
timed with Armenia’s Independence Day. Armenian ambassador to Great
Britain, Vahe Gabrielian, will attend the opening ceremony.

Armenian Assembly of America
122 C Street, NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:
 
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2004
CONTACT: Christine Kojoian
E-mail: [email protected]
NATO CANCELS KEY MILITARY EXERCISES IN AZERBAIJAN
SAYS BAKU VIOLATED “PRINCIPLE OF INCLUSIVENESS”
Washington, DC – The Armenian Assembly of America commended NATO for its
decision to cancel military exercises set to begin in Azerbaijan today after
Baku’s repeated attempts to bar Armenia’s participation. Armenia was among
several dozen countries due to take part in the annual exercises, but Azeri
officials were clear to point out that they did not want Armenians on their
territory.
U.S. General James Jones, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, expressed
regret over the country’s refusal to grant entrance visas to five Armenian
officers to take part in the military exercises dubbed “Cooperative Best
Effort (CBE) 2004.”
In a statement released today, NATO said in part: “All PfP [Partnership for
Peace] exercises are agreed and conducted on the principle of inclusiveness
for all Allies and Partners which wish to participate. Nations participating
in Cooperative Best Effort 2004 agreed and have supported the exercise based
on this principle. We regret that the principle of inclusiveness could not
be upheld in this case, leading to the cancellation of the exercise.”
“We applaud NATO for its principled stance and refusal to succumb to
Azerbaijan’s pressure to bar Armenia, an active participant of the PfP
program, from these exercises,” said Assembly Board of Directors Chairman
Anthony Barsamian.
“Azerbaijan’s refusal to honor international commitments is part of an
escalating pattern throughout 2004 of its hostility towards all things
Armenian,” continued Barsamian. “By not properly condemning the murder of
an Armenian officer at a NATO event earlier this year, by constantly
threatening Armenia and NKR with another military offensive and by not
denouncing the remarks of its Defense Ministry spokesperson predicting
Armenia’s conquest by Azerbaijan within 25 years, Azerbaijan’s senior
leadership have shown their true colors to the international community.”
Armenia, as part of its commitment to international security in the
Caucasus, invited both Azerbaijan and Turkey to participate in the NATO
exercises held in Yerevan last year. Although Turkish troops attended,
their Azeri counterparts refused. NATO’s debut in Yerevan was noteworthy in
that two conflicting countries united to participate in the games.
The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based nationwide
organization promoting public understanding and awareness of Armenian
issues. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.
NR#2004-081

Bulgarian Top Journalists Parties at 60
Sofia news—Novinite.com
11 September 2004, Saturday.
Bulgarian top journalist Kevork Kevorkyan invited friends and
associates to a dinner Saturday, to mark his 60th birthday.
Armenian-born Kevorkyan has been working in the state Bulgarian
National Television for 30 years, 25 being dedicated to the legendary
Every Sunday program. The show itself recently celebrated an
anniversary of 25 years on screen.
The professional ideology of Every Sunday is to present “the world
as it is” and to be “the territory of free speech”. The “guru” of the
TV broadcast, Kevork Kevorkyan, tops all sociological researches for
journalistic popularity and public influence.

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
=================================================
7 September 2004
BELARUS: WAS BAPTIST FINE AN “EXCEPTION”?
ticle_id=405
Although unregistered religious communities still face intermittent fines
for religious activities, Protestants in Belarus have told Forum 18 News
Service that a fine imposed in January on Baptist Union member Yuri
Denishchik for holding a religious meeting in a private home was an
“exception”. They say that ahead of October’s parliamentary elections, the
authorities are not currently interfering in services, open-air
evangelistic meetings and youth camps held by registered Protestant
communities. “There are a lot of active Protestants in Belarus and
President Lukashenko can’t afford to alienate them right now,” one source
told Forum 18. He assumed there to be “some kind of instruction not to
touch Protestants at the moment”. But senior Baptist pastor Gennadi Brutsky
told Forum 18 that problems persist, though so far they have been solved
through compromises.
9 September 2004
EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION – A REGIONAL SURVEY
Ahead of the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and the Fight against Racism,
Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September 2004 in Brussels, Forum 18
News Service surveys some of the more serious
discriminatory actions against religious believers that persist in some
countries of the 55-member OSCE. Despite their binding OSCE commitments to
religious freedom, in some OSCE member states believers are still fined,
imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their faith, religious services are
broken up, places of worship confiscated and even destroyed, religious
literature censored and religious communities denied registration. Forum 18
believes most of the serious problems affecting religious believers in the
eastern half of the OSCE region come from government discrimination.
* See full article below. *
10 September 2004
TURKMENISTAN: BAPTISTS RAIDED AND JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES REJECT PRESIDENTIAL
PORTRAITS
In the third known set of raids on religious communities in August, police
interrogated and threatened members of a Baptist church in the western town
of Balkanabad, warning Nikolai Matsenko that any further unregistered
services in his home will lead to fines. Meanwhile a Jehovah’s Witness
elder told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ashgabad that if his
faith gets registration, it will reject official demands made of other
faiths to hang the country’s flag and a portrait of the president where it
worships. “These are unacceptable demands,” he declared. Forum 18 has been
unable to get confirmation of a 5 September report that President
Saparmurat Niyazov ordered the registration procedure for religious
organisations to be tightened up once more.
9 September 2004
XINJIANG: SECURITY SERVICE INVESTIGATION FOLLOWED ORTHODOX PRIEST’S
DEPORTATION
Kazakhstan-based Russian Orthodox priest Fr Viarion Ivanov had visited
China’s north-western Xinjiang region to serve the local Orthodox who have
no priests, but in December 2003 was detained by Chinese customs, was
interrogated for a week, had his religious literature confiscated and was
deported. “They questioned me for five hours a day. The special services
representatives proved to be amazingly well-informed,” Fr Ivanov told Forum
18 News Service. Local Orthodox told Forum 18 in Xinjiang in early
September that virtually all the Orthodox believers in the city of Ghulja
were questioned by the security services about Fr Ivanov’s activity. In
Ghulja the Orthodox can at least meet for prayers in church without a
priest, but in another Xinjiang town, Tacheng, local Russian Orthodox have
had no success so far in applying to rebuild their church.
9 September 2004
EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION – A REGIONAL SURVEY
By Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has
as members all the states of Europe, Central Asia and North America, works
not by coercion but by consensus and persuasion. Membership is not
compulsory: states have the free choice whether to accept the binding OSCE
commitments by joining or not. The commitment of all OSCE states to respect
freedom of religion is clear. The 1990 OSCE human dimension conference
declared “everyone will have the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion. This right includes freedom to change one’s religion or
belief and freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief, either alone or in
community with others, in public or in private, through worship, teaching,
practice and observance. The exercise of these rights may be subject only
to such restrictions as are prescribed by law and are consistent with
international standards.” Yet government discrimination against religious
believers remains disturbingly pervasive.
As delegates assemble in Brussels for the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and
the Fight against Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September
2004, many ask how violators of these fundamental OSCE commitments –
especially Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia – can
be allowed to continue as members of an organisation whose fundamental
principles they blatantly flout. OSCE officials argue off the record that
it is better to keep violators in, with the hope that they can be persuaded
to mend their ways, rather than expel them, abandoning local people to the
clutches of their governments. The result is that persecuted believers
Forum 18 News Service has spoken to in a number of states
now have little faith in what the OSCE can and will do for them to protect
their right to religious freedom.
The OSCE has reaffirmed that discrimination against religious believers is
as unacceptable as discrimination against ethnic or other social groups or
individuals. Meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht in 2003, the OSCE
Ministerial Council stressed in its Decision No. 4 on Tolerance and
Non-Discrimination that it “[a]ffirms the importance of freedom of thought,
conscience, religion or belief, and condemns all discrimination and
violence, including against any religious group or individual believer” and
“[c]ommits to ensure and facilitate the freedom of the individual to
profess and practice a religion or belief, alone or in community with
others, where necessary through transparent and non-discriminatory laws,
regulations, practices and policies”. The ministerial council also
emphasised what it believed is the importance of a “continued and
strengthened interfaith and intercultural dialogue to promote greater
tolerance, respect and mutual understanding”.
While many governments would prefer this conference to concentrate on
tackling social discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, in
much of the region it is important to stress that the most serious
discrimination against religious believers, at least, comes from
governments. In many states discrimination is enshrined in law and in
official practice (from national to local level). Believers will only be
free of such discrimination if such discriminatory laws are abolished or
amended, and if other laws and international commitments guaranteeing
religious freedom are put into practice.
Social discrimination against religious minorities does exist – especially
among Orthodox in Georgia, among Muslims in Central Asia, and among ethnic
Albanians (whether Muslim or Catholic) in Kosovo – but only in exceptional
circumstances has this led to persistent denial of believers’ rights.
Governments have a duty to promote tolerance and harmony in society, but
many could start with improving their own behaviour.
It is also important to remember that criticising the beliefs of another
faith does not constitute a crime: only violence or incitement to violence
is. A key element of religious freedom is the right peacefully to expound
and promote the beliefs of one’s faith and to set out how they might differ
from those of other faiths.
In the run-up to the July 2003 OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting
on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Forum 18 News Service
surveyed some, but not all, of the continuing abuses of religious freedom
in the eastern half of the OSCE region (see F18News 9 July 2003
). Discrimination against
believers also occurs in other OSCE countries (such as the About-Picard law
in France, restrictions on newer religious communities in Belgium and
discrimination against minority faiths in Turkey). It is disturbing that
one year on, almost all the abuses Forum 18 noted in 2003 have continued
unchecked.
RELIGIOUS WORSHIP: An alarming number of states raid religious meetings to
close down services and punish those who take part. Turkmenistan is the
worst offender: all unregistered religious activity is illegal and no
non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox religious communities – even the few
registered minority communities – are able to hold public worship freely.
Uzbekistan and Belarus specifically ban unregistered religious services. In
Belarus, numerous Protestant congregations – some numbering more than a
thousand members – cannot meet because they cannot get a registered place
to worship. Officials in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan also raid
places where worship is being conducted. In Macedonia, members of the
Serbian Orthodox Church have difficulty holding public worship and leaders
have been prosecuted. In Russia and some other states, minority faiths are
often denied permission to rent publicly-owned buildings available to other
groups.
PLACES OF WORSHIP: Opening a place of worship is impossible in some states.
In Turkmenistan non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox communities cannot in
practice open a place of worship, while those that existed before the
mid-1990s were confiscated or bulldozed. Uzbekistan has closed down
thousands of mosques since 1996 and often denies Christian groups’ requests
to open churches. Azerbaijan also obstructs the opening of Christian
churches and tries to close down some of those already open, while in 2004
it seized a mosque in Baku from its community and tried to prevent the
community meeting elsewhere. Belarus makes it almost impossible for
religious communities without their own building already – or substantial
funds to rent one – to find a legal place to worship. An Autocephalous
Orthodox church (which attracted the anger of the government and the
Russian Orthodox Church) was bulldozed in 2002. In Slovenia, which
represents the incoming OSCE Chair-in-Office, the Ljubljana authorities
have long obstructed the building of a mosque. In Bulgaria, the current
Chair-in-Office, in July 2004 the police stormed more than 200 churches
used by the Alternative Synod since a split in the Orthodox Church a decade
ago, ousting the occupants and handing the churches over to the rival
Orthodox Patriarchate without any court rulings.
REGISTRATION: Where registration is compulsory before any religious
activity can start (Turkmenistan, Belarus and Uzbekistan) or where
officials claim that it is (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), life is made
difficult for communities that either choose not to register (such as one
network of Baptist communities in the former Soviet republics) or are
denied registration (the majority of religious communities in Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan). Registration in Turkmenistan is all but impossible,
despite the reduction in 2004 from 500 to 5 in the number of adult citizens
required to found a community. In countries such as Azerbaijan or
Uzbekistan, registration for disfavoured communities is often made
impossible – officials in the sanitary/epidemiological service are among
those with the power of veto in Uzbekistan. Belarus, Slovenia, Slovakia,
Macedonia, Russia and Latvia are also among states which to widely varying
degrees make registration of some groups impossible or very difficult.
Moscow has refused to register the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city, despite
their national registration. Some countries – including the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Austria, with plans for similar moves in Serbia – grant full
status as religious communities to favoured religious communities only.
Faiths with smaller membership or which the government does not like have
to make do with lesser status and fewer rights.
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE: Belarus and Azerbaijan require compulsory prior
censorship of all religious literature produced or imported into the
country. Azerbaijani customs routinely confiscate religious literature,
releasing it only when the State Committee for Work with Religious
Organisations grants explicit written approval for each title and the
number of copies authorised. Forbidden books are sent back or destroyed
(thousands of Hare Krishna books held by customs for seven years have been
destroyed). Even countries without formal religious censorship – eg.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – routinely confiscate imported religious
literature or literature found during raids on homes. Uzbekistan routinely
bars access to websites it dislikes, such as foreign Muslim sites.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Believers from minority religious communities in
institutions such as prisons, hospitals or the army may face difficulties
obtaining and keeping religious literature, praying in private and
receiving visits from spiritual leaders and fellow-believers. In
Uzbekistan, even Muslim prisoners have been punished for praying and
fasting during Ramadan. Death-row prisoners wanting visits from Muslim
imams and Russian Orthodox priests have had requests denied, even for final
confession before execution.
DISCRIMINATION: Turkmenistan has dismissed from state jobs hundreds of
active Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other religious
minorities. Turkmen and Azeri officials try to persuade people to abandon
their faith and “return” to their ancestral faith (Islam). Although the
order has now reportedly been rescinded, Armenia ordered local police
chiefs to persuade police officers who were members of faiths other than
the Armenian Apostolic Church to abandon their faith. If persuasion failed,
such employees were to be sacked. Belarus has subjected leaders of
independent Orthodox Churches and Hindus to pressure – including fines,
threats and inducements – to abandon their faith or emigrate. Officials in
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus repeatedly attack disfavoured religious
minorities in the media, insulting their beliefs, accusing them falsely of
illegal or “destructive” activities, as well as inciting popular hostility
to them.
RELIGIOUS SCHOOL CLASSES: Some states have allowed the dominant faith to
determine the content of compulsory religious education classes and
textbooks in state-run schools. In Belarus, minority faiths complain their
beliefs are inaccurately and insultingly presented. In Georgia, classes
often became denominational Orthodox instruction, with teachers taking
children to pray in the local Orthodox church.
GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: Many governments meddle in the internal affairs of
religious communities. Central Asian governments insist on choosing
national and local Muslim leaders. Turkmenistan ousted successive chief
muftis in January 2003 and August 2004. Tajikistan has conducted
“attestation tests” of imams, ousting those who failed. Islamic schools are
tightly controlled (in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, schools have either
been closed or access to them restricted). Turkmenistan obstructs those
seeking religious education abroad. Some countries with large Orthodox
communities (but not Russia or Ukraine), try to bolster the largest
Orthodox Church and obstruct rival jurisdictions (Belarus, Bulgaria,
Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova). Russia has prevented communities from
choosing their leadership, expelling a Catholic bishop and several priests,
and dozens of Protestant and other leaders, while the secret police tried
to influence the choice of a new Old Believer leader in February 2004.
PROTECTION FROM VIOLENCE: Law enforcement agencies fail to give religious
minorities the same protection as major groups. Between 1999 and 2003,
Georgia suffered a wave of violence by self-appointed Orthodox vigilantes,
with over 100 attacks on True Orthodox, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals
and Jehovah’s Witnesses in which believers were physically attacked, places
of worship blockaded and religious events disrupted. The authorities – who
know the attackers’ identity – have punished only a handful of people with
suspended sentences. In some cases, police cooperated with attacks or
failed to investigate them. In Kosovo the Nato-led peacekeeping force and
United Nations police have repeatedly failed to protect Serbian Orthodox
churches in use and graveyards, especially during the upsurge in anti-Serb
violence in March 2004, when some 30 Orthodox sites were destroyed or
heavily damaged. Few attackers have been arrested or prosecuted.
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MIGRANTS: Many religion laws restrict the rights of
legal residents who are not citizens, requiring founders and leaders of
religious organisations to be citizens. Azerbaijan provides for deportation
of foreigners and those without citizenship who have conducted “religious
propaganda”. In the past decade, Turkmenistan has deported hundreds of
legally-resident foreigners known to have taken part in religious activity,
especially Muslims and Protestants. Some states (including Russia and
Belarus) have denied visas to foreign religious leaders chosen by local
religious communities.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: Major laws and decrees affecting religious life are
drawn up without public knowledge or discussion. Examples are the
restrictive laws on religion of Belarus and Bulgaria in 2002, and planned
new laws in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. International organisations,
such as the OSCE or the Council of Europe may be consulted but governments
often refuse to allow their comments to be published or ignore them. Many
countries retain openly partisan and secretive government religious affairs
offices. Between 1999 and 2003, Slovenia’s religious affairs office refused
to register any new religious communities. Azerbaijan’s has stated which
communities it will refuse to register and what changes other communities
will have to make to their statutes and activities to gain registration.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORTING: Those reporting on religious freedom such as
Forum 18 News Service and groups campaigning on the issue
face lack of cooperation, obstruction and harassment. Those suspected of
passing on news of violations have been threatened in Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, with the aim of forcing silence. In a region
without much government transparency or a genuinely free media, officials
involved in harassing religious communities often refuse to explain to
journalists what they have done and why. Local religious freedom
campaigning groups are denied registration or kept waiting. Demonstrators
protesting in Belarus against the restrictive 2002 religion law were fined.
In September 2004, the Belarus bureau of the Union of Councils for Jews in
the Former Soviet Union, which included monitoring religious persecution in
its work, was denied registration. Government reports on religious freedom
issues to bodies such as the OSCE or Council of Europe are often
confidential and closed to public scrutiny.
CONCLUSION: Many of these discriminatory restrictions predate the 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks – and 1999 Islamic-inspired incursions
into Central Asia – so governments cannot validly argue that such
restrictions are necessary to ensure public security. The comprehensive
nature of many of these measures shows the hostility of some OSCE member
states to the right to exercise the faith of one’s choice freely, something
described by the European Court of Human Rights in 1993 as “one of the
foundations of a democratic society”.
(END)
© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.
You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News
Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at
=================================================

KLO Protests in Sheki
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 9 2004
09/09/2004 23:44
Members of the Karabagh Liberation Organization’s (KLO) branch
in Shaki, a city in the West of Azerbaijan have held a picket in
protest against the planned participation of Armenian officers in
NATO exercises to be held in Baku in September.
AssA-Irada — The KLO deputy chairman Shamil Mehdi told AssA-Irada
that during the picket arranged close the city’s Cemetery of Martyrs
the protesters showed placards “Shame on those who invite Armenians
to Azerbaijan!”, “Freedom to Garabagh!” and “Release KLO members!”.
A statement condemning Armenian officers’ planned visit to Azerbaijan
was issued at the end of the protest action.

Iranian, Armenian presidents sign cooperation agreement
Mediamax news agency
8 Sep 04
Yerevan, 8 September: The Armenian and Iranian presidents, Robert
Kocharyan and Mohammad Khatami, today signed a treaty in Yerevan on the
principles and foundations of cooperation between their two countries.
The leaders of the two states also adopted a joint statement describing
the Iranian president’s visit to Iran as “the beginning of a new stage”
in bilateral relations, Mediamax news agency reports.
“Having discussed recent events in the region and having exchanged
opinions on the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement process, the presidents
stressed the need to resolve this issue peacefully,” the statement
says.

Economic Miracle And Belgian Analyst’s Ears
A1 Plus | 18:24:00 | 06-09-2004 | Social |
“I don’t believe my ears when I hear there is economic progress in
Armenia”, Belgian International Crisis Group /ICG/ senior analyst
Philip Noubel said at a seminar held Sunday in Tsakhkadzor, Armenia,
on prospects of conflict settlement.
He specified that there is certain progress but for a minority
of people. Only 3 or 4 percent of the republic’s population live well.
Noubel is convinced that there can’t be any economic growth amid
ongoing corruption, human resources mismanagement and a dependent
justice system.
He also sees serious problems linked with the republic authorities’
legitimacy that led to civil unrest.
Belgian analyst said he had managed to notice certain difference in
perception of Karabakh conflict by Armenia’s population, Karabakhis
and Armenians living overseas.
In his words, Armenia’s many residents say they became captives of
Karabakhis, Armenians from foreign communities say there is need of
fighting for Karabakh, but, at the same time, they say they don’t
want to fight because they live, for example, in California.
Noubel hasn’t been in Karabakh but talked to many Karabakhis
who accused Armenia’s population of being not so patriotic
considering Karabakh issue. The ICG representative said he saw no
favourable-for-dialogue atmosphere in Armenia.

The Caucasus mountains, a turbulent crossroads between Caspian and Black Sea
Agence France Presse — English
September 5, 2004 Sunday 2:03 AM GMT
MOSCOW Sept 5 — The Caucasus, scene of a hostage drama that ended
with hundreds of dead and wounded, is the turbulent home to scores of
ethnic and religious groupings prone to regular outbreaks of violence.
The mountainous region, roughly the size of California, forms a
natural crossroads between east and west, north and south and currently
comprises three newly independent states — Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Georgia — along with part of the regional superpower, Russia.
The seven Russian republics in the region are themselves highly
diverse, including strife-torn Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North
Ossetia, Karachai-Cherkessia, Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Dagestan alone, wedged between the Caspian Sea and Chechnya, is
inhabited by 30 nationalities, each with its own language and customs.
Many of the region’s languages are of Indo-European or Turkic origin,
others are indigenous.
Islam is well-established in the Caucasus, notably in Azerbaijan and
several of the Russian republics, but Orthodox Christianity in its
Armenian, Georgian and Russian variants is also widespread.
Its key position made the Caucasus a target for regional empires
including those of the Ottomans and Persia.
More recently the Russians have dominated the region, and many of the
conflicts of the past decade have been exacerbated by administrative
demarcations decided during the Soviet era and the wholesale
deportations ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World
War II.
Nationalist sentiment among the rugged, fiercely independent mountain
peoples was never entirely extinguished, and aspirations to self-rule
contributed significantly to the break-up of the Soviet Union.
The first out-and-out conflict erupted in the late 1980s between
Armenians and Azeris scrapping over the remote enclave of Nagorno
Karabakh, administratively part of Azerbaijan but inhabited mainly
by Armenians.
That conflict, like others that have broken out subsequently, has
still not been resolved.
In 1992, in the months following the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
South Ossetia, part of Georgia, fought a brief war with government
forces to claim independence from Tbilisi, while Christian North
Ossetia, part of Russia, battled with Muslim Ingushetia over a
territorial claim.
The same year, Georgia’s western Abkhazia region — with suspected
Russian support — fought a year-long separatist war that won de
facto independence at a cost of thousands of dead and a ruined economy.
In December 1994 then Russian president Boris Yeltsin poured troops
into Chechnya to put down a separatist insurgency headed by Dzhokhar
Dudayev. Less than two years later he was forced to withdraw the
troops, leaving rebel leaders in control.
Chechnya’s de facto independence, marked by chaos and warlordism,
lasted less than three years as an incursion by rebels from Chechnya
into Dagestan triggered a further invasion by Russian troops, ordered
this time by Yeltsin’s prime minister and heir apparent Vladimir Putin.
Putin has made frequent claims since then to have stabilised the
situation in Chechnya, usually finding them belied by events.
The Caucasus region, particularly its Russian republics, are also
dogged by lawlessness despite — some say because of — the presence of
Russian troops, with oil-trafficking, clan warfare and hostage-taking
rampant.

Xinhua News Agency – French
4 septembre 2004 samedi 5:00 PM EST
Procès de Malabo: mission d’enquête équato-guinéenne en Arménie
YAOUNDE
Une délégation judiciaire équato-guinéenne se trouve en Arménie dans
le cadre du procès de 14 mercenaires, dont six Arméniens, accusés à
Malabo d’une tentative de coup d’Etat avortée en mars dernier, a-t-on
appris samedi soir de source judiciaire de Malabo.
Cette mission enquête particulièrement sur un contrat passé entre la
société arménienne Tiger Air et une société allemande que
représentait à Malabo Gerhard Eugen Merz, un ressortissant allemand
arrêté en même temps que les 14 mercenaires présumés et décédé
quelques jours après en détention, a précisé cette source.
L’un des six accusés arméniens avait expliqué lors de son audition au
procès de Malabo que ses cinq compatriotes et lui, tous membres de
l’équipage d’un Antonov, étaient venus travailler en Guinée
équatoriale en vertu de ce contrat par lequel la société de M. Merz
louait l’avion et l’équipage.
L’avion n’avait effectué, entre l’arrivée en janvier 2004 de
l’équipage arménien en Guinée équatoriale et son arrestation début
mars, qu’un unique vol, affrété par la société Triple Option du
sud-africain Nick du Toit, présenté par l’accusation comme le chef du
groupe de 14 mercenaires.
Le procès des 14 accusés, au côté desquels comparaissent cinq
Equato-guinéens, s’est ouvert le 23 août et a été suspendu sine die
le 31, à la demande de l’accusation.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
09/03/2004
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WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1. ANCA Endorses Senator Barbara Boxer 2. Bush Administration Disastrous for Armenian American Voters Announces AADLC 3. Injuries, Lack of Funds Justification for Poor Olympic Performance 4. For Whom The Zell Tolls 5. Cultural Amnesia: The Museum of Tolerance 6. Glendale Police Department Seeks to Diversify Force 1. ANCA Endorses Senator Barbara Boxer WASHINGTON, DC--The Armenian National Committee of America announced on Thursday it will endorse two term Democrat from California, US Senator Barbara Boxer for reelection. Boxer is challenged by Republican Bill Jones who most recently served as California's Secretary of State. The ANCA endorsed the Senator based on her long and faithful record of public service with special consideration to Armenian-Americans living in the State of California. Since her tenure in Congress, Boxer has held an open door policy toward her constituents, carrying their message to the halls of Congress. In a letter to Senator Boxer, the ANCA stated that while the Senator's responsibilities as an elected official have increased, she has managed to maintain close working relationships with even her smallest constituencies. California is the nation's most populous state and home to the nation's largest Armenian American community. On issues of concern to her constituents of Armenian heritage and to the Armenian-American community at large, Senator Boxer has time and again defended their history and rightful place in American society. As recently as this year, she made statements of support for the official reaffirmation of the Armenian Genocide, including letters to President Bush urging to end the illegal Turkish blockade of Armenia. In addition to these measures, Senator Boxer has co-sponsored legislation, and actively sought the support of Democratic party leaders, on the issue of Genocide reaffirmation. Additionally, Senator Boxer has been a staunch advocate of aid to the Republic of Armenia as it undergoes the difficult process of transition towards democracy and a free market economy. Senator Boxer traveled to Armenia to witness firsthand these changes and returned as an even stronger advocate than before. 2. Bush Administration Disastrous for Armenian American Voters Announces AADLC LOS ANGELES--The nation's largest Armenian American Democratic political organization announced on Friday that the Bush Administration has compiled one of the most anti-Armenian American records in history. From actively denying the Armenian Genocide, seeking to slash US assistance to Armenia in half, attempting to list Armenian immigrants on a terrorist-watch list, to forcefully attempting to provide four times more military aid to the Republic of Azerbaijan than to Armenia, the Bush track-record represents an affront to tens of thousands of Armenian American voters in California and other Western States, according to the Armenian American Democratic Leadership Council (AADLC). "George W. Bush and his advisors in the Pentagon, like Paul Wolfowitz, have carried on a four year sustained campaign of attacking Congressional legislation that is of concern to the Armenian American community," remarked an AADLC spokesman. "At the behest of foreign governments, like the Republic of Turkey, the Bush Administration has denied the Armenian Genocide, weakened US ties to Armenia, and worked hard to boost the military strength of Azerbaijan - a nation which is committed to the total destruction of Armenia," the spokesman added. The AADLC is working with Democratic Party officials and the Kerry campaign in reaching out to Armenian American voters in swing states like Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. All three states already boast Armenians for Kerry groups and are working with the official Armenians for Kerry organization (<;). In its evaluation of the Bush Administration, AADLC officials stressed that in 2002, the Bush Administration attempted to require that Armenian immigrants register with an anti-terrorism program. Armenian Americans learned of the Bush Administration registration plan only after the Federal Register--the official record of government regulations--stated that males age 16 and up from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Armenia would join a list of men from 18 other countries considered at risk for terrorism. Such men would be required to visit local Immigration and Naturalization Service offices to be photographed, fingerprinted and show certain documents. Only a massive grassroots protest, led by the ANCA, overturned the Bush Administration's attempt to list Armenians as individuals "at risk for terrorism." The Bush Administration never offered a full explanation of why Armenians were listed in the initial Federal Register notice. According to the AADLC, the Bush Administration has also continued to support the Republic of Turkey, even after Turkey's refusal to allow access for the United States to mount a northern front in the war against Iraq. Specifically, the Bush Administration supported a $1 billion taxpayer aid package to Turkey that was passed by Congress in 2003. The Bush Administration also continues to be the one of the few countries pushing for Turkey's admission into the European Union. 3. Injuries, Lack of Funds Justification for Poor Olympic Performance YEREVAN (RFE-RL)--Senior sports officials and coaches on Thursday blamed Armenia's extremely poor performance at the Olympic Games in Athens on a lack of state funding and injuries suffered by their top athletes. None of the 18 Armenian athletes that participated in the games won medals--the country's worst Olympic showing since independence; several Armenian-born athletes now representing other countries won silver and bronze medals. The results sparked an outcry from the media and leading politicians who unanimously pointed the finger at Ishkhan Zakarian, the head of the State Committee on Sport and Physical Fitness and the National Olympic Committee, who was accused of incompetence and mismanagement. In a newspaper interview published on Thursday, Zakarian rejected the accusations, saying he will not resign voluntarily. "I could not have stepped on the arena in place of a boxer, wrestler, or weight-lifter," he said. Zakarian did not appear at the news conference, but was represented by his deputy Mikael Ispirian who said that only seven Armenian athletes had realistic chances of doing well in Athens and most of them suffered injuries in the middle of the competitions. Asked about the quarterfinal elimination of Aleksan Nalbandian, Armenia's sole boxer at the Olympics, he said, "Maybe he lost narrowly. But in essence, it was a victorious bout." "If we felt that resignation would change things positively we would all be ready to quit," Ispirian said. "And if you think that the specialists sitting here are not as professional as you journalists are, then you are wrong." The coaches, for their part, complained that government funding allocated to sports is highly insufficient for proper training of their athletes. The Sport Committee's budget for this year is only 350 million drams ($680,000). "To win medals you need money, money and money," said Vahan Bichakhchian, the head coach of the national weight-lifting team. "What do you think I can achieve with a monthly salary of $50?" 4. For Whom The Zell Tolls By Skeptik Sinikian Asbarez Columnist This has been some week! The Olympics are finally over and I heard that an Armenian from Uzbekistan or Khazakhstan or one of the other stans (except Hayastan) finally won a bronze medal (that's third place for the metallurgic challenged)! My friend who called me to tell me about this medal reassured me that even though the medal is only a bronze, the winner has some relatives who work in the Jewelry District in Downtown LA who will have it gold plated at no extra charge. So I guess that should hold us over until 2008. But the Olympics aren't making headlines anymore, so let's put the ancient games to bed. The fabricated CNN and Fox News headlines are being churned up in New York where the Republican Convention has captured the attention of the nation. On Wednesday night the key note speaker was US Senator Zell Miller, an unabashed Democrat turned Bush supporter. Senator Miller, or Zell as we will call him, took the podium and delivered a fiery "Armageddon is upon us if Kerry is elected" speech that had Republican delegates hooting and hollering like the Dukes of Hazzard. Zell tore into Kerry's voting record like a rabid hyena attacking a carcass. Even if you disagree with his statements, almost everyone agrees that Zell was the best speaker so far at the convention, outshining even Dick "potty mouth" Chenney. But even with the Zellmeister beating up on Kerry like a birthday piñata, there was very little substance in his remarks. Now wait! (I can hear Republican Party loyalists and conservative readers grinding their teeth or sharpening their knives). I think that Zell did a heck of a job of painting Senator John Kerry as the flip-flopper who wants to arm the US army with spitballs instead of bombers, missiles, and jet fighters. In fact, if I were Kerry and were watching this speech, I'd make sure to have my assistant or butler or sidekick take Zell off the Christmas card list. But there's more to this speech than meets the eye. Aside from being a superb Republican hatchet job, it was rift with moronic rhetoric. Here's my favorite line from the speech that exemplifies the ignorance of war mongers in our country. "In the summer of 1940, I was an 8-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war, but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could." That's right folks, a brilliant gem of a statement (not taken out of context, I assure you) from Senator Zell Miller. What a brilliant child he was at the tender age of 8. Apparently young Zell thought the Germans and Italians were "crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could." The same Germans and Italians who gave us Mozart, Beethoven, the Roman Republic, the Catholic Church, spaghetti and pizza, hamburgers and hotdogs, Sigmund Freud, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, not to mention Michalengelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and countless other contributions which this country is based on. These same folks have been reduced to being irrational homicidal maniacs. But I guess if you're running around the Appalachian valley in overalls covered in mud, chasing frogs and playing the banjo when you're not steeling moonshine from the neighbor's still, then it's pretty hard to see Germans and Italians as anything other than "crazy men" bent on killing innocent children. Is it any wonder why this administration and the Republicans see Arabs as maniacs and wild freaks who live in the desert, one notch above the Jawas and one notch below the Tusken raiders (Star Wars reference folks). I haven't met one person yet who thinks that if Kerry is elected President, he will ask everyone in the army to turn in their guns for rhythmic gymnastics batonsthe ones with long flowing ribbons like Will Ferrell's in "Old School." I'm just tired of having patriotism shoved down my throat night after night after night. We get the point already! The Republican party claims to be the party of Homeland Security and superior intelligence; yet before the convention even started, a well-known news agency reported that "a welcome e-mail that was sent to hundreds of volunteers for the Republican National Convention inadvertently included the name, address, social security number, race, and other personal information of those volunteers." This is the Party of securitydefending the rights of every Americanyet they can't even send out an email without botching the job. The real sad thing about this whole election is that Kerry is taking all of this without any comebacks. Maybe it's part of the "play dead and they'll leave you alone" campaign strategy that's going to pan out later on. But seriously, there are two months left until the election and Kerry just got handed the ass whooping of a lifetime. In fact, the Republicans hit him so hard that he should pack his bags and head back to his palatial resort getaway in the Cape. When you can't harm a monolingual President who can't even speak English coherently, then you have problems. Anyway, Zell has spoken and regardless of what people say about this political Judas, he has dealt Kerry a body blow. Kerry needs to win states in the southand having pretty boy Edwards by his side just won't cut it. It's time for Kerry to follow the Boston Red Sox motto from last year and either "Cowboy Up!" or resign himself to the Michael Dukakis Massachusetts Presidential Candidate Hall of Shame. Time is running out. Skeptik Sinikian loves to make bold accusatory statements with no factual foundation. Skeptik claims that if you're not with him, then you're against him and if you're against him, then you don't love America. If you would like to "bring it on," do so at [email protected] or visit 5. Cultural Amnesia: The Museum of Tolerance By Farris Wahbeh "The world should know we are not building a bunker. We're building something that breathes with life, just as God breathed life into us." So said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last May 2, in Jerusalem at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Simon Wiesenthal Center for Human Dignity and a Museum of Tolerance, which is the Center's educational arm. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), named after the Ukrainian-born survivor of the Nazi Death camps who later became a world famous Nazi-hunter, was founded in 1977 as an international center for "Holocaust remembrance, the defense of human rights and the Jewish people." The organization is supported by an international member base of 400,000 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Toronto, Miami, Jerusalem, Paris and Buenos Aires. The SWC's first Museum of Tolerance (MOT) was opened in 1993 in Los Angeles as a "high tech, hands-on experiential museum that focuses on two central themes through unique interactive exhibits: the dynamics of racism and prejudice in America and the history of the Holocaustthe ultimate example of man's inhumanity to man." The new MOT in Jerusalem, which was conceived by SWC's Dean and Founder, Marvin Hier, is slated to open between 2006 to 2008 with a price tag of $150 million. The MOT Jerusalem will be designed by the esteemed international superstar-architect-of-the-moment, Frank Gehry. The SWC in Jerusalem will house not only MOT but also a full three-acre museum campus including an international conference center, a grand hall, an education center and a library. While the SWC in Jerusalem seems like an ideal ground for highlighting violations of human rights against the Jewish people, something seems to have been forgotten in the processhuman rights violations against Palestinians in Israel by the Israeli government. One example of this historical amnesia is the fact that the SWC will be built on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery that has now become a dilapidated parking lot. The leftist politician and former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, writing in Ha'aretz, confirms the hesitation that many feel about the SWC and MOT moving into Jerusalem: "It is difficult to imagine a project so hallucinatory, so irrelevant, so foreign, so megalomaniac, as the Museum of Tolerance. The mere attempt to stick the term tolerance to a building so intolerant to its surroundings is ridiculous." Benvenisti also acknowledges the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories: "Fanatic, brutal Jerusalem, saturated with the ambition to gain exclusive possession over it, will take pride in a site that preaches equality between communities and the brotherhood of nations, and from its rooftops will be seen the homes of Palestinians, whose struggle for freedom is always defined as 'terror.'" According to Samuel G. Freedman in the New York Times, while the museum's content is still in the early stages, the director of Los Angeles' MOT, Liebe Geft, has already solicited ideas from Israeli novelists, political scientists and religious leaders. So far, however, the central exhibition at MOT Jerusalem, which is conceived by Mr. Hier, will highlight the journey of the Exodusa ship that carried Jews from Europe after WWII and was later denied entry into British controlled Jerusalem. Since the museum's mission is to specifically highlight the violations of human rights against Jews, Mr. Hier, speaking to the New York Times, has said that MOT is not about Palestinians. "It's not about the experience of the Palestinian people. When they have a state, they'll have their own museum." For a museum that boasts of highlighting the effects of human rights violations and the practice of tolerance, it seems rather odd that such an intentional omission would be allowed. The SWC's MOT Jerusalem directly conflicts with their mission of confronting "important contemporary issues," such as racism, terrorism and genocide, when it turns its back on the Palestinian situationa situation that is known worldwide as an "important contemporary issue." For instance, in 1949, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 302 (IV) to carry out direct relief and works programs for Palestinian refugees that were displaced following the Israeli incursion into Palestine, otherwise known as the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1950, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which works with refugees and refugee camps in Israel and has seen the number of Palestinian refugees rise to 4 million in 2002, was the off-spring of Resolution 302 (IV), and the General Assembly has renewed UNRWA's mandate repeatedly since 1949 until June 2005. After Israel invaded East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day-War, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 242 which calls for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" and highlights the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." Interestingly, the SWC is an accredited NGO at both the UN and its cultural division of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Even if this form of cultural etiquette may come as a surprise to many, this is not the first time that the SWC has turned its back on human rights atrocities. The center's MOT in Los Angeles came under fire by the city's Armenian communitywhich is one of largest outside of Armenia todayin 2003 when the museum retracted their pledge of including the Armenian genocide by the Turkish Ottoman Empire as part of their permanent installation. A group of Armenian-American college students [Armenian Youth Federation members] even staged a six-day hunger strike in front of the MOT as a sign of protest against the museum's refusal to incorporate the topic into the permanent exhibition. Another Los Angeles-based artist/activist group created an on-line museum titled Museum of Amnesia (MOA) in protest against MOT's omission of the Armenian genocide. One of the members, speaking to F News about MOT's handling of political themes within their museum, responded by saying, "In general I think the MOT (LA) appears as this fortress that exhibits filtered-down (Wiesenthal's filter) and in some cases filtered-out information on complex issues. I think the Palestinian writer/ scholar Daoud Kuttab who was quoted in the [New York Times] article really echoes part of MOA's position when he said "What we often see is an attempt to give a superficial meaning to tolerance." In response to the Armenian community's protest, MOT's Director Geft responded the Jerusalem Post, saying, "Whatever we do, it won't be enough for some members of the Armenian community." Clearly, the SWC's track record in recording human rights violations at their museums is shaky at best. What that means for Palestinians living within Israel, in a museum meant to display Tolerance and Human Rights abuses within that very same country, remains contentious. Israeli Reservist Art While Israel is bracing herself for a new cultural display of "tolerance," several Israeli reservists are exhibiting the exact opposite. In a June exhibition titled "Breaking the Silence" at the Academy for Geographic Photography in Tel Aviv, three Israeli Reservists, Micha Kurz, Yehuda Shaul and Yonathon Baumfeld, who finished their three years of mandatory service in Hebron, exhibited videotapes and photographs detailing the mistreatment of Palestinians under Israeli army rule. The exhibition was intended to portray what actually occurs during mandatory service with the Israeli army. In a letter addressed to visitors at the entrance of the exhibit, the soldiers said: "We decided to speak out. Hebron isn't in outer space. It's one hour from Jerusalem." Among the exhibition photographs, some images included Palestinians that are blindfolded and bound, and countless pictures of racist and near fascist graffiti created by Israeli settlers and directed towards the Palestinians. One such photo includes the phrase: "Arabs to the Gas Chambers." The videotapes included in the exhibition comprise testimonials by 70 Israeli soldiers who reveal the use of Palestinians as human shields and the overall mistreatment of Palestinians in general. The Israeli Military Police interrogated several of the artists-cum-reservists, including Micha Kurz. Kurz, after a seven-hour questioning session, responded to the press: "The army wants to keep us quiet and scare us way. They're not going to shut us up, because we have a lot to say, and they're not going to scare us off." 6. Glendale Police Department Seeks to Diversify Force By Ani Shahinian Asbarez Staff GLENDALENever in the history of the Glendale Police Department have more positions been available for those thinking of pursuing a career in law enforcement. "It's a golden opportunity; there are positions for officer recruits, police cadets, and community service officers," says Sergeant Vahak Mardikian who is always ready to talk to potential applicants. "It is always helpful to talk to any officer within the department to gain a better understanding of what it takes." Lt. Bruce Fox, who heads the department's Professional Standards Bureau and is responsible for all hiring, said that while the department is working more diligently to be representative of the community, the task becomes difficult when trying to expand and hire in larger numbers. "The pressure is on to not only expand but to also diversify the department at the same time," says Fox, addressing the number of applicants who actually qualify. While there were a good pool of applicants seven to ten years ago, there has been a huge shrinkage among all nationalities since then. Fox explained that all Southern California departments face the same problem, and attributed the trend to the current low level of unemployment, along with the public's perception of police in general. But Fox says that the opportunities are expansive. He especially described the department's Cadet Program as an ideal means to attain experience in law enforcement. The part time program is open to full time college students currently enrolled in an accredited college or university carrying 9 units or more per semester, or eight units or more per quarter, with a GPA of at least 2.0. The program allows participants to tailor work schedules around school schedules, allowing exposure to a variety of areas in the police department, and the opportunity to attain diverse experience. The process to become a police officer begins by filing an application, followed by a written test covering basic writing, vocabulary, and comprehension skills in English. If successful, applicants go through a physical agility test, followed by an oral examination. It is during the oral examination that maturity level and decision making skills are measured. Once an applicant successfully completes these stages, a background check, which can take up to three months, is conducted. It is during this stage of the process, says Fox, that many problems arise. Considering that trustworthiness is a must for all positions, Fox emphasized the importance of a clean background. In order to better inform the community about what it takes to become a successful police officer, an information session will be held on Tuesday, September 7, at the Glendale Police Department's Community Room. It is presented by the Glendale Human Resources Department in conjunction with the Glendale Police Department. "The session will allow prospective applicants to better understand whether they are ready to serve the community," says Lt. Fox. The program, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will have speakers and officers on hand to answer any questions, including Sgt. Mardikian who says that the Glendale Police Department is ready to assist in any way it can. "The community has so much potential and is such a positive place to work. In the bigger departments you get lost in the shuffle, but in Glendale, you feel like you accomplish something every day. It's a good balance," says Lt. Fox, who has wanted to be a Glendale police officer since 8th grade. 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