Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Lowell Sun, MA
April 25 2004
Their horror remembered, their culture celebrated
Local Armenians honor the 1.5 million killed in genocide
By STEPHANIE COYNE, Sun Correspondent
LOWELL Thomas Magarian was an infant when his mom and dad were
murdered.
He lost four of his eight brothers and sisters when they were killed
along with his parents.
Luckily he doesn’t have any recollection of those horrible days, when
1.5 million Armenians were murdered some eight decades ago.
What he does remember is growing up in an orphanage in Beirut.
He smiles as he recalls a beautiful tree growing over a spectacular
Armenian church next to the home for children whose parents died in
the Armenian genocide.
Magarian is one of the few remaining survivors of the killings that
began on April 24, 1915, and lasted until 1923.
Yesterday, families of the victims gathered alongside Magarian, of
Tyngsboro, and another survivor, Bedros Shamshoyian of Lowell, to
remember Armenian Martyrs’ Day, the beginning of a period when the
Armenians were either killed or forced into exile from their
homeland.
Nearly 100 people attended the event, which began with a parade down
Merrimack Street to the steps of City Hall.
Tom Vartabedian emceed the ceremony, which paid tribute to the lives
lost and declared continued efforts to persuade the world to
recognize the Armenian genocide as a crime against humanity by the
Turkish government.
“We observe this anniversary not because it will bring back the dead
or restore our desecrated church and not because our people were
violated and dehumanized,” said Vartabedian, of Haverhill. “But
because we cling to the hope that maybe through education and
understanding, similar atrocities can be avoided.”
Many families with ancestors from the Armenian genocide attended
yesterday’s event to show commitment to keeping their history alive
and pay respect to the lives that were lost.
Sona Gevorkian and her husband Allen brought along their two
children, Datev, 2, and Tsoline, 1, to show their support in getting
the genocide recognized by the world. Turkey continues to deny any
involvement.
“My grandparents were survivors and I grew up hearing my
grandmother’s stories about the genocide,” said Sona, of Bedford.
“We’re trying to get it recognized for me it’s a personal thing as
well as a national thing.”
Angele Dulgarian of Chelmsford felt the same way.
She lost both grandparents and an uncle during those years of death
and destruction.
Dulgarian has attended the annual event honoring the Armenian victims
for the past 17 years and said she will continue to do so as long as
possible.
“We want to memorialize what happened,” she said. “We don’t want to
forget and we want future generations to know their history.”
Dro Gregorian, president of the Armenian Youth Federation through
Saint Gregory’s Armenian Church in North Andover, reaffirmed that
statement.
“The survivors of the genocide have rebuilt their communities and
churches and have kept their culture alive,” said Dro, of Chelmsford.
“As young grandchildren of survivors we vow to continue to keep our
rich history, religion and culture alive.”

Los Angeles Times, CA
April 25 2004
Armenians Mark Genocide

Events including a protest and rally commemorate the 1915 start of
violence against the ethnic group that took 1.5 million lives.
By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
Thousands of Armenian Americans throughout the Los Angeles area
commemorated a grim chapter in their history – the killing of 1.5
million of their countrymen and women by the Turks between 1915 and
1922 – with protests, prayers, a blood drive and even a rock concert.
The events included a solemn ceremony in Montebello, a raucous
protest along Wilshire Boulevard and a rally in east Hollywood that
some said was more a display of national pride than a somber
remembrance of the Armenian genocide.

Despite the diversity of events, Armenian American organizers across
town said they were pleased that their history is being honored and
taught to the younger generation.
Ashot Dermenjian held his daughter Alyssa’s hand as he walked up to
the plaque at a towering Montebello memorial, a cluster of pillars
reaching skyward. The cream-colored structure was surrounded by
flowers Saturday as hundreds paid their respects. Officials,
including Mayor James K. Hahn and City Councilman Antonio
Villaraigosa, addressed the crowd.
Dermenjian said a prayer and made the sign of the cross. “This is her
first time here,” Dermenjian said of his 10-year-old daughter. “I’m
going to bring her every year now. They have to know what their
ancestors went through.
“The sad thing is, I don’t know anything about my family past my
grandfather. I don’t know what they did, where they are from or what
kind of work they were in.”
The Wilshire Boulevard Turkish Consulate was fenced off and guarded
by LAPD officers Saturday as a boisterous crowd of hundreds of
teenagers and young adults outside expressed their passion by
chanting to passersby.
Urged on by members of the local chapter of the Armenian Youth
Federation, they held up placards and shouted: “1915, Never Again” to
passing cars.
“This can happen to any people if the denial keeps going on,” said
Armen Soudjian, a 19-year-old college student carrying a video camera
to make a documentary about the protest.
The Hollywood resident said he would attend a rock concert at the
Greek Theatre that night held by System of a Down, a popular Armenian
American rock group who chose the performance date for its historic
importance.
“No matter what you’re doing today,” Soudjian said, “we’re all still
here for that one cause” – official recognition by Turkey of what
Armenians call the Armenian genocide. Turkish officials deny that the
genocide occurred.
In Glendale, home to more than 40,000 Armenian Americans, the civic
auditorium displayed modern artwork reflecting the atrocities of the
genocide, old articles from the New York Times and a telegram from
1915 written by the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau,
advising the State Department of the killings.
Alongside the paintings, the Red Cross set up a blood bank at the
event because “89 years ago, so much blood was shed for no good. Now
we can give it to anyone who needs it,” said one of the event’s
organizers, Stepan Partamian.
Partamian, who is host of an Armenian television show in Glendale,
said many Armenians suffer from an identity crisis because the
diaspora dispersed them to so many countries after they fled
persecution. He said April 24, the day historians say the killings
began, unites Armenians of different backgrounds, whether their
families fled to Lebanon, Egypt, Iran or any other country.
How to commemorate the day is another matter. In Armenia, people make
a pilgrimage to Tsitsernakaberd, a hilltop where a giant memorial
stands.
“They climb up there, they leave flowers out of respect and there are
no speeches,” said Partamian, a 42-year-old Glendale resident.
That more solemn approach is in stark contrast to the raucous
demonstrations around Los Angeles, especially in east Hollywood,
where some protesters complained that the event resembled the
atmosphere of a national soccer game.
“People honking? That’s inappropriate,” said 18-year-old Hovsep
Hajibekyan, sitting at the entrance of the Hollywood and Western
subway station. “It’s disappointing. This is a day to go to church
and be with family.”

Edmonton Sun (Alberta, Canada)
April 24, 2004 Saturday Final Edition
REMEMBERING REGRETTABLE HISTORY
BY PAUL STANWAY, EDMONTON SUN FREELANCE
Armenians around the world today commemorate the beginning of what
they view as the darkest period in their long history, which is
saying something for a people who have been subject to almost
constant invasion and persecution.
On Wednesday the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly (153 to 68) in
favour of a motion that “acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915
and condemns this as a crime against humanity.”
The history of Armenia is a litany of tragedy and suffering,
endlessly repeated. But it is also a story of survival, against all
the odds and in the face of every possible indignity and handicap we
humans are capable of imposing upon one another.
The Armenians are the oldest Christian nation on earth, a forgotten
remnant of the ancient world from a time before Islam conquered the
Near East. You may not think you know any Armenians, but unless
you’ve never heard of Cher (full name Cherylin Sarkissian), tennis
great Andre Agassi or chess master Gary Kasparov, you are wrong.
They are all children of the great diaspora that followed the
massacre of Turkish Armenians in 1915 – the “crime against humanity”
deplored by a majority of our MPs. It began on April 24, 1915 with
the arrest of Armenian professionals and intellectuals, and ended two
years later with Turkey’s Armenian population having been reduced
from around three million to fewer than 200,000.
What happened to the missing Armenians is still a matter of hot
debate for our NATO ally, Turkey, which vehemently denies systematic
slaughter. Hundreds of thousands fled to Russian Armenia, and
thousands of others eventually made their way to Europe and North
America, but somewhere between 600,000 and two million died as a
result of forced relocation, starvation and the actions of Turkish
troops and civilians.
The actual number seems less important than the fact a brutal
slaughter took place, documented by eyewitness accounts from
survivors, and from credible reports by mostly American diplomats and
aid workers on the scene. There was no Auschwitz, no Treblinka, and
the weapons of choice seem to have been the bayonet and the knife,
but the massacre of the Armenians was in no way less systematic and
inhuman than the Holocaust. An entire population was driven from land
it had occupied since the beginning of recorded history, and those
who were not killed were left to starve or die of exposure.
There is no little irony in the fact Adolf Hitler used this genocide
as a prototype for his own final solution, apparently noting that 25
years later no one remembered what had happened to the Armenians. But
at the time he was wrong. The story of the Armenians received wide
publicity in the years between the world wars, particularly in the
U.S., Canada and Britain.
There was even a time when the Turkish authorities themselves
acknowledged what had happened. Several of those responsible were
tried for their crimes by Turkish courts and executed. But as a
valuable ally during the Cold War years, as NATO’s bulwark against
Soviet Central Asia, there was a concerted attempt to forget and
finally to deny Turkey’s past.
What’s the point of remembering a regrettable slice of the past?
Apart from simple honesty, humanity is the accumulation of its
history and it is impossible to learn from events if we deny they
happened. In Turkey’s case, denying the massacre of the Armenians
guarantees the memory will fester.
Some Turkish leaders in 1915 were openly critical of their
government, others bravely refused to implement genocidal policies,
while ordinary Turks were summarily executed for trying to help their
Armenian neighbours. The present Turkish government would do better
to remember their example than to deny history.

cgi?WAISdocID=7832582351+0+0
+0&WAISaction=ret rieve
HONORING THE 89TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
______

HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 89th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and
children were brutally massacred by the Ottoman Turk regime. The
Armenian Genocide was one of the darkest tragedies in human history,
one that must never be forgotten.
On April 24, 1915, nearly three hundred Armenian intellectuals and
political leaders were rounded up, deported and executed under the
orders of the Ottoman Turk Regime, marking the beginning of the first
genocide of the 20th century. Later that day, 5,000 more Armenians were
slaughtered in their homes and on the streets. For 5 years, the brutal
regime carried out the systematic destruction of the Armenian people
through forced labor, concentration camps, and death marches, until
millions were dead or exiled.
[[Page E630]]
As we look back on the bloodshed and atrocities committed against the
Armenian people, we must recognize the event for the genocide that it
was. As Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the former Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire stated, “I am confident that the whole history of the human
race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and
persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the
sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.”
To deny this truth is to tarnish the memories of the millions of
Armenians who lost their lives to ethnic cleansing. As a member of the
Congressional Armenian Caucus, I have joined my colleagues in sending a
letter to President Bush urging him to acknowledge the Armenian
Genocide during his April 24th commemoration address. By drawing
attention to the legacy of this genocide, we can strengthen our resolve
to prevent future human tragedies of this kind.
I am proud to represent a large and vibrant Armenian community in the
Fifth Congressional District of Massachusetts. Every year, survivors
and their descendants make public and vivid the hidden details of the
Armenian Genocide as they participate in commemoration ceremonies
across the Merrimack Valley. In my hometown of Lowell, the Armenian-
American Veterans Honor Guard will lead a procession to City Hall for a
flag raising ceremony in recognition of the 89th anniversary of the
genocide. The commemoration offers participants an opportunity to
remind the world of the tragedy that befell Armenians of the Ottoman
Empire.
I am honored to add my voice to those of my colleagues today in
commemorating the Armenian Genocide. We will never forget the truth.

Hellenic Resources Network
Monday, 8 March 2004
Background Paper on the Pontian Genocide
Misc. Docs. Directory
From: Akis Haralabopoulos [email protected]
GENOCIDE of the PONTIAN GREEKS
Pontus means “sea” in Greek and is located in the south-eastern littoral of
the Black Sea. Its connection with Hellenism stretches back to pre-historic
times to the legends of Jason and the Argonauts quest for the Golden Fleece
and to Heracles obtaining the Amazon Queen’s girdle. The coastal region was
colonised by the Ionians, especially the city of Miletus which founded
Sinope (785 BC), Trapezunta (756 BC) and the numerous other cities along the
coast from Heracleia to Discurias in the Caucasus. The Hinterland was
gradually Hellenised and this was completed after Alexander’s conquests. Its
contribution to Hellenism in those 2800 years has been enormous: Diogenes
hailed from Sinope and Strabo from Amaseia, it was here that Xenophon found
a safe haven, that the great Comneni dynasty reigned, the home of Cardinal
Bessarion and the Hypsilandis family; it was also the last Greek territory
to fall to the Turks (in 1461). Many famous churches, monasteries and
schools are a testament to the resilience of Hellenism. The Pontians are a
distinct Greek people with their own dialect, dances, songs and theatre.
For the Pontian Greeks all ended in tragedy in the years 1914-22. Of the
700,000 Greeks living in Pontus in 1914, 300,000 were killed as a result of
Turkish government policy and the remainder became refugees. Three millenia
of the Greek presence was wiped out by a deliberate policy of creating a
Turkey for the Turks. The Pontian people were denied the right to exist, the
right of respect for their national and cultural identity, and the right to
remain on land they had lived on for countless generations.
The turning point in the treatment of Greeks in Turkey was the alliance
between Germany and the Sultan that commenced after the Treaty of Berlin
1878. Germany regarded Anglo French protection of Christians as an obstacle
to its interests and convinced the Turkish authorities that the Greeks were
working for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Germany opened the Berlin
Academy to Turkish military officers and General Gotz was appointed to
restructure the Ottoman armed forces. The successful national movements in
the Balkans posed a threat that the same would occur in Asia Minor. After
the Balkan Wars the Young Turks decided that Asia Minor would be a homeland
for Turks alone and that the Greeks and Armenians had to be eliminated. The
outbreak of World War I made this possible and Germany willingly sacrificed
the Christian minorities to achieve its aim in the Middle East. However, it
is the German and Austrian diplomats reports that confirm that what took
place was a systematic and deliberate extermination of the Christian
population. Genocide. Not security or defence measures, not relocations of
population (why forcibly relocate populations?) not war, not retaliation in
response to the activities of Pontian guerillas or Russian invasion but
GENOCIDE.
Terrorism, labour battalions, exiles, forced marches, rapes, hangings,
fires, murders, planned, directed and executed by the Turkish authorities.
This can be corroborated by the German and Austrian archives now made
public:
24 July 1909 German Ambassador in Athens Wangenheim to Chancellor Bulow
quoting Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha: “The Turks have decided upon a
war of extermination against their Christian subjects.”
26 July 1909 Sefker Pasha visited Patriarch Ioakeim III and tells him: “we
will cut off your heads, we will make you disappear. It is either you or us
who will survive.”
14 May 1914 Official document from Talaat Bey Minister of the Interior to
Prefect of Smyrna: The Greeks, who are Ottoman subjects, and form the
majority of inhabitants in your district, take advantage of the
circumstances in order to provoke a revolutionary current, favourable to the
intervention of the Great Powers. Consequently, it is urgently necessary
that the Greeks occupying the coast-line of Asia Minor be compelled to
evacuate their villages and install themselves in the vilayets of Erzerum
and Chaldea. If they should refuse to be transported to the appointed
places, kindly give instructions to our Moslem brothers, so that they shall
induce the Greeks, through excesses of all sorts, to leave their native
places of their own accord. Do not forget to obtain, in such cases, from the
emigrants certificates stating that they leave their homes on their own
initiative, so that we shall not have political complications ensuing from
their displacement.
31 July 1915 German priest J. Lepsius: “The anti-Greek and anti-Armenian
persecutions are two phases of one programme – the extermination of the
Christian element from Turkey.
16 July 1916 German Consul Kuchhoff from Amisos to Berlin: “The entire Greek
population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has
been exiled. Exile and extermination in Turkish are the same, for whoever is
not murdered, will die from hunger or illness.”
30 November 1916 Austrian consul at Amisos Kwiatkowski to Austria Foreign
Minister Baron Burian: “on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: “we must finish
off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians . . . on 28 November. Rafet Bey
told me: “today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight.”
I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of
what occurred last year” (meaning the Armenian genocide).
13 December 1916 German Ambassador Kuhlman to Chancellor Hollweg in Berlin:
“Consuls Bergfeld in Samsun and Schede in Kerasun report of displacement of
local population and murders. Prisoners are not kept. Villages reduced to
ashes. Greek refugee families consisting mostly of women and children being
marched from the coasts to Sebasteia. The need is great.”
19 December 1916 Austrian Ambassador to Turkey Pallavicini to Vienna lists
the villages in the region of Amisos that were being burnt to the ground and
their inhabitants raped, murdered or dispersed.
20 January 1917 Austrian Ambassador Pallavicini: “the situation for the
displaced is desperate. Death awaits them all. I spoke to the Grand Vizier
and told him that it would be sad if the persecution of the Greek element
took the same scope and dimension as the Armenia persecution. The Grand
Vizier promised that he would influence Talaat Bey and Emver Pasha.”
31 January 1917 Austrian Chancellor Hollweg’s report: “. . . the indications
are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the
state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by
the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures
for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger and illness. The
abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to
the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks.
Thus, by government decree 1,500,000 Armenians and 300,000 Pontian Greeks
were annihilated through exile, starvation, cold, illness, slaughter,
murder, gallows, axe, and fire. Those who survived fled never to return. The
Pontians now lie scattered all over the world as a result of the genocide
and their unique history, language (the dialect is a valuable link between
ancient and modern Greek), and culture are endangered and face extinction.
A double crime was committed – genocide and the uprooting of a people from
their ancestral homelands of three millenia. The Christian nations were not
only witnesses to this horrible and monstrous crime, which remains
unpunished, but for reasons of political expediency and self interest have,
by their silence, pardoned the criminal. The Ottoman and Kemalist Turks were
responsible for the genocide of the Pontian people, the most heinous of all
crimes according to international law. The international community must
recognise this crime.

CBC Manitoba, Canada
April 22 2004
Turkey condemns Canada’s Armenian genocide vote
OTTAWA – Turkey condemned as “narrow-minded” the decision by Canada’s
House of Commons to recognize as genocide the mass killing of
Armenians during the First World War.
“Some narrow-minded Canadian politicians were not able to understand
that such decisions based on … prejudiced information, will awaken
feelings of hatred among people of different [ethnic] roots and
disturb social harmony,” a statement from Turkey’s foreign ministry
said.
Canada became one of only a few nations to recognize the deaths of
1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as genocide when the House of Commons
late on Wednesday reversed Ottawa’s stated policy on the issue by
passing a private member’s bill.
Canada’s official position to date has been that the deaths
constituted a “tragedy” rather than the purposeful extermination of
minority Armenians by the then Ottoman Empire during the First World
War.
But in a free vote, Parliament voted 153 to 68 to adopt the Bloc
Québécois motion which stated: “[T]his House acknowledges the
Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against
humanity.”
Bill Graham
Foreign Minister Bill Graham defended the government’s position
saying: “What we seek to do in our foreign policy is to encourage the
forward dimension,” said Graham. “We’d like our Armenian friends and
our Turkish friends to work together to put these issues in the
past.”
In 1915, during the First World War, Turkish troops put down an
Armenian uprising. Armenians say about 1.5 million people were killed
by the Ottoman Turks during an eight-year campaign.
Turkey has always fought attempts by Armenians and international
human rights organizations to have the events declared a genocide.
Previously, Ankara has warned countries contemplating similar action
that there would be negative consequences. In some cases business
contracts have been held up or denied.
In 2001 France backed the Armenian case. Ankara responded by freezing
official visits to France and temporarily blocking French companies
from competing for defence contracts.
The U.S. dropped a similar resolution a year earlier after the White
House warned it could hurt U.S. security interests.
The United Nations recognizes the events as genocide.
Liberal backbenchers, including former Chrétien cabinet member Herb
Dhaliwal supported the motion, while Cabinet members, including Prime
Minister Paul Martin, were largely absent from the charged debate.
The opposition, including Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, largely
voted in favour and accused Martin of hypocrisy for promoting free
votes but not showing up for one himself.
Armenian-Canadians greeted the vote with elation, but
Turkish-Canadian observers reacted angrily.
Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, whose film Ararat was about
the subject, said: “What is amazing is that it’s law, and it’s
something that we can tell for generations to come.”
But Kevsai Taymaz of the Federation of Turkish-Canadian Associations
insisted: “It was a terrible time and both sides lost lives, it
wasn’t a genocide.”
Liberal MP Hedy Fry, who supported the motion, said it was important
to note the atrocities took place under the Ottoman empire, long ago
replaced by a modern Turkish state.
“I think it doesn’t mean we’ve broken ties with the current regime in
Turkey. They are our colleagues, they are our NATO allies. They are a
moderate, Muslim government and I think we need to work with them,”
Fry told The Canadian Press.

Le Monde
21 Avril 2004
La seconde vie de l’OTAN
À quoi sert l’Alliance atlantique ? Légitime en 2002, lorsque les
Etats-Unis, la considérant davantage comme une contrainte que comme
un atout dans le cadre de la lutte antiterroriste, l’avaient
marginalisée, cette question ne l’est plus en 2004.
A tel point que l’optimisme de son secrétaire général, Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer, pour qui “elle fait mieux que résister, elle s’élargit et
prospère”, n’apparaît pas déplacé. En accueillant sept nouveaux pays
d’Europe de l’Est (Bulgarie, Estonie, Lettonie, Lituanie, Roumanie,
Slovaquie et Slovénie), elle démontre qu’elle n’est plus seulement un
club suranné datant de la guerre froide, mais une alliance militaire
et politique à laquelle souhaitent adhérer un nombre croissant de
candidats.
En intervenant en Afghanistan et en Irak, en envisageant de le faire
dans le cadre du “Grand Moyen-Orient” et en Afrique, elle a fait
sauter le verrou qui, selon le traité de l’Atlantique nord, la
cantonnait au théâtre euro-atlantique. Ses limites tiennent à la
volonté politique des gouvernements, elles ne sont plus
géographiques. Elle se transforme en acquérant flexibilité et
réactivité avec la mise sur pied d’une Force de réaction capable
d’être projetée rapidement sur les zones de conflit. Enfin, elle se
réconcilie avec elle-même : la crise du début de l’année 2003,
lorsque la France, l’Allemagne et la Belgique s’étaient opposées à la
“logique de guerre”, est surmontée.
Soucieux de reprendre des relations décrispées avec Washington, ces
trois pays sont rentrés dans le rang, et la France, principal
contributeur à la Force de réaction, est désormais citée en exemple
par les dirigeants américains, qui n’hésitent plus à lui confier des
postes-clés : un amiral français a été affecté au commandement chargé
de la transformation de l’Alliance, et un général français à la Force
de réaction. L’Alliance atlantique et l’Union européenne,
traditionnellement soupçonneuses l’une de l’autre, ont enfin trouvé
un gentleman’s agreement. La première accepte désormais l’existence
de la défense européenne, comprenant que celle-ci puisse être
complémentaire et non pas forcément concurrente.
Dans les Balkans et en Afghanistan, on voit que s’élabore sans le
dire un partage des tâches qui peut être fécond. Cette évolution de
l’Alliance est largement due aux revers essuyés par les Américains.
Si les affrontements sanglants en Irak soulignent autant les limites
de leur puissance militaire que celles de leur capacité à analyser
les failles de leur stratégie, ils en ont pourtant tiré une
importante leçon : l’Amérique ne peut tout faire seule. Cette
redécouverte est dictée par le souci de partager un fardeau de plus
en plus lourd avec ses alliés, c’est-à-dire la responsabilité d’un
éventuel échec.
“MULTILATÉRALISME EFFECTIF”
C’est pour cette raison que le président George W. Bush vient de
demander “un rôle plus formel pour l’OTAN” en Irak. Ce n’est pas un
hasard si le choix de l’Amérique en faveur d’un “multilatéralisme
effectif” se porte sur l’OTAN, seul forum international où Washington
dispose d’une influence prépondérante. Cela signifie-t-il que le ciel
transatlantique se soit dégagé ? Partiellement, puisque ces avancées
sont fragiles, mais il est vrai que l’OTAN et l’Union européenne,
parce qu’elles poursuivent un objectif commun (la stabilisation du
continent européen, l’effacement des lignes de fracture de la guerre
froide), se rejoignent de plus en plus.
Les deux organisations ont suivi une stratégie identique,
s’élargissant pour l’essentiel aux mêmes pays, exigeant d’eux des
réformes étrangement semblables comme condition d’entrée dans leur
“club”: un Etat de droit et une société démocratique, une économie de
marché qui fonctionne, la lutte contre la corruption, la bonne
gouvernance, le respect des minorités, la résolution des conflits
frontaliers. S’y ajoutent pour les pays qui rejoignent l’Alliance une
réforme en profondeur de leur armée, afin que celle-ci soit
“standardisée” avec celles de l’OTAN.
Ce faisant, les deux organisations ont pratiqué une même fuite en
avant. L’OTAN, parce qu’elle voulait échapper à l’obsolescence
gagnant une alliance militaire soudainement privée d’ennemi, l’Union
européenne, parce qu’elle se révèle incapable de définir son
identité, et donc ses frontières. Nul ne sait quelle est la finalité
de ce double exercice.
L’OTAN a-t-elle vocation à devenir une sorte de coalition mondiale
contre un terrorisme devenu lui aussi planétaire ? Elle est en tout
cas appelée à se renforcer. Les 18 et 19 mars, à Bratislava, au cours
d’une conférence internationale sur le “nouvel agenda de la grande
Europe”, une étonnante unanimité s’est manifestée pour rejoindre au
plus vite la “famille euro-atlantique”. L’Albanie, la Macédoine, la
Bosnie-Herzégovine, la Croatie, mais aussi l’Azerbaïdjan, l’Arménie,
la Moldavie, la Géorgie et l’Ukraine, voire la Moldavie et la
Biélorussie, aspirent à rejoindre l’Union européenne pour son
développement économique, et l’Alliance atlantique pour son
“parapluie” de sécurité. Ce double élargissement provoque
l’irritation de la Russie, qui voit fondre son “glacis” avec
l’avancée vers l’est de l’Europe des limites territoriales de l’UE et
de l’OTAN. Moscou élève le ton depuis que les F-16 de l’OTAN assurent
la sécurité du ciel des pays baltes, et menace de faire dérailler le
traité sur les armes conventionnelles en Europe (CFE).
Comme la Russie ne peut plus se permettre d’avoir de mauvaises
relations économiques et politiques avec l’Union européenne et
qu’elle s’est engagée dans un partenariat stratégique avec l’OTAN, il
s’agit surtout d’une posture de négociation. Il est probable qu’à
terme les pays baltes parviendront à normaliser leurs relations avec
leur puissant voisin, à l’image de la Pologne depuis son entrée dans
l’OTAN, en 1999.
Les Européens ont contribué à cet aggiornamento transatlantique. La
vieille tentation française de miner de l’intérieur l’organisation
atlantique s’est émoussée, et la stratégie consistant à renforcer un
“pilier européen” dans l’Alliance n’a plus beaucoup de raisons d’être
depuis qu’il n’existe plus “d’opposition entre l’UE et l’OTAN”, ainsi
que l’affirme Jacques Chirac. “Notre implication dans l’Alliance se
justifie d’autant plus qu’elle va de pair avec nos ambitions pour
l’Europe de la défense”, a expliqué la ministre de la défense,
Michèle Alliot-Marie. “Nous avons réeuropéanisé l’OTAN”, se félicite
un diplomate français.
Les Européens en voient une démonstration dans le fait que leurs
pressions, ainsi que celles des pays arabes, ont convaincu les
Etats-Unis d’amender profondément leur plan pour le “Grand
Moyen-Orient”. C’est sans doute vrai, encore que le sanglant bourbier
irakien fait de toute façon perdre beaucoup de sa crédibilité à un
plan régional censé s’inspirer de la pacification démocratique à
Bagdad.
L’Irak marque ainsi les limites de la réconciliation et de la
confiance au sein de l’Alliance atlantique. Car le sentiment gagne
chez les Européens que l’administration américaine leur a menti, afin
de les entraîner dans une guerre qui, au lieu de pacifier, risque
d’embraser.
Laurent Zecchini

Interfax
April 19 2004
Armenian industrial production up 10.5% in Q1
Yerevan. (Interfax) – Industrial production in Armenia in the first
quarter 2004 increased 10.5% year-on-year to 69.5 million dram, not
including industrial production in the electricity sector, Economic
Development and Trade Minister Ashot Shakhnazarian told journalists.
He said that the mining and diamond cutting industries accounted for
the largest share in industrial production in the reporting period.
The minister said that exports of industrial products from Armenia
increased 27% year-on-year to amount to 43.2 million dram in the
first quarter this year.
The official exchange rate on April 16 was 558.16 dram to the dollar.

Fresno events to recall Armenian massacre
By Vanessa Colon
Fresno Bee
Sunday April 18, 2004
A Fresno blood drive, a candlelight vigil and the raising of the
Armenian flag will mark the 89th anniversary of the killing of an estimated
1.5 million Armenians at the beginning of the last century.
Armenian-Americans – an estimated 40,000 of whom live in the Valley –
say 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1923 at the hands of
the Ottoman Turks.
Officials in modern Turkey, an ally of the United States, say the death
toll was lower and have formally recognized that as Armenian massacre took
place.
Nazik Arisian, an administrator at Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic
Church in Fresno, said the events this week will “Give respect. It’s to not
forget them. It’s to perpetuate the memory so it’s not forgotten.”
The events begin today with the third annual Martyr’s Day Blood Drive at
10 a.m. at the First Armenian Presbyterian Church.
Donors must be in good health, be at least 17 years old and weigh at
least 110 pounds.
On Friday, the Armenian Students Organization and the Armenian Studies
Program at California State University, Fresno, will feature poetry and
various presentations, beginning at noon on the university campus.
A film and a candlelight vigil will follow at 7 p.m. State Sen. Chuck
Poochigian, R-Fresno, is scheduled to speak.
“The reason (the community) should come is so they are educated… The
events also are to pay respect for those who died in the genocide,” said
Barlow Der Mugrdechian, professor of Armenian studies at Fresno State.
Activities on Saturday will include the raising of an Armenian flag at
Fresno City Hall.
Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church plans to hold an Armenian Martyrs
Day Commemoration ecumenical service at 7 p.m.
On April 25, a memorial service will be at 1 p.m. at the Ararat Masis
cemetery at the monument to Soghomon Tehllirian, who
killed a Turkish leader considered a principal perpetrator in the Armenian
massacre.
[email protected]

CHESS;
It Wasn’t Petrosian’s Style, But It Certainly Did the Job
By Robert Byrne
The New York Times
April 18, 2004, Sunday, Late Edition – Final
The Tigran Petrosian Memorial Tournament — Petrosian would have been
75 this year — would not have bothered the former world champion at
all. He was never dogmatic, and if he had any motto, it might have
been, “They play their way and I play mine.”
His way was to avoid the slightest risk-taking and win by remarkably
accurate technique. He did not care if some of his comrades thought
him cowardly. Could they ever have dethroned Mikhail Botvinnik? He
did.
The participants in the competition to honor him wisely did not try to
copy his style. They did their thing, and in many games it was very
good.
The winner of the $4,000 first prize in the tourney, held in
Stepanakert, Karabak, Azerbaijan, from March 8 to 18, was Karen
Asrian, an Armenian grandmaster, who outscored nine of his rivals with
crisp tactical play in the round-robin event.
His best performance came in his game against the Russian grandmaster
Mikhail Kobalia in the second round. Asrian started out with
positional maneuvering, but he soon shifted to a mating attack with
some very nice tactical features.
One point of 8 f3 against the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian
Defense is that a quick 8 d5 yields White the slightly better endgame
after 9 ed Nd5 10 Nd5 Bd5 11 c4 Be6 12 Qd8 Kd8.
After 8 Nbd7 9 g4, one can see that White has replaced the older 8 f4
or 9 f4 with 9 g4. White’s strategy is to attack not in the center but
on the king’s wing.
After 17 Bc4 Qc4, Asrian does not mind yielding the bishop pair to
Black; there is no way the queen bishop can be superior to the c3
knight, which controls d5.
After 37 Qb3, it is not clear why Kobalia did not block with 37
Qf7. Then 38 Nd5 Rc4 39 Nf4 Qf4 40 Rd3 gives him an easier fight.
After 37 Kh8? 38 h5! Nh5 39 Bh4 Nf6 40 Nd5 Qf8 41 Rdh2 Nh5 42 Bd8 Qd8,
Kobalia had only a knight and pawn for his rook.
With 43 f4!, Asrian sharply opened roads to the black king. After 43
ef 44 Nf4! Be5 45 Qf7!, he was piling it on.
After 45 Bf4 46 Qf4!, it would have done Kobalia little good to take
the queen because 46 Nf4 47 Rh7 Kg8 48 Rh8 Kf7 49 Rd8 is a lost
endgame for Black.
After 49 Rc7, Asrian opened the black king position further with 50
e5! The pawn could not be taken because 50 de 51 Rh5! gh 52 Rg1 Kh6 53
Qe3 followedby mate or 52 Kh8 53 Qa8 followed by mate in two.
After 51 ed Qd6, 52 Qf7 Kh6 (52 Kh8 53 Rd4 Qe5 54 Rd7 Qg7 55 Qe6 Rf8
56 Rdf7 Rf7 57 Rf7 and it’s all over) 53 Rh5! Kh5 54 Qh7, Kobalia,
seeing that 54 Kg4 55 Rg1 Kf5 56 Qh3 loses a rook, gave up.

GRAPHIC: Table: “SICILIAN DEFENSE” White Black
Asrian Kobalia
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 d6
3 d4 cd
4 Nd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 a6
6 Be3 e5
7 Nb3 Be6
8 f3 Nbd7
9 g4 Nb6
10 g5 Nh5
11 Qd2 Rc8
12 0-0-0 Be7
13 Kb1 0-0
14 Rg1 g6
15 h4 Qc7
16 Qf2 Nc4
17 Bc4 Qc4
18 Na5 Qc7
19 Bb6 Qd7
20 Qd2 Rfe8
21 Nd5 Bf8
22 Rh1 Bd5
23 Qd5 Rb8
24 Qb3 Rbc8
25 Nc4 Rc6
26 Ne3 Nf4
27 Ng4 Bg7
28 Be3 Rec8
29 Rh2 Qe7
30 Rhd2 Ne6
31 c3 b5
32 Qa3 Rd8
33 Bf2 f6
34 gf Bf6
35 Rh1 Nf4
36 Ne3 Bg7
37 Qb3 Kh8
38 h5 Nh5
39 Bh4 Nf6
40 Nd5 Qf8
41 Rdh2 Nh5
42 Bd8 Qd8
43 f4 ef
44 Nf4 Be5
45 Qf7 Bf4
46 Qf4 Qe7
47 Qf3 Rc4
48 Rh4 Kg7
49 Rf1 Rc7
50 e5 Rc8
51 ed Qd6
52 Qf7 Kh6
53 Rh5 Kh5
54 Qh7 Resigns