Author: Kalantarian Kevo

“CHOIR OF INNOCENT ANGELS”

June 18 2013

The head of ANC faction Levon Zurabyan describes the Deputies of the
fifth convocation as such. – Though the 2012 report of the Control
Chamber has been in the center of interests and analysis by media for
several months, and the passions around it seemed to have settled
down, but recently the passions of the said report again inflamed at
the Parliament. It was interesting that it especially become the
target of the Republican Party. Why or with what the said report was
not liked by the political majority. – For years, the Control Chamber
has submitted much stricter documents, but no one had talked about
them. I would like to remind you that for the first time there were
references made to the scandalous findings of the Control Chamber,
when in 2011during the dialogue with the authorities, the Armenian
National Congress prepared a well-grounded document, including the
findings of the Control Chamber regarding the budget misspend.

Moreover, the ANC, our faction often uses the CC’s findings and
justifications. No matter you want to consider it immodest, but the
attention of the CC report started from the time when we entered the
parliament and began to criticize looting, theft, wastes of budget of
the country intensively using the CC reports. In other words,
something that was made silent, now they can not make it silent,
because on every occasion we are reminding about these findings. And a
strange situation started. First, no matter how they tried to make it
silent, the public realized that simply looting of the state budget is
going on. In 2009, the report clearly states that randomly chosen four
per cent of budget expenditures were checked and a theft and waste of
eight billion Armenian drams was discovered. This means that if we
take all the stats, and do extrapolation, it will turn out that during
one year, in 2008, a half-billion dollars was stolen, which was proved
by CC auditing. In fact, the report of 2012, in this respect, was much
weaker: there are facts of the cable and bio-toilets, that were
flagrant facts, because it was proved that ten times more money was
spent than was necessary. But no matter how shameful examples are
brought, one can always counter that they are simply episodes or
individual cases. The strong point in the report of 2009 was that not
a few cases were brought but inspections by statistical sampling were
performed. Only after when we mentioned it in our report of 2011, they
did not refer to it anymore. The CC, unfortunately, stopped giving
general assessments of how much is wastes from the budget. But at
least they gave an assessment to which everyone referred. That is, 701
billion Armenian drams misspent from the budget was estimated by CC
President as money available in the field of severe corruption risk.

If we translate it in a human language, it means that the main part of
the budget is simply robbed, misspent, and stolen. Everyone understood
it. Now the Republican Party is trying to get out from it. It seems
that there are two opinions about their viewpoints as to how it can be
done. One wing has decided that the best way to self-justification is
to shout ahead of the opposition – catch the thief, like all thieves
are going. It’s a known step. The other side, however, is trying to
follow the way of denial and lessen the effect of these findings. It
is obvious that this is a war going on between the two parties. But
I’m pleased with it. Both tactics are beneficial to us: one the one
hand, they are trying to conceal the truth, on the other hand, however
they take it on themselves, the issue gets a great public response. –
And who is to blame, especially when Gagik Jhangiryan said in his
speech that during the discussion with the ANC faction the CC
President has told that during the last two years he is not sending
the results of CC studies to the RA Prosecutor’s Office, because he is
disappointed from the said body. The CC President said that for
criminal responsibility the law places restrictions on their part. The
Deputies recommended that the government introduce legislative
changes, and the Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan said that it
would be better if MPs do it. So, why are these findings for? – In
general, the current parliament looks like a choir of innocent angels,
where everyone speaks about the fat and lucky bureaucrats, about
robbers. They have fully adopted the vocabulary of the opposition, the
ANC. As one of the Deputies said very correctly that they no longer
consider such statements as correct, they are already using such
expressions. But they give no names. And they want us, the naives, or
our people, naive society think that, let’s say, this multi-billion
dollar plunder is taking place during the management of Serzh
Sargsyan, and the general authorities and leaders of this country as
Serzh Sargsyan, Tigran Sargsyan, Hovik Abrahamyan and others, are not
aware of it. Here, there are two options. Option number one – I really
do not know. Although in that case, I am sorry, we deal with insanity
loafers who are absolutely no competent and generally do not know the
ways to govern this country. This option, of course, is very difficult
to believe because the statements publicized by them prove that along
with the plunder of the state budget, they are gradually accumulating
millions. Well, let’s synthesize, this proven looting of the budget
and simultaneous enrichment of the country’s general authorities. I do
not think there will be someone who will convince the option that
these people do not understand anything, do not know the situation,
and this looting proceeds by itself, and for some reason, they become
wealthy. What conclusion we arrive at: we deal with, as Levon
Ter-Petrosyan says, corrupt from top to bottom, with the systematic
looting. Using the state authoritative system, they plunder the nation
in a systematic and comprehensive manner, and, by the way, the law
enforcement bodies who were supposed to stop looting also serve for
this purpose. What are we supposed to do with such a regime? Is there
another way left to do rather than to stand up side-by-side with
people and send these thieves to the landfill of history? – And when
is ANC going for active operations, rallies, protests, etc., as you
said to send the thieves to the landfill of history? – If there is a
political force, who can be blamed at least for being passive or not
organizing rallies is ANC. For five years we are engaged in
unprecedented activity of organizing mass rallies in Armenia. We had
cycles of several breaks, but in the same 2011, we held more than 20
rallies, including 24-hours rallies. This is normal in policy. If you
constantly deal with rallies, you can outwear the political wave.

That’s why we always calculate and hold rallies along with political
processes. Now, yes, we are in the period of pause that is conditioned
by a few facts, and one of them is that people are simply tired of
constant rallies and elections. Although the ANC has held several
meetings during summer, because the political processes had been hot,
but now this is not the situation that we must ignore the fact of
summer. And, indeed, it turns out that deterioration of the social
situation, very often, as they say, must reach the bone, so that the
people will stand up. We keep our hands on the pulse and from the
moment when we see that we can start the effective political process,
do not think that we will straight away enter into fight. – People
will really feel the wave of increase of price from July on their
skins. Do you think that a social riot, however, will take place in
Armenia, in the fall, because the history showed that social riots can
not happen in our country? – I agree with you that, for some reason,
such a dogma is brought to the head of people that social riots can
not happen in Armenia. Social riots were restrained in Armenia with
the consciousness of people and with prudence of the opposition
because we all understand that there is an issue of Karabakh. Armenia
can not afford that the state machine, the army, the police, etc., are
dissolved for months, as it happened in Egypt or Tunisia. Now these
springs are available in Armenia, they operate, but it seems that the
authorities do not learn lessons from it. They do not realize that
they can bring the process of oppression to such a degree that even
these springs may no longer function. Now they are bringing our
country closer to that border, when a collapse of the state and
financial system may happen. But in this case the opposition will not
be able to stop anyone. The role of the opposition in this case would
be trying to transfer all these to a civilized and organized channel,
and trying to build a political process where the transfer of power is
made smoother and without shock. Conversation held by Nelly
GRIGORYAN “Aravot” Daily

Read more at:

© 1998 – 2013 Aravot – News from Armenia

TURQUIE : LE GOUVERNEMENT MENACE D’UTILISER L’ARMEE CONTRE LES MANIFESTANTS

Istanbul – Le gouvernement turc a menace lundi de recourir a l’armee
pour eteindre la contestation antigouvernementale qui agite le pays
depuis plus de deux semaines, alors que deux puissants syndicats ont
appele a la grève generale pour soutenir les manifestants.

Au lendemain de la demonstration de force du Premier ministre Recep
Tayyip Erdogan devant plus de 100.000 partisans, son vice-Premier
ministre Bulent Arinc a durci le ton en envisageant de mobiliser les
forces armees pour ramener le calme dans la rue.

La police “usera de tous les moyens qui lui sont conferes par la
loi”, a declare M. Arinc dans un entretien accorde a la chaîne de
television A Haber. “Si cela ne suffit pas, meme les forces armees
turques peuvent etre utilisees dans les villes sous l’autorite des
gouverneurs” de regions, a-t-il averti.

Gardienne autoproclamee de la Turquie laïque, l’armee turque est
longtemps intervenue dans la vie politique, notamment par des coups
d’Etat. M. Erdogan est parvenue a la mettre au pas a coups de purges
et de procès qui ont decime sa hierarchie.

La mise en garde du gouvernement est tombee alors que la Confederation
syndicale des ouvriers revolutionnaires (DISK) et de la Confederation
syndicale des salaries du secteur public (KESK) ont decide de monter
dans le train de la contestation, en difficulte depuis la chute de
son bastion du parc Gezi d’Istanbul samedi.

Comme elles l’ont deja fait le 5 juin dernier, ces deux organisations
classees a gauche ont lance un appel a la grève et prevu de faire
descendre lundi leurs militants dans les rues. En debut d’après-midi,
plusieurs milliers de personnes se rassemblaient en deux cohortes
distinctes de part et d’autre de la place Taksim avec l’intention de
la rejoindre.

Vide de ses occupants par une intervention musclee de la police samedi
soir, cette place emblematique est bouclee par les forces de l’ordre.

Tout au long de la journee de dimanche, la police a repousse les
manifestants qui tentaient de s’en approcher a grand renforts de gaz
lacrymogènes et de canons a eau.

Presse d’en finir avec la pire fronde qu’il essuie depuis son arrivee
au pouvoir en 2002, le gouvernement turc a menace de reprimer les
defiles syndicaux de lundi.

“Il y a une volonte de faire descendre les gens dans la rue par des
actions illegales comme un arret de travail et une grève”, a mis
en garde le ministre de l’Interieur Muammer Guler, “cela ne sera
pas autorise”.

Vague d’interpellations

Après le coup de force de la police contre les irreductibles du parc
Gezi, M. Erdogan a enfonce le clou en etalant sa force dimanche lors
d’un meeting geant a Istanbul.

Pendant près de deux heures, le chef du gouvernement a parade sans
retenue devant ses troupes. “J’ai dit que nous etions arrives a la
fin. Que c’etait devenu insupportable. Hier, l’operation a ete menee
et (la place Taksim et le parc Gezi) ont ete nettoyes”, a-t-il lance
sous les vivats de la foule.

Très virulent, le Premier ministre a egalement promis de poursuivre
tous les “responsables” de la contestation, meme les medecins qui
ont soignes les manifestants blesses ou les hôtels de luxe qui les
ont accueillis. “Nous connaissons très bien ceux qui ont protege ceux
qui ont coopere avec des terroristes”, a-t-il prevenu.

Signe de la fermete des autorites, près de 600 manifestants ont
ete arretes dimanche a Istanbul et Ankara, selon les barreaux des
deux villes.

Comme celle qui a lance la contestation dans toute la Turquie le
31 mai, l’intervention de la police dans le parc Gezi samedi soir a
fait descendre des dizaines de milliers de personnes dans les rues
d’Istanbul, d’Ankara et Izmir (ouest).

Dans les deux premières villes, des affrontements ont oppose
jusque tard dans la nuit de dimanche a lundi des groupes de jeunes
manifestants a la police.

Le collectif Solidarite Taksim, principale coordination de la
contestation, a evoque des “centaines” de blesses après l’evacuation
musclee du parc Gezi, le gouverneur d’Istanbul Huseyin Avni Mutlu a
fait etat de moins d’une cinquantaine.

Selon le dernier bilan du syndicat des medecins turcs publie la
semaine dernière, 4 personnes sont mortes et près de 7.500 autres
ont ete blessees depuis le 31 mai.

Les brutalites policières et l’intransigeance de M. Erdogan lui
ont valu de nombreuses critiques et terni son image a l’etranger,
notamment aux Etats-Unis et en Europe.

Lundi la chancelière allemande Angela Merkel a juge “beaucoup trop
dure” la repression des manifestations turques. “Ce qui se passe
actuellement en Turquie ne correspond pas, selon moi, a notre
conception de la liberte de manifestation et d’expression des
opinions”, a-t-elle juge.

mercredi 19 juin 2013, Stephane ©armenews.com

LE GOUVERNEMENT ARMENIEN POURRAIT REVOQUER UN CONTRAT AVEC UNE SOCIETE ESPAGNOLE

Le vice-ministre du Transport et de la Communication Hrant Beglaryan a
declare que le gouvernement pourrait revoquer l’accord avec la societe
espagnole Corsan Corvian Construccion qui a avait gagne un appel
d’offres lance par le gouvernement armenien d’un montant de 250
millions de dollars pour la construction d’un couloir de transport
Nord-Sud qui est cense etre une autoroute a quatre voies en Armenie
qui s’etend sur 550 km – de la frontière avec l’Iran vers la frontière
georgienne.

En mai, la Chambre parlementaire d’audit d’Armenie a declare dans un
rapport qu’elle avait revele une longue serie de violations du
contrat. En particulier, elle a declare que la construction de la
route n’a pas respecte les normes requises et a ete faite en beton
d’une qualite extremement faible.

” En ce moment nous n’allons pas revoquer l’accord, mais nous avons
mis en avant des revendications et si l’entreprise ne se conforme pas
avec elles, nous allons resilier le contrat ” a declare le
vice-ministre.

mercredi 19 juin 2013,
Stephane ©armenews.com

LA QUESTION DU HAUT-KARABAGH AU COEUR DU DEBAT AU SOMMET DU G8

Les presidents des Etats-Unis, de la France et de la Russie ont
critique mardi 18 juin 2013 l’Armenie et l’Azerbaïdjan qui n’ont
pas reussi a trouver un terrain d’entente au sujet du conflit du
Haut-Karabagh. Selon eux, le statu quo est inacceptable.

” Nous exprimons notre profond regret. Plutôt que d’essayer de trouver
une solution basee sur des interets mutuels, les parties ont continue a
rechercher un avantage unilateral lors du processus de negociation “,
ont declare les presidents Barack Obama, Vladimir Poutine et Francois
Hollande lors du sommet du G8 en Irlande du Nord. ” Nous exhortons
les dirigeants de l’Azerbaïdjan et de l’Armenie a se concentrer sur
les questions qui restent en suspens “, ont-ils averti.

Les trois dirigeants ont reitere leur conviction que le conflit peut
etre resolu par des moyens pacifiques. ” Une reprise des hostilites
serait catastrophique pour la population de la region, entraînant
la perte de vies, des degâts materiels et aurait d’enormes coûts
financiers “, disaient-ils.

Obama, Poutine et Hollande ont egalement precise que les puissances
mediatrices sont un element cle des accords de paix qui ont ete
proposees pour les parties en conflit au cours des dernières annees.

Les Etats-Unis, la Russie et la France ont fait des declarations
conjointes similaires sur le Karabagh a plusieurs reprises dans le
passe. Dans leur declaration precedente publiee en juin dernier,
ils ont exprime leurs ” regrets ” sur l’impasse du processus de paix
au Karabagh et ont declare que les parties ne devraient pas retarder
davantage un règlement pacifique. Aucun progrès dans les pourparlers
de paix armeno-azerbaïdjanais n’ont eu lieu depuis.

Les diplomates americains, francais et russe du Groupe de Minsk tentent
actuellement d’organiser une nouvelle reunion du president de l’Armenie
et de l’Azerbaïdjan dans l’espoir de mettre fin a l’impasse.

Le ministre des Affaires etrangères azeri Elmar Mammadyarov a suggere
le mois dernier que le processus de negociation prendra un nouvel
elan après l’election presidentielle azerbaïdjanaise qui aura lieu
en octobre prochain.

L’Armenie n’a pas tarde a reagir a la dernière declaration faite par
Obama, Poutine et Hollande. Le ministre des Affaires Etrangères Edouard
Nalbandian a declare que Erevan est d’accord avec ces principaux
points. Dans une declaration ecrite, Nalbandian a blâme Bakou pour
son manque de communication. Il n’y a pas eu de reaction immediate
de la part de l’Azerbaïdjan.

mercredi 19 juin 2013, Laetitia ©armenews.com

NAGORNO-KARABAKH AND THE EU: TIME TO INCREASE ENGAGEMENT

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
June 18 2013

AMANDA PAUL
[email protected]

Of all the international players involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the EU has good reason to
be concerned over the threat the conflict represents for regional
stability and security, which is not in the least related to the
energy and transport corridors the EU is heavily invested in.

Therefore, one would expect that the EU would be playing a proactive
role in efforts toward a solution. Yet this is not the case. To say
the EU has had a cautious approach towards the Karabakh conflict,
would be an understatement.

Still, through a number of regional policies, including the European
Neighborhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, the EU has slowly
increased its focus on conflict resolution in the South Caucasus. This
was further accelerated following the 2008 Georgia-Russia War, which
served as an example that the international community should not
take it for granted that frozen conflicts will remain frozen. The EU
became the key actor in negotiating the cease-fire between Moscow and
Tbilisi, which led to the EU taking up a much greater role than it
had had hitherto, including taking on a security presence and being
a key player in the Geneva peace talks.

Today Nagorno-Karabakh remains the biggest threat to the security of
the South Caucasus. While a cease-fire may have been in place since
1993, the conflict remains active with numerous violations of the
cease-fire taking place and both sides actively engaged in spending
massive amounts of money on arms. After some 20 years of efforts,
under the auspices of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to resolve the conflict today we
find ourselves at a very low point. The negotiations on a set of
“basic principles” are in deadlock, with the two presidents having
not met since January 2012.

The EU remains on the sidelines. Its approach is as follows: supporting
the efforts of the Minsk Group co-chairs, financing a number of
confidence-building measures and peace-building initiatives and
shuttling diplomacy of the EU Special Representative for the region.

Earlier this week, the think tank where I work in Brussels, the
European Policy Centre (EPC), presented two policy papers on the
role of the EU in Karabakh. The Azerbaijani perspective came from
well-known analyst and fellow Today’s Zaman columnist, Zaur Shiriyev,
while the Armenian view came from Richard Giragosian, who heads
a think tank in Yerevan. What was interesting was that there were
more convergences than divergences, with both experts calling for
an increase in the role of the EU. Interesting recommendations and
ideas were put forward including: The EU should use conditionality
to a greater extent, including making the association agreements that
are presently being negotiated with both countries subject not only to
improving democratic standards, but also progress on the peace-talks.

There is a precedent for this as the EU successfully used the
conditionality principle to gain results in the conflict between
Macedonia security forces and the ethnic Albania National Liberation
Army. Implementation of the Orchid Agreement was used as a precondition
for Macedonia’s EU membership aspirations. The role of the European
Union Special Representatives (EUSR) should be enhanced and expanded,
including having greater cooperation between the French OSCE Minsk
Group co-chair and the EUSR; giving the EUSR observer status in
meetings of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs; initiating a more inclusive form
of track two diplomacy that would have a multi-stakeholder approach and
include both Nagorno-Karabakh communities; carrying out great levels
of conflict analysis, including identifying new trends and emerging
actors in the conflict, both external and internal; and enhancing
cooperation with other regional actors, most particularly with Russia.

Of course the EU is an organization with a lot of legs and tails.

Decision-making is more often than not drawn out and complicated and,
for some member states, Nagorno-Karabakh is not important — even
more so when the EU has so much internal conflict to deal with. But
I believe this to be short sighted. Rather, the EU should be wise
enough to adopt a more proactive and engaged policy towards Karabakh
because, as was the case with Georgia, what we choose to ignore today,
can come back and bite us very hard tomorrow.

MARK KRIKORIAN: THE PROVOCATEUR STANDING IN THE WAY OF IMMIGRATION REFORM

Washington Post
June 18 2013

By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Tuesday, June 18, 3:37 AM E-mail the writer
Mark Krikorian is tapping the earpiece of his glasses — into the
center of his right eye.

Clink. Clink.

“This eye doesn’t track,” he says by way of explaining his slightly
distracted, far-off gaze.

Clink.

“It’s fake,” he says, his tapping drawing a quizzical glance from a
neighboring table in Siroc, the demure downtown Washington restaurant.

“It’s a prosthesis. The guys who do it are called ocularists. It’s
really almost more of an art form. German immigrants brought over the
expertise.”

Immigrants, says America’s metronome of immigration criticism. Like
his grandmother, the Armenian genocide survivor. Like his grandfather,
the Armenian grocer with two wooden legs.

In Krikorian’s world view, there is good immigration — the kind that
happened long ago. And there is bad immigration — the kind that
happens now. There are immigrants who melt into a place and let it
melt into them, and there are immigrants who inhabit a place without
allowing it to inhabit them. “America has outgrown mass immigration,”
he says.

Krikorian doesn’t control any votes in the immigration fight that is
consuming Congress, and he wields no legal authority over the mass of
humanity streaming across U.S. borders every day. His domain is
something less tangible but no less potent: the realm of ideas. In
less than a decade, this rumpled, 52-year-old think-tank director —
this affable provocateur, this whorl of potential contradictions, this
threader of logic needles — has become one of the chief intellectual
architects of the movement to slow immigration to a trickle. Krikorian
championed “enforcement by attrition,” the concept that Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney seemed to translate with such
disastrous results as “self-deportation.”

Since 1995, Krikorian has run the Center for Immigration Studies,
which is now housed in a small suite of offices on K Street. The tiny
institute — about a dozen staffers operating on a $2 million annual
budget, puny by comparison with the business interests and big liberal
think tanks it duels — generates an astounding volume of studies and
opinion pieces with the common themes that mass migration exacts a
heavy economic and psychic toll on the United States. But Krikorian’s
greatest platform may be the media, where he’s taken up permanent
residence as the ever-reliable counterpoint in stories about efforts
to change the immigration system and as a blogger at National Review
Online. “I’m a hack and a flack,” Krikorian says, chuckling. “I give
good quote.”

This is why he is a man to be reckoned with, especially for those who
want to crack open the border a bit more and let immigrants who are
already here illegally find a path to citizenship. The targeter has
become the target, pressed from the left and the right to explain the
provenance of his organization, its motives, its means.

And so, a Washington question of the moment — Can immigration reform
pass? — might be reframed this way: Can Mark Krikorian be stopped?

***

The voices of Mark Krikorian’s childhood sounded like Armenia. His
parents had been born in the United States, but for reasons that they
never articulated with any great precision, they spoke English to each
other but only Armenian to their children. “It just sort of seemed
like the thing to do,” Krikorian says. Their fealty to the language of
their forefathers was so complete that Krikorian couldn’t speak
English when he started kindergarten.

The family lived in an “immigrant milieu,” Krikorian recalls. Their
existence was defined less by the cities that his itinerant father, a
chef and restaurant manager, settled the family in — New Haven,
Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Boston again — than by the community
formed in the Armenian churches they attended. “I didn’t even
intellectually understand that there were old people who didn’t speak
without an accent,” he recalls.

Immigrant narratives comprise the family lore. His grandfathers came
to the United States in the years before World War I to escape
repression in the Ottoman Empire. His Armenian grandmother survived
the carnage of World War I, only to be captured and sold into slavery
and later to find her way to Marseilles, France, as a servant girl. An
arranged marriage, held in Havana so she could legally enter the
United States, sprung her from that life.

When Krikorian was 3 months old, he lost his right eye because of a
retinal blastoma. As a child, he once plucked his fake eye out of the
socket and tossed it into a produce bin, according to a favorite
family story. The little boy was delighted when a store manager
announced a search over the loudspeaker and shoppers scrambled to
locate the missing orb.

Krikorian would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Georgetown and a
master’s at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University, but he was more interested in “goofing off,” he says, than
starting in a profession. He studied for two years at Yerevan
University in Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union. On his return to
Washington, he dawdled with a job waiting tables at Au Pied de Cochon
in Georgetown and was at “loose ends,” he says, when he finally caught
a spark.

Paradoxically, the boy who couldn’t speak English before kindergarten
found himself furious about the national trend toward teaching school
courses in more than one language. “The whole idea of bilingual
education teed me off,” Krikorian says.

In 1987, he tried to get a job at U.S. English, a group that advocated
making English the official language of the United States. But his
pitch — “Hi, I have no skills” — left something to be desired. The
U.S. English folks had nothing for Krikorian, but they must have seen
something in him. They sent him upstairs to another organization that
was looking for a newsletter writer. That group was called the
Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR, and the
next year they hired him.

Krikorian was about to join a crusade.

***

Seven years later, CIS was looking for a new director. Three of its
board members sifted through candidates at the exclusive Cosmos Club
in downtown Washington. Krikorian was familiar to his prospective
employers because he’d spent a year working for FAIR writing
newsletters before moving on to stints as a writer and editor at the
Winchester Star in Virginia and trade publications in Washington.

George Grayson, a William and Mary government professor who serves on
the CIS board, saw a candidate that day whose values aligned with the
group’s. “He’s quite committed to having a reasonable level of
population in the country,” Grayson said of Krikorian in an interview.

Krikorian wanted to establish CIS as a credible voice that drew on
substance and scholarly inquiry rather than emotion. “We have to dare
to be dull,” he says. His opponents invariably portray him as a
purveyor of “junk science.”

He was quippy and quotable. Within months of taking over CIS, he
appeared at a news conference to dispute a study that asserted
immigrants weren’t taking jobs from Americans. “When was the last time
you saw an American cabdriver in Washington, or an American
construction worker in Texas?” he said. Later his group titled a
report “Hello, I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name: Inside the
Green Card Marriage Phenomenon.”

As CIS gained traction, critics scoured its roots for clues about its
intentions. Two groups — the Southern Poverty Law Center and later a
cohort of Republicans pushing for immigration reform — focused on John
Tanton, a Michigan eye doctor who is the father of the modern
anti-immigration movement. Tanton helped found FAIR, U.S. English and
a NumbersUSA, a group that advocates reduced immigration. And in 1985,
he also set in motion the Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS.

Tanton wrote that the think tank “for credibility .â~@~I.â~@~I. will need to
be independent from FAIR, though the Center for Immigration Studies,
as we’re calling it, is starting off as a project of FAIR”; it was
being formed because the movement was losing “ground in the Battle of
Ideas.”

In 2002, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a scathing report that
accused Tanton of consorting with white supremacists, of disseminating
racist screeds through a publishing house he had founded and of
supporting eugenics. A decade later, the Republican immigration
advocates would paint the Tanton-founded groups as advocates of a
zero-population growth mind-set.

The law center’s claims of racism were buttressed by the appearance of
some white nationalists at annual “Writers Workshops” organized by
Tanton’s publishing operation, the Social Contract. Krikorian has
attended the workshops. “The fact that Krikorian shows up at these
things shows he is unwilling to sever a relationship with bald-faced
racists,” says Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law
Center’s Intelligence Project. “These guys are always coy about their
relationship with Tanton.” (According to IRS records unearthed by the
Southern Poverty Law Center, CIS gets about half its funding from the
Colcom Foundation, a group whose philanthropy director is a longtime
Tanton collaborator. The foundation is dedicated to fostering “a
sustainable environment to ensure quality of life for all Americans by
addressing major causes and consequences of overpopulation and its
adverse effects on natural resources.”)

Krikorian calls white nationalism “pernicious” and “an evil thing.”

But he draws a cause-and-effect correlation between white nationalism
— as well as “black nationalism” and “Chicano nationalism,” for that
matter — and immigration. High levels of immigration, he says, have
led to the creation of a political ideology of multiculturalism. He
cites, for instance, the census designation of Latino/Hispanic; he’d
rather that ethnicity not to be highlighted. The backlash is
nationalism, he says.

“So don’t be surprised and complain that there’s a white nationalist
movement,” he says. “Spare me the outrage that there are white
nationalists among immigration critics. There are racial chauvinists
on the high immigration side.”

The criticism from the Southern Poverty Law Center seemed to do little
to hamper the effectiveness of CIS and the other groups Tanton helped
form. In 2007, all three groups were instrumental in defeating a
Republican- and Bush administration-backed immigration reform package
that seemed well on its way to passage. And in 2011, they again played
a key role in smacking down efforts to pass a major immigration
proposal: the Dream Act, which would have granted permanent residency
to immigrants who entered the country as children.

But being Mark Krikorian was about to get more challenging.

***

Last year, as momentum was building for a new comprehensive
immigration law, Alfonso Aguilar kept thinking about the defeat in
2007. NumbersUSA had flooded legislative offices with faxes, and CIS
had churned out reports attacking the proposal. Aguilar, who had
served as chief of the U.S. Citizenship Office in the Bush
administration, joined with other Republican reform advocates to
develop a strategy designed to target CIS, FAIR and NumbersUSA.

“We went after them to unmask them,” Aguilar says. “At the end, this
is what this is all about: It’s about population. To me, it’s an
argument of radical environmentalists.”

Krikorian, who had battled liberals earlier in the decade, found
himself at war with conservatives. “What Alfonso’s doing is the right
hook after the left hook failed to knock us out,” Krikorian says in an
interview.

At his office one afternoon, Krikorian muses that he couldn’t be a
population control zealot and have three children. On the coffee table
in front of him is a Chia Pet Statue of Liberty. On the shelves in the
lobby, he displays dozens of Statue of Liberty collectibles: Mr.

Potato Head as the Statue of Liberty, Barbie, Mickey Mouse, a hula
dancer, a skeleton. On the cover of his 2008 book, “The New Case
Against Immigration,” Lady Liberty extends her hand in a gesture that
screams, “Stay out.” Krikorian writes that the United States has a
government-administered population policy — “just like Communist China
and the Soviet Union .â~@~I.â~@~I. in our case it’s mass immigration.”

“Mass immigration is social engineering,” he says in an interview. “It
is Congress second-guessing American moms and dads, saying they’re not
having enough children.”

Krikorian posits that a state of competition for jobs exists between
“black Americans” and Latinos. One afternoon, he tells the story of a
downtown Washington restaurant he and his staff frequented. When a
Latino manager replaced an African American manager, the staff
abruptly shifted from almost entirely African American to almost
entirely Latino. If employers couldn’t count on cheap immigrant labor,
they might have more incentives to support policies that would help
blacks, he argues.

Krikorian regularly bludgeons almost every aspect of the immigration
proposal by the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” which would create a path to
citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the
country illegally. He co-wrote a widely cited cover story for National
Review with the headline “Rubio’s Folly,” a reference to Sen. Marco
Rubio, the Florida Republican who has become the face of the
immigration proposal. In the piece, Krikorian argues that the proposal
would permit a huge immigration increase, a contention disputed by the
bill’s authors.

Krikorian advocates a stripped-down immigration system that he says
would deeply reduce the number of immigrants. He would admit what he
calls “moral cases” — husbands, spouses and children — a few “real
Einsteins” and refugees.

He’s mulling another book in which he would explicate the complexities
of “inter-marriage.” As an example, he mentions the children of a
cousin of his. She has Armenian roots and is married to a Salvadoran.

Their children “can be as Hispanic or as non-Hispanic as they want to
be,” he says. “They’ll be checking the Hispanic box when they apply to
college — I can guarantee you that.”

It’s a muggy Tuesday night, and Krikorian is steering his Toyota Prius
into the parking lot of a dreary office building in Falls Church. The
man behind the wheel of the hybrid vehicle is a “crunchy conservative”
who says he sometimes pops into Edible Arrangements to collect bags of
melon rinds or Starbucks for loads of coffee grounds to replenish his
compost pile.

In the building’s hallway, a group of middle-aged men and women — all
immigrants — file toward the elevator. They’ve just finished a
citizenship class sponsored by Catholic Charities for green-card
holders who want to prepare for the civics test they must take to
become citizens. Krikorian will be the instructor for the class that
starts in a few minutes. This has been his Tuesday night routine for
about 11 / 2 years, he says.

On the subject of immigration, Krikorian frets about almost
everything, but little seems to animate him as much as his concerns
about multiculturalism and his contention that “Spanish-speaking
people” have “the potential to create an alternative mainstream” in
the United States. “A lot of the immigration pushers don’t like
America the way it is,” he says. “They want to change it.”

In a spare conference room, four men settle into plastic chairs before
Krikorian. They’re Latinos — Bolivians and Salvadorans. “No, no, no,”
he says with a smile when two of the men start speaking Spanish to
each other. No Spanish allowed in class.

“Why do people come to America?” he asks the class.

There’s silence.

“Come on, why do people come to America? You know it,” he urges.

“Freedom?” a Bolivian construction worker suggests.

“That’s right!”

When the men answer tough questions, Krikorian hands them little American flags.

Krikorian, whose birthday is Flag Day, once said the purpose of
immigration was to Americanize people. On this night, in this
conference room with scuff marks on the walls, he seems content in the
belief that he is doing just that: making new Americans.

PROCLAMATIONS PRESENTED TO SURVIVORS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT CENTER IN JAMAICA PLAIN

Boston Globe, MA
June 18 2013

Posted by Matt Rocheleau June 18, 2013 02:57 PM

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Three local legislators visited the Armenian Nursing and Rehabilitation
Center in Jamaica Plain to present proclamations to five residents
there who are survivors of the Armenian Genocide.

The special meeting last week was arranged after the 29th annual
Massachusetts State House Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide of
1915, which had been scheduled for April 19, was cancelled due to the
Boston Marathon bombings days earlier, according to a press release.

“We are so touched by their visit,” said a statement from Lalig
Musserian of Belmont, who helped coordinate the meeting. “The
friendship and support of the Armenian community was very evident in
the time these legislators took to visit the ANRC, which is a warm
and loving home away from home for so many of our seniors.”

On June 10, State Senator William Brownsberger of Belmont and State
Representatives Jonathan Hecht of Watertown and Dave Rogers of
Cambridge read and presented proclamations to survivors Naomi Armen,
Agnes Aznavorian, Armine Bagdikian, Azadouhi Donabedian, and Vasgen
Hovanesian, officials said.

“I was so pleasantly surprised when the senator and the representatives
stayed for so long to talk with the residents and staff at the
reception following the presentation,” said a statement from Siran
Salibian, director of activities at the nursing home. “I thought
they would come and leave quickly, but it was wonderful to see them
visiting with our residents, shaking hands and offering kind words
and congratulations.”

“It was wonderful to meet the legislators and hear from them
directly why it was so important for them to come to us to present
the proclamations to the five survivors,” added Karla Fleming, the
center’s executive director.

Last month, Brownsberger and Hecht presented a proclamation to survivor
Siran Kassabian during the May 12 Mother’s Day Divine Liturgy at
St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, officials said.

“The Armenian Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Jamaica Plain
is a very special place. It was a privilege and a pleasure to meet
such wonderful senior citizens – people with deep history to share,”
said a statement from Brownsberger.

“It was an absolute honor to meet and recognize these five
individuals,” added Hecht. “They endured unspeakable pain during and
after the Armenian Genocide, but through their strength and courage
they have contributed richly to the fabric of Massachusetts, including
by educating subsequent generations about the truth of the genocide.”

A proclamation was also presented in May to Nellie Nazarian by
Jirair Hovsepian of Belmont, who travelled to Haverhill to deliver
the proclamation in her home, officials said.

“Of all the honors I have experienced so far as a public official,
none equal the chance to pay tribute to these courageous individuals,”
Rogers said in a statement. “Their perseverance in the face of tragedy
is a great testament to the dignity of the human spirit.”

TURKEY ENRAGED AT VATICAN FOR POPE’S REMARKS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Atlas Shrugs
June 17 2013

Uh, Armenians are upset about the jihad slaughter of millions of
Armenians. This Islamic denial of their historic bloodlust and their
subsequent bullying is pure supremacism. Savage.

Do Muslims expect the sanction of their victims?

The Armenian genocide took place under Turkey’s Islamic Ottoman
Empire, during and after WWI. “Out of an approximate population of two
million, some 1.5 million Armenians died. If early 20th century Turkey
had the apparatuses and technology to execute in mass-such as 1940s
Germany’s gas chambers-the entire Armenian population may well have
been annihilated. Most objective American historians who have studied
the question unequivocally agree that it was a deliberate, calculated
genocide.” (more here)

Ankara upset at Vatican for pope’s remarks on mass killings of
Armenians Hurriyet Daily News, (thanks to Filip)

Turkey has reacted angrily to the Vatican following a statement from
Pope Francis describing the mass killings of Armenians during World
War I as “the first genocide of the twentieth century” during a
meeting with a delegation led by Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian
Catholics on June 3.

“The Turkish Foreign Ministry delivered Turkey’s views on the issue
and expressed disappointment to the embassy in Ankara and Vatican in
Rome,” a Turkish diplomat told the Hurriyet Daily News on June 7.

Pope Francis described the mass killings of Armenians during World War
I as “the first genocide of the 20th century” during a meeting with a
delegation led by Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian Catholics on June
3.

The pope met with members of the delegation and when one of them said
that she was a descendant of genocide victims, he replied, “The first
genocide of the 20th Century was that of the Armenians,” reiterating
his earlier recognition of the mass killings as “Armenian Genocide”
while he was the head of the Catholic Church in Buenos Aires as a
cardinal.

In 2006, during events marking the 91st anniversary of the killings in
Buenos Aires, he had urged Turkey to recognize “the genocide” as the
“gravest crime of Ottoman Turkey against the Armenian people and the
entire humanity.”

Commenting on the issue, Armenian Apostolic Church Diocese of Gougark
Bishop Sebouh Chuljyan Primate said, “The pope is speaking out a
historical truth. Turkey needs to see the pains and should face the
genocide,” he told the Hurriyet Daily News, adding that the archives
of the Vatican may be opened to investigate the issue further.

The director of the Armenian National Committee of South America,
Alfonso Tabakian, explained that this was the first such statement
from the pontiff since being elevated to pope and leader of the Roman
Catholic Church.

Tabakian called the statement “very important since his words
transcend any state or religion,” according to the Armenian weekly
website.

STATE DEPT. ‘DEEPLY CONCERNED’ OVER TURKEY’S PROSECUTION OF NISANYAN

Tuesday, June 18th, 2013

Sevan Nisanyan

WASHINGTON-The Armenian National Committee of America has welcomed
the State Department’s first public expression of concern regarding
a recent Turkish court’s “blasphemy” ruling against noted journalist
and writer Sevan Nisanyan, an ethnic Armenian citizen of Turkey.

In a June 7, 2013 letter, the Department of State responded to ANCA’s
requests for a public U.S. position on this human rights and religious
freedom issue, by noting: “We are deeply concerned about any attempt to
punish individuals for exercising their right to free speech, including
the case of Sevan Nisanyan. The long term stability, security, and
prosperity of all countries, including Turkey are best guaranteed
by upholding the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and
association. These freedoms are crucial to any healthy democracy.”

The ANCA has, in its outreach to the White House and State Department
on this case, stressed the need for a vocal American defense of
Nisanyan’s right to freedom of expression, noting that the U.S.

government, despite many warning signs – including those shared by
the ANCA – remained publicly silent on Turkey’s persecution of writer
Hrant Dink, until after he was assassinated in 2007. The ANCA will
continue to press for a more active and vocal U.S. defense of Nisanyan,
who has, in the past, been prosecuted and politically pressured over
his truthful statements about the Armenian Genocide.

NEW STAMP DEDICATED TO THE ARMENIAN BRANDY

A new stamp dedicated to the foundation of the brandy production
in Armenia was cancelled and introduced into circulation today. The
cancellation ceremony was attended by the Deputy Minister of Transport
and Communication of the RA Mr. Andranik Aleksanyan, the Acting Chief
Executive Officer of “Haypost” CHSC Mr. Haik Avagyan, other officials
and guests.

The stamp represents a glass of brandy, a basket of grapes and an
ancient sculpture, representing two men in royal garments, with
glasses in their hands.

Vahagn Lazarian is the designer of the stamp. These stamps with
nominal value of 300 AMD were printed by Cartor printing house,
France, with a print run of 40 000 items.

This is a consecutive issue in the traditional series dedicated to
the Armenian drinks: a stamp dedicated to the beer production was
already issued in 2011, and another stamp dedicated to the Armenian
viniculture will be issued this year.

The brandy production was founded in Armenia in 1887 and it keeps
the best traditions till today.

“Haypost Trust Management” BV and “Haypost” CJSC carry on the policy
meant to the development of the Armenian philately.

Technical details:

Issue date: June 18th 2013

Designer: Vahagn Lazarian

Printing house: Cartor, France

Nominal value: 300 AMD

Print run: 40 000

17:23 18/06/2013 Story from Lragir.am News: