Author: Kalashian Nyrie

Karabakh Armenians to be Able to Participate in Parliament Elections through Internet
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Aug 17 2005
The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan, guided by the
basic provisions of the country’s Constitution took a decision to form
the constituency electoral committee, covering the occupied territories
of the country, CEC chairman Mazahir Panahov said, Trend reports.
“The constituencies have already been set up long time ago, however,
the issue with this constituency remained open,” Panahov said, noting
due to ongoing peace negotiations the Azerbaijan’s CEC has not even
made attempts to establish such committees earlier. “We hoped for
the quickest settlement of the conflict. However, taking into account
the opinion of the Azerbaijani public, the decision was taken to set
up the constituency electoral committee centered on in Khankendi,”
Panahov said. He noted there were no disagreements on the issue among
the CEC members.
“We will do everything possible for the activities of this
constituency,” the CEC head noted, having not ruled out the
possibility of taking measures, “not envisioned by the legislation
for other constituencies”, particularly, voting by means of Internet.
The address of the website is not announced yet.
Touching upon the issue of the constituency committee’s location,
Panahov noted, members of the constituency committees have already
held first sittings and the issue of their placing will be decided
at their level.
“The chairman and the secretary of the constituency committee in
Khankendi have already been elected,” Panahov said, having noted,
the detailed information on the issue will come to CEC of Azerbaijan
shortly.
In conclusion, the CEC chairman voiced the opinion on nomination
candidacies on these electoral constituencies. “Due to non-availability
of this constituency electoral committees the candidates applied
earlier directly to CEC of Azerbaijan. However, after creating such
committees all applications will be sent directly to these structures,”
Panahov noted, According to him, the process of registration of
candidates on these constituencies will start soon.

The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
August 13, 2005 Saturday
Final Edition
They hit the ground running: Destination marathoning is a great way
to see the world while staying in shape
Dianne Rinehart, Special to the Sun
On June 18, Jean Marmoreo and her husband Bob Ramsay found themselves
running in a marathon, one of many half-marathons and marathons they
jump at the chance to do each year.
But this one — held under the midnight sun on the summer solstice
in Tromso, Norway, at latitude 70, 100 kilometres north of the Arctic
Circle — was dramatically different from the rest.
“That was definitely the most exotic one I’ve done,” says Marmoreo,
a 62-year-old physician and veteran of 12 marathons and seven
half-marathons in destinations including New York City, Washington,
D.C., Santa Monica, California, San Antonio, Texas, and Chicago.
“The only place I haven’t run a marathon is in Toronto,” Marmoreo
laughs of her home (though she has run half-marathons here).
For Marmoreo and Ramsay, and hundreds of thousands of others around
the world, the ballooning-in-popularity sport of marathoning is
definitely about the destination.
Marmoreo and Ramsay first started running marathons annually in New
York City in 1994, running three consecutively.
“There was such a social experience there, we thought nowhere else
on earth could be like this,” she says.
But when Marmoreo didn’t make the lottery in the fourth year (the
marathon is so over-subscribed, organizers have to limit entries),
they decided to run in Santa Monica. That’s when they got the “new”
destination bug.
They followed that up with San Antonio. Then in 2001, they ended up
doing their first Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., at the
end of October, only about six weeks after 9-11. Running with marines
past the rubble of the Pentagon was such a moving experience that
they invited a few of their friends to train with them that winter and
join them the following fall. Eighty-five did, and Jean’s Marines was,
well, up and running!
And they haven’t stopped.
What has grown from a group of friends getting together to train
with Marmoreo and Ramsay in 2002, has now become a pack of more than
500 women training each year under the Jean’s Marines banner, with
alumnae starting up their own mini-pack destination marathon runs,
that have included Venice, Medoc, France, Ottawa, Niagara Falls,
Ont., and the uphill giant of them all, Jungfrau, Switzerland, run
by Jean’s Marine alumnus Arax Acemyan.
Before the 2002 Marine Corps marathon, Acemyan was a 50-plus, cigarette
smoking, self-described couch potato. But when she decided to train
for the Marine Corps marathon, she tossed the cigarettes — for good.
Then after finding out her ex-husband, whom she hadn’t seen in 10
years, was also training in Europe for a marathon in Jungfrau in
September, she decided to squeeze that one in before her Washington
training goal. The running course is gruelling. Bad enough a marathon
is 42 K, but this course additionally climbs a 2,000 metre-finish
line over the route. Despite the fact it took her almost seven hours
to complete — “but I got my medal” — and might have caused lesser
women to give up on the sport, Acemyan followed it up four weeks
later with the Marine Corps in Washington in just over five hours,
and hasn’t looked back.
In 2003 Acemyan, a 55-year-old fashion designer (her label is Arax)
and founder of Tailored Image, a company that teaches disabled people
how to groom themselves, ran the Venice marathon. Last year she ran
Medoc and this year she will do Chicago.
“I love to travel,” says Acemyan, who is of Armenian descent, and
originally from Istanbul. “And [marathons] are a goal for me to keep
in shape. If I didn’t have a goal I wouldn’t train.”
But the vacations aren’t solely about running. Marmoreo and Ramsay,
and two other Jean’s Marines-in-training, combined the Tromso run with
a spectacular vacation of sea kayaking, hiking, and ocean cruising.
And when Acemyan went to Venice, she and four other girlfriend running
mates stayed in the romantic city for nine days in an old palace
that had been converted to a bed and breakfast. “We did five trips,
ran the marathon, and ate and drank,” Acemyan remembers fondly.
When she ran the Medoc Marathon, where all 6,000 entrants dress up in
costumes, then race from chateau to chateau, tasting wine, slurping
oysters, and munching on cheeses en route, she spent two weeks away,
travelling with her group of running pals for a week to St. Emillion
before the marathon, and then on her own to Nice for another five
days after it.
In addition to the marathons, Acemyan has run the More magazine half
marathons — for women over 40 — in New York City twice, combining her
fashion design work with her favourite pastimes — travel and running.
Fellow Jean’s Marine alumnus Darlene Roth, 50, a nurse who has also run
the More half-marathon, says for her the marathon and the running are
the “icing on the cake.” The real goal is the destination travelling
with her girlfriends. She and her fellow travelling companions turned
the More half into a shopping and spa trip. “We’re a bunch of wild
women,” she says of the bonding that takes place during training
for each trip. “We just have a lot of fun.” Even training runs turn
into a bit of travel adventure, she says, with teammates picking a
“really nice restaurant” each week to run to. “Any pound you lose
[training] you gain back!”
Mila Luka, 38, a product manager with Bank of Montreal and mother of
two youngsters, was one of Acemyan’s four running mates along for the
Venice marathon. She found the marathon itself — especially because
she had flight problems getting there — not exactly “ideal.”
“But oh, but the food and the drinking!” she remembers of the group’s
routine to meet each night in a little bar for cocktails. “It was a
fabulous trip, fabulous food, fabulous wine and fabulous company.”
Luka combined the beauty of her trip to Venice with a trip to Trieste
to visit an aunt, who then accompanied her and her husband Chris to
Rijeka, Croatia, formerly Fiume, Italy, where her mother grew up.
It was her first trip to Italy.
Running in other countries “is a fabulous way to see a destination,”
she says. The Marine Corps Marathon’s Washington route — which she
ran twice — “was phenomenal. Anything you ever wanted to see in
Washington was on that route.”
And Luka has already set her sites on another destination marathon: Big
Sur in California, known for it’s tough up-and-downhill course along
the cliff-strewn, majestic Pacific coast. That in fact, is where one
of her fellow Jean’s Marines alumnae, Kaz Flinn, 43, vice-president of
government affairs and social responsibility at Scotiabank, completed
in April with fellow Jean’s Marines alumnus, Dr. Nandini Sathi.
“It’s one of the hardest in the world. It’s all hills. It’s very
challenging, but it’s amazing.”
Flinn turned the destination marathon into a chance to have
a California “girlfriends” outing with Sathi, who has run seven
marathons to Flinn’s three (Flinn’s two young children slow down the
pace of marathon commitments slightly!). “We spent two days in San
Francisco after the race. We had such a nice time together. It’s nice
to be away with a friend.”
And when the friends you’re travelling with are the friends
you’re training with, the ties that bind are strong. “It’s a girls’
connection. Think of the topics you cover and the depth of friendship
you build over six months of training together,” she says of the
weekly training runs that, closing in on the marathon date, last five
and more hours at a stretch.
“I will keep doing this,” says Flinn of destination marathoning. “I
absolutely love it. In fact I feel lost because I haven’t figured out
my next [destination] goal,” she says. Among those she is considering:
a marathon in Nova Scotia. “That’s where I’m from.”
To fill in the time between destination marathons, Flinn, like many
of her fellow Jean’s Marines, turns to halves to keep her in shape,
running them in Toronto, and nearby Mississauga, with plans to do
one in Ontario’s Prince Edward County this year.
Jane Somerville, 56, who ran the Marine Corps in 2002, has kept in
shape with half-marathons since, including at the Ottawa marathon on
the last weekend in May, twice. “It’s the capital of Canada and it’s
a perfect time to see the sights,” she says.
“The fact that when you’re running when you’re on a holiday,
compensates for all the wonderful food and drink you may have.”
In fact, even when she’s not planning a destination half-marathon,
Somerville, a book publisher and consultant, builds runs into her
travel plans. When she’s at her weekend country home north of Toronto,
she runs into town. And she has already arranged with tour organizers
for a trip she and her husband are taking from Split to Dubrovnic,
Croatia, this summer to be dropped off at one end of an island en
route, and picked up at the other end after she has run across it.
So adept at fitting runs into their travels are the Jean’s Marines
alumnae, that when Kerry Peacock, 45, a senior vice-president,
Corporate and Public Affairs, with TD Bank Financial Group, landed
in Chicago last year on a supposedly pure-pleasure trip and found out
a marathon was taking place the next day, she registered for the half.
Marmoreo, who was travelling with Peacock, remembers her and Ramsay’s
surprise: “We were just going out for our morning run at 8:30,”
says when we saw Kerry returning from competing the half!”
Peacock, a veteran of five marathons, says: “Destinations are the
only way to go!.”
As for Marmoreo, who will be running both the Chicago and Marine
Corps marathons this year, she says she plans to continue destination
marathoning for “as long as everything continues to let me.”
What’s next?
“Well we’re going to Australia and New Zealand in January and February,
and I’ll see what’s there.”
Dianne Rinehart, a Toronto-based freelance writer and former Vancouver
Sun reporter, ran the first “Jean’s Marine” Marine Corps Marathon in
Washington, D.C., in 2002 and has run three Vancouver Sun 10K runs
and several Toronto 10Ks.
WHERE TO GO:
There are hundreds of destination marathons around the world from
Brisbane to Madrid to Kigali to St. Petersburg.
For a complete inspiring list check out the International Marathons
Races Directory and Schedule at
GRAPHIC:
Colour Photo: Destination marathons have given life a new impetus for
former self-confessed couch potato Arax Acemyan (in black on the right)
with other runners at an event in France.;
Photo: Bob Ramsay, Special to the Vancouver Sun; After finishing the
Midnight Sun Marathon in Tromso, Norway, Jean Marmoreo and Bob Ramsay
could enjoy some sea kayaking.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

“ARMENFILM” TO BE COMPLETELY REPAIRED WITHIN 2 YEARS
YEREVAN, August 12. /ARKA/. The “Armenfilm” studio will be completely
repaired and brought to conformity with international standards within
two years, the new Armenfilm owner, President of the CS MEDIA CITY
holding Bagrat Sargsyan told reporters. “We will install up-to-date
equipment at Armenfilm, which will allow the viewers to see all the
films shot by the studio in restored or digital versions,” Sargsyan
said. According to him, film production will be possible as well.
Sargsyan reported that most of the studio staff members will take
retraining courses in Armenia and abroad. “`Armenfilm’ is not only a
film studio, but also the embodiment of traditions of Armenian
cinema,” he said. Sargsyan stressed that al traditions of Armenian
cinema will be upheld despite technical re-equipment of the studio.
Responding to a question about the principal share-holder of the SC
MEDIA CITY holding, Sargsyan said that the holding is owned by Gerard
Cafesjian and the Sargsyan family, ruling out the possibility of two
share-holders.
The “Armenfilm” studio has been sold for AMD 350mln to the “Armenio
Studios” CJSC, which is part of the “CS MEDIA CITY” holding. P.T. -0–

Oil-for-food head resigns before explosive report
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters, UK
Aug 7 2005
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The former head of the scandal-tainted
oil-for-food program resigned from the United Nations on Sunday,
hours before he is expected to be accused of getting kickbacks from
the $67 billion (37 billion pounds) operation.
A U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S.
Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, plans to release on Monday its
third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian
program for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003.
Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to
be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an
Egyptian trader and of refusing to cooperate with the Volcker panel,
his attorney Eric Lewis said. Sevan has denied the allegations.
On Sunday, Lewis distributed a letter from Sevan, 67, to U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigning from his current job, which
he was given after he retired.
The $1-a-year post carries immunity and was meant to ensure he would
cooperate with the probe. But Sevan may have preempted a dismissal
from this arrangement as the United Nations in the past has taken
action against staff fingered in the Volcker report.
Sevan blamed the secretary-general and his staff for not defending
the program and making him a scapegoat.
“I fully understand the pressure that you are under, and that there
are those who are trying to destroy your reputation as well as my own,
but sacrificing me for political expediency will never appease our
critics or help you or the Organization,” Sevan wrote.
He said that the program, which supplied food and other goods to 27
million Iraqis, was often caught between conflicting mandates given by
the U.N. Security Council, which supervised it, and national interests
of those trying to do business with Iraq.
The Volcker panel was commissioned by Annan to examine charges of
corruption in the program, which was designed to ease the impact
on ordinary Iraqis of U.N. sanctions imposed in August 1990 after
Baghdad’s troops invaded Kuwait.
PAYMENTS QUESTIONED
The panel, in a February 3 interim report, expressed suspicion about
four payments, amounting to $160,000, that Sevan had declared to the
United Nations as funds from his now-deceased aunt.
But Sevan noted on Sunday it was not credible he that would have
compromised his career for $160,000 after handling billions of dollars
in the program.
“The charges are false and you, who have known me all these years,
should know that they are,” Sevan wrote to Annan, recalling the 40
years he had worked at the world body.
Lewis on Thursday began releasing Sevan’s side of the story after
receiving a letter from the Volcker panel outlining “adverse findings”
that the report would contain.
Sevan, a Cypriot, is alleged to have taken bribes “in concert with”
the brother-in-law of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
Lewis said.
“The IIC claims that Mr. Sevan received money from African Middle East
Petroleum in concert with Fred Nadler, a friend, and a relative by
marriage of Mr. (Fakhry) Abdelnour, the principal of AMEP,” Lewis said.
Nadler is the brother of Leia Boutros-Ghali, wife of the former
secretary-general. Abdelnour, the owner of AMEP, is a cousin of
Boutros-Ghali, U.N. chief from 1992 to 1996. Boutros-Ghali himself
has been questioned by the panel but is not linked to the bribe
allegations.
AMEP earned some $1.5 million from oil allocations that the panel
says Sevan steered to the Egyptian trading firm.

ISRAEL ADHERES TO SETTLEMENT OF ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN, NAGORNO-KARABAKH
CONFLICT ON THE PRINCIPLE OF TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
[August 05, 2005, 12:49:30]
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Aug 5 2005
Israel adheres to peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan,
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the principle of territorial integrity,
said the Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan Eytan Nae during the press
conference at the International Press Center in connection with
completing his diplomatic mission to Baku.
Estimating his diplomatic tenure in Azerbaijan during the more
historical and important times for the country very interesting,
Eytan Nae expressed satisfaction with increased level of relationships
between Azerbaijan and Israel. In his opinion, Azerbaijan is rapidly
develops for the last time and it’s a good impetus to bilateral
multi-facetted relations. At the present Israeli businessmen have
invested in Azerbaijan’s economy. The both countries have successful
collaboration within the international organizations.
As regards his personal impression about Azerbaijan, the Ambassador
said it’s positive and there are friends he’s left in the country.
Eytan Nae has also expressed gratitude to the country’s leadership and
the Azerbaijan people for their support during his diplomatic mission.

ARMENIAN SCHOLARS TO TAKE PART IN DEILEMAN STUDIES CONFERENCE IN IRAN
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 4 2005
04.08.2005 02:51
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian scholars will take part in a Deileman
Studies conference to be held in Resht, Deileman and Siakhkel ~V three
towns of Gilyan Iranian ostan. As reported by Deputy Chief of the
Department of Culture and Islamic Orientation of Gilyan ostan
Mohammad Hasanpur, the first conference will be held August 17-18.
«Over 500 Iranian scholars, as well as two scientists from Armenia
will take part in the two-day conference,» he added. The event
program includes speeches, a theater performance, a film screening
and a concert. «Simultaneous to the conference a photo exhibition of
historical documents and monuments of Deileman will open,» he noted.
Deileman is a historical region of Gilyan situated in Siakhkel region
of the ostan. The region is the Shiah cradle. Johan of Deilem, one of
Jesus Christ’s apostles also came from Deileman region, as well as
famous science and art figures, Irna reported.
–Boundary_(ID_D5W8hzUVyMcLtZaJ6yuuew)–

Armenians wary of Russia’s security guarantees – poll
Interfax news agency, Moscow
31 Jul 05
Yerevan, 31 July: Armenians have become more positive about the
country’s possible accession to NATO, one of the heads of the Armenian
centre for strategic and national research, Stepan Safaryan, has
told Interfax.
In accordance with an opinion poll conducted by the centre among 1,500
Armenians in July, 34.7 per cent of the respondents backed Armenia’s
accession to NATO, Safaryan said. At the same time, Safaryan said 33.9
per cent of Armenians believe that NATO membership is not beneficial
for Armenia.
Those who back Armenia’s accession to NATO believe that the alliance
provides the most reliable security system (43.3 per cent). In
addition, 17.8 per cent of the respondents consider that without
becoming a NATO member, Armenia will not be able to enter the EU,
Safaryan said.
On the other hand, 24.9 per cent of those polled noted unsettled
relations between Armenia and Turkey, which is a NATO member.
Of those who are against Armenia’s membership of NATO, 52.9 per cent
believe that Armenia should remain in the [CIS] Collective Security
Treaty Organization [CSTO] and view Russia as the guarantor of the
country’s security.
Asked about the influence of foreign countries on Armenia, 58.9 per
cent said Russia was the country which had the most influence while
11.3 per cent said it was the USA.
Safaryan said “the Armenian public is increasingly wary about CSTO’s
protecting Armenia in case of a foreign threat”.
In the analyst’s opinion, the property-for-debt deal has had a
negative impact on Russia’s image. Under this deal, Armenia handed
over to Russia a number of its production enterprises to cover its
100m-dollar debt.
“The Armenian enterprises that were handed over to Russia are still
idle, though quite a long period of time has elapsed. When striking
the deal, officials of both countries vowed that the enterprises
would be put into operation and would provide Armenians with jobs,”
Safaryan said.
On the other hand, NATO has taken a number of steps aimed at boosting
its authority in Armenia, he added. “The most important step in this
direction was the decision of the alliance last year to cancel NATO
exercises in Azerbaijan after Baku had refused to accept Armenian
officers,” the expert said.
“However, the increased popularity of NATO in Armenia should be viewed
with some provisos. In particular, many Armenians are still concerned
that the alliance’s key player in the region is Turkey,” Safaryan said.

Young man achieves amazing technological progress to take school exams
2005/07/30
Fun Reports
Aug 1 2005
A school-leaver, who came to take an oral exam on English in Armenia,
designed an original method to pass exams without any difficulties.
The young man fixed wires to the collar of his shirt, attached tiny
microphones to buttons and connected the secret system to his Nokia
cellular phone.
Professors of the examination commission were amazed with the man’s
invention. Some of them said that the young man had designed a miracle
of electronic technologies.
“Every little detail in the device was meticulously thought-out. It
is not ruled out that there was a group of professional specialists
working on the system,” Armenian Minister for Education, Sergo
Yeritsan said.
When the young man’s secret was exposed, the commission decided to
listen to him anyway. It turned out that the man knew nothing : he
could only say that he was keen to become a philologist to save his
nation. The inventor had to leave with an unsatisfactory mark.

PanArmenian News Network
July 30 3005
OSCE CONCERNED OVER INSUFFICIENT PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN WORK OF
SOUTH CAUCASUS PARLIAMENTS
30.07.2005 03:38
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The OSCE expresses concern over insufficient
participation of women in the work of Parliaments and national
delegations of the member states, including the South Caucasian
countries. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) special representative
Tone Tingsgard’s Gender Balance 2005 report, made public at the OSCE
PA official website, contains this provision. It noted the quantity
of women in the Azeri, Armenian and Georgian delegations to the OSCE
PA did not change significantly within the past 5 years. According to
the report the proportion of women and men in Azerbaijan’s delegation
to the OSCE PA was 1:5. The figure made 1:3 in Armenian delegation,
while 2:5 in the Georgian. «If governments have troubles finding
qualified candidate women, the OSCE PA national delegations can
assist them in the search and consideration of suiting ones,» the
report notes. At the same time the document analyzes the number of
women MPs in the South Caucasus parliaments. The figure makes 13 out
of 124 (10,5%) in Azerbaijan, 7 out of 131 (5,3 %) in Armenia, and 22
out of 235 (9,4%) in Georgia. Highest percentage of women MPs is in
the Parliaments of Sweden (45,3%), Norway (38,2%) and Finland
(37,5%). The report notes that the OSCE PA delegations should
encourage governments of their countries to increase the budget of
the OSCE Office of Gender Advisor in Vienna. The document clearly
shows that even in the OSCE – a human rights organization – situation
is unsatisfactory in many respects, reported Trend.

Jamaica Observer, Jamaica
July 30 2005
‘Marching as to war.’

Keeble McFarlane
Saturday, July 30, 2005

Keeble McFarlane
Over the course of history, there has been one constant factor in
relations between one set of people and another – strife. Clan has
fought against clan, tribe against tribe, faction has conducted feud
against faction, ethnic group has gone to battle with ethnic group,
nation has bombarded nation. In his collection of stories about the
fictional travels of a man he created, the 18th-century Anglo-Irish
satirist, Jonathan Swift, reduces such conflicts to their most
ridiculous. Lemuel Gulliver, who had been washed ashore after a
shipwreck, finds himself on an island populated by people about the
size of his hand. A neighbouring island was also populated by similar
diminutive people, but the two groups were bitter enemies. The
reason? One set broke their eggs at the little end, the other at the
big end. And never the twain shall meet, except to clash with arms.
The people who fight each other offer their own reasons and
rationalisations. Scholars pick over the bones of each conflict, and
pronounce on the causes and effects.
Library shelves overflow with volumes explaining the fine points
about disputes which resulted in conflicts. Often there are two, or
more, explanations of what happened. A case in point: what Armenians
and their descendants scattered in many countries describe as the
massacre of 1915. Armenia was a small country with a long history of
domination by others. Turkey was in charge a century ago, and when
World War I broke out, the Turkish rulers feared that the Armenians
within its boundary would take the side of Russia and the Allies. So
they forcibly moved more than one and three-quarter million of them
to Syria and Mesopotamia. Some 600,000 died in the process. To this
day the Turks and Armenians disagree over what happened.
Puffed-up pride, inflated ideas about sovereignty and what you can
describe only as plain old testosterone-fuelled machismo is often at
the root of many armed clashes.
Twenty- three years ago, some Argentine ‘salvage workers’ tied up
their ship at an old whaling station called Grytviken on South
Georgia, a frozen, wind-swept island at the southern end of the
Atlantic Ocean. The island is part of the British crown colony of The
Falkland Islands, which the Argentines call the Malvinas. Leopoldo
Galtieri, an army general who headed the military junta running
Argentina, needed something to distract the attention of his
compatriots from the poor state of the economy and the inhumane
actions of his armed forces, which had been “disappearing” thousands
of people who opposed military rule.
Galtieri sent the scrap dealers to kick off a war with Britain. The
British sent a task force to the islands and in 10 weeks decisively
defeated the Argentines, at a cost of nearly 1,000 Argentine and
British servicemen and civilians. As wars go, it was a relatively
straightforward affair. In the end, it led to the downfall of the
military junta and the return to democratic, civilian rule in
Argentina, which declared a cessation of hostilities in 1989, and
most likely, put the entire question to rest for all time.
Not all conflicts are so tidy, as they entail not disputes over
territory nor arguments about aggression by one party or the other.
These arise out of what people believe and how they think other
people should behave. And even the most casual reading of history
reveals that organised religion has to shoulder much of the
responsibility for the billions of souls who have perished for one
cause or other over the ages.
Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Europeans conducted half a dozen
crusades to Palestine. They were unleashed by several popes with the
intention of securing Christian rule of the various Muslim-controlled
holy places in that troubled region. Thus began the enduring friction
between Christianity and Islam. Now we see Islam striking back, not
only in the form of the diabolical suicide bombers, but in the
strident cries of mullahs and imams against the secular west and the
burgeoning of madrassas – Islamic schools – which indoctrinate young
people with a simplified and tunnel-visioned view of their religion
and its place in the world.
It’s not much different in the United States, where a similar,
simple-minded view of the world is taking over. The message goes out
using radio, television and other modern techniques, and reaches far
beyond the boundaries of the US. The Christian fundamentalists also
have their version of the madrassas, but they are not satisfied with
just doing the job themselves. In the past few years, the
neo-conservatives have increased their control of statehouses, the
court system and the federal political structure. Not only is the
Republican Party in power all over the place, the people who run the
party today are not the old-line conservatives who believed in free
enterprise and allowing people to live their lives as they please.
This new lot want the country to be run their way. They want to root
out any mention of Darwin or any discoveries or conclusions he and
other scientists have made about how the natural world works; they
want schools to teach only what they call creationism. They don’t
believe a woman has the right to control her own reproductive system
and don’t even believe children should be educated about sex. They
want the country to return to the dark days of patrician, Puritan
rule. And George Bush is their ayatollah, and Britain has its own
ayatollah, too, in Tony Blair. But so far, that country’s hard-won
liberal tradition endures.
We have seen what the ayatollah in the White House has done to
prevent American money from going to any organisation fighting AIDS
which does not rely only on the narrow-minded message of sexual
abstinence but offers such things as condoms. In this, he is at one
with another narrow-minded but extremely influential and unrealistic
institution, the Vatican. He won re-election last year because his
troops got out the faithful, and it’s now payback time. All the
structures and traditions of the separation of church and state,
liberal democracy and the freedom to think for oneself, built up
slowly and painfully over two and a half centuries, are under attack.
Stay tuned. We are in for some interesting times.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress