Author: Kanayan Tamar

Representatives of CIS Interparliamentary Assembly visit Tsitsernakaberd

16:41, 5 May, 2012

YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS: The observation mission of CIS
Interparliamentary Assembly, headed by MP of the Verkhovna Rada of
Ukraine Aleksey Logvinenko, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex.

As Armenpress reports, the delegation members put a wreath to the
monument and flowers next to the unquenchable fire. They paid tribute
to memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian genocide with one
minute silence.

Suren Manukyan, Director of NAS Genocide Institute, presented to
foreign guests the history of the crime committed against humanity
early in 20th century and the exhibits of the museum.

Historical Trauma & Its Impact: Armenian Genocide

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Soseh Esmaeli
BY SOSEH ESMAEILI

>From the horrors of the Armenian Genocide to the tragedies that
occurred during the Holocaust and are currently taking place in
Darfur, genocide continues to play role in human history. These acts
of injustice not only cause death and destruction but also create
generations of survivors who were traumatized and who passed down
their legacies.

PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) is one example of what can occur
after being exposed to a traumatic event such as the genocide. The
symptoms for this disorder include nightmares, constant fear and
worry, hyper-alertness to his/her surroundings, and even flashbacks of
the trauma. After a traumatic event individuals can also experience
depression and anxiety. They can even develop specific ways to deal
with the painful memories like avoidance of the subject, increased
attempt to maintain order and success within their lives, catastrophic
views of the outside world, detachment of emotions, and increased
closeness with family members or cultural groups.

The survivors of trauma such as the Armenian Genocide may have passed
down memories of loss, struggle, horror, and strength through songs,
story telling, and with commemorative ceremonies. The retelling and
transferring of stories about the genocide from generation to
generation is a way to help process and heal from the cruelty and
injustice they had experienced. This can promote identity formation,
close-knit familial groups, and a sense of unity within the culture.
Behaviors and even symptoms of trauma can be passed down from
generation to generation as parts of familial or cultural ways of
living or seeing the world.

Denial of trauma can feel like a dismissal of the survivors’
experience, can perpetuate a feeling of helplessness, and even impact
the process of mourning. Remembering, processing, and understanding
traumatic events such as a genocide can play an important role in a
collective processing of cultural groups who have experienced such
events.

Until next time,

Soseh Esmaeili, PsyD, #PSB63123. James S. Graves, PhD, PsyD, #
PSY18196, Clinical Supervisor,

Famous Armenian singer to perform in Turkey

news.am
May 05, 2012 | 04:44

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s renowned recording artist Nune Yesayan will head
to Turkey to take part in a May 11 benefit concert organized by the
Istanbul Armenian community. The singer herself told this to Armenian
News-NEWS.am. She noted that it will be her solo concert and the
Armenian community had invited her with the objective of helping out a
local Armenian school.

To the question as to why she agreed to go to Turkey and whether she
has any fears, she responded: `Why should I not have agreed? The
Armenian community invited me and I am going for them. I have no
fears. The Armenians will meet me; we will be with the Armenians. They
are not savages; what are they supposed to do?’

Incidentally, Nune Yesayan is heading to Turkey on a concert for the
first time. She had received an earlier invitation from Hrant Dink – the
founder and former chief editor of Istanbul’s Agos Armenian bilingual
weekly, who was gunned down in 2007 in front of his office building – ;
they had `talked, but it was left incomplete.’ Yesayan also noted that
she is happy to be going to the concert and she will definitely visit
Dink’s grave.

APA, Azerbaijan
May 4 2012

Russian political analyst Sergey Rogov: `We need Gabala radar station
most of all for keeping the US strategic submarines in the Indian
Ocean under control’ – INTERVIEW

[ 04 May 2012 12:58 ]

Moscow. Farid Akbarov – APA. Interview with Director of the Institute
of USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, expert on
defense issues and foreign policy Sergey Rogov

– What level are the negotiations with Azerbaijan on prorogation of a
lease of Gabala Radar station in?

– The question is that the lease of Gabala radar station is running
out and Russia is interested in modernization of its missile attack
warning system. Armavir radar station situated in our territory
largely facilitates this issue. Despite it, taking into account the
geographical position of Gabala, of course, it would be better to keep
this station in modernized situation.

– The press writes that Azerbaijan demands USD 300 mln per year for
Gabala radar station’s rent…

– Of course, as always the question is money and the sides must close
a bargain. It is difficult to say how the deal will finish. Azerbaijan
is interested in getting much money, but Russia is interested in
decreasing the rental. These negotiations are not political, they have
a commercial character. Probably the deal will continue.

– If Russia loses Gabala radar station, what will it mean for your country?

– The Gabala radar station is not significant for Russia in terms of
threat from Iran, despite the intermediate-range missiles can reach
Russia’s territory and the likelihood of missile attack from Iran to
our country is not so great. Gabala radar station affords an
opportunity to keep the Indian Ocean, where the US submarines carry
out combat duty, under control. In this context, Gabala radar station
has a great significance and it is unlikely that the new radar
station, which will be constructed in our country, can compensate the
capabilities of Gabala radar station.

– In your opinion, how will the negotiations finish?

-I think that we will come to an agreement, because, it is significant
strategic issue in Russia-Azerbaijan relations. I don’t think that the
sides will refuse a compromise.

-Armenia announced that it could construct such radar station in its
territory. Is Russia considering this proposal?

-In principle, such alternative is possible, but probably it would be
expensive than modernization of Gabala Radar Station, because there is
ready-to-use infrastructure in Gabala. If we don’t reach a compromise
with Azerbaijan, one can not completely rule out this alternative.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 4 2012

Armenia fined for Eurovision pull-out
ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Armenian band Dorians was meant to represent the state at Eurovision
2012 in Baku.
The European Broadcasting Union has ordered Armenia to pay its entire
participation fee, as well as a fine of 50 per cent, after the country
pulled out of the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijani capital Baku
after the deadline for quitting had passed.

In addition, Armenia’s public television will be obliged to broadcast
the contest’s final live on the Eurovision night. If it does not
comply with these measures, the country may be forced to skip
Eurovision 2013.

Armenia’s decision to boycott the contest was made after a 20-year-old
Armenian soldier was shot dead on the border between the states.
Initial reports suggested he was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper,
although Baku insists the cause was friendly fire.

Following the soldier’s death, Armenian celebrities called on the
country’s public television to boycott the competition, claiming
Armenian performers would not be safe in Azerbaijan.

The two countries fought a war over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in
the 1990s. No peace deal has been signed since the 1994 ceasefire.

The boycott announcement was published on the official Eurovision
website, saying that Armenia had decided not to participate in the
song contest to be held between May 22-26.
May/04/2012

Public TV of Armenia
May 2 2012

Revolution main mission of Armenian opposition – politician

An Armenian opposition member has said that revolution is their main
mission today, Armenian Public TV reported on 2 May.
“For us the mission is not the [6 May parliamentary] election, for us
the mission is revolution. Today, a revolution is under way in
Armenia, it started in 2008 and is continuing up to now,” the
coordinator of the opposition umbrella group Armenian National
Congress (ANC), Levon Zurabyan, said in an interview with Armenian
Public TV.

Zurabyan said that people had already decided what they want, and they
would not yield to the “slaveholding system” functioning in Armenia
anymore. According to Zurabyan, an attempt is being made in the
country to create a society ruled by oligarchs, where people will not
be able to have their own business but will have to survive like
“labourers” and “slaves”. In this light, Zurabyan stressed that in
case the ANC entered parliament, it would introduce an anti-monopoly
strategy and boost economic competition.

Zurabyan also touched upon the failed dialogue between the authorities
and the opposition, blaming the authorities for their unwillingness to
follow the path of democratic processes and thwarting the dialogue.
“After this, we could do nothing but to announce our main slogan,
which is ‘Armenia without [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan, without
his regime’. And we are trying to unite all political forces and
society to reach this goal,” Zurabyan said, adding that the 6 May
parliamentary election was a good opportunity for reaching this goal.

The ANC coordinator said that the ruling Republican Party of Armenia
(RPA) had no chance to be re-elected to parliament, after having
destroyed Armenia’s economy in the last four years, other than through
massive election fraud. “And in order to prevent this mass election
fraud, to catch the Republican vote-stealer by hand, we have set up a
united headquarters, which includes the Armenian National Congress,
[parliamentary opposition] Armenian Revolutionary Federation –
Dashnaktsutyun, [ruling coalition member] Prosperous Armenia and
[parliamentary opposition] Heritage. Heritage has signed [the
document], its signature is in force, but it does not take part in the
meetings, and it is their choice, they can participate any moment and
have their voice,” Zurabyan said, refusing to comment on Heritage’s
statement on withdrawal from the headquarters.

The ANC member said they had received a historical chance to “get rid
of this regime”. In this light, Zurabyan noted that the ANC had
registered considerable success during its election campaign in
Yerevan and the regions, adding that people’s support and their
“arising spirit” had given much strength to them.

Referring to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the disputed
territory of Nagornyy Karabakh, Zurabyan said that in 1994 Armenia
headed by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is currently the ANC leader, had
achieved considerable success in this issue at the OSCE Budapest
Summit, when Nagornyy Karabakh had been recognized as a full party to
the conflict. However, Zurabyan continued, due to the policy pursued
by second Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and acting President
Serzh Sargsyan, Karabakh has been completely ousted from the
negotiating process, where it is now represented by Armenia. Zurabyan
said that in order to solve the issue, Serzh Sargsyan should have
announced that he did not have any “mandate” to negotiate on behalf of
Nagornyy Karabakh.

“He [Serzh Sargsyan] continues to negotiate on behalf of Nagornyy
Karabakh, as a Karabakh native. This, of course, strengthens his
position in the international community, as was the case under Robert
Kocharyan, and ensures a comfortable format for the negotiations, but
it brings no benefit either to Armenia or to Nagornyy Karabakh, which
slowly loses all the prospects of becoming an international entity,”
Zurabyan said, adding that the ANC’s goal was to make Nagornyy
Karabakh a full participant in the negotiating process together with
Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Zurabyan said that if Armenia continued to yield to Azerbaijan in its
development pace, arms, population, economic resources, and if this
strategic imbalance continued to increase between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the latter would have a “temptation” to solve the conflict
by force. Thus, according to Zurabyan, the only way to prevent such a
scenario and to obligate Azerbaijan to make concessions is Armenia’s
becoming a powerful democratic state.

“We see the Karabakh settlement in mutual concessions, but, first of
all, Azerbaijan has to go for concessions, and this is possible only
in one case, if Armenia starts developing economically, if Armenia
starts to populate Karabakh, if people start to return to Armenia, and
today people are leaving Armenia. Now the most important issue is not
what technical and diplomatic solution we will find to this [Karabakh]
settlement, the solution is in Armenia’s becoming powerful,” Zurabyan
said, adding that only by means of “a democratic revolution” in
Armenia it would be possible to solve the Karabakh conflict.

swissinfo.ch, Switzerland
May 4 2012

Armenia campaign rally blast hurts 144 – officials

YEREVAN (Reuters) – More than 140 people were hurt at a campaign rally
in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Friday, when hundreds of small
balloons went up in flames, burning people and sparking panic, two
days before an election, an emergency official said.

Gas-filled balloons appeared to have exploded after being ignited by a
cigarette at the rally, staged by the ruling Republican Party in
Republic Square in the centre of Yerevan, local media said.

“I heard an explosion and saw flames rising high,” said a 30-year-old
woman who identified herself as Susan. “People rushed away from the
square, and I saw a man with a burnt face and a girl whose back was on
fire.”

A video posted online by Internet television station Panorama.am
showed a large but short-lived flame billowing in the middle of the
crowd where hundred of white balloons had been flying moments before.

Health Minister Harutyun Kushkyan told state television many people
were injured in the chaos as people tried to flee. She described the
condition of the injured as “satisfactory”.

Opinion polls have shown the Republican Party and its coalition ally,
Prosperous Armenia, winning more than 60 percent of the votes in
Sunday’s parliamentary election, signalling little or no change in
government.

The 2008 presidential elections in Armenia – a landlocked ex-Soviet
republic of 3.2 million that is Russia’s main ally in the South
Caucasus – were marred by violent clashes between opposition
protesters and police.

(Reporting by Hasmik Mkrtchan; Writing by Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by
Robin Pomeroy)

Reuters

La Montagne, France
Samedi 5 Mai 2012
Moulins Edition

Harut Yekmalyan expose à L’Incognito

ENCART: Harut Yekmalyan ouvre la saison à L’Incognito. C’est parti
pour une nouvelle saison à « L’Incognito », la galerie d’art de la rue
de l’ancienne église Saint-Germain. Le public peut à nouveau sillonner
cet espace culturel que fait vivre Fabienne et Alain Gauchard. De
nombreux styles de création y sont réunis, et se succèdent
constamment, offrant ainsi au visiteur un visage changeant.

En ce printemps 2012, c’est le dessinateur, peintre et sculpteur
plasticien de la Montagne Bourbonnaise, Harut Yekmalyan, d’origine
arménienne, qui est l’hôte de Fabienne Gauchard. Jusqu’au 23 juin, le
public peut se familiariser avec le style artistique tout en courbes,
qui idéalise la femme. D’ailleurs, cette exposition est intitulée «
Brins de femme ». La plastique féminine, un rien érotique, s’impose
dès le premier regard, et conduit le spectateur de découverte en
découverte. Une récente collection de dessins complète la première
collection plus étourdissante !

Côté cour, Annabelle Delage prolonge cette exposition avec une série
de peintures intitulée « Les nanas » ; de jeunes femmes empreintes de
joie, de sérénité, de réflexion ou les gestes du quotidien deviennent
couleurs et moments de bonheur.
Et toujours la céramique, utilitaire et décorative, les émaux déclinés
en bijoux, bijoux en raku, du tournage sur bois, de la vannerie, de la
gravure, des sculptures métal et de la reliure de création.

è Pratique. L’Incognito, rue de l’ancienne église Saint-Germain. Tél.
04.70.67.05.12, courriel [email protected] Ouvert au public,
du mercredi au vendredi, de 14 h 30 à 19 heures et le samedi, de 10 h
30 à 18 h 30 non-stop.
Harut Yekmalyan ouvre la saison à L’Incognito.

Ouest-France
vendredi 4 mai 2012
stlo Edition

Reflets d’Arménie au Scriptorial : derniers jours

Le 6mai au soir, Scriptorial ferme son exposition temporaire Reflets
d’Arménie. Une exposition cosignée Jean-Luc Leservoisier, sa dernière:
le conservateur du fonds ancien prend sa retraite.

Art, culture, foi, ici et en Arménie.Dans le cadre d’une journée
rencontre organisée par le service diocésain Art, culture, foi,
soixante personnes ont passé la journée à Avranches, mercredi. Une
journée studieuse. Au programme: dans le fonds ancien de la
bibliothèque, au 2e étage de l’hôtel de ville, une conférence sur
l’histoire des pères de l’Église, donnée par le père Nicolas Courtois,
prêtre du diocèse de Coutances et enseignant au Grand séminaire de
Caen. Et la visite guidée et commentée par Jean-Luc Leservoisier,
conservateur du fonds ancien, de l’exposition temporaire que
Scriptorial consacre aux manuscrits et à l’art religieux d’Arménie.

Le musée arménien de Paris fermé.Cette exposition, intitulée Reflets
d’Arménie, est unique en France. Elle permet aux visiteurs d’admirer
des manuscrits et des objets religieux prêtés par le musée arménien de
Paris. Ce musée privé est fermé au grand public. « Plus de 1 200
objets s’y entassent, a déploré Jean-Luc Leservoisier, que personne ne
peut voir. Une lettre va être envoyée au ministre de la Culture pour
qu’il oeuvre à la réouverture de ce musée. La France a tout fait pour
que le génocide arménien soit reconnu. Mais il y a une culture
arménienne et une Arménie vivantes qu’il faut aussi défendre et qui
doivent pouvoir s’exprimer. »

L’art vivant du manuscrit.L’Arménie, ce lointain et magnifique pays,
tête de pont entre l’Orient et l’Occident, est terre chrétienne depuis
17 siècles. Terre de foi, elle est aussi terre de culture et de
l’écrit, du manuscrit sur parchemin au manuscrit sur papier. Cet art
du manuscrit, l’Arménie le cultive depuis toujours et encore
aujourd’hui. Si les moines copistes du Mont-Saint-Michel ne sont plus
qu’un souvenir, si le scriptorium du même Mont a depuis longtemps
fermé ses portes, l’Arménie continue de « calligraphier et enluminer
des manuscrits qui sont de pures merveilles ».

François 1eret les manuscrits arméniens.Scriptorial expose une infime
partie de ces « merveilles ». Dix manuscrits sont prêtés par le musée
arménien de Paris et huit par la Bibliothèque nationale de France qui
en possède 350. Des manuscrits d’une grande valeur, y compris
financièrement. « Les huit manuscrits prêtés par la Bibliothèque
nationale de France ont une valeur d’assurance de 1 800 000 ¤.
»Premiers traducteurs de la Bible et des pères grecs, les Arméniens
ont, dès le Ve siècle, « sauvegardé, en les traduisant, les textes
essentiels, premiers et fondateurs de la pensée chrétienne. C’est pour
cette raison que François 1era acheté de ces manuscrits pour y puiser
des arguments dans la controverse qui l’opposait aux Protestants. »

« Des rouleaux prophylactiques ».Terre de foi, l’Arménie est aussi
terre de croyances. Scriptorial expose des« talismans, des amulettes
qui prennent la forme de rouleaux, de 2 à 20 m de long, que les
Arméniens portaient dans leur poche ou mettaient sous leur oreiller ».
L’un de ces rouleaux « prophylactiques » exposé à Scriptorial
représente « Jésus disputant à un diable les entrailles d’un
nouveau-né ».

Jusqu’au dimanche 6mai inclus, «Reflets d’Arménie», Scriptorial, place
d’Estouteville, Avranches, tél. 02 33 79 57 00. Ouvert de 10 h à 12 h
30 et de 14 h à 18 h vendredi, samedi et dimanche. Dimanche 6 mai à 10
h 30 : petit-déjeuner philosophique : « Sort-on toujours grandi des
revers de la vie ? »

An Academic Right to an Opinion
Inside Higher Ed
May 4, 2012
By
Scott Jaschik

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the University of Minnesota
could not be sued because the website of one of its research centers had
labeled another website “unreliable.”

The statements made by the University of Minnesota website were
protected legally — either by being true or by being opinion — said
the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The
website that prompted the suit is run by the Center for Holocaust and
Genocide Studies at Minnesota. Scholars there, consistent with the
consensus view of historians of genocide, include the slaughter of
Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. The suit challenged
the right of the center to label as “unreliable” a website of the
Turkish Coalition of America that cast doubt on whether the Armenians
experienced a genocide.

Not surprisingly, the case has been closely followed by historians of
that period in history. But the case has also been tracked by scholars
concerned about academic freedom generally, some of whom worried that a
dangerous precedent could have been set by a suit against an academic
center for expressing its views on areas of scholarship. The Middle East
Studies Association, for example, has called on the Turkish Coalition of
American to withdraw the suit.

“We fear that legal action of this kind may have a chilling effect on
the ability of scholars and academic institutions to carry out their
work freely and to have their work assessed on its merits, in conformity
with standards and procedures long established in the world of
scholarship,” said a statement from the group.

An irony of the case is that the label of “unreliable” was removed from
the Minnesota website — at about the time the Turkish coalition was
criticizing it but before the suit was filed in 2010. Minnesota
officials said that they didn’t want to send anyone to the websites that
cast doubt on the Armenian genocide, so they removed the list of
“unreliable” websites from a webpage with teaching and research links.
However, the university has defended the right of the research center to
have had the list up in the first place, and most of the appeals court
decision is written as if Minnesota still had such a link.

Last year, a federal district court ruled that academic freedom
protected the Minnesota website, but the Turkish coalition appealed,
setting up Thursday’s ruling. The appeals court rejected arguments in
the appeal by the Turkish coalition that the university violated its
First Amendment rights and defamed it by identifying the coalition’s
website as unreliable. A central argument by the coalition was that
students at the university would be denied access to the coalition’s
ideas, and thus that the free exchange of ideas was hindered when a
center at a public university labeled the website unreliable.

On the First Amendment issue, the Turkish coalition cited court rulings
in which, for example, secondary schools were found to be violating
First Amendment rights of students by removing certain books from the
library. The appeals court noted that those cases were based on blocking
access to information — something that the court said the University of
Minnesota never did.

“There is no allegation that the defendants impaired students’ access to
the TCA website on a university-provided Internet system,” the appeals
court’s decision says. “There is no hint in the complaint that
university students were not free to, for example, read the TCA website,
e-mail material from the TCA website to their friends, regale passers-by
on the sidewalk with quotes from the TCA website, and so forth. In
short, TCA’s website was not ‘removed’ from the university in any sense.”

The Turkish coalition’s appeal argued that the Minnesota website defamed
the coalition by saying it engages in “denial” of the Armenian genocide,
by calling it “unreliable,” by saying that it features a “strange mix of
fact and opinion,” and that it is “an illegitimate source of
information.” The coalition argued that by labeling its website a
“denial” website, the Minnesota center was maligning it because the term
“denial,” in the context of the study of genocide, “implies denial of
well-documented underlying facts associated with a genocidal event.”

The appeals court ruling, however, says that the issue here is whether
the coalition denies the Armenian genocide. “Because the TCA website
does, in fact, state that it is ‘highly unlikely that a genocide charge
could be sustained against the Ottoman government or its successor’
based on the historical evidence, the center’s statement under this
interpretation is true and, thus, still not actionable,” the appeals
court decision says. “The remaining three statements can be interpreted
reasonably only as subjective opinions, rather than facts,” the opinion
adds, rejecting the defamation charges there as well.

A lawyer for the Turkish coalition did not respond to a request for comment.