Author: Kanayan Tamar

REP: SCHIFF: RECOGNIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

Monday, March 30th, 2015

Representative Adam Schiff

BY ADAM SCHIFF

One hundred years ago, the Ottoman Empire in its dying throws
undertook a systematic effort to exterminate the Armenian and Assyrian
people. They did so through a campaign of mass killing and displacement
which saw 1.5 million Armenians killed and millions more forced to
flee from their ancestral homes.

At the time, there was no word to describe an effort to eliminate
an entire people, though American officials in the region had no
difficulty describing the horrors they witnessed. The American
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau reported that,
“I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no
such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of
the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings
of the Armenian race in 1915.”

It wasn’t until 1943 when Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide”
that we had a word to describe the magnitude of the crime committed
against the Armenians. As Lemkin said at the time, he had in mind the
experience of the Armenians under Ottoman rule when he invented the
term, which, appallingly, was needed many times in the 20th Century to
describe the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide,
and more.

The Turkish effort to eliminate the Armenian people failed, as
evidenced by the proud nation of Armenia and the millions of members
of the Armenian diaspora in the United States and around the world.

But there is hardly an Armenian household that does not carry the
memory of family members who were lost in the carnage. Even today,
there remain a handful of survivors who lived through the horrors of
the Genocide as children to make a new life for themselves.

Particularly while these survivors are still among us, I feel a deep
obligation to fight against the denial of the Genocide which sadly
remains the policy of the Turkish government.

The hundredth anniversary of the Genocide is also a time to recall one
of the most generous outpourings of compassion and support in American
history. Hearing of the scale of the humanitarian crisis, the Near
East Relief Foundation was formed to provide assistance and relief.

>From an initial goal of providing $5 million, the Foundation
would ultimately raise over $100 million — or about $1.7 billion in
today’s dollars. The Foundation’s work saved the lives of millions of
victims of the Genocide, including over 130,000 orphans. Nearly 1,000
Americans traveled overseas to build orphanages, vocational schools,
and food distributions centers. The Foundation’s success relied on
the generosity of every day Americans who learned of the plight of
the Armenian people and other genocide victims thousands of miles away
and who were moved to contribute. The Near East Relief Foundation was
a precursor to countless non-governmental humanitarian organizations,
and its work continues to this day.

Last month, I joined with over 40 of my colleagues to introduce
the Armenian Genocide Truth and Justice Resolution, a resolution
recognizing the Genocide that took place from 1915 to 1923. The
resolution also calls upon the President to work with the Turkish and
Armenian governments to bring about reconciliation based upon the full
acknowledgement of the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide. This
resolution states in simple and plain language the historic facts of
the Genocide and the degree to which Genocide denial on the part of
the Turkish government continues to hamstring the chances for peace
and stability in the region.

Sadly today, on the very same lands of Syria that were the killing
fields for hundreds of thousands of Armenians, ISIL threatens to
exterminate religious minorities, including Armenians. By recognizing
the Genocide, the President and the Congress proclaim that our
government will not forget those lost and we will not stand silent
in the face of crimes against humanity.

Ellie Wiesel once wrote that denial of genocide is the last chapter
of genocide. In this respect, the Armenian Genocide continues to
traumatize its victims even 100 years later. America must play its
part in helping to close this still open wound.

Rep. Adam Schiff represents the 28th Congressional District of
California, which is the largest Armenian-American constituency in
the United States.

BLOOD ON THE CROSS

Daily Times, Pakistan
March 30 2015

The dark side of democracy will oppose ethnic diversity and it is up
to the political leaders of this country to keep a close eye on how
successfully Pakistan negotiates the problem of ethnic confrontation

Dr Fawad Kaiser March 30, 2015

At least 15 people were killed and more than 70 injured when two
Taliban suicide bombers attacked two churches in Lahore. Do we not
consider this genocide? The militants are killing people in the name
of Allah and telling people that anyone who kills a Christian will go
straight to heaven. That is their message. They have burned churches,
they have burned very old books and they have damaged crosses and
statues of the Virgin Mary. They are occupying churches and converting
them into mosques. They are the Taliban. The Taliban may destroy,
in whole or in part, a national or ethnic group (genocide) but they
may also destroy a group of people who share a political belief
(politicide). Sometimes, the two are the same. When the majority
of militant groups unite and pledge support to the Taliban, then
politicide is also genocide.

Christians make up around two percent of Pakistan’s mainly Muslim
population of 180 million. They have been stoned to death by mobs,
targeted in militant attacks and brutalised by riots in recent years,
often over allegations of blasphemy. This recent attack follows the
devastating 2013 double suicide bombing in Peshawar that killed 82
people. That attack came months after more than 3,000 protesters
burnt some 100 houses as they rampaged through another Christian
neighbourhood, Joseph Colony, in Lahore, following blasphemy
allegations against a Christian man. The killings of innocent
Christians make me want to explore the evolution of the genocide
paradigm in Pakistan.

The recent political histories of the Jews and Christians in Pakistan
have clear parallels: the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany
began with racist legislation (the Nuremberg laws), escalated to
violence (Krystalnacht), forced mass immigration and ended in overt
genocide. One can note the similarities between the racist doctrine
of the Taliban and the Nuremberg laws. The intent of both was the
exclusion of a specific people from society and government, exclusion
being a recognised early indicator of future genocide. Human rights
scholars frequently argue that there is no need to include intent among
the necessary conditions that lead one to conclude that genocide is
in the making. On the contrary, I think that it is important to look
for evidence that allows us to infer intent precisely so that genocide
can be distinguished from related phenomena. Moreover, early warning
efforts depend on detecting signals of intent rather than waiting
for information that widespread killings have taken place. How do
we detect intent? Potential perpetrators are enemies of the state,
militias authorised by the Taliban. Terrorists and groups linked to
them often use hate propaganda and attack ethnic minorities.

The second point is that the victims belong to an identifiable ethnic,
authoritatively defined religious group. In Nazi Germany, people
who changed their religion from Judaism to Christianity were still
identified and targeted for elimination as Jews. In Latin American
politicides, friends and relatives of leftist activists were often
killed even though they themselves were politically inactive. It
is wrong to assume that most or all members of a group have to
be eliminated before one can conclude that genocide occurred. It
is enough to “take the life out of the group”, in other words,
to eliminate or intend to eliminate so many people that the ethnic
group ceases to function as a social or political entity. Thus, in
politicides, perpetrators typically attempt to destroy the ability
of opposition groups to challenge or resist the regime by targeting
their potential supporters and, in genocides, the victimised groups
are defined by the perpetrators primarily in terms of their communal
characteristics. Again, this point is closely related to intent. It
follows that, in principle, body counts do not enter the definition
of what constitutes an episode. If the terrorists’ motive is to rid
themselves of unwanted opposition by destroying a group and if policies
with that intent are sustained over a substantial period of time, then
a few hundred deaths constitute as much a genocide or politicide as
the deaths of tens of thousands. For example, about 900 Iranian Baha’is
were victims of genocide, as defined above, during the Khomeini regime.

The central thesis is that murderous ethnic cleansing, in its extreme
forms, can become genocidal and is the dark side of democracy. The
ideal of rule by the people itself tends to convert demos into ethnos,
generating organic nationalism and encouraging the cleansing of
minorities. The dark side of democracy will oppose ethnic diversity
and it is up to the political leaders of this country to keep a close
eye on how successfully Pakistan negotiates the problem of ethnic
confrontation ranging from victimisation to extermination. Other
worries are the danger zone, from which ethnic conflict may turn
murderous. It is reached when two rival ethnic groups lay claim to
religious sovereignty over the same territory and where both claims
appear legitimate and realisable. Risk of going over the brink, into
actual murderous cleansing, occurs where states are destabilised
amid an unstable local geopolitical environment out of which crisis
‘radicals’ emerge calling for rough treatment of the other group. The
radical’s mind-set reflects this instability. Murderous cleansing is
not their initial intent but typically develops only after adaptation
to failure and destabilisation has both collapsed. Pakistan fits
well within the genocide thesis. The Taliban and the Christian ethnic
minorities in Pakistan are two rival ethnic groups whose differences in
religious ideologies have developed over decades. There is a difficult,
destabilising war against terrorism in process and the Taliban claim to
rule the territory is utterly unrealistic, unthinkable and delusional.

Ethnic and religious divisions are often identified as preconditions
of civil conflict in general. Ethnic cleansing of religious minorities
is an age-old human curse. Europe’s Jews suffered nine centuries of
massacres, persecutions, pogroms, inquisitions, expulsions and other
torments before Hitler mobilised anti-Semitism on a grand scale in the
Holocaust that killed six million. Similarly, an estimated one million
Christian Armenians were exterminated by Muslim Turkey near the end
of World War I. Later, Orthodox Serbia practiced ethnic cleansing
against Muslim Bosnia and Kosovo. Numerous other examples are cited
by historians. In this 21st century, when wars between nations have
virtually vanished, it is depressing to realise that the horror of
ethnic cleansing still occurs.

The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic
Psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America:
Looking Back on 2014 and Before

Published Date 1/5/15 5:00 PM

One of the last diplomats to leave Smyrna after the Turks set the
great Anatolian port city ablaze in September 1922 was the United
States’ Consul General, George Horton. Reflecting on the carnage and
depravity of the Turkish forces tasked by Mustafa Kemal to destroy
Smyrna’s Greeks and every physical semblance of their three-millennial
presence in the magnificent city on the western littoral of Asia
Minor, Horton wrote that “one of the keenest impressions which I
brought away from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the
human race.” The shame that Horton expressed stemmed from his shock
and disgust, both as a witness to the Turks’ genocidal frenzy and as a
diplomat aware that several Western governments, including his own,
had contributed to the horrors that took place in Smyrna.

The destruction of Smyrna marked the dramatic, fiery climax-although
it would not be the telos-of the Turkish nationalists’ genocidal
project to annihilate the historic Christian populations of Asia
Minor. The mass murder and mass expulsion of the Ottoman Empire’s and
Turkey’s Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks from 1915 to 1923 marked the
twentieth century’s first large-scale and systematic state-directed
genocide, establishing a model that would inspire and be replicated by
other criminal regimes throughout the following century. Moreover,
the Turks’ policy of genocide encouraged imitation elsewhere,
precisely because that holocaust against Christians was astonishingly
successful and without penalties for the perpetrators. Indeed, the
Turks not only achieved their objectives-the slaughter of three
million Christians and the expulsion of another two million from their
ancestral homes did, in fact, produce an essentially homogeneous
Muslim Turkey-but they did so without any consequences, evading all
accountability and any justice.

One of the chief reasons that Turkey escaped responsibility for its
crimes against humanity was the complicity, albeit indirect, of
several of the Western powers in those crimes. During the First World
War, the Allies condemned the Turkish nationalist leadership that
controlled the Ottoman Empire for its acts of genocide. However, once
the war ended, various Western Allied powers (most notably France,
Italy, and the United States), in pursuit of commercial concessions
from the Turks, entered into diplomatic understandings with the
Turkish nationalists, pushed aside and buried the issue of genocide,
and even provided military aid and support to Kemal’s regime, thereby
enabling the founder of the Turkish Republic to complete by 1923 the
bloody “nation-building” project begun by his colleagues in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Despite the duplicitous postwar actions of several Western
governments, popular sentiment in those same societies was deeply
sympathetic to the plight of Christians in the Ottoman Middle East. A
remarkable variety of international relief and aid efforts emerged
throughout the West, especially in the United States, in response to
the humanitarian crisis produced by Turkey’s policy of annihilating
its large Christian population. The extermination and expulsions of
Christians-Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks alike-in Turkey were
widely reported in the United States, producing strident calls by
several prominent diplomats, politicians, influential religious
leaders, scholars, and the press to respond decisively to the crisis
as a moral imperative and a Christian duty. Two years before the US
even entered the war, Americans had answered this call to action by
organizing the highly publicized, nationwide charity that would become
known eventually as Near East Relief, which channeled millions of
dollars in aid to Christian survivors of the genocide.

In sharp contrast to the American public’s outrage over the Muslim
Turks’ extermination of Christians a century ago, the most recent
genocide of Christians in the Middle East by fanatical Muslims, under
the moniker of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has
witnessed a very different response in American society-apathy.

In the year 2014, ISIS launched a reign of terror against Arab and
Armenian Christian populations reminiscent of Turkey’s genocide a
century earlier. As Islamic State forces advanced across the northern
arc of the historic Fertile Crescent (the territory stretching across
northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq), ancient Eastern Christian
communities were decimated. An undetermined number of Christians,
many several thousands, were killed or enslaved by the Islamic State’s
forces in 2014. In order to escape this fate, almost 250,000
Christians fled the areas occupied by the Islamic State. The Islamic
State’s cleansing of the Christian populations under its control
recalls and reiterates the project of nationalist Turkey, one in which
nationalist Islamic forces functioned to create a homogeneous Muslim
society in the territory under their control.

Tragically enough, the erasure of Christians in Iraq and Syria in 2014
is only the most recent episode in the wave of violence and
persecutions against Christians that has been underway since the
fateful United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 catalyzed the state
failures and Islamist extremist mobilizations that are producing
anarchy in the Near East. During the last decade of bloodshed and
chaos in Iraq, and more recently in Syria, perhaps as many as 100,000
Christians have been killed and more than 1.5 million have been made
refugees. As a result, Christianity now faces the possibility of
extinction in the lands of its origin.

The American government’s response to this humanitarian catastrophe
has been characterized by overt indifference. The Bush administration
dealt with the embarrassing fact that its Iraqi misadventure had
unleashed the destruction of the country’s ancient and large Christian
population by ignoring and suppressing that fact. Simultaneously, the
Bush government, either deliberately or through sheer folly,
implemented occupation policies that undermined the security and
prospects for survival of Christian communities in Iraq.

The Obama administration has continued and compounded the fecklessness
of its predecessor administration. Most recently, in an effort to
erase the humiliation produced by his reckless comment made in late
July, that the White House had no policy to deal with the Islamic
State, President Obama rushed to launch a policy initiative in early
August. In a televised national address, President Obama announced
that he had ordered military action against the Islamic State,
rationalizing the move to limited air war in Iraq and Syria by
invoking the US’ moral obligation to protect Iraq’s Yezidi religious
minority from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. The
privations of the Yezidis certainly justified a response and aid, but
the genocide and plight of the much larger Christian communities of
Iraq, brutalized for more than a decade by the region’s m lange of
Islamist extremist groups and actively and passively persecuted by the
Baghdad government, were largely ignored in President Obama’s speech.

The US government’s indifference to the genocide of Christians in the
Middle East is shocking, but, unfortunately, not surprising. The
demonstrated disregard for the suffering of Christians in the Middle
East by the administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama is entirely
consistent with a double standard established by the moralizing
hypocrisy of Woodrow Wilson in the midst of the first genocide of the
twentieth century. In fact, American administrations have been
willing not only to turn a blind eye to genocide against Christians in
the Middle East; they have gone beyond that, by consistently
supporting, at least since the 1980s, Turkey’s genocide denial
efforts.

Yet, where is the public outrage? Although the US government has
remained consistent in its indifference and duplicity on this subject,
the attitude of the American public has undergone significant change.
A century ago, the Turks’ genocide against Armenians and other
Christians provoked public outrage and led to large-scale humanitarian
relief efforts in the United States of America. A century ago,
America’s civil society leaders, public intellectuals, and media
mavens actively promoted awareness of the Turks’ crimes against
humanity, and led popular initiatives to rescue Christians from death
and suffering. The invocation in the public sphere of Christian duty
and moral imperatives was sufficient to produce societal concern and
action. In contrast, today, as the Islamic State completes the
destruction of the historic Christian centers that Kemal’s forces did
not reach, the American public’s response is one of apathy. The
apathy is reflected in the measurable lack of public awareness
campaigns and in the absence of activism when it comes to coverage
about and support for the Christian victims of Islamist violence.

The cultural and intellectual currents, as well as official policies,
that have aimed to expunge religion, in general, and Christianity, in
particular, from the American public sphere have been corrosive for
any commitment to respect for faith and, especially, for assigning
value to the survival of Christianity in human civilization. Signs of
America’s emerging a-religious culture has also been instrumental in
explaining public misperceptions about the Middle East as home only to
Muslims and Jews, thereby rendering reporting on Christians in the
Middle East largely incomprehensible or meaningless. In a word, the
cumulative social and cultural changes attendant to the specific
drivers and modes of secularization in America go a long way to
explaining the reasons for American public apathy towards the
annihilation of the Mideast’s Christians. Indeed, the knowledge,
principles, and the very language-“Christian duty,” for example-that
produced widespread outrage and drove humanitarian relief in response
to genocide against Christians a century earlier have no place in
today’s public dialogue, and for some, are viewed as vestiges of an
exclusivist American identity that must be terminated.

The domestic politics of faith and US foreign policy concerns
regarding religion have contributed to a worrying cynicism in how
Washington policymakers engage on the issue of the Middle East’s
disappearing Christians. This past August, President Obama introduced
the Yezidis-a group unknown to Americans, indistinguishable victims,
free from any association with Christianity-to justify limited
military action against the Islamic State. Given current American
political sensitivities towards Islam and social changes generating
ambivalence and hostility towards Christianity, the President (much as
with his predecessor) made no clarion call for action to protect
today’s Middle East Christians-a group whose experiences in the
Ottoman Empire were marked by the same options-pay a poll tax,
convert, flee, or be killed-that face the Yazidis and the Christians
suffering in the ISIS footprint.

This year, 2015, will be a year of centennial remembrance and
commemoration of the Christian-the Armenian, Assyrian, and
Greek-genocide. It will also be a year of genocide denial, already
planned and launched by the Turkish state, as well as by Turkey’s
apologists in the US government, American media, and academia. In
recognition of this tragic centennial, as well as the unfolding
genocide in the Middle East in our time, this blog will return to
these issues in several postings throughout 2015.

Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou is Professor of History at Salem State
University, where he teaches on the Balkans, Byzantium, and the
Ottoman Empire.

By Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou

VIETNAM PRESIDENT REAFFIRMS DESIRE TO VISIT ARMENIA

17:24, 30 March, 2015

YEREVAN, 30 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. On March 28, Ambassador of the
Republic of Armenia to Vietnam Rayisa Vardanyan held private talks
with President of Vietnam Truong Tan Sang on the sidelines of the
132nd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that kicked off in
Hanoi. As the Department of Press, Information and Public Relations
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia reports
to “Armenpress”, the sides touched upon a broad range of issues of
mutual interest. Ambassador Vardanyan transmitted the warm greetings
of President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan to Truong Tan
Sang and reaffirmed the invitation to visit Armenia.

Ambassador Vardanyan presented the events dedicated to the Centennial
of the Armenian Genocide to be held in Armenia and abroad and touched
upon Armenia’s and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ efforts for a
peaceful regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, informing the
President that Azerbaijan continues to show a destructive approach to
the process of negotiations with provocations at the Line of Contact
and unprecedented violations of the ceasefire regime.

President of Vietnam Truong Tan Sang expressed gratitude to Ambassador
Vardanyan for reaffirming the invitation of the President of the
Republic of Armenia and asked Vardanyan to transmit his warm greetings
to President Sargsyan and reaffirm his desire to visit Armenia.

TIME FOR ARMENIA TO CHOOSE:MINING FOR DEVELOPMENT OR SYSTEMATIC PLUNDER?

15:48, March 30, 2015

It is indisputable that different aspects of themountaintop mining
industry, especially the production and processing of useful metal
mining, cause irrevocable damage to nature and human health, thus
differing essentially from other types of human economic activity.

However, the companies engaged in these activities have been insisting
for a long time that so called “sustainable” mining operations cause
almost no damage to the environment.

Now that such a statement is hard to substantiatethey have begun
using the term “responsible” mining and the main idea of this is to
disguise the real hazards and neutralize public criticism under the
veil of economic growth, corporate profit and social programs. And
all this is even more dangerous for countries like Armenia that have
a small territory, population living under extremelydifficult social
conditions and corrupt government.

We all know very well that today the natural resources of the
less developed countries are viewed as a “delicious slice”
for more developed countries. The global mining “machine” and
various international financial organizations usingbeautiful terms,
promising words and in the name of international standards continue
to ruthlessly exploit the natural resources of the less developed
countries, paying minimal taxes and fees, utilizing the useful
minerals and then leaving the countries with many environmental and
social issues. It is obvious that it would have been impossible to
accomplish the above mentioned without the active participation and
support of the high-ranking officials of the governing bodies in the
less developed countries. The high-ranking officials do not waste
any effort to rob the natural resources at a fast and unobstructed
pace since a certain portion of profits reach them as well.

This is one of the main reasons for the continuous interest of
different companies toward metal resources of Armenia, and continuously
the discussions revolve around making the investments in this field
more productive and attractive, and exploiting new metal mines and
even outcroppings.

Once again we would like to remind the decision-makers at the
governmental level in our country today that Armenia has a total
area of 29.7 thousand square kilometers, where approximately 460
mines already have permission for exploitation, out of which 27
are metal mines, and additional 85 metal mines are currently in
the study phase and waitingto be exploited. As a result, there are
already abouteight hundred million tons of tailings in 23 open and
closed tailing dumps, which are saturated with heavy metals and other
dangerous substances.At this rate, after 2-3 decades there will be
hundreds of toxic and extremely dangerous tailing dumps in Armenia,
which could be disastrous for the country and its people.

To all those “wise men” and executivesof mining companies, who compare
Armenia to Canada, Australia, USA, Sweden or Russia in order to prove
the necessity of the development of the mining industry in Armenia,
instead of engaging in demagoguery we advise you to open the world
map and see the difference between Armenia and these countries in
terms of area, density of population and biodiversity. In addition,
we advise you to thoroughly research the laws, regulations, and
taxation system of those countries, compare them to ours and only
then speak about the necessity of exploiting new mines, make majestic
announcements or try to appear as the saviors of the country (see
the”Mediamax.am’s” interview with Howard Stevenson, President and CEO
of Lydian International:”Success of Amulsar will eventually translate
into the success of Armenia”).

Forest ecosystems, such as Teghout Forest, that were created over
the centuries are being destroyed for short-term gain. Thousands of
hectares of land are alreadyirreversibly lost, they are buried under
open mines, stripped and minimal ore bearing rocks, and the soil is
already rich in heavy metals and other dangerous substances. The
surface and ground waters are contaminated from the absorption of
the tailing waste and drains released from the tailing dumps, which
are later used for irrigation and other purposes. As a result,the
heavy metals end up in the agricultural crops, hay and other products
(e.g., meat, milk, honey, etc.) and eventually through the food chain
end up in the human organism as well becoming the cause of various
health conditions and diseases (see relevant scientific researches).

Of course, the conditions for exploiting Armenia’s metallic useful
minerals are very attractive, as our so-called government has not
only given 100% exploitation permission to foreign companies, mostly
registered in offshore zones, to use the wealth that belongs to the
people but have also created a legal and taxation system to make the
mining companies feel at home. For the exploitation and production
of the natural resources, granted by nature to us and the future
generations, the taxation rates that have been set are no different
than the taxation rates imposed in other areas of economy, when they
should be much higher.

In Armenia, the mining companies are entirely exempt from paying fees
for the tailings, waste dumps and minimal-ore bearing rocks. Even if
these were taxed at the lowest rates, then each year a few 100 million
euros will be collected in Armenia, which would make up a lot more
money than all the current taxes and fees combined together paid by
the mining companies annually.Also we have no special state fund set
aside like in many other countries for accumulating very large sum
of money from utilization of natural resources in order to compensate
possible environmental damage and to protect the environment.

As a result, the largest amount of the mining income flows into
offshore companies, as well as to local officials and various
international financial organizations hidden behind the offshore
companies. As a result ofthe direct force and efforts of these kinds
of international organizations, Armenia has adopted laws and legal
acts ensuring the plunder of our natural resources.

The announcements about creating job opportunities are also false
and groundless. According to the National Statistical Service of
the Republic of Armenia, in 2013 only 9,400 people worked in the
fields of mining and open-mine operations, which makes up only 0.8%
of the population employment in Armenia and accounts for only 4.5%
of Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It’s worth mentioning that
it is the largest 5-6 mining companies, operating for already quite
a long time, that provide nearly 95% of the results mentioned above.

These are all undeniable facts which bring us to conclude and affirm
the following: “NO NEW MINES IN ARMENIA”, until serious systematic
and fundamental amendments are adopted and implemented, which are
as follows:

1. Work out a thorough strategic plan for the development of the
mining sector based on scientifically grounded and real assessment of
long-term ecological damage and expected income from various projects.

2. A serious reconsideration of the legislations in the mining and
environment sectors; a considerable increase in the payments and fees
paid by the companies.

3. Classification of tailing dumps according to their risk level and
impose taxes for toxic wastes. Implementation of the “Polluter Pays
Principle (PPP).” It holds that those who cause contamination should be
responsible for paying the clean-up costs. Moreover, the fees should be
equivalent to the damage caused to different parts of the environment.

4. Implementation of water recycling systems in all mining factories
and tailing dumps, which will prevent the waste outflow into the
environment. Until it is implemented, ensure that the outflow points
are under serious control and periodically take samples and conduct
necessary research.

5. Conduct safety studies in allopen and closed tailing dumps,
especiallyto estimate thestability ofdamsin case of emergencies,
such as earthquakes, landslides, shear, floods, etc.

6. Strictstate andpubliccontrol overallstages ofnatural
resource utilization; makepublic the monitoring results of
theenvironmentalmanagementplans conducted by the companies. Proper
monitoring of the state of the environmentandhealth ofthe
affectedpopulation during the mine exploitation and wide public
awarenessof the monitoring results.

7. Economic assessment and extraction of the range of useful elements
already available in the tailings instead of exploiting new mines.

Experts estimate thatitwould bemorecost-effective
andmuchlessharmfulthanexploitation of Teghout or Amulsar mines.

8. Increase in efficiency of current operating
mines,particularlyextraction of basic metals from ore reaching 90-95%
instead of the current 65-70%. In addition, conduct extraction of
the useful and quite valuableelementsnearby.

9. Creation ofan environmental fund, where the
extractors willpayseriousfees for environmental andpublic
healthprotection,rehabilitation ofpollutedareas, elimination of
consequences caused by potential accidents, as well as realization
of independentandobjectivescientificresearch.

Of course, we can also submit many otherproposals in addition
to the 9 proposals above. However,these proposals canbecome a
realityonlywhen we have professional leaders who reallycare aboutthe
futureof Armenia, who arewillingand abletomake the rightdecisions,
whowillfinallyrealizethat the metalmineralresources will one day
be exhausted, and it is necessary toutilizethemoney gainedfrom
the operation of mines for Armenia’srealempowermentanddevelopment
ofother sectors ofthe economy, rather than the enrichment of offshore
registeredcompanies anda fewfamilies.

We urge thecitizens ofArmeniaandour compatriotsliving abroadnot to
beindifferent towards this destructiveprocess andrealize thattime
has come for all of us to make a decision – either side with the
exploitation of themines for the sake of our country’s “development”
or systematic plunder of the naturalresources belonging to us and
the future generations.

The result depends on the position and action of every one of us.

P. S. We would like to bring everyone’s attention to the following
two documentaries, which illustrate who is exploiting Armenia’s
natural resources, how they are being exploited, what environmental
and health problems are caused by the exploitation of the mines and
finally what are the Armenian people getting from all of this.

Environmental documentary”Armenia’s breaking
backbone”

“Mining is a threat to Syunik” ARTV clip

Pan-Armenian Environmental Front (PAEF)

Website:

Facebook page:

YouTube Channel:

Email: [email protected]

EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION TO GIVE VERY STRONG PUSH TO ARMENIA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, RUSSIAN MP SAYS

YEREVAN, March 26. / ARKA /. The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) which
Armenia joined earlier this year will give a very strong push to
its economic development, Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of a Russian
parliament committee on CIS affairs, Eurasian Integration and relations
with compatriots said Sunday in Yerevan.

“Armenian and Russia are brothers. Today we are united in the Eurasian
Economic Union. We are creating now a single economic space from Lisbon
to Vladivostok, which until recently seemed a utopia,’ said Slutsky.

According to him, the EEU will become a driving force for Armenian
economy in the coming years.-0-

IRAN MFA SUMMONS TURKEY’S CHARGE D’AFFAIRES OVER ERDOGAN’S REMARKS

March 30, 2015 – 15:42 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Turkey’s charge
d’affaires on Sunday, March 29, after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan
accused Iran of trying to dominate the Middle East, Iranian media
reported, according to Reuters.

“We are summoning the Turkish charge d’affaires… to register
Iran’s objection to Erdogan’s comments and to seek a clear response,”
spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying by the semi-official
Fars new agency.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last week rebuffed
Erdogan’s accusations and accused the Turkish president of pursuing
policies harmful to the region.

Several Iranian officials and lawmakers have called on the government
to cancel a planned visit by Erdogan next week.

Erdogan said on Monday he still planned to visit Iran.

WE HAVE LOST OUR BELOVED BARON SEROPYAN

03.28.2015 21:33 NEWS

We have lost the pillar and history of our newspaper, the editor of
our Armenian section, our everything, Sarkis Seropyan, this evening,
on 28 March 2015, Saturday. We bow respectfully before the memory of
Sarkis Seropyan, who has been a symbol synonymous with Agos since its
foundation, and offer our condolences to his family and all loved ones.

Seropyan’s funeral will be held at 13:00 tomorrow (31 March) at
the Surp Vartanants Church in Feriköy. Burial will follow at the
Ã…~^iÃ…~_li Armenian Cemetery.

Born in 1935, Sarkis Seropyan began working after he graduated from
secondary school, and at the same time wrote articles in Armenian for
various magazines and newspapers. Upon Hrant Dink’s offer, he became a
member of the team that, in 1996, founded the Agos newspaper, and was
since the editor of the Armenian section of the newspaper. Seropyan
is survived by his wife and two children.

LE PORTE-PAROLE DU PARTI REPUBLICAIN A REAGI AUX PROPOS DU PRESIDENT TURC

ARMENIE

Edouard Charmazanov a commente les propos du President Erdogan,
celui-ci ayant appele l’Armenie et la diaspora armenienne a venir
etudier les archives turques, qui sont ouvertes. Selon le porte-parole,
le fait du Genocide armenien est aussi evident que l’existence du
soleil et de la lune dans le ciel : >. Hayastani Hanrapetoutioun rapporte les propos
du directeur de l’Institut de l’Orient de l’Academie des sciences,
Rouben Safrastian, selon lequel bien que les archives turques soient
formellement ouvertes, Erevan dispose des informations sur leur
> de la part des services secrets turcs pendant des
annees. Selon M. Safrastian, meme en depit de la purification des
archives turques, celles-ci comportent encore des documents qui peuvent
servir contre les arguments officiels d’Ankara. 168 Jam reproduit,
pour sa part, l’avis du directeur du think tank Modus Vivendi,
Ara Papian, selon lequel les propos de M. Erdogan sont vexants non
seulement pour l’Armenie, mais aussi pour tous les pays qui ont
reconnu le Genocide. Aux yeux de M. Papian, les propos du President
turc ont pour principal objectif d’impliquer l’Armenie dans un debat
inutile sur les faits historiques, alors qu’elle n’a pas a se meler
d’une discussion qui met en question la realite du Genocide.

L’unique sujet sur lequel l’Armenie peut negocier avec la Turquie
est celui de l’eradication des consequences du Genocide.

Haykakan Jamanak donne la parole a un turcologue, Rouben Melkonian,
qui denonce dans les propos de M. Erdogan un >.

Selon lui, une partie seulement des archives turques sont ouvertes,
tandis que les archives militaires où sont conserves les documents
relatifs au Genocide sont fermees meme pour les chercheurs turcs. Il
affirme egalement que les archives turques ont ete >
a plusieurs reprises et avant tout par les jeunes turcs.

Extrait de la revue de presse de l’Ambassade de France en Armenie en
date du 23 mars 2015

lundi 30 mars 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

DETROIT AREA ARMENIANS MARK 100 YEARS SINCE GENOCIDE

14:53, 30 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Armenian Americans in southeastern Michigan are marking the 100th
anniversary of the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman
Turkey.

In the small town where Richard Norsigian’s father was born more than
a century ago, there were 84 people with the same surname.

But not long afterward, only a handful of those Norsigians remained
as the Turkish government began exterminating Armenians or exiling
them to other parts of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, he told
the Detroit News.

“After the genocide, there were only eight,” Norsigian said.

“Fortunately, my father was sent to the United States when he was 16.

But his entire family in Armenia was either killed or taken.”

Norsigian is one of the thousands of Metro Detroiters with ties to
Armenia who are preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of the start
of the Armenian genocide in Turkey on April 24.

Experts estimate 1.5 million people died in the genocide, which began
April 24, 1915, and continued for eight years.

Armenian community leaders and groups in Metro Detroit have organized
events — including discussions with Armenian filmmakers, Armenian
classical music concerts and a special church service — to honor
those who lost their lives in the holocaust.

“Armenians have been holding memorials for many, many years,” said
Ara Sanjian, an associate professor of history and director of the
Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. “But
because it’s the 100th anniversary, they are on a much grander scale
all over the world, including Metro Detroit.”

The only Armenian research center attached to an American university,
the center was established to document the Armenian genocide and
current Armenian issues.

It’s estimated more than 447,000 people in the United States are of
Armenian descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 17,000
make their home in Michigan and nearly 11,000 live in Metro Detroit,
according to the census bureau.

Metro Detroit’s Armenian community is the fourth-largest Armenian
population in the U.S., behind those in Los Angeles, New York and
Boston. Most of Metro Detroit’s Armenian community is concentrated
in Oakland County.

Despite the passing of a century, the mass killing still resonates
with descendants of the victims.

“The fact that 100 years later you still have to explain and prove
that what happened to your ancestors was a premeditated crime on a
massive scale really incurs a lot of pain for all Armenians,” Sanjian
said. “It’s also painful for Armenians that those who used violence
have gotten away with it.”

Armenians are optimistic Turkey will take responsibility for the
genocide someday, Sanjian said. The attitudes of many individual
Turks about it have changed over the past 20 years, he said.

However, a bigger concern is whether or not Armenians will be able
to hold on to their identity.

“Our group identity, our unique culture is under threat because of
assimilation under the conditions of exile,” he said. “Ultimately,
Armenians — outside the Republic of Armenia — consist of small
groups that are scattered all around the world.”

In Metro Detroit, a number of Armenian community groups and churches
have planned special events to honor the genocide’s victims.

The culmination is a special church service on April 24 at St. Mary’s
Antiochian Orthodox Basilica in Livonia.

Clergy from various faiths will participate, including Archbishop
Allen Vigneron, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.

“It’s a commemoration to the memory of the victims,” said Norsigian,
who is co-chair of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of
Greater Detroit. “It’s also to raise awareness about the genocide.”

Robert Kachadourian, a member of the committee, agreed.

“It’s an awareness that should be promulgated so the Armenian genocide
is never forgotten,” he said.

Like Norsigian, Kachadourian’s father survived the genocide, but
most of his family was killed. His father wrote about his experience,
Kachadourian said.

“He was 12 years old when it happened and he lost 55 members of his
family,” said Kachadourian, a media consultant and local TV show host.

“After that, he was in servitude — I call it slavery — for nine
years before finally escaping and making his way to Dearborn.”

The Armenian genocide also had a profound impact on Hayg Oshagan and
his family.

“My grandfather was one of Armenia’s leading writers and he was
supposed to be rounded up,” said Oshagan, a Wayne State University
professor and a leader in Metro Detroit’s Armenian community. “He
escaped because someone, we don’t know who, warned him the day before.”

“All of us have these stories about how our families made their
way out of death,” he said. “The events for the anniversary are an
affirmation of our survival. Even though we’re spread across the world,
we are here and we’ll continue to be here.”