Author: Kanayan Tamar

WHY DOES ARMENIA NEED THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT? – 1

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
April 17 2014

17 April 2014 – 1:03pm

David Stepanyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

In early April, the provisions of the law on defined contribution
pensions were found anti-constitutional by the Constitutional Court
(CC) – they contradict the right for personal property management of
Armenian citizens and are found to be age discrimination. However,
despite the verdict, the Central Depository and the Committee for
State Revenues continue to illegally make employers pay to contribution
pension funds.

There is a reasonable question: why does Armenia need the
Constitutional Court and the Constitution, if everybody ignores them?

Despite dismissal of the government, the authorities interpreted
the CC judgment in a peculiar way. The deputy Justice Minister,
Yegishe Kirakosyan, stated that according to the 7th article
of the CC judgment, all provisions of the law, which were found
anti-constitutional, would continue their operation till September
30th. According to the official, it means the law on defined
contribution pensions will operate till September 30th.

The situation wasn’t explained either by the acting Minister of
Labor and Social Affairs, Artem Asatryan, who declared that the
former Premier ordered to establish a working group which will
present amendments to the law by May 15th. The minister stated that
the CC verdict made the government work on correction of provisions
which were found anti-constitutional. At the moment the government
illegally makes citizens pay to contribution pension funds and develops
amendments to the law for making fines legal after September 30th.

To be continued

IN SYRIA, REBEL ATTACKS IN THE NORTH REFLECT A NUMBER OF IMPORTANT CHANGES

PATRICK COCKBURN

Thursday 17 April 2014

The intra-rebel civil war has ebbed in these areas, allowing opposition
fighters to resume their war with government forces

The Syrian government is eliminating the last rebel strongholds in
the centre of the country along the crucial road linking Damascus
to Homs and to Tartous on the coast. These areas have always been
essential for it to maintain its grip on power.

At the same time, the rebels have launched offensives from places
where they have strength, notably against Latakia province just south
of the Turkish border and West Aleppo, which is a government bastion
that has been under attack since 3 April. Rebel-held parts of Aleppo,
most of whose inhabitants have fled, are being pounded by barrel
bombs dropped by helicopters while rebels have been firing rockets
and shells into the government controlled west of the city.

Homs was once the centre of the popular uprising in 2011 but opposition
fighters now hold only some of the ruins in the old city.

Many of its remaining inhabitants left under UN auspices in February,
but a core of militant fighters stayed behind. Other rebel held areas
in Homs have fallen and hundreds of thousands of Sunni have fed into
al-Waer district in the west of the city which sealed off by the
Syrian army.

In some parts of Homs life continues as normal though there were two
recent car bombings inflicting heavy casualties. Other fought-over
neighbourhoods have become ‘ghost districts’ and are uninhabited,
their old population having fled to Lebanon or Tartous. The army has
been systematically sealing off and capturing opposition enclaves in
western Homs province such as that around the Crusader fortress of
Krak des Chevaliers.

The main government effort at the moment is to clear the Qalamoun
mountain region west of the main road linking Damascus and Homs and
along the Lebanese border. Yabroud, long a rebel base, was captured
after heavy fighting and in the last few days the army has taken the
ancient Christian village of Maaloula. The last rebel strongpoint
still holding out is Zabadani on the Lebanese border. In these
battles fighters from the Lebanese paramilitary movement Hezbollah
are acting as highly effective assault troops. They have also been
committed in Aleppo this month to stop the rebel attacks underlining
the government’s lack of combat-ready troops.

The rebel attacks in the north reflect a number of important changes.

The intra-rebel civil war in which the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIS) has been fighting other groups has ebbed in these
areas (though not on the Iraqi border). This allows the opposition
fighters to resume their war with government forces. In this part of
Syria they have the advantage of an open 500-mile long Turkish border
across which they can advance and retreat.

A further feature of recent fighting is that the opposition side has
been led by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of al-Qa’ida, and
by other jihadi groups. In Latakia, the surprise attack on government
positions was reportedly led by Chechen and Moroccan fighters who were
initially able to break into an Alawite area where the government is
strongly supported, as well as the Armenian village of Kassab.

SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY: PARTNER IN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL?

By MassisPost
Updated: April 16, 2014

By Heidi Boghosian
Executive Director of the National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG)

Students at Suffolk University Law School have launched an online
petition urging the school’s president to withdraw its invitation to
Armenian genocide denier Abraham Foxman to speak at their commencement
and receive an honorary degree. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation
League director, drew harsh public criticism in 2007 for opposing
a congressional resolution acknowledging the 1915 extermination
of approximately 1.5 million Armenians. Since the 15th century,
Armenians had been treated as second-class citizens under Ottoman
rule. In honoring Foxman, Suffolk University sends a message that
politics are more important than acknowledging crimes against humanity.

The denial of genocide is an integral, and final, part of the genocidal
process, as Genocide Watch founder Gregory Stanton has written. Despite
a well-documented body of eyewitness accounts and other evidence
chronicling the 20th century’s very first genocide (scholar and lawyer
Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1943 with the extermination
of the Armenians in mind), the Turkish government continues to mount
a campaign of denial through inaccurate scholarship, propaganda,
aggressive lobbying, and even a law which forbids mention of the word
genocide. In 2005, Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted for
“insulting Turkishness,” as was Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant
Dink who was subsequently assassinated in 2007 by a young Turkish
nationalist. U.S. political and partisan allegiances with Turkey
enable a range of repugnant human rights transgressions, old and new.

My grandmother Baidzar was born in Giresun, a village on the Black Sea,
to parents who owned almond and filbert orchards and were active in
working for protection of the Armenian minority. Baidzar remembered
that men would come to their house in the middle of the night and
have secret, whispered meetings upstairs, because it was against
the law for minorities to assemble. The father of the poet Silva
Gaboudegian was one of those men. Many years and many worlds later,
an older cousin would tell my grandmother that those men were members
of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Baidzar remembered her mother
falling to her knees crying before two officers, a Turk and a German,
who came to their home on horseback, begging them to spare her family.

Baidzar later watched her parents and siblings being slaughtered
before escaping to an orphanage and making a treacherous passage to
the United States as a mail order bride.

Around the world, on April 15, just weeks before Suffolk’s
commencement, and 99 years after the mass murders, families with
stories just like my grandmother’s will mark the day of observance of
the genocide. April 15 is widely considered to be the starting date of
a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians. On
that day in 1915, the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire, Talaat
Pasha, ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and
community leaders in Constantinople. The killings were gruesome and
included beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings
and drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or
with the blood of typhoid fever patients.

Although there has been much academic recognition of the Armenian
genocide, this has rarely been followed by governmental recognition.

Turkey swiftly condemned a U.S. Senate committee resolution adopted on
April 10, 2014 by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations labeling
as genocide the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces and warned
Congress against taking steps that would tarnish Turkish-American
ties. Similar resolutions under past presidential administrations
have also failed.

The Turkish people have been taught for decades that there was no
genocide, with the result that most believe their country is being
treated unfairly when genocide resolutions are raised. Continued
failure to acknowledge the genocide in our history books is a
disservice not only to survivors of the genocide, but also to those
Turks who tried to stop it then and who face imprisonment today for
publicly acknowledging the genocide.

Suffolk University should listen to its students. It has the chance to
take a step forward in rectifying decades of injustice by reversing
its decision to honor Abraham Foxman with an honorary law degree
at its 2014 commencement. Tolerance of those who deny the Armenian
genocide may be politically expedient, but it is nonetheless morally
indefensible.

The NLG’s syndicated radio program, Law & Disorder, will
address this issue on the air Monday, April 21, 2015. To
find out which stations near you will air the segment, visit:

To access the petition and/or letter to
Suffolk University President McCarthy, visit:

Photo: “Staged footage from ‘Ravished Armenia,’ Aurora Mardiganian’s
book/film about the Armenian Genocide.’

SEVEN ARMENIANS NAMED RUSSIA’S RICHEST BUSINESSMEN IN FORBE’S RANKING

15:56 â~@¢ 17.04.14

Seven Armenians have been named as Russia’s richest businessmen in
the latest ranking published by the Russian Forbes.

Sergey Galitsky (Harutyunyan), the founder and a co-owner of the
supermarket chain Magnit, appears to the richest among them, with
total net assets worth $10.3 billion. His fortune is said to have
increased by $2.1 billion since last year.

Samvel Karepatyan, the owner of the real estate firm Tashir Group,
has climbed from the 29th position in 2013 to the 26th position this
year, having increased his assets by $0.5 billion to $43 billion.

Danil Khachaturov, with an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, ranks
the 40th. The CEO ofRossgostrakh has improved his positions by three
points, his current assets topping the 2013 records by $0.2 billion.

Nikolay Sarkosov and Sergey Sarkisov, the billionaire brothers who
represent the insurance company RESO-Garantiya, are also among the
richest Armenians despite the drop in their net income. The estimated
net worth of each is $1.1 billion this year. Nikolay Sarkisov,
who is the company’s vice president, had a loss of $0.25 compared
to last year; he is now the 98th on the ranking. Sergey Sarkisov,
who heads the company’s board of directors, ranks the 99th.

Ruben Vardanyan, the 45-year-old founder of the Moscow School of
Management SKOLKOVO, has jumped to the 124th position (from the
193rd position in 2013). His net worth has increased by $0.85 since
last year.

Director of Wooden Fish Agency Albert Avdolyan ranks the 133rd, with
an estimated net worth of $0.75 billion. His income has increased by
$0.05 since last year.

The top ten list of Russia’s 200 richest businessmen includes looks
as follows:

1. Alisher Usmanov (Metalinvest, Mail.ru Group, Megaphone); $18.6
billion

2. Mikhail Fridman (Alpha Group); $17.5 billion

3. Viktor Vekselberg (Rosal); $17.2 billion

4. Vladimir Lisin (Novolipetsk Steel); $16.6 billiom

5. Leonid Michelson (Sibur, Novoteka); $15.6 billion

6. Gennady Timchenko (Novatek); $15.3 billio

7. Vagit Alekperov (Lukoil); $13.6 billion

8. Vladimir Potanin (Interros, Nornikel); $12.6 billion

9. Andrey Melnichenko (EuroChem); $11.4 billion

10. Herman Han (X5 Retail Group); $11.3 billion

KESSAB YOUTH UNION FORMS IN ARMENIA

April 17, 2014 | 14:34

YEREVAN. – A group of Kessab Armenians have established the Kessab
Youth Union in Armenia, initiative group member Hagop Kortmosyan told
Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The objective of the union is to assist in the revival of Syria’s
predominantly Armenian-populated town of Kessab, and for the Kessab
Armenians’ return to their native land.

In this respect, the union issued an appeal to all Armenians, calling
on to join efforts and carry out joint actions.

On March 21, armed militants from the Jabhat al-Nusra Islamic
terrorist group infiltrated into northern Syria’s Latakia Governorate,
which is predominantly inhabited by Armenians and Alawites, from four
directions. Two large groups of terrorists had launched the attack from
Turkey. About 600 Kessab-Armenian families were initially sheltered
in Latakia city. A group of Armenia parliament members had visited
Syria to assess the situation in the region.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

AZERBAIJANI KILLER ARRESTED IN ARMENIA

Lragir.am
Law – Thursday, 17 April 2014, 14:03

Armenia extradited the hired killer to Moscow, Baltinfo informed
referring to its source in the law enforcement bodies.

The killer, born in Azerbaijan, got Russian citizenship in 2004, was
arrested in April 2014 in the result of cooperation of the Russian
and Armenian polices and extradited to Russia. The person is accused
of murder on Begovaya Street, Moscow, in April 2012.

On April 20 the Kazakh entrepreneur, owner of a carwash, was found dead
with 7 fire wounds, including 3 on the head. The gun with suppressor
was found in about 100 meters from the scene.

The intelligence identified the killer but by that time he had already
left Armenia. It is a 27-year-old resident of Vladimir town who comes
from Azerbaijan. The crime was committed due to a conflict caused by
commercial. Currently those who hired killer are wanted.

– See more at:

LOWELL TO UNVEIL GENOCIDE MEMORIAL ON MAY 10

By Tom Vartabedian on April 14, 2014

Lowell, Mass.–In what is believed to be an historic first–at least
in America–a genocide monument with an imposing cross will be unveiled
by a municipal complex.

Genocide memorial titled ‘A Mother’s Hands’ will be unveiled May 10
in Lowell on Mother’s Day weekend.

The unique event will take place Saturday, May 10, by Lowell City Hall,
site of many a genocide commemoration in the past by the Armenian
National Committee of America.

But never a religious memorial.

The 6-foot structure will take its place to the immediate right of
the building’s entrance by the flagpole as the Armenian Tricolor
is hoisted and national anthems are being sung in both Armenian and
American during a prayer service.

It’s the culmination of two years’ work by the Armenian Genocide
Monument Committee of Merrimack Valley, capped by a $35,000
fund-raising effort by members of surrounding churches and
organizations.

A $15,000 endowment is currently being raised for the perpetual care
of the site, which was graciously donated by the city.

Titled “A Mother’s Hands,” the unveiling coincides auspiciously with
Mother’s Day weekend, expecting to draw hundreds from around the
state and New England, including a number of government officials.

“What was once a dream has become reality for Armenians throughout
the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire,” said Chairman Armen
Jeknavorian. “The day will mark a very emotional and inspiring moment,
not only for the 1.5 million victims of 1915, but for generations
who’ve followed and established our different communities.”

Among them, of course, is Lowell, a prominent mill city cultivated
by immigrants who toiled the sweat shops and raised their families
with resilience.

“We owe them all a debt of allegiance,” added Jeknavorian. “This
monument will remain a gesture of gratitude for all they’ve done to
preserve and advance our precious history.”

The project was launched by former Mayor James Milinazzo, now a City
Councilor, who agreed to plans and even designated the spot inside
an area known as Monument Park.

The Armenian memorial will take its place among other stones reflecting
the homage of various other ethnic groups who inhabit the city.

The design is the brainchild of Chelmsford artist Daniel Varoujan
Hejinian whose inscription of “A Mother’s Hands” forms the base. Over
the past 18 years, Hejinian has designed and financed the erection
of three genocide billboards throughout Greater Boston and created
a number of religious icons in various churches.

A 3-dimensional motif featuring a mother’s hands crocheting lace
protrudes from the “khatchkar” (cross stone) which serves as an
immediate eye-catcher. At the base are the Armenian words “EE
Hish-a-dag” or “In Remembrance.” The stone measures six feet high
and three feet wide and was constructed by Skylight Studios in Woburn.

“The delicacy of the crochet integrated into the cross stone symbolizes
the steadfast richness of the Armenian heritage that has sustained
our ancient people for centuries,” said Hejinian. “Knot by knot,
the Armenian people everywhere weave their hopes and dreams as they
grow and prosper. This expression of ‘weaving’ echoes the Armenian
national theme.”

The day will begin with a downtown procession starting at 10 a.m.,
led by the Lowell Armenian-American Veterans color guard and Knights
of Vartan. Joining the entourage will be Sunday School children from
the different Armenian churches holding banners.

Participants are asked to gather at 9:30 a.m. at the corner of
Merrimack and John Streets near City Hall Plaza.

A monument dedication and flag-raising ceremony will take place at
10:30 on the steps of City Hall where national anthems will be sung
by Knarik Nerkararyan and Bud Caulfield.

A reception and program will follow across the way at St. Anne’s
Church featuring Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian as master
of ceremonies. Koutoujian is honorary chairman of the project.

Special tribute will be given to Nellie Nazarian, Merrimack Valley’s
lone genocide survivor.

A cultural interlude will be featured by soloist Sevan Dulgarian.

Remarks will be offered by city, state and federal officials. Students
will read their winning essays which underscore the day’s theme.

“The Armenian monument will certainly create an attractive yet
meaningful presence to our downtown,” said Mayor Patrick Murphy, who
has remained supportive over the project. “Armenians have overcome
extreme adversity. Together, we all share in the human experience–that
being peace and harmony throughout the world.”

TURKEY ‘AIDED ISLAMIST FIGHTERS’ IN ATTACK ON SYRIAN TOWN

Rebels and eye-witnesses claim that Turkish authorities allowed
fighters to enter Syria through a strategic border post to carry out
assault on Armenian town of Kasab

A severely damaged house in the Armenian Christian town of Kasab
Photo: REUTERS

By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut

6:40PM BST 14 Apr 2014

Turkey facilitated an attack carried out by Islamist fighters against
the Armenian town of Kasab inside Syria, eyewitnesses have told
the Telegraph.

In an operation that was months in the planning, Turkish authorities
gave rebel groups the mandate they needed to attack, allowing them
access through a heavily militarised Turkish border post, whose
location was strategically vital to the success of the assault.

“Turkey did us a big favour,” said a Syrian activist with the rebel
group, whose name the Telegraph knows but has been asked not to
reveal. “They allowed our guys to enter from their border post.

“We needed to hit the regime from different sides and this was the
only way from near the coast, so it was a big help.”

Kasab, the ancestral home of the Armenian ethnic minority in Syria,
which had remained relatively sheltered from the conflict in Syria.

Residents were woken on the morning of the attack, on March 21,
to screams and cries.

“We woke to the sounds of the shelling. There was no time even to get
dressed,” remembered Bedros, 45, an Armenian resident who asked not to
be identified by his real name. “I grabbed my wife and my children. We
had no time to take our things. Some people fled in their night gowns.”

Two days later Kasab was in the hands of an alliance of Islamist
groups, including the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra, aligned with al-Qaeda.

Almost all of the villages approximately 2,000 inhabitants had fled.

The night of the attack a relative of Bedros had gone to one of the
main border posts with Turkey, which is only lightly armed with
Syrian troops, reportedly because of an agreement signed decades
before the war.

“By the time he arrived the attack had begun. He saw the Islamist
fighters standing with the Turkish army. They started launching their
shells from the border”.

The Turkish foreign ministry has issued a statement stating that the
claims that the government aided the opposition in the attack are
“totally unfounded and untrue”.

However, the findings of investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW),
which included interviews with local eye-witnesses, directly contradict
this claim.

“It is not feasible that these groups could have crossed into Syria
from where they did without the knowledge of the Turks,” Lama Fakih,
the Syria and Lebanon researcher at HRW told the Telegraph.

“One of the areas they used was an official border crossing that
residents say has a Turkish military presence.”

The entry through the Kasab border crossing allowed the rebels to
attack the Syrian military positions near village from several sides,
making it key to the rebel assault.

Rebel groups had wanted to attack Kasab for a long time, said the
female activist, but Turkey had previously denied them access.

“In the past the Turks refused to give us passage, because they said
that in order to succeed in the attack we needed to be united,”
she said, referring to the battles that took place at the end of
last year between the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,
and other rebel groups in the area.

The attack on Kasab sparked dark memories of the Ottoman massacres
for its inhabitants, and a hysterical flurry across social media from
pro-government sources claiming horrific massacres in the town.

Residents themselves brought up memories of massacres in 1909, and
the genocide in 1915, when Kasab villagers were slaughter in their
thousands by the Ottomans.

“We always thought the Turks would attack us one day,” said Bedros, the
fellow family members who he is sharing his new lodgings in Lebanon,
nodding as he spoke. “And with the attack on Kasab it was clear that
Turkey helped. The attackers came from Turkish territory.”

Kasab was however the Syrian regime’s ‘Achilles heel’ in the well
defended coastal province of Latakia, where many Alawites, the same
religious minority as President Assad, live.

Al-Nusra and the Islamic Front have pushed deeper into the terrain,
taking control of Samra, giving them access to the coastline and
engaging in fierce battles for ‘observatory 45’, the highest mountain
point in the area, and a strategically vital military position.

“You can see why we needed to take Kasab,” said Dr Mahmoud, diplomacy
envoy for the Islamic Front. “You can see what has happened. Now the
regime is very very afraid.”

US Fed News
April 11, 2014 Friday 9:39 PM EST

ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR BELMAKER PRESENTS AT 2 CONFERENCES IN CALGARY

TULSA, Okla., April 11 — The University of Tulsa issued the following
news release:

Dr. Belmaker is presenting her work on Armenia in the
Paleoanthropological Society meeting in Calgary (April 8-9, 2014).
This paper titled, Preliminary Results from the Renewed Excavations
from Peshcka Cave: A Stratified Middle and Upper Paleolithic Cave in
the Lori Plateau, Armenia, is co-authored by two graduate students,
Colleen Bell (Anthropology) and Cas Bridge (Geoscience). This work has
been funded by a Faculty Internationalization Grant for
Interdisciplinary Development as well as two Faculty Research grants.
For more information see

In addition, Dr. Belmaker is co-authoring a presentation in the the
83rd annual meeting of the American Association of Physical
Anthropologists which will be held April 8-12, 2014 in Calgary,
Alberta Canada. This presentation titled, Stable isotope ecology of
modern micromammals from the Sterkfontein Valley: Implications for
habitat reconstruction in mosaic environments, is authored by P.A.
Sandberg and other co-authors. This presentation is a result of an NSF
collaborative research grant focusing on Rodent Diets and Habitat
Reconstructions in South Africa.

The New York Post
April 11, 2014 Friday

Where’s my 150G movie!?

by Selim Algar

A Westchester private-equity honcho paid a husband-and-wife Brooklyn
filmmaking team more than $150,000 in 2009 to produce a documentary on
the Armenian genocide – and they still haven’t gotten around to making
it, according to a federal lawsuit.

Kohlberg & Co. COO Shant Mardirossian, an active figure in the
Armenian community, commissioned compatriots Alina and Zareh
Tjeknavorian to complete a full-length documentary by April 2015 to
coincide with the upcoming 100th anniversary of the start of the
genocide, court papers state.

But the fed-up financier from Mount Kisco finally slapped the couple
with the suit this week after they allegedly used the cash to pay for
travel, research and camera equipment without ever showing evidence
the film was in the works.

Mardirossian’s suit claims that they haven’t provided a single frame
of film and have refused to return any of the pricey hardware they
purchased with his cash. The Tjeknavorians were “mired in tangential
matters unrelated to the main plot of the film and were desperately
behind schedule with no viable plan to get back on schedule,” court
papers state.

Mardirossian would not comment on the case, and a lawyer for the
filmmakers did not immediately return a call for comment.