Author: Kanayan Tamar

MICHAEL MAMIASHVILI: “WHEN WE ARE UNITED BY ONE GOAL, WE ARE INVINCIBLE”

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
March 11 2014

11 March 2014 – 10:08am

By Vestnik Kavkaza

In late February in Rome, Michael Mamiashvili was elected vice
president of FILA. He is the president of the Russian Wrestling
Federation. Mamiashvili spoke to Vestnik Kavkaza about it and wrestling
in the Caucasus.

– What do you think about wrestling in the Caucasus?

– As for freestyle and Greco -Roman wrestling, the Caucasus has
always been famous for its outstanding wrestlers, coaches and
schools. This school and Makhachkala and Khasavyurt, Dagestan,
Kabardino-Balkaria, Ossetia. If I start naming all the people from
these regions and talking about this sport in those republics, it
will take a lot of time.

It is developing very dynamically and the competition becomes stronger
not only in the North Caucasus. It happens from Kaliningrad to the
Sakhalin. For the first time in many years we held the national
championship in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. This is a good opportunity to
advertise our sport, to attract young people, to increase competition.

As for the Caucasus, I hope they will continue the great traditions
of Ali Aliyev, Degi Bageyev, Soslan Andiyev, Murat Kardanov and many
other champions.

– How does wrestling develop in the South Caucasus?

– For instance, the founder of the wrestling traditions in Azerbaijan
was an Armenian, Kasparov, who brought up a line of outstanding
wrestlers. Ossetians helped Georgians and Georgians helped Ossetians,
great champions, great coaches. So our history is so entangled. We
are different in character and mentality, but once we are united by
one goal, we are invincible.

***

Speaking about being elected the vice president of FILA, Mamiashvili
said: “This is not my personal achievement, but the achievement of all
members of the Russian sports wrestling. The enormous contribution
that Russia has made to the promotion and preservation of wrestling
as an Olympic sport, the ability to promote and develop our sport is a
result of the work of a great number of wrestling fans, professionals
who work in our organization, in the wrestling organization. On
the other hand, it is certainly a huge responsibility primarily of
the Russian Federation and also my responsibility. There are acute
issues today that require immediate solutions, and these are complex
solutions, there are different positions and opinions. Some think that
the direction we have chosen may not be progressive enough, however,
we have managed to prove that the majority of sportsmen from countries
that represent our sport agree with us and therefore trust us. This
gives us an additional responsibility.”

THE WEST CANNOT FACE A WAR

The Nation, UAE
March 11 2014

March 11, 2014

Robert Fisk – For some reason, our last century’s two world wars
started rather far from home. I bet that most people in January 1914
couldn’t find Sarajevo on a map. But then again, how many of us –
really, I mean – could have found Simferopol on a map a year ago? Or
three weeks ago, for that matter? The Second World War started because
Britons simply wouldn’t take another crooked deal like Czechoslovakia –
“a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing”, in which
our Neville at least put distance in front of ignorance. So Poland
it was, which, by awful mischance, shares a border with modern-day
Ukraine.

And this really is, I fear, the sort of grim, only slightly understood
consciousness that we can’t let Poland/Ukraine down again, that we
can’t let Putin threaten little Ukraine as we let Hitler threaten and
invade Poland. Poland is on Ukraine’s doorstep – it’s funny how we
get upset about countries that are “on our doorstep” – that’s what we
said about Bosnia in the 1990s. They were in the backyard, I suspect,
no privies, you know the sort of thing.

But, of course, Putin is not Hitler and it would be well to try to get
the Second World War out of our bloodstream – not least because we
have the First World War coursing through our corpuscles this year,
and besides the Russians were on our side in the last war and in the
war before that (for a time). So were the Serbs. But what struck me,
watching all the EU spivs looking serious in Brussels last week, is
that these people have no experience of war and somehow think that
once they have made their threats, they can all go home and forget
“the crisis”. I admit I am much moved by a newspaper headline in
Beirut last week that began: “War looms…” Well, let’s hope not.

And the “crisis” or the war “looming” in the Ukraine is of great
interest to someone who lives not a hundred miles from my home:
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who will have been much relieved
to see Putin leap to the rescue of Russian Ukraine as firmly as he
did for Syria. Indeed, Assad, according to his government, has even
sent a telegram to Putin – do people still send “telegrams”, by the
way? – in which he “expressed … Syria’s solidarity with Putin’s
efforts to restore security and stability to Ukraine in the face of
attempted coups against legitimacy and democracy in favour of radical
terrorists”. Syria was committed, Assad said, to “President Putin’s
rational, peace-loving approach that seeks to establish a global
system supporting stability and fighting”.

And Assad praised Putin’s “wise political leadership and commitment to
international legitimacy based on the law that governs ties between
nations and peoples”. Phew. Well, we got the point. Assad liked what
he saw in Simferopol, although I notice he didn’t say anything about
the ousted Viktor Yanukovich – and I’m not surprised. The Ukrainian
leader did a bunk out of his own country. Assad did not run away.

Putin, I suspect, will have liked that, just as Putin will have
enjoyed the fact that Madame Clinton, Obama himself, David Cameron
and Messieurs Hollande and Sarkozy – all of whom said years ago that
Assad would go, was about to go or virtually gone – were totally wrong.

So what did I really think when I saw all these folk meeting in
Brussels? I was reminded of a wonderful description of a British
politician. It was written by Lawrence of Arabia and I take it from a
fine new book on him by Scott Anderson. The man in question was “the
imaginative advocate of unconvincing world movements … a bundle of
prejudices, intuitions, half-sciences. His ideas were of the outside,
and he lacked patience to test his materials before choosing his style
of building. He would take an aspect of the truth, detach it from
its circumstances, inflate it, twist and model it.” The politician
was Mark Sykes of Sykes-Picot infamy, trying to be nice to everyone.

But lest you think Sykes was too removed from our time, try this
from the mouth of another British politician: “However much we may
sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful
neighbour, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the
whole British Empire (for which read “the EU”) in war simply on her
account.” Our Neville again, of course, in 1938.

Makes you draw in your breath a bit, doesn’t it? The Russkies are not
going to be shaking in their boots at sanctions. Punishing Russians
and Ukrainians involved in Russia’s move into the Crimea will be a
“useful tool”, said Obama – though why the US President has to use
the language of computer geeks to threaten Moscow is beyond me. But
that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We can’t have war “looming”. It
would destroy all our internets and computers and live-time news
and globalisation and “tools”. It might even destroy us! Read that
line again, the one from our Neville. They’ll patch something up, a
political gig to let Russia gobble part of Ukraine but still calling
it a federated republic. Pity about the Tatars. Peace in our time.

On the subject of Ukraine, you might – if you happen to be passing
through Beirut – pick up two hefty volumes by Katia Peltekian, an
Armenian researcher who specialises in publishing news reports about
the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks. The Times and
The Manchester Guardian gave extensive coverage to the century’s first
Holocaust – some of the young German military witnesses turned up in
the Wehrmacht in Russia less than 30 years later – and Peltekian has
captured most of these reports in 976 pages.

What is most intriguing is the way in which the Great Powers lost
interest in the one and a half million Armenian dead almost as soon as
the 1914-18 war had ended. The Times was filled with heartbreaking
letters from Armenians and the British society which supported
them, pleading with the British and French and the Italians and the
Americans – pretty much the same lot who were rambling on in Brussels
last week – to let them have a nation that included part of eastern
Turkey. Be patient, the Armenians were told. They had already been
scattered across the Middle East, but were still being killed inside
Turkey itself. Some found refuge in Russia. And some in the Ukraine
… -Independent

RELEASE OF SUSPECTS PART OF GOV’T PLAN TO MEND TIES WITH ERGENEKON, ANALYSTS SAY

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 10 2014

10 March 2014 /TODAY’S ZAMAN, ANKARA

The recent release and pending trial of suspects in the brutal killing
of three Christians at the Zirve Publishing House as well as that
of the key suspect in the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink is part of a
government strategy to mend ties with individuals connected to the
Ergenekon case, analysts say.

“This is an effort [on the part of the government] to make up with
[members of society connected with] the Ergenekon [case],” Orhan Kemal
Cengiz, a lawyer and expert in human rights cases, told Today’s Zaman.

According to Cengiz, the government, which has been embattled by a
sweeping graft probe made public on Dec. 17, wants to give a message
to society that it, like those convicted the Ergenekon and Balyoz
coup cases, is a victim. Cengiz believes the government’s move to
hastily pass a law that paved the way for the suspects’ release
is part of a strategy by which the government seeks to mend ties
with those convicted in the Ergenekon case and to present itself
as a victim of members of the police force and the judiciary who
launched a recent graft investigation into widespread government
corruption. Cengiz believes that there are people in the Ergenekon
case who were unjustly imprisoned, but that the government’s strategy
has dangerous implications for democracy in Turkey.

As per a recently passed law that decreased the maximum period
of detention to five years, five suspects in the Zirve Publishing
House case along with one of the key suspects in the murder of Dink,
a Turkish-Armenian journalist killed in 2007, were also released
pending trial on Friday, a move that has made Christians in Turkey
concerned for their safety.

As part of its smear campaign against the Hizmet movement, inspired by
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, the government claims that it
is under attack by sympathizers of the Hizmet movement. Since the graft
probe, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other members of his
government have repeatedly implicated the Hizmet movement, referring
to it as a “parallel structure” nested within the judiciary and the
police force. The government has not provided any evidence of a coup
underway, but on numerous occasions, the prime minister has described
the ongoing corruption investigation as a plot against the government.

Three Christians, Necati Aydın, Ugur Yuksel and German national
Tilmann Ekkehart Geske were killed on April 18, 2007, at the Zirve
Publishing House in Malatya. The victims all had their throats slit.

The suspects of the brutal crime, Emre Gunaydın, Abuzer Yıldırım,
Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker and Salih Gurler, for whom three aggravated
life sentences have been demanded, were released on probation by
the Malatya 1st High Criminal Court late on Friday night. Four
of the suspects in the Zirve case were apprehended at the scene
and immediately taken into custody, while the fifth suspect, Emre
Gunaydın, jumped from a third-story window in a failed attempt to
escape from police. He was also taken into custody after being treated
for injuries.

In a statement on Monday, the Justice Ministry said four of the
suspects are being monitored by electronic bracelets; the fifth suspect
lives in a village where GSM lines cannot receive signals, so work
is underway activate his electronic bracelet through a landline.

Cengiz said: “But in this big strategy, this [release of the murderers
of innocent people] is seen just as a minor accident. And the big
strategy is dangerous in terms of democracy and human rights in
Turkey.” “They [the government] passed the law without taking the
consequences into account,” added Cengiz, who is also a columnist
for Today’s Zaman.

Following the entry into effect of the law, anyone who has been in
prison for five years without a final verdict on their case will be
released. In addition to several people who were allegedly involved
in the Ergenekon case, Erhan Tuncel, a key suspect in the murder of
Dink was also released on Friday. Dink was the editor-in-chief of
the Ä°stanbul-based Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.

Erdal Dogan, one of the victims’ lawyers, also believes that the
recently passed law may be part of a negotiation with people who
defend those convicted in the Ergenekon case. “There seems to be a
political negotiation with Ergenekon following [the graft probe that
went public on] Dec. 17,” Dogan told Today’s Zaman.

It has been seven years since the Zirve case was first brought before
court. Both Cengiz and Dogan are of the opinion that the Zirve case was
intentionally and unnecessarily delayed. “The main reason is that the
network behind the killing [connected to Ergenekon] was only sought
after a couple of years went by. At the beginning [of the case],
it was only hit men who were tried,” Cengiz said.

According to Dogan, the replacement of some of the judges and
prosecutors of the case in 2012 is also another major reason why
the case has taken so long. “The prosecutor who linked the case to
Ergenekon was also removed at the time,” he informed.

With regard to advice notes submitted to the prosecutor’s office about
a number of members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in Malatya
allegedly behind the crime, which were originally not taken into
account, Cengiz said: “The connection with the Ergenekon [criminal
organization] could have been made much earlier. The state puts up
resistance at every stage [of the case]. Behind this case, a network
of relations involving a deep state within the state exists,” he said.

Susanne Geske, the widow of the victim Tilmann Geske, told Today’s
Zaman that she sees the release of suspects as unjust. Sharing that
they have started to feel threated following the release, Geske, who
lives with her children in Malatya, said: “It is a cause of distrust
[towards justice] that the murderers were released [before the court
issued its final verdict]. This decision has diminished people’s
trust in the law.”

The case will be transferred to another court, as the recently
passed law has also abolished specially authorized courts. Dogan
is concerned that the case might be dragged on even further if the
judges and prosecutors are replaced while the case is transferred to
another court.

The Association of Protestant Churches of Turkey expressed its concern
over the court’s decision in a written statement on Saturday. Noting
that families of the victims and activists from non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) had been threatened by the suspects throughout
the duration of the case’s hearings, the statement read: “As things
stand, those who have been threatened are starting to feel rather
uneasy. The releases have deeply saddened Christians [in Turkey]
and led to them losing faith in [the] justice [system].”

POTSDAM VIEW ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
March 10 2014

10 March 2014 – 11:11am

by Orkhan Sattarov, Head of the European Bureau of Vestnik Kavkaza

The UNSC resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh will mark its 21st anniversary
in April this year. The first resolution and the ones that followed
have not been fulfilled yet. Professor Wilfried Fuhrmann of
Potsdam University, has given his vision of the legal aspect of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and described the attitude the international
community could show for progress to be made on the issue.

The professor reminded that many resolutions that the UNSC and the
General Assembly have passed have not been fulfilled. “The United
Nations call on Armenia to abandon the occupation, to give back
the occupied territories, and hand them over to Azerbaijan. Other
organizations such as NATO or the OSCE also claimed this. NATO
professes the aim of protecting the territorial integrity of countries,
particularly the countries of the former USSR,” noted Fuhrmann.

Azerbaijan is a member or partner of various international
organizations, or “clubs”. It works together with or even is a member
of the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Islamic
Conference, the CIS, the UN, NATO and others. Armenia is also
a member of several clubs and makes use of the advantages without
always accepting the rules of the clubs. Maybe the clubs are too big
and the rules are ignored regularly,” assumes the German expert.

“If Armenia claims that Karabakh has never been an integral part
of Azerbaijan or the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, and claims
that it was a pure uprising of the population due to the imploding,
collapsing empire of the USSR and the uprising took place without
external support, this is verifiably wrong. Armenia is violating
natural law as well as the positive law of nations consciously and
persistently. In this sense its reputation is low, and it is in
an international context near to becoming an outlaw country being
isolated,” Fuhrmann told Vestnik Kavkaza.

In the expert’s opinion, members of the club should at least take
that fact into account, if there are no compulsive mechanisms or
unanimous vote. This means peaceful solutions to restore the rights,
not military intervention, so that the club could maintain confidence
and prevent risks of losing stability.

“In case a member of a club violates the principles of international
law or specific rules of the club, then every member has to draw
conclusions from this. There is no need to exclude the member. But
there is a need for protection and regard for its own reputation. You
don’t support international trade with these countries, you don’t
give them state loans, and you don’t give securities for exports to
these countries and so on. This is not pleading for an extensive
trade boycott. It means that any government support is synonymous
with the transfer of reputation to this country. But thereby you are
indirectly strengthening the position of this country, in the case
of government support for trade with Armenia you indirectly support
the Armenian position in the Karabakh conflict,” concludes the expert.

Professor Fuhrmann touched upon the right of peoples to
self-determination Armenian diplomacy always refers to the
Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks. “The principle of self-determination
is not valid for the victors of a battle in case of military force
with expulsion, mass murder and even genocide. The principle of
self-determination is only applicable ex-ante, i.e. as an alternative
and thereby prior to the potential use of violence. The principle
may – circumstances permitting – be applicable ex post, in case the
exiles including the descendants are involved and with agreement of
both sides. This situation is a scenario as if there is an ex-ante
situation.

In the case of mass murder or genocide this right doesn’t exist ex
post. Such an object – built with force – is not legal, even if it
exists over a longer period of time. It may be maintained through
the use of power and armed forces but it remains an object which is
built on injustice,” emphasized the professor.

In Fuhrmann’s view, Armenia is trying to drag out the negotiations
as much as possible to legitimize the artificial regime in
Nagorno-Karabakh: “Surely time does play an important role. Such a
construction, existing for a long time span over several generations
has its existence and also the possibility to gain reputation and
simultaneously forgetting. Every military acting country, i.e. every
nationalistic player, knows about this advantage and tries to extend
it over time in order to keep it definite finally.”

“Inherited hostility and hate over generations are normally the
consequence. Since the aggressor, as in the case of the military
invasion of Armenian troops, searches for and makes use of a situation
of military superiority, an arms race starts with the option to
counterattack for a bigger, final victory,” Fuhrmann claims.

RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN SPACE RESEARCH COOPERATION DISCUSSED IN YEREVAN

17:49 * 10.03.14

Plans for developing cooperation in space research were discussed on
Monday at a meeting between the secretary of the National Security
Council and a working group from the Russian Space Agency.

Receiving a working group headed by Oleg Ostapenko, the head of
the Russian Federal Space agency, Artur Baghdasaryan said that they
had previously worked with Russian partners in the frameworks of a
2012-2013 cooperation program between the two countries’ National
Security Councils.

Baghdasaryan said that Armenia’s big scientific potential may
contribute to the development of future space research, inventions
and branch manufacturing. He told the guests that several enterprises
in Armenia can supply Russian companies with radio-electric devices
used in space manufacturing.

Considering the cooperation potentials effective, the working group
expressed a willingness to expand the cooperation with Armenian
companies in the near future.

The working group is also planning meetings with the heads of Byruakan
Observatory, the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics of Ashtarak
(Aragatsotn region) and other scientific-research institutions of
the National Academy of Sciences.

RUSSIAN EXPERT: WHY DOES NOT KARABAKH HOLD A REFERENDUM SIMILAR TO THAT IN CRIMEA? AND WHY DOES NOT ARMENIA TAKE KARABAKH WITHIN ITSELF?

Monday, March 10, 15:58

One can have different attitude towards the events in Ukraine, but
one thing is clear: what is happening there, has already changed the
reality. And if Russia finally attaches at least the Crimea to itself,
this reality will change even more, Russian political expert, Andrey
Epifantsev, wrote at his Facebook page.

He also added that in that case several current conflict situations
will immediately gain another prospect. “That is to say, if we say
that such expression of will and joining another state is legal and
will become a new precedent, in that case, why does not Karabakh
hold a referendum similar to that in Crimea? And why does not Armenia
take Karabakh within itself? Why does not South Ossetia did the same
and join Russia. But will it agree, if the Akhalgor-Leningrad region
within South Ossetia, populated chiefly by Georgians, will join Georgia
as a result of similar referendum? And the Gali region of Abkhazia
will follow it: the eastern regions of Georgia may join Azerbaijan,
northern Kazakhstan – Russia… What will happen if Turkey starts
delivering its passports to the Crimea Tatars at the places of their
close-together living? Germany in the Kaliningrad region, Estonia
in Pytalov region, Finland – in Karelia…”, – Epifantsev wrote. The
expert thinks that one can draw many such images. One thing is clear
that Ukraine is not the last to complete the case, he said.

OBSERVERS RECORD SEVERAL VIOLATIONS IN ARMENIAN VILLAGE ELECTIONS

03.10.2014 15:45 epress.am

Several communities in the Armenian provinces of Lori, Tavush,
Ararat, Kotayk, and Shirak had their local government elections on
March 9. In most of the villages there was no competition as second
candidates withdrew their candidacies, leaving only the incumbent,
who was often from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, in the race.

Only one community had 4 candidates — Lernavan village in Lori marz
(province). According to the Central Electoral Commission, candidate
Vachagan Vardanyan obtained 502 votes and won the village mayoral
election. In second place was Razmik Grigoryan with 209 votes. In 3
communities, there were 3 candidates, with only 1 or 2 candidates in
all the other communities.

The initiative Citizen Observer observed this election and recorded
electoral violations in several communities [AM], the largest
number being in Ararat marz. There were 10 violations each in Nizami
and Zorak. According to Citizen Observer, the violations in Nizami
included guiding voters, congestion in polling stations, and gathering
outside polling stations were unauthorized individuals who insulted and
terrorized observer Lala Aslikyan, some of whom identified themselves
as Republican Party of Armenia members.

It’s noteworthy that, according to the Central Electoral Commission, in
Nizami, independent (not affiliated with any party) candidate Harutin
Karapetyan won, gathering 254 votes. The incumbent, Republican Party
of Armenia member Artavazd Dunoyan, gathered 214 votes, while the
Prosperous Armenia Party nominee, Garlen Babayan, 132 votes.

In the village of Zorak, observers recorded the following violations:
a voter tried to vote using someone else’s passport and though he
wasn’t allowed to vote, he vilified and left the precinct, but the
commission president refused to make a report: there was already a
signature next to the voter’s name and the voter left without voting,
but the electoral commission president refused to write a report that
the voter tried to vote with someone else’s passport.

Winning the village mayor seat in Zorak was Republican Party of
Armenia representative Manuk Maloyan, who, according to official
results, gathered 531 votes. His opponent, Eduard Harutyunyan,
gathered 262 votes.

SERBIA IS GRATEFUL TO ARMENIA FOR YEREVAN’S STANCE ON KOSOVO ISSUE

Monday 10 March 2014 12:17
Photo: PanArmenian Photo

Serbia is grateful to Armenia for Yerevan’s stance on Kosovo issue

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Foreign Minister of Serbia Ivan Mrkich stated
in Yerevan today that Serbia backs the position of OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs on Nagorno Karabakh peace process.

Addressing a joint press conference with Armenian Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian today, Ivan Mrkich said that they discussed the NK
settlement as well as Kosovo issue.

“We agree that the NK conflict should be resolved in solely a peaceful
way based on the principles proposed by the OSCE Co-Chairs. We also
spoke about the talks between Serbia and Kosovo. Armenia consider
it a positive process. We wish Serbia good luck in the process”,
said Edward Nalbandian.

In his turn, Ivan Mrkich noted that Serbia is grateful to Armenia
for official Yerevan’s stance on Kosovo issue.

Armenia is among the countries which didn’t recognize independence
of Kosovo.

“We hold talks with the representatives of Pristina administration to
stabilize the relations but we are not going to recognize Kosovo. We
hail our Armenian partners’ approach to this issue”, said the Foreign
Minister of Serbia.

ROBERT FISK: WESTERN LEADERS CANNOT FACE A ‘LOOMING’ WAR

March 10, 2014

Western leaders cannot face a ‘looming’ war. So I guess they’ll patch
something up – and let Russia gobble part of Ukraine –

Pick up two hefty volumes by Katia Peltekian, an Armenian researcher
who specialises in publishing news reports about the 1915 Armenian
genocide at the hands of the Turks. The Times and The Manchester
Guardian gave extensive coverage to the century’s first Holocaust –
some of the young German military witnesses turned up in the Wehrmacht
in Russia less than 30 years later – and Peltekian has captured most
of these reports in 976 pages.

For some reason, our last century’s two world wars started rather
far from home. I bet that most people in January 1914 couldn’t find
Sarajevo on a map. But then again, how many of us – really, I mean –
could have found Simferopol on a map a year ago? Or three weeks ago,
for that matter? The Second World War started because Britons simply
wouldn’t take another crooked deal like Czechoslovakia – “a faraway
country between people of whom we know nothing”, in which our Neville
at least put distance in front of ignorance. So Poland it was, which,
by awful mischance, shares a border with modern-day Ukraine.

And this really is, I fear, the sort of grim, only slightly understood
consciousness that we can’t let Poland/Ukraine down again, that we
can’t let Putin threaten little Ukraine as we let Hitler threaten and
invade Poland. Poland is on Ukraine’s doorstep – it’s funny how we get
upset about countries that are “on our doorstep” – that’s what we said
about Bosnia in the 1990s, as if those horrible Bosnians and Croats
and Serbs did not deserve to have our door opened for them. They were
in the backyard, I suspect, no privies, you know the sort of thing.

But, of course, Putin is not Hitler and it would be well to try to get
the Second World War out of our bloodstream – not least because we
have the First World War coursing through our corpuscles this year,
and besides the Russians were on our side in the last war and in the
war before that (for a time). So were the Serbs. But what struck me,
watching all the EU spivs looking serious in Brussels last week, is
that these people have no experience of war and somehow think that
once they have made their threats, they can all go home and forget
“the crisis”. I admit I am much moved by a newspaper headline in
Beirut last week that began: “War looms…” Well, let’s hope not.

And the “crisis” or the war “looming” in the Ukraine is of great
interest to someone who lives not a hundred miles from my home:
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who will have been much relieved
to see Putin leap to the rescue of Russian Ukraine as firmly as he
did for Syria. Indeed, Assad, according to his government, has even
sent a telegram to Putin – do people still send “telegrams”, by the
way? – in which he “expressed … Syria’s solidarity with Putin’s
efforts to restore security and stability to Ukraine in the face of
attempted coups against legitimacy and democracy in favour of radical
terrorists”. Syria was committed, Assad said, to “President Putin’s
rational, peace-loving approach that seeks to establish a global
system supporting stability and fighting”.

And Assad praised Putin’s “wise political leadership and commitment to
international legitimacy based on the law that governs ties between
nations and peoples”. Phew. Well, we got the point. Assad liked what
he saw in Simferopol, although I notice he didn’t say anything about
the ousted Viktor Yanukovich – and I’m not surprised. The Ukrainian
leader did a bunk out of his own country. Assad did not run away.

Putin, I suspect, will have liked that, just as Putin will have
enjoyed the fact that Madame Clinton, Obama himself, David Cameron
and Messieurs Hollande and Sarkozy – all of whom said years ago that
Assad would go, was about to go or virtually gone – were totally wrong.

So what did I really think when I saw all these folk meeting in
Brussels? I was reminded of a wonderful description of a British
politician. It was written by Lawrence of Arabia and I take it from a
fine new book on him by Scott Anderson. The man in question was “the
imaginative advocate of unconvincing world movements … a bundle of
prejudices, intuitions, half-sciences. His ideas were of the outside,
and he lacked patience to test his materials before choosing his style
of building. He would take an aspect of the truth, detach it from
its circumstances, inflate it, twist and model it.” The politician
was Mark Sykes of Sykes-Picot infamy, trying to be nice to everyone.

But lest you think Sykes was too removed from our time, try this
from the mouth of another British politician: “However much we may
sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful
neighbour, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the
whole British Empire (for which read “the EU”) in war simply on her
account.” Our Neville again, of course, in 1938.

Makes you draw in your breath a bit, doesn’t it? The Russkies are not
going to be shaking in their boots at sanctions. Punishing Russians
and Ukrainians involved in Russia’s move into the Crimea will be a
“useful tool”, said Obama – though why the US President has to use
the language of computer geeks to threaten Moscow is beyond me. But
that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We can’t have war “looming”. It
would destroy all our internets and computers and live-time news
and globalisation and “tools”. It might even destroy us! Read that
line again, the one from our Neville. They’ll patch something up, a
political gig to let Russia gobble part of Ukraine but still calling
it a federated republic. Pity about the Tatars. Peace in our time.

As the Armenians will testify, we have been here before

On the subject of Ukraine, you might – if you happen to be passing
through Beirut – pick up two hefty volumes by Katia Peltekian, an
Armenian researcher who specialises in publishing news reports about
the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks. The Times and
The Manchester Guardian gave extensive coverage to the century’s first
Holocaust – some of the young German military witnesses turned up in
the Wehrmacht in Russia less than 30 years later – and Peltekian has
captured most of these reports in 976 pages.

What is most intriguing is the way in which the Great Powers lost
interest in the one and a half million Armenian dead almost as soon
as the 1914-18 war had ended. The Times was filled with heartbreaking
letters from Armenians and the British society which supported them,
pleading with the British and French and the Italians and the Americans
– pretty much the same lot who were rambling on in Brussels last week
– to let them have a nation that included part of eastern Turkey. Be
patient, the Armenians were told. They had already been scattered
across the Middle East, but were still being killed inside Turkey
itself. Some found refuge in Russia. And some in the Ukraine.

> A DECLARE SA SAINTETE ARAM 1ER DANS SON MESSAGE DE NOEL

LIBAN

Lundi 6 Janvier Sa Saintete Aram 1er a celebre la sainte liturgie et
donne son message de Noël aux fidèles dans la cathedrale Saint Gregoire
l’Illuminateur . Sa Saintete a souligne le thème de la paix , a la
suite du message de Jesus, le Prince de la Paix , dans ses paraboles et
sa benediction des artisans de la paix . Le Catholicos a remarque que
la paix de Jesus a ete construite sur la justice et l’amour mutuel ,
et que l’ Eglise est appelee a faire la paix au coeur de sa vocation.

Sa Saintete Aram I a examine les principaux conflits au sein et entre
les pays du monde et , en particulier , ceux du Moyen-Orient. Dans
l’esprit du message de paix qui est au coeur des enseignements des
deux grandes religions monotheistes l’islam et le christianisme ,
le Catholicos a demande aux chretiens et musulmans de denoncer la
violence . Sa Saintete a ensuite rappele aux fidèles que, bien que la
coexistence entre les deux religions n’a pas toujours ete facile , les
relations entre chretiens et musulmans ont neanmoins ete soutenues .

La violence actuelle , a-t-il poursuivi , est le resultat des actions
irresponsables par des extremistes , denoncees par les musulmans et
les chretiens. Il a ensuite exhorte les chretiens a rester attaches a
leurs racines et ne pas emigrer , mais de saisir leurs responsabilites
et defendre leurs droits .

Sa Saintete a decrit le Liban comme le modèle ideal pour la
convivialite islamo-chretienne , une victime des conflits regionaux
et , dans le meme temps , un pont entre l’Orient et l’Occident . Il
a ensuite exhorte la communaute armenienne a rester unis et a aider
a proteger l’ independance et l’integrite du Liban .

Le Catholicos a conclu son message en abordant la souffrance en Syrie
. Il a dit aux fidèles qu’ils doivent aller au-dela simplement de
penser ou de prier pour la communaute armenienne qui souffre , ils
devraient chercher a les aider materiellement , jusqu’au jour où ils
vont se remettre de la tragedie actuelle et reconstruire leur vie .

lundi 10 mars 2014, Stephane (c)armenews.com