Author: Karakhanian Suren

Armen Press
July 7 2004
CIS COUNTRIES FACE SOME OF THE FASTEST RATES OF HIV INFECTION IN THE
WORLD, UNDP REPORT SAYS
YEREVAN, JULY 7, ARMENPRESS: Today in the UN House in Yerevan the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched the “Reversing the
Epidemic: Facts and Policy Options” 2004 HIV/AIDS Report for Eastern
Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Vladimir
Davidyants, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Armenia, Ms. Lise Grande,
UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Samvel
Grigoryan, Head of the Republican AIDS Prevention Centre and
representatives of international and local organizations participated
in the event.
The Report presents the first comprehensive outline of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 28 countries of East and South-Eastern
Europe, the Baltics and the CIS. The UN estimates that 1.8 million
people in the region have HIV and that 280,000 people contracted the
virus last year. Despite a comparatively low prevalence of HIV/AIDS
in the region, growth rates in Estonia, Russia and Ukraine are among
the world’s highest. The Report stresses that the HIV/AIDS crisis
poses a threat to the region’s economic growth, resulting in an
estimated loss of at least one percent GDP growth per year.
The Report shows that a one percent infection rate among the adult
population is the threshold above which efforts to turn back the
epidemic become extremely difficult. The Report also argues that
delays in taking proper action can be catastrophic: only twelve years
ago, South Africa was facing a less than one percent infection rate
among adult population; now that rate is twenty times higher.
According to Ms. Grande: “UNDP’s Report reveals that there is
already an HIV crisis in the CIS. Although the situation in Armenia
is not as disastrous as in some other major CIS countries, steps need
to be taken now to avoid the kind of catastrophe that is affecting
other countries. By working together, the Government, civil society,
the mass media and donors can make a difference. Through Reports like
the one we are launching today, we can help raise awareness among the
general public and promote responsible behavior among all people
living in Armenia.”
Background: From 1988 to July 1, 2004, 279 HIV carriers have been
registered in the Republic of Armenia, of whom 265 are citizens: 206
cases (77.7%) are men, 59 cases (22.3%) are women and 3 cases (1.1%)
are children. The majority of HIV carriers (79.2%) belong to the
20-39 age group. The most common modes of transmission in Armenia are
injection drug usage and heterosexual practices.

Armenian State TV and Radio Committee joins European media union
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
5 Jul 04
Armenia’s first TV channel has taken its first step towards
integration into Europe. The Armenian State Television and Radio
Committee became a member of the European Broadcasting Union
(EBU). Seventy one companies from the world’s 52 countries are members
of the EBU.
[Passage omitted: EBU background].

Interfax
July 6 2004
Multi Group invests $7.5 mln in Yerevan’s Ararat
Yerevan. (Interfax) – Multi Group, one of Armenia’s leading
diversified conglomerates, has invested $7.5 million in Yerevan
brandy maker Ararat, primarily in new equipment and building repairs,
group owner Gagik Tsarukian said.
The winery, which Multi Group acquired in 2002, began making Noi
brandy and using the Ararat label in April 2004 after standing idle
for eight years.
The Ararat winery and the Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC) recently
signed an open-ended agreement on the equal use of the Ararat logo,
and now only these two companies have the right to use the logo,
Tsarukian said.
The Ararat winery plans to compete with YBC in procurement of grapes
and on sales markets, he said. The winery plans to buy 15,000 tonnes
of grapes in Armenia this year at higher prices than YBC, he said.
The company plans to sell 2 million bottles of brandy by the end of
this year, of which 90% ordinary and 10% fine brandies.
Next year, the company plans to increase grape purchases to 20,000
tonnes, and brandy sales by 30-40%, Tsarukian said. The main markets
are now Russia and other CIS countries.
The company also plans to produce wine, he said, adding that the
company now has seven or eight types of old wines in its cellars
dating from 1913-1956.
By October, the winery will be completely modernized and renovated,
and its workforce will grow from the current 240 to 600 people, he
said.
As reported earlier, the Ararat winery has 6 million liters of brandy
alcohol, which is enough for three or four years of production.
Multi Group includes 37 manufacturing, service and trade enterprises.

A1 Plus | 17:09:23 | 29-06-2004 | Social |
WHEN WILL HOVHANNES VARYAN BE PUNISHED?
Wasn’t it possible to distinguish journalists from protestors?
“On June 10, 2004, the First Instance Court of Kentron and Norq-Marash
Communes sentenced 2 persons having committed violence to journalists during
April 5 rally to fine of 100.000 drams each. The trial turned into a farce.
We can’t call it otherwise since the preliminary investigation, the legal
proceedings, and the court verdict cause perplexity and discontent”, Yerevan
Press Club, Journalists’ Union of Armenia, “Internews” social organization
and Committee for Protection of Speech Freedom have made the statement.
According to the authors, they expected for disclosures and trials but
nothing was done to unmask the other masterminds of violence.
“Until now no steps were taken towards the policemen who did nothing against
the men beating journalists and breaking the cameras on April 5. The
policemen who beat journalists at April 13 night on Baghramyan Avenue weren’
t disclosed and punished, either. Even their actions weren’t criticized.
Instead the highest circles of Authorities announced it’s impossible to
distinguish journalists from protestors”, the statement says.
The organizations call upon Media and journalists to be more combined and
consistent when the matter is on professional solidarity, when the right to
freely gather and divulge information is violated.

Interfax
July 2, 2004
Russia posts trade surplus with CIS
MOSCOW. July 2 (Interfax) – Russia is the only member of the
Commonwealth of Independent States to have a surplus in CIS mutual
trade.
Russia’s trade surplus with the CIS was $3.01 billion in January-
April, the CIS Interstate Statistics Committee said.
Russian exports to the CIS totaled $7.95 billion and imports were $4.91
billion.
Ukraine posted the biggest deficit in trade with other CIS members. The
Ukrainian deficit was $2.219 billion, with exports of $2.434 billion to
the CIS and imports of $4.652 billion from the CIS.
Belarus had a deficit of $1.008 billion, with exports $2.052 billion
and imports $3.06 billion.
Kazakhstan’s deficit was $481.7 million. Exports were $1.272 billion
and imports $1.745 billion. Tajikistan’s deficit was $243.8 million,
with exports of $49.4 million and imports of $293.2 million.
Deficits were $116.3 million for Azerbaijan ($255.5 million and $371.8
million), $104.6 million for Georgia ($75.7 million and $180.3
million), $90.9 million for Kyrgyzstan ($74.2 million and $165.1
million), $59.5 million for Moldova ($155.6 million and $215.1 million)
and $39.7 million for Armenia ($39.3 million and $79 million).
The statistics committee did not quote trade figures for Uzbekistan or
Turkmenistan.
July 2, 2004
Deputy Interior Minister says Armenia has special role in combating
crime in Russia
19:01 2004-07-02
At a meeting between the Russian Interior Ministry and the Armenian
police department, Deputy Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev said that
Armenia played a special role in domestic law enforcement in Russia.
“In handling issues of domestic law enforcement, it is important today
for Russia to have the backing and active involvement of fraternal
states, among which Armenia has a special role,” Mr. Nurgaliev said.
He said that the issues were, above all, the fight against terrorism,
drug trafficking and illegal immigration, the human trade, racketeering
and economic crime.
Mr. Nurgaliev also proposed broadening the list of additional steps
that Russian and Armenian law enforcement agencies should take.
Specifically, additional protection for bilateral investment projects,
increased interaction in the planning and implementation of
antiterrorism actions and ensuring the security of important
facilities, Mr. Nurgaliev said.
He also proposed considering pressing problems and formulating
solutions at the bilateral meeting of the heads of the ministerial
divisions this fall.
“It would be expedient to consider matters of immigration, the creation
of practical mechanisms to monitor the movement of capital and the
development of immediate contacts between the information and
analytical divisions of the two agencies,” Mr. Nurgaliev said.
Armenian police chief Aik Arutyunyan said that over five months in
2004, the Russian law enforcement agencies had detained and extradited
23 criminals to Armenia.
In 2003, the Russian law enforcement agencies detained and extradited
48 people wanted by Armenian law enforcement agencies, Mr. Arutyunyan
said.
In 2003, the Armenian police established the guilt of and detained 62
individuals wanted by Russian law enforcement agencies. Over five
months of this year, the Armenian police found and detained 22 people
wanted by the Russian Interior Ministry, the Armenian police chief
said.

ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Friday, June 25, 2004
ARMENIAN OFFICERS ATTEND NATO EVENT IN BAKU AMID SECURITY ‘LAPSES’
Col. Murad Isakhanian and Sr. Lt. Aram Hovanisian of the Armenian Defense
Ministry attended this week a final planning conference for NATO’s
Partnership for Peace exercises set to take place in Azerbaijan this
September. Azeri officials prevented Armenian officers from attending the
first planning event held in Baku last January. The exercises dubbed
Cooperative Best Effort (CBE) – 2004 will test interoperability of NATO and
partner militaries in a potential peacekeeping operation. Georgia and
Armenia hosted similar games in 2002 and 2003.

As the Azeri Deputy Defense Minister Araz Azimov revealed this week, his
government was forced to acquiesce to the Armenian presence or “risk
cancellation of the exercises and cooling of relations with NATO.” Following
the January incident, the Armenian government and organizations, including
the Armenian Assembly, urged NATO officials to make sure that Armenia could
take partner as a full-fledged NATO partner or move the exercise to another
country. Alliance officials ultimately succeeded in winning Azeri President
Ilham Aliyev’s pledge that Armenians could take part. Following last
February’s brutal murder of an Armenian officer by an Azeri at another NATO
event in Hungary, security was expected to be tight.

However, radical Azeri groups linked to the country’s hard-line Ministry of
National Security succeeded in repeatedly disrupting the conference as it
got underway on Tuesday. Both Armenian and Azeri commentators questioned the
reasons behind police failure to provide adequate security. Azeri television
footage showed several protestors breaking into the hotel conference room,
disrupting the NATO event underway, with no police posted outside. One of
the perpetrators told the local daily Ekho that they were able to enter the
room twice and succeeded in “scaring” the NATO officers “who were afraid
that we might bring in explosives.” Police subsequently detained half a
dozen radicals, with some of them receiving two-month sentences for
“hooliganism.”

The same groups of radicals had earlier attacked Azeri peace activists, whom
the government accuses of “betrayal” of national interests and demanded that
they stop meeting with Armenian counterparts.

Most Azeri officials and commentators appeared embarrassed over the
incidents. Rauf Mirkadyrov, a leading commentator for daily Zerkalo, wrote
that while “our glorious police never had a problem quashing mass opposition
protests, [in this case] it failed to stop a few dozen protestors.” Foreign
Minister Elmar Mamediarov said that Azerbaijan must implement its
international obligations and “not fear” the Armenian military’s
participation. Member of the President’s staff Ali Hassanov criticized the
attack and insisted that “Azeris are cultured and civilized” people.

U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish urged Baku to improve security
measures, especially during the actual exercises in September. Deputy
Defense Minister General Artur Aghabekian said that Armenia agreed to scale
back its participation in the September CBE-2004 from a full-fledged
peacekeeping platoon to “five to seven officers,” in an apparent compromise
deal with Azerbaijan. (Sources: Armenia This Week 1-16; AAA Press Release
1-30; Ekho 6-22, 23, 24, 25; R&I Report 6-22; RFE/RL Armenia Report 6-22,
24; Zerkalo 6-22, 23, 25; Azg 6-23; Yeni Zaman 6-24)
ARMENIA REAFFIRMS KARABAKH POLICY
President Robert Kocharian told the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe (PACE) this week that Nagorno Karabakh (NKR) is an
established state and all Azerbaijani claims on its territory are without
basis. Kocharian reminded PACE members that Nagorno Karabakh had legally
seceded from Soviet Azerbaijan at the time the latter became independent in
1991 and then succeeded in defending that choice on the field of battle.

“The solution shall emerge from the substance of the conflict and not from
the perception of possible strengthening of Azerbaijan through future ‘oil
money’,” Kocharian said. The remarks were in reference to the recent claim
by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev that he was not in a hurry to settle the
conflict and would use Caspian oil profits to strengthen the country’s
military. “[This] approach is a formula of confrontation and not of
compromise,” Kocharian added. He further recalled that had Baku agreed to
the most recent peace proposals, it could have regained most of the formerly
Azeri-populated districts now held by Karabakh.

Meanwhile, a survey made public this week by a leading Yerevan think tank
revealed that Armenians are nearly unanimous on Karabakh’s independence from
Azerbaijan. Of 1,950 citizens surveyed by the Armenian Center for National
and International Studies (ACNIS) throughout the country, just over 1
percent would agree to Karabakh’s autonomy within Azerbaijan. Almost 60
percent want Karabakh united with Armenia, while 39 percent agree for it to
be independent. Some 41 percent said that they would agree to ceding some of
the territories outside NKR only in exchange for determination of its final
status, while another 32 percent are opposed to any territorial concessions.
68 percent said that they would be ready to “do their utmost” in defense of
Karabakh should fighting resume. (Sources: Armenia This Week 2-13; Arminfo
6-23; 6-23; 6-25)
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Call to readers: The humanitarian situation in the Sudan continues to
deteriorate. Learn more at and .
_doctors_group_asserts_sudan_is_practicing_genocide
The Boston Globe
June 24, 2004
After visit to refugees, doctors’ group asserts Sudan is practicing genocide
Says world response needed now in Darfur
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Correspondent
The violence in the Darfur region of Sudan includes systematic killings,
rape, pillaging, and destruction of villages that ”are clear indicators of
genocide,” according to a report issued yesterday by Physicians for Human
Rights.
A delegation from the Boston-based advocacy group visited the neighboring
country of Chad last month and interviewed non-Arab refugees from the Darfur
region, who gave firsthand accounts of being assaulted and chased while
their wells were poisoned, livestock stolen, and villages burned by an Arab
militia known as the Janjaweed, working with the Sudanese government.
”What we determined, based on a number of testimonies, is that there are
clear indicators of genocide,” investigator John Heffernan said. ”The main
point here is a consistent program of targeting non-Arabs.”
Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which the United States has signed, any member country is
obligated to stop or prevent genocide if it is identified. The international
genocide convention, adopted in 1948, defines genocide as actions intended
to destroy a racial, national, religious, or ethnic group.
There is widespread agreement that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur demands
urgent action, but a coordinated international response is coming too slowly
for many critics. The physicians’ group said that by presenting evidence of
genocide, it hoped to instigate a more serious international response.
”Those countries which have signed on to the genocide convention are
committed to prevent and punish those who are perpetrating it,” Heffernan
said.
Darfur has been the center of escalating violence as the Arab-dominated
central government has fought non-Arab rebel groups over the past 18 months.
In April, a UN official called the conflict ”ethnic cleansing.”
The physicians’ group’s report noted that non-Arabs were consistently
attacked while neighboring Arab villages were spared. ”The Janjaweed
attacked us, and then the government helicopters attacked us. They want to
attack all the black people in Sudan, so that Sudan will be for the Arabs
only,” a refugee is quoted as saying.
Tens of thousands of people have died, and roughly 1 million people have
been displaced within Darfur. Most of these displaced people lack food,
clean water, and medical care and some are even living in ”prison
enclaves,” according to Heffernan. For the refugees in Chad, those
conditions will only worsen as the rainy season begins, making transport of
food or other humanitarian aid impossible, the report said.
The study outlines assault methods it said were intended to annihilate the
non-Arab group. They cite systematic attacks on villages, using coordinated
air and land forces.
The Arab militia worked with the Sudanese government’s troops to destroy
property and pursued fleeing villagers in order to kill, rape, or rob them,
the report charges.
The report called on the Sudanese government to halt the violence, and on
the international community to intervene.
A spokesman from the United Nations said yesterday that although the
secretary general is not prepared to call the atrocities ”genocide,” the
flagrant human rights violations occurring in Darfur are a major concern to
the UN.
”The idea is not to wait until it gets to that point,” said Jemera Rome, a
Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. ”The Security Council does not need
genocide in order to act.”
She said that the UN should invoke its Chapter VII authority of the UN
charter, which permits the Security Council to take all actions necessary,
including sending a military force, to ”maintain or restore international
peace and security.”
The US government has so far not taken a view on whether the violence
amounts to genocide. In a June 11 interview with The New York Times,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, ”I’m not prepared to say what is
the correct legal term for what’s happening. All I know is that there are at
least a million people who are desperately in need.”
Carolyn Johnson can be reached at [email protected].

ArmenPress
June 25 2004
GOVERNMENT, OTE SEEK OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENT OF THEIR DISPUTE
YEREVAN, JUNE 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian justice minister David
Harutunian is currently negotiating in London with representatives of
the Hellenic Telecommunication Organization (OTE) in an effort to
reach an out-of-court settlement of the bitter dispute between the
government and OTE’s subsidiary ArmenTel operator.
The OTE subsidiary is accused by Armenian government of abusing
the 15-year exclusive rights granted in 1998, failing to provide good
quality communication and maintaining high cost of its services.
These charges are denied by the Greek side, which says the government
itself violated the 1998 takeover contract. Earlier this year the OTE
and Armentel filed a lawsuit to the London-based International Court
of Economic Arbitration, seeking hundreds of millions of US Dollars
in million in compensatory damages.
Harutunian is negotiating with the newly appointed chief manager
of Armentel, Vasily Fetsis. Armenpress learned from well-informed
sources that an amicable settlement of the dispute is possible in the
event of mutually beneficial proposals, which were not disclosed yet.
For the Armenian side this means good quality communication.
OTE’s priority in Armenia’s market is to enlarge the network of
mobile phone communication, that will allow it to improve its
financial standing, but despite this change in its policy Armenian
government decision stripping ArmenTel of its lucrative monopoly on
mobile phone services and Armenia’s Internet traffic with the outside
world enters into force on June 30.
Armentel says it has invested some $217 million in Armenia’s
telecommunications and plans to invest another 25 million euros this
year to expand mobile phone network.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 23, 2004 Wednesday Home Edition
A QUESTION OF GENOCIDE: Sudan’s killing grounds;
Slaughter of villagers sparks concern, debate
by MARK BIXLER
As one of the world’s longest and most devastating wars nears an end,
Atlanta-based CARE and the Carter Center are preparing to expand
their work in southern Sudan even as other humanitarian organizations
warn of possible genocide in another part of the country.
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, reports of atrocities
reminiscent of mass killings in Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda have
created a troubling dilemma for U.S. officials, who have avoided
characterizing the killings as genocide because doing so would
obligate them to act under terms of a treaty drafted in response to
the Holocaust.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, adopted in 1948 and ratified by the United States in 1986,
defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Signatories agree to
“prevent and punish” genocide, though the treaty does not define
prevention and punishment.
“No president wants to say there is a genocide and ‘Oh, by the way,
I’m not going to do anything about it,’ ” said Jerry Fowler, director
of the committee of conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, which has issued a “genocide warning” for Darfur.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said this month the Bush
administration is trying to determine whether events in Darfur fit
the legal definition of genocide. Other U.S. officials have described
the killings as “ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism conceived in the
early 1990s by the Serbs to refer to their practice of targeting
non-Serbs for killing or forced removal.
In Darfur, aid workers and officials say, Arab militias, often
working with the Sudanese military, have killed 10,000 to 30,000
black Africans and forced 1 million others from their homes to remote
areas where food is scarce. The U.S. Agency for International
Development warns that at least 350,000 could die within months.
The United Nations’ under- secretary-general for humanitarian
affairs, Jan Egeland, has called Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis
in the world.
Past reports of mass killings, however, have prompted a muted
response from the United States.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book “A Problem From Hell,” Samantha
Power, who teaches human rights and U.S. foreign policy at Harvard
University, documents a U.S. tendency to avoid decisive action when
confronted with evidence of atrocities.
>From the slaughter of Armenian Christians in modern Turkey in 1915 to
the execution of Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s, Power writes,
“decent men and women chose to look away.”
In Rwanda in 1994, the international community did little as members
of the Hutu ethnic majority hacked, shot and burned to death 800,000
members of the minority Tutsis. President Bill Clinton said in Rwanda
in 1998 the United States should have done more to stop the killing.
That experience has informed the U.S. response to the “crimes against
humanity” in Darfur, said Jemera Rone, a Sudan expert at Human Rights
Watch/Africa in Washington.
“I think the U.S. and the U.N. learned a lesson from Rwanda,” she
said. “They’re trying to do the maximum they can without calling it
genocide.”
The United States helped arrange a briefing on Darfur at the U.N.
Security Council. It also made clear it will not improve relations
with Sudan unless conditions change. The Security Council called for
a halt to fighting, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he plans to
visit Sudan.
‘Janjaweed rule’
Still, the United States could do more, said John Prendergast,
director of African Affairs at the National Security Council during
Clinton’s second term. He left Washington a few days ago for Chad,
where he plans to meet victims of the Arab militias in Darfur, known
as the janjaweed. He said the United States and United Nations should
threaten war crimes trials for janjaweed commanders and Sudanese
leaders involved in abuses.
“There is a developing consensus that what the militias are carrying
out on the ground is genocide,” he said before leaving for Africa.
Problems in Darfur began last April.
Just as a north-south war that has raged for all but 11 years since
1955 appeared headed for negotiated settlement, a new war erupted in
western Sudan. Two rebel groups in Darfur that had not previously
been involved in the fighting attacked a Sudanese military base in
April.
In response, the Sudanese government turned to Arab militias with a
history of animosity toward black Africans in Darfur, Rone said. The
government armed and trained them, she said, even giving satellite
phones to some janjaweed commanders.
Last August or September, the militias and armed forces began
attacking hundreds of villages in Darfur. Aid workers say attackers
raped many women and branded some afterward to add to the stigma.
They say attackers hurled dead bodies into wells to poison water
supplies.
“They’re going after civilians,” Rone said.
The Sudanese government says the violence is the result of tribal
conflicts over resources. On Sunday, President Omar el-Bashir said
his military will disarm warring parties in Darfur, including the
janjaweed.
The militias and their victims both are Muslims, but the janjaweed
are Arabs while most people in Darfur are black Africans.
Prendergast said he believes the Bush administration was slow to
pressure the Sudanese government on Darfur for fear that it would
scare Sudan away from the negotiating table with southern rebels.
North vs. south
The Sudanese civil war pits a northern government of Arab Muslims
against black Africans in the south who follow Christianity and
animist religions. The conflict is mainly over power and resources.
Fighting and war-related famine and disease have killed at least 2
million people since 1983. The war also has displaced more than 5
million people. Most casualties are from southern Sudan.
The northern government and the main southern rebel group, the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army, have signed accords that call for a
referendum after six years on whether southern Sudan will secede and
form an independent nation. When talks resume Friday, only procedural
obstacles remain before a final peace agreement is reached.
In anticipation of peace, the United Nations and nongovernmental
organizations are building roads to facilitate the delivery of relief
supplies and encourage trade, said Gary McGurk, CARE’s assistant
country director for southern Sudan.
“In order to get peace in southern Sudan, you’ve got to have
infrastructure and development,” McGurk said during a visit to
Atlanta last week.
He said CARE is building or rebuilding 300 schools in southern Sudan.
The Carter Center, meanwhile, has prepositioned filters and medical
kits and hopes to increase distribution in a peaceful southern Sudan
as part of its effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease, said Craig
Withers, who coordinates the center’s health programs in Sudan.
Southern Sudan is home to 63 percent of the world’s cases of Guinea
worm, an affliction in which larvae from contaminated water grow to
worms inside a human body and break through the skin in painful
blisters.
“We’ve been planning this for a while,” Withers said. “We’re ready to
go.”
GRAPHIC: Graphic: WHAT IS GENOCIDE?
The Genocide Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1948 says
genocide includes the following crimes committed with the intent to
destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:
1. Killing members of the group
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
4. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction
5. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
THE SLAUGHTERHOUSES OF THE 20TH CENTURY
1915 to 1923: 1.5 million people of Armenian descent are killed
during a campaign by the Ottoman Empire to expel them from eastern
Turkey. The Turkish government denies it engaged in genocide.
World War II: The systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi
regime and its collaborators. Nazis also target other groups because
of their perceived “racial inferiority”: Roma (Gypsies), the
disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and
others). Other groups are persecuted on political and behavioral
grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and
homosexuals. The killings are carried out throughout Europe. The most
infamous death camps include Auschwitz, Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen.
1975-1978: An estimated 2 million Cambodians, mainly from the
intelligentsia, die at the hands of the Pol Pot regime in what
becomes known as the “killing fields.”
1982: Syrian Baathists under the direction of President Hafiz
al-Assad destroy the city center in the Sunni Muslim city of Hamah
and murder thousands. Estimates of those killed range from 5,000 to
10,000.
1988: Poison gas attack kills between 3,500 and 5,000 Kurds in
Halabja, Iraq, under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
1994: Ethnic Hutu militants in Rwanda slaughter an estimated 800,000
ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus as the world turns away.
1995: Massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of roughly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim
men and boys in the city of Srebrenica. It is ruled as genocide in
April 2004 by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia.
1995: A national inquiry concludes that the Australian government had
knowingly pursued a policy of genocide in regard to the Aboriginal
peoples between 1870 and 1970.
1998: Yugoslav forces under the leadership of President Slobodan
Milosevic execute scores of ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo and
are believed to have detained as many as several thousand men whose
fate is unknown; they also engineer the greatest refugee crisis in
Europe since World War II, emptying villages and cities in forced
expulsions that send more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians into exile.
Darfur conflict
The largely Arabic Janjaweed militia, backed by the government in
Khartoum, rampages through the villages of mainly African farmers in
Darfur. Activists say the attacks amount to genocide.
Reason for conflict
Grazing rights; soil in Darfur region is fertile. And for
generations, nomads have fought farmers for soil and cattle rights.
Sources: Armenian National Institute, United Nations, Web Genocide
Documentation Centre, Genocide Research Project, Knight Ridder
Tribune, Photos by Associated Press
Research by ALICE WERTHEIM / Staff
/ MICHAEL DABROWA / Staff; Photo: Arab and African horsemen parade
before Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir last month as a show of
solidarity in Nyala, capital of Darfur. / BERT WESTON / Courtesy of
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Photo: Mukama Tharcisse, 74, one
of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, is one of the
guardians of the memorial of the genocide in Nyamata. The memorial
houses remains of 20,000 victims. / Associated Press; Photo: Slobodan
Milosevic / Associated Press; Photo: Armenian deportees in a camp of
makeshift tents inhabited mostly by women and children in the barren
Syrian desert. / Associated Press; Photo: The remains of huts burnt
by militia in Sudan’s North Darfur village of Bandago on April 29.
UNICEF has said the fighting in Darfur has forced 1 million people
out of their homes and into camps in Sudan, while 200,000 people have
taken shelter in cities and towns in the region. About 110,000 people
have taken refuge in neighboring Chad. / Associated Press; Map: Map
pinpoints the location of Darfur in Sudan.

IRAN FOREIGN MINISTER DISCUSSES EXPANSION OF TIES WITH ARMENIAN OFFICIAL
IRNA news agency
22 Jun 04
Tehran, 22 June: Head of Armenian presidential office (apparatus)
Artash (Artashes) Tumanyan and his entourage conferred here Tuesday
(22 June) with Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on issues of mutual
interest.
According to the Information and Press Bureau of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Armenian minister of energy along with the country’s
deputy minister of transportation and telecommunication were also
present in the meeting.
At the meeting, the two sides reviewed expansion of economic and
commercial cooperation. Describing the current level of political
relations as satisfactory, Kharrazi voiced satisfaction over the
outcome of Iran-Armenia Economic Commission meeting and hoped to
witness further expansion of economic and commercial cooperation to
a desirable level.
Calling the two sides relations as very significant, he expressed the
hope that both sides would take more firm steps to broaden economic
cooperation. He said the two sides economic cooperation would help
restore regional security.
The Armenian envoy, for his part, described bilateral economic
activities as “fruitful” and said the already reached agreements
between the sides would have positive impacts on mutual
relations. Implementing macro-economic plans will have positive
results on ties between the two countries as well as those in the
region through the restoration of security and stability in the
region, he said adding that the countries in the region through a
sincere cooperation can prevent the interference of foreigners and
their influence on regional developments. The Islamic Republic of
Iran is a stabilizing force in the region, he noted. North-Corridor
is a strategic project in which Iran’s plays a very significant role,
he concluded.

INCREASING SALARIES AND PENSIONS
Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
June 18, 2004
throughout the republic. She stressed that the background radiation
around the factory will by all means be checked and the findings of
the survey will be published. 99 FLATS WERE BUILT FOR RESETTLERS IN
2003. In the report of the state department of migration, refugees and
resettlement it is mentioned that in 2003 155 families resettled in
NKR and 99 flats were built for resettlers. The head of the department
Serge Amirkhanian mentioned that it is necessary to increase the
budget subsidies at least by one fourth of the budget confirmed in
2004 because after the adoption of the law “On Refugees” at the end of
the past year the department also has to solve the housing problems
of the refugees. In answer to our question whether the program
of resettlement can include also the dying villages of NKR Serge
Amirkhanian mentioned that there are such villages in the program:
Dahrav, Nakhijevanik, Aranzamin, Sarnaghbyur in Askeran region and
the village Garnakar in Martakert region. “Already three families have
been resettled in Dahrav, although there are about 68 abandoned houses
there,” mentioned S. Amirkhanian. He emphasized that the list of the
resettled villages is regularly reconsidered, therefore if the heads
of the regional administrations have suggestions in this reference
they may present them. THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IS
UNSATISFACTORY. The ministry of education and culture held tests in
the republic schools and the results were published in the newspaper
“Lusarar”. According to this information, the knowledge of the pupils
was graded zero. In this reference minister Armen Sarghissian announced
that the results of the tests will be compared to the results of
the final school examinations. According to the minister, similar
tests allow to reduce the amount of false marks to the minimum. Armen
Sarghissian mentioned the importance of objective grading of knowledge
of pupils because in two years it is planned to pass to the system of
admittance to higher educational institutions without examinations.
According to the minister, 7 directors of schools were dismissed
from their positions and two received warning in written form in the
result of the recent checking. According to the minister, the aim of
the checking is not punishing but rendering methodological help. A.
Sarghissian also emphasized that in the result of discussions during
the visit of the RA minister of education S. Yeritsian to Karabakh
teachers of Karabakh made 365 suggestions referring to the 12-year
secondary education system, of which many were accepted.
NAIRA HAYRUMIAN