Author: Maghakian Mike

CIS AND BALTICS PRESS REVIEW ON RUSSIA
[parts omitted]
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 20 2005
ARMENIA
The statement of former Russian FSB colonel Alexander Litvinenko
that the shooting of the Armenian parliament on October 27, 1999 was
organized by Russian special services received a powerful reaction.
“Armenia’s National Security Council rule out the possibility that the
October 27 [incident] was organized by Russian special services… The
investigation and trial that received close attention did not reveal
even a hint at that.” (Aiots Ashkhar, May 11.) “The Russian citizen’s
[Litvinenko’s] statement is very serious and, of course, cannot be
ignored.” (Aravot, May 11.)
The media cite Western analysts who forecast Russia’s geopolitical
defeat due to the US policy in the CIS member states. “Russia is
being ousted from the post-Soviet states. The Kremlin itself, via
President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov, has stated that the
CIS has failed as an integration structure and it is no more than a
presidential club for friendly meetings and discussions of topical
and less topical issues over a cup of coffee, as was the case at the
latest summit of some CIS leaders during the celebrations devoted
to the 60th anniversary of the World War II’s end in Europe.” (Golos
Armenii, May 17.)

Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region
104 North Belmont Street, Suite 200
Glendale, California 91206
Phone: 818.500.1918 Fax: 818.246.7353
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Friday, May 20, 2005
Contact: Armen Carapetian
Tel: (818) 500-1918
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA BECOMES NEXT MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES
— ANCA-endorsed candidate wins landslide victory
LOS ANGELES, CA – Los Angeles City Council Member Antonio Villaraigosa
scored a decisive victory in the May 17 run-off election for Los
Angeles Mayor, running against incumbent Mayor Jim Hahn. This was the
second time the two have faced off with the Armenian National Committee
of America (ANCA) having endorsed Villaraigosa both during the previous
election in 2001 and this election cycle. This victory makes Antonio
Villaraigosa the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872 and
also positions him to be a political force in national politics.
Villaraigosa rode a wave of voter discontent with Mayor Hahn and his
administration and was able to build a substantially broader coalition
of support this time, especially among the city’s different ethnic
communities, including the Armenian American community. This fact,
coupled with voters’ desire for a fresh direction for the city,
resulted in a major voter swing in Villaraigosa’s favor.
Commenting on the strong relationship Villaraigosa has with the
Armenian American community, Steven J. Dadaian, Chairman of the ANC
Western Region, stated, “Antonio’s relationship with our community is
based on years of being a leading advocate in supporting justice for
the Armenian Genocide, promoting genocide curricula in our schools,
strengthening economic ties with Armenia, and increasing the inclusion
of Armenian Americans in public service. We congratulate him on his
election as Mayor of the nation’s second largest and most dynamic
city and look forward to his leadership in making our goals a reality.”
The ANCA conducted a major voter awareness campaign for the election
and Villaraigosa’s candidacy which included television interviews,
producing a TV commercial targeted at the Armenian American community
that aired on many Armenian cable stations, print advertising,
and providing volunteers to do Armenian voter outreach throughout
the campaign.
“As we have seen in both the Glendale city elections and now the Los
Angeles Mayor’s election, there is a growing electoral shift occurring
in Los Angeles that is creating new opportunities for political leaders
of different ethnic backgrounds,” said Zanku Armenian, ANCA Liaison
to the Villaraigosa campaign. “Recognizing the need for more dynamic
and diverse leadership in City Hall, the ANCA endorsed Villaraigosa
and deployed substantial resources to get out the Armenian American
vote in support of his candidacy. As with his past positions, we felt
Antonio Villaraigosa would prove to be a mayor who will work closely
with the Armenian American community, ensuring we play a vital role
in city government,” added Armenian.
Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa will be sworn into office on July 1.
The ANCA is the largest and most influential Armenian American
grassroots political organization. Working in coordination with a
network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the United
States and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCA actively
advances the concerns of the Armenian-American community on a broad
range of issues.
Editor’s note: Photos attached. Photo 1 caption: From left to right –
Zanku Armenian, Antonio Villaraigosa and Vicken Sonentz-Papazian. Photo
2 caption: Antonio Villaraigosa with Steven Dadaian.
#####

MUSICAL COMPETITION AFTER SPENDIARYAN
A1plus
| 14:19:24 | 18-05-2005 | Culture |
On May 19-30 in the Musical school after Spendiaryan a republican
musical competition will be held in connection with the 75th
anniversary of the school. The opening and the closing will take
place in the National Academic Theater after Sundukyan. The festival
will have 450 participants. They will represent piano, brass bands,
string instruments, vocals, folk instruments, etc.
The jury will consist of 3 people. The reason, according to the
headmaster of the school, us that “Juries are usually meant to frighten
the children. Bu we mean to encourage them”. There will be no winners
or losers; everyone will be given diplomas of participation.

Why Are We So Anxious About Armenia?
Turkish Press
Published: 5/19/2005
BY ISMET BERKAN
RADIKAL- There has been a great revival in Turkey’s initiatives
concerning Armenia with recent efforts from both Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Foreign Ministry. The reason for this
revival isn’t developments in Armenia or on the international stage,
but Ankara’s initiatives. Actually, Turkish-Armenian relations are
the same as they were, for example, five years ago. In other words,
at that time both Armenia and other countries under its influence
wanted Turkey to open its border with Armenia, and today the same
thing holds. At that time, Turkey said the reason for the closed
border came from the Nagorno-Karabagh issue and Armenia’s invasion
of Azerbaijani territories; it’s saying the same thing today.
Armenian President Robert Kocharian has been emphasizing the
so-called Armenian genocide since the day he took the office. Former
Armenian President Levon Ter Petrosyan talked about the same thing
as well. The word ‘genocide’ makes the relations of two countries
more difficult. Indeed, since Kocharian became president, Turkey’s
embargo on Armenia has grown harsher. The Armenian people are
suffering under this embargo and there are great economic problems
in this small country. Besides, Kocharian’s uncompromising stance
has brought the country to a serious economic collapse, because the
population is fleeing the country. Turkey used to only watch this
situation. However, recently Turkey started to seek dialogue with
Armenia, maybe in order to impress European Union member countries,
or due to other reasons. In the past, Armenia was pursuing Turkey,
but now there’s an impression that the situation is just the opposite
due to the ignorance and carelessness of certain columnist in the
Turkish press. However, there’s nothing new in this confusion. The
key for Turkish-Armenian relations is the Nagorno-Karabagh issue
and Armenia’s occupation of one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s territory. If
the occupation ends and Armenia and Azerbaijan reach an agreement,
this situation would relieve Turkish-Armenian relations as well. At
least, both countries would be able to talk about their bilateral
relations. The issue of the so-called genocide is a political matter
not only between Turkey and Armenia, but also between Turkey and the
Armenian diaspora living in the West. If one day Turkish-Armenian
relations were normalized, the pressure of the genocide allegations
on Turkey would be lighter.

OSCE MG STATEMENT ON KOCHARIAN-ALIYEV MEETING
Pan Armenian News
18.05.2005 03:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs issued an official
statement on the Warsaw negotiations, Azeri media reported. The
statement says that the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents certain
goals were achieved on the main constituents of the Karabakh
settlement. The Presidents requested the Co-Chairs to continue
the consultations with the Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers
basing on the positive outcomes achieved during the discussions this
year. Besides the state leaders confirmed their efforts for soonest
progress in the settlement progress. The MG Co-Chairs are expected
to meet with the FMs of the two states to discuss these components.

Azeri body accuses Armenians of “destroying” historical monuments
Assa-Irada
16 May 05
Baku, 16 May: The organization for the protection of historical and
cultural monuments on the occupied Azerbaijani territories gave a
news conference at the international press centre [in Baku] on 16
May to mark the anniversary of the occupation of Lacin District. The
chairman of the organization, Famil Ismayilov, spoke about the work
done to protect historical monuments on the occupied territories. He
told the news conference that the organization had appealed to the
European Union and the Council of Europe in connection with the
occupation of Lacin District (on 18 May 1992).
Armenians are destroying ancient historical and cultural monuments on
the occupied Azerbaijani territories; they are distorting history by
changing inscriptions on monuments of the period of Caucasian Albania
and are selling artefacts from the occupied lands in various world
markets, presenting them as pieces of their own culture and art. By
doing this, they violated the 1954 Hague Convention [for the protection
of cultural property in the event of armed conflict], the appeal
said. A total of 762 monuments of architecture and archaeology were
destroyed on the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the appeal said.
The organization demanded that the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace talks
be speeded up and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity be restored in
line with international laws.

NKR CITIZEN ARRESTED FOR SPYING FOR AZERBAIJAN
AZG Armenian Daily #088, 17/05/2005
Concern
Regnum agency informed that NKR National Security Service and NKR
Police arrested a citizen of Nagorno Karabakh Republic who is accused
of spying for Azerbaijan. The special services didn’t give the name
of the arrested not to hinder the investigation. The NKR National
Security Service, the prisoner had secret relations with the Special
Services of Azerbaijan and periodically gave top secret information
to Azerbaijan. NKR Prosecutor’s Office instituted a criminal case
against him. According to the article #299 of NKR Criminal Code,
he will be sentenced to10-15 years of imprisonment.

ANDRANIK MARGARIAN: ARMENIA IS CONSISTENT IN HONORING ITS COMMITMENTS
TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE
YEREVAN, MAy 13, NOYAN TAPAN. On May 13, RA Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian met with PACE Monitoring Commission’s Secretary Boni
Teofilova and Commission Co-Rapporteurs George Coloumbier and Jezzi
Jaskiernia. A wide range of issues related to the fulfilment of
Armenia’s obligations to the Council of Europe was discussed at the
meeting attended by members of the Council on Fight against Corruption
headed by Prime Minister. A. Margarian noted that Armenia is
consistent in honoring its commitments and has already taken
significant steps on the way to European integration. Prime Minister
underlined that the RA Anticorruption Strategy and the program of
measures for its implementation have been developed and adopted, with
measures envisaged for 2003-2004 being fully carried out. Under the
President’s decree, a Commission on Fight against Corruption and
Commission on Anticorruption Strategy Implementation Monitoring have
been sat up. He indicated the reduction of corruption risks as the
main objective of the activities in this sphere. In connection with
the issue of constitutional reforms, Andranik Margarian said that the
RA National Assembly has taken the draft constitutional reforms
submitted by the coalition as a basis. Prime Minister presented his
views on such issues as the dialog between the power and opposition,
Yerevan mayor’s status, reforms of the Electoral Code, independence of
the mass media, ect. Accoring to the RA Governmental press service,
George Coloumbier said he had agreed to perform the responsibilities
of a co-rapporteur on Armenia since he was familiar with the history
and the modern state of the country’s development through French
Armenians and he was among those deputies of the French Parliament who
passed the law on recognition of the Armenian genocide.

USINFO.STATE.GOV
13 May 2005
Rice Briefs Congress on North Korea, Iran, Sudan, other Issues
Secretary of State provides worldview in 90-minute testimony
Washington — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice answered questions that
crisscrossed the world geographically as she sought to address concerns
posed by members of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the
Senate Appropriations Committee May 12.
Though the Appropriations Committee’s oversight of State Department pertains
to budgetary matters, several senators zeroed in with questions about U.S.
foreign policy in Africa, Europe, East and South Asia, and Central and South
America as well as questions on women’s issues and programs for the
disabled.
Regarding Iran’s negotiations with the United Kingdom, France and Germany
concerning its nuclear program, Rice said the United States is “watching”
and remains in close contact with allies. The U.S. hopes, she said, that
the Iranians will take advantage “of the opportunities that the Europeans
have given them to demonstrate that they’re prepared to live up to their
international obligations.”
North Korea’s nuclear program was a key issue of the hearing. The United
States, Rice said, wants more than North Korea’s return to the Six-Party
Talks. Though “very important,” she said, the North Koreans should
“actually be ready to make a strategic choice about their nuclear weapons
programs.” The United States acknowledges North Korea’s sovereignty and is
prepared to offer security guarantees on a multilateral basis, she said,
adding that some of their neighbors “have talked about providing them fuel
oil under those circumstances.” The North Koreans “have quite a bit to gain
by coming back to the talks,” the secretary noted.
North Korea’s human rights record was another topic of concern. Rice said a
special envoy for North Korean human rights has been identified and a public
announcement would come shortly. She also said the department is working
with the Department of Homeland Security and with organizations to see “what
we might be able to do on North Korean refugees.”
The situation in Sudan was also discussed. Deputy Secretary of State Robert
Zoellick “is spending a great deal of time on Sudan.we all are” Rice said.
During recent NATO meetings the secretary said she worked on a NATO
agreement to give logistical support for African Union forces in Sudan
should a request be forthcoming. Hopefully, a NATO agreement will emerge,
she said.
Rice also indicated that there may be a need for a special envoy to Sudan
“at some point,” but that “right now the strategy has to be to work with the
AU on a very intensive basis to get forces into the country.”
Other countries and subjects that Rice discussed with the subcommittee
included:
— Belarus: Rice called it “the last dictatorship in Europe.” It’s
necessary, she said, “to stand with people in places like Belarus . to let
them know that, at least, the United States is with them.”
— Central America: Rice called the senators’ attention to the importance
of the trade agenda and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. She said
the Central American presidents told President Bush CAFTA “is essential to
their continued existence as democratic states.”
— Millennium Challenge Account: Rice said the administration seeks
compacts with a series of countries by the end of 2005, in addition to the
current agreement with Madagascar. Those countries include Honduras, Ghana,
Nicaragua, Senegal, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Armenia and Georgia. She said
Georgian officials she met with recently “mostly wanted to talk about .
their Millennium Challenge program. Because they believe that if they can
get this compact finished, it is going to make a huge difference in their
ability to complete infrastructure, to have energy independence.”
— Burma: The administration “absolutely” supports renewal of sanctions
including an import ban and visa restrictions against the military junta in
Burma, Rice said.
— Ex-Liberian ruler Charles Taylor: The United States believes that
Charles Taylor should be brought to justice, but it wants to work with
Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa in a way that accommodates their needs to
“get him out of [Nigeria] and to one of the courts.”
— Democratic Republic of Congo: “The big problem is to have a kind of
national unity picture going into the elections,” Rice said. “We’ve really
been very active diplomatically there,” she added.
— Ethiopia: “We are actually quite concerned about the potential for a
humanitarian problem there concerning food, and we’ve begun to discuss with
the Ethiopians the pre-positioning of some food supplies there to deal with
what could potentially be a famine situation. We’re not there yet, but the
warning signs are there,” Rice said.
— China trade: Rice said she her meeting with China’s premier focused
entirely on economics as well as the need to respect intellectual property
rights and have a flexible, market-based exchange rate. She said China must
operate its economy “in a rules-based environment and it’s got to live up to
its trade obligations.”
Rice also discussed women’s empowerment and the benefits of micro-enterprise
in developing economies, the education of girls, measures to improve Haiti’s
situation, the good work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe regarding Kyrgyzstan, U.S.-Colombian discussions about paramilitary
forces, and aid programs for the disabled in foreign countries. In
addition, she began her remarks by condemning alleged acts of disrespect for
the holy Quran by U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and promised
“appropriate action” if the allegations are proven to be true.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: )
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Times, UK
May 13 2005
>From Russia with secrets
by urban fox, times online correspondent
Until recently, Mr Litvinenko was a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian
secret police. He claims to know some of the darkest dealings of his
country’s recent past

There’s something very un-English about murderers who dispatch their
victims too flamboyantly. Louis Untermeyer expressed British
puzzlement when faced with showy foreign killers perfectly in the
lines:
Although the Borgias
Were rather gorgeous
They liked the absurder
Kind of murder.
That’s why people in this country find stories about the KGB so
extraordinary. The sheer swaggering theatricality of the kind of
killings the Soviet secret police were said to favour, beggars the
average English person’s belief. Tell an Englishman that an assassin
might choose to kill someone innocently waiting for a London bus by
jabbing him with an umbrella tip containing a pellet of the rare and
virtually untraceable poison ricin, and the Englishman’s first
reaction will be to laugh in disbelief. Why bother with such
elaborate cloak-and-dagger tactics? If you want to bump someone off,
why not just push him under the bus?

Yet, however much it sticks in English gullets, that is exactly the
way the KGB did behave. Ricin was used in the James Bond-style
murder in London in 1978 of the Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi
Markov. He was jabbed with a poisoned umbrella tip while waiting for
a bus on London Bridge, and died four days later. The KGB was blamed.
Anyone who thinks the secret police learned to behave better after
the Soviet Union disintegrated – and the Soviet KGB was reformed and
renamed the Russian FSB – will definitely want to gasp and stretch
their eyes at almost everything a more recent arrival in London has
been saying since he got here.
Alexander Litvinenko came to the British capital five years ago. He’s
a fair-haired man of about 40 with quiet ways and watchful eyes. He
has a wife and a son coming up to his teens. They’ve all lived
unobtrusively in a leafy bit of suburban London since leaving Moscow.
But I am not at liberty to reveal precisely which leafy bit of London
Mr Litvinenko lives in. He believes that might endanger his life. His
contact details change often; his mobile number went dead last summer
after someone pushed a pram containing Molotov cocktails at his front
door. Until recently, Mr Litvinenko was a lieutenant-colonel in the
Russian secret police. He claims to know some of the darkest secrets
of his country’s recent past, from the era when the FSB was run by
one Vladimir Putin, who later become the Russian president. And the
spy in hiding fears he will be silenced.
Mr Litvinenko first made headlines in Russia in 1998, when he blew
the whistle on an order he says he received from his FSB superiors to
assassinate the unpopular but powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky. After
a black comedy of institutional reaction – he was fired, arrested on
unrelated charges of mistreating a detainee, acquitted, rearrested on
similar charges, reacquitted, rearrested a third time, and only
cleared his name in court thanks to a photographic memory which
allowed him to prove exactly where he was at any given time – he was
whisked off to Britain where he won political asylum.
While still at the FSB, Mr Litvinenko says his job was
corruption-busting. But, he says, he kept finding it inside his own
office – generals hand in glove with drug-runners; colonels running
racketeers. All his investigations were fruitless because they
ultimately led to federal ministries. His attempt to spill the beans
to Putin himself – and get the boss to crack down on an organisation
running riot – was not a success. He was fired within weeks.
Luckily for him, Mr Berezovsky quickly fell out with President Putin
and also fled to London, where he too now has political asylum. Mr
Berezovsky spends his time here denouncing the Russian president for
bringing the histrionic methods of murder traditionally favoured by
the KGB into the modern Kremlin. The billionaire finances a coterie
of dissidents whose stories lend weight to his version of events,
including Mr Litvinenko and the Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev.
So Alexander Litvinenko pops up at press conferences, or at parties
for anti-Putin journalists, or, last week, at the Oxford Union with
Mr Zakayev. He looks restrained, speaks quietly and wears neat tweed
jackets. But his every revelation is designed to show that the FSB,
Putin’s almer mater, is behind just as many cloak-and-dagger horrors
as the KGB ever was.
His biggest revelation centred on the conspiracy theory that the FSB
was involved in a string of bombing attacks that levelled apartment
buildings across Russia in the autumn of 1999. The theory has it that
these bombings, which Russian authorities blamed on Chechen
separatists, were used to galvanise public support for the invasion
of Chechnya and win Mr Putin the presidency.
President Putin has dismissed the allegation that the bombings were
organised by the FSB, under his own command, as “delirious nonsense”.
But the FSB was annoyed enough about Mr Litvinenko’s book, “The FSB
Blows Up Russia,” to seize a shipment of 4,400 of them in Moscow at
the end of 2003 in what it called an effort to protect state secrets.
It was hair-raising stuff, at least in principle. But in practice,
outside the overheated rooms where the kind of people gather who have
lived in Russia and come to take KGB horror stories seriously
(including, I have to admit, me), it never really gained a foothold
in the British popular imagination. It was just too exotic for anyone
from the comparatively gentle streets of London. Perhaps partly
because the FSB has omitted to take a poisoned umbrella to Mr
Litvinenko, his revelations have turned out to be a bit of a damp
squib.
FSB were involved. I thought he’d gone quiet for a while but last
week I found him at it again – this time announcing that the FSB had
been behind a bizarre bloodletting in ex-Soviet Armenia in 1999, when
gunmen burst into parliament and shot eight of the most prominent
politicians in the land.
I’m no longer in phone contact with Alexander Litvinenko. But his
emails go on coming thick and fast – musings on the causes of the
Chechen conflict or patriotism, snippets from Chechenpress, or bitter
comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Nazis, all topped with quotes
from Russian literature in neat italics.

Mr Litvinenko must be frustrated to discover that he’s brought his
extraordinary revelations to a land where people can’t bring
themselves to believe in the absurder kind of murder (except if it is
committed between the covers of an Agatha Christie novel).
Like many immigrants, there’s clearly a part of him that can’t let go
of his past at home, even a past and a home as horrifying as he says
Russia is if you’re in the FSB, or come to its attention. But he’s an
intelligent man. Give him another five years to assimilate, and who
knows?
He may yet come to be pleased to have become part of a society that
operates through an endless round of TV dinners, PTA meetings and
uneventful outings to Tescos, and whose definition of freedom is the
freedom to feel safe while snoozing through the news.