Author: Mamian George

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
Armenia Solidarity/ Nor Serount Cultural Association Press Release
c/p The Temple of Peace,King Edward viii Ave, Cathays Park, Cardiff
Tel: 07718982732 [email protected]

Both UK government spokespersons on Turkey/Armenia have recognised the
Genocide

For the first time since 1918, the spokespersons for the British
government on issues relating to Armenia and Turkey are people who have
commited themselves to recognising the truth of the 1915 Genocide of
Armenians. Both of these parliamentarians are Welsh, and of course the
Prime Minister would be hard put to find any Welsh politician who still
adhere to the past government line of denial. Chris Bryant MP, who since
last week speaks on this issue for the government in the House of
Commons, signed the Early Day Motion on the Armenian Genocide put by
Bob Spink MP in 2007. Baroness Kinnock speaks on these matters in the
House of Lords and her voting record when she was a Member of the
European Parliament was consistent, supporting that Parliament’s
Recognition.
It will be impossible for them to argue against their own public
convictions on the issue. We call on Armenians worldwide to e-mail
[email protected] and [email protected] to thank them for
their previous recognition of the Genocide and to ask them , when they
next answer questions on the issue in Parliament, not to read
parrot-fashon the answers which will be given them to read by the
Eastern Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.It is clear
that it is the civil servants of the FCO who dictated the policy of
denial in the Past; the Ministers for Europe were people who stayed in
post usually for twelve months only, repeating that "historians are
divided on the issue" when we know that they had never consulted any
reputable historian, genocide scholar or legal opinion. The worst
culprits of these former ministers for Europe were Geoff Hoon, Dennis
Macshane, Doug Alexander, Baroness Ramsey Baroness Scotland , Lord
Treisman and Lord Malloch-Brown
It is interesting that the policy of Brazen Denial in the British
Parliament only originated in 1998, after the election of Tony Blair as
Prime Minister. No questions on the Genocide were put previously. One
person who must beart a heavy responsibility for this policy is Jack
Straw, now Justice Minister, but for many years Foreign Secretary.
Armenia Solidarity intends to actively campaign for his removal or
impeachment for the years of false information put to parliament . Also
Britain’s Pledges to the Armenian nation (as revealed below in the 1921
debate) will be sent again to parliamentarians for them to consider if
Reparations are in order
CHRISTIAN POPULATION IN ASIA MINOR.
House of Commons Debate 19 December 1921 vol 149 cc419-29
Lord ROBERT CECIL (who was British Under-Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs during the Genocide )
I beg to move, That this House deeply sympathises with the sufferings
of the Christian population in Asia Minor, and urges the Government to
take every possible means to assist them. I move this Motion in the hope
of getting from the Government before the Session ends some statement as
to the probable position in Armenia. Perhaps the House will allow me to
remind them how the present position has arisen. In the course of the
War the Turkish Government made an appeal to the Armenian nation to
assist them, and promised them autonomy if they would do so. The
Armenian nation declined to do so, because they felt themselves bound to
the Allies. It was very largely in consequence of the refusal of the
Armenians that the horrifying massacres took place in 1915 by the orders
of Tallat Pasha and his accomplices. No such crime of a national
character has ever been committed as the crime then committed. Hundreds
of thousands, at least, were slaughtered under conditions of the
greatest possible atrocity, to the accompaniment of every conceivable
torture. The lowest estimate I have ever seen puts the total at 600,000,
and there are many estimates much higher than that. In the course of the
War we gave more than once the most absolute pledges that in the Peace
one of the terms Armenia would receive would he her independence. It
fell to me, speaking for the Government on more than one occasion in
this House, to give those pledges, but they were given much more
formally and precisely by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 5th
January, 1918, when, to the Trade Union Congress, he stated the terms of
peace which could be offered. We have had it from the Prime Minister in
this House that that statement was made with a view to induce Turkey to
make peace, if possible. It was therefore regarded as the very minimum
of what the Allies intended to ask for. The Prime Minister said, on the
date I have mentioned: Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine
are, in our judgment, entitled to a recognition of their separate
national conditions.It would be impossible to restore to their former
sovereignty the territories to which I have already referred. Therefore
there was an absolute statement that the policy of the Government, on
which the Armenians were entitled to rely, as they did rely, was that
they should receive their independence. In addition to that, our Ally,
the French Government, induced the Armenians to enter the Allied Forces,
and some battalions at any rate of Armenians were enlisted by the French
on the distinct understanding-so the Armenians assert-that they should
receive independence and autonomy at the end of the War. I do not
believe that any Minister of the Crown would deny-I should be very much
surprised if they did so-that the Armenians were led to believe that
they would receive independence and autonomy, and that in consequence of
these undertakings they did assist us, that they thus increased the
dangers which they ran with the Turks, and that their present sufferings
are in part due to what they did then. When it came to the Armistice the
matter was not forgotten. I do not make any criticism, for I was a
Member of the Government at the time. Looking back on it, I regret now
that more stringent provisions were not put into the Armistice. Still,
some provisions were put in, and we thought at the time that they would
be sufficient to enable us to interfere on behalf of the Armenians if
they were threatened with danger………………………….

Mr. Aneurin. WILLIAMS

I beg to second the Motion.

I do not know whether I understood the Leader of the House to
challenge the suggestion that pledges were given to the Armenians during
the War. I hope I did not rightly understand that, because it has never
yet been denied; on the contrary, those pledges and promises have been
reasserted over and over again, notably by the Foreign Secretary in the
House of Lords, and I say that, much as I feel the sufferings of these
people, who, after all, are aliens to us, I feel even more the question
of British honour, and I very earnestly ask this House to consider
whether anybody in any future emergency is going to trust to British
pledges and British promises if afterwards there is a danger of them
being told that it was an expression of intention and was not a pledge.
I venture to say that they were very express pledges. Moreover, they
were acted upon. The Armenians provided a large number of volunteers and
suffered very greatly on the strength of those pledges. They were not
only extended to the Armenians but to other races, and the other
Christian races in the East also suffered very severely because of their
known sympathy with the Entente Powers.

When this matter was being discussed the other day, I asserted that a
large number of those in Cilicia, who were now in terror of being
exterminated by the returning Turks, were sent back there by the action
of the British and French Governments. I have evidence that the French
Government induced 200,000 Christian and other refugees to return to
Cilicia. It is not, however, so much a question of what the French
Government did as what the British Government did, and I will read to
the House part of a letter, dated 1st March, 1920, sent to me from the
War Office. It is not marked personal, private, or confidential, and
there is nothing about it to prevent my making this use of it. In the
course of the letter, it is said: It may help you if I explain the
circumstances. I had written to ask whether the people who had lost
their lives about that time were among those who had been sent back
there by the British Government- Towards the end of last September,
Field-Marshal Lord Allenby reported that on our withdrawal from Cilicia
and Syria it was feared that a large number of Armenians, at Urfa,
Marash, Aintab, Aleppo, etc., might start streaming south in the wake of
our troops, when it would be impossible to look after them. He suggested
that by agreement with the French these Armenians, particularly those
whom we were protecting at Aleppo (to whom I presume you chiefly refer)
should be repatriated to Cilicia, a country which would be under French
protection, and in which Armenians already formed a large proportion of
the population. Therefore there is perfectly clear evidence that these
people were repatriated by us and the French back to Cilicia from
Aleppo, a place of less safety, and were told that they would there have
French protection. The French undoubtedly promised us, when they went
into Cilicia, that they would give that protection. The question is,
what is to be done by the French Government in carrying out that
promise? It is not only a question of the French Government. Quite apart
from what the French Government may choose to do, our promises stand,
and our promises create an obligation upon us. I am not asking this
country to go crusading about the world taking up this and that case of
suffering and trying to put it right, but we have certain duties, and I
am confining my claim entirely to the duties which we have in regard to
this suffering population. Again and again we have intervened in this
Matter. The whole course of what we have done ever since the Crimean War
constitutes a great obligation, and, more than that, the pledges which
we gave in the last War, confirmed by the letter which I have just read
and a thousand other pieces of evidence which I could give, fetter upon
us and fix upon us an absolute obligation as great as the obligation
upon a man to pay his debts. If we do not keep these pledges, who is
going to trust us in any future emergency? ……….

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House)
If I rise to intervene, it is only because I do not wish to be thought
discourteous by those who gave notice of this Motion, but they might
otherwise think I was deliberately waiting with my eye on the clock for
the time when all of us are to be sent into space. I find my views on
this subject are not very well illustrated in the speeches which have
been made on either side. I am not, I hope, lacking in sympathy with our
Mohammedan fellow-subjects in India, either in what concerns their
Government in the Indian Empire, or in their outlook on the world. On
the other hand, I cannot think without something like horror and dismay
of the abominable barbarities which have been practised in Armenia, and
if I condemn Turkish rule in Armenia it is not because it is Mohammedan
rule over Christian people, but because it is a barbarous and brutal
rule, which would disgrace whatever Government in which it originated. I
deprecate the tendency of my Noble Friend the Mover of the Motion to
view his own country in such gloomy colours, and the tendency both of my
Noble Friend and of the hon. Baronet the Member for East Nottingham (Sir
J. D. Rees) to interpret as a pledge to some particular party who would
have the right to call for its execution at any moment and in any
circumstances, every statement of intention or of policy offered by a
British Minister in either of the Houses of Parliament, or in speaking
to a British audience. Take what was alluded to by my Noble Friend-the
statament made by the British Government or by the Prime Minister as to
the terms on which at a given moment, when War was still in progress,
we should have been ready to make peace with Turkey. In that statement
the Prime Minister, among the conditions which he would exact from
Turkey as the price of peace at that time, mentioned the freedom of
Armenia or the autonomy of Armenia.

Mr. BARTLEY DENNISS
To recognise the independence of Armenia.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
I do not profess to be quoting the exact words. My Noble Friend speaks
of that as a pledge to the Armenian people in respect of what they had
incurred in the War.

Lord R. CECIL
There is another phrase in that same speech which secured
Constantinople to the Turks, and that was publicly stated by the Prime
Minister to be a pledge on which we could not go back. What was a pledge
to the Turks should equally be a pledge to the Armenians.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
I am afraid I have not all the utterances of my right hon. Friend the
Prime Minister so close to my hand as the Noble Lord, who, think,
studies them merely in order to repudiate or condemn. I do, however,
deprecate the argument that any Minister who stands at this Box, or
speaks in another place to his own people merely to expound the views
and intentions of His Majesty’s Government, cannot do so without being
pledged thereby, and without giving the right to some party or people
outside this country to claim that these are pledges binding on the
Government upon which they have a right to insist.

Mr. A. WILLIAMS
The Prime Minister in the House of Commons on the 29th April, 1920,
said: But I assure my hon. Friends that we cannot dissociate ourselves
from the responsibility that is cast upon us by our pledges in respect
of the Armenians."-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th April, 1920; col. 1520, Vol.
128.] Those are the words of the Prime Minister.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
I think the hon. Member has taken up all the remaining time.

Aysor, Armenia
Oct 24 2009

The RA President congratulated Sos Sargsyan’s 80th anniversary

The President Serzh Sargsyan has sent a congratulating letter to the
national artist Sos Sargsyan on his 80th anniversary, where he has
particularly said.

`Dear Mr. Sargsyan
I cordially congratulate you on the occasion of your 80th anniversary.

I am sure that many research works will be written about the rich way
that you have had in your life, and the great role that you have
played in the life of the Armenian theatre and cinema will be greatly
appreciated. Many generations have been inspired with the ideals of
kind and beauty depicted on the characters created by you.

The creative prosperity and the behavior of Armenian person shown by
you have been examples and a lesson for the inelegancy of the present
times.

I wish you good health and long life and many new opportunities to
show the pleasure of your art’, – informs the press office of the RA
President.

Syria’s Golan Heights: Can International Law Forestall a Golanian Intifada?

sDetails.aspx?id=108096&language=en
22/10/2009 Franklin Lamb
October 21, 2009

Al-Manar.com.lb is not responsible for the content of this article or
for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s
alone.

Qunaitra, Liberated Capital of the Syrian Golan Heights

Pressure increasing on Syria’s government to retake the Heights by force

Nationals from nearly one-third of the 192 member states of the United
Nations met in Damascus last week to discuss the Return/Liberation of
the Golan Heights. An estimated 5000 researchers, Lawyers,
politicians, activists, victims of Israel’s 42 years of occupation,
students and members of the public, attended the opening event in
Qunaitra, the Golan capital city, which in a frenzy of frustration at
being forced to return the city it had occupied since 1967 (Comment:
think Gaza 2005), the Israeli ordered bulldozed, shelled, and booby
trapped by its retreating forces as Qunaitra was surrendered to Syria.

The Conference heard the likes of former US Attorney General Ramsey
Clark argue that the International community and rules of
International law could not be clearer in requiring the full return of
the 1,860 sq. meters of the Syrian territory, despite Israeli claims
over the years of `border irregularities’

As the International Court of Justice declared in the Burkina Faso and
Malie cases, two former French colonies, the frontier existing at the
moment of independence, which Syria achieved in April 1946, is frozen
like a snapshot taken at the exact moment of Independence.

Some attendees at the large Damascus conclave, often huddling on the
sidelines, discussed, analyzed and even advocated a Golan Intifada.
They argued that the whole international community, except Israel, and
the full corpus of international law, supported the immediate and
complete return of the Syrian Golan Height’s to the nearly 350,000
displaced Golan inhabitants, being those who make up 90% of the
Golan’s pre-1967 population from the 130 villages and 112 agricultural
areas Israel destroyed as it occupied the Golan. These delegates
explained to observers that Resistance in all its forms may be the
most realistic path for the return of the Golan. They point to the
success of the Hezbollah led National Lebanese Resistance in regaining
most of Lebanon’s Zionist occupied territory.

One Golani who studies in Damascus told this observer, `We don’t
expect help from Hezbollah. They have made clear to us they do not
`do branches’ in other countries despite requests for help around the
region, but we have learned much from their experience and we will
apply their logic and tactics.’

`Syria is rising’ another joined in, `we are strong psychologically,
militarily and as a result of more democracy the past several years
our people are united and we are motivated to seek the immediate
return of our land, whatever it takes.’

They argued that what Hezbollah did in Lebanon, and what Hamas is
doing in Gaza, Syrian patriots can do in the Golan. They believe they
would be joined by thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese that might
well lead to an unprecedented violent eruption of the Middle East.

One Conference student volunteer interpreter from Damascus University
wearing a Hijab, quoted Lebanon’s Senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah
Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who heads social services agencies here in
Syria and he does in Lebanon. Ayatollah Fadlallah frequently argues
from the grand Mosque in Dahiyeh that all Arab Muslim and non-Muslims
must join to fight against Israel, `because when the enemy launched a
war against Palestine and the Arab world, including the Golan Heights,
it was legal and obligatory to declare war in response to regain
stolen land.’

There appears to be building pressure on the Bashar Assad government
to act or allow a popular Intifada, despite analysts here arguing that
it is unlikely that his government would agree near term. Many here
are encouraged by Bishop Desmond Tutu’s fact finding report of
September 2008 to the Human Rights Council on the Israeli shelling of
Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip in 2006, which led to the death of
nineteen civilians as well as the growing international reaction to
last month’s Goldstone Report on Gaza.

International law and the Golan Heights

The law on the subject and the demolition of Israel’s arguments for
retaining the Golan could barely be more complete. In addition to
many UN resolutions condemning Israel’s Golan takeover as violations
of customary international law and Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter
which outlaws the acquisition of territory by force and requiring the
immediate withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the Golan Heights
virtually all legal analysts agree on the imperative of full return.

One of the Israel lobby’s iconic and repeatedly amplified myths has
been that Syria indiscriminate rained artillery shells on peaceful
Jewish settlements on the plain of Galilee without provocation thus
allowing Israeli to invade as part of its right of self-defense.

Among the scores who have exposed this canard are Israeli authors
such as Professor Avi Shlaim, in his volume `The Myth of the Golan
Heights’ in which he writes: `They (the Israelis) began by staking an
illegal claim to the sovereignty over the (demilitarized) zone and
then proceeded, as opportunity offered, to encroach on all the
specific provisions against introducing armed forces and
fortification. They repeatedly obstructed the operations of the UN
observers (comment: think Lebanon) , on one occasion even threatening
to kill them…They expelled, or otherwise forced out, Arab inhabitants
and razed their villages to the ground.’

Moreover, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Minister of Defense at the time,
explained to an Israeli journalist in 1976:

`I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there (on the Golan
front) started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let’s talk
about 80 percent. It went this way: we would send a tractor to plough
someplace where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the
demilitarized area and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to
shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance
further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.
And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and
that’s how it was…’ (The Golan: Ending Occupation, Establishing Peace,
London, 2007).

Dayan later added, `There was really no pressing reason to go to war
with Syria…..the kibbutz residents who pressed the government to take
the Golan Heights did it less for security than for the farmland.’

Syrians cite the human rights situation in the Golan as no longer
tolerable, as noted in various UN reports as `persistent’ and
`significant deterioration’. A 2002 UN Special Committee report
described the repression of the Syrian inhabitants under Israel
occupation as `extensive, affecting, all aspect of life and families,
villages and communities’, adding that `there are also widespread
economic consequences of the occupation.’

All Syrians interviewed during and following the October 11-12th
Conference appear bitter over the separation of families who live on
either side of the valley constituting the demarcation line. Syrian
students return to their families in the occupied Golan face, several
hours of questioning and even the presents they bring are confiscated.
Others are held in arbitrary detention for many days, facing torture
and humiliation.

A 1998 Human Rights Watch report of the Golan Heights concludes that
`Israel seriously misrepresents the degree of its fulfillment of its
treaty obligations’ under the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights it signed in January 1992.

For the international community, including the United Nations and
American and European policy makers the choice appears to be implement
International law or witness another explosion in this volatile
region.

Franklin Lamb is Director of the Washington-DC, Beirut Lebanon
Sabra-Shatila Foundation and can be reached at
[email protected].

AZERBAIJAN STILL HOPES ON PEACE ESTABLISHMENT IN THE REGION VIA DISINFORMING WORLD COMMUNITY, BUILDING UP ARMAMENTS AND BREAKING CFE

ArmInfo
2009-10-23 14:29:00

Arminfo. "Armenia had built up its military presence, with data
showing a growing number of uncontrolled arms, including 316 tanks,
324 armoured vehicles and 322 artillery systems in the occupied
territories, exceeding its maximum levels", deputy chairman of the
committee, first secretary of Azerbaijani permanent office in UN,
Ogtay Ismayilzade, said such a regular lie today during the debate
at the 17th meeting of the Committee of UN General Assembly on peace,
security and disarmament.

Having traditionally complained about "Armenia’s aggression which
had led to the occupation of one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s territory,
triggering the internal displacement of 1 million people", this
official was so eager to blame the Armenian people for the war crimes
and genocide. ‘Armenia had used the occupied territories to hide great
numbers of unaccounted and uncontrolled treaty- limited equipment
from the "CFE" community, endangering the security of Azerbaijan and
the stable development of the whole region," he said.

"Azerbaijan spent 3.26 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP)
on the army, compared with Armenia’s 3.86 per cent. Despite being in a
state of war, Azerbaijan was continuing to fulfill commitments under
the CFE Treaty, reducing and destroying more than 150 treaty-limited
armaments and equipment over the last five years, in line with the
Tashkent Agreement." – he said. In all probability the respectful
Ogtay-teacher saying about destroying of more than 150 treaty-limited
armaments and equipment, meant modern armament bought recently by
Azerbaijan from Ukraine for several dozens of million dollars. As
the written off military equipment by Ukraine gathering dust at the
stores for dozens of years, may cost not more.

Let us mention the following fact as the best demonstration of
‘peaceful’ intentions of Azerbaijan which always increases its
technical potential via buying new heavy firepower equipment, in
particular, SU-25 strike-fighters, laser-guided bombs, multiple
artillery rocket systems, etc.

AFGHANISTAN: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION DISREGARDS UN
Aunohita Mojumdar

sightb/articles/eav101909b.shtml
10/19/09

Afghani stan’s political deadlock deepened October 19 as the Electoral
Complaints Commission (ECC) announced that it had invalidated a large
number of the ballots cast in the August 20 presidential poll. The
commission did not specify an exact number, but many experts now
believe the ECC’s action will require a run-off between the incumbent,
Hamid Karzai, and his top challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which will make the final
decision regarding the election, has received the full findings of
the ECC. IEC officials indicated that an announcement on the final
election results would be forthcoming within 36 hours. Unconfirmed
reports indicated that the final results would leave Karzai with less
than the 50 percent-plus-one-vote total needed to avoid a run-off.

Sources suggest that hectic back room negotiations on a power-sharing
deal between Karzai and Abdullah were continuing. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Meanwhile, the sense of political discord in Kabul was reinforced
October 19 by the unilateral decision of Afghanistan’s Independent
Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) to release an election-monitoring
report that had been jointly prepared with the United Nations. In
making its findings public, the AIHRC ignored the plea of the UN’s
top official in Kabul, Kai Eide, to delay the report’s release until
the completion of the electoral process.

The report was released without public fanfare on the AIHRC’s website,
a manner of publication that suggests the UN’s authority and prestige
in Afghanistan is eroding. The widely respected Afghan Independent
Human Rights Commission is considered an independent body with strong
critics in both the Afghan government and the country’s parliament.

Some Kabul officials dislike the commission for its emphasis on human
rights and for calling to account those responsible for war crimes.

The UN and the AIHRC collaborated on two out of three monitoring
reports that covered this year’s electoral process. While the
third was due to be made public earlier in October, the release was
reportedly held up amid the ongoing controversy over fraudulent votes
and the international community’s role in the electoral process. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The October 19-released report, the third in the series of monitoring
briefs, scrutinized the Afghan election process, covering the period
from August 1 to October 5. It focused on four issues: insecurity
and violence; participation of the Afghan people, with a particular
focus on women; electoral irregularities; and freedom of expression.

"Allegations of ballot-box stuffing are of a serious nature,
considering that if proven true and given the extent of the problem,
the integrity of the elections results could potentially be severely
affected," the report states. It went on to note that the overwhelming
number of complaints received by the UN and AIHRC pertain to ballot
stuffing.

In response to a question at an October 11 news conference, Eide
said the release of the third report was being delayed and went
on to express a clear preference that the report cover "the final
stage that we are in – it is a critical stage." He maintained that
by waiting and examining late-stage developments, the report would
enable officials and experts to "learn lessons that we can draw on
for subsequent elections."

"I think that’s important," Eide stated. The leadership of the AIHRC
clearly thought differently. The commission’s unilateral action means
that the report contains no late-stage analysis. It also indicates
that the AIHRC and UN may have been having trouble reaching consensus
on how to interpret the most recent developments. Some observers note
that the UN over the last few weeks became enmeshed in allegations and
counter-allegations concerning electoral fraud and the handling of the
vote count. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. AIHRC
representatives may have felt that the UN’s direct involvement in
the controversy might influence the UN’s monitoring of the final stage.

While the UN is likely to push all interested parties to accept the
ECC’s decisions, the joint monitoring report notes that this may be
no easy task. "It remains to be seen whether the methodology agreed
upon by the IEC and the ECC to address the complaints of fraud will
pave the way to the certification of results that will be acceptable
by all parties, and above all the Afghan people," the report concludes.

Editor’s Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist
based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the
past 19 years.

JOINT PRESS RELEASE
FIDH
·FIDH : Karine Appy / Gael Grilhot, + 33 1 43 55 25 18
·OMCT : Delphine Reculeau, + 41 22 809 49 39
·Civil Society Institute, +374 10 574317

ARMENIA: Human rights defender released

Paris-Geneva-Yerevan, October 20, 2009. The Observatory for the
Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the
International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World
Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), along with the Civil Society
Institute, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office, the Helsinki
Committee of Armenia, the Collaboration for Democracy centre,
Transparency International Anti-Corruption Centre, as well as the
Foundation against Violation of Law, welcome the release on bail of
human rights defender Arshaluys Hakobyan.

On October 16, 2009, the Court of First instance of Kentron and Nork
Marash Communities of Yerevan decided to release on bail Mr. Arshaluys
Hakobyan, a member of the Armenian Helsinki Association and press
photographer of the official website of the organisation
(), who had been in pre-trial detention for four
months. Immediately after the hearing, Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan had to
sign a document by which he committed not to leave the area. He
eventually walked out of the court room free and the trial was
postponed pending complementary investigation.

On June 6, 2009 the Court of First Instance for Kentron and
Nork-Marash districts had placed Mr. Hakobyan in pre-trial
detention. His arrest followed his attempt to monitor the elections
for the Mayor of Yerevan together with a group of observers. After he
had filed a complaint to challenge denial to accede a polling station,
the police summoned him and eventually arrested him. Mr. Hakobyan was
charged with `violence against a Government representative’ pursuant
to Article 316 of the Criminal Code and trial started on September 16,
2009.

The aforementioned organisations welcome Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan’s
release, and thank all the persons, institutions and organisations who
intervened in his favour.

Nevertheless, our organisations deplore that Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan
remains charged with `violence against a Government
representative’. Our organisations urge the Armenian authorities to
put an end to any kind of harassment, including at the judicial level,
against Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan, in conformity with the provisions of
the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and with
international and regional human rights instruments ratified by
Armenia.

Our organisations also denounce that, in the course of arrest and
detention, Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan was subjected to acts of
ill-treatment. Therefore we urge the Armenian authorities to order a
thorough, immediate, effective and impartial investigation into the
above-mentioned facts, the result of which must be made public, in
order to identify all those responsible, bring them before a
competent, independent and impartial tribunal and apply to them the
sanctions provided by the law.

For further information, please contact:
·FIDH : Karine Appy / Gael Grilhot, + 33 1 43 55 25 18
·OMCT : Delphine Reculeau, + 41 22 809 49 39
·Civil Society Institute, +374 10 574317

_____

DIPLOMACY COULD FOOL THE WORLD OR CHANGE THE CAUCASUS
Dr Charles Tannock

New Europe

Oc t 19 2009

Relations between Turkey and Armenia have been overshadowed by the
Armenian genocide for close to a hundred years. So the protocols
signed last Saturday (10 October), aimed at establishing diplomatic
relations and opening the common border, represent a remarkable peak
in relations between those two countries. The question is whether
the protocols will have a chance of ever being implemented.

Of course, there have been accusations against Turkey of making empty
gestures over Armenia to impress the West, particularly the EU, which
Turkey hopes to join one day. Isolated and economically stagnant,
Armenia has much to gain from normalized relations and a re-opening
of the shared border. So it has made great efforts and painfully
offered to ignore the genocide issue for now, to reach out to Turkey.

Turkey’s decision to react positively to Armenia’s overtures first
appeared to be based on long-term strategic considerations. Turkey
knows that improving relations by opening its long closed border with
Armenia is essential to its goal of both becoming a regional political
player as well as joining the EU, which wants peaceful and trade-rich
borders, not borders that are disputed or highly militarized.

But the strategy became more obvious, when Turkey inserted a quasi
precondition to the ratification of the protocols, the resolution of
the conflict about Nagorno Karabakh, which is official Azerbaijani
territory despite being part of Armenia’s historic homeland and 90
per cent of the population being ethnic Armenians. Foreign Minister
Davutoglu wanted to make a respective speech at the signing ceremony,
which US pressure prevented in the very last minute – so no speeches
were consequently held.

Turkey’s breakthrough with Armenia has incited a sharp deterioration
of relations with Azerbaijan, which remains on a war footing with
Armenia. The Aliyev government in Baku now feels abandoned by its
closest regional ally and Muslim Turkic ‘brother’. After all in the
early 1990’s, Turkey officially justified closing its border with
Armenia as an act of solidarity with Azerbaijan, which had just lost
the war with Armenia over Karabakh.

Now, while the Islamist AK party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
enjoys a very comfortable parliamentary majority in the house, Erdogan
said only one day after the signature what Davutoglu was not allowed to
say on the evening: The Turkish parliament would find it difficult to
ratify the protocols as long as there are Armenian troops on Azeri
territory, i.e. in Karabakh. Remembering that the international
community has been trying to find a solution for Karabakh for more
than 15 years, this statement seems to signal that Turkey does not
intend to open the border in the foreseeable future.

Observers feared that this could lead to a total breakdown of the
process, but the Armenian President apparently decided to show to
the world that the ball remains in the Turkish court, by announcing
that he would still visit Turkey for the return football match between
Turkey and Armenia on 14 October. The first match last autumn was the
occasion for his invitation to the Turkish President and triggered
the whole rapprochement process, hence dubbed "football diplomacy".

The biggest problem with Erdogan’s statement is that it renders the
frozen conflict Karabakh dispute virtually unsolvable. Experts were
hoping that a normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia
would force Azerbaijan to make more meaningful proposals in the
negotiations about Karabakh. Instead, the situation is now inverted.

The Azerbaijani leadership now knows that any concession on Karabakh
would also trigger a victory for Armenia’s diplomacy vis-a-vis Turkey,
open the border and strengthen Armenia’s independence. Baku has
said several times that all this would be contrary to its national
interests.

If there is still a potential to conclude this process, it now depends
strongly on Turkey’s motivation to go ahead, bypassing Azerbaijani
pressure. To this end, the question of energy supply is part of
Turkey’s calculations.

Azerbaijan may have a lot of oil and gas, but Turkey is indispensable
to the transport and marketing of those energy resources to key
European markets. This consideration correlates with the view of
many analysts that Turkey wants above all to portray itself as
a reliable energy hub essential to Western energy security. The
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline has now been operational for three
years and the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline, which also runs from
Azerbaijan through Turkey, has won heavy financial and diplomatic
backing from both the EU and the US. By kicking up a fuss about the
Turkey-Armenia rapprochement, Azerbaijan will irritate its Western
partner, whose approval will be vital as Azerbaijan itself seeks
greater integration into Euroatlantic security and economic structures.

The Turkey-Armenia détente is also an effort by both sides to affirm
ties to Russia.

Moscow has long been Armenia’s protector against any military
aggression by Turkey. Armenia is also Russia’s only strong friend
in the South Caucasus. Turkey’s relations with Russia have been less
straightforward over the past century but recently they have warmed
substantially.

Just before Turkey and Armenia announced their breakthrough, Russia and
Turkey announced a series of measures to deepen cooperation on energy
issues. In particular, Turkey is facilitating Gazprom’s Southstream
pipeline through its territorial waters – which is the Kremlin’s
latest effort to maintain a stranglehold on gas supplies to Europe –
while at the same time with strong EU backing Turkey is pressing ahead
with the Nabucco project, provided an angry Azerbaijan does not pull
out. Clearly, Russia is using some tempting economic and strategic
sweeteners to try and drive a wedge between Turkey and the EU, while
Turkey seems to enjoy playing Russia and the EU against each other.

Of course Turkey’s decision to heed Armenia’s call for normalized
relations is infused with a healthy dose of cynical realpolitik,
but the same can be said for Armenia, which ultimately has as much
to gain from the deal as Turkey does, not least the ability to trade
with the impoverished eastern Turkish regions and enable nostalgic
Armenians to readily visit and restore some of the cultural patrimony
to their long abandoned historic villages close to the border.

But these realpolitik maneuvers should not obscure the tangible
progress that this détente could represent. Turkey still has far to
go before it can convince the EU of its readiness to join.

But any moves to reduce tension in the South Caucasus should be
welcomed unequivocally. Anyway, the Caucasus badly needs a sign like
this potentially first ever diplomatic resolution of a dispute. To
allow for all this, the key question for the West now is how to
ensure that Armenia and Turkey actually ratify and implement the
Swiss brokered protocols.

Dr Charles Tannock, MEP Foreign Affairs Spokesman of the ERC Group
(European Conservatives and Reformists) in the European Parliament

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY: ONLY POLUKHOV IS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND HIS ‘CONSTRUCTIVITY’

ArmInfo
2009-10-19 21:18:00

ArmInfo. The Armenian Foreign Ministry has commented on the statement
of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Representative Elhan Polukhov who
blamed Armenia for the lack of constructivity and stated about the
constant constructive position of official Baku.

"Apparently, Mr Polukhov means the "constructivity", with which
Azerbaijan started a large-scale war against the people of Artsakh, the
"constructivity", following which Baku gave up the Paris principles
that remained ink on paper in Key West, or the "constructivity",
due to which Azerbaijan had been denying the existence of the Madrid
principles presented in 2007 for almost a year. I think, Polukhov’s
"constructivity" can be understood only by Polukhov himself",- said
Tigran Balayan, Head of Media Relations Division of the Armenian
Foreign Ministry, when commenting on Polukhov’s statement at ArmInfo
correspondent’s request.

ArmInfo
2009-10-19 11:20:00

ArmInfo. The three-month-long campaign for protection of Jrvezh
municipal forest is over.

EcoLur JSC told ArmInfo the Government of Armenia adopted a decision on
October 15 to return the area to Jrvezh municipal forest. The decision
resulted in amendments to the previous decisions No 684-N dated July
18 2009 providing for transfer of 21.75ha of the pine forest under
jurisdiction of Vokhchaberd community.

GOVERNMENT OF ARMENIA POSTPONED APPROVAL OF THE PROGRAM ON CONSTRUCTION OF AIR ELECTRICAL TRANSFER LINES GEORGIA-ARMENIA

ARKA
Oct 16, 2009

YEREVAN, October 16. /ARKA/. On Thursday the Government of Armenia
postponed approval of the program on construction of Armenian part
of air electrical transfer lines Georgia-Armenia with voltage of
400 kilovolt.

Armen Movsisyan, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia
informed that it was planned to approve the program in the third decade
of 2009 but it is postponed till the second decade of December 2009.

He said that delay of the approval of the program is due to the
necessity of making clarifications in the plan of the construction
related to the requirement of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia.

Movsisyan said that air electrical transfer lines should be laid
through military objects.