Author: Maral Takmazian

ARMENIAN DIOCESE IN GEORGIA REQUESTS THAT ACTS OF VANDALISM AND OFFENSE TO THE DEAD BE PUT AN END TO
TBILISI, MARCH 21, NOYAN TAPAN. The conflict surrounding the Armenian
Church Norashen is gaining new momentum and the frontiers of trust,
it seems, are being left far behind. After the attention it attracted
in relation to the “fake tombstones with Georgian inscriptions”,
which are still not taken away from the church’s yard, Georgian
Church officials convincingly assured the Armenian Diocese that the
Georgian Patriarchate had best intentions for a positive resolve of
the Norashen question and that the actions of Father Tariel were
very much his own. However, according to the Armenian Diocese in
Georgia, just a few days later, Father Abgar, Deputy Head of the
Armenian Diocese in Georgia, witnessed the undertaking of new works
by the Georgian clergy and handymen in front of the Armenian Church
Norashen (digging of holes, planting of trees etc.). Despite the
earlier agreement, the appropriation efforts aimed at the Armenian
Church of Norashen continue secretly, probably with the intention to
put the Armenian Diocese in front of a fait accompli. The Georgian
priest Tariel (the same who had destroyed famous frescoes from the
Hovnatanyan school and Armenian khatshkars) stated: “The land is ours,
hence the church is ours and we do what we want and what I have been
told. Leave us in peace, you are getting on our nerves…” Against the
backdrop of the Norashen problem, the Armenian Diocese in Georgian
is worried about a growing anti-Armenism in Georgia (where according
to official figures from 1989 about 500.000 Armenians live), which
finds expresses in the form of anti-Armenian propaganda in Georgian
mass-media, such as in the Georgian Times of 24.02.2005: “Armenians
do anything to undercut the formation of Georgia as a state… and
this is why it is necessary to create a one-nation-state”, “if the
Armenians had the material means, they would destroy our language”,
“I don’t remember one single time, when Armenians did something good
for Georgia”, “a Georgianised Armenian can never become a Georgian,
he will always strive to power. The clearest example for this is
the Georgian President himself”. The Diocese is furthermore worried
about the continuous acts of vandalism that Armenian cemeteries are
subjected to in Georgia. The century old cemetery of Vera, in Tbilisi,
has been almost completely destroyed in the past 17 years. The graves
of well known politicians, generals, professors and poets, who were
not just Armenians but who played an important role in historical
Georgia are being annihilated. And the latest horrendous news, reaching
the Press Office, are from Dusheti (a provincial town in Georgia),
where yet another Armenian cemetery has become the victim of acts
of vandalism. The Armenian Diocese in Georgia requests that acts of
vandalism and offense to the dead be put an end to. It asks not to
impede the fruitful dialogue between the Georgian Patriarchate and the
Armenian Catholicosate, which is undercut by the unqualified actions
of Father Tariel, resulting in a negative impact on the century old,
brotherly relationship between the two churches. The Diocese hopes to
attract the attention of the international community to this situation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE Organization
arch 18 2005
OSCE and Council of Europe experts discuss freedom of assembly
legislation with Armenian authorities

YEREVAN, 18 March, 2005 – Experts from the OSCE Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Venice Commission of
the Council of Europe met yesterday with the Armenian authorities for
consultations on amendments to the Armenian law on Conducting
Gatherings, Meetings, Rallies and Demonstrations.
Both organizations have made suggestions as to how the legislation,
adopted in April 2004, can be brought into compliance with
international standards. These consultations are a part of
wide-ranging co-operation between the Venice Commission and the
OSCE/ODIHR on legislative reviews and support in a number of
countries.
The consultations with Tigran Torosyan, Deputy Chairman of the
National Assembly, and David Harutyunyan, Minister of Justice,
addressed key issues such as the possibility for spontaneous
demonstrations as well as the freedom to counter-demonstrate. Also
discussed were notification procedures, grounds for restrictions on
and termination of public assemblies and responsibility for the
conduct of participants in a public assembly.
Armenia has committed itself to amend the law following a Council of
Europe Parliamentary Assembly resolution, which called on the
Armenian authorities to introduce amendments to the law on
demonstrations and public assemblies by March 2005, in order to bring
the legislation into full conformity with Council of Europe standards
to ensure freedom of assembly in practice.
The consultations provided a basis for consolidation of the proposed
amendments, which is to be finalized by end of April.

For further information, please contact:

Urdur Gunnarsdottir
ODIHR Spokesperson, Press and Public Information Adviser
Public Affairs Unit
OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

Aleje Ujazdowskie 19
00-557, Warsaw
Poland
Tel.: +48 22 520 06 00 ext. 4162
+48 603 683 122 (mobile)
Fax: +48 22 520 06 05
E-mail: [email protected]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Zaman, Turkey
March 7 2005
Turkey on List of Humanitarian Crimes
By Foreign News Services
Published: Monday 07, 2005
zaman.com
The latest genocide and bloody events list published by the
“Conscience Committee” of the Genocide Commemoration Museum in the US
claims that Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey.
It is said in a news article published in the Washington Post that
the mass genocide of civilians and other humanitarian crimes have
taken place in the century-long bloody wars. The article reports that
the number of lives lost and crimes committed have been recorded,
however, the exact number can never be known.
Humanitarian crimes that took place in various places around the
world have also been recorded in the list where it is claimed that
Turkey had “murdered” 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1918.
According to the list, seven million people had been murdered in
Ukraine by the former Russian leader Joseph Stalin in 1932-33, the
Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese in the Nanjing massacre, six million
Jews had been murdered in Nazi Germany between 1938-1945, two million
people under the Pol Pot regime had been killed in Kampuchea in
1975-79, 200,000 people in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, and 800,000
people in Rwanda in 1994 had been murdered.
The Armenian society in Armenia controls a lobby that issues a
statement alleging the genocide by Turkey in the media each year
prior to April 24, the accepted date for the commemoration of the
alleged Armenian genocide.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

National Post (Canada)
March 4, 2005 Friday
National Edition
What do you do when a jihadi comes home?
by Stewart Bell, National Post
Fateh Kamel was every bit the devoted jihadist. He spent the better
part of the 1990s travelling the world fighting his holy war — to
Afghanistan, Malaysia, Bosnia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France. In
Montreal, he led a ring of Islamic militants, among them Ahmed
Ressam.
“I’m not afraid of dying and killing doesn’t frighten me,” the
Algerian-born Canadian once said in one of several conversations
recorded by Italian counterterrorist police. “If I have to press the
remote control, vive the jihad!”
Then in 1999, Kamel made a fateful error. Following a pilgrimage to
Mecca, he flew to Amman, perhaps not realizing the Jordanians were on
good terms with the French, who were after him for his role in
various terrorist plots.
He was arrested and sent to Paris, put on trial, convicted and
sentenced to eight years imprisonment. And then, on Jan. 29, 2005,
the French set him free for good behaviour and he flew home to
Montreal.
It may be that Kamel is a reformed terrorist, that during his empty
days of imprisonment, separated from his wife and son, he saw the
error of his convictions. Maybe he has abandoned the jihad. Maybe he
is a retired terrorist.
But what if he isn’t?
It is a question that Canada and its allies are going to have to
start asking because there are going to be a lot more Fateh Kamels in
the coming years. International terrorists are increasingly being
recruited out of the West and, if they don’t get the martyrdom they
claim to seek, one day they are going to come home. And then what do
we do with them?
For the past 20 years, Canada has dealt with captured foreign
terrorists by deporting them to their countries of origin, or at
least trying to. But in the past few years there has been a shift in
the types of people joining the ranks of al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
They are no longer just Saudis or Yemenis or Pakistanis; they are
also Britons, French, Germans, Australians, Americans and Canadians.
In testimony to a parliamentary committee last week, Dale Neufeld,
the Deputy Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(CSIS), called this one of “the real trends that we see in this
country, and our allies see it as well. It’s the second generation,
it’s the children of Muslims who are born in this country, have a
very normal upbringing, according to our analysis, but at some point
in their teenage years or young twenties, they decide that radical
Islam is the path that they want to take.”
He cited the case of Momin Khawaja, the Canadian-born Ottawa computer
expert who was arrested last year on charges that he was part of a
group plotting to detonate an ammonium nitrate bomb in the United
Kingdom. “They didn’t come from battle-hardened Afghanistan, or Iraq,
or Chechnya. These were people who had pretty normal upbringings in a
very democratic country, and decided at some point to go down that
path.”
How are authorities to deal with these homegrown terrorists? They
cannot be deported. The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 allows for jail
terms for those actually convicted of terrorism; but what happens
when those sentences are served, or when Canadian terrorists captured
abroad come home?
When most criminals have completed their jail terms, they are
released and presumed innocent. Terrorists, however, are not ordinary
criminals. Many are graduates of training camps where they were
taught the art of mass murder and indoctrinated into a set of beliefs
that advocate the killing of Westerners as God’s will. Is it right to
presume that such terrorists are no longer a risk to society once
they have served their sentences? When Kamel arrived in Montreal, the
RCMP was not even at the airport to greet him. As far as they’re
concerned, he is an ex-convict who has done his time and has
committed no crimes in Canada.
“That’s how you would, quite rightly, treat criminals who had served
their time,” says Professor Martin Rudner of the Canadian Centre for
Intelligence and Security Studies at Ottawa’s Carleton University.
“But terrorism, I think — and I think most people would agree —
terrorism is criminality plus, not criminality minus. It’s
criminality plus material threat.”
The Americans are dealing with this issue by holding some terrorists
indefinitely as a way of keeping them out of circulation, an approach
born out of their view that they are at war against terrorism. U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week asserted the government’s
right to hold alleged enemy combatants “for the duration of
hostilities.”
Canada, however, has not adopted such an approach. Many of the
suspected Sunni Islamic extremists in Canada are being watched, but
are not in custody. Only one has been charged, and while some are
being held for deportation, last month, a Federal Court judge
released alleged al-Qaeda sleeper agent Adil Charkaoui on the grounds
that the 21 months he spent in jail awaiting deportation to Morocco
had served to sever his ties to the outside world, thus
“neutralizing” any risk he once posed.
Kamel’s return led Peter MacKay, the federal Conservatives’ public
safety critic, to call for a review of his citizenship, but the
government responded that Canadians can lose their citizenship only
if it was obtained through fraud or misrepresentation. “There should
be no doubt that the government will do what’s appropriate within the
mandate of its agencies to protect Canadians from those who pose a
threat to security,” said Alex Swann, a spokesman for the Ministry of
Public Safety.
Canada is already home to a collection of retired terrorists such as
Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammad, a member of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, who shot up an El Al airplane in 1968 and
killed a passenger. He now lives in Brantford, Ont.
And there’s Haig Gharakhanian, a member of the Armenian Secret Army
for the Liberation Army of Armenia, who took part in the 1982
attempted assassination of Turkish diplomat Kani Gungor in Ottawa. He
served a nine-month sentence and now plays guitar in a Toronto band.
Recent experience is even less encouraging. Many of those released
from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan and Afghanistan
immediately took up arms again.
“There’s no known scientific process for the denaturing of Islamic
terrorists, and there’s no terrorist old folks home to which people
can be consigned,” said David Harris, a former CSIS agent.
“One of the things that concerns me is what message does it send to
the rest of the world, including terrorists looking for haven,
support bases and so on when they see that Canada will allow the
seamless return of a convicted global-scale terrorist.”
Most intelligence experts agree that Kamel will probably be put under
surveillance, but Prof. Rudner wonders whether that is enough. He
sees a possible precedent in the treatment of pedophiles.
“You do your time as a pedophile and when you’re released, a whole
range of mechanisms are put in place that curtail your personal
liberty, including disclosure of your address, the need to report to
the police very regularly, the need to abstain from contact with
children. We don’t presume innocence. And here too we’re talking
about an area where it would be a very high risk to society to
presume constant innocence.”
The French are notoriously tough on security, and it seems doubtful
they would have freed Kamel early if they still thought him a danger.
Perhaps he has sworn off terror, or maybe he is even co-operating
with counter-terrorism investigators.
Just before he was caught, Kamel seemed to be already losing interest
in the clandestine life of a roving terrorist operative. In Milan,
police overheard him telling fellow jihadists:
“I almost lost my wife. I am 36 years old, with a son four-and-a-half
months old. My wife is playing with him and I am here. I am almost a
soldier. I don’t know if I am going left or right.”
The problem is, neither do we.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ukrainian interior minister cancels visit to Belarus
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
3 Mar 05
Minsk, 3 March: The signature of a Belarusian-Ukrainian statement on
improving cooperation in combating crime that was scheduled for today
has been postponed. An ITAR-TASS correspondent learnt this at the
Belarusian Interior Ministry’s press service.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko has not arrived in Minsk
with a delegation of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. “We have not
found out the reason for the visit’s cancellation so far,” the press
service said, adding that on the evening of the previous day there was
full confidence that Yuriy Lutsenko would lead the delegation of
Ukrainian law-enforcement officers. The two countries’ interior
ministers were expected to have a meeting and sign the joint
statement.
The delegation of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry was invited to Minsk
for participation in the festivities dedicated to the 88th anniversary
of the Belarusian police. Invitations to attend the festivities had
been sent to the leadership of the interior ministries of Latvia,
Lithuania, Russia, and police chiefs of Armenia and Poland.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
March 2 2005
RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN TYCOON SETS EYE ON TSAKHKADZOR
YEREVAN, MARCH 2, ARMENPRESS: Ara Abrahamian, a Russia-based
Armenian-born businessman, unveiled Tuesday an ambitious plan of
developing Armenia’s most famous resort town of Tsakhkadzor into an
internationally acclaimed tourist zone, saying the first stage of
this plan would require at least $100 million investment. Abrahamian
said he was going to submit the plan to Armenian president Robert
Kocharian.
Speaking at a yesterday news conference in Yerevan, Abrahamian
said his Union of Russian Armenians had done a great deal of work
with Russian and other countries’ travel agencies specializing in
winter tourism. He cited the Russian sport chief who said that some
500 Russian skiers may arrive in Tsakhkadzor to train there.
The plan envisages construction of a chain of 3-5 star hotels to
make the resort available to people with various degree of incomes.
Tsakhkadzor now has 15 hotels that can house some 5,000 people.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian premier, Russian minister discuss progress of property-for-debt deal
Mediamax news agency
17 Feb 05
Yerevan, 17 February: The enterprises handed over to Russia to cover
Armenia’s state debt should be reopened as soon as possible and their
capacities should be increased, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Markaryan said at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov in Yerevan today.
The Russian foreign minister assured the Armenian prime minister that
the Russian side is doing its best to invest the necessary funds in
the enterprises and ensure that they are fully operational.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RIA Novosti, Russia
February 08, 2005
CIS COUNTRIES OUTPACE RUSSIA IN GDP GROWTH
MOSCOW, February 8 (RIA Novosti)-According to the information
published yesterday by the CIS Inter-State Statistics Committee,
Russia has fallen behind almost every other CIS country in terms of
GDP growth rates, writes Noviye Izvestia.
The leader in GDP growth rates in 2004 was Ukraine with 12%, followed
by Belarus (11%), Tajikistan (10.6%), Azerbaijan (10.2%) and Armenia
(10.1%).
Lower increases were registered in Kazakhstan (9.4%), Georgia (8.4%)
and Moldova (7.3%). Russia’s GDP growth rates, after they were
reconsidered, came in at 7.1% – the same as Kyrgyzstan. The
Statistics Committee has no information on GDP in Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan, which means Russia and Kyrgyzstan are last on the list.
Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Sharonov requested that a
comparison not be drawn between Russia and economic development
outsiders. He also noted that the mission to double GDP did not yet
mean that life had become better.
Vasily Solodkov, the director of the Banking Institute at the Higher
School of Economics, recalled that the CIS countries, with the
exception of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, were not oil and gas export
addicts. “This means that they had to conduct reforms somehow to
overcome a crisis,” he explained. The second reason is that “the
level of monopolization is enormous [in Russia]” – three or four
monopolies account for 80% of the country’s GDP. The raw material
monopolies do not need to develop, which admittedly puts the brakes
on Russia’s potential growth.
Experts admit that the country’s growth potential is no less than in
the former USSR republics, but it is considerably diminished by
Russia’s current economic policy.
Analysts warn that it is highly probable that the neighbors will
increasingly outstrip Russia in terms of development rates.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MehrNews.com, Iran
Feb 6 2005
Iran, Nigeria cooperation on electricity will be finalized soon
TEHRAN, Feb. 6 – Iran and Nigeria’s agreement to overhaul Nigerian
electricity installations will be finalized within the next two
months, noted managing director of SANIR Inc.
`According to the agreement, Iran will overhaul a hydropower plant,
high voltage electricity posts and some other electricity
installations in that country’, Iran’s Petroenergy Information
Network (PIN) quoted Alireza Kadkhodaii as saying on Sunday.
He noted that, the 50-million euro contract will be finalized within
the next two coming months.
Elsewhere in his comments, Kadkhodaii said that Iran’s foreign
projects amounted to over one billion dollars however, he added that
contracts valued at 500 million dollars that are in the process of
finalization, should be added to the amount.
He also explained that Iran is currently cooperating with
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Nigeria and Syria on
electricity projects in those countries.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GLOBAL CATHOLIC NEWS
Rome’s Zenit News
Pope Urges Resolution to Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 28, 2005 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II encouraged a solution
to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict when he received Armenian President Robert
Kocharian in audience.
In his address delivered today in Russian, the Pope spoke about the
president’s concern in regard to the long conflict with Muslim Azerbaijan
over Nagorno-Karabakh, a primarily Armenian-populated region, assigned to
Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1920s by Moscow.
Armenia, a country with some 3 million inhabitants, and Azerbaijan began
fighting over the area in 1988. The struggle escalated after both countries
attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
By May 1994, when a cease-fire took hold, Armenian forces held not only
Nagorno-Karabakh but also a significant portion of Azerbaijan proper.
The economies of both sides have been hurt by their inability to make
substantial progress toward a peaceful resolution.
“I hope that true and lasting peace comes to the region of Nagorno-Karabakh
where you, President Kocharian, come from,” the Holy Father said. “This will
come about by a decisive rejection of violence and a patient dialogue
between the parties, and also to active international mediation.”
The Holy See “which over the centuries has not failed to denounce violence
and defend the rights of the weak, will continue to support all efforts
aimed at building a solid and lasting peace,” the Pope continued.
John Paul II promoted the solution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh when
he visited Armenia in September 2001 for the celebration of the 1,700
anniversary of the Armenian people’s conversion to the Christian faith.
Armenia prides itself on being the first nation to formally adopt
Christianity, in the year 301.
Jan. 19 the Pope blessed a statue of St. Gregory the Illuminator (or the
Armenian), apostle of Armenia and founder of the Armenian Church, which has
been placed among the founding saints that surround the exterior of St.
Peter’s Basilica.
During today’s audience, the Pope expressed to the Armenian president, who
was accompanied by his wife, his “sincere appreciation for the good
relations between the Holy See and the government of your country.”
“I know that the Catholic community is welcomed and respected, and that its
various activities contribute to the well-being of the entire nation,” added
John Paul II. “Everyone earnestly hopes that the collaboration between the
Holy See and the Armenian government will continue to grow and, where the
situation calls for it, that eventual improvements to the status of the
Catholic Church will be made.”
The Holy Father then referred to the “friendly and respectful relations
between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.”
“This understanding,” he said, “which is even more active thanks to the
initiative of the Catholicos Karekin II, will certainly have positive
repercussions for the peaceful coexistence of the entire Armenian people,
who are called to face no small number of social and economic challenges.”
Around 90% of Armenian Catholics obey the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate,
which separated from Rome after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. A decisive
step to overcome this division was taken in 1996, when the Pope and the
previous Catholicos Karekin I signed a joint declaration that resolved
misunderstandings on the nature of Jesus.
The patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX
— whose see is in Lebanon, and who leads around 10% of Armenian Christians
living in their homeland and in the diaspora, and who are in communion with
Rome — has been visiting Rome in recent days to participate in the blessing
of the statue of St. Gregory the Illuminator.
After his visit with the Pope, President Kocharian went to see the statue of
St. Gregory the Illuminator that now stands in the Vatican.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress