Author: Nahapetian Samvel

PRODUCTION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES SECTOR GROWS BY 30%

Noyan Tapan
Dec 26 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. About 165 enterprises are now
operating actively in Armenia’s IT sector, with the number of their
employees making 5 thousand, the RA Minister of Trade and Economic
Development Karen Chshmaritian stated during the December 26 press
conference. According to him, in 2006 production of the IT sector
will make 80 mln USD or by 30% more than last year.

About 85% of IT production is exported. The sector will account
for about 2% of Armenia’s GDP. The amount of foreign investments is
estimated to make at least 10 mln USD.

CONCERT OF "HOVER" CHOIR TAKES PLACE IN FRANCE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF YEAR OF ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan
Dec 26 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. Concerts of the "Hover" chamber
orchestra, laureate of international contests, took place on December
1-10, in France, within the framework of the Year of Armenia. The Noyan
Tapan correspondent was informed about it by Sona Hovhannisian, the
artistic head and master of the choir. "Hover" performed concerts in
Paris, Nantes, Marseilles, La Roche sur Yon, Vandea, Fontevreau. The
choir performed Armenian spiritual songs, choral songs, dancing
songs as well as works of foreign composers. "Hover" performed in
Marseilles the "Plough Song of the People of Lori" ("Loretsineri Gutani
Horovel") of Komitas with one of famous music groups of France. In
S.Hovhannisian’s words, the Frenchmen admired the Armenian music. In
her words, they have knewn the Armenian spiritual music, particularly
the "Liturgy" ("Patarag") of Komitas. S.Hovhannisian mentioned that
in the spring of 2007, "Hover" will take part in the festival of
spiritual music to take place in Prague as well as will go on tours to
Germany. In her words, the Flora Family Foundation of the U.S. Stanford
University will release the 7th disc of the choir by Professor Hrant
Khachatrian’s order. Secular choral songs of Komitas will be involved
in it. By the way, this year the "Liturgy" of Komitas, performed by
the male staff of "Hover," was recorded in Germany, and the disks were
sent to the most important cultural hearths, universities of the world.

AZG Armenian Daily #246, 23/12/2006

Science

YURI SHUKURYAN BECOMES LAUREATE OF BEST 100 SCIENTISTS OF THE WORLD
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Yuri Shukuryan, Academician of RA National Academy of Sciences, has
become a laureate of "Best 100 Scientists of the World" international
competition held at the initiative of the International Biographical
Center of Cambridge, England.

The press-service of RA National Academy of Sciences informed that
the Armenian scientist has been awarded this title for important
contribution to engineering education and science. As one of the
winners of the contest, Yuri Shukuryan has been given a Medal of
Honor of the Cambridge IBC. According to the congratulatory message of
the IBC, this title is awarded to the personalities who have reached
unique achievements for the welfare of the international community.

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383, x118
Fax: 212.319.6507
Email: [email protected]
Website:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, December 22, 2006

AGBU Creates Council of Trustees and Elects Eight New Board of
Directors

oN december 9, 2006, the Armenian General Benevolent Union
(AGBU) voted to establish a Council of Trustees in addition to its
time-honored Board of Directors at the 84th General Assembly convened
at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris, France. The new Council of
Trustees will be comprised of five senior members of its Central
Board of Directors, including former Central Board of Directors
members Louise Manoogian Simone, Nazar Nazarian, Sarkis Demirdjian,
and Karnig Yacoubian, Richard Manoogian, as well as the President of
the Union, Berge Setrakian.

AGBU is also pleased to announce the addition of eight new, dynamic
members to its Central Board of Directors. Newly elected members are
Yervant Demirjian of the United States, Nazareth Festekjian of the
United States, Vahé Gabrache of Switzerland, Sarkis Jebejian of the
United States, Ruben Kechichian of Argentina, Levon Nazarian of the
United States, Berge Papazian of Canada and Vasken Yacoubian of Syria.

Berge Setrakian of the United States will continue as President of the
Central Board of Directors and the nine sitting members will carry on
their tenures on the Central Board. They are M. Michael Ansour of the
United States, Carol Bagdasarian Aslanian of the United States, Aris
Atamian of France, Joseph Basralian of the United States, Arshavir
Gundjian of Canada, Levon Kebabjian of France, Sam Simonian of the
United States, Sinan Sinanian of the United States, and Dickran
Tevrizian of the United States.

Yervant Demirjian has recently been elected as a Director and a
Board Member of Interaudi Bank New York and was also appointed as
the Managing Director of the Bank. Prior to Interaudi Bank, Mr.
Demirjian was a Director and the Vice Chairman of Cedars Bank in
California. Before he started his banking career, Mr. Demirjian was
a Real Estate Developer in Los Angeles California dealing in both
the commercial and housing sector. Mr. Demirjian has also served as
a member of the Board of Trustees of the AGBU Manoogian Demirdjian
School in Los Angeles, California from 1991-2002. Mr. Demirjian holds
an M.B.A. from California’s Pepperdine University.

Nazareth A. Festekjian is a Managing Director in Citigroup’s Fixed
Income Division and is the head of the Global Capital Markets Products
Group. Mr. Festekjian joined Salomon Brothers in 1992 in the Structured
Finance group, focusing on new products. Prior to joining Salomon,
he was a Managing Director at Moody’s Investors Service responsible
for rating asset-backed securities. Mr. Festekjian is a graduate of
the AGBU Hovagimian Manoogian School in Lebanon and received a BS
in Electrical Engineering from the American University of Beirut,
an MS in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and an
MBA from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Living in Geneva (Switzerland), Vahé Gabrache is the CEO of Cofinor
SA, as well as the owner with his family of the Société Gabrache SA, a
hotel and real estate company. He is also a controller for the Genevese
Liberal Party of Pregny-Chambésy. Mr. Gabrache has been President of
the Armenian Union of Switzerland for the past 20 years. Mr. Gabrache
presides over various Swiss Armenian foundations, including the
Diran and Charles Philippossian Foundation, the Armenia Foundation,
and the St. Gregory The Illuminator Foundation, and serves on the
board of the Topalian Foundation. Mr. Gabrache holds an MBA degree
from Lausanne, Switzerland.

Sarkis Jebejian is a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, an
international law firm with approximately 450 attorneys. Mr. Jebejian
practices corporate law, specializing in mergers and acquisitions,
both domestic and cross-border. He is based in New York and has
spent substantial time in the firm’s London and Hong Kong offices,
and has recently focused on clients in the defense, healthcare and
leisure industries. Mr. Jebejian is a Contributing Editor of the
International Financial Law Review, and graduated from Columbia
University with degrees in Economics and Law. Mr. Jebejian resides
in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ruben Kechichian is a businessman
and currently Chairman of the AGBU Buenos Aires Chapter. He has been
actively engaged in Armenian organizations, and particularly in AGBU,
since his youth. Beginning in 1963, for 10 consecutive years, he served
as Chairman of the AGBU Armenian Youth Association (AYA) in Buenos
Aires. Mr. Kechichian has served on the Chapter’s Executive Committee
since 1973 in various capacities. Mr. Kechichian also served as
South American Chairman of AYA and member of the AYA World Committee.

Levon Nazarian is a Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department
of Radiology and the Residency Program Director at Thomas Jefferson
University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a fellow of
the American College of Radiology, American Institute of Ultrasound in
Medicine, and the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound. He serves on
the editorial boards of several medical journals, including Radiology,
American Journal of Roentgenology and Journal of Ultrasound in
Medicine. He helped to establish the Ultrasound Training Center
in Armenia and oversees the training program for the doctors from
Armenia studying abroad. Dr. Nazarian is a graduate of Harvard College
and Cornell University Medical College. He resides in Cherry Hill,
New Jersey.

Berge Papazian is a Barrister and Solicitor, as well as the Managing
Partner of Papazian, Heisey and Myers LLP, a law firm based in Toronto,
Canada. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel for services rendered to the
Province of Ontario and in 1995 was certified as a Specialist in Civil
Litigation by the Law Society of Upper Canada. Mr. Papazian has been
a member of the Governing Council of the University of Toronto and has
acted as Chairperson of the Insurance Advisory Board for the Province
of Ontario. Mr. Papazian is also Director and Corporate Secretary
of Burger King in Canada. Since 2003, he has served as President of
AGBU Armen-Ontario.

Vasken Yacoubian is Managing Director and owner of Leon A. Yacoubian
Contracting, as well as the Chief Technical Officer and partner of
Puzant & Leon Yacoubian Trading and Contracting based in Syria. Mr.
Yacoubian has a long history of involvement within the Armenian
community of Syria, particularly AGBU. Serving in various capacities
in the past, Mr. Yacoubian is presently Chairman of the AGBU AYA
Damascus Executive Committee and is chairing the Executive Body of
the Armenian Orthodox Church Diocese of Damascus. Mr. Yacoubian holds
a BS in Civil Engineering degree from the University of Illinois.

Established in 1906, AGBU () is the world’s largest
non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City
with an annual budget of $34 million, AGBU preserves and promotes
the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and
humanitarian programs, annually serving some 400,000 Armenians in
35 countries.

–Boundary_(ID_za+W/VtIm5E3/C00an/gdQ) —

UK, US AND ISRAELI STATE TERRORISM AND WESTERN HOLOCAUST DENIAL
By Gideon Polya

CounterCurrents.org, India
Dec 20 2006

Holocaust denial is repugnant because it denies the horrendous
suffering of those who died; it adds to the continuing suffering of
their surviving, grieving families and descendants; and it threatens
repetition of such atrocities because History ignored yields History
repeated. Indeed for these reasons denial of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust
(6 million victims) is illegal in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,
Israel and Switzerland and the WW1 Armenian Genocide (1.5 million
victims) is variously being criminalized in Belgium and France.

There has been much legitimate criticism of the recent Teheran
Holocaust Conference because of the suggestion of Holocaust denial
implicit in such an event and the attendance of some notorious,
right-wing holocaust deniers or revisionists. Yet Holocaust Denial is
exactly what racist, lying Western academics, politicians and media
have been guilty of in relation to past and present Western-imposed
Holocausts in Asian countries, including India.

Thus Western academics, journalists and politicians generally IGNORE
the WW2 man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India that killed 4
million – it was associated with a 1940s demographic deficit of 10
million, horrendous military and civilian sexual abuse of starving
Indian women and girls, and may have been due to a deliberate,
cold-blooded British scorched earth policy to discourage Japanese
invasion from Burma. This Bengal Holocaust became a Forgotten
Holocaust – it has been deleted from most British history books and
from general public perception in a continuing process of egregious
Holocaust Denial. Yet it was to the WW2 Bengal Famine that the
word "Holocaust" was first applied – in 1944 by Jog, N.G. (1944),
Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay) (see:
/ ).

The West has gone so far as to criminalize Holocaust Denial in
relation to the Jewish Holocaust in many Western European countries
(arguably a good thing) – but it exhibits entrenched Holocaust
Denial in relation to Indian and Asian Holocausts. Thus racist,
lying Western Mainstream media ignore the 1.5 billion excess deaths
during the brutal British occupation of India, and 18 million excess
deaths due to US Asian Wars – and they continue to ignore and deny
horrendous Asian excess deaths due to British State Terrorism, US
State Terrorism and UK-US-backed Israeli State Terrorism (for a recent
analysis entitled "Bush & Blair Holocaust Commission and Denial" see:
).

Some key Western-complicit "excess death" estimates derived
from authoritative sources such as the UN Population Division,
UNICEF, WHO and the top medical literature (e.g. see WHO:
; UNODC:
; UNICEF: ; UN Population Division:
) are given below

1. Global Muslim Holocaust. The post-1950 global avoidable mortality
totals 1.3 billion including 0.6 billion avoidable deaths in the
Muslim World – 100 times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust
(6 million victims) or the contemporaneous but forgotten man-made
Bengal Famine in British-ruled India (4 million victims and a 1940s
demographic deficit in Bengal of over 10 million). There have been
18 million excess deaths associated with post-1950 US Asian wars;
post-1950 excess deaths and undr-5 infant deaths in countries occupied
by Israel total 24 million and 17 million, respectively.

US-Israeli State terrorism and UK-US State Terrorism come at a
terrible human cost – thus, as detailed below, post-invasion excess
deaths in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories
total 3.3 million but in comparison 7,000 Western civilians have
been murdered by Muslim-origin non-state terrorists over the
last 40 years (including Israelis and making the very arguable
assumption of no American or Israeli complicity in 9/11) (see:
/ ).

2. The post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian,
Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 0.3, 0.9 and 2.1 million,
respectively – 60% infants, mostly Women and Children and
largely due to Occupier violation of the Geneva, Universal Human
Rights, Genocide and Rights of the Child Conventions that demand
unequivocally that Occupiers keep their Conquered Subjects ALIVE
(see: Geneva Conventions: ; Geneva
Conventions relative to protection of Civilians in time of war:
; UN Genocide Convention:
enocide/convention.html
; UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
; UN Rights of the Child
Convention: ).

3. Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocides – the Palestinian, Iraqi
and Afghan Holocausts. There are about 6 million Palestinian refugees;
about 80,000 flee their Homeland each year; about 80% of West Bank
Christian Arabs have fled; 3.5 million Occupied Palestinians have been
imprisoned by Israel in abusive, illegal and traumatizing conditions
for nearly 40 years; 1.5 million Israeli Arabs are subject to racial
discrimination including the requirement fro compulsory carriage of
race-specifying ID (cf Nazi era Europe).

The UN estimates that 2 million Iraqis have fled their Homeland
and about 100,000 are fleeing US-occupied Iraq each month. There
are about 3.7 million Afghan refugees. Consult UNICEF (see:
) and you will discover that roughly 0.5 million
under-5 year old infants die each year in these Occupied Territories
i.e. 1,300 daily (e.g. on Christmas Day) or one per minute. This is
egregious Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention (see:
e/convention.html ).

US-Israeli State Terrorists (USISTs) and Racist Zionists (RZs)
have been obscenely exploiting the horrendous reality of the
Jewish Holocaust and have also been actively promoting anti-Arab
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Asian xenophobia that is now
entrenched in the West. As shown by the above statistics, the Racist
Zionists (RZs) and the Racist Bush-ites (RBs) – most notably the
Racist Religious Right Republican (R4) Bush-ites and the Bush-ites of
US lackeys such as the UK and Racist White Australia – are involved
in egregious Holocaust Commission AND Holocaust denial.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific
career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text
"Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor &
Francis, New York & London, 2003). He is a Melbourne scientist
and writer and is currently editing a completed book on global
avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be
found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his
websites: and
) .

tm

RAUL KHAJIMBA DECLARES WAR TO ARMENIANS

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 19 2006

Anti-Armenian mood has increased in Abkhazia, APA reports quoting to
Georgian press. Local population worries about the case that Armenians
had appropriated the high positions in Abkhazia.

It should be noted that, the building of Armenian representatives
in Sukhumi was exploded last year, and the analogical explosion
occurred in Armenian schools later. After the explosion the paper
written on the slogans against Armenians were glued on the walls. At
that time Armenians demanded Sergey Bagapsh to give an explanation
about the recent events and these demands resulted in president
of false organization apologized to Armenian nation. The article
"Raul Khajimba calls for Abkhazia to clean from Armenians" published
in Georgia press stressed that the divergences of the idea between
Raul Khajimba and Sergey Bagapsh appeared after the explosion of the
building of Armenian Office in Sukhumi. According to the author’s
ideas, Raul Khajimba accused Sergey Bagapsh in pro-Armenianism.

"Bagapsh could not blame Khajimba for pro-Armenianism. Khajimba
removed hundreds of Armenian families from Gagra territory after
the war in Ardzinba period. The reason of the Khajimba’s losing
the support of Armenian electors was connected with this case. As
Armenians dissatisfied with Khajimba, they supported Sergey Bagapsh
in the elections."

Georgian press notes that after being elected as the president Sergey
Bagapsh supported and strengthened Armenians’ position in the country.

"Today though Abkhazian people fill the most important positions in the
country, Armenians governs the country. Armenians owned the properties
of Abkhazia being backed by Sergey Bagapsh. Abkhazia already became
Armenian. Armenians have big sum of money, and money is strong power."

The author of the article noted that Raul Khajimba is concerned over
the fact that Armenians took the control of everything.

"Khajimba loves Abkhaz nation, he hates Georgians. Bagapsh can not
be compared with Khajimba in this issue; the main task for Bagapsh
is his personal earning. Armenians plan to pay lots of money and to
take control over the coast of the Black Sea. They are in a step of
achieving their goal to get access to the black Sea. " The article
does not rule out armed confrontation of Armenians and Abkhazians.

"If Armenian-Abkhazia war breaks out, Abkhazians can not hope for
Russia’s support. Only the nations of North Caucasus can support
Abkhazians in this issue. " The article also states that Raul Khajimba
blames Premier Ankvab for protecting Armenians.

"According to the investigations, the removing process of Abkhazians
to the coasts of the Black Sea has already begun. At present, the
number of Abkhazians living in Abkhazia decreased to 25 000, but the
number of Armenians living in Abkhazia is over 100 000. Using their
majority Armenians try to bring their favorites to elective bodies.

Sergey Bagapsh supports Armenians, but Raul Khajimba does not let it
happen."

EU HOPES FOR MORE PROGRESS ON KARABAKH
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 18 2006

The European Union hopes that that Armenia and Azerbaijan will keep up
the fresh "momentum" in their efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict despite the upcoming Armenian parliamentary elections,
a senior EU diplomat said late Sunday.

"I hope, of course, that the momentum that we have seen building again
in the peace process over the last few weeks will be maintained,"
the EU’s special representative to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby,
said before Monday’s talks with Armenian leaders in Yerevan.

Semneby was commenting on President Robert Kocharian’s Friday
statements that all but ended hopes for the signing of a
Armenian-Azerbaijani framework agreement in the coming months.

"Before the elections to the National Assembly, there will be no
active negotiating process," Kocharian said. He claimed that "even
the best" peace deal would be exploited by his political opponents
ahead of the polls due in May.

Azerbaijan seized upon the remarks to accuse Armenia of dragging out
the peace process. "It looks as though the Armenian side is stalling
for time," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev’s chief foreign policy
aide, Novruz Mamedov, said on Sunday. "The president of Armenia wants
to subordinate the negotiation process to his political interests
and is trying to score points ahead of the upcoming parliamentary
and presidential elections."

Another Azerbaijani official, Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov,
said: "Neither Yerevan, nor the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
have so far informed Baku about the Armenian side’s intention to
suspend negotiations due to the upcoming elections in Armenia."

The issue was on the agenda of Semneby’s meeting with Kocharian. A
statement by the latter’s press office said the two men discussed
the "latest developments" in the negotiating peace process but gave
no details.

Aliev and Kocharian reported further progress towards Karabakh peace
following their last face-to-face talks held in Belarusian capital
Minsk on November 28. The talks raised fresh hopes for a peaceful
solution to the conflict.

While in Yerevan, Semneby also met with Arkady Ghukasian, president
of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). The envoy
indicated afterwards that the EU would like to step up direct contacts
with the Karabakh Armenians, saying that they are "very important." "I
regret that until now we have not had sufficient contacts of this
kind," he told reporters.

Semneby also sought to tone down EU criticism of the December
10 referendum in Karabakh on a constitution that declares the
disputed territory an independent state. The bloc as well as two
other pan-European organizations joined Azerbaijan in branding the
vote illegitimate.

Ghukasian on Monday rejected the criticism as "illogical." "I think
that the international community should on the contrary contribute
to the democratic processes that are taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh,"

"That [international] reaction should not be construed as a negative
attitude to democratic processes in Nagorno-Karabakh," Semneby said.

"We realize that there is a high degree of democratic culture in
Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a positive thing.

"As for the referendum, it has other key aspects with which we can
not agree. Namely, the fact that it predetermines issues, including
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, that need to be resolved during
negotiations."

Eurovision Song Contest, Netherlands
Dec 16 2006

What’s going on in Armenia?

Earlier in the year, a representative of Armenian Television told
esctoday.com that Armenia would have a national final for Eurovision
2007, with semi finals held in December – however, now over halfway
through December, this seems unlikely to happen. So where does
Armenia go from now?
Last year ARMtv chose Andre internally, based on his receiving
several awards at the National Music Awards, the largest and most
important music awards ceremony in Armenia each year. This year Andre
got another award, a special award for being the first ever Armenian
singer at Eurovision.

Other major award winners were Hayko, who won ‘Best Singer Of The
Year’ (the award that led ARMtv to select Andre last year), Hasmik
Karapetayan and Emmi shared the ‘Best Female Singer Of The Year’
award, Tigran Petrosyan won Best Album, Hayer won Best Pop Group,
Empyray were the Best Rock Act, Arman Hovhannisan & Arminka won Best
Duo, and Hayk won Best Song for Kamin Pchi.

If ARMtv decide to once again follow the results of the National
Music Awards to select their 2007 singer, we could very well see one
of the aforementioned in Helsinki!

MANVEL SARGSYAN: THERE IS NO SMELL OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN SOUTH CAUCASUS YET

PanARMENIAN.Net
14.12.2006 14:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "There are separate activity lines in South Caucasus
region: it is the already mentioned EU program, that is the European
Neighborhood Policy.

Here I have to underline the fact of separate communication vectors
between the EU and regional states. The European Union also has been
lured by the predilections of individual initiatives of the regional
states," told Manvel Sargsyan, the head of ‘Kavkaz’ analytical center
during the interview to the PanARMENIAN.Net. In his words, there is no
smell of regional integration in South Caucasus, instead tendencies
of separate integration lines are observed between EU programs and
the regional countries. "In the current period of global changes
the civilized world goes to any experiments for the sake to preserve
universal stability and encourage the growth of political quality of
subjects in the whole world," he stressed.

On his opinion, the old principles of stability providing system work
worse and worse and it is necessary to find methods to transform global
order on the bases of less destructive processes not to allow to appear
different uncontrollable territories. "We notice, that these issues
occupy more and more place in the policies of Western countries. And
the South Caucasus, in this regard, is not the biggest problem.

We should not also forget about the chain of disruptiveness – Iraq,
Iran and Lebanon. The Caucasian problems are less local. Still there is
one more moment – the relationship of Caucasian states with Russia. For
example, Russia has already put a question in front of Armenia – make
your choice. And what it means is difficult to understand not only
for the people of our region but also for Russia herself. I do not
think that anybody fully understands what is right, what is not. The
work is going on as a habit, and the characters of reciprocal demands
do not display well-shaped logic: this is the specific character of
period of changes. From time to time we notice that the presidents of
regional countries just do not understand how to behave, what others
want from them. There is no iron logic – there are only amorphous
approaches and bad knowledge of own interests," Sargsyan underlined.

IS SEFILIAN ONE OF KARABAKH LIBERATORS OR FOREIGN CITIZEN?
By Marieta Khachatrian

AZG Armenian Daily
13/12/2006

The statement disseminated by RA Defense Ministry aroused certain
concerns yesterday. According to that statement, the U.S. sources have
definite proofs that Lebanese citizen Zhirayr Sefilian and his allies,
in particular, "The Union of Armenian Volunteers" organization, are
aimed to hinder the coming elections by committing extremist acts. It
was emphasized in the statement that the members of the abovementioned
organization called for taking certain steps sparing no forcible
methods for seizing the power in the republic. The statement is full of
various characterizations of Sefilian, who fought in the Karabakh war
in 1990s, is a commander who was awarded the Battle Cross medal. In
particular, in the statement he is called a foreign who is financed
by untrustworthy sources, a person who strives for having political
adventures. Besides, according to the statement, on December 10 the
relevant U.S. forces arrested Sefilian and instituted a criminal case
against Vardan Malkhasian, one of the leaders of the organization.

Yesterday, at "Armenia-Marriott" hotel, Aram Karapetian, leader of
"Nor Zhamanakner" opposition party and Samvel Haroutiunian, member
of "The Union of the Armenian Volunteers" initiative, as well as MP
Hmayak Hovhannisian, represented the details of the arrest. According
to them, Sefilian was arrested during the restaurant party organized by
"Vivacell."

In particular, on December 9, 15 members of the law enforcement bodies
in masks entered the hall, made everybody lay down on the floor, even
the pregnant wife of Sefilian, his friend and the wife of his friend
and arrested Sefilian. On the same day, about 40 members of initiative
were arrested, but were released few hours later. H. Hovhannisian
stated that on December 2, during the sitting nobody called for the
committing violence. He added that he will appeal to the Prosecutor’s
Office, and institute a criminal prosecution against 17 people
who held speeches at the sitting, including him. The opposition
representatives, present to the sitting, were mainly concerned that
all the abovementioned facts as well as the statement by the USA imply
deporting Mr. Sefilian in the same manner as Vahagn Chakhalian. The
opposition parliamentarians said that such state of things reminds
of the repressions of 1937 and may rouse the people’s hatred towards
the authorities.

Deputies Paruyr Hayrikian, Grigor Harutiunian, Michael Apresian,
Raphael Ghazarian and Garnik Margarian proposed to address the
Government a petition requesting to set the detainees free and grant
Armenian citizenship to Sefilian and thus prevent his deportation.

All these, considered in context with the possible suppression of
the Karabakh problem, the contradictory statements of the Armenian
and Azerbaijani sides, the adoption of the Constitution in Karabakh
(which delimitates the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and
proclaims all its territories intangible), can make one think that
those events are linked somehow. Most probably Armenia’s firmness
in its intention not to yield its historical territories and the
constitutional definition of Karabakh’s borders force the international
structures and interested countries accept the present state of things
in Karabakh.

P.S. In the late evening we were informed by Sefilian’s lawyer that the
Government had made decision to deport Mr. Sefilian to Aleppo. "But
the authorities did not take two things into consideration," said
the lawyer, "first that Sefilian’s Lebanese passport is outdated
and that his wife is the assistant of the Lebanese Ambassador to
Armenia. Therefore Sefilian is subject to the articles of the Geneva
Convention".