Author: Nahapetian Zhanna

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone 212.319.6383 x.118
Fax 212.319.6507
Email [email protected]
Website
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 21, 2005
AGBU GENERATION NEXT OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES OF A LIFETIME TO LEARN
& SUCCEED
Pasadena, CA – In its eighth year, AGBU Generation Next continues its
mission to help students of Armenian descent in the Glendale Unified
School District (GUSD) by pairing them with mentors who will guide
them towards a brighter future. This mentoring relationship introduces
young Armenians to new experiences and alternatives, enabling them
to become responsible, self-sufficient, and independent adults.
Arlette Der Hovanessian, the Program Manager of the GUSD Project GRACE
(Glendale Refugee & Asylee Children Excel), is a firm believer in
AGBU Generation Next and its ability to effectively coach students
carefully selected by GUSD for mentoring. “I am a true advocate of
Generation Next and Project GRACE is trying to provide as much support
as possible to this worthwhile youth program,” she says.
Over the years, she has seen the program mentor over a hundred
students ranging from the seventh to the eleventh grades. “AGBU
Generation Next gives them positive role models and reinforces the
value system we already have as a community. We know we can always
motivate youngsters to achieve more,” Der Hovanessian explains.
Instrumental to the success of this program is the steadfast dedication
of the limited number of mentors (age 21 and over), who commit time
and energy every week.
AGBU Generation Next Director, Susanna Sahakian emphasizes the
importance of good mentors, “As we all know, mentoring has always
been a significant part of peoples’ lives. But today, mentoring has
become a necessity in our teenagers’ lives. That is why I would like
to encourage all those who are interested in being helpful in our
community to join our organization and become a mentor to a teenager
to assure a better future for our community and the world.”
This season, AGBU Generation Next kicked off its program with an arts
& crafts event in November and has since organized a diverse array of
activities, including a Christmas party, an excursion to the local zoo,
and a trip to the Los Angeles Connection Comedy Theatre.
Established in 1997, AGBU Generation Next is a mentorship program
whose mission is to serve the Armenian youth of Southern California by
providing personal and academic guidance. To receive more information
about the program or to request an application to become a mentor,
please call 626-794-7942 or email [email protected].

Richard Kalinoski’s intimate account of Armenian genocide comes to NY
By JERRY TALLMER
Gay City News, NY
April 21 2005
The Shelter of Love
The horrors are planted so deep, they all but wreck the marriage
before it begins for Aram Tomasian and Seta, the child bride that
Tomasian, as she calls him, had imported from Istanbul to Milwaukee
in 1921. It was in fact another girl’s photograph that had been sent
to him-he himself, Aram Tomasian, was an up-and-coming photographer
in Milwaukee-but Seta wasn’t bad looking, she was quiet, so she’d do.
Except for the nightmares. When Tomasian saw his wife driving nails
into the arms of her doll, he thought she was crazy. But then it came
out. Seta found her tongue. “My mother nailed into wood-crucified
by the Turks-because she would not forsake her God! My sister raped.
Because I was a child, I was left.”
And then it also came out, from her husband, her stiff strange husband,
who cut the heads off his family photographs. On another day, back
in that other country, he had run from his hiding place, a hole in
the floor, out into the backyard where his mother had a clothesline
for the wash, and on that clothesline the Turks had hung the heads
of his mother, his father, his sister, his brother, everybody.
Ninety years ago this month, on April 24, 1915, a genocide that would
result in the deaths of a million and a half Armenians at the hands
of the Turks began-the slaughter that Hitler cited as prelude to his
own. Yet, who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?
On April 27, the New York City premiere of a play called “Beast on
the Moon”-having to date been seen in 17 other countries and some
45 American cities-takes place. The piece is now in previews at the
Century Center for the Performing Arts, on East 15th Street.
It’s a play about the Armenian genocide. But apart from all the
horrors, the man who wrote it wants to stress, this is a love
story-Aram and Seta’s story-showing what people can make of their
lives even with all these horrible things.
The writer’ name is Richard Kalinoski, and his own blood, he said the
other day, is “one-half Polish American, about one-quarter Irish,
some German in there, and some other stuff I don’t know.” Nothing
Armenian. But from 1972 until a divorce in 1979, Kalinoski was
married to an Armenian-American woman from Racine, Wisconsin, whose
grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915.
“Her grandmother was a sweet, charming, compelling woman who spoke
Armenian and had herself been a child bride of 14 or 15, ostensibly
plucked from some orphanage in Istanbul,” Kalinoski recalled. “She
had struggled in her own life, against a dictatorial husband, for
the opportunity and the right to learn to read. I like to think an
image of her lives on in Seta.”
Back in 1972, Kalinoski-“wanting to explore what I call courage
in the face of the beast, especially the courage in some women to
cope quietly, and sometimes not so quietly”-had, on the basis of
interviews with members of his then-wife’s family, written a “very
different, very much more literal” play about the Armenian genocide.
It was called “Lifeline,” but it did not have a life.
In 1991, when Kalinoski was teaching playwriting and English at
Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, a colleague who read that
earlier play and “had said to me: ‘There’s something powerful there,
maybe you should revisit these people.'”
Kalinoski conducted as many interviews as he could with thoughtful
Armenian Americans in Rochester-“a small community with only one
church, and not even a church building”-and came up with the central
dramatic idea of a child bride.
He also started reading: Michael Arlen’s “Passage to Ararat,”
Franz Werfel’s “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” the dispatches of Hans
Morgenthau, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and poet Peter Balakian’s
“The Black Dog of Fate.”
The actors in the New York premiere are Omar Metwally, Louis Zorich,
Matthew Borish, and, as Seta, Lena Georgas.
About the crucifixion of Seta’s mother:
“Lots of survivors have told how the Turkish gendarmes liked to make
examples out of Christians, and there is evidence of crucifixions. I
would not say it was common,” Kalinoski said, “but I have seen
photographs of it. Also of decapitations.”
How come it has taken “Beast in the Moon” so long to get to New York?
“Well, we could do a whole interview about that. Just let me say
that along the way I had some terrible offers, where I would not be
part of the artistic process. So I said no, a lot. Some were so bad,
it was easy to say no. Though I desperately wanted New York.”
Two people who have been instrumental in bringing it here are
co-producer David Grillo, who fell in love with the show when, as an
actor, he played Aram in a 1998 New Repertory Theater production in
Newton Square, Massachusetts, and director Larry Moss, who, said the
playwright, “in launch week of rehearsals here proved to be a source
of epiphany and revelation in everything regarding the play.”
Kalinoski has never yet been to Armenia, but he is going there soon,
to Yerevan, where on July 6 two productions of “Beast on the Moon”
are to open, one by the Moscow Art Theater and one by the Armenian
State Youth Theater.

States and others that have diplomatic relations with the Vatican
The Associated Press
04/19/05 12:48 EDT
The Holy See has diplomatic relations with 174 countries:
Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina,
Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh,
Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia,
Cameroon.
Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China,
Colombia, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic,
East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea,
Estonia, Ethiopia.
Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana,
Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti,
Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland,
Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya,
Kiribati, Kuwait.
Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Malta,
Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco,
Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands,
New Zealand.
Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New
Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic
of Congo, Romania, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal.
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon
Islands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Surinam,
Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand,
Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan,
Uganda.
Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan,
Vanuatu, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
The Vatican also has diplomatic relations with the European Union and
the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and maintains “relations of a
special nature” with Russia and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Armenia to mark Ottoman slayings, predicts 1.5 million turnout for march
by Simon Ostrovsky
Agence France Presse — English
April 19, 2005 Tuesday 2:57 AM GMT
YEREVAN April 19 — Armenia marks the 90th anniversary Sunday of
mass killings by the Ottoman Turks, a slaughter that is among the
most painful episodes of Armenia’s ages-old history and that remains
a monumental impediment to modern relations between Armenia and Turkey.
Organizers have planned a week of events to commemorate the killings
and have laid on a program that culminates Sunday in a solemn march
that authorities predicted would be attended by 1.5 million people,
including thousands of diaspora Armenians expected to attend.
“We expect 1.5 million people to participate in the memorial march
to symbolize the number of victims of the genocide on April 24,”
said Aram Simonian, one the event’s organizers.
Although the entire population of this country nestled in the Caucausus
mountains bordering Iran, Turkey and Georgia does not exceed three
million, Simonian said many ethnic Armenians who reside in France,
the United States and elsewhere would visit their ancestral homeland
for the occasion.
Armenia hopes that the march and other events leading up to the
anniversary this weekend will draw attention to the massacres and
put pressure on Turkey to recognize them as a genocide.
It was on April 24, 1915 that the Ottoman Turkish authorities arrested
some 200 Armenian community leaders in the start of what Armenia
and many other countries say was an organized genocidal campaign to
eliminate ethnic Armenians from the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire,
the predecessor of modern Turkey, was falling apart.
Ankara counters that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were
killed in “civil strife” during World War I when the Armenians rose
against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
Armenia hopes also to draw international attention to its cause as
Turkey bids to join the European Union (EU), saying it should face
up to its past before joining the bloc.
“We would very much like it if this issue was raised by this
organization (the EU) as a prerequisite,” Armenia’s Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian said recently.
Ankara has shown more willingness to review its history in the face
of this week’s events which are potentially damaging to its image
and its EU accession talks.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed recently the
creation of a joint Armenian-Turkish commission to review the issue,
though officials expressed confidence that the study would confirm
Turkey’s current position.
“Turkey is ready to face its history, Turkey has no problem with its
history,” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
The killings have already been acknowledged as genocide by a number
of countries, including France, Canada and Switzerland but have not
been recognized as genocide by Israel and the United States which
enjoy strong strategic relations with Turkey.
Ankara recognized Armenia’s independence when it broke away from the
Soviet Union in 1991 but has refused to establish diplomatic relations
with Yerevan because of Armenian efforts to secure international
condemnation of the World War I massacres as genocide.
In 1993, Turkey shut its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity
with its close ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with Armenia over
the Nagorny-Karabakh enclave, dealing a heavy economic blow on the
impoverished nation.
Armenia plans to hold a series of seminars, exhibitions, film
screenings and concerts in the lead up to Sunday’s march when churches
throughout the mountainous republic will hold memorial services.

L’Express , France
18 avril 2005
Mag cinéma; Pg.60 N. 2807
Les Mauvais Joueurs de Frédéric Balekdjian
par Liban Laurence
Plongée en apnée dans le quartier du Sentier, creuset de magouilles,
d’illégalités consubstantielles et de violences sans états d’âme,
ce film âpre et nerveux donne à voir le Paris esclavagiste de la
confection clandestine, où la vie, chaque jour, est un combat. Plans
courts, heurtés, lumières fluo des nuits artificielles, images
contrastées, tout concourt à mettre en mouvement cette mosaïque de
communautés de réfugiés, arméniens et chinois en particulier, jouets
de petites mafias aux longs couteaux.
Exceptionnels de justesse et de talent, les acteurs – le trio Simon
Abkarian, Pascal Elbé, Isaac Shary en tête – rendent crédibles et
bouleversants ces règlements de comptes. Et, plus encore, ce nécessaire
coup de projecteur sur une réalité socio-économique dont les crimes
se déroulent sous nos yeux, exactement.
–Boundary_(ID_/D7vI7J7OwCIP21UtOu8cw)–

Die Welt, Deutschland
19 April 2005
At the Armenian Cemetery
Auf dem armenischen Friedhof
Kolumne
von Hannes Stein
Am kommenden Sonntag ist der 24. April. Ich werde auf dem armenischen
Friedhof in Jerusalem stehen, umringt von Leuten, die an den
Völkermord denken, der vor genau 90 Jahren begann. Eineinhalb
Millionen Armenier ließ die Regierung des Osmanischen Reiches 1915
ff. “ins Nichts deportieren”. Die Todesarten waren vielfältig:
verdurstet, erschlagen, ertrunken, erfindungsreich gefoltert. Ja,
auch Frauen, auch Kinder.
Der armenische Patriarch wird den Weihrauchkübel schwenken, seine
Mönche werden Gebete in einer Sprache sprechen, die ich nicht
verstehe. Vielleicht werden sie singen. Wenn die Armenier Choräle
singen, fliegt einem glatt die Seele weg. Mein Freund George, dessen
Vater den Genozid überstand – Gott weiß, wie und warum -, wird ein
bißchen verlegen lächelnd daneben stehen. Ich hoffe, daß ein Mitglied
der israelischen Regierung seinen Weg auf den armenischen Friedhof
finden wird: auch wenn der erste Tag des Passahfestes ist, auch wenn
Israel mit der Türkei (die das Verbrechen bis heute beharrlich
leugnet) Waffenbrüderschaft geschlossen hat.
Heiß wird es sein auf diesem christlichen Friedhof in Jerusalem. Und
mir werden ein paar von den Juden einfallen, die in den Armeniern
schon früh ihre niedergemetzelten Brüder und Schwestern erkannt
haben. An erster Stelle Raphael Lemkin, der vergessene Vater der
Anti-Genozid-Konvention der UNO: Als junger Rechtsanwalt beim
polnischen Sejm hörte er von dem damals noch präzedenzlosen Massaker
und forderte in Madrid vor dem Völkerbund ein Gesetz gegen solche
Menschheitsverbrechen. Und natürlich Franz Werfel, dessen Roman “Die
vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh” 1933 gerade rechtzeitig herauskam, um
unter dem Gejohle deutscher Studenten verbrannt zu werden. In diesem
Buch zeichnet zum ersten Mal ein Schriftsteller das “arktische
Gesicht” des 20. Jahrhunderts nach.
Auch an den beklemmend-großartigen Bericht des Henry Morgenthau sen.
werde ich mich erinnern, der als Botschafter Amerikas zum Zeugen des
Verbrechens wurde. Glauben Sie bitte den Goebbelsschen Lügen über
seinen Sohn nicht, der F.D. Roosevelt als Finanzminister diente: Es
war keineswegs “alttestamentarische Härte”, die ihn in den vierziger
Jahren eine strenge Bestrafung der Nazis fordern ließ. Nein, es war
der Umstand, daß er in einem Haus aufwuchs, in dem über das Schicksal
der Armenier gesprochen wurde. Im Geist werde ich mich vor Edgar
Hilsenrath verneigen, dessen “Märchen vom letzten Gedanken” jetzt
endlich vom Dittrich-Verlag neu gedruckt wurde. “Es war einmal ein
letzter Gedanke”, heißt es in diesem wunderbaren Roman. “Der saß in
einem Angstschrei und hatte sich dort versteckt.”
Menachem Begin mit der Hornbrille und dem schmalen Mund wird in
meinem Kopf auftauchen. Derselbe, der als Ministerpräsident den
israelischen Einmarsch in den Libanon befahl. Nebbich. Als junger
Mann saß Begin im Gulag, seine halbe Familie verlor er an die Nazis,
und einmal sagte er: “Wenn ich einem Armenier in die Augen schaue,
sehe ich einen Juden.” Noch mehr aber wird mich ein Satz von Israel
Zangwill beschäftigen, dem Autor des kleinen, feinen Schelmenromans
“Der König der Schnorrer”. Israel Zangwill schrieb anno 1915: “Heute
hat Gott den Juden die Dornenkrone abgenommen und sie dem armenischen
Volk aufgesetzt.” Wie hätte er auch ahnen sollen, daß Hitler und
seine willigen Helfer in ganz Europa sie schon bald wieder den Juden
aufs Haupt drücken würden?
An all diese Menschen werde ich auf dem Armenierfriedhof in Jerusalem
denken. Und an all die Toten. Und an die Geschlachteten in der
sudanesischen Provinz Darfur, für die sich schon wieder kein Schwein
interessiert. Und still sein.
Artikel erschienen am Di, 19. April 2005
–Boundary_(ID_rzAPd9uYqrGQZsy/ZgpNdA)–

Iranian TV praises Jewish MP’s stance condemning “Zionist regime’s” behaviour
Fars News Agency web site
17 Apr 05
TEHRAN
IRIB [Iranian state radio and TV] in response to the deputy of the
Jewish community in the Majlis [Morris Mo’tamed] has announced: In the
beginning of his statements, while referring to the inappropriate
behaviour of the Zionist regime, he condemns such a behaviour by
Iranian Jews. He and our Jewish fellow countrymen should therefore be
praised for believing in the fight against Zionism and defending
Iran’s stance in this respect.
The letter continues: The policies of the national media [IRIB], as Mr
Mo’tamed is aware, is based on the constitution, as well as the
supreme leader’s guidelines and the approved legal frameworks.
Concerning religious minorities, it should be reminded that the main
policy of the national media is to observe minorities’ rights and
respecting their beliefs. The programme made on the life of Martyr
Araglian, which was praised by the Armenian community in Iran, is an
example in this regard.
The letter then explains: The objective behind preparation and
broadcast of televised programmes, which are based on research and
documents, are to enlighten people on different phenomena and
problems; So that the audience can have a sound evaluation of
issues. In such televised programmes, there is no intention to insult
any social group or individual. Therefore, positive and negative
figures may be portrayed next to each other. Undoubtedly, the final
objective is to express the realities and not to highlight certain
individuals.
In the film entitled “Conspiracy and great escape” the positive and
negative Jewish characters were both involved. If we have a realistic
assessment, we will see that positive characters were highlighted
further. Undoubtedly, such an outlook by IRIB to deal with realities
will be true for all religions with positive and negative
personalities.
In continuation, the letter indicates that some active IRIB artists
and programme-makers are religious minorities themselves. [Passage
omitted: on artists creativity]
As a conclusion, the letter refers to the meeting of the Jewish
religious figures with the head of IRIB which was held in an
atmosphere of friendship and respect at the presence of the Jewish
Majlis deputy, which led to a satisfactory result. It reminded: In the
year of national solidarity [this Iranian calendar year starting from
21 March] we are attempting to align the national media policies with
desires of all our fellow countrymen including religious
minorities. We therefore hope to benefit from their advice in this
respect.

La Stampa, Italia
Venerdì Il 15 Aprile 2005
A 90 ANNI DAL GENOCIDIO, ANCHE LA TURCHIA DEVE FARE I CONTI CON LE
PROPRIE RESPONSABILITA’ Armeni, il primo buco nero del ‘900
Rizzo Aldo
Aldo Rizzo APRILE 1915. Novant’anni fa. Comincia una tragedia
epocale, in quello che e’ ancora per poco l’Impero ottomano. Un
genocidio, dicono gli armeni, che ne furono vittime. L’altra Shoah,
dicono in Occidente coloro che paragonano quei terribili eventi allo
sterminio nazista degli ebrei. Di certo, uno dei grandi buchi neri
del Novecento, cronologicamente il primo.
Al quale finalmente, dopo una lunga e diffusa amnesia internazionale,
viene ora dedicato un Giorno della Memoria, il 24 di questo mese. La
nuova Turchia non si associa, ma per la prima volta, pressata
dall’Unione Europea, nella quale aspira a entrare, abbandona la linea
di un’ostinata autodifesa e si dice pronta a un confronto, storico e
culturale. Un primo passo, al quale altri, piu’ netti, dovranno
seguire.
La scelta del 24 aprile ha due significati, tragicamente intrecciati.
Segna per gli armeni il ricordo di un momento eroico, e glorioso,
della loro storia, la disperata resistenza alla repressione turca
nella citta’ orientale di Van e la sua momentanea vittoria; ma anche
l’inizio della vera e propria campagna di sterminio, condotta da quel
momento in poi dal governo di Costantinopoli con la fredda e crudele
determinazione di un impero morente, che scatenava su una minoranza
incolpevole la rabbia del declino e la velleita’ di arrestarlo, o
d’invertirlo. Al termine della battaglia di Van, i militari russi
sopraggiunti raccolsero e cremarono 55 mila corpi di armeni, sparsi
per tutta la provincia. Quando i russi si ritirarono, l’esercito
turco, invece d’inseguirli, si avvento’ contro cio’ che restava della
popolazione locale, dando inizio a una spietata campagna globale, che
sarebbe durata almeno due anni e che sarebbe costata, per la
minoranza armena dell’impero, un milione e mezzo di morti.
Traggo questi dati da un libro straordinario di Henri Morgenthau, che
fu ambasciatore degli Stati Uniti a Costantinopoli (l’odierna
Istanbul) dal 1913 al 1916 e che, come rappresentante di un paese
ancora neutrale nella Grande Guerra, pote’ seguire da vicino quei
tragici eventi, grazie anche ai rapporti dei molti uffici consolari e
alle testimonianze dei missionari cristiani. Il libro, apparso per la
prima volta nel 1918, fu ripubblicato una ventina di anni fa in
Francia, utilizzando anche la diffusione di documenti dell’epoca da
parte del Dipartimento di Stato (Me’moires, Flammarion). Ma, intanto,
perche’ un cosi’ grande odio turco verso gli armeni? Novant’anni fa,
essi, in Turchia, erano circa due milioni e rappresentavano un’isola
cristiana nel mare islamico ottomano. I turchi li sentivano
“”diversi”” anche per una loro maggiore capacita’ di lavoro e di
profitto, rispetto al proprio standard, e la loro identita’, frutto
di una storia antica, ben piu’ di quella turca e islamica, era
avvertita come una minaccia alla coesione dell’impero. Verso la fine
dell’Ottocento, il sultano Abdul Hamid ne aveva sterminati almeno 200
mila, provocando l’indignazione del premier liberale inglese William
Gladstone, che lo defini’ pubblicamente “”un grande assassino””.
L’odio era diventato sempre piu’ grande col progressivo sfaldamento
dell’impero, dalla perdita della Grecia a quella della Bosnia, della
Bulgaria, dell’Egitto, della Libia, di Creta, e ora i fermenti
nazionalistici della comunita’ armena si manifestavano in Anatolia,
all’interno stesso della casamadre. Nel 1913, il potere politico era
passato con un atto di forza ai Giovani Turchi (Enver, Talaat,
Djemal), presunti modernizzatori, in realta’ capi non meno dispotici
e cinici. E fu con loro che si tento’ la “”soluzione finale”” della
questione armena.
Il libro di Morgenthau, oltre che la documentazione di quella
tragedia, e’ un grande racconto della Costantinopoli degli ultimi
anni dell’impero, tra gli estremi sussulti di una potenza ormai
dissanguata e gli intrighi della nuova classe dirigente, dimentica
delle promesse e avida di privilegi. Su questo sfondo, gli intrecci e
gli intrighi della diplomazia mondiale, alla vigilia e nella prima
fase della Grande Guerra, perche’ Costantinopoli significava il
Bosforo e i Dardanelli, e sul controllo degli Stretti, in funzione
antirussa, gli Imperi centrali giocavano una partita cruciale.
Soprattutto la Germania, che era arrivata a stabilire col nuovo
governo turco quasi un rapporto di vassallaggio.
E infatti Morgenthau, che era di origine tedesco-ebraica, vide subito
nell’ambasciatore di Berlino, il barone von Wangenheim, il genio
malefico della situazione, fino ad attribuirgli la paternita’, come
dire, strategica di quello che poi sarebbe stato il massacro degli
armeni. Gli sembrava che fosse poco “”turca”” (benche’ i turchi non
scherzassero), ma piuttosto “”tedesca””, una pianificazione tanto
sistematica dell’annientamento di una minoranza (e anche su questa
osservazione si fondo’ piu’ tardi la teoria di un legame, almeno
metodologico, con l’Olocausto e quasi di un’anticipazione del delirio
hitleriano). L’accusa agli armeni di Turchia fu di connivenza con la
Russia, schierata con gli Alleati d’Occidente e nella quale viveva la
comunita’ armena orientale, dopo la fine dell’occupazione persiana.
Accusa non infondata, ma riguardo a casi circoscritti, certo non tali
da giustificare il piano di sterminio. Che previde la deportazione
degli armeni, da qualunque citta’ in cui abitassero, e qualunque
posizione occupassero, verso il deserto siriano, con l’idea, per
quanto i fatti dimostrarono, di farli morire per strada. E dove non
bastavano le fatiche e gli stenti, provvedevano i fucili e i pugnali
dei soldati turchi. Il bilancio finale, considerato attendibile dagli
storici imparziali, fu, come dicevo, di un milione e mezzo di morti.
Oggi gli armeni turchi sono circa sessantamila, dei due milioni che
erano.
La comunita’ “”russa”” divento’, dopo la rivoluzione sovietica e dopo
vari passaggi, una repubblica dell’Urss, infine acquistando
l’indipendenza nel 1991, dopo il crollo, anche, dell’impero
comunista. Vi vivono circa 3 milioni e mezzo di armeni, quasi
altrettanti appartengono alla diaspora, in varie parti d’Europa,
soprattutto in Francia, e del mondo, e sono politicamente i piu’
duri. Nel 1923, con Mustafa Kemal, detto Ataturk (padre della
patria), sulle rovine dell’impero islamico, la Turchia divento’ una
repubblica laica e occidentalizzante, con Ankara capitale. Ma non per
questo volle mai ammettere la responsabilita’ di un genocidio,
inserendo piuttosto i fatti del 1915-17, e anche oltre, fra le
durezze inevitabili di una guerra mondiale e attribuendo le tante
morti di armeni alla fame e alle malattie.
La suscettibilita’ di Ankara fu grande, ogni qual volta un paese
straniero (la Francia nel 2001 e piu’ blandamente l’Italia) denuncio’
con risoluzioni parlamentari il “”genocidio””, chiedendo che non
passasse in archivio senza un riconoscimento della comunita’
internazionale. D’altronde, la Turchia laica e formalmente
democratica, pur con tante anomalie, era diventata un membro molto
importante della Nato, e la Realpolitik aveva il suo peso.
Ma ora – ecco la svolta – c’e’ una situazione geopolitica del tutto
nuova. Al di la’ della Nato, che e’ un’alleanza militare, peraltro
appannatasi nel dopo-11 settembre, c’e’ una realta’ piu’ contigua e
complessa, l’Unione Europea, anch’essa in difficolta’, ma che
conserva un formidabile “”appeal”” politico-economico per il futuro,
quale che sia. E la Turchia vuole esserne parte, pagando il prezzo
(se cosi’ si puo’ dire, perche’ in realta’ si tratta di un ricavo
forte e stabile) di un adeguamento delle sue leggi allo standard
della democrazia comunitaria.
Il prezzo include una rivisitazione, finora ostinatamente elusa,
delle sue responsabilita’ storiche di novant’anni fa.
Responsabilita’, se si vuole, non proprio sue, ma di un regime
imperiale defunto, che tuttavia fa parte, e che parte, della sua
memoria storica. Il governo islamista moderato di Erdogan, col
concorso dell’opposizione, ha proposto una commissione mista
(turco-armena) di storici, sperabilmente ad archivi aperti. L’Armenia
indipendente, e la sua residua “”enclave”” turca, ne diffidano,
temono lungaggini e ambiguita’, chiedono, non a torto, altre
iniziative, come l’apertura dei confini e dei commerci. Quanto
all’Unione Europea, essa (a maggioranza) vuole con se’ la moderna
Turchia, ma a certe condizioni, ivi compreso il superamento di quel
primo grande buco nero del Novecento.
GRAPHIC: UNA NAZIONE DISPERSA La questione armena, in parte
paragonabile a quella curda, ha radici antichissime. Gli armeni
abitavano 8 secoli prima di Cristo un’ampia regione dell’Asia minore
(comprendente il monte Ararat, su cui si sarebbe arenata l’Arca di
Noe’). Seguirono varie dominazioni (persiana, romana, bizantina,
mongola, tartara), che tuttavia non cancellarono i tratti di una
cultura autonoma, ivi comprese la lingua e le arti. Nel 1473 la
regione passo’ sotto il dominio ottomano, successivamente dimezzato
dai persiani, a cui seguirono i russi. L’altra meta’ resto’ ai
turchi. Ma gli armeni, diventati cristiani gia’ nel IV secolo (Chiesa
armena gregoriana), si dispersero in vari altri paesi. Nel 1923, alla
conferenza di Losanna, falli’ il progetto di una Grande Armenia
indipendente, per non turbare gli equilibri postbellici. Sarebbe
diventata indipendente, dopo il crollo dell’Urss, l’Armenia russa,
ora in crisi col vicino Azerbaigian per il controllo del
Nagorno-Karabah. Sulle persecuzioni, oltre allo storico libro di
Henri Morgenthau, vedi Storia del genocidio armeno di Vahakn N.
Dadrian (Guerini Associati).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Sunday, April 24
.c The Associated Press
Today is Sunday, April 24, the 114th day of 2005. There are 251 days
left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1521 – Spanish rebels are defeated at Villalar, Spain, and leaders of
anti-Hapsburg movement are executed.
1617 – Concino Concini, Marquis d’Angre, is assassinated by order of
France’s King Louis XIII, and Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, takes
charge of government of France.
1671 – Defeated Cossack rebel leader Stenka Razin is captured by
loyalist Cossacks in Russia and turned over to the czar’s forces.
1704 – The first regularly issued American newspaper starts
publication.
1792 – Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes France’s national
anthem, La Marseillaise.
1877 – American Federal troops are ordered out of New Orleans, ending
the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
1898 – Spain declares war on United States after receiving U.S.
ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1915 – The Ottoman Turkish Empire begins the brutal mass deportation
of Armenians during World War I.
1916 – Some 1,600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter uprising by
seizing several key sites in Dublin. The rising is put down by British
forces several days later.
1953 – British statesman Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
1962 – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves the first
satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks,
California, and Westford, Massachusetts.
1967 – Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when parachute
straps of his spacecraft get entangled, and he plunges to earth.
1969 – Lebanon’s Premier Rashid Karami resigns amid dispute over
government’s restrictions on Palestinian guerrillas.
1970 – China launches its first satellite.
1971 – Soviet cosmonauts link up with unmanned satellite prior to
attempt to build world’s first orbiting space laboratory.
1975 – Terrorists from the German Red Army faction occupy the West
German Embassy in Stockholm, taking 12 people hostage and killing two
of them.
1975 – Thousands of Vietnamese refugees are flown to U.S. island of
Guam as communists move rapidly in their takeover of South Vietnam.
1980 – The United States launches an abortive attempt to free American
hostages in Iran, a mission that results in the deaths of eight
U.S. servicemen. President Jimmy Carter announces the failed mission
to the American people.
1986 – Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, for whom King Edward
VIII gave up the British throne, dies in Paris at age 89.
1989 – Rebels shell eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad, killing at
least 54 people.
1990 – The U.S. space shuttle Discovery takes the Hubble Space
Telescope into orbit.
1991 – South African government announces it will uphold agreement
with African National Congress to free all political prisoners by
April 30.
1992 – OPEC nations reject a demand by Iran for increased production.
1993 – Commandos break into a cockpit of a commandeered Indian
Airlines plane in Amritsar, India, shoot dead the lone hijacker and
free all 141 people aboard.
1994 – Cuban exiles are received by President Fidel Castro, the man
some have long wanted to overthrow.
1995 – The British government upgrades its talks with Sinn Fein, the
political ally of the IRA, by assigning a minister to negotiate.
1996 – The Palestinian parliament declares in Gaza City that it no
longer seeks Israel’s destruction and has abandoned armed struggle.
1997 – Islamist militants armed with sabers and axes strike two
villages in Algeria, butchering 47 people in a pre-election terror
wave that leaves an estimated 420 dead in a few weeks.
1998 – In front of a cheering crowd, 22 Rwandans convicted of genocide
are executed by firing squad in Kigali.
1999 – A car bomb explodes in one of London’s biggest Bangladeshi
communities, injuring seven people. A racist group claims
responsibility.
2000 – Iranian hard-liners close down 14 pro-democracy publications in
a strike against a major pillar of the reform movement.
2001 – A jury is chosen in the murder trial of a former Ku Klux
Klansman charged 38 years after the church bombing that killed four
black girls in Birmingham, Alabama.
2002 – Sweden’s National Food Administration reports that potentially
harmful amounts of a chemical suspected of causing cancer are produced
when certain starchy foods, such as french fries and bread, are baked
or fried at high temperatures.
2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela,
is convicted of fraud and theft by a regional court in Pretoria South
Afria and sentenced to five years in prison. Madikizela-Mandela was
charged with running fraudulent schemes to obtain about $125,000 in
bank loans and insurance payments.
2004 – A U.N. plan to reunite Cyprus collapses when Greek Cypriots
overwhelmingly reject it in a referendum. Turkish Cypriots vote
heavily in favor. The rejection of the plan, which had to be approved
by both communities, means that only Greek Cypriots will enjoy the
benefits of Cyprus’ joining the European Union on May 1.
Today’s Birthdays: Edmund Cartwright, English inventor of first power
loom (1743-1823); Anthony Trollope, English novelist (1814-1882);
Shirley MacLaine, U.S. actress-dancer-author (1934–); Sue Grafton,
U.S. mystery/crime novelist (1940–); Barbra Streisand,
U.S. actress-entertainer (1942–); Eric Bogosian, U.S. actor (1953–);
Cedric the Entertainer, U.S. comedian (1964–).
Thought For Today:
We are what we think. All that we are, arises with our thoughts. With
our thoughts, we make the world – Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
04/16/05 20:01 EDT

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
_________________________________________ ____________________
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 5, No. 15, 14 April 2005
A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics
************************************************************
HEADLINES:
* KHODORKOVSKII CASE IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
* TNK-BP HIT WITH LARGE TAX CLAIM — AGAIN
* BASHKIR OPPOSITION COMES TO MOSCOW
* AIDS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN OFF TO A SLOW START
* RIGHTS GROUP URGES MOSCOW TO REOPEN KATYN MASSACRE
INVESTIGATION
************************************************************
POLITICS
KHODORKOVSKII CASE IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
By Victor Yasmann
The 10-month trial of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii,
Menatep Chairman Platon Lebedev, and former Volna General Director
Andrei Krainov came to a close on 11 April, with Khodorkovskii giving
his final statement to the court. A verdict will be announced on 27
April, Russian media reported.
In his closing remarks, Khodorkovskii said that he
“didn’t make a good oligarch,” and that he had not fled Russia
despite being repeatedly advised to do so. He said that Yukos was the
target of “greedy bureaucrats” and that he was imprisoned to prevent
them from ransacking the oil giant. Khodorkovskii maintained his
innocence on all charges. “I sincerely tried to work for the good of
my country, and not for my own pocket,” Khodorkovskii said. “All that
I have left is an awareness that I was right, my business reputation,
and the power of my will.”
In the prosecution’s concluding statement on 29 March,
prosecutor Dmitrii Shokhin asked the court to convict Khodorkovskii
and Lebedev and to sentence them to 10 years’ imprisonment on
fraud, embezzlement, and tax-evasion charges, newsru.com reported.
Shokhin told the court the defendants “deserve” severe punishment
because they have refused to admit their guilt. He charged that
Lebedev “repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect to the court” and
that Khodorkovskii deserved particular severity because he had
“organized a criminal group.” Shokhin also asked the court to
confiscate the assets of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev that have already
been frozen, including a 60 percent stake in Yukos and a 30 percent
stake in Sibneft that belong to Menatep, “to compensate for harm they
caused the state.” He also asked the court to make the men ineligible
to hold senior public or managerial posts.
Shokhin asked the court to give Krainov a 5 1/2-year
suspended sentence because of his “repentance and partial admission
of guilt.”
Defense lawyers asked the court to acquit their clients on
all charges. Lebedev’s lawyer, Yevgenii Baru, said that “enough
evidence has been presented for any competent, independent court to
acquit Lebedev,” newsru.com reported on 6 April. Khodorkovskii lawyer
Genrikh Padva said Khodorkovskii not only did not commit the crimes
ascribed to him but that “no crimes were committed at all.” In his
statement, Padva meticulously went over all the prosecution’s
arguments in an effort to demonstrate that there is no evidence of
“the slightest signs of criminal activity.”
Padva paid particular attention to the charge that
Khodorkovskii and Lebedev had formed a criminal group. He denied the
existence of any such group, saying that the prosecution had not
shown “what the composition of the group was or what were the roles
of its members, and so on.” “The joint maintenance of a business
cannot be proof of a ‘criminal group,'” Padva told the court
on 7 April.
“I hope that on the day the verdict is pronounced, the iron
gates will swing open and the watchmen will release Khodorkovskii
into freedom,” Padva said.
Another Khodorkovskii lawyer, Yurii Shmidt, told RFE/RL on 10
April that prosecutors and the public continue to view Khodorkovskii
and other rich Russians as “criminals by definition.” In the case of
Khodorkovskii, he added, they are ignoring the fact that he owes his
fortune not only to his hard work and managerial skills, but also to
the fact that he invested his money into the loss-making Yukos in
1996 when oil was selling for about $8.50 a barrel.
Shmidt added that it will not be easy for the court to
deliver the verdict that the Kremlin expects. He noted that Deputy
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Kolesnikov said in October 2003, well
before the trial began, that Khodorkovskii should be sentenced to 10
years in prison, the very term that prosecutors at the trial are
seeking. However, Shmidt said, it will be difficult for the court to
convict without violating the law.
Karina Moskalenko, another Khodorkovskii lawyer, said on 7
April, according to newsru.com: “This case will not be decided in the
court, or the Moscow Municipal Court, or the Supreme Court, or the
European courts. It will be decided in the court of history, and the
court of history will be harsh with all of us.”
Throughout the trial, the Kremlin and the state-controlled
media did a lot to boost the perception that Khodorkovskii and his
colleagues are criminals. The arrests of Lebedev and Khodorkovskii in
July and October 2003, respectively, came in the wake of a scandalous
report by the National Strategy Council that asserted that the
oligarchs were plotting a quiet coup in Russia.
In September 2004, just as prosecutors began presenting their
case in court, NTV screened a documentary called “A Terrorist Act,
Paid In Advance,” which charged that Khodorkovskii used profits from
the sale of Siberian oil to provide material aid to Chechen
“terrorists.” The film included references to some events that
happened as early as 1995, before Khodorkovskii took over Yukos.
On 30 March, NTV showed a documentary called “Brigade From
Yukos,” in which Menatep shareholder and former Yukos executive
Leonid Nevzlin was directly accused of organizing paid killings and
Khodorkovskii was implied to have been involved. The film linked
Khodorkovskii to former Yukos security chief Aleksei Pichugin, who
was convicted of murder and attempted murder on 25 March. The
documentary included footage of Khodorkovskii, Nevzlin, and Pichugin
shooting rifles during a hunting trip or similar outing. The
information in this documentary was repeated on state-owned RTR the
same evening.
Moscow human rights activists have long argued that the case
against Pichugin, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer,
was manufactured to pressure him into revealing compromising
information against Khodorkovskii. The first jury in the Pichugin
case was released after it asked the court to dismiss the charges
against him, and a second jury was later convened, which convicted
him.
The cases against Yukos and Khodorkovskii are a pivotal
moment in the history of post-Soviet Russia. When Khodorkovskii was
arrested by the Alfa special-forces unit in Novosibirsk on 25 October
2003, Russia was a different country. Mikhail Kasyanov was the prime
minister and Aleksandr Voloshin was the head of the presidential
administration. Both were viewed as oligarch-friendly holdovers from
the regime of former President Boris Yeltsin. Many in Russia and the
West continued to believe cautiously that President Vladimir Putin
was leading Russia gradually but perceptibly toward a more democratic
future. Some believed that Putin was sincere in his desire to combat
corruption.
Putin’s policies in the ensuing period have cast such
claims in serious doubt. Many of those who believed Putin was
combating corrupt oligarchs have come to believe now that he was
merely fighting his political opponents and those who financed them.
Many of the old oligarchs have not only kept their properties, but
have seen their fortunes increase steadily during Putin’s
administration. At the same time, new oligarchs have emerged from the
bureaucracy and the secret services. As a result, Russia had the
second-largest number of billionaires (27) on the “Forbes” magazine
list of global billionaires that was released in March.
TNK-BP HIT WITH LARGE TAX CLAIM — AGAIN
By Jeremy Bransten
At first glance, the scenario seems all too familiar.
Following an audit, Russia’s Federal Tax Service presents a major
oil company with a bill for unpaid taxes dating back several years.
The initial sum is relatively modest, but it gradually grows
as the tax service uncovers more and more alleged arrears. That is
what happened to Yukos, landing its chairman Mikhail Khodorkovskii in
court and burying his company under $27 billion of tax debt.
Now, TNK-BP, a Russian-British joint venture that is
currently Russia’s No. 2 oil producer, is being hit with similar
claims. For now, the tax bill is much lower than it was for Yukos —
but the sums being demanded have been growing exponentially in recent
weeks, raising concerns among investors.
TNK-BP initially received a revised tax bill for 2001
amounting to 4 billion rubles ($144 million). This week, the company
announced the tax authorities are now demanding an extra 22 billion
rubles ($791 million), bringing the firm’s total tax liability to
nearly $1 billion. And that is just for the year 2001. Russia’s
Federal Tax Service says it cannot exclude the possibility that
arrears for the following years will also be found.
All this happened just days after Russian President Vladimir
Putin flew to Hannover, Germany, where he tried to boost foreign
investor confidence. Putin reiterated on 10 April that his government
will limit prosecutors’ ability to review privatizations and that
the Kremlin does not intend to interfere with business.
“Any allegations that Russia is preparing to revise the
privatization results are groundless. On the contrary, we are
currently considering reducing the statute of limitations on
privatization deals from 10 to three years to stabilize ownership
relations and not to allow any possibility of redistribution [of
property],” Putin said.
How should investors interpret this apparent mixed message?
Dmitrii Loukashov, an oil analyst at Aton Capital, a Moscow-based
brokerage house, believes there is no cause to worry at this time
that another Yukos-style affair is in the making. Not all recent tax
claims in Russia, he notes, have ended in victory for the tax
authorities.
“[People] probably forgot that there have been other outcomes
in modern Russia — different outcomes than in the Yukos case. As an
example, everyone should remember the Vimpelcom charges, which
amounted to $1 billion as well and were reduced to meaningless
figures,” Loukashov told RFE/RL.
Indeed, to back Loukashov’s point, there was news on 13
April that a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco in Russia has won a court
victory against the tax authorities for an arrears bill amounting to
$79 million.
But on the other hand, many foreign business leaders say the
timing of the claims against TNK-BP is too coincidental for comfort.
John Bamford, head of the International Business Management
and Computer Consultancy that matches British investors with
investment opportunities in Russia, noted that the announcement about
the TNK-BP tax claims came in the middle of the Russian Business
Forum in London. The forum is the leading annual gathering of
politicians and entrepreneurs from both countries.
Bamford said many participants at the forum could not help
but think politics — as in the Yukos affair — may be playing a
role. “It’s quite extraordinary that this particular thing should
come up exactly to make the headlines in the newspapers for
discussion at the forum,” he said. “Somebody’s trying to make a
point, I think, and I don’t necessarily think it’s the tax
collectors. I think that the timing is probably a little more than
just a nice innocent tax collector saying, ‘We’ve found this
gap.'”
Bamford also said the fact that the tax authorities are
looking into arrears from the year 2001 also contradicts Putin’s
statement on 10 April that a three-year statute of limitations would
be imposed on such investigations:
“There was supposedly this line drawn under past taxes, which
has been brought back from 10 years to three years, and one
wasn’t expecting this one — which is to 2001, which is rather
more than three years,” Bamford said.
It all adds up to some worried investors. Back in 2003, when
the TNK-BP merger took place, the deal was one of the largest by a
Western company in postcommunist Russia and seen as proof of the
forward momentum of economic reforms. If the company is now under
attack, investors fear the business climate in Russia could turn
sour.
Loukashov said the worst-case scenario, which remains
impossible to verify, is that members of President Putin’s own
administration are trying to undermine him — using the tax service.
The implications, he said, are too grim to contemplate — especially
if one sees Putin as a guarantor of economic stability.
“What I’m afraid of is that these charges were not
authorized by the president and the president’s office, which
could mean that the president is losing his grip,” Loukashov said.
For his part, the British head of TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, said
on 12 April that he does not believe his company will find itself in
a “Yukos situation.” But he added that state authorities in Russia
were gradually reasserting their influence over the economy —
something he said should be a cause for concern.
REGIONS
BASHKIR OPPOSITION COMES TO MOSCOW
By Claire Bigg
The place where Bashkortostan’s opposition chose to stage
its demonstration in Moscow on 7 April had a certain significance.
Protesters met on Lubyanka Square in front of Russia’s Federal
Security Service (FSB) building and near a monument to the victims of
Stalin-era political repression.
They were calling on the federal authorities to dismiss
Murtaza Rakhimov from his post as president of Bashkortostan. The
authoritarian Rakhimov has ruled the Muslim-majority republic in the
South Ural mountains since 1993.
One of the protesters held a placard reading “Rakhimov’s
regime is arbitrary, corrupt, and violent.” A handful wore striped
uniforms supposed to represent those worn by prisoners in Nazi
concentration camps.
Airat Dilmukhametov, leader of the Bashkir National Front,
one of the republic’s more radical opposition movements, told
RFE/RL that Rakhimov has presided over a dictatorship where human
rights are regularly violated.
“Over the past 15 years there have been many cases of death,
murder, poisoning, car crashes, torture, illegal punishment,”
Dilmukhametov said. “A dictatorship has been established [in
Bashkortostan]. This is why people are disappointed and many of them
are scared.”
The Bashkir opposition also accuses Rakhimov of corruption.
It charges that the oil companies controlled by Rakhimov’s son,
Ural, have mismanaged millions of dollars through tax evasion.
The demands of the Bashkir opposition, however, are likely to
fall on deaf ears. Dilmukhametov said he has little hope that
Rakhimov, who was reelected president in 2003 with the support of
Russian President Vladimir Putin, will be sacked. The Kremlin is
widely regarded as turning a blind eye to Rakhimov’s alleged
abuses in return for his loyalty.
Unrest in Bashkortostan has been growing since police
detained and injured several hundred people in a violent sweep of the
town of Blagoveshchensk in December 2004.
Rights groups say more than 1,000 people were arrested and
taken to police stations, where they were reportedly beaten and
humiliated.
Dilmukhametov said he hopes the recent protest will draw
Moscow’s attention to the republic’s problems in the face of
growing unrest. “We are doing this [protesting] in order for our
conscience to be clear in case the situation in Bashkortostan takes a
different turn,” Dilmukhametov said. “We are now warning the public
and the federal leadership. This is one of our last warnings.”
Dilmukhametov told RFE/RL the opposition movement in his
republic was inspired by the recent mass protests that recently
toppled the government in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Boris Kagarlitskii, a political analyst who heads
Moscow’s Institute for Globalization Studies, said he believes
the Russian authorities will ignore the protest. But he argued that
Bashkortostan’s government is not viable and that the crisis
could eventually destabilize the Kremlin.
“If you don’t sacrifice Rakhimov, if you do not react to
the demands of the opposition, which I think is going to be the case,
then the movement will radicalize,” Kagarlitskii said. “From being a
movement against a local leader it will become a movement against
Moscow as well.”
According to the Bashkir opposition, Rakhimov’s
government has spared no effort to try to sabotage the protest.
Opposition leaders were delayed for five hour on 8 April
after additional security checks at the airport in Ufa, the capital
of Bashkortostan. The oppositionists said the checks were ordered by
the Bashkir government.
They said airport officials also tried to confiscate boxes
containing the lists of over 150,000 signatures in support of
Rakhimov’s dismissal. The boxes were later delivered to
Putin’s administration by the protesters in Moscow.
The Bashkir government was swift to fend off the allegations
and branded the protest an attempt at undermining it.
MEDIA
AIDS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN OFF TO A SLOW START
By Robert Coalson
Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Zhukov created something of a
media sensation on 30 March when he appeared at a Moscow conference
and acknowledged that the spread of HIV/AIDS in Russia has become a
threat to the country’s security and development. The theme of
the conference was public-private initiatives to combat the epidemic
and one of the main projects discussed was a $200 million,
three-year, public-service campaign by Russian media to raise
HIV/AIDS awareness.
Gazprom-Media Chairman Aleksandr Dybal told the conference on
30 March that his company and other media outlets, including REN-TV,
Muz-TV, MTV, and the radio stations of Russian Media Group are
donating $200 million in cash, airtime, and print space to the
effort.
Gazprom-Media controls NTV, NTV-Plus, TNT, Ekho Moskvy, and
other media properties and is wholly owned by the state-controlled
natural-gas giant Gazprom. Gazprom played key roles in the de facto
nationalization of the empires of former oligarchs Vladimir Gusinskii
and Mikhail Khodorkovskii.
Russian Media Group is controlled and headed by
Kremlin-connected businessman Sergei Arkhipov. He told “The Moscow
Times” on 18 March, “I do have friends in the Kremlin,” although he
denied that he discusses his business with them. In 2004, the company
staged a free concert for people who could prove that they had voted
in the presidential election, a move that was viewed as part of the
Kremlin’s effort to boost turnout in an election in which
President Vladimir Putin faced minimal competition. The company’s
plans to turn its flagship station, Russkoye Radio II, to a largely
news and information format has been viewed by analysts as part of a
Kremlin effort to consolidate its control over the information sphere
in the run-up to the 2007 and 2008 Duma and presidential elections,
respectively.
Despite Dybal’s “announcement” of the public-service
effort on the heels of Zhukov’s speech, the campaign was actually
launched at a 29 November press conference at state-owned
RIA-Novosti, to considerable media fanfare in connection with the 1
December World AIDS Day event. At that time, RIA-Novosti was also
named as a participant, “Vechernyaya Moskva” reported on 9 December.
Interfax reported on 29 November that the newspapers “Komsomolskaya
pravda,” “Izvestiya,” and “Vedomosti” would also participate, but
Dybal did not mention them in March.
At that press conference, participants also announced that
the “Stop AIDS” campaign would mostly include a new, locally produced
series featuring people living with HIV. Dybal did not mention this
project at the 30 March conference.
In November, it was announced that “technical and financial”
support would be provided by a number of Western foundations,
including the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. In addition, Dybal said at that time that he expected the
state media to join the effort. “You might say that we consider this
our patriotic, humanitarian duty,” Dybal said, according to
“Vechernyaya Moskva.” “We have already signed up nearly 30 large
companies and, of course, we certainly expect ORT and RTR to join our
ranks — [and we] hope that they will join our project. We are also
talking to regional companies, whose support is very important to
us.” Dybal added that he expected the “active participation” of
American actor Richard Gere in the campaign.
The online newspaper vsluh.ru reported on 2 December that the
“Stop AIDS” campaign will include not only public-service
announcements, but also the development of information resources and
briefings for journalists.
Zhukov’s appearance at the AIDS conference and recent
calls by President Putin and other administration officials for
businesses to do more to help the country give some reason to believe
that “Stop AIDS” might gain some traction now.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
RIGHTS GROUP URGES MOSCOW TO REOPEN KATYN MASSACRE INVESTIGATION
By Claire Bigg
In 1943, German soldiers discovered a mass grave in the Katyn
forest near Smolensk, in western Russia. The grave held the bodies of
thousands of Polish soldiers, priests, doctors, and intellectuals
killed three years earlier by the NKVD, the Stalin-era secret police.
Human rights groups and historians believe up to 21,000
people were murdered in what became known as the Katyn Forest
Massacre. A Russian government investigation into the case has been
ongoing since the early 1990s. However, the government closed the
investigation on 11 March.
Boris Belenkin is a historian who works for Russia’s
prominent human rights group Memorial. He says his organization on 7
April sent a letter to the Russian authorities asking for the Katyn
investigation to be reopened.
“The reason behind this letter was the general military
prosecutor’s announcement about the closure of the Katyn case and
his claim that the death of 1,800 people had been confirmed with
absolute certainty, when we know that at least 14,000 have died,”
Belenkin told RFE/RL.
Belenkin said that the government has failed to provide any
other official information as to why the investigation has been
closed.
Russia has been reluctant to acknowledge that the killings
constituted a war crime. It wasn’t until 1990 that Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev admitted his country’s involvement in the
massacre.
As a reconciliatory gesture, in 1992 the Russian government
handed over to then-Polish President Lech Walesa previously secret
documents testifying that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had ordered
the killings.
Russia’s recent decision to close the investigation,
however, could face criticism ahead of the grand ceremonies planned
for 9 May to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War
II.
Estonia and Lithuania have also dealt a blow to Russia by
turning down its invitation to attend the May celebrations in Moscow,
after saying their countries were oppressed by the Soviet regime.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has accepted an invitation to
attend the celebrations.
The Katyn issue could further erode relations between Russia
and Poland. Polish lawmakers last month renewed calls for Russia to
classify the massacre as genocide and bring the remaining
perpetrators to justice.
Belenkin views Russia’s decision to close the
investigation as a sign of the growing patriotic and nationalist
trend under the government of President Vladimir Putin.
But Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political
Studies in Moscow, said Moscow is mainly trying to protect its image.
“Moscow is trying to minimize the damage done to its image by
talk about the Katyn case. Katyn is one of the tragedies of the
Second World War — a tragedy that was not admitted for a long time
by the Soviet Union, which did not want to hurt relations with its
ally, socialist Poland,” Markov said.
Markov also speculated that Russia could be trying to avoid a
potential series of damaging and costly lawsuits from descendents of
victims if it fully admits to all the killings that took place.
“One can isolate several concrete episodes in the Second
World War, and if Russia admits its responsibility in every one of
these cases it might be sued for all of them,” Markov said. “There
would be a lot of economic consequences. I think Russia doesn’t
want to create the possibility of such lawsuits taking place.”
Russian-Polish relations have been particularly strained over
the past months, with Poland announcing in March that it planned to
name a square in Warsaw after the slain Chechen separatist leader
Djokhar Dudaev.
Moscow responded by threatening to rename the street in which
the Polish Embassy has its seat in Moscow after Mikhail Muravev, a
Russian Army general nicknamed the “hangman” for his ruthless
suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863.
POLITICAL CALENDAR
15 April: Duma expected to vote on second reading
of amendments to the law on forming the State Duma that would
introduce the proportional-representation system and eliminate the
single-mandate districts.
15 April: Russian spacecraft scheduled to launch new crew to
the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
16 April: Opposition in Bashkortostan planning a major
demonstration calling for the resignation of republican President
Murtaza Rakhimov.
17 April: Krasnoyarsk Krai and Taimyr Autonomous Okrug to
hold referendums on the question of merging.
18 April: Moscow Arbitration Court to begin hearing case
against Yukos regarding suspected tax arrears for 2003.
27 April: Verdict expected to be announced in the case of
former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii and Menatep Chairman Platon
Lebedev.
27-28 April: President Putin to visit Israel and the
Palestinian Autonomy.
9 May: Commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of
World War II.
10 May: Russia-EU summit to be held in Moscow.
30-31 May: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to visit Japan.
19 June: Referendum in Samara on dismissing Mayor Georgii
Limanskii.
23 June: Yukos shareholders meeting.
24 June: Gazprom shareholders meeting. Date by which merger
of Gazprom and Rosneft to be completed, according to RBK.
4 July: 750th anniversary of the founding of Kaliningrad.
6-8 July: G-8 summit in Scotland.
August: CIS summit to be held in Kazan.
September: First-ever Sino-Russian military exercises to be
held on the Shandong Peninsula.
1 November: New Public Chamber expected to hold first
session.
2006: Russia to host a G-8 summit in St. Petersburg.
1 January 2006: Date by which all political parties must
conform to law on political parties, which requires at least 50,000
members and branches in one-half of all federation subjects, or
either reregister as public organizations or be dissolved.
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Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
The “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly” is prepared by Robert Coalson
on the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every
Wednesday.
Direct comments to Robert Coalson at [email protected].
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