Author: nina hovnanian

RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN BUSINESSMAN ON RUSSIA’S TRANSFORMATION AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Tert.am
29.08.11

Below is an excerpt from an interview with Ruben Vardanyan, President
of the Moscow-based Troika Dialog investment and asset management
company, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Russian Venture company,
published by SPEAR’S Russia:

– What do you need to remain what your are?

– You cannot deceive yourself. I am well are of my own faults, and it
is important for me to be hones to myself. I am the strictest judge
for myself.

– What is there is business that you consider unethical or even
criminal?

– I have seen a lot in Russia. Some things are most difficult to
comprehend. A big businessman was eager to purchase a plant and had the
owner’s son imprisoned to force his father into signing the papers…

“Ethical” is a term without much weight in Russia… Unethical is
when people think everything is permissible. Capitalism makes people
think that money has no smell. But your success depends on how you
achieve it.

– What would you punish the people you work with for?

– At one of the banks officers were fined for dirty shoes. In Troika
we have no punishment system. Punishing is the last thing to be done.

If you form a team of liberal and professional people, there is no
punishing them. You can express your discontent and reduce their
bonuses. But it is not punishment…

– What is more important: strictly following your principles or
being flexible?

– Certainly, you should be flexible and tolerant. But where is the
limit? Sometimes you have to agree on compromise in business. You are
not living in an environment with all the steps described in detail…

– When would you be the first to attack?

– My father would say: ‘You have to be very strong to be kind.’ I
have not been involved in ‘corporate wars’ since I opened up business
20 years ago. I am not a ruffian, but in some cases I had to be the
first to strike… It has nothing to do with business though.

– What is your living standard?

– I have never counted… I fly both economy class and take charter
flights. Books are not so expensive. I do not collect cars or watches.

I spend very little on clothing. Except for trips and charity, it is
several hundred U.S. dollars a year.

– What about sense of safety and confidence in the future?

– Long ago I decided that I would not like to find myself in a
situation when I would have to run across the street only because
I could feel ashamed of looking in a person’s eyes. It is a sense
of peace and safety for me. But I cannot claim that I have never
made mistakes…

– What about the acknowledgement of your services? Do you have
any titles?

– Client confidence is the key factor in our business. We do not need
any titles.

– Have you completely realized your business potential? Is your
business a platform for self-expression or you have another?

– Of course, not. There are always opportunities for more and better.

As to self-expression, I have business school projects and I am
working much on them. I also have charity industry plans.

– Are you striving to improve the world by means of business?

– I think I am. In 1991, when we started our business, very few people
believed Russia would even have the market economy we are having now.

The world was different, and many people have realized their potential
due to our activities, including the foundation of the Troika Dialog
company… That is, the transformation process in Russia was due to
our efforts. Have we succeeded in every way? No, but we have greatly
contributed by being the first to create products and infrastructure.

We have done more than just making money.

DIASPORA TEACHERS CONTINUE THEIR SACRED WORK

Aysor.am
August 29, 2011

Ani Marselyan, a Syrian-based Arithmetic and Science teacher of
Armenian descent, has arrived in Armenia from Aleppo for the program
“Retraining of Diaspora Teachers in the Homeland.”

There are many Armenian schools and associations in Syria, she told
an Aysor.am reporter.

“Our mission is to preserve Armenian identity, to spread the Armenian
language among the Diaspora children,” the teacher stressed.

Despite the latest events in Syria, Marselyan said, they continue
their work.

Armenian school teachers will continue working from September 1. “We
should continue our sacred work,” and the political situation does
not prevent the schools from working, according to her.

The migration rates have not gone up in Syria due to the latest events,
Marselyan noted, though some level of migration always exists, people
always emigrate to live in Armenia, America, and other countries,
“but Armenians have always been comfortable in Syria, and enjoyed
full rights.”

The Diaspora teacher attaching importance to preservation of Armenian
identity in the East said that in Eastern countries, Armenians manage
to preserve their identity while in the West, they assimilate.

SUCCUMBING TO U.S. CONGRESSIONAL AND EUROPEAN COURT SCRUTINY, TURKEY PLEDGES TO RETURN SOME CONFISCATED CHRISTIAN PROPERTIES

yerkir.am
29.08.2011

Fearing mounting losses at the European Court of Human Rights and
recent adoption of Congressional legislation calling attention to its
repression of Christian communities, the Turkish Government issued a
decree this weekend which would return Christian and Jewish religious
properties confiscated after 1936, reported the Armenian National
Committee of America (ANCA).

“Erdogan’s decree, clearly prompted by increased Congressional scrutiny
of Turkey’s repression of its Christian minority and successive
losses at the European Court of Human Rights, would return less
than one percent of the churches and church properties confiscated
during the Armenian Genocide and the decades that followed it,” said
ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian. “Ninety six years after the genocide
perpetrated against the Armenians, Greeks, and Syriacs, this decree
is a smokescreen to evade the much broader consequences of those
brutal acts. The ANCA will expand its outreach to Congress and the
Administration to ensure that the Turkish Government comes to terms
with its brutal past, respects the religious freedom of surviving
Christian communities and returns the fruits of its crime.”

The Associated Press reported that “the properties include former
hospital, orphanage or school buildings and cemeteries. Their return is
a key European Union demand and a series of court cases has also been
filed against primarily Muslim Turkey at the European Court of Human
Rights. Last year, the court ordered Turkey to return an orphanage
to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.” According to Armenian Church
experts, of the over 2,000 churches serving the Armenian community
prior to 1915, less than 40 are functioning as churches today.

Erdogan’s decree comes just weeks after a 43-1 House Foreign Affairs
Committee vote on an amendment to the State Department Authorization
bill, spearheaded by Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA) and Rep.

David Cicilline (D-RI), calling for the return of Christian Churches
confiscated by the Turkish government and an end to Turkey’s
discrimination against its Christian communities. The amendment
is similar to a resolution (H.Res.306), introduced in June by
Representatives Ed Royce (R-CA) and Howard Berman (D-CA), which has
over 35 cosponsors.

In March, Congressional Hellenic Caucus co-chairs Rep. Carolyn
Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) introduced legislation
(H.Res.180), reiterating a longstanding call by House members for
Turkey to respect the rights and religious freedoms of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate.

Turkey’s treatment of its Christian minority has also emerged as
an issue of contention in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
consideration of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey nominee Francis
Ricciardone. In response to questions submitted by Senator Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), Amb. Ricciardone erroneously asserted that
a majority of Christian churches functioning in 1915 continue to
operate as churches today. A revised response recently submitted
to the key Senate panel continued to misrepresent the number of
functioning churches.

His Eminences Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan and Archbishop Moushegh
Mardirossian, Prelates of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
Eastern and Western United States, respectively, and Archbishop Khajag
Barsamian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church –
Eastern United States each issued powerfully worded spiritual messages
in response to the Ambassador’s statement. In an August 15th statement,
Archbishop Choloyan stressed that the Ambassador’s assertion was
“so blatantly false that it cannot remain unchallenged.”

Setting the record straight, he noted that: “The facts are quite
clear. From the massacres of Armenians in 1895-96 and the Armenian
Genocide in 1915, to the decades following the establishment of the
Turkish republic, Christian houses of worship were systematically
destroyed or confiscated. My own church’s hierarchal see, the Armenian
Catholicosate of Cilicia, was a victim of this process, and today is
exiled in Lebanon. The archives of the Catholicosate contain hundreds
of original deeds and other documentation of churches and church
owned property that was confiscated.”

Archbishop Mardirossian concurred, stating, “The presence of an
Ambassador in Ankara who is unaware of or uninterested in the truth
and the consequences of the Ottoman and Republican Turkish government’s
genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Syriacs, Greeks and other Christians
materially undermines U.S. interests, compromises American values,
and weakens international efforts to defend religious freedom for
peoples of all faiths. Sadly, but unmistakably, with this hateful and
hurtful statement, Ambassador Ricciardone has demonstrated that he
is not the right candidate to effectively and responsibly represent
the United States in Turkey.”

On August 19th, Archbishop Barsamian noted that Amb. Ricciardone’s
response had “deeply offended Armenian-Americans”, explaining that
“the loss of these many hundreds of churches, their neglect and
outright destruction, and the conversion of many of our sanctuaries
into mosques, is a matter of intense pain to Armenians: an ongoing
reminder of the loss of life and the destruction that we suffered as a
result of the 1915 Genocide… In all charity, perhaps the Ambassador
is simply unaware of certain facts. But mastery of the history of a
country, its dark as well as bright chapters, is essential to serving
the United States effectively and diplomatically in this important
and complex region.”

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian slammed Amb. Ricciardone’s
revised response last week, stating, “It took Ambassador Ricciardone,
with the help of his many State Department colleagues, over a week
to submit in writing a patently false misrepresentation about the
destruction of Christian churches in Turkey, and another 10 days and a
full wave of Senate and citizen pressure for him to finally take half
a step back from the most offensive and obviously incorrect aspects
of his response. “He just keeps digging himself into a deeper hole
as an apologist for Ankara. His use of false figures and euphemisms
to try to twist his way out of his misrepresentation – while somehow
still trying to stick to Turkey’s genocide denial narrative – clearly
confirms that Ambassador Ricciardone is not the right representative
of U.S. values and interests in Turkey.”

DECISION OF TURKISH GOVERNMENT IS “SMOKESCREEN”

Lragir.am

29/08/2011

The ANCA Washington Office said the decision of the Turkish government
to return properties to minorities is a “smokescreen”.

Fearing mounting losses at the European Court of Human Rights and
recent adoption of Congressional legislation calling attention to its
repression of Christian communities, the Turkish Government issued a
decree this weekend which would return Christian and Jewish religious
properties confiscated after 1936, reported the Armenian National
Committee of America, ANCA press release reads.

OPPOSITION BRINGS FAKE REASONING TO SUSPEND DIALOGUE, SAYS REPUBLICAN MP

Tert.am
29.08.11

The opposition Armenian National Congress’ (ANC) demand for releasing
their jailed activist, Tigran Arakelyan, is a fake reasoning for
suspending the current dialogue, a ruling party member has said.

At a news conference on Monday Rafik Petrosyan of the Republican party
faction in parliament considered the young activist’s recent detention
right, saying that the police could not have been indifferent to what
he called an unlawful action.

He said any attempt by the authorities to meet the opposition’s
demand would set a dangerous precedent, pushing other members of the
opposition alliance to similar actions.

“Of course I hope the dialogue will continue because [the parties]
mutually agreed so,” he saod.

It comes after the ANC suspended its current dialogue with the
authorities on Friday, saying that the process will not resumed unless
Arakelyan is freed.

L’ENSEMBLE DE LA PRESSE RAPPORTE LA DECLARATION DU PARTI DACHNAKSOUTIOUN
Stephane

armenews.com
lundi 29 aout 2011
ARMENIE

L’ensemble de la presse rapporte la declaration du parti
Dachnaksoutioun base aux Etats-Unis qui a annonce que ses representants
ne participeraient pas a un dîner qui sera offert a l’honneur
du President Sarkisian en septembre. [Le chef de l’Etat armenien
doit se rendre aux Etats-Unis a la fin du mois de septembre pour
s’adresser a l’Assemblee generale de l’ONU et pour rencontrer les
representants de la communaute armenienne. Il doit se rendra a un
banquet organise par le Consulat armenien a Los Angeles qui sera
dedie au vingtième anniversaire de l’independance armenienne]. Dans
ladite declaration le parti Dachnak a estime que la ” presence de
Serge Sarkissian serait une ombre a l’idee d’independance ” et que ”
Sarkissian denigrerait egalement les efforts effectues par le peuple
pour restaurer la justice “. De surcroît, dans cette declaration,
le parti Dachnak des Etats-Unis a decrit le president armenien comme
” un individu discredite qui bafoue les valeurs de la democratie dans
le but d’assurer le maintien d’un regime criminel ” et a accuse son
gouvernement ” d’avoir viole les droits de l’Homme en contrôlant le
pouvoir judiciaire et en soutenant les oligarques qui continuent a
piller notre peuple en Armenie “.

Le bureau du parti Dachnak basee a Erevan a fait savoir le lendemain
qu’il desapprouvait fortement le boycott, ainsi que la teneur de
cette declaration. ” Il y a bien sûr un certain nombre de problèmes
irresolus en Armenie, mais le vingtième anniversaire de l’independance
temoigne de notre victoire commune et de notre reussite “, a affirme
Kiro Manoyan, chef du bureau de la Cause armenienne du parti Dachnak.

D’après lui, l’on n’a pas le droit d’etre dirige par des liens
personnels, ni par des emotions dans ce genre d’evenements./ Azg,
Golos Armenii, Aravot

Ambassade de France en Armenie

Service de presse

Assyrian International News Agency
Aug 26 2011

Religious Freedom for Turkey?

The recent resignation of Turkey’s military high command, along with
reports that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will subordinate the
military to civilian rule, could mark a new era for that nation.
Sweeping constitutional changes, however, are still needed to ensure
fundamental rights and avoid exchanging one form of repression for
another. The United States should challenge Turkey’s civilian
leadership to make such long-overdue changes, especially regarding
religious freedom, including for religious minorities.

While Turkey has long been a formal democracy, it has been a decidedly
imperfect one. Since Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey in
1923, his rigid state secularism has stifled religious freedom.
Restrictions have hindered the majority Sunni Muslim community and
have discriminated against and threatened religious minority
communities, including Greek, Armenian, and Syriac Orthodox Churches;
Catholic and Protestant Churches; the Jewish community; and the
Alevis.

Constitutionally, the military was the protector of the secular state
apparatus that engaged in or tolerated religious freedom violations.
Indeed, the context for the recent military resignations was Erdogan’s
refusal to promote officers who allegedly plotted within Ergenekon, a
clandestine ultranationalist group, to topple his Islamic-oriented
government and commit violence against numerous faith communities and
their houses of worship.

As the inheritor of this legacy, Erdogan and his AK Party have faced
an uphill battle to deepen Turkey’s democratic institutions and
culture. Their moves to bolster civilian rule have positive
implications for respecting international human rights norms,
including religious freedom.

Indeed, the AKP government has widened the opening for public
religious expression, which has helped Turkey’s Sunni Muslim majority.
Since 2007, imams have had some autonomy in drafting their sermons.
While the ban on religious dress in state institutions continues, last
month, the Council of State overturned Turkey’s high court ruling
which had barred the wearing of headscarves during the Selection
Examination for Academic Personnel and Graduate Studies. Enrollment in
Imam-Hatip religious schools has expanded notably. Without a doubt,
Sunni Islam flourishes.

When it comes to religious minorities, however, Turkey’s record
remains disappointing.

To be sure, the AKP government has ushered in some improvements,
including the addition of worship services allowed for a particular
church, citizenship for the leaders of another, accurate national
identity cards for converts, and continued engagement with Alevis.
Yet, Turkey’s widely publicized constitutional reform process
currently omits any attention to religious freedom, thereby suggesting
no systematic relief for Turkey’s smallest minorities, such as
Christians and Jews.

Turkey’s Christian minority has dwindled to just 0.15 percent of the
country. In the words of one church leader, it is an “endangered
species.” In past centuries, violence exacted a horrific toll on
Turkey’s Christians and their churches. This provides a frightening
context and familiar continuity to a number of recent high-profile
murders by ultranationalists.

Turkey’s Jewish community also fears a reprise of past violence, such
as the 2003 al Qaeda-linked Istanbul synagogue bombings. Societal
anti-Semitism has been fueled in recent years by Erdogan’s rhetoric
against Israel’s activity in the Middle East and by negative
portrayals in Turkey’s state-run media.

Today, however, it is the state’s dense web of regulations that most
threatens Turkey’s religious minorities.

Religious communities are being strangled by legal restrictions on
internal governance, education, houses of worship and wider property
rights. It is difficult even to have a frank national discussion about
their plight; those who have tried can face constitutional charges for
insulting “Turkishness”, as well as a broader climate of impunity.

One example of the oppressive regulatory climate is the meddling in
internal governance, as seen in the interference in the election
procedure for the acting Armenian Patriarch, as well as in the refusal
to recognize the title of “ecumenical” of the Greek Orthodox Church’s
Ecumenical Patriarch and the inherited titles of Alevi leaders.

Another is the government’s refusal to allow non-Muslim clergy to be
trained in Turkey. The military’s shuttering in 1971 of the Greek
Orthodox Theological School of Halki, once the educational center for
global Orthodox Christianity, is a case in point. Successive
governments’ policies have put at risk the very survival of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate and its Greek Orthodox flock.

A third example is the expropriation of land from the 1,600-year-old
Mor Gabriel Monastery, the world’s oldest Syriac Orthodox monastery.
Last January, Turkey’s Supreme Court granted its treasury parts of the
monastery’s territory. Besides impacting the church, such arbitrary
state expropriations encourage acts of impunity against all religious
minorities.

Finally, there is the status of the Alevis, the nation’s largest
religious minority. Turkey refuses legal recognition of Alevi meeting
places (cemevi) as houses of worship, and has denied them construction
permits.

These examples underscore how Turkey’s religious minorities still lack
full legal status and are deprived of full rights as citizens. To help
remedy this injustice, the United States should urge Erdogan to
fulfill his pledge to amend the military-drafted constitution of 1982
by making changes in line with religious freedom and the other human
rights guarantees found in the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which Turkey ratified.

By strengthening civilian control, Turkey has an opportunity to chart
a clearer course toward greater freedom for all its citizens. It’s
time for the country’s leaders to embrace constitutional reform, end
impunity, protect religious diversity, and advance religious freedom
for every citizen.

By Elizabeth H. Prodromou and Nina Shea

Elizabeth H. Prodromou serves as Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Nina Shea serves as a USCIRF
Commissioner. Both authors traveled to Turkey in February 2011 as part
of a USCIRF delegation.

Turkey Decrees Partial Return of Confiscated Christian, Jewish Property
(Update)

Sun, Aug 28 2011
By:Armenian Weekly

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey’s government is returning hundreds of properties
confiscated from the country’s Christian and Jewish minorities over
the past 75 years in a gesture to religious groups who complain of
discrimination that is also likely to thwart possible court rulings
against the country, reported the Associated Press (AP).

The Akhtamar Church
A government decree published on Aug. 27 returns assets that once
belonged to Greek, Armenian or Jewish trusts and makes provisions for
the government to pay compensation for any confiscated property that
has since been sold on.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the
decision formally later Sunday when he hosts religious leaders and the
heads of about 160 minority trusts, at a fast-breaking dinner for the
holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials said.

The properties include former hospital, orphanage or school buildings
and cemeteries. Their return is a key European Union demand and a
series of court cases has also been filed against primarily Muslim
Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights. Last year, the court
ordered Turkey to return an orphanage to the Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate.

Some properties were seized when they fell into disuse over the years.
Others were confiscated after 1974 when Turkey ruled that non-Muslim
trusts could not own new property in addition to those that were
already registered in their names in 1936. The 1974 decision came
around the time of a Turkish invasion of Cyprus that followed a coup
attempt by supporters of union with Greece and relations with that
country were at an all time low.

Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government seeking to promote religious
freedoms has pledged to address the problems of the religious
minorities. In the past few years, it amended laws to allow for the
return of some of the properties, but restrictions remained and the
issue on how to resolve properties that were sold on to third parties
was left unsolved.

The decree overcomes those restrictions and helps scupper further court rulings.

`There was huge pressure from the European Court of Human Rights which
has already ruled against Turkey,’ said Orhan Kemal Cengiz a human
rights activist and lawyer who specializes in minority issues.

`It is nevertheless a very important development,’ he said. `With the
return of properties and the compensations, the minority communities
will be able to strengthen economically and their lives will be made
easier.’

The country’s population of 74 million, mostly Muslim, includes an
estimated 65,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews and fewer
than 2,500 Greek Orthodox Christians.

Religious minorities have often complained of discrimination in
Turkey, which had a history of conflict with Greece and with Armenians
who accuse Turkish authorities of trying to exterminate them early in
the last century. Turkey says the mass killings at that time were the
result of the chaos of war, rather than a systematic campaign of
genocide. Few minority members have been able to hold top positions in
politics, the military or the public service.

Turkey is also under intense pressure to reopen a seminary that
trained generations of Greek Orthodox patriarchs. The Halki
Theological School on Heybeliada Island, near Istanbul, was closed to
new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military
training under state control. The school closed its doors in 1985,
when the last five students graduated.

Pressure from the U.S.

As the Armenian Weekly has reported in recent months, there were more
than 2,000 Armenian churches operating in what is Today Turkey before
the Armenian genocide of 1915. Most of these churches were destroyed
and their properties confiscated. The aforementioned decree does not
include these church properties. It is only limited to properties
confiscated in the past 75 years.

The Erdogan decree coincides with increased U.S. Congressional
scrutiny of Turkey’s repression of its Christian minority. Last month,
with a vote of 43-1, the House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted an
amendment to the State Department Authorization bill, spearheaded by
Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Rep. David Cicilline
(D-R.I.), calling for the return of Christian Churches confiscated by
the Turkish government and and end of Turkey’s discrimination against
its Christian communities. Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian welcomed that decision,
stating, `Ninety six years after the genocide perpetrated against the
Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians, the Turkish Government has destroyed
or confiscated the vast majority of their holy sites and places of
worship. The Foreign Affairs Committee today sent a powerful message
to Turkey that it must come to terms with this brutal legacy, respect
religious freedom of surviving Christian communities, and return the
fruits of its crimes.’ The passage of the resolution was also hailed
by Greek and Syriac American organizations, including the American
Hellenic Educational and Public Affairs Association (AHEPA), American
Hellenic Institute (AHI), American Hellenic Council (AHC) and the
Syriac Universal Alliance, among many others.

The amendment is similar to a resolution (H.Res.306), introduced in
June by Representatives Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Howard Berman
(D-Calif.), which has over 35 cosponsors.

Turkey’s treatment of its Christian minority has also emerged as an
issue to contention in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
consideration of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey nominee Francis
Ricciardone. In response to questions submitted by Senator Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), Amb. Ricciardone erroneously asserted that a
majority of Christian churches functioning in 1915 continue to operate
as churches today. A revised response recently submitted to the key
Senate panel continued to misrepresent the number of functioning
churches. Armenian American church leaders issued powerfully worded
spiritual messages in response to the Ambassador’s statement. In an
Aug. 15 statement, Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the
Armenian Apostolic Church of Eastern U.S. stressed that the
Ambassador’s initial assertion was `so blatantly false that it cannot
remain unchallenged.’ He went on to explain that `the facts are quite
clear. From the massacres of Armenians in 1895-96 and the Armenian
Genocide in 1915, to the decades following the establishment of the
Turkish republic, Christian houses of worship were systematically
destroyed or confiscated. My own church’s hierarchal see, the Armenian
Catholicosate of Cilicia, was a victim of this process, and today is
exiled in Lebanon. The archives of the Catholicosate contain hundreds
of original deeds and other documentation of churches and church owned
property that was confiscated.’

The Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Eastern U.S.,
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian stated that Amb. Ricciardone’s response
had `deeply offended Armenian-Americans’, explaining that `the loss of
these many hundreds of churches, their neglect and outright
destruction, and the conversion of many of our sanctuaries into
mosques, is a matter of intense pain to Armenians: an ongoing reminder
of the loss of life and the destruction that we suffered as a result
of the 1915 Genocide.

CAUCASE
Géorgie : l’Abkhazie séparatiste élit son président, Tbilissi proteste

Les électeurs de l’Abkhazie se rendaient aux urnes vendredi pour élire
le président de cette république séparatiste géorgienne pro-russe, un
scrutin dénoncé comme `pure farce` par Tbilissi qui y voit la
`poursuite de l’occupation russe`.

L’élection, surveillée par 108 observateurs, se déroule trois ans jour
pour jour après la reconnaissance par Moscou de l’Abkhazie et d’une
autre région séparatiste géorgienne, l’Ossétie du Sud, après une
guerre éclair russo-géorgienne.

Cette présidentielle anticipée a été convoquée après le décès en mai
des suites d’un cancer du président abkhaze, Sergueï Bagapch.

Trois candidats sont en lice, parmi lesquels le vice-président
abkhaze, Alexandre Ankvab, le Premier ministre, Sergueï Chamba, et
l’ancien vice-président, Raoul Khadjimba, qui représente l’opposition.

En dépit de leurs divergences, tous les trois prônent le renforcement
des liens avec Moscou et s’opposent fermement à la réunification avec
la Géorgie.

Le taux de participation a atteint 50% vers 15H00 heures locales
(11H00 GMT), et les premiers résultats devraient être annoncés peu
après la fermeture des bureaux de vote à 20H00 (16H00 GMT).

De son côté, Tbilissi a protesté contre ces élections, en les
qualifiant de `farce`.

`L’occupation russe de l’Abkhazie continue, et ces soi-disant
élections présidentielles sont une pure farce`, a déclaré vendredi à
l’AFP la ministre géorgienne de la Réintégration, Eka Tkechelachvili.

La Russie maintient d’importantes forces en Abkhazie et en Ossétie du
Sud depuis la guerre éclair avec la Géorgie, qui s’est soldée par la
défaite de Tbilissi en août 2008.

Selon des experts, Moscou va conserver ses positions, voire accroître
son influence à l’issue de ce scrutin.

`A la différence de l’élection présidentielle précédente (en 2009
remportée par Sergueï Bagapch, ndlr), où plusieurs personnalités
représentaient différentes forces opposées, aujourd’hui, il s’agit de
l’évolution interne du pays`, a déclaré Andreï Riabov, analyste au
Centre Carnegie de Moscou.

`Peu importe quel sera le résultat, la Russie ne perdra pas`, a-t-il souligné.

L’Abkhazie s’est séparée de la Géorgie lors du conflit de 1992-1993,
qui a fait plusieurs milliers de morts. Outre la Russie, seuls le
Venezuela et la petite île de Nauru dans l’Océan Pacifique ont reconnu
à ce jour l’indépendance de l’Abkhazie.

dimanche 28 août 2011,
Sté[email protected]

HAUT KARABAGH
Mort d’un soldat Arménien au Haut Karabagh

Vendredi 26 août vers 20h30 sur la ligne de front au Haut Karabagh un
soldat Arménien engagé a été touché par des tirs azéris. Transporté
vers un hôpital miliaire, dans un état inconscient, Aghassi Abrahamian
(19 ans) mourrait une heure plus tard des suites de ses blessures. Le
ministère arménien de la Défense informe qu’une enquête est en place
pour déterminer les circonstances dans lesquelles le militaire a été
atteint.

Krikor Amirzayan

dimanche 28 août 2011,
Krikor [email protected]