Author: nina hovnanian

RUSSIA WATCH: AZERI WOLVES IN IRANIAN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?

The Sofia Globe, Bulgaria
March 15 2013

Posted Mar 15 2013 by James Brooke VOA Moscow Bureau Chief

Iran faces political population bomb: a young, growing and urbanized
population that wants food – cheap and traditional. Iran’s population
has doubled in the last 40 years, hitting 75 million people today.

Half of all Iranians are under 35 years of age, and 71 percent live
in cities.

Immediately to the north, lies help: the fallow grazing lands of
Armenia.

Fewer and fewer Armenian men want to make a living as shepherds,
tending sheep on scenic, but lonely mountain slopes. Armenia’s
agriculture ministry says that 70 percent of the nation’s pastures
are now without livestock – about 800,000 hectares.

Here’s the deal:

Iran’s Ambassador Mohammad Reisi offers to rent thousands of hectares
of mountain pastures to provide grazing land for Iranian sheep. With
the grazing leases, he has estimated that Armenia could increase
its livestock fivefold. Within a decade, he says, Armenia could be
exporting 2-3 million sheep a year to Iran.

Sounds good to me.

Not too many people are lining up to invest in Armenia, a small,
landlocked nation, with poor relations with two of its four neighbors.

Closed Borders

To the east, Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan are closed.

On some stretches, soldiers of Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan
face each other across trenches, poised on hair trigger alerts. About
once a week, a military sniper on one side kills a soldier from the
other side.

To the west, Armenia’s land borders are closed with Turkey, a legacy
of bitter feelings over Ottoman Turkey’s campaign against ethnic
Armenians in 1915.

So the Iranian offer sounds like a win-win for Armenia.

How naïve, Hasmik Evoyan, told me one morning in Yerevan.

Evoyan, an environmentalist, walked me through the geopolitics of
sheep. She showed me why many Armenians see putting lamb dishes on
Iranian dinner tables could be lose-lose for Armenia.

The sheep would largely graze in Armenia’s southernmost province,
Syunik. Long and as narrow as 30 kilometers wide in some places, Syunik
is Armenia’s lifeline to Iran. But it is strategically vulnerable,
sandwiched between two territories of Azerbaijan.

Lifeline to Iran

Although Syunik is Armenia’s second largest province, it is also
one of its least populated. With 15 percent of Armenia’s land area,
Syunik has less than 5 percent of Armenia’s people. The population
dropped in the late 1980s, after ethnic fighting forced an Azeri
minority to flee to Azerbaijan and northern Iran.

Without a large local population to draw on, the Iranian sheep project
would mean importing Iranian shepherds, and possibly their families.

Depending on the age of slaughter – for lamb or mutton – an annual
export of 2.5 million sheep could mean an Iranian flock of 5 million
sheep in southern Armenia. Given the region’s steep terrain, it would
be hard for one shepherd to watch more than 500 sheep.

So, back of the envelope calculations point to as many as 10,000
Iranian shepherds.

Where would the shepherds come from?

The memorandum of understanding was signed between Syunik and the
neighboring Iranian province, a place with a name that sounds ominous
to many Armenians – Eastern Atrapatakan, or Eastern Azerbaijan. With
a population 20 times that of Syunik, Eastern Atrapatakan is keystone
of the northern Iran’s Azeri minority – about 17 million people.

So, the Iranian sheep deal could come with as many 10,000 ethnic
Azeri shepherds, their families, and their watchdogs.

Then, there is another wrinkle.

Over the last 20 years, the withdrawal of Armenian shepherds from the
mountain pastures has allowed the nation’s wolf population to surge.

Armenian authorities now pay a $275 bounty for each wolf shot. So,
it stands to reason that Iranian shepherds would carry rifles to
protect their flocks from wolves and other predators.

Men with Rifles

So, in a nutshell, Armenians say, the Iranian sheep deal could mean
infiltrating into a strategic area several thousand ethnic Azeri men,
all armed with rifles.

“With the sheep, a couple of thousand people may come to Armenia,
and may live in places that are strategically important for Armenia,”
said Evoyan, of the Armenia’s PreParliament opposition group. “It’s
not only about the employment. As I said, it’s about the non-formal,
informal migration of other nationalities to Armenia that is not
strategically right choice for Armenia.”

On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia’s hotly contested presidential
election, Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front
of Armenia’s National Assembly building in Yerevan. I arrived in
Armenia’s capital the next day. But Gohar Abrahamyan, a reporter for
Armenia Now news website, covered the protest.

She got environmentalist Silva Adamyan to say out loud what many
Armenians are thinking quietly.

“I remember how the Azerbaijanis were quietly taking control of
Syunik during the Soviet years,” Adamyan told Armenia Now. “We have
liberated it. And now, we want to give it to them again? Can’t we
really understand that it is the same Azeris – citizens of Iran –
who would be coming back to Syunik, bring their families, and so the
blood shed for those lands would turn out to be for nothing?”

In Armenia’s presidential election, Serzh Sargsyan, the incumbent
was re-elected. But the opposition performed strongly and has been
continuing with street protests. By all indications, the Iranian
sheep project will die a bureaucratic death, buried in the Ministry
of Agriculture.

BOMB THREAT MADE AGAINST EMERSON ARMENIAN HOME FOR THE AGED

North Jersey.com, NJ
March 15 2013

Friday March 15, 2013, 2:06 PM
BY LISA SPEAR
Pascack Valley Community Life

At 11:20 a.m. the Armenian Home for the Aged called the Emerson Police
Department to notify them of a bomb threat at their facility.

After the call, three police units and a Bergen County K-9 unit were
dispatched to the scene, Emerson Police Captain George Buono said. A
search was conducted and no signs of any explosives were detected. At
1:30 p.m., Buono said, police determined that the building was safe.

An investigation by the Emerson Police Department is ongoing.

RAFFI HOVANNISIAN: MARTENS BREACHED IMPORTANT EUROPEAN VALUES

Saturday,
March 16

By sending his congratulatory message in connection with the
presidential election in Armenia, President of the European People’s
Party Wilfried Martens breached important European values, the leader
of Heritage Party Raffi Hovannisian stated during the rally in Liberty
Square today.

“I have no illusions. It is he who is under an illusion. Martens
should not be shocked by my attitude,” Raffi Hovannisian noted,
calling upon the EPP President and the U.S. President not to give
democracy lessons to the Armenian people.

R. Hovannisian announced that Heritage Party is going to reconsider
its membership in the EPP soon.

The next rally of Raffi Hovannisian is scheduled for next Friday.

15.03.2013, 21:21

Aysor.am

ARMENIAN EX-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE’S RALLY CONTINUES

18:52 ~U 15.03.13

Heritage party Chairman Raffi Hovannisian has started his rally in
Yerevan’s Freedom Square.

At his press conference on Thursday, he announced his intention to
present new points of his programs.

On March 10, Mr Hovannisian decided to go on an open-ended hunger
strike.

On Friday, the writer Violet Grigoryan joined him by holding a one-day
hunger strike.

Along with the hunger strike, a group of young people are holding
a sit-in.

17:36 Heritage party Vice-Chairman Armen Martirosyan, who was the
first to speak at the rally, stated that Mr Hovannisian will do his
best “for not a single drop of blood to fall on the earth.”

Mr Hovannisian’s hunger strike is a protest at election frauds and
the last “camping site” to victory.

“Many citizens were alarmed by the fact, but I can say that Raffi
Hovannisian’s will get stronger. We are waging a peaceful struggle,
and no one can strip us of it,” he said.

Mr Martirosyan informed the participants of a ‘public-initiated
signature-gathering campaign.”

All those wishing can put their signatures to the petition, which
reads: “I, a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, welcome the newly
elected president Raffi Hovannisian’s struggle, for ratification of
the Armenian people’s victory and our national revival. I am ready
to fully support Raffi Hovannisian in his and our sacred struggle
and participate in new Armenia’s inauguration scheduled for April 9.”

17:41 The intellectual Rafael Hambartsumyan called for leading the
current situation to victory. According to him, Serzh Sargsyan does
not enjoy Armenian people’s confidence, and Raffi Hovannisian’s
self-sacrificing step was made for the victory to come as soon as
possible.

According to him, Armenia’s authorities have the only way of “getting
rid of the people in Freedom Square.”

“What do they have to do if they have nothing at all to offer? The only
thing to prevent us from coming to the square is that Serzh Sargsyan
can only unleash war against Turks and say he has started war, and
we have to go,” he said.

According to him, President Serzh Sargsyan’s tyranny is the same as
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s.

17:50 The Public and political figure Arkady Vardanyan called on the
Armenian Diaspora to join the struggle.

“By his self-sacrifice Armenia’s newly elected president created an
unprecedented political situation, but I believe that none of the
people present here wants to see dead bodies. The only thing we want
to see is the ruling administration’s death,” Mr Vardanyan said.

Mr Hovannisian is not a political figure to utter mere words. “No one
can take Raffi Hovannisian from the altar – neither Serzh Sargsyan
nor Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama,” he said.

If Armenia’s authorities fail to realize the gravity of the situation,
more and more people will be present in Freedom Square day by day.

18:02 Zaruhi Postanjyan, a Heritage parliamentary group member, said
that “no one smiled after the Constitutional Court issued its ruling.”

The reason is that, except for the claimants, all the participants
were well aware that “the judges had struck a bargain with Satan and
sold their conscience to him.”

“May be Serzh Sargsyan or anyone else is the Satan, but no one felt
satisfied after that bargain.”

The numerous claims “got on the nerves” of the CC president. The
claimants demanded a recount of votes in all the 1,988 polling stations
to find out the real situation.

“The claim was dismissed. You should have supported the proposal if
you are sure of yourselves. We lodged a claim for you to invite the
witnesses and members of election commissions and find out how it
happened that Serzh Sargsyan received 100% of votes with 100% voter
turnout, and Raffi Hovannisian received most of the vote with 50%
voter turnout,” Mrs Postanjyan said. No judge involved in that fraud
will be forgiven, she added.

“We are not going to tolerate the people involved in the frauds and
threatening the persons that may tell the public about the frauds.

Serzh Sargsyan publicly admitted his having organized the February
18 elections,” she said.

18:21 “Shame!” was the people’s response to Heritage party
Vice-Chairman Armen Martirosyan’s statement that the actor Vardan
Petrosyan had not been allowed to meet with students of French
University in Armenia.

“Veterans of the Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] war have their contribution
because the blood they shed for liberation of Artsakh they shed for
Armenia’s independence as well.”

Mr Martirosyan read out four veterans’ letters calling on Armenia’s
people to unite and build up an Armenia of their dream.

18:30 Chairman of the Union of Consumers of Armenia Armen Poghosyan
noted that the Armenian people has made progress, but has not achieved
the aims many people sacrificed their life for. At present Armenians
do not have the Armenia they can peacefully live in, he said.

“Bad food may harm 50 people, but rigged elections violate the rights
of all the citizens. There is no ‘good president or ‘bad president’,
but there is an elected or unelected president. This is our common
principle. I want you to be consistent. Municipal elections will be
held soon to be followed by elections of the Yerevan mayor. We must
not ignore the elections and we must vote and win,” Mr Poghosyan said.

Raffi Hovannisian must head the list along with Stepan Demirchyan,
Armen Martirosyan, Zaruhi Postanjyan, Anahit Bakhshyan and others.

MIKHAIL BAGDASAROV: ARMAVIA’S TOTAL DEBT IS NO MORE THAN $50MLN

ARMINFO
Friday, March 15, 17:00

As of today the total debt of the national air carrier of Armenia,
Armavia, is no more than $50mln, the owner of Armavia, President of
Mika Limited Mikhail Bagdasarov said in an interview with ArmInfo.

He said that the reports that the company owes $127mln are not true.

“Simply we would like to sell it for as much, and this sum includes
not only our debts but also investments, profits and my dividends,”
Bagdasarov said.

He said that his concern for the moment is not so much Armavia as the
cement factory in Hrazdan – an asset he also owns and wants to sell.

Bagdasarov said that the potential buyers of Armavia are mostly
individuals, including Armenians from the Diaspora.

“We would like individuals from Armenia, including Gagik Tsarukyan,
to buy stakes in the company, but we have received no bids so far,”
Bagdasarov said.

He refuted the reports that he met with the leader of Prosperous
Armenia Party, President of Multi Group Gagik Tsarukyan recently to
negotiate the sale of Armavia. “We had a short meeting. But it was
long ago, and we didn’t say a word about Armavia,” Bagdasarov said.

Bagdasarov said that in Mar 2013 Armavia’s 10-year exclusive right
to air services and it will not apply for a new one. “What exclusive
right are we talking about if we fly to Moscow and see three Russian
air companies flying at one and the same time from the opposite
direction? And we have to pay $1mln for this license. Real monopolists
are those who supply jet fuel and fix high prices for services in the
airport. As for us, we will apply for ordinary licenses to specific
flights,” Bagdasarov said.

Bagdasarov is displeased with the fact that the air ticket prices
include a so-called tax on the air. “The long-term contract signed by
the owner of Armavia, Sibir air company, with our navigation services,
did not mention any air tax. Now because of the authorities, who
have imposed the tax, we are forced to pay additional money. We are
not going to stand this and will appeal to courts of all levels,
including the international arbitration court,” Bagdasarov said.

Bagdasarov set up Armavia in 1996 and sold it to Russian S7. In 2005
pressured by the Armenian tax authorities, S7 gave the company back
to Bagdasarov. Today Armavia carries out over 100 flights to over 40
destinations in 20 countries.

AZERI STATUE TOUR COMES TO MONTENEGO

19:47, March 15, 2013

By Eliza Ronalds-Hannon

Azerbaijan continued its tour of stone-carved diplomacy this week
with an announcement it will fund and build a statue in Montenegro
of Javid Huseyn, an Azeri poet who was killed during Stalin’s purges.

The statue will sit in King’s Park, which the Azeri government is
also paying to rebuild along with the street on which it sits. The
Montenegrin government declined to give specifics regarding the cost
of the project, but said it would be a multi-million dollar endeavor.

The Azeri government has installed statues in many other countries in
recent years, including Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. But all of
those statues were of the former president, Heydar Aliyev. “It seems
like a new policy of the government that whenever they get friendly
with some European nation, they immediately install Heydar Aliyev’s
statue there,” said Azeri blogger Ali Novruzov. “In Azerbaijan they
put his statue everywhere, and now they are exporting the tradition,”
he said. “It’s a continuation of the domestic policy that created a
cult of personality around the late president.”

One such statue made headlines last month, when Mexico City
authorities removed an Aliyev monument in response to widespread
criticism. Protesters said they were offended by the statue, which
honored a man known for his authoritarian rule and rampant human
rights abuses.

It was likely the fear of similar such protests that persuaded the
Azeri and Montenegrin governments to forego another Aliyev statue
this time, in favor of the more palatable poet Huseyn. “It would
be too much, even for Montenegro,” said Milka Tadic, the editor of
Monenegro’s The Monitor magazine. “The poet is easier to sell.”

Both Heydar Aliyev and his son Ilham, the current president of
Azerbaijan, are known for their absolutist styles and dictatorial
regimes. Heydar was a KGB general, and rose to leadership while
Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union. From his seat of power,
he purged his opponents under the guise of anti-corruption programs.

His son Ilham, who inherited the presidency, has been compared to a
mafia crime boss in US diplomatic cables. Under his rule, Azerbaijan
has been criticized for human rights abuses, including the practice
of routinely imprisoning journalists and civic activists. .

But even more endemic to Aliyev’s regime is the government’s blatant
corruption. Recent OCCRP/Radio Free Europe investigations have shown
the President and his family amassing important assets through the
privatization of state-owned industries and holding secret stakes in
the country’s largest businesses. The ruling family has also heavily
invested in foreign properties in places like the Czech Republic,
a favorite destination for elites looking to hide cash.

Despite all this, the Azeri government presses forward with efforts to
promote its image as a wealthy and generous neighbor. In Azerbaijan,
the cult of personality Ilham has built using his father’s model
appears to be working, and now it has moved to the virtual world. .

“For many years, the online space was dominated by opposition,” said
Katy Pearce, a professor at Washington University and an expert on
technology in former Soviet nations. “But two years ago there was a
initiative by the youth wing of the ruling party to start being more
active on social media.”

A skilled group of young, internet-savvy party members lead up online
campaigns. Their strategy is not sophisticated, Pearce said, but it
doesn’t have to be; plenty of Azerbaijanis will join the campaign
willingly. Increasingly, young Azerbaijanis “make a rationalized
decision to go pro-government” when they see the new young elite
flaunting their lavish lifestyles online, through pictures of glam
ski trips and parties. “The key to the good life is to get in with
the pro-government youth, and once they get inside the inner circle,
they have to demonstrate their loyalty to the leadership,” Pearce said.

Read More

BURIAL CEREMONY OF ARAMAIS SAHAKYAN TO TAKE PLACE ON MARCH 17

18:01, 15 March, 2013

YEREVAN, MARCH 15, ARMENPRESS: Requiem ceremony of prominent poet,
humorist, publicist and translator Aramais Sahakyan will take place at
6:30-8:30 pm on March 16 in Yerevan St. Hovhannes (John the Baptist)
Church. As Armenpress was informed from Armenian Ministry of Culture,
last farewell ceremony of humorist will take place in Writers’ Union
of Armenia and burial ceremony at 2:00 pm in Yerevan Pantheon.

After a long disease Aramais Sahakyan, 77, passed away on March 14.

Aramais Sahakyan was an Armenian poet, humorist, publicist and
translator. A graduate of the Armenian State Teacher Training
Institute’s (now University) Language and History Department,
Sahakyan later took higher literary courses at the Moscow Maxim Gorky
Institute. In the 1960s he was a publisher for the Armenian periodicals
Avanguard and Garun (Spring, a literary monthly). From 1970 till 1971,
Sahakyan worked at the State Commission of the Armenian Television
and Radio. He was better known for his humor weekly, Vozni (Hedgehog),
of which he was the editor-in-chief for over 30 years (1982-2013).

Sahakyan’s best known books are Starlet (1958), Love Age (1959), We
are Together (1964), To Love and to Live (1968), Be Happy (1972), I
Love you (1975) etc. He was a laureate of numerous USSR and foreign
awards. His literary pieces have been translated into different
languages. After the collapse of the USSR, Sahakyan was a member of
independent Armenia’s first parliament.

How a peace deal with the Kurds could pave the way for a new Turkish
constitution

Turkey’s future

Presidential dreaming

Mar 16th 2013 | DIYARBAKIR |From the print edition

ZEHRA CACAN sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and
prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre,
Serxwebun, means insurrection in Kurdish. He died in January in a
clash with the Turkish army on the Iraqi border. Hundreds of his
fellow fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are also
buried in the Yenisehir cemetery in Diyarbakir. Their graves are
distinguished by the red, yellow and green ribbons adorning their
headstones.

A few years ago it would have been unimaginable that rebels’ graves
could be marked or that a grieving mother could speak in Kurdish. `We
cannot believe how free Kurds are here. Back in Syria we were afraid
to speak Kurdish even with our relatives,’ says Yarin Abi, a newly
arrived Syrian Kurdish refugee.

In the most dramatic turn yet, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime
minister, said in late December that his government was in talks with
the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison since his
capture in 1999. A tentative deal said to have been struck between Mr
Ocalan and Hakan Fidan, the national spy chief, could pave the way for
an historic compact between Turks and Kurds. Mr Erdogan’s critics
scream that the unity of the republic is at stake. But for Turkey’s
Kurds, whose ancestors fought beside Ataturk, only to see promises of
autonomy broken and their identity brutally suppressed, justice may at
last be served.

The outlines of the pact are contained in letters from Mr Ocalan
relayed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to rebel
commanders in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and in Europe. The deal
is ambitious but simple. The PKK will abandon its 29-year-old fight
for self-rule. Mr Ocalan himself says he now favours a unitary state.
In exchange the parliament, dominated by Mr Erdogan’s Justice and
Development (AK) Party, will pass reforms enabling the Kurds to pursue
political goals without risking imprisonment and freeing thousands of
activists jailed on the flimsiest of charges.

As part of this, the current constitution, drawn up by the generals
following a coup in 1980, will be replaced by a `fully democratic’ one
that addresses the Kurds’ demands. An article saying that all Turkish
citizens `are Turks’ will be scrapped, as will another proscribing
education in the Kurdish language. Regional autonomy will also be
boosted. Under the existing centralised system `my hands are
completely tied,’ complains the BDP’s Osman Baydemir, Diyarbakir’s
mayor. Facing 24 separate court cases on terror-related charges, he
complains that he was not even permitted to name a local park after a
(Turkish) human-rights activist `because the governor [appointed in
Ankara] said no.’

The conflict in Syria, where a PKK-linked Kurdish group is gaining
ground, is threatening to spill over the border. Peace with the Kurds
is essential if Turkey is to fulfil its dreams of regional leadership.
`The prime minister’s political career is at stake, he is utterly
sincere,’ says Galip Ensarioglu, an AK deputy from Diyarbakir. Not all
are convinced. Some think a deal with the Kurds is a tactic to help Mr
Erdogan secure his ambition to become Turkey’s first elected president
when Abdullah Gul steps down next year. He wants to enhance the powers
of the job à la française, which his critics say could make him a
dictator. With the main opposition parties firmly against, he has
taken to courting the BDP, whose support would win him parliamentary
approval for a new constitution to be put to a referendum.

Président Erdogan

The minutes of a recent meeting between Mr Ocalan and the BDP
confirmed that the presidency is on the table. To ensure that would-be
saboteurs (including Iran and Syria) do not use hundreds of PKK
militants based inside Turkey, Mr Erdogan is insisting that they
withdraw to northern Iraq. In the coming days Mr Ocalan is expected to
call on his men to silence their guns. The chances are that they will;
in a gesture of goodwill they freed eight Turkish captives this week.
If the army in turn halts its attacks, which are still continuing as
part of Mr Erdogan’s carrot-and-stick policy, peace may at last ensue.

The tricky bit is getting ordinary Turks and Kurds on board. Recent
opinion polls suggest that most support the talks, and a majority back
AK as well. But where would they draw the line? Far more than his
Islamist rants against alcohol and abortion, it is Mr Erdogan’s
unabashed authoritarianism that worries many Turks. Turkey has become
the world’s leading jailer of journalists, many of them Kurds, for
example. Yet Mr Erdogan’s supporters counter that the progress Turkey
has made in the past decade, including defanging the army and starting
talks on joining the European Union, is down to Mr Erdogan’s courage
and uninterrupted AK rule. Only a presidential system can avert the
paralysis that Turkey endured before AK came along.

As one Kurdish politician says, a stronger presidency is not too high
a price to pay for a new constitution that is a stepping stone to
greater devolution. The Kurds’ real problem is lack of trust, arising
from decades of repression and betrayal at the hands of what they see
as an unchanged Turkish state. Such distrust is on show at the
Yenisehir cemetery, where Yildiz Capraz, a contractor, performs the
Islamic ritual bathing of corpses. Kurdish families do not consider
officials `to be respectful’. Her charges have included PKK fighters
whose bodies were so horribly mutilated `we could not show them to
their families,’ she whispers. Meanwhile Mrs Cacan airs the common
refrain that `guns won us our rights.’ Can they be forgone without
ironclad guarantees?

Mr Erdogan’s record suggests he has the skill and the courage to heal
Turkey’s biggest wound. His bold embrace of the Iraqi Kurds was among
his most successful foreign-policy moves. If Mr Erdogan were now to
settle for a presidency with its present powers, not of a French-style
monarch, it would go a long way towards easing suspicions about his
motives – and clear the way for a constitution embraced not just by
Kurds but by Turks of all political and ethnic stripes.

>From the print edition: Europe

Azerbaijan continues the tour of “stone diplomacy”: they shelled out
on monument in Montenegro this time

16:33 16/03/2013 » SOCIETY

Azerbaijan continues the tour of “stone diplomacy”: a monument to
Azerbaijani poet Huseyn Javid will be installed in Montenegro, the
representative of the Research Center for Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) Eliza-Ronald Hannon said at
article in the side of `Azeri Report’.

“The Azerbaijani government will pay for the reconstruction of the
Royal Park and for the area of the Street where the monument will be
installed. Government of Montenegro refuses to present the cost of the
project, but says that it is a multimillion project”, says the
article.

The author notes that the Azerbaijani government has establish
monuments in many countries in recent years, including Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Serbia. However, these were monuments to former
President Heydar Aliyev. “It seems that this is the new policy of the
government: as soon as they receive a friendly attitude in any of
European countries they immediately install there Heydar Aliyev’s
statue. His monuments are everywhere in Azerbaijan, and now the
tradition is exported. This is a continuation of the policy of
creation of a cult to the personality of the late president,” says the
Azerbaijani blogger Ali Novruzov.

The article notes that one of such statues was in media’s limelight
last month, when the Mexico government removed Aliyev’s monument in
response to mass criticism. The protestors claimed that tributes of
honor paid to authoritarian leader are offensive for them. “It seems
that the fear of similar protests forced the Azerbaijani and
Montenegrin governments to refuse installment of another statue of
Aliyev in favor of a more suitable statue of a poet, Hussein,’ says
Ronald-Hannon.

As the author notes both Heydar Aliyev and his son Ilham Aliyev, the
current president of Azerbaijan, are known for their dictatorial style
of government. Heydar Aliyev was a KGB general. He came to power in
the Soviet era, and got rid of his opponents in the pretext of
fighting against the corruption. “His son, Ilham, who inherited the
presidency, was compared with the head of the Mafia by the U.S.
diplomatic sources. During his ruling, Azerbaijan was criticized for
abusing the human rights, including the practice of arrests of
journalists and civil society activists,’ the article says.

However, according to the author, the most blatant corruption is
characteristic to Aliyev regime. Recent collaborative research OCCRP
and “Radio LIberty” showed that the President of Azerbaijan and his
clan have amassed considerable wealth through the privatization of
state enterprises and secret ownership of stakes in major businesses
of the country. In addition, the ruling clan owns property in the
Czech Republic.

“Despite all this, the Azerbaijani authorities continue to promote
their image of a wealthy and generous neighbor. Formation of the
personality cult of Ilham in Azerbaijan, based on the model of his
father, worked, and now the process enters into the virtual space,’
the article says.

According to the professor of the Washington University, an expert on
post-Soviet countries Katie Pierce, the opposition dominated on the
online space for many years. “But two years ago, the youth wing of the
ruling party decided to become more active in social media,” she said.
Their actions became apparent after OCCRP called Aliyev “corrupt
official of the year.” Media organization and media, who wrote about
it, were buried with about 6,000 e-mails as a part of an organized
campaign.

The author also touched upon Azerbaijan’s intention to establish a
resort center in Montenegro. The project costs 4 billion Euros.
According to the article, the fact that the State Oil Company of
Azerbaijan won the tender remains questionable, as it did not
correspond to the basic requirements of the tender. “It is easy to
manipulate by money from Azerbaijan,’ Milka Tadic said, adding that
when the Montenegrin authorities need money, they often ask for
Aliyev’s support.

Monument to Heydar Aliyev which was installed in one of the central
parks of Mexico City in August 2012 caused bewilderment among the
residents. Azerbaijan has spent about $ 5 million on the
reconstruction of two parks in Mexico City, after which it was allowed
to install a monument there. Several protests were held in the capital
of Mexico during which the participants claimed they did not want to
see the statue of a dictator, who had ruled thousands of miles away
from their country, next to the monuments of their heroes. As a
result, statue of the former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev was
deinstalled. At the end of September 2012, in Canada, bust of Heydar
Aliyev, installed a year ago, was dismantled too, as the authorities
of the Niagara city considered it to be a statue of a dictatorship.

Source: Panorama.am

Armenia registers increase in cases of acute respiratory infections

NEWS.AM
March 16, 2013 | 17:49

YEREVAN.- Armenia is registering an increase in cases of acute
respiratory infections, chief expert at anti-epidemic center of the
Health Ministry Liana Torosyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

She stressed that the results of the week will be ready in the next
two days. Growth in the number of registered cases is explained by
citizens’ active visits to the doctors in clinics and hospitals.
However, there are more easy cases, than complicated ones, she added.

Only 10-12 people are undergoing treatment in the hospital, Torosyan noted.

She once again urged the citizens to dress warmly, not to communicate
with those who are already ill, follow basic personal hygiene habits,
consult a doctor when noticing the first symptoms.