Author: nina hovnanian

ANCA EASTERN REGION HAS NEW CHAIRPERSON

news.am
January 29, 2013 | 23:36

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern Region
has appointed Nora Kzirian as its new ANCA Eastern Region Board
Chairperson, ANCA informs Armenian News-NEWS.am.

A New Jersey native, Kzirian has been a long-time supporter and
activist of the ANCA. She credits the organization for igniting her
spirit to influence decision makers on matters of interest to the
Armenian-American community.

“The ANCA has played a significant role in my personal and professional
development. I am honored to be appointed to this position. My new
role will provide me with challenging and exciting opportunities to
grow as an ANCA and human rights activist. I look forward to working
with my colleagues on the Eastern Region Board to continue to promote
Armenian issues at every level of government,” Kzirian said.

In 2004, Kzirian started her tenure as Deputy Press Secretary for
the Honorable Steve Rothman, former U.S. representative for New
Jersey’s 9th Congressional district. During that time, she partnered
with the ANCA to ensure human rights issues were at the forefront of
the Congressman’s agenda, including the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide.

“The ANCA Eastern Region is very excited to welcome Nora as the new
Board chairperson. Her experience and leadership qualities are just
the beginning of what she brings to the table. Hai Tahd in the region
will benefit greatly with Nora in this role,” said Michelle Hagopian,
ANCA Eastern Region Executive Director.

With more than 10 years of experience as a communication and change
management professional, Kzirian has been recognized among clients
for her creative approaches to business leadership. In her current
role at Comcast, the largest cable and Internet service provider in
the U.S., she specializes in human resources and talent acquisition
communications.

Nora currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Jim, where she
is a member of the Armenian Relief Society “Artemis” chapter. Both Jim
and Nora are active participants of the Armenian-American community
in Philadelphia.

ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN STUDENT WINS PASADENA ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL COMPETITION

GlobeNewswire Tuesday, January 29th 2013

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 29, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today Art Center
College of Design and the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial
Committee (PASAGMC) jointly announced the winning design concept
for a new memorial whose planned dedication in 2015 will coincide
with 100th anniversary commemorations of the Armenian Genocide. The
concept by Art Center Environmental Design student Catherine Menard
was developed in 2012 as part of the College’s social impact design
program, Designmatters. The proposed site for the public artwork is
Memorial Park in the City of Pasadena.

Menard’s concept was one of 17 submissions the committee received,
and one of three finalists chosen by an independent panel of judges
in December. The three-judge panel included Stefanos Polyzoides,
a principal of Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists; Ruben
Amirian, an architect/artist who has served on the design review
board and historic commission in Glendale; and Neshan Peroomian,
a contractor and prominent Armenian-American community leader.

In all, six Environmental Design students at Art Center developed
memorial proposals last fall during an intensive Design Topic Studio
class and submitted them to the competition. Two of the students-Menard
and her classmate J.D. Clark-were selected as finalists, a particularly
impressive achievement in a field of competitors that included many
seasoned professionals.

Earlier this month, Board members of PASAGMC voted unanimously to
move forward with Menard’s proposal.

“This was a competitive process, and we considered a number of very
fine proposals,” says Committee Chair William M. Paparian, Esq., an
attorney and former Mayor of Pasadena. “But our final decision was
unanimous. We were deeply impressed by Catherine, who developed and
presented an emotionally compelling design for a historical event
that she initially knew nothing about. We hope that this memorial
will inspire a similar emotional connection in those who encounter it,
for generations to come.”

“With tremendous pride, we congratulate Catherine Menard on her
creative and inspiring memorial design that will have profound and
lasting impact in the community,” says Art Center President Lorne M.

Buchman. “The extraordinary talent and commitment of our students and
faculty continue to find meaningful expression locally and globally
through a remarkable range of social impact projects.”

Greater Los Angeles is home to the largest population of Armenians
in the United States, many descended from families persecuted and
killed between 1915 and 1921.

Menard, 26, is a seventh-term Environmental Design major at Art
Center and expects to graduate this year. Of French Cajun heritage,
she was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and moved with her family to
Los Angeles at age four. She currently resides in Pasadena.

“I’m a Southern California girl with a Southern heart,” she says with
a smile.

Initially invited to join the project by Environmental Design Associate
Professor James Meraz, Menard came into it with little knowledge
of Armenian history. “But I have always felt drawn to history and
heritage,” she says, “drawn to anything with any semblance of meaning.”

Menard immersed herself in accounts of the Armenian Genocide as well
as the recent history of memorial art, including the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, designed by Maya Lin who, like Menard,
was a student at the time she won the competition.

“It all started to permeate my mind and my heart,” says Menard. “At
first I felt unworthy-who am I to respond to such loss? But art
lends itself to the deepest, darkest parts of human experience. It
can create sympathy, empathy, understanding. I wanted to pair this
horror with something uplifting and beautiful, to create a way to
remember. I developed three different ideas and settled on the one
that I felt most terrified and most moved by.”

The central feature of Menard’s minimalist design-a carved-stone basin
of water straddled by a tripod arrangement of three columns leaning
into one another-is a single drop of water that falls from the highest
point every three seconds, each “teardrop” representing one life lost.

Over the course of one year, 1.5 million tears will fall into the pool,
the estimated number of victims of the Armenian Genocide.

“It was an honor to lead this most extraordinary challenge,” says
Meraz. “In just seven weeks-half the time of our typical studio-our
students worked passionately to design a memorial that has the power to
provoke an emotional and contemplative response to a horrific event. In
turn, this educational experience has given them new perspective, with
compassion, sensitivity, remembrance and hope for the human condition.”

Polyzoides, one of the competition jurors, will work with Menard to
bring her concept to fruition. An associate professor of architecture
emeritus at the University of Southern California, he is an architect,
urbanist and partner of Moule & Polyzoides, a Pasadena practice that
has completed many distinguished projects locally, in other parts of
the U.S. and abroad.

“All of the Art Center student submissions were extremely well done
and stood out for their seriousness. But Catherine’s design struck
the perfect balance between abstract and representational,” says
Polyzoides. “It’s very beautiful, very poetic, and I want to make
sure that it’s as well constructed as it was conceived.”

Although he was the only non-Armenian juror, Polyzoides has many
Armenian friends and the history of the Armenian Genocide has personal
resonance for him. “My grandparents were from Istanbul and I grew
up in Greece,” he recalls. “For as long as I can remember, I heard
about the actions taken by the Ottoman Turkish government against
the Armenian minority. It was devastating.”

Details regarding the project’s budget and construction will be
developed over the next several months, with official groundbreaking
anticipated in 2014 and dedication of the completed memorial on April
24, 2015.

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ATTACKS ON ARMENIAN WOMEN IN TURKEY HAVE DREDGED UP MEMORIES OF MASSACRE IN 1915. THE ECONOMIST

22:02, 29 January, 2013

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS: British “The Economist” posted
an article titled “Terrible attacks on Armenians” which referred
to latest attacks on Armenians in Istanbul. As reports Armenpress
“The Economist” mainly wrote

“Marissa Kucuk was a little old Armenian lady who lived on her own
in Samatya, a picturesque neighborhood of Istanbul where Christians
and Muslims used to rub along peacefully. On December 28th Ms Kucuk,
85, was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed, repeatedly.

Relatives said a crucifix was carved onto her naked corpse.

Last week, a masked assailant attacked another elderly Armenian as she
was entering her apartment. He punched her in the head. When she fell
to the ground he began kicking her. “My mother’s mouth was filled with
blood…the neighbors came to the rescue when she screamed for help and
the man fled,” Maryam Yelegen, told “Agos”, a Turkish Armenian weekly.

The attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly
Armenian women (one has lost an eye). All of the attacks took place
in Samatya, which is home to some 8,000 Armenians and the seat of the
Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate. Opinion remains divided as to whether
these are organised hate crimes targeting non-Muslims or just random
theft. Some of the victims were, indeed, robbed. The Turkish police
are said to be concentrating their investigation on a man in his
thirties as a potential suspect. Turkey’s Human Rights Association
remains unswayed. “The attacks were carried out with racist motives,”
it concluded in a report that was published last week.

Either way, the attacks have dredged up memories of the mass slaughter
of about a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915. “The attacks highlight
the unbearable heaviness of being Armenian in Turkey,” says Khatchig
Mouradian an Armenian activist and academic who lost ancestors in
the killings.

Academic opinion worldwide tilts towards the view that these
constituted genocide. Turkey refutes this saying the majority died
of illness and hunger during forced deportations to the Syrian Desert.

Those who dared to challenge the official line (among them Orhan Pamuk,
Turkey’s sole Nobel laureate for literature) have faced prosecution
and death threats. But none as much as Hrant Dink, the outspoken
Armenian journalist who founded AGOS as a platform for unfettered
debate about 1915. He was murdered in 2007 by an ultra-nationalist
youth outside his office in the heart of Istanbul.

Mr Dink’s family insists that the killer was acting under orders from
rogue ultra-nationalist elements within the security forces, who,
in turn, were probably linked to a Byzantine plot known as “Kafes” or
Cage. Scores of suspects, including three admirals tied to Kafes are
being tried on charges of conspiring to murder Christians in Turkey.

Their alleged aim was to intimidate Christians into leaving for good,
place the blame on Turkey’s Islam-tinged Justice and Development (AK)
Party and thus lay the ground for the army to intervene. The 2007
murders of three Christian missionaries in the eastern province of
Malatya (their throats were slit) are believed to be part of Kafes.

Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer for the victims, sees parallels between
the Kafes plot and “the ultra-nationalist mentality informing 1915”
which tends to view “citizens of Armenian descent as disloyal and
untrustworthy.”

THE GHOSTS OF 1915

Turkey’s Armenians

Jan 29th 2013, 13:54 by A.Z. | ISTANBUL

MARISSA Kucuk was a little old Armenian lady who lived on her own in
Samatya (pictured above), a picturesque neighbourhood of Istanbul
where Christians and Muslims used to rub along peacefully. On December
28th Ms Kucuk, 85, was found dead in her apartment. She had been
stabbed, repeatedly. Relatives said a crucifix was carved onto her
naked corpse.

Last week, a masked assailant attacked another elderly Armenian as she
was entering her apartment. He punched her in the head. When she fell
to the ground he began kicking her. “My mother’s mouth was filled with
blood…the neighbours came to the rescue when she screamed for help and
the man fled,” Maryam Yelegen, told AGOS, a Turkish Armenian weekly.

The attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly
Armenian women (one has lost an eye). All of the attacks took place in
Samatya, which is home to some 8,000 Armenians and the seat of the
Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate. Opinion remains divided as to whether
these are organised hate crimes targeting non-Muslims or just random
theft. Istanbul’s governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, insists that it was
the latter. “The incident was inspired by robbery, there were no
racial motives. Be sure we will find the perpetrators. Good night,” he
tweeted to some 100,000 followers.

Some of the victims were, indeed, robbed. The Turkish police are said
to be concentrating their investigation on a man in his thirties as a
potential suspect. Turkey’s Human Rights Association remains unswayed.

“The attacks were carried out with racist motives,” it concluded in a
report that was published last week.

Either way, the attacks have dredged up memories of the mass slaughter
of about a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915. “The attacks highlight
the unbearable heaviness of being Armenian in Turkey,” says Khatchig
Mouradian an Armenian activist and academic who lost ancestors in the
killings.

Academic opinion worldwide tilts towards the view that these
constituted genocide. Turkey refutes this saying the majority died of
illness and hunger during forced deportations to the Syrian desert.

Those who dared to challenge the official line (among them Orhan
Pamuk, Turkey’s sole Nobel laureate for literature) have faced
prosecution and death threats. But none as much as Hrant Dink, the
outspoken Armenian journalist who founded AGOS as a platform for
unfettered debate about 1915. He was murdered in 2007 by an
ultra-nationalist youth outside his office in the heart of Istanbul.

Mr Dink’s family insists that the killer was acting under orders from
rogue ultra-nationalist elements within the security forces, who, in
turn, were probably linked to a Byzantine plot known as “Kafes” or
Cage.

Scores of suspects, including three admirals tied to Kafes are being
tried on charges of conspiring to murder Christians in Turkey. Their
alleged aim was to intimidate Christians into leaving for good, place
the blame on Turkey’s Islam-tinged Justice and Development (AK) Party
and thus lay the ground for the army to intervene. The 2007 murders
of three Christian missionaries in the eastern province of Malatya
(their throats were slit) are believed to be part of Kafes. Orhan
Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer for the victims, sees parallels between the
Kafes plot and “the ultra-nationalist mentality informing 1915” which
tends to view “citizens of Armenian descent as disloyal and
untrustworthy.”

Fresh evidence emerged last week suggesting that local gendarmerie
officials kept thousands of pages worth of files on missionaries and
other Christians in Malatya. But the defence argues that the evidence
was “sexed up” by prosecutors as in the Sledgehammer case, another
alleged coup plot. Independent forensic experts have supported these
claims.

In any case Mr Cengiz says had the Kafes suspects not been brought to
trial attacks against Christians would have continued. Many credit AK
for easing pressure on non-Muslims. A small but vocal group of Turkish
historians now openly talk about genocide. Bookstores have entire
shelves devoted to the topic. Tens of thousands of illegal migrants
from the neighbouring Republic of Armenia with which Turkey has no
official ties work in Istanbul, as the authorities look the other way.

“Reconciliation” projects between Turks and Armenians have become so
commonplace that hawks on both sides no longer blink.

Yet the message from the government is somewhat mixed. Mehmet Nihat
Omeroglu, the controversial judge who upheld a conviction of Mr Dink
for “insulting Turkishness”, was recently sworn in by the parliament
as the head of the newly created ombudsman institution. The case was
widely publicised and helped to whip up nationalist fervour against Mr
Dink. Mr Omeroglu apparently has no regrets. “We made our decision on
this case on the basis of our conscience,” the ombudsman told Radikal,
a liberal daily.

ARMENIAN AMERICAN LOBBY’S KEY PRIORITY IS TO ACHIEVE INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF SO-CALLED “NGR”

[ 29 January 2013 20:04 ]

Baku. Anakhanum Hidayatova – APA. The Armenian American lobby has
identified the main directions of its activity.

APA reports quoting Armenian media that one of the key priorities
of the lobby is to achieve the international recognition of the
so-called “Nagorno Karabakh Republic”. First, it is planned to carry
out activities on the local level – the states of Massachusetts and
Rhode Island. Moreover, the Armenian lobby will strive to increase
financial support for the separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh provided
by the U.S, increase investment made by Armenian diaspora to the
occupied territories, support organization “Americans for Artsakh”,
provide information support to Nagorno Karabakh on the international
level, attract the leading media outlets in this process and prevent
arms deals with Azerbaijan.

D. HARUTYUNYAN: “UNFORTUNATELY, PACE BECOMES STRANGE ORGANIZATION”

“Unfortunately, Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE)
becomes strange organization”. Head of the Armenian delegation to
PACE Davit Harutyunyan announced about this during the meeting with
the journalists today. Mr. Harutyunyan was concluding the PACE winter
session which took place on January 21-25 in Strasburg.

According to the speaker PACE “treats mildly Azerbaijan”. “Some
violations by Azerbaijan are forgiven” D. Harutyunyan underlined
and presented the examples concerning the political prisoners in
Azerbaijan.

The next example is about Ramil Safarov’s case. According to D.
Harutyunyan the case was not presented properly during the reports. As
the speaker underlined if PACE continued in the same way the name of
the organization will be spoiled.

29.01.13, 18:43

DIASPORA ARMENIAN GENERALS VISIT TSITSERNAKABERD

17:52 29.01.2013

Lieutenant General Noran Ter-Grigoryan, Lieutenant General Vladimir
Chobanyan, Major-General Roman Harutyunyan, Brigade General Panos
Manjyan, Admiral Hernan Kuyumjyan and Colonel Rubik Galstyan visited
Tsitsernakaberd on January 27 to pay tribute to the memory of the
innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide.

The high-ranking Diaspora Armenian servicemen have arrived in Yerevan
to participate in the events dedicated to the 21st anniversary of
the Armenian Army. They laid wreaths at the memorial to the Armenian
Genocide victims and met with Hayk Demoyan, Director of the Armenian
Genocide Museum Institute.

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: PROGRAM OF PRACTICAL COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA FOR COMING 5 YEARS WILL BE DETERMINED IN FEBRUARY

ARMINFO
Tuesday, January 29, 12:16

A program of practical cooperation with Armenia for the coming 5
years will be determined in February , Defense Minister of Russia,
Army General Sergey Shoygu said in Yerevan after negotiations with
his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanyan, Tuesday.

“We discussed issues of military-technical cooperation, perspectives
of further development of strategic partnership. It is not our first
meeting. Last year we met twice. We discussed issues of regional
and international security in details, as well as some additional
decisions,” Shoygu said.

He recalled that a delegation of the CSTO is currently in Armenia
and is working in the same dimension and, probably, in a larger format.

“Documents to form additional elements contributing to security in
the region will be signed today. The work scheduled earlier has been
generally fulfilled. I’d like to say that a program of practical
cooperation for at least five years will be determined in February,”
the Russian minister said.

ARTHUR BAGHDASARYAN: A CSTO ACADEMY WILL OPEN IN ARMENIA IN A FEW MONTHS

ARMINFO
Tuesday, January 29, 14:00

On January 29 in Yerevan, Secretary General of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization Nikolay Bordyuzha and Secretary of the National
Security Council of Armenia Arthur Baghdasaryan signed a Memorandum
of Understanding on establishment of CSTO Academy Fund in Armenia. In
addition, a decision to establish CSTO Academy Fund was signed.

“We are very glad that the Academy will launch activity in a few
months. It will be a serious analytical center. So far, we are settling
a number of organizational issues. It is very important that such
structure is established in Armenia,” Arthur Baghdasaryan said.

For his part, CSTO Secretary General considers the Academy as an
information and analytical center to train specialists and political
experts on CSTO functioning. He said that the given structure will
allow preparing representatives of the countries in the collective
security sphere, developing recommendations on liquidation of a number
of problems, etc.

“Representatives of both CSTO member-states and European states will
receive education at the Academy. It is important for us to inform
them of CSTO’s activity in the sphere of security, challenges the
countries are facing and the ways to manage them,” Bordyuzha said.

PILOT OF CRASHED PLANE IN KAZAKHSTAN ETHNIC ARMENIAN

TERT.AM
16:26 ~U 29.01.13

Russian Life News website has published the names of the victims of
the plane crash near the capital of Kazakhstan Almaty. Among them is
Svyatoslav Babaian, ethnic Armenian experienced pilot.

Earlier it was reported about 20 victims but according to the recent
information the number of victims is 21, among them a 2-year old
toddler. Five of the victims were crew members, the others passengers.

Prosecutor general office of Kazakhstan reported that the plane
Challenger-200 was implementing Kokshetau-Almaty flight but crashed
because of thick fog. Investigation is under way.