Author: nina hovnanian

AMBASSADOR’S WIVES IN YOUTUBE ATTACK ON THE FIRST LADY OF SYRIA
By Lilly Martin

OpEd News

May 7 2012

The wives of two ambassadors to the United Nations have created
a YouTube video which personally attacks and seeks to humiliate
the wife of the President of Syrial, Asma Assad. Who are these
three women involved and why are women attacking women? It sounds
like a “cat-fight’, which is usually based on petty jealousies and
insecurities of the attackers. I have noticed this attack is also
based on propaganda and ignorance by the two female attackers.

Huberta von Voss Wittig is the wife of the German ambassador to
the United Nations, Dr. Peter Wittig. Huberta is identified as a
journalist and writer by internet sources. She may have written a book,
“Portraits of Hope: Armenians in the Contemporay World”. If she had
many Armenian friends who live inside Syria, they would have already
told her that they do not share her misinformed and ignorant views of
the violence inside Syria. I know many Armenians living inside Syria
and they are all supportive of the actions of the President of Syria,
Dr. Bashar Al Asad. In fact, Kasab, which is a wholly Armenian village,
located on the Syrian-Turkish border, has been a victim of violence
by armed terrorist groups, who are fighting the Syrian Arab Army.

However, Huberta, sitting safe in her New York City home, seems to
think herself well informed on the violence which is inside Syria. I
wonder how many times Huberta has traveled to Syria, how many friends
she has here to keep her informed, and if she has ever been attacked
by an armed terrorist? I have lived in Syria for twenty years, all
my friends are scattered around Syria in various locations, and I
have been attacked by armed terrorists in Syria.

Huberta should know that the German Navy, without German parliament
mandate, had sent a spy ship to sit off the coast of Syria, with
the express purpose of giving the terrorists inside Syria satellite
information on troop movements of the Syrian Arab Army, in and around
Homs. Huberta’s husband’s employer is involved in aiding the terrorists
inside Syria. Huberta is pleading for the Syrian first lady to pressure
her husband to stop attacking terrorists in Homs.

Huberta is pleading for the Syrian first lady to assist the west in
regime change. When my home was being attacked during the summer of
2011 by armed terrorists, it was only the Syrian Arab Army and the
local police who came to fight for my life and my family’s protection.

Of the many thousands who have died in Syrian since March 2011 the
majority have been soldiers, police and national security officers.

Men in uniform: doing their national duty, to save and protect innocent
civilians from armed terrorists.

Sheila, Lady Lyall Grant, is the wife of Sir Mark Lyall Grant,
the British ambassador to the United Nations. I wonder if she is
wearing old clothes. Maybe Lady Lyall Grant likes to save her husband
money and run around in tattered jeans she buys from a New York City
second-hand shop. She certainly seems incensed that the first lady of
Syria has been noticed as having good taste in clothes and represents
the Syrian fashion industry well. Maybe Sheila would like to start a
worldwide campaign to prevent first ladies from dressing well. Maybe
she should start in London, not Syria.

Here is a list of some of the many positive things which Asma Al Asad,
the first lady of Syria, has done to help Syria in general and Syrian
women in particular. For example:

Changing the national school uniforms worn from the militant army
fatigues to royal blue, grey and pink fabrics.

Developing a micro-finance program for women in villages, who need
help starting their own income producing project.

Changing the law which effect women in divorce: that they can keep
custody of their young children much longer than the previous law
stated.

Developing charitable organizations focused on youth and learning.

Huberta and Sheila have husbands who work at the United Nations, but
these two women are apparently totally ignorant of the UN Charter’s
article 51 which allows any President, and in this case President Assad
in particular “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense
if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations”.

If armed terrorists arrive in London or Berlin, in the dead of night,
having crossed borders illegally, and well funded and supplied with
all the latest killing weapons, and intent on killing as many police,
soldiers and civilians as possible, Huberta and Sheila would have us
to believe that we must all welcome them with open arms and never
try to fight back to save innocent lives. I certainly hope armed
terrorists never arrive in London or Berlin because I have had to
live through a year of daily killings, rapes, tortures and maiming
of innocent people. It is the duty of President Bashar Al Asad to
defend the Syrian public from armed terrorist attacks.

Huberta and Sheila represent either the ignorance of two individuals
who know nothing about the true source of violence inside Syria,
or they represent two western women who are using their husband’s
political positions to demand regime change in Syria.

Let us say that I hate Angela Merkel and David Cameron. Let us say my
political views are dead set against everything those two leaders stand
for. Should I then find funding for weapons and mercenary terrorists
and begin a campaign of terror inside Britain and Germany?

Or perhaps I should keep my money and weapons to myself and let the
British and German public decide who they want as their leader. What
gives Britain or Germany the right to impose regime change on 23
million Syrians?

Then we have that small minor detail of numbers. Of the 23 million
Syrian citizens, about 75% are in support of President Bashar Al Asad.

There are about 25% who are in opposition. Shall the “international
community’ demand regime change when the majority of the citizens
do not ask for regime change? Wouldn’t it make better sense to use
peaceful methods to negotiate political changes inside Syria, which
would eventually lead to greater freedom and democracy, and free,
open elections?

Syria was once one party rule. Everything was the Ba’ath party only.

If you were a communist, you went to jail. That has changed.

There are now 10 registered parties, including the communist party.

The nationwide municipal elections happened, without violence,
and in free and open conditions. Next month will be parliamentary
elections. Once the totally new parliament sits there will be new
laws and many changes, based on what the people want. The Syrian
people have found their voice and are not afraid to use it. The
totally new constitution was ratified by national election. There
is no emergency law in Syria. Opposition, even armed opposition,
was given amnesty (except in the case of murder). Protests were
made legal, but must be registered, just like the laws in western
countries covering demonstrations in public. The next Presidential
election is 2014. Hopefully by then the new freedoms and democracies
which have evolved here in Syria will have become entrenched and part
of daily life.

Democracy does not have to come from bloodshed and destruction. It is
possible to go from a political system of limited freedoms to a fully
free and democratic nation without regime change, mass destruction
and the slaughter of innocent civilians and soldiers. I am proud of
the Syrian first lady Asma Al Asad. She is a positive role model for
Syrian women and an educated and contributing member of Syrian society.

PROFESSOR RACHEL GOSHGARIAN SHOWS STUDENTS THE VIBRANT DIVERSITY OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Lafayette College Campus News

May 7 2012

posted in ACADEMIC NEWS, FACULTY AND STAFF, FACULTY PROFILES, NEWS
AND FEATURES, TOP NEWS, WORK WITH STELLAR PROFESSOR-MENTORS

If you don’t know where the Hagia Sophia is, that the English word
“alcohol” comes from Arabic, or the fact that Saladin (a “hero” of
the counter-crusade) was an ethnic Kurd, then you probably haven’t
taken a class with Rachel Goshgarian.

Newly hired as an assistant professor of history, Goshgarian, who
has a Ph.D. in history and Middle Eastern studies from Harvard,
has spent her first two semesters introducing Lafayette students to
the historical study of a region that she calls “multi-layered and
consistently fascinating.”

“The American press has a tendency to dehumanize the people of the
Middle East,” she says, noting most high schools in the United States
don’t offer courses on the region, so often times her class is the
first and only a Lafayette student will ever take on the Middle East.

“I try to expose students to images and information that highlight the
past and present diversity of the region, and also to introduce them
to new approaches to the history of the Middle East in the hopes that
we can paint exciting academic endeavors on a ‘blank-ish’ canvas,”
she explains.

Of Armenian descent, Goshgarian grew up as part of a vibrant diverse
community in Chicago, a formative experience that led her to major
in international relations and French at Wellesley.

Goshgarian is proficient in several languages, including Turkish,
Armenian, French, Spanish and Arabic, the latter which she began
studying after her first year at Wellesley. Her motive was personal-she
attended what she calls a “jubilant” Lebanese wedding and wanted to
“befriend all the Lebanese people” she could-but her decision to learn
Arabic was a rewarding one as her study of the language led to an
“obsession” with the Middle East and later, to a Fulbright grant to
study for a year in Morocco.

Goshgarian’s passion for the Middle East continued and she began her
graduate studies at Harvard with plans of specializing in the modern
Middle East. “I thought I would eventually work at an NGO in D.C.,”
she says. That idea was upended after taking her first class in
Ottoman history.

“My professor had such a nuanced approach to the history of the Ottoman
Empire that I began to see the history of the region as something
other than a long crawl towards the formation of nation-states,” she
says. “And I realized that in order to comprehend the modern Middle
East, I had to have a better understanding of its medieval and early
modern history.”

After earning her master’s in 2001, Goshgarian began pursuit of her
Ph.D. The goal of her project was to better understand the significance
of urban confraternities in Anatolia during the transitional period
between the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. But she didn’t relegate
her research to computers and library carrels.

“Highly social” by her own description, Goshgarian also founded the
Harvard Middle Eastern Cultural Association, a student organization
that seeks to encourage understanding through cultural communication.

Activities included concerts, poetry readings, dances, and a weekly
breakfast for students and professors.

“Our goal in founding the association was to create a space where
people with an interest in the Middle East could interact uniquely
by means of the culture of the region,” she says. Goshgarian hopes
to create a similar space at Lafayette so the campus community can
“dip its toe” in the pool of Middle Eastern culture.

In 2006, Goshgarian coauthored an Armenian language textbook published
in Turkey, something she calls “an exciting venture considering the
complicated relationship that exists between Armenians and Turks over
their shared history.” The book itself was one of the first ever
written by an Armenian and a Turk, and the first Armenian grammar
book published in Turkey in 114 years.

Goshgarian is quick to note that she’s a medieval historian who
systematically conducts her research by using Armenian sources in
conjunction with texts composed in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. It’s
the seemingly intentional erasure of history and memory for which she
aims to compensate, and her research is the warm breath that reveals
a hidden message on a window pane.

Take, for example, a trip she and her father took-while Goshgarian
was conducting dissertation research in Turkey-to find a medieval
Armenian monastery. Goshgarian had always wanted to experience the
place where Yovhannes of Erzinjan had produced the writings that had
inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. The trip was arduous, and she and her
father spent hours in a stuffy car traveling over mountainous roads
with their chain-smoking driver.

On the verge of giving up, the motley threesome stumbled upon a small
village populated by ramshackle homes and crinkly-faced shepherds
where her father’s offhand reference to the “vank”-the Armenian word
for “monastery”-unlocked the discovery of Surp Nerses.

In her writing about the trip, Goshgarian references the phrase “There
was and there was not,” explaining that it’s the Middle Eastern fairy
tale equivalent to “Once upon a time.”

“These six words were not just an entry into an imaginary world that
had never been,” she muses. “These words were also a bridge to a
place that once existed.”

Upon receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2008, Goshgarian served as
director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center in New
York and taught Armenian history as a visiting professor at Columbia
University. And she was a senior fellow at the Research Center for
Anatolian Civilizations at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey, before
coming to Lafayette in the fall of 2011.

In January, Goshgarian traveled to the Middle East to continue her
study of Anatolian cities as places where-in the 13TH and 14TH
centuries-Arabs, Armenians, Georgians, Greeks, Nomadic Turkmen,
Persians, and Turks lived together and created what she calls “a
hybridity of culture, not completely dissimilar from medieval Spain.”

Goshgarian says she has been warmly welcomed not only by the College
community but also by local Eastonians, and, in particular, by Easton’s
Lebanese population, thanks both to her gregarious nature and love
of a good chicken shawerma sandwich. Her enthusiasm for people has
served her well, not only in her research but also in the classroom,
where part of the enjoyment, she says, is getting to know her students.

“I love teaching,” she says. “And I enjoy sharing my own approach
to understanding the complexities of human existence. It is in its
complexity, in fact, that history becomes most familiar to us.”

LEAD: PRESIDENTIAL PARTY TOPS ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION EDS: RECASTS WITH ELECTION RESULT

Europe Online Magazine

May 7 2012

Yerevan (dpa) – President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republic Party scored major
gains in Armenia’s parliamentary election on Sunday, emerging as the
top party, according to exit polls released after voting ended.

His pro-Russian party was expected to win 45 per cent of the overall
vote, up more than 10 percentage points from the last election in 2007,
the data showed as vote-counting continued.

Election observers in the capital Yerevan said that despite occasional
breaches of democratic rules, polling was generally peaceful and fair.

There were 131 seats in the National Assembly of the former Soviet
republic up for grabs. Voting ended at 8 pm (1600 GMT). Officials
assessed the turnout among the 2.5 million registered voters at 62.2
per cent.

At least five parties were tipped to win seats. The Prosperous Armenia
party led by businessman Gagik Tsarukyan was in second place on 28.8
per cent of the votes, doubling its vote five years ago, the exit
polls showed.

The party has been a member of Sargsyan’s tripartite coalition until
now, but has presented itself to voters as an opposition voice speaking
up for Armenia’s poor.

Armenia’s economy has been hampered by closed borders to its Islamic
neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan. The country depends on help from
Russia.

Western observers said campaigning was unfettered and opposition
parties were able to make their voices heard in the media during
campaigning.

A presidential election in March 2008 triggered deadly riots after
Sargsyan defeated Levon Ter-Petrosian, the country’s first president.

Ter-Petrosian, now a member of the opposition Armenian National
Congress, campaigned in the election.

On Friday, an estimated 150 people were injured at an election rally
of the Republic Party when several gas-filled balloons exploded.

Dozens were still being treated in hospital on Sunday.

The small Caucasus nation is a strategically important region, lying
along gas routes from the energy-rich Caspian Sea region to Europe,
and is a close partner of Iran and Georgia.

Armenia sees itself as increasingly threatened by its authoritarian,
oil-rich neighbour Azerbaijan, with which it fought a war in the 1990s.

An estimated 30,000 people died in that war over Nagorno-Karabakh,
an ethnically Armenian enclave that has remained under Yerevan’s
control since a 1994 ceasefire.

ARMENIANS VOTE IN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

Xinhua General News Service
May 6, 2012 Sunday 8:40 AM EST
China

Armenians went to the polls to elect a new parliament on Sunday,
with the voting starting at 8:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) and
closing at 8:00 p.m. (1300 GMT).

Around 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in the elections,
according to the Central Election Commission.

The voting is set to be vied by the ruling Republican Party led by
President Serzh Sarkisian and the Prosperous Armenia Party led by
Gagik Tsarukian, a businessman.

President Sarkisian cast his ballot at a polling station in the
capital, saying “I voted for the progress of Armenia.”

He told journalists that he hoped “things will move on peacefully
and according to the law today, tomorrow and the day afterwards.”

“I think that is exactly what we need to make progress,” he said.

The country’s economic and social issues were in the spotlight during
the 28-day campaign that started on April 8.

Holding free and transparent elections is important for the Caucasus
nation with a population of 3.3 million, as it could result in a
wider cooperation with Europe and relaxed visa procedures from other
European countries.

The voting was the first one in the country following the presidential
elections held in February 2008, during which 10 people were killed
in a bloody violence between protesters and security forces.

An OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)
observer from Latvia told Xinhua that no irregularities have been
found so far.

A 70-year-old pensioner who only gave her name as Gayane said she
voted “for a better economy,” saying she was “optimistic” about the
next five years.

The 131-seat National Assembly is elected through a mixed system.

Ninety parliament members are elected through the proportional
system of voting where citizens vote for party lists, and the rest
are elected directly in separate constituencies.

Some 350 European and 31,000 local observers are monitoring the polls.

Preliminary results of the election are expected on May 7.

PRESIDENT SAYS HE VOTES FOR ARMENIA’S PROGRESS

ITAR-TASS
May 6, 2012 Sunday 01:19 PM GMT+4
Russia

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said he voted for progress of
his country at the parliamentary elections that take place in Armenia
on Sunday.

“I have voted for progress of Armenia,” the president said. He said
he wished that “today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow everything
proceed calmly, peacefully, in accordance with our law”.

“I believe this is a guarantee of Armenia’s progress,” the president
stressed. President Sargsyan thanked media for its work during the
election period, for offering “all political forces a possibility to
present their point of view to the public”.

A portrait of the president, who leads the election party list of the
Republican Party of Armenia, was removed on Sunday from the entrance
hall of the school hosting a polling station where the president
voted. This was done not to violate the ban on campaigning on the
election day.

HAKOBYAN DOESN’T ACCEPT VICTORY OF SEDRAK (THE GENERAL) SAROYAN ; CITES ELECTION BRIBES
Grisha Balasanyan

hetq
14:07, May 7, 2012

Ruling Republican Party candidate Hakob Hakobyan, stated today that
he does not accept the victory of the declared winner, Sedrak (the
General) Saroyan, an independent candidate running in the single
mandate race from Election District 19.

Hakobyan says that he supplied local police with specific names of
bribe givers and takers one day before the election but that they
did nothing in response.

“They were even handing out bribes from parked cars during the
election. Those guys had a buch of passports with them. People would
pick up their passports from them before going to the polls. We have
the video tape of all this,” Hakobyan said, adding that the bribes
amounted to 10,000 AMD.

Hakobyan says he went to church that morning to pray for those
Armenians who are so in need that they were forced to take the money.

ANNE ELBRECHT TO GIVE LECTURE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

PanARMENIAN.Net
May 7, 2012 – 16:52 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – On May 17, Anne Elbrecht of Davis, Calif., will give
a lecture entitled “Telling the Story: The Armenian Genocide in The
New York Times and Missionary Herald,” at the National Association
for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center in Belmont, Mass.,
according to The Armenian Weekly.

Elbrecht’s Telling the Story: The Armenian Genocide in The New York
Times and Missionary Herald, 1914-1918 (Taderon Press, 2012) focuses
on two important journals to see how news of the Armenian Genocide
filtered through to the United States between 1914-18. It also looks
at how the American public reacted to such news with a humanitarian
intervention program.

There were undoubted differences between the two journals, as The New
York Times was a leading news organization while Missionary Herald
was part of an institution (the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions) with vested interests in Turkey. However, the
flow of information to the outside world was clear and compelling,
especially as many reports were actually written by United States
officials in Turkey and leaked to the press by the State Department
in Washington, D.C.

Elbrecht is a graduate of Wheaton College, University of California,
Berkeley, School of Library Studies, and McGeorge School of Law.

Telling the Story is based on her MA thesis at California State
University, Sacramento. With her late husband Richard A. Elbrecht
she traveled throughout Turkey photographing Armenian churches, a
visual archive now part of the Armenian Studies Program at California
State University, Fresno. She has been a member of NAASR’s Board of
Directors since 2007.

Telling the Story will be available for purchase and signing the
night of the lecture.

SHUSHI TO HOST THE MEETING OF ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF “AUTOCHTONOUS PEOPLES OF CAUCASIAN-CASPIAN REGION” CONFERENCE

hetq
15:23, May 8, 2012

On May 8 in the Shushi Grand hotel, Republic of Artsakh the 3
day enlarged meeting of the organizing committee of international
conference “Autochtonous peoples of Caucasian-Caspian region” started.

The organizing committee along with representatives from Armenia
includes various intellectuals, academics and public leaders from
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Europe and North America.

The program of the meeting includes discussions concerning the
format of forthcoming conference in Yerevan (5-7 October, 2012),
it’s coverage, sections and panels.

The second day of meeting (May 9) the delegation of the organizing
committee will attend the military parade of Artsakh Defense Army
devoted to 20th anniversary of Shushi liberation from the long lasting
Azerbaijani occupation.

Dr. Khachik Gevorgyan, Secretary of the Organising Committee, reports
that during the concluding day of the conference in the Central
Music Hall of Stepanakert, the capital of the Republic of Artsakh,
the first presentation of the “Marsh Talishistan” created by Talishi
musicians will be performed.

PRESIDENTS OF ARMENIA AND KARABAKH ATTEND EVENTS ON 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF SHUSHI LIBERATION

news.am
May 08, 2012 | 15:14

SHUSHI.- President of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Bako Sahakyan and
Armenian President

Serzh Sargsyan participated on Tuesday in the solemn events organized
in Stepanakert and Shushi dedicated to the Victory Holiday, the Day
of the Artsakh Republic Defense Army and the liberation of Shushi.

In the Stepanakert Memorial Complex Presidents of the two Armenian
states laid flowers to the monument symbolizing the memory of martyrs
perished during the Second World War and Artsakh liberation struggle.

The Presidents also visited the town of Shoushi where they laid wreath
at the pedestal of the tank-monument and the monument to Vazgen
Sargsyan. They were present at the public festivity held in Shushi
as well.

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, NKR second President Arkady
Ghukasyan, leadership of the Artsakh Republic, official delegation
from the Republic of Armenia, representatives of the Diaspora, as
well as guests from abroad participated in the events.
Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Description:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
From: Mihran Keheyian
Subject: Presidents of Armenia and Karabakh attend events on 20th anniversary
of Shushi liberation

Presidents of Armenia and Karabakh attend events on 20th anniversary
of Shushi liberation

news.am
May 08, 2012 | 15:14

SHUSHI.- President of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Bako Sahakyan and
Armenian President

Serzh Sargsyan participated on Tuesday in the solemn events organized
in Stepanakert and Shushi dedicated to the Victory Holiday, the Day of
the Artsakh Republic Defense Army and the liberation of Shushi.

In the Stepanakert Memorial Complex Presidents of the two Armenian
states laid flowers to the monument symbolizing the memory of martyrs
perished during the Second World War and Artsakh liberation struggle.

The Presidents also visited the town of Shoushi where they laid wreath
at the pedestal of the tank-monument and the monument to Vazgen
Sargsyan. They were present at the public festivity held in Shushi as
well.

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, NKR second President Arkady
Ghukasyan, leadership of the Artsakh Republic, official delegation
from the Republic of Armenia, representatives of the Diaspora, as well
as guests from abroad participated in the events.

THEY’D BETTER KEEP SILENT
Haik Aramyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 14:57:12 – 08/05/2012

The so-called silence day is lasting too long. The silence day
preceded the voting, and then the political forces usually make
a political statement. However, the political forces have made no
statements yet. There were some opinions but nobody made a political
statement. Neither did the Joint Headquarters.

The reason might be confusion in which the political forces have
appeared. Did they believe the government’s commitment to hold the best
election? In that case, the political forces will need an examination
of sanity or adequacy.

If the force is political and has little understanding of the political
situation of Armenia, it should understand that there would be no
election as such. There will be what has happened since 1995 because
in Armenia the electoral mechanisms were destroyed then.

And if the political forces are aware of this, the next question is
the purpose and appropriateness of their participation in the process
called election. If a political force knows there will be no election
as such and nevertheless runs in the elections, it definitely has
a certain purpose which has nothing to do with the constitutional
process.

And it means that the lasting silence of the political forces of
Armenia, if these forces are sane, of course, indicates some agreement
with the government. They will speak as soon as the agreement is in
place or fails.

As one follows the process of voting, one can notice how the government
kept the other forces on the verge of “sacral percentage”.

Then everything was settled with the configuration which satisfied
everyone.

Now one can already speak, criticize, reproach, and we will soon
witness and hear this.

It would be good if the silence of the current political class
continues forever.