Author: nina hovnanian

ARMENIAN YOUTH OF ARGENTINA STAGES PROTEST AT AZERI EMBASSY

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 5, 2012 – 12:48 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – On March 2, representatives of the Armenian youth
in Argentina staged a protest at the embassy of Azerbaijan in Buenos
Aires on occasion of the 24th anniversary of Sumgait pogroms.

The building was surrounded by large number of policemen despite the
fact that Azerbaijani ambassador to Argentina was then on a visit to
Baku, accompanying Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Marcos Timerman,
says the message sent to PanARMENIAN.Net

The protest action also aimed at drawing Argentine community~Rs
attention to Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement particularly the
aggressive statements by the Azerbaijani side, as well as propaganda
by Azeri embassy with a purpose to distort the actual essence of
the conflict.

The event was organized by ARFD youth wing.

FUTURE OF BILL ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DEPENDS ON FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS – EXPERT

news.am
March 05, 2012 | 12:41

YEREVAN. – It is obvious that the bill criminalizing denial of
genocides in France has become an inseparable part of the state’s
domestic and foreign policy, expert Alexander Iskandaryan said at a
press conference on Monday.

The French Constitutional Council rejected last week the bill
criminalizing denial of genocides, including the Armenian Genocide.

While, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy supported the bill and
promised to introduce a new one taking into account the Council’s
remarks.

On this regard, the bill rejection brought forward a serious pressure
by Turkey and an intrigue inside France.

According to the expert, the issue did not related to Armenia anyway
rather than the inner-political shifts within France, while the attempt
to pass the bill influenced on Turkey’s positions and information
on Armenia. Besides, French presidential elections are too close to
decide the issue during this period. Future of the bill will depend
on who will be elected France’s President, Iskandaryan said.

ARIANNA’S JOURNEY: RPV COUPLE FACES ADOPTED CHILD’S TRAGEDY WITH COURAGE
By Kristin S. Agostoni

Staff
03/03/2012 05:45:13 PM PST

Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an
Armenian orphanage but weren’t aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve
McCrank/Daily Breeze)

HOW TO HELP

Anyone wanting to contribute to Ari’s Playground can make checks
payable to the Paros Foundation, c/o Ari’s Playground, 918 Parker St.,
A14, Berkeley, CA 94710.

The Spiglanins are in need of a pool filter, benches and tables
they could ship to Armenia. To donate or find out more, call
310-383-1877, or link to , or

After taking a few bites of her pink Cake Pop, Arianna Spiglanin
wandered away from her mom’s table at Starbucks.

Three years old and curious, the dark-haired girl wearing skinny jeans
and tennis shoes wasn’t up for staying in one place as her mother,
Lauren Mahakian Spiglanin, sipped her coffee.

They are regulars at this Rolling Hills Estates Starbucks and another
up the street, where they’ve spent time since Arianna was a baby.

And so when store manager Paul Romo walked out from behind the counter,
Arianna rolled over to see him. He bent down to talk to her, and she
smiled back from her shiny purple walker.

Arianna was 9 months old when her mother and father, Tom Spiglanin,
brought her home to Rancho Palos Verdes from an orphanage in Yerevan,
Armenia.

Having tried unsuccessfully to have a child on their own, the couple
decided on adoption. Lauren Spiglanin suggested Armenia, given that
her family is Armenian and her sister adopted her son from the country
a decade ago.

It was a long process just getting the paperwork in order. There were
background checks and financial reviews, letters of recommendation,
pages of documents needing translation – for a hefty cost – all
leading up to a review by the Armenian government.

That all began at the start of 2007.

It wasn’t until late December 2008 that the prospect of adopting a
little girl became real with a call from a facilitator they’d hired
to assist them in Armenia.

The baby had been born on Nov. 28, 2008; her birth mother had died
a week later.

“That was the call we were waiting for,” said Lauren Spiglanin,
46. “The facilitator told us to come in March.”

It was the first time both she and her husband, 53, had visited
the country.

They arrived at night to bitter cold temperatures, checking into a
rundown hotel the facilitator had recommended to them. Nonetheless,
the snowy weather and less

Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren’t aware she has cerebral palsy. Arianna and her
mother spend a lot of time at Starbucks in Rolling Hills Estates
where the staff, including manager Paul Romo, have gotten to know
them. (Steve McCrank/Daily Breeze) than ideal lodging conditions
didn’t temper their excitement.

“It felt really magical,” Spiglanin said. “I felt so at peace here.”

Their first visit to see the baby they would name Arianna Rose –
after their mothers, Anna and Rose – was at a hospital a few days
after they’d arrived.

At the time, Spiglanin said, they’d been told the baby wasn’t eating
well.

“We go to the hospital and they bring her to us,” Spiglanin said. “So
cute.

Her first smile was to Tom.”

Arianna was born premature – a month, they’d been told – and her
single mother had died from a brain aneurism, Spiglanin said.

The facilitator introduced them to the baby’s aunt, she said, but
even still they learned only “bits and pieces” of her medical history.

That first visit to Armenia would be followed by three more within
the next few months before the Spiglanins would become parents to a
little girl with big brown eyes framed by long lashes.

But it wasn’t until August 2009 – after the adoption was finalized
– that the couple got some more answers about their baby’s medical
background.

“Our last night here, our facilitator left an envelope at the hotel,”
Spiglanin said.

Inside were medical records that indicated the birth mother’s
placenta was becoming detached, cutting Arianna’s supply of oxygen,
she said. The papers said the baby had heavy asphyxia and acute
breath insufficiency.

“Basically, they’re saying that it’s cerebral palsy,” Spiglanin said.

“She was not up front with us at all about Arianna,” she said of the
facilitator, whom she would not name. “It all kind of makes sense
now. …

Sometimes we were together, the aunt was very quiet.”

And more, they began to suspect why Arianna had been bundled in several
layers of clothing – to make her look bigger, perhaps – and to wonder
more about why she had been in the hospital during their first visit.

“We got some documents, but it wasn’t the complete medical
report,” Spiglanin said. “We took a video that we had the doctors
here review. They said she looked alert. She definitely looked
malnourished. No one ever raised a question of cerebral palsy.”

The new parents fault the

Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren’t aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve McCrank /
Staff Photographer) woman who they’d believed was helping them.

“We don’t talk to her,” Spiglanin said. “It turned out she was friends
with the aunt. She wanted to do good for her friend.”

Cerebral palsy is a condition caused by injuries or abnormalities of
the brain that can result in the tightening of muscles and joints
and also muscle weakness. That can lead to developmental delays in
crawling, sitting and walking.

Once home, a pediatrician told the Spiglanins that Arianna’s condition
was caused by a midbrain injury.

She was born more than two months premature, her mother said, which
they also discovered after they returned from Armenia.

The weeks and months that followed their homecoming would be filled
with doctors’ visits and therapy sessions. In October 2009, Spiglanin
went back to work as a senior administrative analyst at El Segundo City
Hall – a job she later lost as the town dealt with a budget crisis.

Her husband, a scientist with two grown children, is typically in
control and calm, she said. The outspoken and confident Spiglanin
struggled with depression.

“I remember saying, `Don’t worry, Arianna, Mommy will take care
of everything,”‘ she said. “We had 13 appointments a week. I was
depressed on the inside but not showing it on the outside because I
won’t do that.”

So Spiglanin sought help for herself, too, spending 15 months in
therapy.

Her time off allowed her to throw her energy into encouraging Arianna
to hold her head up, strengthen her neck and abdominal muscles and
learn to get around in a walker – which she got on New Year’s Day,
2011.

“It’s about building the muscle, but also about rewiring her brain,”
Spiglanin said.

Arianna visits a chiropractor and acupuncturist, takes equestrian
and aquatic therapy lessons and goes to classes at The Little Gym
in Torrance.

“Ari just amazes me every day,” said gym director Claire Koeppe,
who has watched her learn to sit up, stand by holding onto a bar and
roll sideways down an incline.

“She is such a happy girl. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her
frustrated. If she doesn’t want to do something, she’ll just sit back,”
she said. “(But) she loves being up high. … She’s a risk-taker.”

Last fall, Arianna started a half-day preschool program for
special-needs students through the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified
School District.

Arianna mostly babbles rather than saying individual words, and still
relies on her parents to feed her. For baths, she sits in a chair
inside the tub.

But her mother said she’s noticed significant improvements in her
development since school began.

“She’s just so much more energetic. She’s holding her head up
higher. She’s reaching for things more,” Spiglanin said. “She’s a
lot more curious.

Eye-hand coordination is up, and that’s because of school.”

For Arianna’s third birthday, her parents threw the Dora the Explorer
and Wonder Pets fan a party, inviting employees from her favorite
Starbucks shops.

“You see other kids, and you kind of ask yourself, why?” Spiglanin
said.

“Sometimes you kind of think, is she ever going to walk on her own?

“She’ll be all right, because I get her the best of everything,”
she said.

The Spiglanins’ experience adopting Arianna left them feeling deceived
by their adoption facilitator, but Lauren Spiglanin said she doesn’t
fault the director at the state-run Nork orphanage, which houses
infants to children 6 years old. “She thought we knew” about the
medical history, Spiglanin said.

Nor does she fault Arianna’s aunt, she said, as she believes the
woman wanted what was best for the baby.

Part of Spiglanin’s work these days is raising money for a water
playground with a wading pool, flower beds and walkways that will
replace an outdoor space at the orphanage filled with weeds and
an old picnic bench – a spot where prospective parents could visit
with children.

In the summers, when the air in Yerevan is thick and humid, the
children could use the area to cool off, Spiglanin said.

She’s fundraising through the nonprofit Paros Foundation, and already
has about $4,000 to put toward the $10,000 price tag.

She hopes to raise more through an online auction later this month of
a donated blue topaz and diamond pendant on an omega chain from The
Jewelry Source in El Segundo. Store owner Brenda Newman, who knew
Spiglanin when she worked across the street at City Hall, said she
was taken by the couple’s story.

“I’m very driven by the parents. They’re the ones that have really
done it for me. I’m driven by their passion,” Newman said.

“They had no idea what happened before they adopted this wonderful
baby. …

This is my way of sort of giving back to them.”

[email protected]

Follow Kristin Agostoni on Twitter at

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the Middle East, Proliferation, and Why
Israel Couldn’t Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To

By Nancy Shoenberger

March 03, 2012 “Vanity Fair” — On a sunny afternoon in late
February, Vanity Fair met with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former
chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell (2002-5), who is
currently an adjunct professor of government and public policy at the
College of William & Mary. Fresh from a meeting with legislators in
Washington, D.C., Colonel Wilkerson arrived at the Blue Talon, a
stylish brasserie located curiously in the heart of Colonial
Williamsburg, to talk about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and their
implications.
Vanity Fair: How close is Iran to having a nuclear weapon, and what
should our response be?

Lawrence Wilkerson: I’ve spent almost two full days now on the Hill,
essentially talking to Democrats and Republicans, senators and
representatives and their staffs, about the catastrophe that would
result if we use military force against Iran.

What I understand from talking with the intel community and with
people in the White House is that our position – and I agree with this
position – is that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize. Iran may
be looking for a Japanese-type, latent capability. The inclination, I
think, of the current government is not to make that decision. What
I’m very concerned about is that our diplomacy, such as it is – mostly
sanctions – is forcing them into a decision that we don’t want them to
make, which is to weaponize.

Confronted with Israel, which is already possessed of nuclear weapons,
and Pakistan, already possessed of nuclear weapons, I think Iran does
want the latent capabilities.

But that’s not the same thing as saying we want to weaponize now?

In that space, there’s room for diplomacy.

So the irony is that if we rattle the sabers too much, we’ll force
them to do exactly what we don’t want them to do.

Precisely. And that’s what some neo-conservatives and their allies
want to happen. They want regime change.

That was one of the arguments for the Iraq war – out of the chaos a new
nation will be built.

Look what’s happening right now in different countries. Egypt is
looking grim, and Libya is looking grimmer. In fact, this morning I
got a report from Iraq that’s pretty grim. Look what we have happening
in Iraq right now. We have [Iraq’s religious leader] al-Sadr arming
one side of the Syrian problem, and we have [Iraq’s prime minister]
al-Malaki arming another part of the Syrian problem. And people think
this can’t jump borders and become a regional and perhaps even a
global confrontation? It certainly can.

Israel makes the argument that if they delay a military strike, all of
Iran’s nuclear facilities will be bunkered down so deep they’ll be
unreachable.

The truth is – and my Air Force colleagues have given me some of
this – the Israelis could not take out Iran’s facilities now. The
Israelis could not mount, without going to desperate ends, a 100-plane
strike, which is going to be necessary. They can barely get a hundred
airplanes out of their fleet. If they go to the end of their
operational tether without refueling help from us, I predict that it
will be as big a failure or worse than their incursion into Lebanon in
July 2006. And I say that for two reasons: 1) they will fail
militarily, and 2) regardless of their exquisite public-affairs
campaign to portray it otherwise, the world will know they failed. So,
this is a disaster for Israel if it goes ahead and executes.

Wouldn’t there be intense rallying for our support, especially now
during an election year?

Yes. That makes President Obama’s situation dicey because – and I think
that’s probably what Prime Minister Netanyahu is thinking about – this
period of vulnerability, if you will, is political – it isn’t military.
And if President Obama is re-elected, then Netanyahu’s got problems,
because I think he’d be attacking Iran in utter defiance of the United
States.

What if Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney were elected president?

If we’ve got Santorum, or even what appears to be a pliable Mitt
Romney, who has neo-conservatives in his advisory group, then it’s a
whole new game for Israel, which is one reason why I will admit,
though I’m disappointed in President Obama, I’m probably going to vote
for him again. And I’m a Republican.

Let’s say Iran feels so threatened in the region they go ahead with
plans to weaponize. How is that going to affect the balance of power
in the Middle East?

I think what we’d see happen if Iran actually weaponized and
tested – you’ve got to test, so everybody knows – then Saudi Arabia would
buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, and it would end right there. We
would have deterrence. We’d have a stalemate. We’d have the Saudis
with the capability, we’d have Iran with the capability, we’d have
Pakistan with the capability, and of course India and others, and it
would stop right there. I hate to see proliferation – I’d rather see it
going the other way – but deterrence would work. These are rational
entities.

What do you think would happen if Israel does launch a strike? Would
it ignite an all-out war in the region? Encourage more terrorist
attacks? Close the Strait of Hormuz? Cause oil prices to soar?

All of the above. Close the Strait of Hormuz? I don’t think the
Iranians would even try. If they did, we could reopen the Strait of
Hormuz rather easily. I don’t see that as a big problem; what I see as
a big problem is that the threat would cause the market to become
extremely volatile, because no one would want to risk it. . . . This
is the kind of conflict that will make insurance rates go up, people
will not want to take the risks, and so forth. And the price of oil
will go up.

And I guarantee there will be countries in the world – and companies – who
will just salivate at that prospect and will want to make it go on.
Exxon Mobil. Or Royal Dutch-Shell, or Saudi Arabia. Or, for that
matter, al-Malaki in Iraq, who now knows he’s sitting on as much oil
as Saudi Arabia’s sitting on. His plans are to be at 13 million
barrels a day, which rivals Saudi production.

But your point about the volatility of oil? I recently participated in
Beijing in what was called a `petroleum disruption exercise.’ We
posited a terrorist attack against Saudi production, for example. We
had shippers and insurers participating in the exercise – Lloyds of
London and so forth – and the price of oil went out of sight. Four
hundred dollars a barrel. Shippers wouldn’t ship, and insurers
wouldn’t insure. So these are possibilities. And talk about disrupting
an already fragile economy in Europe – and a fragile economy here, for
that matter.

We are looking at the possibility of taking the turmoil in Syria – the
so-called Arab Spring, which I like to call the Arab Awakening – and
igniting that in a way that is very detrimental to the world’s
interest. And certainly regional interests. We’re looking at the
possibility of sucking everything into a conflagration; that is
essentially what our attacking Iran ignites. It’s a distinct
possibility.

And incidentally, some of my neo-conservative colleagues – I use that
term loosely – want that. They think that out of the cauldron of turmoil
and fire and blood – and they even quote Jefferson in this regard – will
grow these incredibly solid and prosperous and tolerant Jeffersonian
democracies. Which is preposterous.

Who in the administration or in the Department of Defense is pressing
for a military strike?

Inside the Pentagon, civilian and military, I cannot find a single
voice in favor of striking Iran.

What happens next?

Here’s another tidbit for you. I was in Havana when Ahmadinejad was
there. I can’t reveal my sources, but not only did the Cuban
government give him a third- or fourth-level award – which really made
him angry because it wasn’t the top or even the second-level
award – they also delivered him a message from Fidel Castro: get off
this nuclear kick. Fidel is very anti-nuclear, as you might imagine,
given his experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think he,
Kennedy, and Khrushchev all realized that they took the world to the
brink of extinction. Here’s our archenemy in Cuba advising our
archenemy in Iran that they’re on the wrong track.

Mind you, if we attack Iran, the Chinese will be ecstatic. Not only
will we be mired in yet another interminable war, but from this one we
might not recover for half a century.

Vanity Fair © Condé Nast Digital. All rights reserved.

CIS official warns about likely consequences, for Caucasus, of war against Iran

news.am
February 29, 2012 | 14:17

MOSCOW. – A war in Iran could cause a serious instability in the
Caucasus and prompt uncontrollable migration processes, CIS
Anti-Terrorism Center Director Andrei Novikov told news reporters on
Wednesday.

In his words, if an aggression is waged, the likely geopolitical
shifts will be difficult to calculate. `Immigration inconveniences are
possible,’ Novikov stated.

The Anti-Terrorism Center Director also did not rule out that in case
of military operations, a refugee flow could start from Iran toward
neighboring CIS countries. He also reminded that a large number of
ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran.

`Everything possible is being done so that such instability is not
created in the Caspian Basin and in the South Caucasus,’ Andrei
Novikov maintained, RIA Novosti News Agency of Russia informs.

WikiLeaks: Russia gave Israel Iranian system codes

14:57 – 29.02.12

WikiLeaks has released an email exchange between employees of
Stratfor, the US-based global intelligence company, which reveals
Israel and Russia made a deal to swap access codes for defense and
surveillance equipment, Ynetnews.com reported.

According to the leaked document, Israel gave Russia the “data link
codes” for unmanned aerial vehicles that the Jewish state sold to
Georgia, and in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Tor-M1
missile defense systems that Russia sold Iran.

In a document by a Stratfor employee dated February 2009 she says that
she had met with a “Mexican source/friend” who told her that Israel
and Russia had contracted a deal several years ago as part of which
Israel provided Russia with codes of UAVs it had sold to Georgia. In
exchange Moscow provided the Israelis with the codes for Iran’s Tor-M1
aerial defense systems.

The document suggests that the deal was signed before the
Russia-Georgia war of August 2008 during which Russian forces invaded
Georgia. At the time it was reported that Georgia was using
Israel-made weapons.

It can also be understood from the document that the Georgians had at
one point realized that their UAVs were compromised and were looking
for a replacement for the Israeli made drones.

The Mexican source also addressed the S-300 aerial defense systems
which Israel and the West have spent years trying to dissuade Russia
from handing over to Tehran. The source said that Israel and Turkey
were collaborating very closely in regards to the system and that
since Russia sold them to Greece – Turkey’s longtime rival – Ankara
has been busy tryinh to crack their codes.

He added that Ankara shared intelligence with Israel to make sure it
has an edge over Iran should it get the systems from Russia.

Tert.am

Yeni Musavat: Iran bans fuel transportation to Nakhichevan

16:29 27/02/2012 » Politics

Islamic Republic of Iran has banned fuel transportation from
Azerbaijan to autonomous republic of Nakhichevan. It’s almost 10 days
that fuel cargos are stuck near Nakhichevan.

According to `Yeni Musavat’ Iranian side said the cargos transporting
fuel don’t suit with the international standards.

`People in Nakhichevan have started to reserve fuel and petrol. People
fear the fuel prices may rise,’ reported the paper.

Source: Panorama.am

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 27 2012

The DDK report

by Markar Esayan*
26 February 2012 /

The scandalous outcome of the Hrant Dink murder case that was being
heard at a court of first instance led tens of thousands of people to
take to the streets, shouting, `This trial won’t end like this,’ on
the fifth anniversary of Dink’s death.

Not only the public, but also President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, other ministers and opposition party leaders
expressed their discontent with the court’s decision. Strikingly, the
presiding judge and the prosecutors’ claims went back and forth
concerning the court’s ruling that there was no criminal organization
associated with the crime, and even the prosecutor claimed that the
presiding judge committed a crime with this ruling. The court of first
instance’s decision to sentence instigator Yasin Hayal to life in
prison is now being appealed at the Supreme Court of Appeals.

At this point, the Presidency’s State Audit Institution (DDK), which
was created on President Gül’s instruction after the European Court of
Human Rights’ (ECtHR) found Turkey to be in violation of the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on Dec. 17, 2010, recently issued a
report on the murder of Dink. It is claimed that the report was
completed on Feb. 2, 2012, but its announcement was delayed because of
the recent National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T) crisis that
erupted as there were some points in the report that also concerned
MÄ°T as well. I don’t know whether this crisis had any effect on the
writing or observations of this report. Indeed, both the MÄ°T crisis
and the Dink case overlap with respect to the litigation against state
officials.

The DDK’s report essentially says this: The offenses committed by
state officials have not been effectively investigated since the
pro-Community of Union and Progress (CUP) committee, which overthrew
the government in 1913, passed a provisional law, i.e., for about a
century. In 1913, CUP passed this law possibly to cover up its
probable future crimes or offenses it would make state officials
commit.

This law has been in place for 86 years even though governments
changed one after another. But, in 1999, Turkey was cornered with the
cases brought against it at the ECtHR and the European Union wanted it
to change this law. It was replaced with Law No. 4483, but it is
equally problematic. Indeed, it provides ambiguous definitions about
offenses state officials may commit and the investigation period is
specified as 25 days. In complicated cases like the Dink murder case,
it is impossible to be productive in 25 days even if you manage to
obtain administrative permission for launching an investigation.
Moreover, the coup perpetrators of 1980 completed what was left
unfinished by the coup perpetrators of 1913 by introducing a
constitutional guarantee for state officials in Article 129 of the
Constitution, which we still use. Article 129 gives an equivocal
definition of a crime and empowers the administration, not the
judiciary, with the litigation against state officials.

Admitting Dink murder was committed by organized crime group
Speaking on the DDK report, Cem Halavurt, a lawyer representing the
Dink family, told Barçın Yinanç from the Hürriyet Daily News that such
a report by a top state institution may be a turning point in the Dink
case. With this report, the state admits that the Dink murder was
committed by an organized crime group. Furthermore, the report
acknowledges that the murder case was not resolved just because a
number of hitmen were convicted and that several police and security
officers who contributed to the commission of the crime through
negligence were not properly investigated or prosecuted despite clear
evidence and that they were not brought to trial.

Counsel Halavurt recalls that the DDK report repeats what they have
been telling the court for five years. `The DDK did not make a gesture
with this report; such investigations are among the duties and
missions of the state. The fact that the DDK said the security
officials should have been prosecuted for involvement in the murder in
addition to acts of negligence shows the reaction of the president to
the court verdict. With this reaction, the president implied that the
murder was not ordinary and that it might have been committed by an
organized group.’

Halavurt was also asked whether he had a clear image in his mind about
the murder. In response, he said neo-nationalists who were favoring
the preservation of the status quo planned such actions in the 2000s,
when Turkey was going through a process of huge transformation
following its bid for EU membership. It is possible to make such an
argument because we have a number of incidents that corroborate this,
including plots and plans on murder, provocation, coups and warnings.
This argument was also spelled out in the legal view and evaluation by
the prosecutor who reviewed the case. All relevant actors, including
the politicians, said this suspicion emerged out of the overall
outlook. The prosecutor also concluded that such a huge and
significant murder could not have been committed by a few children who
were selling goods on the street. The judge also admitted that they
realized there was an organization behind the murder but were unable
to spot it in the evidence submitted.

However, in other parts of the interview, the argument was put forth
that the pro-reformist coalition led by the government which fought
with neo-nationalists purposefully allowed the Dink murder to initiate
the Ergenekon operations. However, the incidents and events that would
justify the launch of the Ergenekon operations, including the Father
Santoro murder and the Council of State attack, were already there
before the Dink murder. That said, I must note that the Council of
State murder and the Ergenekon case were merged.

In conclusion, I hope the DDK report raises the morale of the judiciary.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
March 4 2012

The revenge of law on politics

by MAXIME GAUIN

A few days after the decision of a federal U.S. appeals court to
dismiss Armenian claims against German insurers, in the name of the
U.S. Constitution, the French Constitutional Council censored the bill
criminalizing `denial’ of the unsubstantiated `Armenian genocide’
claim. The Council argued that such a bill was against freedom of
speech. It did not explicitly censor the `recognition’ of the
`genocide’ allegation adopted in 2001, but some of its comments –
regarding the field of law – show clearly that this text also is
against constitutional principles.

There is no serious hope anymore for a new bill of censorship
regarding the Armenian question, and the Council, according to its
communiqué, `expressed no opinion about the facts,’ i.e., the events
of 1915.

Nobody should be surprised. Armenian nationalists were warned several
times, by jurists like the former Justice Minister and President of
the Constitutional Council (1986-1995) Robert Badinter; by MPs, like
the Chairman of the Law Committee in the Senate Jean-Pierre Sueur, who
presented in vain a motion of dismissal. Mr. Badinter announced `the
revenge of law on politics,’ and this is what happened.

The main foreign policy lesson was the deep involvement of Armenian
diplomacy in intrigues to obtain the vote of this unconstitutional
bill. Mr. Sarkozy promised this vote in Yerevan, not even in a French
city with an important Armenian community; Ms. Boyer watched the vote
of the Senate in a lobby, together with Armenian diplomats. The main
Armenian associations supported the bill, but were relegated to second
rank.

What else could be expected from Yerevan? The Armenian authorities
deprived the Turkish-Armenian Protocols of their substance after 2009.
Armenia invaded Azerbaijan in 1992-1994, and still occupies about 20
percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, cleansed of its Azeri population by
bloody means.

Since the 1990s, both the majority and opposition parties of Armenia
have widely distributed the theories of G. Nejdeh as an exemplary
reference. Nejdeh was a leader of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, who was also a Nazi, and went from the U.S. to Europe at
the beginning of WWII to fight on the eastern front of the Third
Reich’s army. Perhaps even more importantly, Armenia is largely
dependent on Russia and Iran, two countries that do not want to see a
stronger union of Europe and the West, especially in the context of
the Syrian crisis. One more time, we see that the Armenian question
was used against Western unity, with the complicity of blind Western
politicians. I do not say that to advocate any fatalism or, still
less, any generalization regarding the Armenians, but merely to show
the kind of difficulties and level of the problem which are now
encountered.

Another lesson, both for French politics and international relations,
is that if there remain some active professionals of strong
anti-Turkish bent. There is also an increasing consciousness in France
of Turkey’s importance, and exasperation vis-à-vis special ethnic
interests which damage national interest and freedom of speech,
chiefly nationalist Armenians. Michel Diefenbacher, Chairman of the
Franco-Turkish Friendship Group in the National Assembly, who
collected the signatures of deputies together with some colleagues,
said on Feb. 21: `France and Turkey have a very old relationship,
which has been very constructive. When you go to Turkey […] you
understand that this relationship is not trivial. So, one cannot
accept a degradation of this relationship. All must be done for better
understanding.’

It is time to carefully carry out these words, with appropriate
permanent structures.

Maxime Gauin is a researcher at the International Strategic Research
Organization (USAK-ISRO) and a PhD candidate at the Middle East
Technical University Department of History
March/04/2012

REVUE DE PRESSE
Peter Balakian face au passé arménien
Marianne, France

11 février 2012

Peter Balakian face au passé arménien

par Anne Dastakian

Sous-titré : « Un jeune Américain découvre son passé arménien », le
Chien noir du destin, mémoires du poète et essayiste Peter Balakian,
est un livre majeur. Récompensé par le prestigieux prix littéraire
PEN-Martha Albrand, ce best-seller aux Etats-Unis n’est pas un récit
de rescapé mais de descendant. Né en 1951 dans le New Jersey, Balakian
y raconte avec humour, verve et émotion, comment il a appris, presque
par effraction, le sort de sa famille, décimée en 1915, lors du
premier génocide du XXe siècle.

Américain de la troisième génération, l’auteur, aîné d’une fratrie de
quatre enfants, ignore tout du passé. Pourtant, ses deux parents sont
arméniens. Son père, médecin prospère, est issu d’une célèbre famille
d’intellectuels d’Istanbul. Sa mère descend d’une lignée de marchands
de soie de Diyarbakir. Mais, dans la famille, un silence tenace
recouvre le passé. Même sa grand-mère, Afina, survivante des marches
de la mort vers le désert syrien de Deir ez-Zor, ne laisse rien
filtrer, hormis ses cauchemars. Entre eux, les adultes parlent
arménien, et toute question se heurte à un mutisme obstiné. Au point
que le jeune Peter se rêve juif et rejette les savoureux repas du
dimanche, leur préférant le sport et la junk food.

Le déclic viendra à 23 ans de la lecture d’Henry Morgenthau,
ambassadeur américain en Turquie au temps des massacres et auteur d’un
témoignage accablant. Balakian exhume alors l’histoire familiale, « un
singulier cadeau pour un jeune écrivain » et découvre le négationnisme
turc : il en devient un fervent combattant.

Le Chien noir du destin, de Peter Balakian, Métis Presses, 416 p., 24 (EURO).

dimanche 4 mars 2012,
Stéphane ©armenews.com