Author: Tambiyan Samvel

THE CATHOLICOS IS THANKFUL
A1plus
| 17:37:11 | 22-04-2005 | Official |
Garegin II Catholicos of all Armenians received in Holy Echmiadzin
Lekh Valensa, the ex-President of Poland, winner of Nobel Prize for
peace, toether with Tomas Nouf, Polish Ambassador extraordinary and
plenipotentiary to Armenia.
His Holiness expressed his gladness for the visit of Lekh Valensa
to Echmiadzin referring to the friendship of the Armenians and the
Poles which formed in the Middle Ages. His Holiness also expressed
hid gratitude to the Polish nation and the authorities who on the
threshold of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide recognised
and condemned it in the Polish Parliament.

Ruckus that struck at the heart of Donikian
Age (subscription), Australia
April 23 2005
George Donikian went from reading the news to making it this week –
a reaction borne out of his heartfelt love of soccer, Michael Lynch
reports.
For most people, George Donikian is that moustachioed fellow in a suit
from television news. So it came as a surprise to many when Donikian
appeared in front of the cameras earlier this week. The veteran newsman
was himself the protagonist in one of the main stories of the day –
crowd disturbances by flare-throwing fans at last Sunday’s Victorian
Premier League match between South Melbourne and Preston Lions.
Donikian might have forged a career as a radio and TV broadcaster,
but the 53-year-old Sydney-born son of Greek/Armenian migrants’
first love is sport – particularly soccer.
And it was in his capacity as president of South Melbourne that the
media man fronted the cameras for the sort of grilling he has often
given others.
He was not happy with the way his club and his sport had been treated,
regarding the media’s criticism of the incidents as a beat-up, despite
damning footage that showed flares being thrown and supporters running
on to the pitch.
Advertisement Advertisement”It wasn’t a riot,” he said later, as
attention continued to focus on the game, pointing out that as few
as 60 people in a crowd of 5000 were involved.
He also railed at what he said was the media’s penchant for describing
any incident at a soccer match as a major disturbance while downplaying
crowd problems at one-day cricket or Australian football.
Some will say that blaming the media in this instance was a case of
shooting the messenger, and that Donikian should have known that the
media always has the last word.
But that view underestimates his passion and commitment, not just for
the game but for the club of which he became president last year when
it was at its lowest, most vulnerable ebb.
He may be a Sydneysider, but he has lived in Melbourne for five
years. And for most people of Greek extraction, the chance to be
involved in a major way with South Melbourne – an institution with
enormous cultural significance – is an honour rarely spurned.
South was in administration, with debts of several million dollars
when a group of new, younger directors took control and pledged to
save the club and asked Donikian to become their frontman.
“When I came back from Europe last year, after Greece had been
successful in the European championships and the Athens Olympics had
gone so well, I was a bit fired up and I thought maybe I am not going
to make a difference at South.
“But a group of people who really wanted to change things came along
and asked me if I would lead them . . . Becoming president meant that
I had an opportunity to get this great club back into a fighting shape.
“We nearly went through the hoop last year when we went into
administration. We got through that, with some terrific people working
behind the scenes to make it happen. Since then, we have been trying to
change the culture, broaden it and make it more accessible to everyone
and take it back to its rightful place at the top of Australian footy.
“It is, after all, the only club that has represented Australia
right at the highest level – the World Club Championships in Brazil
in 2000. Who can forget those matches against the Manchester United
of David Beckham, against Romario and Vasco da Gama?”
By his own admission, Donikian is a self-confessed “sports nut”.
Growing up in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in the early 1950s was not
easy for a migrant kid – “I could not even speak English when I went
to primary school,” he recalled – and he quickly realised that sport
would be his entree into mainstream Australian society.
“It was a way in which I could stand up and be seen as an equal,”
he said. “It was cricket to start – I was an opening batsman and
wicketkeeper. Then I became an athlete, and when I went to high school,
we always played soccer, but also rugby league. To this day, I am
a lifelong member of the St George Dragons. I also am very keen on
Australian Rules. Living in Adelaide for nine years (between 1991 and
1999), I followed the Crows, but I also have memberships at Carlton,
the Bulldogs and Geelong.”
But it was soccer that always captured his imagination most. At
school, he had Josef Venglos as coach, a man who went on to briefly
coach Australia before coaching the Czech Republic in a World Cup.
“He was on secondment to learn English, would you believe? He took
a team of schoolboys who were steeped in rugby league and rugby
union, and took us to the finals of the Tasman Cup, which was the
big statewide . . . competition.”
His dreams of making it as a player were shattered by a shoulder
injury in his late teens. “I had played in a curtain-raiser before
Australia played Manchester United in the late 1960s. Bobby Charlton,
George Best, Nobby Stiles, Pat Crerand, players like that were
all there. They wanted to pick some young boys to take back to Old
Trafford . . . I was one of those but my father (Andrew, who ran a
repair shop and service station) said, ‘No, you are going to uni,
you are not going to play football.’
“Within weeks, I did my shoulder . . . I . . . struggled to play
the game and eventually faded out. That frustration hung with me for
quite some time.”
Photo:

Rattling the Cage: Playing politics with genocide
By LARRY DERFNER
Jerusalem Post
Apr. 21, 2005 1:52 | Updated Apr. 21, 2005 6:45
“And the world stood silent.” This is one of the most indelible Jewish
memories of the Holocaust, and one of our most bitter accusations.
On Sunday, in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, the 90th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide – the slaughter of at least 1 million Armenian
civilians by the Turkish Ottoman regime – will be memorialized.
What does the State of Israel and many of its American Jewish
lobbyists have to say about it, about this first genocide of the
20th century? If they were merely standing silent, that would be
an improvement. Instead, on the subject of the Armenian genocide,
Israel and some US Jewish organizations, notably the American Jewish
Committee, have for many years acted aggressively as silencers.
In Israel, attempts to broadcast documentaries about the genocide
on state-run television have been aborted. A program to teach the
genocide in public schools was watered down to the point that history
teachers refused to teach it.
In the US Congress, resolutions to recognize the genocide and the
Ottoman Turks’ responsibility for it have been snuffed out by Turkey
and its right-hand man on this issue, the Israel lobby.
Jeshajahu Weinberg, founding director of the US Holocaust Museum,
wrote that when Armenians lobbied to show the genocide in the museum,
Turkey and Israel counter-lobbied to keep out any trace of it. The
museum decided to make three mentions of the genocide, including
Hitler’s call to his troops to be merciless to their victims: “Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Over 125 Holocaust scholars – including Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt,
Daniel Goldhagen, Raul Hilberg and Yehuda Bauer – have signed ads in
the New York Times demanding acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide
and the Ottoman Turks’ culpability for it. Wiesel testified in Congress
on behalf of such a resolution. The International Association of
Genocide Scholars – which, by the way, is studded with Jewish names –
holds the same view as a matter of course.
In the face of all this, Israel’s position, as articulated by
then-foreign minister Shimon Peres before a 2001 visit to Turkey,
says the Armenian genocide is “a matter for historians to decide.”
The American Jewish Committee’s position is that of “the US government,
the government of Israel, and the Turkish Jewish community: that this
is an issue best left to historians, not politicians,” says Barry
Jacobs of the AJC’s Washington office.
Off the record, a Foreign Ministry official describes Israel’s
approach to the issue as “practical, realpolitik. Whoever sees our
position in this region can understand how important our relations
with Turkey are.”
And that’s what determines the Israeli and US Jewish establishment
stand on the Armenian genocide – Israel’s crucial military, economic
and political ties with Turkey.
Then, along with the “realpolitik” considerations, there’s the Jewish
people’s weighty moral debt to Turkey, a safe harbor for Jews since
the Spanish Inquisition over 500 years ago.
Finally, on a petty level, there’s the worry that letting the Armenian
genocide out of history’s closet might diminish the “uniqueness”
of the Holocaust in people’s minds.
“Frankly, I’m pretty disgusted. I think that my government preferred
economic and political relations with Turkey to the truth. I can
understand why they did it, but I don’t agree with it.”
That’s Yehuda Bauer talking. He’s Israel’s leading Holocaust historian,
an Israel Prize winner, and now academic adviser to Yad Vashem. He
began studying the Armenian genocide about 25 years ago as a natural
outgrowth of his study of the Holocaust.
For 80 years, says Bauer, Turkey has been “denying the
genocide… saying, ‘Yes, there was terrible suffering on both sides,
the Turkish versus the Armenian, these things happen in war.’ But
that’s nonsense. This was a definite, planned attack on a civilian
minority, and whatever Armenian resistance there was came in response
to the imminent danger of mass murder.”
To Turkey’s claim, backed by Israel and its Washington lobby,
that there’s no conclusive proof of a Turkish Ottoman order for
the mass murder of Armenians, Bauer says, “Oh, there’s no doubt
about it whatsoever. It’s absolutely clear.” He cites “thousands”
of testimonials from US, German and Austrian officials who were in
Turkey and what is now Armenia when it happened.
One of the most important of those witnesses was US ambassador
to Turkey Henry Morganthau – a Jew, incidentally. He wrote
that the “persecution of Armenians is assuming unprecedented
proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate a
systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and…
arbitrary efforts, terrible tortures, wholesale expulsions and
deportations from one end of the Empire to the other, accompanied by
frequent instances of rape, pillage and murder, turning into massacre,
to bring destruction and destitution on them.”
Israel and the Israel lobby fully acknowledge that the Armenians
suffered a terrible “tragedy.” A Foreign Ministry statement even notes
that “the Jewish people have a special sensitivity to the murders
and human tragedies that occurred during the years 1915 and 1916.”
They just won’t say who was to blame, or whether Turkey bears
historical responsibility. Mention Wiesel and all the rest of the
Holocaust and genocide historians, and the Israeli and US Jewish
officials come back – off the record – with the renowned Bernard
Lewis. Along with a few other American historians, Lewis says it
wasn’t a genocide at all, that World War I was going on and Armenians
were fighting with Russia against the Turks, and that you can’t blame
Turkey for what happened, not then and certainly not now.
Thus the official Israeli/Jewish line: “It’s a matter for historians
to decide.”
Fair enough. Even though Lewis’s side is terribly outnumbered among
Western historians, let’s say the burden of proof lies with Wiesel,
Bauer, Lipstadt et al, who say the Ottoman Turks ordered the massacre
of 1 million-1.5 million Armenians. Let’s say Israeli and US Jewish
leaders aren’t competent to judge who’s right and who’s wrong.
And let’s even give their declared neutrality the benefit of the
doubt because of Israel’s relations with Turkey, and Turkey’s long
history of welcoming Jews in distress.
The point is this: Israel and the US Jewish establishment may say
they’re neutral over what happened to the Armenians 90 years ago, but
their actions say the opposite. They’ve not only taken sides, they’re
on the barricades. They’ve done everything they can to cover up what
the great majority of historians, including the entire community of
Holocaust scholars, say was a clear-cut case of genocide.
Jews shouldn’t do this – for any reason. Ninety years after the
Armenian genocide, there is a decent Jewish response to the sickening
behavior of the State of Israel, the American Jewish Committee and
other US Jewish organizations:
Not in our name.

PLEASE DIFFUSE WIDELY
ARMENIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION OF CANADA
3401 rue Olivar-Asselin
Montréal, Qc
H4J 1L5
Tél: 514-331-6548
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
April 17, 2005
Contacts: Hagop Mksyartinian 519-933-8425
Lalai Manjikian 514-262-9339
For immediate release:
Nations converge to Ottawa to “End Genocide”
Peoples victim of crimes against humanity commemorate the 90th Anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide
Montr̩al РCanadian youth representing all victims of injustice converge to the
nation’s capital in order to participate in a vigil that will be held in front
of the Human Rights monument in Ottawa, on Saturday, April 23rd, 2005 at 8pm.
The vigil will pay tribute to the countless victims of the unpunished crime of
genocide committed against the Armenian people between 1915 and 1921. This
commemorative event, spearheaded by the Armenian Youth Organization of Canada,
also aims to raise awareness about all those who have fallen victim of genocide
during the 20th and 21st centuries.
At 8pm, members of the Armenian Youth Organization of Canada as well as the
Armenian community, leaders and diplomatic corps representatives of the Greek,
Tibetan, Rwandan, Guatemalan, Ukrainian, Jewish and Sudanese communities in
Canada, along with representatives of humanitarian non governmental
organizations will gather in front of the Canadian Human Rights monument in
Ottawa. The official program of the event will comprise of statements made by
the representatives of cultural and humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty
International of Canada and the Canadian Council for Refugees. Among the guest
speakers scheduled are Ms Tragi Mustafa, founder of Save Women from Sudan
Organization and representative of the Darfur Association of Canada as well as
Mr. Toros Dimitian, vice-president of the Armenian National Committee of
Canada. Moreover, the program will include poetry readings and screenings of
documentaries on genocide. The vigil will resume with a solemn candle lighting
ceremony, to commemorate the victims of all genocides. Organizers are expecting
hundreds of supporters and activists from across the country to partake in this
event.
“This is a first effort on the part of the Armenian Youth Organization to bring
together all nations that have suffered such heinous crimes. We should not only
remember the past, but strive to unite our voices in order to put an end to the
cycle of genocide,” said Mr. Hamlet Djeredjian, president of the A.R.F. Youth
organization of Canada, “I am confident that this event will open peoples’ eyes
to the threat that genocide poses for all of humanity. As Canadian-Armenians, we
bear a special responsibility in this matter. The recent events in Sudan are the
direct consequence of the unpunished nature of the Armenian Genocide. It’s time
to raise our level of activism and put an end to the cycle of genocide,” said
Mr. Djeredjian.
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Boston Globe, MA
April 21 2005
Bringing order to survivors’ memories
Armenians gather stories of genocide
By Lauren K. Meade, Globe Correspondent
At night, they listened to stifled weeping and murmured secrets
through their bedroom walls.
By day, they were greeted with smiles — a facade that belied a
horrific past.
For the children of Armenian immigrants who survived the genocide of
1915 to 1922, assembling a picture of their parents’ suffering was
like piecing together a shredded diary. They collected fragments from
history classes and overheard conversations.
“Armenian parents never talk about genocide in front of their
children,” said Varoujan Froundjian, curator of the Armenian Oral
History Archive at Columbia University. “It was always a mystery in
the minds of young people.”
Froundjian addressed an audience at the Armenian Library and Museum
of America in Watertown during a panel discussion about keeping alive
the memory of the massacres of 1.5 million Armenians, launched 90
years ago by the Ottoman Turks.
For three decades, the children of the survivors have been recording
oral histories of their parents’ experiences. Much of Sunday’s
discussion centered on how to preserve the deteriorating tapes and
make them accessible to the public through an online database.
Bethel Bilezikian Charkoudian, 65, of Newton, is championing this
project in Massachusetts. In the ’70s, Charkoudian collaborated with
the Armenian Library to record 600 hours of interviews with survivors
about the genocide and the immigration waves that followed.
She has donated copies of the tapes to Columbia, where Froundjian is
synthesizing personal experiences with the documented historical
data. While oral histories may lack precision, they provide an
emotional intensity that brings the facts to life.
The Armenian Library’s project is similar to Froundjian’s.
Charkoudian is recruiting volunteers to index the tapes for names,
dates, geographic locations, and key phrases, such as “starvation”
and “losing a child.” These indexes will be used to create
searchable databases online.
The process is tedious and will require more than 60 volunteers, she
said.
“It’s like going into a concentration camp every day,” Charkoudian
said of listening over and over to the taped horror stories. “One
person alone will get burned out.”
Once the project is completed, Charkoudian said, the library’s
“digital collection will be among the largest in the United States.”
Children of survivors have expressed frustration that their parents’
recorded stories were locked away for preservation and scattered
throughout the country.
“My father-in-law was interviewed four times,” said Paul Der
Ananian, 70, at last Sunday’s discussion. “They gave us a copy and
probably kept the originals in their own archives. But I want to know
how we are going to gather the stories and educate non-Armenians.”
Online databases will be the solution to Der Ananian’s complaint.
When Charkoudian started the oral history project 30 years ago, she
divided the questionnaire into three stages: early life in Armenia,
the genocide, and immigration to America. A former guidance
counselor, she trained volunteers from the community and from
universities to interview survivors. Their stories include memories
of culture clash in the New World mixed with feelings of isolation as
news of the atrocities overseas surfaced.
Coaxing the subjects to open up proved daunting.
“Many of the people had heart conditions,” Charkoudian said in the
parlor of her Newton home before the panel discussion. Most of the
subjects were in their 50s and 60s at the time of the interviews.
Overprotective spouses and children often intervened during the
conversations.
“People didn’t want their parents to relive that,” she said.
Charkoudian, like most second-generation Armenians, had grown up
listening to her father, Peter Bilezikian, speak of the genocide with
family members who visited well into the night. Never invited into
the conversation, the young girl heard the stories through the
bedroom door.
Such was the experience of historian Bob Mirak, who moderated
Sunday’s panel discussion. He has studied the Armenian chain
immigration to Watertown and chronicled their experiences in his
book, “Torn Between Two Lands.” Mirak’s parents were both survivors.
“The stories were always in the background,” he said in an interview
before the panel discussion. “[My parents] didn’t want to scare us.”
According to Mirak, Watertown became a nucleus for Armenian
immigrants who flocked to the Hood rubber plant, which was located
near today’s Arsenal Mall. Nearly 500 Armenians worked at the factory
during its peak in the 1920s.
Mirak recounted the monotonous 12-hour days at the plant. The
immigrants, mostly men, had little time for leisure and were plagued
by feelings of helplessness as they heard reports of the massacres,
even as they raised money for relief efforts and self-defense
battalions.
After World War I, the immigrants sent for their families in Armenia.
Watertown thrived with Armenian coffee houses, churches, and schools.
But today, new immigrants are bypassing Watertown for the greater
economic opportunities of Los Angeles, Mirak said. The Armenian
population in Watertown today numbers 7,000, according to the
library.
At age 92, Peter Bilezikian — Bethel Charkoudian’s father — is one
of only a handful of people who can speak firsthand of the genocide.
His gait has slowed and his hearing is slipping away, but those who
know him well describe the long-retired electrician as “sharp as a
tack.”
In his daughter’s living room, Bilezikian told the story about the
time when a stately Irish woman purchased a lamp at his electrical
shop in 1932. She arrived hot with bigotry toward the young Armenian.
“You dirty Armenian. Why didn’t you clean it?” she demanded.
Bilezikian imitated the woman’s Irish brogue, his voiced laced with
the remnants of an Armenian accent.
“What did you call me?” Bilezikian said, ripping the lamp from the
woman’s hand. He tore out the electrical wiring and slammed the empty
vase back into her hands. “Get the hell out of here.”
Days later, a lawyer called Bilezikian at the store.
“Did you swear at my wife?” the lawyer asked. Bilezikian gave his
side of the story, daring the lawyer to put him in jail.
“At least I’ll get three square meals a day,” Bilezikian said. Soon,
customers poured into the shop in droves to see the pugnacious
Armenian and to “get the dirt” on the Irish woman.
“I made a lot of friends on account of someone’s hate,” Bilezikian
said.
Like most oral histories, some of the dates and factual minutiae
changed when Bilezikian repeated the stories during the interview.
But he remembers the suffering with remarkable clarity. At times, his
eyes grew pink with forced-back tears.
For his daughter, Bethel Charkoudian, chronicling these stories has
been a personal journey. She is already planning the next step.
“Nothing has been done to record the experiences of the second
generation,” she said.
To volunteer for the oral history project, call the Armenian Library
and Museum of America Inc., 617-926-2562 or e-mail
[email protected]. For more on the massacre, visit
the Armenian National Institute website,

Round two of Gallery Night reflects on Armenian Genocide
Providence Journal , RI
April 21 2005
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 21, 2005
Now in its ninth season, Gallery Night has its second showing of 2005
tonight. The once-a-month free tour of the city’s galleries and art
venues is a popular way for locals and tourists alike to discover
new favorite art spots.
Free “art bus” service conveniently shuttles visitors to some 27
galleries and museums, many of which plan special events and openings
for Gallery Night. Not all venues are open for every Gallery Night,
however.
This evening’s highlights include two exhibits commemorating the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: The Chapel Gallery & Labyrinth
at the Mathewson Street United Methodist Church (134 Mathewson St.)
will show mixed-media artwork by John Avakian, and Gallery Z (259
Atwells Ave.) hosts a group show of the works of several artists
working in a wide range of media.
The Johnson & Wales Multicultural Center Gallery (corner of Pine
and Claverick streets) showcases paintings, batiks and tapestries by
Isabel “Bela” Duarte, a Cape Verdean artist. And Gayle Wells Mandle
and Gretchen Dow Simpson will show their work at the Providence Art
Club (11 Thomas St.).
Hours for Gallery Night are 5 to 9 p.m. Free parking is available at
One Citizens Plaza and at nine other parking lots downtown. Free art
buses run from 5 to 9 p.m.
For more information, call (401) 751-2628 or visit
GALLERY NIGHT SPECIAL EVENTS
Exhibit Preview, Bert Gallery, 540 South Water St., Providence.
751-2628, Color Matters, works by historic and
contemporary New England artists, Thu 5-9 pm.
Gallery Night: RISD Museum, 224 Benefit St., Providence. 454-6500,
Thu 5-9 pm. Gallery Talk: Portrait of a Lady,
by Becky Pagan, 6:30 pm; Music: Intermezzo, 6:30-8 pm; Gallery Tour,
with Joyce Pashalian, 7 pm; Gallery Talk: Sitings Winners, by Tanya
Zolotnitsky, 7 pm; Artists Speak: William Schaff, 7:30 pm.
Gallery Talk: The Turkish/Armenian Conflict: From World War I to the
Present, by Davis S. Thomas, Mathewson Street United Methodist Church
Chapel Gallery, 134 Mathewson St., Providence. 331-8900. Thu 6:30 pm.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT AT “ULTIMATE CRIME, ULTIMATE CHALLENGE. HUMAN
RIGHTS AND GENOCIDE” INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Armenpress
YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS;
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We pay tribute to the memory of vanished victims as we commemorate
the 90th anniversary of the tragic events. We do it with doubled pain,
since we are still bound to continue the struggle for the international
recognition of the committed crime.
The First World War aimed at global re-distribution of the world and
the big ideological controversy of the 20th century that followed
became the major obstacles to recognition of the legitimate rights
of the Armenian people. We became victims of the First World War even
though we were not the initiators of that war. And our right for memory
was sacrificed to the Cold War even though we were not its masterminds.
When the planned policy of extermination of the Armenian nation was
executed the term “genocide” did not exist. Nor was it defined. There
were no international structures that could serve as a floor for
discussions to give a united response to that crime of genocide.
Obviously the world is changing. It took time for the world to
treat genocides as crimes against humanity with all the relevant
consequences. It took time to prevent the practice of sacrificing
fundamental humanitarian values to the geopolitical interests of
great powers and to include the moral considerations into foreign
policy making of the civilized world. The avenue of that change was
tragic for many peoples. For the Armenian people the price of that
change equals one and a half million of human lives. Today also the
Armenian question is kept hostage to some geopolitical interests.
Modern technologies allow watching live the military operations
unfolding in different parts of the world, the term “genocide”
is well defined, and numerous regional and universal international
organizations are put in place. Countries are more determined in
responding to a threat or attempt to commit genocide in any part of
the world. However, all this did not protect the humanity from new
genocides. Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor, Sumgait – in all these
places once again innocent people were slaughtered. This comes to
prove that there is a need to amplify the efforts aimed at effective
suppression of the genocidal attempts.
That is exactly why the recognition and condemnation of genocides
is so crucial. Recognition bears in it a huge potential for adequate
response. Prevention of that crime is particularly important.
Condemnation of genocides committed in the past is also very important.
It first of all comes to prove that the crime has no expiration
clause, and those guilty will be brought to justice in any case. It
is important in terms of containment of future genocidal intentions.
It is through recognition and condemnation that states educate their
citizens. The lesson is: the state machinery shall not become a
tool in implementation of that terrible crime. We have the duty of
establishing atmosphere that would exclude any extremist divisions
based on the nationality, ethnos, and religion or along any other
dividing lines, any propaganda of hatred by one group against another.
Another important component is the future fate of a people that
has survived genocide. The Armenian people, due to genocide,
were displaced, became a refugee people and were scattered across
the globe. International recognition of the Armenian Genocide and
necessity of restoration of historic injustice were sacrificed to the
grand politics. Most of the criminals who planned and implemented the
genocide escaped the punishment. Moreover, the remains of Talaat
pasha who was assassinated in Berlin, were returned to Turkey and
buried with honors in Istanbul. It was a sad evidence of carrying
on the baton in relay race of impunity. Humanity pays a tremendously
high price for forgetting such crimes.
Using this opportunity I would like to thank all those countries,
which at different levels have addressed the issue of the Armenian
Genocide and have recognized it, as well as all those individuals and
organizations that have contributed towards that recognition. The
role of Diaspora in that regard is absolutely inestimable. By such
recognition states also say “no” to all possible future genocides. The
number of victims of the Armenian genocide could be incomparably
higher and the fate of survivors much more severe if not for a number
of outstanding individuals, including Morgenthau, Bruce, Nansen,
Verfel, Briusov, Wegner, Lepsius, and many others who stood by our
people in those terrible days.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Republic of Armenia, as an independent state, has put its position
straight forward: recognition of the Armenian Genocide is also
important for prevention of future possible genocides. Recognition is
important for Armenian-Turkish relations, since it could give answers
to many questions that exist between our two peoples, it would allow
to look ahead.
We remember the past with pain, but without hatred. For us it is
difficult to comprehend the response of the Turkish side, which
is represented not only by the denial of the past, but also by the
blockade of today’s Armenia. We have come across a paradox that still
needs to be understood. The perpetrator, not the victim is furious
with the past.
We are confident that international recognition of the Genocide will
help Turkey to come to terms with its own past and to overcome the
complex which is inherited from generation to generation and which
creates additional complexities in the relations of our neighboring
nations.
I once again welcome all of you and wish you effective work. Thank you.

Armenian Genocide Commemorative Events
Fresno State News (California State Univ, Fresno), CA
April 20 2005
Begin April 22 at Fresno State
The Armenian Studies Program and Armenian Students Organization at
California State University Fresno will commemorate the Armenian
Genocide with events on Friday, April 22, and April 26. All events
are free and open to the public.
The commemoration marks the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the
genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey.
On Friday, April 22, events will begin at noon in the Free Speech
area. A variety of invited guests and students will speak, followed by
the placing of flowers on a model of the Armenian Martyr~Rs memorial
in Yerevan, Armenia. The public is welcome to participate.
At 7:30 p.m. that night, the film “Germany and the Secret Genocide”
will make its Fresno premiere. It will be shown in McLane Hall,
room 121, on the Fresno State campus. Directed and written by Dr. J.
Michael Hagopian, the film documents Germany’s relationship with
Ottoman Turkey during the Armenian Genocide. The film showing will
be followed by a candlelight vigil.
On Tuesday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. Dr. James Reid will speak on
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Armenian Genocide Narratives”
in the Alice Peters Auditorium, room 191 of the University Business
Center on campus.
Reid is the author of several books, including ~SCrisis of the
Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse, 1839-1878.~T From 2001-2003
he was the director of the Vryonis Center, following 10 years as a
senior research fellow at the center. He has written extensively on
the Ottoman Empire and modern Greece. Reid holds a Ph.D. from the
University of California at Los Angeles.
His talk will examine the psychological responses of both survivors
of genocide and the psyche of perpetrators, a topic he has been
researching for more than 20 years.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Psychology Department at Fresno
State and Armenian Students Organization. Parking will be relaxed in
Lots A and J after 7 p.m. for the lecture.
For more information on the events contact the Armenian Studies
Program at (559) 278-2669.

NO PRECONDITIONS FOR EXTRA PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION IN ARMENIA
Pan Armenian News
19.04.2005 05:39
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today there are no preconditions for extra
parliamentary election in Armenia, Secretary of the National Security
Council at the President of Armenia, Defense Minister Serge Sargsian
stated in the course of a press conference today. In his words,
the rumor that the ruling coalition has exhausted itself is not
justified – otherwise it would have collapsed. The matter is that
political parties in Armenia hold an electoral campaign just after
the election, he added. Commenting over statements on a possible
revolution in Armenia, Serge Sargsian noted there are people who do not
see themselves in any other role than a revolutionary. In his words,
Mikhail Saakashvili and Victor Yuschenko have chosen the civilized
way of change of authorities, however it is possible only in case
the ruling authorities are not able to fulfill their duties.

THE UNITED STATES IS ENTRENCHING ITSELF IN THE STRATEGIC CASPIAN REGION
Southern Urals and Siberia will find themselves under American control
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
April 15, 2005, pp. 1, 5
WPS: Defense & Security
By Anatoly Gordiyenko, Sokhbet Mamedov, Vladimir Ivanov, Vladimir Mukhin
Russian military analysts suspect that Washington is aiming for a
trilateral alliance in the Caspian Sea region, comprising the United
States, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. The White House hopes to involve
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and probably Turkey at some later date.
A new area of Russian-American confrontation is taking shape in
the Caspian region. Azerbaijan appears to be at its center. Some
significant events are taking place in Baku. Three ships from the
Russian Caspian Flotilla (two of them missile boats Tatarstan and
Stupinets) will visit Baku later today. Counter-Admiral Vladimir
Lomakin, Military Attache of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan, says
that the visit is timed for the 60th anniversary of victory in World
War II, and is supposed to “facilitate friendly relations between our
countries and make the Caspian a sea of friendship and trust.” That
the visit will also serve the purpose of demonstrating the might of
the Russian Navy is tactfully omitted.
In the meantime, the purpose of the visit as proclaimed by Lomakin
is viewed in Azerbaijan with some scepticism. This demonstration of
“friendly relations” is taking place three days after US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s unexpected visit to Baku. This was
Rumsfeld’s third visit to Azerbaijan in the last three years. As
the official explanation puts it, Rumsfeld and the leaders of
Azerbaijan discussed “matters of bilateral cooperation within
the counter-terrorism coalition and assistance for Azerbaijan’s
integration into NATO.” Arriving in Baku on the evening of April 12,
however, Rumsfeld missed President Ilham Aliyev by a few hours; the
president has just left for Pakistan. So Rumsfeld met with Defense
Minister Safar Abiyev and other senior state officials at the airport.
It should be noted that both Washington and Baku have been very
quiet about Rumsfeld’s blitz-visit. Only on the morning of April
13, when Rumsfeld had already departed, did the Azerbaijani Defense
Ministry released a brief statement to the effect that “development
of Azerbaijani-American military cooperation” had been discussed. US
Ambassador to Azerbaijan Rino Harnisch said that the two sides
had discussed “American aid to Azerbaijan in the implementation of
Azerbaijan-NATO individual partnership” and that a team of American
officers had already come to Azerbaijan. He did not specify their
purpose.
Desperate for details, Azerbaijan’s newspapers focused their attention
on the recent statement of SACEUR General James Jones. The missing
details were all there. According to Jones, the United States intends
to establish special task forces and military bases in Azerbaijan –
to secure all of the Caspian region.
Harnisch is rumored to be the senior proponent of establishing American
special task forces in Azerbaijan: also known as the Caspian Watch
and military bases.
The Caspian Watch is essentially the advanced guard of the US European
Command, with headquarters in Stuttgart, whose zone of responsibility
includes the Caspian region. The Wall Street Journal maintains that the
Caspian Watch command center, equipped with sophisticated radar, will
be located in Baku. The newspaper claims that the US Administration
intends to spend approximately $100 million on the Caspian Watch in
the next 10 years.
It certainly seems that official Baku has already made up its mind on
the matter of the Pentagon’s Caspian Watch. A source in the Azerbaijani
Defense Ministry claims that the cite of the future headquarters is
already known. Headquarters will be located on the territory of a
military unit in the outskirts. The same source says that the team
of American officers in Baku has already set up a training center
for local personnel to be involved in the Caspian Watch program.
Russian military analysts suspect that Washington is aiming for a
trilateral alliance in the region, comprising the United States,
Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. The White House hopes to involve
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and probably Turkey at some later date.
The Caspian Watch will include a system of air and sea situation
monitoring and rapid response and border control forces. The structure
will resemble the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council set up in 1997
to facilitate cooperation and interaction between NATO countries.
Judging by official explanations, the Caspian Watch is being
established to fight the nuclear aspirations of rogue regimes. Among
other things, an attempt is under way to surround Iran with a ring
of military bases – to keep an eye on this Islamic state, potentially
the most dangerous from the point of view of nuclear security.
Moscow is suspicious of all these plans, and not only because it is
cooperating with Iran. The Caspian region has always been a Russian
influence zone. This American “invasion” jeopardizes Russia’s
defense interests, because it opens up a strategic route to the
industrially-developed Urals area at the center of Russia.
Meanwhile, the security structures in the Southern federal district
have held counter-terrorism command exercises. The exercise began on
April 12, and is still under way. Units of the 58th Army, a separate
motorized infantry brigade, and the 7th Airborne Division are involved
– not to mention some vessels from the Caspian Flotilla.
In other words, a covert Russian-American struggle for influence is
under way in this region. It also seems that the Americans will stop
at nothing to boost their influence.
Needless to say, the Americans’ advance into the Caspian region
indicates another failure for Russian foreign policy. Moscow is
calling for demilitarization of the region, but at the same time it
is undertaking to consolidate Caspian navies in its own interests.
But the interests of various Caspian countries are far from
homogenous. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan want stronger
navies. Russia cannot help them with that, but the United States can
and does. Kazakhstan is about to receive a gift from the Americans:
a ship of 1,000 tons. American money is paying to rebuild the coastal
military infrastructure of Kazakhstan. Washington is extending the
same offer to Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan in return for oil. As
for Moscow, it is trying to sit on the fence. On the one hand, it
promised Kazakhstan assistance in establishint a navy (two ships from
the Russian Caspian Flotilla will be turned over to Kazakhstan before
the year is out). On the other hand, Russia insists on demilitarizing
the region. Yet militarization of the region is under way, with help
from America. A wedge is being driven into relations between Russia
and its neighbors in the Caspian region.
“This is another element in the American strategy of global dominance,”
says Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, former commander of the Main
Directorate of International Cooperation at the Defense Ministry.
“Washington is still building a monopolar world, with the United
States itself at the top and all the rest down below. Control over
the Caucasus-Caspian and Central Asian regions is being established
in accordance with the decisions of the NATO Istanbul summit last
summer, where the Caucasus and the Caspian region were proclaimed a
strategic region. The decision was made at the highest possible level.
Unfortunately for Russian diplomacy, the Defense Ministry didn’t even
bother to ask NATO at the time what this is supposed to mean.”
Translated by A. Ignatkin