Author: Taslakhchian Andranik

Self-made man loved Thailand

OBITUARY: BOB KEVORKIAN

Bangkok Post
Friday 29 April 2005

BY BILL CONDIE

There is a shocked disbelief around the business community over the
death on Tuesday morning of Bob der Kevorkian, chief executive of K-Tech
construction and one of Bangkok’s best-loved figures.

Bob was simply always there, always willing to help anyone in trouble
and always able to solve the knottiest problem with a phone call or two.
It is hard to believe that now he is gone.

His was a remarkable story of a self-made man who came to love Thailand
and call it home, and Thailand in its turn loved him back.

Born Norair der Kevorkian in 1942 to Armenian parents in Cairo, but a
British citizen, he was thrown out of the country during the Suez
crisis, arriving with his father in London with just the clothes on
their backs and 10 in their pockets.

Not an easy man to keep down, Bob became a civil engineer and worked in
Britain for big construction companies including Wimpey and Trafalgar
House. But he did not reach his stride until he became vice-president of
overseas operations for Bauer, then purely a German business. Bob was to
change all that, opening Bauer offices one by one across the Middle East
and Asia.

He arrived in Bangkok in 1989 and immediately felt at home. Thailand, he
said, was always welcoming, something he never forgot.

He quickly became known as a man of vision and extraordinary
capabilities. When everyone said a subway system could never be built in
Bangkok’s muddy sub-soil, Bob said it could _ and became the driving
force in pushing the government to believe it. He was, of course, proved
right in the end.

But the crowning glory to Bob’s amazing career was the establishment of
his own company, K-Tech Construction, at the depths of the financial
crisis. He drove that company through appalling trading conditions to
its SET listing last year and earned a lasting legacy with a turnover of
$100 million a year.

But while business was important to Bob, and while he was exceptionally
good at it, family and friends were even more important. He was a loving
husband to wife Linda and father to his five children: Dominic, Greg,
Gina, Liza and little Sam.

Once again, Bob and Linda confirmed their love for and commitment to
Thailand setting up Baan Nor Giank, a home for children affected or
infected with HIV/Aids, and treating those kids as part of their family.

Proud of his Armenian roots, he became that country’s Honorary Consul to
Thailand in 1997.

With K-Tech arranged as a public company and designed to run without his
formidable presence, he turned more and more to the diplomatic duties he
took so seriously.

But while K-Tech and the Kevorkian Foundation will go on in his absence,
there are many who wonder how they will cope on a personal level without
him.

There will be a service at the Holy Redeemer Church, Soi Ruamrudee, this
morning at 10:30, and Bob will be buried in Armenia on the weekend.

The family has requested no flowers, but donations can be made to the
Kevorkian Foundation, which runs Baan Nor Giank. That would have been
Bob’s wish.

Armenian family holds protest demonstration in Malaysia over Genocide

28.04.2005

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – In her letter to Yerkir, Annette Moskofian informed
that the four members of her family demonstrated in front of the
Turkish embassyin the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on April 24,
2005, and handed in a letter urging Turkey to take responsibility for
their killings.

Letters were also given to the US and UK ambassadors asking them to
accept the Genocide and put pressure on Turkey to stop denial.

Romanian presidency says Iraq hostages alive, calls for release of woman
held

Agence France Presse
April 27, 2005

BUCHAREST (AFP) – Three Romanians being held hostage in Iraq are alive,
a source close to the presidency said, although the deadline set by
their kidnappers had expired several hours earlier.

The Romanian authorities also called for the release of the only woman
among the three, reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion, on “humanitarian and
religious grounds”.

The source said that Bucharest had sent a message to the kidnappers, who
are calling for the withdrawal of Romanian troops from Iraq, saying “the
Romanian people do not accept that a woman bearing the name of the
Virgin Mary should be threatened with death” on the eve of the Orthodox
Church’s Easter.

On Wednesday for the first time the presidency made a public appeal to
the group holding Ion, a reporter with Prima TV, her cameraman Sorin
Miscoci and Eduard Ohanesian, correspondent of the Romania Libera
newspaper. They were seized on March 28.

The Romanians also asked for the deadline of 1300 GMT Wednesday to be
extended and called on Iraqi religious leaders to involve themselves in
“steps to free the three hostages.”

The kidnappers had set the deadline for Bucharest to announce the
withdrawal of its 860 troops from Iraq to save the journalists’ lives,
according to a report by the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.

Prayers for the three were said in central Bucharest.

;u=/afp/20050427/wl_mideast_afp/iraqhostageromania

the Times/UK
April 26, 2005

Lebanon heads down road to democracy as Syrians go home

>From Nicholas Blanford in Anjar, Bekaa Valley

SYRIAN troops complete their withdrawal from Lebanon today, ending
almost 30 years of occupation and paving the way for the country’s
first free and fair elections in a generation. Positions were
bulldozed and checkpoints dismantled as the last tanks and artillery
guns were removed for the short trip home. Lorries filled with troops
and equipment belched black diesel smoke as they ground up the hills
of the eastern Bekaa. Green military buses festooned with Syrian flags
and portraits of President Assad ferried soldiers across the border.

A monument dedicated to Syrian soldiers who died in Lebanon’s wars
will be unveiled at a ceremony this morning in the Bekaa Valley town
of Rayak formally marking an end to Syria’s military presence.

With almost all Syrian troops gone from Lebanon, Rustom Ghazale, the
head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, the mukhabarat, has
vowed to be the last soldier to leave. Once his vehicle crosses the
border at Masnaa today, the military road connecting the two countries
will be closed.

Jamil Sayyed, Lebanon’s feared security chief and a close ally of
Damascus, announced his resignation yesterday. Raymond Azar, chief of
Lebanese military intelligence, was reported to have fled to
France. The security chiefs stand accused of involvement in the murder
of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese Prime Minister, whose death heaped
pressure on Syria to withdraw.

A Syrian army officer, a camera on his shoulder, stood by the main
road at Masnaa filming each vehicle as it passed, capturing for
posterity what many Syrians regard as a humiliating retreat. `I am
sorry to leave like this because the Syrian and Lebanese people are
brothers,’ the officer said. `We would have liked to stay.’

But in the nearby ethnic Armenian town of Anjar, headquarters since
1976 of Syria’s military intelligence, there was barely disguised
delight. `We are very happy to see them go,’ Rafi Tamorian, 25,
said. `They might be our brothers, but they have been treading on our
hearts for too long.’

The intelligence headquarters lies beside the ruins of an 8th-century
town built by the Islamic Umayyad dynasty. The Syrians had used the
ancient stone dwellings as billets.

Around one corner of the site lay empty cans and plastic water
bottles, and laundry had been hung up to dry in the warm spring
sunshine. Two intelligence officers, unshaven and dressed in black
leather jackets, light cotton trousers and sandals ‘ the attire of the
Syrian mukhabarat ‘ crouched at a fire brewing tea, their rifles
leaning against a wall. The sight made a bizarre contrast to the
graceful columns and arches of the nearby palace of the Umayyad caliph
Al-Walid Ibn Abdel Malik, an earlier Damascus-based ruler of the
Levant.

Nicolas Hergilian, who runs a stall by the ruins, said: `Since 1976,
Anjar ceased being a centre of civilisation and became a centre for
the mukhabarat.

In Majdal Anjar, a Sunni town in the eastern Bekaa well known for
supplying volunteers to the Iraqi insurgency, pictures of the murdered
Hariri cover walls, shop windows and car windscreens, mute testimony
to anti-Syrian passions. `We used to be quiet because we are close to
the border but when the Opposition held the (anti-Syrian)
demonstrations in Beirut, the village exploded and we all travelled to
Beirut to join in,’ Khaled Yassin, a shopkeeper, said. `We want our
independence.’

A UN team arrives in Damascus today on a mission to ensure that Syrian
forces and intelligence personnel have fully departed, in compliance
with UN Resolution 1559.

During the 1990s, 30,000 Syrian soldiers were in Lebanon. By the start
of this year, redeployments since 2000 had whittled the number down to
14,000. Although Resolution 1559 was adopted last September, the
Syrians continued to stall on a total withdrawal. It was Hariri’s
murder that precipitated the final pullout.

The end of Syrian domination heralds uncertainty. With a new
Government formed last week and parliamentary elections scheduled for
May, the pro-Syrian establishment in Beirut is unravelling.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 24, 2005 Sunday

Crimea commemorating Armenian genocide victims

By Lev Ryabchikov

SIMFEROPOL

The Crimea is commemorating Armenian genocide victims.

A service for genocide victims was ministered in the St. Akop Church
in Simferopol on Sunday.

Armenian historians told a mourning rally that large-scale killings
of Armenians began in West Armenia in April 1915 by a classified
instruction of the Turkish government. They remembered with gratitude
Russian Emperor Nicholas II, who ordered to open the Russian-Turkish
border for 375,000 Armenian refugees. Some of them found refuge in
the Crimea, where many Armenians lived at that time.

11,000 Armenians were deported from the Crimea in 1944 together with
Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians and Greeks. Nowadays the Armenian
community of the Crimea has 9,000 members.

New Britain Herald, CT
April 24 2005

90 years after Armenian genocide, 14 survivors honored
By GEORGE MOORE, The Herald Press04/24/2005

HARTFORD — At a ceremony at the Capitol Saturday, Maritza Ohanesian
held tight in her hand an ancient yellowed photograph of a family
portrait taken in 1914.

Ohanesian, who was 9 years old at the time, stood by her father,
mother and four younger siblings near her house in Husenig, Turkey.

A year later, the Armenian genocide began, and Ohanesian’s parents
and siblings were killed one by one.

As the sole survivor, Ohanesian was honored along with 13 other
Armenians who survived the genocide at the 90th Commemoration of the
Armenian Genocide held in the chambers of the State House of
Representatives.

The ceremony was sponsored by state Rep. John C. Geragosian, D-New
Britain, and the Connecticut Armenian Community.

An estimated 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed by the
Turkish Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell issued a official statement in recognition of the
genocide, but the federal government has not officially recognized
the mass killings as genocide, and neither has Turkey.

Keynote speaker, Col. Moorad Mooradian said he considers the Armenian
genocide to continue into this day because it has not been officially
recognized by the American or the Turkish governments.

“We continue in the struggle for truth and justice to get the
Armenian genocide recognized,” he said. “Today we commemorate the
90th year of the longest genocide in history. Genocide scholars call
denial the last stage in genocide. The Turkish government has refused
to acknowledge the genocide.”

Mooradian urged Armenians to continually lobby the U.S. government to
recognize the atrocity.

Ohanesian, who turned 100 in March, received a letter from Vice
President Dick Cheney honoring her as one of the oldest living
survivors of the genocide. The letter was read at the ceremony.

Master of Ceremonies Lt. Col. George Rustigian said this was a step
toward recognition of the genocide, but not in an official capacity.

Genocide survivor Yegsa Mazadoorian, 93, said she was 3 years old
when Ottoman troops captured her mother and her two uncles and later
killed them. Mazadoorian compared the treatment of her family and
other Armenians with the way lambs are rounded up into a flock.

“They opened the door and they put us out like lambs,” she said.
“Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink.”

Both Mazadoorian and Ohanesian were saved by Turkish citizens.
Ohanesian was hidden from troops by a Turkish woman, and was later
cared for at a number of orphanages until she was located by an uncle
living in America and brought here.

Mazadoorian was rescued by a Turkish couple. Because she was so young
when rescued, she grew up speaking the Turkish of her foster parents,
she said. She later learned her native language when she was brought
to an Armenian orphanage. She was eventually located by her father
who was living in America and brought here.

Her son Harry N. Mazadoorian said she continues to speak fluent
Turkish to this day, even though she has not used it extensively in
many decades.

April 24, 1915, is considered the start of the Armenian Genocide,
because it was the day when 200 Armenian leaders in Constantinople
were arrested by the Turkish government. Most of them were executed
later.

The event was made possible by the Armenian Genocide Commemoration
Fund of Connecticut. It can be reached by mail at: P.O. Box 156, West
Hartford, Connecticut, 06137.

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
April 22, 2005

PAPA: PATRIARCA ARMENI, SARA’ UN PONTIFICATO ‘BENEDETTO’ ;
BEDROS XIX, NOME BENEDETTO HA MARCATO STORIA CATTOLICI ARMENI

FIUMICINO (ROMA)

(ANSA) – FIUMICINO (ROMA), 22 APR – “Sara’ un pontificato
‘benedetto’ poiche la sua elezione e’ stata ispirata dallo
Spirito Santo e infonde fiducia nell’avvenire. Benedetto XVI e
un uomo di profonda fede, preghiera, di grande umilta’, e
proseguira’ sulla scia di Papa Giovanni Paolo II. Per noi
armeni, poi, e’ un segno speciale, perche i suoi predecessori
con il nome di Benedetto hanno marcato la vita e la storia della
chiesa cattolica armena”.

Cosi’ Nerses Bedros XIX, Patriarca cattolico di Cilicia per
gli armeni, appena giunto questa mattina all’aeroporto di
Fiumicino con un volo da Beirut ha salutato l’elezione di Joseph
Ratzinger. Il patriarca domenica sara’ in S. Pietro per la messa
di inizio pontificato. E’ arrivato anche il cardinale Pierre
Nasrallah Sfeir, Patriarca di Antiochia dei Maroniti e, in
serata, e’ atteso anche il patriarca della Chiesa Copta
ortodossa, El Soryani Barnaba, mentre, tra le prime delegazioni
di Stato in arrivo, c’e quella della Repubblica di Corea,
guidata dal ministro della Cultura, Chung Dong Chea. “Il nome
di Benedetto – ha poi spiegato Bedros XIX – ha un significato
speciale per noi perche, nel 1742, papa Benedetto XIV nomino
vescovo Abraham Ardzivian patriarca di Cilicia per gli armeni,
ristrutturando la gerarchia armena cattolica, mentre Benedetto
XV, nel 1915, condanno’ il genocidio armeno, intervenendo spesso
per questo popolo spinto fuori dalla sua terra. Ci auguriamo che
il nuovo pontefice venga presto a visitarci in Libano, per
confermarci nella fede e dare speranza nell’avvenire, ora che
stiamo attraversando una crisi politica ed economica”. Il
patriarca di Cilicia e capo della Chiesa Cattolica Armena e
sicuro infine che “Benedetto XVI sapra’ anche innovare
qualcosa, guidato dallo Spirito Santo, perche la Chiesa deve
vivere. Certamente, ha concluso, il Papa sara’ inoltre spinto al
dialogo verso le diverse religioni e culture”.(ANSA).

U.S. at odds with France on NATO role in Darfur
By Mark John

Reuters
04/21/05 16:14 ET

VILNIUS, April 21 (Reuters) – The United States urged NATO on Thursday
to respond quickly to any request for help in the Darfur conflict, but
France insisted the alliance could not be the “gendarme of the world”.

Despite NATO hints it would be ready to help a 2,000-strong African
Union mission struggling to monitor a shaky ceasefire in the region,
the AU has so far not made any request for support.

But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who raised the conflict
at wide-ranging NATO talks in Lithuania, said it should be ready to
offer help with logistics and planning if asked.

“If there is a request, I would hope NATO would activate quickly …
We all have a responsibility to do what we can to alleviate the
suffering in Darfur,” she said.

However French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier disagreed that there
was a role for NATO in Darfur and stressed that Africans should retain
the lead in peace efforts.

“NATO does not have a calling to be the gendarme of the world,”
he told a news conference at the same meeting.

The AU troops are not mandated as peacekeepers and have limited powers
to protect civilians in Darfur, a region the size of France in western
Sudan. Survivors of militia attacks have demanded that peacekeepers
be sent into the war-torn region.

Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 2 million uprooted by
two years of fighting between non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated
government. Khartoum denies accusations it is backing militias known
as Janjaweed.

FRENCH INFLUENCE

French officials see the European Union as better suited to helping in
the region than NATO. The alliance’s involvement would mean a further
U.S. presence on a continent where former colonial power France is
keen to retain strategic influence.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who has also mooted a
role for the alliance in Darfur, stressed the aim was “not to have
NATO boots on the ground” but to offer support.

“NATO has the most sophisticated planning machinery in the world,”
he told reporters.

The disagreement on Darfur came at NATO talks where France also
rejected a U.S.-backed initiative to turn the alliance into a
transatlantic forum for debate on broad strategic issues.

Washington backs proposals by de Hoop Scheffer to broaden the 26-member
alliance’s remit, seeing it as a way for its voice to be heard in
European policy-making.

Rice on Wednesday described NATO as “the premier forum” for
transatlantic political dialogue and said NATO allies should be able
to use it to discuss any issue affecting them.

“We want to use NATO more, and more efficiently,” she said.

But Barnier said key issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme were
better dealt with elsewhere and stressed that the EU insisted on full
autonomy over its own policy decisions.

“NATO is first and foremost a military organisation,” Barnier said,
adding that other bodies such as the United Nations were better
suited to dealing with issues like the nuclear programmes of North
Korea or Iran.

Turkish Army chief urges Armenia to drop genocide allegations

Hurriyet web site, Istanbul
20 Apr 05

General Hilmi Ozkok, chief of the General Staff, has delivered
his annual speech, which is intended to make an assessment of
important developments, at the headquarters of the Military Academies
Command. [Passage omitted]

Expounding his views on Turkish-Armenian relations, Ozkok noted
that Armenia’s stand was giving rise to concerns. He went on
saying: “Turkey wants to normalize its bilateral relations with
Armenia. However, this requires Armenia’s compliance with the
fundamental rules of international law and taking steps dictated
by good-neighbourly relations. Armenia has not recognized Turkey’s
territorial integrity. Besides, it is making efforts to ensure
that unfounded Armenian allegations of genocide [during the Ottoman
period] are recognized on the international stage and continues to
keep a considerable part of Azeri territories under its occupation
in violation of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. The
political and legal issues related to the unfounded allegations of
genocide were actually settled by the [1923] Treaty of Lausanne,
which imposed no obligation on the Republic of Turkey.

Many Turks and Armenians who were the citizens of the Ottoman state
lost their lives as a result of the incidents that took place in
1915. The Ottoman state, which was then engaged in a war, launched a
deportation process in 1915 in order to protect the Armenian community
against possible reprisals by the Turkish community because of the
actions of some Armenian organizations which had rebelled against
the Ottoman state, collaborated with the invading foreign forces,
perpetrated massacres against the local Turkish population and
carried out armed campaigns and political activities in order to
gain independence.”

General Ozkok pointed out that all possible measures had been taken in
order to complete the deportation process in a safe and satisfactory
manner despite all the unfavourable conditions faced by the Ottoman
state. He noted: “Genocide is defined as ‘resorting to acts with the
intention of annihilating a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group in whole or in part, that is to say perpetrating acts with
such a particular purpose.’ Thus, the arguments voiced by who make
allegations of genocide have no basis.”

DIE WELT, Deutschland
19. April 2005

At the Armenian Cemetery

Auf dem armenischen Friedhof

von Hannes Stein

Am kommenden Sonntag ist der 24. April. Ich werde auf demarmenischen
Friedhof in Jerusalem stehen, umringt von Leuten, die anden
Völkermord denken, der vor genau 90 Jahren begann.
EineinhalbMillionen Armenier ließ die Regierung des Osmanischen
Reiches 1915 ff.”ins Nichts deportieren”. Die Todesarten waren
vielfältig: verdurstet,erschlagen, ertrunken, erfindungsreich
gefoltert. Ja, auch Frauen, auchKinder.

Der armenische Patriarch wird den Weihrauchkübel schwenken,
seineMönche werden Gebete in einer Sprache sprechen, die ich nicht
verstehe.Vielleicht werden sie singen. Wenn die Armenier Choräle
singen, fliegteinem glatt die Seele weg. Mein Freund George, dessen
Vater den Genozidüberstand – Gott weiß, wie und warum -, wird ein
bißchen verlegenlächelnd daneben stehen. Ich hoffe, daß ein Mitglied
der israelischenRegierung seinen Weg auf den armenischen Friedhof
finden wird: auchwenn der erste Tag des Passahfestes ist, auch wenn
Israel mit derTürkei (die das Verbrechen bis heute beharrlich
leugnet)Waffenbrüderschaft geschlossen hat.

Heiß wird es sein auf diesem christlichen Friedhof in Jerusalem.
Undmir werden ein paar von den Juden einfallen, die in den Armeniern
schonfrüh ihre niedergemetzelten Brüder und Schwestern erkannt haben.
Anerster Stelle Raphael Lemkin, der vergessene Vater
derAnti-Genozid-Konvention der UNO: Als junger Rechtsanwalt
beimpolnischen Sejm hörte er von dem damals noch präzedenzlosen
Massakerund forderte in Madrid vor dem Völkerbund ein Gesetz gegen
solcheMenschheitsverbrechen. Und natürlich Franz Werfel, dessen Roman
“Dievierzig Tage des Musa Dagh” 1933 gerade rechtzeitig herauskam, um
unterdem Gejohle deutscher Studenten verbrannt zu werden. In diesem
Buchzeichnet zum ersten Mal ein Schriftsteller das “arktische
Gesicht” des20. Jahrhunderts nach.

Auch an den beklemmend-großartigen Bericht des Henry Morgenthau
sen.werde ich mich erinnern, der als Botschafter Amerikas zum Zeugen
desVerbrechens wurde. Glauben Sie bitte den Goebbelsschen Lügen
überseinen Sohn nicht, der F.D. Roosevelt als Finanzminister diente:
Es warkeineswegs “alttestamentarische Härte”, die ihn in den
vierziger Jahreneine strenge Bestrafung der Nazis fordern ließ. Nein,
es war derUmstand, daß er in einem Haus aufwuchs, in dem über das
Schicksal derArmenier gesprochen wurde. Im Geist werde ich mich vor
Edgar Hilsenrathverneigen, dessen “Märchen vom letzten Gedanken”
jetzt endlich vomDittrich-Verlag neu gedruckt wurde. “Es war einmal
ein letzterGedanke”, heißt es in diesem wunderbaren Roman. “Der saß
in einemAngstschrei und hatte sich dort versteckt.”

Menachem Begin mit der Hornbrille und dem schmalen Mund wird inmeinem
Kopf auftauchen. Derselbe, der als Ministerpräsident denisraelischen
Einmarsch in den Libanon befahl. Nebbich. Als junger Mannsaß Begin im
Gulag, seine halbe Familie verlor er an die Nazis, undeinmal sagte
er: “Wenn ich einem Armenier in die Augen schaue, sehe icheinen
Juden.” Noch mehr aber wird mich ein Satz von Israel
Zangwillbeschäftigen, dem Autor des kleinen, feinen Schelmenromans
“Der Königder Schnorrer”. Israel Zangwill schrieb anno 1915: “Heute
hat Gott denJuden die Dornenkrone abgenommen und sie dem armenischen
Volkaufgesetzt.” Wie hätte er auch ahnen sollen, daß Hitler und
seinewilligen Helfer in ganz Europa sie schon bald wieder den Juden
aufsHaupt drücken würden?

An all diese Menschen werde ich auf dem Armenierfriedhof inJerusalem
denken. Und an all die Toten. Und an die Geschlachteten inder
sudanesischen Provinz Darfur, für die sich schon wieder keinSchwein
interessiert. Und still sein.

Wenn die Armenier Choräle singen, dann fliegt einem glatt dieSeele
weg

–Boundary_(ID_Wa1sLQyDL+SVDdQ73gdWXg)–