Author: Tavakalian Edgar

WHAT DO TURKS READ… AND DON’T
Sender: Aris Babikian , Canada

Pan Armenian
Published: 13.10.2005 GMT+04:00

If what people read reflects their attitudes and interests then what
Turks are reading these days should worry-if not scare-civilized
people everywhere.

Adolf Hitler’s notorious racist creed ‘Mein Kampf’ is a bestseller
in Turkey these days, so is a novel about an imminent U.S. invasion
of Turkey.

‘Mein Kampf,’ the classic anti-Semitism text preaching and attacks on
non-Teutonic races, is a hot seller in Istanbul and beyond. According
to some estimates, over 100,000 copies of the book have been printed
in Turkey.

Uguz Tektas of the Manifesto publishing house, one of the two
publishing houses which have issued the book, said their first run
of 30,000 copies are almost sold out.

The publication of the book is threatening to create a diplomatic
incident between Germany and Turkey. The German Government has raised
its concerns about the publication of ‘Mein Kampf,’ which is banned
in Germany. The Bavarian state finance minister Kurt Faltlhauser
is contemplating court action to stop further publication of the
book. Bavaria holds the copyright of ‘Mein Kampf.’ Minister Faltlhauser
stated: “The book should not be reprinted.” A German embassy official
in Ankara said: “The availability and rising popularity of this book
in Turkey are matters of serious concern for us.”

The Jewish community of Turkey is also alarmed by the popularity of
‘Mein Kampf.’ Lina Filiba, the executive vice-president of the Jewish
community, called the book’s popularity “disturbing.” The publication
of ‘Mein Kampf’ and the ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ is a
” worrying trend,” she said. The latter is a well-known 19th century
forgery concocted by Tsarist Russia’s secret police to justify pogroms
against Jews.

Even more worrying is the sale of the books in mainstream and busy
department stores, Filiba said. “I think there’s an increase in
anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-foreigner feeling…”

Silvio Ovadyo, a spokesman for the Jewish community of Istanbul,
attributed the popularity of ‘Mein Kampf’ to rising anti-Semitism in
the nationalist Turkish press. “This [‘Mein Kampf’] is an anti-Semitic
book and, yes, we are concerned about it,” the spokesperson said.

The other Turkish bestseller-‘The Metal Storm’-is a novel. The events
in the thriller take place in 2007 when an evil empire (the United
States) invades Turkey to take control of Turkey’s uranium, borax and
thorium deposits. The brave Turks, led by the military, resist the
new Crusade. The anti-American nature of the book is the main reason
for the book’s popularity, according to published reports. The book,
first published in late 2004, is now in its eighth printing of 50,000.

Repeated surveys show anti-Americanism is on the rise in Turkey. In
March, Ankara-based Pollmark Research Company found 31% of Turks
believe the United States will invade Turkey. Turkish public
opinion was almost unanimously against the war in Iraq. Turkish
anti-Americanism stems from the belief that the U.S. invasion of
Iraq will help the Kurds in Northern Iraq establish an independent
Kurdish state that in turn would encourage Turkey’s Kurds to rebel
and try to establish their own state in Eastern Turkey.

The Turkish government might be wrong, but it’s certainly consistent
in its misguided policies. So it comes as no surprise that while
Ankara allows the sale of anti-Semitic (“Mein Kampf,” and “The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) books and anti-American novel about
an impending U.S. invasion of Turkey, the government is using its
full might, under the new Turkish penal code, to intimidate, harass,
ban, prosecute and jail Turkish scholars, journalists, human rights
activists and professors who speak, write or publish anything to do
with the Armenian Genocide or the status of the Kurdish people.

The most famous case is the recent fatwa against the well-known Turkish
author Orhan Pamuk. In February Pamuk said in a series of interviews
with Turkish and Swiss newspapers that “Thirty thousand Kurds and
nearly a million Armenians were massacred on these lands [Turkey],
and no one, but me, has dared to speak about it.” Turkish nationalists
have since issued a fatwa against Pamuk; some government officials
have banned his books from libraries while his books were burned
in mass demonstrations. Recently, Pamuk was charged with insulting
Turkey’s national character. His trial is in December. If convicted,
he could be sent to prison for three years.

Journalist, publisher and human-rights activist Ragip Zarakolu is
another public figure who has been indicted for publishing books on
Kurds and Armenians.

Hrant Dink, the publisher of Turkish-Armenian “Agos” weekly newspaper,
has been found guilty for “insult to the Turkish national identity”
and sentenced to six-month suspended sentence by the Turkish state
for stating that he is not a Turk but a Turk of Armenian descent.

In the light of these regrettable developments, it’s incomprehensible
to learn that the Anti-Defamation League in the U.S. recently awarded
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, the league’s
Courage to Care award.

Aris Babikian is a journalist with “Horzion” weekly and member of
the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada.

Agence France Presse
14 octobre 2005 vendredi 5:12 PM GMT
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian <[email protected]>
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

Comité de défense de la cause arménienne salue un accord “historique”

PARIS

Le Comité de défense de la cause arménienne (CDCA) s’est félicité
vendredi de “l’accord historique” intervenu jeudi en Californie aux
termes duquel le groupe d’assurance français Axa a accepté de verser
une indemnisation de 17 millions de dollars aux descendants de
porteurs de contrats d’assurance vie décédés lors du génocide
arménien de 1915.

“Au-delà de l’indemnisation des victimes spoliées, votre action
démontre une nouvelle fois la réalité du génocide commis contre le
peuple arménien et la nécessité pour la Turquie actuelle, héritière
de l’empire ottoman comme des polices d’assurances impayées, de
reconnaître et de réparer ses fautes”, a indiqué le président du
CDCA, Harout Mardirossian, dans un courrier adressé à Vartkès
Yeghayian, l’un des avocats américains des plaignants, et cité par le
communiqué.

Cette décision intervient au terme d’une médiation menée en
Californie (ouest des Etats-Unis) entre le groupe français et ces
descendants qui avaient lancé une action judiciaire civile en nom
collectif (“class action”).

Aux termes de cet accord, Axa versera notamment trois millions de
dollars à des organisations caritatives arméniennes en France et 11 M
USD dans un fonds d’indemnisation des descendants des victimes.

Fin septembre, un porte-parole d’Axa avait confirmé à l’AFP la tenue
de cette médiation, ordonnée par un tribunal californien. L’affaire
portait sur des contrats souscrits à l’époque des faits auprès de
L’Union-Vie, une des sociétés constitutives de l’UAP (racheté en 1996
par Axa).

Un accord similaire a déjà été signé avec la compagnie américaine New
York Life en 2000 pour 20 millions d’euros.

HOW CAN A COUNTRY THAT VICTIMISES ITS GREATEST LIVING WRITER ALSO JOIN THE EU?
Salman Rushdie

The Times, UK
Oct 14 2005

THE WORK ROOM of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus,
that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these
things, separates or unites – or, perhaps, separates and unites –
the worlds of Europe and Asia. There could be no more appropriate
setting for a novelist whose work does much the same thing.

In many books, most recently the acclaimed novel Snow and the haunting
memoir-portrait of his home town, Istanbul: Memories and the City,
Pamuk has laid claim to the title, formerly held by Yashar Kemal,
of Greatest Turkish Writer. He is also an outspoken man.

Explaining his reasons for refusing the title of “state artist”,
he said, in 1999: “For years I have been criticising the State for
putting authors in jail, for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem
by force, and for its narrow-minded nationalism . . . I don’t know why
they tried to give me the prize.” He has described Turkey as having
“two souls” and has criticised its human rights abuses.

“Geographically we are part of Europe . . . but politically?” He is
not sure.

I spent some days with Pamuk in July this year, at a literary festival
in the pretty Brazilian seaside town of Parati, and for those few
days he seemed free of his cares even though, earlier in the year,
death threats made against him by Turkish ultranationalists had
forced him to spend two months out of his country. But the clouds
were gathering. The statement he had made to the Swiss newspaper
Tages Anzeiger on February 6, 2005, which had been the cause of
the ultranationists ‘ wrath, was about to become a serious problem
once again.

“Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in
Turkey,” he had told the Swiss paper, adding: “Almost no one dares to
speak out on this but me.” He was referring to the killings by Ottoman
Empire forces of thousands of Armenians in 1915-17. (Turkey does not
contest the deaths, but denies that they amounted to genocide.) Pamuk’s
reference to “30,000” Kurdish deaths refers to those killed since 1984
in the conflict between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists. Debate
on these issues has been stifled by stringent laws, some leading to
lengthy lawsuits, fines and in some cases prison terms.

On September 1, 2005, Pamuk was indicted by a district prosecutor for
having “blatantly belittled Turkishness” by his remarks. If convicted,
he faces up to three years in jail. Article 301/1 of the Turkish
penal code, under which Pamuk is to be tried, states that “a person
who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand
National Assembly, shall be sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment
for a term of six months to three years . . . Where insulting being
a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a foreign country, the
penalty shall be increased by one third.” So, if Pamuk is found guilty,
he faces an additional penalty for having made the statement abroad.

You would think that the Turkish authorities might have avoided
so blatant an assault on their most celebrated writer’s fundamental
freedoms at the very moment that their application for full membership
of the European Union – an extremely unpopular application in many
EU countries – was being considered at the EU summit.

However, in spite of being a state that has ratified both the United
Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and
the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which see freedom
of expression as central, Turkey continues to have and to enforce a
penal code that is clearly contrary to these very same principles,
and, in spite of widespread global protests, has set the date for
Pamuk’s trial. It will begin, unless there is a change of heart,
on December 16.

That Pamuk is criticised by Turkish Islamists and radical nationalists
is no surprise. That the attackers frequently disparage his works
as obscure and self-absorbed, accusing him of having sold out to
the West, is no surprise either. It is, however, disappointing to
read intellectuals such as Soli Ozel, a professor of international
relations and a newspaper columnist, criticising “those, especially
in the West, who would use the indictment against Pamuk to denigrate
Turkey’s progress toward greater civil rights – and toward European
Union membership”.

Ozel wants the charges against Pamuk thrown out at the trial in
December, and accepts that they represent an “affront” to free speech,
but prefers to stress “the distance that the country has covered in the
past decade”. This seems altogether too weak. The number of convictions
and prison sentences under the laws that penalise free speech in
Turkey has indeed declined in the past decade, but International PEN’s
records show that more than 50 writers, journalists and publishers
currently face trials. Turkish journalists continue to protest against
the (revised) penal code. The International Publishers Association,
in a deposition to the UN, has described this revised code as being
“deeply flawed”.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, says
that Turkey’s entry into the EU is by no means assured, that it
will have to win over the hearts and minds of the deeply sceptical
EU citizenry. The Turkish application is being presented (most
vociferously by Tony Blair and Jack Straw) as a test case for the EU.

To reject it, we are told, would be a catastrophe, widening the gulf
between Islam and the West. There is an element of Blairite poppycock
in this, a disturbingly communalist willingness to sacrifice Turkish
secularism on the altar of faith-based politics. But the Turkish
application is indeed a test case for the EU, a test of whether the
Union has any principles at all. If it has, its leaders will insist
on charges against Orhan Pamuk being dropped at once – there is no
need to keep him waiting for justice until December – and on further,
rapid revisions to Turkey’s repressive penal code.

An unprincipled Europe, which turns its back on great artists and
fighters for freedom, will continue to alienate its citizens, whose
disenchantment has already been widely demonstrated by the votes
against the proposed new constitution. So the West is being tested
as well as the East. On both sides of the Bosphorus, the Pamuk case
matters.

STUDENTS DO NOT WANT TO BE SUBORDINATED TO PARTIES

A1+
| 20:43:21 | 13-10-2005 | Politics |

Today the students of the Yerevan State University and the
State University of Economy gathered in front of the government
building. They urge to declare invalid the decision of June 23 on the
order of formation of the administration council of higher education
institutions.

“According to the order, the council may include people, who are not
engaged in the educational field”, a four-year student said.

It is hard to say how the government will react to the protest. It is
known that the order came into force 13 days ago. Some students also
informed that tutors are afraid to take part in the protest actions,
however the students are encouraged by scientists. Chairman of the
Armenian Association of political scientists Arman Vardanyan said
that the protest action will bear a lasting character.

CELEBRATE HARVEST AT ARMENIAN CHURCH

Belmont Citizen-Herald, MA
Oct 13 2005

The Women’s Fellowship of the First Armenian Church, 380 Concord Ave.

in Belmont, is sponsoring a Fall Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct.

22 from noon to 8 p.m.

Armenian delicacies such as shish kebab, losh kebab and chicken kebab
will be served for lunch and dinner, and choreg, string cheese,
yalanchi and manti will be among the many foods available for
purchase. There will also be a wide variety of Armenian and American
pastries for sale. All are welcome.

FTC Allows Kerkorian to Up GM Stake

By – 10/11/2005 – Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

The Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday it would not oppose a plan by
billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian to increase his stake in General Motors
Corp. and possibly seek a seat on GM’s board, Reuters reported.

U.S. antitrust authorities have completed their investigation of the
proposal without taking any further action, the Federal Trade Commission
said in a notice.

On Sept. 21, Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. said it might ask for representation
on General Motors’ board and that it intends to raise its stake in the
automaker.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tracinda, which now
holds a 9.53-percent GM stake – or 53.9 million shares – said it plans to
increase its ownership interest to as much as 9.9 percent of outstanding
shares. Tracinda had sought approval from antitrust officials as well.

On May 4, Tracinda, the majority owner of casino and hotel chain MGM Mirage,
announced a tender offer to pay $870 million to buy up to 28 million shares,
or nearly 5 percent of total General Motors stock.

Tracinda ended up purchasing 18.9 million shares, leaving it 9.1 million
shares short of the stated goal. However, in a Sept. 1 filing, the Beverly
Hills-based company said it had increased its GM stake to 9.53 percent in
three separate private transactions, starting in late August.

Pan Armenian

Erdogan Letter to Kocharian Attempts to Mislead International Community

11.10.2005 21:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A letter by Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Armenian
President Robert Kocharian is an attempt to mislead the international
community. Armenian Vice-Speaker Vahan Hovhannisyan qualified this way
Turkish party’s proposal to form a joint Armenian-Turkish historical
commission to examine the Armenian issue. Mr. Hovhannisyan made his
statement at the NATO PA Rose-Roth seminar held in Yerevan. In his words,
besides the Genocide in 1915 Turkey has committed another crime – this one
against independent Armenia – in 1919 Armenia’s territory was equal to 70
thousand square meters. However, resulting from Turkey’s aggression Armenia
lost Kars, Ardahan, Surmalu, as well as most of the population in these
regions. In his opinion, the crime was an aggression against another state
and resulted in most problems that cause destabilization in the South
Caucasus today. These problems include issues in the Armenian-Azeri and
Armenian-Turkish relations. Exactly owing to that Armenian President’s
return proposal to form an intergovernmental joint commission instead of a
historical one may have more actual outcomes, Vahan Hovhannisyan stated. «I
think that just owing to that the proposal of the Turkish party was not
reciprocated,» he stated. Besides, Mr. Hovhannisyan remarked that the
ideology of repentance and remorse underlying the European values is not
accepted by the Turkish society. «Today Turkey tries to become an EU member
and it should be ready to that from the inside, the Turkish society should
change,» he emphasized.

GIORNALISTA CONDANNATO PER OFFESA A IDENTITA’ TURCA ; DOPO CASO PAMUK, CONDANNA DELL’ARMENO DINK PER OPINIONI

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
8 Ott, 2005

ANKARA

(ANSA) – ANKARA, 8 OTT – Il giornalista di origine armena, ma di
cittadinanza turca, Hrant Dink, e’ stato condannato a sei mesi di
reclusione, con la condizionale, da un tribunale turco in base ad
una legge che punisce “le offese all’identita turca” per alcuni
articoli sulla sua rivista bilingue turco-armena Agos sulla memoria
del “genocidio degli armeni” del 1915-16.

Il giornalista ha gia’ annunciato che ricorrera’ in Cassazione ed
alla Corte europea dei diritti umani contro la sentenza che ripropone
il problema della persistenza nel codice penale turco di norme che
criminalizzano le opinioni, come avviene nel caso dello scrittore
turco Orhan Pamuk che sara processato nei prossimi mesi solo per
avere dichiarato che “un milione di armeni furono uccisi” all’epoca
degli ultimi governi ottomani.

Nel caso di Dink la corte ha ritenuto offensiva per la identita’ turca
una frase scritta dallo stesso giornalista in cui egli invitava gli
armeni a dimenticare il passato dato che la loro inimicizia verso i
turchi avrebbe – secondo Dink” “un effetto velenoso nel vostro sangue”.

Secondo una giornalista della stessa Agos, Karin Karakash, la corte
avrebbe “male interpretato e decontestualizzato la frase” come se
Dink avesse voluto dire che il sangue turco e veleno.

Il giornalista e’ gia’ sotto un altro processo, con la medesima accusa,
per avere criticato come “discriminatorie” sia la strofa dell’inno
nazionale turco in cui si dice “sorridi alla mia eroica razza”
e il giuramento che gli studenti sono chiamati a fare ogni giorno:
“Felice e’ colui che si dice turco”.

La Turchia ha cominciato il suo negoziato di adesione all’Unione
europea il 3 ottobre scorso e l’Ue ha gia’ chiesto al governo di
Ankara, sulla base dei processi a Pamuk e a Dink, di eliminare
dal codice penale turco (gia’ riformato di recente sulla falsariga
delle indicazioni dell’Ue) quegli articoli che si prestano ad una
criminalizzazione delle opinioni.

PRESS RELEASE
ST. SARKIS CHURCH
38-65 234th Street
Douglaston, NY.
Tel: 718-224-2275

On Sunday, October 16, 2005 at 1: 30 pm the St. Sarkis Church is featuring
Dr. Dennis R. Papazian who will be lecturing on the topic of “Yeghishe and
the real story behind the the Vartanantz War”.

A full-Professor of History athe the University of Michigan- Dearborn since
1971 Dr. Papazian has been just as importantly the founder, major fundraiser
and director of the University of Michigan Armenian Research Center. Dr.
Papazian has also served for a number years as the Dean of the College
Literature, Science and the Arts as well as Associate Provost at the same
university.

A keen participant in the political process for the Armenian Rights, Dr.
Papazian was on of the founders of the Armenian Assembly and took off four
years from his academic duties to serve as executive director as well as the
Chairman of the Board of Directors during the early critical years.

The publilc at large is invited to take advantage of this opportunity to
hear and meet Dr. Papazian.

A1+

| 18:06:49 | 07-10-2005 | Economy |

DIFFERENT VIEWS

RA will need about 367 years to return the population deposits of Soviet
years. To this conclusion came member of United Labor Party Grigor Ghonjeyan
after making simple arithmetic calculations.

Next year the parliament foresees for the repayment of deposits 1 mlrd
drams, that is to say $2 mln 200 thousands. General debt counts about 8
miliard roubles /800 mln dollars/. Dividing the last figure into the second
one Grigor Ghonjeyan got 367.

Armenian PM Andranik Margaryan thinks that `all this is just a farce’,
taking into account that there’s no clear indexation, program approach, and
continuance is also under doubt.

Leader of Republican Party of Armenia Galoust Sahakyan doesn’t agree with
this view, «as in this case there are neither elected nor voters». Mr.
Sahakyan thinks if this should be done in 2007, on the threshold of next
general elections.

Galoust Sahakyan considers returning of deposits non-efficient both for the
state and the population, though PM Andranik Margaryan had noted that 1
milliard drams will be marked out on that purpose in the budget of 2006.