Author: Vanyan Gary

The Scotsman, UK
June 17 2006
Intolerable cruelty
COLIN DONALD
The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred
by Niall Ferguson
Penguin, 816pp, £25
IN WOODY ALLEN’S 1986 MOVIE Hannah and her Sisters Frederick, the
comically grim Euro-intellectual played by Max Von Sydow, rails
against a TV discussion of Auschwitz: “The reason why they could
never answer the question ‘How could it possibly happen?’ is that
it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is ‘Why
doesn’t it happen more often?’ ”
Niall Ferguson’s tumultuous catalogue of 20th-century nightmares is a
reply of sorts to the pessimist’s rant. Focused though it is on the
“turning point” years 1939-1945, it sets out to destroy the sense of
exceptionality surrounding the Nazis’ acts, merging them with the
less-efficient barbarities staining every decade of the “global 100
years’ war”.
A non-comprehensive list of these lowlights would include: the
Armenian massacres in the First World War, the Russian civil war, the
Stalinist Terror, the Japanese war on China, the Second World War,
the Korean War, the Cultural Revolution, the frenzies of the Khmer
Rouge, the Balkan wars, and the Rwandan massacres. Like Macbeth, we
humans have “supp’d full with horrors” and it is only in the last
decade or so that historians have been able to digest the
implications of this chaos.
Professor Ferguson’s big beast of a book, accompanied by a TV series,
sucks up and synthesises a vast range of state-of-the-art research
(the bibliography is 48 pages long), filters it through his own
economic history specialism, and adds a dash of Dawkins-esque
evolutionary theory. The result is a provocative and urgently
readable study that avoids scholarly pussyfooting to ask the biggest
questions of modernity. Some may object that Ferguson’s snappy,
paradox-happy prose style is exactly the meretricious sort sent up in
Alan Bennett’s Tony-winning hit play The History Boys. No doubt his
love of clever inversions (“Appeasement did not lead to war. It was
war that led to appeasement” etc) will irritate some, especially
coming from a telegenic 41-year-old Scot with one of the juiciest
posts in academia (a Harvard chair in history).
But even those who sniff at his readability must admire the scale of
the work involved in shaping so much material and expressing it with
such panache. The questions he asks are these. Given that human
nature did not change at the end of the 19th century, why did the
globalised and technocratic world of 1900 dissolve into a Hieronymus
Bosch vision of hell? Why so often, and on such a scale?
Ferguson’s thesis is that the death camp innovation – inter-ethnic
savagery, dressed up as “hygienic” new-fangled nationalism – lay
behind a self-perpetuating cycle of violence, either between states
or between communities within states. Terror as state policy was not
new, but Ferguson blames Lenin and his heirs for modernising the
concept and putting technological and bureaucratic muscle behind it.
He also shows how their task was made easier by western journalists
and intellectuals – including LSE founders Beatrice and Sidney Webb,
and the writer George Bernard Shaw and more dimly remembered figures
such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times.
Shaw wrote with disgusting flippancy about the Moscow show trials,
while praising Stalin as a modern messiah. And it was Duranty, not
Hitler, who coined the phrase “you can’t make an omelette without
breaking eggs” – in relation to Stalin’s Ukrainian famine – which
sums up the intellectuals’ contribution to halting the 20th-century
moral meltdown.
The force of this book has two main sources. The first is its ability
to illustrate in Technicolor the often unbearable consequences of
political and military decisions. The second is to suggest a more
persuasive framework for this appalling narrative than any one-volume
history to date. In Ferguson’s version, the bones of the story are
these: Ethnic hatreds stirred as rickety multi-ethnic empires are
reformed into aggressive “empire states”. The traumatic effects of
ultra-rapid economic change – upwards or downwards – helped people to
brand each other as vermin. These tides would cause humans to behave
in ways inconceivable at the dawn of the 20th century, when nothing
but improvement seemed likely.
To pick some random unnoticed ironies that Ferguson has thought
through: That the decline of the hereditary principle in office and
ownership coincided with the rise in the political significance of
inherited race. That vicious ethnic conflict (from Germany to Rwanda)
follows periods of intense intermarriage and integration. That what
was necessary to stop the war in 1939 was a pre-emptive war in 1938.
That the 20th-century story, usually seen as the triumph of the West,
is really its descent, from the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1905, to
the rise of China in the 1980s and ’90s.
So here we are, on the brink of an ominous new age, whose Franz
Ferdinand-in-Sarajevo moment came in New York five years ago this
September. As Ferguson constantly hints by drawing parallels between
suicide bombers, ethnic cleansers and useless international
peacekeepers then and now, the worth of his book stands or falls by
what it tells us about the 21st century and what traps we must avoid.
Ultimately, it is not Ferguson’s knack of turning received opinions
on their head that distinguishes the book. Its value is in spotting
material that needs a wider readership and letting it speak for
itself. Thus, the appropriate response to this book is not
philosophising or hand-wringing but astonishment at how much folk
memory has been able to shrug off, and to forget.
Take the account of a 15-year-old Korean girl, Kim Buson, removed by
the Japanese to the Philippines, where “she received 30 to 40
soldiers every day”. This is cited as an example of “the imperialism
of sexual domination”, a major theme of the century. Or that of
Rudolf Reder, one of the few from the gas chamber clearing detail to
survive Belzec, haunted by the cries: “Mummy, but I’ve been good!
It’s dark! It’s dark!”
In his 1898 sci-fi novel, HG Wells imagined Martian invaders
indiscriminately blowing up ant-like civilians – a feat of
prescience, says Ferguson, that anticipates “Brest-Litovsk, Belgrade
and Berlin, Smyrna, Shanghai and Seoul”.
These survivors’ stories, which no-one was ever meant to hear,
suggest that the 20th century’s legacy – and its warning to the 21st
– is knowledge of a cruelty of a more intimate kind, far beyond the
capabilities of aliens.
~U Niall Ferguson’s television series, The War of the World, starts on
Channel 4, Monday at 8pm.
–Boundary_(ID_7ZhNxhnERpAe+wSXnyVMWA)–

PARLIAMENTARY HEARINGS ON SUBJECT “PROBLEMS OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND EXPERIENCE” TO BE HELD ON JUNE 23
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Jun 15 2006
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On June 23, RA NA
Standing Committee on Foreign Relations organizes parliamentary
hearings on the subject “Problems of Dual Citizenship, the
International Law and Exeperience.”
As Noyan Tapan was informed from the parliament, it is planned to
touch upon the following issues during the hearings:
– international legal regulation of dual citizenship institution;
– foreign experience of legal regulation of dual citizenship;
– international commitments assumed and expected by RA in the respect
of regulation of legal relations conditioned by dual citizenship.

TURKS THINK US TROOPS IN IRAQ GREATER DANGER TO WORLD PEACE THAN IRAN
The New Anatolian, Turkey
June 15 2006
The majority of Turks see the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq as a
greater threat to stability in the Mideast than the controversial
government in Iran, according to a new poll of European and Muslim
countries.
The Pew Research Center’s opinion poll released this week found that
Turks are increasingly turning away from the U.S.-declared “war on
terror.” More than three-quarters of Turks (77 percent) oppose the
U.S.-led war on terror, up from 56 percent in 2004, while 61 percent
of the participants oppose Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons.
Turkish support for the war in Iraq dropped sharply from 33 percent
in 2002, the beginning of the war, to 12 percent as of 2006.
People in Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Russia also rated
America’s continuing involvement in Iraq a worse problem than Iran
and its nuclear ambitions. Views of U.S. troops in Iraq were even
more negative in countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan.
But the war in Iraq trumps the Iranian situation as a perceived
danger to the world at a time when the image of the U.S. and its war
on terrorism continues to drop internationally.
Even in Britain, the U.S.’ closest ally in Iraq, 41 percent of those
surveyed said the U.S. military presence in Iraq was a danger to world
peace and only 34 percent described the Iranian government as a danger.
International opinion on the future of Iraq is generally gloomy.
Majorities in most countries surveyed believe that efforts to establish
a stable democratic government in Iraq will ultimately fail. Pessimism
is strongest in Spain, Turkey, Germany, Jordan, and Egypt — in all
five countries, more than six in 10 respondents believe efforts to
establish democracy will definitely or probably fail.
Iraq is one of many issues that pushes a negative view of the U.S.,
said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
“Last year we saw some good news in countries like Russia and India,”
Kohut said. “That good news being wiped away is a measure of how
difficult a problem this is for the U.S.
“Western countries share some points of view,” Kohut said, noting
mutual concerns about Iran’s development of a nuclear program and
the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections. “But Iraq continues
to be divisive.”
Opinion of Bush has continued to decline in European countries, while
Muslims-populated publics remain strongly opposed to the American
president. At 3 percent, Turkey now registers the lowest level of
confidence in President Bush.
Western European nations and predominantly Muslim nations have sharply
different views on Iran, which the U.S. claims is developing nuclear
weapons.
Concerning majority Muslim-populated countries’ position towards Iran’s
acquiring nuclear weapons, solid majorities in Turkey (61 percent)
and Indonesia (59 percent) oppose it, but people in Egypt and Jordan
are divided, and most Pakistanis (52 percent) favor Iran acquiring
nuclear weapons. In addition, more people in major industrialized
nations than in Muslim-populated countries believe that Iran wants
a nuclear program to develop weapons, not nuclear energy.
West-Muslim divide on Hamas victory
Divisions between the West and the Muslim world in opinions of the
Hamas Party’s victory in Palestine’s January elections are even wider.
Fully 71 percent of Germans and 69 percent of the French feel the
Hamas triumph will be bad for the Palestinian people, among those
who are aware of the issue. Somewhat fewer Americans (50 percent)
express this view, although just 20 percent think the Hamas triumph
will be a good thing for the Palestinians. Among major U.S. allies,
only the British are divided on Hamas’ election — 34 percent say it
will be bad, while 32 percent take a positive view.
By contrast, large majorities in Pakistan (87 percent), Egypt (76
percent), Jordan (68 percent), and Indonesia (61 percent) feel that
the Hamas Party victory will be good for the Palestinian people,
among those who had heard about the election. In addition, the
Muslim-populated publics surveyed generally feel the Hamas triumph
will increase chances of a fair settlement of the Middle East conflict,
a view opposed by the West.
Some 44 percent of Turks meanwhile think that Hamas’ victory is good
for the Palestinian people, while 23 percent think the opposite.
Another significant part of the opinion poll shows that negative views
of France have increased over the past year, especially in majority
Muslim-populated countries. In Turkey, 61 percent feel unfavorably
toward France, up from 51 percent last year.
Riots of disenfranchised Muslim French youth have likely fueled this
perception worldwide, whereas for Turks, French legislation proposing
that rejection of the Armenian “genocide” be outlawed may also have
played a role.

TIME IS AGAINST YEREVAN
Ïðaâî Âûaîða, Azerbaijan
Democratic Azerbaijan
June 14 2006
Co-editor of International Export Control Observer and research worker
of the Center on Investigation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Problems at Monterey Institute of International Researches, Alexander
Melikishvili, responded the letter of some Ashot Vardanyan recently
published in American “Johnson’s Russia List”.
While earnestly denying Vardanyan’s “malicious and provocative
statements”, concerning present situation in Georgia and in South
Caucasus, A. Melikishvili proves groundlessness of idle conjectures
concerning dispute on some Armenian churches in Georgia, prohibition
concerning import of Georgian wine to Russia etc.
Following author, Vardanyan’s comparison of economic situation in
Armenia and Georgia is biased. As he stated improvement of economic
showings of Armenia is not so impressive if we take into account the
fact that almost half of population left the country because of the
absence of opportunities for economic activity. Moreover, it is known
that Armenian treasury is filled up owing to US financial support
and generous donation of numerous Armenian diaspora.
Concern of many Armenians about continuing isolation of their country
in the region is reflected in A. Vardanyan’s text, A. Melikishvili
underlined. First this concern was expressed after successful
completion of construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipe line. Today
it is strengthened due to upcoming completion of construction of gas
pipe line Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum and plans concerning construction of
railway Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku; Yerevan holds that triumvirate
of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia ousts it.
To choose Russia as a guarantor of national security for Armenia
is foreordained in many respects and it is of compulsory nature,
especially taking into account anxiety concerning re-start of military
operations against Azerbaijan because of Nagorni Garabagh conflict
and restless memory of genocide that darkens relation between Armenia
and its great neighbor – Turkey.
The fact that Armenia gave basic attributes of its sovereignty
to Russia is evident for everyone who flies to Yerevan: Russian
frontier guards meet guests at Zvartnoz airport. Moreover, Armenians
and Russians guards guard frontiers with Azerbaijan and Turkey. The
sad truth is that it will not be easy for Armenia to get rid of slave
status with respect to Russia. Because of debt amortization in exchange
for assets, today Russia controls many large enterprises and over 70%
of power supplies of Armenia.
A. Melikishvili said that he wouldn’t advice Armenians to kindle
separatist sentiments in Georgian region Javakheti: it would be
non-productive and would ricochet on Yerevan unexpectedly. At the same
time Baku now is impatient because of lack of progress concerning
Nagorni Garabagh negotiations. This enforcement of discontent is
connected with growing oil incomes due to which Azerbaijani government
fails to be patient and avoid temptation to return its territories
occupied by Armenia.
Didactic issues and demographic statements made Vardanyan forget
the most serious problem of Armenia – regulation of Nagorni Garabagh
conflict. Regulation of this conflict would contribute in ensuring
security and stability of the region and prevention of “separation
lines” in Caucasus.
While stressing it A. Melikishvili reminds that “next year Azerbaijani
GDP will surpass Armenian one by a factor of seven. I recommend
Mr. Vardanyan to think of consequences of such economic disparity
for Armenia. Time is against Yerevan. The sooner it is engaged with
regulation of Garabagh problem the better it would be”.
–Boundary_(ID_b1XGKAb4oWFRsyirCG8Y2w)- –

REVALUATED DRAM IS FORGED MORE
Lragir.am
14 June 06
The amount of discovered forged Armenian banknotes in 2005 is up by
8 percent compared with 2004, states the annual report of the Central
Bank of Armenia. Mostly 1000-dram bills are forged – 67 percent.
Next come the 5000 and 500-dram bills – 13.3 percent, 2.4 percent
are 20 thousand-dram bills and 200-dram coins.
The report also says that as on December 31, 2005 160 404.7 million
drams of paper money and 5159109 million drams in coins was circulated
in Armenia.

AGENDA NOT ADOPTED YET
A1+
[07:22 pm] 12 June, 2006
Today the Parliament was unable to adopt the agenda of the four-day
session. Oppositional deputies registered in order to ask questions in
that connection, but their questions mostly referred to issues which
had nothing to do with the agenda but were important for people. Hmayak
Hovhannisyan spoke about the deflation of the USD. “When are we to
elect a NA deputy President? I want to know if we have NA majority
or we must get the death certificate of the coalition,” he asked.
Lead of the National Unity Artashes Geghamyan development the theme. He
said, “The cost of the US dollar was reduced by 16.3%. Nothing of
the kind can ever happen in the world market,” Geghamyan announced
and added that the pair Kocharyan-Sargsyan made use of the deflation
and got a profit of 160 million USD.
Secretary of the Justice faction Viktor Dallakyan represented his
legislative initiative offering to create two ad-hoc committees in
order to investigate the lawfulness of the 2003 elections and the
2005 Constitutional referendum. NA President Tigran Torosyan informed
that even if the issue is discussed they will not have enough time
to create the committees as this is the last four-day session of the
sitting and urged to wait until autumn.

US CONGRESS ALLOTS $790K TO EDUCATE AND TRAIN AZERI MILITARIES
Author: À.Mamedov
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
June 12 2006
Chamber of Representatives within US Congress has approved a budgetary
law draft for provisions for UG Government’s foreign operations for the
year 2007. Trend reports the law draft under International Military
Education and Training allots $790k for education and training of
Azeri militaries. The law draft was passed by 373 Congressmen.
The similar amount is granted to Armenia and Russia, while Ukraine
receives $1.725mln.
“IMET is the part of US common program for assistance in security
sphere, through which US Government grants education to militaries
of allied and friendly countries”, – the reference document says.
According to the document, total amount of budget provisions for IMET
program in 2007 is approved to be $88mln.
–Boundary_(ID_5UIpcUu1ZTu8+AdFaD19rw)–

di-ve.com, Malta
June 9 2006
Armenia wins Turin Chess Olympiad, Ukraine tops Women’s Division
by di-ve.com

Friday, 09 June, 2006
Armenia coasted to a 2:2 draw against Hungary in the final round of
the 37th Chess Olympiad to clinch Gold with 36 points after thirteen
rounds followed by China with 34 and the United States with 33
points. Russia managed only sixth place, a disastrous result by any
standard for the top seeded team.
In the Women Olympiad the overall winners were the Ukrainian team
after drawing on all boards with Armenia in the last round. They
topped the table with 29.5 points followed by Russia with 28 and
China with 27.5 points.
Since the last update the Maltese team managed a good win in round
ten against South Korea (3.5-0.5) and three consecutive draws (2-2)
in the last three rounds against Bahrain, Zambia and Jamaica
respectively. This placed them in the 107th place from 150 countries.
This result is slightly better than expected notwithstanding the fact
that some players played below their rating strength.
The Maltese Women, on the other hand, finished in the 86th place
overall out of 107 countries. In the last three rounds the locals
lost to Botswana 2.5-0.5, to Panama 2-1 and won 3-0 against the
Netherland Antilles.
Meanwhile, at the General Assembly, incumbent FIDE President Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov was re-elected as FIDE President by a wide margin with 96
votes in favour against Bessel Kok’s 54. In his address after his
re-election, Ilyumzhinov pledged to attend to the concerns raised by
the Bessel Kok campaign and, in the FIDE spirit of “Gens Una Sumus”,
invited his workers to join the FIDE team. Kok, in turn, thanked his
supporters and called the election a fair fight. The FIDE General
Assembly applauded as the two protagonists gave each other a warm
embrace.

CAN YOU SUE CHARACTERS IN A NOVEL?
Nazlan Ertan
The New Anatolian, Turkey
June 8 2006
The case faced by Turkey’s bright new writer Elif Safak will
demonstrate not only a judicial but a philosophical question: “Can
you sue characters in a novel?”
According to Kemal Kerincsiz, an Istanbul-based lawyer and a member of
the Jurists Union Association who had his 15 minutes of fame when he
sued the organizers of the Armenian Conference in Istanbul and European
Parliament Deputy Joost Lagendijk for “insulting Turkishness,” yes. If
a fictional character cannot be sued, then the author who created it
certainly can be.
He has, after all, filed a complaint against Safak and her
publisher for remarks made by of several characters in Safak’s latest
best-seller, “Baba ve Pic” (Father and Bastard). Kerincsiz says that
certain remarks made by fictitious characters violate Article 301 of
the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), the infamous article about “insulting
Turkishness.”
The characters are “aunts” in the novel that tells the story of two
families, a Turkish-Muslim one and an Armenian one, over a period
of 90 years. In this book, men die and women stay alive. So do their
strong opinions, prejudices and memories.
The phrase accused of insulting the Turkishness is precisely such
a memory. “I am the grandchild of a family whose children were
slaughtered by the Turkish butchers,” or “I was brought up having to
deny my roots and say that genocide did not exist,” are the challenged
sentences from the mouth of the characters.
Safak went to court to testify on Tuesday, claiming that she didn’t
believe that taking certain parts or sentences from a novel could
either be legal or accurately portray the story.
“If a character in a book describes a murder or commits one, does that
mean that the writer approves of it?” asked Safak when she testified
with her publisher, Semih Somken of Metis Publishing House.
More where this came from
Safak’s somewhat surrealistic case comes during a week when freedom
of the press and freedom of _expression cases are high on Turkey’s
agenda, including a case against Perihan Magden, possibly Turkey’s
best writer of the post-Orhan Pamuk generation.
Radikal columnist Professor Murat Belge will appear in court today for
“trying to influence the judiciary” by criticizing an administrative
court decision that postponed last year’s Armenian conference in
Istanbul. His article entitled “A Court Verdict” falls under the scope
of Article 288 of the TCK. Radikal newspaper reporter Ismail Saymaz
is also accused under the same article for his news report entitled
“Torture allegation involving an 11-year-old child.”
Also today, sociologist Pinar Selek, known for her research into
children outcast from society and the Kurdish problem, will face
charges that she is responsible for a bomb explosion at Istanbul’s
historic Spice Market. She has been charged under Article 125 of the
TCK and, if found guilty, could be given a life sentence.
The Beyoglu Second Criminal Court of First Instance will hear the case
against jurist Hasip Kaplan, who is on trial for remarks he made on
Flash TV’s program “Alternatif.” He is accused of inciting hatred.
Another publishing house owner, Ahmet Onal, sentenced last week
in relation to another book will be tried this Friday in the Fatih
Second Criminal Court of First Instance on charges of insulting modern
Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk by publishing the book “Being
an Alawite in Dersim.” The book, authored by Munzur Cem and Huseyin
Baysulun, is only one of 27 charges leveled against the publisher.
Many find that the political elite’s attitude toward the Turkish
intellectuals, whether writers, caricaturists or journalists, lies
at the heart of the judicial stance. Prime Minister Erdogan, who has
sued several journalists and columnists, including Musa Kart who drew
him as a cat tangled in yarn, has lost most of his cases.
Shoe on the other foot
But there are those who strike back: Professor Yalcin Kucuk has
sued Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a large spectrum of
issues ranging from corruption to providing unfair advantage to
family members.
Kucuk, known for his inexhaustible knowledge of history and sharp
wit, accused the premier of giving his family members “free rides”
on the official prime ministerial plane. He said that costs that they
accumulate during official visits should be repaid unless Erdogan’s
family was officially invited by the host.
Kucuk also accused the premier of usurping funds and abuse of
authority.

AZERI PARLIAMENT CHAIR CONGRATULATED NEWLY-ELECTED ARMENIAN SPEAKER
PanARMENIAN.Net
08.06.2006 18:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Azerbaijan’s Milli Mejlis speaker Oktay Asadov
congratulated Tigran Torosyan on his election as Armenian NA
Speaker. Asadov’s message was read at the 27th plenary session of
the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation
Organization (BSECO) in Yerevan by BSECO PA Azeri delegation head Asaf
Gajiyev. The same day the presidency of the BSECO PA transferred from
Armenia to Azerbaijan: Armenian Speaker T. Torosyan handed presidency
symbol – wood hammer – to Gajiyev. The next plenary session of the
BSECO PA will be held in Baku November 22-23 and the Armenian party
is already invited to participate, reports Mediamax.