Author: Vardanian Garo

SUPPORT GROWS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION AMONG MEMBERS OF KEY HOUSE COMMITTEES

ArmRadio.am
11.04.2007 10:03

In letters circulated to Members of the House of Representatives, the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) highlighted the growing
support for the Armenian Genocide Resolution among members serving on
Congressional committees dealing with America’s defense capabilities,
intelligence community, foreign policy, and homeland security.

"We are deeply gratified by the strong, bipartisan support for the
Armenian Genocide Resolution among Members of Congress responsible
for our nation’s defense and foreign policies," said Aram Hamparian,
Executive Director of the ANCA. "Beyond the clear moral issues at
stake in America’s principled stand against all genocides, these
Members realize that Turkey, by coming to terms with this crime,
will lower regional tensions, open the door to improved relations
with Armenia, and ultimately contribute to its own acceptance by the
European family of nations."

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the senior Republican on the House
Armed Services Committee, recently agreed to cosponsor the Armenian
Genocide Resolution, H.Res.106, making him the sixteenth member of
the influential panel to add his name to this human rights measure.

In addition to Ranking Member Hunter, other members of the
Armed Services Committee who support the measure include several
subcommittee chairmen: Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), who heads the Air
and Land Forces Subcommittee; Martin Meehan (D-MA), who chairs the
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and; Ellen Tauscher (D-
CA), who presides over the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Other Committee members include Robert Andrews (D-NJ), Dan Boren
(D-OK), Robert Brady (D-PA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA),
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Howard McKeon (R-CA), Cathy McMorris Rodgers
(R- WA), Candice Miller (R-MI), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), Mark Udall
(D- CO), and Joe Wilson (R-SC).

The Armenian Genocide Resolution also enjoys bipartisan support among
members of the House Intelligence Committee, including Mike Thompson
(D-CA), who chairs the panel’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Human
Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence, and Anna Eshoo (D-CA),
who heads the Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management. Other
cosponsors on the Committee include Rush Holt (D-NJ), Darrell Issa
(R-CA), James Langevin (D-RI), Rick Renzi (R- AZ), Mike Rogers (R-MI),
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and John Tierney (D-MA).

Twenty-four members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the
panel with jurisdiction over the measure, have already cosponsored
H.Res.106. This figure includes five of the panel’s seven Subcommittee
Chairmen: Donald Payne (D-NJ), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Africa and Global Health; William Delahunt (D-MA), Chairman of
the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and
Oversight; Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Middle
East and South Asia; Brad Sherman (D-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee
on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation and Trade, and; Eliot Engel (D-NY),
Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.

Nine of the thirteen members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee
with jurisdiction over the State Department have cosponsored the
Armenian Genocide Resolution. Among the supportive members of the
State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee are its Chairwoman, Nita Lowey
(D-NY) and Ranking Republican, Frank Wolf (R-VA). Other cosponsors
on the panel include Steve Israel (D-NY), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL),
Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL), Joe Knollenberg (R-MI), Barbara Lee (D-CA),
Betty McCollum (D-MN), Steven Rothman (D-NJ), and the resolution’s
author Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Eighteen of the thirty-three members of the House Committee on Homeland
Security are also cosponsors of the Armenian Genocide resolution,
including: Loretta Sanchez, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Border,
Maritime and Global Counterterrorism; James Langevin (D-RI), Chairman
of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science
and Technology; Jane Harman, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on
Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, and;
Sheila Jackson Lee, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Transportation
Security and Infrastructure Protection. Other Congressional cosponsors
on the panel include Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Peter DeFazio (D-OR),
Charles Dent (R-PA), Al Green (D-TX), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Nita Lowey
(D-NY), Dan Lungren (R-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), Michael McCaul
(R-TX), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Edwin Perlmutter (D-CO), Mike
Rogers (R-MI), Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Mark Souder (R-IN).

REPUBLICAN PARTY TO BUILD ELECTION CAMPAIGN ON ITS ACHIEVEMENTS

ARMENPRESS
Apr 11 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 11, ARMENPRESS: Galust Sahakian, a top member of the
governing Republican Party, said today the party will be building
its election campaign on its achievements and on its vision of the
country’s future, backed up by clear-cut and well-calculated programs
and clear sources of financing.

Sahakian said the sudden death of the party’s former chairman and
prime minister Andranik Margarian has created a complicated situation
having also impact on the party’s political activity, but he said
the party’s strategy has not been changed.

Sahakian said he was happy to see that the war of words and smearing
campaigns started last year are being gradually replaced by what he
called ‘a civilized way of political competition."

Sahakian denied to say whom the party would like to see as new defense
minister of Armenia saying this is up to the country’s president.

ATTACKS ON TWO CANDIDATES AT THE SAME TIME

Panorama.am
20:15 09/04/2007

Two attacks took place on Sunday by amazing chance on car of the
candidate for deputies Hakob Hakobyan and the election office of the
Sousanna Haroutyunyan.

Several fires were shot on the car of Hakob Hakobyan after the
midnight. And unknown people have burned down the election office
of Sousanna Haroutyunyan, and she has learned about it only in the
morning.

"The whole state works only in favor of Seyran Saroyan. All this has
been made for the purpose to frighten us, in order were abandoned the
election struggle. My competitors are men, and it is shameful that
similar encroachments are made. He does his best to remain alone. And
people say we are building a democratic country", Ms. Haroutyunyan
was speaking with emotion.

"If they want to have an appointed candidate in the electoral district
N19, then let them appoint. Then why they announce elections?",
noted Ms. Sousanna.

NEW ANTI-CRISIS PROGRAM TO BE HIGHLIGHT OF NATIONAL UNITY’S AGITATION

Noyan Tapan
Apr 09 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 9, NOYAN TAPAN. At the start of the official agitation
campaign the National Unity Party came up with a new anti-crisis
program. As Party Chairman Artashes Geghamian stated at the April 9
press conference, it is not the repetition of 2002 program, but is
revised and modernized taking into consideration foreign political
changes of past five years and the expected challenges. It was
mentioned that on the basis of this program the party will revise
national projects in various spheres.

The National Unity, which, as A. Geghamian affirmed, will make the
majority at the next parliament, is going to adopt 42-43 laws in 100
days within the framework of the program. He said that after Franklin
Roosevelt’s assuming the post of the President in 1932 more laws were
adopted in U.S. within 11 days than during the previous 70 years.

The National Unity leader said that the proposed program will be
the highlight of party’s preelectoral strategy. As he affirmed, the
people is tired of both the authorities and the opposition. People,
in A. Geghamian’s words, wish to see a way of coming out of the
situation created in the country and the National Unity is going to
show this way.

In A. Geghamian’s words, when forming the government the National Unity
will be guided by the principle of professionalism and is ready to
involve the specialists who are in the staff of the government today.

Los Angeles Times, CA
April 8 2007

Out of Rwanda’s horror, abiding bonds of love emerge
A Southland couple have become like parents to orphans of the 1994
genocide.

By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer
April 8, 2007

This love story – and to its central characters it is indeed a love
story – began when experts and victims from around the world gathered
in Rwanda to discuss genocide.

Donald and Lorna Miller had traveled from California to the capital
city of Kigali to share the story of her father – an Armenian
genocide survivor – at a gathering of more than 200 scholars and
survivors in the historic Hotel des Mille Collines, where 1,200
people survived the 1994 Rwandan massacres because of the heroic
intervention of a manager who bribed the militia by passing out
liquor.

Donald Miller is a professor of religion at USC; Lorna Miller directs
a community outreach ministry at All Saints Episcopal Church in
Pasadena. The Altadena couple had been invited to the 2001 conference
because they had written extensively about the Armenian genocide,
including a book based on Lorna Miller’s interviews with 100
survivors. She had interviewed her father, now deceased, who was 16
when he lost both parents and six siblings in 1915.

Members of a group of young Rwandans called the Assn. of Orphan Heads
of Households approached the Millers after her presentation. The
parents of the young Rwandans were among the 800,000 Tutsis and
moderate Hutus slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

"I kept thinking, ‘It’s my father all over again,’ " Lorna recalled.

She is convinced that their encounter was a divine appointment, a way
for her to repay the care her father received from missionaries when
he was orphaned – and his eventual arrival in Pasadena to pastor an
Armenian church in 1956.

The Rwandan genocide started 13 years ago this month. Through the
Millers, the orphans have made connections with prominent clergy,
scholars, business executives and philanthropists in America. The
1,800-member group, which goes by the French acronym AOCM, also began
to collaborate on projects to preserve the historical record of the
genocide. And along the way, parental bonds began to grow.

Naphtal Ahishakiye, who lost both parents and all of his siblings in
the mass killings, wrote in an e-mail that after the group’s members
"observed their love day by day," the Millers essentially became
parents.

Naphtal, past president of AOCM, noted that except for his wife’s
doctor and himself, the Millers were the only ones who saw his
newborn daughter in the hospital to share in his happiness after she
was born.

Many e-mails the Millers receive from Rwanda begin with "Dear Father
and Mother" and relate goings-on big and small. In Rwanda, the
Millers struggle with their rusty French and the Rwandans’ limited
English. But it’s all English on the Internet.

In a recent "Dear Parents" e-mail explaining a long silence, Jean
Muyaneza said he had been sick: "I’m now in the new house, but under
construction, and I think that it was the source of the illness,
because we enter in it without glasses [panes] in the windows, so the
wind was too much."

"It’s wonderful to hear from you," Donald Miller replied. "We have
been worried! I will be in Rwanda from March 22 to April 3. I am
hoping to spend some time with you."

Miller’s recent trip was his tenth to Rwanda. His wife has traveled
there eight times. One expression of their ties is a course USC is
offering this semester: "What Can I Do? Personal Responses to World
Traumas/Crises." It is taught by Rabbi Susan Laemmle, dean of
religious life, and the Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, retired pastor of
First AME Church in L.A. Both have visited Rwanda with the Millers.

Another effort was a photo exhibit, "Rwanda: Portraits of Survival
and Hope," at the California African American Museum in Exposition
Park that ran from September through March. The museum and AOCM split
the proceeds.

Bob and Beverly Bingham, family friends of the Millers and owners of
NorQuest Seafoods in Alaska, donated $100,000 after visiting Rwanda
with the couple. The money funds various projects, such as providing
tuition and books for orphans attending college and putting a roof on
a building housing Solace Ministries, a Christian outreach to
genocide survivors.

Donald Miller called the outreach program vital, because many
Rwandans, the vast majority of whom are Christians, found their faith
tested in the genocide. Miller wrote in a report to the John
Templeton Foundation, which is funding his research into
spirituality, that "when God-loving people affirm their humanity,
survivors interpret these acts of kindness as emanating from God
himself."

He added that survivors need hope, which is "the special province of
religion, that subtle, sometimes miraculous engagement with the
divine."

The drive to exterminate the ethnic minority Tutsis began April 7,
1994, the day after the plane carrying Rwanda’s President Juvenal
Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down as it approached the Kigali
airport. Ethnic tensions that went back decades erupted. By July, a
rebel group had defeated the Hutu regime, ending the 100 days of
terror.

The Millers visited sites of atrocities, including churches and
schools, and heard story after story of horror.

One woman at a weekly Solace meeting said all the men in her village
knew her body because, as Lorna Miller quoted her, "I was raped by
everybody in the village."

Naphtal, now 32, told how he survived by first hiding in a river,
clinging to roots. Later he hid in the forest, drinking rainwater and
coming out at night to eat bananas from people’s gardens.

After the Millers returned to Los Angeles from their first visit,
they kept asking themselves how they should respond. They came up
with the idea of an oral history project. The Millers would provide
equipment and training, and orphans would do the interviews. AOCM
went for it.

Seed money for the project came from a $25,000 gift from the Binghams
on the occasion of the wedding of the Millers’ son Shont a year
earlier. After funding projects to build latrines and stoves for the
poor in Guatemala, the Millers still had $12,000.

Donald Miller, executive director of USC’s Center for Religion and
Civic Culture, suggested that orphan leaders write a proposal for the
oral history project. They came up with a $7,500 budget to conduct
100 interviews.

In 2002, the Millers returned to Rwanda with tape recorders and spent
10 days training the interviewers. The AOCM members practiced by
interviewing each other and at first spoke so softly that the
recorders weren’t picking up what they said. When the Millers left
Kigali, the couple doubted the project would work.

But to their "incredible surprise," the AOCM team completed 100
interviews, Donald Miller said. They needed more funds. The Millers
raised the budget to $11,000. The team then had the interviews typed
on a computer and translated from Kinyarwanda into English.

"We thought the world should hear their stories," Lorna Miller said.

Donald Miller wrote philanthropists Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, whom
he knew from another project, and asked if they would be interested
in funding a book that would combine photos with excerpts of the
interviews. The Ahmansons donated $50,000.

Teaming up with Paris-based photographer Jerry Berndt, the Millers
published "Orphans of the Rwanda Genocide." The book gives full
credit to AOCM as partners.

One copy reached a person in Sweden who contacted Miller and
suggested that he nominate AOCM for the World’s Children’s Prize for
the Rights of the Child, sponsored by Children’s World magazine.
Although Miller thought the likelihood of winning the prize was
remote, he spent a day working on the nomination.

More than 3.2 million readers of the magazine, based in Sweden and
published in seven languages, voted for AOCM.

Last April, the queen of Sweden presented the prize, which comes with
$40,000, to AOCM leaders in Stockholm. The "AOCM kids," as the
Millers call them, are using the money to build housing for group
members. A two-room house costs $3,000.

The Millers traveled to Stockholm for the ceremony and celebrated
with five AOCM representatives, including Naphtal, who looked elegant
in a dark suit.

His daughter, whose birth the Millers had shared in, is named Arpi,
which in Armenian means early rays of sunshine. It is also the name
of the Millers’ daughter.

GERMAN FM HOPES FOR SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT WITHOUT COMPLICATIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
06.04.2007 12:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Within the framework of the visit to the South
Caucasus I discussed the Karabakh settlement with the Armenian and
Azeri leadership. A process aiming at the resolution of the conflict
is obvious. I am hopeful this problem will be resolved without
complications," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at
a meeting with Turkish FM Abdullah Gul.

The parties exchanged views on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement. "If problems remain frozen it may acquire a chronic nature
and hamper the negotiation process. So, it’s very important for us
to discuss what kind of assistance we could render to resolve the
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Gul said, APA reports.

HSBC BANK ARMENIA INTENDS TO INCREASE ITS ADVANCES PORTFOLIO BY 30% FOCUSING ON BUSINESS CREDITING IN 2007

Arminfo
2007-04-05 18:42:00

In 2007, the HSBC Bank Armenia is going to increase its advances
portfolio by 30% to $130 mln at the mean. The bank intends to
focus on issuing business credits which make up less than 5% of the
advances portfolio, the Chief Executive Director of the HSBC Bank
Armenia, Tony Turner, said at today’s press-conference devoted to
the inauguration of a new head office in a high-class new building
in the center of Yerevan. The Chief Financial Director of the bank,
Rouzanna Shahinyan, emphasized that the advances portfolio of the
bank increased by 40% in 2006. She noted that in 2007 the HSBC Bank
Armenia is going to enlarge its services in the sphere of mortgage
credit lending where the bank holds the leading positions, as well as
to introduce a number of new services such as crediting of construction
and repairs. T.Turner attached much importance to the fact that the
bank is gradually reducing the credit rates to 11% yearly interest at
the mean, moreover, it introduces a mechanism of crediting at floating
rates. In this connection, he expressed confidence that the interest
rates will be dropping in the country.

In 2006, the HSBC Bank Armenia demonstrated the highest level of net
profit – 2.856 bln AMD ($7.9 mln). Answering ArmInfo correspondent’s
question about the decisions of today’s annual meeting of the bank’s
shareholders, including the issue of dividends, the head of the HSBC
Bank Armenia pointed out that traditionally and "historically" half
of the profit is spent on dividends before taxation. The bank issued
1.4 bln AMD as dividends to the shareholders in 2005, and effected
intermediate payments worth 500 mln AMD in 2006. In total, since 1999
(the bank has been operating in the Armenian market since 1995) its
shareholders representing the HSBC international banking giant (70%)
and the Wings Establishment companies of Vache Manoukyan, a British
entrepreneur (30%), have received $21 mln as dividends. To note, the
HSBC Bank Armenia demonstrated a high growth of banking retail, its
share currently being 40% of the total volume of credits issued. In
T.Turner’s opinion, the banking retail services are increasing at
such high rates that this ratio may change in a year.

The HSBC Bank Armenia pays special attention to the retraining of bank
specialists. Every year about 6-8 people from the middle management
attend training courses in London and other countries. Training courses
are also held in Yerevan with participation of foreign specialists.

According to the Ranking of the Commercial Banks of Armenia by the
Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo), as of Jan 1 2007 the
bank’s capital totalled $19.8 mln (5th place), assets – $220.6 mln
(1st place), crediting – $85 mln (3rd place), amount of deposits by
individuals – $103.4 mln (1st place).

SERGEY LAVROV: WE SHOULD NOT DRAW PARALLELS BETWEEN KOSOVO AND KARABAKH

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.04.2007 17:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "We should not draw parallels between Kosovo and
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and generally there are no similar
two conflicts in the world," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
stated to a joint press conference with RA Acting Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian in Yerevan. He said, when Marti Ahtisaari’s report is
introduced in the UN Security Council Russia will vote against. "We
will agree the variant, which will satisfy both Pristina and Belgrade,"
the RF FM stressed. He also noted, the international law is the basic
rule for settling conflicts.

In his part RA Acting Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian also underlined
that every conflict should be solved separately and every conflict
has its own peculiarities.

RPA OFFERED SERZH SARGSYAN’S CANDIDATURE FOR THE RA PRIME MINISTER POST

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.04.2007 13:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On April 2 late at night at the session of the
Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) President Robert Kocharian was
offered candidature of Serzh Sargsyan, RA Acting Defense Minister
and Chairman of RPA Council, for the post of Prime Minister. The
RPA Press Office informed the PanARMENIAN.Net journalist that 66 of
69 RPA Council members were present at the session, who unanimously
supported Serzh Sargsyan. According to the Constitution of Armenia
on April 4 the president must confirm S. Sargsyan’s appointment as
the Prime Minister of Armenia.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Russian FM arriving in Armenia on formal visit
02.04.2007 13:30 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is arriving
in Armenia on a formal visit April 3, the RA MFA press office
reports. The Russian FM is scheduled to meet with Armenian President
Robert Kocharian, Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II and Acting
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. Besides, the Russian delegation will
lay wreaths to the Memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims in
Tsitsernakaberd. April 4 Sergey Lavrov will attend the Yerevan State
University for a meeting with the students and teaching staff.