Galilee Bishop Speaks For Justice, Friendship And Peace

GALILEE BISHOP SPEAKS FOR JUSTICE, FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE
By Sonia Nettnin
CounterCurrents.org, India
March 29 2006
Rev. Dr. Abuna Elias Chacour spoke about the need for security and
peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He said people need to take
responsibility for one another by befriending people they consider
their enemies.
Chacour is the founder and president of Mar Elias University, located
in Ibillin, Israel – where Muslims, Christians and Jews interact
at the educational and social levels. On February 25, 2006 Chacour
became the Catholic Bishop of the Galilee.
Chacour spoke at North Park University in Chicago, where hundreds
of people celebrated the tenth anniversary of The Center for Middle
Easter Studies. Here is a condensed summary of what Chacour said to
an audience of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
“It is really a great pleasure to be with you. You should envy me
for what I see. I see a beautiful face. May God bless you and give
you courage to say the truth to the people and flatter the poor. I
will do what I normally do but very short and succinctly.
I have the pride of introducing myself as a Palestinian. I am a proud
Palestinian. I am Palestinian-Arab, which means my mother language
is this very easy to learn Arabic language (audience chuckled). I
challenge you; you will see even our children in kindergarten they
speak very easily (audience chuckled more).
I am also a Christian – that complicates the picture a little bit.
People ask how comes were you born Christian thank God I converted
to Christianity. I am also strongly as convincingly a citizen of the
State of Israel. No way would I hide my social identity. Who am I
first: Israeli citizen? Israel is an entity 58 years-old and I am 66
years-old. Israel immigrated into my country; my people became the
Jews of the Jews. They were scattered into three major groups who
experienced their Diaspora.
The first major group is in neighboring, outside countries – Egypt,
Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The second major group in the Occupied
Territories (West Bank and Gaza). They did not know they were going
for no return and 58 years later they’re still refugees.
A very striking example is a piece of desert called Gaza. Gaza had
45,000 inhabitants originally but after Al-Nakba (the Palestinian
Catastrophe) the rest (of the people) are Diaspora from 460? towns
and villages and these people in Gaza were left with no freedom and
no rights but they were free to make children who are healthy, clever,
ambitious, but without any future.
Twenty years later after they became refugees Israel controlled all
of Palestine including Gaza Strip and added the provision of daily
humiliation. It’s not hard to convince young man or young woman to
end their own lives. We have this horrible phenomenon of suicide
bomber. Let us be clear: Islam does not order these crimes against
society. But we are naïve if we condemn suicide bombers and think we
have done our job; destroying homes, killing people, imprisoning people
(are contributing factors to the conflict).
It is our job to regenerate the hope in the hearts of our young people.
The only thing to do is to end the occupation so that Israel can live
peacefully side by side with Occupied Territories that were destined
to become Palestine.
I was born a baby with a birth certificate. I was converted to
Christianity not long ago. He is our major problem: we don’t know what
to do without Him; we don’t know what to do with Him. It is confusing.
Two-thousand years ago that I was converted to Christianity and my
forefathers preached humanity built on two realities. They started
saying to humanity there should be no privilege of Jew against
Palestinian, man against woman (equality).
I’m living in this Holy Land with the complexity of my identity and
what is wrong between Jews and Palestinians and why are we fighting for
almost a century. There has been no war of religion between Judaism and
Islam. It is not an ethnic conflict. During a speaking engagement with
Golda Meir I told her I’m more Semite than you. She was born in Russia
and she grew up in Milwaukee, but I speak Hebrew with an Abram accent.
It’s a territorial conflict – land of Israel, land of Palestine.
Palestinian want justice what did we got we got misery only misery
only starvation only poverty we did not got justice.
We made a divorce between peace and justice and we need to remarry
them – that’s what we are missing. Religion is playing major role
to justify a political, national existence in the Holy Land – not
religion as such – but the selective reading of our Scriptures. Each
one tries to find justification for his political philosophy and
that’s why I wrote second book, ‘We Belong to the Land.’ The (Mar
Elias) school we try to create role model to see if we can change
the mentality in education of children to respect no matter who is
in front of you…changing the policy of tolerance.
I am a tolerated person in Israel but I never tolerated any Jew.
Tolerance bears in itself the seeds of brutality and persecution. We
are trying to educate our children to go beyond tolerance to a welcome
acceptance of the other. We are testing whether we can create unity
within the existing diversity. Instead of considering Palestinian
or Christian or Muslim or Jew as contradicting we are trying to make
that a real challenge.
It’s not a matter of denying or solidarity it’s a matter of
education. How we portray non-Jew to the Jew and the Jew to the
Palestinian. People see in the other the potential enemy or danger.
This is where the solution has to be looked for. I have few experiences
these past, few months.
Last August a Jewish soldier riding on a bus from Haifa to the
city of Shfaram took his machine gun and killed the driver, two
Muslim sisters (and another person). Twelve others were injured. The
soldier was killed and the police were unable to liberate (retrieve)
his body. The minister of police was sitting on the roof of a house
while tens of thousands of people around the bus.
‘This is a political man,’ the chief of police said to me. ‘If you
can help us.’
‘I can go,’ I said.
I said to the people: ‘I want to see the body of the soldier,’ and
making my way between the young people enraged, nervous, I reached
the bus.
‘Abuna the brain of the driver is still in a plastic sack on the
left-hand side of the bus,’ a man said to me.
I walked in the blood.
Where was the Jewish blood and where was the Palestinian blood. I
could not see who was Jewish or Palestinian who was the same color,
who was the same smell the same horror. I walked in the blood;
I walked in the blood of my brothers, the Palestinians and the Jews.
We are Christians, Muslims and Jews. We are enraged and we have
the right to be shocked we are shocked. We are instructed from our
religions whenever our enemy falls in front of us the only thing we
have to do is respect him and bury him with respect. Soldier of an
unpardonable crime. Our duty is to let him go.
It was 90 minutes before I could convince the crowd to let the chief
of police and his men retrieve the body. I told the soldiers: ‘The
time you are here no one is secure go away and security will come
back to the town.’ Nine soldiers were there with their machine guns.
I stood between me and the people. (Reader’s note: Chacour said he
stood between the people…the people).
I told the soldier: ‘you better take away of your machine guns and
go away with peace.’ The chief of police told the soldiers: ‘did you
hear what he said the priest? He said go away.’
The men walked away. I said to the people: ‘Go home silently. Respect
our people who were dead. Come back tomorrow we’ll organize a huge
march against bloodshed against terrorism.’
Fifty-thousand people there were many Jews, I must confess the next
day. Eight days later we celebrated. We wanted to celebrate our
martyrs our two Christians, a way to celebrate to remember two Muslim
sisters. Pray to God to give them eternal rest. Full of Christians,
Muslims and Jews praying for their own martyrs in the church. It was
the sweet from the bittersweet of the martyrdom.
We never read in Israel about a Zion. We don’t want to read about Zion
(then, to the best of my knowledge, Chacour referred to the following
Biblical passage)
“Even the ox has knowledge of its owner, and the ass of the place where
its master puts its food: but Israel has no knowledge, my people give
no thought to me.” Isaiah 1:3
The land does not belong to you it belongs to God. These passages
have to be read in the context of the Bible. The Bible has to be read
it is the struggle between God and humanity. That is why I think we
need to go back to the original interpretation of the Bible.
The first, two questions that God asks humanity: ‘Where are you?’ He
was hiding because he did something bad. ‘Where is your brother?’
Crime worse than am I my brother’s custodian you are coming to ask
me? (Here is the passage I believe Chacour referred to)
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where [is] Abel thy brother? And he said,
I know not: [Am] I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9
As a Christian this question (where is your brother?) has changed
dramatically. I am my brother’s custodian. I am responsible for my
brothers. Jews in the concentrations and Palestinian refugees. I’m
responsible what happened to my Jewish brothers and sisters in the
concentration, but in no way am I guilty. To be responsible means
to be ready to ally for one common front so that no way no such
holocaust horrors happened anywhere against anyone anybody anytime
– a common front so that no more holocausts against human beings
(audience clapped loudly).
The Armenian is a Holocaust (Armenian Holocaust) – the genocide in
Cambodia. I was in Cambodia ten years ago I saw mass graves. These
people were not buried. They were buried alive. What happened in
Rwanda. When will we have what happened time and time against the
Palestinians.
In the Talmud it says when you save one human life it is as if you
save the whole human world. When you kill one human life it is as if
you kill the whole human world.
We use religions in order to justify our own selfishness, ambition,
political objectives.
Why did I tell you all of these stories in a rapid way because I
believe you can make a difference you can make a big difference. I
come to beg. I want a favor from you. I’m not begging for money. I
am here to beg you for something much more difficult. I am inviting
you to change your mind if your need is there.
On behalf of Palestinian children I beg you to give your friendship
to Jews but if you take the side of the Jews and you empathize with
the Jews but if it is in enmity against me you are wrong. It should
mean to speak to the heart of your friend so that he accepts his
enemy as a potential friend.
When you visit Palestinians if they do not have they will borrow
money to give you what you need to feel comfortable (Palestinians
are generous and hospitable people).
But if the side of the Palestinians would mean for you that you will
justify the violence all our people commit; if taking our side to
encourage us to go ahead with our hatred then we do not need your
friendship. You are reducing yourself to being one more enemy. We do
not need you to come to us to reduce us to pieces.
We are struggling to find a way out of this nightmare of killing
each other.
Jews and Palestinians never risk to live alone or die alone. We are
condemned to walk side by side or to hang by each other. We were
never enemies with the Jews until 1948. I am all for the Jews to have
freedom of expression, home and homeland. I am ready to struggle with
the Jews because they are human beings. But when my people cannot
live, how can I agree when my people are homeless, the scattered,
the dispersed, how can I agree? There should be another solution so
that there is justice, peace and security.
This is your responsibility as human beings unless you want to be
like the sheet of paper that came out of the factory, immaculate like
white snow on the table by itself, but the pens and pencils around
the paper did not approach…clean white empty forever. What kind
of hand do you want: clean and empty hands or hands loaded with dirt
because you worked in order to save the poor and the impoverished?”
*** Directors Claude Roshem-Smith and Andre Chapel made a documentary
about Chacour. Here is a link to a review of the film: Elias Chacour:
Prophet in His Own Country.
n290306.htm
–Boundary_(ID_1gNXlBc9irXIOPD6TKDDqA )–

Oskanian To Pay Official Visit To Ukraine In June

OSKANIAN TO PAY OFFICIAL VISIT TO UKRAINE IN JUNE
PanARMENIAN.Net
29.03.2006 01:01 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian will arrive in Ukraine on
an official visit in June, Ukrainian MFA Spokesperson Vasily Filipchuk
stated at a briefing today. In his words, the agreement on that was
reached during Ukrainian-Armenian consultations at the level of FMs in
Yerevan on March 24. During the consultations a wide range of bilateral
matters was discussed, specifically activation of the Ukraine-Armenia
dialogue, intensification of exchange of information, cooperation
between the MFAs, interaction within international organizations. The
parties paid special attention to activation of cooperation in
Eurointegration of both countries, reports Novosti-Ukraine agency.

Participants Of RA Money-Market Must Be Able To Control Currency Ris

PARTICIPANTS OF RA MONEY-MARKET MUST BE ABLE TO CONTROL CURRENCY RISKS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 28 2006
YEREVAN, March 28. /ARKA/. Participants of the RA money-market must
be able to control currency risks, as the Chairman of the CBA Tigran
Sargsyan stated during the first International Bank Conference on
issues of financing foreign trade, which has opened in Yerevan today
In his words, study of international experience is very important in
this issue, as well as those instruments, which are being used for
regulation of currency fluctuation in the world.
Sargsyan emphasized that despite the policy of inflation targeting
pursued by Armenia instruments of regulation of currency exchange
rate, particularly derivative instrument, are not widely spread in
the country yet.
“However introduction of such instruments is very timely for creation
of more favorable conditions for participants of the market and
neutralization of currency risks”, he emphasized.
Sargsyan emphasized the importance of this conference from the
viewpoint of possibility of Armenian banks to discuss common issues
with their many international partners.
In his turn the Executive Director of Armeconombank Ashot Osipyan
emphasized that, activities of stock exchanges on deals with
sell-purchase of currency contributes to forecast of the exchange
rate and abstinence from speculations in this sphere.
“Commercial banks in their turn do their best to provide their clients
and partner-organizations with their own information about the exchange
rate and consequences of monetary and credit policy”, he emphasized.
The International Bank Conference dedicated to financing of foreign
trade is held in Armenia on March 28-30. Main subjects of the
conference are role of banks and bank instruments in stimulation of
international trade, cooperation of banks and exporters, particularly
financing of trade in Armenia as well as considering issues of
management of credit risks, payment balance of Armenia, estimation
of risk of documentary operations, perspectives of development of
international trade in Armenia.
The main organizers of the conference are the EBRD and
Armeconombank.

‘Treasures Of Holy Etchmiadzin’ To Exhibit At Pushkin Museum

‘TREASURES OF HOLY ETCHMIADZIN’ TO EXHIBIT AT PUSHKIN MUSEUM
AZG Armenian Daily
28/03/2006
On April 1-20, within the frameworks the Days of Armenia in Russian
Federation the Armenian embassy to Moscow and the Mother See of
Holy Etchmiadzin will exhibit “Treasures of Holy Etchmiadzin” at the
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The official opening ceremony will be
held at the Greek Courtyard of the museum on March.
Mediabrend Company informs that the ties of Pushkin Museum
with Armenian art go several decades back to 1950s when a group
of archeologists headed for Erebuni, Urartu city of 8th century
BC. Excavations ahead were to last more than 20 years, and its results
enriched the Russian museum with new exhibits.

Yerevan Center To Study Alan Hovhannes’ Life And Work

YEREVAN CENTER TO STUDY ALAN HOVHANNES’ LIFE AND WORK
Armenpress
Mar 21 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS: A center will open this year at a
Yerevan-based Yeghishe Charents museum to study the life and work of
a prominent American Armenian composer Allan Hovhannes.
Henrik Bakhchinian, the director of the museum, said Allan Hovhannes
is little known in Armenia, though he is one of the most frequently
performed modern composers. He said materials for study and other
documents will be provided by Allan Hovhannes international center
in the USA.
Alan Hovhannes was born in 1911 to an Armenian father and a Scottish
mother, and was composing from an early age. His output of over 400
works, including around 67 symphonies is unsurpassed since Haydn’s
103 symphonies. Despite his current popularity, he was largely ignored
for the first half of his life, until Fritz Reiner recorded his second
symphony Mysterious Mountain with the Chicago Symphony in 1958.
“My purpose is to create music, not for snobs, but for all people ,
music which is beautiful and healing, to attempt what the old Chinese
painters called “spirit resonance” in melody and sound,” he used to
say. Alan Hovhannes died in June 2000.

He Plays His Way, Wherever

HE PLAYS HIS WAY, WHEREVER;
Winston-Salem Journal (Winston Salem, NC)
March 19, 2006 Sunday
Metro Edition
Trumpeter’s Current Gig As A Freelancer Is With The Symphony
Ryan Anthony, a virtuoso trumpeter without a full-time gig, often
checks his calendar to see what jobs he has lined up over the next
12 months.
“It looks awfully blank,” he said. “You scratch your head and kind
of hope, ‘How are we going to get through the year?’ It always seems
to work out. Things come through.”
They do indeed.
The latest “thing” will happen next Sunday when Anthony teams up with
the Winston-Salem Symphony at the Stevens Center.
He will solo in Armenian Alexander Arutunian’s Trumpet Concerto in
A-flat Major (1950). The program will also include Brahms’ Variations
on a Theme by Haydn and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Robert Moody
will conduct.
Symphony fans can get a taste of Anthony’s artistry when he performs
excerpts of the Arutunian concerto Saturday at the Stevens Center, as
part of a “Saturday Nights, Live!” program. This concert, also to be
conducted by Moody, will feature jazz singer Banu Gibson and the New
Orleans Hot Jazz swinging their way through classics from the 1920s,
’30s and ’40s.
Anthony, 36, may feel a freelancer’s anxieties over the uncertainties
of future employment. But he keeps filling his schedule with enough
part-time work to enjoy what he calls “a pretty full-time career.”
Each week, for example, he commutes from his home in Memphis, Tenn.
to Winston-Salem, where he is working as a visiting instructor at
the N.C. School of the Arts until May.
He has one of most unusual jobs in orchestral music, serving as
guest principal trumpeter of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. When
I told Anthony that I’d never heard of such a position, he said,
“I haven’t either.” “It’s a dream job,” he said. “They fly me in to
do the Mahler and the Strauss, and all the big Shostakovich trumpet
works, and then I go home.”
Anthony will become the Dallas orchestra’s interim principal next
season, though he says that playing in an orchestra is “not something
I could do 100 percent all the time and make a career out of.” He has
done his share of studio recordings, for radio, television and motion
pictures. He champions tried-and-true solo fare for his instrument,
and he is getting composers to write him new works.
He went to London recently to appear on the inaugural recording
of Brass Classics, a series that will feature music performed by
principals from some of the world’s leading orchestras. On New
Year’s eve, he stood in front of the Pensacola Symphony in Florida
and soloed through one pops classic after another. He said he wants
to do something similar with the Winston-Salem Symphony after next
weekend’s concerts.
On many a Sunday, too, Anthony teams up with organist Gary Beard
at the Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis. The two released an
eclectic recording, Ryan Anthony with Gary Beard, which features
everything from “Amazing Grace” to a Carmen fantasy.
“I like the extremes that organ pushes me to do,” Anthony said. “It
makes me feel like I have to go the distance, in all directions.”
Anthony will be the first to say how “incredibly lucky” he is to be
“doing all these things at a high level.” Plum free-lance work has
come his way because he is talented, knows how to market himself and
has learned a thing or two about cultivating relationships.
The marketing part shows up on his Web site, It
has just about everything a musician might need to promote himself,
including testimonials from leading musicians. One of the testimonials
is from Doc Severinsen:
“He (Anthony) is not only an impeccable trumpeter but has true
artistic depth in his playing,” Severinsen says. “Also, he has
extensive exposure to audience demands and knows the importance of
communicating with them. aI feel certain he will have a great and
distinguished career as a soloist.”
And Anthony is big believer in keeping lines of communication open
with, say, a conductor after an engagement ends.
“A lot of musicians don’t understand that,” he said. “They just go
and play and don’t realize that there’s a personal aspect to what
we do. That means getting to know somebody – not just on the podium
but off of it.” About two years ago, Anthony gave up one of the most
coveted permanent jobs in classical music – membership in the Canadian
Brass, probably the most popular quintet of its kind in the world. He
had been with the group for three years.
“To be honest, it was about 250 days a year on the road,” Anthony
said. “Once my 2-year-old (son Rowan) got old enough to say,
‘Daddy, don’t go,’ the pleasures of being on the road were quickly
diminishing.”
Anthony said he now controls his schedule a lot more than it used to
control him. That’s become even more important to Anthony, as his wife,
Niki, also gave birth to a daughter, Lili, now four months old.
The greater flexibility has afforded Anthony opportunities to do the
two things he said he loves most – perform chamber music or solo with
an orchestra.
As for the Arutunian concerto, Robert Simon conducted it a few
years ago with the Piedmont Wind Symphony. (Arturo Sandoval was the
soloist.) In the program notes for that performance, the concerto is
described as “a standard of the trumpet repertory.”
“Arutunian’s style makes use of Armenian folk elements, is rather
accessible and often explores the tension between classical and
romantic procedures,” the notes say.
Anthony described the concerto as one of favorites. The piece’s
beautiful, slow melodic lines come off well on his instrument,
he said. And he likes exploiting all the technically demanding,
fanfare-like passages.
“It allows me, as a performer, to take the audience through different
styles, different sounds and colors that the trumpet can do,” Anthony
said. “I have a lot of fun with it. I think that translates to the
audience.”

www.ryanathony.com.

Minister of Finance and Economy to Leave for Washington

MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMY TO LEAVE FOR WASHINGTON

Lragir/am
24 March 06

On March 25-30 delegation headed by Minister of Finance and Economy
Vardan Khachatryan will set off for Washington for Millennium
Challenge Compact signing. Chief Economic Advisor to the President
Vahram Nercissiantz, Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanyan,
Armenian Ambassador to the US Tatoul Markaryan and other officials are
included in the delegation.
On March 27, Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan and
Ambassador John Danilovich will sign 235, 65 million USD
agreement. Secretary Condoleezza Rice will attend the signing ceremony
that will take place at State Department’s Benjamin Franklin
Hall. Secretary will also address the participants.
On March 28, representatives of MCC and Armenian delegation will
jointly present the main directions and objectives of the program to
the representatives of media, NGOs and Armenian Diaspora. They will
also answer the questions.
Press service of Ministry of Finance and Economy, RA

Central Bank to Publish List of Trade Banks Fined by Central Bank

CENTRAL BANK TO PUBLISH LIST OF TRADE BANKS FINED BY CENTRAL BANK

Lragir.am
24 March 06
The Central Bank of Armenia is going to publish the list of the trade
banks, fined by the Central Bank, and is waiting for the decision of
the Association of Banks of Armenia, said the president of the Central
Bank of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan to our reporter. The reason of the
Central Bank’s decision is that after appearing in press the `naughty’
banks will fear losing customers and will act with more compliance
with the law. And if the banks oppose, the Central Bank will turn to
the mass media, said Tigran Sargsyan.

Fresno Councilmember Boyajian commemorates the Genocide 4/22

>From District One, Fresno
Public Service Announcement
March 24, 2006
Councilmember Tom Boyajian’s Office
City of Fresno
Sevag Tateosian
Staff Assistant Council Member Boyajian
[email protected]
559-621-8000

The City of Fresno, Councilmember Tom Boyajian’s Office along with the
Armenian National Committee of Central California will raise the
Armenian flag in front of Fresno’s City Hall to commemorate the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 on April 22nd, 2006 at 10:00AM. The
Armenian flag will be raised by the Homenetmen Scouts, while the
United States flag will be raised by the Fresno High School ROTC. This
event is free to the public and everyone is encouraged to attend.
This is the third year that the Armenian flag will be raised to
commemorate the Genocide. Last year Congressman George Radanovich,
Congressman Jim Costa, State Senator Charles Poochigian and Fresno
Mayor Alan Autry spoke to the 500 plus crowd.
Fresno was one of the first cities that the Armenian Genocide
survivors sought refuge in. Fresno County is home to approximately
50,000 Armenians.
For more information please contact:
ANC Central California Chairwomen Hygo Ohannessian at 559-485-1453 or
Fresno City Council District One Staff Assistant Sevag Tateosian at
559-621-7814

No Rector Was Elected

A1+
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
NO RECTOR WAS ELECTED
08:54 pm 22 March, 2006
During 8.5 hours the voters did not manage to elect a rector for the
Yerevan State University. In the third phase too none of the
candidates collected the necessary amount of votes: Aram Simonyan had
20 votes for, and Gagik Ghazinyan – 36, which is only one vote shy of
the necessary amount. 11 voters voted against everyone, and three
ballots were announced invalid.
The elections will take place in 50 days – on May 15.
RECTOR OF THE YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY WILL BE ELECTED IN THE THIRD
PHASE
Since midday till now the session hall of the central building of the
Yerevan State University is full of people. The reason is the election
of the rector of the University.
There were four candidates: vice rector of the University Aram
Simonyan, Dean of the faculty of Mathematics Gegham Gevorgyan, Dean of
the law faculty Gagik Ghazinyan and Dean of the faculty of physics
Samvel Haroutyunyan. 50% of the voters were representatives of the
Government and the Ministry of Education and Sciences, and the other
half were representatives of the University professors and
students. Of the 72 electors two were absent: NA deputy Speaker Tigran
Torosyan who is participating in the CE works and Dean of the oriental
studies faculty Gourgen Meliqyan who is in hospital.
The session was closed. The journalists followed the course of events
from the corridor trying to guess what is going on on the other side
of the doors. During the session the candidates made speech about
their plans and answered the questions of those present.
«It is meaningless to speak about any support before the electoral
process. The atmosphere was fine today», Aram Simonyan said. The
voting took place after the break. As a result Aram Simonyan had 21
votes for, Gegham Gevorgyan – 16, Gagik Ghazinyan – 28, and Samvel
Haroutyunyan – four. One of the electors voted against all the
candidates. The first two candidates reached the second phase. But now
that the second phase has finished the rector has not been elected
yet. Gagik Ghazinyan has 32 votes, and Aram Simonyan – 23. 7 votes
were invalid, and 8 people voted against everyone.
By the way, one of the members of the University Governing Council
mentioned, «Everything is fabricated. They are simply playing a
game». One of the student added, «There has been no physical
pressure upon the students, but there has been psychological
pressure».