The Spanish national team won the Yerevan-hosted 2019 U19 European Championship.
Spain defeated Portugal 2-0 at the Republican Stadium as Valencia attacker Ferran Torres scored the double.
The Armenian squad lost to Spain (1–4), Italy (0–4) and Portugal (0-4).
2019 U19 EURO, final:
Portugal vs Spain 0-2
Ferran Torres, 34, 51
This wouldn’t be the first time Athena has engaged in a Eurovision-adjacent contest. Back in 2008, she placed third in the Greek selection for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest with the song “To fili tis Afroditis”.
At the time of writing, neither Armenia nor Greece have confirmed their participation for the 2020 contest. However, Armenia will be participating in the forthcoming Junior Eurovision Song Contest in November.
In recent years, both countries have struggled to maintain their past success. Despite a strong qualification record, Armenia have not qualified for the past two Grand Finals (2018 and 2019). Despite qualifying for this year’s Grand Final and carrying momentum throughout the season, Katerine Duska’s “Better Love” placed 21st.
With no guarantee of future participation, we hope to see both countries make a triumphant return next year! Be it internal selection or the return of national finals, there is plenty of talent in these two countries that could bring them success in The Netherlands.
https://escxtra.com/2019/07/28/athena-manoukian-expresses-interest-in-eurovision-2020-participation/
CANADA celebrated its National Day on July 1, 2019 – a hundred and fifty two years after it first gained dominion status from its European colonizers. The country experienced settler colonialism when Europeans aggressively took lands from Indigenous peoples, whose presence in North America for centuries predates Canada’s emergence as a dominion in 1867.
Over time, colonizers displaced and eventually greatly outnumbered the Indigenous peoples. Subsequently, the Canadian government’s systemic targeting of Indigenous identity and attempts to merge that identity with the hegemonic western identity has spread all over its political, legal and social history. In its dark past of residential schools (which separated Indigenous children from their families in order to “civilise” them) and systemic police brutality, to taking over land to build gas pipelines, Canada is a long way away from reconciliation.
For the Indigenous community, colonialism has continued for an additional 152 years.
I am not going to explore the different ways the Indigenous groups have been impacted over hundreds of years in this article but it is important to mention that the community continues to be at the receiving end of discrimination and inequality. Indigenous groups suffer from health issues, high rate of incarceration, lower level of education and they belong disproportionately to lower income groups with significant income gaps between the Indigenous groups and the rest of Canada. Constituting 4.9% of total Canadian population, Indigenous peoples have faced racism, violence and lack of access to quality education and healthcare.
The liberal government in 2015 commissioned a report as a response to Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’s (MMWIG) 1200 page final report and recommendations concluded that the experience of Indigenous population of Canada, especially women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual) is genocide. The report is the result of almost three years of cross-country public hearings and evidence gathering across Canada. It recognised Indigenous self-determination and self-governance in all areas of Indigenous society and as the best practice.
While the National Inquiry is not a judicial body, it concluded that there are,
“serious reasons to believe that Canada’s past and current policies, omissions, and actions towards First Nations Peoples, Inuit and Métis amount to genocide, in breach of Canada’s international obligations, triggering its responsibility under international law.”
It acknowledged the race based and gendered genocide with,
“The violence the National Inquiry heard about amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This genocide has been empowered by colonial structures, evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools and breaches of human and Indigenous rights, leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations.
The report sheds light on “colonial genocide”, unique from the traditional understanding of the Holocaust prototype. As documented in the Final Report, testimony from family members and survivors of violence spoke about multigenerational and intergenerational trauma and marginalization in the form of poverty, insecure housing or homelessness and barriers to education, employment, health care and cultural support. It speaks about “colonial and patriarchal policies that displaced women from their traditional roles in communities and governance and diminished their status in society, leaving them vulnerable to violence.”
“A decolonising approach aims to resist and undo the forces of colonialism, and to re-establish Indigenous Nationhood. It is rooted in Indigenous values, philosophies, and knowledge systems. It is a way of doing things differently that challenges the colonial influence we live under by making space for marginalized Indigenous perspectives.”
The word genocide invokes images of brutal violence in Rwanda, Armenia, Darfur, Bosnia, Cambodia or Germany. Whereas, Canada’s perception globally is a friendly, non-violent, and welcoming place for immigrants where general politeness is commonplace. In a Forbes 2015 survey, Canada ranked as number one on country reputation scale in terms of standard of living and lifestyle.
The knowledge that it is also a place of active genocide, as per this report, is unsettling information in contrast to the perception and its image, making it, as I would argue, an even more important step towards demystifying the western image. Genocide appears to be acts committed by religiously and ethnically divided countries, and not the west despite their widespread unapologetic colonialism. This report shows the mirror to Canada and is reflection on the West’s own absolution from its past.
Canada has in the past, especially under Stephen Harper’s government apologised for its atrocities against the Indigenous groups. Acknowledgement is a necessary step to rehabilitation and possible reparations. The report is another step to simply understand the situation better, to be able to acknowledge the extent of the crimes and instil it in the national consciousness. Following the report, there has been opposition to the terminology and contest to the report. For it to make sense, we first have to understand the depth of the issue and nuance within the term “genocide”.
The term ‘genocide’ is a creation of international law albeit it’s current usage in historical and cultural context.
Genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention as:
[…] any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Statutes of international criminal tribunals have replicated the same definition. The factors that constitute genocide according to international law are not ranked.
The term genocide is a construction of international law, defined and given meaning by international law, courts and usage in law. As per the definition, there is no minimum deaths requirement for acts to be genocidal. There need not be any reduction in population of a particular group, deaths, or physical violence to constitute genocide as per the law on genocide. Canada’s domestic law on genocide, has imported this definition with one alteration that both positive acts and failures to act can constitute genocide. There is still certainly no numerical requirement for deaths. This is counter-intuitive of what the popular understanding of the term has been.
It is true in fact historically that genocide has been identified with large number of killings against a particular group such as in Germany or Rwanda. The public consciousness was built on that knowledge, so much so that perhaps that single aspect of genocide acts as the full life of the term in mainstream knowledge. This discussion does not end with the seemingly benign divide (genocide as per the law vs genocide el general).
A substantive amount of engagement space is taken up by it-is-bad-but-not-genocide camp. This argument lies on the premise that the “tendency to apocalypticize every policy discussion surrounding indigeneity now has created a sort of social panic that afflicts much of the intellectual class.” According to senior journalist Jonathan Kay, a vocal member of this camp, “The cheapening of the term “genocide” presents an extreme example of this trend…word once generally reserved for the greatest crimes known to humankind now has been reduced to a facile moral hashtag.” He has gone on, like many others to forward the notion that calling centuries of colonial systemic destruction against a group in Canada, supported by the report, is delegitimizing the concept of genocide.
Repeated comparisons to the number of deaths (going up to three million and more) in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia etc push the legally flawed and conceptually weak narrative that the number of deaths is the only symptom of the “crime of all crimes”.
Comparisons to other countries with more number of deaths (as compared to the total number of Indigenous deaths in Canada) on a daily basis does not add any value to the argument, for the same reasons that the number of deaths does not matter, contrary to popular belief, and perpetuated by an ill-informed media. The standards that need to be met for crimes to be classified as genocide are not set by past genocides, but by the legal definition of what will constitute as genocide in the Genocide Convention. It is after all not a societalterm, but a legal term.
That being said, past atrocities should not be perceived from the legal lens exclusively, and needs to be weighed politically as well. This is also an opportune moment for international law scholars, sociologist and other interested groups to broaden our understanding of what is genocide. Rigid legal terms can flatten social needs and in this case focusing the debate on just that will defeat the purpose. Yes by legal knowledge, it can be genocide but the struggle here is go beyond the law and instil that empathy through removing ignorance in Canadians who do are too hesitant to accept historical injustices. This can be the moment where we do not simply apply the law to the facts, but realise the significance of the law on genocide.
The attempts at destruction of identity did not happen in a singular event, but in continuous steps over time. Residential schools, replaced by incarceration, replaced by land acquisition and so on. Genocide is a process, which Canada witnessed as per the report. To deny those experiential truths, is to deny their history. Hence it is not simply, about collective responsibility, or industrial sized killings.
Deaths of members of the Indigenous groups occur not only through structural injustices but also through the desire to be a homogenous country with one national identity. The root of racist measures was the desperation of ignoring, erasing and discriminating against other identities. While the treatment by the public might not be of relevance to the legal meaning as is, however to ignore it might take us down the path of ignoring this fact politically.
The report is a direction towards finding accountability for crimes committed by the state, and also remove the liberal mask of Canada. This report has already sparked the national discussion and will surely address some ignorance on the issue. Even the opinions denying the suitability of the word ‘genocide’ are not denying the accuracy of the racism and the structural inequality.
This is a positive step in other terms, where the former colonies and their subsequent acts on the settled lands are being brought to light. The international law framework was mostly the works of western and European international treaties, conventions and discourses after World War II, bringing justice to the rest of the world. Those same constructions, are now the founding rocks of expanding our narrow understanding to include the crimes of the West.
To decolonize genocide, then, is to decolonize how we comprehend genocide and to reimagine what international law could stand for. Maybe it is possible to dismantle the master’s house, with the master’s tools.
“We accept the finding that this was genocide, and we will move forward to end this ongoing national tragedy.” – Justin Trudeau, 2019.
Toronto Star hosted a poll following the report asking readers to share their opinion (via a yes-no question) on the report and if they think Canada’s treatment of Indigenous People amounts to genocide. Contesting the report by public opinion is like asking if people think trading humans counted as slavery?
The treatment of experiential truths as a “debate” is not only problematic in terms of respecting historical injustices but also accentuates the narratives of genocide deniers of past and current abuse. Yes, some of the people (as we discussed above) may not hold the opinion that it is genocide, while not denying the existence of extreme discrimination and oppression, however to set up a non-nuanced space online is highly problematic as we do not know the agency of the poll-takers and more importantly masking it as debate delegitimises the issue greatly.
The question itself exposed the settler mentality wherein the articulation of the injustice perpetrated by them will be by the oppressors themselves. The popular opinion in this matter has no relevance, since the report is based on the experience of the persons oppressed. It is interesting to see that when we pass the mic to gather opinion, it is to the general majority privileged public, posing questions that contest the experience of the vulnerable. In poor taste Canada.
ArmInfo.The Embassy of Armenia in Egypt calls on the citizens of Armenia to interrupt their vacation in Hurghada and return until July 29. This is stated in the statement of the Armenian Embassy in Egypt, received by ArmInfo.
The statement of the embassy, in particular, states: “OTF 3701 flight from Hurghada to Yerevan by Orange2fly scheduled for July 29 will be carried out at 03:00am Egyptian time. We also urge passengers who are scheduled for August 1-5 to interrupt their vacation and return to Armenia on this flight. We ask these citizens to provide the embassy with their personal data (name / surname and passport number) for inclusion in the appropriate list. “
To note, the first charter flight funded by the Armenian government has already flown to Hurghada. Passengers of flight OTF 3703 Hurghada-Yerevan, who were supposed to fly to Yerevan yesterday, July 25, because of the dishonesty of the tour operator were stuck in Egypt. As it became known yesterday, Armenian tourists who purchased vouchers from the A & R tour company could not fly out of Hurghada due to the cancellation of the flight. About 100 people from yesterday are either at the airport or in hotels and cannot fly back. As it became known, the tour company canceled tours to Egypt in the direction of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. In total, about 400 Armenian tourists, including those who have not yet flown out, those who cannot return, as well as tourists, whose vouchers expire in a few days, have suffered from the actions of the travel agency. Relatives of Armenian tourists stuck in Hurghada gathered on the eve outside the office of the company A & R tour in Yerevan. They were joined by representatives of other travel agencies, who booked packages through A & R tour, demanding an explanation about the delay and cancellation of flights.
ArmInfo. In an interview with ArmInfo, head of the parliamentary faction of the Bright Armenia Party Edmon Marukyan, commented on the recent domestic political impulses and problems of reforming the judicial and legal system in Armenia. He talks about the steps taken by Yerevan to deepen cooperation with the European Union and the United States. He shares his own vision of the current state and future of the Armenian-American relations.
– Mr. Marukyan, judging by the latest statements of the authorities, the problem of reforming the judicial and legal system that has been pressing for a long time, has finally reached the Constitutional Court, or more precisely, its chairman, Hrayr Tovmasyan. Does, in your opinion, his resignation indicate at least the beginning of the path towards solution of the situation, or is everything much more complicated?
I don’t think that the problem of reforming the judicial system, about which you speak, can be resolved only by Tovmasyan’s resignation. It is clear that the chairman of the Constitutional Court is trying in every way to defend himself against accusations. At the same time, the accusations of the authorities and part of our society against Tovmasyan are quite reasonable and justified. This man wrote the Constitution with the ultimate goal of turning the Constitutional Court into a future mechanism of fulfilling the wishes of the then ruling Republican Party of Armenia. It is also clear that, defending from fair accusations in his address, Tovmasyan, first of all, relies on well- known democratic principles. He refers to the well-known principles of the dominance of democracy and law, to the fact that the independence of the judiciary in fact does not envisage mandatory reforms after each change of legislative and, accordingly, executive power. However, to leave everything as it is means to bear with the hideous distortion of the Constitution and the judicial system as a whole that took place during the years of RPA rule. In this light, changes and reforms in the judicial system, in my opinion, are necessary. However, they should be carried out within the framework of the law, whenever possible adhering to the happy medium. The problem certainly needs a solution.
– In your opinion is there this time the threat of transforming the judiciary into an appendage of the new executive? The results of the elections to the Supreme Judicial Council, at first sight, indicate the appearance of prerequisites in this direction:
I am convinced that under no circumstances should the representatives of the judiciary be “friends” with the authorities of the country. Such a friendship, moreover, rather close one, for quite understandable reasons, existed between the Republicans and the judges appointed by them. We all see today the result of such relations between representatives of different branches of power. Accordingly, today and in the future, it is necessary to completely exclude even the first signs of such a “friendship” of the courts with the ruling force in Armenia. Reoccurrence of such a situation is definitely unacceptable. Courts should not be friends of power: neither the previous one, nor the current one, nor future. Our country needs an independent judicial power, a real judicial power, and not just judges and courts, a power that will be completely independent and, accordingly, free in all its decisions and actions. I mean the power that is able to independently implement both constitutional justice and justice in general. This is our main task, the task of the authorities, the opposition, society and even, paradoxically, at first glance, the former government. Since actually everybody is interested in its implementation. Accordingly, to achieve a solution to this common task, we all need to act in a coordinated manner.
-However, there is no such approach to reforming the judicial system yet:
Unfortunately! That is why we reiterate every day the need to formulate a clear concept of reforms in the judicial legal system. Today, the authorities say one thing, then the other and no one knows what they will say tomorrow. It is because of the inconsistency of the authority, the lack of a common vision of what we want and where we are going, that the Republicans, “counter-revolutionaries”, “blacks”, and others actively criticize this very authority. It is precisely as a result of this very inconsistency that the same Tovmasyan, who was a “good guy” a month ago, because he was standing next to the authorities, suddenly became “bad”. It has become impossible to continue such practice, any reforms need consistency, it is simply unrealistic to continue them in the conditions of daily change of sentiments.
– Nevertheless, at first glance, not everything is so bad, at least with finances. The European Union, in particular, has already expressed its readiness to support Armenian reforms in the legal and judicial system.
Finances are not the main factor in the successful implementation of these reforms, moreover their successful completion. Practically all international partners of our country are ready to render this assistance, and not only financial one. For this, one thing is necessary – the vision, the concept of these reforms expressed by the Armenian authorities. Finance here is of secondary importance. The presence of the agenda is paramount, or precisely speaking, its absence. It is inadmissible to announce the universal vetting today, giving it up tomorrow. We can’t talk today about the implementation of the transitional justice system, and refuse from it tomorrow. It is inadmissible to make changes to the Constitution today and refuse from them later. Any reforms always need stability. And it is the general concept, the documented clear vision of future own actions that is the key to the development of cooperation of Armenia in all areas. And the matter is far from being limited to the legal and judicial system.
– You have recently returned from the US. Do the new authorities of Armenia have a conceptual approach in relations with the USA? Their predecessors did not seem to have it. What do we want from the United States today, and what can we offer them?
I have no information about the approaches and agenda of our leadership towards the United States. I don’t know what discussions are held during the periodic visits of representatives of our leadership to Washington. I have my own conceptual ideas about the agenda of the Armenian-American relations, according to which Armenia can become an important partner of the United States in the South Caucasus. The prerequisites and most importantly, possibilities for such a scenario exist, they just need to be implemented, this is what our national interests require. Unused potential in Armenian-American relations should be fulfilled. And I very much hope that our new ambassador in Washington will make all possible efforts in this direction. We should not limit our relations with the United States to the Armenian community, although we do not realize this potential either. Today’s Armenia is a democratic country, which, in cooperation with the United States, is able to actively fight in the international structures against the challenges faced by democracy. This is very important and we should concentrate our own attention to this issue and draw the attention of our partners to it. From this point of view, it is rather difficult to overestimate the importance of Armenia in the South Caucasus. As far as I understand, today there is simply no such link in the Caucasian dimension of American politics.
– What about Georgia? It seems that the “Georgian Dream” of EU and NATO membership has not changed with the replacement of Saakashvili with Ivanishvili.
Georgia continues to be a strategic partner of the United States, at least, the Georgians think so. However, at the same time, Georgia is involved in conflicts with Russia. And most importantly, it does not have a border with Iran, which Armenia has. For obvious reasons, in recent years, our region has been interesting to the United States, above all, due to the border with Iran. There is also Azerbaijan, which borders on Iran and is of particular importance for the United States. However, here US also faces problems. A dictatorial regime is ruling in Baku, respectively, democracy is fictitious, especially in comparison with Armenia, which can not be blamed for absence of democracy today.
– Back to your meetings in the USA. Which of the above-mentioned, we can offer Americans at least at the level of parliamentary diplomacy?
As a representative of parliamentary diplomacy, a person involved in these processes, I am doing everything possible to implement the agenda of Bright Armenia party. We call this agenda “More America in Armenia” and actively push it. At all our meetings, in this case, the latest meetings in Washington, we are actively lobbying for the idea of involving the US in all possible ways and their participation in the reforms taking place in Armenia. At all meetings in Washington, I voiced our ideas and offered to fill the vacuum in relations between our countries that we inherited from the Republicans. Today we can definitely get more America in Armenia than it was yesterday. Accordingly, we need to continue the cooperation with the United States, which was established with Armenia’s independence, and bring it to a much higher level. We consider this a necessary step proceeding from the interests of Armenia.
By JARED DOWNING | FRONTIER
Photos STEVE TICKNER
YOU COULD count the congregation at the Armenian Church of St John the Baptist, Yangon’s oldest place of Christian worship, on one hand.
There was a young expatriate in the third pew, his head bowed in prayer, a little girl squirming in the front row, and her mother, wearing a lace veil and holding a hymnal. A choir of one, her clear, rich voice rose through the old beams and dusty portraits of Christ and the saints as the priest and lay vicar delivered the liturgy and homily and served Holy Communion.
Later, waiting for a torrential downpour to ease, the entire assembly sat with me under an awning at the 150-year-old building on downtown’s Bo Aung Kyaw Street. I had come at an odd time, they explained. The service had been held on a Saturday because the Armenian Church in Kolkata, India, which sends one of its priests to Yangon every second week, could not spare anyone for that Sunday.
“Normally we have a few more,” said Ms Rachel Minas, the woman with the lovely singing voice. “But never more than ten, except maybe on special days like Easter.”
Rachel and her father Richard, who had assisted the priest, were born and raised in Myanmar; the expat was Russian and the priest was born in the Republic of Armenia, a small former Soviet state.
Although the congregation of five hailed from three different countries, it shared an identity forged over centuries, one that continues to bind Yangon’s tiny community of Myanmar-Armenians, even if they don’t all show up for church services.
“We are like family,” said the priest, Father Artsrun Mikayelyan. “I know he is Armenian. She is Armenian. I am also Armenian …Wherever you go in the world, you will always find at least one Armenian.”
Once a prominent community of merchants and diplomats, the number of Armenians in Myanmar has dwindled to a few hundred at most. Yet they continue to learn Armenian (if only for liturgy and hymns), uphold Armenian traditions (even if they celebrate Thingyan alongside Orthodox Christmas) and maintain their church (even if many have become Buddhists).
Father Artsrun Mikayelyan administers a service at St John the Baptist Church on June 29. (Steve Tickner | Frontier)
The Armenian diaspora is in many places linked to the mass exodus that followed the Armenian Genocide at the end of World War I. However, the Armenian presence in Myanmar dates to the 17th century, when Armenians from a population that had settled in what is now central Iran sailed to Southeast Asia to trade in silk.
Industrious, diplomatic and possessing a famous aptitude for languages, Armenians served as advisors in the royal court at Ava and later Mandalay. They were later translators and clerks for the British colonial government and high profile trading partners with the East India Company. At its peak, the community numbered at least 1,300 people living in India, Burma and Indonesia, shows census data collected by the BBC.
Rachel is well aware of the community’s rich history. As a schoolgirl she never failed to point out to her friends such icons of Armenian business acumen as the Strand Hotel, once owned by famous Armenian hoteliers the Sarkies brothers, and Balthazar’s Building on Bank Street, built in 1905 by the Armenian company Balthazar & Son. Her friends usually responded with blank stares.
“At school, people were confused because our faith was different and they didn’t know where Armenia was,” Rachel said. “It was a bit hard growing up here because most of the Burmese people considered us as foreigners, sometimes mistaking us as Indian or Muslim.”
Rachel doesn’t think of herself as a foreigner, but although she speaks Burmese and looks Myanmar, she doesn’t think of herself as a fully Myanmar person, either. She and her family exist in an obscure niche in the social landscape, one occupied by the community’s tiny church, a handful of other families, and the knowledge of an Armenian diaspora beyond Myanmar’s borders, scattered but strong.
Rachel’s distant cousin, Ms Sharman Minus, was born and raised in Canada, but her father grew up in colonial Rangoon. When his health began to decline, Sharman started researching some of the stories from his boyhood in Burma, and she soon found herself down a historical rabbit hole that would lead to previously unknown ancestors.
“It was a shocker to learn I was part Burmese,” she said.
The Armenian Church of St John the Baptist in central Yangon. (Steve Tickner | Frontier)
Sharman was especially fascinated by Makertich J. Mines (his surname is a variant of “Minus”), who served as a customs collector in Pegu, now Bago, during the reign of King Mindon from 1853 to 1878. Fluent in both common and royal Burmese, he became Mindon’s kalawun, a sort of minister for foreigners.
When she first saw a photograph of Makertich, Sharman instantly noticed a resemblance. “I can remember looking at it and thinking, ‘That’s my dad.’”
When she finally visited Yangon in 2014, Sharman scoured the city, wandering through gardens and canvassing crumbling teak houses to discover where her great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins may have lived. She also saw the ruins of the 18th century “Portuguese” church in Thanlyin, which is believed to have been founded by an Armenian priest named Nicolai de Agualar.
When she visited the Church of St John the Baptist in the downtown area, she discovered that one of the last refuges of the Armenian community was in dire straits. The church had fallen into disrepair and, worse, an unordained parishioner of Indian heritage, “Father” John Felix, was posing as its priest.
In the absence of an ordained priest, the man had slowly gained authority over services and the church property. Rachel and other parishioners were concerned he might try to acquire ownership of the land and the church, an accusation he vehemently denied.
Sharman joined Rachel and other Armenians in a campaign that saw the acting priest removed, control regained over the property and relations revived with the broader Armenian church. In October 2014, their efforts culminated in a visit by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church and Catholicos of All Armenians.
Speaking to the largest congregation St John’s had seen in decades, and a small throng of reporters and photographers, His Holiness reaffirmed the commitment of the Armenian Apostolic Church, saying: “We have come here to encourage Armenians and their children to preserve the tradition. We have come here not only to see the preservation of the church, but also to strengthen [Yangon’s] Armenian heritage,” The Irrawaddy reported at the time.
The following month, Sharman would write in her blog, Chasing Chinthes: “The church has already had two baptisms, a sure sign of regeneration.”
Father Artsrun Mikayelyan (top) and a view of the altar at the Armenian Church of St John the Baptist. (Steve Tickner | Frontier)
The regeneration has been gradual. The property dispute with the former would-be priest continues and has delayed renovation work, said Rachel, and church services rarely see more than a handful of attendees.
But despite the small congregation, the church continues to serve as a bastion of heritage and as a meeting place for all Yangon’s Armenians, regardless of whether they were born in Myanmar or abroad, such as Mr Vadim Zakharyan, the young expat at the Saturday service, and regardless of whether they are even Christian.
“When I first came here, I stayed in this hotel nearby. I was just walking down this street and I see this tablet that said, ‘Armenian Church in Yangon.’ I was shocked,” Vadim said.
He said it was comforting to know there were Armenians in Yangon. He was born in Uzbekistan and raised in Russia, and yet, like Rachel, has always thought of himself as Armenian more than anything else. Even though they did not speak the same language, he felt a close bond with the Armenians of Myanmar.
“Growing up, even though people did not know where Armenia was, and didn’t know what I was, I was proud,” said Rachel.
For her, the true value of the Armenian community is not measured in the size of its church, or city landmarks built by Armenians, or the number of remaining Armenian families. It is the invisible bond that links Armenians wherever they are, be it Yangon, Russia, Canada or the homeland itself.
U.S. residential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) expressed his continued support for the reaffirmation of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and vowed to address it as such during the annual presidential address on April 24, Massis Post reports.
His comments came during a round-table discussion with leading ethnic media outlets in Los Angeles, including Massis Post, on Friday.
Specifically, when asked as president “will you stand up to the Turkish government and officially use the word genocide at the annual presidential Armenian Genocide commemoration message to the nation?” The senator simply stated “Yes, I think the debate (on the Genocide) is now over.”
Senator Sanders is currently a co-sponsor of the Armenian Genocide Resolution S.Res.150, spearheaded by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Kostan Zarian’s grandchildren have donated the archive of the outstanding Soviet Armenian writer, poet, novelist, and art historian to Mashtots Matenadaran.
The donation also includes published and unpublished, handwritten and typewritten works in different languages by Kostan’s son, Architect Armen Zarian, concerning architecture, urban development and art, Matenadaran said in a Facebook post.
The goal of the donation is to preserve, coordinate, archive, study, publish, publicize and digitize Kostan Zarian’s literary and art history works, letters, notes, and biographical material, all of which are of great value.
The archive has not been completed yet. In the coming months, Kostan Zarian archives in other countries, too, will be brought to Armenia, and the preservation of this material will also be entrusted to Mashtots Matenadaran.
[Armenian News note: the below is translated from the Armenian edition of news.am]
Kocharyan’s bank accounts were frozen in July 2018 days after he was first arrested on charges of overturning the constitutional order stemming from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
Acting on a lawsuit filed by Kocharyan, a first instance court in Yerevan ruled on 7 June that the asset seizure constituted a violation of his rights. The Prosecutor General’s Office considered the decision unlawful and appealed appealed against it at a higher court. The Criminal Court of Appeals, however, rejected the appeal and left the lower court’s decision unchanged, the website said.
Kocharyan, who attended the hearing, complained that he had been unable to pay his legal costs during all this period. He said he had been forced to rely on the financial support of his relatives, which, he said, was not an “honourable thing” for him to do.
“This is a practice, when a person is deprived of everything, as well as of the possibility to defend himself, probably with an intention to intimidate and reach some aims,” Kocharyan was quoted as saying.
Asked why the investigators had taken 27,000 dollars from his lock box, Kocharyan told the judge that it was probably because of the shock.
“I think because of the shock. When they opened the safe and saw not 4bn but only 27,000, they were shocked,” Kocharyan was quoted as saying.
As the judge reprimanded Kocharyan for ironical remarks, noting that the investigators were doing their job, Kocharyan said that he was free to use the language he wanted to defend himself.
“My rights have been violated for a year, they are being violated in an impudent way, and I have the right to speak out about it,” News.am quoted Kocharyan as saying.