The California Courier Online, February 14, 2019
1 - Turkey’s Support of Terrorists in Syria
Exposed in Secret Wiretaps
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Armenia Deploys Humanitarian Mission to Syria
3 - Pilibos, Manoukian High School Students Top AEF Annual
Oratorical Contest
4 - Sassounian Granted Membership in International
Informatization Academy
5- Nigol Bezjian explores loss and art in
his new film ‘Broken Dinners, Postponed Kisses’
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1 - Turkey’s Support of Terrorists in Syria
Exposed in Secret Wiretaps
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt exposed in The Investigative
Journal of the Stockholm Center for Freedom that “hundreds of secret
wiretap records obtained from confidential sources in the Turkish
capital of Ankara reveal how the Islamist government of President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has enabled—and even facilitated—the movement of
foreign and Turkish militants across the Turkish border into Syria to
fight alongside jihadists in the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant
(ISIL, also known as ISIS or Daesh).”
These secret documents revealed by Bozkurt “indicate that an implicit
agreement existed between ISIS and Turkish security officials that
allowed traffickers to operate freely on both sides of the porous
511-mile (822-kilometer) Turkish-Syrian border without repercussions
from the Erdogan government. The agreement also permitted ISIS to run
logistical lines across the border and to transport wounded fighters
back into Turkey for medical treatment.”
At the helm of this sinister ISIS smuggling operation is a 36-year-old
Saudi-born Turk, Ilhami Bali, with the code name Abu Bakr. He
facilitated and orchestrated “the movement of large numbers of foreign
and local militants back and forth along the Turkish-Syrian border. …
Bali [also] moved goods across the border for ISIS, ranging from shoes
and clothing to handcuffs, drone parts, binoculars, tents, a spotlight
projector and even a boat. Additionally, the wiretaps show the Turkish
government knew the names and locations of 33 Turkish nationals who
pledged to work as drivers in ISIS’s smuggling network,” Bozkurt
reported.
According to indictments filed by Turkish prosecutors, “Bali is
accused of being the mastermind behind three deadly 2015 terrorist
attacks in Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, that claimed the lives of
142 people. A year later, a criminal court issued another warrant for
Balı’s arrest for his alleged role in a suicide bomb attack—the
deadliest in Turkey’s history—on October 10, 2015 in Ankara. The
explosion killed 105 civilians, including the two suicide bombers, as
ISIS militants targeted NGOs and the supporters of left-wing and
pro-Kurdish parties, who were holding a peace rally outside the city’s
main train station weeks ahead of the November 1, 2015 snap
elections,” Bozkurt revealed. Although the Turkish authorities knew
Bali’s exact location and Turkish courts issued several arrest
warrants against him, the Erdogan government had let him roam freely
between Turkey and Syria.
The wiretap records also indicated that ISIS had a hot line between
the terrorists in Syria and Turkey. Bali monitored the phone calls and
organized the transfer of militants from Turkey to Syria. In one
wiretap, a Georgian militant named Lasha Nadirashvili told Bali that
four jihadists were awaiting pickup at a shopping mall in Gaziantep,
one hour drive from the Syrian border. Bali notified the jihadists the
designated meeting place where he would pick them up and help them
cross the border. In another wiretap, a Russian jihadist Oleksandr
Pushchuk told Bali that 11 jihadists in Gaziantep were waiting to be
picked up.
Bali was also heard on a wiretap giving a report to ISIS on the number
of jihadists he had helped smuggle into Syria. “On average, in a
single day at one crossing point, ISIS smuggles anywhere from 50 to
more than 100 militants across the Turkish-Syrian border according to
wiretaps, bringing yearly conservative estimates to well over 15,000
smuggled individuals,” Bozkurt wrote.
Another important service Bali provided for jihadists was their
medical treatment at M.I.S. Danismanlik hospital in Ankara. One
wiretap revealed a conversation between Bali and M.I.S. Danismanlik’s
owner Savas Dogru regarding a $62,000 payment for treating 16 ISIS
militants. In another conversation, Dogru complained about unpaid
bills of $150,000 for surgeries to ISIS terrorists smuggled from
Syria.
The wiretaps also implicated MIT (Turkish National Intelligence
Organization) for helping jihadists evade the local police. Hakan
Fidan, the head of MIT, is a close confidante of Pres. Erdogan. In
2014, MIT officers were caught at the border smuggling truck-loads of
weapons for jihadists in Syria. The Turkish government quickly
released the MIT officers and charged with treason the reporter who
disclosed the smuggled weapons.
In a recorded conversation between Bali and a Turkish soldier, Bali
was told that he would get whatever he needed. The two agreed to
ensure that there was no confrontation between ISIS and Turkish
security guards.
Surprisingly, then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced on
television that the government could not arrest suicide bombers until
they acted, even though Turkey had advance warning and the list of
names of potential suicide bombers. These suicide bombings in fact
boosted Erdogan’s ruling party’s ratings in advance of the November
2015 Turkish parliamentary elections.
Bozkurt went on to state that there are serious questions regarding
“cases involving ISIS, al-Qaeda and other armed jihadist groups [who]
are being investigated, prosecuted, and tried in Turkey. The
astonishingly low number of convictions in ISIS cases illustrates how
the government is unwilling to successfully prosecute ISIS cases.”
Bozkurt correctly pointed out that Erdogan’s government uses draconian
measures to arrest innocent journalists, human rights activists,
academics and political opponents, but is very lenient on real
terrorists: “The fact that, in many cases, detained ISIS and al-Qaeda
members have been let go with a mere slap on the wrist can only be
explained by the political cover and protection provided by the
government.”
In my opinion, the European countries and the United States have to
take strong measures to curtail Erdogan’s support of terrorists in
Syria. It is strange that Turkey as a NATO member is aiding and arming
terrorists who have been committing murders in several other NATO
countries. This cannot be allowed to continue. Pres. Trump’s announced
pull-out of American forces from Syria under the pretext that the
Turkish military will continue the fight against ISIS is a dangerous
decision which will give Turkey a free hand to strengthen the
terrorists in Syria and elsewhere.
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2- Armenia Deploys Humanitarian Mission to Syria
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Armenia has deployed an 83-member, independent
humanitarian mission of doctors and de-miners to support and sustain
at-risk survivors among Syria’s devastated Christian Armenian
community.
The Armenian team—operating under its own command—will have no combat
role and will work only in areas of Aleppo in which there are no
military operations. The mission was undertaken in accord with UN
Security Council resolutions.
“Armenia’s humanitarian deployment to aid vulnerable Christian
communities, churches, schools, and hospitals will save lives, inspire
survivors, restore hope, and—more broadly—advance our enduring
American commitment to preserving Christianity and promoting ethnic
and faith-based diversity within Syria and across the Middle East,”
said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.
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3 - Pilibos, Manoukian High School Students Top AEF Annual
Oratorical Contest
The Armenian Educational Foundation’s Third Annual Oratorical Contest
drew over 120 supporters on February 2, at the Chevy Chase Country
Club in Glendale, California. Representatives from five local Armenian
high schools—A.G.B.U. Manoogian-Demirdjian High School; Holy Martyrs
Ferrahian High School; Armenian Mesrobian High School; Rose & Alex
Pilibos Armenian High School; and A.G.B.U. Vatche & Tamar Manoukian
High School—attended and competed in the Armenian and English language
speech competition.
The topic for the Armenian segment related to the preservation of the
Armenian language and the English competition topic addressed the
Velvet Revolution and its effects in Armenia and worldwide. The
judging criteria were based on the American Legion National Oratorical
Contest guidelines.
The professional experience of the panel of judges encompassed a
variety of backgrounds, including, education, politics, medicine,
international relations and journalism. The distinguished judges were:
Dr. Armen Baibourtian (Consul General of Armenia in Los Angeles);
Prof. Richard Hovannisian (Former Holder AEF Chair in Modern Armenian
History, UCLA); Prof. Shushan Karapetian (Professor Department of Near
Eastern Languages & Cultures, UCLA); Paul Krekorian (Los Angeles City
Councilmember); Aida Rechdouni Jooharian, M.D., (AEF Board Member and
Medical Director of Franklin; Diagnostics Laboratories); and Harut
Sassounian (Publisher of the California Courier).Alice Petrossian,
with her vast experience in speech contests and a model orator, acted
as Mistress of Ceremonies.
The winners of the 2019 AEF Oratorical contest were Narek Poghosyan
(11th grade) from Rose & Alex Pilibos Armenian High School for the
Armenian contest, Vahe Demirdjian (12th grade) representing A.G.B.U.
Vatche & Tamar Manoukian High School for the English language
competition. Each winner was awarded with a $1,000 prize.
“I was impressed with the professionalism in the conception,
organization, and execution of the contest as well as the high quality
of the participants’ content and performance. The sophistication and
caliber of the students’ speeches left me inspired and hopeful about
the next generation of our community’s leadership,” said Prof. Shushan
Karapetian.
AEF hosts the Oratorical contest to promote public speaking among
Armenian youth, with the hope of encouraging and shaping a future
generation of leaders, motivators and influencers who can become a
positive force and promote progress within their community.
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4 - Sassounian Granted Membership in International
Informatization Academy
Yerevan—The International Informatization Academy, located in
Montreal, Canada, recently granted Harut Sassounian membership and a
diploma during a ceremony in Yerevan.
Sassounian’s diploma was delivered to him in Glendale, California, by
prominent painter Shmavon Shmavonyan of Armenia.
The International Informatization Academy is a global not-for-profit
organization affiliated with the United Nations Economic and Social
Council.
The Academy operates in the fields of information, knowledge and
consensus needed to solve problems of ecology, cities, economy, and
standardization, establish information and communication
infrastructures, ensure international collaboration and shape the
global culture of development. The Academy has over 700 branches and
offices in several countries. Over 2,000 individuals worldwide are
members of the Academy. Most of them are prominent scholars, doctors,
reputable professionals and outstanding public figures.
Sassounian is the publisher of The California Courier and President of
the Armenia Artsakh Fund which along with its predecessor, the United
Armenian Fund, has shipped to Armenia and Artsakh over $800 million of
humanitarian aid.
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5- Nigol Bezjian explores loss and art in
his new film ‘Broken Dinners, Postponed Kisses’
By India Stoughton
Abo Gabi looks away from the camera as he tells the story of how he
came to be a refugee living in Nantes, France. His great-grandparents
were Egyptian, he explains, but they moved to Palestine in the early
20th century, settled there and had children. Then came 1948 and the
Naqba. They fled Palestine, travelling not back to Egypt but with the
Palestinian community to which they now belonged.
They found a new home in Syria, in the Yarmouk refugee camp near
Damascus, where Gabi was born. But the conflict in Syria precipitated
a third wave of migration and Gabi was displaced twice more, moving
first to Lebanon and then to France.
The musician and singer’s identity is complicated. He is Egyptian,
Palestinian, Syrian. Soon, perhaps, he will be French. His personal
and family history is one that is familiar to thousands of people
across the Middle East. It is one of constant upheaval, of uprooting
and adapting, of settling and surviving, of adopting new identities
while retaining old memories.
The events he describes form part of a new feature-length documentary,
Broken Dinners, Postponed Kisses, directed by Aleppo-born Armenian
filmmaker Nigol Bezjian. It tells the stories of six Syrian artists,
all from different areas and backgrounds and all working in different
media. Together, they convey the pain of loss, in many forms, and the
strength that allows people to rebuild even in the most difficult of
circumstances. Bezjian says he wanted to make a film that would stand
the test of time.
“It’s a film you can watch 10 years from now—it has nothing to do with
the war that’s going on today,” he says. “The inspiration and the
initiative came from that, but in the film it’s a period of 100 years
that I cover … it’s about this situation of constant upheavals and
wars in the region since forever, and how that is impacting our lives,
our characters, our way of seeing the world, out art, our culture.”
Broken Dinners, Postponed Kisses, is structured as a series of
individual vignettes based on interviews with the subjects. Each story
builds on the one before it, creating a layered, overarching narrative
exploring loss, adaptation and the expressive power of art.
Vartan Meguerditchian, an Armenian actor living in Beirut, is the
first to appear in the film, playing the role of Bezjian, who also
lives in the Lebanese capital. This opening sequence blends fact and
fiction, as Meguerditchian shares the story of the filmmaker’s
grandparents who survived the Armenian Genocide, eventually settling
in Aleppo.
The rest of the film is a straight documentary, featuring interviews
with Gabi; Ayham Majid Agha, a playwright and actor living in Berlin;
Yara Al Hasbani, a dancer in Paris; Diala Brisli, a painter and
illustrator in Provence; and Ammar Abd Rabbo, a photographer in
Beirut.
The subjects describe their experiences of exile, examining how it has
affected their work as artists. Bezjian spent a long time searching
for the right people to interview, choosing a selection he felt
represented the diversity of Syrian society.
“I wanted to have Syrians with different accents, different languages,
different backgrounds, because this is Syria,” he says. “We see how
what they go through becomes part of their life, character,
personality and way of thinking, and then, as creative people, how
they process that and how that experience shows in their work.”
Agha’s interview is interspersed with scenes from a play he wrote and
staged in Berlin about his journey from Syria and the struggle to
adjust to a new culture. Gabi plays snippets of his music, explaining
that since arriving in France he has found himself incapable of
writing anything but sad songs.
The two women in the film, Al Hasbani and Brisli, both tell very
personal stories of loss. Al Hasbani recalls her father, who supported
her passion for dance, but lost his life during the conflict in Syria.
Her moving memories are intercut with beautifully shot footage of her
dancing in silence on the steps and in the alleyways of Paris, seeking
solace in her art.
Brisli describes how, having grown up in Kuwait where her father had
work, she felt like an outsider when she first moved to Damascus,
repeating a familiar motif of cross-cultural ties and nomadic lives.
She shares moving scenes from an animation she has made, based on the
story of her brother, who was conscripted to fight in the Syrian army.
“I decided that I don’t want to have any images of war, which we have
seen exhaustively—only if it’s part of their work,” says Bezjian. “The
simple way to explain art, for me, is that when you take reality and
elevate it to something else, it becomes art.”
One of the main themes of the film is the power of memory. “As
immigrants, refugees, people removed from your place, memory becomes
an extremely important part of your mind and it grows,” explains
Bezjian. “The filmmaker talks about how, as he is growing older, the
childhood memories are growing bigger than him, as if they’re going to
swallow him. But that memory is far removed from reality, in a way,
because it takes on a life of its own.”
Bookending the film are the stories of Bezjian himself, as told by
Meguerditchian, and Abd Rabbo, who describes his nomadic childhood,
growing up first in Syria, then Libya, then Lebanon, each time
displaced by political problems or conflict. He is filmed wandering
the beautiful rooms of the Sursock Museum in Beirut, before retreating
to the library to unwrap the first copy of a book featuring
photographs he took of the conflict in Aleppo.
“The idea is loss,” says Bezjian. “If you look at the first character,
the filmmaker, it’s loss of childhood innocence … then you have Ayham,
who talks about the loss of friends, lovers and what he had in Deir
Ezzor, where he left his family behind. Then you come to Gabi and you
see how as Palestinians they lost their land and they went to Syria.
Then it becomes more personal with Diala and Yara, and then you come
to Ammar and the loss of his mother … I thought they were enough to
give as examples [and show] how, despite that, they keep living.”
Bezjian funded the film himself and consequently worked on a
shoestring budget. Long periods passed between the filming of each
segment, which helps to lend each narrative a distinct atmosphere and
sense of place. Scenes of grey skies and snow in Berlin, where Agha is
staging his play, give way to summer heat and colorful blossoms in
Provence, where Brisli paints barefoot in a lush garden.
Further underlining the themes of displacement and constant motion are
scenes that show each character in transit, moving through buildings
and crossing streets, sitting in trains or on buses as scenery flashes
by.
The last scene of the film is the one Bezjian shot first: it shows
pages of Abd Rabbo’s book flying off the printing press to land in a
neat pile. A photograph of two children on a bombed and deserted
street proliferates second by second, multiplying this single moment,
frozen forever in time. This closing sequence is a metaphor for many
of the film’s themes, echoing its power to fix stories into a lasting
form and the uncertain futures of his subjects, whose lives, and
therefore narratives, are unfinished.
“The film should not be finished when the lights come on in the
cinema,” Bezjian says. “It should be finished in the minds of the
audience, who take it with them.”
This article appeared in The National on February 2, 2019.
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