The California
Courier Online, August 18, 2022
1- Armenia’s
Leaders Continue
Capitulating
to Azerbaijan
By Harut
Sassounian
Publisher,
The California
Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Raymond
Damadian: physician, inventor of MRI dies at 86
3- Charny's
book explores why Israel
failed to recognize Armenian Genocide
4- Vahan
Chamlian Passes Away
5- Armenia
Continues Fight Against COVID-19
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Armenia’s
Leaders Continue
Capitulating
to Azerbaijan
By Harut
Sassounian
Publisher,
The California
Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
Azerbaijan’s order to evacuate
around 150 families from three Armenian villages in the Lachin Corridor, which
connects Armenia
to Artsakh, has alarmed Armenians worldwide.
As a result of Azerbaijan’s
ultimatum, Armenians in the villages of Bertzor, Aghavno and Sus are obliged to
move elsewhere in Artsakh or Armenia.
After losing a devastating war in 2020, Armenia
and Artsakh, both suffering from poor leadership, are demanding that the
villagers comply with Azerbaijan’s
demand to leave their homes and churches by the deadline of August 25.
The source of the problem is the joint “statement” of
November 10, 2020 signed at the end of the war by the Prime Minister of
Armenia, President of Azerbaijan, and President of Russia. Even though the
first line of that “statement” declared “a complete ceasefire,” this is the
most unusual kind of ceasefire in the history of all wars. Instead of stopping
where the opposing armies had reached, the Armenian side agreed to turn over to
Azerbaijan large areas of
land not conquered by Azerbaijan.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister of Armenia, without any authority, signed a
document relinquishing lands, including most of Artsakh and its surrounding
territories, over which he had no legal authority. Therefore, the Nov. 10, 2020
trilateral agreement should be considered null and void.
Paragraph 6 of that agreement stated that “The Lachin
corridor (5 km. wide), which will provide for communication between
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and at the same time will not affect the city of
Shushi, shall remain under the control of peacekeeping troops of the Russian
Federation. The Parties have agreed that a plan for the construction of a new
route along the Lachin corridor shall be determined within the next three
years, providing communication between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, with
the subsequent redeployment of Russian peacekeeping troops to protect the
route. The Republic
of Azerbaijan shall
guarantee traffic safety for citizens, vehicles and goods in both directions
along the Lachin Corridor.”
This paragraph, like many others, has created problems due
to its unclear wording. Almost two years after signing this agreement, during
which the leaders of Armenia
and Azerbaijan
had several face to face meetings, the Armenian government did not bother to
clarify the language of Paragraph 6. Armenian officials, after approving Azerbaijan’s plans, kept repeating that the
alternate route to bypass the Lachin Corridor was to be built only after three
years and that Azerbaijan
hastily built its segment of the alternate route. In fact, the 2020 agreement
stated that the alternate road will be built within, not after, three years. Armenia is
planning to complete its section of the alternate road to Lachin after 250 days
from this month.
Armenian officials falsely reassured the families of the
three Armenian villages within the Lachin Corridor that they have plenty of
time to resolve their problems, assuring them that they may remain in their
homes. When Azerbaijan
insisted on the immediate removal of these villagers, the Armenian families
were given less than three weeks to move without having anywhere to go.
To make matters worse, Artsakh’s Minister of Territorial
Management and Infrastructure, Hayk Khanumyan, warned the residents of the
three Armenian villages that should they burn their houses before leaving, they
will not receive the promised 10 million dram ($24,000) compensation, which is
insufficient to purchase a new house. The Minister was referring to the
practice of many Artsakh Armenians who burned their homes before leaving their
houses after the 2020 war. Burning one’s home is a heartbreaking decision, but
it is equally upsetting to leave your own house to your sworn enemy. I watched
this week the disturbing video of a father burning his family home before
leaving. What did the Minister expect these villagers to do? To clean their
houses, leave a cooked meal on the dining table with a bottle of champagne, and
a welcome sign on the door for their Azeri enemies?
In addition to turning over to Azerbaijan
large parts of territories in and around Artsakh which Azerbaijan had not occupied at the time of the
ceasefire, Azerbaijan
conquered additional lands in both Artsakh and inside Armenia’s
borders since the end of the 2020 war. Furthermore, Azerbaijan,
contrary to the 2020 agreement, is still holding Armenian prisoners of war,
whereas Armenia
foolishly turned over all the Azeri prisoners of war shortly after the
ceasefire. Armenian authorities not only do not make any efforts for the return
of the Armenian prisoners and the liberation of Armenia’s occupied territories,
they do not even talk or complain about them. Before complying with any of
Pres. Ilham Aliyev’s orders, Armenia
should first demand that Azerbaijan
keep its own obligations under the 2020 agreement. It is understandable that
after losing the war Armenia
is in a weakened and subservient position. However, mismanaging the situation
due to Armenian leaders’ incompetence and capitulating to the enemy’s every
whim and desire is unacceptable. Such spineless behavior encourages Azerbaijan to
demand and obtain more concessions.
With the shutting down of the Lachin corridor which connects
Armenia to Artsakh, the
remaining Armenians of Artsakh will be isolated, surrounded by Azerbaijan.
They will lose their access to Armenia,
will be cut off from electricity, heat and internet, and will be sooner or
later taken over by Azerbaijan.
Sadly, Artsakh and Armenia,
after losing the 2020 war, are on a downward spiral. Competent new leaders may
not be capable of reversing Armenia’s
calamitous situation, but at least they won’t let it get any worse.
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2- Raymond Damadian: physician,
inventor of MRI dies at 86
(Combined Sources)—Raymond Damadian, an Armenian-American
physician, scientist and inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), died
aged 86, on August 3.
Modern healthcare, from diagnosis to treatment, is hard to
imagine without Damadian’s discovery.
Dr. Damadian was born on March 16, 1936 in New York City to Vahan and Odette (Yazedjian)
Damadian. He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of
Wisconsin–Madison in 1956, and an M.D. degree from the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York City
in 1960.
Damadian was 10 years old when he watched his grandmother
die of breast cancer, but he turned the negative into a positive like few
others.
It was then that he made detecting cancer his life’s work,
founded Melville-based Fonar Corporation and invented the Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) scanner in the 1970s. “Without Damadian’s discovery, it could not
be known that serious diseases like cancer could be detected by an NMR [nuclear
magnetic resonance, the prior term used for the MRI] scanner,” said James
Mattson, author of The Pioneers of NMR and Magnetic Resonance in Medicine: The
Story of MRI. “Or that tissue NMR signals possessed sufficient contract to
create medically useful images.”
Damadian also operates his own MRI scanning office, Stand-up
MRI of Melville, P.C., as an internist on Long Island.
But Damadian didn’t always study medicine. He originally studied math and
science as a violin student at Juilliard School of Music when he was 15. He
studied the violin at Juilliard for 8 years, and played in Junior Davis Cup
tennis competitions. Dr. Damadian met his future wife, Donna Terry, while he
had a job as a tennis coach. They had three children.
Dr. Damadian's research into sodium and potassium in living
cells led him to his first experiments with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
which caused him to first propose the MR body scanner in 1969. Damadian
discovered that tumors and normal tissue can be distinguished in vivo by
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Dr. Damadian was the first to perform a
full-body scan of a human being in 1977 to diagnose cancer.
He invented an apparatus and method to use NMR safely and
accurately to scan the human body.
Dr. Damadian was widely recognized for his groundbreaking
inventions. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000
Lifetime Achievement Award on Dr. Damadian as "the man who invented the
MRI scanner." He went on to collaborate with Wilson Greatbach, one early
developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker.
The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia gave its recognition of Dr.
Damadian's work on MRI with the Bower Award in Business Leadership.
Dr. Damadian received a National Medal of Technology in 1988
and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989.
Ten years ago, Damadian, now 81, improved upon his invention
when he introduced the stand-up MRI machine.
Dr. Damadian is survived by his children, Timothy Damadian
(Helen), Jevan Damadian (Victoria)
and Keira (Markus) Reinmund. He was the grandfather to Caitlin (Mike), Brianna
(Matt), Ben, Serena, Jesiah, Eliza, Kaia, Viki and Jonathan, and great
grandfather of Jack, Elizabeth and Emma.
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3- Charny's book explores why Israel failed
to recognize Armenian Genocide
By Glenn C. Altschuler
(The Jerusalem
Post)—In the spring of 1982, shortly before the First International Conference on
the Holocaust and Genocide was scheduled to begin in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the Turkish
government demanded that the six sessions on the Armenian Genocide (out of 150
overall) be canceled, and Armenian speakers prohibited from participating. If
the Israeli government, which was co-sponsoring the conference, did not comply,
Turkish authorities threatened to end protection to Jews escaping from Iran and Syria through their country.
Under pressure from Israeli officials, Elie Wiesel resigned
as president of the conference; Yad Vashem withdrew its offer to host the
opening ceremonies; Tel Aviv University backed out as a co-sponsor; the Szold
National Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences in Jerusalem and
Hunter College of the City University of New York stopped participating; many
speakers, including professors Yehuda Bauer and Alan Dershowitz canceled;
donations from philanthropists dried up; pre-conference coverage in the Jewish
press was curtailed; and the number of registrants shrank from 600 to 300.
Nonetheless, Israel Charny, the originator and director of
the conference, decided to go ahead. The proceedings are now regarded as an
important event in the development of the field of genocide studies, marking
the first recognition of the Armenian Genocide in an international setting.
In Israel’s Failed Response to the Armenian Genocide,
Charny, an American-Israeli psychologist, co-founder of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, author of How Can We Commit The Unthinkable:
Genocide: The Human Cancer and editor-in-chief of the two-volume Encyclopedia
of Genocide, revisits the conference, attempts by the Foreign Ministry to
torpedo it, and issues a scathing indictment of Israel’s refusal, then and now,
to officially recognize genocidal wars against other peoples.
Understandably, perhaps, even after 40 years, Charny
approaches his subject with a mixture of pride and pain. Intent on setting the
record straight and speaking truth to power, he steps on his analysis by going
over familiar ground, repeating himself in clumsy prose, and inserting long
lists of panels, presenters, book titles and extended excerpts from essays
written by him and other human rights advocates in the 1980s and 1990s. And on
occasion, Charny seems determined to settle scores.
That said, serious consideration of Charny’s claim – “the
basic and horrendous commonality” in all genocides, including the Armenian
tragedy, should override obsessions about uniqueness and a consensus definition
of the “category name” – is as urgently necessary as it has ever been.
Because he defied the Israeli government in 1982, Charny
states, the rector of Tel Aviv University
denied him tenure at the School
of Social Work, despite
favorable recommendations by the relevant committees. The decision “hurt
deeply” and “may have contributed psychosomatically” to “the development of
cancer a few years later.” Charny sued Tel
Aviv University,
was appointed a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and for a time
collected a TAU pension along with his Hebrew University
salary. Grateful in retrospect for being forced to choose between personal,
professional and financial security and fundamental ethical values, the
experience, he now believes, was “a Turkish delight.”
Charny maintains that in response to Turkey’s
threats and the Israeli government’s intervention, he considered reducing the
visibility of the Armenian sessions at the conference, but not eliminating
them.
He indicates as well, rather contradictorily, that he was
convinced that “threats of this sort should never be honored to any extent
whatsoever.” And then lets himself off the hook by adding that an official of
the US State Department assured him, “almost without any reservation or
uncertainty,” that the Turks were bluffing.
In any event, Charny makes a compelling case that the
principal reason Israeli leaders opposed the conference was their determination
to keep the Holocaust, the “unbearable cataclysmic tragedy” of the Jewish
people, “at the ultimate untouchable apex of a hierarchy of genocidal
suffering… the greatest evil ever seen in human history.”
Wiesel, who “believed entirely – naively and, one might say,
messianically – in the virtue, decency and integrity of the miraculous State of
Israel,” Charny writes, warned him “not to use genocide in plural.”
Charny emphasizes that he is a Zionist, proud of Israel’s
survival in the face of enemies determined to destroy the Jewish state, and its
efforts “to achieve a secure country that is basically still largely
democratic.” He also blasts Israel’s quest for exclusivity and superiority; for
refusing to acknowledge “the genocidal massacre of unarmed civilian Arabs” in
Kafr Kassem in 1956; for indifference toward the forced expulsion of the
Rohingya in Myanmar; persecution of Uighurs in China; and “genocidal orgies” in
Yemen; for arm sales to Azerbaijan, “where there are gathering storms of
potential genocide;” and for recent “fascist trends,” including discrimination
against non-Jewish people who are fully entitled citizens of Israel.
Irrepressibly candid and combative at age 91, Charny has
thrown down the gauntlet. Whether or not they “claim to be the most important
and chosen victim people,” he insists, those who have “experienced fiendish
genocidal destruction” should have “heightened sensitivity and caring for
others who became victims.” And it is unnecessary, unproductive and unjust for
them “to continue denying hard historical facts” about the commission of brutal
acts of genocide.writer is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American
Studies at Cornell
University.
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4- Vahan Chamlian Passes Away
Vahan Chamlian, who along with his wife Anoush, were the
benefactors in 1975 of an Armenian school in Glendale
that bears their name, passed away on August 11 in Fresno. He was 96.
Chamlian, a businessman, dedicated his life to advancing the
Armenian community and the Armenian Nation.
Chamlian was born in Lebanon
in 1926 and emigrated to the United
States in 1957. He became the world’s
largest dealer in second-hand clothing via his company Chamlian Enterprises.
He recounted to Asbarez in 2018 that one day he visited his
friend Garo Haddad who had also invited the then Western Prelate Archbishop
Yeprem Tabakian and long-time community leader Stepan Kabadayan, who proposed
that Chamlian sponsor a classroom in the school, which was operating in a
rented facility at the time. There, Haddad told him that he should sponsor not
just one classroom but the entire school. Chamlian liked that proposal and went
about purchasing the land and building what is now one of the preeminent
Armenian schools in Southern California. He
was awarded the “Prince of Cilicia” medal in 1983 by then Catholicos of the
Great House of Cilicia, Karekin II.
Vahan Chamlian is survived by his wife Anoush Chamlian,
daughters Katie and Monique, their husbands and children.
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5- Armenia Continues Fight Against
COVID-19
More than 2.2 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have
been administered in Armenia
since commencing the vaccination program a year ago, authorities said on August
15. Armenia
has recorded 428,648 coronavirus cases as of August 15. Armenia has
recorded 8,637 deaths. There are 7,450 active cases; 412,661 have recovered.
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