Category: News

January 2005 The New Mexico Jewish Link

Holocaust Museum Elects New Officers

The New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum and Study Center
at its Board of directors meeting on December 9, elected new officers
and recognized the unique contributions of founding members Werner and
Frances Gellert.
The elected directors of the museum reflect the ethnic diversity
of the museum and its mission and include representatives from the
Greek, Armenian, Hispanic, Black, Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Native
American and Catholic communities and Rabbi Joseph Black of
Albuquerque’s Congregation Albert.
President Andrew J. Lipman said his mission is to “expand the
visibility of the museum and work toward the identification and
purchase of a permanent location for the museum.”
He commented further that he intends to “expand the current scope
of the museum to include additional exhibits of intolerance and
inhumanity such as Black slavery.”
Lipman had been recognized by the City of Albuquerque Human
Rights Board with the 2001 Human Rights Award.
The New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum and Study Center,
a national institute for the prevention of hate and intolerance, is
dedicated to combating intolerance through education.
****
[The panels depicting the Armenian Genocide were designed by members
of the Armenian community of Albuquerque.]

US States Department
10 January 2005
Bush Extends Normal Trade Relations Treatment to Armenia
Says Armenia has made “considerable progress in enacting market reforms”
President Bush issued a proclamation January 7 extending unconditional
normal trade relations treatment to Armenian products entering the United
States, effective immediately.
Armenia has made “considerable progress in enacting market reforms” and has
“demonstrated a strong desire to build a friendly and cooperative
relationship with the United States,” Bush said.
Following is his proclamation:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
January 7, 2005
TO EXTEND NONDISCRIMINATORY TRADE TREATMENT
(NORMAL TRADE RELATIONS TREATMENT)
TO THE PRODUCTS OF ARMENIA
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
1. Since declaring its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia
has made considerable progress in enacting market reforms and on February 5,
2003, Armenia acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The extension
of unconditional normal trade relations treatment to the products of Armenia
will permit the United States to avail itself of all rights under the WTO
with respect to Armenia. Armenia has demonstrated a strong desire to build
a friendly and cooperative relationship with the United States and has been
found to be in full compliance with the freedom of emigration requirements
under title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 (the “1974 Act”) (19 U.S.C. 2431 et
seq.).
2. Pursuant to section 2001(b) of Public Law 108-429, 118 Stat. 2588, and
having due regard for the findings of the Congress in section 2001(a) of
said law, I hereby determine that chapter 1 of title IV of the 1974 Act (19
U.S.C. 2431-2439) should no longer apply to Armenia.
3. Section 604 of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2483), as amended, authorizes the
President to embody in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States
the substance of relevant provisions of that Act, or other acts affecting
import treatment, and of actions taken thereunder.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of
America, acting under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States, including but not limited to section 2001(b) of
Public Law 108-429, and section 604 of the 1974 Act, do proclaim that:
(1) Nondiscriminatory trade treatment (normal trade relations treatment)
shall be extended to the products of Armenia, which shall no longer be
subject to chapter 1 of title IV of the 1974 Act.
(2) The extension of nondiscriminatory treatment to products of Armenia
shall be effective as of the date of signature of this proclamation.
(3) All provisions of previous proclamations and executive orders that are
inconsistent with the actions taken in this proclamation are superseded to
the extent of such inconsistency.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of January,
in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and twenty-ninth.
GEORGE W. BUSH
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: )

South Caucasus Countries Discuss Regional Railway
/ Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 2005-01-10 10:04:53
Visiting Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin will discuss the issue of
restoring the Georgian-Russian railway link via Abkhazia with the Georgian
leadership.
Armenian and Azerbaijani governmental delegations are also expected to join
the talks in Tbilisi on January 10.
Last November, Russian Transport Minister, who visited Georgia and Armenia,
proposed that the countries of the South Caucasus set up a joint
Russian-Georgian-Armenian-Azerbaijani company which would restore traffic on
the Trans-Caucasus Railway, which ceased functioning after conflicts in
Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 90s.
The railway, which stretched more than 2,300 kilometers during Soviet times,
connected Black Sea ports with central Russia, operated passenger services
and handled more than 15 million tons of transit cargo per year, according
to the Russian English-language daily The Moscow Times.
“It is not a simple issue, I mean, we do not face only technical problems
related to restoration of the railway. It is a comprehensive and difficult
political issue,” Lexo Alexishvili, the Georgian Economy Minister, said.
For the past decade the Georgian government’s policy has always linked the
issue of restoring the railway via Abkhazia to the issue of returning the
internally displaced persons to the breakaway region.
There are signs that the Georgian government is now ready to soften its
position, but the final shape of the Tbilisi’s policy towards the issue has
yet to manifest.
“If Georgian custom officers will be deployed at the Georgian-Russian border
[referring to the Abkhaz section of the border] then I see no problem in
restoring the railway connection,” Kakha Bendukidze, the State Minister for
Economic Reform Issues, told reporters on January 9.

Karabakh sets up trade union; elects chairman
Arminfo, Yerevan
10 Jan 05
STEPANAKERT
The constituent congress of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic’s [NKR]
Federation of Trade Unions has been held in Stepanakert. It adopted a
programme and statute, and also elected the federation’s executives.
Ara Kagramanyan was elected chairman of the NKR Federation of Trade
Union in an open vote.
In an interview with journalists, Ara Kagramanyan noted that the
newly-established trade union federation is called upon to defend the
rights of the working citizens, to resolve a range of professional and
social issues and to help workers improve their skills.

Family and Friends Mourn the Loss of a Loved One
KSL.Com
News On Demand 5
Jan. 9, 2005
“I STILL THINK THAT HE WALKS OUT OF THE RUBBLE, BUT IT’S THE FACT THAT
I HAVE TO FACE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.”
Friends and family are mourning the loss of a former University of
Utah professor who died in a house fire…
Fire investigators haven’t been able to determine how the fire
started…but most of the damage was in the basement and main floor.
Leonardo Alishan lived in the duplex.
He slept in the basement…and that’s where the body was recovered.
Tonya Papanikolas joins us from the house…
At 2:30 a-m…firefighters responded to a fire at this duplex.
The neighbor on the other side of the duplex had woken up to the sound
of banging pipes and a campfire smell. He says he went outside and
only saw smoke coming from the chimney.
He felt his neighbors’ front window…and it was hot.
So he called police.
Dozens of firefighters responded to the three-alarm call in Cottonwood
Heights.
They heard a person was possibly in the basement…but they discovered
the house was unstable.
“Capt. Greg Reynolds, Unified Fire Authority: “THEY DID HAVE A
COMPLETE FLOOR COLLAPSE, FROM THE FIRST FLOOR DOWN INTO THE BASEMENT
AREA.”
“Capt. Mike Ulibarri, Unified Fire Authority: THE ENTIRE FLOOR IS DOWN
ON TOP. WE HAVE A LOT OF DEBRIS.”
Fire crews then moved on the defensive…attacking the flames from the
air.
Meanwhile, no one saw the resident of the home…Leonardo Alishan.
His family lives in California…when they were notified of the
fire…they started calling friends in Utah to check on the house.
Debby Stone heard from Alishan’s nephew.
“Debby Stone, Family Friend: I GOT A CALL THIS MORNING AT 6;30, AND HE
ASKED ME TO COME UP HERE AND SEE IF HIS UNCLE WAS OKAY, WHAT WAS GOING
ON.”
“Debby Stone: I’M WAITING TO SEE IF HE WAS IN THERE.”
A good friend kept in touch with Alishan’s ex-wife.
“Hamid Aminian, Friend: IT’S TOO MUCH, ESPECIALLY FOR HIS YOUNGEST
DAUGHTER, WHICH HE LOVED DEARLY.”
Around 11:00…those friends learned a man had died in the fire.
They knew it had to be Alishan.
“Hamid Aminian: I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT.”
Alishan taught Middle Eastern Studies and Persian languages at the U
for 20 years.
He had 3 children and acted like an older brother to Aminian.
“Hamid Aminian: HE WAS A WONDERFUL MAN, VERY CARING PERSON. AND IT’S
TOO HARD TO BELIEVE THAT HE’S GONE.”
Aminian says he can’t forget the good times he shared with his friend.
“Hamid Aminian: IT’S JUST LIKE A MOVIE, YOU KNOW. I CAN’T GET OVER
IT. I CAN’T GET OVER IT. I DEARLY MISS HIM.”
His friends say he has a lot of former students who will miss him a
lot.
Lately, he was devoting much of his time to writing poetry and short
stories.

Asheville Citizen-Times, NC
Jan 9 2005
Leo Krikorian’s `Implied Space’ challenges viewers’ concepts
photo: Special to the Citizen-Times
Krikorian’s “580 EV,” an acrylic on canvas 2000
The exhibit
What: “IMPLIED SPACE,” a retrospective exhibition of paintings,
prints and photographs by Leo Krikorian
Where: Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center, 56 Broadway
When: Ongoing through April 30
Particulars: The museum is in downtown Asheville and is open noon to
5 pm Wednesday-Sunday
For more information: Call 350-8484

By Robert Godfrey
Jan. 7, 2005 6:03 p.m.
Leo Krikorian came from a small Armenian farming community in Fresno,
Calif., to the Black Mountain College, near Asheville, in 1947. He
studied with Josef Albers, who he thought was a poor teacher, and
with Ilya Bolotowsky, who became a lifelong friend. His early major
painting influence, however, was Piet Mondrian, with whom he did not
study.
The current survey of Krikorian’s work at the Black Mountain College
Museum + Art Center covers the years 1947 to 2003. This
mini-retrospective demonstrates Krikorian’s growing and continued
interest in hard-edged geometric abstraction after he left BMC as
well as his intermittent interest in photography – he studied with
Ansel Adams at the Art Center School in Los Angeles.
The four earliest paintings in this exhibition are from his student
days at BMC in 1947 and 1948. They do show Krikorian’s fascination
with Mondrian’s “Plus and Minus” and “Broadway Boogie Woogie” series,
which were just being introduced in New York at about this time.
But Krikorian soon left the Mondrian construct and worked from a
color matrix that was more or less based on the theories of Johannes
Itten. Krikorian explored the visual effect color had on changing
backgrounds and environments. Albers’ seminal work, “Homage to the
Square,” also seems to have been affected by Itten’s theories.
Krikorian’s most important pieces in the BMCM+AC show are “569 EV”
from 1999, “580 EV” and “581 EV,” both from 2000, and “627 EV” from
2003. All of these paintings are acrylic on canvas. These works are
saturated with charged and juiced- up color that Krikorian
encapsulates through shape and background, forcing the viewer’s eye
in and out of the picture plane with reversals of positive and
negative positions. Everything becomes wrong, disruptive and almost
passively assertive. The paradox of the frontal plane becoming
spatially ambiguous happens: Gravity is misplaced and elusive. There
are boundless optical illusions on one hand and intentional color
manipulations on the other. The artist seems to be jerking us around.
Krikorian, like other geometric color-charged abstractionists, plays
with the idea of tension interrupting harmony and chaos provoking the
cosmos. Just when you think things are settling down, visual hell
breaks out. Shapes begin to soar and float. With Krikorian’s
paintings, there is never really a quiet moment. This is analogous to
the way improvisational jazz works.
If kindred spirits exist in Krikorian’s universe they may be Elsworth
Kelly and the Midwest-based painter Larry Zox. And perhaps a little
bit of Bridget Riley. All of these artists reach beyond pattern to a
complex compositional construction that balances shapes while
interrupting the space and where a particular color behaves according
to the color next to it or underneath it. Line is also an integral
element that both bounds a shape or points it in another direction.
In all of these artists there seems to be a conscious need to
stimulate visual tactileness through high-intensity color that
vibrates in relationship to a neighboring pigment. But unlike Mark
Rothko and, at times, Barnett Newman, Krikorian – and his cohorts –
never quite reach that state of sensual tactility, of indulging the
sublime.
So where does Krikorian fit within the scheme of modernism? I’m not
quite sure. There is a large body of work that indicates his
persistence and necessity to produce a type of work that comfortably
adds to the sequence of hard- edge abstraction (see Larry Zox),
optical painting (see Richard Anuszkiewicz) and even neo-geo (see
Peter Halley). But a full study of his work and the influence he had
on other artists has yet to be undertaken. Now in his 80s, Krikorian
has created more than 600 major works of which he is now, according
to a recent interview in a San Francisco paper, giving away. A
cafeteria/auditorium at the D.H. White Elementary School in Rio
Vista, Calif., houses a significant collection of his work. Some
important works have been donated to restaurants. When Krikorian had
his first solo show in Asheville, at Broadway Arts in 1990, it went
unnoticed.
I think Krikorian has been an important player in the art world since
the 1950s. He will probably for the moment, however, be most
remembered for “The Place,” a bar he operated in the 1950s in San
Francisco that became the hangout of jazz musicians, artists and the
beat writers and poets. In fact, this writer heard, as a high school
student in New Jersey in the late 1950s, a concert by Dave Brubeck
who brought the house down with “Leo’s Place, ” a piece he had
recently created in honor of Krikorian’s bar.
Fortunately all the works in the BMCM+AC retrospective will remain in
Asheville as part of the museum’s permanent collection. They were
donated by the artist.
Robert Godfrey previously served as head of the Western Carolina
University art department. He can be reached at
[email protected].

RIA Novosti, Russia
Jan 9 2005
RUSSIA, GEORGIA TO BE LINKED BY FERRY CROSSING
TBILISI, January 9 (RIA Novosti) – In the framework of Russian
Transport Minister Igor Levitin’s two-day visit to Georgia, an
agreement on railway ferry communication between the Georgian port
Poti and Russian port Kavkaz (on the eastern coast of the Kerch
Strait) will be signed.
RIA Novosti was told in Georgia’s State Chancellery that a railway
train made up of 24 cars would move between the two countries’ ports
with the help of the ferry crossing every three days.
On January 10, Poti will see a symbolic ceremony of opening the ferry
communication. Before the end of the current month, experts are
supposed to coordinate the financial details of the agreement, after
which it will be implemented in practice.
Besides, at Levitin’s meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab
Zhvania, the sides will discuss technical details of creating a
consortium between the Russian Federation, Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia on restoration of a railway on the territory of the
unrecognized republic of Abkhazia. The consortium, to comprise
transport officials of the four states, will have to undertake
financial commitments to carry out repairs of railroads.
Earlier, Poti mayor Vakhtang Alaniya said the existing technical
difficulties had been eliminated. “Earlier, all Armenian cargoes
[Armenia has no outlet to the sea] went through the Ukrainian port
Ilyichevsk [south of Odessa] and further to Poti. So, when the
Kavkaz-Poti ferry crossing is commissioned, the transport component
will be reduced both in terms of time and financially. On the
average, transport expenditures will reduce by 25%,” said Alaniya,
adding that cargoes would be delivered to Armenia by railway from
Poti.

TheDay, CT
Jan 9 2005
Historian’s Contribution Beyond Question
By STEVEN SLOSBERG
Day Staff Columnist
This afternoon at the Shaw Mansion in New London, Nancy Steenburg
will be telling stories about the early 19th century historian and
indefatigably curious reporter, Frances Manwaring Caulkins.
Kin-keeper, perhaps, is a more gentrified synonym for her devotion.
But then, as Steenburg, a Mystic resident and assistant professor of
history at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point, allows,
intrepid snoop also works.
After all, Caulkins produced absorbingly researched and perennially
popular histories of Norwich and New London as well as some 35
handwritten books of genealogies of New London families, an
exhaustive collection of local gravestone records, compendiums of
plants she collected throughout her life, abolitionist poems,
numerous Sunday School tracts and scores upon scores of essays,
articles and obituaries for papers of the day, including The
Repository and the Star.
She was born in New London in 1795 and died in New London in 1869.
She is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery. She never married.
Steenburg, who is to begin her talk at 2 p.m. today as part of the
New London County Historical Society’s Second Sunday programs,
offered a preview last week. A couple of Caulkins tidbits she
discussed speak, as it were, volumes.
One is whether Caulkins was illegitimate. Another suggests that in
that era of missionary fervor, Caulkins’ religious writings soared
the evangelical heights, with well over a million copies in print.
About Caulkins’ birth, Steenburg could find no documented evidence
that her mother and father ever married. Such common-law trysting
might not have been unusual. It’s also possible the parents eloped to
Rhode Island. Caulkins’ father died before she was born – when the
mother, Fanny Manwaring Caulkins, was four months pregnant. The
mother was 19 and had given birth to another child when she was 16.
Several years after Frances was born, Fanny married a shoemaker.
A portrait of Caulkins shows her to be an attractive, petite,
dark-haired woman. She was certainly possessed of forceful
personality, one that might have intimidated men. But the fact that
Caulkins didn’t marry also might be attributed to a social stigma
about her birth.
However, Steenburg countered her own speculation about the
illegitimacy, pointing out that Caulkins eventually ran schools for
young girls in Norwich and New London. Would parents of that time,
Steenburg wondered, entrust their daughters to a woman born out of
wedlock?
What’s more certifiable is Caulkins’ success as the author of Sunday
School primers for the American Tract Society.
In 1834, after emerging as a leader in local abolitionist causes,
Caulkins, possibly as a consequence of her politics, closed her
boarding school for girls in Norwich. She was secretary of the
Norwich Female Anti-Slavery Society. Resistance to the anti-slavery
movement was substantial and exacting. An abolitionist minister was
driven out of Norwich. After closing her school, Caulkins moved to
New York and began writing for the American Tract Society.
This was a religious and missionary publication society and is still
in existence, based since 1977 in Garland, Texas, and listing Billy
Graham and Jerry Falwell among its supporters.
Two `premium tracts’ written by Caulkins – `Do Your Children
Reverence the Sabbath?’ and `The Pequot of a Hundred Years’ – had a
combined printing of 1,058,000 copies, according to Caulkins’
half-brother, Henry Havens, a prominent merchant in New London.
Another of her pamphlets had a run of 950,000, including thousands of
copies in Armenian.
Caulkins returned to New London in 1842 and published her history of
Norwich, which won her honorary membership in the august and all-male
Massachusetts Historical Society. Apparently there was no Connecticut
Historical Society. She then turned to her history of New London,
wrote for local newspapers, and helped found the New London Ladies
Seamen Society to attend to the spiritual and material needs of
sailors and their families. She died in 1869.
She died, said Steenburg, questioning whether she’d done anything
worthwhile with her life. She should listen to Steenburg’s talk
today.
This is the opinion of Steven Slosberg.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
January 9, 2005 Sunday 12:42 PM Eastern Time
Georgia-Russia railroad ferry line to open in late January
By Tengiz Pachkoria
TBILISI
A railroad ferry line between the Georgian port of Poti and the
Russian port of Kavkaz on the Krasnodar territory will open in the
end of January, a source in the Georgian Railroad Department told
Itar-Tass on Sunday.
At first the line will function once in three days, and each
ferryboat will carry 24 train cars. The traffic may grow busier in
the future. Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Central Asia can
use the ferry line.
Georgian and Russian experts have coordinated the text of an
agreement on opening the railroad ferry line. The agreement will be
signed during a Georgian visit of Russian Transport Minister Igor
Levitin on Monday.

Jerusalem Post
January 9, 2005
News in Brief
Yeshiva students freed after priest attack
by Etgar Lefkovits, Janine Zacharia
Four yeshiva students who allegedly assaulted an Armenian Priest in
the Old City of Jerusalem were released on bail on Friday, police
said.
During a remand hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, three of
the suspects were ordered to stay out of the Old City for 90 days.
Police said that they will issue indictments against all four
suspects, three of whom live outside the city. * Etgar Lefkovits
Protests allowed at civil servants’ homes
In a blow to police, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ruled Friday
that far-right activists may demonstrate outside the homes of
government workers under certain restrictions, police said.
The decision flies in the face of police requests to keep protesters
away from civil servants’ homes, in keeping with the instructions of
former attorney- general Elyakim Rubinstein.
In the ruling Friday, Judge Shimon Feinberg ordered two far-right
activists arrested Thursday during an illegal anti-disengagement
protest outside the Jerusalem home of the IDF chaplain released on
bail. * Etgar Lefkovits
Zoellick new deputy secretary of state
WASHINGTON – US President George W. Bush on Friday chose Robert
Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, to be deputy secretary of
state. Zoellick, who will replace Richard Armitage as the second
highest ranking US diplomat, will face Senate confirmation.
Zoellick, a long-time diplomat, has been for the past four years the
chief US official negotiating free trade agreements around the world,
including with Middle Eastern countries like Morocco. Zoellick’s
confirmation hearing should take place in the coming weeks.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who Bush has nominated to
replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State, will face Senate
questioning on January 18.
Also on Friday, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a leading
architect of the Iraq war, said he had been asked to remain in the
Bush administration. “I have been asked to stay and have accepted,”
Wolfowitz told Reuters through a spokesman. * Janine Zacharia