Category: News

ArmenPress
Aug 3 2004
KARABAGH ARMY STARTS ANNUAL WAR GAMES
STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS: The defense ministry of Nagorno
Karabagh said in a statement Monday that the main goal of annual
military exercises that have started today, is to test and improve
the strength of the armed forces and clear up their readiness in a
state of the highest alert.
The Karabakh military officials said the war games are part of the
regular training plan for this year. The exercises will be attended
also by army reservists and involve the use of live ammunition by
light and heavy weapons.

ArmenPress
Aug 3 2004
164,000 PASSENGERS USED ARMAVIA IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE YEAR
YEREVAN, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS: In the first quarter of the year,
Armavia air company transported 164,000 passengers, 700 tones of
cargo and post. CIS countries made 86.7 percent of total flights.
According to Armavia public relations sources, the share of Armavia
in air companies of Armenia grew by 18 percent and made some 38
percent. By 2003, April 15 there were only two regular flights at
Armavia – Yerevan-Moscow and Yerevan-Istanbul. Today their number
totals 20. The technical base of the company was enriched by two
Airbus Industry modern planes in February and May of the running
year. Today Armavia has 4 A320-211 planes at its disposal in addition
to two Soviet production planes on rent – Tu-134 and AN-24.
Since May of the running year, Armavia has joined International
Air Transport Association (IATA). Today IATA consists of 270 leading
air companies of the world. Armavia has concluded interline
agreements with dozens of air companies, including Swiss Air (LX),
Turkish Airlines (TK), American Airlines (AA), Royal Jordan (RJ),
Spanair (JK), British Airways (BA).

ArmenPress
Aug 3 2004
PUPPET SHOWS FOR ARMENIAN, GEORGIAN AND AZERI CHILDREN
YEREVAN, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS: Save the Children is implementing
Children Tolerance Programs in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In
all three countries half hour 36 puppet shows will be developed. In
Armenia they will be aired on H2. The scenarios will be translated in
all three languages and puppets will be in national clothes.
According to Armenian office head Irina Saghoian, the shows are
not involved with politics and have educational nature teaching to be
honest, forgiving, also teaches how to involve in negotiations and
effectively communication with people of different culture. The
program will continue for one year.
Save the Children has representation in 40 countries of the world.
The Armenian office opened in 1993. By now a total of 420 project
have been implemented covering 40 percent of the republic’s
territory.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
08/03/2004
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1) Christian-Muslim Co-existence Vital to Middle East States Aram I 2) Paul Guiragosian Museum in Yerevan 3) Karabagh President and ARF Delegation Discuss Cooperation 4) BP Executive Meets Georgian President, Seeks Permission To Proceed with Pipeline Construction 5) South Ossetia Accuses Georgia of Military Buildup 1) Christian-Muslim Co-existence Vital to Middle East States Aram I ANTELIAS--Reacting to the recent series of coordinated explosions that rocked five churches across Baghdad and Mosul on Sunday, including an Armenian Apostolic Church, His Holiness Aram I released a statement condemning violence as a means to solve problems, and emphasized solidarity, dialogue, and mutual tolerance. "Violence in all its forms and expressions is against human and religious values and principles. Neither Islam nor Christianity will accept violence as a way to solve problems. Bombing of Christian churches in Iraq is a deep harm against the Christian-Muslim existence. Both Christians and Muslims with their equal obligations and rights are co-citizens of the Arab countries. It is my firm expectation that the government of Iraq will take the necessary measures to protect the rights and the well being of all citizens. It is also my expectation that Christians and Muslims in Iraq and in different parts of the Middle East will continue their dialogue and collaboration based on shared values and aspirations, and strengthen their commitment to peace with justice," stated His Holiness. Recalling the centuries-long co-existence of Christians and Muslims in the Middle East, His Holiness emphasized that close affinities in various societal sectors have emerged as a result of interaction and dialogue. "The Christian-Muslim co-existence is neither a conceptual notion nor an imposed reality; it is an integral and inseparable part of the societies in the Middle East," he concluded. 2) Paul Guiragosian Museum in Yerevan YEREVAN (Armenpress/Art-lb)--A museum permanently displaying the works of diaspora Artist Paul Guiragosian has been established in Yerevan, Armenia's Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Hovig Hoveyan, announced on Tuesday, revealing that Guiragossian's wife has donated the artwork for the museum. Born in Jerusalem in 1926 to survivors of the Armenian genocide, Paul Guiragosian settled in Beirut with his family in 1939. He started to paint in 1942. In 1957, he received a scholarship to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and spent a year studying and painting in Paris in 1061. He lived the rest of his life in Beirut, where he created most of his works. Guiragosian had a foreboding sense of tragedy from his earliest years. Some of his early paintings were haunted by a figure that had lost one leg. Ironically, in the early 1970s he lost a leg in an elevator accident. Guiragosian, during his lifetime, became Lebanon's most celebrated painter, and remains so to this day. Guiragosian received a state funeral in 1993. Paul Guiragosian was consumed by his art and paid little attention to anything but his family and his painting. His mature works express the complexities of the human condition through renderings of vertical, elongated, purged bodies, both static and in motion, painted with thick layers of often luminous colors. He also created frescoes, mosaics, stained glass windows, sculpture, and was a book illustrator. His paintings are always serious in feeling. In the thirty years of his professional career, Guiragosian held some forty exhibitions in Lebanon, and throughout museums in Paris, Frankfurt, Marburg, London, Milan, Florence, Washington, DC, New York, Ohio, Tokyo, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. He garnered numerous prizes and was received by various governments. The human body is always present in Guiragosian's work; man unchangeable over centuries, beginning from the Stone Age: Man, the center of the cosmos, center of nature, man the link between earth and sky, between finite and infinite His works reveal his profound faith in man--symbolized in ethereal human bodies--refined and unsubstantial, pressing against each other, with no ornamental detail or embellishment. 3) Karabagh President and ARF Delegation Discuss Cooperation STEPANAKERT (ArmenPress)--President Arkady Ghoukasian of the Mountainous Karabagh Republic (MKR) met on Tuesday with an ARF delegation composed of Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Vahan Hovhannisian and members of the ARF Artsakh (Karabagh) Central Committee. The participants discussed the issues of democratic reforms in the MKR and the role of political parties in that process. In that regard, Deputy Speaker Hovhannisian stressed the importance of expanding the level of cooperation between the ARF and the Karabagh authorities. In turn, President Ghoukasian expressed his government's eagerness to engage in constructive collaboration with all political forces in the republic, including the ARF. 4) BP Executive Meets Georgian President, Seeks Permission To Proceed with Pipeline Construction (Eurasianet.org)--A top British Petroleum (BP) executive met with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Tuesday, aiming to secure permission to proceed with construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline through an environmentally sensitive area of Georgia. Georgian officials earlier ordered a two-week construction halt in the Borjomi region, saying BP had not obtained the necessary permits. David Woodward, BP's top executive in the Caucasus who is overseeing the BTC project, sought to reassure the Georgian leadership that the oil giant was committed to protecting the Borjomi region, site of a national park and mineral water springs. Woodward reportedly characterized his talks with the Georgian president as successful without disclosing details. No Georgian officials gave any immediate comment on the discussions. The day before the Woodward-Saakashvili meeting, Azerbaijani officials raised the Borjomi-BTC issue during talks with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania. The Borjomi controversy can be traced to July 12, when Georgia's Environment Ministry reportedly sent BP a formal reminder that the oil company needed permits to begin construction on a 17-kilometer stretch of pipeline that passes through the Borjomi region. BP reportedly did not respond to the government reminder, and, as photographs taken by local activists affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) showed, the company proceeded with construction in the area. The government issued an order July 22 to suspend construction for two weeks, giving BP time to obtain the necessary permits. Shortly after the stoppage was announced, a BP representative in Tbilisi, Rusudan Medzmariasvhili, indicated that a two-week halt would not cause any change in the pipeline's overall construction timetable, which calls for the 1,750-kilometer conduit to be completed in early 2005. The plan to run the BTC pipeline through the Borjomi region of Georgia has long generated controversy. Environmental groups have asserted that BP's plans to protect the area from spills and other pipeline-related problems are inadequate. The US $3.6-billion project has been plagued by negative publicity of late. In late June, a report published by the British newspaper, The Independent, said the safety of the pipeline was being threatened by shoddy construction practices. Contractors and sub-contractors, according to the report, were "cutting corners" in the attempt to meet construction deadlines. 5) South Ossetia Accuses Georgia of Military Buildup MOSCOW (RIA Novosti)--Authorities in the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia have accused Georgia of increasing its military presence in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone. "According to our intelligence," Irina Gagloyeva, chair of Georgia's Media Committee, told RIA in a telephone interview Tuesday, "80 Georgian interior troops have been recently deployed in the vicinity of the Georgian village of Nikozi, on the border with South Ossetia. A barrack is now being hastily built for them in the village." According to her, Georgia has taken further provocative actions against South Ossetia in the past 24 hours. Georgians fired small arms on South Ossetia last night; however, no one was injured. Georgian policemen reportedly detained and beat two South Ossetian policemen near the village of Kekhvi. "The policemen were not released until 4 a.m.," she said. "They are now in a Tskhinvali hospital and one has a concussion and the other has broken ribs." She also noted that Georgia's actions were carefully orchestrated, and aimed at "exerting pressure on authorities in South Ossetia ahead of their planned meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania." "Consultations are currently underway," she said, "and the South Ossetian side has no unanimous opinion yet as to the format, the time-frame or the venue of such a meeting." She said that the South Ossetian government would like the meeting to involve a third party. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2004 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets.

EUROPA, Belgium
Aug 3 2004
Long-distance relationships: How the EU and CIS work together
Teleworking – an increasingly popular form of distance working – is
hailed by many as the solution to stressful lives, commuter road
congestion, crowded offices and fragmented families. But it also
offers unique opportunities for workers much further away to telework
for European companies, according to the EU project `Telesol’
promoting this type of working.

Armenia calling, how can we help you?
© Image: PhotoDisc

Telesol’s aim is to provide teleworking solutions that promote EU
co-operation in business and research with the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), which is a group of 12 former Soviet
countries working together for their mutual economic benefit.
To do this, the project coordinates existing tools and research in
the information society technologies (IST) field – and using results
from `Staccis’, a Fourth Framework Programme project – in order to
broadcast more widely the advantages of teleworking both within the
CIS, and between the CIS and the European Union.
`We can help people overcome the barriers that exist in their
countries and set up networks of interested parties,’ notes Serguei
Smaguine of the Telework Competence Centre (TCC) in Moscow, Russia,
one of many centres set up throughout the CIS countries – Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and
Uzbekistan – participating in the project.
Open all hours
EU support of just over 300 000, through the IST programme, has
helped the three-year project to set up the series of TCCs, and to
stage workshops and conferences to inform locals of the principles of
teleworking. Winding up later this year, Telesol has faced many
challenges communicating its message to the local communities: a
major hurdle has been translating all of the material into Russian,
the shared language of the partner countries. It has also faced
technical barriers, such as a shortage of Internet service providers
in the region, low access speed and legal complications.
But how can it help the EU? Speaking with IST Results reporters,
Smaguine offers the example of offshore software development as a
growth area where skilled CIS teleworkers can add value to the Union
– similar to the impact that Indian IT expertise has boosted
profitability in the field. `Russian programmers in Moscow [can]
produce software for companies in Belgium, the Czech Republic,
Germany,… [using] the Internet to logon to their clients’ computers
and provide real-time telesupport with screen sharing,’ he explains.
Teleworking is also proving useful within the CIS countries, Smaguine
continues, offering the example of how telemedicine is helping
doctors perform remote diagnostics in the Ukraine, for example. The
project’s success to date has been built around effective
communication and special emphasis on training, where experts from
France and Denmark, for instance, have travelled to the region to
`train the trainers’.

Jerusalem Post (subscription), Israel
Aug 4 2004
Snap judgement: Between Ararat and Zion
By CALEV BEN-DAVID

For centuries, a people with its own unique culture, language and
religion lived in exile from its ancestral homeland as it lay under
foreign rule.
Scattered in diaspora communities across the globe, these people
suffered ostracism, persecution and even genocide, while dreaming of
the day their nation would regain its independence. Finally, through
an almost miraculous set of geopolitical circumstances, that dream
was fulfilled against all odds.
It’s not the Jews I’m talking about – it’s the Armenians, whose
homeland achieved long-awaited independence with the breakup of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
At that time, Armenia’s resident population was thought to be
comparable with that of the Armenian diaspora, numbering in the
three-to-four million range. No longer. Armenians are now free to go
home; however, they are also free to leave, and apparently, many are
doing just that.
According to a recent report in The Washington Post, there has a been
a mass exodus of Armenians out of their country in the past decade.
Although an Armenian census in 2001 listed the official population as
3.2 million, most Armenians believe the actual figure is now at least
a million, if not two million, lower than that. Most of the emigrants
have gone to Russia, with others joining the large ethnic Armenian
communities in France, North America and elsewhere.
“It’s the economy,” a member of the Armenian community in Jerusalem
told me. “It’s gotten so bad people can barely get bread to eat
there.”
Gevorg Pogosyan, a sociologist in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, told
The Washington Post: “I call it depopulation. It calls into question
whether Armenia is a country with a future. We are a weak society,
weakened both politically and economically by this migration.”
Why are things so bad in Armenia? Well, it’s a small country with few
natural resources that must share its borders with hostile Muslim
countries (Turkey and Azerbaijan)… you get the idea.
Reading of Armenia’s plight, I couldn’t help thinking of the
similarities with Israel, as well as the differences. Comparisons
between Armenians and Jews have been noted fairly often in the past,
and Armenian activists have admitted taking inspiration from their
Jewish counterparts in trying to get the world to acknowledge what
they see as the Turkish genocide perpetrated against their people
during World War I.
The Armenian diaspora, just like the Jewish one, is also pumping
billions of dollars back home to alleviate the situation there. “If
not for these billions, we would have had riots and revolutions
here,” Pogosyan told The Washington Post.
Although things aren’t quite as dire in Israel, the parallels between
the Armenian and Jewish diasporas in the relationship to their
“national homelands” are striking. Both even express their
nationalistic yearnings through the symbolism of holy mountains,
Ararat and Zion.
Is there anything useful for Israel and the Jewish people to learn
from Armenia’s current migration plight? One lesson almost too
obvious is that the deepest feelings of yearning for a beloved
motherland, even those inculcated from birth, are not enough to
attract (or even hold) a population there if that nation cannot offer
its people adequate material conditions.
All the money invested in such worthy programs as birthright israel
won’t help bring aliya from the Western world if foreign capital
isn’t also being invested in Israeli businesses. Promoting Israel to
the Jewish world primarily as a charity case also doesn’t help
matters, which is why Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor was right
this week to take exception to the new government plan to use funds
raised abroad to directly underwrite the providing of hot lunches for
Israeli schoolchildren.
Maybe, though, we should be cautious about taking this comparison too
far. After all, Israel has gone through bad patches comparable to
Armenia’s, perhaps even worse in terms of the security situation. And
although an estimated hundreds of thousands of Israelis have voted
with their feet to seek a better life elsewhere, this country’s
population has risen steadily, often dramatically, since its birth,
sometimes during its most difficult periods.
The difference, of course, lies not with the situations of the
nations of Israel and Armenia, but of their respective diasporas. A
series of historical circumstances since Theodor Herzl first called
for the re-establishment of a Jewish commonwealth more than a century
ago has propelled much of the Jewish world back to its ancestral
homeland, often not out of ancient yearnings, but as a last refuge.
Looking back over just the past quarter-century, it’s remarkable how
a confluence of events in most of the remaining major centers of the
Jewish diaspora – the former Soviet Union, Argentina, and now France
– has seemingly contrived to nudge a significant number of Jews in
the direction of Israel. As bad as things have gotten here at times,
it seems there is always someplace else in the world where it’s even
worse for the local Jewish population.
This isn’t cause for complacency, though, and Israel should take note
of Armenia’s current woes as a cautionary example. It’s in this
context, perhaps, that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent call for
the Jews of France to make aliya should be understood – and not as
French President Jacques Chirac interpreted it, as a rebuke to France
for failing to prevent the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism. If Jews
aren’t coming to Israel, from France and elsewhere, then they’re
probably leaving it, and “depopulation” is a phenomenon this nation
can’t afford.
Gagik Yeganyan, the government official in charge of dealing with the
Armenian migration crisis, told The Washington Post: “We have a
national idea – ‘One country, one nation, one culture, one religion.’
It means that Armenia is considered the motherland for all Armenians
living around the world, even though only 30 percent of Armenians
live on the territory of the motherland. Armenians who leave always
think they are not leaving forever.”
Right. Now where have I heard that one before?

ARKA News Agency
Aug 2 2004
Republic of Komi ready to cooperate with Armenian companies
RA Minister of Defense receives the head of Republic of Komi
Exchange rate of AMD to USD increased in value by 0.25% in the period
of July 23-29
RA Minister of Defense receives German Ambassador to Armenia
The French Bernard Kazone to be new head coach of Armenian National
football team
*********************************************************************
REPUBLIC OF KOMI READY TO COOPERATE WITH ARMENIAN COMPANIES
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. Republic of Komi is ready to cooperate
with Armenian companies, RA NA told ARKA with reference to the Head
of Republic of Komi Vladimir Torlopov at his meeting with RA NA Vice
Speaker Tigran Torosian. In accordance to that Torlopov noted
presence of rich oil, gas, coal and other natural resources’ storages
in Komi. Torosian in his turn paid attention to development of
interregional relations and noted that for Armenia development of
trade-economic relations with Komi is very perspective. He expressed
hope that the parties will achieve certain agreements in the frames
of the visit. At this the parties noted the necessity of restoration
of railway communication, which will become a stimulus for
development of economy of South Caucasus republics. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
RA MINISTER OF DEFENSE RECEIVES THE HEAD OF REPUBLIC OF KOMI
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. RA Minister of Defense and Co-Chairman of
Armenian-Russian Interstate Commission on Cooperation Serge Sargsian
received the Head of Republic of Komi Vladimir Torlopov, RA Ministry
of Defense told ARKA. During the meeting the parties discussed issues
of mutual interest. Representing wide field of Armenian-Russian
strategic cooperation, Sargsian paid attention to cooperation of
Armenia with separate subjects of Russian Federation. Torlopov in his
turn noted that Armenia and Komi have big potential for cooperation
that must be fruitfully used. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
EXCHANGE RATE OF AMD TO USD INCREASED IN VALUE BY 0.25% IN THE PERIOD
OF JULY 23-29
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. In the period July 23-29, exchange rate of
AMD to USD increased in value by 0.25%, that is from 521,87 AMD to
520,57 AMD, according to the press-release, provided to ARKA by CBA
press office.
The volume of foreign exchange sale/purchase made $46,633 million, at
the average rate of 523,61 AMD for one US dollar last week. L.D. –0 –
*********************************************************************
RA MINISTER OF DEFENSE RECEIVES GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. RA Minister of Defense received German
Ambassador to Armenia Hans Wolf Bartels on the occasion of completion
of his diplomatic mission, RA Ministry of Defense told ARKA. Sargsian
thanked the Ambassador for fruitful activity and highly estimated his
contribution in development and strengthening of Armenian-German
multilateral relations.
The parties also discussed the expansion of bilateral military
cooperation. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
THE FRENCH BERNARD KAZONE TO BE NEW HEAD COACH OF ARMENIAN NATIONAL
FOOTBALL TEAM
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. The French Bernard Kazone will become new
head coach of Armenian National football team, Press Secretary of RA
Football Federation Araik Manukian stated today. It is planned that
42-year old specialist will sign one-year contract and first game of
the team will be played on August 18 against Macedonia.
Earlier Kazone trained French Olympic and Kan. L.D. –0–

STATE OF BATTLE PREPAREDNESS OF ARMY TO BECOME CLEAR DURING UPCOMING
EXERCISES IN NKR
YEREVAN, August 3 (Noyan Tapan). Command and staff exercises of the
Defense Army will be held in Nagorno Karabakh from August 3 to
12. Their purpose is to elucidate the state of the Army in the case of
the announcement of the “complete” battle preparedness. According to
the press service of the NKR Defense Army, the exercises will complete
with firing.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY SAYS KARABAKH LOCAL ELECTIONS “ILLEGAL”
Anatolia news agency
3 Aug 04
ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said on Tuesday (3
August) that Turkey considered municipality elections to be held in
Nagornyy Karabakh in August as illegal. Tan, in a written statement,
said that such kind of unilateral initiatives would not contribute to
efforts to find a peaceful solution to the problem.
Tan said Nagornyy Karabakh problem was nowadays one of the main
elements of instability in southern Caucasia, and also continued to be
an obstacle in front of good neighbourhood relations and cooperation
in the region and integration of the region with the international
community.
Tan said: “It is obvious that municipality elections, scheduled to be
held in August in Nagornyy Karabakh, mean violation of basic rules of
international law and the charters of UN, Council of Europe and OSCE.
Tan said: “Turkey supported a solution within the scope of
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and through peaceful means; and
many times, expressed its readiness to contribute to the efforts to
find a solution”.

Tech Central Station
Aug 2 2004
Genocide: Not to Be Alleged Lightly

By Stephen Schwartz Published 08/02/2004

Genocide is a big word; much bigger than it might at first appear to be.
The term did not exist until the aftermath of the Second World War,
when it was coined in reaction to the Nazi attempt to physically
eliminate millions of European Jews as well as to enslave and
culturally degrade whole populations of Slavs, and wipe out Gypsy and
other minorities. It was legally defined by the United Nations in the
1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
The definition is specific:
“Genocide means 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.”
It had other precedents, even before the rise of Nazism. The mass
deportations of Armenians from eastern Turkey to Syria, during the
first world war, constituted a genocide. While few in the West
understand it, Koreans see the campaign by Japan to wipe out their
culture, in the decades when it ruled over their peninsula,
similarly; Koreans were forced to take Japanese names at birth, and
were routinely massacred by their overlords. Japan is also accused of
genocidal crimes by the Chinese. Joseph Stalin committed genocide
when he induced a famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, resulting in millions
of dead. Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded him, said
Stalin would have sent all the Ukrainians to the gulag, but there
were too many of them.
Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan were not the only Axis powers to
engage in genocidal practices. Fascist Italy, although reluctant to
adopt Nazi anti-Jewish policies, sought the expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of Slovenes and Croats and their replacement by Italian
colonists in territories it occupied on the eastern Adriatic coast.
The threatened Slavs then joined the Tito Partisans en masse.
But the Ustasha regime in Croatia, a puppet state whose domain was
divided between Germans and Italians, was busy carrying out its own
murderous assault on the large Serb minority in Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina The result was an uprising in July 1941, about
which the Bosnian historian Enver Redzic, of Muslim origin, has
written, “The establishment of the Independent State of Croatia under
the protection of German and Italian occupying forces was accompanied
by systematic pogroms against the Serbian population throughout the
entire Croatian territory. Bosnia-Hercegovina was transformed into a
slaughterhouse in which unbridled hatred raged against Serbs. The
outbreak of rebellion could not have been prevented by any military
force or by the threat of wholesale extermination.”
Stalin imitated the Nazis during the second world war by liquidating
thousands of Polish officers and deporting entire nations from the
Caucasus, mainly Muslims – thus wiping out half of the Ingushes and
some 40 percent of the Chechens. This partially explains bad
Chechen-Russian relations today.

Political Charges
Large-scale slayings of Armenians, Koreans, Jews, Chinese, Slavs,
Caucasian Muslims, and others were immense, bloody undertakings that
deeply stained the 20th century. But the term “genocide” was, almost
from the time it was introduced, also abused for political purposes.
In 1951, American Communists, pushed by the Soviets to paint the
United States as a fascist regime, declared “We Charge Genocide!” in
a petition to the UN, alleging that denial of African-American civil
rights was equal in evil to Nazism. One would never have imagined,
reading such absurd rhetoric, that President Harry Truman, then in
office, had ordered the desegregation of the U.S. military. Truman’s
civil rights platform enraged the southern white leadership in the
Democratic party, leading to their separate “Dixiecrat” presidential
campaign in 1948. But the Soviets and their agents were hardly
sticklers for consistency in propaganda.
Still, the lesson was learned by “progressives” – “genocide” was a
word that could be thrown around at will. I distinctly remember a day
in 1983 in San Francisco when I heard a leftist mob, protesting U.S.
policy toward Nicaragua, happily chanting, in the merriest of voices,
“Ronald Reagan, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” The
upbeat, buoyant tone of the chorused allegation unintentionally
undermined its seriousness, and made the term “genocide” seem
ridiculously trivial.
Genocide in Mexico?
But genocide is not frivolous, and Mexican judge Julio Cesar Flores
reaffirmed its seriousness on July 24, when he refused to charge
former president Luis Echeverría Alvarez, who ruled Mexico from 1970
to 1976, with that crime.
Echeverría, or LEA as he was universally known, was a stalwart of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, which ran Mexico as a de
facto one-party state from 1928 to 2000. In truth, it would be absurd
to minimize the crimes of the PRI-ocracy, especially after it began
abandoning its populist and reforming legacy, with the election of
president Manuel Avila Camacho in 1940. By 1946, and the presidency
of Miguel Alemán Valdés – since 1934 Mexican presidential terms are
limited to six years, without the right of reelection – the party and
its leaders swam in corruption. Mexico’s élite benefited fabulously
from the country’s trade with the U.S. during the second world war.
Mexico’s poor remained poor, or came north across the border, legally
or illegally.
PRI rule was a kind of Sovietism without class ideology, although the
PRI’s claim to represent the “brown” indigenous masses of the country
also made it resemble fascism. The PRI bought off the entire leftist
intellectual class by providing them with government positions
requiring no work. The corruption of the intelligentsia was so
extensive that when, after of the horrific massacre of leftist
students in Tlaltelolco Plaza, in Mexico City in 1968, the poet
Octavio Paz resigned from his ambassadorship in India, few of his
peers believed he was serious. Paz was sincere in his protest, but
for other Mexican writers it was simply impossible to imagine life
without PRI patronage.
The PRI kept its grip on the working class through its system of
state labor unions, and on the peasants, consumers, and indigenous
groups through parallel “people’s” organizations, while also
maintaining rigid control of education and repression of the Catholic
church. The price of dissent in PRI-ocratic Mexico was steep.
Striking workers, discontented peasants, and rebellious indigenous
communities were all susceptible to the punishment meted out to the
student left in Tlaltelolco on the evening of October 2, 1968: the
murder of hundreds of demonstrators, whose bodies were removed and
buried secretly.
The next day the Mexican government daily Excelsior reported that
just after 6 p.m., the Plaza of the Three Cultures was lit up by two
flares, and gunfire “poured from all sides, from the top of a
building of the Unidad Tlaltelolco as well as from the street, where
military forces in light tanks and armoured vehicles fired machine
gun volleys almost without interruption… Three hundred tanks, assault
units, jeeps, and military trucks had surrounded the entire zone…
they permitted nobody to enter or leave unless they could satisfy a
rigorous identity check.”
The atrocity was ordered by then-president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and
coordinated by Echeverría, who served him as secretary of the
interior, with responsibility for the maintenance of internal order.
Indeed, Echeverría was the “tapado” or “hidden one,” the PRI-ocratic
successor personally chosen by Díaz Ordaz, whom he replaced two years
later. In 1971, Echeverría summoned gangs of thugs to attack student
leftists in the streets of Mexico City, leaving some dozens dead.
The charge of genocide, which current Mexican special prosecutor
Ignacio Carrillo sought to bring against Echeverría, was based on the
1971 events and drawn under a 1967 Mexican statute.
Nobody doubts the responsibility of Echeverría in either atrocity.
But the PRI itself asks if a genocide accusation would not represent
a form of political revenge by the post-2000 administration of
Vicente Fox. Fox is the leader of the National Action Party or PAN, a
Catholic movement that labored under political restrictions for many
years, and to which even many disfranchised leftists, who sprang from
the people and not the élite, turned for succor against the
PRI-ocracy. Fox is the first non-PRI chief executive in Mexico in
more than 70 years. (Most of his immediate predecessors are better
designated “thief executive,” like President Carlos Salinas, who
ruled from 1988 and 1994, and whose brother organized at least one
political assassination while he was in office. President Salinas
fled to Ireland, but eventually returned to Mexico.)
The greatest irony of Echeverría’s history is that even while he
spilled the blood of his fellow-citizens on the hot pavements of the
Mexican capital, he presented himself to the world as a
“progressive,” a friend of the Palestine Liberation Organization no
less than of Fidel Castro, whose government Mexico long supported as
evidence of its independence from its powerful northern neighbor.
When Salvador Allende’s socialist regime fell in Chile in 1973,
Echeverría took in hundreds of radical refugees from the South
American republic. Yet perhaps that was no irony at all, since most
leftist rulers – the kind-hearted Allende having been an exception –
have shown brutal yearnings, if not habits, in office.
But… genocide?
The Milosevic Comparison
Here is how the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for genocide in
Bosnia-Hercegovina read, at his trial before the International
Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague:

“COUNTS 1 and 2
“GENOCIDE OR COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE
“From on or about 1 March 1992 until 31 December 1995, Slobodan
MILOSEVIC, acting alone or in concert with other members of the joint
criminal enterprise, planned, instigated, ordered, committed or
otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation and execution
of the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Bosnian Muslim
national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such, in
territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…. The destruction of
these groups was effected by:
“a. The widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during and
after the take-over of territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…
In many of the territories, educated and leading members of these
groups were specifically targeted for execution, often in accordance
with pre-prepared lists. After the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995,
almost all captured Bosnian Muslim men and boys, altogether several
thousands, were executed at the places where they had been captured
or at sites to which they had been transported for execution.
“b. The killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina…
“c. The causing of serious bodily and mental harm to thousands of
Bosnian Muslims during their confinement in detention facilities
within Bosnia and Herzegovina… Members of these groups, during
their confinement in detention facilities and during their
interrogation at these locations, police stations and military
barracks, were continuously subjected to, or forced to witness,
inhumane acts, including murder, sexual violence, torture and
beatings.
“d. The detention of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina… under conditions of life
calculated to bring about the partial physical destruction of those
groups, namely through starvation, contaminated water, forced labour,
inadequate medical care and constant physical and psychological
assault.”
Milosevic has yet to be judged, and the opponents of U.S.
intervention to save the Bosnian Muslims, as well as Serb
nationalists and others who have made themselves his defenders for
reasons of their own, typically challenge the Hague indictment. But
the whole world knows what Milosevic did, and what genocide is. To
apply that word to the ordinary habits of corrupt Mexico under the
PRI is to devalue the term and dishonor both groups of victims – the
many millions of dead at the hands of Nazis, Stalinists, Serb
extremists and others, and the too-numerous corpses piled up by the
PRI-ocracy. Mexican judge Flores acted correctly in rejecting the
indictment of ex-president Echeverría.