Category: News

WEC 10 Pictures
by Greg Savage ([email protected])
Sherdog.com
May 26 2004
In front of a standing room only crowd, estimated to be nearly 5,000
strong, WEC 10 delivered an action-packed card with 12 fights including
two world title matches. Headlining the show at The Palace Casino
in Lemoore, California were two UFC veterans, Shonie Carter and Karo
Parysian, battling it our for Carter’s WEC welterweight title. Gilbert
Melendez and Olaf Alfonso took to the cage looking to claim the vacant
WEC lightweight strap as well. All in all it was another exciting
night of MMA action, something we all have come to expect from the WEC.
Karo Parisyan vs. Shonie Carter
Karo Parysian ate a left hand from Shonie Carter early in the first
round that looked to have stunned the young Armenian grappler. Little
did those in attendance know that would be the last effective offensive
output from the crafty Carter. Parysian dominated from start to finish
as he threw Carter around the cage at will and once it hit the mat
he continued his submission assault on Mr. International.
At one point Parysian threw Carter to the mat immediately landing
with a kimura. Carter hoped over, escaping the shoulder lock only to
find himself in an armbar. As he attempted to pull his arm out he
suddenly found himself in a triangle choke. That’s right folks, it
was a judo throw-kimura-armbar-triangle combo. Shonie should change
his name to Houdini after that performance, not too many fighters
would have survived that submission barrage.
After three rounds, Karo Parysian reasserted himself as a top
welterweight with a quality win over a quality opponent winning the
WEC welterweight title en route.

Meanwhile: An Arab battleground and playground
John Schidlovsky IHT
International Herald Tribune
May 26 2004
BEIRUT and playground
A traveler returning to this city for the first time in 29 years
feels an odd mix of nostalgia and disorientation. Lebanon’s civil
war ended 14 years ago, yet the scars remain highly visible, and the
causes apparently unresolved.
I first came to Beirut in July 1975 as a 27-year-old American
journalist intent on learning Arabic while soaking up the cosmopolitan
city’s sybaritic life-style. A job at the English-language Daily Star
newspaper covered my bills, including rent at a seaside apartment in
the heart of the city’s posh hotel district.
Within a few months, however, the hotel district had become the
site of fierce fighting between Christian Phalangist and leftist
Muslim militias. By the end of 1975, the Daily Star had suspended
publication, the war had spread to many areas of the city and I had
fled for the peace of Cairo. None of us guessed the war would last 15
years, take 100,000 lives and make Beirut a synonym for urban terror.
Now, leading a delegation of 13 U.S. news editors on a fact-finding
trip to Lebanon and Syria, I have returned to Beirut for the first
time. The city has been at peace since 1990 and is rebuilding its
downtown in a huge multi-million-dollar project spearheaded by Prime
Minister Rafiq Hariri. Beirut remains a dazzling city, perched between
the achingly blue Mediterranean and the snow-capped mountains to
the east, and it is tempting to imagine a scenario in which the city
regains its former allure as a dynamic regional center.
But Lebanon is a far different place than it was in 1975. A crushing
$35 billion public debt will hamper the economy for years. Foreign
investment is a shadow of what it used to be. Syria, which keeps
20,000 soldiers in the country, controls the country’s politics. On
a regional level the bloody conflict in Iraq and the deadlocked
Israeli-Palestinian issue provide little reason for optimism.
Between our meetings and appointments, I sneak away to revisit some
old haunts. My first stop is at my old apartment building, a four-story
structure that is still padlocked and pockmarked with the bullet holes
that I remember from 1975. A block away, the huge war-ravaged carcass
of the Holiday Inn casts its eerie shadow over the neighborhood. Both
of these damaged buildings – one tiny and anonymous, the other a
hulking symbol of a nation’s collective madness – may be renovated,
I’m told. If the price is right.
When Beirutis talk about war these days, it is about Iraq, not the
old civil war here. At the packed night clubs in the Monot district
and in the glittering new restaurants in Beirut’s rebuilt downtown,
the questions being debated are whether Lebanon’s experience provides
any lessons relevant to post-war Iraq.
Lebanon’s war ended with the 1990 Taif Agreement allocating political
power to the country’s various religious sects and communities. A ratio
of 50-50 in the country’s Parliament was fixed between Lebanons Muslims
and Christians, with proportions allocated for subgroups: Shiites,
Sunnis, Druze and Alawis, Maronites, Greek Orthodox and Catholics,
Armenian Orthodox and Catholics and others. In Iraq, the political
challenge is finding an appropriate system of sharing power among
rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish populations.
Is Lebanon’s formula a workable model for peaceful coexistence? The
peace has held for 14 years but some thoughtful Lebanese wonder if
the country isn’t more divided than ever. “Sure it could,” said a
filmmaker in his 20s when asked if sectarian violence could erupt
again. “Nothing’s really changed from the civil war.”
Lebanon is a small country and suffers the fate of many small countries
in having its fate determined by external players – in this case,
Syria, Israel, the Palestinians. And of course the United States.
The U.S. Embassy is far out of town on top of a heavily-fortified
citadel, its diplomats rarely venturing out without armed escorts
– a grim reminder of the bombing in 1983 that destroyed the former
embassy site and the subsequent bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks.
At the beautiful campus of the American University of Beirut, the
school’s president, John Waterbury, describes U.S. relations with
the Arab world as the worst he’s seen in 40 years.
But Beirutis are nothing if not resourceful, and some are managing to
cash in on the chill in U.S.-Arab relations. Wealthy Arabs from the
Gulf are staying away from the United States because of the Iraq war
and traveling here instead, and many are investing in expensive real
estate along Beirut’s rebuilt waterfront. A new condominium tower –
built directly in front of my little old apartment building, now cast
into permanent shadow – offers units at more than $2 million per floor.
John Schidlovsky is director of the Washington-based International
Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies.

US SUPPORTS UN RESOLUTIONS ON KARABAGH, AMBASSADOR SAYS
ArmenPress
May 26 2004
BAKU, MAY 26, ARMENPRESS: Reno Harnish, the US ambassador to
Azerbaijan, has reiterated today that his government is interested in
a soonest resolution of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict. In a meeting
with students of Baku State University, the ambassador said unresolved
conflicts remain a major problem not only for Azerbaijan but also
for the entire region, warning concurrently that the Armenian-Azeri
confrontation over Karabagh carries elements of resumption of
hostilities. He added, however, that the US government is working
hard to help the conflicting sides to reach a mutually accepted
peace formula.
Reno Harnish spoke also about resolution options, proposed by
international peace brokers, saying Armenia and Azerbaijan were close
to striking the peace deal in Key West talks in the USA, sponsored
by Collin Powel.
The ambassador also shrugged off fears, voiced by Azeri parliament
members that the US companies are preparing to invest in Nagorno
Karabagh. “The US has made no investments in Karabagh and does not
support trade with and investments in Karabagh,” he said and added:
“The US supports all four UN Resolutions on Nagorno Karabagh, which
call on Armenia to pull out its troops from occupied Azeri regions.”

CARDINAL OF LYON, ARCHBISHOP PHILIPPE BARBARIN ARRIVES IN ARMENIA ON MAY 27
ArmenPress
May 26 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 26, ARMENPRESS: At the invitation of Catholicos of All
Armenians, Karekin II, Cardinal of Lyon, Archbishop Philippe Barbarin
will arrive in Armenia on May 27.
Armenian Church headquarters said in the course of his 5- day visit
the Cardinal will attend holy places of Armenia – Khor Virap, Temple of
Geghard, the Shirak Diocese, the Cathedral of Gregory the Enlightener
in Yerevan, he will attend also a services at St. Etchmiadzin.
It is expected that the Cardinal will hold meetings with students
and schoolchildren at the Vazkenian Seminary in Sevan, Theological
Department at Yerevan State University, French University of Armenia,
and French schools in Yerevan and Gyumri. Theology students will have
a chance to attend Cardinal’s lecture on St. Irineos.
Archbishop Barbarin will also visit Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to
commemorate the memory of victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide,
Matenadaran Institute of Old Manuscripts and the Bible Community.

MEDICINE REGISTRATION FEES TO BE LEVELED
ArmenPress
May 26 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 26, ARMENPRESS: According to a health ministry-affiliated
agency for medications and medical technologies, foreign pharmaceutical
companies seeking registration of their products in Armenia will
pay as much fee for expert examination of their medicines as
local companies. Until now overseas companies have paid $1,500
for conducting expert examination of their medicines and local
companies-$400. The lower price for domestic companies was to help
boost home pharmaceutical production.
Under the new scheme, both local and foreign companies, will have to
pay $1,200. Leveling of fees is one of the requirements Armenia assumed
when joining the World Trade Organization. According to the agency,
around 4,000 medicines are registered in Armenia, of which 7.4 percent
are domestically produced. Armenia brings medicines mainly from US,
Great Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary and CIS countries.
Two of 11 Armenian companies, licensed to manufacture medicines,
Pharmatech and Arpimed have brought their products in compliance with
GMP requirements.

The Washington Post
May 26, 2004 Wednesday
Final Edition
A Former Superpower’s Hazardous Legacy;
Experts Cite Risks of Aging and Unsecured Arms Caches in Ex-Soviet
Republics
by Peter Baker, Washington Post Foreign Service
KUTAISI, Georgia — Just beyond the rusted wire fence with gaping
holes and the teenage guards wearing slippers, dozens of napalm bombs
lay in the tall grass.
Nearby were canisters of land mines stacked in the open air, rotting
crates of ammunition for antiaircraft batteries, ancient guided
missiles and piles upon piles of various types of bombs. Stacked in
a nearby warehouse were thousands of launchers for shoulder-fired
rockets.
Once a bristling outpost of a global superpower, the former Red Army
base near here has deteriorated into a weedy munitions junkyard,
one of hundreds of aging, relatively unprotected stockpiles scattered
throughout the former Soviet Union. While the United States has focused
on securing potential weapons of mass destruction in this part of the
world, some security experts increasingly say conventional arsenals
may be dangerously vulnerable to theft as well.
Millions of tons of armaments were left behind in depots like the
one in Kutaisi when the Russian military largely withdrew from the
14 former Soviet republics that became independent from Moscow more
than a decade ago. Some of these bases have since served as one-stop
shopping centers for black-market arms traders who have little trouble
sneaking in or bribing guards to let them pass.
“The situation in my opinion is extremely bad,” said Yura Krikheli,
deputy director of the Gamma Center, a Georgian government institute
charged with securing arms caches. “Georgia lies in a very dangerous
location. If we consider what countries we border, then anything can
happen. There’s a danger of terrorists coming and people stealing
things and taking them to conflict zones.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a
regional grouping of 55 countries, has cited “huge risks” associated
with the weapons stockpiles. Foreign ministers from the member
countries last December approved a plan to secure and destroy many
of those weapons to stop “illicit diversion and uncontrolled spread
especially to terrorist and criminal groups.”
The corroding bombs and ammunition also pose a growing risk to the
environment and to the communities near the stockpiles. An explosion
at an old Soviet arms depot in Ukraine this month, possibly caused
by a cigarette, touched off about two weeks of secondary blasts and
fires that were extinguished only last week. Five people were killed
and 10,000 were evacuated; more than 2,000 buildings were damaged
or destroyed.
In 2001, a series of depots containing artillery shells left over from
the Soviet war in Afghanistan exploded in Kazakhstan, prompting the
evacuation of 1,000 soldiers and residents from a six-mile danger zone.
The problem exists in Russia as well. In the eastern port city of
Vladivostok, two officers were killed and five soldiers were injured
last August when a munitions facility exploded. It was the fourth major
fire at Pacific Fleet arsenals since the demise of the Soviet Union,
despite politicians’ demands that ammunition warehouses be moved away
from residential areas. Similar explosions have occurred in the Samara,
Sverdlovsk and Buryatia regions in the last six years.
Here in Georgia, a warehouse at a military base exploded in 1996
and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people for a
week, according to military experts, who fear that it could happen
again. “If there’s an explosion, there’ll be a chain reaction of
explosions,” said Imanual Yakov an Israeli consultant hired by the
Georgians. “There’ll be unbelievable damage.”
It is the fear of terrorists and guerrillas, though, that has generated
a new drive by officials in this mountainous country to address the
long-neglected danger.
The Russians still maintain two bases in Georgian-administered
territory, but in the 1990s, as part of the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, the newly constituted Georgian army was given control of more
than 30 Soviet bases, spread across a country smaller than South
Carolina. Many contain thousands of tons of unneeded arms, which are
guarded by little more than fragile fences.
“It’s a legitimate issue because we inherited from the Soviets a
huge infrastructure,” Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said in an
interview. “Posts are spread all over Georgia. They need to be cleared
of mines.” Georgian officials said they had received virtually no
help from the Russians with these or other crucial tasks.
A recent tour of four bases in different parts of the country provided
a glimpse of the exposure. An arsenal in the capital, Tbilisi, was
surrounded by barbed wire that had been pulled apart at points so
intruders could easily come and go. At a base outside Tbilisi, the
fencing was so ineffective that cows, pigs, horses and mangy dogs
wandered in and out unimpeded.
The base near Kutaisi has no lights to illuminate its 31/2-mile
perimeter at night because it has no electricity from midnight to 7
a.m. But that’s better than another base in central Georgia that has
no electricity at all.
“It’s very difficult for the soldiers to defend this place,” said
Col. Tomas Gagua as he showed visitors around the Tbilisi base. “We
need lights, we need signalization.”
Those able to get in would find a smorgasbord of weaponry. Probably
most useful to terrorists or guerrillas would be the SA-7 Strela
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles or the similar Igla missiles.
In addition, S-5 57mm and S-8 80mm missiles, with a range of three
to five miles and normally fired from warplanes, can be modified into
shoulder-fired weapons, military officers said. Similar missiles were
launched from donkey carts at hotels and the Iraqi Oil Ministry in
Baghdad last year.
There are also thousands of land mines, burlap bags filled with
raw explosives, crates of ammunition, mortars and Alazan missiles.
“Everything that lies here should be worried about,” said Capt. Zaza
Khvedelidze, deputy commander at one base.
In many cases, there are no inventories, so if anything is taken it
might not be missed. It is unclear how much has been pilfered over
the years, but some officers said they suspected Georgian arms have
wound up in the hands of paramilitary forces in the separatist regions
of Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as the territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh, claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the
war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya.
“Everything’s possible. Nothing’s impossible,” said Maj. Paatu
Enukidze, chief of staff at the Tbilisi base. Soldiers earn just
$50 a month and sometimes have to wear civilian clothes because no
uniforms are available, so they are susceptible to payoffs. “For
$1,000 to $1,500,” said Enukidze, “you can buy anything.”
At the base near Kutaisi, army officials reported thwarting two
attempts to steal rocket parts and gunpowder in the last year,
one of them by local police officers. Maj. Guram Chinaladze, the
base commander, expressed confidence no one had gotten away with any
weapons. But he added, “All the weapons kept here are really dangerous,
and we’re really trying to secure them.”
At the request of the Georgian government, the OSCE last year began
a program to recycle and destroy stockpiles of munitions. So far,
officials reported that they have dismantled 13,000 rounds of artillery
and antiaircraft ammunition and by next month expect to have destroyed
nearly 500 air-dropped bombs, 47 ground-to-air missiles and another
2,000 antiaircraft shells.
But the OSCE estimated that the Georgians still have more than 1
million antiaircraft shells, among other ordnance. Officials are
seeking funds from OSCE member states to continue the disposal program
until next year.
The Georgians are also working with Imanual Yakov’s Israeli-Spanish
firm to improve security at their bases and destroy as many of the
arms caches as possible. But in an impoverished country, funds remain
short. Georgia’s national security adviser, Ivane Merabishvili, last
month sent Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a letter seeking
$6.5 million.
“They don’t have the money,” said Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli
diplomat lobbying in Washington for the Georgians’ request. “If a
power like the United States would come in, it could be taken care
of. Otherwise it’s going to come back and bite them.”

A lesson in democracy
by Igor Fedyukin, Vitaliy Ivanov, Anna Nikolayeva
SOURCE: Vedomosti, No 88, p.A2
RusData Dialine – Russian Press Digest
May 26, 2004 Wednesday
Pro-democracy group says Russia is headed towards authoritarianism
Russia and other former Soviet countries outside the Baltics lag far
behind most of Europe in political reforms, a pro-democracy nonprofit
group said in a report.
The European Union’s recent expansion to include 10 new members,
eight of them in Eastern Europe, highlights a “widening and worrisome
democracy gap,” said the report, issued Monday by Freedom House.
The group’s annual “Nations in Transit” report tracks progress in
six categories: electoral process; civil society; independent media;
governance; constitutional, legislative and judicial framework;
and corruption.
Russia’s ratings declined in the greatest number of categories (5
out of 6). Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine performed better
(4 out of 6 each). Out of the CIS countries, Turkmenistan received
lowest ratings, followed by Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan.
The report states that Russia “is moving further along the
authoritarian path.” In particular, President Putin “strives to
concentrate the power, leaving no space for viable civil society,
independent media or political opposition.”
The State Duma’s independent deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov told Vedomosti he
fully agrees with Freedom House: “Our democracy has indeed degraded
in all aspects, and it has been noted by all the international
organizations that monitor the development of democratic institutions.”
Such ratings “are as relevant to reality as the Pravda’s reports in
the sixties about the hard life of African Americans in the U.S.,”
believes Aleksey Volin, the Cabinet’s former deputy chief of staff.
“Even Armenia has been ranked higher than Russia, although there the
presidential elections and the state of opposition sparked serious
criticism of foreign observers,” Volin remarks. “And if Freedom
House believes that the status of Russian-speaking minorities in
the Baltic states corresponds to the international norms, then the
Pravda’s reports about life in the U.S. were absolutely true.”

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 26, 2004, Wednesday
CIS: QUANTITY, NOT QUALITY[]
SOURCE: Krasnaya Zvezda, May 22, 2004, p. 1
by Roman Streshnev
The latest meeting of CIS Council of Defense Ministers took place in
Yerevan under the chairmanship of Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov on
May 21.
Agenda of the meeting included over 20 issues ranging from
military-political to military to military-technical cooperation.
Special attention was paid to development and maintenance of combat
readiness of the CIS Untied Antiaircraft Defense System. Defense
ministers endorsed the Draft program of dealing with aerial forces
and means of the potential enemy. Among other things, the document
stipulates modernization and rearmament of antiaircraft defense
systems comprising the CIS Untied Antiaircraft Defense System.
Ministers also discussed the procedures and mechanisms of
implementation of the CIS Program of military-technical cooperation
and the plan of joint actions of tactical training in 2005. A large
joint exercise is to be run in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan this August.
Exercise West-Antiterror is to be run in Moldova in late June.
Counter-terrorism units of some CIS countries including Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan will participate in the exercise.
Participants of the meeting also discussed coordination of positions
in the struggle to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Defense ministers touched upon activities of Collective
Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict area and
methods of peacekeeper unit training. Some important decisions were
made with regard to flights of combat aviation, establishment of a
common system of communications, better cooperation in the sphere of
weather forecasts. Some organizational and personnel matters were
discussed as well.
Ivanov attended several tete-a-tete meetings with his CIS opposite
numbers. Specifically, he met with Defense Minister of Armenia Serzh
Sarkisjan before the meeting of CIS defense ministers. The condition
and prospects of military and military-technical cooperation between
Russia and Armenia were discussed at the talks. To be more precise,
Ivanov and Sarkisjan discussed deliveries of Russian military
hardware to Armenia. Ivanov emphasized that Armenia as a member of
the Organization of the CIS Collective Security Treaty was welcome to
buy Russian military hardware at domestic prices. Yerevan already
bought two IL-76 transports from Russia at this price. The agreement
was made to continue the training of Armenian officers at military
educational establishments in Russia.
The ministers also discussed the prospects of establishment of a
joined regional army group in the southern directorate on the basis
of the 102nd Russian Military Base in Armenia. Ivanov said that there
were no plans to reinforce the 102nd base but that it would get some
modern weapons and military hardware. Ivanov announced that an
emphasis would be made on quality, not quantity. “We view the base
seriously and want the base, an element of the Russian Army Group in
the Caucasus, to be properly equipped and capable of regular combat
training,” Ivanov said. “Generally speaking, there are no problems
with our military cooperation or any problems around the 102nd base
in Armenia…” Sarkisjan in his turn said that official Yerevan was
not even thinking in terms of demanding withdrawal of the Russian
troops from the territory of Armenia.
Defense ministers of Russia and Armenia signed a protocol when the
talks were over.
Ivanov dwelt on a great deal of issues at the press conference
afterwards. He denounced the rumors that Moscow intended to close the
military base in Tajikistan and withdraw its contingent from the
country altogether. Neither would there be a hasty withdrawal from
Georgia, he said. “Time and considerable money is needed to settle
the personnel and military hardware withdrawn from Georgia in
Russia,” Ivanov said. The upcoming Russian-Georgian are supposed to
set the date of withdrawal of the Russian bases from Georgia and
their status. Ivanov also denounced the rumors on the joint use of
the Gabala radar installation in Azerbaijan by the Russian and
American military. Asked for comments on the Russia – NATO relations,
Ivanov replied, “Russia participates in exercises together with NATO
only when it is convinced that this participation is useful. Our
approach is selective. We promote our national interests first and
foremost.”

ESTONIAN NEWSPAPERS OFFER DIFFERENT REASONS FOR BUSINESSMAN’S MURDER
Baltic News Service
May 26, 2004
TALLINN, May 26 — Citing unnamed sources, major dailies in Estonia
on Wednesday held out different versions of the reason behind the
assassination of the well-known Russian-speaking businessman Gennadi
Ever in Russia the day before.
According to the Postimees daily, the killing may be the revenge
of the Estonian underworld for Ever’s unfulfilled promises to local
crime lords.
Sources speaking to the newspaper on condition of anonymity suggested
that Ever’s talkativeness, especially among people considered to be
leaders of the Estonian underworld, may have sealed his fate.
“Ever enjoyed their attention, he wanted to look influential and
authoritative,” a police source said.
Police sources say one of the promises that Ever, a member of the
previous lineup of the Tallinn city council, gave but never fulfilled
was a promise to alleged underworld boss Harun Dikayev several years
ago to obtain all necessary permits to build a mosque in Tallinn.
There is no mosque in the Estonian capital to this day.
The other possible reason may be linked to Ever’s businesses in Russia,
Postimees reported.
As the newspaper was told, Ever’s partner in restaurant business
in Pskov was an ethnic Armenian businessman known as Rubik. Rubik
was active in Estonia in the early 1990s, unofficially handling the
bookkeeping for local underworld figure Vartan Sarkisyan, who was
murdered in 1994.
Rubik, who moved to Russia after the murder of Sarkisyan, was
assassinated in Pskov two months ago.
“It cannot be ruled out that Ever got into the way of the local
underworld,” a police source said.
Eesti Paevaleht meanwhile is linking Ever’s murder to the gunning
down of Estonian media businessman Vitali Haitov in front of his
Tallinn home in 2001. Sources told the newspaper that Ever may have
been killed by the underworld for being too open-mouthed and telling
his acquaintances how he ordered the murder of Haitov from Dikayev,
and ethnic Chechen. Having heard about this, Dikayev allegedly pledged
to have Ever killed, Eesti Paevaleht said.
The report said it was namely for this reason that Ever last fall
sold most of his business interests and real estate in Estonia and
headed for Russia.
“Since the trial of the murder of Vitali Haitov is still going on,
the topic remains on the agenda,” a police source who investigated
the murder of Haitov said.
Ever was killed with shots from a Kalashnikov assault rifle in the
courtyard of a house in the Russian regional capital Pskov Tuesday
morning.
The killer left the rifle equipped with a silencer on the scene of
crime and fled in a car which was later abandoned and set on fire.

La Nouvelle République du Centre Ouest
25 mai 2004
RUBRIQUE: Édition INDRE; LA CHATRE – ÉDUCATION; Page 8
Les lycéens et le court-métrage ;
Dans le cadre de l’opération ” Les lycées au cinéma “, les élèves
du lycée George-Sand ont accueilli Raymond Delvax, co-réalisateur,
avec Serge Avédikian, d’un court-métrage.
Dans le cadre de l’opération « Lycées au cinéma », les élèves des
classes de seconde et terminale des sections carrières sanitaires et
sociales, de seconde de comptabilité et secrétariat, de terminale de
bio-service et du bois, du lycée George-Sand, ont travaillé sur un
court métrage en noir et blanc pour en étudier la réalisation. Ils
l’avaient visionné au cinéma Lux en début de mois et accueillaient
mardi dernier l’auteur de « Ligne de vie », Raymond Delvax,
co-réalisateur avec Serge Avédikian.
C’est un court-métrage de douze minutes sorti en 2003 en France noir
et blanc/couleur produit par Les films de l’Arlequin.
Né en Arménie soviétique en 1955, Serge Avédikian est arrivé en
France lorsqu’il était adolescent. Passionné pour la littérature
et le théâtre, il fait le Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Paris
et connaît une belle carrière d’acteur. Il passe à la réalisation
en 1980. Il rencontre alors le nouvelliste et peintre belge Raymond
Delvax, avec qui il entreprend la réalisation de « Ligne de vie ».
Un dessin…
Ce court-métrage raconte la vie d’un homme âgé, qui trace sur un mur
un dessin lequel fait remontrer en lui des souvenirs douloureux de
l’époque où il était prisonnier d’un camp de concentration. Il se
souvient surtout d’un autre prisonnier qui ne cessait de dessiner en
cachette, seule preuve de vie et d’humanité dans ce camp de la mort.
Aidé par un soldat, ils furent découverts : le soldat fut pendu et
l’on coupa les mains de l’homme barbu. Ce dernier continua cependant
à dessiner. Il fut abattu froidement par les gardiens alors qu’il
traçait les traits d’une femme sur un mur, celui-là même que le vieil
homme regarde. La fresque, seule survivance du camp de concentration,
est devenue un mémorial.
Serge Avédikian a voulu parler du peuple arménien et le confronter
à son histoire. Les élèves ont parlé avec Raymond Delvax, peintre à
Bruxelles, de la réalisation de ce court-métrage. Il est l’auteur de
cette nouvelle et des peintures qui accompagnent le texte. Plus d’un
millier de dessins a été nécessaire, réalisés par ce peintre belge,
en noir et blanc, parfois rehaussé de gouache, pour ce court-métrage.
Une face du cinéma que les élèves ne connaissaient pas et que le
peintre belge a expliqué par son côté littéraire et pictural.
GRAPHIQUE: Image: Raymond Delvax a présenté aux élèves quelques-uns
des dessins qui ont servi au court-métrage.