Category: News

COMIC ACTRESS ANDREA MARTIN TAKES ON TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’S ‘ROSE TATTOO’
By Maureen Dezell, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe
May 14, 2004, Friday ,THIRD EDITION
Andrea Martin pauses to straighten her lipstick and tousle her hair
in a mirror outside the Huntington Theatre Company rehearsal room.
Stepping inside, she slips into a purple sateen robe and talks
animatedly about playwrights, political leaders, and how much coffee
is on hand for the Saturday-morning rehearsal before curling up in
character on a pink velvet couch.
Martin moves languidly in and out of a series of poses, smiling
sweetly, scowling with grief, then training a seductive gaze on a
camera as she assumes the role of Serafina delle Rose, the exotic
flower who blooms at the center of Tennessee Williams’s play “The
Rose Tattoo.”
Known for comic roles that go as far back as “SCTV,” right up to
her recent turn as the cheerily demented Mrs. Siezmagraff in the
Huntington’s 2001 production of “Betty’s Summer Vacation,” she’s not
the first actress many would think of for a Williams heroine.
Martin says she pondered that fact herself, until she realized that
Serafina is a singular figure in an unusual play. Unlike the Williams
heroines Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” or Cathy in
“Suddenly, Last Summer,” Serafina is stunned – but not destroyed –
when tragedy strikes. She withers but reblooms in “The Rose Tattoo,”
a sprawling tragicomedy that has been called the playwright’s love
poem to the world, and the only Williams play that ends happily. It
opens in previews at the Huntington tonight.
Director Nicholas Martin (no relation) who oversaw “Betty’s Summer
Vacation” and is helming “Rose Tattoo,” harbors no concerns about
Andrea Martin’s first foray into Williams’s work. Indeed, he considers
her perfect for the part – and the play as he perceives it.
The smoldering Italian actress Anna Magnani was Williams’s inspiration
for Serafina, and Magnani immortalized the role when she starred
opposite Burt Lancaster in the 1955 film version.
The black-and-white movie was brooding and naturalistic, its emotions
serious and dark, says the director. “It translated the story Williams
told, without the poetry and heightened theatricality of what he
wrote for the stage,” Martin contends.
Martin hopes to re-create what he thinks Williams wanted: a Serafina
who is “passionate, dramatic – and funny.”
Just like Andrea Martin herself, he says.
Not many people realize just what a range the actress has, her director
points out.
An Emerson College graduate, Martin launched her life in the theater in
a legendary production of “Godspell” in Toronto, where she costarred
with Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, and other Toronto-based performers
she would work with on “SCTV.”
Martin earned a slew of nominations and two Emmy awards in the late
1970s for skits she wrote for “SCTV.” She also created such signature
characters as the leopard-coated TV station manager Edith Prickley,
who snorts at her own jokes.
As “SCTV” wrapped up, Martin won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in
“My Favorite Year.” She has worked consistently in “straight” plays,
such as “Lips Together/ Teeth Apart,” opposite Nathan Lane, and at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival, where Nicholas Martin directed her in
“The Matchmaker” and “The Royal Family.”
Movie audiences discovered her in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” though
Martin also had small, vivid roles in “Wag the Dog” and “Hedwig and
the Angry Inch.” In addition, she has worked regularly in television
for two decades.
Martin researched, wrote, and performed a one-woman show, “Nude,
Totally Nude,” an autobiographical piece in which she explored her
Armenian heritage, her mother’s alcoholism, her own experiences as
a divorced single mother – and what it is like to be a middle-age
woman who is best known for being funny.
A plum role in Christopher Durang’s “Betty’s Summer Vacation” brought
her to the Huntington stage to work with her close friend and frequent
collaborator Nicholas Martin. Before the final curtain went down
on the play, the Martins promised to work together again on a piece
that would showcase the actress’s rich range of talents. But first
she went exploring.
To the surprise of her friends and colleagues, she took on the role
of Aunt Eller in Trevor Nunn’s revival of “Oklahoma!” Months after
romping through Durang’s hilarious satire, Martin was on Broadway,
spinning butter on a prairie.
“I really believed that if I could play that character, who is grounded
in the earth and the history of the United States – not the kind
of role I usually play – it would help me change the perception out
there and my own perception of what I can accomplish as a performer,”
she says. “And that’s what it did.”
Martin was nominated for a Tony for Aunt Eller. The role, along
with her appearance as Aunt Voula in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,”
significantly raised her public profile. More important, says Martin,
her success in “Oklahoma!” expanded her sense of possibility.
She’s ready, she says, to move beyond the realm of wise aunts and
enter the world of Serafina, one of the most passionate wives, mothers,
and lovers in modern American drama.
Set in an enclave of Italian immigrants on an island off the Gulf
Coast, “The Rose Tattoo” is dedicated to the playwright’s longtime
lover, Frank Merlo, an Italian-American who introduced Williams to
his ancestral home in Sicily, where the writer fell in love with the
place and its people.
Explains Martin: “He transplanted the characters, the sights and
sounds – the music, the folk magic, the passion – to this island near
New Orleans, and he brings it to life in the love story of Serafina.”
Serafina is the local seamstress who sews modern fashions for her
aspiring neighbors in her home. She lives and works surrounded by
talismans of romance, religion, and the proud tradition of the old
country, waiting eagerly each day for her handsome husband to return
from work and share an evening of very contemporary unbridled passion.
When he dies unexpecedly, she cloisters herself in a cottage with his
ashes. Only when her beautiful teenage daughter threatens to leave
is Serafina’s door thrown open to unwelcome visitors – including a
young man named Alvaro, who reminds Serafina of her husband.
It’s a part that calls on a range of experiences and emotions Martin
hasn’t often shown in one place.
“Andrea possesses a comic genius combined with a real acting ability
that you rarely find in someone that funny,” her director says. “I
think Williams might have used Andrea as a model for Serafina if he
had written the play for a later generation.”
Maureen Dezell can be reached [email protected].

Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2004 Friday
Home Edition
MOVIE REVIEW;
Deeply personal in Glendale
by Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer
Vahe Babaian’s “After Freedom” (Monday at 7 p.m. and Wednesday at 2
p.m.) is a “Mean Streets” set in the prosperous boulevards of
Glendale, which has become home to a large Armenian community.
Michael Abcarian (Mic Tomasi) is the conflicted central figure in
this taut, well-wrought drama set in a tradition-minded ethnic
community in which loyalties can be as negative as they are positive.
At 30ish, he feels increasingly obligated to care for his widowed
father, Leon (Greg Satamian), who years ago gave up a good job with
British Airways in Soviet Armenia so his children could grow up in a
free country.
Unfortunately, Leon has managed only to go from one menial job to
another, and Michael is getting nowhere as an assistant supermarket
manager because one of his pals, Mato (Ioannis Bogris), keeps
pilfering. Worse, Michael and Mato are in the thrall of Avo (Shant
Benjamin), a cynically manipulative older guy whose criminal impulses
are escalating.
Shot in a beautifully modulated black and white by Gary Meek, “After
Freedom” is a deeply personal film that is also a mature, assured
work rich in telling details and shot through with humor to offset
its serious concerns. Tomasi’s Michael is a handsome, personable man
in a longtime relationship with Sophie Chahinian’s lovely, confident
Ana. But his deep bonding with his pals and above all his overweening
sense of responsibility to his uncomplaining and kindly father could
cost him Ana, who recognizes his need to grow up and become
independent.
The give and take between all the people in this film is essentially
well-meaning, and Babaian has clear affection for everyone, even the
hot-headed Avo, who only wants to help his pals get ahead even if it
means increasingly involving them in shady deals. As Avo, a man who
has missed his big chance and knows it, Benjamin energizes the entire
film, which is especially crucial because Michael’s predicament,
although made sympathetic by Tomasi, is his passivity.
Visually, “After Freedom” offers an unexpectedly lyrical view of
Glendale, and Babaian creates a sense of an ethnic community and its
tensions between tradition and change without making it seem exotic.
Indeed, “After Freedom” is an inviting film in which any audience
would be likely to recognize itself.
*
‘After Freedom’
MPAA rating: Unrated
Times guidelines: Adult themes, some violence, language, sensuality
and brief nudity
Mic Tomasi…Michael Abcarian
Sophie Chahinian…Ana
Greg Satamian…Leon Abcarian
Shant Benjamin…Avo
Ioannis Bogris…Mato
A Vitagraph Films release of an After Freedom, L. P. presentation.
Writer-director Vahe Babaian. Producers Eric Sherman, Babaian.
Executive producers Sophie Chahinian, Berj Benjamin, Ken Craig.
Cinematographer Gary Meek. Editors Howard Heard, Tom Ohanian. Music
Alan Derian. Art director Amanda Rounsaville. Costumes Elaine
Montalvo. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.
Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd,. Beverly Hills,
(310) 274-6869; and the Glendale Cinemas, 501 N. Orange St.,
Glendale, (818) 549-9950.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russia, Armenia hail bilateral economic cooperation
Xinhua, China
May 14, 2004 Friday
URL:
MOSCOW, May 14 (Xinhua) — Development of trade and economic relations
were high on the agenda of the meeting between Russian President
Vladimir Putin and his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharyan here
on Friday.
Putin said the bilateral trade turnover increased by more than 34
percent in 2003, “a record indicator that we are proceeding in the
right direction,” Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Russia and Armenia have many opportunities to work better and more
effectively, Putin said during the meeting at his Novo- Ogaryovo
residence outside Moscow.
Kocharyan noted that under a major agreement signed last year, Armenia
repays its debt by giving part of its property to Russia. This gave
an impetus to the development of bilateral economic cooperation.
The true economic cooperation came with the “big deal” of debt-
for-property, Kocharyan said, expressing his utmost confidence that
the two sides have started and are moving together on all issues.
Kocharyan was the first visiting foreign guest congratulating Putin
on his second four-year presidency after the May 7 inauguration.

Xinhua, China
May 14, 2004 Friday
Religious symposium held in Turkey calls for peace, XINHUA
URL:
ANKARA, May 14 (Xinhua) — Turkey’s religious leaders held a seminar
in the southeastern city of Mardin to call for peace and tolerance,
Turkish private NTV reported Friday. The seminar, organized by the
Turkish Intercultural Dialogue Platform, brought together
representatives of the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Christian, Muslim and
Jewish faiths to discuss issues relating to religions and peace, the
report said.
Not only similarities but also differences among cultures should be
underlined and everybody should protect all cultures, said Ishak
Haleva, the chief Rabbi in Turkey.
Mesrob Mutafian, the Armenian Patriarch in Turkey, sent a message to
the symposium in which he expressed his wish that the meeting would
contribute to efforts to end wars and overcome violence. Apart from
religious representatives from Turkey, the seminar was attended by 40
guests from 17 countries.

Armenia and Iran agree to build US$220 million gas pipeline
Associated Press Worldstream
May 13, 2004 Thursday
YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenia and Iran on Thursday signed an agreement
to build a $220 pipeline that would bring Iranian gas to Armenia in
exchange for electrical power supplies to Iran.
The pipeline, expected to be launched by 2007, will cost Iran up to
US$120 million and Armenia around US$100 million.
The long-awaited signing of the agreement comes after 12 years of
negotiations between the two neighbors.
The project had met resistance on the part of Russia and the United
States. As the world’s leading gas exporter, Russia wanted to preserve
its influence in the region. The United States was uncomfortable with
Armenia’s contacts with Iran.
The building of the Iranian side of the pipeline will by financed by
the country’s national gas company, while companies have yet to bid
for the construction of the Armenian side.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azerbaijani officer confesses to premeditated murder of Armenian classmate
by PABLO GORONDI; Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Worldstream
May 13, 2004 Thursday
BUDAPEST, Hungary — An Azerbaijani officer who hacked to death an
Armenian classmate during a NATO course has confessed to the murder
and said he planned it as revenge for a 1992 Armenian assault of
Azerbaijanis, police said Thursday.
Lt. Ramil Safarov of Azerbaijan on Feb. 19 used an ax to hack Lt.
Gurgen Markarian of Armenia to death in a dormitory that was being
used by participants of a NATO Partnership for Peace English language
course in Budapest.
At the time, police said the murder had been committed with “unusual
cruelty” and that Safarov had tried, unsuccessfully, to enter the
room of another Armenian with the intention of killing him.
A police statement released Thursday said Safarov had confessed to
committing the murder and claimed that the long-standing conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia was at the root of his act.
“There was no concrete grievance between the killer and the victim
before the (murder),” the Budapest police said.
Safarov initially had planned to kill an Armenian on Feb. 26 –
the anniversary of a 1992 Armenian assault which killed dozens of
Azerbaijanis in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan – even
before coming to Hungary for the NATO course, police said.
He told police he later decided to commit the crime ahead of the
anniversary date because “the presence of the Armenians was getting
on my nerves.”
Police investigators have recommended that the Budapest Attorney
General’s office charge Safarov with premeditated murder carried out
with unusual cruelty and with vile motives and aims.
The NATO program attended by the two men is aimed at increasing
cooperation between neutral and former Soviet bloc nations and NATO
in peacekeeping and other areas.
Relations between the two former Soviet Republics remain tense after
Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan’s army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s.
Despite a 1994 cease-fire ending the war that killed 30,000 people
and left about 1 million homeless, no agreement has been reached on
the territory’s final status.

Houston Press, TX
May 14 2004
The End Game
A widow just wanted her home. But that was asking too much.
BY SARAH FENSKE
Strangers are inside Rose Sanjakian’s A-frame house in West
University, touching her belongings. They paw through boxes of
scarves and hankies, examine the purses strewn across the bed and
scavenge within the closets. Always a lady, Sanjakian owned more than
two dozen pairs of prim white gloves, now available at the low price
of $2 each.
The house is packed with items. There’s an old Victrola, two
television sets and a dressmaker’s dummy. Painted china lines the
cupboards, piles up in the drawers and covers the table. A stack of
Better Homes & Gardens from the 1970s is wedged between an endless
supply of tchotchkes and knickknacks on the floor.
The strangers are mostly unimpressed. “Where’s the good stuff?” one
man asks plaintively. Another eyes the house. “It’s really very
solidly built,” she says.
Nearly 40 years after Sanjakian and her husband bought it, the house
is for sale. So is the vanity set with its hand-painted pink roses,
the big bottle of Jean Naté bath splash, the box of Depends.
Sanjakian kept things obsessively, hoarding them until they filled
every room. But she no longer lives here, and soon, none of this will
be hers. First the estate sale, then the house sale; her life is
winding down just like that old Victrola.
——————————————————————————–
The final chapter of Rose Sanjakian’s life started with her husband’s
death nearly three years ago. A Turkish-born Armenian, Sanjakian told
people she’d grown up in an Istanbul orphanage and come to the United
States as a 12-year-old bride. No one knows if that’s precisely true
or exactly how old she is: Various forms of ID put her age anywhere
from 69 to 97.
Once she was in America, her first husband died, and so did a
stepdaughter. Sanjakian was living in Michigan when she met Mike
Sanjakian, another Armenian. They came to Texas together.
Hawking raffle tickets, Sanjakian organized the effort to purchase
land for Houston’s St. Kevork Armenian Church. “She was a social
butterfly,” says Rose Berberian, her goddaughter. “They were always
having parties in their home.”
The couple had plenty of godchildren, but no children of their own.
And Rose Sanjakian left the church in a huff, Berberian says. When
98-year-old Mike died in August 2001, she was alone.
“He had taken care of everything,” Berberian says. “She had no clue.”
The home, already one of the oldest on a gentrifying block of Belmont
Street, suddenly seemed to sag. The City of West University sent
Sanjakian a letter ordering her to repair the ramshackle garage. (She
responded by calling the city’s code-enforcement officer and
shrieking into his voice mail.) She couldn’t remember to pay her
bills, and she began to pester her neighbors. Her gas had been shut
off, she told them. Could she use theirs? She’d shuffle over to
Randalls and struggle with paying by check; sometimes she’d sign her
name, then ask a stranger to fill in the rest.
Last September, an anonymous letter arrived at Harris County Probate
Court. “She stops total strangers, walking by her house, to attend to
small chores such as changing a light bulb, fixing a light socket,
looking for batteries, chasing her pet parakeet, or taking her to the
bank,” the letter says. “Yet she will not allow people of authority
access to her home, depending on the time of day. Her garage roof
collapsed on top of her car, several years ago, yet she continues to
go into the garage to wash clothes, ignoring all warnings pertaining
to safety.”
A court investigator confirmed the information, and a physician
concluded that Sanjakian suffered from “mild dementia” and paranoia.
Her home was dirty, her clothes torn and her judgment impaired, he
wrote. Appointed by the court, attorney Suzanne Kornblit found that
Sanjakian had no relatives, but had two friends willing to serve as
her guardian: her goddaughter, Berberian, and a neighbor, Jackie
Green.
Both say they wanted to keep Sanjakian out of a nursing home. “She
wanted to die in that house,” says Green, a special education
teacher. “She told me she’d promised her husband not to trust
anybody, because they’d get her out of the house.”
It meant even more to Berberian. Half Armenian, she holds that
community’s belief that it should take care of its own. “Since she
didn’t have any grandchildren of her own, I thought she could live
with me,” she says.
But Berberian was working as a purchasing manager and finishing
courses for her MBA; she hardly had enough time to take on the
administrative responsibilities, much less care for Sanjakian full
time. She thought she could hire nurses.
Probate Judge Mike Wood wanted something more concrete. He rejected
pleas from Berberian and her parents and appointed Green as the
guardian.
To Berberian, it seemed dreadfully unfair. She’d known Sanjakian all
her life. “I’m the closest thing she has to family — and they give
it to a stranger? A neighbor!” She tearfully blames herself for not
acting sooner and not applying for guardianship herself before a
neighbor got involved.
Green says she didn’t even want the guardianship. She applied only
because she worried Berberian was too “flaky” and she didn’t want to
have her neighbor’s affairs managed by an impersonal lawyer. Wood’s
decision surprised her, she claims, and the Berberians’ anger scared
her. “I’m like, ‘Oh, great, not only do I have to do this, but I have
to deal with these mad people who didn’t.’ ”
Green may be painting herself as more of a novice than she is. Her
husband, Steve, is an estate attorney. And, as Green admits, she
wrote the original letter to the court that started the process.
Judge Wood told the women that he thought Green would be better
equipped to make the tough decision: to force Sanjakian into an
assisted care facility. He even chose the place, Colonial Oaks at
Braeswood. (Kornblit says the judge only suggested that facility;
Green and Berberian say they believed Wood ordered it.)
Getting Sanjakian there wouldn’t be easy. She had refused to come to
the hearing and refused to give Berberian power of attorney — had
she done either, she might have been spared from Wood’s decision. Now
she was livid about being forced from her home. She told Green she
wasn’t leaving. If they came to get her, she vowed, she’d come out
shooting.
When deputy constables arrived on December 30 to move her, Sanjakian
bit them and pulled their hair. They had to use handcuffs to take her
away.
Today, in Sanjakian’s room at Colonial Oaks, an aide watches as she
naps and entertains visitors. Her room is tidy, if impersonal. The
framed black-and-white photos of Sanjakian and her late husband are
the only real reminder of her earlier life.
When Berberian comes to visit, Sanjakian kisses her and proudly tells
the assistant, “That’s my goddaughter.” A tiny woman with a long
white braid and sunken cheeks, she looks nothing like the robust
image framed on the wall. Her Turkish accent is thick; her voice,
high and quavering.
She gets her hair washed every other day, which she loves. The staff
is kind, she says.
But she wants to go home.
“That Jackie wants to sell my house,” Sanjakian announces angrily.
“She is a bad girl. If she comes in here, I will call the police.”
Green knows her former neighbor blames her. Sanjakian refuses to see
her, Green admits, and has told her to go to hell. “She says she’s
going to get out in a year and sue me,” she says. “But the doctors
say she doesn’t have a year to live.”
Unknown to Sanjakian, her things were sold last month: her dresses,
her husband’s ties, her perfume and china.
Everything that didn’t sell was packed up and taken away, to be given
to charity or rummaged at later sales. Nobody has need for her reams
of colorful scarves, or records of Armenian hymns, or dozens of pairs
of white gloves.
Her house will be sold soon, too, and likely demolished. The county
values the lot at $500,000; the old house is more liability than
asset in such a tony neighborhood.
She’s a rich woman. Although she worried constantly about money, she
had some $200,000 in the bank, according to court records. While
Green and Berberian each suggest that money is the only thing the
other cares about, neither will get any of Sanjakian’s funds. There’s
enough to pay for her care at Colonial Oaks and attorney Kornblit,
who has earned $8,200 to date and continues to handle the widow’s
legal affairs.
After she dies, whatever funds are left will be sent to an Armenian
hospital in Istanbul. And that, at least, is what she wanted.
Sanjakian was hardly organized, but she had her own unique filing
system.
Just before the estate sale, Green found her will, tucked carefully
into her box of Depends.

Cyprus’ Maronite community in crisis
Once-thriving presence began decline after turkish invasion
By Iason Athanasiadis
Special to The Daily Star
Saturday, May 15, 2004
KORMAKITIS, Northern Cyprus: Aside from the occasional front door
propped open, there are few traces of life among the shuttered windows,
sun-bleached buildings and silent footpaths of Kormakitis.
This spread-out village – most of whose residents are in their 70s
– is buffeted by the sea on one side and enclosed by a verdant,
yellow-green plain on the other. Once the bustling heart of the
Maronite community, Kormakitis today has been stripped to a ghost
town of less than 900 souls by a generation of emigrants to the more
prosperous Greek Cypriot South.
“The policy, originally, was to get rid of (the Maronites),” said
Marios Mavrides, a Maronite historian of the community who lives and
works in Nicosia but who every week makes the 20-minute car journey
to the land where he was born.
“Now that they (the Turkish Cypriot government) realize that eventually
they will die off, they leave them in peace.”
In 1974, thousands of Maronites streamed across the Green Line leaving
their homeland for an uncertain future in the Greek Christian south
after Turkish troops invaded northern Cyprus. The intervention followed
a decade of ethnic strife between the Greek and Turkish communities
and a coup aimed at bringing about unification with Greece.
“1974 turned the whole community into refugees,” said Antonis Hajji
Roussos, the Maronite parliamentary representative. “Gradually,
everyone left and only the old people remained.”
The Maronites left behind them ancestral villages such as Agia Marina,
Asomatos, Carpasia and Kormakitis. The latter is the only remaining
place on Cyprus where Cypriot Maronite Arabic – a dialect infused
with a melange of Turkish, Italian and Greek words – is still spoken.
The dialect’s long isolation from the main currents of the Arab
world has caused it to develop on a track of its own, to such an
extent that it is practically unintelligible to native speakers of
Arabic. Linguists are puzzled by the characteristics it shares with
the medieval Arabic dialect spoken in Baghdad by the Muslims and Jews,
even as they point to evidence that it has reached an advanced stage
of language death.
Today, the drive to the Maronite heartland resembles a plunge into
dereliction. Abandoned villages are fenced off by coils of rusty barbed
wire and watchtowers – embedded at regular intervals – delineate
out-of-bounds military zones. Military vehicles parked in rows in
village squares and derelict church spires peeping above buildings
subjected to 30 years of neglect complete the surreal panorama of a
militarized rural idyll. Of the remaining Maronite villages, two are
closed military zones whose residents need a pass to enter and exit.
“Those who had land stayed behind while the others left,” said
Mavrides. “But as it became clear there would not be a quick solution
and the Turkish sector held few jobs, everyone went.”
The enclaved community of mostly elderly Maronites left behind depended
for many years on supplies of food and medicine from the Red Cross
and the United Nations. Although the biweekly deliveries continue to
this day, they are increasingly seen as being a propaganda tool for
the Greek Cypriot government.
At a time when supplies are no longer really needed, Maronites in
the South say the aid has become a political tool used to point an
accusatory finger at the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic
of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) for its neglect of the community.
Last year’s surprise opening of the Green Line that divides Turkish
and Greek Cypriots has punctuated a tiny revival in the trend toward
decline. On the weekends, visitors come up from the prosperous Greek
south, patronize the cafes and tavernas that remain shut during the
week, and inject some cash into the wilting local economy.
“The biggest shock for us was when the border reopened after 30 years,”
said Mavrides. “We hadn’t just left behind us a house but a whole
way of life.”
For Maronites trekking back to their childhood idylls for the first
time in 30 years, facing the Turkish Cypriot families now inhabiting
their houses was a potentially traumatic experience. But despite the
language barrier and mutual distrust, most Maronites had positive
experiences of meeting those who now inhabit their houses.
But opening the border, even as a settlement of the Cyprus imbroglio
remains elusive, could just spell the end for the Maronite heartland
of the North. Already, the Maronites’ mountain settlements and
monasteries are devoid of inhabitants, the last of which cluster in
villages on the plain.
While the community of Kormakitis has somewhat revived and some
middle-aged couples have moved back in the wake of the Green Line
opening, it is a far cry from the 2,000 Maronites who lived there on
the eve of the invasion. Meanwhile, the trend toward leaving the
economically-strapped North is set to continue following the entry
of Cyprus into the EU.
Once in the South, Maronites are in danger of losing their identity
as many marry Greek Cypriots and assimilate, swapping their unique
dialect and customs for the Greek Orthodox majority’s.
“There was always a suspicion of us by the Greek Orthodox but now
they’ve got over this because of mixed marriages and the growing
assimilation,” said Mavrides, who has written a paper on the Maronite
community titled, “A Community in Crisis.”
“Being Maronite can actually be negative. If you apply for a position,
you might not get it. If you run for Parliament, there’s no reason
to be different from the people who might vote for you.”
Today, the dusty lanes of Kormakitis are a steadily ossifying cultural
repository of an ancient, perhaps doomed, community. A new generation
of Maronites in the South prefer the hip cafes of Greek Nicosia over
the church and see no need to hang on to a religious identity that
sets them apart from the mainstream.
Ties with Lebanon are weak and mostly confined to cultural and
religious activities. While Maronite communities thrive in Brazil and
the United States, the last members of one of the most historical of
diasporas appear to have entered the final straight.
“Unfortunately, Cyprus was a closed shop to the Lebanese,” said Hajji
Roussos in a reference to the exchange control restrictions imposed by
the Greek Cypriot government in the 1970s that discouraged foreigners
from buying land or doing business on the island.
Aside from a handful of mixed marriages, the Christian and Muslim
Lebanese who moved to Cyprus during the civil war years had little
interaction with the indigenous Maronites.
“Many of the Maronite exiles attended churches on Cyprus and met local
Maronites,” said Mavrides. “But political relations with Lebanon are
low and there were only ever 15 to 20 cases of Maronites from Cyprus
marrying Lebanese Maronites.”
A short history of Cyprus’ Maronites
Originally from Syria, today’s Maronite community in Cyprus was shaped
by four successive waves of emigration that started in the 8th century
and lasted over six centuries.
With the Islamic conquests radiating outward from the Arab
Peninsula, the Maronites abandoned Syria’s lush coastal plains for
the inaccessible mountains of contemporary Lebanon.Some went further
afield settling on Cyprus.
In 938, the destruction of St Maron’s Monastery on the Orontes River
prompted a second wave of refugees. Another three centuries passed
and Crusader king Guy de Lusignan purchased Cyprus from Richard the
Lionheart, leading the former to import hardy Maronite warriors to
the island to protect its coastlines.
The last wave of emigration came 100 years later when Acre, last
outpost of the Crusader edifice, collapsed and the traditionally
pro-Crusader Maronites fled Muslim reprisals.
The martial Maronites – fierce mountaineers whose tradition recounts
how they forced two Umayyad caliphs to pay them tribute in the first
decades of Islam’s expansion – have maintained an awkward coexistence
with their Muslim neighbors. Often, they allied themselves with
outside, non-Muslim powers like the Crusaders; France during the
Mandate period; and Israel during the Lebanese civil war. On Cyprus,
the Maronites were promoted by the British whose policy was to
support minorities.
The influx of Maronites who arrived on the island in the 12th century
were initially privileged as they based themselves in the mountains and
guarded the coastal areas of the Crusader kingdom against invasion. Up
to 32,000 Maronites were killed during the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus
in 1570. At the battle of Famagusta alone, 8,000 died in a bid to
stop the Turks from breaching the city walls. Only 812 remained on
the island.
The Ottomans punished them for their insubordination by appointing the
Greek Orthodox religious majority the main Christian representatives
on the island and banning Catholicism. This fomented conflict, for
the indigenous Orthodox community resented the Maronites, thinking
them deviants.
Guita Hourani, chairwoman of the Maronite Research Institute, writes
that in Cyprus “the Maronites faced ‘Latinization,’ Greek schismatic
abuse, and ‘Islamization.’ … Their life on the island was filled
with sorrow and pain.
“However, they maintained a presence and persisted in their faith,
although some succumbed due to persecution. They had their own clergy
and bishops, but effectively they were under the ecclesiastical
domination of either the Greeks or the Latins.”
Ottoman rule was harsh for the Maronites. They were victimized both
by the Muslim Turks for their opposition to the Ottoman invasion and
by their Orthodox coreligionists. Fourteen Maronite villages became
extinct during the three centuries of Ottoman domination as waves of
Maronites escaped back to the Sham region or moved westward to Malta.
Hourani writes that the Ottomans imposed increasingly high taxation
on the Maronites, accused them of treason, ravaged their harvests and
abducted their wives and children into slavery. As a consequence,
the Maronite clergy relocated to present-day Lebanon, where they
remain to this day.
After the British replaced the Ottomans on Cyprus, they promoted
the Maronite community, as well as other minorities such as the
Armenians and Turkish Cypriots. But independence for Cyprus in 1960
was followed by ethnic clashes between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots
The Turkish invasion of 1974 effectively dealt a death blow to the
Maronite community and dispersed it.
While persecution is no longer a threat, Maronites today face their
greatest threat in the form of assimilation into the homogeneous,
Greek Orthodox Christian majority in the south.

Armenia, Ukraine to cooperate in European organizations
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
13 May 04
Presenter The strengthening of economic cooperation has broken the
ice in Armenian-Ukrainian relations. This was the main success and
achievement of Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan’s meetings
in Kiev.
The Ukrainian side also accepted Yerevan’s proposal on sending Armenian
cargoes from the port of Ilichevsk to Poti Georgia , not to Batumi
Ajaria .
Correspondent over video of meetings During its three-day official
visit to Ukraine, the delegation led by Prime Minister Andranik
Markaryan met Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych and Speaker of Ukraine’s Supreme Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn. The
third session of the Armenian-Ukrainian economic commission started
its work in the Ukrainian capital and the main issues discussed in the
session were the two countries’ economic cooperation. The Ukrainian
prime minister said that there are all grounds for that. The volume
of the commodity turnover between the two countries in 2003 totalled
60m dollars. This indicator has doubled this year.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, captioned, in Russian,
with Armenian voice-over We have to eliminate with joint efforts
the obstacles standing in the way of mutual cooperation. First of
all, we must improve transport communications. We know how to do
this. Ukraine has the means and intention of taking part in the
construction and equipping of industrial plants. We have technical
and scientific potential, especially, for the construction of the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline.
Correspondent over video of meeting in the Ukrainian National Academy
of Sciences There are large opportunities for cooperation in the
energy, nuclear energy, metallurgy and agricultural spheres. Joint
scientific programmes were also discussed during a meeting with the
president of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, Borys Paton.
The agreements were also reached in the agricultural
sphere. Agricultural machine tools will be delivered to Armenia under a
leasing agreement in the near future. One hundred buses of the Bogdan
company will be delivered to Yerevan by the end of this year.
Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan, captioned I am pleased
with the results. The main agreement we reached during the meeting
with Ukrainian President Mr Kuchma is cooperation between Ukraine
and Armenia in international organizations.
Correspondent The intensification of the economic sphere will be a new
qualitative stage in Ukrainian and Armenian political relations. This
was discussed during the meeting with Leonid Kuchma and Andranik
Markaryan. The sides also stressed the importance of cooperation in
European organizations.
Constructive steps are being taken in the future development of
Ukrainian-Armenian relations not only in various spheres of the
economy, but also in the banking sphere. The president of the Ukrainian
Central Bank is expected to visit Armenia.
Tereza Kasyan, “Aylur”.
From: Baghdasarian

Turkmenistan hosts NATO-sponsored Internet meeting
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
14 May 04
Asgabat, 14 May: A meeting of the consultants of NATO’s Virtual Silk
Road project was opened in the Turkmen capital today.
Participants, researchers and experts from five Central Asian countries
– Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,
and also from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, together with NATO
representatives – are discussing swift access to the world-wide
Internet network.
According to the Turkmen Communications Ministry, within the framework
of the Virtual Silk Road project, three of Turkmenistan’s largest
higher educational establishments, Magtymguly State University, the
Polytechnic Institute and the Transport and Communication Institute,
have been connected simultaneously to the Internet this year. Thus
they have obtained access to the news on discoveries and inventions
as well as on trends in world scientific developments.
Last year, Turkmentelekom state company installed a satellite dish and
also assembled a ground station. This receives information from the
Internet and transfers it to the country’s research and educational
centres via local network systems.