Category: News

GEORGIA TO DEPLOY TROOPS IN ETHNIC ARMENIAN DISTRICT FOLLOWING CLASHES
Prime-News news agency, Tbilisi
10 May 04
Tsalka (south-east Georgia), 10 May: A 150-strong unit of the Internal
Troops numbering will be deployed in Tsalka District on Monday (10 May)
following mass disturbances involving the district’s ethnic Armenian
and Georgian residents on Sunday.
Prime-News correspondent has reported from Tsalka that the president’s
representative in Kvemo Kartli Region, Ioseb Mazmishvili, as well as
a group of investigators from the regional offices of the Interior
Ministry and the Prosecutor-General’s Office, arrived in Tsalka on
Monday to investigate the incident.
The Prime-News correspondent has said that the regional administration
will be based in Tsalka until the final settlement of the situation
in the district. A temporary command post coordinating law enforcers’
activities will be set up.
Ioseb Mazmishvili told Prime-News that the temporary command post
will work out a plan of special measures, including the disarming
of residents.
Disturbances involving ethnic Georgians and Armenians started during
a football match on Sunday and later transformed into mass clashes.
The president’s representative in the region has described the
situation in the district as tense.
Several dozen people, mostly Georgians, including children, were
injured. One young person suffered concussion.
Prime-News correspondent has reported that a group of doctors from
Rustavi went to Tsalka on Monday to treat the injured.
Mass disturbances involving ethnic Georgians and Armenians have
happened in Tsalka District before.

Ex-foreign minister says Armenia may join BTE gas project if peace
talks are successful
10/05/2004 11:40
Baku, May 8, AssA-Irada — The statement, made by official Baku
concerning the liberation of seven occupied districts of Azerbaijan
by Armenia following the recent talks, has sparked different opinions.
Former foreign minister of Azerbaijan Tofig Zulfugarov has told
AssA-Irada that a concrete proposal concerning the liberation of
seven occupied districts should be expected after the meeting of the
two countries’ ministers scheduled to be held in Strasbourg on May 12.
Commenting on the absence of any reaction to the proposal by Armenia,
Zulfugarov did not rule out the possibility of applying pressure on
Yerevan, mainly on President Kocharian.
According to some sources, the United States has supported the
idea of liberating occupied territories and thus aspires to achieve
Armenia’s participation in the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) gas pipeline
project. Giving a positive assessment to the idea, Zulfugarov said
that Armenia’s involvement in the BTE project may divert its attention
from the issue on Garabagh status.*

Georgia consolidates
The Washington Times
May 10, 2004
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili leveraged his widespread support
to rid his country of a long-standing problem. Aslan Abashidze held
undemocratic sway over the region of Adzharia for more than a decade
and appeared to be fossilized into the political scene. Mr. Abashidze
fled Adzharia on Thursday – without a shot being fired by Georgian
forces.
The United States welcomes this development. It is backing a pipeline
that will transport oil from the Caspian Basin to the Georgian capital,
Tbilisi, and off to international markets. This project is central to
President Bush’s efforts to diversify global sources of energy. The
departure of Mr. Abashidze, who had resisted central authority from
Tbilisi, helps to secure Georgia and therefore the project. It could
also help prevent unrest from spreading to Georgia’s potentially
volatile neighbors, such as Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The other prominent protagonist in the Abashidze drama has been
Russia. Russia has two military bases in Adzharia, which the Georgian
government wants removed faster than the Kremlin would prefer. The
Georgian government claims a retired Russian general was running
Mr. Abashidze’s renegade militia. That man, Lt. Gen. Yury Netkachyov,
appears to have been acting as an independent mercenary, but the
association surely was embarrassing to the Kremlin. In the end,
Russia played an important role in helping the Georgian government
overcome its Abashidze problem.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Saakashvili spoke over
the telephone about two to three times in the days preceding
Mr. Abashidze’s flight, said Georgia’s ambassador in Washington,
Levan Mikeladze. The day of his departure, Russian security chief Igor
Ivanov dropped in on Mr. Abashidze, and the pair left for Russia. By
playing this constructive role, Moscow surely bolstered the good will
and trust of its neighbors, a move that could pay dividends.
“The clear message from Washington was not to use force,” said Mr.
Mikeladze, adding that the dialogue with Mr. Putin “helped to avoid
a [military] confrontation.” Had the Georgian government brought in
firepower, Mr. Abashidze probably would have appealed to Moscow to
move its troops in Adzharia against Georgian forces.
Mr. Saakashvili will help set up a temporary council in Adzharia
until legislative elections are held next month. He has significantly
bolstered Georgia’s cohesiveness through diplomatic dexterity and
firm leadership. Moscow should also be commended for gracefully
ushering out Mr. Abashidze.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Queen of the movie bosses
by Dominic Rushe
Sunday Times (London)
May 9, 2004, Sunday
How Amy Pascal became the most powerful woman in Hollywood.
The office in which Hollywood legend Louis B Mayer once “auditioned”
starlets has been taken over by Amy Pascal. But apart from a shelf
of snow shakers made to commemorate movies she helped to pro- duce,
she has yet to stamp her personality on it.
White-walled and sparsely furnished, the room could be the lobby of
an upmarket hotel. It seems too antiseptic for Pascal, who is chic
in a bohemian way dressed in black, with a long string of pearls,
and hair that is a mass of red curls.
Pascal proudly showed off the tiny anteroom where Mayer, the final
M in Metro Goldwyn Mayer, had his casting couch.
It leads on to a huge balcony with views of the Hollywood hills.
“I’m thinking of having meetings out here, maybe some plants,”
she said.
If Pascal has yet to leave her imprint on Mayer’s office in the Art
Deco Thalberg building in Culver City, she has certainly made her mark
on the industry. She has just released a record five profitable films
in a row (Gothika, Hellboy, 13 Going on 30, Secret Window and 50 First
Dates) and has been elevated to chairman of Sony’s motion-pictures
group, owner of Columbia Tristar.
Pascal -Hollywood’s most powerful woman, according to Forbes magazine
-is preparing to release what could be her biggest gamble to date:
the $ 200m (£110m) summer blockbuster, Spiderman 2.
Sony is also, ironically, in talks to take over the now troubled MGM.
Mayer’s old studio still makes the James Bond movies, but its glory
days are long gone. MGM’s back catalogue is now more valuable than
its film-making unit.
Just down the corridor from Pascal is another office that is also
beginning to bear the signature of a new owner. Less flash, the room
is home to London-born Michael Lynton, the former chief executive of
AOL Time Warner Europe and now Pascal’s boss.
Despite a brief stint at Disney’s ill-fated Hollywood Pictures,
Lynton is an outsider. A self-portrait by Stanley Spencer hangs on his
wall. “People think it’s Harry Potter,” he said. Lynton’s literary
tastes appear to be more highbrow. The office has a bookcase of
well-thumbed Penguin classics -he once ran the company.
Both books and movies are businesses that people get into because
they are “completely in love” with the product, said Lynton.
“If somebody comes in from left-field, people understandably ask
why he is entitled to that position,” he said. “I don’t presume
to be the movie picker. I am an outsider. It is useful to have an
outside perspective as long as the person can take his ego out of
the equation.”
Pascal’s unit is a shining star in a troubled company. Sony is carrying
$ 12.8billion in debt and is in the middle of a huge restructuring. The
company’s consumer-electronics division is still underperforming and
its music business – along with those of its rivals -is struggling
to fight off the threat of piracy and consumer apathy.
Lynton’s appointment was not a total surprise. Sir Howard Stringer,
Sony Corporation’s chairman, pulled a similar move last year, putting
in another outsider, NBC television executive Andrew Lack, to run
the group’s music division.
But with Sony Pictures doing so well, this time rival studio executives
were expecting fireworks between Pascal and Lynton. “They’ll fall
out. They always do,” said one. But so far the two seem to get along
in classic Hollywood odd-couple style.
“It was a shotgun marriage but we found true love,” said Pascal. She
will concentrate on movies while Lynton will ensure that Sony is
making as much money as possible out of its films. He will also keep
an eye on the broader picture.
The industry has probably never undergone a time of greater change,
said Lynton.
“Studios are very complicated enterprises; there are a lot of moving
parts. Amy has done, and continues to do, a brilliant job putting
together this great slate of movies.
“That said, there is a broader agenda that the studio has to contend
with on distribution, television programming and issues of piracy.
It’s helpful to have two heads.”
While Pascal prepares Spiderman to face his next opponent, Dr Octopus,
Lynton is up against an equally tricky opponent.
Kirk Kerkorian was six years old when MGM released its first picture.
Born in Fresno, California, in 1917, Kerkorian grew up the son of poor
raisin farmers in a small colony of Armenian immigrants. He was given
his first break, and a passion for flying, by the aviator Florence
“Pancho” Barnes, Hollywood’s first woman stunt pilot. During the second
world war, he enlisted with the RAF, ferrying planes from Canada to
England. After the war he started an airline with the purchase of a
single plane.
Eighty years later Kerkorian is the 33rd richest man in America, with
a $ 6billion fortune based on buying low and selling high. Since 1969
he has ownedMGM three times and sold it twice. Now it appears he is
trying to even the scores.
Sony and MGM will not comment, but MGM has delayed its annual meeting
to review “strategic options”.
MGM is the last independent studio in Hollywood. All its rivals are
owned by giant media combines. Warner Brothers, for example, is owned
by Time Warner, 20th Century Fox by News Corporation, ultimate owner
of The Sunday Times.
Sony and two private-equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Providence
Equity Partners, are thought to be offering $ 5billion for MGM.
Kerkorian, who controls 75% of MGM, has held talks with Sony about
a deal before, but they came to nothing after a disagreement over
price. This time MGM watchers believe a deal may work. “At this price
it is more likely than before,” said Mike Savner, an analyst at Banc
of America.
Without the financial muscle of a parent group such as News Corp
or Time Warner, Savner said MGM will struggle and its fortunes will
continue to decline.
Of MGM’s $ 1.9billion revenues last year, $ 1billion came from its
home-entertainment division. MGM has a back catalogue of 4,000 films.
Among others it owns West Side Story, the Rocky movies, Terminator,
19 Woody Allens, and a handful of Ingmar Bergmans. It also owns the
rights to the James Bond, Pink Panther and Addams Family movies.
Old films have rarely been so valuable. The proliferation of cable
channels, services like video-on-demand, and DVD sales have made old
movies hot commodities.
DVD sales rose 43% last year, with American firms netting $ 14.9billion
in worldwide sales. More than two-thirds of those sales now come from
old movies.
Lynton compares the film industry today with the book business after
the second world war. The arrival of cheap paperbacks made classics
like Dickens or Dostoevsky available to a whole new audience and
fuelled a huge sales boom. “There are so many analogies between the
book business, which is now a mature business, and the film business
today,” he said.
In a notoriously high-risk business, DVD holds out the promise of
greater stability. Perhaps like the music industry and its CD-fuelled
growth years, DVD sales will prove a temporary phenomenon. But for now,
Hollywood thinks it has struck gold.
DVD sales may be low risk, but the blockbuster is getting ever more
expensive and frightening. To a large degree, it has always been this
way. As Hollywood chronicler John Gregory Dunne wrote in The Studio:
“Hollywood is a technological crapshoot. Table stakes open at a
million dollars.” But Dunne’s insider book on 20th Century Fox was
written in 1968. Since then the stakes have become even bigger.
With so many big films coming out over the summer, and movies being
released so quickly on DVD and pay-per-view TV, the business has
changed, said Pascal. “The old equation in Hollywood was that a movie
would rake in eight times its opening weekend. These days the opening
weekends have got bigger but the ratio has fallen to four times,”
she said.
Whereas a few years ago the studios would stagger their “event” movies,
these days cinema goers are being bombarded with blockbusters week
after week during the summer.
Some films, for example Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai, are now so
expensive they hardly make money. Their cinematic run is almost an
extended advertisement for DVD and other post-cinema sales.
Two dozen movies that cost more than $ 100m to make are due for
release this summer in what is sure to be a cut-throat battle. Last
summer was littered with hyped movies that proved to be duds. They
included The Hulk and Matrix Reloaded.
The rewards for hitting it big are immense and, as MGM learnt to its
cost, it doesn’t matter how good your back catalogue is if you are
not producing new movies and franchises.
The first Spiderman film raked in $ 800m and made stars of Tobey
Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, proving there is a worldwide appetite for
the webslinger. Pascal and Sony have a lot riding on Spiderman 2, which
opens in Britain on July 15, not to mention Spiderman 3 due for 2007.
Sequels are increasingly popular in Hollywood but as The Matrix series
showed, they do not always live up to expectations. With Spiderman,
Pascal seems confident she has a three-part winner. “It’s very hard
to make sequels,” she said. “The ones that work best are the ones
that were meant to be serialised in the first place.”
Pascal said she saw a clear three-part narrative for Spiderman from the
start. The first is about childhood and discovery, the second about
the confusion of adolescence, and the third about the challenges of
becoming an adult.
But most of all, she said, it is about getting the greatest number
of people to come and see a great story. “My job is most of all about
the story. Without that you have nothing at all.”
Louis B Mayer would no doubt have agreed.

ARKA News Agency
May 10 2004
10 May
NKR Army is one of the guarantors of peaceful process of Karabakh
settlement
Nagorno Karabakh celebrates three holidays – Victory Day, NKR Defense
Army Day and Liberation of Shushi Day
8 May
The RA President Robert Kocharian congratulates the Armenian nation
on the Day of Victory and Peace
7 May
Training for Abkhaz and Georgian journalists held in Yerevan
The RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan to go to Kiev with a two-day
visit on May 10
*********************************************************************
NKR ARMY IS ONE OF THE GUARANTORS OF PEACEFUL PROCESS OF KARABAKH
SETTLEMENT
STEPANAKERT, May, 10. /ARKA/. NKR Army is one of the guarantors of
peaceful process of Karabakh settlement, says the letter of NKR
President Arkady Gukasian on the occasion of Victory Day and creation
of NKR Defense Army. “Today, when Azerbaijan tries to turn the
history back, hoping to gain revenge in military settlement of
Karabakh conflict, we have no right to drop speed of military
construction, equipment of our army with modern armament and increase
its fighting efficiency”, the letter says. Gukasian said that May
holidays coincide with another important event – conclusion of
cease-fire regime between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh 10
years ago. “Azerbaijan was forced to recognize Karabakh as a party of
the conflict and conclude peace only due to successes of our army.
And if the regime is observed by now, it is first of all thanks to
the power and strength of NKR Defense Army”, Gukasian stated. L.D.
–0—
*********************************************************************
NAGORNO KARABAKH CELEBRATES THREE HOLIDAYS – VICTORY DAY, NKR DEFENSE
ARMY DAY AND LIBERATION OF SHUSHI DAY
STEPANAKERT, May, 10. /ARKA/. Nagorno Karabakh celebrates three
holidays – Victory Day, NKR Defense Army Day and Liberation of Shushi
Day. Official delegation of Armenia headed with RA President Robert
Kocharian arrived in Karabakh for participation in the celebrations.
Representatives of supreme administration of Nagorno Karabakh and
Armenian delegation placed flowers to the memorials of legendary hero
of Karabakh war Ashot Ghulian and USSR Marshal Hovannes Bagramian.
Then the parties visited Memorial complex of the capital and placed a
wreath and flowers to the memorial of the heroes of Great Patriotic
War. The delegations also visited Shushi City.
The celebrations dedicated to Victory Day ended with holiday
fireworks. L.D. –0–
*********************************************************************
THE RA PRESIDENT ROBERT KOCHARIAN CONGRATULATES THE ARMENIAN NATION
ON THE DAY OF VICTORY AND PEACE
YEREVAN, May, 8. /ARKA/. The RA President Robert Kocharian
congratulated the Armenian nation on the Day of Victory and Peace.
According to the RA President’s Press Service Department, in his
statement Kocharian says: “May 9 is a double festive day for our
nation since 1992: it has acquired a new meaning with liberation of
Shoushi on that day and it symbolizes the will of our nation to
protect its rights and ensure security of the country”. “The fact
that 10 years have passed since signing the agreement on ceasefire is
also symbolic. We appreciate peace and will adhere to the principle
of peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict in future”,according
to the President’s statement. A.H. –0–
*********************************************************************
TRAINING FOR ABKHAZ AND GEORGIAN JOURNALISTS HELD IN YEREVAN
YEREVAN, May 10. /ARKA/. Currently Abkhaz and Georgian journalists
permanently writing for the electronic edition of Institute for War
and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and Panorama daily published by the
assistance of IWPR are attending the training organized in Yerevan.
The three-day training is attended by seven Abkhaz and eight Georgian
journalists. During the training each journalist will have a task –
to write an article on political situation in Armenia. As Inal
Khashig, Co-Editor of Panorama told ARKA, the trainings are organized
twice a year for teaching of European standards of writing of
articles to journalists. “This time we chose Armenia, as the recent
events are of interest, moreover few Abkhaz and Georgian journalists
are aware of the situation in Armenia. “, he said. Khashig also noted
that the journalist problems are not discussed during the training.
“We cultivate normal European taste to the young journalists”, he
said.
Tom de Vaal, Editor of London IWRP Caucasus Department informed ARKA,
that Panorama is a unique product as it is published in
simultaneously Abkhazia and Georgia, adding that IWRP is attempting
to enhance readers range of the edition throughout Caucasus. “We will
try to create a Caucasus daily on the basis of Abkhaz-Georgian
edition with the main purpose to fill in the information vacuum.”, he
said. In his opinion, the issue of all-Caucasian newspaper is
possible in perspective. The editorial plans issuing of a daily in
Javakhetia on Georgian and Armenian languages as well as one in
Karabakh. T.M. –0–
*********************************************************************
THE RA PRIME MINISTER ANDRANIK MARGARYAN TO GO TO KIEV WITH A TWO-DAY
VISIT ON MAY 10
YEREVAN, May, 8. /ARKA/. The RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan to
go to Kiev with a two-day visit on May 10. According to the RA
President’s Press Service Department, meetings with the Ukraine
President Leonid Kuchma, the Representative of the Supreme Rada
Vladimir Litvin, the Prime –Minister Victor Yanoukovitch, the
President of the National Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine Boris
Patonov are planned in the course of the visit.
According to the press release, a session of the Armenian-Ukraine
intergovernmental commission on economic co-operation to take place
on May 11 in Kiev. The members of the commission will focus on the
issues connected with fulfilling the decisions made during the
previous sessions, and the course of implementation of the programs
on long-term economic co-operation between Armenia and the Ukraine
for 2001-2010. Besides, the members of the session will consider the
issue on cooperation between the two countries in the area of trade,
science and technology, education and tourism, as well as in
transport and economic areas.
According to the press release, the Armenian state delegation will
include the RA Minister of Trade and Economic Development Karen
Chshmarityan (the co-Chairman of intergovernmental commission), the
Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan, the Head of
Control Service of the Prime Minister Sargis Grigoryan, the Armenian
Ambassador to the Ukraine Armen Khachatryan, the President of the RA
National Academy of Sciences Fadei Sargsyan, the Deputy of RA NA
mourad Gouloyan as well as the Deputy Ministers of Transport and
Communication, Foreign Affairs, Energy, Agriculture, Education and
Science, Culture and Youth Affairs. A.H. —0—
*********************************************************************

Will Russian Investment Win Georgia’s Heart?
By Irakly Areshidze
Moscow Times, Russia
May 11 2004
Aslan Abashidze’s long reign in the Georgian province of Adzharia was
made possible by the continuous support of Moscow, which skillfully
wielded the dictator to influence the political process in Georgia.
President Vladimir Putin, who declined to back Abashidze against a
rising tide of opposition, was therefore primarily responsible for
bringing 13 years of tyranny in the Black Sea province to a peaceful
end last week. Yet, by convincing Abashidze to resign, Putin has
forfeited one of his most effective levers for altering the course
of Georgia’s domestic affairs.
The United States also helped Georgia to resolve the conflict by
backing President Mikheil Saakashvili’s demand for the restoration
of Georgian sovereignty in Adzharia. By repeatedly calling for a
peaceful solution to the conflict, Washington also helped to prevent
the use of military force. During the actual crisis last week, however,
senior U.S. officials were distracted by the prisoner abuse scandal in
Iraq and paid scant attention to events in Georgia. The U.S. role in
securing Abashidze’s resignation should therefore not be overestimated.
Russia’s leading role in resolving the crisis in Adzharia was similar
to its role during the Rose Revolution last year. The administration of
U.S. President George W. Bush actively promoted democratic elections
in Georgia. This gave Saakashvili a strong impetus to launch popular
demonstrations against fraud committed by the government during
parliamentary elections last November.
When the opposition stormed parliament three weeks later, however, the
situation was managed not by Washington, but by Moscow. Igor Ivanov,
then foreign minister, arrived in Tbilisi to mediate between President
Eduard Shevardnadze and Saakashvili, while the United States remained
on the sidelines. Thus Ivanov served as midwife during the difficult
birth of a new Georgian regime, even though the opposition was widely
seen as pro-American.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia has been a focal
point of the Russian-U.S. rivalry in the Caspian region. Moscow has
consistently worked to weaken the Georgian state by stalling on troop
withdrawal, aiding separatist regimes in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali
region (so-called Southern Ossetia), fomenting a potential conflict in
Dzhavakheti (a region largely populated by ethnic Armenians), and by
supporting Abashidze. Moscow’s goal has been to make Georgia dependent
on Russia for its survival, as it has done with Belarus and Moldova.
For years the United States countered Russia’s efforts, initially
by pushing for the rapid construction of pipelines through Georgia
to carry Caspian Sea oil and gas. Under George W. Bush, the United
States took a more active role, launching a program to help Georgia
upgrade its armed forces. Following the Prague summit in 2002, when
NATO invited seven new members to join the alliance, Republicans in
Washington began to insist that Georgia — and the Caucasus as a whole
— be considered as a priority for future expansion. Their efforts will
likely begin to bear fruit next month at the NATO summit in Istanbul.
Georgia now stands at a historic crossroads. It has the potential,
along with Turkey and a democratic Iraq, to serve as a conduit for the
advancement of U.S. interests in Central Asia and the Middle East, the
region that will likely dominate U.S. foreign engagement for the first
half of this century. For this to happen, Saakashvili’s government must
pursue real political and economic reforms, the United States must
continue to support Georgia during its period of transition, and the
Bush administration must at least partially implement its vision for
the greater Middle East. Georgia would need to become an economically
strong and politically stable member of NATO, much like the Baltic
states, before it could realize its full potential in this scenario.
Such developments would be incompatible with Moscow’s own policy in
the Caucasus, of course. Analysts in Tbilisi are therefore debating
whether Putin actually acknowledges Russia’s defeat in the battle
for the Caucasus and wants to build a new relationship with Georgia,
or if he has merely changed his tactics in an effort to retain Georgia
within Russia’s sphere of influence.
At first glance, the events of last November and last week suggest that
the United States and Russia have reached a compromise on Georgia,
under which Washington would take the leading role in matters of
strategic importance while Moscow would play a constructive but more
limited role. The agreement on ending the U.S.-Russian rivalry in
the Caucasus, reached by Bush and Putin during the Moscow summit in
May 2002 appears to be working.
This optimistic appraisal may be premature, however. Saakashvili was
hugely indebted to Putin for his rise to power, and Putin’s removal
of Abashidze has doubled that debt. Putin will undoubtedly use this
newly gained influence to pursue Russia’s traditional goals, though
he may be changing his tactics.
A number of recent developments suggest that Moscow is now focused on
keeping Tbilisi under its thumb by means of private sector investment
into key sectors of the Georgian economy. Last year, Unified Energy
Systems took control of electricity distribution in Tbilisi. Gazprom
now seeks a similar monopoly in gas delivery. Neither move is motivated
exclusively by profit. When Saakashvili visited Moscow in February, top
Russian businessmen expressed a strong interest in pursuing ventures
in various sectors of the Georgian economy. Given Putin’s influence on
the oligarchs, the Tbilisi media interpreted this interest as a sign
that the Russian government is encouraging business to get involved
in Georgia.
Investment in Georgia remains a risk, and more so recently as many
foreign businesses have come under pressure from the authorities.
Washington is therefore incapable of matching “private,” politically
driven Russian investment in the country.
In the meantime, Russian businesses could quickly dominate the weak
Georgian economy with a relatively small injection of capital. It
seems logical to assume that by taking control of the Georgian economy,
Moscow hopes to influence the country’s domestic and foreign policy. It
is rumored that Russian money is behind the launch of a new television
station in Tbilisi. If true, this would be the first clear sign of
a Russian business in Georgia designed to serve a political purpose.
It is far from certain that this strategy will enable Moscow to stop
Georgia from pursuing NATO membership and a closer relationship with
the United States. So long as Washington keeps up the pressure on
Moscow to remove its military bases from Georgia in a timely manner,
continues to help strengthen the Georgian army and ensures that
Georgia does not enter into a framework agreement with its northern
neighbor, Russian investment in Georgia could indirectly advance U.S.
interests in the country. Such investment will bolster the Georgian
economy and improve living conditions. And a strong Georgia will be
a more attractive ally for the United States and NATO.
Then again, a strong Georgia would also benefit Russia, plagued as
it is by security concerns on its southern flank.
Irakly Areshidze, a political analyst and elections strategist based in
Washington and Tbilisi, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EURASIA INSIGHT May 11, 2004
ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT, OPPOSITION DECLARE SHAKY TRUCE
Emil Danielyan: 5/10/04
Armenia’s leadership and its political opponents have begun talks to resolve
their bitter confrontation over the rule of President Robert Kocharian. The
move has brought a temporary lull to the month-long political crisis sparked
by the opposition’s attempt to remove Kocharian from office.
The negotiations are taking place amidst a 10-day moratorium imposed by the
country’s two main opposition groups on the anti-government rallies which
have been held in the capital, Yerevan, since the beginning of April. [For
background see the EurasiaNet Insight archive]. The alliance and the
National Unity Party (AMK) state that the protests were suspended to give
the government time to stop its crackdown on protest participants and
opposition supporters. The moratorium will expire on May 14.
Talks between leaders of Justice and the AMK and the three pro-Kocharian
parties making up Armenia’s coalition government began on May 6 and will
continue this week. The participants have issued a brief statement saying
that they agree on “the need to create a new situation in the country” and
have approved a long list of issues to be discussed during the dialogue.
But so far, few local analysts expect the dialogue to yield an agreement to
compromise. The opposition and government remain far apart on the key issue
driving their dispute — the legitimacy of Robert Kocharian’s presidency.
The opposition maintains that Kocharian rigged last year’s presidential
election to win a second term in office and is therefore “illegitimate.” His
loyalists deny the charges, saying that widespread fraud reported by
international observers was not serious enough to affect the election
outcome.
The long-standing opposition demand for a “referendum of confidence” in
Kocharian — one of the main issues to be discussed in the talks —
illustrates this divide.
This idea was first floated by Armenia’s Constitutional Court in the wake of
the February-March 2003 presidential ballot and has since been heavily
exploited by the opposition. Kocharian and his loyalists have categorically
rejected it as unconstitutional. In parliament earlier this year, they
refused all discussion of the issue. Kocharian’s supporters now say they are
ready to discuss the measure’s “legality,” while indicating they will not
agree to hold the proposed referendum. “If the opposition continues to
insist on the referendum, no dialogue will be possible,” a leader of the
governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Armen Rustamian, said this past
weekend.
The opposition, on the other hand, says a regime change “without upheavals”
must be the basis of the crisis talks. “Our view remains the same: Robert
Kocharian must either resign or be dismissed or we will hold a kind of
referendum of confidence together with you,” Justice’s Albert Bazeyan told
thousands of supporters as they rallied in Yerevan on May 4.
Both sides are keen to show that they are following the recommendations made
by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In a
resolution on the political situation in Armenia adopted on April 28, the
PACE urged the government and opposition to embark on a “dialogue without
preconditions.” As the Yerevan daily “Haykakan Zhamanak” commented, neither
Armenian authorities nor their foes want to appear the recalcitrant party in
the eyes of the Strasbourg-based, pan-European organization.
Each of the parties has interpreted the PACE resolution as vindicating its
own position in the standoff. The presidential camp argues that the document
did not endorse the referendum of confidence and made clear that the 2003
election irregularities “did not decisively change the outcome of the
elections nor invalidate their final results.”
The opposition, for its part, points to the PACE’s threat to impose
sanctions on Armenia if it fails to lift “unjustified restrictions” on
peaceful demonstrations, release individuals detained for their
participation in the anti-Kocharian rallies and investigate the “human
rights abuses alleged against the Kocharian government. The resolution
mandates that Armenian authorities report back to the European parliament by
June about the status of their investigations and prosecutions of those
found responsible for violation of citizens’ rights.
Since the campaign of street protests began on April 7, hundreds of
opposition activists and their supporters nationwide have reportedly been
harassed, detained and jailed. The crackdown was strongly condemned by Human
Rights Watch last week. “The Armenian government is repeating the same sorts
of abuses that called into question the legitimacy of last year’s election
and sparked the protests in the first place,” Rachel Denber, acting
executive director of HRW’s New Europe and Central Asia division, said in a
May 4 statement. “The cycle of repression must end.”
In a separate 21-page report, the New York-based watchdog group provided a
detailed account of the “mass arrest and police violence against opposition
supporters.” It singled out the brutal break-up of an opposition rally on
Yerevan’s Marshal Baghramian Avenue leading to Kocharian’s residence on the
night from April 12-13. Riot police used water cannons, stun grenades and,
according to some witnesses, electric-shock equipment to disperse the crowd
of between 2,000 and 3,000 protesters. The police arrested and seriously
injured at least 115 people and ransacked the offices of the three main
opposition parties, the report states.
Despite the PACE and HRW criticisms, the authorities last week continued to
arrest dozens of participants in unsanctioned protests and to sentence some
of them to up to 15 days in prison under Armenia’s Soviet-era Code of
Administrative Offenses. They also restricted provincial residents’ access
to Yerevan ahead of a May 4 opposition rally, effectively ignoring the PACE
demand to “guarantee freedom of movement inside Armenia.”
The Justice and AMK leaders have given Kocharian until May 14 to end the
crackdown and release all “political prisoners.” What they will do if those
demands are not met, though, is not yet clear. Another march towards the
presidential palace remains a possibility, even though opposition members
have twice delayed it. The postponement of the march has prompted some
commentators to conclude that their bid to emulate the Georgian experience
has already failed.
“We never intended to repeat the Georgian scenario here,” opposition leader
and former Prime Minister Aram Sarkisian, told EurasiaNet on May 4 while he
and his allies led about 10,000 people in a march towards the Armenian
police headquarters. “First of all, because Robert Kocharian is very far
from being a [deposed Georgian President Eduard] Shevardnadze in terms of
his commitment to democracy and popularity; secondly, today’s rally showed
that we are gaining momentum, not losing it.”
Even if no “decisive action” results from this week’s talks, Sarkisan said,
the opposition will press on with its protests. “What else can the people do
apart from gathering, expressing their views and holding marches?”
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political
analyst.
—

CELLINI INTERNATIONAL PLANS TO EXPAND COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA
ArmenPress
May 10 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 10, ARMENPRESS: Italian Cellini International, a trading
partner of several Armenian jewelry companies, has purchased some 500
kg of jewelry items manufactured in Armenia to have sold them at USA,
Canada, Mexico and Italy over the last three years.
Samvel Najarian, the deputy chief manager of the Los Angeles-based
Paros, a subsidiary of Cellini International, told Armenpress a
new cooperation expansion plan is being developed with Armenian
companies. Cellini International made its first presence at an annual
jewelry exhibition in Armenia this year showing a variety of items,
which it plans to cell throughout the CIS.
Najarian said Armenia remains an attractive country for investing in
jewelry due to its skilled and relatively cheap labor force.

CENN – MAY 10, 2004 DAILY DIGEST
Table of Contact:
1. Become a Member of the “Caucasus Environment Society”
2. BTC Campaigner – Letters re Alleged Torture or Ill-treatment in
Turkey
3. Environmentalists: BTC Left Communities in the Dust
4. The Devil’s Tears
5. Urgent Appeal to International and Georgian Communities Concerned
With Wildlife Issues
6. U.S. Names Countries Eligible for New Assistance Funds
7. Armenian Group Releases Latest Bedoukian ‘Studies’
8. Arevag: Festival of Armenian Filmmakers
9. Margara Village would Be First to Enjoy Open Border
10. Armenia Raises $5.6 mln from Gold Reserves Sale
11. Smithsonian Advanced Course in Conservation GIS
12. MDF-Training and Consultancy
1. BECOME A MEMBER OF THE “CAUCASUS ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY”
Dear users of CENN services!
This is to inform you that due to necessity of financial sustainability
of CENN activities in the long run, we are introducing a number of
innovations in CENN services (Internet services and online products of
CENN – daily digests, bulletins` archive, full online versions of
magazines, GIS database of nature resources of the Caucasus region,
environmental legislation of the South Caucasus States in national
English and Russian languages, etc.) for different types of members to
set force from April 1, 2004.
Only the members of the “Caucasus Environment Society” will enjoy the
full range of our services. They will receive free of charge our
magazine “Caucasus Environment”, get free legal and environmental
consultancy, free access to CENN databases, maps, resources, etc.
All membership fees support the CENN magazine’s mission of expanding
environmental knowledge on the Caucasus and are considered as charitable
contribution to the production of the regional magazine.
We welcome you to become a Member of the “Caucasus Environment Society”
by registering online:
Annual membership fee for Caucasus citizens/organizations $19, for
international members – $39. Shipment cost included.
For any questions or queries regarding membership and future usage of
online services:
Contact person: Catherine Nakashidze
Tel: +995 32 92 39 46
Fax: +995 32 92 39 47
E-mail: [email protected]
URL:
2. BTC CAMPAIGNER – LETTERS RE ALLEGED TORTURE OR ILL-TREATMENT IN
TURKEY
Dear Friends,
Following the detention and alleged torture of Ferhat Kaya, the
prominent human rights defender, following his work to protect the
rights of Turkish citizens affected by BP’s UK-funded
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Kurdish Human Rights Project and
Corner House have sent the letter appended below to the UK government
departments which have financed the pipeline.
It would be act of much appreciated solidarity if you could also send
similar letters to your Executive Directors at the World Bank and
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or to your country’s
Export Credit Agency, if it is involved. Letters to the private banks
involved would also appropriate.
For those in the UK, please write to Hilary Benn. Please send your
letter to: [email protected]
Best Wishes
Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner |House
Tel: +44 (0) 1258 473795
SPECIMEN LETTER
Rt. Hon Hilary Benn MP,
Secretary of State for International Development
Department for International Development
Palace Street
London SWI
BY EMAIL AND POST
7 May 2004
Dear Secretary of State,
BTC Campaigner – Alleged torture or ill treatment in Turkey
We are writing to express our gravest concern over the detention and
alleged torture or ill-treatment of a prominent human rights defender
following his work to protect the rights of Turkish citizens affected by
BP’s UK-funded Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. There is strong and
direct evidence of a link between his intimidation and detention and his
work in connection with the pipeline.
It is our understanding that Mr Ferhat Kaya, a former deputy chair of
DEHAP in the central district of Ardahan, had been working to document
the case of an individual whose land was being used for the pipeline
without having been legally expropriated or compensation having been
paid. On 5 May 2004 he informed BOTAS, the company building the pipeline
under contract to BP, of his concerns and he had been promised a meeting
on Monday 10 May 2004. However, he was then arrested and now remains in
detention in Ardahan. Witnesses and relatives yesterday observed blood
on his clothes and deep cuts on his arms and elsewhere-following one day
in detention. According to information obtained by KHRP, a medical
report is consistent with allegations of torture. He was also derided as
a “terrorist” by the court prosecutor.
As you will know, witnesses, human rights and environmental groups
believe this is Mr Kaya’s second detention in connection with his work
to highlight concerns over the pipeline. Last year, he received death
threats prior to meeting with the Italian Export Credit Agency to inform
them about social and environmental concerns associated with the
pipeline. He was later detained. Assurances from Mr. MacShane, the
Foreign Office minister, that Amnesty International had found no
evidence of a connection between this detention and his work in relation
to the BTC pipeline have since been found to be unwarranted: Amnesty
International has not even investigated the case.
Mr. Kaya has been involved for some time in mitigating the impacts of
the BTC project by ensuring that local people obtain the compensation to
which they are entitled and that their rights under the European
Convention on Human Rights are respected. He has assisted 38 villagers
in bringing cases to the European Court of Human Rights complaining of
multiple violations of the ECHR. This also reflects the ongoing failure
of BP to fulfill its legal responsibilities to people affected by the
pipeline and to make good on its pledges that nobody would be
disadvantaged as a result of the project.
We believe that it is incumbent on the British government, as a sponsor
of the BTC pipeline, to ensure that those like Mr Kaya who seek to
improve the project are not victimized for speaking out. BP has
specifically requested that local people help in identifying problems
with the project’s implementation. For this to result in detention and
allegations of torture, as in this case, is not only unacceptable but a
savage indictment of the project and of Turkey’s commitment to human
rights. Turkey is required to achieve the “stability of institutions
guaranteeing democracy, human rights and respect for a protection of
minorities” in order to meet EU accession requirements; its accession
bid is due to be reconsidered in December 2004. Incidents such as the
arrest and alleged torture of Mr Kaya strongly indicate that legislative
reforms aimed at securing human rights in Turkey have failed to be
implemented on the ground.
We urge you to use your best offices to investigate the circumstances of
his detention and alleged torture or ill treatment; to obtain a
guarantee that his human rights are respected; and to press for his
immediate release.
Yours sincerely,
3. ENVIRONMENTALISTS: BTC LEFT COMMUNITIES IN THE DUST
Source: The Messenger, May 10, 2004
Georgian NGO once again reiterate their claim that the construction of
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipe continues to impose serious social
and environmental impacts on the local communities, this time citing
“violations made by the BP-led BTC Company (BTC Co.) during the
project’s planning period.”
In its most recent report released May 5, 2004 the NGO Green Alternative
and co-authors at the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and the CEE
Bankwatch Network, an environmental watchdog with partners in 12
countries, reveals a series of problems the NGOs identified related to
everything from inadequate food from workers to faulty plastic coating
on the pipe itself.
The report reveals the problems with the project’s land compensation and
acquisition process and violations of the BTC information disclosure
policy. The authors also criticize the involvement of the BTC’s key
international lenders, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in
the project.
“We presume that the majority of the problems are the outcome of the
violations made by the BTC Co. during the planning period and an
inefficient due diligence process implemented by IFC and EBRD,” the
report states.
Green Alternative member Keti Kvinikadze claims that the number of
people who protest over problems of land compensation increases every
day. The report also claim there is a major gap between “official
disregard fore the problems which ordinary people are experiencing.”
According to another member of Green Alternative Keti Gudjaraidze,
“These people are directly affected and they will have to live side by
side with the pipeline for years.” Ms. Gudjaraidze thinks that the local
population has heard a lot of promises about the benefit they will get
because if the pipeline, which in reality as Green Alternative claims
will stay as mere promises.
According to the watchdog organizations, in the village of Tetritskaro
heavy trucks and machinery have destroyed sewage and water piping
underneath the roads, ruining the supply of safe drinking water and
spreading “infectious diseases throughout the neighborhood.”
One specific area of concern is Kvemo Kartli where monitors cite the
current presidential representative to the region as saying the former
governor and current fugitive Levan Mamaladze corrupted the pipeline’s
land compensation process by granting lad titles along the route to
friends and relatives, something often called “mushroom parcels.”
Director General of the BTC Co., Ed Johnson stated that the land
compensation process is “very transparent,” even in the wake of the
continuous protests of some villages claiming BP took their land without
giving proper compensation.
NGOs and even the Georgian Union of Workers have repeatedly claimed that
Georgian workers on the BTC get smaller salaries and are not provided
with elementary working conditions. According to the report by Green
Alternative, local workers average no more than 225 lari a month a day,
including weekends and holidays in order to reach the “declared GEL
600-700” per month.
GEO of the BTC Co. Michael Townshend commented that the human rights of
the workers along the BTC route are fully protected. Mr. Townshend says
some “minor” problems concerning salaries existed, but cites an
international study when saying, “all workers are treated with respect.”
4. THE DEVIL’S TEARS
Red Pepper May 2004
The Devil’s tears
Melissa Jones and Michael Gillard
1 May 2004
In Azerbaijan, oil is known as the Devil’s tears – a curse for the
desperately poor Azeris and a blessing for their autocratic rulers.
Relics of Soviet oil exploitation litter the view on the road going
south from the coastal capital Baku. Nodding donkeys and derricks lie
frozen with rust, encircled by stagnant pools of oil sludge and
seawater. Corroded pipelines criss-cross the flat, arid landscape. Just
out to sea stand ghostly oil platforms.
>>From 2005, new platforms in the Caspian will pump the Devil’s tears
through the world’s biggest oil and gas terminal at Sangachal and into a
1000- mile underground pipeline running west through Georgia to the
Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will cross nature reserves,
archaeological sites and 1500 watercourses, from small streams in the
Caucasus Mountains to rivers and canals. Its route cuts almost entirely
through an active earthquake zone. Long-standing regional conflicts with
Armenian and Kurdish separatists add to the instability of the project.
It is being built by a BP-led consortium under the intense scrutiny of
international campaigners demanding that the oil giant lives up to
ethical commitments made after major environmental and human rights
scandals in Alaska and Colombia, where it operates two other major
pipelines.
Neither has the geopolitical significance of the BTC pipeline – the
first east-west energy corridor intended to reduce Anglo-American
reliance on OPEC and Middle Eastern oil – been overlooked. In Whitehall,
the pipeline is considered vital to Britain’s energy security as North
Sea oil reserves dwindle.
It is also key to what analysts call the ‘New Great Game’, a
geopolitical struggle between Presidents Bush and Putin for control of
the 15 new republics that emerged from the former Soviet Union in 1991.
Washington sees Azerbaijan and Georgia as bulwarks against Russia and
Iran.
There was intense political pressure from the US for BP to build this
pipeline. To be compensated for the risk to its well-crafted reputation
BP chief executive Lord Browne told the Financial Times in 1998 there
would be no BTC without “free public money”.
Total construction costs will top $3.6 billion dollars. Seventy per cent
of this is being borrowed from a ‘Lenders Group’ of international
financial institutions and commercial banks, such as the Royal Bank of
Scotland.
Yet none of the banks would have risked their cash without the backing
of the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD), political risk insurers and government export credit agencies
such as the UK’s Export Credit and Guarantee Department (ECGD).
The EGCD’s support came last December, when Trade Minister Mike O’Brien
pledged roughly £58m (fifty-eight million pounds) of taxpayer’s money to
underwrite British businesses working on the BTC project.
This, he assured Parliament, was based on “a rigorous assessment of the
risks associated with the project and a thorough review of the
environmental, social and human rights impacts.”
On February 3, BP signed the $2.6 billion loan agreement with the
Lenders Group at an ostentatious ceremony in Baku.
However, the Commons trade and industry select committee is now
investigating whether BP hoodwinked the ECGD by suppressing internal
warnings of a major design fault to secure the loan. Committee members
will also examine whether O’Brien misled Parliament when he claimed the
pipeline, and therefore taxpayers’ money, was safe.
One year before construction started last July, two senior BP managers
on the BTC project were so alarmed at design proposals from London that
they asked Derek Mortimore, a highly respected British pipeline
integrity consultant, to investigate.
Of particular concern was the choice of anti-corrosion coating for the
150,000 welds on the pipeline, one of the most important technical
decisions on the project.
Mortimore’s internal BP reports in August and November 2002, seen by Red
Pepper, were unequivocal. He warned that BP’s choice of a Canadian paint
was “utterly inappropriate to protect the pipeline for its estimated
design life” of 40 years.
BP, he said, would be burying an “environmental time bomb” because in
the cold months the coating would crack leaving the steel pipeline
exposed to corrosion and therefore ruptures as one million barrels of
high-pressured, hot crude was coursing through it daily.
Mortimore also warned that the performance test to choose the best
coating was “seriously flawed”. E. Wood, a British company that lost the
estimated £5 million contract to the Canadian firm went further and
wrote to BP alleging its procurement staff had rigged the test. The oil
company responded by carrying out an internal inquiry that exonerated
it.
BP then dispensed with Mortimore’s services in January 2003. But eleven
months later, with the $2.6 billion loan agreement just weeks from being
signed, the field joint coating cracked, as Mortimore predicted.
Work was secretly stalled over the Christmas period as BP panicked. An
estimated 15,000 field joints were already buried and could no longer be
regarded as safe.
Corrosion experts familiar with the problem say the only acceptable
thing to do is to dig it up and recoat using a different material with
proven adhesion to plastic-coated steel pipelines.
The remedial costs would run into hundreds of millions of pounds and
delay the project considerably, with knock on compensation payments for
the host governments in lost oil revenue.
During a series of secret and tense meetings in Baku and London,
contractors told BP the coating failure was down to them because the oil
company had nominated the Canadian paint as the only material to be used
on the field joints.
BP kept all this from the ECGD and the wider Lenders Group. But when we
exposed it in the Sunday Times on February 15, Mike O’Brien and ECGD
officials declined to set up an inquiry or even send his officials to a
briefing by Mortimore and other corrosion experts.
The minister’s letter to campaigners was grist to the mill of those who
refer to BP as Blair Petroleum. Fantastically, O’Brien said the
technical problems were “routine” and therefore BP had no obligation to
report them under the terms of the loan agreement.
O’Brien also protected his officials at ECGD by claiming an independent
engineering company, Parsons, operating on behalf of the Lenders Group
had “scrutinised and approved” the choice of coating.
Yet Parsons has confirmed to Red Pepper this was not the case. Their
reviewer was not a corrosion expert; he did no quality assurance
exercise; there was no testing of the Canadian paint; nor did BP
disclose to Parsons any background material or the Mortimore reports.
Parsons also confirm BP is a client and the so-called “independent”
review was paid for by the BTC consortium.
The Commons select committee has now received full details and will
cross- examine ECGD officials and Mike O’Brien in early May.
The minister’s position, that companies do not need to report
allegations of fraud or bribery if their own internal investigations
find no evidence of wrongdoing, makes a mockery of the prime minister’s
own commitment in September 2002 to tackling corruption in the
extractive industries.
The Labour-dominated committee could recommend a full independent audit
of the field joint system and refer the procurement fraud allegations to
the Serious Fraud Office. This would bring it into a collision course
with Tony Blair, who is very supportive of BP’s Caspian adventures and
enobled John Browne as a People’s Peer in 2001.
Sources on the BTC project deny BP’s claims that it has cured the
cracking problem. Corrosion experts consulted by Red Pepper confirm
Mortimore’s conclusion that the cracking is an indication of a serious
problem withthe paint’s chemistry and symptomatic of its
inappropriateness for a plastic coated pipeline it can never protect.
E.Wood managing director, Chris McDonnell, who has also written to the
committee, said: “Our view is that individuals within BP were trying to
cover up a decision which was clearly flawed and which we believe was
influenced by an individual who was closely associated with our main
competitor.”
Manana Kochladze
Regional Coordinator for Caucasus
CEE Bankwatch Network
Visiting address: Rustaveli avenue. 1. Entrance I. floors 4
Mailing address: Chavchavadze 62, Tbilisi, Georgia, 380062
Tel: 99532 93 24 03, 99 04 72
Fax: 22 38 74
E-mail: [email protected]
5. URGENT APPEAL TO INTERNATIONAL AND GEORGIAN COMMUNITIES CONCERNED
WITH WILDLIFE ISSUES
May 7, 2004
Aslan Abashidze, the odious rebellious leader of Georgia’s Adjara
province flees the country and leaves his own exotic and domestic animal
sanctuary to the mercy of fate.
Yesterday (May 6, 2004), Aslan Abashidze left the country in the company
of Igor Ivanov, head of the Russian Security Council who once served as
Russia’s foreign minister.
ADJARA Population: 400,000; overall population of Georgia: 5 million
Depends on income from transited goods, its port shipping about 200,000
barrels of oil a day Has run its own affairs for years, withholding tax
payments from central government in Tbilisi Adjarians are ethnic
Georgians, some of Moslem faith, though the majority are Orthodox
Christian as elsewhere in Georgia.
“Georgians: Aslan has fled! Adjara is free!” The President of Georgia,
Mikael Saakashvili, addressed the nation from his office. Saakashvili,
elected in January 2004 after leading a bloodless revolution (referred
by Georgians as the “Rose Revolution”) to oust veteran leader Eduard
Shevardnadze last year, had vowed to bring Adjara and other unruly
Georgian regions back under central control. Adjara has been a
semi-autonomous republic within Georgia for over a decade. Abashidze, a
Soviet-era politician who had maintained strong links with Russia during
his rule and strongly opposed the western-leaning Saakashvili, had ruled
this Georgian province for 10 years in an extremely autocratic manner
virtually without any challenge, due to the former administration’s weak
policy on regional politics. However, after January 2004, when Mr.
Abashidze appeared on the losing side in the Rose Revolution his regime
eventually collapsed after a month-long bloodless confrontation during
which his heavily armed supporters at one point blew up bridges leading
into Adjara from Georgia proper. The crisis aroused the concern of
Russia, Europe and the US, all of whom consider the Black Sea state of
Georgia to be of key strategic importance. Ahead of his talks with
Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov, Mr Abishidze had been
saying he had “no intention” of quitting Adjara. However, pressure came
to a head on Wednesday (May 5, 2004) when citizens from all over the
small ‘state’ increasingly massed in the streets, even coming down from
the mountains on foot. Then the President declared direct presidential
rule and offered Mr Abishidze safe passage abroad.
Thus Abashidze fled to Russia!
However, prior to this last standoff, and as suspected, he made sure to
take out enormous public misappropriated assets from the country.
Naturally he abandoned solid goods such as fancy villas, houses,
vehicles, and–his private zoo-like animal “sanctuary”.
For years Abashidze, just like his Asian and Latin American
counterparts—other drug barons and local dictators–has been collecting
individual animals of different species of birds and mammals, some of
them rare. He was especially proud of his magnificent birds of prey and
predators that he showed off in an extremely primitive manner. His
official protocol for important official guests almost always included a
visit to this “sanctuary” where the Adjara leader would feed animals in
front of cameras, journalists and guests. Appeals to him to obey the
laws of Georgia that strictly forbid keeping wild animals in private
ownership, or numerous requests to him to act humanely and release local
wild fauna back into their natural habitat, as well as constant
reminders of the requirements of the CITES convention received
absolutely no attention from Mr. Abashidze. Laws in Georgia strictly
forbid keeping wild animals in private ownership and requires their
confiscation and subsequent placement in humane conditions.
Now, as their “owner” has escaped his own “sanctuary” for another, these
animals are left to the mercy of fate and their future is unclear.
NACRES has sent a “crisis relief team” to Batumi, the capital of Adjara,
to assess this situation and provide emergency relief aid to the
animals. NACRES has also contacted the Ministry of Environment of
Georgia and requested Governmental support to define appropriate
emergency action for the animals kept in Abashidze’s zoo.
Such action could include the release of native birds of prey to their
natural habitat, with the aid of NACRES specialists. However, the
situation is more dramatic for large native predators (bears, wolves)
and ungulates. Having been kept for years in enclosures with human
contact, they can no longer be released, and will require permanent and
humane care.
As for exotic species, NACRES is currently contacting representatives of
the CITES Focal Point in Georgia and with the Secretariat of
thisConvention, to undertake proper measures as required by the treaty.
Hereby, NACRES would like to draw attention of international and local
communities to the most urgent of Georgia’s wildlife problems. This
issue is related to a wider one—that of international illegal trade in
animal parts (such as gall bladder, skin/pelts, bear fat and meat) as
well as the common capture and illegal possession of live wild animals
in Georgia, which has been a growing problem all over the country.
NACRES, in partnership with the World Society for the Protection of
Animals (WSPA-UK) and other local environmental groups, has been seeking
solutions to these urgent issues, asking the Government of Georgia to
confiscate bear or wolf cubs kept in chains or cages, to implement a
nation-wide educational program for pubic awareness against this
trafficking. The Ministry of Environment expresses a deep concern about
the issue but has not had the financial means to address it efficiently.
Now with the emergency situation in Adjara, NACRES believes that an
opportunity should be seized: Abashidze’s Zoo can be transformed into a
real sanctuary for captive animals, a facility that has been sorely
lacking in this country.
In the near future (after the return of our rescue team from Adjara and
in consultation with Ministry officials) NACRES will obtain clear
picture regarding the present conditions of the former dictator’s Zoo
and the official position of the central and local Governments.
We will immediately release information on the situation and keep you
updated. NACRES would appreciate your ideas and support at this point,
and will keep in touch with you concerning the most appropriate
solutions that have been found.
Please contact us if you would like to be updated or if you have had
experience and know-how involving similar situations.
Levan Butkhuzi
Head, Governing Board
NACRES
Regular Mail Address: PO Box 20; 0179 Tbilisi; Georgia (CIS)
Courier Address: 34, Gamrekeli str.; 0186 Tbilisi; Georgia (CIS)
Fax: (+995-32) 537124
Tel: (+995-32) 537125
E-mail: [email protected]
6. U.S. NAMES COUNTRIES ELIGIBLE FOR NEW ASSISTANCE FUNDS
Government Corporation also plans to help other countries qualify
The recently created Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the U.S.
government has named 16 countries eligible to apply for development aid
from an innovative new program.
In a May 6 news release, the MCC said that its board of directors
selected the countries — Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia,
Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique,
Nicaragua, Senegal, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu — based on their governance,
social investment and economic freedom.
The MCC said it also approved a program to help some other countries
meet eligibility requirements.
The Millennium Challenge Account program announced by President Bush in
2002 is designed to help poor countries spur the economic growth and
attract the investment necessary to further development. Congress has
appropriated $1 billion for the MCC for this fiscal year.
Following is the text of the release:
Millennium Challenge Corporation
May 6, 2004
The Millennium Challenge Corporation Names MCA Eligible Countries
Washington, DC — Today, the Board of Directors of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC) selected the 16 countries eligible to apply
for Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) assistance in FY04 [fiscal year
2004]. MCC, a newly created government corporation designed to work with
some of the poorest countries in the world, is based on the principle
that aid is most effective when it reinforces sound political, economic,
and social policies that promote economic growth.
“This is a historic day for the Millennium Challenge Corporation,” said
Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell, Chair of the MCC Board. “The
President’s vision has come to pass, and today’s decision by the Board
of Directors is a major step in implementing the vision of the MCC.”
The selected countries include: Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde,
Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia,
Mozambique, Nicaragua, Senegal, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu. In making its
determinations, the Board considered both the past and current policy
performance of the candidate countries in the areas of governing justly,
investing in their own people and promoting economic freedom. The Board
also considered trends that indicated policy improvement or slippage.
“Our mission — encouraging and rewarding good policies that produce
sustainable economic growth — holds profound implications for freedom
and security across the globe,” MCC CEO [chief executive officer] Paul
Applegarth said today. “Today’s decision demonstrates the clear
commitment of the U.S. to reducing poverty and human suffering.”
The Board also approved a “Threshold Country” program, which will be
directed toward a limited number of candidate countries that have not
met the requirements for MCA eligibility but demonstrate a significant
commitment to meeting the requirements for eligibility. The Threshold
Country program will provide an added incentive to countries that are
committed to reform, and will be used to assist such countries in making
further progress towards becoming eligible for MCA assistance in future
years. MCC expects to work closely with USAID [U.S. Agency for
International Development] in this effort.
The United States is committed to the MCC as an innovative approach to
delivering foreign aid. Congress has appropriated $1 billion for the MCC
for this fiscal year, and President Bush has requested $2.5 billion for
FY05.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: )
7. ARMENIAN GROUP RELEASES LATEST BEDOUKIAN ‘STUDIES’
Source: World Coin News, May 8, 2004
The Armenian Numismatic Society has published the second volume of Dr.
Paul Z. Bedoukian’s Selected Numismatic Studies.
Bedoukian is considered the foremost authority in the study of Armenian
numismatics. His great knowledge of chemistry, metallurgy and Armenian
history has greatly added to the numismatic field.
The non-profit ANS was founded in 1971 and is the only Armenian
numismatic organization in existence. It publishes a number of books and
journals of Armenian ancient and medieval coins.
For more information on prices and ordering, write to: Armenian
Numismatic Society, Attn: Y.T. Nercessian, 8511 Beverly Park Place, Pico
Rivera, CA 90660, or call (562) 695-0380.
8. AREVAG: FESTIVAL OF ARMENIAN FILMMAKERS
Beirut International Documentary Festival (6th)
Mohamad Hashem
Founder & Manager
113-7222 – Hamra
Beirut – LEBANON
Tel: +961 3 771880
Fax: +961 1 352256
AREVAG. Festival of Armenian Filmmakers
May, 5, 2004
Arevag Film festival, which kicked of on April 26, 2004 in Beryte Hall
on the campus of Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon and closed
on April 30, was received by the audience and the local press by great
enthusiasm and success.
For the first time in the Middle East, a festival was solely dedicated
to Armenian filmmakers. Five filmmakers, who were attending the festival
presented the audience with many of their films, each filmmakers was
given a night and the selection of their films was done by the
filmmakers themselves.
The participating filmmakers were Serge Avedikian (France) Gariugin
Zakoyan (Armenia) Garine Torossian (Canada) Nigol Bezjian (Lebanon) and
Stephane Elmadjian (France).
The audience filled the cinema every night to full capacity and lively
debates and question/answer with the filmmakers followed at the end of
each screening night.
This successful event was organized as a joint venture between
Hamazkayin of Lebanon, Hamazkayin Centeral executive body and Docudays;
the only film festival in the Arab world dedicated to documentary films.
The admittance to the event was free and sponsored Societe General, Audi
and Credit Libanies banks, Libby’s, Haygazian University and AFHIL.
For more details of AREVAG festival, you may visit:
9. MARGARA VILLAGE WOULD BE FIRST TO ENJOY OPEN BORDER
Source: ArmeniaNow reporter, May 7, 2004
Along a 15-kilometer stretch of the Armavir region, a barbed wire fence
and the Araks river separates Armenia from Turkey, with the village of
Margara the last spot on the Armenian side. Villagers think the village
will profit if the border with Tukey is opened.
“See, that is the bridge and that is a Turkish soldier,” says Deputy
Head of Margara village Gharib Tadevosyan, pointing to a frontier guard
post.
He explains that the village Alijan, which can be seen over there, was
once Armenian.
People of Margara grow up accustomed to military-guarded borders.
Villagers have friendly relations with soldiers. The 15 th station of
frontier troops of the Russian Federation is based in Margara.
Until 1994 non-residents of Margara, could enter the village only with
special permits and passes.
“Our girls couldn’t get married, because people who were not residents
of the village couldn’t come to see them,” villager Samvel Mirzoyan
says. “For that reason almost everyone in the village are in-law
relatives to each other.”
There are 400 households and 1100 residents in Margara. This year 24
births have been registered.
“We love our village very much but the life is very passive here. It’s
true, we are people who keep the border but there is nothing interesting
here,” says Tadevosyan.
There is a cultural center in the village, but the roof is almost gone.
There is no kindergarten. There is a school for 240 students, but it has
no gym. Employees of the village government offices have not received
salaries for three years.
Gharib says when lands were distributed, families got 800 square meters
each. He complains that it isn’t enough, compared to what neighboring
villages got. Besides, the land itself is not so rich.
Villager Vachagan Asatryan moved to Margara from Spitak after the
earthquake of 1988.
He says Margara soil is too salty.
“People hardly work the land as the soil isn’t fertile,” Asatryan says.
“During Soviet times people used to add acid to the soil for increasing
its fertility. But now, who cares?”
Mirzoyan says the land has never been fertile, but that the village was
settled because of the river.
“Our grandfathers decided to go along the Araks and settle there.
Fishery was their primary occupation. They were living at the expense of
fishing. But now who will allow us to fish in the Araks?”
Villagers’ privatized lands are located behind the barbed wires within
the border. They can enter their own lands only with special permits.
“They open the fence in the morning at 9 o’clock and in the evening at 7
o’ clock they drive us out. We can’t fully use our day. We can’t work at
nights. But in summer our turn to get water often comes at night,” says
Mirzoyan, who argues that the river should be more accessible.
The village itself is in a depression created by a flood that in 1968
changed the center of the village.
May is always a dangerous month for Margara, when spring floods
threaten.
Near the border bridge is a half-built construction. Tadevosyan says it
was supposed to have been a tourist camp.
“They say when Breznev was in power they wanted to open the bridge but
probably they didn’t come to agreement and left the works incomplete,”
he says.
Over the past year there have been official speculation on opening the
border with Turkey. Margara would be the first Armenian territory
affected by such a situation. Villagers are in favor of seeing it
happen.
“We will be the first to make use of it,” Tadevosyan says. “If they open
the border the village will gain. One of the reasons is that there will
be a lot of new things to do. The trade will be developed, prices for
the lands here will increase and roads will be at last be
reconstructed.”
Deputy head of Margara village Gharib Tadevosyan. But he is interrupted
by Mirzoyan who says villagers aren’t prepared for the traffic of a
border town. They don’t know how to manage business, run restaurants,
hotels, he argues.
And he tells of the history of other traffic through Margara.
“People used to pass the border and join Kurdish troops in the struggle
against the Turks. We heard it from our grandfathers,” he says. “Those
who were going to escape, told those who stayed in the village, that as
soon as they successfully reach the place they will light fire on the
slopes of Masis and smoke of the fire would mean they have reached the
place without problems. And it happened the way they told.”
Samvel says a prosperous life in the village would prove to the outer
world that Armenia is in good conditions.
“The sound of our school bell can be heard in Turkey. If our lights are
switched off at night our neighbors can clearly see. If the village
lives good it will be good for everyone. After all Margara, in some
measure, is a lock for the country. ”
In Margara storks live in concord with villagers and soldiers. As
villagers say, these birds in these latter days don’t leave the village
even in winters. They are like frontier guards, who are simple dressed
in white.
10. ARMENIA RAISES $5.6 MLN FROM GOLD RESERVES SALE
Source: Interfax, May 7 2004
Armenia raised 3 billion dram (about $5.6 million) in net profit for the
country’s budget from the sale of gold reserves, Central Bank of Armenia
Chairman Tigran Sarkisyan told the press.
Armenia sold its entire gold reserve of 1,396.5 kilograms, estimated at
$17.1 million on October 1 2003 and forming part of the country’s
international reserves, at the end of 2003.
The sale was made in accordance with the international reserve
management strategy and had the approval of the Central Bank of Armenia
board, Sarkisyan said. The Armenian government made transaction through
international dealers when the price of gold topped $400 per troy ounce.
When foreign debt is double the volume of international reserves, there
is no need for a gold reserve because debt payments are made in dollars,
euros or SDR, Sarkisyan said.
Sarkisyan would not say whether the Central Bank would buy gold again if
international prices dropped.
The Finance Ministry reported that foreign debt on January 1 2004
totaled $1.097 billion and international reserves amounted to $512
million.
11. SMITHSONIAN ADVANCED COURSE IN CONSERVATION GIS
The Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center is offering the
following advanced GIS and remote sensing course:
Measuring Landcover Change and its Impact on Endangered Species
June 14-18, 2004
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
This one-week advanced GIS and remote sensing course provides
conservationists with an opportunity to learn how GIS and remote sensing
can be used to assess the conservation status of endangered species.
Participants will be provided with their own desktop computer for all
lab exercises. During the hands-on exercises participants will use the
Internet, ArcView, ArcView Spatial Analyst, ERDAS Imagine, Fragstats,
and other spatial analysis programs. Instructors will lead participants
step-by-step through the process of:
§ conducting a regional conservation assessment using GIS to determine
critical conservation areas for an endangered species;
§ acquiring multi-date satellite imagery to quantify land cover change
and to map the extent of the remaining habitat;
§ using landscape analysis to determine optimal landscape configurations
for conserving the endangered species.
Visit the following web address for more details and registration
information:
Contact:
Kate Jenks
[email protected]
1500 Remount Road
Front Royal, VA 22630
540-635-6535 (GIS Lab)
540-635-6506 (FAX)
12. MDF-TRAINING AND CONSULTANCY
Management for Development Foundation from the Netherlands is a
worldwide operating training and consultancy firm specialised in
capacity building, project management, and the standard EU management
method PCM, Project Cycle Management.
In the period 10 May – 4 June 2004 MDF organises for the 61th time its
internationally reputable Project Management Course in Ede, The
Netherlands. This course is based on the PCM method and offers managers
of developmental organisations, projects or activities everything they
might need in terms of technical management tools, personal skills and
human resources management methods and skills.
Today’s managers and advisors need to facilitate teams and groups to
analyse their situation and to make effective plans for action. From 2 –
10 June MDF offers a course on facilitation skills, also in the
Netherlands. This course improves your personal interaction skills,
provides insight in participative group processes and offers methods and
tools for different categories of participative decision-making events.
This course is designed and conducted in association with Bureau Frank
Little
Especially for clients in South East Europe involved with or interested
in projects or activities funded through one of the EC programmes such
as CARDS, TACIS or PHARE there is a new opportunity to get familiar with
the PCM management method. In close co-operation with Vakakis
International MDF organises two PCM courses in Athens, Greece in the
weeks of 24 May and 31 May. The first one focuses on the planning tool
Logical Framework whereas the second one concentrates more on Monitoring
and Evaluation. Together these courses cover the entire cycle of PCM
application throughout the lifespan of projects.
For more information consult our websites (, )
or contact us on [email protected] and [email protected]
—
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CENN INFO
Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN)
Tel: ++995 32 92 39 46
Fax: ++995 32 92 39 47
E-mail: [email protected]
URL:

Armenia Tree Project
Yerevan 375025, Aygestan 9th Str., #6
Tel./Fax (374 1) 569910
Internet:
E-mail: [email protected]
Press Release
10.05.2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US Ambassador’s Roundtable Participants Plant Evergreen at Tsitsernakaberd
Thursday, May 06 – John Ordway, the US Ambassador to Armenia, presided
during a special tree planting ceremony at Tsitsernakaberd on May 6 as
part of the Spring 2004 meetings of the semi-annual “U.S. Ambassador’s
Diaspora Roundtable.” After laying flowers in front of the Eternal
Flame, Roundtable participants planted a tree with the Ambassador in
the alley of evergreens. The tree planting was arranged by Armenia
Tree Project (ATP). Susan Yacubian Klein, ATP Country Director,
who also participated in the Ambassador’s Diaspora Roundtable,
accompanied the Ambassador during this act of respect.
For further information, please contact Karen Sarkavagyan at the
Armenia Tree Project, phone numbers 569910 and 553069, E-mail
[email protected]
The Armenia Tree Project was founded in 1994 during Armenia’s darkest
and coldest years with the vision of securing Armenia’s future
by protecting Armenia’s environment. Funded by contributions from
Diasporan Armenians, ATP has planted and rejuvenated over 500,000
trees at more than 450 sites ranging from Gumri to Goris.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress