Category: News

Los Angeles Daily News
April 27 2004
Suspect returns to face charge
Glendale man accused in slaying of nephew
By Alex Dobuzinskis
Staff Writer
GLENDALE — A 33-year-old fugitive returned voluntarily to the United
States from his native Armenia and will be charged today in the
shooting death of his 18-year-old nephew, police said Monday.
Gaik Shakhmuradyan, who had lived in Glendale for seven years, fled
to Armenia after Edvin Isagulyan was fatally shot last October,
officials said. He was returned Thursday to Los Angeles International
Airport accompanied by two Glendale police detectives, who had gone
to Armenia to find him.
“We were prepared to walk away from him and then bring all the
information back to the United States” and give it to prosecutors,
Glendale police Lt. Jon Perkins said. “He chose to come back with
us.”
Armenian authorities helped Glendale police find Shakhmuradyan, who
is the brother of Isagulyan’s mother. Shakhmuradyan could have faced
extradition proceedings if he had stayed in Armenia.
“He had a little taste of the U.S., and it was quite different in
Armenia,” Perkins said.
Isagulyan was shot in the head Oct. 20 in the parking lot of an auto
repair shop in the 500 block of South Glendale Avenue. He died the
next day.
The motive for the shooting is unclear, Perkins said. The shop was
not owned or operated by either the victim’s family or his uncle.
Shakhmuradyan was being held in Glendale jail in lieu of $2.1
million, with his arraignment scheduled today on one count of murder.
The victim’s family did not cooperate with police in the
investigation, Perkins said.

Glendale News Press
LATImes.com
April 27 2004
Local shooting suspect returns to U.S.

After allegedly killing his nephew, man fled to Armenia but returned
voluntarily after Glendale Police tracked him down.
By Darleene Barrientos, News-Press
SOUTHEAST GLENDALE – A man suspected of shooting and killing his
18-year-old nephew will be charged in his death today after
voluntarily returning to the United States from Armenia.
Glendale Police detectives have searched for 33-year-old Gaik
Shakhmuradyan since his nephew Edvin Isagulyan was shot Oct. 20.
Officers found Isagulyan, 18, with a gunshot wound to his head near
512 S. Glendale Ave. Isagulyan died the next day.
Glendale Police investigators did not get any help from Isagulyan’s
family but learned that Shakhmuradyan reportedly had fled to Abovyan,
Armenia. Glendale Police Investigator Bob Breckenridge traveled to
Armenia to find him and talk to him, with the help of the United
States embassy and Armenian law-enforcement agencies.
During an interview with Breckenridge, Shakhmuradyan offered to
return to the United States and face the charges against him.
“He asked if I could help him come back,” Breckenridge said. “He said
he wanted to come back. I think he wanted to come back because of the
living conditions he was in, and I think it was time for him to face
the family.”
Shakhmuradyan flew back to the U.S. with Breckenridge on Thursday,
where he was taken into custody by the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency. He was then arrested and booked at the Glendale
Police Department, where he was being held Monday in lieu of more
than $2-million bail.
It is believed to be the first time someone has fled to Armenia and
returned to the U.S. voluntarily to face murder charges, police said.
“A person who knows that he has pending charges for murder has not
returned [before] to face the charges of their own volition,”
Glendale Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.
The shooting was sparked by an argument, but detectives are still
investigating the cause, Breckenridge said.

Sports Illustrated
Blake upset in first round of Munich Open
Posted: Monday April 26, 2004 3:05PM; Updated: Monday April 26, 2004 3:05PM
BERLIN (Reuters) – Armenia’s Sargis Sargsian upset American eighth-seed
James Blake 6-4, 7-6 in the first round of the Munich Open on Monday.
Blake’s compatriot Taylor Dent, seeded seventh, advanced by beating France’s
Antony Dupuis 7-6, 7-6.
Other first round winners included 2003 French Open runner-up Martin Verkerk
of the Netherlands. The fourth seed beat Sweden’s Joachim Johansson 6-4,
6-2.
Unseeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko knocked out Romanian sixth-seed Andrei
Pavel 7-6, 6-4. On Tuesday German top-seed Rainer Schuettler will face
Sweden’s Robin Soderling, who beat him in the first round of the Australian
Open in January.
Schuettler reached the final of the Monte Carlo Masters on Sunday but was
thrashed by Argentina’s Guillermo Coria.
Germany’s Tommy Haas, back after a 15-month break due to injury and fresh
from winning in Houston eight days ago, faces Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech
Republic on Tuesday.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
April 27 2004
DEPUTIES LEAVE FOR ISRAEL
[April 27, 2004, 14:17:12]
The Milli Majlis deputies Shaiddin Aliyev and Asad Hajiyev are
shortly going to visit Israel to take part in the international
conference Re-establishment of Peace in XXI Century initiated by the
Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation OBSEC and Israeli
Parliament.
The conference participants will discuss regional problems, ways of
cooperation for their settlement and re-establishment of peace.
The delegation of Azerbaijan is expected to update the attendees in
detail on the situation in the South Caucasus, historical roots
current state of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh, international approach to the problem and role the
OBSEC and other organizations would play in its resolution.
The Azerbaijani deputies will also presented material confirming the
facts of genocide committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis, and
destruction of historical and cultural monuments of the Azerbaijan
people.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Globe and Mail, Canada
April 27 2004
Putting faith in the domino theory

Last year, Georgia toppled its leader; now Ukraine hopes to do the
same, MARK MacKINNON says
By MARK MacKINNON

KIEV — When Yulia Tymoshenko watched on television as Georgians rid
themselves of their despised president last fall, one thought buzzed
through her mind: Why couldn’t the same thing happen in Ukraine?
She may get her answer this fall, when Ukrainians vote for a new
president. Opinion polls suggest opposition candidate Viktor
Yushchenko would easily win a fair vote. But most analysts believe
Ukraine’s ruling clique, President Leonid Kuchma and his allies,
won’t let that happen.
Anger over a rigged election drove tens of thousands of Georgians
into the streets last November, in weeks of mass demonstrations that
finally forced Eduard Shevardnadze to give up power in what was
dubbed the Rose Revolution (after an opposition politician’s single
red rose, carried as a symbolic substitute for a gun).
Georgia’s political earthquake is still reverberating across the
former Soviet Union, and the strongest tremors are felt in Ukraine.
Mr. Kuchma, who is accused of running a government fraught with
corruption and of personal involvement in the killing of an
opposition journalist, is deeply disliked and will not be running for
a third term.
However, he has thrown the weight of his administration behind Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s bid.
Ms. Tymoshenko, 43, an influential opposition politician and one of
Mr. Kuchma’s harshest critics, is among those who expect Ukraine’s
ruling authorities to fight dirty during this fall’s election
campaign.
If the vote is seen to be rigged, she said, the opposition will have
no choice but to take to the streets and try for their own Rose
Revolution.
“If the authorities try to falsify the presidential election . . . I
would hope to see the Georgian example repeated here in Ukraine,” the
charismatic former deputy prime minister said in an interview.
“I personally will be calling people to go into the streets.”
Ms. Tymoshenko enjoys the parallels between herself and Mr.
Yushchenko, and the young politicians who led Georgia’s revolt:
Mikhail Saakashvili (who carried the red rose) and Nino Burdzhanadze,
now respectively that country’s President and parliamentary Speaker.
Like the two Georgians, Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yushchenko have put
aside their ideological differences to form a united front for the
campaign.
Political tension has long been building in Ukraine, and many
observers believe that a recent mayoral election in the western city
of Mukachevo was a trial run for the presidential showdown.
With the opposition set to coast to victory in an area considered a
stronghold of Mr. Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine movement, police sealed
off the electoral commission offices in Mukachevo and prevented
journalists and observers from watching as votes were tallied.
After officials announced that a pro-Kuchma candidate was the winner,
thugs in leather jackets are reported to have beaten several
observers and Our Ukraine officials who tried to enter the election
offices.
Some see the events in Mukachevo as a signal that Ukraine will be
less tolerant of dissent than was Mr. Shevardnadze, who let
demonstrators occupy the main street of Tbilisi for weeks while
independent television stations called for his resignation.
There is little independent news media in Ukraine; most TV stations
and newspapers are under government control.
“The [message] of Mukachevo is to threaten the public, to let them
know that [the authorities] could use not only administrative
resources, but could use physical force,” said Yevgeny Bistretsky,
director of the Kiev-based International Renaissance Foundation, an
affiliate of billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
Mr. Soros is accused in many quarters of providing financial support
to the Georgian revolt. When he visited Ukraine last month, he was
attacked in the state media and pelted with eggs and a
mayonnaise-filled condom by Kuchma supporters.
It is clear that while opposition parties across the former Soviet
Union, a region dominated by authoritarian regimes, have pounced on
the Georgian example as proof that change is possible, governments
too have learned from it.
In Armenia, the opposition has been rallying thousands into the
streets for weeks, calling for a vote on President Robert Kocharian’s
rule. Police recently broke up a crowd near Mr. Kocharian’s residence
using water cannons, batons and stun grenades.
“The Armenian opposition, encouraged by the Georgian ‘velvet
revolution,’ has clearly decided that the situation in the country
will enable them to achieve the same outcome,” Mr. Kocharian told
Russian state television recently.
“But the situation cannot be compared.”
Even in outright dictatorships such as Belarus and Uzbekistan,
Georgia’s example has shaken up the political status quo and
invigorated the opposition.
Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the beleaguered opposition to hard-line
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, says that his country’s
people privately cheered the Georgian revolt but can only dream of
similar events because they face a much more repressive regime.
“People will sit in their flats tonight and criticize Lukashenko . .
. but so far we have not been able to turn that into opposition on
the streets,” Mr. Lebedko said in his Minsk office, his desk decked
out with a small Georgian flag.
“But I’m an optimist. I have to be.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Globe and Mail, Canada
April 27 2004
Martin criticizes cabinet for split on genocide vote
By JANE TABER

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Paul Martin has rebuked his ministers for
not respecting cabinet solidarity in opposing a controversial motion
on the Armenian genocide, upset that some of them sat on their hands
or didn’t show up for the vote.
The Prime Minister was not at the vote either. His office said he
does not attend every private member’s vote. Another official said
that there was a scheduling issue and that is why he was not there.
Still, sources say Mr. Martin lectured his ministers at last
Thursday’s cabinet meeting, less than 24 hours after the stunning
vote on a motion in which MPs — including most of the Liberal back
bench — supported recognizing as genocide the mass killing of
Armenians during the First World War.
He wanted his cabinet to know that even if he wasn’t there he
supported the cabinet decision and the cabinet must vote as a block.
The motion passed 153 to 68.
“He was ticked off. . . ,” one senior Liberal official said about Mr.
Martin’s admonishment.
“It [breaking cabinet ranks] won’t happen again,” another said.
The Martin cabinet had decided that it would oppose the motion. But
at least two ministers — International Trade Minister Jim Peterson
and Justice Minister Irwin Cotler — didn’t attend the vote.
Public Works Minister Stephen Owen and Western Economic
Diversification Minister Rey Pagtakhan abstained despite the fact
that Government Whip Mauril Bélanger was seen motioning for them to
stand.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan had to shout at
Revenue Minister Stan Keyes to ensure he stood up to vote. Mr. Keyes
did vote with the cabinet but was heard afterward complaining that he
had to support the motion when other ministers did not show up.
One MP, who overheard him, muttered to some of his colleagues, “Stan
wants the . . . car but not the responsibility.” This was in
reference to the fact that a car and driver come with the cabinet
job.
The confusion and upset among the cabinet ministers show the
contentiousness of the vote.
The back bench was free to vote its conscience and it did, including
many former Jean Chrétien ministers, including Jane Stewart, Stéphane
Dion, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Lyle Vanclief and Maria Minna.
This did not go unnoticed.
“Many of our own Liberals didn’t vote with the government,” the
official said. “Some of them, I’m pretty sure if you see their names,
have an agenda to not necessarily be supportive of the government
right now. All the former cabinet ministers . . . didn’t vote with
the government.”
However, one former minister said that it had nothing to do with not
being in the Martin cabinet.
“But the bottom line is this is that you can’t be a multilateralist
whenever it’s convenient to you. The UN has recognized the Armenian
genocide,” the MP said.

RosBusinessConsulting, Russia
April 27 2004
RAO UES to take part in privatization of Turkish energy grids
RBC, 27.04.2004, Moscow 13:58:39.RAO UES does not rule out the
possibility of buying shares of the energy companies in Turkey, RAO
UES’s press department reported. Earlier Turkish authorities
expressed their interest in selling government stakes in the national
power grids by auction before the end of this year. ROA UES might
take part in these tenders.
According to RAO UES Deputy CEO Andrey Rappoport, RAO UES’s
long term targets are to buy shares in the energy companies of
Armenia and Georgia, entering the power market of Iran and Turkey and
creating the base for working with the energy systems of these
countries. Turkey lacks energy supplies and therefore the country is
a good market for importing energy. Energy systems of Russia and
Turkey link the two countries to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Therefore,
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict must be solved to make it possible
to supply energy to Turkey.
RAO UES controls 70 percent of energy generating companies in
Armenia and 20 percent of the energy generating companies in Georgia.

Sporting Life, UK
Scotsman, UK
April 27 2004
ABELYAN FANCIES HIS CHANCES
By Chris Roberts, PA Sport
Cocky William ‘The Conqueror’ Abelyan turned up the heat ahead of his
WBO World Featherweight title challenge by claiming he was going to
“cook” champion Scott Harrison.
The Armenian, who is currently the WBO number one ranked and
mandatory challenger, is not short of confidence going into their
showdown at Glasgow’s Braehead Arena on May 29.
Abelyan insisted: “Harrison is only keeping my world title belt warm
for me.
“Just make sure he is polishing it so it’s nice and shiny for me when
I take it off him on May 29.
“My world title opportunity has been a long time coming. I stepped
aside to let Harrison fight (Manuel) Medina the second time following
his loss to him.
“By rights I should have fought Medina and I am certain I would have
knocked him out and would be the world champion now. Medina gave him
a grilling but I’m going to cook him.”
The Cambuslang fighter had been due to face California-based Abelyan
in his last defence but a shoulder injury forced Harrison to take on
and beat Walter Estrada.
But the 26-year-old finally gets his chance and he is not intimidated
by going into the red-hot cauldron at Braehead.
“Everyone’s telling me what a hostile atmosphere it is going to be in
the arena on the night,” continued Abelyan.
“To tell you the truth I couldn’t care less. If you saw where I come
from in Armenia then you would have a reason to be worried. Going to
Scotland does not scare me one bit.
“What are his fans going to do for him? They are not going to be in
the ring taking sledgehammer punches – Harrison is.
“I’m not going to Scotland to make friends, I’m going there to do my
job which is to knock Harrison out cold.”
With over four weeks until their fight, he claims that he is going to
humiliate the Scot with a first-round knock-out.
“I wish the fight could be tomorrow because the way I am punching now
he will not make it past the first round,” added Abelyan.
“My training for this fight has been fantastic and I’ve never felt in
better shape.
“Come May 29 you will be looking at a new champion and the end of
Harrison.”

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
April 27 2004
Edelman: Turkey Has Proved Its Good-will In Cyprus To E.U. And World
ISTANBUL – U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman has said that
Turkey had proved its good-will in Cyprus to the European Union (EU)
and to the world, adding that they would take all necessary measures
not to leave Turkish Cypriots in the cold.
Speaking at a conference held jointly by Istanbul’s Bogazici
University and Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association
(TUSIAD) Foreign Policy Forum on ”Future of Turkish-the United
States Relations”, Edelman said on Tuesday that a powerful Turkey
would constitute an important opportunity for freedom, prosperity and
development in the region.
Noting that it was not the United States, but Turkish citizens who
will make Turkey successful, Edelman stressed that the United States
had been sincerely supporting Turkey’s EU membership process.
Stressing that Turkey could draw attention of more foreign investors,
Edelman said that there were still some problems in foreign
investments, and called on Turkish officials to overcome them.
Recalling that Turkey had made valuable contributions to training of
the Afghan National Army and undertaken important missions in
Afghanistan, Edelman said that NATO had been discussing presence of a
military team out of Kabul under the leadership of Turkey.
Emphasizing that the United States wanted to hand over the
sovereignty to Iraqi people on June 30, Edelman said that they had
been exerting efforts together with Iraqi people to determine the
most appropriate method of administration for Iraq.
Noting that the United States had made some mistakes in Iraq in
recent weeks, Edelman said that the United States, however, made many
contributions to future of Iraqi people.
Recalling that PKK/KADEK and the other terrorist organizations in
Iraq had already been included in the United States list of terrorist
organizations, Edelman said that Turkey and the United States had
been carrying out joint efforts to eradicate those terrorist
organizations.
Stressing that Turkey was able to make very important contributions
to the Middle East process, Edelman said that Turkey having a secular
and democratic system could constitute a serious model for the other
regional countries.
Edelman noted that the United States targeted to provide peace in
Caucasus and the Balkans, highlighting importance of Turkey’s opening
its border with Armenia.
Referring to results of Saturday’s twin referendums in Cyprus,
Edelman said that Turkey had exerted very significant efforts for a
fair and lasting agreement in Cyprus, and that Turkey had made great
sacrifices.
Recalling that the Turkish Cypriot side supported United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan’s plan, Edelman said that Turkey had
proved its good-will in Cyprus to the EU and the world.
He quoted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying that the
Greek Cypriots had missed a historic opportunity by rejecting the
Annan Plan.
Describing United Nations Secretary General Annan’s plan as the only
way for a fair and lasting peace on the island, Edelman said that
they would take all necessary measures not to leave Turkish Cypriots
in the cold.
Edelman stressed that Turkish Cypriot community should not be
punished because the Greek Cypriot side rejected the plan.
Stressing that Turkey had been strategic partner of the United States
for the last five decades, Edelman added that the United States
wanted to provide prosperity in the region.

Why Parliament’s Armenian resolution really mattered
By ALAN WHITEHORN
The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2004

The April 24 genocide remembrance day is one of the three most important
days in the contemporary Armenian calendar, along with Christmas and
Easter. This year the commemoration is particularly poignant with the
passage in the House of Commons this past week of Bill M-380 recognizing
the Armenian genocide of 1915.
It is somewhat intimidating to try to summarize the Armenian genocide in
the grim counting of the dead. In the absence of a vast sea of
tombstones, our shared memory must be the collective marker denoting
their fate.
My own family is part of the Armenian diaspora. My father, an
Anglo-Canadian, met my mother, an Armenian, in Egypt half a century ago,
and they came to Canada as immigrants. We share many new experiences in
our adopted home, but we also remember our ancestral roots.
My grandmother was an orphan of the genocide who never knew her real
name or age and spent many years in refugee camps. As her grandchild, I
have often thought about how we try to understand such enormous
suffering, and such vast indifference by too many.
Our reactions to genocide inevitably shift over time. Initially,
enormous shock, trauma and deep anger are the primary responses. Later,
a search for personal and international recognition and justice comes to
the fore. Still later, there emerges an attempt to understand both the
particular and the more universal aspects of genocide.
It is sometimes helpful to think in terms of key persons when trying to
understand the grand epic accounts of history. In this case, I think of
three men that symbolize three different responses to genocide. Each
person was cited in Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book A
Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
The first is Soghomon Tehlirian, a young Armenian. By age 19, he was the
sole survivor in his family. His mother, father, brothers and sisters
were all killed. He himself had been shot in the arm, wounded in the leg
by a sword and beaten unconscious, awaking to discover that the entire
caravan of thousands of Armenians from his home town had been
slaughtered.
He fled the killing fields and journeyed through the Near East and the
Balkans to Western Europe. The year 1921 found him in Berlin, still
distraught and suffering from epileptic seizures. One day, he recognized
an exiled Ottoman official, Talat Pasha, a former minister of the
interior in the Ottoman Empire and one of the key figures in the
triumvirate that, he believed, planned the genocide.
Mr. Tehlirian shot and killed Talat Pasha on a street in Berlin on March
15, 1921, and was immediately arrested. A sensational trial took place
in June of that year. Could surviving mass murder (the term “genocide”
had yet to be born) drive a person to commit an act of violence? Was he
guilty of murder – or was he exercising personal clan justice for the
death of his entire family? Is the murder of a tyrant ever justified? Or
were his acts those of a terrorist? The jury found him not guilty.
Raphael Lemkin, an aspiring law student in Poland, read about the trial;
it prompted him to wonder: How could we have a law for the murder of one
person, but not for the murder of one million persons? Conceptually,
there was no word for such a crime – thus, there was no way for
applying, let alone enforcing, collective law and justice. Mr. Lemkin
wrestled through the 1930s with the need for a legal term to convey the
magnitude of such a crime.
Then came the Nazi invasion of Poland. Mr. Lemkin, as a Jew, was at
grave risk. He fled Nazi-occupied Europe, found his way to sanctuary in
the United States, and wrote a monumental book exhaustively documenting
the Nazi record – and making the world aware of the term “genocide.”
Mr. Lemkin would become an adviser to the Allies at the Nuremberg
Tribunal, which attempted to introduce justice after the fact. More
importantly, he would become a one-man crusade to oversee the passage in
the United Nations on Dec. 9, 1948, of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The very next day, the UN
Charter of Human Rights, drafted by Canadian John Humphrey, was passed.
Together these two documents provided the underpinnings for a charter of
rights for all humanity.
However, it was not sufficient to introduce a new term for an
unthinkable crime, nor was it enough to pass a pioneering convention in
international law. Clearly, something would have to enforce
international law and ensure justice for the world community.
This leads us to Roméo Dallaire, a Canadian general who left the
comfortable confines of Canada to serve overseas. In 1994, he was
working for the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda. As some of that
country’s political leaders urged the Hutu majority to annihilate the
Tutsi ethnic minority, General Dallaire pleaded for more troops and
greater authority to intervene militarily. His pleas were ignored by
Western governments, the UN headquarters, most of the Western media and,
tragically, even by survivors of earlier genocides. The result was
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead.
Too many of us in the world had succumbed to the “sin of indifference.”
We had not learned sufficiently well the lessons of the First World
War’s Armenian genocide, nor the Second World War’s Holocaust.
This is why last week’s parliamentary recognition of Armenia’s genocide
matters so much. We all must resist the sin of indifference.
Alan Whitehorn is a professor of political science at the Royal Military
College, cross-appointed at Queen’s University.