Category: News

Azerbaijan better prepared for Karabakh war than in 1993 – TV

ANS TV, Baku
4 Apr 04

The Azerbaijani army, economy and public are now better prepared for
war than they were back in 1993, the commercial Azerbaijani ANS TV has
said in a wide-ranging analysis of a possible resumption of military
hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagornyy
Karabakh Republic. This time, there may also be “less US pressure” on
Azerbaijan, the TV said. It added that the war might damage
Azerbaijan’s economic development and delay the construction of an oil
pipeline to link Baku with the Turkish port of Ceyhan via Tbilisi. The
following is the text of a report by Azerbaijani TV station ANS on 4
April; subheadings inserted editorially:

[Presenter over archive footage] That the economic situation at this
juncture, with the Turkish-Armenian border closed, favours Azerbaijan
is beyond any doubts. The political and military situation is
gradually putting Azerbaijan at an advantage as well provided,
naturally, that Ankara’s position remains unchanged.

The Armenian leadership sees the gap between the present regional
situation and Armenia’s ambitions. The Armenian leaders are trying to
change the objective situation by their subjective views. This
contradiction is the reason behind Armenia’s attempts to use the same
political leverages and ideological machinery in 2004 as in
1990-93. However, this time the war may not benefit Armenia.

Armenian government’s interest in the conflict

The threat of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is still there. The
resumption of military operations, which were stopped in 1994, seems
possible for several political reasons. First of all, the Armenian
government, and specifically President Robert Kocharyan, intend to
resolve the domestic tension, created by the democratic and economic
crisis, by bringing to the foreground the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict. Because it is possible to re-unite the Armenian public,
divided over the socioeconomic crisis and election problems, by
exploiting the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict and threats from Azerbaijan
and Turkey. It is for this reason that Kocharyan has recently
attempted to revive the old anti-Azerbaijani slogans which were
popular in Armenia between 1989 and 1993 and thus push to the
background social and economic problems.

However, Armenia and Kocharyan will face many risks should they
restart the Karabakh war. The geopolitical situation in the region is
drastically different from the one in 1993. Most importantly, the
Azerbaijani military is not as incompetent and the Azerbaijani public
is not as politically inexperienced as they were at that time. The
socioeconomic situation in Azerbaijan is much better than it is in
Armenia, reducing thus the resistance of Armenian society in case of a
confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Economic downturn,
failure of the policy to grab Nagornyy Karabakh from Azerbaijan and
changes in regional geopolitics have ideologically eroded the Armenian
public. Therefore, the changes in the balance of power, both at home
and abroad, may result in shortening Kocharyan’s rule.

Pipeline opponents

Finally, a second Nagornyy Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan
may be of interest to those forces which oppose the construction of
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. When credits were sought to build
the pipeline, it was plain to see how numerous and strong are the
opponents of the Baku-Ceyhan project.

US position changes

Azerbaijan, in turn, may be interested in carrying out a fast and
successful military operation in Nagornyy Karabakh. Azerbaijan has
greatly deepened its military cooperation with the USA and in the wake
of his latest visit to Washington, Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar
Abiyev said that war remains a possibility. This means that this time
there may be less US pressure on Azerbaijan if the war in Karabakh is
resumed, and America will not pass again, as it did in 1992, something
like the Section 907 [to the Freedom Support Act banning direct US aid
to the Azerbaijani government, now temporarily suspended]. The reason
is that taking any steps against the Azerbaijani government may affect
the counterterrorism coalition’s operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. On the other hand, when US Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian Affairs Elizabeth Jones was asked in Congress
why the USA plans to allocate 8m dollars to Azerbaijan and only 2m
dollars to Armenia in military aid, thus breaking the parity between
the sides, she said that this will not damage the balance of powers in
the region. She added that the USA had taken no commitment to preserve
such a parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Looked at from this
perspective, Russia’s attitude to Azerbaijan is also dramatically
different from what it used to be in 1992-93.

Second, if Azerbaijan shows that it is actually ready to resume the
Karabakh war, the plans to re-open the Turkish-Armenian border may be
scrapped. Baku is certainly interested in that. Third, the remaining
threat of war prevents the inflow of investment in Armenia and
Nagornyy Karabakh and this is an important plank of Azerbaijan’s
strategy to deal with the conflict.

War’s economic impact on Azerbaijan

Yet, some aspects of the resumed war represent drawbacks for
Azerbaijan. They are only related to the economic development and
delay in the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. New
military operations may stop investments in the Azerbaijani economy
and slow down the successful economic development. On the other hand,
conflict may create serious problems for the pipeline. Taking into
consideration all these issues, if faced with the necessity of war,
Azerbaijan may only decide to go to war if it can wage a lightning,
fast and completely successful military operation.

Armenian opposition set to remove “illegal” authorities – leaders

Noyan Tapan news agency
5 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The opposition is planing to stage a massive protest action in
Yerevan’s Freedom Square at 1600 [1100 gmt] on 9 April. The action
will be aimed at changing power in Armenia, leader of the Justice bloc
Stepan Demirchyan and chairman of the National Unity party Artashes
Gegamyan told a press conference at the National Assembly on 5 April.

The Justice bloc and the National Unity party again confirmed their
resolution to lead the processes aimed at executing a national
requirement, i.e. the removal of the illegal regime, the establishment
of the constitutional order in Armenia and the formation of the legal
authorities, the parties said in a joint statement.

Artashes Gegamyan said the authorities “have completely lost their
heads which can be proven by mass arrests of opposition activists over
the last two days”.

Demirchyan said that the ruling regime was behaving like “a junta” and
aiming to frighten the opposition. However, he believes that the
authorities will achieve the reverse effect and accelerate their own
defeat.

“The regime, which is suffering from a mania for preserving the
authorities at any cost, rejected the well-known decision of the
Constitutional Court on the conduct of a referendum on a vote of
confidence. It wants to settle a score through illegal actions and
violence. There is only one way out, i.e. the regime that has usurped
the power must go,” the joint statement by the opposition said.

Armenian opposition leaders tell presser about arrests

Noyan Tapan news agency
5 Apr 04

YEREVAN

Numerous opposition activists have been arrested in Yerevan and
regions of Armenia over the last two days, the leader of the Justice
bloc, Stepan Demirchyan, and the chairman of the National Unity party,
Artashes Gegamyan, told a press conference at the National Assembly on
5 April.

Gegamyan said that there were many women among those arrested.
According to figures received on the same day, 47 activists of the
National Unity were arrested. The leader of the party said the arrests
were carried out within two days without any legal grounds for them.

Stepan Demirchyan, in turn, also spoke about the arrests, adding that
the numbers are being clarified. In particular, a member of the
political board of the Anrapetutyun Party, Suren Surenyants, has been
arrested. The head of the Armavir territorial organization of the
People’s Party of Armenia and former deputy, Aramais Barsegyan, was
attacked on 3 April.

In the early hours of 5 April, officers of the Arabkir police station
tried to break into the flat of Dustrik Mkhitaryan, member of the
board of the National Democratic Party. Mkhitaryan told a
correspondent of Noyan Tapan news agency that she barred the law
enforcers from her house and called the party leader Shavarsh
Kocharyan, whose arrival at the scene of the incident saved her from
the arrest. Mkhitaryan added that the police refused to show any
documents and explained the search of her flat by a theft which
happened nearby.

The chairman of the New Times party, Aram Karapetyan, was also
arrested, Demirchyan said. Demirchyan and Gegamyan said that the
arrests were likely to continue.

Monday Morning Weekly Magazine
Lebanon
April 5 2004

Hariri in Yerevan:`The constructive role of Lebanon’s Armenians’

Arriving in Yerevan last week for an official visit to Armenia,
Premier Hariri was welcomed by his Armenian counterpart, Andranki
Kargarian.
After a short pause in the VIP salon, the two men went to the prime
minister’s office for a private discussion, after which they were
joined by other officials, including ministers Fuad Saniora, Elias
Skaff, Ghazi Aridi, Marwan Hamadé and Samir Jisr.
Hariri then drove to the Parliament House for an address in which he
commended Lebanon’s Armenian community which, he said, `always
rejected participation in the civil war. On the contrary, they have
since the conflict contributed to the reconstruction of the country’.
He went on: `The Lebanese and Armenian parliaments have ratified
several agreements from which the private sector should benefit’.
On the regional situation, Hariri said, `The situation is certainly
complicated: it is explosive in Iraq and Israel’s occupation of the
Palestinian territories can degenerate at any moment. We call for
peace between the Arabs and Israel, and we believe this peace is
possible, on condition that Israel agrees to apply UN resolutions’.
On another subject, the prime minister stressed the importance of
Lebanon’s association agreement with the European Union, to the
extent that `it will highlight democratic practice and human rights
in Lebanon and will reinforce the independence of the judiciary in
such a way as to adapt our system to that of European countries’.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Jerusalem Post, Israel
April 4 2004

Trouble in Turkestan

Among the many surprises caused by the Soviet Union’s dissolution was
the emergence of the newly independent Central Asian republics, whose
most important metropolis – Tashkent – last week came under Islamist
terrorism’s attack.

Rich in minerals, under-populated, and culturally tolerant, the vast
region historically known as Turkestan tempted entrepreneurs and
confounded diplomats, as chances grew it would become a bone of
contention between modernists and fundamentalists. Spanning a
landmass roughly the size of Brazil, the six formerly Soviet Asian
republics thus emerged as the post-Cold War era’s Wild East and Big
Game.

>From a Western viewpoint, Central Asia’s development since 1992,
though far from perfect, seemed on the whole positive.

With the exceptions of Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia and Tajikistan’s
with itself, the area’s leaders have generally avoided civil strife
and international conflict. Recalling the merits and drawbacks of
Russian domination, Central Asian leaders eagerly cemented healthy
ties with America, and actively backed its war on terrorism.

Economically, local leaders derived inspiration from the historic
east-west Silk Road that linchpins their region, and got down to the
business of hinging Central Asia’s abundant natural resources – which
include everything from oil, gas, and zinc to diamonds, tin, and gold
– with the global economy. While all this does not compensate for a
frequent lack of pro-market reforms, it still is a promising
harbinger to a future of prosperity and self-sufficiency.

Culturally, Western observes initially suspected that the region that
was historically influenced by both Turkey and Iran would now be
strained by their conflicting views on secularism, Islam, and Western
civilization in general. At stake were basic questions, like what
script – Arabic or Latin – would be chosen to replace the Cyrillic,
and how much influence Muslim clerics would be allowed in local
education systems.

While Turkish foreign policy remained obsessed with joining Europe,
and as such disappointed some with its reluctance to offer Central
Asia not just inspiration but also leadership, Iran has so far failed
to seriously break path in the lands to its east. Eventually, the
early Nineties’ anxieties have proven exaggerated, as Central Asia’s
leaders took a clear stand in favor of sanity, keeping fundamentalism
at bay and welcoming things Western much the way post-Ottoman Turkey
has.

Politically, however, it quickly became clear that Central Asia’s
leaders were no democrats. Though the intensity of human-rights
violations varied from country to country and from time to time, the
region’s leaders have generally not offered, and often actively
obstructed, freedoms of press, speech, and association. One after the
other, Central Asian leaders – most of whom remain products of the
Soviet era – have stifled political debate, arrested would-be
opponents, and nurtured personality cults.

It was into this mixed landscape of progress and reaction that
international terrorism barged last week, with a series of bombings
that have killed more than 40 people in Tashkent and Bukhara, and
wounded dozens more.

For the terrorists, the aim here is obvious. Uzbekistan, under the
leadership of communist-era boss Islam Karimov, has allowed the
establishment of American military bases on its soil, thus offering
the US a vital springboard into nearby Afghanistan. As they have done
in Spain last month, it seems that America’s enemies are out to
attack its allies in the war on terrorism.

Fortunately, the Uzbek leadership has responded with the kind of
resolve that Spain has avoided, making it plain that it will meet the
terrorists in the battlefield rather than seek ways to understand and
appease them.

Unfortunately, the free world cannot afford the luxury of ignoring an
already vulnerable Uzbekistan’s exacerbation of its own condition, by
keeping its 21 million citizens under an unnecessarily short leash.
It is one thing to fight an Islamism whose declared goal is the
restoration of medieval theocracy. It is an entirely different thing
to delay the arrival of political modernity.

We have seen countries that think tyranny will protect them from
fundamentalist Islam find their own squashing of freedom to be an
incubator for radicalism, both against themselves and the West.
Meeting their current leaders as larger-than-life, motionless statues
rather than actual-size people who deliver opportunity and
self-fulfillment is a recipe for failure. In fact, that was the kind
of leadership that Khomeini defeated handily in Iran.

EU Business, UK
April 4 2004

New Europe’s leaders want a new enlargement to the east

Only a few weeks away from joining the European Union, the so-called
New Europe’s leaders are already dreaming of expanding the EU even
further to the east, to Ukraine, Belarus and perhaps Georgia.

The former Soviet bloc states set to join the EU on May 1, and
considered the New Europe, want to use their new status to lead a
debate on the Union’s future borders, a debate existing members shy
from.

“If you look at the map, you’ll see that Ukraine and Belarus are part
of Europe and I can’t see why we would refuse to others what was
generously granted to us”, Estonian foreign minister Kriistina
Ojuland told journalists.

Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski has said repeatedly that the
EU must remain open to new members, particularly his country’s
neighbours Belarus and Ukraine.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel agrees.

Sensitive to the fate of opponents to Belarus President Alexander
Lukashenko’s regime, Havel, himself a former dissident, has demanded
that the EU offer Belarus’s fighters for democracy a chance of
joining Europe, as the Union did for former communist countries in
central Europe.

“I believe that the future of Belarus is firmly linked with the
future of Europe”, Havel said only last week. “The door must remain
open.”

Meanwhile, Bulgaria and Romania, which hope to join the EU in 2007,
want to see the Union push further east, namely to include Turkey, a
candidate for membership since 1999, and the impoverished Moldova.

Bulgaria and Romania are also looking at their neighbors across the
Black Sea.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy has pleaded enthusiastically
on behalf of Georgia and Armenia. In his mind, the Black Sea would
become an internal sea within the European Union.

“From a strategic perspective, the Black Sea region is part of
Europe”, Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase told a conference in
Bratislava in March.

“The EU can make a new success-story of the Black Sea-Caucasus
region,” Nastase said.

These aspirations are strongly supported by US conservatives, such as
the influential Bruce Jackson, who acted in the wings last year to
ensure the support of New Europe for the Iraqi policy of George Bush.

These conservatives are hostile to a European federation which would
rival the United States but would like to have the EU function as an
instrument of economic and political stabilisation for the former
Soviet Bloc countries.

Above all, the new members are worried that remaining the easternmost
countries of the EU would leave them stuck with borders that isolate
them economically from their eastern neighbors.

There is also a real solidarity among the former Soviet republics.

“When I see how these countries are increasingly deprived of the
simple perspective of EU membership … it’s terrifying,” said the
father of Lithuania’s independence Vytautas Landsbergis.

The new countries will however have to be strong to convince others.
More than one year ago Romano Prodi, president of the EU’s executive
arm, the European Commission, drew the future map of the EU —
integrating Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Balkan countries but
saying that others would have to remain “friends”.

And to hear the increasingly strong voices rising in western Europe
against Turkey joining, it is not certain the future EU map will be
even as large as that envisioned by Romano Prodi.

The 10 states set to join the EU on May 1 are Cyprus, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Slovakia and Slovenia.

Boston Globe, MA
April 4 2004

OFF TO ARMENIA:

For 26 Lexington High students, it will be a unique spring break,
touring Armenia and performing several concerts. Several of the
school’s Madrigal singers and concert choir members leave April 14
for New York City, where they will fly to Moscow and then travel on
to Armenia. “I can’t tell you what they’ll come home with, but it’s a
completely different experience than anything they’ve seen in the
world , starting with the architecture, the language, the customs,
the weather,” said Peggy Hovanessian, a parent who has coordinated
much of the trip and whose daughters, Manneh and Naris Ghazarian, are
going. Brian O’Connell, the school’s choral director, will accompany
the group to Armenia. The students are packing two suitcases each,
one of personal belongings and one filled with clothing, musical
instruments, toys, and gifts to give away there.

Los Angeles Times , CA
April 4 2004

Putting Broken Georgia Back Together Again

Saakashvili must navigate political minefields while reviving the
economy.

By Rajan Menon, Rajan Menon is Monroe J. Rathbone professor of
international relations at Lehigh University.

NEW YORK – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had better savor
his party’s overwhelming victory in last Sunday’s parliamentary
elections, because his chances for similar triumphs as he tackles his
country’s serious and longstanding problems are clouded.

For openers, his government doesn’t control much of the territory
over which it has nominal jurisdiction – and hasn’t since 1992.
Abkhazia, the northwestern segment of Georgia’s Black Sea coast, is,
in effect, independent. The Abkhaz, a predominantly Muslim Caucasian
people that, with Russian help, broke away from Tbilisi more than a
decade ago, maintain a special relationship with Moscow and are
wedded to outright independence. Saakashvili is determined to regain
Abkhazia, as are most Georgians, especially the thousands who were
expelled from the region. Clashes between Abkhaz and Georgian forces
routinely puncture a tenuous cease-fire overseen by a predominantly
Russian-dominated contingent. Peace talks have been fruitless.
Abkhazia remains a flashpoint and a symbol of the precariousness of
Georgia’s political equilibrium.

Another slice of Georgia’s Black Sea coast, which includes the port
of Batumi, runs through the dissident region of Adzharia, whose
indigenous people are predominantly, albeit nominally, Muslim, a
legacy of several centuries under the Ottoman Empire. The local
strongman, Aslan Abashidze, rules with scant regard for the central
government in Tbilisi. He hasn’t sought full-fledged independence
largely because he already possesses its attributes: a constitution,
control of local revenues, a police and militia, and unchecked power.

But Adzharia is a crisis-in-waiting. Earlier this month, Abashidze
banned Saakashvili from entering his fiefdom, then relented after the
Georgian president imposed an economic blockade. The incident
highlighted the fragility of Georgian unity. Bringing Adzharia under
Tbilisi’s control won’t be easy because Abashidze has independent
economic resources, an extensive patronage network and connections to
Russia, which maintains a military base at Batumi.

A similar situation prevails in South Ossetia. The Georgia
government’s writ doesn’t hold in the region, and Russia exercises
considerable leverage there, not least because the Ossetians are a
nation divided by state boundaries: Russia’s republic of North
Ossetia holds open the dream of unification for Georgian Ossetians –
and for Georgians the nightmare of political disintegration.

Saakashvili’s most formidable challenge, then, is to reunite Georgia
– or at least prevent its fragmentation.

Another more urgent, but also more doable challenge is to revive
Georgia’s economy. Despite respectable rates of growth in the last
several years and low inflation and little foreign debt, the
country’s gross national product is still only 40% of its 1989 level.
About the same proportion of people live below the poverty line, and
pervasive corruption and persistent doubts about Georgia’s ability to
remain whole have made foreign investors leery.

But two pipelines – one carrying oil from the Azerbaijani port of
Baku to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the other transporting
natural gas between Baku and the Turkish city of Erzurum – are under
construction, and their transit revenues will be a significant and
steady source of income, or so Georgia hopes. But political chaos
could undo both economic ventures, and not only because of Abkhazia,
Adzharia and South Ossetia.

The durability of the Saakashvili’s political alliance with Zurab
Zhvania, the prime minister, and Nino Burjanadze, the parliamentary
speaker, is uncertain. There are no strong personal or political
bonds uniting the three. In the weeks before the elections, members
of Zhvania and Burjanadze’s Democrats, which united with
Saakashvili’s National Movement for the parliamentary vote, were
unhappy that the president’s party insisted on getting most of the
spots on the party list. While Saakashvili remains immensely popular,
murmurs about an imperial presidency, his dislike of press criticism
and the inexperience of his top lieutenants have surfaced.

The bigger question concerns the political opposition. Eleven
parties, most of them tiny and chaotic, contested Sunday’s elections.
To qualify for representation in parliament, a party had to win at
least 7% of the overall votes. Some opposition parties complained
that the high threshold would freeze them out; three, including the
Citizen’s Union, the party of former President Eduard A.
Shevardnadze, boycotted the vote; and since the elections, complaints
have arisen about irregularities that put the opposition parties at a
disadvantage. The problem is that parties left outside the political
system may choose to disrupt it.

Then there is Russia, which is determined to keep Georgia within its
orbit. Ever since its independence, Georgia has battled to break
Russia’s grip, and Saakashvili will not stop that struggle. To
diminish Russia’s leverage and create stability and prosperity, he
will have to continue Shevardnadze’s policies of more trade with and
investment from the West, as well as solidifying political and
strategic ties with Europe and the U.S. The pipelines, Georgia’s
participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Partnership
for Peace and continuing American training for Georgian
border-security forces are examples of such efforts.

Russia, which views the South Caucasus, the larger region of which
Georgia is part, as its historic sphere of influence, has plenty of
strings to pull. Thousands of Georgians work in Russia, and their
remittances are vital for many Georgian families. Moscow can impose
travel and employment restrictions on Georgians, and has done so in
the past. Georgia owes Russia $157 million (for Georgia, a
considerable sum) in unpaid debts, and Moscow has used debt
rescheduling as both carrot and stick. Georgia’s economic problems
and its dependence on Russian energy have enabled Moscow to link the
resumption of gas supplies to an agreement on the debt. This is a
matter of simple economics and shrewd accounting; it is also an
object lesson to Georgia on the necessity of taking Russia seriously.

Moscow has military sources of influence as well. Russian troops
remain stationed at Batumi and Akhalkalaki, the predominantly
Armenian region in the south of Georgia and talks to negotiate a
schedule for closing the bases have stalled. Russia insists that it
needs until 2014 to complete the closures, and, despite reaping a
windfall from surging oil prices, also says that it needs help paying
for the relocation of its troops. The bases give Moscow leverage on
important issues.

Georgia wants to join NATO. Russia wants it to declare neutrality or,
preferably, to align with Moscow. The bases act as an impediment to
Georgian membership in NATO. While the possibility of Georgia
aligning with Russia seems remote, in Moscow’s eyes, Tbilisi’s
political course remains uncertain and thus changeable. Its bases in
Georgia also give Russia a bargaining chip to prevent the U.S. from
relocating some of its forces from Western Europe to NATO’s new East
European members.

Finally, the quasi-independence of Abkhazia, Adzharia and South
Ossetia gives Russia a foothold in Georgia, which controls the road
and rail links to Armenia, a key Russian ally and host to Russian
military bases. Not surprisingly, Moscow insists that Tbilisi must
agree not to forcibly annex these regions before a deal can be
reached on the bases.

The parliamentary elections significantly increased Saakashvili’s
political capital, but there are many ways in which his account could
be drawn down – and rapidly. Georgia’s seemingly intractable problems
can easily transform heroes into villains. Just ask Shevardnadze.

Associated Press
April 4 2004

Center displays works inspired by obsession and compulsion

By HELENA PAYNE
Associated Press Writer

BOSTON- A Boston artist has dedicated a museum exhibit to the type of
behavior that causes some to separate their M&Ms into colors, pop
bubble wrap until there is no more plastic to crush and focus all
their attention on the most minute detail out of pure obsession.

The exhibit at the Boston Center for the Arts is called “OCD,” as in
obsessive compulsive disorder. Curator Matthew Nash said it’s not
about an illness, but how the creative process can be driven by a
series of obsessions and compulsions.

“You should see my studio,” said Nash, who has shown his art in
Boston, Chicago, New York and Italy.

He is one of the people who separates his Skittles, M&Ms and Reese’s
Pieces into separate containers for each color. He used the latter
two sugary goods to create his art for the OCD exhibit, which lasts
through May 9 and features artists from New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Using the Halloween-like colors in the candies, Nash made a grid that
forms the images of soldiers, planes and other war-related pictures.

“The obsession of this is having bins and bins of M&Ms and hoping
when you’re done it looks like something,” Nash said.

Nancy Havlick has bins with objects separated by color, but they’re
filled with sugar eggs. In an attempt to fuse her multicultural roots
– English and Armenian – with her American upbringing, she decided to
start her own tradition.

With the sugar eggs, Havlick creates “rugs.” Make no mistake, they
aren’t to walk on.

The eggs are colored with a mixture of spices and foods often used in
Armenia, including mahleb, sumac, almonds, apricots, paprika and
rosebuds. She organizes them in decorative patterns on the floor.

“I’m deciding my own tradition. Rather than looking backwards, I’m
forging ahead,” Havlick said, laying one of the eggs in its position.

Havlick said she didn’t recognize her obsession with making sugar
eggs until she realized she has been doing it for a decade. But she
has also realized another fixation: carving out an identity from her
multiethnic past.

In her parents’ generation, Havlick said, it was much more common to
assimilate to the American culture rather than celebrate differences.

“My mother wasn’t cooking Armenian food. We were having hot dogs and
hamburgers,” she said.

The sugar eggs have become her own way of bridging the past to the
future and “to control the chaotic feelings” of life, she said.

And for her two children, the sugar egg tradition is working. Her
9-month-old son Jonathan’s first words were “momma,” “sugar” and
“eggs.”

Many of the exhibitors wanted their art to express something about
both the creation process and the result.

New York artist Jason Dean wanted to conquer bubble wrap after
working for an animation company where he did a lot of packing.

So he decided to make it an art project and see how much time it
would take for him to pop the largest roll of bubble wrap he could
find: 110 feet by 4 feet. It took about six hours.

That roll and other smaller ones are mounted on a wall of the exhibit
like paper towels above a kitchen sink. There is also a video that
features Dean’s “popping spree.”

“I kept thinking that they were a lot louder,” he said. “It just
sounded like fireworks and I kept thinking that someone is going to
question this odd sound.”

Joseph Trupia, another New York artist, used office supplies to make
drawings called “What I can do in 40 hours” and “What I can do in 8
hours.”

Another work in the OCD exhibit shows 600 photographs of rear ends.

“It was kind of a silly thing to do at first and it became a document
of the process of looking,” said Boston artist Luke Walker of his
gluteus photography.

Norfolk, Va., artist Jennifer Schmidt became fascinated with the
repetition of filling in ovals on test score sheets.

“The idea of the artwork showing evidence of repeated activity is
something we see in a lot of different forms,” said Martha Buskirk, a
fellow at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in
Williamstown, Mass., and author of “The Contingent Object of
Contemporary Art.”

The clinical disorder is even more consuming, said Diane Davey, a
registered nurse and program director of the OCD Institute at McLean
Hospital in Belmont.

“Obsessive compulsive disorder is really defined as someone who has
unwanted or disturbing intrusive thoughts and who engages in a set of
behaviors that are meant to sort of neutralize the thought and help
them to feel less anxious,” Davey said.

Davey said an exhibit like “OCD” might help someone to question his
or her own behavior and seek help if necessary.

Manila Bulletin, Philippines
April 5 2004

Another Pacquiao sparmate punished

By winneleo campos

LOS ANGELES – At the end of six bruising rounds atop the ring,
Armenian Art Simonyan playfully planted a kick on Manny Pacquiao’s
behind. It was the only time he had the upperhand on the Filipino
pug.

Stepping up his preparation for a May 8 bout against world
featherweight king Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao knocked down the
undefeated Armenian in the first round of a sparring session at
Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in Hollywood.

A few days after cracking the rib of another Armenian fighter, Kahren
Harutyunyan, in training, the 25-year old GenSan southpaw sent
Simonyan to the canvas with a left straight even before fans who had
come to watch him at the gym could settle in their places.

He held back the rest of the way, finishing the six rounds on his
heels then responded to Simonyan’s kick with a spinning back-kick
that narrowly missed his opponent’s head.

Simonyan is 13-0-1 (win-loss-draw) as a pro and has never been
knocked down in his career, sources said.

“Masaya si Manny sa ensayo, kumakain ng tama at focused na focused
doon sa laban,” said Lito Mondejar, a member of Team Pacquiao.

Pacquiao has now got it 18 rounds of sparring on
Monday-Wednesday-Friday sessions in preparation for his bout with
Marquez, whose WBA and IBF featherweight titles the Filipino covets
to legitimize his claim to be the king of the world in the division.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are reserved for gym work,
calisthenics and sessions with the punch mitt with Roach.

“Manny is easy to deal with. He assimilates everything that you teach
him and he learns things very fast,” said Roach, unable to hide his
satisfaction over the pace of Pacquiao’s preparation.

On Monday, a new sparring partner that will come all the way from
Mexico will be fed to Pacquiao to give him a new perspective on how
to adapt to a fight.

Roach said the boxer fights like Marquez in some ways.

At the end of sparring sessions, Pacquiao, together with Filipino
trainer Buboy Fernandez and Mondejar, studied Marquez’s fight tapes
and took note of several weaknesses in his opponent’s style, whose
technical approach to boxing had been his meal ticket to success.

“Makikita na lang niya sa laban ang inihahanda namin,” said Pacquiao
of his fight plan. “Magaling s’ya sa counter-punching pero papasukin
namin siya.”