Category: News

St. Francis may become Armenian church
By SCOTT BROOKS Union Leader Correspondent
The Union Leader (Manchester NH)
May 13, 2004 Thursday STATE EDITION
NASHUA — A Hollis real estate developer hopes to turn the former St.
Francis Xavier Catholic Church into the state’s second Armenian church.
Vatche Manoukian, owner of Mile High Real Estate, successfully
negotiated a $1 million deal last week with the Diocese of Manchester
for the 19th-century French Hill landmark, which he plans to donate
to the Armenian Orthodox Church.
“It’s a very unique opportunity at a very unique time, and he’s
grabbing it,” said Manoukian’s attorney, Gerald Prunier.
The deal is contingent on a judgment in Hillsborough County Probate
Court, where the diocese hopes a judge will declare the sale
permissible under the church’s 1885 deed. However, some Catholic
parishioners, who call themselves the St. Francis Xavier Church
Foundation, opposes the sale and plans to intervene in the case,
the group’s attorney said.
“The parishioners want it to remain the St. Francis Xavier Catholic
Church,” said Randy Wilbert, the foundation’s attorney and former
president. “There’s a statute that says it’s got to be held in trust
for members of the parish. You can’t very well sell it to another
religion and consider yourself in compliance with your obligations.”
Wilbert said he hopes to file a motion to intervene by the end of
this week.
The diocese closed St. Francis in 2003 due to “declining financial
health and waning parishioner attendance,” according to its May 7
probate court filing. With the church on the market, the foundation
offered to buy it for an undisclosed amount of money earlier this year.
Diocesan officials said the foundation’s bid would not be considered.
Bishop John McCormack has said the church can no longer be used for
Catholic worship once it is closed.
Last month, the group responded by petitioning Hillsborough County
Superior Court for a declaratory judgment to keep the church a
Catholic facility.
A judge stayed the case at a pre-trial hearing Monday, allowing the
diocese to pursue a ruling in probate court.
The diocese’s filing argues a transfer to the Armenian Church would not
violate the building’s deed because it would ensure the structure’s”
continued public religious or pious use.”
In its filing, the diocese says net proceeds from the sale would go
to the St. Aloysius of Gonzaga parish in Nashua, which absorbed the
former St. Francis parishioners after their church was closed.
Prunier said his client is seeking word from the Armenian Church in
Jerusalem that it will accept the building. Manoukian, who is 54,
is asking nothing in return, he said.
New Hampshire currently has only one Armenian church, the Ararat
Armenian Congregational Church in Salem.
Manoukian’s brother, Hollis Selectman Vahrij Manoukian, said there
are few nearby churches for the Armenian community. The brothers,
who were born in Lebanon and moved to New Hampshire in 1977, attend
the St. Vartanantz Armenian Church in Chelmsford, Mass., about a
half-hour drive from their Hollis home.
“Nobody wants to travel that far,” Vahrij Manoukian said. “But if we
have one in Nashua, people will do it.”
The purchase and sale agreement is voided if the Armenian Church
refuses the gift, although Prunier said he saw no reason that would
happen.
Manoukian initially asked to conceal his name from the court documents,
but his identity remained visible through the black ink crossing
it out.
“The main reason for that was he didn’t want to be called up by
everyone asking for a donation,” Prunier said. Also, Prunier said,
“He didn’t want to be named as a party in the suit and end up appearing
as the bad guy.”

LaRouche says Bush `dumbest’ president
BY MICHAEL R. WICKLINE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
May 12, 2004 Wednesday
Lyndon LaRouche, a Democratic candidate for president, said Tuesday
that there’s “a feasible escape” for the United States from the
“continuing worsening mess in Iraq.”
At a a news conference at the Radisson Hotel in Little Rock, he said
the nation must “get out of this mess because we cannot solve the
international financial crisis when we are generating and supporting
the kind of conflict we are developing with our potential partners
and allies from around the world.”
LaRouche, 81, of Round Hill, Va., blamed Vice President Dick Cheney
for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and called President Bush “the
dumbest president we have ever had.” LaRouche said the U.S. State
Department should negotiate “a southwest Asia security policy” with
Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Iran and other nations.
He also said the United States is “in a depression which is far worse
than that of 1929-1933.” The president should declare a national
emergency and launch a $6 trillion infrastructure program for the
next four years.
The program would provide government credit for things such as water
projects, power generation and distribution projects, and health care,
LaRouche said. The government would encourage people to invest in
stocks and bonds of public utilities formed by states and provide
a safe and secure place for people and institutions to place their
savings, he said.
Josh Earnest, Democratic National Committee spokesman, said Arkansans
who are concerned about the nation’s direction under Bush are looking
for “a viable alternative” to Bush. They want a candidate like John
Kerry, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Earnest said.
LaRouche was convicted of mail fraud in 1988. He has run in every
presidential election since 1976.
Kerry, LaRouche and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio are on the
ballot in Arkansas’ Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.
This article was published 5/12/2004

FINDING BEAUTY AMID THE WOUNDS OF WAR
by Jessica Slater, Special To The News
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
May 14, 2004 Friday Final Edition
“How did I become this sort of man?” asks the central character of
The Daydreaming Boy. Born in Armenia two years after the Ottoman
Turks inflicted genocide on his people in 1915, Vahe Tcheubjian was
sold to the Turks and then left at an orphanage in Lebanon. As an
adult living in Beirut in the 1960s with his wife, Juliana, he tries
to put the past behind him. The novel traces his unraveling
consciousness as the ghosts of his childhood come back to haunt him
with increasing intensity. It’s a stunning portrait of war’s bleak
inheritance. Despite the grueling subject matter, Micheline Aharonian
Marcom’s prose spans the full range of human emotion with
spellbinding and luminous beauty. The novel is broken into short
chapters that skip back and forth in time from Vahe’s married life in
Beirut in the ’60s to his childhood years in the early 1920s at the
Bird’s Nest orphanage and briefly forward to Beirut in 1986, after 11
summers of civil war. Marcom doesn’t provide page upon page of
historical detail about the Armenian genocide. Rather, she draws us
into the mind of a refugee, where memory, history, lies and
imagination chase one another’s tails for so long that they become
inseparable. The disjointed transitions can be confusing, but once
you enter the rhythm of the writing, the juxtapositions become as
telling as the events and recollections themselves. Through the
fractured lens of his consciousness, the answer to Vahe’s question
emerges: “The nows become jumbled, riff, they flow together as the
tributaries will flow into the sea and become one strain of water
indistinguishable from the other waters – because: all of it is me.”
Vahe’s relationships betray the extent of damage inflicted on him by
his experiences. Several characters figure prominently in his
thoughts: the specter of Vosto, a boy from the orphanage whose
arrival provides fresh prey for the boys who had been tormenting
Vahe, thus relieving his suffering but also compounding his guilt;
Vahe’s absent mother and his wife; Beatrice, a young Palestinian girl
who works as a domestic for Vahe’s neighbor in Beirut and for whom
Vahe develops an obsessive longing; and Jumba, a chimpanzee at the
local zoo, where he often walks, and who becomes a measuring stick
against which Vahe tries to fathom his own humanity. Vahe’s marriage
to Juliana is described as the result of “desperate convenience, a
coincidence of time and place and sentiment.” As the intensity of his
obsession with Beatrice increases, so does the loneliness within his
marriage: “Our marriage became a container that held the lonely like
a boy holds an empty soup cup and wants just a small amount, just the
littlest bit more of some fatty soup.” His relationships sink further
and further into the realm of fantasy, and the fantasies are often
disturbingly violent. He perceives himself as a beast, partly because
of his brutal desires but more deeply because of the inhumane
treatment he and his people have endured: “What distinguishes us from
the dark beast?” he asks, drawing parallels between the bars of
Jumba’s cage and the balcony railings that divide his own sight. This
obsession with violence and dehumanization makes hideous sense in the
context of genocide: The Armenian language, writes Marcom, “was
murdered in the summer 1915 when no word or sentence or lyric or ode
to man’s dignity or proclamation or newspaper article or pleading by
the Patriarch or pleading by the girl before the soldier violated or
letter or bill or identity card could say, say it so that it would be
heard, . . . their tongue could not alter the smallest breeze. . . .
It could not say (for pity’s sake, honor’s sake) to the Turkish
soldier gendarme kaimakam: Please, sir. I am a man.” One chapter
describes Vahe’s mother being raped by a Turkish soldier, whom Vahe
refers to as his father. Whether it’s the truth or Vahe’s conception
is uncertain. What matters is that it’s there in his mind, part of
the distillation of experience, history and imagination that has made
him who he is: “Perhaps all of the lies together will form some kind
of truth about the man, the orphan, the refugee. . . . My lies are my
history and they have altered with time. . . . Now I have no
assurance as to what happened or did not and it matters little.” The
Daydreaming Boy is dreamlike – surreal, disturbing and stunningly
beautiful by turn – but its final effect is one of awakening. As the
pieces of the puzzle fall together, the picture that emerges is not
just of one man but of the vast machine of conflict and war that has
made (or unmade) him. Marcom’s astonishing achievement is that this
novel contains enough sadness to crush all hope but enough startling
beauty and strength to ignite it all over again. INFOBOX The
Daydreaming Boy * By Micheline Aharonian Marcom, right. Riverhead
Books, 212 pages, $23.95 * Grade: A
NOTES:
Jessica Slater is technology editor at the Rocky Mountain News.

Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2004 Sunday
Home Edition
Opera;
The lady with cred;
When soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian invests herself in a role, there’s
no faking it. Real feelings, real reactions. You gotta believe.
by Donna Perlmutter, Special to The Times
“We are living in an age where you have to be … credible,” says
Isabel Bayrakdarian, pausing with deliberation before the adjective.
She knows the value of spacing words, weighting them, making a point
artfully.
But then she should.
The Armenian Canadian soprano who will sing Susanna in Los Angeles
Opera’s new production of “The Marriage of Figaro,” opening Saturday,
has won over some powerful figures in the music world — at the 1997
Metropolitan Opera auditions, for instance, where she took first
prize, and at Placido Domingo’s 2000 Operalia in Los Angeles, where
she did the same.
Credibility, in fact, is the coin of her realm.
It figures in her response to the question rousing so much debate
among opera aficionados: Can a supersized singer waddling onstage
persuade audiences to suspend disbelief and think of her as an
irresistibly beautiful, romantic character? Bayrakdarian says no.
“Credible acting, credible singing, credible image — they’re all
important,” says the sylphlike singer, who seems to possess all of
those attributes in operatic spades. “Yes, it’s a delicate matter,
but I’m sympathetic to directors for wanting the whole package. The
voice is not enough. It’s just one element of music theater. Singing
the role and looking the part are both necessary.”
A number of observers have already been persuaded by Bayrakdarian as
Susanna, the maid (and the title character’s fiancee) who floats
somewhat above the fray of social revolution in Beaumarchais’ 18th
century comedy about the servant class versus the nobility, on which
Mozart and librettist Da Ponte based their opera. Indeed, she has
sung the role in two highly regarded productions, Giorgio Strehler’s
and Peter Hall’s, both of which have been seen widely. Until now, the
latter was a mainstay at Los Angeles Opera.
Two years ago, she made her Paris Opera debut in the Strehler
staging, “and it was also my first Susanna,” she says, rolling her
big brown eyes and sipping from a glass of Evian after a recent
rehearsal.
“Imagine doing both those things at once. It could be the most
painful exposure. I just did it. They call me fearless. But no. When
an opportunity comes, you assess it with your good self-knowledge.
Can I do it? That’s the only question. If yes, then tune out the
background noise of doubters and go ahead. There’s nothing left to
think about.”
Fate’s engineering
Bayrakdarian, now 29, was born in Beirut to Armenian parents. When
she was 14, the family moved to Toronto. Isabel, the youngest of
seven children, viewed her siblings, “who all became doctors,” as
role models, and not surprisingly she decided to pursue a career in
biomedical engineering. Then, as it so often does, fate intervened.
Her family was a band of amateur musicians, but it was Isabel who
started studying voice in 1993, as a sidebar to her demanding major
at the University of Toronto. Her aim was “to be a better choir
member at church,” she explains, adding that she fully intended to
continue singing for love, not as a profession.
“Stability was the key to my plans and their goal. Period,” she says.
That was a lesson well learned from parents who stressed pragmatism
with a capital P.
In 1997, about to graduate, she was offered a contract by a leading
Canadian biotech company, where she had worked as an intern. “I would
have been a pioneer in a burgeoning field, one of the few women hired
at that top level,” she says. Simultaneously, however, she was
receiving “feelers of interest” in her singing. Those feelers didn’t
prompt her to consider a different career path, but they did lead her
to enter the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
With her big victory came the moment of truth: “to follow the dream,”
as she puts it. “There was no one day, though, prior to that, when I
imagined my voice could take me to that place.
“But what chutzpah it took to give up so many zeros,” she says,
referring to the lucrative salary she could have expected. “Even so,
all those semesters of getting by on four hours of sleep were not a
waste: I’d had an empowering education. Yes, I can even open a car
hood and know what to fix. It’s true — I’m fearless.
“There were and are no regrets. I never had to think, ‘Oh, my God, if
I don’t make it as an opera singer, I know nothing else to do.’ ”
Still, Bayrakdarian remains humble. She believes in serendipity, that
one thing leads to another, that you take your cues from life —
“traumatic or joyful.” She quotes a Yiddish saying: “You want to give
God a laugh? Start planning.”
Though she still calls Toronto home, she’s now well established as
one of the bright new stars in her category: a lyric soprano with
coloratura assets. Besides Susanna, she’s sung Pamina in “The Magic
Flute,” Rosina in “The Barber of Seville” and Zerlina in “Don
Giovanni” — the “ina” roles, all innocent soubrettes who can, under
the right circumstances, assume greater dimensions.
And she likes to approach those portrayals with spontaneity.
“All you need to do in opera,” she says, “is inhabit your one
character. You take her measure and see what part applies to you.
Susanna is bottled sunshine — yes, a big part of me. Singing her
lines brings joy to my heart. She’s spunky and smart and absolutely
without malice. She’s not a doormat, nor a trapped servant at all,
but actually a confidante, a friend to the countess.”
That is an understatement in Ian Judge’s new staging, with the action
updated to the early ’50s. The director calls that time “the last
great romantic period” and says he wants to get away from the image
of characters “trussed up in costumes like china dolls, to free them
in order to catch the spirit of Mozart instead of what we think the
era is.”
Instinct for spontaneity
A recent rehearsal of Act 2 found a wanton countess lying languidly
on her bed and beckoning to the randy adolescent pageboy Cherubino.
And who was “enabling” the tryst, hovering over the couple, attending
to their whims? Susanna, of course.
“But this only reaffirms for me that the characters are not bound by
18th century niceties, like curtseying,” Bayrakdarian says.
Which brings her to Bayrakdarian Rule No. 2: “Stay in reactive mode.”
In other words, she believes in responding moment by moment to her
fellow singers — if they do their parts, the action stays vital and
true. She insists she never arrives at rehearsals with the kind of
pre-choreographed mannerisms that so many opera stars carry from
production to production.
That instinct for spontaneity is particularly important in an
ensemble romp such as “Figaro,” which is, after all, a household
drama, its characters like family even if they’re not related by
blood. It’s also a comedy of eros, in which libidos run wild and
sexual fantasies run even wilder. Identity confusion — about who is
who and, for that matter, who is what (male or female) — becomes an
integral impetus.
Bayrakdarian says that in Los Angeles, she’s been given the run of
the show. “They’re pretty free with me, because they know I’ve done
‘Figaro’ many times, while the other principals never have” —
meaning, besides the director, conductor Stefan Anton Reck, baritone
Erwin Schrott (Figaro), mezzo Sandra Piques Eddy (Cherubino),
baritone David Pittsinger (the Count) and soprano Darina Takova (the
Countess). “But they also rely on me to feed them lines.”
All of them also stop in their tracks when Susanna gets to sing the
last act’s achingly tender “Deh vieni non tardar.” It’s the moment
when the emotional wraps come off, when disguise belies her deepest
feelings.
“The last thing Susanna wants to do,” Bayrakdarian says, “is deceive
Figaro. It’s their wedding night, and she wants only to kiss him, yet
here she is, in the countess’ dress, not her plan at all. But in the
middle of the aria, she sings just of her longing for him. It becomes
a very sad serenade. She can’t go on with the charade. She can’t be
fake.”
Only credible.
*
‘The Marriage of Figaro’
Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.
When: Saturday and May 26, June 2, 5, 11, 16 and 19, 7:30 p.m.; May
29 and June 13, 2 p.m.
Price: $25-$170
Contact: (213) 365-3500
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: OH, SUSANNA! Bayrakdarian is readying for her
“Figaro” role with L.A. Opera. PHOTOGRAPHER: Gary Friedman L.A. Times
PHOTO: Soprano Bayrakdarian has an L.A. engagement. PHOTOGRAPHER:
Gary Friedman Los Angeles Times

Eurasianet Organization
May 17 2004
RUSSIA AND ARMENIA: UNITED BY GEOPOLITICS, DIVIDED BY ENERGY
RESOURCES
Sergei Blagov: 5/17/04
Russia has long viewed Armenia as its most dependable ally in the
volatile Caucasus region. However, a recent pipeline deal between
Armenia and Iran has emerged as a source of discord in Moscow’s
relationship with Yerevan.
The Armenian-Iranian pipeline pact was signed May 13 in Yerevan.
Under terms of the deal, the roughly 140-kilometer pipeline would
cost an estimated $220 million to build (including a $100 million
outlay on the Armenian side), and become operational by January 1,
2007. In addition, Iran and Armenia agreed on a gas-purchase deal
in which Yerevan would buy upwards of 36 billion cubic meters of gas
over a 20-year span, the Mediamax news agency reported.
The pipeline potentially could be extended, via Georgia and Ukraine,
to the European Union. Linking to the EU would require construction
of a 550-kilometer-long underwater section from the Georgian port
of Supsa to the Crimean town of Feodosia at an estimated cost of
$5 billion. The planned gas supply would amount to 60 billion cubic
meters per annum, including 10 billion cubic meters for Ukraine.
For Armenia, the deal has the potential to greatly reduce the country’s
energy dependence on Russia. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian
told Armenian television May 14 that Yerevan placed “great importance”
on Iran’s “balancing role” in geopolitical and economic developments
in the Caucasus. At the same time, other Armenian officials sought
to downplay the impact of the deal on Yerevan’s energy dealings
with Russia.
Until recently, Russia was critical of the pipeline project. After
Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian said in February that
an Armenia-Iran gas pipeline deal was pending, the Russian daily
Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article entitled: “Yerevan carries
out an anti-Russian gas project.”
In recent weeks, Moscow appears to have softened its stance. On
May 13, Kocharian met Gazprom head Alexey Miller to discuss Russian
gas supplies to Armenia as well as Armenia internal and transit gas
pipelines. They also talked about the ArmRosGazprom joint venture,
which is 45-percent owned by the Russian gas giant. No details were
revealed, but no sharp disagreements surfaced.
What appears to still make Moscow nervous is the prospect of an
extension of the Armenian-Iranian pipeline. Officials in Moscow
are reportedly concerned that an EU extension could create damaging
competition for Russian energy exports. An Iran-EU connection could
also enable Turkmenistan to circumvent Russia’s gas pipeline network.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Moscow may already be working to discourage an extension. On May 15,
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich made an unexpected visit to
meet with Putin at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. Two days
later, Putin met with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi
and described Iran as Russia’s “long-standing and stable partner.”
The Armenian-Iranian pipeline pact was announced the day before
Armenian President Robert Kocharian flew to Moscow for talks with
Russian leader Vladimir Putin – the fifth such meeting between the
two in less than a year.
Both behaved as though Armenian-Russian ties were as strong as ever.
Putin welcomed developing economic cooperation between Russia and
Armenia, adding that in 2003 bilateral trade was 34 percent up year
on year. Putin also hailed “coordinated efforts by Russia and Armenia
on the international arena,” notably among former Soviet states.
Kocharian, likewise, welcomed the strengthening of economic ties.
Armenia has traditionally been Russia’s closest partner in the
Caucasus. Sandwiched between hostile Azerbaijan and Turkey, and
volatile Georgia, Armenia has little option but to remain a supporter
of Russia’s geopolitical moves in the Caucasus.
In 1997, the two countries signed a friendship treaty, under which
they provided for mutual assistance in the event of a military threat
to either party. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
The pact also allows Russian border guards to patrol Armenia’s
frontiers with Turkey and Iran. In economic terms, Armenia is heavily
dependent on Russia for its natural gas and nuclear fuel supplies.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Editor’s Note: Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS
political affairs.

The Topeka Capital-Journal
Published Monday, May 17, 2004
Armenia focus of proclamation
The Capital-Journal
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has signed a proclamation acknowledging the
“outstanding success” of the Kansas National Guard Partnership Program in
establishing improved security cooperation between the United States and
Armenia.
The proclamation said the program has established a military-to-military,
military-to-civilian and civilian-to-civilian association and improved
security cooperation between the two countries.
The proclamation was submitted by Alex Kotoyantz, of Junction City, a
retiree from the Kansas Department of Transportation, and signed by the
governor recently. It expresses gratitude for the contributions of Armenian
Americans who have chosen Kansas as their adopted homeland and enriched the
character of the state with their wisdom, courage and centuries-old
traditions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Richard Kloian, Director
Armenian Genocide Resource Center
5400 McBryde Ave, Richmond, CA 94805
Tel:(510) 965-0152, fax:(510)215-0444
Email: [email protected]
Monday May 17, 2004
GENOCIDE SCHOLARS CONFERENCE
In 2005 TO FEATURE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Richard Kloian
The largest international organization devoted to the study of genocide
has just issued a Call For Papers for its sixth biennial international
conference in Boca Raton, Florida in 2005, and has announced that
one of its major themes will be the Armenian Genocide.
An affiliate of the Institute for the Study of Genocide, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars was founded in 1994 by Israel
Charny, Helen Fein, Robert Melson and Roger Smith. The Association
of more than 200 scholars engages in research and teaching about the
nature, causes, and consequences of genocide, and advances policy
studies on the prevention of genocide. It meets biennially to compare
and share research in the field, discuss specific case studies, important
new works, links between genocide and gross human rights violations,
as well as the prevention and punishment of genocide.
At its second biennial conference in Montreal Canada in June 1997
the Association issued a unanimous resolution affirming that the
mass murder of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 was “a case of genocide
which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.” They further condemned
“the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government and
its official and unofficial agents.”
Many of the genocide scholars have published books and articles with
a major emphasis on the genocide and their works have become standards
in the field. A number have had to deal directly with state sponsored
genocide denial head on, especially as related to the Armenian Genocide.
Colin Tatz, Director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies, in his 2003 book “With Intent to Destroy”
discusses Turkish denial and relates his personal encounters with
the Turkish Ambassador who attempted unsuccessfully to get him
to stop teaching his course on the Politics of Genocide because the
Armenian Genocide was emphasized. In his book he relates a
number of such encounters and discusses the influence of the
Turkish “denial machine” and its consequences.
In August 2000, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Helen
Fein, whose works are standards in the sociology of genocide, revealed
that the editors of Microsoft Encarta asked her to revise her entry on the
Armenian Genocide to include “the other side of the story” and to remove
the word “genocide,” which she resisted successfully. It was revealed that
they were bowing to pressure from the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
But such attempts only galvanizes scholars devoted to their work and
reinforces the need for teaching about genocide.
The current President of the Association, Robert Melson, has produced
numerous key articles on the Armenian Genocide and his book,
“Revolution and Genocide – On The Origins of the Armenian Genocide
and the Holocaust” stands as a major contribution to the field. The Vice
President of the Association, Dr. Israel Charny, in 1999, as Editor-in-Chief,
oversaw the publication of the first ever Encyclopedia of Genocide, now
used as a major reference source throughout the world and now available
on the web as an E-Book in which the Armenian Genocide has a major
emphasis along with the Holocaust.
At the last IAGS International Conference in Galway Ireland in 2003,
many papers and presentations discussed the Armenian Genocide,
which, as a separate field of study, has been drawing more interest
by specialists in the field over the years.
The text of the IAGS Press Release follows:
The Sixth Biennial Conference of The International Association of
Genocide Scholars (IAGS) will be held at Florida Atlantic University,
Boca Raton Florida, USA, June 4-7, 2005. In its Call For Papers, the
IAGS announces the general theme of the conference: “NINETY YEARS
AFTER THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND SIXTY YEARS AFTER
THE HOLOCAUST: THE CONTINUING THREAT AND LEGACY
OF GENOCIDE.”
“Following the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust it was believed
that “never again” would genocide be allowed to occur. However, events
in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and for indigenous peoples
in other parts of the world, have demonstrated the continuing threat of
genocide. These have left survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and
rescuers, and the world community confronting the legacy of
mass-murder and extermination.”
The International Association of Genocide Scholars welcomes proposals
for scholarly papers and sessions dealing with a variety of related
themes such as those below. All proposals are due by January 15, 2005.
Participation in conferences and panels is vetted and open only to
registered members. Membership in the IAGS is open to scholars,
graduate students, and other interested persons any place in the world
who address the study and prevention of genocide using scholarly
methods in good faith in the pursuit of truth. For membership
information please email Dr. Steven Jacobs at: [email protected].
Themes of the Sixth Biennial IAGS conference
I. The origins of and accountability for the Armenian Genocide
and/or the Holocaust.
II. The legacy of the Armenian Genocide and/or the Holocaust
for survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and the world community,
including international law and organizations.
III. The origins of and accountability for genocides in Cambodia,
former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and for indigenous peoples.
IV. The legacy of genocide in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia,
Rwanda and for indigenous peoples, and for the world
community, including international law and organizations.
V. The denial of genocide.
VI. The representation of genocide in literature, art, film, and music.
VII. Commemoration, restitution, and reconciliation.
VIII. Identification of endangered communities and the prevention
of genocide.
“Participants should submit a brief (no more than one page) abstract
and a short resume (no more than one page), indicating which of the
eight themes their paper addresses. Scholars are encouraged to assemble
a group of papers as a theme panel, but participation by individuals is
limited to no more than two (2) panels in the role of presenter,
discussant, or chair.”
Please send two hard copies and email attachments in Microsoft Word
of abstracts, resumes, and proposals for panels to Dr. Stephen Feinstein,
Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, College of
Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0125,
USA. Tel: 612-626-2235. [email protected]
All proposals are due by January 15, 2005. For more information
on the 2005 conference, past conferences, the organization and its
work, individuals are encouraged to visit the IAGS web site at:
, or they can send emails to: [email protected]
.

Armenia Protests
The Moscow Times
Monday, May 17, 2004. Page 4.
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s opposition parties on Friday resumed
their campaign of demonstrations demanding the resignation of President
Robert Kocharyan after talks with pro-government figures broke down.
An estimated 7,000 people gathered in central Yerevan for a rally. It
was the latest in a series of massive gatherings that began in
early spring.
Meanwhile, Kocharyan met with President Vladimir Putin for talks
dominated by bilateral trade issues Friday.

Sarkissian Deems Azerbaijan’s Offer Unserious
Baku Today
Baku Today 17/05/2004 19:08
Armenian defence minister Serge Sarkissian said his country is still
sticking to all of its three principles on peaceful resolution of
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Turan reported on Monday, citing Armenia’s
Ayots Ashkhar newspaper.
They principles are; Nagorno-Karabakh in no way can be subordinated to
Baku, it has to have an overland border with Armenia and the region’s
security has to be guaranteed.
Sarkissian also called Azerbaijan’s suggestion to release seven
occupied districts in return for opening of communication lines
unserious one, claiming Baku may break its promise any time.
The defence minister said Armenia is against stage by stage settlement
of the conflict because it could prove to be dangerous for Yerevan.
“The option is dangerous because while the parties can agree in the
first stage, they may not come to an agreement in the second one,”
Sarkissian said.

Warning on NATO
The Moscow Times
Monday, May 17, 2004. Page 4.
MINSK (AP) — Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko accused
other former Soviet republics on Friday of violating the spirit of a
post-Soviet security agreement by conducting individual negotiations
with NATO.
“If these individual negotiations are going on, what kind of treaty is
this?” Lukashenko said, referring to the Collective Security Treaty
Organization, which comprises Belarus, Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“Russia is moving toward cooperation with NATO, and this we learned
about through the media,” he said.