Category: News

A1 Plus | 14:31:23 | 03-05-2004 | Social |
YEREVAN MAYOR SPEAKING AT NEWS CONFERENCE
On Monday, Yerevan mayor Yervand Zakaryan, speaking at a news conference,
said Northern Avenue construction would be completed in 2006 and Main Avenue
in 2007-2008.
He said 3 billion 180 million drams had been spent for urban construction
for past three months.
In his words 24,000 trees have been planted in the Armenian capital for the
last months.
Zakaryan said 100 minibuses are expected to be brought to Yerevan from
France and Italy.

A1 Plus | 15:08:50 | 03-05-2004 | Politics |
RAMKAVAR-AZATAKAN ISSUES STATEMENTS
On Monday, Ramkavar-Azatakan party leader Harutyun Arakelyan told
journalists current political developments in Armenia are hobbling the
republic’s economy.
He urged opposition Justice alliance and National Unity party to enter a
long-term dialogue with the ruling coalition.
In one of its statements issued Monday, the party called on the opposition
forces to refrain from “sparking chaos in political field”.
In another its statement, the party addressed Armenian World Congress’s head
Ara Abrahamyan proposing to coordinate the Congress all steps with all
responsible parties. Otherwise, the Ramkavar-Azatakan will reconsider its
membership in the Congress.

Newsday, NY
May 3 2004
RWANDA: A SPECIAL REPORT
Testing Their Faith
An overwhelmingly Christian country is shaken when church grounds
become killing fields
By Dele Olojede
Foreign Editor
SOVU, Rwanda – As a young girl growing up here in the hills above the
local monastery of the Benedictines, Regine Niyonsaba sometimes caught
sight of the nuns, immaculate in their white habits, heads covered
discreetly in the chocolate-brown scarves of the Belgian order.
While the nuns rarely left the monastery compound, each time Niyonsaba
saw them she dreamed of one day entering the order, living in the
impeccable monastery with like-minded sisters, and away from the
uniform wretchedness of the poverty that otherwise defined life in this
rural commune, barely five miles west of the southern university town
of Butare.

At the age of 20, she enrolled as a novice.
But five years later her tranquil world of prayer and meditation was
shattered at the outset of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which
the government mobilized the Hutu majority to exterminate members of
the minority Tutsi, such as herself.
Like thousands of other Tutsi fleeing the bloodbath, Niyonsaba’s family
had sought refuge in the monastery compound. But the mother superior, a
Hutu whipped up by the official incitement to murder, had invited in
the militias and local officials carrying out the genocide, saying the
presence of the refugees was a threat to her domain.
The mother superior, Sister Gertrude Mukangango, insisted that the
relatives of nuns also be expelled from their sanctuary in the
monastery’s guest quarters, knowing full well that she was sending them
to their deaths, as numerous witnesses, human rights organizations and
Belgian prosecutors would later establish. Niyonsaba’s father and
brother already had been killed elsewhere in the monastery compound in
the preceding 15 days, along with nearly 7,000 others.
And now, on May 6, 1994, under the gun of a police officer, Niyonsaba
followed her mother and two younger sisters down a footpath to a banana
grove on the far side of the compound. They were accompanied by another
nun, Sister Fortunata Mukagasana, whose relatives also were slated for
execution that Monday afternoon.
The police officer, Francois-Xavier Munyeshyaka, was in fact doing
Niyonsaba’s family a favor of sorts. In consideration for a sum of
7,000 Rwandan francs, he had agreed to shoot the novice’s mother and
sisters rather than leave their fates in the hands of the militia, who
favored the use of machetes and nail-studded clubs.
“We asked him why he was killing our families. Why? He said the mission
he was given was that no nun should be killed, but all the others must
die,” Niyonsaba recalled recently. “We buried them at the spot where
they were killed.”
Dazed from the execution, Niyonsaba stumbled back to her quarters and
locked herself in. But since that afternoon in the banana grove,
Niyonsaba knew that her days as a nun were numbered and, soon after the
genocide ended, she walked away from it all.
“Ever since,” says Niyonsaba, now 35, “I lost hope in the spiritual
life. I lost faith in my life as a nun.”
The massacre at Sovu monastery has recast the lives of many of its nuns
who survived the genocide. The trauma cut some loose from their
religious moorings and sent them to seek the less exalted experiences
of the secular life. Yet others profess even more fervor for their
faith, seeing it as the price to pay for having been spared. Nine of
the original 36 nuns were killed during the genocide. Six remain, and
the rest quit the order.
The travails of the nuns in many respects reflect the spiritual
wilderness many Rwandans inhabit today.
Ten years after the genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and
moderate Hutu were killed, the question of personal faith has become a
profoundly disorienting one for many in Africa’s most overwhelmingly
Christian – and overwhelmingly Catholic – country. The moral crisis
triggered by the decimation has compelled many survivors to re-examine
their relationship with the church – and with Christianity in general.
Aiding and Abetting
Some of the worst massacres occurred right inside churches and parish
compounds, many with the active collaboration of priests.
Many other priests risked everything to save lives, and more than 200
of them were believed murdered along with their parishioners. One
particularly courageous priest, Father Boniface Senyenzi, who was Hutu,
stood steadfast with the thousands who sought refuge in the Roman
Catholic Church in the lakeside city of Kibuye. He was killed, along
with 11,400 people in the church.
But many more became foot soldiers in the extermination campaign or
passively accepted its inevitability. Among the most notorious was
Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, the first priest to be convicted of
genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania,
which is trying a few of the leaders.
In his Kigali church Munyeshyaka presided gleefully over the mass
murder, egged his congregation on to greater effort in their “work,”
and often read from a list of those Tutsi who must die. The mother
superior at Sovu, too, is serving a 15-year sentence in a Belgian
prison.
Throughout Rwanda the smashed skulls of the innocent are in church pews
still as a memorial. In the church in Ntarama, south of Kigali, more
than 5,000 perished at the hands of government armed killers. And at
Nyarubuye, the priests gave up thousands of Tutsi parishioners who
sought sanctuary at the only place they thought they could safely turn.
As a result of what many survivors see as treachery, the primacy of the
Catholic church in civic and spiritual life in Rwanda has come under
increasing strain. Estrangement from the church has pushed many into
the willing arms of evangelicals. Others appear to have turned their
backs on Christianity altogether, seeking refuge in Islam, which had
few adherents as a percentage of this country’s population of about 8
million. Yet others have abandoned religion entirely.
Accurate statistics are hard to come by in Rwanda. But experts say the
genocide has helped demystify the Catholic Church, easing the way for
many of its adherents to flock to the proselytizing evangelical
churches whose revival tents sprout like toadstools throughout the
Kigali metropolitan area.
“The evangelical Christians – the born-agains – they are growing very
fast,” says Privat Rutazibwa, a former Catholic priest who was inducted
by John Paul II on Sept. 8, 1990, when the pope visited Rwanda. “They
have attracted people who have been overwhelmed by problems and need an
external force to help them.” Rutazibwa felt compelled to quit the
priesthood but remains a Catholic, though an openly skeptical one.
Archbishop’s Response
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda, Archbishop Thaddée
Ntihinyurwa, acknowledged a flight from the church by an indeterminate
portion of his flock. This, the archbishop hinted most certainly
reflects poor judgment.
“If they think by leaving the church they can live better lives, it’s
their choice,” he said one recent Saturday afternoon in his Kigali
office. “Christianity is not about numbers, but about those who have
accepted Jesus in their lives.”
And despicable as the genocide was, said the archbishop, and as
impermeable to Christ’s teachings many citizens proved to be, in the
end nothing that happened here in 1994 was unprecedented or even
uniquely Rwandan.
“Many have asked, how can a Christian country do this? My answer is you
can’t talk only about Rwanda; talk about human beings who have not
accepted Christ in their hearts,” Ntihinyurwa says. “There have been
genocides in other countries, and the first genocides happened in
Christian countries also, like Germany and Armenia.”
The official line laid down by the Vatican, and still followed by the
church hierarchy in Rwanda, is that individual priests, and not the
church, must be held accountable for the genocide.
Church and State
With the possible exception of the government, the Roman Catholic
Church was the most powerful institution in Rwanda. It always had been
intertwined with the political establishment. The church ran 60 percent
of Rwandan schools, even enforcing strict quotas that limited Tutsi
enrollment to their proportion of the overall population. It operated
clinics and relief services. In the rural areas, which accounted for
nearly 90 percent of the population, often the church functioned
effectively like the social services department of the government.
Until the pope ended the practice in 1990, the archbishop was a member
of the ruling council of the ruling party, whose primary ideology of
Hutu Power defined itself as anti-Tutsi, and eventually metamorphosed
into a campaign to turn Rwanda into the exclusive preserve of the Hutu
majority.
Ntihinyurwa’s predecessor, Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva, was a member
of the Hutu Power cabinet that presided over the genocide. (He was
killed in June 1994 in a revenge shooting by rebel soldiers, who held
him responsible for the genocide.) Church documents show that priests
even adopted the language of the genocidaires, routinely referring to
Tutsi as inyenzi, or cockroaches.
Today the church co-exists warily with the government of President Paul
Kagame, a Tutsi whose rebel Rwandan Patriotic Force halted the genocide
by defeating the army of the old regime. Several priests have been
found guilty of complicity in the genocide, and dozens remain in jail,
along with some 100,000 genocide suspects. The most senior cleric
charged so far, a bishop, was found not guilty.
“In the beginning the government blamed the church for not stopping the
genocide,” Archbishop Ntihinyurwa says. “The church defense was that
our only weapon was the word of God, and the word of God was no longer
being listened to.”
Violence in Butare
The genocide commenced in earnest after the plane carrying President
Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down on the night of April 6, 1994, as it
approached Kigali airport. But the violence took nearly two weeks to
spread to Butare province, alone of the country’s 12 prefectures in
initially resisting state-sanctioned murder.
Mild-mannered in its climate and moderate in its politics – perhaps on
account of the concentration of the country’s intellectuals at the
National University – Butare set itself apart for a while from the
genocidal frenzy radiating outward from Kigali to the rest of the
country. Opposition Hutu politicians predominated in the province,
which also had the country’s only Tutsi prefect, Jean-Baptiste
Habyarimana.
Hutu were reluctant to kill Tutsi and, so, on April 19, 1994, the
interim president, Theodore Sindikubwabo, a Butare native, visited
Butare to rally local officials. He expressed disappointment that they
were failing to carry out their communal responsibility – their
umuganda – by not mobilizing the population to de-Tutsify the
prefecture.
That same day, mass killings began throughout the region. The Tutsi
were on the run.
In April 1994, as the Tutsi of these parts were driven from their
homesteads and sorghum fields by drunken members of the interahamwe
militia, they began to funnel downhill toward the monastery, seeking
refuge. Some had family there, but most simply acted on the assumption
that the only inviolable sanctuary available to them was the house of
God.
It was not an unreasonable assumption. In all the previous anti-Tutsi
pogroms, in 1959 and then in 1961-63, there’s no record of anyone ever
killed within a church compound.
The monastery sits near the base of a series of hills. At its entrance
is a large health center. An immaculately kept garden dotted with
gazebos conveys a sense of tranquility. The administrative building
complex, where the monastery intersects as needed with the secular
world, sits at the end of the driveway. Church buildings and other
facilities are scattered around and about. And partially hidden from
view are the nuns’ quarters.
Above the monastery the hills rise into the distance, covered by pine,
stands of eucalyptus, and banana groves. The land, to paraphrase the
South African writer Alan Paton, is green and rolling, and is beautiful
beyond any singing of it.
A Malevolent Duo
The assumption by the frightened Tutsi of the inviolability of the
monastery did not count on the simmering malevolence of the mother
superior, Sister Mukagango, and her deputy, Sister Julienne Kisito.
“Our family members ran to the monastery expecting to find sanctuary,”
says Bernadette Kayitesi, a nun who also left the order in the
aftermath of the genocide. “But what happened – our mother superior was
the one who began requesting for the militia to come and kill them.”
Over the coming days, Kayitesi’s two brothers hiding in the compound
would be killed as the mother superior worked closely with the
interahamwe – “those who fight together” – to clean the refugees out of
the monastery compound. “I did not know,” Kayitesi would marvel today,
shaking her head, “how a person we thought was good came to be so
evil.”
Within two days, about 7,000 Tutsi were packed into the monastery
compound, most at the health center near the main entrance. According
to other nuns, the mother superior grew increasingly agitated, saying
the militia should get rid of the refugees and insisting that she
didn’t want to jeopardize the monastery. In interviews in Belgium
before she was convicted in June 2001, Mukangango denied collaborating
with killers. “These charges against me are false because they
attribute to me intentions I never had,” she told Belgian television.
But like many other witnesses, Anunciata Mukagasana, one of the Sovu
nuns who is Tutsi, says the mother superior acted promptly to turn the
refugees over to the killers.
“As the refugees came, her heart hardened,” she says of Mukangango.
“She worked closely with Rekeraho, who was in the monastery every day.”
For three months in 1994, Emmanuel Rekeraho was the most-feared man in
Sovu. A retired army warrant officer, he took charge of the militia and
directed the attacks on the refugees seeking shelter in the monastery.
He also was given use of the monastery’s minivan, and held meetings
daily with the mother superior and her second in command, Sister
Kisito.
“I had good relations with the sisters,” he says in an interview on
death row in Butare Central Prison. “We were working together as one.”
Rekeraho described how he coordinated repeated attacks on the refugees
barricaded inside the health center, using grenades and rifle fire, and
then directing the militia to finish off survivors with studded clubs
and cutlasses. A few hundred hiding in a nearby parking garage were
simply burned alive, with gasoline allegedly supplied by Kisito, whose
brothers were members of the interahamwe.
In his hot-pink prison uniform, Rekeraho affects the befuddlement of
someone whose actions were so extreme they were a surprise even to
himself. “In those days, people had been turned to animals,” he says.
“You should have seen the faces – just like animals.
“I accept a role in the killings, by commanding the militia who were
there,” he adds, “but I cannot accept that I am one of the architects
of the genocide.”
Rekeraho, 65, is aware that the “architects” are the only ones the
government is not prepared to grant amnesty. In 1999 he was sentenced
to die, but the sentence has not been carried out by the government
because officials are debating whether to ban capital punishment.
Refuge in Belgium
Like Regine Niyonsaba, whose family paid to be shot rather than hacked
to death, Anunciata Mukagasana fled disillusioned from the monastery,
unable to reconcile what she witnessed with the tenets of her faith.
“I couldn’t imagine that people could be killed in a place like that,
in God’s house,” she says. “The monastery was very big and it had many
hiding places. But Sister Kisito and the mother superior, they were
never merciful at all. They used ladders to check if people were hiding
on the roofs. The did not have the hearts of Christians.”
Once the mainly Tutsi forces overran the country and the genocide
ended, the sisters were evacuated to the main abbey of the Benedictines
in Maredret, Belgium. As they left the monastery, the surrounding
countryside bore every evidence of the horror. “We drove away and there
were dead bodies everywhere, by the roadside, everywhere,” Mukagasana
says. “We were just waiting for death. We could not imagine that we
would survive.”
But so distraught were many of the nuns that, as soon as they arrived
in Belgium, they started denouncing the mother superior. They were
shocked, however, by the reaction of the church authorities, who
rallied behind Sisters Mukangango and Kisito and tried to suppress any
information about their complicity.
“We were more than surprised that the church in Belgium was supporting
her – it was painful,” Mukagasana says. “The whites thought that the
mother superior was a saint, until they came here in 1995 to take
testimony from witnesses. They had thought we just hated her.”
Angered and demoralized by the attitude of the church leaders,
Scholastique Mukangira, one of the Sovu nuns, demanded that she be
allowed to return to Rwanda at once. She had lost two relatives in the
monastery massacre, forced into the hands of the interahamwe by the
mother superior. She had coped with the killings by praying with ever
more dedication, at one point, she said, directly asking for divine
intervention.
“I asked Jesus myself, ‘Do you accept that all of us should be killed,
and wipe out this order?'” she says one recent morning in the reception
hall of the monastery. ‘I know you are kind and you have power over
everything. Use your power to save some of us, so that the order might
not perish.’
“That gave me the strength to carry on. I was no longer afraid of
death. I was strengthened throughout the war that, no matter what
happened I shall be with Jesus.”
‘She Rebuilt Us’
That this serene compound was the scene of one of the worst atrocities
of 10 years ago is today not readily apparent. That nascent recovery is
the handiwork, in large part, of the current mother superior, Anastasie
Mukamusoni.
Sister Mukamusoni took over the defiled institution in 1995, rallied
the six remaining nuns to take eternal vows to rededicate their lives
to the service of Christ, admitted nine new novices and methodically
set about the task of revival.
A shy woman with a perpetually mournful look, the mother superior spoke
softly and gazed constantly downward, talking with evident discomfort
about the monastery’s progress.
“When you are building the body you have to start with the soul,” she
says. “We have to start with the renewal of our faith with the church.”
Sister Mukangira returned home and found her way back to the monastery,
where she remains today, working with the new mother superior to try to
pick up the pieces of a ministry destroyed.
“During the genocide, because of what I saw, I can say that God did not
have a role in the genocide,” she says. “And we cannot say that all
Christians failed their religion. There were many who did the right
thing.”
At this, she cast a glance at the mother superior, who looked
embarrassed and seemed to want to hide. Mukamusoni, then a 40-year-old
nun, was away on church business in the border town of Gisenyi when the
genocide came to the Sovu monastery. A Hutu, she is said to have
arranged secret convoys to take Tutsi across the border to safety in
neighboring Congo.
“She protected those who were being hunted,” Mukangira says. “And she
was the very person who called us back from Belgium. She rebuilt this
place. She not only rebuilt the monastery but she rebuilt us.”
While Mukangira has found reason to believe, and to continue life as a
nun, Anunciata Mukagasana said she had no choice but to turn her back
on the Benedictine Order.
“I just wanted to take a break from it because I would run mad if I
stayed there,” she says. Her family, which had fled to neighboring
Burundi at the outset of the genocide, had returned home, and she
wanted to care for her parents. So she cast off her habit and enrolled
in nursing school, and today she is a pediatric nurse at University
Hospital in Butare, the only one with a job in her extended family of
14, including her younger sister’s three children.
The family lives in neat but cramped conditions in the Matyazo district
of Butare, in a neighborhood of few means and multitudes of
malnourished children. In Mukagasana’s household, food is often in
short supply. “It is a life of hardship, and sometimes it’s hard to
find milk for the children,” she says with an embarrassed laugh. “The
meals are not decent, but there is no other option.”
At this, Mukagasana’s voice caught just a bit, and she asked for a
glass of water to steady herself. The living room was painted coral
blue, the best to cheer up its threadbare condition. The walls were
decorated with the inevitable portraits of Jesus, who is said to be
constance – eternal.
The portraits were an indication of the continuing hold of Christianity
on Mukagasana’s imagination. Despite everything, she said, she remained
a good Christian and believed in God, even if she no longer quite
trusted His earthly messengers.
“There are those who turned their backs on Christianity altogether,
after what they experienced,” she says. “I think to some extent they
have reason. They’ve lost everything, and it seems God forgot them. But
I go to church because whatever happened, God did not have a hand in
it.”
Besides, Mukagasana adds, “Other people died, but it was due to God’s
mercy that I survived. It was due to God’s mercy that my family was
able to escape to Burundi.”
Reason to Believe
Regine Niyonsaba did not have the luxury of her family’s company. Her
father and brother had been killed at the monastery’s health center,
and she had witnessed the execution of her mother and two younger
sisters, and buried them with her own hands. When she returned from
Belgium with several of the other Sovu nuns, she concluded that her
life had been permanently altered.
“Life at the monastery had become impossible for me,” she says. “I
couldn’t see myself praying there anymore.”
Besides, she had one 11-year-old sister, Florentina Nwambaye, who
survived the genocide, and she felt responsible for her. So she took a
secretarial job at a local school, then later, at a pharmaceutical
firm.
“One of the things that keeps me going is prayer,” says the former
novice, who packs every day with distractions to help her retain a hold
on sanity. For spiritual support, she attends morning sessions of a
charismatic Catholic community. She holds down a day job, and afterward
rushes off to the university, where she’s taking evening classes for a
degree in sociology.
“I have had no time to think about the past,” she says. “It took me a
long time to adjust. It is not easy for me.”
After a decade-long struggle, including bouts of depression and moments
of rage, Niyonsaba said she had reached an accommodation with her
faith.
“Since the passage of 10 years, instead of demoralizing myself, I
thought it was not only me who had lost relatives because of church
leaders’ role in the genocide,” she says. “I was not the only witness
to the scandals in the church. I thought God had helped me to survive.
Genocide wasn’t planned by God. He gave us knowledge, free will, to do
the right thing. God never plans for bad things to happen.”
But doesn’t necessarily prevent them, either?
Prim in a checkered custard suit with a sensible skirt, Niyonsaba
pondered the question for a moment, her charcoal-black face set off
against the stark blankness of the wall, serene in the soft glow of the
fluorescent light.
She turned slowly away, silent.
“How can a Rwandan continue to identify as a Christian?,” Rutazibwa,
the former priest, asked rhetorically regarding the endurance of faith.
“That is part of the mystery of the faith. Despite the horrors, people
always need a relationship with a supreme being.”
At the monastery, the current mother superior said all she could do now
was carry on her calling, which is to serve God. “I saw others die, but
I stayed alive,” she says. “Since I took the eternal vow, the only
thing to do was stay here and serve the Lord. That was the only way I
could pay back the gift of life that I was given.”
And with that, she rose and walked out to the garden, down a footpath,
and to a mass grave in which nine of her fellow nuns killed during the
genocide were buried. She observed a moment of meditative silence, did
the sign of the cross, and headed back to the well-ordered sanctuary of
her domain.
A Matter of faith
Once the most Catholic of all the African nations, post-genocide Rwanda
has seen a shift away from Catholicism and toward new forms of piety,
particularly Islam
Pre-genocide
Total population
7.8 million
Catholic 62.0%
Others.none 12.9
Protestant, evangelical/charismatic 24.0
Islam 1.1
Post-genocide
Total population
8.1 million
Catholic 49.6%
Protestant, evangelical/charismatic 43.9
Other/None 1.8
Islam 4.6
NOTE: Statistics vary widely due to the absence of reliable census
material; some report place current percentage of Muslims as high as 15
percent. Post-genocide figures are from U.S. Department of State and
John Hopkins University 2001 study.
SOURCES: International Religious Freedom Report 2002 Johns Hopkins
University; Cox News Service Global Security.

Albany Times Union, NY
May 3 2004
TV talker says pot is healing

After he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, TV talk show
host Montel Williams tried a battery of prescription drugs to combat
the extreme pain in his legs and feet.
OxyContin. Vicodin. A morphine drip that left him “in the corner,
drooling.” Nothing worked.

Then he tried pot.
“I tell you that the only thing that seems to work for me and make me a
contributing member of society is marijuana,” Williams said from London
during a recent telephone interview.
Williams said he prefers eating marijuana, but in a pinch, a few tokes
can bring his pain from a “level five down to a three.”
Williams has even started a company to package and market pot in
countries where it’s legal for sick people to use.
And, he’ll be in Albany Tuesday to lobby for legalization of medical
marijuana. He said he is scheduled to meet with Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno,
R-Brunswick.
The Democrat-led Assembly Health Committee has twice passed a bill to
allow marijuana prescriptions primarily for terminally ill patients. It
is widely endorsed by the medical community.
Nine states have passed such laws, but Bruno and Republican Gov. George
Pataki are opposed.
Williams, an ex-Marine and U.S. Naval Academy grad who says he voted
Republican or independent all his life, isn’t for legalizing marijuana
— or any other drug — for general use. But for those who are ill, his
opinion is clear.
“A doctor told me I could take up to 30 pills of OxyContin a day, yet
you’re going to tell me it’s not OK for me to take the equivalent of
one gram of pot and eat it in a cookie in the comfort of my own home?”
said Williams, 47. “Do you want a junkie or someone who’s paying their
taxes? I’ve been paying them real well for the past four years.” As of
Friday, the Powers Crane & Co. lobbying firm was no more.
After months of acrimony, founder Constance Crane and her partner since
2001, former state GOP Chairman Bill Powers, chose to go their separate
ways.
On May 1, Crane officially opened Crane & Vacco, with former state
Attorney General Dennis Vacco, who joined Powers Crane last fall, and
her husband, Jim Crane, a partner in the law firm Crane, Greene &
Parente.
Powers’s son, Matthew, will stick with dad. The firm’s clients will be
divvied up, and both firms will remain at 90 State St. It’s no secret
Republican President Bush is way behind in New York. But is he losing
some of his loyal base?
At the state Capitol last Monday to mark the Armenian Genocide Day of
Remembrance, Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, said he hopes a
resolution he’s introduced will pass so future anniversaries will be
honored by Congress and the president, “whoever that is.”
Could Sweeney, a key Bush operative during the 2000 Florida recount,
doubt Bush will be around much longer?
“Not at all,”said Sweeney’s press secretary Demetrios Karoutsos. “Our
support for the President hasn’t changed a bit.”
The remark, Karoutsos said, likely referred to all future presidents —
whoever they are. Contributors: Capitol bureau reporters Elizabeth
Benjamin and Erin Duggan. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail
[email protected].

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
May 3 2004
AZERBAIJAN-GEORGIA RELATIONS DEVELOPING
[May 03, 2004, 14:50:44]
Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov met with Foreign Affairs
Minister of Georgia Mrs. Salome Zurabishvili, in Baku, on May 1,
AzerTAj correspondent learnt from the Ministry’s press-center.
The Minister appreciated Mrs. Zurabishvili’s visit as continuation of
the relations between the two countries. He noted that further
development of relationships in economic, political, trade and other
spheres has importance significance for both countries.
Having thanked for warm reception, Mrs. Zurabishvili noted that she had
supported development of relations in all spheres. Touching on
commercial-economic issues between the two countries, she emphasized
that her country was keen in dynamic development of the relations. She
stressed the importance of coordination in the upcoming NATO summit to
be held in Istanbul, in July 2004, as well as membership of Georgia in
Asiatic International Bank.
Having stressed his satisfaction with the growth of trade turnover
between the two countries, Minister Mammadyarov noted that reciprocal
reduction of tariffs on Great Silk Road to increase turnover of goods,
improvement of infrastructure might positively influence on welfare of
both countries, as well as Azerbaijanis, residing in Georgia. The
Minister expressed confidence that the Georgian side would promote in
examination of issue regarding Embassy of Azerbaijan in Georgia.
The Minister noted that he would be pleased to meet with his colleague
at the upcoming regular sitting of GUUAM Council of Foreign Ministers
due in Tbilisi, on May 17. The Minister stressed the importance of
solution of Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorny Karabakh conflict based on
joint efforts of international community, adding that the conflict
exert negative influence on regional cooperation.
The sides discussed other issues of mutual interest.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkish Press
May 3 2004
A Date For Negotiations
BYEGM: 5/3/2004
BY COSKUN KIRCA
MILLIYET- Will the European Union give Turkey an exact date at the end
of this year for starting membership negotiations? Firstly, getting a
date is no guarantee that these negotiations will actually end in
membership, though the 1963 Ankara Agreement is still in effect! Under
this agreement, after Turkey’s period of preparation and transition,
the period of the customs union would be passed and this goal thereby
achieved. This way Turkey was able to largely comply with the common
trade policies. None of the countries which became EU members last
weekend could have gone so far forward in their relations with the EU.
Actually the EU countries accepted Turkey’s membership at that time.
For this reason, the acceptance of Ankara’s candidacy at the 1999
Helsinki summit was a declaration. So a date for membership
negotiations would be nothing new.
After the referendums on Cyprus, Turkey thought that both itself and
the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) should be rewarded by it
getting a date for membership. The Turkish nation is also fixed on this
expectation. If the EU doesn’t give us a date at the end of the year,
the Turkish nation will react very harshly. At this point, the EU has
two alternatives. One is to accept us as a member in good faith, and
the other is to keep Ankara in suspense for a long period of time, all
the while pushing for great concessions required for membership.
However, both of these alternatives require the EU to give Ankara a
date. I guess the EU countries can see this obligation.
Turkey should make clear to the EU countries which concessions we could
never accept, to prevent the impression that we’ve left our future in
the EU’s hands by waiting at its threshold. One firm principle is that
we can neither give up nor violate the pillars of our indivisible
state. Secondly, we will neither accept the accusations of Armenian
`genocide,’ nor apologize to them, nor give them land or compensation.
Thirdly, they shouldn’t request from us anything that would violate our
principle of secularism.

SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND
INFORMATION

Press Herald, ME
May 3 2004
Genocide survivors’ descendants share grief
By BETH QUIMBY, Portland Press Herald Writer
Lorry Stillman, raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, said she never
learned about the Holocaust until she was out of high school.
Gerard Kiladjian said his Armenian parents never spoke of the Armenian
genocide when he was growing up in Syria.
Michael Messerschmidt, founder of the Second Generation in Maine, a
group for children of Holocaust survivors, said it took his German
Jewish parents three decades to begin to talk about their experiences.
But all three said they have spent a good part of their lives learning
about genocide.
They spoke about its ongoing impact Sunday at the University of
Southern Maine at a program where Jews, Armenians and a Burundian
shared their experiences.
Abraham Peck, director of USM’s Academic Council for Post-Holocaust
Christian, Jewish and Islamic Studies, called the program the first
time Armenians and Jews in Maine gathered to compare their genocide
experiences. More than 1 million Armenians died at the hands of the
Turks 89 years ago and more than 6 million Jews were murdered by the
Nazis.
“The Jews and Armenians share a lot,” Peck said.
While genocide survivors who emigrated to the United States appear to
have done well, Peck said, they suffer from post-traumatic disorders
because of wounds to their souls.
“When the crime is over, the wound heals but the mind does not,” he
said.
Vigen Guroian, a professor of theology and ethics at Loyola College,
said genocide survivors respond in two ways: with anger at God, or by
clinging to religious faith.
Renee Goodwin, an Armenian-American and aide to U.S. Sen. Olympia
Snowe, said she now understands why her grandparents, who lived
upstairs from her when she was growing up, were silent on the subject
of genocide.
“It was too new, too raw,” she said.
Goodwin said it was her daughter, who never met her great-grandparents,
who started asking questions about the Armenian genocide and finally
sparked her own interest.
The Rev. Joseph Bizimana, a Tutsi from Burundi, spoke about the deaths
of more than 1 million of his people in Burundi, Rwanda and the Congo.
On April 29, 1972, when he was a boy, he watched as his parents,
brothers and sisters were slaughtered.
“All gone in front of my eyes. I was just a small boy. I could not save
them,” he said.
Then on Nov. 2, 1993, his wife and child were killed while he was away
in Kenya.
“I am a living witness. I still have scars on my body, scars on my
mind,” said Bizimana.
Messerschmidt said that when he was younger, he found it strange that
his parents never spoke of their Holocaust experiences, but he
understands now that he has children of his own.
“I don’t want to frighten them,” he said.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 324-4888 or at:
[email protected]

The Daily Star, Lebanon
May 3 2004
Cancer claims life of Armenian Orthodox archbishop
Archbishop Zareh Aznavorian of the Armenian Orthodox Church has died of
lung cancer, a church statement said Saturday. He was 57.
Aznavorian, chairman of the religious council and director of the
Christian Education Department of the Armenian Orthodox Church of
Cilicia, died Friday at the church’s seat in Antelias, north of Beirut,
the statement said.
The bishop, whose condition deteriorated in the past few days, had
received treatment in New York. Born in Beirut in 1947, Aznavorian
studied priesthood in the Antelias seminary and later in the Rome
Theological University. In the early 1980s, he was the Armenian
Orthodox Vicar of Cyprus based in Nicosia. In the past few years,
Aznavorian had been engaged in translating the Old and New Testament
from archaic Greek and Hebrew originals into modern Armenian.
He will be cremated in Antelias on Monday. –

The Daily Star, Lebanon
April 30 2004
Amal, Tashnak, Hizbullah on PM’s slate
Baath, SSNP endorse list
By Nayla Assaf
Daily Star staff
After two hours of delays and amid rumors that last-minute changes
might push the announcement back to another day, Prime Minister
Hariri’s list for the Beirut Municipal elections was announced
Thursday, which introduces 10 new faces to the 1998 list.
Beirut Mayor Abdel-Monem Aris, the president of the Beirut Unity List
read the names and the program at the Press Federation in the presence
of most of the members of Hariri’s parliamentary bloc.
Most of the six parties which had discussed an alliance with Hariri
were included, except for three: the Syrian Baath Party, the Syrian
Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Phalanges Party. The Baath and
the SSNP were not supposed to submit candidates but merely to endorse
the list, which they did.
As for the Phalanges, as predicted by observers of the electoral scene,
it was not on the list and its candidate, council member Bernard
Gerbeka, was excluded this time around.
The exclusion came despite reported mediation by members of the six
parties with Hariri, whose row with Administrative Reform Minister
Karim Pakradouni, leader of the Phalanges, proved insurmountable.
Despite the fact that it has received the backing of many parties,
Hariri’s new list is missing members of right-wing Christian Parties
like the Lebanese Forces (LF) and the Phalanges, which had been
included in 1998 and had given the list a conciliatory aspect. Also,
despite calls to include more women, the list only included one woman,
council member Roula Ajouz.
Hizbullah’s representative, Amine Sherri, remained on the list and so
did Amal Movement candidate Fadi Shahrour, the only candidate on
Hariri’s list of 24 members who failed in 1998. Also, the Tashnak Party
candidate, Abraham Matossian, remained on the list.
Outside the six parties, the Jamaa Al-Islamiya will be represented by
its old candidate, council member Issam Barghout, while the Progressive
Socialist Party is presenting a new candidate, Mounib Nassreddine.
The remaining new candidates are George Tyan, Hassan Hallak, Tony
Khoury, Antoine Syriani, Salim Saad, Riad Alayli, Serge Joukhadarian,
Ralph Eid and Saaduddine Wazzan.
The rest of the continuing candidates are Aris, Ajouz, Imad Beidoun,
Rachid Jalkh, Sami Rizk, Hisham Sinno, Salim Itani, Varoujian
Kantarjian, Tawfiq Kfoury, and Sami Nasr.
The six parties which conferred with Hariri over the past two weeks are
the Amal Movement, the Phalanges Party, the SSNP, the Tashnak Party,
Hizbullah and the Baath Party.
“Some (candidates) have chosen not to continue the path with us for
personal reasons, while current circumstances … dictated that others
don’t continue,” said Aris, who thanked all the outgoing council
members “for six years of cooperation.”
Aris later read the list’s program, which mostly entailed “applying an
ambitious program to develop the capital and expand the working
opportunities for its sons and modernize laws and regulations.”
He gave a long list of goals for the coming term which included solving
traffic problems, developing infrastructure in the capital, expanding
green spaces and promoting culture, health, the environment and sports.
He also listed a number of reforms to be conducted within the
municipality. They include centralizing municipal offices,
computerizing municipal data and hiring Beirutis to work for the
municipality.
In 1998, Hariri’s list to the Beirut Municipality won a landslide
victory, taking 23 out of 24 seats. Rival candidate Abdel-Hamid
Fakhoury was the only one to break through, ousting Shahrour.
Prior to the conference, members of the parties visited Hariri. After
the visit, SSNP President, Gebran Araiji, told reporters the Phalanges
Party thought it best to withdraw “as a sacrifice for the interest of
Beirut.”
He denied allegations that the other parties had abandoned the
Phalanges, insisting that the Phalanges withdrew on its own personal
initiative.
He said that in light of the fact the municipalities’ law was unjust,
the list needed to be thought out very carefully and include
representatives from all confessions, which he said it did. He said
this motivated the parties to come to a joint arrangement.

The Daily Star, Lebanon
May 3 2004
Elections tense in places, calm in others
Daily Star staff
Aley
Calm reigns in Aley during municipal contest
Contrary to what was predicted, election day in the qada of Aley was
extremely calm even in the city of Shoueifat, which had witnessed
clashes last week.
With Aley, out of the race because of the uncontested victory of the
list headed by the city’s mayor, Wajdi Mrad, the area remained even
calmer than others.
The battle was mostly concentrated in Shoueifat, the second most
populated town in Aley. Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and
Democratic Party flags were hanging from many balconies. But the heavy
presence of army and Internal Security Forces troops inside and in
front of the town’s three polling stations prevented the recurrence of
an incident.
“Political figures should not interfere in municipal elections.
Municipal polls should remain developmental and internal,” said Hala
Zakaria, one voter from Shoueifat.
Zakaria, who said she voted for the list headed by Haytham Jurdi and
backed by the PSP and the Communist Party, said her choice was
motivated by the names on that list and not by the political parties
backing it “because ultimately, a municipal council member should place
the interests of the municipality above that of his party,” she said.
That attitude prevailed in most villages visited by The Daily Star.
The opposing list, backed by Druze MP Talal Arslan’s Democratic Party
was headed by Walid Souqi.
On another level, the opposition’s participation in Aley was shy.
Rashmaya was the only town where hard-core opposition parties such as
the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces were participating
actively. They backed a list headed by Wajdi Kik, which was contested
by that of retired army General, Victor Abu Selwan.
While its neighboring towns of Chartoun and Ain Traz were quiet,
Rashmaya was swarming with cars and voters, forcing all traffic to stop
for 50 minutes.
Campaigners said that at around noon over 700 people out of the 1300
registered voters had already shown up.
Bhamdoun Station, right above Aley, was supposed to be another hotspot
with an opposition list challenging that of the village’s Mayor Osta
Rjeili. But despite a relatively high turnout – 730 people out of 1200
registered voters – no irregularities or infractions were reported.
North metn
Beit Mery’s 3-list battle sees high number of voters
The municipal election in the Metn was heated in towns and villages
where the opposition groups were active while most areas were calm,
with candidates securing their early victory.
>From Dekwaneh to Bteghrin, there were no clashes or any direct
confrontation between voters or between the competing candidates except
in Bikfaya where some voters were omitted from voting lists.
In Beteghrin, Mirna Murr’s list was the most popular and the candidate,
who is supported by her father Metn MP Michel Murr and her brother
Interior Minister Elias Murr, was very self-confident.
“There is no opposition in Bteghrin and you can see a high voter
turnout,” Mirna Murr said.
Interior Minister Elias Murr voted in his hometown at around 11.30
a.m., while his father, Michel, arrived at around 12.30 p.m. to vote
for his daughter.
Murr was carried to the polling station on shoulders while fireworks
filled the village.
Dekwaneh, which had two lists, also showed the same level of
confidence. Mayor Antoine Shakhtoura, who heads the only completed list
said: “The battle already ended.”
Shakhtoura’s list is opposed by an incomplete list supported by the
Phalange Party opposition faction and the Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM).
In Baabdat, the hometown of President Emile Lahoud, the battle was
quite calm with only one completed list and four individual candidates
running for the election.
President Emile Lahoud did not vote Sunday but his son, Metn MP Emile
Lahoud voted and said he supported the “coalition list.”
Labaki, whose list is supported by Metn MP Nassib Lahoud and Salim
Salhab, asserted that there is no battle in Baabdat.
On the other hand, Beit Mery saw lots of voters from the early morning.
By noon voters had to stand in lines waiting for their turn at the
polling stations while a majority asserted that they did not endorse
entire lists.
The high number of voters in Beit Mery was a result of the heated
battle between three lists.
In Mansourieh, two lists were running for the municipal election and
both expected to win. While the list supported by Joseph Zeidan
asserted it was backed by the FPM, the Lebanese Forces, the Phalange
Party opposition section and the National Liberal Party.
The other list supported by mayor William Khoury, who was said to be
backed by Michel Murr, also insisted his list included members of the
opposition groups.
Jounieh & jbeil
Jounieh elections tension-charged
Jounieh witnessed a higher wave of tension in its municipal battle than
Jbeil. This was mostly due to the power of the “Jounieh’s Future” list
backed by Kesrouan MPs Mansour Bone and George Frem and next to it, the
“All for Jounieh” list backed by Kesrouan MPs Farid Khazen and Fares
Boueiz.
In Kesrouan, five municipalities out of 48 won uncontested.
A source close to “All for Jounieh” said Frem was bribing voters.
Joseph Sobeih, a member from the “All for Jounieh” list also said,
referring to Kesrouan MP George Frem, that any hegemony of any party
was to be banned.
Bone, who voted in Ghadir, denied resort to bribery.
“We called people to vote yesterday. We expect to win,” he said. “We
are not afraid of any breach.” But Frem, who voted in Haret Sakhr, said
Lebanese had the opportunity to work according to their conscience in
order to choose the best.
As for MP Farid Khazen, he called the Interior Ministry to have firm
control to ensure an honest municipal election.
Meanwhile, Free Patriotic Movement coordinator Roukoz Mehanna said the
FPM hoped to break into the list.
“If we do, we would have made a great achievement,” Mehanna said. He
also said many families gave in to bribery which had reached Sarba.
Jbeil’s municipal battle was confined to the authority-backed lists and
the opposition. The Jbeil elections are also known as the “three
Generals” battle, (Generals Emile Lahoud, Michel Suleiman and Michel
Aoun).
Telecommunictions Minister Jean-Louis Qordahi said around 4,500 voters
out of 7,879 were to cast their votes, with about 2,100 having voted
before noon.
“We should work for Jbeil development without using it for our own
interests,” said Qordahi. “Parties from outside Jbeil are exerting
pressure on Jbeil. We are concerned with the upcoming years rather than
the direct results of the current battle.”
Chouf & Iqlim al-Kharroub
Calm at times, hot at others
While election day in Chouf and Iqlim al-Kharroub passed peacefully and
free of heavy-handed electioneering, voters in some towns where
political or confessional dividing lines run deep headed to the polls
in an atmosphere as charged as the campaigns which proceeded them.
According to the heads of several voting stations, by 3 p.m.
participation rates had reached 50 percent, a healthy midday turnout
that offered one indication of the significance of the elections for
many residents.
In Deir al-Qamar, where townspeople voted in a festive-like atmosphere,
dancing and chanting in front of campaign offices, two lists vied for
support: One led by retired General Adonis Neameh and the other an
opposition list headed by Liberal Party leader Dori Chamoun and
supported by Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt.
“We and Jumblatt are in the opposition, while the others are obviously
on the government side,” said Chamoun, adding that two members of the
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) were also on the list. “They want to
serve Beiteddine. They must have a chance to do so,” he said, referring
to the FPM candidates.
In Baaqleen, where former council member Nuha al-Ghuseini was all but
certain to be elected the first woman mayor in Lebanon, consensus ruled
the day as voters went to the polls outside of the town center.
In Mukhtara and 10 other villages, uncontested lists were immediately
declared the winners by default. Similarly, in Druze villages with one
political color, candidates had little to worry about since few
independent individuals ran in the contests.
In Iqlim al-Kharroub however, where former Chouf MP Zaher Khatib failed
to secure an alliance with the Progressive Socialist Party, the race
was heated between a leftist-Hariri-Jumblatt alliance on the one hand
and Al-Jamaah al-Islamieh on the other.
In Ktarmaya and Barja, the dominant families complained that Jamaah had
manipulated the former council and followed an exclusionary policy in
regard to all other prominent figures.
Baabda
Confusion and alleged irregularities
As more than 139,000 voters in 70 separate districts of the qada of
Baabda went to the polls Sunday, several parties reported sporadic
election irregularities that added to the already charged atmosphere
surrounding municipal elections.
While expressing optimism over the outcome of the contests, Free
Patriotic Movement (FPM) candidate Georges Haddad nonetheless
complained about the heavy presence of Internal Security Force (ISF)
personnel at voting posts in Hadath, which he said resembled “ISF
precincts.”
Haddad also said that most of the distributed candidates’ lists were
wrong because “they included names from other lists.”
Current Hadath Mayor Antoine Karam disputed Haddad’s assessment of the
voting, however, saying that the electoral process had been “dispute
free.”
“FPM are acting just like peacocks,” said Karam. “I find it very hard
to imagine that the FPM can breach our list,” he added.
By 5 p.m., a light morning turnout in Hadath of 25 percent had risen to
43 percent.
No election irregularities were reported in Haret Hreik, where only one
independent candidate, Joseph Dakkash, ran against the list backed by
Hizbullah.
In Chiyah, opposition candidate Mareline Selfani said she wished that
the electoral process had been more democratic.
“Everything started wrong, as our contestants’ representatives were
illegally distributing their electoral tickets on the doors of voting
posts,” she said.
Edmond Gharius, Chiyah’s current mayor was more optimistic, however,
regarding the elections.
Gharius, who is the son-in-law of ex-Interior minister Michel Murr,
said that there had been some administrative problems regarding missing
electoral identity cards, “but,” he said, “it is a thing that happens
during any election.”
Coast of metn
Authorities arrest several voters
Several voters and representatives of opposition candidates on Sunday
were arrested and beaten up in Metn areas, which is considered former
Interior Minister Michel Murr’s turf.
Clashes and confrontations took place between the opposition and the
authoritries, especially in the municipalities of
Jdeideh-Boushrieh-Sadd, Zalka-Amarat Shalhoub, whereas other areas did
not even witness an electoral battle, such as Bourj Hammoud, where the
authority-supported list won uncontested.
A fight between Free Patriotic Movement representatives and some
delegates from Tashnak Party in Jdeideh-Boushrieh-Sadd municipality
resulted in four arrests of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) supporters.
In addition, a confrontation between delegates from the opposition list
and others from the current municipal council which is backed by the
authorities took place in Zalka-Amarat Shalhoub municipality.
“A delegate from the Michel Assaf Murr (current mayor) took a list from
our delegate and ripped it up, and earlier this morning, voters were
banned from using the booth,” Faddy Massoud, an FPM member said.
However, Murr asserted that everything was under control, “there is no
need for further quarrel, voters will make their choice with no
pressure.”
Meanwhile, a heavy turn-out of naturalized citizens, who do not live in
Mount Lebanon, prompted feelings of anger among opposition
representatives. This group of voters who were granted citizenship
under a disputed law, came from the Bekaa and South areas.
One of the bus drivers said that lists were distributed to them before
they headed out.
“These people don’t even know how to read and write so they don’t even
know who they are voting for,” Eddie Jbeily, an FPM member monitoring
the course of elections at the Jdeideh municipality said.
In Antelias and Dbayyeh, elections took place quietly, and candidates
from both sides asserted on the democratic slant of the elections, and
that results will be decided by voters.