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THE PRESIDENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR COMBAT AGAINST AIDS
[01:06 pm] 01 December, 2006

Message by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the
Occasion of World AIDS Day.

In the 25 years since the first case was reported,
AIDS has changed the world. It has killed 25 million
people, and infected 40 million more. It has become
the world’s leading cause of death among both women
and men aged 15 to 59. It has inflicted the single
greatest reversal in the history of human development.
In other words, it has become the greatest challenge
of our generation.

For far too long, the world was in denial. But over
the past 10 years, attitudes have changed. The world
has started to take the fight against AIDS as
seriously as it deserves.

Financial resources are being committed like never
before, people have access to antiretroviral treatment
like never before, and several countries are managing
to fight the spread like never before. Now, as the
number of infections continues unabated, we need to
mobilize political will like never before.

The creation of UNAIDS a decade ago, bringing together
the strengths and resources of many different parts of
the United Nations family, was a milestone in
transforming the way the world responds to AIDS. And
five years ago, all UN Member States reached a new
milestone by adopting the Declaration of Commitment —
containing a number of specific, far-reaching and
time-bound targets for fighting the epidemic.

That same year, as I made HIV/AIDS a personal priority
in my work as Secretary-General, I called for the
creation of a `war-chest’ of an additional seven to
ten billion dollars a year. Today, I am deeply proud
to be Patron of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and
Malaria, which has channelled more than 2.8 billion
dollars to programmes across the globe. Recently, we
have seen significant additional funding from
bilateral donors, national treasuries, civil society
and other sources. Annual investments in the response
to AIDS in low-and middle-income countries now stand
at more than eight billion dollars. Of course, much
more is needed; by 2010 total needs for a
comprehensive AIDS response will exceed 20 billion
dollars a year. But we have at least made a start on
getting the resources and strategies in place.

Because the response has started to gain real
momentum, the stakes are higher now than ever before.
We cannot risk letting the advances that have been
achieved unravel; we must not jeopardize the heroic
efforts of so many. The challenge now is to deliver on
all the promises that have been made — including the
Millennium Development Goal, agreed by all the world’s
Governments, of halting and beginning to reverse the
spread of HIV by 2015. Leaders at every level must
recognize that halting the spread of AIDS is also a
prerequisite for reaching most of the other Goals,
which together form the international community’s
agreed blueprint for building a better world in the
21st century. Leaders must hold themselves accountable
— and be held accountable by all of us.

Accountability — the theme of this World AIDS Day —
requires every President and Prime Minister, every
parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare
that `AIDS stops with me’. It requires them to
strengthen protection for all vulnerable groups —
whether people living with HIV, young people, sex
workers, injecting drug users, or men who have sex
with men. It requires them to work hand in hand with
civil society groups, who are so crucial to the
struggle. It requires them to work for real, positive
change that will give more power and confidence to
women and girls, and transform relations between women
and men at all levels of society.

But accountability applies not only to those who hold
positions of power. It also applies to all of us. It
requires business leaders to work for HIV prevention
in the workplace and in the wider community, and to
care for affected workers and their families. It
requires health workers, community leaders and
faith-based groups to listen and care, without passing
judgement. It requires fathers, husbands, sons and
brothers to support and affirm the rights of women. It
requires teachers to nurture the dreams and
aspirations of girls. It requires men to help ensure
that other men assume their responsibility — and
understand that real manhood means protecting others
from risk. And it requires every one of us help bring
AIDS out of the shadows, and spread the message that
silence is death.

I will soon be stepping down as Secretary-General of
the United Nations. But as long as I have strength, I
will keep spreading that message. That is why World
AIDS Day will always be special to me. On this World
AIDS Day, let us vow to keep the promise — not only
this day, or this year, or next year — but every day,
until the epidemic is conquered.

Kofi Annan

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

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Is NATO Ready for Georgia?
[12:27 pm] 01 December, 2006

A week before the first summit of a 26-member NATO in
Riga, Georgia has been buoyed by support from the US
Senate for its NATO aspirations. But questions remain
as to how ready Georgia is to join the alliance.

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has declared
2006 `the year of NATO’ and promised that Georgia will
join the alliance before his first term finishes at
the end of 2008. Saakashvili said that progress
towards membership was `irreversible’ after Georgia
was invited in September to move to the next phase of
cooperation with NATO known as `intensified dialogue’.

On November 16, the US Senate gave Saakashvili a boost
by unanimously passing a bill expressing support for
the accession of Albania, Croatia, Georgia, and
Macedonia into NATO. The bill says promises 20 million
US dollars of aid for the four aspirants, half of
which will go to Georgia.

`Potential NATO membership motivates emerging
democracies to make important advances in areas such
as the rule of law and civil society,’ said Senator
Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. `A closer relationship with NATO
will promote these values and contribute to our mutual
security.’

The next day, a session of the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, meeting in Canada, called on alliance member
states and partners `to support fully Georgia’s
aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration and its wish
to move, in due course, to the next level of
co-operation with NATO, namely the Membership Action
Plan (MAP). ‘

NATO expansion is not formally on the agenda at the
November 28-29 summit in Riga, which will be dominated
by NATO’s operations in Afghanistan and other issues.
But the Georgian government has been encouraged by a
statement by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer, who said an `encouraging signal’ would be
given at the summit to the new aspirant countries.

Of the four countries mentioned by the Senate, Georgia
is furthest back in the queue and can only hope that
the Riga summit will bring it an invitation to begin a
MAP that will lead towards eventual accession.

Many American experts and politicians are promoting
Georgia’s NATO ambitions on the grounds that it will
buttress Georgian democracy and strengthen NATO in the
Black Sea region.

Ambassador David Smith, who is director of the
Georgian Security Analysis Centre, said that Georgian
accession would create an arc in the Black Sea region
(with the potential of becoming a ring, if Ukraine
also becomes a NATO member), which will bring
stability both to the alliance itself and to the
entire region.

Smith said that creating a ring of NATO Black Sea
members would be able to fight international crime
(illegal trade in drug, arms, trafficking, etc), as
well as terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.

However, many European countries are more cautious,
citing worries about how Russia and the breakaway
territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will react
to potential Georgian membership of the alliance. At a
recent European summit meeting in Finland with Russian
leader Vladimir Putin, France’s president Jacques
Chirac said that relations with Moscow were a higher
priority than the issue of Georgian-Russian relations.

Russia has explicitly warned against the expansion of
NATO, which it still regards with suspicion as an
anti-Moscow alliance formed during the Cold War.

`NATO plans to enlarge, but we consider this to be a
mistake, although we perceive it as a reality,’ said
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in September.
`In the era of global challenges, which we all face,
instruments of the Cold War are no longer effective.’

For most Georgians, joining NATO means being protected
from Russia. Opinion polls suggest that more than 70
per cent of Georgians support accession to NATO, with
only a tiny number – around two per cent in one recent
poll – against.

`For Georgia, NATO means alleviation of the threat
coming from Russia,’ said David Darchiashvili,
executive director of the Open Society-Georgia
Foundation. `After Georgia is admitted to NATO, the
threat will be neutralised, as any threat to Georgia
will be translated as a threat to the alliance. Also,
accession to NATO will mean irreversibility of the
course towards democratic development.’

However, much needs to change before Georgia actually
qualifies for NATO membership.

De Hoop Scheffer has repeatedly said that `although
the doors of the alliance are always open’, he could
not predict when Georgia would be judged ready
actually to pass through them. No timetable has been
set.

With regard to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, de Hoop
Scheffer, said that NATO must recognise Georgia’s
territorial integrity and that `intensified dialogue
(for Georgia) means everyday efforts to find ways for
peaceful resolution of the conflicts’.

Some argue that Georgia’s drive towards NATO will only
push the two breakaway territories further away and
into the embrace of Russia.

Georgian experts respond that it is unacceptable to
make peaceful resolution of the Abkhazia and South
Ossetia conflicts a condition of Georgia’s NATO
accession, as that is tantamount to giving Russia a
veto on the process.

`While the conflicts may pose an obstacle to Georgia’s
admission to the alliance, they are also a tool for
Russia to obstruct Georgia’s integration into
Euro-Atlantic structures,’ said Temuri Yakobashvili,
executive vice-president of the Georgia Foundation for
Strategic and International Studies. He argued that if
Russia tried to use this tool, it should trigger a
`political decision in Brussels’ to support Tbilisi.

`Statements that accession to NATO means a loss of the
territories for Georgia are absolutely groundless,
both politically and legally,’ argued Darchiashvili.
`NATO supports a peaceful resolution of the two
problems. So accession to NATO will speed up the
peaceful resolution of the problems.’

Another vital issue is how well equipped Georgia is
technically to join NATO. A NATO evaluation mission
made a cautious assessment of the state of the armed
forces after visiting Georgia in March this year,
saying that changes had evidently been made, but
substantial reforms were still needed.

Military expert Vakhtang Kapanadze said progress had
been made on institutional reforms and that the
structure of the general staff was now in line with
NATO standards. But he gave a downbeat assessment of
the overall professionalism of the defense ministry.
`They need professionally qualified staff with the
appropriate military education, preferably from
western military academies, and the military
experience. But nowadays the ministry is mainly
staffed by policemen,’ he said.

Kapanadze said the other major issue was civilian
control of the armed forces `expressed through control
of the appointments of the staff to high military
posts, control over expenses and the use of force’.

Nika Tarashvili is a correspondent for 24 Hours
newspaper in Tbilisi. Institute for War and Peace
Reporting, Caucasus Reporting Service

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`ONLY ONE ISSUE LEFT’
[02:25 pm] 01 December, 2006

`As I have already said, there are 8-9 components in
the process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
The majority has been agreed upon. Now we can say that
there only one issue left to agree upon’, said Foreign
Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov referring to
the latest meeting between Kocharyan and Aliev.

Nevertheless, the Azeri Foreign Minister did not
mention which issue it is.

`I can’t comment on it as it is a sensitive issue; any
statement which is not agreed with the negotiating
sides can harm the negotiation process’, Mammadyarov
underlined.

He said that after the last principle is agreed upon
the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict will
become subject of public discussions.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Today, Azerbaijan
Dec 1 2006

Mammadyarov: "Only one issue concerning Nagorno Karabakh left"

01 December 2006 [12:07] – Today.Az

"There is only one uncoordinated principle concerning Nagorno
Karabakh. The majority of 8-9 principles have already been agreed,"
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists.

He said in case the last principle is agreed upon, there will be
improvement in the process of settlement of the conflict. But the
Minister rejected to elucidate the essence of the coordinated
principles.

"It is a very delicate question. In order to go into details both
parties should agree to it. There are forces in the region that do
not want peace. They can take advantage of it," he said.

The minister said that the formula of settlement of the conflict will
be put in public discussion after the last principle is agreed upon,
APA reports.

URL:

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

PRESS RELEASE
FIDH
Karine Appy, Attachée de presse/Press Officer
+33 1 43 55 14 12
+33 1 43 55 25 18
+33 6 68 42 93 47

TURKEY

A HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER SENTENCED TO 30 MONTHS IN PRISON

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AT RISK

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World
Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) express their deep concern regarding
the condemnation of Mr. Selahattin Demirtas, a lawyer and the Chairman
of the Diyarbakir Branch of the Human Rights Association (HRA).

According to the information received, on November 14, 2006, Mr.
Selahattin Demirtas was sentenced to 15 months in prison by the 4th
Heavy Penal Court and a suspended sentence of 15 more months by the 5th
Heavy Penal Court for propaganda for an illegal organisation, on the
basis of an official complaint filed by the Diyarbakir Security
Directorate. This complaint followed two public statements made by Mr.
Demirtas in June and July 2005, during which he took position in favour
of a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Kurdish issue through
discussions with Abdullah Ocalan, who, he stated, should be considered
as indispensable as he is regarded as a leader by the Kurds.

The Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecution Office decided to file two
separate claims against Mr. Demirtas at the 4th and 5th Heavy Penal
Courts (previously known as State Security Courts), for violation of
Article 220/8 of the Turkish Penal Code which provides that `those who
do propaganda for an illegal organisation or for its aims in published
writings or through media channels are sentenced to 18 months to 4.5
years imprisonment with hard labour’.

Mr. Demirtas appealed against both sentences, and the Supreme Court
should make a decision within six months.

Our organisations recall that Mr. Demirtas has been subjected to
numerous legal proceedings due to his statements or activities in favour
of human rights, peace and democracy. Indeed, more than 80
investigations were launched against him, and among them, 14 cases were
brought to court in the last few years1.

Our organisations express their deepest concern about this sentence
which illustrates ongoing repression of freedom of expression in Turkey,
in particular when it comes to statements regarding a peaceful solution
to the Kurdish issue. This decision blatantly violates Turkey’s
commitments regarding freedom of expression, in particular the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 19.1 and
19.2), as well article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and
article 9.1 of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference
of the Human Dimension of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE), which all provide the right for everyone to `freedom of
expression’ including the freedom to receive and impart information
and
ideas, without interference by public authority and regardless of
frontiers.

FIDH and OMCT remind the Turkish authorities that they have to conform
with the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted
by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular article
6c), which provides that everyone has the right `to study, discuss,
form
and hold opinions on the observance, both in law and in practice, of all
human rights and fundamental freedoms and, through these and other
appropriate means, to draw public attention to those matters’.

Our organisations urge the Turkish authorities to ensure Mr. Demirtas a
fair and impartial trial in appeal and to guarantee freedom of
expression in any circumstances, in accordance with the above-mentioned
regional and international human rights instruments.

For more information, please contact
FIDH: Karine Appy + 33 1 43 55 14 12 / + 33 1 43 55 25 18 –
[email protected]
OMCT: + 00 41 22 809 49 39

Thursday, November 30, 2006
*****************************************
BEFORE AND AFTER
*********************************
For most of my life others set the terms and conditions and I had no choice but to accept them. (Sounds familiar?) I was born again as a human being on the day I decided to set my own terms and conditions; and even when I lost (which I did most of the time) I felt as though I had won.
*
Like parrots, the brainwashed have no use for free speech.
*
“Treason and betrayal are in our blood,” Raffi tells us. So are criticism and dissent. Not even our toughest critics, including Gregory of Narek, have gone as far saying “Mart bidi ch’ellank!” (We will never acquire the status of human beings.) Compare this popular mantra with such propaganda lines as “first nation this” and “first nation that,” and “Armenians are smart.” How can anyone be smart who is also deaf and ignorant of what people are thinking and saying?
*
For the brainwashed there are two kinds of propaganda – theirs and ours. As for honesty and objectivity: they might as well be subversive concepts. If honesty is subversive and objectivity an instrument of the devil, does that mean we have a marked preference for dishonesty and charlatanism? What’s next? We might as well get out our shovels and start digging – and I mean digging our own graves. Toynbee is right: nations are not killed, they commit suicide.
#
Friday, December 01, 2006
****************************************
A QUESTION OF CREDIBILITY
****************************************
Why would anyone choose to believe a minor, disgruntled, and marginalized scribbler who can’t make ends meet and ignore textbooks written by established academics? You may choose to believe whomever you wish of course (and I say this to readers of all colors, creeds, and races, including Armenians and Turks) as long as you keep in mind that academics are hirelings of the state, that is to say, politicians, and as such they are as subservient to the power structure as diplomats and bureaucrats. Even the mightiest empire in the world, like the United States of America, cannot afford to choose textbooks written by historians who emphasize its dark side and its crimes against humanity, or textbooks written from the perspective of its victims (“white man speaks with a forked tongue,” or “white man is the devil”). Until the collapse of the USSR, Communist textbooks did not mention the Gulag; so much so that even Nobel-Prize winning intellectuals of the West dismissed all talk of the Gulag as capitalist-inspired anti-Soviet propaganda.
*
Textbooks, commentaries, editorials, and memoirs of the Genocide are safe because they stress what has been done to us at the expense of what we could have done and what we can do today to solve our many problems. When it comes to what we can do today, for instance, we are given to understand we can do nothing but wait and hope that in two or three generations the corrupt among us will see the light and solve our problems, after which we may live happily ever after. Our subservience to “the blind forces beyond our control” is such that we have become deaf and dumb to the fact that by adopting a passive stance we are committing genocide by other means (exodus from the Homeland, assimilation in the Diaspora). I am not advocating covering up and forgetting the 1915 Genocide. What I am saying is that we should not allow it to paralyze our will.
*
A Turcocentric view of life marginalizes the nation as surely as our bosses, bishops, and benefactors marginalize anyone who refuses to say “Yes, sir!” to whatever they say, no matter how absurd. As for the corrupt seeing the light and solving our problems: don’t hold your breath; they will be too busy proving their integrity, statesmanship, self-sacrifice, patriotism, and moral superiority, not to say defending with everything they’ve got the source of their power, prestige, and wealth, to have any time left for solutions.
#
Saturday, December 02, 2006
****************************************
GRANDMASTERS OF THE BLAME GAME
***************************************************
Shortly before she died, one of our self-appointed partisan pundits wrote me an angry letter saying I had ruined the Armenian-American community. There was a time, she explained, when everyone was happy. Now everybody was bitching. And everybody was bitching because my kind of writing had started the trend. She was lying of course. And she was lying because lying comes naturally to our pundits. Had I been born before the Tourian assassination in 1933, she would have pinned that on me too, no doubt.
*
The other day I read an editorial in one of our partisan weeklies written by still another self-appointed partisan pundit that said, in effect, Armenians are their own worst enemies because Armenians like Rouben Mamoulian had not helped a single Armenian in Hollywood. The implications were unmistakable: what had prevented the Armenian community from going down the drain had been the idealism, dedication, hard work, and vision of statesmen like him and his kind. As for legitimizing intolerance and promoting divisions and mediocrity: they must be ascribed to my kind of bitching, of course.
*
I could have written a letter to the editor but I didn’t. I knew better. Once, many years ago, when I didn’t know better, I wrote a letter to the editor of this same weekly pointing out some factual inaccuracies in an editorial, only to be told: “We don’t as a rule publish letters that question our editorials.” I did not ask why not because I guessed the answer: “Because we are infallible!” If the Catholics have their Pope, if Muslims have their imams, and Turks have their Ataturk, why can’t we have a corresponding figure, and if we don’t have him, why can’t we pretend to have him, and by feeding him royal jelly, elevate him to the status of a king, that is to say, a representative of god on earth?
#

AZG Armenian Daily #230, 01/12/2006

NATO-region

NATO: PRINCIPLE OF TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY TO BE APPLIED
IN FROZEN CONFLICTS

Daniel Fried, US Assistant Secretary for Europe and
Eurasia, stated that the NATO document summarizing the
organization’s Riga summit reconfirm its support to
"the South Caucasus and Moldova’s territorial
integrity". In Fried’s words, NATO did it for the
first time thus flashing a signal to those countries.
NATO communiqué does not give freedom of activity to
the post-Soviet countries, which deal with frozen
conflict especially in the context of peaceful
settlement for the South Caucasus and Moldova. "The
support to territorial integrity is not a call for
arming and for beginning a war," Fried explained.

The clauses of the summarizing document of the NATO
summit concerning Georgia are not less interesting.
NATO member-states welcomed the reforms carried out in
Georgia. Daniel Fried stated that the US
Administration "wants to help" the Georgian
authorities to fulfill their obligations on their path
to NATO membership.

By Aghavni Harutyunian

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZG Armenian Daily #230, 01/12/2006

Culture

WE MUST NOT ESTRANGE OURSELVES FROM OUR APRICOT- TREE
ROOT

Several days ago a memory concert titled "Two in One"
took place at the Chamber Music Hall after Komitas in
Yerevan. The concert was dedicated to the 83rd
anniversary of singer and musician Hovhannes Badalian
and the 80th anniversary of composer Khachatur
Avetisian. The concert was organized by eight students
of the music school after Arno Babajanian. The great
musicians’ relatives, friends, students were present
at the concert and each of them told an interesting
story from the life of the two prominent Armenian
musicians. Songs of the composers were recalled during
the evening party. The spirit of the folk song was
felt in the concert hall. It seemed, through the
concert everyone revealed for himself the secrets and
worth of folk song.

Singer Arsen Grigorian said, that he had got a great
pleasure from the concert; at the same time he
expressed his displeasure with spectators’ attitude,
as they had to encourage and greet young musicians.

Maybe the reason of it is the fact that our present
generation listens less to folk songs and such
concerts are a rare thing.

In response to the question of Azg why the concert had
"Two in One" heading, Ruzana Avetisian, the concert
organizer and the teacher of Arno Babajanian music
school, answered: "I have tried to perform to the
spectator their two egos in one. I have also wanted to
show wherever we go from our past, we must not
estrange ourselves from our apricot-tree root".
Finally the concert, which lasted several hours,
finished by song "Dear Teacher" as a sign of respect
to the memory of our two great teachers.

By Ani Baghdasarian

A1+

REFUGEES MUST BE GRANTED NKR CITIZENSHIP
[05:04 pm] 30 November, 2006

Over 25 – 30 thousand Armenian refugees, forcibly
displaced by Azerbaijan, don’t want to return to their
former dwelling places reports `Refugees and
International Right’ Civil network.

In 6000 questionnaires the refugees claim that `they
will continue to protect their rights refusing any
material and moral compensation’.

The polling was held among the Armenian refugees
living in the NKR, USA and Russia.

Today the network introduced a bill referring to the
refugees’ citizenship.

The network intends `to increase the number of the NKR
citizens by 500 – 550 thousand people within 3 – 4
years’.

The Refugees and International Right Civil network
turned to Robert Kocharyan, Minsk group Co-Chairs,
Ilham Aliev with this request.

Today there was a heated argument on the bill. The
participants of the debate wondered who will be
granted the NKR citizenship by law, on which criteria
they will be chosen and which territories the refugees
will return.

Arman Melikyan, advisor to the NKR President, claims
that taking into account the principle of dual
citizenship, all the NKR citizens born in the
territory of the NKR (both Armenians and Azeris) will
be granted citizenship.

A1+

ARMENIA GRANTED `A’ STATUS
[02:39 pm] 30 November, 2006

RA Human Rights Office has placed an order to become a
member of International Coordination Committee (ICC)
dealing with human rights protection and their
promotion. The members of the ICC must meet the
Parisian principles.

The Committee has the following four statuses;

1. A – Compliance with the Parisian principles

2. A (R) – reserve accreditation, when additional
information is required to grant A status.

3. B – status of an observer, when the establishment
either meets the Parisian principles partially or
hasn’t submitted all the necessary information to make
a final decision.

4. C – the establishment doesn’t meet the Parisian
principles at all. The RA Human Rights Office has been
granted A status, reports the office.

The status will help Armenia to participate in the
sessions of the newly formed Human Rights Council of
the UNO, submit written and verbal announcements and
participate in the discussion of the disputable
issues.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress