V.OSKANIAN: “THIS DECISION IS ALSO A NATURAL REACTION TO THE INTENSIVE, AGGRESSIVE AND OFFICIAL DENIALISM OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY THE TURKISH STATE”.
Panorama.am
13:53 16/10/06
Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanian
On the French National Assembly vote of October 12
Today’s approval of the bill by the French National Assembly is a
natural continuation of France’s principled and consistent defense
of human and historic rights and values.
This decision is also a natural reaction to the intensive, aggressive
and official denialism of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish
state. They have undertaken a premeditated, planned assault on
the truth.
To adopt such a decision is the French Parliament’s sovereign right and
is understandable. What we don’t understand is the Turkish government’s
instigation of extremist public reactions, especially while Turkey
itself has a law that does exactly the same thing and punishes those
who even use the term genocide or venture to discuss those events.

TURKEY MAY BE WAITING AT EUROPE’S DOOR FOR 20 MORE YEARS
>From David Charter, in Brussels
The Times/UK
October 16, 2006
THE timetable for Turkey to join the EU appeared to slip yesterday
when José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission,
gave his most pessimistic view of the country’s progress towards
membership since formal talks began a year ago.
Senhor Barroso said that it could be up to 20 years before Turkey
joined. He was highlighting a slowdown in reforms as he prepared the
ground for a critical assessment report.
Turkey’s case has suffered blows in recent weeks, including last week’s
vote by French deputies to criminalise denial of the First World War
Armenian genocide, an event never recognised as such by Ankara.
While Senhor Barroso has made clear that this is not a criterion for
EU membership, he gave a clear signal that Turkey was failing to
meet formal demands that include guarantees for freedom of speech
and greater civilian control over the military. He told the BBC:
“We are concerned about Turkey because the pace of reforms is rather
slow from our point of view. I believe it would be great to have
Turkey if Turkey respects all the economic and political criteria.
“This is not yet the case. It is a country that comes from a different
tradition. There are efforts in the right direction but nowadays there
is news that is not encouraging in terms of them coming closer to us.”
This was a warning to expect a bleak assessment by Olli Rehn, the
EU Enlargement Commissioner, who is due to give an update on Turkish
efforts to prepare for the 35 EU entry criteria on November 8.
When formal talks began with Ankara last year, Mr Rehn spoke of
“about ten to fifteen years timeframe” before conditions would be
right. Senhor Barroso has been reluctant to put his own target on
the process but yesterday showed how much Turkey’s case had slipped
in 12 months, saying: “We cannot expect Turkey to become a member in
less than 15 to 20 years.”
His assessment will provoke fresh concern in Ankara, which is coming
under intense pressure to step up reform and, in particular, to
resolve its blockade of vessels from Cyprus.
A failure to do so before the end of the year could lead to a
suspension of the formal EU accession talks. But before a Turkish
general election next year Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister,
is said to have refused to give any further concessions while Turkish
northern Cyprus remains unrecognised by the international community.
Mr Rehn spoke in the summer of the need to avoid a “train crash”
in Turkish accession negotiations. Austria and France want to hold
national referendums on further enlargement, adding to the hurdles
that Turkey must overcome.
Speaking before Senhor Barroso’s remarks, Mr Erdogan said yesterday
that Jacques Chirac, the French President, had expressed his regret
to him over the Bill. “Because of certain narrow-minded deputies,
the France we know as a country of liberties is forced to live with
this shame,” Mr Erdogan said. The Bill, opposed by M Chirac’s party,
was approved at first reading by the National Assembly but without
government backing is unlikely to become law.
Turkish business and consumer groups have threatened to boycott
French products.
Miguel Ã~Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, met his
Turkish counterpart yesterday for talks backed by the EU on resolving
the Cyprus issue.
Senhor Barroso is expected to tell Tony Blair at a meeting today that
the Commission recommends that EU states do not restrict immigration
from new members during a seven-year transition period, even though
they have the right.
Britain has said that there will be some restrictions after the
arrival of large numbers of Polish workers after Poland’s entry in
2004. Senhor Barroso said: “If you look at the past, there was a fear
that Spanish workers would be flooding all over Europe. You know
what happened? Exactly the opposite. I can tell that Poland can be
a new Spain in some years. The growth of these countries is really
impressive,” he said.
–Boundary_(ID_5nkC21aVWMtw4JdpQoZdTw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DIVIDE AND RUE – HOW THE BARBED PROBLEM OF CYPRUS IS AGAIN A SNAG FOR EUROPE
By Vincent Boland and Kerin Hope
FT
October 16 2006 03:00
In a bleakly efficient-looking laboratory at the United Nations
compound in Nicosia, a team of forensic scientists is helping to lay
the ghosts of Cyprus’s five-decade-old conflict to rest. Their work
on the divided Mediterranean island, identifying the victims of a war
that at various times has involved Cypriots, Turks, Greeks, Britons
and all manner of international peacemakers, takes place within the
buffer zone that has split it in two since 1974.
Thirty-two years after the Turkish army invaded Cyprus to prevent the
island’s unification with Greece, this initiative is today the only
substantive one involving co-operation between the Greek Cypriot and
Turkish Cypriot authorities. Along with the array of human bones spread
out on the lab tables, that is a stark reminder of how unfinished
this conflict is.
But this long-forgotten war is set to return to the political
forefront. Its -resolution to the satisfaction of the European Union –
extremely unlikely – is looming as a precondition for Turkey’s further
steps towards integration with the 25-strong bloc.
While a row between the Turkish and French last week over recognition
of the 1915 massacres of Armenians as “genocide” has put another
formidable obstacle in the way of Turkey joining the EU, Cyprus poses
a much more immediate difficulty. It is possible that, by the end of
this year, the problem will derail the admission of Turkey as a member
– the EU’s most ambitious and controversial geo-strategic project.
Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, warned this year of
a looming “train crash” between Turkey and Brussels, because of
disagreements over fundamental issues. These ranged from reform of
the Turkish penal code – which seems relatively easy to solve or work
around – to the question of Cyprus, no closer to resolution than it
was three decades ago.
The risks are huge. Were Turkey’s EU bid to collapse, “the EU’s overall
foreign policy credibility risks serious damage”, according to Kirsty
Hughes, author of a much-noted Friends of Europe report on the issue
last month. In Turkey, it could halt the country’s cultural march
westward, which began 80 years ago under the rule of Kemal Ataturk,
and instead empower Islamist and nationalist political forces.
The continuing separation of Cyprus’s two communities by a 180km-long
“Green Line” – drawn on a map by a British commander using a green
pen – still confounds and preoccupies its protagonists. A solution
to the split is a task for the UN, a fact that is accepted by all
parties. But that job has been made more complicated by the EU,
which began membership talks with Turkey last October, after having
admitted Cyprus as a member in 2004.
Many EU diplomats now accept that it was a mistake to allow Cyprus to
join at that stage – particularly because of the influence the Greek
Cypriot government has thus gained over the negotiations with Turkey.
For many years after 1974, Turkey and Greece, historical enemies but
fellow Nato members, engaged in their own cold war over Cyprus, while
the island’s political leaders held endless, fruitless talks. This
glacial approach was unfrozen in 2003 with the reactivation of a
minutely detailed UN settlement proposal backed by Turkey, Greece,
the EU and the US. The deal was put to a referendum on the island in
the spring of 2004. It was backed overwhelmingly by Turkish Cypriots
but was rejected equally decisively by Greek Cypriots.
The EU, which had banked on its acceptance by both sides and had
committed to admitting Cyprus regardless of the result, found itself
importing a divided island as a member. The island is officially
known as the Republic of Cyprus, whose internationally recognised
government is a Greek Cypriot administration. But the Turkish Cypriot
part declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983,
recognised only by Ankara.
The republic’s entry to the EU boosted the position of the Greek
Cypriots and especially of their president, Tassos Papadopoulos,
who has threatened to veto every aspect of Ankara’s EU negotiations.
Turkey, for its part, accuses the EU of reneging on pledges to
end the economic and political isolation of the TRNC after the
2004 referendum. Ankara has refused to extend its EU agreements to
cover Cyprus, which the bloc says it should do by the end of this
year. If it does not do so, opponents of Turkish EU membership such
as France and Austria (and, of course, Cyprus) could insist that the
negotiations be ended – the “train crash” scenario – or suspended,
which would be the equivalent of driving the train into a siding.
Diplomats say the choice facing the Turkish government, as it heads
towards a general election next year, is between refusing to make
further compromises on Cyprus and keeping its EU negotiations on track.
Finland, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, has tabled a
compromise that may break the immediate negotiating deadlock, but
even the modest proposals it makes may be too much for such entrenched
protagonists as Turkey and Mr Papadopoulos.
Failure to move, however, would ensure that the TRNC remains a legal,
diplomatic and economic black hole, technically inside the EU but
for practical purposes outside it. It is hard to describe a part of
the world that has year-round sunshine and a vaguely holiday-island
ambience as miserable. But this ersatz republic, a state caught in
a seventies time-warp, is close to it.
Its 190,000 people have a standard of living roughly half that of
the 600,000 Greek Cypriots. The TRNC survives on tourism, income from
fee-paying universities attended mostly by Muslim students from around
the world, and subsidies from Turkey that run to roughly $400m (£216m,
â~B¬320m) a year. Organised crime is rising, according to diplomats.
Nearly two-thirds of the workforce is employed by the state, which pays
more than private enterprise and therefore undermines it. “This is our
number one problem, even more than our isolation,” says Erdil Nami,
head of the TRNC chamber of commerce. A fall this year in tourism
revenue and in the number of students attending the universities may
point to a longer-term downward trend. The daily flight to Ankara one
recent lunchtime was nearly empty; a year ago it would have been full.
Turkish Cypriots seem unable to help themselves, dependent as they
are on the actions of Turkey, the Greek Cypriots, the UN and the
EU, and they have an enormous sense of victimhood, beginning with
the collapse in 1963 of a power-sharing agreement with their Greek
co-islanders. Emine Erk, a Turkish Cypriot human rights lawyer, says:
“Where we are today is the inevitable outcome of developments since
1963.”
The Greek Cypriots insist thatthey bear no ill-will towards their
Turkish counterparts. Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, director of EU-Turkey
affairs for the Greek Cypriot government, says: “Our problem is
not with the Turkish Cypriots. It is with Turkey and its interests
vis-a-vis Cyprus.”
In particular, the Greek Cypriots are suspicious of the aims of
the Turkish military, which maintains some 35,000 troops (including
dependants) on bases in the TRNC, just 100km from Turkey’s southern
flank.
They also want Turkish “settlers” – migrants from Turkey who moved
to the island after 1974 – to leave. Ms Kozakou-Marcoullis estimates
their number to be “at least 160,000”. Mete Hatay, the author of a 2005
report on the issue for the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, estimates
that there are only about 35,000, including children born in the TRNC.
Both sides in Cyprus agree that the solution to their division must
be a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, though the discrepancy over
“settler” numbers shows how difficult this will be to achieve. In
the meantime, it is the TRNC that suffers disproportionately from the
status quo, and from a growing sense of resignation among residents
and even their political leaders.
Mehmet Ali Talat, president of the TRNC, says: “Is there anything
happening on the ground that could move the situation forward? I’m
afraid not.” Mustafa Akinci, a politician and longtime voice for
rapprochement with the Greek Cypriots, is even bleaker. The failure
over many years to end the division of Cyprus makes partition seem its
final and inevitable fate, he argues. “The passage of time doesn’t
help either side,” he says. “All Cypriots have to be wise enough to
see this.”
Limited co-operation – such as the UN forensics project to identify
the missing – may not only heal the emotional trauma of conflict but
also be a model for further progress.
Some 2,000 remain missing from the war years. In a month of work,
the scientists have assembled the remains of at least 23 people
recovered from a mass grave. Laid out on the tables at the unit –
skulls here, femurs there, ribs, hands and other parts next to them –
the bones await examination and DNA testing.
The families of the missing are clinging to the hope of recovering
their loved ones but “they don’t expect miracles,” says Luis
Fondebrider, the UN team’s Argentine leader.
Although the prevailing pessimism makes co-operation on accounting for
the missing from the Cyprus conflict all the more important, amid the
gloom, there is an occasional optimistic gesture. On Ledra Street in
Nicosia, the Turkish Cypriot authorities have built a footbridge that
would reunite what was once the city’s premier shopping precinct,
divided by the Green Line. They await its completion by the Greek
Cypriots from the other side. A sign in four languages on the bridge
says: “Due to open soon”.
Quite how soon, nobody knows.
–Boundary_(ID_Wz9EPnJH2nKfaRNiZly2yw)–

RIZHKOV IS COMING
A1+
[12:23 pm] 16 October, 2006
The 11th session of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental cooperation
committee will take place in Yerevan tomorrow.
On the same day co-chair of the Committee Nikolay Rizhkov will arrive
in Yerevan. He will be received by President Robert Kocharyan and
Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan.
On October 18 Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Garegin II
will receive the members of the delegation.
The delegation will return to Moscow on October 19.

AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
A1+
[01:24 pm] 14 October, 2006
A Chechen journalist recalls the part Anna Politkovskaya played in
his life – and that of many others.
Just over two years ago, the newspaper of which I was both editor and
publisher ran into trouble. We couldn’t go on, as every print house
in the North Caucasus had refused to print “Chechenskoye Obshchestvo”
– someone high up had pressured the police into stopping us publishing.
It was during a presidential election campaign in Chechnya, and
clearly someone feared that independent reporting might interfere
with the Kremlin’s man getting in.
I travelled the length and breadth of the North Caucasus but couldn’t
find a printer willing to deal with us. But one day the phone rang
– it was Anna Politkovskaya, who’d heard about the problems we were
having. Up until that point, I was barely acquainted with this renowned
reporter for the Moscow-based paper Novaya Gazeta.
“Timur, I’ve heard you’ve got a problem,” she told me, getting to the
point immediately. “I’ve spoken to my editor and we’re prepared to
offer you a page in Novaya Gazeta so you can at least tell readers
what’s going to be in your next edition.”
I responded by thinking aloud, “We need to think how to do it.”
But Politkovskaya – never one for shades of grey – cut me off, saying,
“What’s there to think about? What good is that to me?” And the next
issue of Novaya Gazeta duly came out with a whole page devoted to
an account of the problems we were having, and excerpts from some of
our reports.
That wasn’t the last time I was helped by Anna Politkovskaya. When
I won the Andrei Sakharov prize for Russian journalism, one of the
jury members told me I got it because she fought my corner.
Politkovskaya herself won a huge number of human rights and
journalistic awards both at home and abroad. She often travelled
to other countries to speak as an expert on Chechen and Caucasian
affairs – and used every such occasion to talk about the problems
facing Chechnya, not as a free trip to Europe, as her detractors
sometimes said.
“It’s very, very important. Opportunities to be heard by important
people in Europe come up only rarely, so one can’t miss them – one
needs to get the most out of them,” she said.
For people in Chechnya, Politkovskaya was tantamount to a
miracle-worker.
Zareta Hamzatkhanova, a researcher with the Memorial human rights
group’s office in Grozny, worked with Politkovskaya on the case of
Mehti Mukhayev, a man wrongly convicted of a crime. She said her
colleague was fuelled by her nerves.
“She wrote about the torture this man had suffered and told his story
in full, with no thought for the possible repercussions it might have
for her,” said Hamzatkhanova.
People in Chechnya had faith in her. “Just about every person that came
to the Memorial office with a problem asked to meet Politkovskaya. They
all thought that if Politkovskaya wrote about their case it would
really help,” said Hamzatkhanova. That was actually true – many of
the major human rights issues in Chechnya became widely known about
because she wrote about them.
“There was always a queue to see her,” recalled Novaya Gazeta’s chief
editor Dmitry Muradov. “I’d tell her, you can’t save all the Chechens,
you’re not their Joan of Arc. But she insisted that she could.”
Fatima Tlisova, editor of the Regnum news agency’s North Caucasus
service, worked with Politkovskaya on several occasions and recalls
how she had “her own particular style – all exclamation marks and
full volume”.
“Of course, you can write in plain narrative style about the things
she was describing, but she was trying to shout her message across,”
said Tlisova.
Tlisova believes the murder of Politkovskaya was designed to intimidate
Russian journalists in the most public way possible, and she fears
the tactic may work. “They’re saying that her murder will awaken
the public’s social conscience, but I am worried that the opposite
will happen – her passing will make journalists censor themselves,”
she said.
In the case of my newspaper, Politkovskaya’s attitude had recently
begun to change. She felt we were becoming too uncritical of
developments in Chechnya and of leading political figure Ramzan
Kadyrov.
On one occasion she wrote to me complaining, “What a pity your
newspaper has begun to change, definitely for the worse. It’s a shame
‘Chechenskoye Obshchestvo’ has joined the ranks of those with fallen
reputations.”
In fact, there had been changes in Chechnya and in Russia itself –
you were no longer allowed to write the things you could have done
five years ago.
But it was as if Politkovskaya was oblivious to this – she carried
on writing as she’d done five, even ten years earlier. And that was
what they killed her for.
Her death has become a symbol of those changes.
Tatyana Lokshina, the head of the Moscow-based human rights centre
Demos has often visited Chechnya, and sums up Politkovskaya’s
contribution as follows, “Among the few Russian journalists who
dared to write the truth about the second [1999-2005] Chechen war,
Anna Politkovskaya undoubtedly stands in first place.
“It’s almost impossible to believe she’s no longer with us. She wrote
about this dangerous subject for so long, she travelled in the region
and took such immense risks that many of us came to believe she’d
gone beyond the danger point and nothing could happen to her.”
Lokshina recalls how Politkovskaya received threats in 2001 after
publishing material alleging human rights abuses at “filtration
camps” in Chechnya, and had to leave the country for a while. “But
she returned and continued doing the same work,” said Lokshina.
The June 2004 publication of an interview with Ramzan Kadyrov, who
later became Chechnya’s prime minister, was another landmark event for
Politkovskaya. Again, her friends and colleagues thought it was time
for her to call a halt. But as Lokshina said, “She didn’t stop. And
it all seemed to pass over.”
“Anna’s reporting was uncompromising, with nothing left out, and it
gave her almost iconic status among readers in Chechnya, Russia and
abroad,” said Lokshina. “The possibility that she could be killed off
in casual fashion seemed unthinkable – it would have been a monstrous,
crazy, inhuman crime and would have created a scandal the Russian
authorities just couldn’t afford.
“But we were wrong to think that. Anna’s been murdered.”
So what happens now? According to Lokshina, western journalists and
politicians are suggesting that there is almost no one left to tell
the truth about Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus – “the
torture, the abductions, and other monstrous crimes against civilians”.
But she insists they are wrong.
“To fall silent now would be to play into the hands of Anna’s killers,
to bury her a second time, and to allow her life to be dismissed,”
said Lokshina. “That cannot be allowed to happen. One can’t allow
oneself to be afraid.”
By Timur Aliev in Grozny (IWPR, CRS No. 361)
Timur Aliev is IWPR coordinator in Chechnya.

Poochigian, Brown vary on goals
Candidates differ in their view of state attorney general’s role,
personal objectives.
By E.J. Schultz
Fresno Bee Capitol Bureau

October 15, SACRAMENTO

2006 Strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, the attack ads and the
hyped-up allegations surrounding the campaign for state attorney
general, and a real choice emerges.

Chuck Poochigian, a Republican state senator from Fresno, views the
position as the state’s “top cop” and vows to use the office to defend
the death penalty and to push for greater use of DNA in solving
crimes.

Jerry Brown, the Democratic mayor of Oakland and former governor, says
his “vast experience” will help him use the office to protect the
environment, control assault weapons and give good legal advice to
state agencies.

Brown, a three-time presidential candidate and son of a former
governor, is the favorite in the race. He has a double-digit lead in
most polls and had $5 million campaign cash on hand as of Sept. 30,
compared with Poochigian’s $1.7 million.

Poochigian has tried to gain ground by running an aggressive, dogged
campaign with a tough-on-crime message.

“I’m running for attorney general to bring a fresh approach and
aggressive action against the criminal element in society,” he said
during a recent debate.

He has pounded Brown’s record as mayor and governor, suggesting Brown
that who in the past has made public statements criticizing the
penalty death is not committed to capital punishment.

He also cites Oakland’s rising homicide rate, saying that Brown is
partly to blame.

Brown returns the fire by pointing to Poochigian’s environmental
voting record, which conservationist groups criticize.

And he defends his record as mayor of Oakland by saying it has given
him hands-on experience fighting crime.

“I talk to felons virtually every day and I know what is needed,” he
said at the debate, hosted Oct. 5 by the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’m running for attorney general because I want to bring some common
sense and a practical approach to that office.”

For Brown, who served as governor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a
win would mark a return to the statewide political stage.

The 68-year-old says he would go back to Sacramento as a “seasoned
statesman: wiser, battle tested.”

Brown says his eight-year run as Oakland mayor has given him a better
appreciation for law enforcement.

He lives in a tough neighborhood downtown and says the experience has
been invaluable.

“You get kind of a sense, wow, we better have a strong police
department,” he said in an interview.

“I’m going to be a much tougher attorney general than if I had run 30
years ago, without question.”

As attorney general he says he would form “strike forces” to help
local police departments fight crime.

He also vows to defend stem cell research funding laws endorsed by
voters under Proposition 71.

Brown says he won’t let his personal views affect enforcement of the
death penalty, much like Poochigian, who is anti-abortion, says he
would defend abortion rights laws.

Poochigian, 57, who grew up on a Fresno County farm, made his mark in
the Legislature by carrying the 2004 workers compensation overhaul
bill credited with saving employers billions of dollars.

He has written many crime bills, recently focusing on strengthening
identity theft laws.

He speaks passionately about upholding strong laws sentencing such as
the state’s three law strikes and says he would use the attorney
general office to “more efficiently” process death penalty cases.

The attorney general is the lead prosecutor on death penalty appeals.

Other responsibilities include serving as legal counsel to state
agencies, safeguarding the state’s natural resources, preventing
fraudulent business practices and enforcing gun control and gambling
laws.

As head of the Department of Justice, the attorney general oversees
5,000 lawyers, peace officers and civil servants.

In legal circles, there is a debate over how aggressive the attorney
general should be, especially when it comes to corporate and consumer
protection lawsuits.

Tort reform organizations deplore the “activist” model made famous by
the likes of New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who used the
job to take on Wall Street.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has shown his own activist
streak.

For instance, he recently filed a lawsuit against automakers, charging
that vehicle emissions contribute significantly to global warming.

Poochigian, in a statement, called that lawsuit the “wrong approach
and quite troubling.”

Brown spokesman Ace Smith said Brown believes that it’s “way too
complex litigation to be taking political positions on it before you
actually spend a huge amount of time reviewing it.”

Both candidates say they would be careful in how they wield power.

Brown said he is not interested in filing suits to get attention.

“I’m not interested in headline grabbing,” he said.

Some politicians use the job as a stepping stone for a run for
governor, he said, but “I’m not running for governor.”

Yet he appears ready to assume a high-profile role in environmental
enforcement.

For instance, he said during the debate that he wants to “staff up”
state agencies to “beat down challenges” to the state’s new global
warming law, which caps greenhouse emissions.

The law, signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last month, worries some farm
and business groups who fear costly regulations.

Poochigian, who voted against the global warming bill, has a solid
reputation among tort reform and business groups.

In the Legislature he routinely earned near perfect scores from the
California Chamber of Commerce.

Last year, he authored a bill aimed at reducing frivolous lawsuits
over Americans with Disabilities Act violations.

The bill, which was defeated in the Legislature, would have given
businesses time to fix violations before being sued for punitive
damages.

As attorney general, Poochigian promises to enforce the law whether
it’s “on the street corner or in a board room.”

But “you can also anticipate that I’m going to be very thoughtful in
evaluating the facts that are brought to me and not willy-nilly be
filing lawsuits and issuing subpoenas for the sport of it.”

The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (916)
326-5541.

558103c.html

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
French Parliament moves ahead with making denial of ‘genocide’ a
crime
The New Anatolian / Paris
French parliamentarians on Thursday approved a bill making it a crime
to question the Armenian genocide claims, following a heated debate,
but a silent vote, on the bill.
Deputies in the French Parliament voted 106-19 for the bill, which
aims at introducing prison terms up to one year and fines up to
45,000 euros to those who question the controversial events of 1915.
There was a low turn-out of deputies from the ruling UMP, which is
known for its opposition to the approval of the bill.
The bill, which was introduced by the opposition Socialist Party
(PS), must still be passed by the Senate and be signed by President
Jacques Chirac to become law. However, analysts say that the ruling
UMP government won’t immediately bring the bill to the Senate floor.
Analysts also added that although bringing the bill to the Senate
could be postponed by the ruling party, there is no period of
prescription for the bill which will drop it from the agenda.
The Armenian bill was approved without including amendment requests
from UMP Deputy Patrik Deveciyan who suggested that studies by
scholars and historians on the Armenian genocide claims shouldn’t
become subject to the law.
Colonna expresses govt’s opposition
Speaking to Parliament ahead of the key vote on behalf of the
government, European Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna, who wad once
the spokeswoman of President Jacques Chirac, expressed the French
government’s opposition to the bill.
The French government expressed its opposition to the bill in May and
has not changed its position since then, she said. “There are three
reasons for this. First of all, in 2001 France recognized the
Armenian ‘genocide’ in 1915. This was pointed out by the French
president in Yerevan several weeks ago. We do not think a new one is
necessary,” Colonna said.
Citing the opposition of Turkish intellectuals to the bill, Colonna
said that the present law risks creating adverse effects. “We have a
strong friendship and alliance with Turkey, a tie that dates back
centuries. Although we would like our Turkish friends to come to
terms with their past, this demand should go parallel to friendship.
Turkey has taken very courageous steps and its work should be allowed
to continue. Let us be clear, many intellectuals in the country, who
have themselves faced charges on the issue of the genocide, have
called for this law not to be adopted. Are we better placed than they
are to judge? This law risks destroying the fragile steps.”
And, as the last point, she stressed that history should be written
by historians, not by politicians, saying, “I repeat what has been
said on this floor: History cannot be written through laws.”
Besides Colonna, only two other deputies from the ruling UMP, Pierre
Lequiller and Michel Piron, opposed the bill during their speeches.
Deveciyan: Turkey has no lesson to teach us about repression of
opinions
The UMP’s Deveciyan, during his speech, both criticized the Turkish
government and the European European Enlargement commissioner, saying
that Turkey has no lesson to teach them
about repression of opinions.
Claiming that there is no freedom of _expression in Turkey, Deveciyan
stated that those who use the term “genocide” in Turkey are
imprisoned under Article 301 of the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
He and other supporters of the bill taking the floor from the ruling
and opposition parties used a protest by Turks in Lyon against the
inauguration of an Armenian “genocide” monument as a justification
for the need to approve the bill.
“Turkey has begun to export its policy of denial,” said Deveciyan,
claiming that the protests in Lyon were organized by the Turkish
government. Deveciyan went on to claim that together with the
decision of the Parliament, they don’t want to write history but they
are continuing to fulfill the needs of the law enacted in 2001,
through which the French Parliament recognized the Armenian genocide
claims.
Armenia accuses Turkey of massacring Armenians during World War I,
when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says Armenians were
killed together with Turks in civil unrest during the collapse of the
empire and in war conditions.
A similar bill was shelved in the spring amid pressure from Ankara.
It was represented by the opposition Socialists.
Turkey supporters abruptly left the Parliament building after the
vote without speaking to reporters. Outside, a few dozen protesters
of Armenian descent celebrated.
Chirac, during a visit to Armenia last month, said the bill “is more
of a polemic than of legal reality” but he also urged Turkey to
recognize “the genocide of Armenians” in order to join the European
Union. “Each country grows by acknowledging its dramas and errors of
the past,” Chirac said.

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 14 2006
OSCE MISSION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATION ESTIMATION IN KARABAKH
SUMMARIZES MONITORING RESULTS
YEREVAN, October 13. /ARKA/. OSCE mission for environmental situation
estimation in Karabakh conflict zone summarized the monitoring
results on Thursday, Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry’s press office
reports.
Experts from Karabakh and Azerbaijan took part in the monitoring.
Before its departure from Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
capital, the mission thanked Karabakh authorities for support in
conducting the monitoring. The mission was comprised of
representatives of the United States, Germany, Macedonia,
Switzerland, Italy, France, Moldova and Estonia
>From Karabakhi side the mission was accompanied by NKR Deputy Foreign
Minister Masis Mailyan and other officials. M.V.-0–

ABHaber, Belgium
EU-Turkey News Network
Oct 14 2006
Andrew Duff:” “France has done huge damage to freedom of speech
FRENCH PARLIAMENT DENIES FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’ –
DUFF
Reacting to this morning’s decision of the French National Assembly
on Armenian ‘genocide’, Andrew Duff MEP, Vice-President of the
European Parliament’s delegation to Turkey and Liberal Democrat
Constitutional Affairs Spokesperson, said:
“This is a sad day for liberalism in France. The Assemblée Nationale
has rejected the fundamental right of freedom of speech. It has acted
in direct contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights on
which basis the European Union is founded. For friends of France,
this is a poignant moment.
“Who would have thought that it would be French deputies who would be
the first in the 21st Century to reject the spirit of the
Enlightenment. Voltaire must be spinning in his grave.
“France has done huge damage to EU-Turkey relations and, in passing,
to Turkish relations with Armenia. Progressive forces in Turkey have
been given a gratuitous blow. How can the EU expect Turkey to develop
its laws and practice on freedom of speech when France, one of its
founding members, is going in the opposite direction?
“Europe’s friends in Turkey should not despair. The French Sénat
should throw out this Bill. But the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights
should get ready to review the measure should it, unfortunately,
pass.”
ABHaber 13.10.2006 Brussels

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Oct 14 2006
Don’t negotiate over the gains of enlightened discourse
By Ralf Dahrendorf
Commentary by
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Not long ago, one might have concluded that, at least in Europe,
there were no taboos left. A process that had begun with the
Enlightenment had now reached the point at which “anything goes.”
Particularly in the arts, there were no apparent limits to showing
what even a generation ago would have been regarded as highly
offensive.
Two generations ago, most countries had censors who not only tried to
prevent younger people from seeing certain films but who actually
banned books. Since the 1960’s, such proscriptions have weakened
until, in the end, explicit sexuality, violence, blasphemy – while
upsetting to some people – were tolerated as a part of the
enlightened world.
Or were they? Are there really no limits? Outside Europe, the
“anything goes” attitude was never fully accepted. And there were
limits in Europe, too. The historian David Irving is still in
detention in Austria for the crime of Holocaust denial. This is, to
be sure, a special case. The denial of a well-documented truth may
lead to new crimes. But is the answer to the old question, “What is
truth?” always so clear?
What exactly are we doing if we insist on Turkey’s acknowledgement
that the Armenian genocide did take place as a condition of its
membership in the European Union? Are we so sure of Darwin’s theories
of evolution that we should ban alternative notions of genesis from
schools?
Those concerned with freedom of speech have always wondered about its
limits. One such limit is the incitement to violence. The man who
gets up in a crowded theater and shouts, “Fire!” when there is none
is guilty of what happens in the resulting stampede. But what if
there actually is a fire?
This is the context in which we may see the invasion of Islamic
taboos into the enlightened, mostly non-Islamic world. From the fatwa
on Salman Rushdie for “The Satanic Verses” to the killing of a nun in
Somalia in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg lecture and the
Berlin Opera’s cancellation of a performance of Mozart’s “Idomeneo,”
with its severed heads of religious founders, including Mohammad, we
have seen violence and intimidation used to defend a particular
religion’s taboos.
There are questions here that are not easily answered by civilized
defenders of the Enlightenment. Toleration and respect for people who
have their own beliefs are right and perhaps necessary to preserve an
enlightened world. But there is the other side to consider. Violent
responses to unwelcome views are never justified and cannot be
accepted. Those who argue that suicide bombers express understandable
grudges have themselves sold out their freedom. Self-censorship is
worse than censorship itself, because it sacrifices freedom
voluntarily.

This means that we have to defend Salman Rushdie and the Danish
cartoonists and the friends of “Idomeneo,” whether we like them or
not. If anyone does not like them, there are all the instruments of
public debate and of critical discourse that an enlightened community
has at its disposal. It is also true we do not have to buy any
particular book or listen to an opera. What a poor world it would be
if anything that might offend any group could no longer be said! A
multicultural society that accepts every taboo of its diverse groups
would have little to talk about.
The kind of reaction we have seen recently to expressions of views
that are offensive to some does not bode well for the future of
liberty. It is as if a new wave of counterenlightenment is sweeping
the world, with the most restrictive views dominating the scene.
Against such reactions, enlightened views must be reasserted
strongly. Defending the right of all people to say things even if one
detests their views is one of the first principles of liberty.
Thus, “Idomeneo” must be performed, and Rushdie must be published.
Whether an editor publishes cartoons offensive to believers in
Mohammad (or Christ, for that matter) is a matter of judgment, almost
of taste. I might not do it, but I would nevertheless defend the
right of someone who decides otherwise. It is debatable whether
recent incidents of this kind require a “dialogue between religions.”
Public debate making clear cases one way or the other seems more
appropriate than conciliation. The gains of enlightened discourse are
too precious to be turned into negotiable values. Defending those
gains is the task that we now face.
Ralf Dahrendorf, a former European commissioner from Germany, is a
member of the British House of Lords, a former rector of the London
School of Economics, and a former warden of St. Antony’s College,
Oxford. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration
with Project Syndicate ().