AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 23 2006
FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH DIRECTOR GENERAL OF IOM
[June 23, 2006, 14:37:27]
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met June 22 with Director General
of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Brunson
McKinley, who is in Baku to participate in the 33rd session of the
Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers.
The guest said he was pleased to visit Azerbaijan, and impressed with
all-round development he witnessed in the country.
Elmar Mammadyarov and Brunson McKinley discussed ways to further
develop cooperation between the Azerbaijani government and the IOM in
tackling the problems of refugees, internally displaced persons and
migrants.
Mr. McKinley noted that his organization comprising 118 members and
closely cooperating with various UN structures, is keen to develop
ties with Azerbaijan, which he said is now facing the problem of
refugees and internally displaced persons.
Minister Mammadyarov stressed the importance of peaceful solution to
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s
withdrawal from the occupied Azerbaijani territories and returning of
internally displaces persons back to their homeland.
He said a great deal of things regarding this problem depends on
willingness of the international community.
The conversation also revolved around the questions discussed at the
33rd session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, and
other international issues.

Putin arrives in Minsk for two summits
ITAR-TASS, Russia
June 23 2006
MINSK, June 23 (Itar-Tass) – Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived
by plane in Minsk on Friday for two summits – one of the Eurasian
Economic Community and the other of the Collective Security Treaty
Organisation.
The EurAsEC forum will discuss first of all customs union formation,
and the CSTO summit is expected to result in signing of an agreement
on collective quick-deployment forces. The two forums will discuss
consolidation of cooperation between the EurAsEC and the CSTO,
a Kremlin source told Itar-Tass.
Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are members
of both organisations. Armenia is the sixth member of the Collective
Security Treaty Organisation. Uzbekistan joined the Eurasian Economic
Community last January. Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia have the status
of observers in the EurAsEC.

How many murders constitute a genocide?
By Shahar Ilan
Ha’aretz, Israel
June 23 2006
The comparison between the massacre of civilians, the Holocaust and
acts of genocide always sparks a stormy debate, and justifiably so.
Prof. Israel Charny, director of the Institute on the Holocaust and
Genocide, says that senior genocide researcher Leo Kuper coined a
term that is supposed to prevent this comparison. Kuper calls the
indiscriminate massacre of dozens or hundreds of civilians genocidal
massacre.
Last Monday, Charny addressed a one-day seminar on “Other Victims,”
sponsored by the Open University, and then spoke with Haaretz.
“History proves that among all the nations, there has not been a
society that was incapable of the mass murder of unarmed innocents.
We too have transgressed in this,” he said.
Charny told Haaretz that he does not compare acts of massacre to
the Holocaust.
“We have never committed an act of genocide,” he explained. “We have
perpetrated a few acts of genocidal massacre against a small number
of people, and each case was terrible and painful. The study of the
Holocaust is not only learning about being the victims, but also
about knowing that this potential exists in us, too.”
When does a genocidal massacre become genocide, the genuine murder
of a people?
“I think that 10,000 is genocide,” said Charny. “If that’s not
genocide, what is? You have 10,000 unarmed civilians of religion X
who were murdered by adherents of religion Y. What is that? Political
murder? I think that’s genocide.”
I told Charny that calling the massacre of 10,000 persons genocide
cheapens the Holocaust. He replied that if we judge the magnitude of
genocide by the number of victims, the Holocaust could be dwarfed due
to the fact that the Communist regime in the Soviet Union murdered
55 million Russians, nine times the number of Jews murdered in the
Holocaust. The conference at the Open University was held to mark
the publication of two new books (in Hebrew) in the university’s
“Genocide” series. One book, “Thoughts on the Inconceivable,” was
written by Prof. Yair Oron, who heads the staff of lecturers in
the Open University’s genocide course. The book presents a further
distinction aimed at classifying acts of massacre and genocide. Prof.
Rudolph Rummel of the University of Hawaii called regimes that murdered
more than a million people “super-murderers.” Fifteen such regimes
murdered 151 million people in the 20th century. Rummel estimates
that a total of 174 million people were murdered in the 20th century
in some 8,200 incidents of massacre and genocide.
If one includes the peoples the Soviet Union murdered beyond its
borders, the number of victims of Russian Communism rises to 62 million
– more than a third of those killed in acts of genocide in the 20th
century. The five greatest murderers in 20th century history: Stalin
(Soviet Union) – 43 million; Mao Zedong (China) – 38 million; Adolph
Hitler (Germany), in third place with 21 million; Chiang Kai-shek
(China) – 10 million; and Lenin (Soviet Union) – 4 million.
“Man is a murderer by nature, to the point of genocide,” said Charny.
Otherwise, he asks, “Why would millions take pleasure in every instance
of genocide?”
What do Israelis know about acts of genocide? Oron answers this in
the chapter he wrote for the second book just published by the Open
University, “Nazi Germany and the Gypsies,” by Dr. Gilad Margalit.
Oron writes about a study conducted among 800 Israeli students by
researchers Eyal Naveh and Esther Yogev in 1996. The students were
asked to assess their knowledge of the gypsy genocide, the murder of
the gypsies by the Nazis during WWII. Some 85 percent answered that
they had minimal or no knowledge at all. Only 1 percent (fewer than
10 students) said they knew the subject well.
In 1996-2004 the study’s questionnaire was distributed among some
500 students in an elective course on genocide – students who had
expressed an interest in this subject. The results were similar. Some
85-90 percent of the students said they knew nothing or very little
about both the gypsy genocide and the Armenian genocide.
Also noteworthy is that the Education Ministry did not approve
a curriculum on genocide that Oron prepared in 1994. A proposal
submitted in 1995 by Zvika Dror, a member of Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot,
to build a memorial to the victims of genocide was never implemented.
Charny says that the Truman Institute at Hebrew University was
founded in the 1970s to research the subject of genocide, but very
quickly changed its goals. Throughout the world there are a number
of university departments that grant degrees in the Holocaust
and genocide. In Israel there are Holocaust studies, but the Open
University is the only one that specializes in genocide studies.
Charny says that initiatives to teach genocide at other institutes
were quashed.
“Those of us who wanted an awareness of genocide of other peoples
were often treated as rebellious and non-conformist,” said Charny,
adding that the idea of learning about the genocide of other peoples is
perceived here as minimizing the Holocaust “to the point of treason.”
“We protest so much about the world not knowing about our Holocaust,”
said Charny. “Do we have any moral right not to know? Is this not
a disgrace?”
Oron says that genocide researchers claim that denial “is the final
and ‘ultimate’ stage in ‘successful genocide.'” In other words,
the murderers will always want to deny the crime or at least its
dimensions, to downplay its importance and terribleness and to
lay the blame on the victims, all in order to deflect blame from
themselves. There are some researchers who contend that all the acts of
genocide in the 20th century (apart from the Holocaust) are ‘forgotten’
or ‘concealed.’ Oron says that what will determine whether there will
be genocide in the future is neither the murderers nor the victims,
“but rather the third party” – the majority of human society. It is
the third party that enables genocide, because the murderers understand
that the rest of the world will stand idly by.
ml

Today, Azerbaijan
June 23 2006
“Establishment and strengthening of peace in the South Caucasus”
conference held
23 June 2006 [10:19] – Today.Az
Yesterday International conference on the subject of “Establishment
and strengthening of peace in the South Caucasus” on the initiative
of Azerbaijan Way Policy Movement (AWPM), held.
AWPM leader Ilgar Gasimov spoke of the problems ongoing in the
Caucasus. The role of Russian in the role of this conflict does not
reflect reality.
Not any state would like to have conflict in its neighborhood. On the
other hand some international organizations that Azerbaijan and
Armenia joined might make the situation tense in the region.
Big Structure Party chairman Fazil Gazanfaroghlu stated double
standards of leading countries of the world in the Caucasus. He said
that international right chances only Armenia makes use of,
Azerbaijan and Georgia always face pressures in this field.
Austria Inestigation Center Caucasus division expert Kamil Agja
stated Russian fact in not settling the conflict in the Caucasus.
Umid Party chairman Igbal Agazade stated Russia to be the reason of
conflicts in the Caucasus.
Russia is main power supporting ethnic separatism and Azerbaijan and
Georgia should take into consideration this fact.
At the end of the conference a statement was adopted on the measure
participants. In the statement establishment and strengthening of the
peace in the Caucasus was stated that this kinds of forums should be
increased, APA reports.
URL:

Today, Azerbaijan
June 23 2006
Mikhail Zabelin: “The biggest Russian Diaspora of the South Caucasus
is in Azerbaijan”
23 June 2006 [09:38] – Today.Az
“The biggest Russian Diaspora in South Caucasus is in Azerbaijan. At
present, 170 thousand Russian live in Azerbaijan, 2 thousand
in Georgia, 5 thousand in Armenia.” Russian community leader in
Azerbaijan, Milly Majlis member Mikhail Zabelin has told.
He stated that better part of the Russians living in Georgia and
Azerbaijan are militaries, their family members, and Malaccans. The
parliamentarian said that the opinion “In what state attitude is
well to Russians cooperation will be of priority in that country”
is not implemented. Reminding Russian politicians calling Armenia
fore post of Russia, Mikhail Zabelin stated that the country where
Russians do not live can’t be fore-post of Russia.
“Tolerance is in high level in Azerbaijan, though official status
was not given to the Russian language, this language remains being
communication language. Number of published books in Russian language
increases, Russian sectors function like in the previous times.”
Expressing attitude to the opinion of existence Russian military base
in Armenia, the community leader stated that this base is necessary
for Armenia not Russia, APA reports.
URL:

Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
June 23 2006
Etisalat close to $450m telecom deal in Armenia
BY ISAAC JOHN (Chief Business Reporter)
23 June 2006
DUBAI – UAE’s telecom giant Etisalat, on an aggressive overseas buying
spree spanning Europe, Africa and the Middle East, moved a step closer
to acquiring 90 per cent of ArmenTel, the largest Armenian operator of
cellular and fixed-line telephony, by getting short-listed yesterday
for the final bidding round along with three consortia.
Greek telecom provider OTE, which owns 90 per cent of ArmenTel,
said yesterday a consortium led by Etisalat is among the four bidders
short-listed from the original eight bidders, including major Russian
telecommunication conglomerates, Mobile Telesystems and Vympelkom.
The fourth bidder is a consortium comprising VTEL Holding and
Knightbridge Associates.
The Etisalat-led consortium includes Dubai investment house Istithmar
PJSC and Emergent Telecom Ventures.
When OTE announced its intention to sell 90 per cent of ArmenTel
shares in early April 2006, primary offers came from Russia’s Sistema,
Vympelkom, and Rostelekom, Kuwait’s MTS Kuwait, Armenia’s Sil group,
Belgium’s Belgacom, Hungary’s PanTel, and Etisalat.
ArmenTel provides service to 595,000 fixed telephone subscribers in
Armenia and controls over a half of cellular communication market,
serving more than 50,000 subscribers. Armenian government owns 10
per cent of Armentel. The company’s turnover reached Eur 110 million
in 2005.
According to sources close to OTE, the outcome of the tender would be
known after July 20. Experts estimated the value of 90 per cent of
ArmenTel shares around $200 million. However, indications are that
the asset value may surge with Russian companies expected to offer
$450 million for the Armenian operator.
Armenian sources said although Russian companies have more chances
to win the tender “because they have more contacts and connections
with Armenian officials, which is of great importance for working
in Armenia, for the government strictly controls Armenia’s telecom
market,” Etisalat stands a better chance thanks to its financial
clout and track-record for efficiency. “However, it seems all but
certain that the company, in which the Armenian government has a 10
per cent share, will be sold to a Russian firm. Recent articles in
the Armenian Press speculate that the government will not tolerate
any other outcome. Certainly OTE’s experience in Armenia serves as
a warning to potential investors of the danger in going against the
authorities. OTE has spent several years fighting the government in
courts in London over its alleged failure to meet investment conditions
laid out in the 1997 agreement by which it first acquired Armentel,”
the sources pointed out.
Last week, a consortium led by Etisalat qualified for the final
auction round for Egypt’s third mobile licence scheduled for July 4.
The UAE telecom giant, which has finalised the $2.6 billion takeover
bid for Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd. two months ago, is
also bidding for a stake in Algerie Telecom, Algeria’s state-owned
telecom company, and is among the ten international companies that
have submitted bids for the 800 million euro acquisition of some 70
per cent of Mobi 63, Serbia’s largest mobile phone network. With all
these acquisitions, Etisalat’s overseas commitment is poised to exceed
$10 billion soon.
Istithmar forms part of The Corporate Office comprising Dubai’s
Ports Customs & Free Zone Corporation and Nakheel, one of the largest
developers in Dubai.

Regional rail project feasible without US support: Turkish diplomat
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
June 23 2006
AssA-Irada 23/06/2006 09:36
A Turkish diplomat has said the decision adopted recently by the
US Congress not to back the Gars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku regional
railway project won’t impede its implementation.
“The parties to the project will be able to carry out the operations
without the aid of other countries,” said the spokesman for the
Turkish Foreign Ministry, Namik Tan.
“I believe that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia [the three countries
hosting the rail line] have sufficient funds. This means we will be
able to finance the construction on our own,” Tan said, adding that
the three countries are looking to start the operations soon.
Commenting on the statements regarding Armenia’s possible involvement
in the project, the diplomat said that Turkish Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul had discussed the issue with Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev. Armenia’s participation is impossible until after the Upper
(Nagorno) Garabagh dispute is settled, the spokesman said.
“The question is whether or not to allow Armenia to participate in
the project after the conflict is resolved,” he added.

Turkey Political
by Richard S. Ehrlich
Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand
June 23 2006
ISTANBUL, Turkey — “Ten or 15 years ago, we had Romanian girls in
Istanbul selling their bodies as prostitutes,” said Hassan, an office
worker in Istanbul’s old Sultan Ahmet neighborhood.
“You remember those days?” he asked his colleague, Rasheed, who
snickered at the memory.
“Now Romania can join the EU ahead of Turkey,” Hassan lamented. “Why?
“I don’t believe Romania, or even Bulgaria, are something better than
Turkey. They are also nice countries. But it is only because Turkey
is Muslim that the EU treats us like this.”
Schizoid Turkey, physically split between Europe and Asia by the
Bosphorus Strait, flaunts a bizarre response to such cynical
outbursts.
At Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, atop a stone entrance, the European
Union’s flag with its circle of yellow stars, flaps alongside
Turkey’s Islam-inspired flag with its white crescent moon and white
star on a red background.
The isolated pair of snapping flags may give the false impression
that Turkey is a full EU member.
But rueful Turks express confusion over the hoops their nation still
needs to go through, to join the grouping.
“I am not sure if it will be good, or bad, to join the EU,” said a
Turkish chemical engineer from the capital, Ankara, dining with his
librarian wife.
“It will be bad because we will lose much of our culture in the rapid
modernization when we join the others and become more like them. It
will be good because we will have a better chance to import and
export.”
Supporters of EU expansion claim Christian-majority Europe can win
friends throughout the Islamic world by using the “soft power” of
generously accepting Muslim-majority Turkey.
It would also extend Europe’s influence to Turkey’s frontiers with
Iran, Iraq and Syria.
EU expansionists compare this with the “hard power” America
brandishes through its worldwide war against Islamist insurgents, and
Washington’s liquidating, caging or monitoring anyone perceived as
suspicious.
ADVERTISEMENT
Embracing Turkey in the EU, supporters say, would be a unique method
of defraying fears of discrimination among many of the world’s
Muslims — in a way America cannot, because no Muslim nation can ever
become a US state.
EU membership, however, also depends on a solution to problems raised
by the minority Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The secessionist guerrillas have been waging a bloody war against
Turkey’s repressive military for more than 20 years.
More than 30,000 people have perished on all sides.
The EU is also observing how Islamist extremists, often through
random terrorist attacks, are influencing Turkey’s government,
described as “moderate Islamist.”
Many Americans, Europeans and others, meanwhile, find this country
safe and friendly.
For example in Goreme, in the heart of Turkey 750 kilometers
southeast of Istanbul, two blonde teenage girls confidently shopped
for souvenirs in a sleepy street market while wearing sweatshirts
emblazoned: “Incirlik High School Class of ’08”.
Incirlik American High School, for US Defense Department dependents
and others, is located at Incirlik Air Base, a key NATO base and home
to the US Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing in southern Turkey.
“While there is no specific targeting of US personnel or resources in
Turkey, there are active terrorist groups throughout the country,”
wrote Lori B. Alves, 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs officer, on
the Incirlik Air Base’s website.
“A notable example of this was in the summer of 2005, when a bomb
threat was received regarding a beach where Americans frequently
visited.”
After an investigation, “two terrorists were killed when the bomb
prematurely went off,” Alves said.
“Although terrorist activity was greater in the cities of Istanbul
and Mersin in 2005, there were 65 incidents of terrorism in the city
of Adana [near Incirlik], according to Turkish National Police data,”
the Incirlik officer said.
Turkey was one of several nations which helped the CIA “in the
unlawful practice of renditions” for secret flights of Islamist
suspects, according to London-based Amnesty International.
Turkey earlier allowed Americans to use its territory in hair-trigger
brinkmanship against the Soviet Union.
Incirlik launched a U-2 espionage plane flown by Francis Gary Powers
over Soviet airspace, which was shot down by the Russians in 1960,
resulting in the pilot’s imprisonment for 21 months as a CIA spy.
Turkey also hosted America’s nuclear Jupiter missiles until 1961 when
a near-apocalyptic “Cuban missile crisis” forced Washington to yank
its Jupiters from Turkey in exchange for the Russians taking their
missiles out of Cuba.
While the American High School teenagers shopped alongside their
family — including two men with blonde buzz-cut hair — several
Turkish men pointed and chuckled.
When gossip turned to Turkey’s EU membership, their mood was less
cheerful.
“The EU won’t happen, that’s definite,” insisted businessman Mehmet
Dasdeler while watching the teens inspect woven cloth illustrated
with Whirling Dervishes.
“America is [governed by] a Christian religious party. England is
becoming a Christian religious party. The EU will never accept Turkey
because Christians are getting closer together, deciding to help each
other. And Muslims are getting closer to help each other.
“Also, Turkey is a very young country, but Europe is old and retired
already, so I would have to work and pay tax to them,” to fund
retirement and other benefits for elderly Europeans.
“Turkey has a big population. The EU is getting many countries from
East Europe, but they do not have the population of Turkey. Remember,
whoever has more population, has more power in the EU,” Dasdeler
said.
Turkey’s 73 million people are governed by Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development
Party.
Erdogan favors EU membership and endorses a secular regime, though he
was imprisoned for several months for reading an Islamist poem at a
political rally.
Turkey’s other vulnerability is its bloody massacre of Armenians —
mostly Christians — at the end of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago,
which some historians describe as genocide.
Prime Minister Erdogan expressed dismay in May about the draft of a
proposed French law which would make it a crime — punishable by a
year in jail, plus a 57,000 US dollar fine — to deny Turks massacred
up to 1.5 million Armenians.
Many of the Armenians died in 1915 during forced “resettlement”
deportation death marches.
When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently described the
killings as genocide, Erdogan ordered Turkey’s pull out from NATO’s
military maneuvers in Canada.
Germany’s Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, viewed the aftermath of the
Turks’ slaughter of Armenians as proof that the world forgets
atrocities.
According to historians, Hitler told his army commanders in 1939:
“Thus for the time being, I have sent to the east only my Death’s
Head Units, with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women,
and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we
win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the
Armenians?”
Some Turks, however, insist their country is being singled out while
other nations avoid similar censure.
“The West keeps talking about how Turkey killed the Armenians. They
should give up on this subject,” Dasdeler said after the girls from
Incirlik passed.
“We never talk about what happened to the American Indians. We don’t
bring this subject up again and again.”
*****
Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich, a freelance journalist who has
reported news from Asia for the past 28 years, and co-author of the
non-fiction book, “HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!” — Love Letters to
Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. His web page is

Holocaust museum seeks to inspire
BY TARA MALONE
Chicago Daily Herald , IL
June 23 2006
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Friday, June 23, 2006
Ida Paluch was a young girl when an aunt hoisted her across the barbed
wire, saving her from the fate awaiting most Jews corralled together
in a southern Polish city.
It was 1942.
Paluch never again saw her aunt, one of an estimated 6 million people
killed during the Holocaust.
Three decades later, Cambodia’s Pol Pot regime drove Samorn Nil from
his family, forcing him to work in the countryside. Nil lost his
father, siblings and 1.7 million countrymen to Cambodia’s killing
fields.
Kenneth Elisapana escaped the violence that gripped Sudan, dividing
the Islamic north from the non-Muslim south, violence that has killed
more than 2æmillion Sudanese since 1983. The current conflict in
western Sudan’s Darfur region claimed an additional 250,000 lives.
All witnessed violence at its worst.
All say we have not heeded its lessons.
“People didn’t learn a thing,” said Paluch, a 67-year-old Skokie
woman. “I always wonder what is the future of this world going to be.”
Elisapana echoed the concern.
“After the Second World War, we formed the United Nations and we said,
‘Never again.’ But today still, regimes continue to kill and rape,”
said Elisapana, 38, who works at World Relief in Aurora.
Amid this legacy of violence and indecision comes the new $30 million,
64,000-square-foot Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
The suburban center is the latest memorial intended to remember
the past and forge a more peaceful future, organizers say. The
Skokie-based center joins others in Washington D.C., New York,
Houston and Los Angeles.
Holocaust museums are not alone in this mission.
Across the Chicago area and the country, museums remembering those lost
to atrocities in Armenia, Cambodia and Bosnia are taking root. This,
coupled with more states requiring such history be taught in public
schools, fuels hope that knowledge of past mistakes avoids future ones.
“That lesson has not sunk in yet in terms of the global stage,” said
Brett Kaplan, a Holocaust scholar with the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. “The undying hope is people can learn how to
prevent genocide in the future.”
Illinois is one of 16 states with laws concerning Holocaust education.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich last year broadened the state’s long-standing
Holocaust education mandate to include lessons from Armenia, Cambodia,
Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan.
More than 250,000 visitors are expected each year when the museum
opens in 2008.
“We will hopefully create a generation of activists,” said Richard
Hirschhaut, executive director of the Skokie-based Holocaust center.
“We will awaken the sense of responsibility within young people
to raise their voices and act when they see hate, when they see
intolerance at its earliest stages.”
Joining them in the task are organizers of Chicago’s Cambodian American
Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial.
Run by the Cambodian Association of Illinois, the center is one of
the country’s only public memorials to victims of the Khmer Rouge. An
estimated 2,000 people visited last year.
“The suffering is not just for Cambodian people alone. We live in the
same planet. The suffering of a person is also the suffering of all of
us,” said Nil, 52, who directs social services for the Cambodian group.
“That it still continues to happen … it’s shameful,” Nil said.
The burden of action weighs heaviest over western Sudan, many say.
Since fighting erupted in 2003, more than 2 million people have been
driven from their homes.
The Illinois Museum and Education Center Web site calls on visitors
to urge legislators to press for intervention. Paluch and others in
the Holocaust Association for Child Survivors routinely send letters.
Through his work with World Relief, Elisapana does the same. The
groundbreaking Thursday for the new Holocaust center underscores the
need, he said.
“This is the past we are breaking ground on, but there is a current
genocide in Sudan. Are we going to wait and break ground for that
history?” Elisapana asked.
Gitta Jaskulski puts her faith in talking.
The 63-year-old Des Plaines woman survived nearly two years in the
Theresienstadt concentration camp as a toddler. Fewer than 100 children
of the 15,000 held in the camp lived, estimates show.
“It’s just so important to tell our story,” Jaskulski said. “It’s
not just something in the history books.”
–Boundary_(ID_DUTE0tMxE4D2s4X83YIjY Q)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian identity rushed to hospital
By Melissa Mitchell
North Shore Times, Australia
June 23 2006
22Jun06
PROMINENT Australian Armenian and Community Relations Commission
chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian was rushed to hospital the night before
he was to be guest speaker at the Chatswood Chamber of Commerce
meeting this week.
Mr Kerkyasharian was due to address the meeting at 1pm on Tuesday
but had complained of feeling unwell on Monday and left work early,
chamber president Edward Mazzoni said.
“Mr Kerkyasharian was due to fly to Tasmania on Tuesday night but
his wife phoned us on Monday night to say that her husband had been
taken to hospital,” Mr Mazzoni said.
It is believed Mr Kerkyasharian had an attack of appendicitis and is
recovering well.
Arrangements were made to replace Mr Kerkyasharian, with Speakers
Bank Australia director Dale Rees-Bevan and Killara Plumbing’s Greg
McElroy stepping in to address the meeting.
At the meeting, Mr Mazzoni told guests, including a table of 10
representatives from the Australian Armenian Chamber of Commerce,
the Mr Kerkyasharian was “unavailable to be here today”.
He said Chatswood chamber members had been invited to a meeting of
the Australian Armenian chamber this year and heard Mr Kerkyasharian
speak there. He was subsequently invited to speak at this month’s
meeting at Chatswood.
Mr Kerkyasharian migrated to Australia in 1967 and has served as a
member of the State Ethnic Public Broadcasting Advisory Committee and
was appointed manager of the Armenian radio station he volunteered
to set up in 1976.
He was made head of SBS Radio in 1980 and appointed to the management
board to set up SBS Television.
In 1989 he was appointed chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Commission
of NSW, which became the Community relations Commission in 2001.
He was also made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 and
received the Olympic Order for his contribution to the Sydney 2000
Olympic Games.
He is currently president of the Anti-Discrimination Board.
2006/06/22/1317_news.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress