EU’S EXTERNAL RELATIONS COMMISSIONER CALLS FOR DECREASING DEFENSE EXPENDITURE IN AZERBAIJAN
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 30, 2006
In an unusually strongly worded speech, delivered at a conference
in Slovenia on August 28, the EU’s external relations commissioner,
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, observed that “defense expenditure in Georgia
and Azerbaijan is going through the roof.” APA reports quoting
RFE/Radio Liberty.
Ferrero-Waldner noted in her speech that increases in defense
expenditure send a negative message in terms of resolving the region’s
conflicts. The commissioner also says such increases are unjustifiable
in countries that are “in desperate need of investment in education,
health, and small businesses.”
The commissioner also criticized leaders in the region for their
“inflammatory rhetoric.” She also noted there has been “little or no
progress” toward settling the conflicts in the region, including the
Nagorno-Garabagh conflict.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told the APA it is not informed about
Ferrero-Waldner’s statement. The Ministry official said such statement
might be regarded as interference with the interior affairs of an
independent state.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
HIS HOLINESS ARAM I RECEIVES THE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE HENCHAGIAN AND ARF PARTIES
The Lebanese chapter of the Social Democratic Henchagian Party in Lebanon
visited His Holiness Aram I on August 28. The delegation included Armenian
Member of Parliament Dr. Yeghig Djeredjian and member of the party’s central
committee, Dr. Matsag Poladian.
The discussions focused on the current situation in Lebanon, the possibility
of reviving the structures of the Armenian community of Lebanon and the
participation of Turkish troops in the peacekeeping forces in the country.
On August 27 His Holiness received the central committee of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation accompanied by Member of Parliament Hagop
Pakradouni. The two sides discussed the efforts for improving the internal
political situation in Lebanon, the issue of Turkish participation in the
international peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon and the necessity to
revitalize the life of the Armenian community of Lebanon and its
pan-Diaspora role.
During both meetings His Holiness praised the work carried out by the
parties. He also stressed the importance of organizing the Armenian national
structures and particularly saving Armenian schools from the financial
difficulties they face while opening their doors widely to Armenian
students. “The Armenian school is the heart of the Armenian community.
Therefore, every effort should be exerted to keep the heart of the community
healthy. We are confident that our communities in the Diaspora will support
and help the Armenians of Lebanon in their efforts to preserve the
activeness of their educational and cultural structures,” said Aram I.
##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
IN HIS LETTER TO THE LEBANESE PRESIDENT
AND GOVERNMENT
“HOW CAN AN OCCUPYING FORCE TAKE PART
IN A PEACEKEEPING MISSION?”
ASKS HIS HOLINESS ARAM I
In a letter sent to the President of the Republic of Lebanon, Gen. Emile
Lahoud His Holiness Aram I questions the potential participation of Turkey
in the peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon. “How will a country, the
distant and recent past of which is full of massacres and bloody pages,
participate in a peacekeeping mission? How will a country, that occupies
part of Cyprus, contribute to a peace process? How will a country, that has
a military alliance with Israel, dedicate itself to the mission of securing
Lebanon’s borders? Finally, how will a country that ignores the human rights
of its own people become part of a mission indebted to defend international
conventions and laws?” writes His Holiness Aram I.
“Now that a new and hopeful page is being opened in the history of Lebanon,
with the latter exerting every effort to restore its territorial integrity
and sovereignty and re-establish its unique place and role in the
international community, we demand and expect that such issues are
considered with a correct viewpoint and through a wider perspective with the
full commitment of pursuing Lebanon’s supreme interests,” adds His Holiness.
His Holiness stresses that “based on these facts, the presence of Turkey in
the United Nations peacekeeping forces will never be beneficial to Lebanon.
The Armenian community of Lebanon with all its spiritual and communal
structures, political and civil organizations, strongly believes in this.
Also, such is the belief of all the communities of the Armenian Diaspora
that are under the jurisdiction of the Catholicosate of Cilicia.”
Bishop Kegham Khatcherian, Primate of the Diocese of Lebanon, visited the
presidential palace in Baabda on Monday 28 August, personally delivering the
Pontiff’s letter to President Gen. Emile Lahoud. The Bishop asked that the
President pass the letter on to the government.
His Holiness Aram I had also expressed his concern about this issue during a
meeting with the representative of Prime Minister Fouad Seniora recently.
##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

The Boston Globe
Armenians try to stall appointment of US envoy
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | August 30, 2006
When John Evans, the US ambassador to Armenia, last year described the
deaths and forced exile of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians early in
the last century as genocide, the local Armenian community rejoiced.
The Bush administration has described the events in Ottoman Turkey as
“horrific” and a “tragedy,” but not as genocide. Turkey, an
important US ally, strongly objects to that description, calling the
deaths and deportations the outcome of a civil conflict with bloodshed
on both sides.
But even though he retracted the comments, Evans, a 35-year State
Department veteran, was recalled from his post in May, a move many
Armenians contend was punishment for his characterization of Turkey’s
role.
Now, Armenians and their backers in Congress are trying to hold up the
appointment of the man President Bush wants to succeed Evans, Richard
E. Hoagland, who has declined to describe what happened as genocide.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has delayed its consideration
of Hoagland’s appointment because of the controversy. At a June
confirmation hearing, senators grilled Hoagland, who said he wanted to
avoid “getting stuck in the past and vocabulary.”
US Representative Edward J. Markey, a Democrat who represents
Watertown, home to a longstanding and vocal Armenian-American
community, said, “I don’t think he should be confirmed until
President Bush publicly states that there was a genocide and allows
his new ambassador to make that same statement.”
The committee plans to meet Sept. 7 to decide Hoagland’s
fate. Congressional aides said the vote on whether to recommend that
the full Senate approve the nomination will be close.
If the senators reject Hoagland, Bush could make a recess
appointment. Armenian communities across the country will be watching
closely.
“We would be disappointed if he were appointed without an
acknowledgement of genocide,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive director
of the Armenian Assembly of America , a Washington-based citizens
advocacy group.
After Evans was recalled, Markey sent a letter to the administration,
cosigned by 59 other House members, questioning the apparent
dismissal. US Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy,
Massachusetts Democrats, sent a similar letter.
In response, a State Department assistant secretary wrote that “all
US ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the President and as advocates
of the President’s policies,” and he denied Evans was being removed
under pressure from the Turkish government.
The controversy over Evans and Hoagland is the latest of many battles
that have consumed Armenian communities.
In a lawsuit now pending in US District Court in Boston, a teacher and
a student from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and the Assembly
of Turkish American Associations have demanded that the state
Department of Education include dissenting views in a state curriculum
guide on the topic.
Armenians and their supporters say including those views is like
endorsing the stance of Holocaust deniers.
Harvey Silverglate, a First Amendment lawyer who has argued that
excluding the dissenting views is a violation of the principle of free
speech, said “every American citizen has the right to state his or
her view as to whether or not this was a genocide.”
But, he added, “if somebody is officially representing the United
States and the US government has a certain position, it is reasonable
for the administration to insist that the official convey the official
US position.”
Yvonne Abraham can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

The Fresno Bee
Legislators aid recovery of Armenians’ assets
By E.J. Schultz / Bee Capitol Bureau
(Updated Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 4:16 AM)
SACRAMENTO – Lawyers seeking to recover millions of dollars in bank deposits
for Armenian genocide victims are getting some help this week from state
lawmakers.
A class-action lawsuit filed against two German banks seeks the return of
cash, bonds, gold jewelry and other assets that lawyers believe are owed to
an estimated 2,000 heirs of genocide victims, including some possibly living
in the San Joaquin Valley, home of thousands of Armenian-Americans.
Senate Bill 1524 by Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, and Sen. Jackie Speier,
D-Hillsborough – both of Armenian decent – would extend the statute of
limitations for such claims until 2016. It passed the Assembly on Monday on
a 77-0 vote and will likely pass the Senate before the session ends
Thursday.
Gov. Schwarzenegger supports the bill, according to his office.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this year on behalf of several Armenians
living in Southern California. Lawyers have argued that the plaintiffs are
free to sue under current law, but attorneys for the defendants have replied
that the statute of limitations prohibits the action, said Vartkes
Yeghiayan, a Los Angeles-area attorney representing the Armenians.
If the bill were to become law, it “would certainly fortify our position,”
Yeghiayan said.
Deutsche Bank A.G., one of the two banks sued, did not return a call for
comment. The other bank sued is Dresdner Bank A.G.
The bill has already cleared the Legislature once this year. But it was tied
to another bill that would have allowed Mexican-American victims of a 1930s
deportation campaign to seek damages for being forcibly sent back to Mexico.
The repatriation was sometimes violent, as immigrants were taken across the
border on trucks, buses and trains, according to the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, which backed the bill.
Schwarzenegger vetoed the Mexican deportation bill last week, arguing that
it would have allowed “private litigation of potentially thousands of claims
against the state, local governments and private citizens.”
The governor did not act on the Armenian bill, allowing lawmakers to pull it
back and remove the hook to the Mexican bill. Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana,
who led the effort to link the two bills, criticized Republicans for
supporting the Armenian bill but rejecting the Mexican bill.
“I have been consistently concerned about the hypocrisy that has shown up on
the Senate floor from my Republican colleagues on these two bills,” said
Dunn, who supports the Armenian bill. “The unfortunate continuing injustice
here is that the handful of surviving victims of the illegal deportation of
the 1930s still do not have an opportunity for their day in court.”
Poochigian said the bills never should have been linked because “they are
completely different issues.” The Armenian bill, he said, deals with
breaches of contract by private entities, rather than claims against the
state of California.
The Armenian genocide refers to the period between 1915 and 1923, when
Armenians were driven from their homeland in the Ottoman Empire by means of
torture, starvation and murder. The Armenian community says that 1.5 million
people died.
The effort to recover bank deposits comes on the heels of a successful drive
to secure millions of dollars in unpaid insurance claims owed to genocide
victims. New York Life Insurance Co. and heirs of about 2,400 policy holders
agreed on a $20 million settlement in 2004, followed by a $17 million
settlement between French life insurance company AXA and about 5,000 people
and charities, according to published reports.
The deals were made possible as a result of Poochigian-authored legislation
that extended the statute of limitations for insurance claims until 2010.
The current bill allows genocide victims or heirs living in the state to go
beyond insurance policies and seek bank deposit claims until 2016.
“It rights a terrible wrong dating back to the beginning of the last
century,” Speier said.
There are no firm estimates on how much money and assets could be recovered,
but “all indications are it’s enormous,” said lead attorney Mark Geragos in
a phone interview last week.
Geragos – an Armenian-American whose family name is Geragosian – has
emotional ties to the case. His grandparents fled the genocide and settled
in Fresno, where they ran a grocery store on Belmont Street, he said.
The famed Los Angeles attorney has handled a number of high-profile cases
and his client list has included the likes of Michael Jackson, Scott
Petersen and, most recently, the trainer for Barry Bonds.
But the Armenian case, Geragos said, has the “greatest personal significance
of any of the cases I’ve ever been associated with.”
The reporter can be reached at [email protected]
or (916) 326-5541.
2653098p-13355164c.html

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance
22 Concord Lane
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact: Bianca Bagatourian
Tel: 617-871-6764
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
“THE ARMENIAN DRAMATIC ARTS ALLIANCE SPONSORS A READING OF WILLIAM
SAROYAN’S PLAY HELLO OUT THERE” AT THE ARMENIAN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF
AMERICA
On Sunday June 11, 2006 in Watertown, MA, the Armenian Dramatic Arts
Alliance (ADAA), a newly formed non-profit organization dedicated to
projecting the Armenian voice on a world stage sponsored a reading of
one of William Saroyan’s lesser known plays, `Hello Out There’ at the
Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA). The reading was
presented in ALMA’s contemporary art gallery on the 3rd floor of their
museum building and coincided with the exhibit “May name is Bill:
Remembering William Saroyan” in the Terjenian Hall. The play was
directed by Zoya Kachadurian of NYC and starred Paul Shafer, Danielle
Bauman, Jason Taylor, Michele Markarian.
Jacqueline Papasian Kazarian from San Francisco gave an interesting
talk about her `Uncle Bill’ after the reading and a reception followed
for the guests Saroyan is better known for his story “The Daring Young
Man on the Flying Trapeze” and his play “The Time of Your Life”.
Written in 1941, `Hello Out There,’ tells the story of a wandering
gambler who finds himself arrested and jailed in a small Texas town
after a false claim of rape. A young girl who serves as the jail’s
cook is the only person to believe in the gambler. The gambler
ultimately gives all of his money to the girl before a mob, headed by
the husband of the alleged victim, breaks into the jail to kill the
gambler. This play was first produced for the Lobero Theatre in Santa
Barbara. On the 10th of September, 1941, `Hello Out There’ served as
the curtain-raiser to George Bernard Shaw’s `The Devil’s Disciple.’
Sponsoring and supporting readings and productions of Armenian plays
and scripts is at the heart of the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance’s
mission to share the Armenian voice. For more information, please go
to

ARMENIAN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP OPPOSES DEPLOYMENT OF TURKISH FORCES IN LEBANON
“Far from being a credible peacemaker, Turkey
carries heavy liabilities that would only
complicate an already complex peacemaking mission
that the U.S. must pursue in Lebanon and the region.
— Armenian American leadership
letter to President Bush
WASHINGTON, DC – Armenian Apostolic, Catholic and Evangelical
churches in the United States were joined today by leading
grassroots Armenian American organizations in urging President Bush
to oppose the deployment of Turkish forces within Lebanon as part
of an international peacekeeping operation.
In a letter sent today to the White House, the community leaders
stressed that, “Turkey’s record of genocide, massacres, aggression
and torture is deeply inscribed in the collective memory of the
Lebanese, the Armenians, the Greeks, the Cypriots, the Kurds and
the Arab people everywhere. Far from being a credible peacemaker,
Turkey carries heavy liabilities that would only complicate an
already complex peacemaking mission that the U.S. must pursue in
Lebanon and the region.”
The following Churches and community organizations participated in
this initiative:
Armenian Catholic Exarchy of the United States and Canada
Armenian Missionary Association of America
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Eastern U.S.
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Western U.S.
Armenian American Democratic Leadership Council
Armenian National Committee of America
Armenian Relief Society
Armenian Youth Federation
Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational Society
Homenetmen Armenian General Athletic Union
National Organization of Republican Armenians
The leadership of the Lebanese Armenian community unanimously and
forcefully opposes the introduction of Turkish troops onto Lebanese
soil. Earlier this month, the three Armenian political parties in
Lebanon, namely the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Social
Democratic Henchakian Party, and the Armenian Democratic Liberal
Party, issued a joint declaration expressing the collective
opposition of Lebanese Armenians to any Turkish participation in
peacekeeping operations. An appeal against the introduction of
Turkish forces was also released by Lebanon’s Armenian religious
leadership, comprising the Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic,
and Armenian Evangelical communities.
His Holiness, Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, earlier this week
wrote a letter to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United
Nations, expressing opposition to the deployment of Turkish forces
in Lebanon. In a powerfully worded letter he addressed Turkey’s
ongoing use of aggression and genocide, describing Turkish
participation in a peacekeeping mission as “morally unacceptable.”
The opposition of the Greek American community to the inclusion of
Turkish forces in Lebanon’s peacekeeping operation was communicated
to the President last month in a letter from the American Hellenic
Institute.
The full text of the community-wide letter is provided below.
#####
August 30, 2006
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write to you today, as leaders of the Armenian American
community, to convey to you our deep concern regarding the
Administration’s insistent efforts to have Turkish armed forces
included in the international peacekeeping force that is currently
being organized for Lebanon.
While the final decision with regard to the presence and the
composition of the international peacekeeping force rests with the
Lebanese government, it is a well-known fact that the United States
has been the key player – as it should – in this matter by
providing vitally needed leadership to the present peacemaking
initiative. Needless to say, we commend the Administration for
leading the diplomatic efforts to achieve immediate and lasting
peace in Lebanon. It is in that light that we strongly urge you to
refrain from making Turkey part of this sensitive process. Turkey’s
record of genocide, massacres, aggression and torture is deeply
inscribed in the collective memory of the Lebanese, the Armenians,
the Greeks, the Cypriots, the Kurds and the Arab people everywhere.
Far from being a credible peacemaker, Turkey carries heavy
liabilities that would only complicate an already complex
peacemaking mission that the U.S. must pursue in Lebanon and the
region.
Mr. President, the introduction of Turkish military forces into
this region will serve only to undermine our nation’s interest in a
lasting and equitable peace. As such, we join with our friends in
the Greek American community in respectfully urging you to take all
appropriate measures to ensure that Turkish forces do not take part
in any peacekeeping operations in Lebanon.
Thank you for your consideration of our concerns.
Sincerely yours,
Armenian Catholic Exarchy of the United States and Canada
Armenian Missionary Association of America
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church – Eastern U.S.
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church – Western U.S.
Armenian American Democratic Leadership Council
Armenian National Committee of America
Armenian Relief Society
Armenian Youth Federation
Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational Society
Homenetmen Armenian General Athletic Union
National Organization of Republican Armenians

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383, x118
Fax: 212.319.6507
Email: [email protected]
Website:
PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
ARGENTINEAN REPRESENTATIVE VISITS AGBU CENTRAL OFFICE IN NEW YORK
On August 17, 2006, Mr. and Mrs. Sergio and Suzanna Nahabetian visited
AGBU Central Office in New York to meet with members of the AGBU
Central Board and better acquaint themselves with the work and
activities of the international Armenian organization. A member of the
Buenos Aires legislature, Sergio Nahabetian met with AGBU Central
Board members, Michael Ansour and Carol Aslanian, to discuss topics of
mutual interest, focusing on issues of particular importance to the
100,000 strong Armenian Argentinean community.
An active member of Buenos Aires’ thriving Armenian community,
Nahabetian has been a member of AGBU since his childhood and served as
chairman of the Armenian Youth Association (AYA) of AGBU Buenos
Aires. He and his wife are both active on various other AGBU
committees. Nahapetian is also the director of the bilingual
Armenian-Spanish Sardarabad newspaper, president of the city’s Tekeyan
Association, and former secretary of Armenia Fund’s Argentinean
section. Nahabetian was elected to the Buenos Aires Assembly in
October of last year.
Established in 1906, AGBU () is the world’s largest
non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City with
an annual budget of $34 million, AGBU preserves and promotes the
Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and
humanitarian programs, annually serving some 400,000 Armenians in 35
countries.

the eXile
August 11, 2006
Hot Afternoons in Armenia’s Frozen Zone
By Yasha Levine ([email protected])
STEPANAKERT, NAGORNO-KARABAKH — It took my taxi driver and me an
hour to get out of Yerevan. Most of it was spent waiting in line to
fill up his gas tank. Not with gasoline. No, it was the kind of fuel
you’d pump into your gas powered BBQ. Ruslan, like most other
Armenians living off gypsy cabbing, didn’t have a drop of petrol in
his tank when I first got into his Volga. He’d modified it to run on
natural gas stored in a large canister in the trunk of his car.
It wasn’t as if Ruslan was some tree-hugging, Prius-seeking
hippie-of-the-Caucasus. It was all economics: and the way things work
in Armenia today, if they work at all, is that gasoline is way too
expensive to be profitable. If he were to use petrol, he’d have to
hike his taxi prices so high that he’d be out of business.
Gasoline costs the same in Armenia as in, say, the United States,
even though the Caspian oil reserves, among the world’s largest, are
right off the coast of Baku just a few hundred miles away. Yet
Armenia gets no benefit from that oil at all. In fact it’s one of the
poorest countries in the northern hemisphere. Azerbaijan imposed a
total economic blockade on Armenia ever since the two fought a bitter
civil war over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region between 1988 and
1994. Nagorno-Karabakh was an ethnic-Armenian region within
Azerbaijan that for years now has been essentially independent and
run by the separatist Armenians.
So at $4 per gallon, it would have cost Ruslan at least $75 in normal
automobile gasoline — his month’s salary — to drive me the 300
uphill miles from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, to Stepanakert,
the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The same trip cost him about $12 on
natural gas.
If internal combustion engines couldn’t be modified to run on natural
gas, Armenia wouldn’t have much use for the western standard roads
built with millions of dollars that the Armenian Diaspora, many of
whom live in the US and Russia, shells out every year. Without that
money, Armenians would be back to riding beasts of burden. These
days, only the Iranian cargo truckers and the Armenian military get
to use real gasoline. All other cars, buses and trucks run on natural gas.
In fact, natural gas not only powers the cars, but also the power
plants. And Russia is Armenia’s sole supplier of natural gas, sold at
a steep discount to world prices. Without the cheap Russian gas piped
in via neighboring Georgia, Armenia would collapse. That means, of
course, complete dependence on Russia.
There’s another minor downside to Armenia’s natural gas dependency.
The containers used to house the liquefied gas have a tendency to
turn into high-powered shrapnel bombs if over pressurized or
overused. Every once in a while, they blow up and shred everything
within a 500ft radius.
“Don’t worry. I have a good canister made in Italy. It doesn’t burst,
it just rips,” Ruslan told me. He noticed me looking at eight
corroded and scarred canisters stacked under the belly of a 70’s
Soviet truck about two feet away from my face. “But those, on the
other hand, are old and very dangerous. If one of those canisters
blows up, all of them will.”
It’s a good thing that the truck was waiting to fill up. It was
pushing 105 degrees out and the canisters were exposed to direct sunlight.
I hired Ruslan to drive me to the decade-old Republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh, the tiny Yosemite-sized chunk of land that sparked
an all out ethnic turf war between Azeris and Armenians and made
Armenians the victorious underdogs heroes of every Caucasian
separatist movement.
In 1994 the Armenians won and forced Azerbaijan to a ceasefire. In
the meantime Nagorno-Karabakh organized itself into a sovereign
country with its own army, elected officials and parliament. But it
still hasn’t been recognized by any country other than Armenia and is
still classified as one of the “frozen conflicts” in the region,
along with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
But this “frozen conflict” may soon heat up, if you believe what
Azerbaijan’s playboy/gambling addict/president, Ilham Aliyev, says.
Not that Azerbaijanis should get too excited about another war: If
Armenians are still the fighters they were ten years ago, then
statistically, it’s the Azeris who’ll do most of the dying. While
matched evenly in soldiers, the Azeris had double the amount of heavy
artillery, armored vehicles, and tanks than the Armenians; but when
it was over, the Azeri body count was three times higher then that of
the Armenians. Azeri casualties stood at 17,000. The Armenians only
lost 6,000. And that’s not even counting the remaining Azeri
civilians the Armenians ethnically cleansed.
Since the strategically-important Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened up,
pumping Caspian Sea oil to the West via Turkey, the Azeri president
has been making open threats about reclaiming Nagorno-Karabakh by
force. The $10 billion in oil revenues he expects to earn per year
once the pipeline is fully operational is going to his head. $10
billion might not seem that much — but for Azerbaijan it constitutes
a 30% spike in GDP. In every single interview, Aliyev can’t even
mention the pipeline project without veering onto the subject of
“resolving” the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Aliyev started spending the oil cash even before the oil started
flowing and announced an immediate doubling of military spending. A
little later he announced the doubling of all military salaries.
Aliyev’s generals aren’t squeamish about bragging that by next year
their military budget will be $1.2 billion, or about Armenia’s entire
federal budget.
The Western press seems to think he’s bluffing to shore up domestic
political support. But Azeris consider Nagorno-Karabakh their
historic homeland and don’t consider the 10-year ceasefire as a final
defeat. Azerbaijan has been keeping their Karabakh refugees in tents
and boxcars to prove it. And if Georgia takes military action against
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Azeris may do the same.
There is a Bush Administration/War On Terror factor here that I won’t
get into, and it is this: America has been a strong supporter,
militarily and otherwise, of both Georgia and Azerbaijan, which has
given both countries more confidence to solve their problems with
armed force. Moreover, a big part of the neocon plan to attack Iran
involves stirring up that axis of evil’s sizeable Azeri minority.
I went Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to find what the Armenians, who
seemed so lost and doomed in all of this, are saying — and the kind
of trenches they were digging.
“Did you know that Azerbaijan is doubling its military budget and
threatening to take back Karabakh by force?” I asked Ruslan.
He just shrugged his shoulders.
“So what if they spend more money on their military than we do, it
doesn’t mean anything. Let them spend ten times more, it won’t
matter. The Turks don’t have a mind for machinery. They don’t know
how to operate it and when they break it, they don’t know how to fix
it. They’re horrible mechanics and engineers. Right now, all of their
machinery is rusting out,” he said coolly.
“So you call Azeris Turks?” I asked.
He smiled. “No, not Turks. Defective Turks.”
Ruslan was a scrawny 23-year-old bakinets , an ethnic Armenian from
Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. He fled the city with his mother after a
roving mob of Azeris tore his father to bits with their bare hands.
That was in 1988, just when the Azeri pogroms against the Armenians
were igniting in Sumgait and Baku. Ruslan and his mom got out through
Georgia and bounced around Abkhazia and Ukraine before settling in a
kamunalka apartment filled with Armenian refugees in Yerevan. The
rest of his family settled in a village 30 miles from Yerevan.
Ruslan went to school and was drafted into the Armenian army at 18,
and served in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh has its own constitution, president,
parliament and army, but it’s a sovereign country only on paper.
Without Armenians from Armenia-proper like Ruslan willing to pay and
die for the cause, Karabakh would never hold its own against the
Azeris next door.
“So, do you think the Turks are going to try to take Karabakh back?
Do they have a chance?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ruslan replied. The “cool road mix” CD that his
friend handed off to him looked like it had been ground against
asphalt and was skipping on every track, but he was intent on getting
Shakira back on. Even when we went out drinking in Yerevan the night
before, I had to drag his army stories out of him. He seemed bored as
he told the story of how his army pal shot down a female Azeri sniper
from a tree with a few blasts from his AK.
“If they were to attack, would you fight for it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But if they do, I can tell you that
we’re not going to stop at our borders of Karabakh, like we did last
time. If they attack, this time, we’re marching to go all the way to Baku.”
We took a detour to stop by Ruslan’s family’s village about an hour
outside of Yerevan. They were also bakintsi and were smart enough to
trade in their standalone house in Baku when they fled for a few
acres of farmland and a couple mud brick shacks in what used to be an
exclusively Azeri village within Armenia. After they arrived,
Ruslan’s uncle went off to fight in Karabakh and never came back.
Ruslan’s grandmother gave me a skewed look when I asker her if any
Azerbaijanis still lived in the village. “No, there are no more Turks
living here. Everyone in the village are Armenians from Baku,” she
said. 600,000 Azeris from all over Armenia and Karabakh were booted
or fled from Armenia following the Karabakh war. In return, 250,000
Armenians were sent packing back to their historic homeland.
In Azerbaijan, Ruslan’s family was made up carpenters, plumbers and
housewives. But in Armenia they went native and took up farming. Just
like Ruslan’s natural gas option, it wasn’t by choice.
While Ruslan’s grandmother laid the table, his grandfather showed me
his samogon gear. He just began distilling a new batch from homegrown
peaches.
“If you lived in the city, how did you learn to farm,” I asked him.
“We had to, so we learned.”
Ruslan’s grandmother set the table exclusively with homegrown
produce. The bread, the apricot jam, the fresh pears, the kefir, the
cheese, the eggplant spread and the vodka were all domashnye . They
still raised chickens and when the grandfather had more energy, he
used to have a few cows.
“Ah! Who needs that Karabakh,” is all I got out of gramps on the
subject. He lost his son there and so preferred to explain his
samagon distillation techniques.
Gramps was a broken man. He’d never been to Karabakh and didn’t plan
on going. In fact most mainland Armenians had never visited the
place. Why waste the fuel? What’s there to see? Why did they even fight
for it?
But that evening, after we were waved passed the Karabakh’s border
control without having our documents checked, I finally saw why
Nagorno-Karabakh was worth fighting for. The place is like a
condensed version of the best scenery of Northern California and the
Sierra Nevadas put together: 6,000 ft mountains, rolling
golden-sunburned pastures, sandstone hills, steep limestone cliffs,
and mountain streams. It’s easily the most beautiful region in
Armenia. Even the women were better looking there than in Armenia
proper: thinner, taller, and shapelier.
Ruslan promptly introduced me to two of his army buddies, Vadim and
Veretan. Vadim rolled up to my hotel in his father’s 80’s 3 series
BMW. He was clearly privileged: his father used to be the KGB
director for one of Karabakh’s districts and as a result Vadim had a
cushy job working as an ambulance driver. Veretan worked as a
technician at Karabakh’s only TV station that broadcast its signal a
few hours each day.
After I picked up the $45 tab for the four of us at the most
expensive restaurant in Stepanakert, Vadim and Veretan agreed to show
me around their country — provided that I pick foot the bill for the
pricy petrol.
As we were climbing up to the Shushi, a town perched right above
Stepanakert, Karabakh’s capital, Vadim said, “You could fire whatever
you want from there and it will hit Stepanakert. Mortars, RPGs,
Kalashnikovs, anything.”
Shushi used to be Karabakh’s Azeri capital and the region’s
second-largest town before the Karabakh war broke out. Although the
Azeris had a military and strategic advantage, located up above the
Armenian-controlled Stepanakert in Shushi’s insurmountable old
fortress and prison, they made a fatal strategic mistake. The Azeris
should have shelled Stepanakert into a heap of rubble before the
Armenian resistance had a chance to build up its arms and attack. But
the Azeris were so overconfident that they didn’t want to destroy a
city that they were sure would soon be theirs.
The Armenians weren’t as soft. Under artillery cover, they launched a
surprise attack by climbing a 90 degree slope to storm Shushi in 1992
by foot. It was the same slope from which Armenian girls jumped to
their deaths to avoid being raped by Azeris. With that kind of
motivation, the Armenians had no qualms about turning Shushi into a
mini Sarajevo.
All the Azeris are gone now. And the few Armenians that remain live
in squalor, even by Karabakh’s standards. There is no foot traffic,
no car traffic and no stores — just a kiosk selling icons and a
western-style hotel catering the Armenian Diaspora. A renovated
church in which a few grossly overweight Americans snapped photos, a
burned out early 20th century Soviet building, a prison, and two
gutted mosques with minarets were all this town had to offer.
“When Armenians liberated Shushi this church was filled to the top
ceiling with boxes of munitions. Fucking Turks. They have no respect
for anything but their Islam.” Vadim said. Veretan nodded in approval.
The apartment buildings that weren’t leveled were looted and picked
clean of windows, pipes, sinks, toilets and anything else remotely
valuable. The few functioning buildings are a disaster waiting to
happen — a checkerboard of lopsided balconies, windowless rubble,
rust, and peeling paint.
“It’s a good business. You buy an empty apartment for about $4,000
and sit on it. Slowly, water is being hooked up to them again and
they are being restored. In a few years, you can make a good profit.”
Not bad. Most of the apartment buildings were gutted out and ready
for unlimited personalized remont possibilities. And what’s more, all
of them had aerial views into the valley bellow. But the four grand
was way out of these peoples’ league. By official statistics from the
office of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s average
monthly salary was $50, but that’s for those lucky enough to find
jobs. Shushi’s residents can’t even afford gas for heating and
cooking. Every balcony had a store of firewood that was sure enough
to last the winter.
Stepanakert, wasn’t as depressing as the other half-abandoned towns
and villages. It was the capital, after all, and the symbol of
Armenian victory: the Armenian Diaspora wasn’t going to just let it
decay. Despite the fact that Stepanakert has no industries to speak
of, the city of 40,000 Armenians had all the trappings of a
developing provincial capital.
Except for a few shrapnel-scarred buildings, you wouldn’t even guess
that the city had once come under heavy shelling. There were hundreds
of small fruit stands, restaurants, dozens of Internet cafes and
taxis circling the city center. A couple of Western-style hotels
built by and catering to the Armenian Diaspora popped up in the past
few years, and a luxury apartment complex was being built right
across from the government building.
“About 20% of the population lives in chocolate, the rest live in
total shit. That 20% contains all the friends and relatives of
government or army officials,” Vadim said, pointing to the luxury building.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army has about 20,000 active military
personnel. But taking into account the region’s tiny population of
140,000, Karabakh tops even Israel and North Korea as among the most
militarized countries in the world per capita. 1 out 7 people is
actively serving in Karabakh’s army. North Korea, by comparison, has
a ratio of only 1 out of 20.
Although you have to go outside the city side to see the
surface-to-air missile batteries that dot the country, Stepanakert’s
streets are teeming with men decked out in green camo uniforms,
leisurely rolling around on their green UAZ army jeeps.
“You know, people in Karabakh say this joke when a baby is born. They
say, ‘Is that a girl or a lieutenant?'” Ruslan explained to me on our
drive into Stepanakert.
Vadim put it another way. “There’s not much else to do in Karabakh.
There are no jobs and the army pays well… You have a choice, you
can either farm or serve.”
“People here are building castles, but we should be building
underground! Cities, bomb shelters, schools… To wage war, you don’t
need to invade with troops. It’s enough to send missiles. We need to
build underground so that when they level our cities, we’ll survive
and be able to fight,” Murad Petrosyan, the founder of an independent
Karabakh monthly newspaper called What is to be Done and a host on a
Karabakh TV political talk show , told me.
We met in the patio of my western-style hotel in Stepanakert built by
an Australian-Armenian. It was noon and already pushing 105 degrees.
An obnoxious group of French-Armenian kids signing Armenian songs
just set off for their day trip around the Republic of
Nagorno-Karabakh. The threat from Azerbaijan just didn’t seem real.
“So you take Aliyev’s threat seriously? You think that Azerbaijan
will try to take Karabakh back by force?” I asked him.
“It won’t happen now, but if the political situation won’t change in
the next two or three years, yes, I think that he’ll invade”
“But won’t Russia object?” I asked.
Russia is Armenia only real military ally. Russia started moving
military hardware to its 102nd military base in northern Armenia
after the US-backed Georgian president, Saakashvili, started trying
to boot the Russian military from his country. In 1997, Armenia
signed a friendship treaty with Russia that outlines mutual military
assistance in the event of a military threat and allows Russian
troops to patrol Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran. Today, about
5,000 Russian troops are stationed in northern Armenia.
But according to Petrosyan, the Russians are playing both sides and
seek to undermine Western influence by destabilizing the region.
“Local politicians are na ve. They don’t realize that it’s profitable
for Russia to have the Karabakh question unresolved. Russians come
here, pat the politicians on the shoulder and say ‘Don’t worry, we
will support you.’ They believe it and spread the propaganda that
there will be no war, that it will be safe.”
“The only thing that will stop the Turks is international recognition
for Karabakh. We need to become more democratic, more transparent and
less corrupt. That’s the only way. The problem is that no one cares
about building a good society here. We’ve inherited corruption from
the Soviet Union that needs to be dealt with.”
Democracy as Armenia’s biggest resource is an idea that Armenian
politicians parrot all the time. The idea that the West will
naturally align and protect democratic counties like theirs is a
dream everyone blindly believes. Armenians accept Russia’s military
protection and at the same time take comfort in America’s oath to
promote and protect democracy in the world.
But Petrosyan isn’t so much a democrat. He thinks that Karabakh
should follow in the footsteps of Singapore’s and Hitler’s
national-socialist programs.
“We need to follow their lead. I say this on my TV program all the
time. There may be bad things about these countries and societies,
but the important thing about them is that they had only the common
national good in mind when it came to organizing their country’s
social programs. That is something that Karabakh does not have.”
Petrosyan, incidentally, was just appointed to head an ethics
committee to oversee Karabakh’s elected officials.
Armenians occupied about 16% of Azerbaijan-proper’s land during the
Karabakh war. And while the Armenians are holding onto most of it as
a buffer zone to protect Nagorno-Karabakh, one area in particular,
known as the Latchin corridor, is the main artery connecting Karabakh
with mainland Armenia. The buffer zone may be open for negotiation,
but the Latchin corridor is not.
“For most people in Karabakh, the Karabakh question is a non-issue,”
a journalist for British-funded Karabakh newspaper called Demo told
me. “For us the war is over and we don’t want to fight. But there can
also be no talk of negotiations to give Karabakh back.”
“But will mainland Armenians stand behind you? Are they ready to die
for it?” I asked.
“Armenia is behind us all the way. Just look at who is in the office.”
Armenia’s previous president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, had to resign
after he appeared ready to agree to return most of the
Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani territories in Karabakh during
negotiations. Robert Kocharyan, Karabakh’s first president and prime
minister, replaced him and now rules Armenia. Kocharyan was born in
Nagorno-Karabakh, fought in the war and was among the founding
fathers of Karabakh’s military. He’s holding down fort in Armenia to
make sure Karabakh gets what it wants.
“We fought once and we’re ready to do it again. We have no choice but
to defend Karabakh. And anyway, our young ones are itching to prove
themselves. But I don’t think that it is very likely that Azerbaijan
will attack. They know too well that we have the capability to strike
their refineries and oil distribution systems,” the Demo journalist
added smugly.
“Can that card that trump Azeri hatred?”
The Demo guy didn’t answer. He just put his hands behind his head.
Like so much of my time there, I couldn’t understand if this gesture
expressed a kind of weary indifference or fatal overconfidence.
Whatever the case, one thing lacking here was a sense of urgency to
resolve the conflict to both sides’ satisfaction. But as the region
is rapidly changing due to the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline,
and the effects of the War On Terror, neither indifference nor
confidence seem to be very good strategies for the Armenians of Karabakh.
*******
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EUROPA (press release), Belgium
Aug. 29, 2006
Benita Ferrero-Waldner
European Commissioner for External Relations and European
Neighbourhood Policy
Political reform and sustainable development in the South Caucasus:
the EU’s approach
`Caspian Outlook 2008′ Bled Strategic Forum
Bled, Slovenia, 28 August 2006
Chairman,
Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladie s and Gentlemen,
Let me first thank the organisers of the Bled Strategic Forum for
their excellent initiative in bringing us together. It is a great
opportunity to take a fresh look at an area of the world which is of
particular strategic importance for Europe.
I have been asked to talk about political reform and sustainable
development in the South Caucasus. From the European Union’s
perspective, now is certainly the right time, since very soon we will
start implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans
with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. I look forward to celebrating
their adoption when I visit the region with the Finnish EU presidency
at the beginning of October.
Generally however, the last weeks and months have shown worrying
trends in the South Caucasus. Three negative strands are coming
together, the combination of which is, frankly, alarming.
First, we have seen little or no progress towards settling any of the
frozen conflicts – Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia. All
parties have failed to deliver on their responsibility to find a
solution.
Second, defence expenditure in the region is going through the roof.
Quite apart from the negative message this sends for resolving the
conflicts, this cannot be good policy-making in a region where human
development indicators are a matter of deep concern. How can
governments justify spiralling defence spending when their countries
are in desperate need of investment in education, health and small
businesses?
Third, increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, as we have seen over the
past months, is shaping public opinion in a counterproductive
direction. There is a serious danger of the rhetoric lowering the
threshold for war. But it is political logic, not military logic
which must prevail. Leaders have a responsibility to prepare their
populations for peace, not war.
These recent developments are worrying for those of us who hoped for
positive movements. All sides should show restraint and adopt a
balanced approach to their neighbours. Harsh rhetoric does not create
an atmosphere conducive to restoring mutual trust and resolving these
conflicts. Any further escalation of tension could re-ignite the
conflicts with devastating consequences for the entire region.
Let me emphasise that point – this remarkable and complex region has
enormous economic promise but, to realise that potential, cool heads
must prevail. Natural resource wealth is finite. Once squandered, the
opportunity to boost the region’s development will not come again.
I do not wish to exaggerate the risks, but it is important that we
are clear about the consequences of failing to pull back from the
brink. I call on the region’s leaders to realise the weight of their
responsibility, not only to their own people, but to the region as a
whole. True leadership and statesmanship means finding the courage to
settle these disputes once and for all.
The EU will continue to play its part in working for peace. The
European Neighbourhood Policy will be a key tool in this regard.
I will talk about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in more
depth this afternoon. For now, let me briefly explain that it is the
EU’s response to new geopolitical realities following our 2004
expansion. It is our tool for laying the foundations for a much
deeper relationship with the countries of Eastern Europe and the
southern Mediterranean. And it is designed to extend the prosperity,
stability and security enjoyed by the EU to our closest neighbours
and partners.
The most important aspects of the ENP are the following: Firstly, it
brings together our main policy instruments, in a more focused way.
We go beyond classical foreign policy to support reform and
modernisation. Secondly, we thus cover a broader range of issues than
our existing relationships, with greater intensity and throughout all
fields of governance. Thirdly, the ENP will be backed by a new
assistance instrument, the ENPI, with increased and improved
financial and technical assistance.
The ENP operates through Action Plans – such as the ones with the
three countries of this region. These Action Plans, tailor-made for
each country, set out the areas in which we both want to develop
relations further. They contain benchmarks and commitments paving the
way for a deeper relationship.
The ENP Action Plans are designed to promote political reform and
sustainable economic and social development.
As we all know, that’s the most effective way of achieving
prosperity, stability and security. They therefore cover a wide range
of activities, to strengthen democracy, promote the rule of law,
uphold human rights, liberalise trade, develop energy and transport
connections and ultimately even give the countries a stake in the
EU’s internal market.
But uppermost in my mind in thinking about the South Caucasus today
is the ENP’s potential to help support conflict resolution. Why?
Because the most important impediments to the region’s development
are the frozen conflicts.
The European Neighbourhood Policy is not in itself a conflict
prevention or settlement mechanism, but through promoting democracy
and regional cooperation, boosting national reform programmes and
improving the socio-economic prospects of the region, it can
contribute to a more positive climate for conflict settlement.
Resolving or at least de-escalating the conflicts must be the first
priority, but their sustainable resolution is largely dependent on
deepening and anchoring democratic and economic reform throughout
society. ENP tackles the underlying issues which enable conflicts to
fester: bad governance, underdevelopment and insecurity. But only if
society as a whole participates in this transformation process will
the region begin to prosper.
We are also engaged more directly in conflict resolution. The
appointment of an EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus,
Peter Semneby, is a sign of the importance the EU attaches to solving
them.
We will continue our support to the Joint Control Commission for
South Ossetia, the main conflict settlement mechanism for this
region, and honour our 2 million pledge at the OSCE’s international
donor conference for South Ossetia. We will stay involved in
confidence building and rehabilitation in Abkhazia, supporting
reconstruction of important infrastructure facilities and civil
society projects. And we stand ready to respond to the needs
assessment mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, as soon as that mission is
able to depart.
We also fully support the work of the OSCE, which Minister De Gucht
will address in a moment. And later this year our Member States will
discuss a possible enhanced EU contribution to the peace processes.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Returning for a moment to the ENP, which some of us will discuss in
more detail in one of this afternoon’s sessions, let me just recall
that it is a living and evolving policy, designed to respond to
developments and treating all our neighbours equally. Later this
year, the Commission will publish a report on two years of its
implementation, making suggestions for how it might be further
enhanced – both in terms of our partners’ efforts and our own
`offers’.
Given the EU’s own history and development, the ENP attaches great
importance to regional cooperation. However, rather than expending
effort on developing new or legally binding set-ups – which our
eastern neighbours do not necessarily want or need – such as creating
an institutional structure for our eastern neighbours, we should,
rather, focus on strengthening existing cooperation frameworks such
as Black Sea cooperation. This is of direct interest and use for our
Southern Caucasus partners and others here today.
The EU and its neighbours have a mutual interest in fostering
prosperity, stability and security inter alia through addressing the
root causes of bad governance, lack of economic development,
insecurity and instability that cause the continuing conflicts. As we
have shown in Western Europe over the last 50 years, promoting
prosperity, stability and security is the ultimate
conflict-prevention policy.
Which brings me to plead, once again, for all parties in the Southern
Caucasus to take their conflict-resolution responsibilities
seriously. We must put the long term objective of peace, prosperity
and stability ahead of short term tactical considerations.
In the globalised world of the 21st century, the way to greater
wealth and prosperity is to embrace an open economy and open
political system. That is simply not possible while the region
remains locked in a vicious spiral of tit for tat conflict.
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