What attracts the tourists to Artsakh are its people
ArmRadio.am
17.06.2006 14:31
“What attracts the tourists to Artsakh are its people with a unique
psychology and hospitality coming from the bottom of the heart,” said
Director of the NKR Tourism Development Agency Sergey Shahverdyan in
his talk with “Radiolur” correspondent.
Statistics shows that the number of tourists visiting Artsakh increases
with 40 percent annually. The tourists are interested not only in
this region rich in historical monuments, but also the mentality,
traditions of the people living here.
Artsakh has always been considered a country possessing a rich
historical heritage. Twenty years age 1 700 historical monuments
were counted here. Now the number is four times as much, since new
Armenian monuments were found on liberated territories.
In Sergey Shahverdyan’s words, ethnic tourism has also been developing
in Artsakh during the recent years. Karabakh hosts tourists from Italy,
France, Japan, Israel and other countries.

Vardan Oskanyan: Unity with the Diaspora is our power
ArmRadio.am
17.06.2006 14:46
“Dual citizenship is among the most essential issues that not only
Armenia faces, but also Armenians all over the world,” declared
RA Foreign minister Vardan Oskanyan during the “Dual citizenship:
alternative solutions, economic and social consequences.”
“I am too liberal on this issue, since I think that we should provide
dual citizenship to all those wishing to acquire Armenian citizenship
in the most simple way. I understand all nuances and complications of
the issue, which we must address. However, when taking decision, our
“starting point” should be the “broad comprehension of the issue,”
the Foreign Minister noted, adding that his position is asoociated
not with his origin and fact that he had to refuse from citizenship
of another country to acquire Armenian citizenship, but with the fact
that he believes in the potential of the Armenian people, the future
of Armenia. He understands the situation very well and considers the
question proceeding from the interests of the Armenian people.
According to the Minister, when judge about the question it is
necessary to consider several factors: the current separateness of
the Armenian people, the newly formed notion of the nation-state,
as well as the fact that Armenia has passed a long path of providing
rights to Diaspora Armenians.
The Foreign Minister noted also that it is not compulsory for those
having dual citizenship to reside in Armenia.
“I think that out unity with the Diaspora is our power as well. Our
task is to have thesde people return to the feelings and belongingness.

HEATED PAN-ARMENIAN PASSIONS
Lragir.am
17 June 06
Armenians would no way succeed in implementing minor or major
pan-Armenian projects. Quality is meant because formally there are
innumerable pan-Armenian programs. In particular, a strange process
began after the telethon of Armenia Fund in the fall of 2005, namely
a series of mutual accusations between the leadership of Karabakh
and the fund.
Quite recently the prime minister of Karabakh was asked why the
reconstruction of infrastructures in the region of Martakert has not
started in 8 months after the telethon on November 25, raising about
7.5 million dollars. Anushavan Danielyan gave a marvelously simple
answer, something like “ask Armenia Fund,” and added that as far
as he knew 5 million dollars had been raised. The fund will surely
explain why Martakert has not received the first “consignment” of
millions. There is not much to explain. Either the millions were not
raised in reality, or were raised but the problem of their management
has not been solved yet, so nobody wants to start without being sure
that they will be the director of work. It should not be forgotten
that over 7 million dollars are concerned. This number will be growing
because donations for the reconstruction of Martakert will go on.
Perhaps the battle for leadership is the reason why the prime minister
of Karabakh places the responsibility on Armenia Pan-Armenian Fund,
for the NKR prime minister could have explained why the work has
not started yet. Throughout his career Anushavan Danielyan has had
to explain a lot of things, and an explanation would hardly take
him much effort. But if he had told that the money was not raised,
his words would have lost their meaning. Whereas when it is said “ask
Armenia Fund,” the question of responsibility for donations is raised.
The leadership in Karabakh is said to be interested in replacing the
executive director of Armenia Fund. It may be a little surprising,
because the executive director used to be member of the same NKR
leadership, namely minister of foreign affairs. Hence, it seems
that the executive director could not have been more “their man.”
Though, on the other hand, proxies appeared to be defiant in most
cases in history.
What could have happened? The executive director of Armenia Fund Naira
Melkumyan bought an apartment in Yerevan thanks to the government of
Karabakh, on the NKR state budget. Soon after having a budget under her
disposition Naira Melkumyan probably forgot about her former bosses.
Formally the Fund has an executive director, who is accountable to the
Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is headed by the president
of Armenia. The NKR president is a member of the Board, so are the
second and third persons of Armenia and NKR. The Board of Trustees of
Armenia Fund is perhaps the only organization where the leadership of
Armenia and NKR do not have a deciding role. The majority of members
of the board are those rich people, who guarantee fund-raising. And
if their vote were ignored, the funds would decline. Consequently,
the board is the only organization where the leaders of Armenia
cannot impose their will, or they persuade rather than impose. But if
persuading is concerned, a government post will stop being important,
because the ability to persuade is like a gift. And unlike a post,
a gift is innate.
An effort to highlight someone else’s power at the expense of one’s
own power can be considered highly gifted, considering the reality
when everyone wants to highlight their own power. And maybe this is
the reason why NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan persuaded rich people in
the United States to donate money to the Fund for the reconstruction
of Martakert. Why was he persuading if afterwards the prime minister
of Karabakh would be placing the responsibility on the fund? Why did
Ghukasyan assume the responsibility of persuading rich people them? By
the way, after the telethon Naira Melkumyan announced that unlike
the previous years less money was raised because the millionaires
had donated little. It appears that Naira Melkumyan stated indirectly
that Arkady Ghukasyan had not worked well, that is he had failed to
persuade the rich people. But who knows, maybe he had persuaded?
HAKOB BADALYAN

WHO RAFFI WILL RUN FOR ELECTION WITH
Lragir.am
17 June 06
The Heritage Party led by Raffi Hovannisian views its participation
in the parliamentary election of 2007 from a scientific angle. Vardan
Khachatryan, the secretary of the Heritage Party, told June 17 at
the Azdak Club that the political party is seriously considering to
run for election individually or in alliance.
“So we have seriously considered both options. By saying seriously I
mean a scientific study. I will not hide that the public rating of the
Heritage Party is high. I rely on the survey of the Institute of Gelap
because they guarantee objectivity, it is not an organization where
surveys are conducted on order,” says Vardan Khachatryan. According
to him, the Center of Gelap gave a rating of 74 percent for Raffi
Hovannisian. It should be noted, however, that Gelap may have lied
because several days ago Artashes Geghamyan announced that the same
Gelap had given a rating of 57 percent for him. Whereas this is
impossible in math, even in simple arithmetic.
If Hovannisian has 74 percent, Geghamyan could have only 26, or
if Geghamyan has 57, Raffi could have only 43. It is also possible,
however, that Gelap does not lie, and Raffi and Artashes lie on behalf
of Gelap.
At any rate, the format of participation in the election must be
determined by the will of the public, thinks Vardan Khachatryan,
saying that there must be a public demand to run for election
individually or in alliance. At any rate, if a front is supposed
to form, it must be as comprehensive as possible and including the
forces, which will be accepted by people, says the secretary of
the Heritage Party. Vardan Khachatryan declines to say who their
allies will be, because the survey is not over. He repeated that the
prospect of allying with Orinats Yerkir depends on the activities
of this political party. Vardan Khachatryan says they do not want to
act as a judge, they will simply be following the activities of the
Orinats Yerkir. If they favor public interests, Vardan Khachatryan
says there is no problem. For an alliance with the “old-established”
opposition, Vardan Khachatryan declines to give names. “You see the
range of negotiations is rather wide, and there is nothing definite. We
have not reached the point where we can name definite organizations –
potential allies. In fact, a process is underway, and we are always
ready to consolidate the sphere, not to place our ambitions in pride
of place, but consolidate the sphere to revive hope among pubic.”

NATIONAL SECURITY SPIES INSIDE POLITICAL PARTIES
Lragir.am
17 June 06
“Spies” discovered in political parties in Armenia are not separate
cases, stated Vardan Khachatryan, the secretary of the Heritage Party,
on June 17. The political party he represents is the latest victim of
espionage inside political parties. Several weeks ago a member of the
Heritage Party named Edgar Hakobyan was revealed, and Hakobyan was
dismissed. “When espionage inside political parties is concerned,
when especially the interference of national security services
in the activity of political parties is concerned, it makes a sad
impression. Because the country’s security is, as a rule, based on
the activities of these political parties. If they start settling
accounts with the local political parties, employing spies, efforts
to stop some processes by a primitive interference, who is going to
do their job, to support their sphere?” asks Vardan Khachatryan.

“WE CAN’T OPEN SO MUCH TO LOSE OUR TYPE”
Margaret Yesayan
Aravot.am
16 June 06
The ARF GB representative Armen Rustamian said
– Factually, the ARF controls the spheres which have connection with
various strata of society; social, health protection, agriculture
and education, whether Dashnaktsutiun wanted to control those spheres
for the coming elections?
– When spheres were divided in time, just the opposite logic acted,
people were avoiding of being responsible in those spheres where
there were a lot of problems. But we were understanding very well
if we wanted to be involved in the coalition with just that logic we
can’t avoid of those problems.
Certainly this includes a serious risk in it and it also exists
now. I don’t say we have succeeded to achieve serious changes, but I’m
sure we have been right. We became responsible for that risk and I’m
sure we have created some necessary prerequisites some of which have
given their results. And we will represent to the people just with
that account during the elections. We must undergo that trial and we
seriously prepare for it. It isn’t a secret that there is a way when
you can’t be responsible and keep criticizing. It is very profitable
way and a lot of politicians try to act in that way during the
elections in Armenia. But we are ready to be aware what we have done.
– There are businessmen deputies in the ARF plenipotentiary list;
don’t you have any apprehension that your businessmen will also be
made leave the party? Are you going to participate in the coming
parliamentary elections together with businessmen?
– We participated in the elections in 2003 with an open list relative
to the ARF for the first time because we could hardly imagine some
years ago that so many non-party persons could be involved in the ARF
list. We are known for our traditional nature and in this case it was
also a change in our approaches. We did it but keeping an important
principle. We can’t be opened so much for losing our type. If we
don’t manage to keep our type, we can’t speak of old history of our
party. And that well-formed tradition has directed us for making our
selection in looking before leaping principle. And we don’t need in
those businessmen with whom we have worked for a long time for only
the elections but they have been corresponded to the typical example of
national bourgeoisie. They aren’t only businessmen, owners of serious
business, but they also do their best for making the economy of our
country powerful.
– Are you going to enlarge the list of your mentioned national
bourgeoisie in connection with the coming elections?
– If it is possible to have partners like them in that field,
certainly, we’ll enlarge that field with great pleasure.
– Don’t have any apprehension that they will leave some day?
– Judging from what I said above, no, I don’t have such
apprehension. There have been trials for the ARF, too. I must say
that they have stayed with us because they have adopted our decisions
and we haven’t made them to adopt those decisions, because we have
considered us as the political elite and them as the economic subject.

Deseret News, Utah
June 17 2006
Armenian pianist staying in Utah
By Rebecca C. Howard
Deseret Morning News
Aram Arakelyan left his home in Armenia when he was 17 to compete in
the Young Artists division of the Bachauer. That was five years ago,
and he hasn’t been home since.
Aram Arakelyan
“I do get homesick,” he admitted, adding that he talks with his
parents – whom he hasn’t seen since he left – several times a week.
But for Arakelyan, it’s worth it. “I feel strongly that it’s one of
those things that’s meant to be. I don’t feel that it’s an accident
that this is what I’m doing. This is an enormous part of my life. I
feel that it’s definitely a gift from (God).”
The Arakelyan of today is a far stretch from the boy who, by his own
admission, didn’t practice much. “It was more of a fight between my
mom and I whether I should practice or not for a long time.”
But at the age of 14, Arakelyan found a teacher who lit his enthusiasm
for music. “After seeing that I could do it, that it was possible,
it just kind of started growing on me. It was kind of a life-changing
experience, you might say.”
Now Arakelyan is completing a bachelor’s degree at Utah State
University under the tutelage of Gary Amano. He said Bachauer director
Paul Pollei helped him find his teacher and college after the Young
Artists competition.
Arakelyan says that he plans to continue studying in the United
States, hoping to get I at least one more degree, and “see whatever
life brings after that.”
If you go
What: Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition Where: Rose Wagner
Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South When: Monday-Friday, noon-5
p.m. and 7-10 p.m.
How much: through June 28, $15; June 29 and 30, $22-$42 Phone:
355-2787 or 888-451-2787 Web:
,1 249,640187544,00.html

Today, Azerbaijan
June 17 2006
International Working Group to investigate issue on Azerbaijani
prisoners of war in Armenia
17 June 2006 [09:05] – Today.Az
Pata Zakharashvili, co-chair of the International Working Group to
Search for the Missing, Hostages and Prisoners of War will visit
Armenia to investigate the issue on Azerbaijanis missing during the
military operations in Nagorno Karabakh.
The Working Group coordinator in Azerbaijan Avaz Hasanov stated that
the co-chair Zakarashvili will be accompanied by his counterpart
Bernard Klazen and Hasanov himself on the visit.
The delegation members will meet in Tbilisi tomorrow and will visit
Armenia from June 18 till 22.
Hasanov also said they will investigate the reports submitted by the
State Commission for prisoners of war, hostages and missing persons
on Azerbaijani prisoners of war and hostages held in Armenia as well
as appeals of individuals. The Working Group has received 20 appeals
from individuals for investigating the issue in Armenia, APA reports.
URL:

Man gets three years for scam
By Tania Chatila, The Leader
Burbank Leader, CA
June 17 2006
GLENDALE — A United States District judge sentenced a 43-year-old
Van Nuys man to 37 months in prison Wednesday for an investment scam
that bilked about $20 million from about 200 people, many of whom
are from Glendale and Burbank, said officials with the United States
Attorney’s Office.
Melkon Gharakhanian, whose alias was Mike Garian, pleaded guilty
in January to one count of felony federal mail fraud, United States
Attorney’s Office spokesman Thom Mrozek said.
“The court imposed an appropriate sentence,” Assistant United States
Atty. Michael R. Wilner said. “Mr. Gharakhanian will not be able to
defraud other victims for a long time, and it’s an appropriate ending
to this case.”
Gharakhanian used his Glendale-based company, National Investment
Enterprises Inc., to collect $20 million from 1999 to 2001 from
investors — mostly Armenian-Americans — who thought their money
was going toward the purchase of technological security systems,
Mrozek said.
Gharakhanian, who was arrested at a Pasadena post office in October,
mailed investors false monthly statements about the company and its
purchases of shares, he said.
National Investment Enterprises Inc. went under in 2001 after
Gharakhanian used investor funds for personal use and to pay for the
company’s operating expenses, Mrozek said.
Gharakhanian admitted that investors lost anywhere from $2.5 million
to $10 million when the company collapsed, Mrozek said.
“Investment fraud continues to be a very pressing problem throughout
Southern California for reasons we can’t fully explain,” Mrozek said.

The Scotsman, UK
June 17 2006
Intolerable cruelty
COLIN DONALD
The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred
by Niall Ferguson
Penguin, 816pp, £25
IN WOODY ALLEN’S 1986 MOVIE Hannah and her Sisters Frederick, the
comically grim Euro-intellectual played by Max Von Sydow, rails
against a TV discussion of Auschwitz: “The reason why they could
never answer the question ‘How could it possibly happen?’ is that
it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is ‘Why
doesn’t it happen more often?’ ”
Niall Ferguson’s tumultuous catalogue of 20th-century nightmares is a
reply of sorts to the pessimist’s rant. Focused though it is on the
“turning point” years 1939-1945, it sets out to destroy the sense of
exceptionality surrounding the Nazis’ acts, merging them with the
less-efficient barbarities staining every decade of the “global 100
years’ war”.
A non-comprehensive list of these lowlights would include: the
Armenian massacres in the First World War, the Russian civil war, the
Stalinist Terror, the Japanese war on China, the Second World War,
the Korean War, the Cultural Revolution, the frenzies of the Khmer
Rouge, the Balkan wars, and the Rwandan massacres. Like Macbeth, we
humans have “supp’d full with horrors” and it is only in the last
decade or so that historians have been able to digest the
implications of this chaos.
Professor Ferguson’s big beast of a book, accompanied by a TV series,
sucks up and synthesises a vast range of state-of-the-art research
(the bibliography is 48 pages long), filters it through his own
economic history specialism, and adds a dash of Dawkins-esque
evolutionary theory. The result is a provocative and urgently
readable study that avoids scholarly pussyfooting to ask the biggest
questions of modernity. Some may object that Ferguson’s snappy,
paradox-happy prose style is exactly the meretricious sort sent up in
Alan Bennett’s Tony-winning hit play The History Boys. No doubt his
love of clever inversions (“Appeasement did not lead to war. It was
war that led to appeasement” etc) will irritate some, especially
coming from a telegenic 41-year-old Scot with one of the juiciest
posts in academia (a Harvard chair in history).
But even those who sniff at his readability must admire the scale of
the work involved in shaping so much material and expressing it with
such panache. The questions he asks are these. Given that human
nature did not change at the end of the 19th century, why did the
globalised and technocratic world of 1900 dissolve into a Hieronymus
Bosch vision of hell? Why so often, and on such a scale?
Ferguson’s thesis is that the death camp innovation – inter-ethnic
savagery, dressed up as “hygienic” new-fangled nationalism – lay
behind a self-perpetuating cycle of violence, either between states
or between communities within states. Terror as state policy was not
new, but Ferguson blames Lenin and his heirs for modernising the
concept and putting technological and bureaucratic muscle behind it.
He also shows how their task was made easier by western journalists
and intellectuals – including LSE founders Beatrice and Sidney Webb,
and the writer George Bernard Shaw and more dimly remembered figures
such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times.
Shaw wrote with disgusting flippancy about the Moscow show trials,
while praising Stalin as a modern messiah. And it was Duranty, not
Hitler, who coined the phrase “you can’t make an omelette without
breaking eggs” – in relation to Stalin’s Ukrainian famine – which
sums up the intellectuals’ contribution to halting the 20th-century
moral meltdown.
The force of this book has two main sources. The first is its ability
to illustrate in Technicolor the often unbearable consequences of
political and military decisions. The second is to suggest a more
persuasive framework for this appalling narrative than any one-volume
history to date. In Ferguson’s version, the bones of the story are
these: Ethnic hatreds stirred as rickety multi-ethnic empires are
reformed into aggressive “empire states”. The traumatic effects of
ultra-rapid economic change – upwards or downwards – helped people to
brand each other as vermin. These tides would cause humans to behave
in ways inconceivable at the dawn of the 20th century, when nothing
but improvement seemed likely.
To pick some random unnoticed ironies that Ferguson has thought
through: That the decline of the hereditary principle in office and
ownership coincided with the rise in the political significance of
inherited race. That vicious ethnic conflict (from Germany to Rwanda)
follows periods of intense intermarriage and integration. That what
was necessary to stop the war in 1939 was a pre-emptive war in 1938.
That the 20th-century story, usually seen as the triumph of the West,
is really its descent, from the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1905, to
the rise of China in the 1980s and ’90s.
So here we are, on the brink of an ominous new age, whose Franz
Ferdinand-in-Sarajevo moment came in New York five years ago this
September. As Ferguson constantly hints by drawing parallels between
suicide bombers, ethnic cleansers and useless international
peacekeepers then and now, the worth of his book stands or falls by
what it tells us about the 21st century and what traps we must avoid.
Ultimately, it is not Ferguson’s knack of turning received opinions
on their head that distinguishes the book. Its value is in spotting
material that needs a wider readership and letting it speak for
itself. Thus, the appropriate response to this book is not
philosophising or hand-wringing but astonishment at how much folk
memory has been able to shrug off, and to forget.
Take the account of a 15-year-old Korean girl, Kim Buson, removed by
the Japanese to the Philippines, where “she received 30 to 40
soldiers every day”. This is cited as an example of “the imperialism
of sexual domination”, a major theme of the century. Or that of
Rudolf Reder, one of the few from the gas chamber clearing detail to
survive Belzec, haunted by the cries: “Mummy, but I’ve been good!
It’s dark! It’s dark!”
In his 1898 sci-fi novel, HG Wells imagined Martian invaders
indiscriminately blowing up ant-like civilians – a feat of
prescience, says Ferguson, that anticipates “Brest-Litovsk, Belgrade
and Berlin, Smyrna, Shanghai and Seoul”.
These survivors’ stories, which no-one was ever meant to hear,
suggest that the 20th century’s legacy – and its warning to the 21st
– is knowledge of a cruelty of a more intimate kind, far beyond the
capabilities of aliens.
~U Niall Ferguson’s television series, The War of the World, starts on
Channel 4, Monday at 8pm.
–Boundary_(ID_7ZhNxhnERpAe+wSXnyVMWA)–