UGANDA: SHOULD WE BURY THE PAST OR DIG IT UP, SEEK JUSTICE?
Albert Gomes-Mugumya
The Monitor (Kampala)
August 17, 2006
While travelling in Cambodia a few years ago, I met an elderly
Cambodian man whose entire family had been wiped out by the Khmer
rouge in 1975.
We got talking at a hotel bar in Seam Reap and he described to me how
his entire family had been killed together with other village mates.
He then summoned over a man who had just entered the bar, and said,
” You know who this is? Pointing to another Cambodian man who had
just come in. “This is General Sovichiet, a former commander with the
Khmer Rouge”. The general smiled and slipped away to buy some drinks.
I remember thinking what an extraordinary example of historical
reconciliation I had witnessed. Here was a victim and a General whose
forces had wiped out his entire family three decades earlier tacitly
agreeing to overlook the past.
“We just don’t talk about what happened,” explained the elderly
Cambodian. It’s better that way. At that time I thought he was right,
today I am far less certain.
After an episode of acute trauma, should societies bury the past,
cauterise history by an effort of international amnesia and move on?
Or should they seek an accounting, punish the guilty and establish
the truth? Is it better to remember or to forget?
Recent events have raised those questions with new insistence. The
Cambodian Khmer Rouge renegade Ta Mok, who was involved in the
slaughter of almost two million of his own people, died more peaceful
than most of his victims and denied justice to those who survived.
This was due to both state and institutional dithering on prosecuting
him and this cheated at the very last moment millions of Cambodians
of the justice they had been demanding for quarter of a century.
Then the current peace talks in Juba with the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA) that has been responsible for the brutal murder and injury of
thousands in Acholi land.
Joseph Kony, who lacks any clear and negotiable political objective,
has now zeroed on a strategic position that his prospects and those
of his supporters are better served by a deal.
But as the government prepares the ground for sustainable peace and
reconciliation in Northern Uganda, where does it draw the line between
the clash of peace and justice. Should the Acholis therefore forget
about their past and move on, or seek justice for the dark periods
they have been through?
Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter who died some time last year,
excavated and preserved the memory of what had happened to him and
other Jews in the second world war as a scared duty, a moral obligation
incumbent not just on those who lived through the conflict but on
all who came after, forever.
By sharp contrast, the Algerian people last year voted to forget the
grim civil that war that claimed 150,000 lives since 1992. Their new
charter for peace and national reconciliation is a sweeping amnesty
that pardons the few guerrillas still at war who lay down their
arms and by implication the police officers and security agents who
also committed terrible crimes. This was a mass exercise in national
amnesia.
The charter makes no provision for the 10,000 still missing, les
disparues taken from their homes and probably killed. This is a
guarantee of impunity for the police and army for the charter states
” the sovereign Algerian people reject all allegations intended to
hold the state responsible for a policy of disappearances”
No one can blame the Algerian people for wanting to draw a line under
the recent terrible past. It was hard enough to get the world to pay
attention when the slaughter was at its height.
The news seldom got out, for journalist were themselves targeted by the
killers, and even when it did the overlapping stories of terrorist and
state-backed atrocities were almost impossible to tease apart. After
the nightmare of squalid and complex murder, Algeria wants to rest
from remembrance and judgement only to forget.
But history shows that the act of remembering, of digging out the truth
however awful, is the only way to defy the killers. The struggle of man
against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Organised
amnesia is only a temporary palliative.
In the aftermath of horror, many nations have caught their breath,
hoping to create the stability to rebuild by setting aside questions
of guilt. But the confrontation with history is thus delayed.
Sustainable peace can only be built in Acholi as elsewhere by coming
to terms with the violent past as Algeria, Chile and South Africa
have shown. The act of forgetting silences the victims, leaving the
wounds to fester.
Turkey’s bid to join the EU may be derailed by its determination to
forget what happened to the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia murdered
in their thousands in 1915 as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated.
During the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, British troops killed and
tortured with impunity. When it was all over, 150,000 people were dead
(just 32 were white) and Kenya’s independence was brought forward.
Leaders on all sides agreed that peace required forgetfulness. Jomo
Kenyatta dismissed the Mau Mau as “a disease which had been
eradicated and must never be remembered”. No British official was ever
investigated. The past was buried in a mass grave. Today, many years
later, Kenyans and some white intellectuals are demanding answers.
True- forgiveness is the only way to free oneself from the bitterness
of the past, but that doesn’t mean that one should forget.
Forgiveness and forgetting are two different issues.
The salve for historical pain is not revenge or time-and still less
monetary compensation-but truth, and the justice that comes from
knowing it has been unearthed. The past should never be deliberately
ignored in the quest for peace.
The author is a specialist in Conflict Transformation and Peace
Building.

NECESSITY MOTHER OF INVENTION IN GAS-FUELLED ARMENIA
By Hasmik Mkrtchian
Reuters, UK
Aug. 16, 2006
YEREVAN (Reuters) – Ex-Soviet state Armenia is blazing a trail in
the global quest to move to cleaner fuels — not by choice but out
of necessity.
The tiny country of 3 million people in the Caucasus mountains has
a strong claim to be a world leader in running vehicles on natural
gas: a fuel that produces fewer harmful greenhouse gases than petrol
or diesel.
The transport ministry estimates that between 20 and 30 percent of
vehicles in Armenia run on gas. That compares to just over 3 percent
in the Netherlands, a front-runner in gas-powered transport, according
to the World LP Gas Association.
Stop one of the creaking, Russian-made taxis plying their trade in
Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, and odds are it will have a gas canister
strapped into the boot. Battered buses have rows of red canisters
fastened onto their roof-racks.
In countries like the Netherlands, switching from petrol to gas is
seen as a green option.
In landlocked Armenia, it is not concerns over climate change or
global warming that are driving growth in gas-powered vehicles.
Instead, it is harsh necessity — and an unresolved war with
Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the east.
“In our taxi firm, we have 30 cars and all of them run on gas,” said
45-year-old Seryozha Harutunian, driver of a gas-powered Volga sedan.
“And there are gas refueling stations on every corner in Yerevan,”
he said.
Richer countries offer tax incentives to make gas for use in vehicles
— known as autogas — more attractive to motorists than traditional
fuels. But they have had only limited success.
“They are niche markets,” said Yvon Sellier, director of business
practices with the World LP Gas Association, a Geneva-based lobby
group. “(Gas is a) small proportion of the fuel consumed by vehicles.”
NECESSITY MOTHER OF INVENTION
Crude oil and oil products used to be brought into Armenia by
rail direct from Azerbaijan’s oil fields and refineries. Since a
territorial conflict between the two neighbors in the early 1990s,
the border has been closed.
Now, oil and oil products — Armenian officials do not say where they
come from — have to be shipped in through Armenia’s other neighbor
Georgia, a long and tortuous journey through the Caucasus mountains.
That creates an extra cost on top of the already high price for fuel
on world markets.
In Georgia, a liter of the cheapest grade petrol costs consumers 82
U.S. cents. In Armenia, the same fuel costs 91 cents — a significant
difference in a country where the average monthly wage is about $140.
Natural gas, meanwhile, is pumped to Armenia by pipeline from Russia.
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom supplies the fuel at $110 per thousand
cubic meters, a hefty discount on the price Gazprom customers in
Europe pay. Armenia is one of several ex-Soviet states that enjoy
favorable rates for Russian gas.
“Petrol is getting more expensive,” said Transport and Communications
Minister Andranik Manukian. “Gas … has not gone up by that much so
it is preferable to use it.”
“They are niche markets,” said Yvon Sellier, director of business
practices with the World LP Gas Association, a Geneva-based lobby
group. “(Gas is a) small proportion of the fuel consumed by vehicles.”
NECESSITY MOTHER OF INVENTION
Crude oil and oil products used to be brought into Armenia by
rail direct from Azerbaijan’s oil fields and refineries. Since a
territorial conflict between the two neighbors in the early 1990s,
the border has been closed.
Now, oil and oil products — Armenian officials do not say where they
come from — have to be shipped in through Armenia’s other neighbor
Georgia, a long and tortuous journey through the Caucasus mountains.
That creates an extra cost on top of the already high price for fuel
on world markets.
In Georgia, a liter of the cheapest grade petrol costs consumers 82
U.S. cents. In Armenia, the same fuel costs 91 cents — a significant
difference in a country where the average monthly wage is about $140.
Natural gas, meanwhile, is pumped to Armenia by pipeline from Russia.
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom supplies the fuel at $110 per thousand
cubic meters, a hefty discount on the price Gazprom customers in
Europe pay. Armenia is one of several ex-Soviet states that enjoy
favorable rates for Russian gas.
“Petrol is getting more expensive,” said Transport and Communications
Minister Andranik Manukian. “Gas … has not gone up by that much so
it is preferable to use it.”

RELIGION IN LEBANON NOT AS EASY AS ‘MUSLIM,’ ‘CHRISTIAN’
BP News, TN
Aug. 16, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon (BP)–While some describe Lebanon in easy “Muslim”
and “Christian” terms, the reality is much more complicated. The
government recognizes 17 religious groups in the country. While
their different beliefs are easy to describe, the relative size of
the various groups is more difficult to pin down. Because of the
delicate political balance in the country, a census has not been
conducted since 1932. The estimates on the 13 sects described below
are largely based on information collected during the 1980s.
MUSLIM SECTS — 59.7 percent of the population
Sunnis — Orthodox Sunni Muslims stand for the original simplicity
of Islam and against later innovations. They regard the Koran,
supplemented by the traditions of the Muhammad, as the sole and
sufficient embodiment of the Muslim faith. They have no “church,”
no “priests” and no liturgy. Under the French Mandate in Lebanon,
Sunnis were invested with much political power. In 1986, an estimated
595,000 Lebanese (27 percent of the population) were Sunnis, the
majority living in urban centers.
Shias — Shiite Muslims in Lebanon are divided into two factions,
depending on which son of an eighth-century imam they follow. Shias
generally have occupied the lowest stratum of Lebanese society
and have been concentrated chiefly in the poor districts of Beirut
and southern Lebanon. They have been organized and influenced by
Iranian clerics. As of 1987, Shias numbered an estimated 919,000
(41 percent). Hezbollah (“Party of God”) has been the most important
religious influence among Lebanon’s Shias since the early 1980s.
Alawis — Alawis are descendants of a people who lived in the mountains
of northern Lebanon and western Syria for thousands of years. They
integrated elements of both Christianity and Islam into their own
pre-Islamic religion. For example, Alawis celebrate Christmas and
Easter and use sacramental wine in some ceremonies.
Regarded as infidels in the past, they were persecuted and heavily
taxed. Alawis numbered only a few thousand in 1987.
Druze — The Druze are an offshoot of a version of Islam brought to
Lebanon from Egypt by a teacher named Darazi. The Druze community
has preserved its cultural separateness by being closely knit socially.
Though they are a minority in the country, their significant political
influence was based in part on support from the British.
The Druze constituted about 7 percent of the population (153,000)
in 1987. More than half resided in rural areas. Those who choose to
reside in an urban setting live together in their own neighborhoods.
CHRISTIAN SECTS — 39 percent of the population
Maronites — Maronites are an indigenous Lebanese church related to
the Roman Catholic Church. In the late seventh century, Maronites
were persecuted by other Christians for their religious beliefs; they
migrated from the coastal regions into the mountainous areas of Lebanon
and Syria, where they came into conflict with the Druze. Most Maronites
have been rural people and are scattered around the country. Maronites
traditionally have occupied the highest stratum of Lebanese society
and, with the patronage of France, have been closely associated with
the political system of independent Lebanon. In 1986, there were an
estimated 356,000 Maronites in Lebanon (16 percent).
Greek Catholics — Greek Catholics emerged as a distinct group in
the early 18th century when they split from the Greek Orthodox Church.
They accept Catholic doctrines as defined by the Vatican but have
remained close to the Greek Orthodox Church, retaining many of
the ancient rituals and customs. Greek Catholics live primarily in
the villages of central and eastern Lebanon. They have a relatively
higher level of education and are proud of their Arab heritage. Greek
Catholics constituted 3 percent of the population (72,000) in 1986.
Roman Catholics — Known as “Latins,” Roman Catholics comprised
less than 1 percent of Lebanon’s population in the 1980s. The Latin
community is composed primarily of foreigners, mainly Europeans.
Greek Orthodox — The Greek Orthodox adhere to the Orthodox Eastern
Church, which in the fifth century diverged from the Roman Catholic
Church over the nature of Christ. Originally a peasant community,
the Greek Orthodox have become increasingly urbanized and form a
major part of the commercial and professional class of Beirut and
other cities. Known for their pan-Arab orientation, the Greek Orthodox
often have served as a bridge between Lebanese Christians and the Arab
countries. Members of the sect constitute 5 percent of the population.
Jacobites — The Jacobites, often referred to as the Syrian Orthodox
Church, take their name from Jacob Baradeus, who in the sixth century
spread throughout Syria the teaching of the church that Christ had
only one divine nature. This is contrary to the orthodox Christian
position that states Christ had both a human and divine nature. As
of 1987, there were only a few thousand Jacobites in Lebanon.
Armenian Orthodox — The Armenian Orthodox or Gregorian Church was
organized in the third century around a belief in the single divine
nature of Christ that is slightly different from the belief of the
Syrian Orthodox Church. The Armenians in Lebanon were refugees who
fled Turkey during and after World War I. In 1987, they resided
primarily in Beirut and its northern suburbs.
Nestorian Church — The Nestorian or Assyrian Church is the remnant
of the fifth-century movement that saw Christ as consisting of two
separate persons, one human and one divine, as opposed to having two
natures in one person. Their doctrine was condemned by the Council of
Ephesus in 431 A.D. Subsequently, those Nestorians who accepted this
doctrine formed an independent church, which has only a few thousand
members in Lebanon.
Protestants — The Protestants in Lebanon emerged in the 19th and
20th centuries from the work of missionaries, primarily English and
American. They are divided into a number of denominations, the most
important being Presbyterian, Congregational and Anglican. Typically,
Lebanese Protestants are educated and belong to the professional
middle class. They constitute less than 1 percent of the population
and live primarily in Beirut.
Evangelicals — Evangelicals in Lebanon have emerged in the 20th
century from the work of missionaries, primarily American, who
represented groups such as Baptists and the Assemblies of God.
Typically, evangelicals belong to the middle and lower classes. They
constitute less than 1 percent of the population and live primarily
in Beirut.

SCOT PORTERFIELD NAMED NEW ARMENIA COACH
Reuters, UK
Aug. 16, 2006
YEREVAN (Reuters) – Britain’s Ian Porterfield has been named new
Armenia coach, the country’s football federation said on Wednesday.
The 60-year-old Scotsman replaces Dutchman Henk Wisman, who was fired
four months ago following a string of poor results.
Porterfield, who played for Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday and Raith
Rovers, has extensive coaching experience at club and international
level.
He coached various English and Scottish clubs, including Sheffield
Wednesday, Aberdeen and Chelsea as well as the national teams of
Zambia, Zimbabwe and Trinidad & Tobago.
Armenia begin their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign at home to Belgium
on September 6.
Porterfield, who arrived in Armenia on Tuesday, said that though
there was little time before their first match all Armenia’s top
players had been called up.
“There is never enough time in football. The work will start
immediately. I hope it will be successful,” Porterfield told a news
conference.

ARMENIAN GROWTH RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT EX-PRESIDENT’S GLOOMY FORECAST
Emil Danielyan
EurasiaNet, NY
Aug. 16, 2006
Levon Ter-Petrosian, Armenia’s reclusive former president, has
disclosed new details about his bitter dispute with key hard-line
members of his cabinet that forced him to step down in February 1998.
The newly released transcript of Ter-Petrosian’s speech at a pivotal
meeting of the former Armenian leadership’s top decision-making body
provides insight into the former president’s belief that Armenia’s
economic development is impossible without a settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Ter-Petrosian’s opponents in 1998, including incumbent President
Robert Kocharian, took a diametrically opposite view. And they now
say that time has proved Ter-Petrosian wrong, pointing to robust
economic growth registered by Armenia in the past eight-plus years.
The Armenian economy is on track to expand at a double-digit rate
for a sixth consecutive year despite the unresolved conflict, a
performance that has repeatedly drawn praise from Western lending
institutions. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Ter-Petrosian allies insist, however, that only a small share of
Armenians have benefited from the economic improvements. And they
maintain that growth is not sustainable without a normalization of
relations with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey.
The power struggle that toppled Ter-Petrosian was sparked in the
summer 1997 by an international peace plan calling for a gradual
settlement of the Karabakh dispute. The plan, accepted by Azerbaijan,
would indefinitely delay agreement on Karabakh’s status until after
the return of Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territories surrounding
Karabakh, and the reopening of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
American, French and Russian mediators co-heading the OSCE Minsk
Group argued that these confidence-building measures would facilitate
a future deal on the territory’s status.
Ter-Petrosian fully accepted this approach, laying out his vision
for Karabakh peace during a September 1997 news conference and a
subsequent newspaper article. Armenians, he wrote, should settle for
the proposed compromise because they “did not win a war, but a battle”
and because “the international community will not tolerate the status
quo for long.” But other key policymakers, led by then-prime minister
Kocharian and then-Defense Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, insisted on
a single “package” accord that would settle all sticking points
at once. Their main argument was that it would be too risky for
the Armenian side to pull out of the occupied Azerbaijani lands,
which constituted Yerevan’s main bargaining chip, without securing
international recognition of Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan.
The crisis reached its peak on January 7-8, 1998 at a confidential
meeting of Armenia’s National Security Council attended by two
dozen top officials, among them Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leaders
allied with the Kocharian-Sarkisian duo. The two sides reportedly
stuck to their guns during the two days of heated discussion, with
Ter-Petrosian and his top loyalists, including then parliament speaker
Babken Ararktsian and Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanian, finding
themselves in minority. About a month later Ter-Petrosian went on
state television to announce his resignation and the defeat of his
“party of peace.”
Details of that meeting remained sketchy until the 61-year-old
ex-president, who has rarely been seen in public since losing power,
published his concluding speech in the Yerevan newspaper Haykakan
Zhamanak in late July. Most of it elaborates on what Ter-Petrosian
described as the “physical limits” imposed by the Karabakh factor on
Armenia’s post-Soviet economic prospects. “As long as these factors
remain in place, whoever governs Armenia, no matter how [smart] they
are, will fail to not only ensure a normal course of the country’s
economic development but also to solve existing socioeconomic
problems,” he told his rivals. He argued that disproportionately
high transportation costs resulting from the closed borders with
Azerbaijan and Turkey, and a lack of rail communication with the
outside world would continue to stifle Armenian exports and scare
away foreign investors.
Ter-Petrosian went on to describe arch-rival Azerbaijan and Turkey as
Armenia’s “most natural and beneficial economic partners” and lament
the untapped “huge potential” of Turkish-Armenian commercial ties. He
also warned of Armenia’s exclusion from regional economic projects
such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
The Armenian economy had shrunk by half in 1992-1993 following the
outbreak of wars in the South Caucasus. It began to slowly recover
after a Russian-mediated truce stopped fighting in Karabakh in May
1994. Ter-Petrosian claimed in his 1998 speech that the recovery
would slow down and perhaps stall altogether if the Karabakh dispute
remained unresolved for several more years.
But economic growth only accelerated after his resignation, moving
into the double digits in 2001. As a result, Armenia has more than
doubled its GDP and state budget since 1998. Government statistics
also show that the proportion of Armenians living below the official
poverty line fell from 56 percent to 34.6 percent between 1999 and
2005. “Armenia’s economic performance has been impressive in recent
years,” Rodrigo de Rato, managing director of the International
Monetary Fund, said during a June visit to Yerevan.
Kocharian and his allies now feel that history has born out their view
that peace with Azerbaijan is not a necessary condition for economic
development. “Ter-Petrosian wrongly calculated Armenia’s potential for
socioeconomic development,” said Spartak Seyranian, a senior member of
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a nationalist party that was
controversially banned by Ter-Petrosian in 1994, and that has been
represented in Kocharian’s government since 1998. “The past eight
years have shown that the rejection of the 1997 peace proposals has
not prevented Armenia’s development,” said Seyranian.
Ter-Petrosian supporters, however, play down the official macroeconomic
data, saying that Armenian growth would have been faster and more
broad-based had Yerevan agreed to the 1997 deal. In the coming years,
the economic and political risks to Yerevan posed by the Karabakh
status quo will grow, as Azerbaijan reaps the benefits of its vast
reserves of natural resources. “In essence, his [Ter-Petrosian’s]
views remain valid,” Levon Zurabian, the ex-president’s former
spokesman who was also present at the Security Council meeting,
told EurasiaNet. “We remain depressed in the economic sense.”
In his disclosed speech, Ter-Petrosian accused his opponents in 1997
of being irreconcilable enemies of compromise with Azerbaijan. His
opponents counter that international mediators have put forward three
different peace plans since Ter-Petrosian’s resignation and all of
them were essentially accepted by the Kocharian administration. The
most recent of these proposals envisages a gradual solution to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict that would begin with the liberation
of Armenian-controlled districts in Azerbaijan proper and end in a
referendum on Karabakh’s status.
Ter-Petrosian loyalists claim that the current government in Yerevan
has embraced a peace formula that is similar to that which mediators
placed on the table back in 1997. The Kocharian camp strongly
disagrees, saying that the referendum envisioned in the existing plan
would almost certainly formalize Armenian control over Karabakh. In
the words of current Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian, this is what
makes the existing Minsk Group “much more favorable” for the Armenian
side. “The 1997 plan said nothing about the [predominantly Armenian]
Karabakh people’s right to self-determination,” Sarkisian said.
But as the Minsk Group co-chairs admitted recently, the existing
plan could still collapse amid lack of agreement on the method and
scope of a Karabakh referendum. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
has repeatedly said in recent months that his administration will
never recognize Karabakh’s independence or unification with Armenia,
calling into question the implementation of the peace deal currently
on the table.
“In any dispute, the key thing is not what the mediator proposes but
what the parties accept,” said Zurabian. “In 1997 we had a variant
officially accepted by Azerbaijan. I just don’t know of any other
peace plans acceptable to Azerbaijan.”
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.

DISPATCHES FROM BEIRUT
Mary Nersessian, CTV.ca News
CTV.ca, Canada
Aug. 16, 2006
After more than a month of conflict between Israeli troops and
Hezbollah mlitants, the residents of Lebanon are trying to rebuild
their lives in the relative calm of a tenuous United Nations-brokered
ceasefire.
Following are first-hand accounts from those who remained in or near
the Lebanese capital throughout the month-long bombardment.
They share with CTV.ca their stories of life under siege and their
concerns for the future as the UN prepares to deploy thousands of
troops on the ground in Lebanon.
Marc J. Sirois, managing editor of the English-language Daily Star
newspaper
The conflict left Beirut largely deserted, although it was not what
he would call a “total ghost town,” Sirois told CTV.ca.
Air strikes started every night at around 1 or 2 a.m. and kept up
for the next five to six hours, he recounted.
It was impossible to shut the windows, to block out some of the noise,
he said because they would shatter from the pressure, if kept closed.
“Like many other people, technically I am displaced,” he told CTV.ca
in a telephone interview from Beirut days before the ceasefire came
into effect.
He was forced to sleep at a co-worker’s home because taxi drivers
refused to drive into his neighbourhood at night.
“I’m still staying with a coworker close to my office (which is located
in the east Beirut neighbourhood of Gemaizeh), largely because I
moved everything in and haven’t had a chance to move it back,” he
told CTV.ca in the days following the introduction of the ceasefire.
He found the conflict stressful as the managing editor of a newspaper
because he has a responsibility to dozens of people, he said.
It was impossible for him to ignore the fact that he could be sending
his staff into danger when he sent them to cover a story.
He found it even harder, he said, to assign reporters who had evacuated
their homes in the southern suburbs to cover stories that could put
them at risk.
“I’ve tried to err on the side of caution, the last thing I want
to feel is that burden, I don’t think I could live with myself,”
he said in the days before the ceasefire was introduced.
“It’s a Catch-22, you want to cover the story, but by the same token
the danger is enormous,” he said.
Though the ceasefire is in effect, life has not returned to normal,
he said.
“The blockade is still in place, there is a serious gasoline shortage,
and the power is only on for about 12 hours a day at best.
It’s better than it was last week, but serious problems remain —
and while the ceasefire has largely held thus far, it’s very fragile,”
he said.
Now it is time to rebuild Lebanon’s devastated infrastructure.
“Entire towns in the South have been levelled. Every single bridge or
overpass of any size (about 80 in all) in the country has been knocked
down or badly damaged. 100,000 (approximately) are homeless,” he said.
“Hezbollah is more influential among its constituents than ever,
especially since the government has yet again failed to help them in
any way.”
Despite the tremendous sense of dread weighing on his shoulders while
the conflict was ongoing, it wasn’t his time to leave the country
where he has made his home for most of the past decade.
“My children are safe, they’re in Canada,” said the father of three.
His oldest 14-year-old daughter lives with her mother in Edmundston,
New Brunswick. His current wife and their twins, who will be five in
September have evacuated to Moncton.
“But I really have no interest in having them grow up without
a father. If I thought I was going to leave my children without a
father, I would leave.”
Rev. Dr. Paul Haidostian, Haigazian University president
With the ceasefire in effect, the university president is hopeful
that life will gradually return to some semblance of normality.
“Right now, many Lebanese from Beirut are in the mountains or outside
the country. Some areas were crowded only because dozens of thousands
of displaced people from the south or the southern suburbs of Beirut
had come closer to the center,” he told CTV.ca from Beirut.
During the conflict, most businesses and stores closed their doors
to the Lebanese, he recounts.
“Note that I am not even referring to certain villages in the South,
where the ill have no access to medical care, and the hungry have
no access to food stores. These types of villages are increasing by
number every day,” wrote the president, who is of Armenian origin,
in a letter to friends on July 19 which was posted on a website read
by the Armenian diaspora.
“Until last week, the Haigazian neighborhood and downtown Beirut were
busy with tourists, students, and businessmen. Now, the whole area
has turned into a relatively safe haven for displaced people from
Southern Beirut and South Lebanon.”
Although supermarkets remained open during the air strike offensives,
their shelves “were being emptied day after day. The well-known brands
of things disappeared first. The shortage of fuel, gas, etc. was the
hardest,” Haidostian told CTV.ca.
“It was deserted throughout. You would see more journalists than
anyone else.”
Even now, after the tenuous ceasefire has taken hold, Haidostian has
encountered only an ice cream shop and a cafe with their doors open.
As the president of a university which suspended his fall semester
until further notice, he is unable to resume his normal routine.
“I am personally in my office every day with some others from the
Haigazian University staff. I have not done most of the normal things,
though. It has been crisis management, communicating with the outside
world, interpreting the situation, encouraging people,” he said.
“Imagine to be a university president and be preoccupied with who
has reported to work and when, whether the four Haigazian University
cars have gas, whether our electricity generators have diesel fuel to
provide energy, whether faculty members are still in the country, etc.”
Despite the ensuing chaos in the days and weeks after the conflict
began, he couldn’t fathom the thought of deserting the city or
his staff.
“It was very clear to me that people in my position cannot and should
not leave. I did not really struggle with the issue. First I am also
a pastor, even though in educational work now,” he said.
“Then I am responsible for a significant institution in the community,
and in uncertain days more leadership is needed than in normal days.”
In a letter to friends dated July 28, Haidostian remarks that the
war’s most dangerous consequences are being observed on the political
landscape.
“This war has created a shift of the Lebanese, Middle Eastern, and
generally Muslim political centre, wherever it existed, to radical
positions. The centrists have found their arguments to be obsolete
and unattractive, while the radicals have found their fundamentalist
reading of the ‘enemy’ and the ‘world’ to be both attractive and
justified,” he writes.
Though the physical landscape of Beirut shows the marks of its
devastation, there are signs of hope.
“The good news of these days comes to us on the billboards of Beirut.
One local bank lists six different times when Lebanon was destroyed
in the past 30 years and says, ‘Those of us who have built before,
will build again!’ Another bank announcement says, ‘Surely the clouds
will give way to sunshine!'” Haidostian writes on August 7.
For his part, Haidostian is cautiously optimistic that the UN-brokered
ceasefire will last.
“It is not the best resolution I would have wanted to see. It is better
than nothing. At least it stopped the bombs as most people would say,
but not much more,” he tells CTV.ca.
Nabil Faris, land developer
The dust has settled but unanswered questions linger in the air,
Faris tells CTV.ca in a telephone interview.
“There is some sort of hidden feeling — where are we heading to? Is
this really peace?” said Faris, from the Aley district of Mount
Lebanon, which overlooks the city of Beirut.
“Everything has been affected, our lifestyle, our work, our family
ties. I had to send my family back to Canada around three weeks ago,”
he said.
Faris, who once lived in Vancouver, returned to Lebanon in 1996 to
launch a land development company.
Whether he will summon his family to return will depend on the
developments in the coming weeks, he said.
Signs of civil unrest within the country have begun to emerge.
“Inside Lebanon, people have become more attached to what they believe
is called resistance, or against occupation, and it seems that neither
the Americans nor the Israelis knew how the handle the situation,”
he said.
In the meantime, the focus is on rebuilding homes and repairing
infrastructure.
“The major problem is with the infrastructure where Israelis tended
to hit,” he says, adding that the bridges were targeted.
Faris recounts a joke that has been making the rounds in Lebanon:
“Anybody that has been to a dentist shouldn’t open his mouth when he
laughs because the Israelis might hit those bridges.”
On a more sombre note, however, Faris says what appeared to be a road
toward democracy before the war began has now been derailed.
“What has been done to us lately is something far from anything that
can be called democratic or even humane,” he said.
/CTVNews/20060816/lebanon_voices_060816/20060816/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJAN’S CONSUL GENERAL IN KARS BLASTS PRO-ARMENIAN MAYOR
Today, Azerbaijan
Aug. 16, 2006
A senior Azerbaijani diplomat was reported on Wednesday to have
denounced the mayor of the northeastern Turkish town of Kars for
publicly advocating the reopening of Turkey’s border with Armenia.
Hasan Zeynalov, Azerbaijan’s consul general in Kars, was quoted
by the Day.az news service as branding Mayor Naif Alibeyoglu as a
leading member of pro-Armenian forces in Turkey that stand for an
unconditional normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan.
Those forces are acting “to the detriment of not only Azerbaijan but
Turkey,” he said.
Zeynalov also complained that despite his “repeated conversations”
with Alibeyoglu the latter remains adamant in believing that the
Turkish frontier should lift its economic embargo imposed on Armenia
in 1993, at the height of the war with Azerbaijan, out of solidarity
with Azerbaijan.
Alibeyoglu has for years expressed this view in interviews with Turkish
and Western media, arguing that cross-border commerce with Armenia
would breathe a new life into Kars and other economically depressed
parts of eastern Turkey. Kars is less than a hundred kilometers away
from the Armenian frontier.
Turkey was reportedly close to heeding U.S. calls for an unconditional
reopening of the border three years ago but backed off after strong
protests from Azerbaijan. Turkish leaders have said it will remain
closed as long as the Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains unresolved.
“For us, the main thing is the position of Turkey’s leadership,
which is well known,” said Zeynalov. “Turkey is the closest ally of
Azerbaijan and will always support us.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FM MEETS WITH MOROCCAN DELEGATION
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Aug. 16, 2006
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met August 16 with Moroccan
delegation led by Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Sea
Fisheries Mohand Laenser to discuss ways of further enhancing the
bilateral ties and relations within the international organizations.
Elmar Mammadyarov informed the guests about the economic progress
Azerbaijan had achieved in recent years.
On Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr. Mammadyarov
said Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory forcing
about million of Azerbaijanis to flee their homeland and become
refugees and internally displaced persons.
Elmar Mammadyarov noted Azerbaijan attaches great importance to
relations with the Kingdom of Morocco, and especially to the opening
of Azerbaijan’s Embassy in this country.
The Azeri Minister said Morocco is one of the leading countries in
the region, stressing the importance of developing the bilateral
relations between the two countries.
The Moroccan guests, for their part, said their country also attaches
great importance to strengthening the ties with Azerbaijan.
Elmar Mammadyarov and Mohand Laenser also discussed a wide range of
other topics of mutual concern.

ARMENIANS FLOCK TO GEORGIAN COAST
By Eteri Turadze in Batumi
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Aug. 16, 2006
Georgia’s Black Sea tourist industry revived by Armenian holidaymakers.
“A bottle of Georgian wine please,” ordered the customer at a seaside
cafe. “Wine? Sorry,” said the waiter, ” we’ve only got Armenian
cognac….”
This recent exchange occurred not in Russia where Georgian wine is
currently banned but in Georgia’s Black Sea resort of Batumi, which
is enjoying an unprecedented influx of Armenian tourists.
According to Georgia’s department for tourism and resorts, 2006 is
breaking all records for the number of foreign tourists visiting the
country since it gained independence in 1992. The Black Sea autonomous
republic of Ajaria and its capital Batumi are the main destinations,
with a total of 250,000-300,000 holiday- makers expected there
this year.
Of the foreign tourists, 70 per cent are from neighbouring landlocked
Armenia. “We expect around 55,000 visitors from Armenia during the
holiday season. This is three times as many as last year,” said Saba
Kiknadze head of the local tourist department.
The local government in Ajaria was busy advertising the attractions of
its resorts to Armenia long before the summer season started. It spent
20,000 laris (around 11,000 US dollars) printing publicity booklets,
calendars, maps and films that were distributed in Armenia.
In May, the Georgian authorities opened a special train service from
Yerevan to Batumi and back, especially for Armenian tourists. The
train runs every other day and a ticket costs between 55 and 85 lari
(around 30-50 dollars).
Suren Mkrtchian said his holiday company Eurasia and other Armenian
tourist operator rent out hotels and bring their customers directly
to them, generally for two weeks.
The prices in Ajaria, with a bed costing between around ten and 100
dollars a night, were affordable for those holidaymakers from Armenia
who spoke to IWPR.
“Prices are normal,” said Levon Alkhazian, who is spending the second
summer running here. “Batumi is gradually becoming a European-style
resort.”
Diana Haikian came to take a holiday in the resort town of Kobuleti
in Ajaria on the recommendation of her cousin and used the new train
service. She is with a group of 15 friends and colleagues.
“We are being served well at the hotel,” said Diana. “There are places
where we can sit and have fun in the evenings. We’ve met a lot of
our acquaintances from Yerevan. I like it here but I have nothing to
compare it with. I have never been to European resorts and Russian
resorts are both more expensive and dull.”
Diana said she liked Ajaria so much she hoped to spend her honeymoon
here next year.
Tourist department head Saba Kiknadze says a number of factors are
contributing to the Armenian tourism boom in Ajaria.
“The first is, of course, the change in the situation in Georgia in
general,” said Kiknadze. “The image of our country is much better
today than a couple of years ago.
“We will soon place our advertisement clips about Georgia on CNN and
BBC and things with tourism will improve even further.”
But he admitted that infrastructure in Georgia is in need of
improvement, “You cannot do everything at once. We have changed a
lot in Ajaria since last year.”
Armenian capital has flooded into the region in the wake of Armenian
tourists.
Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian visited Batumi in May and
won the support of the head of the local government Levan Varshalomidze
for facilitating Armenian investment. Last year, President Robert
Kocharian told Varshalomidze, “The big number of Armenian tourists who
visited Ajaria this summer makes it clear that economic cooperation
should be stepped up.”
Armenian investment has been focussed so far on small businesses,
such as family hotels and restaurants rather than large infrastructure
projects. The cafes and other eateries have turned into small islands
of Armenia, serving Armenian food and playing Armenian music.
The founder of an Armenian chain of restaurants Vartan Makarchian
said proudly that the Georgian president himself had visited one of
his outlets.
“Mikheil Saakashvili has had lunch with us twice,” said Makarchian.
“We were waiting for him yesterday too but he did not come. Our
popularity shot up after his visits.”
Gogi Baghdadishvili’s small cafe has a menu in four languages –
Georgian, Russian, English and Armenian.
“Yes, the Armenians speak Russian too but their appetite will
improve if they read the menu in their native tongue,” confided
Baghdadishvili. “This is business and the main rule is to attract
customers.”
But not all the locals are happy with the Armenian invasion.
“I don’t understand why we have to adapt to the visitors,” complained
Nargiz Diasamidze, a resident of Kobuleti. “It’s the tourists
themselves who should accept our customs. You can hear Armenian music
everywhere and Armenian meals are being sold everywhere. Don’t they
like ours?”
“First, the Armenian will first rent the hotels here and then they
will buy them,” said Nugzar Chkonia, a worried Batumi resident.
But Guram Kharazi, who owns a private hotel in Kobuleti, is delighted
with the influx of Armenian capital: he has rented out his hotel to
an Armenian tourist agent.
“I used to spend the whole season looking for tourists and serving
them but can relax now,” said Kharazi. “I’ve been paid well and I
will never sell my hotel, whatever money they offer me.”
Eteri Turadze is a reporter for the Batumelebi newspaper in Batumi.

KARABAKH: THE LAST OF THE AZERIS
By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Aug. 16, 2006
The few remaining Azerbaijanis of Karabakh tell their stories.
They mostly go unnoticed and bear Armenian names, but Nagorny Karabakh,
on the surface a completely Armenian territory, has a quiet population
of Azerbaijanis.
Many of them have been separated by war from children or close
relatives living on the other side of the conflict divide.
It comes as a surprise to many outsiders to learn that there are
Azerbaijanis still here at all. There are of course far fewer of them
than before the war, when around one quarter of the population of
Nagorny Karabakh was Azerbaijani. Almost all of them fled in the great
refugee upheavals of the conflict. But there are more than a handful
left: they are mainly people who married Armenians and their children.
According to the national statistics bureau of Nagorny-Karabakh,
Azerbaijanis are classed as one of the ethnic minorities of Karabakh.
Official figures will be published next month. But it is hard to
calculate the real numbers because most of them have changed their
surnames or use married Armenian names.
Sixty-year-old Nailya Jafarova, not her real name, has lived in
Stepanakert since 1968. “I can’t remember a case when an Armenian
has ever said, ‘Get out of Karabakh!'” she told IWPR.
She said the only time she had suffered abuse was at the height of
the 1991-4 war when she was queuing for milk and another woman told
her she had no right to be there – but she was defended by others
in the queue. “There was no need for me to answer because others
answered for me – Armenians who saw me as a human being, not just a
representative of one nationality,” she said.
Nailya was heading for an academic career in the Azerbaijan Academy
of Sciences, when she fell in love and followed her Armenian husband
to Karabakh. She said her parents were not so much unhappy with her
marrying an Armenian, as her moving far away.
Her husband was killed by an artillery shell during the war and she
was left with two children. She now has three grandchildren.
“In Karabakh, I don’t have problems because I am an Azerbaijani. I
have the same difficulties as everyone in Karabakh – difficulties with
finding work, low pay, no social security. But I am on good terms
with everyone. The one problem which is worse for me now is that I
haven’t seen my relatives from Baku for a very long time,” she said.
“I’ve been in touch with my relatives several times – either over the
internet, or through my niece in Moscow – and they suggest we meet on
neutral territory, in a little place in Georgia called Sadakhlo. But
I would far prefer to go to Baku. All my relations have had children
and grandchildren – I want to see them all. And I want to visit my
parents’ grave.”
She says her children feel Armenian, but they still speak Azeri
and sometimes watch Azerbaijani television, which can be seen
in Karabakh. And she continues to cook her favourite Azerbaijani
specialities, which her friends and grandchildren adore.
Seda Ghazarian, a former registry officer, who conducted marriage
ceremonies for 25 years, said that in Soviet times Armenian-Azerbaijani
marriages were rare in the Armenian-majority town of Stepanakert,
capital of Karabakh, but were more common in the Azerbaijani-majority
town of Shushi (known by the Azerbaijanis as Shusha). Armenian women
were much more likely to marry Azerbaijanis than vice versa.
Sixty-eight-year-old Asya, an Armenian, who now lives in the village
of Gharabulakh had four children by her Azerbaijani husband. When
the Karabakh crisis began, she was forced to have medical treatment
in Ashgabat in Turkmenistan: she could not be treated in Stepanakert
because she was married to an Azerbaijani, nor in Baku, because she
was an Armenian.
She was still in Ashgabat when she found out that her home town had
been captured by the Armenians and her family had fled to Baku. Asya
returned to Karabakh to look after her ill mother and to wait for
the war to end so she could be reunited with her children. Her wait
lasted 14 years, during which time eight grandchildren were born to
her, whom she never saw.
Then she got a letter from her daughter which read, “Dear Mummy,
I dream about you all the time, and every morning I wake up in tears!
God grant that this damned war stops and that we can put our arms
around you again. Please look after yourself! Have pity on and forgive
your innocent, tormented children!”
Asya cried as she said, “How many nights are there in 14 years? Every
one of those nights I longed for my children to come to me in a
dream. Then the sun came out for me.”
She got a letter from her son and they arranged to meet in Georgia,
“They didn’t let us over the border – because neither of our passports
were in order. But when they found out we hadn’t seen each other for 14
years – they let us through. My son held out his arms and came towards
me. For two minutes I was as good as dead in his arms. Passers-by
kept asking what had happened. They cried too.”
Often an Armenian name conceals an Azerbaijani. Alexander, 52, and has
an Armenian surname, but everyone knows he is actually an Azerbaijani,
bearing the name of his mother’s first husband. But he says he feels
Armenian, “When I turned four, for several years my father’s family
wanted me to be circumcised like Azerbaijani boys.
Mum and I objected. Relations with my father’s relatives have been
strained ever since. See them now? No, I wouldn’t want to.”
Alexander fought in the Karabakh war, like virtually all males
in region. “I defended my homeland – it is every man’s duty to do
that,” he said. Today this good-natured man and his son work for a
construction company in Karabakh and friends and colleagues speak
highly of him.
“I am a simple working man, and I have learned a simple truth in
life – that it is a man’s work and his character that are important,
not his nationality,” he said.
Sixty-five-year-old Svetlana Gevorkian, who has lived in
Stepanakert all her life, says that there are actually several mixed
Armenian-Azerbaijani families living on her street.
“They live here as we do,” she said. “No one is drawing a line between
Armenians and Azerbaijanis.” Svetlana confirmed that, as for many
people of her generation, Azerbaijani culture was part of her life.
“I can speak Azeri because I studied Azeri at school and not
Armenian. And I still remember my teacher was called Maleika
Mamedova. Her husband was Armenian. And the language was mainly used
in the market – there were mostly Azerbaijanis trading there and we
spoke to them in their language.”
She confirms that her generation still has memories and knowledge of
Azerbaijan, but this is slowly dying out.
“We would love to know what people in Azerbaijan think about the war.
Sometimes we switch on AzTV, we get their First Channel with
interference, but when you always hear the same thing over and over
again – that they must fight, fight, fight, – I get anxious and switch
off, and then don’t turn it on again for ages,” she said.
“The only link to Azerbaijan here now is that Azerchai tea is still
sold here. I don’t know how they get it in – it used to be very good
quality, but now it’s not so good.”
Karine Ohanian is a freelance journalist in Stepanakert, Nagorny
Karabakh.