Tigran Torosian: “Azerbaijan has no courage to recognize Nagorno Garabagh Republic officially”
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
July 25, 2006
“Azerbaijan deals with war very often, because official Baku has no
courage to recognize Nagorno Garabagh officially.” Armenian Parliament
speaker Tigran Torosian announced it. (APA).
“They understand in Azerbaijan that there is not any base and
perspective of starting military operations in Nagorno Garabagh.
International community within the last two years started self
determination right of Nagorno Garabagh, we needed 17 years of time
for that.”/APA/

Azeri residents fight eviction by oil company
Spero News
July 25, 2006
Thousands of unregistered homes at risk as oil firm seeks to reclaim land.
By Idrak Abbasov
Late last month, desperate scenes were enacted in a small settlement
outside Baku. Two well-built young men pulled a sobbing, pregnant
woman and her two small children out of a one-bedroom house scheduled
for demolition.
The settlement of Upper Sulu-tep, near the village of Khodjasan, is
just 15 kilometres from the centre of the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
At the height of summer, it is an arid spot, with no grass growing
or trees visible.
But now there are four huge oil wells, each with a wide black,
treacly pit next to it. Everywhere, there is the stink of oil and gas.
For a month now, the Binagadi Oil company has been demolishing houses
here, sometimes with the help of the regional authorities and the
police. They are all on land on which Binagadi Oil is working, and
almost all the residential buildings here were built without the
required permits. The majority of the people who live nearby are
either from the poorest sections of society or refugees.
Almost a month has gone by since the demolition work started. More
than 200 homes have already been knocked down.
Local resident Adalat Seidov estimates that there are between ten
and fifteen thousand houses in the area inhabited by as many as
60,000 people, all of which could be potentially affected by the oil
company’s campaign.
Desperate residents say they have nowhere else to go.
“Where am I supposed to take my family? Whose door will I knock on?”
asked Nizami Bagirov, who comes from the Lerik district in southern
Azerbaijan on the border with Iran.
Bagirov says that he fought in the Nagorny Karabakh war and then used
to earn a small income doing hard physical work in a nearby stone
quarry. A few years ago, he decided to build a house for himself,
his wife and two small daughters.
“One of my colleagues lives in Sulu-tep,” said Bagirov. “He suggested
I build a one-bedroom house there. We found an empty plot of land
and built a house for me.”
However, he has now lost his home on the grounds that he had no formal
permission to build it.
Lawyer Fuad Agayev says Bagirov’s rights have been abused. “Regardless
of whether a house has been built illegally or not, to destroy it
you need a court order,” he said, adding that the oil company had no
right to demolish houses themselves and the court should also provide
Bagirov and his family with temporary accommodation.
The authorities declined to give IWPR any precise information about
the demolitions.
Binagadi Oil, which owns the land, used to be part of the state
oil company SOCAR. Anar Gurbanov, a lawyer for the firm, said it is
drilling for oil on land in four fields, but three of them had been
taken over illegally. He said they were losing substantial sums as
a result.
Gurbanov admitted that authorisation from a court was necessary in
order to destroy buildings and insisted that the company sought such
orders for demolitions. However, he was unable to provide evidence
of any such paperwork, and some residents said they’d received
official notification to vacate their houses, not from a court but
the authorities and Binagadi Oil.
One resident fighting eviction is Khavyar Jafarova, a refugee from
Zangelan region, which is now under Armenian occupation. “They only
gave us a verbal warning, we haven’t seen any paper work. I have
lived here for twelve years – the authorities should give me back my
house in Zangelan. Even though I’m a woman, I fought for my country.
I will fight to the last here too,” she said.
“I have lived here for seven years, and I have all the paperwork,”
objected Khumar Velieva, a refugee from Armenia. “I bought the land
from the municipality, and the construction was approved by the
regional authorities.”
The head of administration of the village of Khojasan said the land
was only leased to Velieva for temporary use.
Unauthorised house building in the greater Baku area is a widespread
phenomenon, as the population of the largest city in the Caucasus
continues to grow.
According to a presidential decree, a census will be carried out in
Azerbaijan in 2009. An anonymous source in the cabinet of ministers
told IWPR that it will be conducted not according to place of
registration but to where people are actually living at the time.
The source adds that before the census takes place, the government
wants to solve the problem of residents living in homes built
illegally in Baku and surrounding areas. Many unauthorised houses
will be demolished and others will be legalised.
Idrak Abbasov is a journalist for Ayna newspaper in Baku.

Evacuation tips: Who’s a Friend, Who’s a Canadian?
The Globe and Mail, Canada
July 25, 2006
By Jeffrey Simpson
Lessons for Canada from the flight from Lebanon: First, don’t kick
your friends needlessly. Second, review dual citizenship.
By way of first things first, here’s a question: which country helped
most when Canadians tried to rescue people from Lebanon? Answer:
Turkey.
With Cyprus filled up, Canada urgently asked for Turkey’s help. The
Turks, whom the Harper government just gratuitously insulted while
playing domestic politics, could have made up all kinds of excuses
by way of payback.
Instead, the Turks turned the other cheek. They took out
Lebanese-Canadian citizens, rented boats, and put their airfield at
our disposal. Have they received an official thank you from Prime
Minister Stephen Harper?
It’s the least Mr. Harper could do after making recognition of the
90-year-old Armenian “genocide” official government policy such a sore
point in Turkey that the Turkish government withdrew its ambassador
to Canada to protest.
The Harper announcement, delivered almost flippantly in April,
made headlines in Turkey. Everybody close to the file knew the
announcement had everything to do with ethnic pandering in Canada,
part of the Conservative’s wider campaign to play ethnic politics.
Now that the Conservatives have been in office for a little while,
perhaps they will realize that a country’s foreign policy interests
should not be subordinated to domestic pandering. They might also
realize that a foreign policy based on realism requires remembering
which countries are allies and friends, because you never know when
friends might come in handy.
As a NATO partner, Turkey is now being asked to contribute to a
peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, a force Canada is not being
asked to join (except by some people in Canada) for the good reason
that this force needs to be robust. Canada does not have robust
forces to spare, what with the two-year commitment to Afghanistan,
a point those urging Canadian participation might remember. The Turks
(who were in Afghanistan before us) and others will have to do the
heavy lifting if NATO agrees to inject a force into Lebanon.
Another lesson concerns dual citizenship. It is way to late to think
of eliminating dual citizenship, even were the elimination desirable.
Australia thought of trying to go that route, and gave up. The
United States once forbade dual citizenship but relented about two
decades ago.
Dual citizenship is a fact of life, but it is a misunderstood fact,
one that a parliamentary committee could usefully explore and explain
to Canadians.
We seem to believe that, because a person carries a Canadian passport,
that person thinks himself as a Canadian and has an absolute right
to assistance from the Canadian government while outside Canada. Both
beliefs are false, and potentially dangerous.
It is worth at least asking whether we have made the acquisition
of Canadian citizenship so easy – divorcing it, once acquired, from
residence in the country – that we have spawned legions of citizens
of convenience. We know that thousands of people worked in Canada,
earned their pension time here, and live elsewhere clipping Canada
Pension Plan coupons.
There’s nothing illegal or inherently wrong with that – retired
Americans in Canada keep getting their Social Security cheques. But
there are a lot of other people holding Canadian passports around
the world whose attachment to this country – measured at least by
time spent here – is, shall we say, somewhat more limited.
We should also understand that a dual citizenship in another country
is not always considered a Canadian. For example, a holder of Iranian
and Canadian passports, or Syrian and Canadian passports, is not
considered by the authorities in those countries to be a Canadian,
but rather an Iranian or Syrian.
Canadian consular help to such dual nationals in those countries is
limited or non-existent, just as Canada might get upset if a dual
national caught doing something we consider illegal in Canada tried
to appeal for help to the Iranian or Syrian governments.
The same applies to China. The migration to Canada from Hong Kong
before the Chinese takeover from Britain produced thousands of dual
citizens, by Canadian law. The Chinese, however, do not recognize dual
nationalities. If things ever got tense between China and Canada,
and dual nationals in China appealed to Ottawa for help, it is not
clear what Canada could do if the Chinese made matters difficult.
All this is to suggest that a gap can arise between the legal realities
of being a dual national and the obligations and expectations of
Canada, especially in times of crisis. [email protected]

VLADIMIR KAZIMIROV: INCIDENTS AT CONTACT LINE GO ON AGGRAVATING
TENSION AND DISTRUST BETWEEN KARABAKH CONFLICT PARTIES
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
July 25, 2006
According to an agreement on strengthening cease-fire all the sides of
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict have undertaken permanent obligations
to quickly settle all incidents at the contact line, not to assume
their escalation and aggravation of tension. OSCE Minsk Group former
Russian Co-Chair Vladimir Kazimirov told PanARMENIAN.Net that the
parties had not fulfilled their obligations for a long time.
“Let’s suppose that the implementation of the agreement has uncovered
its shortcomings, it did not prove to be effective enough. However,
in such a case, if there is political will and the lives of the
servicemen and civilians living near the contact line is precious,
the parties would inform the mediators of the fact, put forward
proposals how to supplement the agreement, make it more useful.
However, the matter was reduced to holding of monitorings, which
are selective and cannot ensure either direct contacts between the
parties or ubiquitous supervision of the state of affairs at the
contact line. Meanwhile, the incidents that have already claimed
thousands of lives go on aggravating tension and distrust between
the parties,” Kazimirov underscored. The Russian diplomat noted RA
DM Serge Sargsyan had publicly stated the readiness to return to
fulfillment of the obligations undertaken, if the Azeri party acted
the same way. Nagorno Karabakh joined the position and repeated it
in May 2006. “It is Baku that has kept silent for years. One wishes
to believe that the Azeri President’s utterances on the issue will
prompt to constructiveness. It seems that Baku’s negative approach was
conditioned by the unwillingness to maintain direct contacts with the
opposite parties’ servicemen, moreover with Nagorno Karabakh a party
to the agreement. Should one wrestle with the coordination of the
“principles” and preparation of agreements between the parties, if
they are the same way “accurate” in their implementation and display
the same political “will”? Today the Co-Chairs insist on displaying the
parties’ political will”, the Russian diplomat remarked. To note, the
mediator’s proposals on strengthening ceasefire in the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict were sent by Vladimir Kazimirov to the RA and AR Presidents
Levon Ter – Petrosyan and Heydar Aliyev, as well as Nagorno Karabakh
Head Robert Kocharyan, on February 3, 1995. The parties’ consent was
received February 4, 1995 from all the conflict parties’ DMs.

ARKADY GHOUKASYAN: MATTHEW BRYZA’S VISIT – GOOD CHANCE TO PRESENT NKR’S POSITION”
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
July 25, 2006
“I do not consider that the mediators have new proposals, however,
in any case, the U. S. Co-Chair’s visit is a good chance for us to
present our position both to Mathew Bryza and other Co-Chairs”, Nagorno
Karabakh Republic President Arkady Ghoukasyan stated, while commenting
on the U. S. Co-Chair Matthew Bryza’s forthcoming visit to the region,
including Stepanakert. At the same time Arkady Ghoukasyan noted that
Nagorno Karabakh’s participation was necessary not only for the NKR,
but for the settlement process as a whole. “Sooner or later Nagorno
Karabakh will participate in the process by all means, as without
taking into consideration NKR people’s opinion the problem cannot be
settled. When will it be? I do not believe that at present Azerbaijan
is ready to negotiate with Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijan avoids talks
with us, since its position is destructive”, stated the President.
Answering a question on the conduct of a repeated referendum on the
Nagorno Karabakh’s status, Arkady Ghoukasyan noted a referendum had
already been conducted in the Nagorno Karabakh, and its outcomes
were obvious for everyone. “If today there were guarantees that the
international community would recognize tomorrow’s referendum, we would
consider it”, NKR President stated, REGNUM Information Agency reports.

FOURTH GROUP OF ARMENIA PEACE-MAKERS DISPATCHED TO IRAQ BY ROTATION
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
July 25, 2006
YEREVAN, July 25. /ARKA/. The fourth group of Armenian peace-makers
was dispatched to Iraq by rotation on July 23. Press Secretary of
the RA Minister of Defense, Colonel Seyran Shahsuvaryan reported that
three 46-member groups of Armenian peace-makers have been dispatched
to Iraq. The third group, which is currently in Iraq, comprises three
staff officers, two military doctors, ten sappers, and 31 drivers.
Shahsuvaryan reported that after the fourth group of Armenian
peace-makers has been dispatched to Iraq, the number of Armenian
servicemen that have participated in the operation “Freedom to Iraq”
reaches 182. Liaison officers served for one year. Armenian Armed
Forces have been involved in post-war rehabilitation of Iraq since
January 25, 2005. On December 24, 2004, the Armenian Parliament
ratified a memorandum on the dispatch of an Armenian contingent as
part of the polish mission. In 2005, the Armenian Parliament prolonged
the term of the Armenian mission in Iraq for one year. P.T. -0–

KLO issued protest statement related to “World Armenian youth forum”
Today, Azerbaijan
July 25, 2006
Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) issued protest statement
related to “World Armenian youth forum” planned to be held in Khankendi
July 26.
The measure was called in the statement as cheap show to propagandize
alleged Nagorno Karabakh Republic.
Stating Armenian conducts to be beyond the international law forms
KLO leadership called on world states not to participate in the
measure. KLO considers that Azerbaijan government should act to
prevent insidious intentions of Armenia, international organizations
should not give chance to implementation of this measure. Separate
countries should withdraw their Armenian origin citizens from joining
this measure.
Otherwise, KLO will demand stopping the activities of those states
in Azerbaijan who will participate in that forum, APA reports.
URL:

THE KURDS’ CUNNING PLAN.Good Actors
The New Republic, DC
July 25, 2006
By Spencer Ackerman
Erbil, Iraq
On the highway leading out of Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi
Kurdistan, the only place to eat before reaching the city of Kirkuk
is the Kurdistan Restaurant. The low-slung cinderblock building is in
the Baghdad-controlled governorate of Tameem, but you wouldn’t know it
from the image on the restaurant’s facade. Superimposed against the
red, yellow, and green colors of the Kurdish flag is an impressive
map of Greater Kurdistan, the ideational Kurdish homeland stretching
from southern Turkey to western Iran.
That such a map appears just outside of Kirkuk is no coincidence.
Kirkuk, which Kurds call their Jerusalem, is a fundamental component
of the dream of Greater Kurdistan. Every Kurd can recite the story of
how Iraq’s Arabs stole the city from them. Located about 150 miles
northeast of Baghdad, Kirkuk had never been of great historic or
political significance. But, in 1927, a consortium of oil prospectors
headed by Calouste Gulbenkian, the legendary Armenian oil magnate,
discovered that the city was afloat some of the richest oil fields
on the planet. The then-fledgling Iraqi government started exerting
control over Kirkuk, moving Kurds out and Arabs loyal to Baghdad’s
Hashemite monarchy in. For nearly 80 years, the city has been a symbol
of the Kurds’ fragmented and oppressed status. With Saddam Hussein
gone and Iraq’s Arabs mired in sectarian disarray, they intend to
take it back.
The reconquest of Kirkuk has begun not with an army but with a creeping
of Kurdish settlers along the highway south from Erbil. Before Saddam
was ousted in 2003, the Iraqi army prevented Kurds from living south
of the Qushtapa checkpoint, just a few miles outside Erbil. As soon as
the Iraqi army abandoned its positions during the U.S.-led invasion,
however, defiant Kurdish civilians immediately occupied the barracks
to mark their new frontiers. Over the last three years, they have
pushed closer and closer to Kirkuk. Crumbling stone structures along
the road have become new Kurdish villages, displaying red, yellow,
and green flags. And, in the northernmost sector of Kirkuk itself,
just beyond where plumes of fire illuminate some of the world’s
richest oil fields, the first outpost isn’t an Arab area, but rather
the Kurdish neighborhood of Rahimawa.
What the highway from Erbil to Kirkuk reveals is that, for three years,
while Sunni and Shia Arabs have bitterly fought one another–and the
U.S. occupation–the Kurds have methodically established a presence
on the ground. Any peshmerga–guerrillas who serve as Kurdistan’s
army–who travel south to take Kirkuk will be treated as heroes along
the road. Any Iraqi soldiers who travel north to retain it will have
to subdue a hostile population.
There would seem to be few better moments for the peshmerga caravans
to fly down the Erbil-Kirkuk highway. This week’s orgy of violence–in
which Sunnis bombed Shia shrines and Shia militiamen pulled Sunnis out
of their homes for execution in broad daylight–underscores how Iraq
is at a point of permanent sectarian emergency. But the independence
of Kurdistan is not imminent. After the attack on the Askariya shrine
in February, instead of exploiting increased sectarian tensions, Jalal
Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the president of
Iraq, worked energetically to restart talks between Sunni and Shia
leaders. Indeed, at every turn, the Kurds have opted not to declare
independence but to keep the country united. “It’s ironic,” wrote
Turkish columnist Cengiz Candar, “that Talabani … long considered
a secessionist, is now functioning as the glue most likely to make
Iraq stick together and to prevent it from breaking apart.”
But Talabani’s efforts aren’t ironic. They’re strategic. The current
generation of Kurdish leaders has reached a consensus about Kurdistan’s
future: For the next several years, the Kurds must remain part of Iraq
if they are to achieve statehood. That’s because they need to convince
Iraqis, often-hostile neighbors like Turkey, and foreign powers like
the United States that Kurdish independence is a positive–or at
least nonthreatening–development. The timetable for independence
varies: Some Kurdish leaders suggest independence is only a few
years away, while others see it in a decade or even a generation. The
most important factor in winning recognition, however, will be the
visible and consistent demonstration that they paid, in the words of
one Kurdish leader, “more than our fair share” for building Iraq.
But, in order to have a shot at independence, the Kurds must also
set up an economic and political infrastructure that will make
their dream of statehood viable. They must develop their copious oil
resources. They must cement ties with bordering countries. And they
must consolidate their hold over Baghdad politics. These moves run
directly counter to the interests of Iraq, the country the Kurds are
supposed to be paying more than their fair share.
ver a dinner of grilled fish, Tariq Namiq, a bespectacled
thirtysomething journalist, argues passionately that Americans are
fooling themselves if they don’t consider all Arabs terrorists. His
virulence reflects a long-standing fear. Ever since British and
French imperial machinations grafted a portion of the mountainous
Kurdish homeland to the artificially created Iraq after the collapse
of the Ottoman empire, the Kurdish experience in Iraq has been a
story of relentless and bloody repression. That repression reached
its apogee in 1987 and 1988 with the Anfal genocide, during which
Saddam murdered 100,000 Kurds, destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages,
and evicted thousands of Kurds from Kurdish cities like Kirkuk. Namiq
hosts a weekly TV program on the Kurdish network Zagros TV, which, he
explains, reminds viewers that Kirkuk by rights belongs to Kurdistan,
despite also being home to thousands of Arabs. When I ask if the
Arabs can remain in the city–the Kurdish leadership insists they be
relocated, and American diplomats have traced over 180 disappearances
and kidnappings of Arabs to Kurdish forces–Namiq equivocates.
Namiq is hardly alone in his distrust of Arabs. Despite Kurdish
prominence in Baghdad, no one in Kurdistan has much faith that
post-Saddam Iraq offers the Kurds anything more than the torments
of the past. The entrance of the Sunnis into the political process
in December was met in Kurdistan with apprehension that the formerly
dominant minority is simply trying to use ballots as well as bullets
to regain power. “Everyone has to have both legs in–not one leg in
terror and one leg in the cabinet,” says Fadhil Merani, the head of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo who helped negotiate
the sectarian character of the new government in Baghdad. Not that
everyone thinks the Shia, with whom the Kurds allied against their
mutual Sunni enemies, are much better. Many Kurds describe them as
fanatical and backward proxies of Iran. Sunnis and Shia may not be
able to find common ground in Baghdad, but, in Kurdistan, both are
simply Arabs, and so both merit contempt.
For the last three years, American and Iraqi officials thought they
had a solution to the Kurdish problem: federalism. Transforming
Iraq from a centrally administered state into one where the various
regions enjoy considerable autonomy from Baghdad was intended to
mollify the country’s mutually suspicious factions and keep the
country whole. Indeed, federalism has been a nonnegotiable demand
of the Kurds, who have always said that, unless post-Saddam Iraq
allowed them tremendous freedom of action, they would have no
choice but to secede. Accordingly, both the interim and permanent
Iraqi constitutions contained far-reaching guarantees for regional
autonomy. The permanent constitution, approved in October, allows
Kurdistan to nullify unacceptable national legislation; to retain
the 100,000-strong peshmerga; and to control much, if not all, of
Kurdistan’s oil wealth. But federalism has proved unacceptable to
the Sunnis, who rejected the constitution en masse and only agreed to
participate in the December elections after receiving U.S.-brokered
assurances that they could seek to amend the document this year.
Defending the controversial provisions of the Iraqi constitution in
October, American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad explained, “You couldn’t
bring the Kurds back into Iraq without federalism.”
But, contrary to the White House’s claim that federalism is “a
prerequisite for a united country,” federalism has stoked, not
tempered, secessionism. In January 2005, as Iraqis voted to elect
their first government, a referendum was held in Kurdistan asking
respondents whether they would prefer independence. Nearly 98 percent
of an estimated two million voters said yes. “Federalism is a fact
that’s imposed on us,” explains Dilshad Farriq, a 27-year-old
Persian-literature student at the University of Salahuddin.
“Independence is something we want.”
24&s=ackerman072406

Escape from Lebanon
Kingston Whig-Standard (Ontario)
July 25, 2006 Tuesday
By Carmen Abrajian
My brother, Mark, his girlfriend, Tala and I flew to Lebanon on July
6. Beirut had been rebuilt and was, according to all accounts, safe
now and beautiful. There were to be many cultural events, and even
concerts with some North American bands, and it was said that the
Beirut of the past had been reborn.
I checked carefully to make sure there were no warnings about
problems in the region and decided that now was the time to go. My
grandparents were bedridden in a Beirut nursing home and would
not live much longer, and I really wanted to see them again. I was
not told that I should register at the Canadian Embassy. In fact,
I had never heard of that, and we blithely went off on our journey,
expecting the time of our lives.
I enjoyed seeing my relatives again. It had been a few years since
I had visited Lebanon.
On July 11, I went with my aunt to the village of Anjar in the Bekaa
Valley, where my father was born. The next day, the Israelis bombed
the airport in Beirut, and my brother and his girlfriend joined us
in Anjar. No one was very concerned because the Bekaa Valley had
always been safe, even during the Lebanese civil war. We assumed the
military action was a small skirmish that would last a day or two;
some prisoners would be exchanged and life would go back to normal.
Tala’s 15-year-old sister, Rona, stayed in Beirut with her grandmother
and her aunt.
By the next day, the bombing had intensified and the roads and ports
were being bombed. Even my relatives who had lived through the civil
war and had been saying, “Don’t worry, it will all be over soon,”
were becoming concerned. Their words changed and became, “Don’t
worry, you’re safe here.” We received word that Tala’s sister’s
neighbourhood in Beirut was being bombed and that she had fled to
the mountains. By now, the bombing had reached the area around Anjar,
a Christian Armenian village in the mountains east of Beirut.
The bombing was terrifying. So far, the Israelis had not bombed
the houses in Anjar, but they had bombed the road from the village
and the whole surrounding area. All night and into the morning, we
could hear the sound of planes, then silence, and then a boom that
shattered windows and shook the walls. We could not just hear the
bombs, which were deafening and like nothing I have ever heard before,
but we could feel them. The rumble and crash shook my whole body.
We all became nervous and tense. The slightest thing would have me
in tears, and night after night we could not sleep. The village next
to ours, a 10-minute drive away, was being bombed and was impossible
to reach. The road to the Syrian border had been bombed many times,
and all of the bridges in Lebanon and the road to Beirut had been
destroyed. Our little village was completely isolated.
To make matters worse, there is no bank in Anjar, we had no way to
get to one and our money was running low. Food prices had doubled,
then tripled, and now a bag of oranges cost $48 US. The supply of
meat ran out. The bakery had closed, so we had no bread and no way of
obtaining flour, rice or other staples. Gasoline was being rationed
to those brave enough to venture to the gas station on the edge of
town. We realized that the longer we stayed, the harder it would be
to leave, and our relatives would be hard-pressed to feed themselves,
let alone us.
My brother, Mark, had been trying to contact the Canadian Embassy
in Beirut four or five times a day for five days, with no success.
Luckily, at the first sign of trouble, my mother in Canada had
registered us with the embassy. She received a confirmation for Mark,
Tala and Rona, but no mention of me. She re-registered me but still
received no acknowledgment.
We still had sporadic electricity and heard on the news that Canadians
were to be evacuated in three or four days from Beirut. Could we wait
that long? Could we get to Beirut? The answer to both questions was
no. The road to Beirut had been destroyed. The road to the nearest town
was being monitored and any van on the road was being shelled. The
road to Syria, a mere 20-minute drive away, had been bombed many
times. Workers would fill in the craters and it would be bombed again.
The only respite from the roar of bombs, the flash of explosions and
the bright lights of the fires that were ignited everywhere was in the
early afternoons. I was very afraid that a bomb would hit Anjar, and
we were discussing walking through the mountains to the Syrian border.
Finally, we heard that the road to Damascus, Syria, had been reopened
temporarily, and my brother decided that we should risk the trip. We
tried to hire a taxi, but the taxi drivers wanted between $178 and $200
US per person for the trip. That was completely beyond our means. Not
only could we not get to a bank but the banks were closed in our
area anyway and the ATMs were empty. A friend of a friend offered
to drive us for considerably less money, and less than an hour after
our decision to leave had been made, we were on the road. It was more
than 44 degrees Celsius; five of us and our luggage were packed into
a small car that, like almost all cars in Lebanon, was without air
conditioning. The driver drove as quickly as he could, although the
road was jammed with cars and people heading for the border.
We eventually arrived, safe and sound, to a scene of chaos at the
border. Women and men were pushing, shoving, arguing and yelling.
Women with babies in strollers were using the strollers as weapons
to batter and shove anyone in their way. The desperation to leave
was only too evident.
Women and men were sent to different rooms to get their visas. A Syrian
visa for Canadians and British nationals cost $56 US, but for Americans
it cost $16 US. We had spent about $400 US and we were almost broke.
The first restaurant we found at Damascus airport was out of food,
and we had a long wait for a flight. No one seemed to know when we
could get a flight out, but seven hours later we were on our way home
via Germany.
I am very glad to be home and appreciate much more the safe society
we have here. I do feel irrationally guilty about leaving friends and
relatives in Lebanon behind, although I know that I could be of more
assistance here than there. Tala’s sister, Rona, is still waiting in
Beirut to be evacuated. My two American friends and their parents are
still in Anjar. Another Canadian girlfriend and her fiancé are unable
to leave, as are a family of five in the village next to Anjar who
are from Kingston.
Whatever the reason for this war, and no matter who is the instigator,
the people of Lebanon are the innocent victims. They are guilty only
of having a new and weak government that has not yet acquired the
strength to deal with Hezbollah. It is tragic that a city that was
so beautiful and that had been rebuilt with such love and dedication
should be destroyed. Israel and Hezbollah have to share the blame,
but Lebanon and her innocent civilians are the victims.
Carmen Abrajian lives on Howe Island.
GRAPHIC: Carmen Abrajian (left),her mother Janet and her brother
Mark enjoy better days with Mark’s girlfriend, Tala el-Bakri, on Howe
Island. Carmen, Mark and Tala found themselves stranded in Lebanon amid
the current warfare until they managed to get out via Damascus, Syria.
–Boundary_(ID_xgbhvKrlVTbZc4BmPDn5bQ)–

KD Avia and Armavia sign inter-line agreement
SKRIN Market & Corporate News
July 25, 2006 Tuesday 3:01 PM GMT
KD Avia (former Kaliningradavia) and Armenian Armavia Arline have
signed a two-party agreement on acknowledging transport documentation
(inter-line agreement).
According to Avia.Ru, in the framework of a Special Prorate Agreement
(SPA) the passengers of both companies may take use of new special
tariffs on the routes between Kaliningrad and Erevan. Transportation
from Kaliningrad to Armenia will be possible by flights of both
Airlines through Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi.