HE LEFT PARIS FOR SHUSHI
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
21 July 2006
The shop of souvenirs and the Internet Club side by side attracted
our attention in Shushi. The owner of the shop, as we learned later,
is an Armenian from France, named Armen. He moved to Shushi 2 years
ago. He also set up a website providing information about Shushi. We
asked why he chose Shushi. “I like Shushi,” he said. He says he has
other plans but he declined to tell about them. He only said life in
Shushi is normal, simply one needs to be patriotic and determined to
make one’s own contribution. AA
AA.
21-07-2006

TO CREATE SYNERGY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CRIMINALITY OF THE POLITICAL AREA
Margaret Yesayan
Aravot.am
21 July 06
PPA leader Stepan Demirchian thinks that this must be the aim of the
opposition powers.
Mr. Demirchian, how duo you describe political situation of Armenia
today, it is already obvious that parties from the authority and
political powers prepare for the coming elections more actively.
It’s a pre-electoral year and everyone prepares for the elections. It’s
obvious that the authority will make all efforts for reproduction. But
it isn’t workable because there is no positive improvement in the
country in these years: neither people’s life has improved nor
complaints has reduced and nor injustice. People won’t vote the
representatives of this authority though all their efforts. As regards
the opposition, it will say its word. The PPA is busy in its inter
party problems, strengthening its structures, and we prepare for the
coming session of our party in autumn.
Will you participate in the elections alone or with the bloc?
I haven’t decided yet.
There are analyzes that the current opposition can’t be in the
Parliament 2007, do you agree with this opinion?
You shouldn’t pay attention to those analyzes and
predictions. According to ”Gelap” polling the PPA has no problem
for entering the Parliament and only 7% of society won’t give votes
to the PPA.
There is an opinion that the opposition has never been so weak and
passive than it is now. How do you explain it?
I should remind that same opposition won both in presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2003, now it will also win in a fair
fight. It’s another matter that the society doesn’t believe that
something is possible to change in this country in civil way. The
overwhelming majority of the society doesn’t believe in fair
elections. The reform of “Electoral Code” is meaningless here. It’s
very amusing, every time they rig the elections and speak of “EC”
reforms. And the problem is still the same, as it was before, this
is the problem of the whole society: to prevent falsifications and
forbid reproduction of the authority in illegal way. I’m sure, we
can solve that problem.
It seems the oppositionist parties will find effective mechanisms of
collaboration. It is spoken a lot about the necessity of formation of
ideological unions, it is important, but first of all serious political
powers must create synergy against criminality of the political area.
But the authorities don’t hide that they will do their best for
reproduction.
We also must do our best to give the authority back to the people,
because reproduction of such authority will bring misfortune to
the people.
–Boundary_(ID_YZdH3pJrUl1Z9IZDRSR+BQ)–

July 21, 2006
Press Release
Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
H.E. Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate
6252 Honolulu Avenue
La Crescenta, CA 91214
Tel: (818) 248-7737
Fax: (818) 248-7745
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
ORGANIZED BY THE WESTERN PRELACY PUBLIC RELATIONS COMITTEE
BOOK PRESENTATION OF “THE INNOCENT CONVICT, BADARAK”
BY JACQUES HAGOPIAN
On the evening of Wednesday July 19, a presentation of Jacques
Hagopian’s latest book, “The Innocent Convict, Badarak”, took
place at the Armenak Der Bedrossian Hall of St. Mary’s Church in
Glendale. The event, under the auspices of His Eminence Archbishop
Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate, was organized by the Western Prelacy
Public Relations Committee. Over 200 guests were in attendance, as
well as members of the Prelacy Executive Council, representatives of
Board of Trustees, and members of various community organizations.
The evening was doubly memorable since it coincided with the poet’s
birthday.
The event began with the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, followed
by a moment of silence for the lives lost in Lebanon within the past
week. Master of Ceremonies Rev. Ardag Demirjian of St. Mary’s Church
welcomed the guests and gave a brief description of the nature of
the event.
Very Rev. Fr. Muron Aznikian, Co-Director of the Prelacy Christian
Education Department presented the book by its three parts. The book
was published by the Catholicosate of the Great See of Cilicia. His
Holiness Catholicos Aram I, wrote a letter of commendation to
Mr. Hagopian, which was used as the prologue. The book, through the
presentation of the mystery of the Holy Badarak, essentially manifests
the love of God, the sacrificial and redemptive act of the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, and the comforting role of the Holy Spirit.
During the event guests also enjoyed an artistic program led by
Mr. Hagopian reading excerpts from his book, and soloists Heghine
Harboian and Hermine Amirian, accompanied by Prof. Levon Aprahamian
on the piano.
Closing remarks were delivered by the Prelate. He mentioned how
Mr. Hagopian is a pharmacist by profession and remarked that as a
pharmacist he would relieve the physical pain of his patients with
medicine but he relieves their spiritual pain with his inspirational
poems. The Prelate then expressed his gratitude for the evening,
and commended the work of the Public Relations Committee, the
participants of the artistic program, and the insight given by Very
Rev. Fr. Aznikian.
Speaking of the book’s message regarding Christ’s mission and
sacrifice, the Prelate related it to the message of the Badarak
that takes place every Sunday and its significance in our lives. He
stated that the poet has not only expertly grasped the meaning of
the sacrament of Badarak and Christ’s sacrifice, but has in addition
become a herald for it, dedicating his writings to the topic.
Lastly, the Prelate commended Rev. Demirjian and the Prelacy Ladies
Auxiliary for the reception they had prepared.
The official portion of the program ended with the Bahbanich prayer by
the Prelate. However, there was a pleasant surprise. Being as though
it was Mr. Hagopian’s birthday, one of his previous students had made
a birthday cake for him.
The guests then enjoyed the reception while the poet signed copies
of his book.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pharmacist enjoys family, his roses, staying active
By: John Karas 07/21/2006
East Hartford Gazette, CT
July 21 2006
When Harry Egazarian, fresh from college, started working at the former
Pat’s Medical Pharmacy Downtown, Dwight Eisenhower was President,
Boeing 707s powered by new Pratt & Whitney engines were just taking
to the air and Founders Bridge had not yet opened to traffic.
Last week Egazarian looked back on a life that in many ways is
the realization of the American dream. The son of Armenian parents
who found in the United States a refuge from the horrors of ethnic
persecution and genocide, he celebrated his 50th year as a pharmacist
on June 12.
Speaking near the subjects he dotes on most these days at his Bancroft
Road home – his carefully-tended roses and his beloved grandchildren –
Egazarian reflected on a life of achievements. That includes family,
his profession and his long political career.
The secret to his lifetime of service has been following a simple
creed.
“I love people, and I love to help people,” he explains. “I can’t even
retire,” he adds with a smile. “I retired for two weeks, and then I
said to my wife, ‘Honey, I can’t stay home. One of us has got to go.'”
Now he is comfortably back behind the counter at Shaw’s pharmacy on
Main Street. Harry plans to remain there for as long as his health
allows.
“When my kids ask ‘Why do you work dad?’ I tell them ‘Because I enjoy
it,'” he said.
It’s a deep-rooted philosophy of joy for life and caring for his
fellow human beings that he owes to his parents – and especially to
his mother. As a 7-year-old, Harry’s mother witnessed her father being
executed during the massacres of 1915 in Turkey. She later lost two
siblings during a torturous march to the sea.
“She died with nightmares,” revealed Egazarian. “She blamed
herself. But she made sure her children did not grow up bitter because
of what had happened.”
An uncle who lived in Worcester, Ma. found his mother in an orphanage
in Marseille, France, and brought her to America, Egazarian said. And
when she turned 17 her family introduced her to her future husband.
“Two days later they had the wedding,” Egazarian said. “That’s how
thing were done those days. And they were married for 45 years. They
had three children. I am the youngest, and I have two sisters.”
How Harry met Marilyn, his wife, could also be a Hollywood
story. Marilyn, also a pharmacist, will celebrate her own 50 years
in the business next year.
“We both grew up in Worcester, although he hadn’t known each other,”
Egazarian said. “We met in College. We both went to the University of
Connecticut. I went in ’52, and she came by in ’53. And I knew she
was coming because my fraternity had sent out a list of incoming
freshmen. I had friends in all the public schools and I asked
around. But nobody knew of her, because she went to an all-girls
parochial school.
“And then I met her the first day on campus. We happened to bump onto
each other. Six months later I got my courage up to ask her to go
out to a basketball game with my roommate and his fiancé. We went
to the game, and I sat her down and told her ‘I’ll see you after the
game.’ She said ‘Where are you going?’ I said ‘I am the manager of
the basketball team. I have to be on the floor.’ I was the manager
with Hugh Greer.”
They were married in 1957, although their families raised many
objections. She was Irish Catholic; he Armenian Apostolic.
“But you know what?” Egazarian said. “The moment I gave her the ring,
my father adored her.”
In 1963 Harry decided to convert to Catholicism.
“It didn’t trouble me at all,” he said. “The differences are very
small.”
It helped too that Armenian cardinal at the time was Gregory Peter
Agajanian, one of the most distinguished clerics of his time, whom
Egazarian admires so much he named his oldest son after him. Egazarian
and his wife met the cardinal when he visited Boston.
“You are Armenian,” he told him, “But you are not,” he said to
her. “No, I am Irish,” she said. “What a wonderful combination,”
he responded, “because the Armenians and the Irish suffered greatly
for their faith.”
The same year Egazarian adopted his new faith, he also became
a business owner. He had already been working, since 1957, at
“Pat’s Medical Pharmacy,” which had started in the 1800s as “Noble
Drugs.” Then, in 1963, owner Pat Gulotta unexpectedly passed away and
Egazarian bought the pharmacy from his estate. Harry kept the name –
Pat’s Medical’ adding another chapter to its local reputation. Over
the years Harry’s friendly demeanor and keen interest in both his
patients’ lives and East Hartford politics made Egazarian’s pharmacy
one of the focal points of the town.
“We, of the older generation, have more of a feel for people and their
needs,” he said. “We always make it a point to talk to the patient,
as much as possible. Just throwing something out is not enough.”
Since ‘small talk’ with Harry always turned to what was happening
in town, it was only natural for the popular pharmacist to become
involved in politics. As a member of the Democratic Town Committee
he was asked to serve on the Town Charter revision in 1965. In 1974,
Egazarian was chosen to replace a Council member who was retiring – a
path that lead him to serving for more than a decade as Council leader.
It was a time when politics in East Hartford became increasingly more
confrontational, something that Egazarian still resents.
“In the early stages it was Republicans and Democrats and you had your
small spats on the floor – after that you went out together and you had
some camaraderie. And it was an off-the-cuffs scene, but nonetheless
we were human to one another. [Unfortunately, later] It got to the
point were even Democrats were antagonistic to Democrats. There were
different factions, and so on. And I think I banged the gavel a little
more often than I should.”
Despite this, even his political opponents, at the time, remember
Egazarian with respect.
“Harry was always fair in his conduct to me, and I always liked the
way he kept the order of business in his meetings,” said Republican
Donald Pitkin, today Minority Leader of Council.
Still, things did change in town, and Egazarian was voted off after
15 years on the Council.
“If you ask me ‘was it too long?’ Yeah, it was too long,” he said. “But
I became a Councilman, and I served not with the idea that it will
be good for business – because that’s a mistake. That’s wrong. I went
because I felt that I wanted to give back to the community.”
Over all these years the businesses environment was changing, too.
“Things began to get more and more difficult for independent
pharmacies,” he explained. “Until, in 1999, I decided to sell my
store to the Arrow chain.”
For anyone else, that would have been a blessing: stay at home and
enjoy his retirement, and maybe a hobby – and Egazarian is an avid
gardener with some of the most beautiful flower patches in town,
which he devotes to his grandchildren.
“There is Grace’s rose garden,” he said as he walked among the blooming
flowers. “That’s Chelsea’s garden. Over there is Sara’s lily patch. And
this is Ryan’s tulip patch.”
And there is no doubt that he adores his four grandchildren – he and
his wife stopped spending the summer in Maine, where they have a home
on the ocean, because they wanted to stay with them.
“I saw some changes and I said ‘Marilyn, we don’t want to miss that. I
want to grow old with the children,” he said.
But his calling proved even more powerful. A few weeks after he
retired, Egazarian took a new position at the pharmacy department
of Shaw’s supermarket. He started in New Britain, at first, and a
few months later transferred to the new Shaw’s supermarket in Putnam
Plaza. He wanted to be near his old customers, some of whom he knows
for almost half a century, he said.
“I have three customers who are over 100 years old,” he said,
“which means they were in their early 50s when I came here. They
were my customers back then, and I kind of feel I had a small part
in helping them reach this time of their life.”
And he certainly did not want to miss what is happening in his town.
“I loved East Hartford, all these years,” he said. “It’s a wonderful
town. I really enjoyed my life here. My kids wanted me to move to a
live-in. I said I can’t.”
–Boundary_(ID_Xc+D80VqEqQ6LpCp4fb5X w)–

Modernity and Twentieth Century Holocausts: Empire-Building and Mass Murder
James Petras, Axis of Logic
uruknet.info, Italy
July 21 2006
July 21, 2006
Holocausts involve large-scale, systematic state-sponsored
extermination of large number of civilian non-combatants over an
extended time period based on their ethnic, racial, class or religious
identity. All the holocausts of the Twentieth and Twenty-first
centuries were preceded by state or civil society violence against
the victimized peoples. In general, prior to the execution of the
holocausts, important sectors of the state and civil society opposed
violence directed against the victimized population. However once the
perpetrators of the holocausts gained state power they were able to
neutralize, silence, repress or co-opt previous oppositionists.
A number of theorists have attempted to explain holocaust(s) by
focusing exclusively on a single case – Nazi Germany’s extermination of
large sectors of the Jewish communities in Western, Central and Eastern
Europe. Methodologically this focus on a single case involving only
European Jews fails the empirical test: it cannot explain previous,
contemporary and subsequent holocausts affecting other European,
Asian and Latin America victims.
The claims by mainly, but not exclusively, Jewish scholars of the
“uniqueness” of the Jewish-Nazi victims flies in the face of vast
historical data and in fact serves as a justification for continued
large-scale monetary compensation (1) and for the exercise of colonial
expansion in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East, using the same
techniques as were practiced by their Nazi oppressors (practices of
collective guilt, racially based legislation, legalized mass torture,
and ethnic cleansing).
Critique of the ‘Uniqueness’ of Nazi-Jewish Holocaust
Modern holocausts did not begin in the 20th century, nineteenth century
English, US and Belgian genocidal practices in India, the US West and
the Congo attest to its pre-modern roots (2). While there are important
differences between nineteenth century and twentieth and twenty-first
century holocausts, they have one common underlying driving force –
they are all linked to empire building or a response to challenges
to empire.
The claims of the “uniqueness” of the “Jewish-Nazi holocaust (JNH) rest
on several dubious arguments, which can be quickly and easily disposed.
Proponents of the JNH argue in terms of quantity of killings:
6 million Jews (3). Yet during the exact same period the Nazis and
their allies systematically slaughtered 20 million Soviet civilians –
the majority Russians (4). Likewise upward of 10 million Chinese were
killed by the Japanese between 1937-1942 (5). In both Indo-China (6)
and Korea (7), civilian deaths numbered close to 3-4 million each
during US massive bombing and occupation. The argument for superior
victimhood and thus the “uniqueness” of the “Jewish Holocaust” based
on the number of victims has no validity.
The second claim for the thesis of the uniqueness of the JNH is
the role of the state in systematically exterminating its Jewish
victims. This argument also lacks historical validity. The Young
Turks in the declining years of the Ottoman empire, developed
a systematic extermination policy leading to the genocide of the
Armenian people 1915-1917, and over 1.5 million deaths (8). Likewise
under US “counter-insurgency” policy of carpet bombings (Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia) over 4 million civilians were killed. US-directed
scorched earth policies in Central America during the 1980’s led to the
systematic killing of over 200,000 Mayan Indians and the destruction
of over 250 village communities (9). Likewise the US scientifically
planned embargo against Iraq (1991-2003) and the ongoing invasion and
occupation (March 2003 to present) led to over 500,000 infant deaths
(1991-2002) and over 200,000 civilian killings since the US invasion
(10).
Other claimants for JNH uniqueness cite the racialist-exterminationist
ideology – forgetting the deeply embedded racial basis of Japanese
genocidal policies versus the Chinese, the Central American puppet
regimes virulent racist anti-Mayan extermination campaigns to cite
only two graphic examples.
Some Jewish historians, such as Goldhagen, borrowing Nazi
historiographic methods claim the ‘uniqueness’ thesis on the basis
of the culpability of the entire German people and their history
(11). This propaganda rant by a tenured Harvard professor overlooks
the fact that the Nazi’s only secured 37.3% of the German vote in
July 1932 and fell to about one-third of the electorate in November
1932 before assuming power (12). Goldhagen overlooks the fact that
more than one-third of Germans (especially workers) voted for the
Socialist-Communist candidates who were fiercely anti-Nazi and
supportive of Jewish rights (13). Historically the argument is
even weaker – the overt anti-Semitic movements, opinion leaders
and politicians were marginal to German political life before the
late 1920’s. And, of course, it ignores the German ‘high culture’
based on the enlightenment, which included many Jews and contributed
to a grand cultural heritage in music, sciences, literature and
philosophy. Finally the notion of collective guilt of entire civil
society refuses to recognize that the Nazis’ first major political
round-up involved tens of thousands of Germans – mostly Communists,
trade unionists and militant anti-fascists who were exterminated in the
first concentration camps including Buchenwald and Baden-Baden. The
post-facto argument that there was little overt German resistance
once the totalitarian terrorist regime had consolidated power, had
little to do with German ‘acquiescence’ with anti-Semitism and more
to do with the effectiveness of state repression.
In any case, assuming that perhaps nearly 50% of German civil
society acquiesced or even supported (the more dubious assumption)
state genocide, this was not unique to the JNH; the same proportion
supported the extermination of three times as many Slavs (described
by Nazi racial hygiene ‘scientists’ as beastlike sub-‘Untermenschen’
destined to be worked to death). Substantial sectors of Turkish and
Kurdish civil society participated in the killing and plundering
of Armenians. US civil society in its majority re-elected Reagan
following his public support for the Guatemalan dictator Rios Mont –
who exterminated Mayan people. The overwhelming majority of Israeli
‘civil’ society finances and serves in the military colonization and
dispossession of 4 million Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian
Holocaust (14). Japanese civil society by and large endorsed the
Nanking massacre and its aftermath.
The argument about the unique bonds between the Nazi state and civil
society and the extermination of Jews is untenable once we look
beyond the blinkered eyes of biased historiography. The evidence is
so overwhelming and obvious that one needs to explore the “sociology
of knowledge” of the advocates of Jewish holocaust uniqueness: What
political and economic ends does it serve in terms of contemporary
Israeli power enhancement? The use and abuse of history, particularly
in the case of the uniqueness of the NJH, has highly prejudicial
consequences especially in the perpetration of the Palestinian
Holocaust. Manipulation of holocaust victimhood has contributed to
disproportional influence by pro-Israeli lobbies in securing US and EU
funding of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The use of ethno-racial
explanations of holocausts, including notions of “collective guilt”
can spill over into forms of “collective punishment” of families,
communities and peoples who have nothing to do with alleged offenses
to unique victims turned regional powers. This is particularly evident
in the thinking of many of contemporary Israeli and Jewish terror
experts professing to be knowledgeable about “the Arab Mind”.
Critique of Psycho-Cultural Explanations
Explanations of holocausts which focus on “irrational mass behavior”
or more generally on “mass psychology” overlook the central importance
of elite manipulation, anchored in the state, the economy and civil
society. In none of the holocausts in the 20th and 21st centuries
were the “masses” in a position to initiate, organize and direct
holocausts, though, certainly, sectors of the lower class carried out
the policies, and in some cases benefited directly from the spoils of
the killing fields. Holocausts in the first instance are state-centered
activities, which exploit one of a myriad of contradictory attitudes
among the general population (prejudice against the targeted group),
and instrumentalize it to create cohesion around elite expansionist
or more precisely imperialist policies.
The ruling classes which support state-sponsored holocausts do so,
not so much because of irrational ethnic or class hatred, but because
the holocaust provides the state a legitimating ideology for their
uncontested dominance and a basis for undisputed economic exploitation
in domestic and overseas markets. The cultural and psychological
determinants of ‘holocausts’ are, in fact, based on the larger
geo-political and economic imperial interests of the state. There
is no ‘single’ cultural or psychological attribute embedded in any
holocaust-inducing society. There are many competing and parallel
cultures and diverse psychologies. Under the imperatives of the
imperial state expansion, aided and abetted by state-influenced
religious institutions, political parties and the mass media, the
largely (but not exclusively) manipulated masses of the population
take an active role in mass murder.
To point to cultural and psychological explanations of holocausts is to
distract from the central role of imperial politics and the state. To
focus exclusively on ideology is to overlook the social structural
framework in which ‘genocidal’ ideology functions, is nurtured,
financed and sustained. Take away the key political and economic
foundations, the imperatives of imperial conquest and the need for
internal cohesion, and projected holocausts fail to materialize. On
the other hand, continuous imperial structures lead to the recurrence
of holocausts, as is witnessed by four major 20th and 21st century
holocausts involving US imperialism: the killing of 4 million Koreans
(1950-53); 4 million Indo-Chinese (1960-1975), 300,000 Mayans of
Guatemala (1980-83), and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (1991-2002)
and (2003-present).
Holocaust elites, in pursuit of imperial conquest create stakeholders
among specific social classes who directly benefit. Turkish and
Kurdish landholders and peasants seized Armenian property. German
doctors took over their murdered Jewish colleagues’ practices and
university posts. Japanese business elites took over Manchurian mining
companies. The US military pillaged priceless antiquities and the
wealth from conquered Asia. Pillage and large-scale dispossession
of victims creates vertical links between the imperial elite and its
lowest echelons creating the transient reality of an imperial people
engaged in collective genocide.
Holocausts are organized through the perpetrators’ recruitment of
collaborators from among the targeted victims. The Germans formed
“Jewish police (kapos)” and “councils” to prepare for the Jewish
holocaust and Ukrainians and White Russian soldiers for the Russian
holocaust. Japan formed “puppet regimes” while it killed tens of
millions of Chinese. The US puppet rulers, Sygman Rhee in Korea and
Diem in Vietnam served as political facades while B52 bombers destroyed
their countries with millions of tons of explosives, napalm and poisons
like Agent Orange – killing and maiming millions. Holocausts are in
some cases joint ventures between imperial elites and sectors of the
upper classes that feel threatened by the victimized people. Hence in
Guatemala, the US and Israeli specialists in mass murder joined with
the White European-descended Guatemalan elites to massacre entire
Indian populations, seizing and redistributing their lands as part
of the holocaust process.
In summary, holocausts have deep structural roots; they are
multi-layered and rooted in a multiplicity of collaborators, and
low-level beneficiaries. They are top-down processes rather than
society-wide events, in which the state plays a dominant role in
order to secure internal cohesion for external expansion.
Alternative Explanations of Holocaust
Explanations of holocausts based on notions of “cultural collective
guilt” and “psycho-social” phenomena are empirically unsubstantiated
or at best largely derivative and partial explanations. Their greatest
weakness is the lack of an understanding of the structural dynamics
of imperialism.
What is common to all 20th and 21st century holocausts is their
deep and intimate relation to imperialism, whether in the form
of outward conquest or in terms of creating “internal cohesion”
to embark on empire-building. While not all holocausts are a result
of imperialism (some result from ‘internal’ capital accumulations –
Stalin’s forced collectivization – 1929-34), all imperialisms have
resulted in holocausts, from the 19th century to the present.
Holocaust, Cohesion and Imperialism
The JNH is an example of the ruling elite victimizing a minority
population to create cross class cohesion, diverting the masses from
internal labor-capital conflicts and the real or potential costs of the
imperialist policies. Instead of focusing on capitalist exploitation,
the ruling elite directed worker and middle class discontent to Jewish
bankers and capitalists.
This propaganda was especially effective in professions like medicine
and retail trade in which competition for positions and market shares
between Jews and non-Jews was especially intense. The passing from
intensified exclusion and ethnic discrimination to the practice of
genocide coincided with the massive military, economic and political
expansion and conquest of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. As the
costs of empire-building increased, so did the need to distract the
population by perpetuating mass murder. Parallel to the JNH, the
imperial conquest of great swaths of Eastern Europe and especially
Russia led to an even greater holocaust, the killing of 30 million
Slavs and the enslavement of many millions more to the imperial
-capital war machine.
Holocaust accompanied Japanese imperialist conquests and colonial rule
in China from the late 1930’s to 1945. The large-scale systematic
murder of millions of Chinese peasants, shopkeepers, workers,
teachers, in fact all but the highest elite collaborator classes,
was an extreme form of colonial dispossession of property and life
to fuel empire-building and to subsidize and retain loyalty among
the Japanese masses at home (15).
Holocausts occurred as a result of mass revolutionary challenges
to unpopular puppet rulers, undermining pretensions of invincible
imperial dominance. The US military intervention and occupation of
Korea and Indo-China to prop up failed regimes led to the killing of
eight million civilian victims, the total destruction of wide areas
of the economy through genocidal carpet-bombing and chemical warfare
leaving the industrial sectors in rubble, decimating farmland and
causing long-term genetic damage to subsequent generations. The scale
and scope of the imperial killing fields however failed to defeat
the popular national liberation armies. Internal cohesion especially
during the US-Korean holocaust was accompanied by a deep political
purge of US dissidents in civil society and public employment. However
the high human costs in terms of US imperial soldiers lost and the
spiraling financial expenditures (if not the holocaust itself) forced
the imperial rulers to sign an armistice (16)
The greater the size, effectiveness and popularity of national
liberation movements, the bigger the threat to an imperial puppet
rulers, the more likely that imperial powers will resort to mass
systematic killings and total warfare. As imperial policy-makers
develop integrated strategic views, in which the entire empire is seen
as dependent on the security of each puppet ruler in each nation,
the more likely they pursue the strategy of ‘total war’ in which
the lines between civilians and combatants, private and public,
life-sustaining economies and war industries are obliterated (17).
Empires are built around networks, of supply chains, raw material
and labor exploitation, military outposts, puppet rulers. They are
sustained by the imperial armies and their domestic supporters on
the basis of the superiority complex of the ‘dominant people’ over
their colonial subjects. Imperial holocausts are a result of threats
to these ‘global networks’ and not always directly related to any
immediate economic gain in a particular site of execution. That is why
holocausts cannot be explained by a simple cost-benefit analysis of
economic gains and losses. For example, all imperial powers engage
in what they describe as exemplary mass killings of civilians to
induce surrender, submission, dispossession and obedience to imperial
rule. The US massive military assault on Iraqi cities was appropriately
called “shock and awe”. The Nazis pursued “scorched earth” policies
in Russia. The US-backed client ruler Rios Mont obliterated hundreds
of Mayan Indian villages in Guatemala Israeli exemplary killings
of Palestinians succeeded in driving millions from the lands to be
occupied and exploited (18).
When imperial powers engage in the horrors of holocausts, they
justify their crimes in the name of a ‘sacred cause’ based on the
‘highest and most noble historical mission’. Otherwise the repugnancy
of their acts might cast some doubts within the imperial armies. The
JNH was seen as ‘liberating’ the German people from the tentacles
of a ‘Jewish conspiracy’; the conquest of Russia and its holocaust
was seen as ‘creating living space for the German free spirit’. The
US holocaust in Asia was presented as ‘freeing the people from the
yoke of totalitarianism’. The Israeli holocaust of Palestinians was
and is described as ‘delivering the Jewish people to their Promised
Land’. All imperial holocausts are described and justified in the
name of a phony ‘national liberation’ in which the imperial rulers
assume their mantle of ‘chosen people’, by God, History or Genetics.
Holocausts result from the disintegration of empires. They are
instruments of “national reconstruction” intent on providing “new
blood” to sweep away decadent rulers and “privileged” minorities. The
Turkish genocide (1915-1917) of the Armenians, authored by the ‘Young
Turks’ is a prime example of “national revitalization” of a decaying
empire via holocaust of suspected “separatists”. Likewise the JNH
was in part a result of the defeat and dismemberment of the German
Empire and the Nazi attempt to blame internal (‘Jewish’) betrayals.
In summary imperialism is based on domestic consensus and social
cohesion in order to mobilize the entire nation for external wars and
conquest, especially where there are sharp class cleavages. A war or
‘holocaust’ against internal ethnic minorities serves to displace
discontent from class struggles to ethnic and imperial wars. Holocausts
are always infused with an ideology of ‘moral regeneration’ and the
mass slaughter of subject peoples serves to heighten the sense of
‘moral people’ punishing ‘degenerate’ or inferior people. Mythologies
of exclusive claims based on ‘folk’ religions or ‘historic imperative’
are instrumentalized in the service of modern empire building.
Why Imperialism Leads to Holocausts
By its nature imperialism involves dispossession and acquisition
of economic resources, labor, political and economic dominance
and/or territory (19). Empire-building is a process which entails
mass killings as well as ‘diplomacy’ to secure international and
elite acquiescence. Internal holocausts can be seen as a kind of
‘primitive accumulation of capital’ seizing the economic resources of
a victimized minority and their transfer to the elites which direct
imperial conquests. In the case of overseas imperial holocausts,
the seizure of assets, territories and the pillage of agricultural,
mineral and industrial goods leads to general impoverishment, refugees,
a massive ‘surplus labor force’ and potential enemies. The holocaust
decisions are aimed at reducing the surplus population created by
economic requisitions and pillage by physically annihilating real
and potential guerrilla recruits among the uprooted.
In this context imperialism faces a major contradiction. On the one
hand it engages in a holocaust in order to dispossess millions,
on the other it needs to exploit labor to provide the sepoys who
service and labor to sustain the imperial occupation armies. This
contradiction is resolved by exploiting conquered peoples as slaves,
or cheap labor and killing the non-working ‘excess’ population. In
most cases the ‘holocaust’ is a parallel process of mass extermination
and forced labor. In cases where holocaust activity has depleted
local labor or where mass resistance has emerged, it is common for
the imperial-colonial power to import labor, forcibly or otherwise,
from other conquered low-wage regions.
Holocausts as Case Studies in Modernization and Empire-Building
>>From the very first holocaust of the 20th century (The Turkish
Armenian Genocide) the process of mass killing was seen as part of
the modernization and unification of a nation based on state-centered
violence. The subsequent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of all minorities of
the former Ottoman empire followed a secular republican logic in
which the military assumed the role of defender of the ‘modernist’
ethos against ‘imagined’ enemies clothed in minority guises (20).
The foundation myth and justification for the State of Israel was the
claim that Palestine was a “land without people” and the Jews were a
“people without land” – a myth which became a self-fulfilling prophesy
(and self-serving justification) as Israeli Jews proceeded to forcibly
eject millions of Palestinian Arabs from the occupied lands (21).
The Israeli-Palestinian holocaust continues to be justified by the
existence of a modern democratic, albeit exclusivist, Jewish state,
with exceptional links to a worldwide network of exceptionally wealthy,
financially successful modern elites (22). The interaction of Holocaust
behavior and modernity embedded in dense global networks has powerful
resonance among imperial elites bent on reconstructing Mid-Eastern
empires, especially among civilian militarists in the US.
The JNH was another manifestation of dynamic industrial modernity
harnessed to imperial conquest: the superior German technology
and advanced scientific achievements were based on the internal
cohesion fostered by anti-Semitism internally and anti-Slavism
externally. The result was a ‘double holocaust’: Jewish and
Russian-Slav extermination campaigns. A basic precondition for the
entire Nazi expansionist-holocaust dynamic was the historic and
irreversible destruction of the Left and all its mass organizations.
Late imperialists¸ like Germany, Japan and the US, all exhibit the
same historic tendencies toward genocidal wars and holocaust-scale
extermination campaigns of conquest. With the exception of Japan –
an ethnically homogenous society – late imperialist states engaged
in large-scale genocidal extermination campaigns against diverse
internal minorities (Indians, Afro-Americans in the US, Jews in
Germany) creating the domestic cohesion and racialist superiority
complex necessary for imperialist conquests and holocausts (Germany
versus the Slavs, the US versus Asians and Central American Indians).
The Japanese-Chinese holocaust (JCH) reached its pinnacle in the
infamous ‘Rape of Nanking’ when over 300,000 Chinese were raped
and slaughtered in a matter of days in 1938, immediately preceded
and followed by state-planned, systematic extermination of over 7
million Chinese civilians of all ages and classes. Lacking a powerful
holocaust lobby in the West, and given the Cold War realignment of the
West and Japan against the People’s Republic of China, no monuments,
foundations, billion dollar compensation have commemorated the JCH,
despite the fact that far more Chinese civilians were murdered than
Jews. No doubt the self-serving claims of Jewish publicists of the
‘uniqueness’ of the JNH has contributed to collective amnesia.
The ascendancy of the US to the position of dominant imperialist
power was directly related to tri-continental Holocausts, or multiple
holocausts, in Asia, the US-Korean (1950-53) and the US-Indochinese
(1961-1975); in Africa the proxy holocausts in Southern Africa (Angola,
Mozambique, Congo (Zaire) (1961-1990’s); Central America (1979-1990)
and the Middle East (Iraq 1991-2006) (23). For methodological
reasons we have excluded the state-directed extermination via the
atomic bombing of Japanese cities (Hiroshima/Nagasaki) and the US
directed proxy extermination campaign in Indonesia in 1966 resulting
in the killing of over 1 million unarmed suspected trade unionists
and communist party members or affiliates and family members. The
death count resulting from the extermination campaign of ‘late US
imperialism’ are comparable to the Japanese and German predecessors:
four million each in Indo-China and Korea, uncounted millions in the
holocaust of Southern Africa, over 300,000 in the proxy holocausts of
Central America (200,000 Mayans in Guatemala, 75,000 in El Salvador,
50,000 in Nicaragua and 10,000 each in Honduras and Panama, (the
latter inflicted by a direct military invasion) and Iraq – over
700,000 and growing.
The total war strategies employed by US imperialism leads directly
to holocaust-scale killing fields because the distinction between
civilian and military targets are obliterated. Particularly because
the resistance to US Empire is built on deeply held and widely based
beliefs, imperialist conquest deliberately seeks to decimate the huge
reservoir of resistance supporters, recruits and suppliers of food
and intelligence.
One explanation for the multiplication of holocausts under
‘late imperialism’ is that it takes place in a historic context
more resistant to a revival of colonial-imperial domination. More
specifically, nations resulting from mass anti-colonial movements
which earlier swept aside European and Japanese imperialism are better
prepared socially, politically and militarily to resist the new
US imperialist encroachments. The high levels of anti-imperialist
and nationalist ideology and culture embedded in post-colonial
nations from the mid 20th century onward are in sharp contrast to
the feudal-mercantile societies conquered by European imperialist
powers in the late 19th and early 20th century. To dispossess and
disarticulate highly mobilized nationalist and/or socialist societies
requires greater and wider use of holocaust methods.
Murdering or exiling a few thousand leaders is no longer
sufficient. Whole populations must be made ‘examples’, or as the
Israeli genocide mongers argue in the case of the Palestinians after
they democratically elected the Hamas government, ‘they must assume
the costs’, namely daily military assaults and killing of civilians
and a systematic blockade of food and medicine, resulting in widespread
malnutrition (24).
Technological advances in the machinery of mass extermination do
not determine the frequency or occurrences of holocausts, but they
certainly expedite the proceedings. Labor-intensive holocausts – like
the JCH in Nanking – can be just as deadly as the capital-intensive
high-tech gas chambers of Nazi Germany or the US carpet bombing of
cities in Korea, Indochina and Iraq. Nevertheless it is certain that
high technology accelerates the process of extermination and lessens
the possibility that human frailty (like pity or bad conscience)
will weaken the drive toward execution. Holocausts provide incentives
for testing, experimenting and applying, in real time situations,
new extermination processes. For example, the US has experimented
with battle-field nuclear weapons in the form of depleted uranium
during the two Gulf Wars and in the Balkans.
The Israeli-Palestinian Holocaust (IPH) has all the substantive
features of previously mentioned holocausts: long-term, large-scale use
of state terror; dispossession of over 4 million Palestinians; forcing
over 3 millions Palestinians in ghettos; racial ethnic segregation
and separation in all spheres of justice, property ownership,
transportation and geographical movement; citizen rights based on
‘blood ties’ (maternal lineage); legalized and quasi-legalized torture
and systematic use of collective punishment; a highly militarized
society given to perpetual military assaults on neighboring Palestinian
communities and other Arab states; unilateral extra-territorial,
extra-judicial assassinations; chronic and systematic rejection of
international law; an ideology of permanent warfare and international
paranoia (‘anti-Semitism’ is everywhere’) and an ideology of ethnic
superiority (the ‘Chosen People’) (25).
Both in the practice of mass state terror and in its legal-ideological
justifications of assassinations of oppositionists, mass dispossession,
and claims of Israel Laws’ superiority over international norms,
the Israeli state possesses all the qualifications that exemplify a
holocaust perpetrator. The Palestinian ghetto, the concentration camps
for thousands of suspected ‘militants’, the destruction of the economic
base of everyday life, the forced massive evictions, systematic ethnic
cleansing – all conform to the pattern of past and present holocausts.
The US/Iraqi Holocaust (UIH), an ongoing process spanning the last 16
years (1990-2006) provides us with a striking example of state-planned
systematic extermination, torture and physical destruction designed
to de-modernize a secular developing society and revert it into a
series of warring clan-tribal-clerical-ethnic based entities devoid
of any national authority or viable economy.
The scale and scope of the US extermination policies in Iraq certainly
warrant its classification as a Holocaust: 500,000 children died
as a result of a murderous economic blockade during the Clinton
Administration (1992-2000) and over 250,000 have died between 2003 to
the present 2006 (26). The US holocaust policy was openly endorsed
by the senior architect of the policy, Secretary of State Madeline
Albright, who, when confronted by the scale and scope of the infant
deaths during the devastating economic blockade (1991-2992), declared,
“It was worth it”. The indiscriminant bombing of civilian targets
in both the first and especially second Gulf War -led to the total
destruction of all civilian infrastructure. The widespread systematic
use of depleted uranium coated shells has deadly consequences for
millions in the future. The systematic use of torture and mass murder
of hundreds of thousands of civilians has been fully documented and
is justified by senior officials in the Bush regime and the majority
of both parties in the Congress (27).
In its essentials nothing separates the US extermination campaign
from earlier Holocausts, except that the whole world views it
while it is happening. The UIH is a living Holocaust: taking place
before the eyes and ears of billions of spectators. While worldwide
repugnance to each revelation of particulars is common, so is the
‘passive acceptance’. Holocaust activity is made routine: death squad
mass murder fomented by imperial overseers…is reduced to a daily
death toll – immunizing the world community from the horror of a
living Holocaust.
Holocausts: Their Aftermaths and Dubious Legacies
With the exception of the JNH (Jewish-Nazi Holocaust) and possibly the
JCH (Japanese-Chinese Holocaust), none of the rest of the perpetrators
has faced international criminal proceedings. The different treatment
and general impunity is a direct result of military outcomes and
political power. The Nazi and Japanese holocaust regimes were defeated;
the US, Turkey and Israel were not militarily defeated, or at least
not to the point where an international court system could bring them
to trial. Even in the case of the Nazis, apart from a few top leaders
of the Nazi regime, almost all middle rank and below were eventually
exonerated; many later pursued successful careers in business and
politics. Not a few Nazi scientists and other professionals were
actually recruited by the US and West German governments in a variety
of strategic positions. In the case of Japan, a similar process of
prosecution and then restoration of holocaust executives to positions
of power took place, especially after the US and its allies launched
the global counter-revolutionary policies, embodied in the ‘Cold
War’, a total misnomer given the US military attacks on Korea and
Indochina. In fact Japanese holocaust perpetrators played a major
role in support of two post-World War II US holocausts in Korea and
Indochina by offering military bases, supplies and logistical support.
Several highly publicized unofficial tribunals have taken place,
specifically the Bertrand Russell Tribunal over the US-Indochinese
Holocaust. However their significance was symbolic as they lacked any
mechanism for enforcing their guilty verdicts. None of these Tribunals
received favorable treatment in the mass media or even the slightest
admission of remorse or guilt from any of the perpetrating regimes,
even after a change in the party in power. In other words, there is
a continuing systematic consensus among the perpetrators that their
actions are justified, making a shambles of any notion of the ‘rule
of law’.
In fact the United Nations is complicit: it was actively engaged
in the US-Korean Holocaust, is incapable of intervening in the
Israeli-Palestinian Holocaust and provides an institutional cover
to the US-Iraq Holocaust. If the international judicial system has
failed to bring to justice all but top Nazi holocausters, the record
at the level of national relations is also appalling. The Japanese
Koizumi Regime continues to pay homage to past war criminals (yearly
trips by top officials to the Yoshikuni Shrine) and Japanese textbooks
white wash war crimes. This holocaust nostalgia continues to poison
bilateral relations with China, if only at the symbolic-diplomatic
level since Chinese-Japanese economic relations continue to flourish.
Likewise, with the exception of France, no other Western country has
officially condemned the Turkish-Armenian massacre or the Turkish
denial of any responsibility for genocide. Israel, many of whose
people were victims of the Nazi Holocaust, denies the Turkish-Armenian
genocide and excludes any Armenian scholarly representations of
their genocide at the lavishly funded Holocaust forums, conferences,
publications or museums. This is especially galling since Jerusalem was
once the home for many thousands of Armenian genocide survivors. In
fact, Israel has a special strategic military pact with the Turkish
genocide deniers. The same is true with regard to the United States
support of Turkish deniers, where despite strong pressure from the
Armenian-American community and even substantial Congressional backing,
the Executive has blocked any official condemnation of the genocide.
With regard to US holocausts in Asia, Washington followed up
by imposing a murderous economic blockade particularly on North
Korea and Indochina, leading to ‘forced self-reliance’ and in the
case of Cambodia, spurring the Khmer Rouge regime to engage in an
irrational and deadly forced exodus from the urban centers, a case of
a ‘joint-holocaust’ – Washington/Khmer Rouge. With the conversion of
the Indochinese elites to capitalism and in the face of international
impunity for US war crimes, US-Vietnamese reconciliation without
justice became the norm. Ironically free-market policies have led to
new imperial exploitation of cheap labor via the market instead of
through military invasions.
With regard to the US-Central American holocaust, there has
been no effort at international criminal proceedings. At most,
former President Clinton expressed a ‘pro-forma’ apology for US
‘support’ of its local murderous puppet regime in Guatemala. The
incumbent regimes, themselves US clients, are direct descendents and
beneficiaries of the US-Central American holocausts. Having destroyed
the fabric of society and undermined the local economy via war and
free trade, having demobilized the guerrilla armies, Central America
is a region of deracinated peasants, refugees turned international
migrants and criminal gangs, ruled by kleptocratic politicians and
business oligarchs. Central American survivors and relatives of the
US holocaust victims finding no future in their devastated homeland,
dispossessed of land and employment, flee to North America. In 2006
they face highly repressive anti-immigrant legislation, massive
criminalization, dispossession, imprisonment and
–Boundary_(ID_ZAbRZD6WWmPVkeUM88ZvwQ)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

President Aliyev meets Moldovan leader ahead of CIS summit
Today, Azerbaijan
July 21 2006
22 July 2006 [02:49] – Today.Az
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visiting Moscow to attend an
informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
leaders met with his Moldovan counterpart Vladimir Voronin on Friday.
The two exchanged views on political and economic issues as well as
international cooperation.
Later in the day, President Aliyev attended a dinner party for the
CIS heads of state.
The summit is due to begin on Saturday, to be attended by about 10
leaders. The presidents of Turkmenistan, Armenia and Georgia will
not join the event. The Ukrainian leader will not visit the Russian
capital either over tense political situation in his country.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh is one of the
issues high on agenda that is expected to be in focus of President
Aliyev’s bilateral meetings in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make a statement on
the outcomes of the summit upon its conclusion. Following the talks,
the heads of state are expected to attend the annual horse race for
a Russian presidential prize.
An informal forum of this kind was held for the first time in Russia
July 2-3, 2004 and attended by all leaders from the former Soviet
republics except Turkmenistan and Belarus.
/
URL:

The Nation, Kenya
July 21, 2006
Anger at Armenians not racist, says Kituyi
Story by LUCAS BARASA and MUGUMO MUNENE
Publication Date: 07/22/2006
The public anger directed at the Artur brothers is not tied to racism,
Trade minister Mukhisa Kituyi said yesterday.
Dr Kituyi said that the mob response experienced by the brothers on
the streets of Nairobi in March and at JKIA on June 8 did not amount
to racial attacks.
Conversely, Dr Kituyi said, the brothers had thrown racial epithets
at Kenyans on the day they caused a commotion at JKIA calling them
“niggers and monkeys.”
The minister was answering questions before the Kiruki commission
in response to questions by Dr Gibson Kamau Kuria when he testified
yesterday.
Dr Kuria, who represents Ms Winnie Wangui, had suggested through his
questions, that the public wanted to attack the Arturs on the two
occasions because they were White.
And in answer to Ms Jane Ondieki for CID chief Joseph Kamau, Dr Kituyi
said his wife was also a White, that Nairobi was multi-racial, and
that he could not allow Kenyans to be insulted in their own country.
Excerpts:
Kuria: Dr Kituyi, I want to ask you some questions in respect to your
capacities as a scholar and as a minister. Where did you understand
the gun incident was involved?
Kituyi: My understanding was that there had been some fracas around
the desk of the customs officers, which is between the exit and the
conveyor belt of the baggage.
Kuria: I think everyone would share your anger and accept the issue
ought to have been handled the way you suggested, according to the
situation, as had been communicated to you. The evidence presented to
the commission was that there was no incident involving a gun inside
the baggage hall. That is the first thing that has been confirmed
by everybody.
Oduor: Sorry, honourable commissioners. I don’t want to interfere with
Dr Kamau Kuria, but I think that issue has not been confirmed. Some
witnesses say the incident happened inside the baggage hall, while
others say outside the baggage hall. So it is misleading to tell the
witness that it has been confirmed there was no incident inside the
baggage hall. We have two sides of the story.
Kuria: We can consult the records. Even Mr Nambale himself and Mr
Ochieng’ said they saw guns drawn outside the baggage hall. There’s no
issue as far as the evidence is concerned. I just wanted to (question)
the minister, according to the controversies that some guns might
have been drawn outside the baggage hall. The other evidence is
that there was one gun involved at the car park. These are the three
positions. Now, would your reaction have been the same if you had to
know that in fact there was no gun drawn on any public official in
the baggage hall?
Kituyi: Okay, two things. I did not consider – when this account was
given to me – it important to know at what exact point a gun might
have been drawn. My anger was not even founded on the issue of the
gun. My anger was first and foremost founded on action of impunity
against officers of law and order. That any person whether armed with
a gun or not and worse, a foreigner, and even worse, using racist
epithets against African Kenyan officers of the State, is sufficient
to stir anger in me as an officer of the Republic. I don’t think even
if there would have been no mention of the gun, I would have been
happy with what was happening. Just the fact that some foreigners
could come at the airport, rough their way around, and call Africans
monkeys and niggers, was sufficient to arouse anger in me. I have not
pretended that I can give a specific statement about guns where they
were located. I was just told guns were involved. I don’t think I even
asked whether it was inside the cargo bay or outside. My assumption was
that it was in the cargo bay area where I was told the drama unfolded.
Kuria: Your anger was that, yet what appears to be another wrong-doing
on the part of these people had occurred, but no action was being
taken against them. I think that was your position.
Kituyi: Not necessarily. My position is like I said it, which is that
something is not being done again and these people are going on.
Kuria: When exactly did your flight arrive at the airport?
Kituyi: My flight was supposed to arrive around 8.30pm, but I think
we taxied in at about 8.45.
Kuria: So it is true all that you relied on what you were told by
your bodyguard and one other person. Who else supplied the information?
Kituyi: A security officer who I hear from the media has since been
suspended.
Kuria: Mr Kimuhu, the one who talked to Hon Michuki.
Kituyi: Yes.
Kuria: Would you be surprised to hear that according to the evidence
he gave, he saw no incident involving guns either at the baggage hall
or outside the baggage hall?
Kituyi: I would not be surprised. I said that I was told about the
incident of guns by my aide, Senior Sergeant Masinde. If he is the
one who says he never saw any guns, that is when the story becomes
different.
Kuria: Did your bodyguard tell where he was when this matter was
going on?
Kituyi: He was in the airport waiting to receive me. He was in the
baggage hall.
Kuria: Of course you are conversant with the doctrine of collective
responsibility of ministers.
Kituyi: Yes.
Kuria: And in fact, in calling upon Hon Michuki, Hon Martha Karua
and director of CID, you were acting as a government minister who
had witnessed the occasion, and had responsibility to take some action.
Kituyi: Yes, at least to inform the right minister to take some action.
Kuria: In view of the sensitivity of the matter, and in view of the
fact that you had not yourself witnessed the events, did you consider
the danger there might be of acting on wrong information and the best
thing was to leave Hon Michuki to have the investigations done?
Kituyi: What I told Joseph Kamau was that I expected him to get to
the bottom of the story and show by action that he was in-charge
of security and that this government does not condone this kind of
madness. I didn’t instruct him on what to do.
Kuria: But the two things that you kind of advised were acted on. First
the expulsion and second the arrest.
Kituyi: That one I did not say to Kamau, and I did not say to
Michuki. That was not part of my dialogue with Hon Michuki.
Kuria: You also of course recommended that they be arrested?
Kituyi: I didn’t. I only said purposeful action.
Kuria: As a minister, did you consider that it was safe to actually
give recommendations for the government to act on the basis of just
what you had received from your bodyguard and the security officer?
Kituyi: To act for me includes to investigate properly, what has
happened and to assess what is the best cause of action to prove that
we do not condone this kind of outrageous action. It does not just
mean to get these guys and jail them.
Kuria: You were actually outraged by the fact that Mr Kimuhu, with
your request to talk to Hon Michuki, has been suspended for actually
just acting responsibly as you did.
Kituyi: I’m not outraged, but I find it rather strange.
Kuria: I guess you would also be outraged or surprised to know
that officers like Senior Sergeant Tumbo, Chief Inspector Gikonyo,
Inspector Mwambia, who were off duty, were also suspended following
that incident?
Kituyi: To my mind, the relevant organs of the State have to find
what is the best modus operandi for executing their mandate. If they
consider that certain officers, even if they were not materially
present on a given day, could potentially inhibit their efforts to
get report of a story, they take appropriate action. I don’t want to
walk into territory that is slippery, which has nothing to do with me.
Kuria: Does it appear from suspension of Kimuhu that in fact there
was over-reaction in some arms or parts of the Government?
Kituyi: I have not looked at that properly, so I don’t know what
appears.
Kuria: You had no time to consider whether it was right to have
definite conclusions before investigations into the matter had
been made.
Kituyi: I cannot rush to conclusions broadly, but I have said that
racist statements, a threat to security of our premier international
airport at a time when America was saying it was encouraged by progress
being made by Kenya for graduating Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
as a source for direct flights into the US. This represented a major
setback for Kenya. It slowed down the benefits of my efforts. That
was sufficient to outrage me, but I don’t draw conclusions about
concrete actions and capability of individuals. But I think that
it is indefensible that a White person can call Africans at airport
broadly racist names. I have heard lots of that in their countries,
I don’t want that to happen in my own country.
Kuria: I think that through the political campaigns over the years,
honourable minister, you have seen nastiness from our citizens,
and of course you have never condoned that nastiness. So you will
agree that nastiness is part of human nature, whether you are Black
or White. Is it not?
Kituyi: I don’t know that nastiness, just because crime happens,
is part of human nature to be criminal.
Kuria: Let me put the question differently. I will say that crimes
are committed by people of different races. Crime is not inherent in
any particular race, isn’t it?
Kituyi: Yes, there are criminals across the racial divide.
Kuria: So whether it is criminals in my constituency, when they do
wrong, the best way is to deal with them in accordance with the law,
not their backgrounds?
Kituyi: That is correct.
Kuria: Would you agree that the media had depicted before June 8,
that these people are criminals for whose blood the Kenyans were
baying? Isn’t it?
Kituyi: You could read that that way. I thought the media broadly
portrayed these as strange fellows. Not so much as criminals.
Kuria: You are familiar with the incident in March, where they were
reported to be in Kenyatta Avenue, and members of the public were
baying for their blood? You remember that?
Kituyi: Yes.
Kuria: So you agree that racial attitudes were coming from two
sides. From these foreigners, and also from Kenyans.
Kituyi: No. If you check that picture of one of those fellows making
a phone call on his mobile phone, you will see on the background a
non-African who was not being targeted, who was not being booed by the
Kenyan Africans. I don’t think Kenyans were involved in racist attack
on people because they were Whites. I didn’t hear any media quoting
that these people had been attacked for their race. So you cannot
say that because they were being booed, there was racism against them.
Kuria: Racial behaviour was only coming from these foreigners?
Kituyi: …I have not heard of any (such) incident (from Kenyans).
Kuria: Let’s go back to our national lives. I guess honourable minister
you really have had to save some victims of violence from people
who want to beat them, either because they belong to a different
political camp.
Kituyi: I have experienced wanton politically related violence at
very personal level.
Kuria: In fact, your stance has been that every individual must be
protected by law and there must be no mob-justice.
Kituyi: Absolutely.
Kuria: In view of the negotiations that you had conducted depicting the
country clearly as one that is evolving as democratic and prosperous,
and the information presented to you, do you now realise that you might
have over-reacted after your were told what happened at the airport?
Kituyi: Over-reacted in what direction?
Kuria: In wanting action to be taken against these people who have
ruined your programme and are insulting the sovereignty of the nation.
Kituyi: I really explained that the only time I expressed opinion
on what should be done on them was on what I know is summary action
taken by government of Switzerland on matters that seemed very similar
to this. I have never thought that Switzerland was less democratic
because of expelling underworld operatives from eastern Europe.
Kuria: If now I may sum up what appears to be your view. It was
that according to our law, we have a right to decide which foreigner
is going to be in our country and we have a right to terminate the
residence of any person on our soil. That’s something that can be
done summarily and you are suggesting that we must now exercise our
rights and put an end to this indignity.
Kituyi: To my understanding, entry and residence in Kenya is not
a right, it is a privilege accorded to you by the State. It can be
withdrawn. Our citizens are paying a high fortune to be allowed to
go and see their children graduating in Britain. Even senior public
persons in this country are unilaterally declared persona non grata
in America and Britain. They don’t take you to any court before they
decide that. If the mothers of democracy exercise that right, we
babies of democracy must also exercise capacity to ensure that right.
Kuria: In fact when talking to Hon Michuki, Hon Karua and the director
of CID, you were not asking for the laws to be bent. You were just
saying let’s exercise our legal rights and solve this problem.
Kituyi: Yes.
Kuria: Therefore, if anything has been done improperly after that,
it cannot be on the basis of over-reaction or incompetence on the
part of people concerned?
Kituyi: I don’t think that anything done illegally on the basis of
my remarks that firm action be taken to prove that the Government
cannot condone this impunity would be instruction to break the law.
Ondieki: Would you be surprised that because of his action (Kimuhu’s)
of talking to you and perhaps also his minister and explaining his
position, he was suspended?
Kituyi: I cannot explain an opinion on a matter I can’t totally
understand what occasioned, because I know of officers at the airport
at the same time who never spoke to me nor to Michuki who have since
been suspended.
Ondieki: You said that at the same time you talked to the CID boss,
Mr Kamau, and told him something had to be done to redeem the image
of our country. Would you remember what Mr Kamau replied?
Ondieki: I don’t remember Kamau telling me anything…
Ondieki: Were you aware that these people were arrested on the
same night?
Kituyi: Subsequently, I did learn that.
Ondieki: So subsequently, action was taken.
Kituyi: Yes, early in the morning, I rung the head of public service
and he gave me an account of what happened. Hon Michuki also called
me that after the conversation, he had taken action.
Ondieki: What I was asking you is that after expressing your outrage,
talking to the director of CID and other ministers, action was
indeed taken?
Kituyi: I cannot say that way. In logic – I used to be a student of
logic at one time – we were told that just because something happened
before another one, does not mean it is the cause of the next one. It
is true that my conversations preceded action, but does not guarantee
that my conversations triggered the action.

Inquiry told of third Artur brother
By Patrick Mathangani
The Standard, Kenya
July 21,2 006
The Kiruki Commission was told of a third Armenian who pressured Kenya
Ports Authority officials to release a container without paying duty.
The container belonged to Kesington Holdings, which is owned by the
Arturs, Ms Winfred Wangui Mwai â~@~S daughter of Narc activist Mary
Wambui – and two other people.
A senior deputy commissioner with Kenya Revenue Authority, Alphonse
Morunga, on Friday said a man who identified himself as Alex and a
brother of the Arturs, pressured him to have the container released.
However, only a quarter of Sh3.2 million duty, for the container
had been paid, because its contents had been under-declared, said
Morunga. The Commission has been told that the other directors of
Kesington Holdings are Julius Maina Mwangi and Aloise Otieno Omita.
On Friday, Morunga said the contents in the container had been declared
as “assorted electronic goods” yet when it was opened, it contained
three mattresses in addition to the goods.
A clearing and forwarding firm known as Marketing Bureau Services,
handled the container, the Commission heard.
Disappearance of containers
The directors of the firm were named as Eunice Munyoki, Jane Munyoki
and James Kitonga, while the company secretary is Edward Gachau
Kariuki. The Commission was told the firmâ~@~Ys PIN has since been
suspended.
Some officials of the firm have now been asked to report to the
police every week as investigation continues, he said. He said two
other containers belonging to the Arturs disappeared while being
transported to a bonded warehouse and investigation was under way to
establish how they were diverted.
Morunga said Alex claimed the goods were to be donated to schools and
threatened to organise a demonstration to have them released. Alex
then got annoyed and said he could not understand how Kenya could
develop when it was turning away aid, said Morunga.
He said whenever duty is under-declared, both the clearing agents and
the importer have to shoulder the responsibility for any undesirable
imports. But he said he did not know whether any Government officials
have been suspended following the disappearance of the containers.
Application to bar media
Meanwhile, the Kiruki Commission was urged not to block The Standard
and the Nation from covering its proceedings.
The defense of the newspapers by the Commissionâ~@~Ys lead counsel,
Ms Dorcas Oduor, came following an application by Ms Winnie Wangui
Mwai to have them thrown out of the proceedings. Wangui is the daughter
of Narc activist Mary Wambui.
On Tuesday, Wanguiâ~@~Ys lawyer, Gibson Kamau Kuria, told the
Commission that the papers had put her on trial by shining the
spotlight on her in stories they published. He cited the headlines
of the stories, which said Mwaiâ~@~Ys firm â~@~S Kesignton Holdings
Ltd â~@~T had forged documents.
The other directors of the firm are Artur Sargasyan, Artur Margaryan,
Julius Maina Mwangi and Aloise Otieno Omita. On Friday, Oduor said
the Commission, which is investigative, was not involved in any trial.
“This is not a trial and that there is no jury to be influenced as
envisaged in that article,” she said.
She said the Commission was a tribunal, and not all evidence brought
before it was judicially adduced. She noted that Kuria had not
complained about the accuracy of the stories, which highlighted
evidence adduced the previous day.
Complaint lodged by defense lawyer
Kuria had only complained about the headline, she said, and not
about the article. The Standard Group and The Nation Media Group will
respond to Kuriaâ~@~Ys application next week.
The lead counsel said the law of contempt could only be applied where
there is inaccuracy or misrepresentation.
The commissioners also could not be influenced by newspaper reports,
she said, and asked the Commission to consider whether its proceedings
had been prejudiced.
“This tribunal bends on the rule of hearsay and sometimes we rely on
articles that are not even the subject matter of this Commission. We
sometimes allow hearsay and some times allow newspaper articles as
part of our evidence.”
She also warned the Commission to be careful, because Kuriaâ~@~Ys
complaint was not in its favour, but in that of Wangui. “It is worse
when the complaint is lodged by a defense lawyer.”
“What Iâ~@~Ym saying is that the complain has an interest, and that
interest is not in favour of the tribunal but in the interest of Dr
Kamau Kuriaâ~@~Ys client,” said Oduor.
“We have to be careful and balance the rights of the person complaining
and public interest that has to be safeguarded.”
–Boundary_(ID_+2uGXCRIhoa7AXR 2y5/bHw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian gave fake name at port to clear goods
Kenya Times, Kenya
July 21 2006
Barely a day before the dramatic airport security stand-off , one of
the infamous Artur brothers had presented himself at the Kilindini
Port under a false name, seeking to have a container unprocedurally
released, a witness said yesterday.
The commission was told how one of the Artur brothers gave his name
as Alex at the Kilindini Port on June 7, 2006, and pressurised Customs
officials to release a container without verification.
The Armenian reportedly claimed that container had television sets
to be donated to destitute children’s homes.
He threatened to mobilise members of the public to march to the streets
and to also call the international media to ensure his ‘donation’
reached the needy.
The “burly and white” imposter was reported to be excessively rude
and disobeyed instructions from Customs officers.
However, a subsequent verification of the container revealed that
the value of its actual contents exceeded by far the description of
goods as declared in the importation papers. The duty declared in
the importation forms was barely a quarter of the payable tax.
Senior Deputy Commissioner of Customs Alphonse Ntogaiti Muronga
recounted the manner in which one of the Arturs had been referred
to his office by a junior Customs officer after he had refused to
pay duty.
“Acting Deputy Commissioner Julius Musyoka made a verbal report to
me that one of the Arturs was putting pressure on a junior officer
at Kilindini Port to release a container without verification,”
Muronga said.
He added: “the importer complained that his container had been at
the Port for over a month and should be released immediately without
verification. He also wanted to know why his container had been
targeted by the anti-smuggling police squad.”
However, when told that it was mandatory for a full verification to
be done to confirm the container’s content, the Armenian claimed it
contained television sets meant for donation.
“I then told him to apply for exemption from the Treasury. But he
said he had no time for that,” Muronga said.
The Armenian was then given three options which included letting the
container to be opened for full verification, re-export the container
out of the country or to abandon it all together, the witness said.
“He demanded to know why the 28 containers they had brought in the
past were never verified.
I replied that those 28 containers would be sought for verification
and where the goods had been disposed, port importation audit would
be carried out,” Muronga said.
At this time the Armenian snapped, saying Kenya could not develop
with such bad laws and threatened to mobilise people in the streets
and to even call international press to “witness a country that would
never let donations reach its people.”
It also emerged that Kenya Revenue Authority had since withdrawn the
PIN number of Marketing Bureau Services, the firm which cleared the
containers for Kensington Holdings Limited, rendering it malfunctional.
A director of the clearing and forwarding firm James Gitonga was
later called by the Customs Department after the meeting with “Alex”
to assist in the verification of the container.
“He complied, opened the container and full verification was conducted.
It was found that there was a serious under-estimation of the value
of goods.
The duty declared was a quarter of the payable tax,” Muronga said.

Stop laughing, it’s US policy that’s the joke
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
July 22 2006
Email Print Normal font Large font Mike Carlton
July 22, 2006
ST PETERSBURG, Tuesday. The President of the United States, unplugged.
GWB: Hey Blair, howya doin’? Like your tie. You British do stripes
real good.
TB: Thank you so much.
GWB: Not a problem. Now gimme your take on this Middle East shit.
TB: Well, you see, you’ve got Hezbollah …
GWB: Remind me, Blair. Them the Jewish guys or the Islamic guys?
TB: They’re the bad guys.
GWB: Got it. Who’s the chick over there with the hot boobies?
TB: Do you mean the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel?
GWB: Kraut, huh? Now here’s what we do with the Middle East thing:
the Israelis get two weeks to kick ass, let the UN screw up, then
Condi fixes a ceasefire. Sound good to you, Blair?
TB: Just what I was thinking myself, actually.
GWB: Done deal. But, hey, gotta get back to Washington. Some serious
stuff goin’ down with Cheney and Rummy tonight.
TB: Iraq?
GWB: Nope. New York Yankees playin’ the Boston Red Sox. Got $100 on
the Sox with Dick.
TB: I hope that microphone is not turned on, George.
POOR bloody Lebanon. Three thousand years ago the great cities of
Byblos, Sidon and Tyre were at the civilised centre of the known
universe, their Phoenician traders commanding the Mediterranean to
Spain and beyond, venturing as far north as the tin mines of Cornwall.
In the centuries since, what we know as modern Lebanon has been raped
and pillaged by the predators of history: Persians, Greeks, Romans,
Armenians, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the French, the Syrians. Now,
not long recovered from a hideous civil war, a fragile Lebanese
democracy reels beneath the hammer blows of the Israelis.
George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and, for that matter, John Howard,
can bleat forever about Israel’s right to defend itself, but we are
witnessing an obscenity. On all sides. The targeted Israeli air strike
which murders children in a Beirut suburb is as much a crime against
humanity as an indiscriminate Hezbollah rocket crashing into downtown
Haifa. There are no gradations of immorality. It is total.
Bush’s buffoonery in St Petersburg – manhandling Merkel, dropping the
“shit” word – were funny or offensive, depending on your take on these
things. But there is no humour in the fact that American policy in
the Middle East now lies in ruins. The neo-conservative fantasy of a
swift war in Iraq magically spreading peace and democracy throughout
the region has brought nothing but catastrophe.
Sooner or later, when Hezbollah has killed enough Israeli civilians,
and the Israelis have killed enough Lebanese, some sort of ceasefire
will happen. But new hatreds will pile upon the old. The seeds are
sown. Next, the whirlwind.
HARD to tell if the NSW Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam, is cynically
playing the race card, is in utter ignorance of the workings of the
common law, or is just plain stupid. Or all three.
Ever since the Cronulla riots, he has been banging on about “200
Middle Eastern thugs” who, he claims, are terrorising 4 million people
from Newcastle to Nowra. He was at it again this week, bent on all
hell breaking loose if, by some chance, he wins the state election
next year.
“At dawn … on the 25th of March my instruction to the police
commissioner will be to take as many police as you need and charge
them with anything to get them off the streets,” he bellowed.
Charge them with anything? I put that very question to him on
radio on Wednesday and, yes, he confirmed that was exactly what he
intended. Anything. Which can only mean that he expects police officers
to trump up charges, forge records of interview, perjure themselves
and generally pervert the course of justice in the courts before which
the unfortunate victims are dragged. There can be no other conclusion.
And who are these 200? Debnam has it in his silly head that the
police recorded 200 car numberplates during the revenge riots
post-Cronulla. It is therefore a simple matter of arresting the
owners. All of them. On any charge. “Going through a red light!” he
shouted at one stage, rocketing to new heights of absurdity.
This is exactly the sort of political harlotry that the Director of
Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery, warned about in a recent speech
to a teachers’ conference.
“Crime is politically ‘sexy’ because it is an easy drum to bang and it
makes a loud and instant political noise,” Cowdery said. “Politicians
jump on the fear of crime that we all have (to an extent) and the
media beat it up for all they are worth.”
Exactly. If Debnam really means what he says, he is a threat to
democracy and the rule of law. As we saw on Four Corners on Monday,
democracy is not a priority with the NSW Libs these days.
A rugger bugger stands his ground
IN THIS country you can spill a man’s beer, kick his dog, or even
bed his wife; after a bit of shouting, life goes on.
But suggest, however objectively, that his code of football might be
in a bit of trouble and there is blue murder in the air.
My crystal ball piece here last week predicting that rugby league is
in long, gradual decline provoked an astounding response from dozens
of readers. Much of it was gutter filth from evident psychopaths. Goes
with the territory, I guess.
Quite a few emailers, chips firmly on shoulder, were outraged by
my heinous crime of attending a private school 43 years ago. Ho ho,
the witty jibes about poofs in tweed jackets and leather patches.
Useless to point out, I suppose, that I did not bag any part of the
game of rugby league. In fact, a good State of Origin game is worth
a watch. Union, especially in defence, has learned a lot from league
and can still do so.
My argument is simply this: 10 years or so down the track, to fight
off the competition from Australian football and soccer, the two
rugby codes will merge into a hybrid of the best of each, discarding
the rubbish.
The league scrum is a farce, for example. But so are union’s endless,
pedantic penalties at the breakdown; they bore the pants off even
the most devoted rugger bugger.
Eventually there will be a new and better international ball game. It
will be called rugby.