2006 MUST BECOME YEAR OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION: ARKADY GHOUKASSYAN

Stepanakert, April 24. ArmInfo. The Nagorno Karabakh Republic is
commemorating the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide today.

NKR President Arkady Ghoukassyan, MPs, officers, clergymen and
intelligentsia came to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in the morning to
pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the tragic events of 1915.

“2006 must be the year of the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. Today this is one of the key goals of our nation, and I am
sure that we will attain it,” Ghoukassyan said.

Speaker of the NKR Parliament Ashot Gulyan said that all available
parliamentary ties must be used for attaining the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the NKR authorities must
make their contribution to this cause.

NKR Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan said that commemorating our
compatriots today we must realize the necessity of our national
unity. “We must learn a lesson from our past mistakes and must chose
the right way to lead our nation to prosperity,” Ohanyan said. He
noted that by recognizing the Genocide Turkey will improve its
relations with its neighbors and will be recognized in the world as
a democratic state.

Christian Science Monitor
April 26, 2006

iq.html < .html>

Kurds quietly angle for independence

Oil revenue could give Iraq’s Kurds greater economic distance from
Baghdad, experts say.

By James Brandon | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

ARBIL, IRAQ – As Iraq’s government takes shape after months of
political deadlock, the country’s leading Kurdish politicians have
promised to work toward a cohesive and peaceful Iraq.

“If [Prime Minister Jawad] al-Maliki quickly establishes a powerful
government that includes all groups, he will be an asset for the Iraqi
people,” said Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president of Iraq, after
Iraq’s Parliament approved his second term and named Shiite politician
Mr. Maliki to replace the embattled Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

The Kurdish desire for independence, however, still runs deep. And
with parts of Iraq increasingly unstable and growing more Islamic,
experts say the Kurds, who are relatively secular, are working quietly
to consolidate and extend the autonomy they have enjoyed since 1991.

The Kurdish Regional Government, which has run the Kurd’s autonomous
zone in northern Iraq since the early 1990s, recently has signed
contracts with foreign oil companies to explore for new oil fields in
Kurdish-ruled areas of Iraq. Experts say they hope the revenue
generated from these deals could provide greater economic, and thus
political, independence from Baghdad.

“The Kurds are offering attractive terms to companies that are willing
to take a gamble on the legal situation,” says Rafiq Latta, a Middle
East editor of the Argus Oil and Gas report in London. “And some small
oil companies are prepared to take the bait.”

The Norwegian oil firm DNO has been quickest off the mark, followed by
Canadian firm Western Oil Sands. DNO began exploration in northern
Iraq in 2004. But two weeks ago it announced that it would be able to
begin pumping oil from one newly discovered field near the city of
Zakho in early 2007.

At present Kurdistan’s annual budget comes from its share of Iraq’s
overall oil revenues, which are distributed according to
population. As a result, the Kurds receive 17 percent of Iraq’s
overall $30 billion annual oil revenues.

Iraq’s oil exports, however, are mainly from the Shiite-dominated
south – meaning that Iraq’s Shiite rulers, theoretically at least,
could shut down Kurdish northern Iraq’s economy at will.

Kurdish oil aspirations are also challenged by poor security and the
Constitution, which states that, unlike oil exploration, contracts to
repair existing oil fields must be negotiated by the Oil Ministry in
Baghdad.

Last week, Shamkhi Faraj, head of marketing and economics at the
Ministry of Oil in Baghdad, estimated that Iraq’s oil industry needed
$25 billion to repair war damage and replace old equipment and
infrastructure.

So far the Shiite-controlled Ministry of Oil has been largely
unsuccessful in signing contracts to repair the oil fields. Experts
say that foreign companies are worried by possible insurgent attacks,
but also by the political uncertainty of Baghdad.

Consequently, the Kurds have been unable to fully repair the oil
fields around Kirkuk, largely under Kurdish control since 2003. This
is a source of frustration for the Kurds, as the fields contain around
15 percent of Iraq’s oil wealth.

But even if the Kurds could fund the reconstruction of oil facilities
in Kirkuk themselves – as some are now suggesting – this would mark
only a start. The Kurds would also have to build new pipelines to
export their oil.

“Under Saddam the oil fields were very badly damaged,” says
Mr. Latta. “Water was pumped into them as cheap way to increase
output, and a huge amount of foreign investment is going to be needed.

“And even then it’s not just a simple matter of having oil reserves
and turning on the taps,” he says. “Managing that investment will
require a lot of expertise, which the Kurds simply don’t have.”

The Kurds have, however, at least consolidated their physical control
over Kirkuk’s oil. Before the US invasion in 2003, Kirkuk was a mainly
Arab city. Today Kurds are the majority, having driven out many of the
Shiite Arabs brought in by Saddam Hussein to “Arabize” the city.

“Those who were brought to Kirkuk by Saddam should leave and then
there should be a referendum,” says Azad Jundiani, head of the media
office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – one of the two main
Kurdish political parties.

But a recent move by influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr indicates that
Shiites are trying to counter Kurdish control of Kirkuk. The
Washington Post reported Tuesday that “hundreds of Shiite Muslim
militiamen have deployed in recent weeks” there. The newspaper said as
many as 240 fighters loyal to Mr. Sadr have arrived to the city.

Almost as important to long-term Kurdish ambitions is Tal Afar, an
Iraqi city that’s ethnically Turkish but Shiite by religion. It lies
between Mosul and the Kurdish enclave of Sinjar near the Syrian
border.

“Tal Afar is the Kurds’ access route to Sinjar, and through Sinjar
they have access to Syrian Kurdistan,” explains Joost Hiltermann, a
Middle East analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group. In other words, if the Kurds can also take and hold Tal Afar,
then their dream of a greater Kurdistan remains alive.

“They claim Tal Afar to be a Kurdish area and a place where many
Kurdish live but, in fact, it’s an important milestone on the road to
the creation of Greater Kurdistan,” says Dr. Hiltermann.

In the past few weeks fighting there has revived awareness of Kurdish
vulnerability, especially as reports circulate that Iranian and
Turkish troops are concentrating along the borders of Iraq’s Kurdish
north.

Many Iraqi Kurds are increasingly aware of the obstacles to greater
independence. Both Kurdish political leaders and ordinary citizens are
resigning themselves to remaining part of Iraq for the foreseeable
future.

“The Kurds desire to rule themselves,” says Farhad Auny, head of the
Journalists’ Syndicate in Arbil. “But at the same time it is not to
the benefit of the Middle East, the international community or the
Kurds themselves to ask for independence now.”

And to this end the Kurds are starting to think the unthinkable and
begin a process of forgiving their Arab compatriots.

“Since the establishment of Iraq 80 years ago the Kurds have been
exploited and tortured by all Iraqi governments,” says Mr. Auny. “We
are not going to talk about what we have suffered from the Arabs but
it has taught us that we must build a modern and developed country.

“The Kurdish people are flexible and forgiving but they never forget,”
he says. “To hate is to be weak. You cannot grow good crops in a soil
of hatred.”

| Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science
Monitor. All rights reserved.

Genocide as History, Legal Flashpoint

A lawsuit questions how Massachusetts schools portray
the Armenian tragedy. But for victims on the 91st
anniversary, there can be no doubt.

By Elizabeth Mehren
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 25, 2006

BOSTON – She was only 3 when her family fled their Turkish homeland 91
years ago. Alice Shnorhokian and her brother were too small to walk
the long road to safety in the Syrian desert, so their parents
strapped them in boxes on the sides of a donkey that carried the
family possessions.

On the eve of what came to be called the Armenian genocide,
Shnorhokian saw fellow Armenians trying to escape from every village
she passed. There was no food, water or shelter, she said. Babies and
old people were dying along the way. Eventually, about 1.2 million
Armenians would perish.

“In Turkey, in genocide times, we Christian Armenians had three
options,” Shnorhokian said. “We paid a heavy tax, became Muslim or
died.”

The retired nurse-midwife offered her recollections as this region’s
large Armenian community gathered at the Massachusetts statehouse
Monday on the anniversary of the 1915-1918 massacres. The observance
this year took on new weight in the wake of a lawsuit pending in
federal court here that addresses how the Armenian genocide should be
portrayed in Massachusetts public schools.

Griswold vs. Driscoll was filed last fall by high school senior Ted
Griswold, two of his teachers and a Turkish-American advocacy
organization. The plaintiffs contend that Department of Education
Commissioner David P. Driscoll and other state officials violated the
1st Amendment by removing material from a human rights curriculum that
questioned whether the mass killings nearly a century ago constituted
genocide.

“It’s a case of academic freedom,” said Griswold, who lent his name to
the suit to show his support for freedom of speech, and who admitted
he knows little about Armenia or the genocide.

“A greater perspective makes the truth easier to find,” he said,
adding: “This is nothing personal about the Armenians. I realize it is
an emotional issue for them.”

Six years ago, the Massachusetts Legislature mandated that high
schools offer a curriculum on genocide and human rights. Topics
included the Holocaust, the Irish potato famine, the trans-Atlantic
slave trade and the genocide in Armenia.

At first, the syllabus about the Armenian genocide included opposing
views from several Turkish scholars and organizations – many of whom
dispute whether genocide took place. As recently as this month, when a
public television show on the subject was aired, Turkish Ambassador
Nab Ensoy called the events of 1915 “an unresolved period of world
history.”

In a statement from his embassy in Washington, Ensoy said: “Armenian
allegations of genocide have never been historically or legally
substantiated.”

Several months after the curriculum was introduced, the Turkish
interpretation was removed when a state legislator said the dissent
opened the door to denial of a historical tragedy.

Harvey A. Silverglate, the Boston lawyer who brought the suit, said
the case is about allowing all sides to be heard, not genocide denial.

“Whether there was or was not a genocide is of no importance in this
case,” he said. “Each of my clients has their own personal points of
view. But this is not about their viewpoint. It’s about the right to
have other viewpoints expressed.”

He said the case has special significance in an era of culture wars,
“where each side would like to shut the other side up.”

But UCLA historian Richard Hovannisian said the freedom-of-speech
argument permits “rationalizing or relativizing of what happened.”
Hovannisian, author of many volumes on modern Armenian history, said
the Armenian genocide had become an embarrassment to many Turks.

“They went through a long period of amnesia,” he said.

He dismissed the suggestion that opposing camps are entitled to equal
time in historical analysis. “This is about politics, and the
geopolitical importance of Turkey,” he said. “It is revisionism,
state-sponsored and state-organized.”

The case has drawn attention, especially in California, with the
world’s largest concentration of Armenians. Massachusetts has this
country’s second-largest Armenian population, with at least 25,000
residents claiming Armenian descent in the most recent U.S. census.

Shnorhokian remembered that as her family set off on its involuntary
exodus, her mother hid money in her children’s clothing. In case they
became separated from the family, they would thus have the means to
pay for food or shelter. Along the route of their journey, Shnorhokian
related, her father prayed and sang, asking God’s help.

Ultimately, Shnorhokian landed in Beirut, where she was educated and
married. With her husband and children, she immigrated to
Massachusetts, where her husband was a pastor.

The Armenian experience must be remembered, she said, “so it will not
be repeated. That was the call, that we should remember always, and we
should teach our children. And everybody should know. The whole world
should know. Well, how can you forget?

TATUL MANASARYAN: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS VULNERABLE IN ARMENIA

ArmRadio.am
25.04.2006 15:52

At least two most essential competitive advantages of Armenian can
be considered a success. According to MP Tatul Manasaryan, these
include science or, in a broader sense, the intellectual property of
the country and professional capacity of the Diaspora. Despite this,
according to the Deputy’s assessments, the intellectual property is
to some extent vulnerable in our country. In this sense the Deputy
is going to come forward with a legislative initiative, which will
contribute to the resolution of problems of effective governance of
intellectual property in Armenia.

MARGARIAN: IF TURKEY WANTS TO JOIN EU, IT SHOULD ADMIT ITS GUILT

Yerkir
25.04.2006 11:47

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – “For the Armenian people the April 24 is not only
a day of commemoration but also a day of struggle since by paying
homage to the memory of the innocent victims we also express our
protest to the Turkish government,” Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(ARF) Bureau representative Hrant Margarian said when visiting the
Armenian Genocide Memorial on April 24.

“The stronger Armenia becomes the closer we’ll get to the admission
of the Armenian genocide by Turkey.” He added that the recognition,
however, “is not our only goal, we should also demand our rights.”

“Armenians’ rights to live, survive and develop were violated by the
Genocide, and by the recognition of the Genocide, we will restore
those rights,” Margarian said.

When asked would Turkey be accepted to the European Union without
the recognition of the Genocide, Margarian answered, “If Turkey has
decided to join the EU, it should be able to admit its guilt and thus
gain the right to join it.

To be a part of Europe, Turkey should become Europeanized itself.”

1,000 JOIN SOAD RALLY URGING TURKEY TO END ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL

Yerkir
25.04.2006 15:18

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Armenian Americans from across the United States
joined today with System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan
at a Washington, DC “Rally for Justice,” urging the Turkish Government
to end its worldwide campaign of Armenian Genocide denial.

Organized by the Armenian National Committee of Greater Washington
(ANC-GW) and the Armenian Youth Federation Washington Chapter,
the protest attracted over 1,000 activists to the Turkish Embassy,
as Armenians worldwide marked the 91st anniversary of this crime
against humanity. Among the participants was DC United star player
Alecko Eskandarian, who was MLS Cup Champion and MVP in 2004.

Tankian and Dolmayan are in Washington, DC as part of a three-day
advocacy tour in support of Congressional recognition of the Armenian
Genocide.

Following participation in the rally on Monday, the band members will
be meeting with Members of Congress and the media urging passage
of legislation in the Senate and House that would recognize the
Armenian Genocide. On Tuesday evening, Tankian and Dolmayan will host
a screening of excerpts of “Screamers,” a powerful film by Carla
Garapedian about System of a Down’s international anti-genocide
advocacy efforts.

On Wednesday evening, they will be honored for their vocal pursuit
of justice for the Armenian Genocide at the annual Armenian Genocide
observance on Capitol Hill.

The inter-generational “Rally for Justice” brought together young
and old in their call for the Turkish Government to end its campaign
of Genocide denial. Activists were met by a smaller group of Turkish
and Azerbaijani counter-protesters, who were apparently organized by
the Turkish Embassy staff and its paid lobbyists.

Following the demonstration, attendees walked to the Embassy
of the Republic of Armenia for a short service and wreath-laying
ceremony. Members of local Armenian organizations placed wreaths and
flowers in front of the Khatchkar (stone cross).

The ceremony was led by Ambassador Tatoul Markarian and featured
remarks by Nagorno Karabagh representative Vardan Barseghyan, and
the participation of the Washington Homenetmen Armenian Scouting troop.

EVENTS TO COMMEMORATE VICTIMS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ARE BEING HELD THROUGHOUT RUSSIA

Regnum, Russia
April 24 2006

On April 24, Armenians of the whole world commemorate the tragic date –
Memorial Day of Genocide of Victims in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915.

Mourning events take place both in Armenia and abroad, where there
are Armenian Diasporas, including Russia.

According to schedule of the Armenian Consulate General in South
Federal District, civil actions in memory of victims of tragic events
in 1915 take place; wreaths and flowers were placed to monuments to
victims, innocently killed during the tragedy. Officials in Novosibirsk
will lay flowers on Armenian Khachkar grave in Pervomaysky Park
erected at the expense of the Armenian community in Novosibirsk in
memory of victims. Members of the State Duma, Novosibirsk regional
and city Councils will take part in the event.

About 100 representatives of Armenian Diaspora in Transbaikalia placed
wreaths to Glory Memorial in Chita, and lighted funeral candles at
Church of Kazan Icon of the Blessed Virgin. Funeral meeting will
finish the mourning events. At Stroitel Palace of National Cultures
in Tyumen, evening, devoted to Memorial Day of Genocide Victims,
will take place, as well as exhibition, devoted to national heroes;
patriotic songs will be sang, poems of Armenian poets will be read,
and historical events of 1915 will be described.

Also, mourning meeting took place in Izhevsk (Udmurtia) near Peoples
Friendship Monument.

MOSCOW POLICE ARREST TEENAGER IN CONNECTION WITH FATAL STABBING OF ARMENIAN STUDENT

PRAVDA, Russia
April 24 2006

Police arrested a teenager in connection with the fatal stabbing of
an Armenian student on a Moscow subway platform over the weekend,
a city prosecutor’s official said.

The killing was the latest in a wave of attacks against dark-skinned
immigrants from the southern Caucasus regions and former Soviet
Central Asia.

Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for Moscow prosecutor’s office, said
in televised comments that a 17-year-old boy was detained Monday and
had confessed to the Saturday evening killing.

Russian news agencies said investigators had classified the attack
as simple murder, but were considering classifying the killing as a
hate crime.

The ITAR-Tass news agency said the victim – a 17-year-old Armenian
native and Moscow university student – was standing with a group of
acquaintances when seven people got off a train and attacked them,
stabbing him once in the chest. The victim died on the spot.

The incident prompted sharp criticism from the Union of Russian
Armenians, a civic organization in Moscow.

“It’s not important what nationality the killed person is. This
concerns everyone. This is a problem for all of Russia,” union chief
Ara Abramian said on Ekho Moskvy radio. “If we have extremism and
nationalism, we should call these things exactly what they are and
then maybe these incidents won’t be repeated.”

Law enforcement authorities often classify attacks on minorities as
simple “hooliganism” with no racial motivation, fueling the anger of
Kremlin critics who say the government does little to stem hate crimes.

Several attacks on foreigners and ethnic minorities have occurred in
Russia in the past few weeks, and the country has seen a marked rise
in xenophobia and racism in recent years, with rights groups accusing
the government of inaction.

Assailants, often young skinheads or other nationalists, have committed
hundreds of attacks on foreigners from Africa, Asia and Latin America,
dark-skinned immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and the
Caucasus Mountains region, and Jews. Dozens have died.

Rights activists say hate groups are emboldened by what they believe
is the authorities’ mild approach to prosecuting hate crimes, and
complain that neo-Nazi and other extremist literature and propaganda
is widely available on the streets and on the Internet.

Also Monday, Russian news agencies reported that a 25-year-old Tajik
man was killed and another 25-year-old Tajik was wounded after being
attacked in Moscow on Sunday. Prosecutors were investigating the
crime as a possible racial attack, the AP says.

ARMENIANS’ STATEMENTS ON GENOCIDE HARM ARMENIA ITSELF – KLO
Author: S.Ilhamgizi

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24 2006

“Interpretation of events occurred in Osman Empire in 1915, by
Armenians, as ‘Armenian genocide’ is full ungrounded as worldwide
recognition of genocide requires facts on destruction of one nation
alone. However, facts on genocide against namely Armenians in Turkey
do not exist”, – reportedly said historian Akif Nagi, chirman of
Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO).

He said Armenians’ statements on so-called genocide that aim at
worldwide recognition of this ‘genocide’, are harming Armenia itself,
and there are some people in Armenia that realize this fact. “Head of
“AOD” movement, former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan also
claimed the necessity in leaving these statements”, – Nagi outlined.

BALANCED PORTRAYAL AN EXTREMIST’S WORST NIGHTMARE: PBS DOCUMENTARY “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
Elizabeth Frierson

Cincinnati Enquirer, OH
April 24 2006

A remarkable new documentary, “The Armenian Genocide,” was broadcast
nationwide on PBS last Monday – except in Los Angeles. This controversy
is at heart, behind all the bloviating rhetoric, over freedom of
speech and freedom of inquiry, basic human rights that KCET quashed –
in the United States of America – by suppressing this documentary. Our
local affiliates did not buckle under the pressure.

Why did this documentary upset extremists on both sides of this
history?

Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew Goldberg tells as big a story
as possible, showing not just what happened, but why, not just two
sides with their own versions of events, but multiple victims and
perpetrators with differing points of view. In other words, this
balanced portrayal is an extremist’s worst nightmare.

Viewers see starving Muslim refugees from Christian atrocities in
the Balkans before WWI. This complicates the idea that Muslims were
always the aggressors and Christians always the victims in ethnic
conflict. The documentary also shows Armenian guerrilla fighters
attacking Turks. Neither Christian atrocities nor Armenian resistance
justified genocide. Still, these stories are often downplayed, as
if people today couldn’t make those distinctions, and need to be fed
simple lies in order to be horrified by atrocities.

Second, the film shows ordinary Turkish citizens telling family
stories of atrocities against Armenians, expressing their grief and
disgust over what happened. This shows that ordinary Turks – despite
the government’s denials of genocide – today are ready to acknowledge
and mourn this tragedy. This upsets extremists on both sides.

Third, we meet scholars and writers who are, even as you read this
paper, on trial in Turkey just for using the term “genocide” to
describe what happened. These courageous Turks do research and publish
results knowing that they put their lives and livelihoods at risk by
doing so. They are actively supported by Armenian colleagues who are
equally sickened by easy answers to messy questions on the Armenian
side. This kind of cooperation across boundaries is what frightens
extremists on both sides most of all, precisely because it threatens
to break boundaries of hatred that make life simpler than truth and
reconciliation would require. It is ironic that Turkish journalists on
trial were rendered invisible by intimidated broadcasters in the U.S.

Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Bosnia, WWII Europe – it’s a long and filthy list,
and to many an incomprehensible, and therefore unstoppable, part of
“human nature.” It is neither incomprehensible nor unstoppable, as
long as we are free to see the whole picture, including its shades
of grey. Messy truth may be hard to take, but that’s precisely why,
in this country, censorship is illegal. Except, apparently, in L.A.

Elizabeth B. Frierson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, History of the
Middle East and North Africa, University of Cincinnati, and editor
of The Turkish Studies Association Journal. She was among the experts
interviewed for “The Armenian Genocide.”

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