STUDENTS TAKE ACTION AGAINST GENOCIDE
By Jeff Goodman
My High School Journalism
May 2 2006
Several hundred people gathered Sunday at the Federal Building to
protest the genocide that is occurring in Darfur, Sudan.
The rally, which was organized by Teens Against Genocide (TAG),
a group of Greater Los Angeles high school students dedicated to
raising awareness about the situation in Darfur, came in the same
week as Holocaust Remembrance Day and the commemoration of the
Armenian genocide.
“It is important to defend those who are persecuted and murdered,”
said senior Lizzy Cantor, the President of Amnesty International.
TAG hosted the event in conjunction with several other related
organizations, including Camp Darfur, Jewish World Watch, and the
Save Darfur Coalition. Each group had a booth with informational
pamphlets, T-shirts, wristbands, and food. In some form or another,
all proceeds will go to providing aid in the Darfur region.
The booths faced inward to a stage on which several students,
religious clergy members, politicians, and musical guests spoke and
performed. Adam Sterling, who works on the Sudan Divestment Task
Force, followed after Rev. Cecil Murray and Rabbi Harold Schulweis
as he urged high school students to stay involved during college.
Those in attendance walked along Wilshire Boulevard with signs, like
“Take Action Now” and “Stop the Suffering,” that called for an end
to the genocide.
The response of drivers and other passersby, who honked horns and
pumped fists to the cheers of the protesters, was overwhelmingly
supportive.
The rally bolstered enough spirit to grab the attention of
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who stopped by when she saw the event from
her car. Speaking off the cuff, Waters congratulated the participants
for their efforts.
The cause will be continued at a rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday,
when politicians and celebrities alike hope to put Darfur on the
national agenda.
/losangeles/uni/article.cfm?eid=5639&aid=84325

RACIST MURDERS DEAL FURTHER BLOW TO RUSSIA’S STANDING IN ARMENIA
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 2 2006
The latest upsurge in murders of dark-skinned immigrants living
in Russia has not only reinforced the country’s image as a hotbed
of xenophobic extremism, it also has negative implications for the
future of its relations with one of its most loyal allies. The April
22 fatal stabbing of an ethnic Armenian youth in Moscow has caused
an uproar in Armenia that is likely to add to the ongoing erosion of
the traditionally strong pro-Russian sentiment in the South Caucasus
nation.
The 17-year-old Vigen Abramiants was killed on a Moscow subway platform
in full view of other riders. The next day a well-known Armenian film
director, Mikael Dovlatian, was attacked and seriously injured by a
group of neo-Nazi skinheads as he entered the same underground system
where the police presence is unusually strong.
Similar individuals are believed to have stabbed to death a Tajik
immigrant, also in the Russian capital, on April 24. A 23-year-old
Indian student and a 36-year-old Turkish man living in St. Petersburg
were more fortunate, surviving separate racist attacks reported on
April 22.
The violence followed what has become a familiar pattern in Russia,
where hardly a week goes by without reports of rampaging youths
indiscriminately wounding or killing people from the Caucasus, Central
Asia, Africa, and even Latin America. The Russian anti-racism watchdog
group Sova has registered more than a hundred racist attacks since
January, saying that at least 14 people have already been murdered
in Russia this year because of their non-Slavic looks. Sova puts the
death toll from such incidents reported last year at 28.
The latest spate of killings is widely linked to Adolf Hitler’s
birthday — April 20. The founder of Nazi Germany may be responsible
for the deaths of millions of Russians during World War II, but
he seems exceedingly (and shockingly) popular with scores of young
people in modern-day Russia. According to Russian media estimates,
in St. Petersburg alone (a city that saw at least one million of
its residents starve to death during the infamous German blockade
of 1941-44) there are some 15,000 adherents of Russian neo-Nazi
organizations.
With neo-Nazi and other extremist literature and propaganda widely
available on the streets and especially on the Internet, Russian
law-enforcement authorities and courts have been remarkably lenient
towards hate groups, routinely portraying racially motivated crimes
as mere acts of “hooliganism.” A case in point is the trial in St.
Petersburg of seven teenagers who were convicted of collectively
stabbing to death a 9-year-old Tajik girl but were sentenced to only
between 18 months and five years in prison last February. A jury
found that they were hooligans, rather than racists.
The Moscow police were likewise quick to suggest that the Abramiants
murder resulted from a dispute over a teenage girl allegedly
offended by the Armenian. This official theory infuriated leaders
and many members of the large Armenian community in Russia. Even
the Kremlin-connected chairman of the Union of Armenians of Russia,
Ara Abramian, accused the authorities of “connivance” in the young
man’s violent death. Speaking in Moscow on April 27, Abramian said
the failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the vast majority of
racist crimes only encourages more such attacks. Abramiants is the
sixth Armenian murdered in Russia this year, he added.
The furor sparked a week-long outburst of anti-Russian rhetoric by
Armenia’s electronic and, especially, print media that regularly carry
reports on the desecration of Armenian churches and cemeteries in
southern Russia. “In no other country of the world except Armenia’s
supposed ally Russia, do Armenians get killed in the street because
of being Armenian,” the Yerevan daily Haykakan Zhamanak observed on
April 29. “It is evident that the Russian authorities are secretly
encouraging activities of those [neo-Nazi] groups,” charged another
newspaper, 168 Zham. “Russia has stepped onto a path leading to its
transformation into a fascist state,” agreed Vartan Harutiunian,
a human-rights campaigner and Soviet-era dissident, in an interview
with the daily Aravot. Many Russians, he claimed, see nothing wrong in
“the murder of a few Armenians, Azerbaijanis, or Tajiks.”
Newspapers also lashed out at Armenia’s government for its continuing
unwillingness to officially protest to Moscow, with Aravot condemning
the stance as “odd and outrageous.” “The Armenian authorities
are subservient [to Russia] to such an extent that they are even
scared of defending the interests and rights of their citizens and
compatriots in the territory of our purported ally,” wrote Chorrord
Ishkhanutiun. “How many more Armenians need to be killed in Russia in
order to prompt a reaction [from official Yerevan?],” asked Taregir,
another paper critical of the government.
Such comments cannot fail to have an impact on public opinion in
Armenia, which has traditionally been sympathetic to Russia and formed
a key building block of the close Russian-Armenian political, military,
and economic relations. But it has clearly undergone important changes
in recent years, with opinion polls suggesting that a rising number
of Armenians see their country’s future in NATO and the European
Union. This trend may only accelerate as a result of a growing
sense that the Russians look down on even the most loyal of their
dark-skinned neighbors.
Golos Armenii, a Russian-language newspaper critical of the West,
summed up the changing public mood in Armenia on April 27 when it
suggested that violent xenophobia is becoming a key feature of Russian
society. “Even those who are very sympathetic to Russia understand
that that country has no future,” it wrote.
(Haykakan Zhamanak, April 29; Aravot, April 28; 168 Zham, April 27-28;
Golos Armenii, Azg, April 27; Novye izvestiya, April 26.)

HEAD OF CBA: ACCORDING TO INDEX OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM ARMENIA IS IN THE LEAD AGAINST GEORGIA AND AZERBAIJAN AS WELL AS AGAINST OTHER CIS COUNTRIES
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
May 2 2006
YEREVAN, May 2. /ARKA/. According to the index of economic freedom
Armenia is in the lead against Georgia and Azerbaijan as well as
against other CIS countries, as the Head of CBA Tigran Sargsyan stated
during the “Caucasus 2005” international conference.
He emphasized that Armenia has taken the lead over Georgia and
Azerbaijan according to the index of structure and institutional
reforms as well.
“However due to the index of competitive capacity growth Azerbaijan is
in more favorable condition, after it comes Armenia and then Georgia”,
he added.
In his words, another specific advantage of Armenia is the quality of
energy supply. “Taking into consideration the fact that the quality of
energy system is one of the main problems of Georgia at the moment
and energy could have become one of the main points of region’s
integration into the unified geo-economic area together with ecology”,
Sargsyan stated.
He emphasized that, according to the estimates of the EBRD, among CIS
countries Armenia took first place due to conduction of structure and
institutional reforms, after improvement of three indexes, reflecting
privatization of large enterprises, antimonopoly policy and reformation
of banking system.
“Armenia still is in the lead in accordance with the index of economic
freedom”, Sargsyan went on emphasizing that among 157 countries Armenia
takes 27th place, Georgia takes 68th place and Azerbaijan – 123th.
However in his words, according to the estimates of the World
Economic Forum, Armenia yields leading positions to Azerbaijan in
the region. “Such estimate was affected by monopolization of the
telecommunication market, low level of cooperation between science
and business, absence of credit rating of the country, as well as
low level of independence of the RA justice system.

TOL: A WALKING, TALKING DEMOCRAT
Transitions Online, Czech Republic
May 2 2006
Washington has again shown the inconsistency of its advocacy of
democracy. And again Azerbaijan’s ruler is the beneficiary.
George Bush’s visit to Georgia in May 2005 had its own deeply troubling
moments. As he was giving a speech, a man lobbed a grenade in his
direction. It fell far short, and did not explode, allowing the
U.S. president to continue obliviously. Otherwise, though, it was,
politically, an almost cloudless visit. He was in a friendly, welcoming
country now free of the deadweight of the typical post-communist system
consisting – as Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in 1992,
speaking of Russia – of a “repugnant, historically unprecedented
hybrid” of “the old nomenklatura, the sharks of finance, false
democrats, and the KGB.” Bush’s speechwriter duly provided him with
soaring phrasing and rippling cadences to fit the occasion.
Cut to Washington, April 2006, and a rendezvous with a Caucasian
president who represents the deadening politics that the Georgians
rid themselves of. “Across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the
broader Middle East, we see the same desire for liberty burning
in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom –
and they will have it,” Bush had said in Tbilisi. But here was a
president, Ilham Aliev, who had prevented them having it. Indeed,
here was a leader who, as ordinary British viewers were able to see
in a BBC documentary aired in April and as ordinary U.S. and other
viewers will see later, showed none of the compunction the former
leaders of Ukraine and Georgia had when faced with demonstrators.
Instead, his police forces had waded into a peaceful crowd in brutal
fashion. The reason for the protests was clear from the documentary:
when police officers can be seen within polling stations, as they
were during last November’s parliamentary election, it is hard to
conclude that the polls were free and fair. Rightly, international
election monitors stated emphatically that they were not.
Bush said in Tbilisi, “we are living in historic times when freedom
is advancing from the Black Sea to the Caspian to the Persian Gulf
and beyond.” But, less than six months after that seriously flawed
election in Azerbaijan, here he was welcoming a man who had halted
that advance dead in its tracks and whose overly compliant judiciary
had, just days before, begun trying three youth activists accused of
plotting to violently overthrow the government.
Is this how “the leader of the free world” should behave? It certainly
creates the wrong impression – of a man who leaps on Georgia’s
democratic bandwagon, but then hitches a lift on Azerbaijan’s oil
train, deferring the problematic political issue by saying “democracy
is the wave of the future.”
Put another way, Bush can talk the democratic talk, but does not walk
the walk. Again, as after Aliev’s victory in the 2003 presidential
election, Washington was mute and motionless after an example of
Azerbaijan’s warped democracy.
There are, of course, plenty of good reasons for Azerbaijan and the
United States to be engaged in high-level diplomatic contact at the
moment. Azeris make up a very sizable minority in Iran (estimates
range from 16 million to 30 million) and Azerbaijan therefore needs
to know what plans the United States has to resolve the crisis over
Iran’s nuclear program. The possibility of military strikes or an
Iranian-led oil war also makes the issue of energy supplies very
pressing. The dispute between Ukraine and Russia in January had already
increased Azerbaijan’s importance as an alternative energy source,
and it has increased since: Russian energy companies want to expand
(Gazprom’s deputy CEO Aleksandr Medvedev last week said, “it is hard
to find a company [in Europe] we are not interested in”), there are
indications that the Greeks and Turks may link up with Russia rather
than a British- and Norwegian-led consortium supplying Azeri gas for
a new pipeline, and – from Putin to Transneft, Russia’s oil-pipeline
monopoly – Russian economic leaders have recently hinted that more oil
and gas may flow east than west. And also somewhere on the agenda is
the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. Talks seemed to have reached the end
of another dead end in February, but then, in early April, the Azeri
foreign minister declared that an undisclosed U.S.
proposal was “very promising.”
But should this warrant a meeting in the White House? Countries have
foreign ministers to deal with the nitty-gritty and to navigate the
turbulent waters of international relations and presidents for the
formalities and the honors. And that is what Bush conferred on Aliev –
an undeserved honor.
FORKED TONGUES
It is not hard to see in all this a justification for the refrain
of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that the West is
hypocritical. After all, a comparison with the Belarusian elections
suggests little fundamental difference, yet Belarusian President
Alyaksandr Lukashenka cannot travel to the United States while
Azerbaijan’s President Aliev receives handshakes and warm words in
Washington. Strategists may feel Azerbaijan warrants gentler treatment
than Belarus, and tacticians can argue that Belarus needs more of the
stick and Azerbaijan more of the carrot. However, this will do little
to convince friends who believe symbolism is an important part of
“democracy promotion.”
And it will of course be grist to the mill for critics who, at their
most forgiving, argue that when national values clash with national
interests, interests win.
Russia, the key faux democracy in the region, has its own traditional
narratives of U.S. and Western policy, and those were heard again
last week. President Vladimir Putin himself once more accused the
West of double standards and hypocrisy when he met German Chancellor
Angela Merkel in the Siberian city of Tomsk. The issue, in this case,
was energy, but the underlying story was the same: the West fears a
strong Russia and its sermons are merely self-serving. As Putin put
it in Tomsk: “All sorts of excuses are being used to limit us to the
north, to the south, and to the west. … What about globalization
and freedom of economic relations then?”
The Kremlin’s general line on NATO, the West, and democracy during
the week found an echo from a source possibly of surprise to some –
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In a Moskovskiye novosti interview conducted
by correspondence, the best-known chronicler of the gulag portrayed
another – military, rather than economic – form of encirclement
(“Though it is clear that present-day Russia poses no threat to it
whatsoever, NATO is methodically and persistently expanding its
military apparatus in the east of Europe and is implementing an
encirclement of Russia from the south”), and saw “open material and
ideological support for ‘color revolutions’ ” as further evidence
that the West is “preparing to completely encircle Russia and deprive
it of its sovereignty.” He praised Putin’s foreign policy (which is
generally being carried out “sensibly and with an increasing degree
of foresight”), and was critical enough of democracy in the West
(“present-day Western democracy is in a serious state of crisis”
and Russia should not “thoughtlessly imitate” these democracies)
and positive enough about Putin’s efforts “to salvage the state from
failure” to suggest he is not too unhappy at Putin’s domestic policy.
COMPETING NARRATIVES
It is easy to highlight the hypocrisy of Putin’s argument – and its
self-serving nature was all the more obvious in a week when Western
broadsheets gave substantial coverage to the controversy over the hopes
of the gas monopoly Gazprom of buying a key British distributor,
Centrica. It is also right to take issue with Solzhenitsyn’s
perceptions and arguments.
Right, but it is also necessary to understand that these views have
real power: Putin and Solzhenitsyn are effectively updating old Russian
narratives. Fittingly, Putin’s shows more of the Cold War legacy, the
politician’s calculations, and the hard interest of a great power’s
leader. Solzhenitsyn’s goes back beyond, to the older distinctions
between civilizations that parted ways in the East-West Schism of the
11th century. That underlying quasi-mystical perception of Orthodox
Russia emerged explicitly in the interview when Solzhenitsyn portrayed
Russia as a defense against the “downfall of Christian civilization.”
In practice, it may perhaps not be possible to accommodate
Western-style democracy in such narratives. But to win some room in
a few Russian hearts and minds, competing messages and views need to
be coherent, which – on a simplified, day-to-day level – means some
consistency is needed. The fundamental mistake that Bush demonstrated
by inviting Aliev to Washington was to not realize that the United
States’ own grand, national narrative – as the land of the free and
leader of the free world – needs better maintenance.
Bush perhaps has relatively little need to provide Americans with a
consistent foreign policy. Convinced of the virtues of democracy and
with a generally positive view of themselves and of their country,
average Americans may not notice or object to inconsistencies that
undermine others’ perception of the United States as a force for
good. But the average Russian and many Azeris need convincing about
the virtues of democracy, and mix real-life admiration for many things
American with an inherited and nurtured anti-Americanism. For them,
inconsistencies are not just inconsistencies: they tell the real
story of a superpower merely interested in pursuing its own interests,
whether through hard or soft power. To them, the “march of liberty”
sounds coercive, a frog-march to “liberty.”
So, inconsistent messages matter. Partly so because they undermine
successes, such as the Orange Revolution. That revolution was, in
broad strokes, the result of a fractured political system in which
authoritarians could not consolidate power and monopolize money,
enabling a new group of politicians – more democratic, less wealthy –
to establish a power base and to tap into discontent, particularly
among the post-communist generation. Civil society, surviving with
difficulty thanks in part to Western money, mobilized to do what
it could, which was primarily to convince ordinary Ukrainians that
change was needed and possible and needed their involvement. But
people understand overarching, broader-brush stories more easily
than that type of analysis – and it was symptomatic that the story
that many in Western Europe believe is that Western powers had enough
power within Ukraine to manufacture a revolution.
The message of that and other experiences is that a consistent message
and policy is needed. Words need to match actions. In the world of
realpolitik, matching the two is, of course, difficult. In previous
editorials, we have outlined some of the options. But Bush’s failure
in Washington was more basic. He was at least consistent – he neither
walked the walk nor talked the talk – but that is hardly the message
or the action that either the Azeri opposition or American public
diplomacy needs. “Leading the free world” is not a mere walk-on role.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE MG CO-CHAIRS DISCUSS SETTLEMENT OF NK CONFLICT IN MOSCOW
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 2 2006
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Yuri Merzlyakov Steven Mann (USA) and
Bernar Fasie and OSCE chair-in-office Mr. Kaspiisk are discussing
the settlement of Nagorno Garabagh conflict in Russian Foreign
Ministry today.
Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov told APA that the discussion is
closed and confidential Rambouillet meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents failed to prove the hopes. And the co-chairs first met in
Washington after that meeting and then in Istanbul.
The co-chairs are working on unit formula which will be submitted to
conflicting sides during co-chairs’ visit to region.

DARCHINYAN READY TO KNOCKOUT MALDONADO ON CASTILLO-CORRALES III CARD
Paul Upham Contributing Editor
SecondsOut
May 2 2006
By Paul Upham: Reigning IBF/IBO flyweight world boxing champion Vic
“Raging Bull” Darchinyan and Team Fenech were the special guests of
Wests Tigers – the reigning NRL rugby league football champions – at
their Concord Oval training facility on Tuesday morning in Sydney,
Australia. During the visit, Darchinyan sparred some rounds with
Tigers great Benny Elias.
“Last year the Wests Tigers were relatively unknown, but showed skill
and determination to win the NRL Championship,” said Darchinyan.
“Players such as Benji Marshall and Scott Prince proved how hungry
they were to win. I see a lot of similarities with my career. I have
won two world titles so far, but with every fight I want to show how
hungry I am to become the undisputed boxing champion of the world.”
Considered by many to be one of the hottest new stars in world boxing,
Vic “Raging Bull” Darchinyan – Australia’s only current male boxing
world champion – will next defend his world titles against undefeated
28 year-old Mexican Luis Maldonado 33-0-1 (25) on a card that will
see them as the main support bout to one of the world’s ‘Fights of
the Year’ in Jose Luis Castillo vs. Diego Corrales III on June 3 at
the Thomas & Mack Centre in Las Vegas, USA.
Darchinyan, who is promoted by prominent American Gary Shaw and
trained by three-time world champion Jeff Fenech, first won the IBF
flyweight world title in December 2004 against long reigning world
champion Irene Pacheco.
“The most knowledgeable people in American boxing can see how talented
Vic Darchinyan is,” said Fenech. “In this next fight in front of the
world, he will once again show that he is one of the most exciting
boxers competing today.”
30 year-old Darchinyan, the Armenia born Australian citizen, has
an undefeated record of 25 wins, 0 losses and 20 knockouts. In his
last fight on March 3 at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez,
California in the USA, the hard-hitting southpaw knocked out IBF
mandatory challenger Diosdado Gabi from the Philippines spectacularly
with one punch in round 8.
The impressive knockout win over Gabi was televised by American
network SHOWTIME across the USA as the main event of their “SHOBOX:
The New Generation” series to an audience in the millions and has
led to his next fight on SHOWTIME “Championship Boxing” on one of
the most highly anticipated fight cards of the year.
“Maldonado is a good fighter,” said Darchinyan. “But on June 3,
I will knock him out.”

JOURNALIST FACES RETRIAL FOR INSULTING TURKISHNESS
Tatyana Margolin
JURIST , Univ. of Pittsburgh Law School
May 2 2006
[JURIST Europe] A Turkish appeals court has rejected a prosecutor’s
recommendation and has ruled that charges still stand against Hrant
Dink, a high-profile Turkish-Armenian journalist and editor of the
newspaper Agos [media website] who has written about the killings
of an estimated million Ottoman Armenians [ANI backgrounder] in the
early 20th century. Accused of publicly denigrating or insulting
Turkishness under controversial Article 301 [Amnesty International
backgrounder] of the Turkish Penal Code, Dink was given a six-months
suspended sentence [JURIST report] last October, but in February the
chief prosecutor of the Appeals Court ruled that his remarks were in
no way offensive. The new court determination sends the case back to
the local court where it may be reheard.
Article 301 reads: 1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic
or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by
imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. Public denigration of the Government of the Republic of Turkey,
the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security
structures shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months
and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a
Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased
by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute
a crime.
Dink’s case, along with several others [JURIST news archive; JURIST
report] that deal with freedom of speech in Turkey, is being closely
monitored by the EU. Turkey is eager to join the EU and has committed
to a series of reforms, yet speech that can be interpreted as an
insult to the Turkish identity, the military and the judiciary is still
illegal. BBC News has more. From Istanbul, Hurriyet has local coverage.
Tatyana Margolin is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting
European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in
the UK.
/journalist-faces-retrial-for-insulting.php
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SYSTEM OF A DOWN RAISE AWARENESS OF SUDANESE GENOCIDE
Blabbermouth.net, NY
May 2 2006
SYSTEM OF A DOWN is committed to raising awareness of all human
rights issues, including the current genocide crisis going on
the Darfur region of Western Sudan. mtvU has launched a online
campaign at to help spread information about the
genocide. Through a partnership with the Reebok Human Rights Foundation
and the International Crisis Group, mtvU awarded a development deal
to group of student digital activists to create an online viral video
game which will put players in the shoes of the 2.5 million refugees
who are fighting for survival every day in Darfur.
Commented SYSTEM OF A DOWN frontman Serj Tankian: “MTV has been one
of the early screamers on the Darfur Genocide at a time when no one
was really paying any attention to it in the press. By calling it a
genocide and not doing anything about it, our government is setting a
standard for intervention only in cases of economic gain. I just met
with a number of Democratic and Republican Congressmen and a Senator
to talk about the need to have the U.S. Congress formally recognize
the Armenian Genocide by Turkey in 1915. Part of the conversation was
spent in explaining that genocide denial will lead to other genocide
as in Darfur and the need for our government to use its leverage
financially and otherwise in Africa to make sure that Khartoum gets the
message that this will no longer be tolerated, along with encouraging
the United Nations to immediately place an active, effective peace
keeping contingent of troops in the Darfur region of Sudan.”

PRESIDENT ROBERT KOCHARYAN IS NOT RETIRING – ARMENIAN PUBLIC
Author: A. Memmadov
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
May 2 2006
Armenia’s current president Robert Kocharyan is not going to retire,
reportedly said independent MP Manuk Gasparyan.
Trend reports quoting Gasparyan, almost two years prior to the
presidential elections Kocharyan did not choose his successor from
the country’s politicians. “In case he manages to become Armenia’s
prime-minister after the elections, he will do his best to hand the
power to the weaker politician and control him”, – Gasparyan claims.
Armenian MP said also in such case Kocharyan would not attempt to
hand the power to Armenia’s defense minister Serzh Sarkisyan.
Alongside, MP opines, the country’s prime-minister Andranik Markaryan
won’t stay ten days on his post after the elections. “This man is just
a political puppet”, – Gasparyan said, adding that the best for the
head of the government will be post of parliamentary fraction leader
or a president of parliament.
MP also predicts that following parliamentary elections in Armenia
leadership will remain with Republican Party, followed by Flourishing
Armenia and National Unity of Artashes Gegamyan.
Armenia is waiting for parliamentary and presidential elections in
2007 and 2008, respectively, ARKA reports.

OKRUASHVILI SPEAKS OF RUSSIA, WINE, CONFLICTS
Civil Georgia, Georgia
May 2 2006
Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili has further stepped up
harsh-worded rhetoric against Russia and vowed to resign if Georgia
fails to restore control over breakaway South Ossetia by January
1, 2007.
At a political talk show aired by Imedi television on May 1 Okruashvili
spoke about relations with Russia and said while answering question
why Georgia remains in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
against the background of deteriorating ties with Russia that he will
respond to this question “in exactly one week.” He declined to make
more comments on the issue.
Dubbed as hawkish Defense Minister by the opponents and media,
33-year-old Irakli Okruashvili has increased his political weight after
the President charged him to promote Georgian wine on new markets,
observers say.
This new task has also triggered rumors that Okruashvili may be
promoted at the Prime Minister’s position. But Okruashvili has strongly
denied these speculations.
“My major goal, my purpose of being the Defense Minister, is
restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity. I have no other goal
more valuable than this and as soon as these two problems [the Abkhaz
and South Ossetian conflicts] are solved, I will no longer stay in
politics,” Okruashvili said while speaking on the political talk show
‘Pirvelebi’ (Leaders).
Okruashvili reiterated his late December statement and said that
Georgia will gain control over breakaway South Ossetia by January
1, 2007.
“If we fail to celebrate New Year in Tskhinvali on January, 2007 I
will no longer be the Defense Minister of Georgia,” Okruashvili said.
He said that the conflict in South Ossetia will be resolved through
peaceful means with the support of Georgia’s western partners.
“In a course of this year several very important events are scheduled;
these are: G8 summit, NATO summit in November and we will spare no
efforts to solve this problem through peaceful means with the help
of our friends, our partners and especially with the support of the
United States,” Okruashvili said.
After Okruashvili’s highly-controversial and harsh statements
towards Russia – like “even feces can be sold on Russian market” –
his opponents dubbed Okruashvili as “provoker.”
This statement has also triggered discontent among some Georgian
wine-producers, who are desperately trying to re-enter Russian market,
which was closed on March 27 after the Russian chief sanitary inspector
said Georgian wines contained pesticides.
But Okruashvili, who has just recently visited Ukraine in a capacity
of the Georgian wine promoter, says that the Georgian wine-makers
should forget about the Russian market and diversify foreign trade
to the western markets.
He said once again that the Russia is “low level consumer market” and
many Georgian wine companies should increase quality of their products.
Okruashvili admitted that his statements towards Russia are very
harsh-worded, “but this is the only language which is understood
by Russia.”
“Of course we should not talk like this not only with Russia, but
with anyone. But, unfortunately, this is the only language which is
understood by Russia, this is the only effective language on which we
can talk with Russia. I have learnt this from my two, or three years
of experience of having relations with them,” the Georgian Defense
Minister stated.
Okruashvili also admitted that one of the purposes of his controversial
statements was to trigger more international interest towards the
Georgia’s wine row with Russia.
“My statements about Russia and stir-up about this issue was caused
by an attempt to achieve a certain international effect. Now the
international community knows that this is a confrontation between
Georgia and Russia because someone among the Russian authorities
does not like the fact that Georgia has a significant increase in
economic growth rate… and they do not like that they have failed
to decrease this figure [growing economy] through imposing energy
blockade [referring to explosions of gas pipelines this January]
and through increase of gas price,” Okruashvili said.
He also accused Russian special services of masterminding provocations
in Georgia’s predominantly ethnic Armenian populated town of
Akhalkalaki in order to hinder Russian military base withdrawal
from there.
“A large rally is planned in Akhalkalaki on May 3 in an attempt to
hinder first stage of Russian military base withdrawal from there
and organizers of this [rally] are employees of the FSB [Russia’s
Federal Security Service],” Okruashvili said.
A small rally was held in the predominantly ethnic Armenian populated
town of Akhalkalaki on April 25 to protest against withdrawal of
Russian military base. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on April 26
that pullout of military hardware from the base was hindered because
of this protest rally.