AZERIS FIRED VOSKEPARS – BAGHANIS ROAD
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 15 2006
March 14, at 11 a.m., a sector of Voskepars – Baghanis road was
fired for half an hour from the positions of the Azeri Kazakh region,
NOYAN TAPAN reports. The RA Armed Forces did not open retaliatory fire.
Because of the firing, the cars had to go along a comparatively more
secure road of Harsnakar.

OLSON A DOCTOR WITHOUT BORDERS
By Peggy Peck
CNN
March 15 2006
Doctor’s practice is war, epidemics, disasters
MedPage Today Managing Editor
Editor’s note: CNN.com has a business partnership with
MedPageToday.com, which provides custom health content. A medical
profile from MedPage Today appears each Tuesday.
(MedPage Today) — Dr. David Olson has had patients in a remote
region between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He has treated people in the
breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia near the Black Sea and in a
gulag prison hospital in Siberia. He has had patients in a northwest
Uganda town called Arua.
He has lived or worked as a doctor in London, England; Paris, France;
Chicago, Illinois; and Brooklyn, New York. He bummed around Berkeley,
California, before medical school.
Olson, 46, has been around.
So it should come as no surprise that when the Texas native graduated
from Oberlin College in Ohio, his first goal was to “do a bit of
traveling.”
These days he rides his mountain bike over the Brooklyn Bridge to work
in New York. There he serves as medical adviser to Doctors Without
Borders, the U.S. affiliate of Medecins Sans Frontières.
MSF is the Nobel Prize-winning international independent medical
humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people
affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or manmade disasters,
or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.
Following in Dad’s footsteps Olson, whose father was a general
internist in Fort Worth, Texas, says he decided on a career in medicine
while he was still in his teens.
“I used to go to the hospital with my father and go to his office with
him,” he recalled. “I even worked for him for one summer doing ECGs
(electrocardiograms).”
After Oberlin, a small liberal arts college, he hit the road in a
Volkswagen convertible. He drove to Maine, then eastern Canada, and
then headed west, landing in Berkeley, where he worked at a variety
of jobs, including pizza delivery.
After a year, he started medical school at the University of Texas
Medical Branch in Galveston. From there he went to the University of
Chicago, where he did residency training in internal medicine followed
by fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care medicine.
A non-traditional career choice In the last year in Chicago, he
rejected the two obvious options for the future of a young doctor,
academic medicine or private practice.
“Neither felt right for me,” he said.
He learned about a free clinic that some medical students had started
in a church that housed a shelter for battered women. They needed a
full-fledged doctor to oversee their work, and he did that while he
was still in fellowship training.
“At about that same time I read a book, “Not All of Us Are Saints,”
by a doctor living and working in inner-city Washington. It described
what he did and he wasn’t a perfect person. That humanized this type
of work and made it accessible and attractive to me.”
When he finished his fellowship, he got a job working at a free
clinic that had a federal grant to treat tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS,
which was a good fit for a newly minted pulmonologist and critical
care specialist.
Medicine knows no borders Olson worked at the clinic for two-and-a-half
years and then went to the London School of Tropical Medicine for a
special three-month postgraduate course. When his training in London
was complete, he headed to Paris.
“I got an apartment there and figured that I would spend a year
learning to speak French, because I thought you had to speak French
to join Medecins Sans Frontières,” which had become his goal.
After a year of eating through his savings, he had not only mastered
French but also roller-blading. He also spent some time traveling to
Ireland, England, and Iceland.
Finally, at age 40, he signed on with MSF, and — after a week of
intensive training — was sent on his first mission, to the area
between Armenia and Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh, which was a
hotbed of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Most such missions are limited
to 18 months, but Olson stayed for 24 months, so that he could be sure
the TB treatment plan he had introduced to local physicians worked.
At the gulag During his time there he also worked briefly in Abkhazia
in western Georgia near the Black Sea and made a two-week trip to a
gulag prison hospital in Siberia. Both areas had a number of patients
with drug-resistant TB, but his trip to Siberia was particularly
moving.
“It was interesting, and a bit shocking. One building for
drug-resistant TB had 30 to 35 people sleeping in triple bunks. We
had to step over a frozen body that was lying in the entrance. I
don’t speak Russian, so communication was difficult, but you can
imagine the looks that these people gave us. They were in prison
with a fatal disease and they give you a look that is a mixture of
hope and hopelessness and anger. This really stands out in my mind
because there are times when we just don’t have the resources to help.”
After his first mission, he went to a northwest Uganda town called
Arua. He arrived there in 2001, five days after 9/11. “My mission
was to start an HIV treatment program with the idea of introducing
antiretroviral therapy in a rural part of an African country.”
Ugandan mission He was in Arua for a year, during which time he helped
build a new clinic just for HIV. He returned there in January and
“it was great.
You see people that you started on antiretroviral therapy and they’re
still around. That is very satisfying.”
Less satisfying but nonetheless exciting was a short-term mission in
June 2003 that took him to the capital of Burundi in the final days
of the Hutu-Tutsi civil war.
He said he became inured to the sound of gunfire and mortars “so
that when you eat your dinner on a terrace you realize that when the
gunfire stops, you can hear the birds singing.”
Olson and his wife, Cecile, a French nurse who he met on his first
mission, fill the few empty corners of their lives with recreational
biking, such as a trip to Tucson and the Grand Canyon they have
planned for this spring.
And Olson continues to travel with a guitar, an instrument he has
been playing for 25 years.
le.olson/
–Boundary_(ID_7ue8dZfik441K7CnFic52Q)- –

TURKISH, FOREIGN ACADEMICS DEBATE WWI ARMENIAN MASSACRES
Middle East Times, Egypt
March 15 2006
ISTANBUL — Some 70 Turkish and foreign academics gathered in
Istanbul on Wednesday for a three-day conference to discuss whether
the controversial massacres of Armenians during World War I amounted
to genocide or not.
In a rare move, the gathering, organized by the Istanbul state
university, offered the floor to academics of all convictions even
though it was largely dominated by historians and officials who defend
Turkey’s official position on the 1915-17 killings.
Turkey categorically denies that Armenian subjects under its
predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, were victims of a genocide, but
acknowledges that at least 300,000 Armenians and as many Turks died
in civil strife during the last years of the empire.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered
in orchestrated killings.
In the first session of the conference, Yair Auron, an Israeli
researcher of Jewish archives from Ottoman times, openly used the term
“genocide” and appealed on Turks to question their past.
“Every civil society has to deal with its past, including the black
pages of this past,” Auron said.
Books detailing the Armenian claims were also available at the entrance
to the conference hall in a rare move.
Turkey has only recently begun to openly discuss the taboo subject
of the Armenian massacres, which many countries have recognized
as genocide.
In September last year a private Istanbul university hosted a landmark
conference organized by intellectuals disputing Ankara’s official
line on the mass killings, despite a court order to block it.

DEMOYAN: AZERBAIJAN INTERESTED IN RAPID COMPLETION OF SAFAROV’S TRIAL
Karine Karapetyan
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 15 2006
The Azeri party is interested in the rapid completion of a trial over
Ramil Safarov accused of a willful murder of an Armenian officer Gurgen
Margaryan, a RA Defense Ministry representative on the Budapest trial
Hayk Demoyan stated.
In Hayk Demoyan’s words, the reason is Ramil Safarov’s affidavits,
according to which the Azeri servicemen are trained on the territory of
the North Cyprus. “If Ramil Safarov had been in Azerbaijan, he would
have had to face court martial”, the representative of RA Defense
Ministry stated having added that Safarov’s utterances had already
had a negative response in Azerbaijan.
In the course of a press conference the outcomes of a current, sixth
sitting of the trial on the case of the murder of the Armenian officer
Gurgen Margaryan held in Budapest March 7 were presented.
According to Hayk Demoyan, the sitting has put an end to the history
of a two-year shameless lie of the Azeri party. “The two years
of the trial may be called Ramil Safarov’s period in Azerbaijan”,
Demoyan said.
The injured party’s lawyer Nazeli Vardanyan informed that testimonies
of the two Hungarian officers – Zoltan Balkoni and Attila Demeter –
had been listened in the course of the sitting. According to the
witnesses, there were no conflicts between the Armenian and Azeri
servicemen during the English courses. To remind, the Azeri party
insisted that one of the motives of Gurgen Margaryan’s murder had
been the provocative behavior of the Armenian servicemen, who had
allegedly insulted the Azeri officers.
The conclusion made by the third expert group was also heard at
the sitting. In Nazeli Vardanyan’s words, there was a psychologist,
psychiatrist and stressologist in the expert group. As it is known,
the third group was to compare the materials of the first two
medical examinations and reveal the reason for disparity between the
conclusions of the first and second expert groups. The third expert
group came to the conclusion that the accused was psychically healthy,
and he had committed a premeditated murder.
The last sitting on the case of the Gurgen Margaryan’s murder will be
held April 4, in the course of which representatives of prosecution
and defense will speak, and then Ramil Safarov will get the floor.
The trial will deliver a verdict April 13.
The press conference’s participants refrained from making prognosis
on the precise term of the criminal’s punishment. “For us it is not
important how many years Ramil Safarov will stay at prison. It is a
principle: the Azeri army’s officer is condemned as a criminal, who
can murder a sleeping man”, Hayk Demoyan stressed. He does not doubt
that the trial’s verdict will be just.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERI: MEETING TO DENOUNCE LIES ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO BE HELD IN NEW YORK APRIL 22
Author: E. Abdullayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
March 15 2006
Azerbaijani-American society’s activists will hold a meeting in the
New-York’s Time Square to denounce the Armenian lies about Armenian
genocide in the Ottoman Turkey, chairman of Azeri-American community,
Tomris Azeri told Trend on December 15 in Baku.
She also noted, that approximately at that time will be organized
a symposium aimed to inform American society about the massacre of
Azerbaijanis in the Nagorno- Karabakh, in particular in Khojali by
Armenian separatists.
Azerbaijan Diaspora’s activity in the US becoming more and more
substantial”, Tomris Azeri said, adding, that movement `s activists
have distributed more than 600 statements and letters denouncing
Armenian lies among American congressmen and senators.

JUSTIN MCCARTY: “IF ARMENIANS HAD ANYTHING TO SAY THEY WOULDN’T HAVE MINDED THE TV DEBATES ON “GENOCIDE”
Today, Azerbaijan
March 15 2006
Turkey should maximally speed up the measures undertaken within the
Armenian issue.
Historians should deal with historical issues and Turks should think in
this direction, staunch defender of official Turkey’s position on the
Armenian Genocide Justin McCarty stated during the “New rapprochement
in the Turkish-Armenian relations” symposium held in Istanbul.
McCarty also touched upon the protest of the Armenian lobby against
the TV debates to take place after the show of Andrew Goldberg’s film
titled Armenian Genocide.
“The resolution of the issue is unclear yet. But if Armenians had
anything to say they wouldn’t have minded the program,” the American
historian said, reported Marmara Istanbul-based newspaper.
PanARMENIAN.Net
URL:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE BUSINESS OF POETRY
Issued by: SoulCircle
Bizcommunity.com, South Africa
March 15 2006
Poets will become a key to unlocking culture meaning, building
relationships and developing leaders, says Mandy de Waal who looks
at the rising phenomenon of poetry in business.
Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was vain and insecure.
One morning he decided that it would buoy his spirits immeasurably if
he had the best attire in the Kingdom. He got the best tailors to make
him the best suite in the kingdom. Now these craftsmen were smart and
knew how to extract value from customers. They hatched an incredible
plan. They told the Emperor they had the finest cloth in the world, but
only people who were incredibly wise could see this cloth. The Emperor,
of course, fell for their proposal and before long the tailors, the
Emperor, the courtiers, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s
men were madly enamoured with this non-existent cloth, which was
sewn with non-existent thread to make a non-existent suit. You know
the rest. The Emperor paraded through his kingdom completely naked
and everybody fawned about him. That is, of course, until a young boy
stepped forward and shouted: “The Emperor has no clothes on.” The moral
of the story? The tailors were consultants and the young boy, a poet.
Ezra Pound eloquently summed up the role of the poet with his urging
them to “make it anew”. Throughout time great poets have sought to
see society and the world with a new lens, carving a courageous,
challenging and at times dangerous role for themselves. History is
littered with the bodies of dead writers or exiled poets who dared to
speak the truth. Chinese born poet Jun Feng was imprisoned and forced
into exile, and Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet died in exile after being
only major writer to speak out against the Armenian massacres. In
South Africa many poets were imprisoned or exiled during Apartheid.
The poet’s voice is often one of social conscience and because of
their ability to see things from a different perspective, poets are
often verbal activists in the face of corruption and exploitation.
Their power is their ability to touch the hearts and minds of people
with power, influencing mass opinion.
Activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa spent much of his life protesting
the exploitation of his native people, the Ogoni, who came under
threat when their homeland was targeted for oil extraction by Shell
in the late fifties. In his book “Genocide in Nigeria : The Ogoni
Tragedy” Saro-Wiwa tells how the Ogoni had “been gradually ground
to dust by the combined effort of the multi-national oil company,
Shell Petroleum Development Company, the murderous ethnic majority
in Nigeria and the country’s military dictatorships”. Two years
later Sero-Wiwa was honoured by receiving the Right Livelihood Award
for exemplary courage in striving non-violently for the rights of
the Ogoni people. Scarcely a year later despite an outcry from the
international community he was hanged in what was largely seen as
judicious murder by the hands of the Nigerian military government.
“Dance your anger and your joys dance the guns into silence.
Dance. Dance. Dance…”
– Ken Saro-Wiwa
“Poetry serves as a watchdog,” says Russell Kaschula, Extraordinary
Professor at the University of Stellenbosch and visiting Professor
in communication and media studies at Goucher College in the US. “The
language of poetry is passion and truth. Poets have the ability to be
open and criticize society, and it is when politicians interfere with
that ability to be truthful that the frontline of freedom of speech
is eroded in society. This is what happened to poets who were exiled
under apartheid.”
Kaschula, whose main areas of expertise are poetry and intercultural
studies, says the events surrounding the popular poet ZS Qungule’s
exile are a good case in point. “The imbongi or praise singer’s right
to speak freely and without censure came under serious pressure in
the 1980’s when the voice of protest that characterized Xhosa izibongo
was driven underground to serve small-minded politics,” says Kaschula
who relates how Qungule was arrested for his protest against the
manner in which the then King Sebata Dalinyebo, King of the Tembus,
was detained and deposed in favour of a pro-Government Bantustan
chief. A similar fate befell Melikhaya Mbutuma who was repeatedly
harassed by the police because of his protest poetry. “The descriptor
‘Praise Poet’ is a bit of a misnomer because praise poetry isn’t always
about worship. Praise poets have the ability and the license to be
critical,” says Kaschula who adds that poets are often a barometer
for freedom of speech. “When politicians interfere with the ability
to be truthful or critical, the frontline of the freedom of speech
is eroded. If you can censor the oral word, the written is next.”
While politics and poetry has enjoyed a relationship knitted with
barbed wire, the connection between poets and business has been
less direct. This is largely because poets have operated outside
the realms of traditional business, and corporate institutions have
not considered poetry as relevant. This looks set to change for a
number of reasons. Poets are making inroads into corporations as
consultants and harbingers of meaning and leadership development,
while in another contexts poets are taking aim corrupt corporations,
extending their role as a societal watch dog to embrace economics. In
South Africa praise poets are becoming a part of labour relations
and with the surge of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) now act as
cultural attaches for leadership. Another strong trend is the rise of
poetry amongst the country’s youth who are giving poetic expression
to their disenchantment.
“South African businesses should be asking themselves what their role
will be in the evolution of our collective culture, and therefore
in the evolution of the market,” says youth marketing specialist
Andrew Miller. A writer and poet, Miller is often called to speak at
conferences and to offer counsel on youth marketing because of his keen
understanding of the sector. He is also a founding member of the spoken
word poetry collective, Reunited Siblings. “South Africa’s youth are
shaping a modern, urban identity that is only partially informed by
western or liberal democratic values. South African businesses are
not operating in a strictly western culture or economy, although
the majority of them are geared solely around this culture. Those
who become literate and conversant in urban, Africanised poetry and
culture will stay on top of the evolution of the South African market
and will therefore be better positioned to make more money,” he says,
adding that underground and commercial hip hop poets in this country
frequently take aim at capitalism. He quotes lyrics from all female
hip hop group, Godessa, as a case in point.
“it’s like a multi corporation wants complete invasion of my senses
i sense this game of rands and cents complain when brands can lend
their name and space to setting up new trends campaigns offend public
and individual expression again…
The need to understand an emerging new culture is a sentiment echoed
by Kaschula: “The problem with marketers is that they are monolingual
and they are not culturally aware. They only speak one language
largely and they are not aware of societal issues outside of their
demographic.” Kaschula advocates that the ideal marketing person in
South Africa and should be multi-lingual with a strong appreciation
of the cultural diversity of this country.” He adds that poetry and
culture are considerations in BEE where new philosophies and leadership
styles will shape the way business is done in this country.
“I saw a great cartoon the other day which paints the picture of an
office where white people gawking from behind desks when the black
director walks in with a praise poet in traditional garb. In the
cartoon the white people looking scared and perplexed, which is a
strong commentary on black empowerment, affirmative action and the
fear white people have of the cultural aspects that come with this,”
says Kaschula, adding: “Praise poetry is considered the highest form
of verbal art and people who can produce this are often found in
close proximity to people in power or important positions.”
He believes that praise poets will become a bigger part of business
and cites the example of Sasol who hired a praise poet to convince
the workers to come back to work. “Business can manipulate this,
once they realize the emotional sway between workers and the poets,”
he says adding that this wouldn’t be sustainable in the long term.
“Authenticity is an important facet of poetry because the poet
represents the middle ground between people in power and the people
on the ground. If people cotton on to the fact that a poet has been
bought over then the poet will lose his credibility and be displaced.”
Both Kaschula and Miller believe that poets have a powerful role
to play in business in terms of creating cultural understanding,
being the voice of the people, being used to influence people and to
convey messages to people in power about how workers feel about issues
as disparate as working conditions or products. They say poetry can
bridge a gap between business and workers and consumers, as long as
poets play the role of mediators and not propagandists.
One poet who has become a mainstay of corporate life and is entrenching
himself with business leaders is Irish borne David Whyte.
In an industrial conversation that largely centres on bottom line
performance, funding growth and increasing turnover, Whyte has
introduced a new lexicon that speaks to the heart and soul. Using
poetry to bring understanding to the process of change, he has helped
clients such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, American Express, Boeing,
Kodak, Toyota and Nedcor to understand individual and organizational
creativity and apply that understanding to vitalize and transform the
workplace. Whyte believes that work presents our greatest opportunity
for self-discovery and growth, yet is the one place where we are
least ourselves. Whyte says: “Our bodies can be present in our work,
but our hearts, minds, and imaginations can be placed firmly in
neutral or engaged elsewhere.” The danger he believes is that work
is a powerful force in the shaping of our identity and if we do our
work unthinkingly, Whyte maintains, it can shape us away into nothing.
In order to appreciate the contribution that Whyte makes to business,
lecturer and business consultant Retha Alberts believes one needs
put him and his work in the context of the new world of work and
the changing role of business in society. Alberts is a specialist
in Strategic Thinking, Corporate Governance and Ethics, as well
as Leadership Development and lectures on these subjects at the
University of Stellenbosch Business School. Alberts also works
and lectures in Stockholm for the Applied International Management
Programme and lectures to African business leaders in Sweden.
“Due to the fast pace at which decisions are taken and the dynamics
of the external environment, people sometimes find it difficult to
make sense of business itself and particularly of their own their
role in all of it,” says Alberts. “Employees no longer have a clear,
‘grand narrative’ according to which they can plan and organise their
careers or their personal lives. This has been a cause of uncertainty
and existential anxiety for most people. More than before, people seem
to be increasingly searching for authenticity and for more meaning
in business.”
Meaning and belonging are a strong theme of Whyte’s public talks,
his work with business and his poetry. “There is a tremendous breadth
and texture and colour to human life,” says Whyte, adding “It is this
breadth and texture that poetry celebrates and works with. The poetic
tradition has an understanding that each person has a particular way
of being in the world and a particular way of belonging to the world.
And that each person has a way of finding their particular place
through the imagination. That the imagination is not the ability to
think things up, but the faith you would have in the images which
reside in you at any one time. These images are actually making
sense of an incredibly complicated and quite often chaotic world
around you. The life of the imagination is the life of faith of your
particular belonging in the world.”
Whyte talks of the human existence as a constant dialogue with life
and of making a friend of the unknown. “If you can’t make a friend
with the unknown then life will always appear as a kind of enemy or
something that is constantly at your throat.” In the uncertainty that
has become global markets and shifting economies, the question of a
companionship with the unknown is a question of our time. “The severest
test of work today is not of our strategies but of our imaginations
and identities. For a human being, finding good work and doing good
work is one of the ultimate ways of making a break for freedom,”
writes Whyte in “Crossing The Unknown Sea: Work and the Shaping of
Identity”. He believes that as humans we must understand that we carry
enough burdens in the outer world not to want to replicate that same
sense of burden in our inner selves.
For a world that has been consumed with power and the pursuit of
profits, Whyte’s injunctions can come as relief. “Engaging with poetry
aligns the power of the mind with the power of the heart, and could
play an increasingly important role in creating a totally new, changed
business culture,” says Alberts. “Whyte challenges us all by asking
us to rethink our daily habits and assumptions – through his poetry he
forces us to look inside ourselves and to reflect on our own journeys.”
“Poets like David Whyte encourage us to explore and revisit our own
‘fiercer edges of life’ and because of this he and poets of his
calibre will play an increasingly important role in business,”
says Alberts. “Our personal journeys and the search for identity
and self-actualisation, become more understandable, and hopefully
more meaningful, using poetry. In my own work with people in various
organisations, I increasingly find an intense and earnest yearning
for another way. People who seek to get away from business-as-usual
to business-as-it-could be. Corporate business leaders repetitively
express their yearning for “more meaning” in business,” she adds.
What is certain is that business requires new approaches and
transformative thinking both in terms of the way it relates to
consumers and interacts with culture, as well as the role it plays
in people’s lives. Poets will no longer live outside the fringes of
business, but will become increasingly commonplace within the heart
of the corporation as cultural decoders, praise singers, mediators
between management and labour and as a facilitator for forging a new
paradigm for leadership.

ARMISTICE BREACH IN ARMENIAN-AZERI FRONTLINE
Author: S.Ilhamgizi
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
March 15 2006
On 14-15 March the units of the Armenian armed forces dislocated in
0.4km south of Mazamli village of Gazakh District fired at 22:20pm
the positions of the Azerbaijan National Army in the opposite, The
Defense Ministry told Trend.
On 15 March the units of the Armenian armed forces dislocated in 1.5km
of north of Sofulu village of Gazakh District fired the positions of
the Azerbaijan National Army in Jafarli village of Gazakh district
from 03:36 to 03:46.
No causalities were reported.

US STATE DEPARTMENT AGAIN REFUSES TO DIRECTLY COMMENT ON REPORTS OF AMB. EVANS
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 15 2006
— Spokesperson Continues to Evade Journalists’ Questions; Issues
Non-Responsive Answer to Repeated Inquiries WASHINGTON, DC – For
the fourth time in the last week, the State Department’s official
spokesperson has failed to directly respond to questions raised by
journalists during the Department’s daily press briefing about reports
that the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Marshall Evans, has been
recalled due to his truthful statements on the Armenian Genocide,
reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
“It’s certainly disappointing seeing State Department officials
hiding behind their spokesperson to avoid directly answering questions
about whether Ambassador Evans is being recalled because he had the
courage to stand up against what effectively amounts to a ‘gag-rule’
preventing our nation’s diplomats from speaking truthfully about the
Armenian Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.
ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian, in a March 8th letter to Secretary Rice,
wrote that, “If, in fact, the State Department has taken punitive
steps against Ambassador Evans, you should fully and openly explain
your policies and actions to the American people.
If, on the other hand, the Department has not taken any such steps,
you owe it to the American people to affirm that it is not the policy
of the United States of America to punish its diplomats for speaking
the truth about the Armenian Genocide.” Questions concerning Ambassador
Evans were raised on March 8th and March 10th and again on March 13th
and 14th. Each time journalists asked for official comments about
Ambassador Evans’ reported recall. Reflecting the growing frustration
among journalists over the lack of a clear response to their inquiries,
a member of the State Department press corps publicly described the
answers provided by the official spokesperson as “a bit of a dodge.”
The growing controversy surrounding reports of Amb. Evans’ recal
has resulted in separate letters being sent to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice from ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian and Rep. Frank
Pallone (D-NJ), the Co-Chairman of the Armenian Issues Caucus, as
well as formal Congressional inquiries by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)
and Grace Napolitano (D-CA).
Speaking last year to an Armenian American gathering at the University
of California at Berkeley, Amb. Evans said, “I will today call it
the Armenian Genocide. . . I informed myself in depth about it. I
think we, the U.S. government, owe you, our fellow citizens, a more
frank and honest way of discussing this problem. Today, as someone
who has studied it. there’s no doubt in my mind [as to] what happened
. . . I think it is unbecoming of us, as Americans, to play word games
here. I believe in calling things by their name.” Referring to the
Armenian Genocide as “the first genocide of the 20th century,” he said:
“I pledge to you, we are going to do a better job at addressing this
issue.” Amb. Evans also disclosed that he had consulted with a legal
advisor at the State Department who had confirmed that the events of
1915 were “genocide by definition.”
Within days after his remarks and the conclusion of a speaking tour
of Armenian American communities, Ambassador Evans was apparently
forced to issue a statement clarifying that his references to the
Armenian Genocide were his personal views and did not represent
a change in U.S. policy. He subsequently issued a correction to
this statement, replacing a reference to the Genocide with the word
“tragedy.” Later last year, the American Foreign Service Association
(AFSA), in recognition of his honesty and commitment to principle,
decided to honor Ambassador Evans with the “Christian A. Herter
Award,” recognizing creative thinking and intellectual courage within
the Foreign Service. AFSA states, “The purpose of the [award] is
to encourage Foreign Service career employees to speak out frankly
and honestly.” Sadly, as Washington Post staff writer Glenn Kessler
revealed on June 9th, AFSA withdrew its award following pressure from
“very serious people from the State Department” just days before
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Washington,
D.C. to meet with President George W. Bush.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A SHORT VISIT IN VAN
Nursun Erel
The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 15 2006
If one day you have to go to Van for any reason, try to spare some
time, to get to know the different faces of this 5,000-year-old city.
Van is really one of the rarest places in the world, as it has been
a home for dozens of civilizations.
So, with my colleague Ceren Bayar, I spent some time in Van. Mostly we
were busy at the Van Courthouse. But we managed to take long walks on
our way to the courthouse from our hotel. The famous Cumhuriyet Bulvari
was our route, so it could give you meaningful impressions of Van.
Let me share them with you.
Some politics
Of the cities in eastern Anatolia, Van has perhaps felt the impact of
terrorism the hardest. We felt it too, on our second day in Van. A
bomb which exploded on Ferit Melen Caddesi killed three people and
injured over a dozen. It was a tragedy, and it also brought almost
all social and economic activity in the city to a halt. Because of
terror, the city loses many of its locals to immigration towards the
western cities. Terror had caused a great recession in the city.
That’s why there’s an enormous unemployment problem.
On Cumhuriyet Bulvari, you can see dozens of shoe shiners side by
side every day. They hopelessly wait for customers all day long.
Unique Van silverware
One controversy about the city is the number of jewelers. They have
very crowded showcases. You really wonder who the customers are for
such a variety of ambitious and expensive style of jewelry, but a
local told us:
“Don’t you know that Van is the home for many important tribes in
Anatolia? Don’t you remember the pictures taken during the tribal
wedding ceremonies? You almost see kilos of gold hanging on the
brides. So it’s a must for these people to give such gifts on any
occasion, that’s why we have so many jewelers here.”
Now let’s move on from these gaudy jewels to take a look at the
famous unique silverware of Van, which is called Savatli (a decorative
technique done with a special alloy). There are incredibly beautiful
bracelets, earrings and other kinds of ornaments done by this
technique. Metin Binici, who has a silverware shop in Van, told us:
“This is the art of our ancestors, developed centuries ago. During
the Ottoman period, in Istanbul if ordinary silverware was sold for
1 TL, the Savatli Silverware of Van was sold for 2 TL. It was very
precious and very desirable. For years art was almost asleep in Van,
but by the time Yucel Askin (Van Yuzuncu Yil University rector) came
to office, we started a revitalization of that beautiful art. These
bracelets and earrings look so bright at the start, but with the
passage of time they get darker and become more and more beautiful.”
Russian Bazaar
In the heart of the city, you can find almost every kind of market;
one example is the cheese market. Dozens of local cheeses produced
around Van can be found there. But once you’re in Van, you must
definitely try the special Otlu Peynir (a kind of cheese done with
a special kind of local herb). One another interesting place is the
Russian Bazaar. All kind of goods from fabric to wooden furniture can
be found there with very cheap prices. If you’re lucky, you can even
stumble upon a beautiful Iranian-made antique teapot, for example.
But don’t forget to bargain with the shopkeeper:
“You say 20 YTL for this teapot, but I can pay only 10 YTL, is
that okay?”
“Oh sister, since this morning I haven’t sold even a single item. You
heard the bomb explosion, didn’t you? You are so cruel to offer such
a low price, but okay I’ll give it to you.”
Visiting Akdamar Island
Van locals get angry when you call Lake Van a “lake,” they say:
“No. Don’t say it’s a lake. If you take the ferry from here to Tatvan
(a remote town on the Iranian border, beyond the lake’s far shore)
it takes four hours. So this is a sea. When the weather is rough,
it’s an ocean, it can be that wavy in bad weather.”
So we rent the boat of Recep Avci. The boat takes us from Gevas harbor,
and it takes us only 20 minutes to arrive at Akdamar Island.
Even though it’s a rainy day, Ceren and I feel almost in heaven looking
around us. What about those mountains covered with snow, just by the
lakeside? Ceren can’t keep herself from taking hundreds of pictures.
So we arrive at the island. The historical Armenian Church is in
front of us, and we read the historical marker:
“This church was built between 915 and 921 A.D., by the architect
Keshis Manauel. It was controlled by King Gagik I, who come from the
Armenian Vaspurakan dynasty.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have ordered renovation
work on the church to be completed soon, but on the island we saw
only silence. Officials tell us the renovation has been temporarily
halted due to harsh winter conditions.
Personal barbecue table
So we returned from Gevas to Van in 50 minutes. We were both hungry,
so Ceren and I decided to try the Kebap House of our hotel (the
Tamara). It was surprising to see the personal barbecue tables. We
sat down and ordered our meal:
Meatballs, lamb chops and a half piece of sucuk (spicy Turkish salami).
Our waiter brought us the meat and with the fire tongs in his hand,
he lit the fire on our table. He said:
“We burn nut shells for fire. When you cover them with ashes, you
can keep the fire at least for three days, and besides you don’t get
any smoke.”
So we enjoyed our meat.
Our evening appointment is at Yucel Askin’s home. You know his views
about Van (published in Monday’s TNA), but their home is a different
world. His wife Oya Askin leads us through their home and shows us
their beautiful art collections. What admirable painting of Fikret
Mualla (famous Turkish oil painter) is this? What about those ancient
Canakkale ceramics?
And that corner is specially designed for Ataturk. One of his rare
shots is framed and the clock is stopped at the time (9:05 a.m.) he
died. We admire the fine art taste of the Askins. But there is only
one thing that breaks my heart, the empty shelves of the rector’s
confiscated antiquities collection.
Breakfast salon
Late that night we get back to our hotel and have a rest. The next
day we have to get up early and try a Van breakfast salon. These
breakfast spots are special to Van. They open very early in the
morning and serve until noon. Let me tell you what we had on our table:
Cream of buffalo milk served with local honey, fried sucuk, olives,
local cheeses and unique dishes as Kavut and Murtuva (made with
grilled wheat and egg). We also sip aromatic tea.
So this is the end of our visit to Van. It’s a shame we didn’t see
any of the famous Van cats.
Next time, maybe.