ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI LEADERS CAPABLE TO SOLVE KARABAKH PROBLEM PEACEFULLY
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.05.2006 16:18 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The sides should take decisive moves for the
settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
However the situation will clear up by the end of the week,
U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian
Affairs Daniel Fried stated in Baku.
Mr. Fried reminded that it’s his third visit to the region during
recent 6 months. “My goal is to find the variants for a peaceful
resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The residents of the
whole region have the right to wish peace and it should be achieved
within the shortest terms,” he said emphasizing that certain steps
at a state level are essential.
“Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharian
are capable to settle the conflict peacefully,” the American diplomat
considers, reported Trend news agency.

GEORGIAN LEADERSHIP POLICY PROVOKES ESCALATION OF CONFLICTS IN JAVAKHETIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.05.2006 17:27 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The policy pursued by the incumbent Georgian
leadership provokes new conflicts in the Azeri-inhabited Kvemo-Kartli
(Borchaly) and Armenian-inhabited Samtskhe Javakheti (Javakhk)
regions of Georgia, Justice party leader, former head of the Georgian
national security committee Igor Giorgadze, who is wanted by Interpol
at present, stated at a news conference in Moscow. “36 people were
killed in the Azeri-inhabited regions of Georgia. The Armenians
of Javakhetia, who have never voiced a wish to receive autonomy,
initiated the process in corpore now,” he said, reported IA Regnum.

U.S. SENATE TO CONSIDER NOMINATION OF RICHARD E. HOAGLAND FOR AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.05.2006 17:50 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ U.S. Senate is set to consider the nomination of
Richard E. Hoagland for the United States ambassador to Armenia,
according to a US Senate press release. Richard E. Hoagland, of
the District of Columbia, is a career member of the Senior Foreign
Service, Class of Minister-Counselor. Currently, he is serving as
the U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan, reported Yerkir.

UKRAINIAN GENERAL STAFF CHIEF LAID FLOWERS TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS MEMORIAL
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.05.2006 18:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General
Staff, Colonel General Sergey Kirichenko laid flowers to the memorial
to the Armenian Genocide victims. Chief of the Armenian Armed Forces
General Staff, Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel General Mikael
Harutyunyan accompanied Ukrainian delegation.

Whitehouse.gov (press release), DC
May 23 2006
Personnel Announcement
President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate
two individuals to serve in his Administration:
The President intends to nominate Richard E. Hoagland, of the
District of Columbia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of
Armenia. Ambassador Hoagland, a career member of the Senior Foreign
Service, currently serves as United States Ambassador to the Republic
of Tajikistan. Prior to this, he served as Director of the Office of
Caucasus and Central Asian Affairs at the Department of State.
Earlier in his career, he served as Director of the Office of Public
Diplomacy in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs. Ambassador Hoagland
received his bachelor’s degree from Taylor University and two
master’s degrees from the University of Virginia.

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
7 Vazgen Sargsian Street
Yerevan 0010, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 58.08.77, 52.22.38
Fax: (+374 – 10) 54.38.97
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Website:
May 24, 2006
FEAR IN ARMAVIR: HERITAGE FIGHTS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
Yerevan–On May 20, Heritage Party Chairman Raffi K. Hovannisian and a
delegation of high-ranking members paid a visit to the Armavir region to
hold consultations with members of the party’s local divisions. At their
first stop, in the village of Miasnikian, it became apparent that the visit
was being closely monitored by the local police department and other
security services. Before the meeting, the law enforcement bodies had
questioned Heritage’s local representative about the objective and timing of
the visit and the composition of the delegation, and had insisted that they
be informed as soon as Hovannisian arrived.
The meeting at Miasnikian was still in progress when word came from the town
of Armavir that the party’s local office manager Levon Margarian had been
taken into custody. Before being released he was told that the region’s law
enforcement agency knew about the forthcoming visit of Raffi Hovannisian and
the other senior party members. The police demanded that Margarian make
sure that the meeting did not take place; otherwise they would use force to
disrupt it.
Upon arrival at Armavir, the Heritage Party leadership witnessed local
police units standing on the sidewalk across from the party’s regional
headquarters. It was apparent that they had been called in to intimidate
their fellow citizens and to ensure the prevention of the meeting. This
outrage notwithstanding, an open discussion between the party officials and
local residents took place as scheduled. Afterwards, Raffi Hovannisian
walked to the local police precinct and asked to meet with the district
chief, Colonel Gevorgian. Initially, he was told that this would be arranged
in 15 minutes, but later he was informed that Gevorgian had convened an
urgent consultation and could not receive him. Talks with the deputy police
chief or any other person in command were also ruled out under the same
pretext. Subsequently, the request for a formal explanation was submitted to
the officer on duty, Lieutenant Melkonian.
On May 22, the executive board of the Heritage Party sent a letter to
Armenia’s Police Chief Haik Harutiunian demanding a full explanation and
assessment of these unlawful and unconstitutional acts.
Throughout his regional visits Raffi Hovannisian was accompanied by chairman
Hovsep Khurshudian of the Heritage Party’s Oversight Commission, board
member Gevorg Kalenchian, and political secretary Vardan Khachatrian. In
Khachatrian’s words, the party expects that “the police will uncover the
architects of this illegal operation and give a legal evaluation of what
took place.”
That these initiatives of fear and intimidation are centrally orchestrated
is corroborated by the recent unlawful closure of Heritage’s main
headquarters in Yerevan; the surveillance and harassment of party members
throughout the republic and threatening them with imprisonment or loss of
employment; the late-night removal of the Heritage logo from its regional
offices in Aparan, Yeghvard, Sisian, Yegheknadzor, and Kapan; the refusal of
Yegheknadzor mayor Sirak Babayan to sanction a public meeting on May 6; the
refusal of the Armenian government, to provide a standard hall for Heritage’
s upcoming convention; and the informational blockade of Heritage and
Hovannisian presidentially imposed on virtually all electronic media in the
country.
Founded in 2002, Heritage has regional divisions throughout the land. Its
central headquarters are located at 7 Vazgen Sargsian Street, Yerevan 0010,
Armenia, with telephone contact at (374-10) 580.877, fax at (374-10)
543.897, and email at [email protected]

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
========================================== ======
Wednesday 24 May 2006
TURKMENISTAN: “WHAT WILL REGISTRATION GIVE US?”
Despite making several registration applications, the Armenian Apostolic
Church community in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabad has still not been
given state registration, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Some religious
communities have considered registration – including Protestants, Catholics
and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – but have not yet applied. Protestant
congregations are sceptical about their chances of gaining registration.
Forum 18 has been told that during interrogations of ethnic Turkmen
Protestants, they are told to report everything that happens in their
churches to the authorities. “You have to do this if you’re registered,”
they are told. A Catholic parish has not applied for registration, as they
are not allowed to have a foreign priest leading the parish. Jehovah’s
Witnesses told Forum 18 that “there’s still the very important question:
what will registration give us? Others have got registration and it hasn’t
helped them.”
TURKMENISTAN: “WHAT WILL REGISTRATION GIVE US?”
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <; Back in February, the Armenian Apostolic Church community in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] lodged an application for state registration. "Although three months have gone by the Justice Ministry has made no response," an Armenian who preferred not to be identified told Forum 18 News Service from Ashgabad on 22 May. "This is the third or fourth application the community has lodged." No-one at the Registration Department of the Adalat (Fairness or Justice) Ministry was available to explain to Forum 18 why the application by Ashgabad's Armenian community has not been processed. Reached on 22 May, Maysa Sariyeva, who is head of the International Legal Affairs and Registration of Public and Religious Organisations Department, put the phone down as soon as Forum 18 explained who was calling. Subsequent calls went unanswered. Also not answering his telephone on 22 and 23 May was Serdar Valiev, who reports to Sariyeva and has responsibility for registering religious communities. The Armenian ambassador, Aram Grigoryan, was out of the country on 22 May and no-one at the Embassy was able to comment on the stalled registration application from the Ashgabad Armenian community. Nor was anyone available for comment at the Armenian Foreign Ministry in Yerevan on 22 May, or at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Echmiadzin near the Armenian capital. The registration application was lodged exactly one year after the authorities destroyed the last surviving pre-revolutionary Armenian Apostolic church in the country, in the Caspian port town of Turkmenbashi [Türkmenbashy, formerly Krasnovodsk], on the orders of President Saparmurat Niyazov. The authorities had previously refused to hand it back to the local Armenian community for worship (see F18News 23 May 2006 < e_id=786>).
In the absence of any Armenian Apostolic church in Turkmenistan, Armenian
Christians who wished to worship have had to attend Russian Orthodox
churches (although the Armenian Church is of the Oriental, not the
Orthodox family of Churches). An estimated one sixth of parishioners at
Turkmenistan’s Russian Orthodox churches are ethnic Armenians.
Meanwhile, other religious communities which have been considering lodging
registration applications – including Protestant Christians, the Catholic
parish in Ashgabad and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – have not yet done so.
Forum 18 has learnt that several Protestant congregations are preparing
registration applications, but many are sceptical that the Adalat Ministry
will grant it. “All the churches wanting to get registration are made up of
ethnic Turkmens and it is not so easy,” one Protestant told Forum 18 on 22
May. “The authorities don’t like this.” The Protestant said that the
Protestant congregations the Adalat Ministry was forced to register under
international pressure from 2004 – including the Adventists, Baptists,
Pentecostals, Greater Grace, Light of the East and the Church of Christ –
were all made up of ethnic Russians. “When the persecution was at its
worst five or six years ago, ethnic Russian churches suffered, but Turkmen
believers suffered the worst.”
Even today, the Protestant added, every time officials interrogate any
ethnic Turkmen Protestants they tell them they should report everything
that happens in their churches to the authorities. “You have to do this if
you’re registered.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses remain cautious. “Nothing has moved on the
registration issue,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18 on 22 May. “The
authorities show no real desire to register us. There’s still the very
important question: what will registration give us? Others have got
registration and it hasn’t helped them.” Contacts in 2005 with the Adalat
Ministry were “not very encouraging”, the source added. However, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have not ruled out trying to get registration and are
still working on preparing the necessary documentation.
Ashgabad’s Catholic parish has not yet applied for registration, as it
remains unhappy with the terms of the Religion Law and has not been able
to meet Adalat Ministry officials to discuss the wording of the statute.
“We want to explain to the Ministry the absolute impossibility for the
parish to be led by a local citizen,” one Catholic familiar with the
process told Forum 18 on 23 May. “The authorities have to allow us to
build up a community and only with time will there perhaps be a local
priest who could lead the community. We want to discuss this point with
the Ministry and we hope they’ll understand it.”
The Catholic said the community is grateful that the Turkmen authorities
have allowed two Polish priests to serve the community. Mass is currently
held on Vatican diplomatic territory in the Nunciature in Ashgabad.
Eventually the Catholics would like to build a church to replace the one
destroyed by an earthquake in Soviet times. “But the church is the
community, not the building,” the Catholic stressed to Forum 18.
Other religious communities registered since May 2004 are the Baha’is, the
Hare Krishna community and the New Apostolic Church. Already registered
were about a hundred Sunni Muslim mosques. Shia Muslim mosques are
unofficially barred from registering. Most of the country’s 12 Russian
Orthodox churches were finally re-registered in November 2005, though the
Dashoguz [Dashhowuz] parish was stripped of registration in 2003 and has
been unable to regain it. The parish has also been prevented from
completing building work on its church (see F18News 3 April 2006
< e_id=754>).
Conditions that have been imposed on registered communities are highly
restrictive, including bans on meeting for worship, including in private
homes, and on printing and importing religious literature (see F18News 28
February 2005 < 521>), tight
financial restrictions and a ban on foreign citizens leading religious
communities (see F18News 13 May 2004
< e_id=320>). Many religious
believers in Turkmenistan strongly object to these conditions, describing
religious freedom in the country as “fictitious” (see F18News 16 February
2006 < 728>).
Among the problems communities have experienced since registering are that
nationally registered communities have had their regional communities’
registration denied by officials in police raids (see F18News 19 December
2005 < 707>); and unwritten
extra-legal obstacles have been placed in the way of unregistered
communities registering, or registered communities meeting (see F18 News 9
December 2005 < 702>).
Registered congregations are also pressured to subscribe to the cult of
personality around President Niyazov, and the Ruhnama, his alleged
“spiritual writings” (see F18News 1 March 2005
< e_id=522>).
Unregistered religious activity remains illegal (see F18Nerws 24 May 2004
< e_id=326>).
Although extreme harassment of religious communities has eased off
recently, incidents are still occurring (see eg. F18News 19 January 2006
< e_id=717>). Among recent
incidents, two teachers of the Koran in the village of Kongur near the
south-eastern town of Mary were summoned by the Ministry of State Security
(MSS) secret police early in the year and banned from teaching the Koran,
Jumadurdy Ovezov, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe’s Turkmen Service
told Forum 18 from Mary on 15 May.
Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 that in March, one of their members was
detained in Ashgabad while he was on his way to visit a fellow-believer. A
police officer hit him on the head several times, forced him to get into a
car and took him to the police station. There he was interrogated and had
his Bible and other religious books confiscated, but was released later
that day. In April, two female Jehovah’s Witnesses were coming out of a
block of flats in Turkmenbashi when they were detained by police. They
were taken by car to the local police station where they were searched and
interrogated. “Officers used the usual crude words during the
interrogation,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18. The two were forced
to write statements before being freed.
Protestants have complained that some are still being prevented from
travelling abroad for religious purposes, including a group who had visas
but were not handed their pre-paid tickets ahead of their planned
departure from Ashgabad airport in April. “We don’t know why this
happened,” one Protestant told Forum 18. “The travel company and all the
other people at the airport kept putting the blame on each other.”
Hare Krishna devotee Cheper Annaniyazova is still in jail, on a seven year
jail term believed within Turkmenistan to have been inspired by the MSS
secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community (see F18News 3
April 2006 < 754>). (END)
For a personal commentary by a Protestant within Turkmenistan, on the
fiction – despite government claims – of religious freedom in the country,
and how religious communities and the international community should
respond to this, see < 728>
For more background, see Forum 18’s Turkmenistan religious freedom survey
at < 672>
A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme& gt; (END) © Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855 You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to F18News Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

Armenia Fund, Inc.
111 North Jackson St. Ste. 205
Glendale, CA 91206
Tel: 818-243-6222
Fax: 818-243-7222
Web:
Contact: Sarkis Kotanjian
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
May 23, 2006
Oskanian Promotes Armenia Fund’s New Project in Los Angeles
Armenia Fund Embarks on Rural Poverty Eradication in 150 Armenian villages
Los Angeles, CA – Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia, H.E.
Vartan Oskanian, and Ambassador of Armenia to the United States, H.E.
Tatoul Markarian were in Los Angeles on May 19-20 to promote Armenia
Fund’s new beneficiary project – Rural Poverty Eradication in Armenia.
The Minister and Ambassador held meetings with Armenia Fund’s leadership
over the weekend, discussing plans for the socio-economic recovery
program and its eventual implementation. The discussions were focused on
prioritizing implementation strategies and the steps to carry out the
program in the Diaspora and defining the organizational mechanisms
through which Armenia Fund will implement public outreach, fundraising,
communications and coordination of the Rural Poverty Eradication
Program.
Armenia Fund’s International Board of Trustees, which includes prominent
Diaspora Armenians – Charles Aznavour, Mark Geragos and Vartan
Gregorian, among others, approved the large-scale reconstruction project
aimed at eliminating rural poverty in Armenia and Karabakh. The program
will parallel the works of the $235 million Millennium Challenge
Corporation (MCC) project that is financed by the United States
Government. The MCC will rebuild rural roads and install a modern
irrigation network throughout the republic over the course of five years.

`We envision that the Armenia Fund is best situated to take over as the
umbrella which will appoint a governance board, a fiscal agent, as well
as the management team. This ambitious program is a natural expansion of
the Armenia Fund’s mission – to facilitate infrastructure and
development programs that are beyond the government’s capacity,’ said
Oskanian.
The economic blockades imposed by neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan have
crippled the fledgling republic’s economy, leaving it without a safe and
secure transit means of goods and services. Furthermore, with the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the centralized Moscow-based economy
shattered and sent negative ripple effects throughout Armenia. Roads,
communication lines, irrigation and drinking water systems, as well as
energy supplies were all hampered and damaged due to neglect.
Building on the international momentum of increased aid to the economic
recovery of the country, Armenia Fund will begin this unprecedented
large-scale infrastructure development program. Armenia, at the
assessment of international experts, has the potential to become the
breadbasket of the region, despite being a landlocked mountainous country.
“The decision to have the Armenia Fund as the organization to carry out
the Rural Poverty Eradication Program speaks to the quality and track
record of Armenia Fund. We are all proud to be a part of this new
initiative,” said Maria Mehranian, Chairperson of Armenia Fund, Inc.
Through this project Armenia Fund will implement a comprehensive
development plan in the rural regions of Armenia. The project will
include development of waterways, irrigation systems, roads, educational
facilities, hospitals as well as agricultural development assistance
programs. Similar to the Martakert Regional Development Program,
currently underway in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Rural Poverty Eradication
Program will be developed by experts from Armenia, France, and the
United States who are currently working with Armenia Fund.

Armenia Fund, Inc., is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation
established in 1994 to facilitate large-scale humanitarian and
infrastructure development assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Armenia Fund, Inc. is the U.S. Western Region affiliate of `Hayastan’
All-Armenian Fund. Tax ID# 95-4485698

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian General Benevolent Union Inc.
Viken L. Attarian
Chairman
805, Manoogian street
Ville St-Laurent, QC H4N 1Z5
Tel: 514-748-2428
Fax: 514-748-6307
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
Montreal, May 24, 2006 – His Excellency, Mr. Vartan Osganian, Minister of
Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, paid a short visit to Canada and
met with representatives of the Armenian community in the Embassy of Armenia
in Ottawa.
During the event, he introduced the new Deputy Chief of Mission to Canada,
Mr. Arman Hagopian, and then went on to describe the challenges facing the
Republic of Armenia on the eve of the 15th anniversary of its existence.
Mr. Osganian spoke at length about the upcoming 3rd Armenia/Diaspora
Conference which is to take place in September, 2006. He focused
specifically on a new initiative by the Government of Armenia to repopulate
and modernize the infrastructure of border villages to stop the migration of
youth from rural areas into Yerevan. The Minister is on a special worldwide
tour to engage Armenian communities to support this project.
At the end of the event, Minister Osganian kindly answered several questions
from the audience. AGBU Montreal was represented at this meeting by
chairman Viken L. Attarian, vice-chairman Raffi Chitilian, vice-chairman
Levon Afeyan and his wife Annette, board member Avedis Atamian and his wife
Suzanne, the director of the Armenian Studies program Manuel Kuesseyan and
the young intern at the Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr. Vrouyr
Moughalian.
For further information, please contact the AGBU at 514-748-2428 or at
[email protected]

Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences
Congress 2006
York University, Toronto (Ontario) Canada
The Congress encourages community participation.
Session Sponsored by the Society for Socialist Studies & co-listed by the
Canadian Women’s Studies
Title: New (Gendered) Perspectives on Genocide
When: May 31, 2006 1 PM; Where: AWC
Session co-organizers: Karin Doerr & Sima Aprahamian
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Full Institutional Affiliation (if applicable): Karin Doerr, Simone de
Beauvoir Institute & Modern Languages H-663
Sima Aprahamian, Simone de Beauvoir Institute & Sociology-Anthropology
H1125-58 Mailing Address: Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West
Montreal, QCH3G 1M8, Canada
1. Isabel Kaprielian (California State University at Fresno,
Department of History)
“Girls at Risk: the Survival of Armenian girls during the Genocide”
In research and writing relating to the Armenian Genocide, great emphasis
has been placed on the political, economic, and religious factors leading
to the tragedy and on the terrible events that destroyed 1 1/2 million
Armenians. Less emphasis has been placed on the expereinces of survivors.
This paper will focus on the survival experiences of Armenian girls –
those abducted, those raped, those exploited, those who survived with
family members, and those fortunate enough to be placed in the many
orphanages set up to save them. I will be using oral sources, published
memoirs, and official reports by missionaries, Near East Relief personnel, and
League of Nations agencies.
2.Karin Doerr (Simone de Beauvoir Institute & Modern Languages H-663, Concordia
University) “A Critical Approach to Women and the Holocaust”
This paper addresses possible reasons for mainstream Holocaust Study’s
continued neglect of women’s issues and work in the field and articulates
possible solutions. It concurs with the existing critical re-examination
of work on women in the Holocaust and suggests avoiding romanticization of
the female victim or the heroine as well as an exclusionary, care-oriented
focus (Bernard, 1995; Ringelheim, 1985, 1999). It builds on the call to
explore the ethical dimension of women’s behaviour in the politically
resistive area of the “Gray Zone” (Primo Levi, 1986; Nowack, 1999; Claudia
Card. 2002) and warrants taking a closer look at the circumstances that
created the abject conditions, the fear, terror, and murder that the women
experienced and to which they responded. Moreover, since a feminist lens
allows for a multi-focal approach, we need to consider survival chances
based on nationality, class, and political or religious affiliation in
addition to gender. Finally, it argues against a continued separation of
research with Women and the Holocaust as a category of its own.
3.Victoria Rowe (Faculty of Policy Studies,Chuo University, Japan)
“Public Witnessing at the League of Nations: The Women’s Movement
and the Armenian Genocide”
This paper explores the writer Inga Nalbandian’s public witnessing of the
Armenian Genocide in her 1917 book, Den Store Jammer [The Great Misery].
Nalbandian’s status as a Danish-born woman living in Constantinople, her
marriage to an Armenian and her mothering of Armenian children, and later
her ability to be a public witness and to cooperate with European
feminists such as Henni Forchhammer, the Danish Delegate to the League of
Nations, in promoting assistance to the refugees of the Armenian Genocide
raises numerous questions which will be addressed in this paper about the
nature of identity and witnessing, as well as the intersection of
ethnicity, citizenship and gender
and the relations between European feminists and Armenian refugees.
Victoria Rowe is the author of A History of Armenian Women’s Writing:
1880-1922.
4.George Mouradian (Independent Scholar/ Retired Engineer & American Univ. of
Armenia)
“What Are the Perpetrators Afraid of?”
“What Are the Perpetrators Afraid Of?” is a paper that revisits past
holocausts and genocides and elaborates on the outcomes of these tragic
events. The paper searches into the methods used, the results, and the
after effects of the horrors. What happened to the perpetrators, what are
the ancestors of the perpetrators responsible for, and what are they
afraid of is covered in detail. Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide
has to be a festering wound that can only cure itself by the nation’s
acknowledgement of its wrongdoing. What is Turkey afraid of? Its desire to
join the European Union and the pressures on it from civilized countries
are forcing Turkey to face up to the truth. How will the past and present
scenarios affect Turkey and other nations on what happens in the near
future?
5.Anna Elisabeth Rosmus (Independent scholar)
“Family Matters: Rape and Incest in the SA and SS”
Sodomizing a child, raping a handicapped woman, and drinking beyond
capacity: Behavior unworthy of any “Aryan”, expecially an SA or SS man? It
all happened in Lower Bavaria. The men were machos, their pants quickly
unzipped, their IQs low and their past included criminal deliquencies.
Their careers were not going anywhere. Wearing a uniform gave them status,
and power. They all trusted their secrets would
remain safe. After all, the victims were family! Who would believe them?
Personal files reveal the once unthinkable: the scum inside Hitler’s
“elite”!
6. Lisa Price (Independent Researcher)”Rape as Genocide: Findings From Rwanda”
In 1998 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted Jean-Paul
Akayesu of complicity in genocide, based in part on testimonies that he
encouraged and condoned the rape of Tutsi women by Hutu police officers
and militiamen. This precedent-setting characterization of rape as a
constituent act of genocide recognized both the intersect “ional harms
done to women in the context of ethnic conflict and the harm done to
communities through the medium of anti-woman violence. This paper will
trace the conceptual steps by which this understanding was arrived at;
will analyze debates within the feminist community around the value or
danger of differentiating genocidal rape from other forms of sexual
violence in armed conflict; and will offer some suggestions as to why
genocidal rape has not been included in the statute of the newly-created
permanent International Criminal Court.
7.Sima Aprahamian (Simone de Beauvoir Institute & Sociology-Anthropology,
Concordia University)
“The Genocide in Me” – Bearing Witness to Disappearing Traces
Dorota Glowacka notes in her study of Ida Fink’s literary testimony and
Holocaust art, “The witniss is burdened with an impossible task of
searching for disappearing traces” (2002: 106). Over ninety years have
passed since the 1915 genocide of the Armenian
people yet in spite the documentation, there continues an active denial on
the part of the perpetrators and their new allies. Araz Artinian in her
recent documentary “The Genocide in Me” attempts to seek the disappearing
traces in the perpetrators’ silences and the remains that attempt to bear
witness in a touristic tour that she takes in Eastern Turkey – historic
Armenia. This paper aims to examine through a feminist perspective of
self-reflexivity the meaning of “bearing witness” in the midst of the
perpetrators’ denials and an examination of Araz Artinian’s film.
8.Aditya Dewan (Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia
University)
“Cultural Genocide” and the Indigenous Peoples of Highland
Bangladesh – new critical perspectives on post-war and reconciliation
phase
This paper argues that Bangladesh commits cultural genocide directly or
indirectly by suppressing the indigenous peoples’ culture in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. First, it describes the key
components of traditional cultures such as language and education,
religion, dress patterns, customs and rituals, habits, morals, traditional
medicine, and so on. Secondly, the paper examines how these aspects of
cultures have been affected by the deliberate policies followed by
successive governments of Bangladesh. Finally, the paper concludes that
the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord signed in December 1997 has also
accelerated the process of disintegration of traditional cultures of the
CHT people.
9.Susanne Luhmann (Women’s Studies, Thorneloe College at Laurentian University)
“Ethical Trauma? On the Ethical Implications of Using Trauma Theory
and Holocaust-Study Frameworks to Study Legacies of Perpetration”
Can trauma be ethical? What are the ethical limits of studying
perpetration itself through the conceptual lens of trauma? My paper
considers some of the ethical dilemmas and implications that arise from
using Holocaust and trauma studies to study the after-effects of national
trauma not upon the victims and their descendents but upon those who trace
their heritage to the perpetrators, collaborators, and bystanders of these
national crimes.
Central to both trauma studies and Holocaust studies have been key
concepts like transgenerational haunting (Abraham and Torok 1994), memory
effects (Apel 2002), secondary witnessing (Apel 2002). Trauma and
Holocaust studies have developed a sophisticated analysis of the
pervasiveness of the psychic structure of trauma and its contiguous
affects such as guilt, denial, shame etc. The psychic structure of
national trauma, differently from the legal and political questions, is
not limited to the victims. However, using these concepts also poses
ethical risks and dilemmas that need to be addressed when expanding the
insights of Holocaust and trauma studies to the aggressors and their
descendents.
10.-Amira Bojadzija (York)”Sense Memory in Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and
After”
Body as the primary site of suffering occupies an important place in Charlotte
Delbo’s Auschwitz et Après (1961), in which physical pain, thirst, hunger and
experience of cold are rendered in a particularly vivid manner as sense memory.
Sensible is the arch-phenomenon upon which subjectivity is built. Merleau-Ponty
writes that a being capable of sense-experience could have no other mode of
knowing. I argue that Delbo’s text exposes the incompatibility of the
rationalist discourse of dignity and justice with the image of a naked, filthy
subject, embodying pain. I suggest a new reading of Auschwitz and After as a
text that questions the hierarchy of the ordering of human experience, and the
philosophical and cultural consequences that derive from it.