The International Herald Tribune (France)
Friday, September 23, 2005
page 5
(A full page advertisement)

A LETTER FROM THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
President Vice-President Secretary-Treasurer
Israel Charney Gregory H. Stanton Steven Jacobs
(Israel) (USA) (USA)
TO PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN
TC Bashabanlik
Bakanlikir
Ankara, Turkey
June 16, 2005
Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,
We are writing you this open letter in response to your call for an
`impartial study by historians’ concerning the fate of the Armenian
people in the Ottoman Empire during World War 1.
We represent the major body of scholars who study genocide in North
America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for an impartial
study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware of the
extent of the scholarly and intellectual record in the Armenian
Genocide and how this event conforms to the definition of the United
Nations Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that it is not
just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the
overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide: hundreds of
independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and
whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of
decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:
– On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War 1, the Young Turk
government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its
Armenian citizens, an unarmed Christian minority population. More
than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing,
starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the
Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient
civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.
– The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue
of its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the
United States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly
documented by thousands of official records of the United States and
nations around the world including Turkey’s wartime allies Germany,
Austria and Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness
accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by testimony of survivors,
and by decades of historical scholarship.
– The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the international
scholarly, legal, and human rights community:
1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in
1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi
extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by
genocide.
2) The killings of the Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide.
3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars, an
organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide,
unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian
Genocide
4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust inluding Elie Wiesel and
Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000
declaring the incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide and urging
western democracies to acknowledge it.
5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem) and the
Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed the
historical fact of the Armenian Genocide.
6) Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as William
A. Schabas’s Genocide in International Law (Cambridge University
Press, 2000) cite the Armenian Genocide as a precursor to the
Holocaust and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity.
We would also note that scholars who advise your government and who
are affiliated in other ways with your state controlled institutions
are not impartial. Such so-called `scholars’ work to serve the agenda
of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the
Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide. In preventing
a conference on the Armenian Genocide from taking place at Bogacizi
University in Istanbul on May 25, your government revealed its
aversion to academic and intellectual freedom – a fundamental
condition of democratic society.
We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the Turkish people
and their future as proud and equal participants in international,
democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous
government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just as the
German government and people have done in the case of the Holocaust.
Approved unanimously at the sixth biennial meeting of
The International Association of Genocide Scholars
June 7, 2005, Boca Raton, Florida
Contact:
Israel Charney, President, International Association of Genocide
Scholars; Editor in Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide.
Gregory H. Stanton, Vice President, International Association of
Genocide Scholars; President, Genocide Watch; James Farmer Visiting
Professor of Human Rights, University of Mary Washington;
[email protected]

Armenians find faith in words
Detroit Free Press
October 7, 2005
BY DAVID CRUMM, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
To the untrained eye, these sacred curves are merely cryptic rows of
hooks and notches. But to those who love them, these 38 arches form
the architecture that shelters one of the world’s oldest Christian
cultures.
Starting this weekend, the 38-character Armenian alphabet also is the
focus of a most unusual anniversary: a yearlong celebration of the
creation of this written language 1,600 years ago.
On Wednesday at the Alex and Marie Manoogian charter school in
Southfield, the 347 students were gearing up for the celebration.
Anahit Toumajian taught her fifth-graders a poem to recite at an
upcoming assembly. She reminded the students that, “Armenia never had
great armies to conquer the world, but the letters of our alphabet
were the soldiers that protected our culture.”
Girls and boys recited lines of an ode to the Armenian language that,
in translation, begins, “You give us light. You give us love. You give
us wings to fly.”
There aren’t many elementary school classes that speak so
affectionately about studying languages.
There’s a religious side to this observance, but because the Manoogian
school is a K-12 charter school, those aspects of the story are left
to Armenian churches, including the gold-domed St. John Armenian
Orthodox Church across the parking lot from the school.
These churches, including St. Sarkis Armenian Orthodox Church in
Dearborn, draw members from across the state. In the 2000 census,
15,746 Michigan adults indicated they were Armenian, although a
University of Michigan-Dearborn center for Armenian studies estimates
the population is twice that.
“Ethnic identity, culture, language and religion aren’t separate
threads for us. They are powerfully interwoven to preserve our
identity,” the Rev. Garabed Kochakian, pastor of St. John, said
Wednesday.
The creator of the alphabet was an Armenian priest, the Rev. Mesrob
Mashdotz, who needed a written form of it to spread the Bible among
the native speakers. Armenia proudly identifies itself as the first
nation to embrace Christianity as its state religion, which it did in
the year 301. But, for about 100 years, Armenian remained an oral
language and the country’s churches used copies of the Bible in other
languages.
When Mashdotz finally captured the local tongue with his dozens of
curving characters, the first words he transcribed were from the
Bible’s book of Proverbs: “That people may know wisdom.”
On Wednesday, Kochakian showed journalists as well as a group of
visiting teachers from public schools in metro Detroit through several
historical galleries at the church.
“Look, the alphabet is everywhere in our culture,” he
said. “Inscriptions are woven into our carpets; they’re on our
vestments and carved into wooden doors. And, look at this,” he said,
pointing to a case containing a 200-year-old bowed instrument, a
distant cousin of the violin. The instrument is inlaid with
mother-of-pearl inscriptions in Armenian.
“The language is such a big part of our life,” he said, though he
estimates it is regularly used by less than 20 percent of the several
thousand Armenian-Americans who consider St. John their parish.
Starting Sunday, Armenian churches and cultural organizations will
devote a year to special programs and classes about the language. In
kicking off the celebration, Catholicos Karekin II, head of the church
in Armenia, described the alphabet as so important that “the lush tree
of Armenian culture has grown tall from its gold-seeded root.”
There certainly seems to be fertile ground for this message in
Southfield. In a fourth-grade language class on Wednesday, 9-year-old
Ani Papazian explained to her class why they all must take this
seriously.
“If we don’t speak our language and keep it alive for the future,” she
said, “then it’s like there’s this long chain from Armenia that will
break. And we can’t be the ones to let that chain break.”
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
THIS WEEK: If you’re Armenian, tell us what your culture means to
you. If you’re not, tell us something about your own family’s cultural
heritage that’s important in your life today. E-mail
[email protected] or call 313-222-1456.

Thursday, October 06, 2005
**********************************
Tchaikovsky hated Brahms, Schopenhauer hated Hegel, and Nabokov hated Dostoevsky. If they could hate the competition, why can’t we hate the Turks? Because it is one thing to hate marginally and another to make of hatred a fixation. Most of their lives Tchaikovsky, Schopenhauer, and Nabokov concentrated their best efforts on creating masterpieces. Hatred for them was a transitory and ephemeral investment. With us it’s closer to monomania. Which is why it is damaging to our psyche and injurious to our creativity.
*
During the last few days I have read several commentaries by Canadian pundits on Turkey’s prospects of membership in the EU in which the Genocide is not even mentioned. Some countries in Europe may try to use Armenians as a political football, as they did at the turn of the last century, but Canadians know better. Canadians know that in politics and international affairs the deciding vote is always cast by self-interest and not love of justice. Such a pity that some of our leaders and pundits forget this or pretend not to be aware of it, as if their own actions were invariably motivated not by self-interest but by altruistic sentiments.
*
In his learned review of Annie and Jean-Pierre Mahé’s new book on Armenian History (L’ARMENIE A L’EPREUVE DES SIECLES), Claude Mutafian tells us that no historian is qualified to write a history of Armenia because no historian can claim to be an authority on all periods of Armenian history. And yet, historians like Spengler and Toynbee produced universal histories from ancient times to the present day. That’s because their aim was to understand history, not to describe it. One of our tragedies is that our historians have been of the descriptive kind, leading nowhere and understanding nothing. Hence our perception of the past as “a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, massacre, and deception” (Nigoghos Sarafian).
#
Friday, October 07, 2005
********************************
The most effective way of suppressing dissent and free speech is to support writers and publishers while at the same time exercising strict censorship. This is what all totalitarian regimes do. Under Stalin, for instance, dissenters like Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, and our own Zabel Yessayan, Bakounts, Mahari and many others) were silenced, sometimes permanently, but hundreds of other mediocrities (among them Sylva Kaputikian) were published, distributed, translated into many languages, and awarded the Stalin Prize. Most Soviet citizens didn’t care or were unaware of the fact that one of their most fundamental human rights was being violated.
*
I once had the following conversation with one of our publishers:
“I have had phone calls saying I should stop publishing you,” he began.
“By whom?” I wanted to know.
“By Jack S. Avanakian,” he replied.
“You mean the same Jack S. Avanakian who happens to be the personal secretary of one of our national benefactors?”
“The very same.”
“Are you going to follow his instructions?”
“Of course not!”
But he did. Shortly thereafter he stopped publishing me. What changed his mind? I have no idea and he never explained. But I can’t help remembering Brecht’s celebrated slogan: “Grub first, then ethics.”
#
Saturday, October 08, 2005
********************************
Fanatics in one camp will invariably create counter-fanatics in the opposite camp, and a fanatic’s favorite solution is extermination.
*
Those in power will tend to misrepresent their fanatics as moderates with the result that moderation and tolerance will be seen as treason and critics of extremism will be branded as enemies.
*
Whenever a fellow Armenian tells me, “Please, don’t write about this,” I think: Why shouldn’t I? It is my duty to do so. Let better men than myself deal with the problem of reforming and educating Turks. My ambitions are far more modest.
#

Regnum, Russia
Oct 8 2005
Armenia stands for establishing of budget monitoring mechanism to
limit warfare appetite of Baku
The Karabakh problem is a conflict between the people of Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan, and not a territorial dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, Head of the OSCE Department at the MFA
Varuzhan Nersisyan said at a NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan.
According to Nersisyan, even in the end of 20th century the UN
declined to recognize Nagorno Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan,
because it could pose danger to the people of Karabakh. Because of
this, liberation war was waged, during which people of Karabakh took
control over some of the nearest regions as a security measure. But
Azerbaijan still occupies some other Armenian territories, and that
should be a subject of peaceful negotiations, and nothing else,
stressed Nersisyan. `Karabakh is also a part of this conflict and
should participate in negotiations. The international community must
help people of Nagorno Karabakh Republic and find a solution between
two principles – peoples’ right for self-determination and
territorial unity of the state. This should be the main idea of OSCE
Minsk Group’, said Nersisyan. He also expressed his concerns about an
official statement made by Baku on the increase of war budget.
`Such statements can only lead to escalation of arms race in the
region’, noted Nersisyan. He also expressed his doubt whether an
increase of Azerbaijani war budget even to $600 million can help Baku
gain any advantages because of the corruption in Azerbaijani army. `I
think that the international community will formulate its opinion on
such statements. We are for the creation of budget monitoring
mechanism to limit warfare appetites.’
It should be noted, that Turkey did not participate in the seminar,
despite of the invitation, and Azerbaijan was presented unofficially
by chief of Azerbaijani Independent Research Center Leyla Aliyeva.

ARMINFO News Agency
October 7, 2005
RUSSIAN MILITARY UNITS IN ARMENIA DO NOT CONCERN KARABAKH CONFLICT:
ARMENIAN DM
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7. ARMINFO. The presence of the Russian military
units in Armenia does not concern the Karabakh conflict and the
relations with Azerbaijan, Armenia’s Defence Minister Serzh Sargssyan
stated journalists, Friday.
In his words, the Russian units are being located in Armenia at the
request and offer of the Armenian authorities. “Russian units are the
component of our security and their presence has been condintioned by
Armenia’s relations with countries out of the CIS, especially with
Turkey that is tuned with ill-will towards Armenia. Russian units are
in Armenia from our interests and we are to decide how long they will
be in the country”, Sargssyan stressed.

ARMINFO News Agency
October 7, 2005
ARMY IS A GUARANTOR OF PHYSICAL SECURITY OF ARMENIAN PEOPLE: SERZH
SARGSSYAN
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7. ARMINFO. Armenia would be ready to fulfill
radical reforms in defence sphere only when the final settling the
Karabakh conflict, as well as if Azerbaijan is to be agree to conduct
the same reforms under the control of international forces, Armenia’s
Defence Minister Serzh Sargssyan informed journalists today.
Minister noted that radical reforms means the reduction of arms,
however, the guarantee of Armenian people’s physical security is the
task number one for Armenia. “Armenia is a small country with the
three-million population, and any army may pass our territory
thoroughly in the absence of capable army”, Sargssyan stated. He also
noted that it is not advantageous for Armenia to keep constantly a
numerous mobile army, however, Armenia have no economic potential to
keep a professional army.
Sargssyan also noted that the public opinion poll testifies that
Armenia’s people rather trust the Armed Forces than the rest state
structures.

ARMINFO News Agency
October 7, 2005
“VIVA CELL” MOBILE COMMUNICATION NETWORK COVERS 65% OF ARMENIA’S
TERRITORY
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7. ARMINFO. During the three months of its activity
in Armenia, Viva Cell mobile communication network has covered about
65% of the country’s territory, K-Telecom Director General Ralph
Yirikyan told journalists, Thursday. R.Yirikyan visited Lori and
Shirak in connection with provision of cellular communication to
these regions.
The same day, the company donated medical equipment worth a total of
5.6 mln AMD to Shirak Regional Hospital and Vanadzor Medical Complex
No.1. He said the company will provide cellular communication to
Syunik and Tavush by the late October. In 2006, Viva Cell will start
covering the areas difficult of access, Yirikyan said. He said the
company does not plan reduction of tariffs.
To note, Viva Cell has sold 217,000 mobile communication cards. The
company launched its activity in the country on July 1 2005.

Gibrahayer e-magazine
Oct 7 2005
VIEW THE CANDIDATES ONLINE
Gibrahayer – Nicosia 7 October, 2005: Gibrahayer has secured the
interviews on MEGA TV of the three hopeful candidates for Sunday’s
by-election for the position of the Armenian representative in the
Cyprus House of Representatives.
As the interviews were conducted during a lunch zone, a lot of
our readers possibly missed them. For their benefit, and that of our
subscribers abroad, here are the interviews:
Download time is relative to your connection and you can choose
the download environment from this site:
Click here:
HAYEM.ORG’s INTERVIEW OF THE TRIO
The portal of Armenians of Cypriots has carried out an
online interview with the three hopeful candidates which appears on
their main page since yesterday.
1:- If you win, do you promise to attend the losing
parties/organizations events as a common individual even if you are
not invited?
ZARTARIAN
If I win, I will be too drunk at my own party to go anywhere else !
However thru yr forum I invite the two losers to join me for a drink
on Sunday night and to discuss how the three of us can work together
for next eight months for the benefit of our community.
ATAMIAN
Yes.
ASHDJIAN
This has been a topic which I have always considered important.
Throughout the years, I have made an effort to show up at various
events organized by “other” parties/organizations. Many have
witnessed my presence at Melkonian/AGBU events.
Furthermore, my track record in pan-community affairs, such as the
April 24 joint commemoration events, the Minorities Festival in 1999,
the Constitutional Committee in 2003-2004 and the committee
organizing Frank Pallone’s visit, are indications that I have always
worked in a spirit of co-operation with ALL sides.
FORUM ON FIRE !!
The forum at is blazing. A document regarding the sale
of Melkonian has just been posted and uploaded on this yahoo site:

… while the latest posting reads as follows:
_________________________________________ _______
You ask: What did we do to stop the closure of Melkonian.
Unfair question!
Part of the community did not have a say (not in their wildest
dreams) in the running of the school. Can you imagine the Tashnak
Gomideh going into Melkonian and saying (bagh-bagh): “We came to help
you prevent the sale of the school.”
Possible answer: “Kna yaao kordzit!!”
They would have thought: “They might think that there are commissions
in the deal, whereas we are doing this out of our interest for the
good of the school, the goghm, the nation and the motherland!”
Not even the simple members of AGBU had any say in these affairs.
The school served a few purposes for them. Votes, votes, votes and
votes.
The means to get to these purposes were the scholarships they gave
and the jobs and posts they gave to various people.
OF COURSE THE SCHOOL HAD OTHER PURPOSES AND MOST OF THE TEACHERS AND
EMPLOYEES REALLY CARED ABOUT THE SCHOOL WHICH GAVE TO THE NATION
GENERATIONS OF SCHOLARS
BUT
Everybody knows about the mismanagement of the funds by the few elite
who REALLY ran the show behind the curtains and ignored the warnings
of the Central Committee of AGBU and led the school to the current
state.
They must have warned quite a few times. But these people were so
much drugged with the benefits of the school, they ignored the
warnings.
It reminds me of the overcrowded sinking ship, where no one wanted to
jump off to save the ship from sinking. Eventually, no one jumped off
and the ship sank and everybody on-board drowned.
SHAME ON YOU!!!
And these people are now behind the candidacy of Atamyan.
On 9th October, the community should give a strong punch in the face
of the people who let this thing happen.
Crusader

CANDIDATE ZARTARIAN DONATES
In return for this special election mailing, Parsegh Zartarian
has made a donation of CYP 150.00 towards the training and travel
expenses of Zaruhi Haroutyunyan, the young tennis player from
Armenia, now living in Cyprus.
Gibrahayer e-newsletter thanks candidate Parsegh Zartarian for
his donation and reminds its reader’s that similar donations would be
welcome to help this young tennis hopeful from our motherland to
climb up the tennis ladder….. and make us all proud.
Simon Aynedjian – Gibrahayer e-magazine
You can join candidate Parsegh Zartarian in assisting Zaruhi
Haroutyunyan by making your contribution to the following account:
Laiki Bank Strovolos Industrial Area, Stavrou 96i, 2034,
Strovolos-Nicosia-Cyprus
Account No.101-08-037631 for Zaruhi Harutyunyan under guardian S.
Aynedjian.
You can view candidate Zartarian’s message to voters on

JUST OUT- READ ARTSAGANG OCTOBER 2005 ISSUE BEFORE IT REACHES YOU BY
POST
pdf format at:

DR. ASHDJIAN ADDRESSES LARNACA COMMUNITY AT ATRIUM ZENON HOTEL
(October 4 – Gibrahayer – Nicosia) The Armenian community of Larnaca
welcomed on Wednesday 5 October candidate Dr. Antranik Ashdjian at
the Atrium Zenon Hotel in Larnaca. A spokesperson for Dr. Ashdjian’s
Election Committee for Larnaca said to Gibrahayer that Larnaca would
score the best result yet.
Dr. Ashdjian was introduced by Larnaca Club President Avedis
Avedissian who delivered a moving speech to the crowd and then called
Dr. Antranik Ashdjian to the floor. The young candidate spoke in both
Greek and Armenian and eloquently commented on the problems in our
community and suggested solutions to them.
A reception organised by the Larnaca Election Committee of Dr.
Antranik Ashdjian was held at the reception hall of the Hotel that
was followed by dinner at a local taverna.
Dr. Ashdjian spent a day in Larnaca talking to voters on
Thursday. He was also interviewed by local radio stations and in the
evening he attended with his wife and family, the performance of the
Dance Ensemble of Armenia at the Municipal Theatre of Larnaca.

Radio Russia
Oct 7 2005
Ethnic communities take on Russian state agencies’ duties –
minister’s aide

In Moscow the Russian state agencies have been replaced by the ethnic
communities as the defender and protector of small business,
Konstantin Remchukov, a Russian businessman and aide to the economic
development and trade minister, as well as the de-facto owner of a
nationwide liberal paper, told Radio Russia’s “At First Hand”
programme on 7 October.
Discussing the Russian government’s economic policies with the
programme’s host, Natalya Bekhtina, Remchukov said that one of the
most urgent tasks for the government was to stimulate small business
and so far this task had been ignored and taken on only by ethnic
communities who provide loans and protection for members of their
ethnic groups.
“I talked to an Armenian businessman based in Moscow and he told me
that when Armenian refugees arrive in Moscow they visit some person
who takes on responsibility for the newcomers’ life and business [in
Moscow]. And this person is the most efficient protection for them.
The Armenian family is offered a private loan, a trade outlet, a
small shop or a shoe polisher’s booth. They are told how to deal with
the police and government inspectors. They are told to repay their
loan within two or three years. They are protected from criminals,”
Remchukov told his host.
“So we can see that the refugees in Moscow are very well organized
and their communities execute the state’s duties while the state does
not do so. The state does not offer people a start-up loan, does not
create favourable conditions for small business. And the ethnic
communities – the Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Chechen
diasporas – just do it themselves,” said Remchukov.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMINFO News Agency
October 7, 2005
HEAD OF TURKISH ARMED FORCES GENERAL STAFF THINKS PROTRACTION OF
KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN FAVOR OF AZERBAIJAN
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7. ARMINFO. “In the Karabakh conflict, the time
plays in the hands of Azerbaijan,” Head of the General Staff of
Turkish Armed Forces, General Hilmi Ozkok, said during his meeting
with Azerbaijani Defense Minister, Colonel General Safar Abiyev, the
Echo reports.
He said ‘Armenia is economically weak and this will strengthen the
positions of Azerbaiian and will create favorable conditions for
settlement.’ H. Ozkok said Turkey is ready to deepen the versatile
cooperation with Azerbaijan, including in the military sphere. He
thinks Turkey’s admission to the EU would be useful for the South
Caucasus region as well. The sides dwelled on the military- political
situation in the region of the South Caucasus and Central Asia and
the prospects of Azerbaijani-Turkish military cooperation.