‘NO’ TO ISLAMIST TURKEY
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Washington Times
Sept 27 2005
On Oct. 3, representatives of the European Union and the Turkish
government of Islamist Recep Erdogan will meet to determine if
Muslim Turkey will be allowed to seek full membership in the EU. It
will be best for Turkey, to say nothing of Europe and the West more
generally, if the EU answer under present circumstances is: “Thanks,
but no thanks.”
The reason Europe should politely, but firmly, reject Turkey’s bid
should be clear: Prime Minister Erdogan is systematically turning his
country from a Muslim secular democracy into an Islamofascist state
governed by an ideology anathema to European values and freedoms.
Evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find.
~U Turkey is awash with billions of dollars in what is known as
“green money,” apparently emanating from funds Saudi Arabia and other
Persian Gulf states withdrew from the United States after September
11, 2001. U.S. policymakers are concerned this unaccountable cash
is laundered in Turkey, then used to finance businesses and generate
new revenue streams for Islamofascist terrorism. At the very least,
everything else on Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist agenda is lubricated by
these resources.
~U Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system is being
steadily supplanted by madrassa-style “imam hatip” schools and
other institutions where students are taught only the Koran and its
interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The prime minister
is himself an imam hatip school graduate and has championed lowering
the age at which children can be subjected to their form of radical
religious indoctrination from 12 years old to 4. And in 2005, experts
expect 1,215,000 Turkish students to graduate from such schools.
~U Products of such an education are ill-equipped to do much besides
carrying out the Islamist program of Mr. Erdogan’s AKP Party.
Tens of thousands are being given government jobs: Experienced, secular
bureaucrats are replaced with ideologically reliable theo-apparatchiks;
4,000 others pack secular courts, transforming them into instruments
of Shari’a religious law.
~U As elsewhere, religious intolerance is a hallmark of Mr.
Erdogan’s creeping Islamofascist putsch in Turkey. Roughly a third of
the Turkish population is a minority known as Alevis. They observe
a strain of Islam that retains some of the traditions of Turkey’s
ancient religions. Islamist Sunnis like Mr. Erdogan and his Saudi
Wahhabi sponsors regard the Alevis as “apostates” and “hypocrites”
and subject them to increasing discrimination and intimidation. Other
minorities, notably Turkey’s Jews, know they are likely next in line
for such treatment — a far cry from the tolerance of the Ottoman era.
~U In the name of internationally mandated “reform” of Turkey’s
banking system, the government is seizing assets and operations of
banks run by businessmen associated with the political opposition. It
has gone so far as to defy successive rulings by Turkey’s supreme court
disallowing one such expropriation. The AKP-dominated parliament has
enacted legislation that allows even distant relatives of the owners
to be prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing. Among the beneficiaries of
such shakedowns have been so-called “Islamic banks” tied to Saudi
Arabia, some of whose senior officers now hold top jobs in the
Erdogan government.
~U Grabbing assets — or threatening to do so — has allowed the
government effectively to take control of the Turkish media, as well.
Consolidation of the industry in hands friendly to (or at least cowed
by) the Islamists and self-censorship of reporters, lest they depart
from the party line, have essentially denied prominent outlets to any
contrary views. The risks of deviating is clear from the recently
announced prosecution of Turkey’s most acclaimed novelist, Orhan
Parmuk, for “denigrating Turks and Turkey” by affirming in a Swiss
publication allegations of past Turkish genocidal attacks on Kurds
and Armenians.
~U Among the consequences of Mr. Erdogan’s domination of the press
has been an inflaming of Turkish public opinion against President
Bush in particular and the United States more generally. Today,
a novel describing a war between America and Turkey leading to the
nuclear destruction of Washington is a runaway best-seller, even in
the Turkish military.
~U This data point perhaps indicates the Islamists’ progress toward
also transforming the traditional guarantors of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk’s legacy of a secular, pro-Western Muslim state: Turkey’s
armed forces. Matters have been worsened by Mr. Erdogan’s skillful
manipulation of popular interest in the European bid to keep the
military from serving as a control rod in Turkish politics.
At the very least, over time, the cumulative effect of having the
conscript-based Turkish army obliged to fill its ranks with products
of an increasingly Islamist-dominated educational system cannot be
positive for either the Europeans or the Free World beyond.
Especially as Mr. Erdogan seeks to put into effect what has been
dubbed a “zero-problem” policy toward neighboring Iran and Syria,
the military’s historical check on the gravitational pull toward
Islamofascism is likely to recede.
Consequently, the EU’s representatives should not only put on ice
any invitation to Turkey to join the European Union next week. They
should make it clear the reason is Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist takeover:
The prime minister is making Turkey ineligible for membership on the
grounds that the AKP program will inevitably ruin his nation’s economy,
radicalize its society and eliminate Ankara’s ability to play Turkey’s
past, constructive role in the geographic “cockpit of history.”
It is to be hoped this meeting will serve one other purpose, as well:
It should compel the Europeans to begin to address their own burgeoning
problem with Islamofascism. Both Europe, Turkey and, for that matter,
the rest of the world, need to find ways to empower moderate Muslims
who oppose Islamists like Turkey’s Erdogan. Oct. 3 would be a good
time to start.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy
and a columnist for The Washington Times.

TURKEY’S CHRISTIAN MINORITY DECRIES PREJUDICE
By Selcuk Gokoluk
Reuters
09/26/05 12:52 ET
ANTAKYA, Turkey, Sept 26 (Reuters) – At a conference aimed at
showcasing religious tolerance in this EU candidate nation, leaders
of Turkey’s tiny Christian community said on Monday they face constant
prejudice from the Muslim majority.
Turkey is more than 99 percent Muslim and its Christians are mainly
descendants of Greeks and Armenians who stayed after the fall of the
multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Ottoman Empire in the 1920s.
Ankara is under pressure from the European Union to bolster the
freedoms of its non-Muslim citizens as it prepares for the historic
launch of EU membership talks next week.
Patriarch Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based titular head of the world’s
300 million Orthodox Christians, said his church still suffered
from petty restrictions rooted in the distrust and hostility of the
Turkish authorities.
“We have difficulty understanding the mentality which sees our rituals
as a show of force and our visits (around Turkey) as missionary
activity,” the Patriarch told delegates attending the “Meeting of
Civilisations” conference.
Turkish nationalists have long viewed the patriarchate as a tool
of ancient foe Greece, even though Bartholomew himself is a Turkish
citizen. He addressed the conference in Turkish.
“We are upset by the efforts of those who try to make politics out
of the patriarchate and our community … Our patriarchate is only a
religious institution and is interested only in its religious duties,”
Bartholomew said.
He complained he had not been allowed to perform religious rituals in
the past two years at the church of Saint Nicholas — the prototype
for Santa Claus — in the Mediterranean town of Demre on his feast-day
on December 6.
The church is a museum, but in the previous 20 years Bartholomew said
he had been able to conduct rituals there.
SUSPICIONS
The spiritual leader of Turkey’s small Armenian community, Patriarch
Mesrob II, echoed Bartholomew’s criticisms.
“Unfortunately our being different from the majority is not always
seen as an asset,” he said, adding his church too had to combat
wrongful ideas and prejudices against it.
Both Bartholomew and Mesrob appealed for greater understanding and
empathy from their Turkish fellow-citizens.
Officially, Turkey is strictly secular but Islam is closely tied
up with the national identity — the flag bears the Islamic star
and crescent moon, for example — and many feel non-Muslims are not
real Turks.
In a sign of how sensitive religion can be, one Turkish lawmaker has
condemned the Antakya conference as an attempt to distract attention
from the “exploitations and massacres conducted by the United States
and Israel in our region”.
“Our Muslim nation’s patience and awareness is being tested by these
meetings, dialogues, conferences and parks of religion,” Mehmet Silay,
who represents the Antakya region, said in a statement issued before
the conference began.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP) has Islamist roots, told the 700 delegates the world’s
Muslims had also faced increased prejudice and discrimination since
the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
“Islamphobia is a crime against humanity, just like anti-Semitism,”
said Erdogan, a practising Muslim.
Located near the Syrian border, the town of Antakya — known as
Antioch in ancient times — was chosen as the venue for the week-long
conference because of its rich religious heritage.
The area contains Turkey’s oldest mosque and is also the place where
Jesus’s followers were first called Christians. Antakya is still home
to small Christian and Jewish communities.

MULTI-PLATINUM ROCK BAND SYSTEM OF A DOWN ASK HOUSE SPEAKER DENNIS HASTERT TO ‘DO THE RIGHT THING’ IN SUPPORT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LEGISLATION
American/Columbia Records
09/26/2005 13:02 ET
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ — System of a Down, one of rock’s
most daring and innovative bands, have just announced that they – along
with their fans, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA;
), Axis of Justice ()
and the Armenian Youth Federation – will visit the Batavia office of
Rep. Dennis Hastert on Tuesday, September 27 (Noon) to ask Speaker
Hastert to ‘do the right thing’ and keep his commitment to hold a
vote on the pending Armenian Genocide legislation. If passed, the
legislation will officially recognize Turkey’s destruction of 1.5
million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. The band have invited their
fans to join with them in this effort by attending the rally and have
set up a system by which fans can directly email Speaker Hastert on
the issue.*
System of a Down’s four band members – Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian,
Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan – are of Armenian descent and
have made awareness of the genocide, and genocide around the world,
a central message of the band. All have lost family members to the
Armenian Genocide.
On September 15, the House International Relations Committee
overwhelmingly approved legislation recognizing the Armenian
Genocide, despite objections from both Turkey and the Bush
Administration. Despite his previous public support for the measure
in 2000, Speaker Hastert has twice prevented the Armenian Genocide
legislation from coming to a full vote in the House. Today the fate
of this human rights issue rests in the Speaker’s hands. He has two
choices: either allow a vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution,
giving the 435 Members of the U.S. House a chance to cast their ballots
on this human rights measure or, delay, defer, and ultimately defeat
the Armenian Genocide Resolution by refusing to bring the measure to
a vote of the full U.S. House. The rally is in support of a fair and
full vote in the House of Representatives, ending U.S.
denial of this crime and opening the doors to justice – to the
restoration, reparation, and restitution owed to the victims of
genocide.
“Dennis, do the right thing” stated Serj Tankian, “I just visited my
97- year-old grandfather, my only link to the far past, and promised
him that I would go and try to talk to Dennis Hastert, Speaker of
the House, and make sure that he takes this opportunity to bring
up the Armenian Genocide Resolution to the floor of the House of
Representatives. This is a personal issue to me and System.”
The System of a Down/ANCA rally will take place at the offices
of Rep. Dennis Hastert – 27 North River Street, Batavia, Illinois
(about an hour from downtown Chicago). The rally is scheduled for
12 Noon-2:00 PM on Tuesday, September 27. The Armenian community,
activists, and the band’s fans from across the greater Chicago area
are expected to attend the rally.
Members of System of a Down and Aram Suren Hamparian, Executive
Director of ANCA, are available to discuss the rally and pending
legislation on Tuesday, 9/27 and Friday, 9/30, the day of their
concert at Chicago’s Allstate Arena.
*System Of A Down have asked their fans to take action and send a
free WebFax urging Hastert to hold a vote on the Armenian Genocide
Resolution.
About System Of A Down: Six months after their album Mesmerize
debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top 200 album charts, the
quartet returns with Hypnotize on November 22, part two of a promised
two-album set. The American/Columbia recording artists are nominated
for an American Music Award in the “Favorite Artist” in Alternative
category and are currently on a North American headlining tour
through October 12. For more information, visit the band’s website:
Background on the issue:
On September 15th of this year, the International Relations Committee
overwhelmingly approved legislation properly recognizing this crime
against humanity. During the course of a three-hour meeting, 21
Representatives on this 50-member panel spoke in favor of H.Res.316
and H.Con.Res195, which were adopted by bipartisan majorities of 40 to
7 and 35 to 11, respectively. Clearly, just as in 2000, legislation
recognizing the Armenian Genocide enjoys the support of a large
Congressional majority.
The full video of the 9/15/05 webcast can be viewed at:
In October of 2000, Speaker Hastert withdrew the Armenian Genocide
Resolution from consideration only moments before it was to reach to
House floor.
Following his withdrawal of this measure, he issued a statement
affirming his personal support for the Armenian Genocide Resolution,
stressing that the Resolution enjoyed the support of a bi-partisan
Congressional majority, and pledging to bring this legislation back
to the House floor.
The Speaker has, in the past, taken positive actions on the Armenian
Genocide issue:
1) Remarks on the House floor, on April 19, 1994, marking the 79th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: “Over a million Armenians were
exiled and eventually murdered by the Ottoman Turks beginning on April
24, 1915. As a result of this genocide, the Armenian population of
the Ottoman Empire was effectively eliminated through a carefully
executed government plan.”
2) His vote, on June 5th of 1996, for the Radanovich Amendment, to cut
U.S. aid to Turkey until it ceases denying the Armenian Genocide. This
measure was adopted on the House floor by a bipartisan majority of
268 to 153.

ANOUNCING THE RESULTS OF THE 2005 VAKHTANG JORDANIA INTERNATIONAL CONDUCTING COMPETITION
Top40-Charts.com, NY
Sept 26 2005
New York, NY (Jeffrey James Arts Consulting) – The Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has announced the results of
its 2005 competition held in Kharkov, Ukraine between August 29 and
September 4. This year’s competition featured 29 competitors from 16
countries around the world.
The jury did not award a Jordania Grand Prize, but did decide on
two William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizes – Harutyun Arzumanyan
of Armenia and Matteo Pagliari of Italy. Third Prize was awarded to
Christopher Chen of the United States.
Mr. Arzumanyan is a graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatory
as a violinist and conductor. He founded the Armenian Chamber
Orchestra and has frequently conducted at the National Opera and
Ballet Theatre of Armenia. He was the first prizewinner of the 1999
National Competition for conductors and was 3rd Prizewinner of the 8th
Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors in Katowice, Poland.
Mr. Pagliari currently holds assistant conductor positions to both
Riccardo Frizza and Roberto Abbado. He has made many guest appearances
with opera companies and orchestras throughout Italy and the United
States. He holds a conducting degree from the Conservatorio Arrigo
Boito in Parma, Italy.
Mr. Chen is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and is currently
Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Opera. He is a frequent guest
conductor in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and Finland. He
was recently selected as one of eight conductors in the American
Symphony Orchestra League’s 2005 National Conductor preview.
As William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizewinners, Mr. Arzumanyan and
Mr. Pagliari will receive concert engagements during the 2006-2007
concert season with orchestras in Ukraine, the U.S., and other
countries to be named.
Third Prizewinner Mr. Chen will receive a concert engagement during
the 2006-2007 concert season with an orchestra in Ukraine.
The Orchestra Favorite prize was awarded to Boguslav Kobierski of
Poland, who is the current conductor of the Etela-Karjala Sinfonietta
of Finland.
The Audience Favorite prize and a special distinction certificate
was awarded to Shigekazu Yonezaki of Japan, who is a regular guest
conductor of many orchestras in his country, including the New Japan
Philharmonic.
Jennifer Bailey of Australia was also a Third Round participant and
special distinction certificate awardee. She is the Conductor and
Director of the Orchestra at St. Mary Magdalen in Oxford, England.
Other participants in the competition included: Kerim S. Anwar, a
citizen of Canada who lives in the Czech Republic, Rihards Buks of
Latvia, Shawn Eugene Burke-Storer of the United States, Timothy Dixon
of the United States, Lawrence Golan of the United States, Yasuhiko
Ishige of Japan, Vladimir Kern of Russia, Sergey Kiss of Russia,
Maksim Kuzin of Ukraine, Sang-Hwan Lee of South Korea who lives in
Austria, Tai-Wai Li of Hong Kong, Christian Lombardi of Germany,
Octavio Mas Arocas of Spain, Paolo Paroni of Italy, Georgi Patrikov
of Bulgaria, Benjamin Rous of the United States, Elior Sharivker of
Israel, Yosyp Sozanskyy of Ukraine, Jin Tanaka of Japan who lives
in Wales, Yasutaka Tsuda of Japan, Viatcheslav Valeev of Russia,
Shin Watanabe of Japan and Alexander Zverunov of Russia.
The competition jury was composed of Jooyong Ahn of the United States,
Yuri Alzhnev of Ukraine, Giorgi Jordania of Republic of Georgia,
Joan McNeill Murray of the United States, Jonathan Sternberg of the
United States and Yuri Suchkov of Moscow.
This year’s Third Round Contemporary Compositions selections were a
new orchestral work by Yuri Alznev, Christopher Kaufman’s Island, Dana
Paul Perna’s Bucks County Ballad and Judith Lang Zaimont’s Stillness –
Poem for Orchestra.
The 2005 Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting
Competition was a great success, both artistically and as a
means for continuing to bring the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra
() to the rest of the
world. In addition to the lively competition, contestants also
participated in a series of Master Classes and special events
and enjoyed the opportunity to have individual and small group
instruction and interaction with jury and orchestra members. Also
important was the chance to meet and spend time with other
conductors from around the world. More about the competition at
Building on the great success of this year’s event, planning for
an expanded and even more international 2006 Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has already begun.

ONTARIO STUDENTS FIRST IN WEST TO BE TAUGHT DETAILS OF WARTIME ATROCITIES IN ASIA
By David Giddens CBCUnlocked
CBCUnlocked, Canada
Sept 26 2005
“See that?” John Stroud, Canadian Hong Kong War veteran, is pointing
a bony finger at a black-and-white picture taken 60 years ago of a
gaunt young man. “That’s me. In the Japanese slave camps.” He turns
to his audience of students, teachers and media in Toronto’s Jarvis
Collegiate auditorium. “I weighed 182 pounds when I was captured. I
was 62 pounds when I got out.”
“What we taught in the past was incomplete,” says Sarah Giddens,
history teacher and contributor to the successful effort to make
Ontario the first jurisdiction in the Western world to include a
section of history about the Second World War in Asia. “Most students,
most teachers, are shocked to learn the facts about this period and
place in history.”
Ontario’s new Grade 10 curriculum now includes specific examples of
such war atrocities as those suffered by Stroud and other prisoners
of war. They also include information on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre,
during which hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed during
a six-week spree by Japanese troops, and the abuse of the “Comfort
Women,” Asian women forced into prostitution by the troops during
the war. Wartime history, including those incidents, is still the
subject of angry debate today between Japan and other Asian nations
including China and Korea.
Ontario’s Ministry of Education takes the position that the province
has a duty to train students to form broader perspectives on history.
Case in point: many, perhaps most, Canadians have been taught the
global conflict began in 1939 with the invasion of Poland, while many
Americans might argue the war really began at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
But for millions of Asians, the Second World War began a decade
earlier, when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. And that shift in
perspective is the entire point behind the new course material: The
Search for Global Citizenship: The Violation of Human Rights in Asia,
1931-1945.”
The project is due in very large part to the efforts of
Chinese-Canadian philanthropist Dr. Joseph Wong. Eight years ago,
he was instrumental in forming ALPHA, The Association for Learning &
Preserving the History of WWII in Asia-Toronto, because “very few
people in the world know about the truth. ALPHA is here to make sure
that justice finally prevails for those 35 million souls who perished
during the war in Asia.”
“I draw a parallel: postwar Germany made it a crime to deny the
Holocaust, and compensated victims of the Second World War, and truly
expressed remorse in making sure that all German children will learn
the truth about the war, but look at the aggressor Japanese nation
today. They still try to hide facts of the war. They still want to
change history in the textbooks, so that Japanese children are denied
the right to know about what happened during that particular dark
chapter of history.”
The Japanese government vehemently denies this assessment of history
and says its peacetime record since the war proves it is not an
aggressor nation. However the issue continues to sour relations
between China and Japan. Changes to Japanese textbooks this spring
led to a tense standoff between China and Japan, with Chinese crowds
attacking Japanese businesses in Beijing and other cities.
Every secondary school in Ontario now has documents, videos and web
information to support the revised curriculum. The foreword is by
Canadian journalist, author and social activist June Callwood: “If
world peace ever happens it will be built on knowledge. Young people
cannot understand the importance of defending existing protections of
human life and dignity without knowing that the wall between decency
and depravity is paper thin.”
The goal is not to isolate atrocities committed by the Japanese
Imperial Army, but to help students understand these events in the
same way they understand other crimes against humanity, such as the
Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian massacre or the Rwandan genocide. It
is not about vilifying Japan, but about enlightening a new generation
of students and leaders to the fact that humanity, in all parts of
the globe, has a history of committing human rights abuses.
Maria Y.M. Yau, project co-ordinator with the Toronto District school
board, admits that, within the Japanese community, this remains
controversial material, but adds, “As a global citizen, this is
not controversial. It is a history we should share with our younger
students … as citizens we are all entitled to know these facts.”
Yau’s regret is that recent history is still susceptible to political
manoeuvring. Among some in the Chinese communities, some of this
history is still viewed with skepticism, because students from China
have learned to distrust much of what they were taught under the
propaganda-laden Communist regime.
Linda Mowatt – president of the Ontario History, Humanities and
Social Sciences Teachers’ Association – says that distrust is part of
the reason the new curriculum is so useful: “This is history being
revealed in the time that students are learning it …. They are
getting critical skills about the act of revealing history. Students
are learning that the truth emerges slowly and methodically.”
Jack Fu, a Grade 11 student at Jarvis, had previously taken five
years of history in China. Upon moving to Canada, he says, “I was
surprised to not learn this in history classes here. I find a lot of
similarities between Nanjing and the Jewish Holocaust.”
Jasmine Li, now in Grade 12, says, “When I took Grade 10 history, I
learned about Europe … events in Germany and Austria and so forth,
but it is really important that people know what happened in the
whole world. Not just part of it.”
For his part, Dr. Wong is optimistic about the eventual impact of the
new course: “I see this as a step toward the closure of the Second
World War in Asia.”

CONTROVERSIAL ARMENIAN CONFERENCE ENDS WITHOUT MAJOR TURMOIL
The New Anatolian, Turkey
Sept 26 2005
* Conference runs peacefully despite protests
* Oran: End of another taboo in Turkey
ISTANBUL – The once postponed and then later suspended conference on
“Armenians in the Late Ottoman Era” opened in Istanbul on Saturday
under high security and amidst protests by some 300 people holding
banners and Turkish flags.
The self-avowed goal of the conference was to call into question the
official Turkish account of events. It was to be held in May but was
postponed amidst a hail of criticism, and was suspended again by an
Istanbul court on Thursday, hours before it was scheduled to start.
The scene at Bilgi University, which agreed to host the conference,
was quite typical of any controversial event in any democratic country,
with protesters chanting and rotten eggs flying, despite the air of
extraordinary sentimentality and strict security measures.
Only those with invitations were admitted to the university campus
during the conference while protestors, members of the press, and
security forces were stationed outside the gates. Some of the banners
read: “Turkish diplomats, victims of the Armenian slaughters, may
you sleep in peace for we’re on guard,” and, “One-sided thesis is
not academic.”
Professor Erdal Inonu, a senior statesman and former leader of the
Social Democrat People’s Party (SHP), who attended the conference
as a member of the audience, was heckled at the gate, while another
group of protestors shouted at Inonu, saying, “Dear Inonu, don’t go
among those traitors.”
Independent Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate representative Sevgi
Erenerol made a statement saying that Turks didn’t commit genocide
at any point in their history, and that, on the contrary, they were
victims of genocide themselves in various parts of the world.
Academics, as well as a majority of the media, expressed bitter
frustration at the judiciary’s intervention in the event. Not only did
the efforts to block the conference hamper efforts for democratization
and freedom of speech in Turkey on its road to the EU, they said,
but the persistence of these efforts also magnifies the significance
of the conference and its content.
A protestor told TNA that the goal was merely to bring the so-called
Armenian genocide to the public’s attention to stir up the country
and that the meeting was one-sided and non-academic. “It’s illegal to
say there was no genocide in many European countries,” he contested,
“but in Turkey it’s open to discussion. Are we a more democratic
country then?”
The question may be worthwhile, and the fact that the conference did
actually take place without any involved parties resorting to violence
may be a step in the right direction. As Professor Baskin Oran said
this may also be a breakthrough for Turkey in the realm of breaking
taboos and proves that things don’t go awry when people speak.

PETITIONERS RUSH TO RESTORE L.A. COUNTY CROSS BEFORE DEADLINE
Christian Post, CA
Sept 26 2005
LOS ANGELES – The committee spearheading the initiative to restore
the cross on the L.A. County Seal must submit over 170,000 petition
signatures to the County’s Register Recorder Office by 5:00 p.m.
today to qualify the measure for the June 2006 ballot.
“Every signature counts. It doesn’t matter if it’s last minute,”
David Hernandez, chairman of the Committee to Support the Los Angeles
County Seal Ordinance, told the Christian Post Sunday night.
According to the group’s website on Monday morning, the absolute
deadline to submit petition signatures to the group’s headquarters in
Sylmar in North San Fernando Valley will be Monday afternoon at two
o’clock. Representatives of the Committee plan to make a 15-minute
stop at the L.A. County Republican Party Headquarters in Commerce
before heading to the County’s Register Recorder Office in Norwalk.
“We don’t want to take any chances, considering traffic,” Hernandez
continued. “We had hoped to be done two weeks ago but things didn’t
work out that way.”
Numbers on the Committee’s website on Sunday report that 122,414
signatures have been collected – leaving 47,586 remaining to meet
the petition signature quota.
Although the pressure of meeting the impending deadline has been
growing, local churches and registered L.A. County voters have risen
to the call.
Churches from all over L.A. County used Sunday masses and services
as opportunities to collect last-minute signatures from congregants.
Among them were Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles and St.
Monica’s in Santa Monica. According to Hernandez, Catholic churches
and groups such as the Knights of Columbus have been really engaged
in the effort.
Specific numbers are yet to be finalized from the churches’ petitions
but Hernandez estimated around 5,000 signatures were tallied up at a
petition drop-off site at his home and around 2,500 – 3,000 more were
gathered during a petition signing event at an Armenian Independence
Day celebration at Verdugo Park in Glendale on Sunday.
Hernandez said Armenians could empathize with the attack on the L.A.
County Seal because they experienced religious persecution firsthand
during 1915 when 1.5 million Armenians died in genocide at the hands
of Ottoman Turkish forces. An article published in The Middle East
Quarterly reported that several hundred thousand Christians died by
starvation or were murdered during the deportation of the Armenians
from Anatolia to the Syrian Desert and elsewhere in 1915-16.
“Most Americans don’t understand religious persecution. We don’t
have the historical reference like the Armenian community or the
Jewish community have. When we think about persecution, it’s not in
the same context,” he said. “Here you have a culture where you had
what religious persecution could lead to and did lead to.”
Hernandez said he had hoped the Armenian community could help educate
Americans on the dangers of religious persecution. Because people
are unaware of the issue, efforts to garner enough signatures in last
two petitions drives were unsuccessful, he added.
The L.A. County Board of Directors voted to replace the 1957 version
of the Seal after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) threatened
suit unless the cross was removed from the Seal, alleging the cross
was a government endorsement of religion.
Supporters of cross including County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and
Don Knabeargue, who voted against its removal, argue that the cross
is a cultural and historical symbol.
Hernandez said he has seen people work their hearts out but noted
that regardless of the outcome, “We have no regrets.”
More information on the petition drive can be found at the
Committee to Support the Los Angeles County Seal Ordinance website,

LES JUGES TURCS REFUSENT LE DEBAT SUR LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN
Istanbul : Marie-Michèle Martinet
Le Figaro, France
24 septembre 2005
TURQUIE A quelques jours de l’ouverture des negociations d’adhesion
A quelques jours de l’ouverture des negociations d’adhesion entre
l’Union europeenne et Ankara, Jacques Chirac s’est dit satisfait
de la reponse apportee par les Vingt-Cinq a la Turquie après son
refus de reconnaître Chypre. ” La contre-declaration de l’Union
europeenne repond aux preoccupations francaises “, a affirme le
president francais.
Le genocide armenien reste decidement un sujet tabou en Turquie. Pour
la deuxième fois en moins de six mois, une conference organisee
conjointement, a ce sujet, par deux prestigieuses universites
stambouliotes, vient d’etre suspendue par la justice turque. Cette
decision, prise a la veille de l’ouverture des negociations d’adhesion
europeenne de la Turquie prevue le 3 octobre, suscite de nouvelles
interrogations sur la capacite d’Ankara a s’engager dans un veritable
processus democratique. A l’occasion du 90 e anniversaire du genocide
armenien celebre en avril dernier, les universitaires turcs avaient
cru possible d’ouvrir enfin le debat, en Turquie.
L’idee etait simple : inviter une soixantaine d’intellectuels
critiques a exposer leur analyse sur les massacres de 1915, dont
Ankara se refuse toujours a admettre le caractère genocidaire.
Programmee pour le 25 mai, la conference fut suspendue a la dernière
minute, sous l’impulsion du ministre de la Justice, Cemil Cicek,
qui declarait alors qu’un tel debat ne pouvait avoir lieu car
il constituait une offense a la nation, un “coup de poignard dans
le dos du peuple turc”. Quelques mois plus tard, le meme scenario
vient de se reproduire : a la suite d’une plainte deposee par des
juristes, le tribunal administratif d’Istanbul a annonce jeudi soir
la suspension d’une conference dont l’ouverture etait prevue pour le
lendemain matin. “Nous regrettons vivement cette nouvelle tentative
d’empecher la societe turque d’avoir un debat sur son histoire.
Nous considerons egalement que le timing de cette decision, un
jour seulement avant la date prevue de la conference, ressemble
a une nouvelle provocation”, a declare hier la porte-parole du
commissaire europeen a l’Elargissement, Olli Rehn. Krisztina Nagy
evoque egalement les “difficultes de la Turquie, et en particulier de
son système judiciaire, a assurer une application reelle et constante
des reformes”. On peut s’interroger sur les intentions reelles de
ceux qui, en prononcant cette interdiction a quelques jours de la
date cruciale du 3 octobre, compliquent indiscutablement la tâche
des diplomates turcs, deja embarrasses par la delicate question de la
reconnaissance de Chypre. Veulent-ils purement et simplement saboter
le dialogue difficilement engage entre la Turquie et l’Europe ? Le
premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dont l’avenir politique
reste très lie au succès des negociations, a condamne la decision des
juges : “La cour a jete une ombre sur le processus de democratisation
et sur les libertes dans mon pays”, a-t-il declare, en s’interrogeant
au passage sur les competences du tribunal. En decembre prochain,
le romancier turc Orhan Pamuk, dont les livres sont publies en France
par Gallimard, sera juge pour avoir affirme, dans un journal suisse,
qu’ “un million d’Armeniens et trente mille Kurdes ont ete tues
en Turquie”. Ces propos, consideres comme une insulte a l’identite
turque, peuvent lui valoir une peine de six a neuf mois de prison,
conformement au nouveau Code penal. Le Parlement europeen a deja
fait savoir qu’il designerait des observateurs pour s’assurer du
bon deroulement de ce procès, ce qui exaspère de nombreux Turcs qui
voient dans cette demarche une volonte d’ingerence de l’Europe :
“Arretez de faire d’Orhan Pamuk un faux heros !” s’insurge Bedri
Baykam, qui dirige le très kemaliste Mouvement patriotrique,
proche du principal parti d’opposition CHP. Cet agitateur politique
precise cependant qu’il n’approuve pas l’interdiction prononcee par
la justice turque parce qu’elle “va faire du tort a la Turquie en
flattant ses ennemis”. Pour cette raison, “il aurait fallu qu’un vrai
debat democratique s’engage…” , regrette-t-il, en deplorant dans
le meme temps que les historiens defenseurs de la version officielle
turque n’aient pas ete invites a la conference d’Istanbul. Soucieux
des consequences de cette nouvelle crise armenienne qui ravive les
crispations nationalistes dans le pays, Hrant Dink, le redacteur
en chef du journal bilingue Agos, publie en turc et en armenien,
s’efforce de calmer le jeu : “Il n’y a rien a dire pour le moment,
a-t-il prudemment declare. Il faut surtout garder son calme et
reflechir a ce qui vient de se passer.” Jusqu’a present, la communaute
armenienne de Turquie s’est declaree favorable a l’adhesion a l’Europe,
sachant qu’un tel ancrage serait la meilleure protection pour l’avenir
des minorites dans le pays.
–Boundary_(ID_2+V5W8mKCqieomUr3k9RFQ)–

TURKEY’S EU MEMBERSHIP “POLITICALLY UNATTAINABLE OBJECTIVE” – NATO’S LELLOUCHE
Liberation, Paris, in French
26 Sep 05
Text of commentary by Pierre Lellouche, chairman of NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, entitled “Turkey’s missed appointment” published by French
newspaper Liberation website on 26 September
Turkey’s EU membership negotiations, which are due to start on 3
October, raise a fundamental question in two respects: for Turkey,
a great Muslim country, the question of its European destiny; and
for each of the EU member states, that of our vision of Europe,
its founding values and its proper borders.
The prospect of Europe’s engaging – almost underhand and without
any democratic consultation – in a mechanism that would lead,
almost automatically, to Turkey’s accession probably contributed
to the victory of the “No” vote in the referendum [on the European
Constitution]. Not that the opening of these negotiations, scheduled
following a European Council decision, has been any more or less
transparent than in the case of other EU enlargements. The reasons
for the very negative perception that many people in France form
of Turkey’s candidacy in most cases has nothing to do with the real
nature of that country today. It has to do first and foremost with
fear of Islam, which is linked to the failure or difficulty of the
integration of our Arab-Maghrebi communities in our own city areas.
At a time when France is becoming aware of the scale of the Muslim
minority in the country (at least 10 per cent of the population,)
when it is worried about jihadists groups recruiting on its own
territory, when it is difficult to ensure observance of the law even
in our schools, and when immigration seems to be increasingly “out of
control” in a Europe that no longer really knows where its borders
lie, was it really impossible to find anything better to do than to
allow a further 70 million – soon to be 100 million – Muslims in?
Voters could not understand it, since our government failed to realize
the scale of the problem properly and, even more, failed to prepare
the public in advance for decisions that had long been scheduled, since
the Helsinki Council session of 1999 and that of 2002 in Copenhagen.
I was among those in favour of the principle of launching negotiations
with Turkey and, in time, if the conditions were met, of its possible
membership. I thought that it was a question of civilization: either
we thought, a priori, that there is no place for the Muslims in Europe,
irrespective of what they might do and irrespective of their political,
economic and social system and accepted in advance – even within our
own societies – the “conflict of civilizations” that some predict;
or we decided to attempt the experiment, in order to establish
democracy in that secular Muslim country, and tried to promote, in
opposition to the regressive model that the Bin-Ladins, al-Zawahiris
and other all-Zarqawi-type murderers were trying to impose by means
of terror, the alternative model of an open, tolerant Islam, confined
to the private sphere and compatible with our own values. This still
remains a challenge of prime importance for us, following the attacks
in Madrid and then those in London this July. And in this worldwide
struggle against terrorism and jihadist radicalism, we need the help
of a pro-Western Turkey living in accordance with European values.
But in order for such a politically and social sensitive process to be
conducted successfully in the long term, at least two key factors had
to be satisfied: Turkey had to join the negotiations on our conditions
and not its own, that is, without ambiguities and while adopting the
European democratic spirit and attitude; and, second, Europe itself had
to be able to manage such an enlargement, as great in demographic scale
(not to mention the cultural and religious differences) as that which
we have recently accomplished with the 80 million East Europeans. It
must be acknowledged that neither of these conditions has yet been met.
It is of course undeniable that Mr Erdogan’s Turkey has, within the
space of a few years, accomplished real progress in terms of democratic
development and human rights observance, the famous “Copenhagen
criteria”. The adoption in 2003-2004 of a number of constitutional
and legislative changes and the transposition of communitaire gains,
have considerably strengthened Turkey’s candidacy.
The European Council, on the [European] Commission’s recommendation,
therefore decided in Brussels last December to start membership
negotiations in October 2005 – on certain conditions, however. In
particular, the Presidency’s conclusions mentioned the need for Turkey,
following the latest EU enlargement, “to sign the additional protocol
to the Ankara agreement, so as to take account of the accession of 10
new member states” – including Cyprus – and this, “before the actual
start of membership negotiations”. Now, Turkey did indeed sign the
additional protocol on 29 June, but it did so under conditions that,
politically if not juridically, undermined the significance of that
move. Indeed, in a unilateral declaration tantamount to a reservation,
Turkey said that its signature “did not at all signify any recognition
of the Republic of Cyprus, as mentioned in the protocol”.
So the recognition of Cyprus expected by Europe has not occurred.
This is disappointing, particularly in view of the constructive
attitude that Mr Erdogan’s government had maintained in facilitating
the talks conducted under UN auspices, which resulted in the “Annan
plan” for the island’s reunification. The fact that the majority of
Greek Cypriots rejected that plan, in a referendum in April 2004,
and therefore prevented the solution of the Cyprus conflict, cannot
however free Ankara from its obligation to normalize its relations
with Nicosia. And despite the counter-declarations formulated at
the last moment in Brussels, can we really imagine the Twenty-Five
engaging in negotiations – on the issue of membership, moreover –
with a state that does not recognize one of their own number? Can
we be satisfied with such contortions, whereas in the case of little
Croatia Europe has decided to set back the start of negotiations until
the Croatian government has handed over a war criminal wanted by the
ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia],
[fugitive General] Ante Gotovina? The difference of treatment would
be truly shocking..
But this is not the most serious point. The European public, especially
in France, expected – again rightly – a gesture from Turkey in
connection with the Armenian genocide of 1915 and relations with
independent Armenia. Turkey can indeed say that such a gesture is
not mentioned – and I regret the fact – in the conditions expressly
set by the European Council. But we cannot build the future on a
denial of history and a negotiation of past crimes, even if they were
committed by previous generations and under a different political
regime, in this instance the Ottoman Empire. There is no point in
evading responsibilities towards History: better to acknowledge, to
mend and to be reconciled. Germany fully realized this following 1945
and this is what made possible its involvement, with equal rights,
in European building.
Of course a great deal of political courage is needed in order to
surmount the burden of mentalities, taboos or state lies, which in
fact now undermines the interests of this state and its inhabitants.
Some first steps are probably necessary, such as the holding in
Turkey of an initial conference mainly devoted to the issue of the
Armenian genocide, such as that which was originally cancelled at
the authorities’ request and which was at last able to materialize
in Istanbul this weekend. But it is necessary to go much further, to
have the courage at last to recognize the reality of what occurred,
with no trickery, no false pride and no ill-placed arrogance. Rather
than harping on old enmities, it is high time that Turkey’s leaders
built a better future for future generations. This also entails
normalizing diplomatic relations and opening Turkey’s land border
with this country, which is still an enclave and access to which is
possible only via Iran or Georgia. Here, too, we have awaited a gesture
from the Turkish government for the past 10 years – sadly, in vain!
I consider it premature to start membership negotiations with Turkey
on 3 October, in the absence of strong political gesture in connection
with the recognition of Cyprus or the Armenian question.
And on this point I can only side with the opinion of the majority
of my fellow UMP [Union for a Popular Movement] members and their
chairman, in thinking that, rather than focusing on a politically
unattainable objective, we should pragmatically establish an ambitious
strategic partnership with this country, strengthening our ties in
the fields of defence, security and the antiterrorist struggle.

UNE CONFERENCE SUR LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN PROVOQUE UNE NOUVELLE BOUFFEE NATIONALISTE
par Marie-Michèle Martinet
Le Figaro, France
24 septembre 2005
TURQUIE A quelques jours de l’ouverture des negociations d’adhesion a
l’Union europeenne
Le genocide armenien reste decidement un sujet tabou en Turquie. Pour
la deuxième fois en moins de six mois, une conference organisee
sur ce thème par deux prestigieuses universites stambouliotes,
a ete suspendue… avant d’etre finalement reprogrammee, in
extremis, dans une troisième universite de la ville. Cette nouvelle
bouffee nationaliste, qui intervient a la veille de l’ouverture des
negociations d’adhesion europeenne de la Turquie prevue le 3 octobre,
suscite certaines interrogations sur la capacite d’Ankara a s’engager
dans un veritable processus democratique.
A l’occasion du 90 e anniversaire du genocide armenien celebre en avril
dernier, les universitaires turcs avaient cru possible d’ouvrir enfin
le debat, en Turquie, plutôt que de continuer a balayer les miettes
de l’histoire sous le tapis de la mauvaise conscience. L’idee etait
simple : inviter une soixantaine d’intellectuels critiques a exposer
leur analyse sur les massacres de 1915, dont Ankara se refuse toujours
a admettre le caractère genocidaire.
Programmee pour le 25 mai, la conference fut suspendue a la dernière
minute, sous l’impulsion du ministre de la Justice, Cemil Cicek,
qui declarait alors qu’un tel debat ne pouvait avoir lieu car il
constituait une offense a la nation, un ” coup de poignard dans
le dos du peuple turc “. Quelques mois plus tard, le meme scenario
vient de se reproduire : a la suite d’une plainte deposee par des
juristes, le tribunal administratif d’Istanbul annoncait jeudi soir
la suspension de cette conference, dont l’ouverture etait prevue pour
le lendemain matin.
Hier soir, nouveau rebondissement : a la suite de vives protestations,
tant de l’Union europeenne qu’au plus haut niveau du pouvoir
gouvernemental turc, la conference etait finalement maintenue :
les debats s’ouvriront donc ce matin, a l’heure dite, mais dans une
autre universite, celle de Bilgi qui n’est pas concernee par l’ordre
de suspension.
L’honneur est donc sauf. Il n’empeche que ces blocages a repetition,
dignes d’un mauvais theâtre de boulevard, qui interviennent a la
veille de l’ouverture des negociations europeennes de la Turquie,
prevue pour le 3 octobre, reactivent certaines interrogations sur
la capacite d’Ankara a engager un veritable processus democratique
dans le pays : ” Nous regrettons vivement cette nouvelle tentative
d’empecher la societe turque d’avoir un debat sur son histoire “,
declarait hier Krisztina Nagy.
La porte-parole du commissaire europeen a l’Elargissement, Olli Rehn,
qualifie la decision des juges turcs de ” nouvelle provocation ”
illustrant les ” difficultes de la Turquie, et en particulier de son
système judiciaire, a assurer une application reelle et constante
des reformes “.
On peut s’interroger sur les intentions reelles de ceux qui, en
s’efforcant de jouer le blocage a quelques jours de la date cruciale
du 3 octobre, compliquent indiscutablement la tâche des diplomates
turcs, deja embarrasses par la delicate question de la reconnaissance
de Chypre. Veulent-ils purement et simplement saboter le dialogue
difficilement engage entre la Turquie et l’Europe ? Le premier ministre
turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dont l’avenir politique reste très lie au
succès des negociations, avait sevèrement condamne, dès jeudi soir,
la decision des juges : ” La cour a jete une ombre sur le processus de
democratisation et sur les libertes dans mon pays “, a-t-il declare,
en s’interrogeant au passage sur les competences du tribunal.
En decembre prochain, le romancier turc, Orhan Pamuk, dont les livres
sont publies en France par Gallimard, sera juge pour avoir affirme,
dans un journal suisse, qu’ ” un million d’Armeniens et trente mille
Kurdes ont ete tues en Turquie “. Ces propos, consideres comme une
insulte a l’identite turque, peuvent lui valoir une peine de six a
neuf mois de prison, conformement au nouveau Code penal.
Le Parlement europeen a deja fait savoir qu’il designerait des
observateurs pour s’assurer du bon deroulement de ce procès, ce
qui exaspère de nombreux Turcs qui voient, dans cette demarche, une
volonte d’ingerence de l’Europe : ” Arretez de faire de Orhan Pamuk un
faux heros ! “, s’insurge Bedri Baykam, qui dirige le très kemaliste
Mouvement patriotique, proche du principal parti d’opposition, CHP.
Soucieux des consequences de cette nouvelle crise armenienne ravivant
les crispations nationalistes dans le pays, Hrant Dink, le redacteur
en chef du journal bilingue Agos, publie en turc et en armenien,
s’est efforce de calmer le jeu, en appelant ses interlocuteurs au
calme et a la reflexion. Jusqu’a present, la communaute armenienne
de Turquie s’est declaree favorable a l’adhesion a l’Europe, sachant
qu’un tel ancrage serait la meilleure protection pour l’avenir des
minorites dans le pays.
–Boundary_(ID_Is/SAmRZYmSeoBGFUd4zzA)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress