RUSSIA KEEN ON RESTORING ABKHAZ SECTION OF RAILWAY, OFFICIAL SAYS IN ARMENIA
Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2005
Yerevan, 12 October: “Armenia, Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia will
probably set up a consortium for the restoration of the Abkhazian
section of the railway [joining Russia with Armenia via Georgia],
Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said in Yerevan today.
Speaking at the Armenian-Russian business forum today, Levitin said
that there were a number of problems in the restoration of the railway
communication in Abkhazia and that time is needed for the effective
resolution of the problem. “We should not forget that this is a 15-year
old problem and it is impossible to solve it in one day,” he said.
Levitin said that a sitting of the Russian-Georgian intergovernmental
commission will be held soon to discuss the issue of restoration of
the Abkhazian section of the railway.
The Russian minister pointed out that a report on a necessary amount
of financing for the restoration of the railway communication on the
Abkhazian territory will be ready in a few day.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT, RUSSIAN OFFICIAL DISCUSS TIES
Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2005
Yerevan, 12 October: Armenian President Robert Kocharyan received
Aleksandr Tkachev, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar Territory,
in Yerevan today.
Kocharyan said at the meeting that mutually beneficial relations
between Armenia and Russian regions were a good basis for the
development of interstate relations, the presidential press service
told Mediamax news agency.
Aleksandr Tkachev said that the Armenian community of Krasnodar
Territory was playing a great role in strengthening bilateral
relations. He said that Armenians who live in the Territory were
involved practically in all spheres of life there.
The two men also discussed economic relations between Armenia and
Russia. Kocharyan said that thanks to expanded business relations,
the Russian business’ involvement in Armenia’s economy was increasing.

ARMENIAN, US ENERGY MINISTERS DISCUSS IRAN GAS PIPELINE, REFORMS
Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2005
Yerevan, 12 October: US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has asked his
Armenian counterpart Armen Movsisyan at which stage the process of
building the Iran-Armenian gas pipeline is.
The meeting between the two countries’ ministers was held in Washington
on 11 October, the Armenian embassy in the USA told Mediamax new
agency today.
During the meeting, Movsisyan expressed his thanks for US assistance
to the Armenian energy sector and spoke about the current situation in
the sphere of energy reforms. Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan
noted the need to provide the republic with alternative sources of
energy until the closure of the Metsamor nuclear power plant.
During the meeting, the Armenian and US energy ministers agreed
to study possibilities of holding an Armenian-US energy investment
forum with the participation of private companies and international
financial organizations.

QUALITY, EFFICIENCY AND RELIABILITY WERE AND ARE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF THE AGENCY
Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2005
Yerevan, 12 October: Mediamax news agency issued a statement today
concerning the comment made by the spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, Gamlet Gasparyan, yesterday evening, 11 October.
“On October 11, spokesman for Armenian Foreign Ministry Gamlet
Gasparyan stated that the statement ‘ascribed’ by Mediamax to
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Armen Bayburdyan is ‘inconsistent
with reality’. In this regard, we declare that during the six years
of existence, Mediamax has never disseminated information ‘not
corresponding to reality’ and never ‘ascribed’ statements to people
who have not made them. Quality, efficiency and reliability were and
are the main principles of Mediamax news agency and we regret that
the spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry has doubted this,”
the statement issued by Mediamax today reads.

ARMENIAN LEADER, EUROPEAN ENVOYS DISCUSS PROSPECTS OF COOPERATION
ArmInfo News Agency
Oct 12 2005
Yerevan, 12 October: Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today held
another meeting with the ambassadors Council of Europe member countries
accredited in Armenia.
The Armenian president is planning to visit Brussels and European
organizations next week to discuss prospects of cooperation,
especially the individual action plan within the framework of the
New Neighbourhood Policy, the presidential press service has told
Arminfo new agency.
Noting the importance of the European Neighbourhood Policy, the
president pointed out that it raises relations between Armenia
and the Council of Europe and its member countries to a new level,
opening new opportunities for cooperation.
Kocharyan said that Armenia intends to clarify specific directions
of cooperation with individual states within the framework of the
individual action plan, which would make it possible to work more
effectively.
The parties also exchanged views on the referendum on constitutional
reforms. They agreed that the reforms are great progress and will
make it possible to bring the Armenian constitution into line with
European standards.
The president also answered other questions of interest to the
diplomats.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FM OSKANIAN MEETS WITH VICE-PRESIDENT AND FM OF INDONESIA IN JAKARTA
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 12 2005
JAKARTA, OCTOBER 12, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. RA Foreing Minister
Vartan Oskanian’s visit to countries of the South-Eastern Asia and
Pacific Ocean is in process. After Australia, the Foreign Minister
paid an official visit to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia where on
October 12 he had official meetings with the Vice-President and the
Minister of Foreign Affairs of that greatest Islamic country with
the population of 245 mln people. This is the first official visit
of the Foreign Minister and in general of a high-ranking Armenian
delegation to Indonesia.
At the meeting with Pak Hassan Wirajuda, the Foreign Minister of
Indonesia, Oskanian expressed condolence on the occasion of victims
and ravages of Bali bombing hoping that this will never repeat.
During the exchange of ideas promoted then, the sides discussed
possibilities of development of bilateral relations, implementation
of concrete programs especially in the sphere of economy.
Regional problems, particularly ways of settlement of present conflicts
were also touched upon. The Foreign Minister of Indonesia presented
details concerning an agreement signed receintly on settlement of the
Aceh conflict and its further implementation. In his turn, Minister
Oskanian presented his partner of Indonesia the process of settlement
of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, emphasizing that the conflict isn’t
of a religious character but this is only the display of the Nagorno
Karabakh people’s right to self-determination.
In the context of these issues, the sides came to agreement on
continuing cooperation established between the two countries within
the framework of international organizations, particularly the UN.
At the end of the meeting, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs signed
an interstate agreement on avoiding double taxes and a memorandum
of mutual understanding concerning creation of a consulting forum
between the Governments.
As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA Foreign Ministry’s Information
and Press Deparment, on the same day, Jusuf Kalla, the Vice-President
of Indonesia received Vartan Oskanian. During the conversation,
the Foreign Minister presented briefly the social-economic state
of Armenia, prospects of development, the most important issues of
foreign policy connected with the security problems and prospects of
development of the region. The Minister expressed Armenia’s readiness
to promote an active bilateral cooperation with Indonesia as well as
one within the framework of international organizations.
On October 13, Minister Oskanian will leave for Singapore where he will
have a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of that country.

LEBANESE SHED FEW TEARS FOR SYRIA’S FEARED ENFORCER
By Lin Noueihed
Reuters AlertNet, UK
Oct 12 2005
BEIRUT, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Abu Hussein could barely conceal his smirk
when he heard that Syria’s dreaded former security chief in Lebanon
was dead.
“This is a blessing because he harmed and betrayed Lebanon and
God punishes the wicked,” chuckled the porter, seated on his stool
outside a residential block in Beirut. “It’s the best news I’ve heard
all year.”
For two decades, Ghazi Kanaan was the chief enforcer of Syrian policy
in neighbouring Lebanon, where he was feared by friend and foe alike.
Many Lebanese learned the hard way not to cross Kanaan’s troops and
“moukhabarat” agents, who never hesitated to use force against those
who got in their way.
Few Lebanese shed a tear over news of the Syrian major-general’s
apparent suicide.
For Bilal Mattar it revives painful memories of his two-day detention
by the Syrians as a teenager during the 1980s.
Mattar, now 28, and his friend had started a fight with a Syrian man
who banned them from playing football near his house.
“They took us and shaved our heads. They tied us up and beat us and
beat us and put cigarettes out on our tongues,” he recalled in the
Beirut electrical goods store he runs.
“You can’t imagine what they did. We virtually crawled out.”
Families of some Lebanese who went missing during the country’s
1975-1990 civil war, say their loved ones remain locked up in Syrian
jails to this day, though Syrian troops and security agents withdrew
from the country amid uproar in April.
Three weeks before he was found dead in his office, U.N.
investigators had questioned Kanaan over the assassination of Lebanese
former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Many Lebanese blame Syria for the Feb. 14 bomb blast that killed
Hariri. Damascus denies any role, but was forced to end its military
and political domination of Lebanon following local protests and
intense global pressure following Hariri’s death.
BEHIND BARS
Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals are already behind bars, awaiting
trial on murder charges. The U.N. probe is expected to present its
findings this month.
“If he wasn’t guilty, why would he have done that. He must have been
expecting bad news from the report,” said Leila Ahmadieh, a housewife
who broke into a grin at the news.
“This is a happy ending after he oppressed so many Lebanese. Everyone
eventually gets what he deserves; Saddam Hussein was the most brutal
criminal of all and look how he ended up.”
Kanaan left Lebanon after a 20-year sojourn in 2002 to head the Syrian
Political Security Directorate, before becoming interior minister
in 2004.
He handed over his headquarters at the Armenian town of Anjar in the
Bekaa Valley and his office in a west Beirut hotel, to his successor
Rustom Ghazali.
By then, Syria’s grip was unchallenged, only to be swept away
dramatically three years later by a Lebanese and international outcry
over Hariri’s death.
“All I can say is: you reap what you sow. Now he is facing God’s
justice,” said Munir Ibrahim, a retired man chatting to friends on
a street in Beirut.
“One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but suffice to say, I hope he
drags the rest of them behind him, one by one.”

ORHAN PAMUK: NOVELIST
The Globalist, DC
Oct 12 2005
Orhan Pamuk is the author of six novels and the recipient of major
Turkish and international literary awards.
His most recent book, “Snow,” is a fictional account of the political
struggles of a small Turkish town caught between secular modernity
and religious tradition.
He is one of Europe’s most prominent novelists, and his work has been
translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Istanbul.
Mr. Pamuk was recently charged by the Turkish government with insulting
Turkey’s national identity for his statements relating the massacre
of Armenians and Kurds within Turkey.

MUSA SHANIB IN THE CAUCASUS: A POLITICAL ODYSSEY
Thomas de Waal
Open Democracy, UK
Oct 12 2005
The meteoric career of an intellectual, nationalist dissident in the
north Caucasus is emblematic of the region’s troubled post-Soviet
condition, writes Thomas de Waal of the Institute for War & Peace
Reporting.
In January 2005, in one of Russia’s most depressed towns, I had dinner
with a remarkable man. Musa Shanib (also known by the Russianised
name Yuri Shanibov) has a noble look to him, with the carved profile
of an eagle and thick charcoal eyebrows.
Shanib’s life story is still more striking. In the early 1990s
he briefly became the Garibaldi of the north Caucasus, aiming to
unite the disparate small nationalities of Russia’s most diverse
(and Islamic) region into a Confederation of Mountain Peoples that
would proclaim independence from Moscow. He spent seven months with
the Chechen general Dzhokhar Dudayev, helping him in Chechnya’s bid
for independence from the Russian Federation in 1991.
In 1992, Shanib led a group of north Caucasian volunteers into the
Black Sea autonomous republic of Abkhazia to help the Abkhaz fight
and win a war against Georgia. In his own autonomous republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria, Shanib stood at the head of a popular movement,
which was on the verge of seizing power in 1992, but backed away
from direct confrontation with the ex-communist authorities at the
last moment.
A minority of one
More than a decade on, sitting with Shanib in the Elita (Elite)
Restaurant in Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, this springtime
of revolutions seemed very far away. He had picked the restaurant
because it was one of the few decent places to take a guest in the
city for dinner. But its extravagant bad taste – low lighting, gilded
chairs, white tablecloths and starched napkins – were symbols of the
new era in which the elite lives in a tiny self-satisfied bubble of
conspicuous consumption, while most of the population struggles on
the breadline.
My host belonged to neither category. He is a nationalist intellectual
of a kind of that has now gone out of fashion in much of eastern
Europe. He himself admits that he is now a marginal figure and lives
quietly, teaching at the local university, while all around him
the revolutions he helped inspire have been poisoned, betrayed or
overturned. Instead there is Putin’s Russia, a criminalised conflict
in Chechnya and Islamic militancy on the rise.
What a subject for a biography! And Georgi Derluguian has written
it – and so much more – in his book Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the
Caucasus. Derluguian is a native of the north Caucasus, an Armenian
born in the Krasnodar region, and now teaches sociology at Northwestern
University in Chicago. He became fascinated by Shanib(ov) when he
met him several years ago and his evolution from loyal Komsomol youth
leader into 1970s dissident into nationalist demagogue. He realised
what an interesting man he had before him when he learned of Shanib’s
admiration for the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography
(University of Chicago Press, 2005) is an extraordinary book by any
standards. My only quarrel with it is the title, which will deter
many readers unfamiliar with the name Bourdieu and miss out on the
many riches here available to the non-specialist.
What the author has written is no less than a theoretical and
empirical explanation of the evolution of late Soviet and early
post-Soviet society that spins out a highly sophisticated explanation
of how the Soviet Union broke up and why nationalist conflict broke
out in the Caucasus. He does this as a sociologist but relying
on the kind of detailed on-the-ground research worthy of the best
journalists. Shanib’s evolution is the vehicle by which this story
is told from the half-century from the end of the Stalin period to
the present day.
To summarise the book’s complex arguments is impossible, but its main
critical thrust presents a fresh understanding of the decay of the
Soviet Union and what came after.
Russia famously produced two social classes of its own: the
intelligentsia and the nomenklatura. It was the mistake of most
western observers to fix most of their attention on Moscow and on
the strivings of the intelligentsia to reform the Soviet Union – and
subsequently Russia – into a European democratic state. But in the
bulk of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics other social forces
were at work and the nomenklatura wrote the rules of the game. In
most cases, using various strategies, they survived and managed to
keep their hold on political and economic power in their own patch.
Derluguian writes: “After 1991 the relations of bureaucratic rent
flowed into post-communistic privatisation: in other words, the
administrative capital was converted into economic capital.”
Along with the “self-encapsulation of the nomenklatura,” Derluguian
identifies two other principal causes for the collapse of the
Soviet Union: the geopolitical strains caused by a failed attempt
to maintain military competition with the United States and what he
calls the “strains of advanced proletarianisation” – in other words,
the failure of the Soviet Union to develop an economy that satisfied
its citizens’ demands.
As the author wittily puts it: “The notoriously shoddy quality of
Soviet-made goods was in fact the perverted triumph of class struggle
under state socialism. Denied the institutional means to increase
their wages through collective bargaining, the workers tacitly sought
ways to decrease their labour inputs.”
Derluguian argues persuasively that we should also factor in another
social class, whom he calls the “sub-proletarians”, the de-ruralised,
semi-employed folk who belong neither to town nor country and whose
menfolk have been the raw material for most of the conflicts in the
Caucasus (One former professor from Grozny University told me how she
saw a group of Chechen fighters at the beginning of the first war in
1994 and exclaimed: “They are all my worst students!”). Any visitor
to the Caucasus today is struck about how the country has come to the
city and people are forced to eke a living from a mixture of backyard
farming and petty trade.
If this was the context, then national disputes lit the flame. In
another setting Shanib would most likely have pursued another career,
but in the Caucasus the logic of events led him to nationalism. His
conversion into a national leader was virtually accidental. In the late
Stalin period he was a rising Komsomol official and youth leader,
then during Nikita Khrushchev’s thaw he became a keen reformist
intellectual.
After 1968 a thesis on “self-government” made him suspicious, and he
was forced into dissidence. Under Mikhail Gorbachev he became a focal
point for new oppositionists but although he admired Andrei Sakharov
he admitted that from the perspective of provincial Kabardino-Balkaria
the great scientist “looked no nearer than the moon.” Nationalist
mobilisation was a far more productive strategy and in 1989 he was
elected the head of the new anti-communist Assembly of Mountain
Peoples. His slogans of a “common Caucasian home” echoed Gorbachev’s
proclamation of a “common European home.”
A different battlefield
Early success was intoxicating but from 1993 onwards the story is
pretty much one of disaster. Of course the forces Shanib and his
comrades had unleashed were far greater than they realised, as can
been seen in the revolutions and on the battlefields of Abkhazia
(1992-3), Nagorny Karabakh (1991-4) and Chechnya (1994-6 and 1999 to
the present), as well as the places where fighting did not ignite.
When Shanib looks around at the revolutions he helped to start,
he cannot help but be depressed. In Chechnya, Dudayev’s romantic
nationalism led his people into a confrontation with the Russian
government and the barbarities of the Russian armed forces that have
destroyed Chechnya for generations. Abkhazia won de facto independence
from Georgia but still lives in a semi-devastated condition as an
unrecognised state. Having broken free from Georgia, it is now being
swallowed up by Russia, its economy being slowly absorbed into that
of its northern neighbour – not what the Abkhaz envisaged at all.
Where is this all leading? In the scramble for post-Soviet spoils
(to adopt a phrase of Derluguian’s), the nomenklatura has proved
exceptionally resourceful. With the exception of Chechnya, former
Communist Party officials still hold positions of power across the
north Caucasus, own factories and luxury villas and stand at the peak
of vast patronage networks.
The cost is frighteningly high. The members of the marginalised
sub-proletariat, despised and deprived of almost all the benefits that
they might reasonably expect from a modern state, are disillusioned
with nationalism. Shanib admitted to me that he cannot raise any
interest in a Kabardinian nationalist movement any more.
Besides, the message offered by intellectuals like Shanib is too
subtle for people who are facing hunger.
Few outsiders currently pay any attention to the north Caucasus,
just occasionally registering with alarm events like the massacre of
children in Beslan. That is worrying, because while Chechnya itself
is relatively quieter, its repercussions are spreading to the rest
of this benighted region with an embittered majority-Muslim population.
Shanib’s home republic of Kabardino-Balkaria is seeing a steady
rise in violence between Islamic militants and the police. The most
notorious Chechen militant leader, Shamil Basayev, has visited a
territory where he has many supporters.
The elite is too wealthy, self-absorbed and fattened on bribes to
pay any attention and focuses its efforts on harassing a handful of
opposition journalists and free thinkers. The leader Valery Kokov is
distant and sick. The parallels with Uzbekistan before the Andijan
massacre are disturbing; the only question is when some kind of
explosion will occur there.
Other parts of the north Caucasus share most of the same combustible
elements – even though Derluguian’s admirable attention to the
particularities of each society is a healthy caution against easy
generalisations. The conflict in Chechnya, in other words, is no longer
confined to Chechnya. And as the violence and insecurity continues
to spread, Musa Shanib will be just a spectator on the sidelines.

WORLD CUP: ARMENIA WIN 3-0 AT ANDORRA
The Associated Press
10/12/05 12:08 EDT
ANDORRA LA VELLA, Andorra (AP) – Second-half goals by Aram Hakobian
and Ara Hakobian helped Armenia to a 3-0 victory over Andorra in the
teams’ final World Cup qualifier on Wednesday.
Andorra’s Oscar Sonejee turned a cross past his own goalkeeper Koldo
Alvarez in the 39th minute to give Armenia a 1-0 lead.
Four minutes later, Andorra defender Ildefons Lima was ejected for
spitting at an opponent.
Armenia doubled its lead in the 52nd when Aram Hakobian volleyed in
at the far post following a swiftly taken corner.
Ara Hakobian added a third in style 10 minutes later by dribbling
through Andorra’s defense before smashing the ball home.
Armenia finished next-to-last in Group 1 with seven points, two ahead
of Andorra.
Despite coming last, Andorra has enjoyed its most successful qualifying
campaign. A year ago, the minnow downed Macedonia 1-0 at home to record
its first ever victory in the World Cup or European Championship. It
also drew in Macedonia and at home to Finland.
Lineups:
Andorra: Koldo Alvarez; Josep Ayala, Ildefons Lima, Antoni Lima, Javi
Sanchez, Gabi Riera (Manolo Jimenez, 82), Justo Ruiz, Antoni Sivera
(Juli Sanchez, 18), Oscar Sonejee, Marc Bernaus, Marcio Vieira (Ludo
Clemente, 56).
Armenia: Gevorg Kasparov; Valeriy Alexanian (Samvel Melkonian, 77),
Karen Alexanian, Robert Arzumanian, Karen Dokhoyan, Romik Khachatrian,
Alexander Tadevossian, Eghishe Melikian, Hamlet Mkhitarian (Arthur
Voskanian, 82), Ara Hakobian, Aram Hakobian (Aram Voskanian, 80)