KOCHARIAN: “WE CONSIDER PRESENCE OF RUSSIAN FULCRUM IN ARMENIA AS A COMPONENT OF OUR SAFETY”
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 27 2005
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, NOYAN TAPAN. “We have no problem of widening
the Russian military fulcrum in Armenia, but the one, what there is,
is settled in legal way, envisaged by the conception of the safety
of Armenia,” RA President Robert Kocharian stated at the September
27 press-conference.
The President interpreted that the Russian military fulcrum in Armenia
is placed based on mutual agreement. Armenia was also interested in
having that military fulcrum, as, according to Robert Kocharian, the
impression created by some publications of the press that placing
of the fulcrum is imposed is wrong. “We are in rather difficult
region where relations among countries are still in the process of
settlement, and we consider the presence of that fulcrum in Armenia
as one of components of safety,” the RA President emphasized.

THE “MODEL” OF THE STATE
Aram Abrahamian
Aravot (Morning), Armenia
Sept 27 2005
Nobody will be beaten in the coming parliamentary and presidential
elections, the activists of the opposition won’t be taken to
Police, ballot boxes will be filled a little and numbers won’t be
drawn. At the same time those elections will be too far from European
standards. Violence against the voters is in the second plan in modern
Armenian “technologies”. Power and administrative levers came to the
first plan and certainly money.
In that case elections held in the Kentron aren’t specific. Here
the DPA chose a wrong strategy from the beginning not nominating a
person who has experience of economic and administrative activities but
chose our colleague Rusan Khachaturian who yields the current district
ruler by objective showings. Beglarian’s victory was natural that is
he would win without using the above-mentioned levers and without
bribing the voters. And it doesn’t have reasonable explanation why
it did in the Kentron somewhere.
The “model” of our state was seen more clearly in the elections of
Arabkir. Both candidates Hovhannes Shahinian and David Gyulumian could
work theoretically as a district ruler. But ULP party which was for
D. Gyulumian refused of the fight before the elections. It happened
so as Serge Sargsian and Alraghaci Lyov assisted H.
Shahinian and on the other hand the criminals of the community,
“district authorities”. The ULP leader Gurgen Arsenian is a big
businessman consequently he has something to loose from both sides.
On the one hand the authority can examine his business in the way that
if it isn’t closed it will loose. On the other hand the hooligan of
the district may explode his cars, for example.
And what about the people? A white microbus 67ss653 by numbers stopped
in front of my building. Young people “with convincing appearance”
came out from the car with the lists in their cars. My neighbors sat
into that microbus, in particularly old people. They went for voting
after which the same bus gave them back.
Here in this way, without any violence, with flower branches in
their hands our voters would go and say, “yes” to the constitutional
amendments and then they will give their votes to the candidates of
the authority in the parliamentary and presidential elections.

THE MAYOR IS ACCUSED OF MURDER
Naira Mamikonian
Aravot (Morning), Armenia
Sept 27 2005
Economic and “pre-election” versions of the murder.
The mayor of New Hachn city of Kotayk region 1966 year born Armen
Keshishian fired 7 shots by his factory weapon of “Winking” MR-446
production 9mm caliber, 0244601675 series the director of Arzni branch
of “Power circuit” 1967 year born Ashot Mkhitarian in the crossroad
of Haroutiunian-Torozian streets of New Hachn city of Kotayk region
on Saturday, 24 of September at 10:20. A. Mkhitarian was sent to
the hospital of Abovian with body injuries where he died in half an
hour. The mayor is arrested, a criminal case is brought against him,
which carries on the prosecutory of Kotayk region. By the way the
weapon by which the murder was done is Andranik Margarian’s personal
present to the mayor A. Keshishian. Yesterday the press secretary of
the RA Prime Minister Marry Haroutiunian affirmed this fact. There
are two hypothesis round the incident one of which the assistant of
Eghvard prosecutor Albert Mkrtchian in his interview to “Azatutiun”
b/s. According to him the mayor with some of his officials tried to
prevent A. Mkhitarian’s illegal construction.
They began quarrel as the result and the mayor killed A. Mkhitarian.
According to the next hypothesis the quarrel between the killer and
killed person has had “pre-election” pretext. The point is that the
elections of Mayor will be held in New Hachn on 9 of November. The
current mayor Armen Keshishian and the member of the RA NA deputy
Manuk Gasparian’s party Babken Margarian have nominated their
candidacy. According to our information the killed Ashot Mkhitarian
also wanted to be nominated but he was “asked” not to nominate. A.
Mkhitarian had to not nominate but he assisted the mayor’s rival B.
Margarian round his possibilities what became the reason of the
quarrel with the mayor. By the way the chairman of Eghvard regional
committee Gnel Ghalumian in the interview to “Azatutiun” b/s. By his
words the killed A. Mkhitarian also wanted to nominate his candidacy
in the coming elections but then changed his mind. According to the
chairman Armen Keshishian might have a serious rival in that case and
“discrepancies between them began from that time”.
But other sources say that something came between A. Mkhitarian
and Armen Keshishian before the elections. According to one of the
inhabitants of New Hachn they were friends of childhood. And more
according to the inhabitants of the city A. Keshishian was elected as
a district ruler three years ago with A. Mkhitarian’s assistance. By
the way the latter was accused of the murder one of the citizens in
1990’s but it seemed it wasn’t proved. The relations between A.
Keshishian and A. Mkhitarian become strained and on the threshold
of the elections of Local self-governing when A. Mkhitarian didn’t
allowed to be nominated he began mocking at him everywhere. By other
sources he was simply criticizing the mayor for bad work. As regards
the coming elections of New Hachn mayor the current mayor A.
Keshishian can take part in it unless court decree is brought.
Irrespective of all hypothesizes a murder took place and the killer
must be punished.

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE ASSYRIAN FACTOR
By Nora Vosbigian
Assyrian International News Agency
Sept 27 2005
British historian, Ara Sarafian (Gomidas Institute, London), was one of
the main speakers at a recent commemoration of the Assyrian Genocide
(or Seyfo) of 1915 (AINA, 9-22-2005). The event was at Aula Magna,
Stockholm University on 24 September and was organised by the Assyrian
Youth Federation in Sweden, who asked Sarafian to give a lecture on
the 1916 British Parliamentary report, The Treatment of Armenian in
the Ottoman Empire 1915-16.
One of the central questions in Sarafian’s paper dealt with the
relative absence of the destruction of Assyrian Christians in the
British report. Was it an oversight or was the report prejudiced?
This question arose in more forceful terms at the conference, when a
member of the audience suggested that there was a 200 page Assyrian
section to the blue book which was stolen by Armenians and was never
published as a consequence.
Sarafian pointed out that the British blue book covered the Assyrian
issue within the context of what happened in North-West Persia, but
it missed the core of the Assyrian experience because there were no
key communicants and witnesses in the key Assyrian populated areas
of Mardin-Midiyat in Ottoman Turkey. Elsewhere, the destruction of
Assyrians was subsumed in descriptions of the destruction of the much
more numerous Armenian communities.
This lack of information about Assyrians was mainly because the
accounts informing the British about events in the Ottoman Empire
were communicated by United States consuls and missionaries. Since
there were no United States consulates near the main Assyrian regions
of the Ottoman Empire, there were no ready channels of open to the
outside world. Furthermore, the few American missionaries in Mardin
and Diyarbekir who might also have reported on the destruction of
Assyrians were expelled from these regions in the Spring of 1915.
Consequently, there was little information available about the
destruction of Assyrian communities to the British in 1916, except
from North-Western Persia, where American missionaries bore witness
to the carnage that took place.
Sarafian related some accounts of the destruction of Assyrians he had
read, such as the memoirs of Raphael de Nogales describing what he
saw in Siirt, or the private letters of Dr. Floyd Smith in Diyarbekir
describing Assyrian victims of a massacre at Karabash he treated in
Diyarbekir in May 1915.
Sarafian pointed out that since 1915 there has been a lot of
information about the Assyrian issue, but mainstream Armenian
historians have generally ignored the destruction of Assyrians due to
poor scholarship, chauvinism, or both. Consequently, many Armenians
today remain ignorant of the destruction of Assyrian Christians in
Ottoman Turkey in 1915. This is clearly wrong and should be changed
with education he argued.
However, it should be added that not all Armenian historians have
avoided the destruction of Assyrian Christians in Ottoman Turkey.
Only three years ago, the French Armenian Revue d’histoire armenienne
contemporaine published a special issue, “Mardin 1915: Anatomie
pathologique d’une destruction” (edited by Yves Ternon).

TEAM REPORTING PROJECT
International Journalist’s Network
Sept 27 2005
Oct 01, 2005 – Oct 10, 2005
Training
In Yerevan, Armenia. Organized by the Media Diversity Institute
(MDI). MDI says it will select eight applicants for the program,
four each from Armenia and Georgia. Their base will be Yerevan during
the program, as the journalists will travel around the country to do
their reporting. The journalists will produce their programs together
and make them available for free to stations in their home countries.
Interested radio journalists should send their CV and letter of
interest to their local MDI country coordinator. Armenian journalists
should contact Artur Papyan at [email protected],
telephone +374 (1) 53 00 67, or visit 9B Ghazar Parpetsi str., 375003,
Yerevan. Georgian journalists should contact Elena Aladashvili at
[email protected] or visit 10 Chovelidze St.,
Room No. 304, Tbilisi.

CYPRIOT ARMENIANS SUBMIT CANDIDACIES FOR BY-ELECTION
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Sept 27 2005
Three members of the Armenian religious group have submitted their
candidacies today for the post of new representative of the Armenian
religious group to the House of Representatives that will take place
9 October 2005.
The new representative will succeed Bedros Kalaydjian, who passed
away on 1st September at the age of 71.
Vahakn Atamyan, Antranig Ashdjian and Parsegh Zartarian submitted their
candidacies to Chief Returning Officer Lazaros Savvides who said that
around 1,950 Armenians are eligible to vote in the by-election.
He also said that four voting centers will operate, two at the
Armenian elementary school “Narek” in Nicosia, one at Larnaca District
Administration and another at Limassol District Administration. The
new representative will be declared at the Interior Ministry around
1930 local time on 9 October.
In statements, Ashdjian said he submitted his candidacy, with the
main concern to preserve the national identity, language and culture
of the Armenian community.
Ashdjian further said he feels he can get the Armenians out of the
deadlock which they are now in, noting that one of the issues which
they are facing is the future of the Armenian Melkonian Institute.
The Melkonian school closed this year but Armenians have been
campaigning to prevent the land from being sold off. The government
has declared 60% of the land as national heritage, while suits are
still ongoing for the remaining 40%.
On his part, Atamyan said that if he is elected, “I will try to do
everything to find a solution to the problems which the Armenian
community is facing”.
One of his priorities, he added, would be to save the Melkonian
Institute, to end the destruction and restore the historical and
religious monuments of the community in the Turkish occupied north of
Cyprus and continue the legacy of brothers Aram and Bedros Kalaydjian
to further develop relations with Armenian political forces.
Zartarian said that the Armenian community has matured and now is
the time for an independent candidate to win the elections.
He also said that he has the ideas and abilities to work with the
Armenians to solve the problems, which they are facing.
The three religious groups, belonging to the Greek Cypriot community,
Latins, Armenians and Maronites, elect a representative each to the
House, who does not take up one of the 56 parliamentary seats.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN TURNS POLITICAL FOR HOUSE BILL
By Lisa Friedman, Washington Bureau
Los Angeles Daily News
Sept 27 2005
WASHINGTON – A San Fernando Valley-based rock band plans to rally
today in front of House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s Illinois office
in the hope of pressuring Congress to pass a politically sensitive
resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.
Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, said he and fellow
band members – all of Armenian descent – hope to “get attention for
the cause” and encourage Hastert to bring the bill to House vote.
The resolution sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, would
have Congress formally declare that the Ottoman Empire engaged in
genocide against 1.5 million Armenians after World War I. The House
International Relations Committee passed it 35-11.
The State Department opposes the resolution, arguing that its passage
would undermine U.S. relations with Turkey, which continues to deny
that a genocide took place.
Hastert and other GOP leaders have vowed to prevent a full House vote.
Hastert officials referred questions on the genocide bill to Majority
Leader Tom DeLay. A DeLay spokesman said the resolution is not
scheduled for a vote because Gulf Coast hurricane legislation is
Congress’ top priority.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

VLADIMIR NAUMOV TO TAKE PART IN MEETING OF CIS COUNCIL OF INTERIOR MINISTERS IN YEREVAN ON SEPTEMBER 29-30
National Legal Internet Portal, Belarus
Sept 27 2005
Issues on the fight against corruption in the CIS member-states will
be considered on September 29-30 in the Armenian capital Yerevan at
a meeting of the CIS council of interior ministers. Head of the law
enforcement bodies of this republic Vladimir Naumov will take part
in the meeting as well, BelTA was informed in the information and
public relations department of the interior ministry of Belarus.
The participants of the meeting will discuss intensification of
the cooperation between the CIS law enforcement bodies in combating
illegal migration and will analyze the course of implementation of
the plan of the CIS council of interior ministers on counteracting
terrorism for 2005. They will also consider possible creation of a
periodical of the council.
Within the framework of the sitting in Yerevan Belarus and Armenia
plan to sign a bilateral protocol on cooperation between the interior
ministry of the Republic of Belarus and the police of the Republic
of Armenia for 2006-2007.

NO ELECTION WITHOUT VIOLATION
A1+
| 13:14:14 | 27-09-2005 | Politics |
Contrary to foreign observers Electoral Systems public organization
has fixed various violations during the election held in Kentron
and Arabkir.
The observers visited 12 out of 49 polling stations of Arabkir
community and 7 out of 54 polling stations of Kentron community. In
Arabkir the observers fixed violations such as group voting, refusal
to accept complaints, propaganda attempts. Similar violations were
observed in Kentron community.
The observing group of the Electoral Systems will issue the final
report within a month upon completion of the election to the local
self-government.

“NEVER REMEMBER”
By Don Feder
FrontPage magazine.com, CA
Sept 27 2005
A committee appointed by the British government, composed of Muslims,
wants the nation to scrap its Holocaust Memorial Day, in the name of
inclusiveness and sensitivity. No word yet on whether they also want
to eliminate Passover – said to be insensitive to Egyptians.
The committee recommends replacing the observance (started in 2001
and held annually on January 27) with a Genocide (a.k.a., Victimhood)
Day, which would recognize the alleged mass murder of Muslims in
“Palestine,” Chechnya, Bosnia, and wherever else followers of the
Religion of Peace have come into conflict with the accursed infidel.
In making its case for inclusiveness, the committee somehow neglected
to mention the many victims of Muslim mayhem – Armenians, Sudanese
Christians, Kosovar Serbs (ethnically cleansed in the wake of NATO’s
war on Yugoslavia), and Hindus – to name but a few. If an Arab stubbed
his toe on the boot of a Christian knight sometime in the 11th century,
it’s a crime against humanity that must be memorialized throughout
the ages, according to the imams. On the other hand, the slaughter of
infidels is seen as the will of Allah, and worthy of a Heavenly reward.
The committee maintains that Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day fuels
feelings of isolation and alienation among Muslim youth. And, well,
to have a special commemoration of the systematic slaughter of one
in every three Jews on earth (in an effort to annihilate an entire
people), is grossly unfair, the committee suggests.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of
Britain, cautions: “We can never have double standards in terms of
human life. Muslims feel hurt and excluded that their lives are not
equally valuable to those lives lost in the Holocaust time.”
Perhaps Sir Iqbal also believes that 9/11 memorials should pay homage
to the Muslims in the planes, as well as the infidels in the office
buildings – so that his coreligionists won’t feel that their lives
have less meaning.
To understand the obscenity of Iqbal’s equation of the Holocaust with
casualties in the aforesaid armed conflicts, consider the Muslims
favorite “genocide”: that supposedly inflicted on the Palestinians.
Since the onset of the latest Intifada (started and maintained by
Muslims), 4,000 Palestinians have died, out of a population of more
than 1 million. Most were combatants. At the same time, almost 1,000
Israelis have lost their lives – overwhelmingly civilians, mostly
women, children, and the elderly. Palestinian society celebrates
jihad and suicide bombings. Israeli society unilaterally relinquishes
territory in its quest for peace.
For the Palestinian/Holocaust analogy to be valid, Israel would have
to be operating death camps – herding naked Muslims into gas chambers
and burning their remains in crematoria. And Jerusalem would have to
have slaughtered every third Palestinian in the world.
Instead the Palestinian population has increased dramatically –
as has their life expectancy and standard of living – since Israel
came into possession of the territory they inhabit at the end of the
Six-Days War. To put it in Shakespearean terms, genocide should be
made of sterner stuff.
Muslims can’t stand the thought of Holocaust commemorations, because,
with certain honorable exceptions, Islam’s attitudes toward the Jews
frequently mirror those of the Nazi killers.
Islamic polemicists have three responses to the destruction of
European Jewry: 1) It never happened; 2) It happened, but the numbers
are grossly exaggerated, and Zionist leaders collaborated with the
Nazis; and 3) It happened, and the Jews, those enemies of humanity,
had it coming.
Mahmoud Abbas, capo mafioso of the Palestinian Authority and renowned
moderate, is the author of a 1983 book entitled, The Other Side:
The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In
it, the first president of Palestine (if Washington has its way)
maintains that Hitler killed “only a few hundred thousand Jews,” not
six million. Moreover, the Zionist leadership “was a partner in the
slaughter of the Jews” – supposedly to create sympathy for the Jews,
thus facilitating the creation of the Jewish state.
Holocaust denial is rampant in the Muslim world.
In 1964, then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar (who precipitated
the Six-Days War) insisted:, “No one…takes seriously the lie about
six million Jews who were murdered.”
In 2000, a columnist for The Syria Times wrote, “The most famous myth
is that of the so-called Holocaust… We strongly believe that gas
chambers were not used for burning (sic.) Jews.”
Also in 2000, Sheikh Adel Bin Ahmad Bana’ma, a Saudi religious
authority speaking at a Jeddah mosque, charged that Jews “disseminate
everywhere the lie of the Holocaust and claim that Hitler killed six
million Jews in gas chambers…This is pure falsehood.”
A year later, Palestinian religious leader Sheikh Ibrahim Mahdi
declared, “One of the Jews’ evil deeds has come to be called the
Holocaust.” However, the Sheikh insisted, it has been irrefutably
proven that “this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was
planned by the Jews’ leaders.”
Like other Holocaust-deniers, those of the Islamic world aren’t just
flat-Earth cranks, but virulent anti-Semites. Except for a handful
of European skinheads and Aryan Nation types holed up in Idaho, The
Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion is still taken seriously only
among Muslims – where it’s the Harry Potter of Middle East publishing.
This Czarist forgery (which purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to
control humanity) is ubiquitous in jihad land. Saudi Arabia’s late
King Faisal often gave copies to foreign visitors. Yasser Arafat
was a fan. Arab periodicals quote it religiously, to demonstrate
the perfidy of the Jews. In 2002, Egyptian television broadcast a
41-episode, dramatized version of The Protocols, entitled. “Horseman
Without A Horse.”
The roots of Islamic anti-Semitism run deep. Mohammed never forgave
the Jews for rejecting his message. After he came to power, Jewish
tribes in the Arabian peninsula were converted by the sword, or
massacred. The Koran is rife with the Prophet’s disdain for Jews. (He
called them descendants of apes and pigs.) Alongside this are calls
to fight the Jews, who are indicted as the enemies of Allah.
Over the centuries, this theological anti-Semitism has evolved into
a conviction that Jews are the repositories of evil in the world and
Islam’s principal enemies.
It’s not surprising that the resurgence of widespread anti-Semitism
on the European continent, after years of quiescence, parallels the
influx of Middle East Muslims.
When Pope John Paul II paid a state visit to Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad in 2001, he must have thought he’d stepped off the plane and
into a Nuremberg rally. In welcoming the pontiff, Assad proclaimed,
“They [the Jews] try to kill all the principles of divine faiths
with the same mentality of betraying Jesus Christ and torturing Him,
and in the same way that they tried to commit treachery against the
Prophet Mohammed.”
One who took the Prophet’s call to its logical conclusion was Hajj Amin
al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem before World War II. The mufti
spent the war years in Berlin as an honored guest of Adolf Hitler.
Working from his office in the capital of the Third Reich, al-Husseini
devoted himself to a Nazi victory, recruiting spies to serve in
the Middle East and raising a Bosnian Muslim division of the Waffen
SS. Described at Nuremberg as one of Eichmann’s best friends, the mufti
even visited Auschwitz and urged those who ran the gas chambers to
“work more diligently.”
In a radio broadcast from Berlin on November 2, 1943, Hitler’s partner
in genocide condemned the Jews in language that echoed Mein Kampf :
“The overwhelming egotism which lies in the character of Jews,
their unworthy belief that they are God’s chosen nation and their
assertion that all was created for them and that other people are
animals” is the reason “[t]hey cannot mix with any other nation but
live as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle
their property, corrupt their morals…The divine anger and curse
that the Holy Koran mentions with reference to the Jews is because
of this unique character of the Jews.”
After the war, the mufti met a young Yassar Arafat in Cairo, and the
torch was passed to the next generation of Islamo-fascists. (Arafat
often referred to the Nazi henchman as “our hero al-Husseini.”)
In his book, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Rabbi David Dalin discloses,
“Arafat continued the mufti’s Nazi legacy by recruiting Nazis
and neo-Nazis for Fatah and the PLO. In 1969, for example, the PLO
recruited two former Nazi instructors, Erich Altern, a leader of the
Gestapo’s Jewish affairs section, and Willy Berner, an SS officer
in the Mauthausen extermination camp. Another former Nazi, Johann
Schuller, was found supplying arms to Fatah.”
There are unavoidable parallels between Nazis and Islamists. Both
adhere to totalitarian ideologies (though one is disguised as a
religion); each group trains its adherents to kill without compunction
and to show mercy to neither the young nor old; both nurse historical
grudges and long for a settling of accounts; and each see Jews as
the principal obstacle to the achievement of its utopian vision.
Of course, British Muslims are offended by Holocaust Memorials. While
Nazism was a European phenomenon, post-World War II Hitler wannabes
are found almost exclusively in the Arab and Muslim world. After the
fall of Berlin, the center of anti-Semitic agitation shifted to Cairo,
Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh, and Ramallah.
If the Blair government is really in an appeasement mode, it
could balance Holocaust Memorial Day – and lessen the awful sense
of alienation among Muslim youth – with a Hajj Amin al-Husseini
Appreciation Day.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress