THE CIS: THE END OF THE ROAD?
Sergei Blagov 8/29/05
EurasiaNet, NY
Aug 29 2005
The Commonwealth of Independent States appears near the end of its
existence. Even if the organization does survive, it will do so in
a significantly different form, political analysts say.
Established amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIS
has largely failed to fulfill its potential as an institution for
the promotion of closer political and economic links. Many member
states have been unable to set aside concerns that Russia, the
organization~Rs dominant partner, wants to use the CIS as a vehicle
for the preservation of Moscow~Rs influence in the former Soviet
space. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. As a result,
agreements among member states routinely went unimplemented.
Following the latest CIS summit, held August 26 in the central Russian
city of Kazan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the organization
still had a future. But even Putin had to admit that the CIS, as
currently constituted, is dysfunctional. “The issues related to the
modernization of CIS bodies are extremely difficult,” Putin told a
news conference.
Summit participants approved an array of documents, including a
protocol on border cooperation and measures to address illegal
migration in the coming years. The CIS also threw whatever
organizational weight that it has behind Kazakhstan~Rs bid to gain the
rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe.
On the summit~Rs sidelines, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held
talks aimed at reaching a political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Officials
from both countries have been tight-lipped about the substance of
recent discussions, known as the Prague process.
However, an Armenian presidential aide was quoted by the Mediamax
news agency as saying the two-hour meeting in Kazan was a “positive
development.”
Turkmenistan, meanwhile, garnered attention by downgrading its formal
affiliation with the CIS. Mercurial Turkmen leader Saparmurat Niyazov,
who skipped the summit, attributed the move to Ashgabat~Rs “status
of permanent neutrality.” One commentary, published in the Russian
daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, characterized Turkmenistan~Rs move as the
“beginning of the CIS~Rs collapse.”
Putin advocated the creation of a council of “wise men” to develop
ideas for the reorganization of the CIS. “We have different positions
and we are trying to find mutually acceptable proposals through
dialogue in order to the turn CIS into effective tool for cooperation,”
Putin said.
Russia~Rs stance toward the CIS has been undergoing a reevaluation for
much of 2005. In March, Putin talked publicly about the CIS acting
as a vehicle for a “civilized divorce” among member states. Yet,
by May, when Moscow hosted a CIS summit to coincide with festivities
marking the 60th anniversary of Victory Day, Putin was again urging
CIS participants to strengthen cooperation.
Before the Kazan summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
suggested that Russia~Rs relations with former Soviet republics
should undergo changes. “We should be building our relations on the
basis of international norms,” Lavrov said at a news conference after
meeting fellow CIS foreign ministers. “As market reforms proceed in
our countries, we will be increasingly basing our intergovernmental
and economic relations on world practices.”
Analysts interpreted Lavrov~Rs remarks as a sign that Moscow will now
start linking economic assistance to CIS members — especially in the
form of subsidized energy supplies — to their allegiance to Kremlin
foreign policy. Earlier in August, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory
Karasin bluntly stated, in comments published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta,
that Russian leaders needed to devise new aid strategies that better
protected Moscow~Rs geopolitical position. “Russia cannot put up with
a situation in which it delivers energy resources at loss-making
prices — effectively subsidizing the economies of those countries
— but the people there remain hungry,” Karasin said. “It is such a
situation that creates fertile ground for [color] revolutions.”
Karasin was referring to the recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine
that brought to power pro-Western leaders. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].
In recent years, Russia has tried to diversify its regional political
and economic interests, seeking to develop other multilateral
organizations, including the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth and the
Collective Security Treaty Organization. [For additional information
see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In February 2003, the leaders
of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan agreed to establish a
so-called Common Economic Space group (CES) to harmonize economic
policies and trade legislation. Like the CIS, however, the CES~Rs
future is now in doubt, given that Ukraine, one of the four members,
appears unenthused about strengthening economic tries with Russia.
During the Kazan summit, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said
that his country would not withdraw from the CES. But he stressed that
Kyiv would participate in CES activities only in a way that does not
contradict Ukraine~Rs main goal of integrating with the European Union.
CES leaders held a separate summit August 27 and reportedly pledged to
continue multilateral cooperation. Ukraine, though, declined to sign
any agreements involving the possible establishment of “supra-national”
institutions. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan pledged to sign a package
of 29 agreements by December 1 and an additional 15 agreements by
March 2006. The RIA Novosti news agency reported that Ukrainians
expressed interest in signing only 15 of the 29 agreements due to be
finalized by late this year. Even so, Putin expressed “satisfaction”
with the outcome of the CES summit.
Editor~Rs Note: Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS
political affairs.

BANNED AIRLINES LISTS PUBLISHED
BBC
Monday, 29 August 2005, 13:10 GMT 14:10 UK
The lists tell passengers which airlines are banned in France and
Belgium France and Belgium have published separate blacklists of
airlines banned from their territory on safety grounds. The lists
were posted on the websites of the French civil aviation authority
(DGAC) and Belgium’s Transport Ministry on Monday.
Switzerland has also promised to provide its own list on Thursday.
The moves follow a plane crash in Venezuela on 16 August, in which 152
French passengers died on their way home to the island of Martinique.
Meanwhile on Saturday, at a meeting of the European Civil Aviation
Conference in Bucharest, experts called for a Europe-wide definition
of common criteria for blacklists.
The European Commission reached a deal in February to allow the
creation of EU-wide blacklists of unsafe airlines by the end of
the year.
But correspondents say it is unclear whether agreement on the
blacklists is possible, with Italy calling for just a list of safe
companies.
Charter transparency
The two countries’ lists were mutually exclusive, though several
names of airlines coincided with those on a list published in the UK.
AIRLINE BLACKLISTS
French list Air Koryo, North Korea Air Saint-Thomas, US Virgin Islands
International Air Service, Liberia Air Mozambique (LAM), including
its subsidiary Transairways Phuket Airlines, Thailand
——————————————————————————–
Belgian list Africa Lines, Central African Republic Air Memphis, Egypt
Air Van Airlines, Armenia Central Air Express, Democratic Republic of
Congo ICTTPW, Libya International Air Tours Ltd., Nigeria Johnsons Air
Ltd., Ghana Silverback Cargo Freighters, Rwanda South Airlines, Ukraine
In addition to the list of banned airlines, the DGAC site also
published a list of authorised companies including charter airlines.
French Transport Minister Dominique Perben said last week that by
the end of the year passengers taking charter or tour group flights
would have the right to be told which company was operating the flight.
Checks on aircraft making stopovers at French airports will also be
stepped up.
Switzerland has already revealed the names of some banned airlines,
but said it would publish a full list on 1 September.
Passenger revolt
On Wednesday night, 235 passengers of a Tunisian charter plane flying
from Paris to the Tunisian island of Djerba refused to re-board a
plane which was forced to return to Orly airport for checks shortly
after take-off.
That incident came a week after the Venezuela crash, which involved
a Colombian-owned plane.
August 2005 has been marked by a string of major plane disasters.
In less then two weeks, three planes have crashed in Greece, Venezuela
and Peru – all three of them operated by minor airlines.
More than 300 people have lost their lives in the three accidents.
The issue of blacklisting came to prominence when 148 people – most
of them French – died in January 2004 in a crash involving an airline
which had been banned from Swiss airspace, a fact which the passengers
had no way of knowing.

ILHAM ALIEV SUPPORTS IRAN
by Oleg Komotsky
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 29, 2005, Monday
Novye Izvestia, August 25, 2005, p. 4
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev made two statements not so very
pleasant for Washington in the interview for the British TV-channel
“Sky News”. First, he deflated the rumours that American military
bases may be located in his republic. Second, he openly spoke against
the eventual forced settlement of the Iran problem. (…)
Speaking on the air of the British TV-channel “Sky News”, Mr. Aliev
said, “I must say that the information about location of foreign
military bases in Azerbaijan does not correspond to reality. It’s
no more than rumors”. At that, according to his words, rumors of
this kind are sometimes “spread on purpose”. “We are holding no
negotiations on the matter, and I do not believe that location of
this or that foreign military base in our country will contribute to
its security”, highlighted the president. However, Ilham Aliev noted,
the Americans themselves never advanced such an initiative, and to
the contrary, they declared that military presence on the territory
of this Transcaucasian republic does not enter their plans.
At the same time the Azerbaijan president put it clear that Baku
stands against forced settlement of the Iran problem, which is
in no way excluded by the US President (George Bush said in the
interview for the Israel television). At that, Aliev referred to the
experience of his country: he said, in spite of more than ten-year
occupation of the proper Azerbaijan territories by Armenia, Baku
restrains from returning its lands by force. “As of today Azerbaijan
tries to settle the conflict peacefully, we have a right to appeal
to other countries asking to refuse any violation”, noted the
president. Besides, according to his words, military actions against
Iran can undermine security, including that of his country. “Why
should we be indifferent to a new conflict near our frontier? Will
it be any good for Azerbaijan’s security? It won’t”, emphasized Aliev.
Meanwhile, this week, the USA paid special attention to the CIS
countries, in particular to Central Asia republics, and especially
to military aspects of collaboration. So, last Monday, Head of the
USA Central Commandment (SENTKOM) General John Abizaid arrived in
the capital of Turkmenistan Ashkhabad. He held negotiations with
Defense Minister of the country Agageldy Mamedgeldyev, and the next
day the general was accepted by President Saparmurat Niyazov. To all
appearances, Abizaid mission was to persuade the Turkmen leader that
the American military presence in the region aimed to stabilize the
situation in the neighbor Afghanistan. The SENTKOM head highlighted,
Washington does not tend to use its military bases for overturning
of the local regimes. (…)
Apart from Turkmenistan, the United States paid much attention to
Kazakhstan. Foreign Minister of this country Kasymzhomart Tokaev
was welcomed in Washington by his American colleague Condoleezza
Rice. Though the negotiations were held behind shut doors, and
journalists were forbidden to ask any questions, the character of
the conversation can be judged at least from the press release of
the Kazakh Foreign Ministry. There the head of the American State
Department calls Kazakhstan “the status leader of the Central Asian
region”, representing “the optimal development model” for other
states. Something of the kind was stated by Rumsfield, who Tokaev met
on Tuesday. “Being the most dynamic and economically developed state
in Central Asia, Kazakhstan plays an important role in securing the
region’s stability and security”, emphasized the Pentagon’s head,
mentioning that the USA sees Astana as “a deserving partner on the
international arena and a reliable ally in the struggle against
terrorism”.

ACTIVE PHASE OF ANNUAL DUAL ARMENIA-RUSSIA TACTICAL MANEUVERS WILL TERMINATE ON SEPTEMBER 13
Krasnaya Zvezda, August 25, 2005, p. 3
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 29, 2005, Monday
That was declared by first deputy of the Armenian Defense Minister,
head of the general headquarters of the republican Armed Forces,
Colonel General Mikhail Arutyunyan. The maneuvers will take place on
Armenian Marshall Bagramyan’s polygon. In the tenth muster, according
to the words of Mikhail Arutyunyan, a motor-shooting regiment will
participate from the Armenian side, while soldiers of the 102nd
Russian military base will take part form the Russian side.

Constitutional reform in Armenia to promote country’s development
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 29, 2005 Monday 3:06 PM Eastern Time
YEREVAN, August 29
The reform of Armenia’s Constitution will open broad prospects
for the country’s further development, Tigran Torosyan, the deputy
speaker of the republic’s parliament, the chairman of the provisional
commission for Eurointegration, said here at the extraordinary session
of the National Assembly convened for the second reading of the draft
amendments to the Constitution.
The amendments stem from Yerevan’s obligations assumed during its
entry into the Council of Europe and aimed to balance the powers of
different branches of the republican authorities. The document was
coordinated with European experts, specifically, with the Venice
Commission of the Council of Europe, and will, possibly, be put to
referendum here in November.
The deputy speaker said the draft reform of the Constitution envisages
cardinal amendments of the procedure of dissolving parliament, and
forming the cabinet. Thus, recommending candidatures for premiership,
president is obliged to consult factions of the National Assembly to
establish the one who enjoys the support of the parliamentary majority.
Torosyan stressed the importance of the provisions related to the
formation and activity of the legal council. He said the human rights
guarantees are clearly defined.
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said on TV the other day the
amendments to the Constitution are needed, above all, for the people.
At the same time, they are very important for Armenia’s European
integration, he said.

Taking Action Now: An Interview with Nate Wright
News: Mother Jones’ student activist of the year talks about Darfur
Interviewed By Michael Beckel
September 1, 2005
Mother Jones, CA
Aug 29 2005
Tens of thousands of people-perhaps hundreds of thousands, according
to some estimates-have been killed over the past two and a half years
in the genocide ravaging the Darfur region of western Sudan. As
Mother Jones senior editor Monika Bauerlein recently advocated,
international pressure could readily end the bloodshed and bring aid
to the suffering. However, few nations have mustered the resolve to
tackle the crisis, particularly the United States, where the Bush
administration has condemned the killing but done little to intervene.
Among the few who have stepped up to fill the void is 21-year-old
Georgetown senior Nate Wright. A year ago, Wright co-founded Students
Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) with senior Ben Bixby, the president
of the campus’s Jewish Student Association, and with help from the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Their goal was to raise awareness
about the ongoing genocide, raise relief funds for humanitarian aid,
and lobby for immediate political action. To their surprise, their
plan didn’t just light a spark at Georgetown-it spread like wildfire
to other schools, and Wright’s national STAND Coalition now has tens
of thousands of students connected across nearly 200 campuses in the
United States and Canada.
This grassroots effort is keeping the hope of U.S. and international
action to stop the genocide alive, despite the deafening silence
in Washington and the major media. “The American news media aren’t
even covering the Darfur genocide as well as we covered the Armenian
genocide in 1915,” wrote New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas
Kristof in July. “And, incredibly,” continued Kristof, whose passionate
dispatches over the past year and a half have routinely reminded
readers not to forget about Sudan, “mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at
universities) has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or
cable station.” When Kristof praised mtvU, he was indirectly commending
Wright, who was one of three student correspondents the network sent to
record the lives of Darfurian refugees in eastern Chad in March. (Their
remarkable photographs and journals can be viewed at mtvU.com.)
Mother Jones recently talked with Wright-whom we named our 2005
Student Activist of the Year-about his experiences in the refugee
camps, ways to take action now, and the history of STAND.
MotherJones.com: What is STAND?
Nate Wright: We’re about creating the political noise that says
there has to be a better response to the crisis in Sudan; we’re about
highlighting where we see a better response; and in doing so, I think
that gives a lot of hope to the people in Darfur. Last September, we
outlined an approach where we would look at it from three different
angles-raising awareness, raising relief funds, and pushing for a
political solution. We were extremely, extremely active right at
the beginning of the semester. Georgetown STAND was hosting three or
four events on campus a week. Almost immediately we gained so much
support on our own campus that we began looking at ways in which
we could spread the idea of student activism to other campuses. By
October, we had other schools that were adopting the STAND format of
approaching it in those three different areas.
MJ: What form were those events taking?
NW: For example, I put together a speaker series that would have
one to two speakers a week coming to campus to talk about it from
a variety of different angles so we could educate ourselves on the
nuances of the issues like international law and how international
law plays into why can the United States call it genocide and then
not act. We’d do other things like have green ribbons for people to
wear as a way of raising consciousness. We’d do fund raising events
for the humanitarian relief efforts. We’d have hundreds of students
from Georgetown writing letters to [then-Secretary of State] Colin
Powell and to their representatives, calling for them to take a stand
on this issue and articulate exactly what they were going to do.
There were a variety of ways we were approaching it, and most of the
work that we were doing was replicable on other campuses.
MJ: What were some of your biggest successes?
NW: On November 20, we held one of our first big events, the STANDFast:
Essentially the idea was that you’d give up a purchase of a luxury
item for the day-dessert, coffee, soda, whatever it might be-and you
would donate the money that you would have spent on it to humanitarian
relief efforts. At Georgetown, we ended up getting well over a thousand
people who all decided to give up alcohol on a Saturday night right
before a major break-one of the big party nights and 15 percent
of the student body gives up alcohol to show their support for the
people in Sudan. We gathered a lot of media attention. For example,
MTV came down and covered that, and the Washington Post ran a story
on the student movement.
When we held a conference here at Georgetown in conjunction with
the Holocaust Memorial Museum in February, we had over 400 students
from around 100 different universities across the United States and
Canada. That was where we began to form what is now the national STAND
Coalition. At the conference we also announced a partnership with mtvU
to host a future event, and mtvU announced that they would be sending
three college students into the Darfur region to document the stories
of the refugees for two weeks in March. Those students were myself,
Andrew Karlsruher, a film student at Boston University, and Stephanie
Nyombayire, a student at Swarthmore College and a citizen of Rwanda who
lost nearly a hundred family members in the Rwandan genocide. The three
of us went into a lot of the camps along the border in eastern Chad
and spent nearly two weeks interviewing a lot of the people and putting
together a documentary that documents the stories of the refugees.
MJ: What was it like producing that documentary? What was it like
being there?
NW: You want to be able to go over there and say that when you come
back, things are going to change. You want to be able to promise [the
refugees] so much more than you can deliver them. It definitely gives
you an incredible sense of helplessness when you can’t really bring
them anything more than a voice. I mean, they are incredibly grateful
just for the opportunity to be heard and to know that they haven’t
been forgotten, but there is sort of this sense of helplessness. At
the same point in time, there are so many absolutely amazing stories.
The first refugee that we met as we were going to these camps in
eastern Chad started talking about these students from D.C. who were
giving up their privileges to help the people in Darfur. It even
took me a minute to realize that he was talking about the project
that we had done: When we did that first STANDFast back in November,
myself and several other of the students did an interview with Voice
of America, and he could have been listening to my voice. It was
something that he was incredibly touched by-the fact that students
in the United States hadn’t forgotten about them and cared about them
and were trying to do something to make their lives better.
And even though everyone would talk about how they didn’t have enough
food and water, whenever you walked into anyone’s tent, you would
have to ask them not bring you any food or water because they’re
just so hospitable. Even though they can tell you’ve got money-we’re
wearing clothing that hasn’t been torn apart-to see these people in
these conditions offering you food and water, it’s incredibly moving.
I don’t think that they can really understand how people in the United
States could see this and not do something. It really seemed as if
that idea was beyond them, that someone could see their suffering
and not want to help them.
MJ: How were the children in these camps dealing with the tragedies
they’ve experienced?
NW: If you ask the children anything about what they’ve been through,
they’ll freeze up most of the time. They won’t be able to talk about
it. At one of the camps that we went to, this little kid came up
to me and started shaking my hand. He’s holding this booklet in
his hand, and I opened up the booklet and started looking through
it, and there were all these pictures of armed men attacking their
village, helicopters bombing a village, people getting shot, and a
village being burned down-all these horrific pictures being drawn
by a school kid who’s smiling just because he wants someone to pay
attention to him. You ask what each of these things are and hear,
“That’s my aunt,” and it’s a picture of this woman getting shot. Or,
“That’s my cousin,” and it’s a picture of a woman getting raped. And
when I started looking through his pictures, the next thing I know,
there’s a group of 40 children, each of them holding up the same
sorts of pictures. I ended up spending two and a half, three hours,
just looking at picture after picture after picture of what these kids
had drawn. That’s incredibly moving, and it’s so hard to leave them.
MJ: What can an ordinary person do to help this cause?
NW: A lot of people don’t realize how simple it is to really help
these people. Fifty cents will feed a refugee for a day. Nineteen
cents will give a schoolchild a meal. It’s incredibly amazing how far
a dollar will go just in the humanitarian aid effort. It doesn’t take
a whole lot to really make a difference for these people. Several
Congressmen have done a lot of legislation on this. Both the Darfur
Accountability Act and the Darfur Genocide Accountability Act take
people from both sides of the spectrum who have never before worked
on anything, and yet, on Darfur they agree. But unfortunately there
hasn’t been enough pressure to get through. Even something as simple
as calling up a representative, talking to them about this, asking
them what their stance has been on this, and pointing to legislation
is good. If nothing else, just be a voice that says, “I care about
the people in Sudan, and I want to see to this changed.” There’s just
so many different small things that people can do to really change
things. You do what you can with what you’ve been given, and I really
think that holds true everywhere.
MJ: How did you win the Darfur Activism Award?
NW: Coming off the second STANDFast with mtvU on April 7-which
coincided with the anniversary of the start of the genocide in Rwanda
and had 170 universities, 18 universities in Canada, and dozens of high
schools participating in it-the next big success was that organizations
like Reebok wanted to be involved in the student movement. They decided
that they would offer a $40,000 grant to one of the student groups
on Darfur who would put together the best proposal. It was narrowed
down to three different universities and then opened up to voting on
mtvU, and Georgetown won the $40,000 grant. So we’ve got a lot of big
plans. We have had tremendous success in raising a lot of awareness,
getting a lot of college student involved in it, and now we’re looking
toward the future. We’re planning on a larger conference in August,
we’re planning a new national solidarity fast, and we’re also looking
to create a sponsor and camp program. We have been working with a lot
of the humanitarian organizations, so you’d essentially have local
areas inside the United States sponsoring specific camps, specifically
sponsoring the education in camps in Darfur and eastern Chad.
MJ: How will you set up this sponsor program?
NW: We’re working with both UNICEF, which builds and helps run a lot
of the schools, and the World Food Programme, which provides school
feeding. You can’t really concentrate in school if you’re extremely
hungry. A lot of this is coming off of the trip that I took there,
because we spent a lot of time trying to talk to people our age and
asking them if they could ask for anything from the college students
in America, what it would be. And the overwhelming response was,
“We want to be able to educate ourselves,” largely because they see
that as the ultimate remedy to be make sure something like this never
happens again in the future of Sudan.
MJ: What do you see as a real, sustainable solution to the crisis
in Darfur?
NW: I personally think that if we, the international community,
had responded earlier to the crisis, there would have been so many
more options. Where we are now, I think the solution to the crisis
looks like getting the Sanctions Committee for the United Nations
to actually implement the sanctions, so I think there has to be
pressure on the Sanctions Committee to do that. No one thinks that
Khartoum will allow anyone into Darfur other than the African Union,
so I think at this point in time we need to focus on being able
to strengthen the African Union, which has about 3,000 troops in
there now. It’s an area roughly the size of Texas, though. When the
troops are actually able to get to a camp [of internally displaced
people inside Sudan] before it is attacked, they’ve been incredibly
successful at being able to avert attacks. But the numbers are too
small and so ineffective because they don’t have logistical support
most of the time. The African Union uses the cars from humanitarian aid
workers. There needs to be a lot done by the international community,
by organizations like NATO, to support the AU troops.
I also think that efforts need to be made to pressure the United
Nations to send in a peacekeeping force designed to gather evidence
of human rights violations to be able to prosecute the perpetrators
through the International Criminal Court and through other courts. I
think there needs to be a lot of work done to gain the evidence
necessary to prosecute them. The Rwandan courts have incredible
difficulty prosecuting people because so much evidence was lost. I
think if we learn anything from that, it should be that we should
make a concerted effort in any sort of peacekeeping movement to gain
evidence of those human rights violations.
MJ: What do you make of the tremendous successes that STAND has
achieved?
NW: When we were sitting in an auditorium listening to the speech and
presentation of the Holocaust Museum, none of us expected that we’d
be sitting here working on coordinating a coalition that had tens of
thousands of students. We are students who believe in the sanctity
of human life; we believed that there had to be a better answer for
genocide; and we’re just taking whatever steps we can see. We’ve
done a lot to help educate ourselves in finding what the best steps
to take are, but the important thing is to do what you can with what
you’ve been given.
Michael Beckel is an editorial intern at Mother Jones

PUBLIC TELEVISION WILL HOLD PECULIAR AND SIGNIFICANT PLACE IN AZERBAIJAN
SPEECH OF THE PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN ILHAM ALIYEV AT THE CEREMONY DEDICATED TO START OF FUNCTIONING OF THE PUBLIC TELEVISION AND RADIO BROADCASTING COMPANY
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
[August 29, 2005, 22:03:29]
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
We are having a landmark day. The public television is being
established in Azerbaijan and today it begins functioning. To this
end, I congratulate all of you. Sure, the public television will hold
peculiar place in the Azerbaijan television space and deserve respect
of the onlookers.
Today I have acquainted with the facilities in TV, and its staff. I
can tell, the faculties are of high standard. The television is ready
to start.
We all know the history of establishment of the Public TV. I would
not take much time. I consider establishment of television current
year is of special importance. No secret that creation of Public
TV was one of the obligations Azerbaijan took before the Council of
Europe. We had to do it. At the same time, it was a necessity. The
Azerbaijan mass media, including tele-channels provide the people with
sufficient information. Nevertheless, there was need for independent
television in the country.
I have spoken on this several times and reiterate that in Azerbaijan,
there is great need for fully independent press, and media. Creation of
the Public TV is a great and important step in this direction. I hope
after a while truly independent media will be created in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan experiences transition period. Our country marches from
one social structure to another. In this case, perhaps, mass media
faces political pressures. Greater part of media is under influence
of political circles. I reiterate that probably it is natural. But
every phase has ending, and limits. I hope all-round development
of Azerbaijan, the ongoing political processes, the process of
democratization will bring new environment to our country.
Public life in Azerbaijan is enough rich. The happenings in Azerbaijan,
their analysis, the ongoing process in region, and the role and
place of Azerbaijan in these processes, of course, arouses great
interest. Perhaps, activity of the Public TV will be important in this
direction. And also I hope the television will cover the problems our
country is concerned with. The Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh
conflict, the problems we face, unemployment, poverty, combat against
corruption establishment process of legal and democratic state,
etc. are the questions majority of society is concerned with.
The press plays great role in protection of our country’s national
interests. We have been witnesses many times that in some cases certain
information of the Azerbaijan press echoes in region. We should be
sensitive and in this question. We should know that Azerbaijan lives
in war conditions. Both negative and positive processes in the country,
undoubtedly, are watched by the enemy and found serious reaction.
In my activity, I always support the press. And today I pursue this
policy. I count that he adopted decisions are evidences to that. And in
my future activity I shall try to assist the Azerbaijan mass media. I
am confident, mass media has great role in building of normal, legal,
democratic state and this becomes more and more important.
Azerbaijan is on the threshold of parliament elections and in some
cases they used to connect the creation of public television in this
phase just with the parliament elections. Perhaps, there is also this
factor. But the parliamentary elections will pass on November 6, and
now the television has a lot to do, and it has to go far. Of course,
activity of the television is of great importance in connection with
the elections. Sure, all the candidates for election will address
through public TV directly to their electors, and all of them will
have equal conditions.
I hope the public television will hold peculiar and significant place
in Azerbaijan. I once again would like to say that I look forward that
it will deserve respect of the audience and play its significant role
in future development of our country.
According to information I was provided, the specialists employed in
the public TV are professionals. I hope all these factors will promote
the public television to play important role in Azerbaijan TV space.
I wish success to the public TV. I wish health, happiness to its
personnel. I wish the press and television of Azerbaijan developed
and worthily served our people. Happy holiday. Thank you.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

WISMAN NAMES ARMENIA PARTY
UEFA.com
Aug 29 2005
Armenia coach Henk Wisman has named a 21-man squad for the September
FIFA World Cup qualifiers against the Netherlands and the Czech
Republic. Captain Harutyun Vardanyan returns after a year on the
sidelines with a knee injury, while FC Banants’s Samvel Melkonyan
and FC Pyunik’s Armen Tigranyan hope to make their debuts.
Armenia squad Goalkeepers: Roman Berezovski (FC Dinamo Moskva),
Gevorg Kasparov (FC Pyunik).
Defenders: Valery Aleksanyan (FC Pyunik), Sargis Hovsepyan (FC Pyunik),
Robert Arzumanyan (FC Pyunik), Alexander Tadevosyan (FC Pyunik),
Harutyun Vardanyan (FC Aarau), Karen Dokhoyan (FC Krylya Sovetov
Samara), Yegishe Melikyan (FC Metalurh Donetsk).
Midfielders: Agvan Lazarian (FC Pyunik), Romik Khachatryan (OFI Crete
FC), David Grigoryan (FC Yesil Bogatyr Petropavlovsk), Karen Aleksanyan
(CSF Zimbru Chisinau), Hamlet Mkhitaryan (FC MTZ-RIPO Minsk), Armen
Tigranyan (FC Pyunik), Samvel Melkonyan (FC Banants).
Forwards: Edgar Manucharyan (AFC Ajax), Ara Hakobyan (FC Stal
Alchevsk), Aram Hakobyan (FC Banants), Aram Voskanyan (FC Yesil
Bogatyr Petropavlovsk),Galust Petrosyan (CSF Zimbru Chisinau).

NON-ALIGNED YET MILITANT: SYSTEM OF A DOWN USE THEIR POLITICALLY LACED HARD ROCK TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND TO THE CLASS CLEAVAGES OF U.S. MILITARISM
by MARK LEGPAGE, Freelance
The Gazette (Montreal)
August 29, 2005 Monday
Final Edition
“As the father of a dead U.S. serviceman…”
There’s a line no senator will ever utter. Remarkably, it doesn’t
offend the average American – it’s never mentioned in the press,
nor by the Sunday morning pundits – that no serving politician in
Congress has a kid on the line in Iraq.
System of a Down are not average Americans.
“Why don’t presidents fight the wars / Why do they always send the
poor? Why do they always send the poor?” howls Serj Tankian in BYOB
on the band’s latest album, Mezmerize. As full a hard-rock protest
album as will be released this year, it is also one of the very few
(name another) truly angry politicized albums of the decade.
This is disheartening. This should be a firing offense. The least a
band of musicians who’ve escaped serious employment could be expected
to do, you’d imagine, is engage the largest issue of their era.
Why do they always send the poor? “I think it makes a lot of sense
to send the poor if you’re affluent and have a lot to lose,” System
drummer John Dolmayan says. “You don’t look at people who have very
little money as having anything to lose.”
But “whether you’re a billionaire or working at McDonald’s, you still
have a life – and a right to it.”
Against all odds, System of a Down is a “successful rock band.” Its
2001 6-million-selling breakthrough Toxicity (with its crazed single
Chop Suey!) brought a mainstream (or at least mass) audience to a band
with a shared ethnicity whose singer is a vocal, neck-tendon-baring
dissident. As I credit Dolmayan for his band’s having launched itself
into the political arena so aggressively, he takes a small half-step
backwards.
“I don’t know if we’re as head-on as you think,” he says. “We’re not
necessarily (talking) just about this war, but about things that are
taking place on the planet on a daily basis.
“It takes a war to get people to pay attention to what’s happening,
when right here in America there are kids starving to death. There’s
poor people who can’t afford to eat or a decent place to sleep. These
are things that need to be addressed. It’s not just when you go to
another country and destroy their lives and uproot another civilization
that you need to start paying attention to things.”
He is, in fact, avoiding a label, not a stance. “I consider us to be a
‘non-party’ band” – by which he means “no affiliation,” not to a genre,
style or ideology. Anyway, “Definitely we’re outspoken against war.”
Sixteen shows into the current tour, Dolmayan seldom has a sense of
how the confrontational songs are going over during a performance.
What does it look like out there? “I see a blur from the stage,”
he says, “as my drumsticks are whizzing past my face.”
Small wonder. BYOB is one of 11 riff-bombs on Mezmerize (the first
in a two-album series – Hypnotize comes in November). Between the
opening fragment, Soldier Side, and the skewering, elegiac closer,
Lost in Hollywood, the band runs a tight prison-break through
mosh-happy guitars, skirling north-Middle Eastern melodic figures and
neck-violating dynamics – it’s a hard-rock diaspora of sound. BYOB
is itself three songs in one.
“That’s one of the reasons we didn’t release both albums at the same
time,” Dolmayan says. “We felt it would just be too much for people
to take.
“Some people wanna be safe, some people don’t have the capability to
do something … crazier.”
It is an oversimplification, but perhaps they had a sense that rock
‘n’ roll risks were minor-league. Bred in southern California, the
band – Tankian, Dolmayan, guitarist Daron Malakian and bassist Shavo
Odadjian – are all of Armenian heritage. Dolmayan insists this was
purely coincidental, but it is certainly crucial. That ethnicity
brings with it the shared consciousness of an ethnic rupture that
remains, unthinkably, a secret to general history – the Armenian
genocide. Denied to this day by its perpetrators, the Turks, the
events, begun in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire (1915),
constitute what Peter Jennings acknowledged was “quite simply the
first genocide of the 20th century.” Estimates of the dead range as
high as 1.5 million or “half of our population,” Dolmayan says.
“We feel it’s our responsibility to draw attention to it because most
people don’t even know it took place,” he says. Every Armenian is a
walking conscience. But Dolmayan doesn’t fetishize this. When the
amount of people killed then is contrasted, say, with the latest
offhand slaughter of 100,000 somewhere, he responds, “A hundred
thousand people is a vast amount of people! Are we really in a world
that’s so cynical that 100,000 people dead doesn’t mean anything?”
However: non-party band. The Armenian consanguinity is not just a
rallying point.
“We understand each other much better. Armenians are very
family-oriented people, even though we fight like a family sometimes.
Some of our best songs have happened after our best fights. I put
Daron in the hospital and he put me in the hospital on the same
night. Let’s just say we both had to get stitches.” So there’s more
than one way to tie a band together.

THE FLIP SIDE
by Theresa Freese
WHAT IMPACT WILL THE WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN TROOPS HAVE ON AJARIA?
>>From EurasiaNet.
Transitions Online, Czech Republic
Aug 29 2005
BATUMI, Georgia | As Russia completes the first stage of its base
withdrawal from Georgia, residents of Ajaria are concerned about the
economic implications of the departure of Russian troops.
The parameters for Russia’s withdrawal from its last two remaining
military bases in Georgia were set by a joint declaration singed in
late May. While eager to see the Russian military leave, Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili has acknowledged that the withdrawal
could exacerbate “social issues.”
Government officials recognize that Russia’s withdrawal will have a
broad economic impact on the two regions – Ajaria and the southern,
primarily ethnic Armenian region of Samtskhe-Javakheti – where the
bases are located. New roads, social welfare support and military
food procurement contracts for local farmers have been promised for
Akhalkalaki, site of the Russian 62nd base in Samtskhe-Javakheti,
which is slated to close in 2007. Detailed plans for Batumi, however,
have not been announced. The Russian withdrawal from its 12th base
there is scheduled for completion in 2008.
Kakha Shavadze, minister of finance and economy for the autonomous
republic of Ajaria, said there are “no concrete plans” for replacing
the 12th Russian base in Batumi, aside from turning the nearby Gonio
military training ground – one of three main military facilities in the
region – into a resort after the Russians leave. Asked to comment on
re-employment plans for civilian personnel at the Batumi base, Ajarian
First Deputy Minister for Health, Labor and Social Welfare Nugzar
Surmanidze indicated that planning was still in the early stages.
“Let [Russia] withdraw the bases and we’ll solve the problems with
help from our friends,” Surmanidze said, adding that he did not know
the number of Georgians employed at the base. Surmanidze’s response
suggested that assistance provided by the United States and the
European Union would comprise a vital part of any social-welfare
strategy.
Unanswered questions surround the work prospects for Georgians
employed as military personnel at the Batumi base. As part of their
service, these individuals also hold Russian citizenship. (The Georgian
constitution does not recognize dual citizenship.) In a 31 May speech,
Saakashvili announced that Georgian citizens employed as military
personnel at Russian bases would be eligible to transfer into the
Georgian armed services.
Saakashvili’s broad offer applies to only those “who are residents
of Georgia and who are citizens of Georgia” otherwise, he offers
“guarantees of other employment or social benefits.”
Meanwhile, Russia is actively promoting a job replacement policy for
ethnic Georgian servicemen at the bases, and a visa assistance scheme
for their families. “In principle, they have all been offered to
continue [their] service in the Russian military outside of Georgia,”
Col. Vladimir Kuparadze, deputy commander of Russian troops in the
South Caucasus, said. “We have had discussions with soldiers and
sergeants on contract service, and the vast majority has agreed to go.”
Kuparadze said it was “difficult to say” just how many servicemen
might permanently transfer into the Russian army, but added that
a large number of people want to take [Russian] citizenship. By his
estimates, some 850 ethnic Georgian “civilians and military personnel”
are located at the 12th base in Batumi. Figures are similar for
Akhalkalaki, he stated.
To facilitate that transfer, Kuparadze stated, the Russian embassy
in Tbilisi is considering simplifying procedures for family members
of Georgian service personnel who hold Russian citizenship to obtain
Russian passports. Yevgeni Ivanov, spokesperson for the embassy,
said that Russian law only allows the consulate to issue visas and
residency permits to these individuals.
Discussing a severance package for civilian personnel, Col. Kuparadze
said “Russian citizens” will all receive a two-month salary,
approximately 400 lari ($222), as compensation as well as an apartment
in Russia and a pension upon reaching retirement age.
Representatives of the Georgian Defense Ministry, which is responsible
for the implementation of re-training and employment programs,
declined to comment. A spokesperson for Ministry of Foreign Affairs
said that statements about re-employment schemes could be made only
after the government finalized plans covering the future of the
vacated Russian facilities.
Some officials appear reluctant to try to accommodate the base
workers. Giorgi Charkviani – an Ajarian representative of the office
of the Georgian ombudsman and public defender, who led rallies in fall
2004 calling for Russia’s withdrawal from the Batumi base – suggested
that no formal re-employment program for Georgians working at the 12th
base exists because they have a “pro-Russia psychology,” and because
Russia already “offers them positions, pensions, accommodation,
and high salaries.”
Civilian base employees are readying themselves for a stiff drop in
pay. Monthly salaries for civilians at the 12th base average about 200
laris ($110.60), according to one construction worker at a facility
in Khelvachauri, about 10 kilometers from Batumi. By comparison,
salaries in Ajaria average about 130 laris, or $65, per month,
according to the State Department for Statistics of Georgia.
“People from all over Ajaria work at the [facilities],” said the
worker. “Our main concern is that we are able to take care of our
families.”
Fifteen percent of Ajaria’s population of 400,000 is unemployed, said
Shavadze, the Ajarian finance official, who adds that 59 percent of
the region’s residents live below the poverty line. Those figures,
however, are several percentage points lower than 2004 numbers,
a fact attributed by Shavadze to new construction jobs and an
improving regional economy. Local leaders seem to be aware that the
base withdrawal could add to the existing unemployment problem. “We
are facing serious social problems,” Shavadze said.
Shavadze and other regional officials hope a strategy to develop
tourism in Ajaria could alleviate the economic damage done by
the Russian troops’ departure. “Our main economic direction is
privatization, and our concentration is on tourism – to sell hotels
and tourist centers,” said Shavadze.
The Gonio training ground, which includes a firing range and
approximately 40 hectares of seaside property, will be turned into
a “resort town like Las Vegas,” according to Ajarian Minister of
Tourism Temur Zoidze. President Saakashvili himself has traveled
frequently to Ajaria this summer to promote the region as a tourist
destination. Some 35,000 tourists, mostly Georgian, are estimated to
have visited Ajaria so far in 2005. Roughly 11,000 visited in 2004,
Zoidze said. The numbers for May and June 2005 alone mark a three-fold
increase over the same period in 2004, he claimed.
Some base workers are skeptical that tourism will enable them to make
up for lost revenue following the withdrawal. “You can’t find jobs,
everyone employs their own relatives,” complained one kiosk-owner
in Khelvachauri.
“Tourists won’t reach us,” added the construction worker from
Khelvachauri.
Theresa Freese is a freelance journalist and political analyst who
has been conducting research on unresolved conflicts in the South
Caucasus since 2003. This is a partner-post from EurasiaNet.