Zaman, Turkey
April 25 2005

No Word on ‘Genocide’, Bush Warns Yerevan for Democracy
By Foreign News Desk

While commemoration activities for the so-called Armenian Genocide
were held at various locations, a group of 500 people attending a
rally burned Turkish flags.

The group was diffused after shouting slogans opposing Turkey’s
European Union (EU) membership. Armenian President Robert Kocharian
who made a speech at the ceremony that was held in front of the
“genocide monument” in Yerevan advocated that recognition of the
“genocide” at an international level was significant in terms of
international politics. Reportedly, diplomats and parliamentary
members from 15 countries participated in the rallies and activities
in Yerevan. Discussions over a law draft to punish participants in
the so-called Armenian genocide also became an issue in France,
following Belgium. Socialist Party (PS) Secretary-General Francois
Hollande, which is the main opposition party in France, said they
decided to submit the bill to prohibit the denial of the so-called
Armenian genocide. There were four separate drafts on the issue
submitted by the ruling party Union for Popular Movement (UMP) and SP
in France.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush did not use the word
“genocide” this year, despite expectations. Expressing his deep
condolences to Armenian society due to the loses that occurred in the
past, Bush also warned the Armenian administration by calling on them
to develop democracy and freedoms. Armenians living in Russia,
Lebanon, Greece, Iran, Israel, Germany, and US also commemorated the
so-called genocide.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 25 2005

Turkish students take to the streets

Baku, April 22, AssA-Irada
Up to 2,500 Turkish students receiving education in Baku higher
schools marched downtown Baku on Friday protesting against the recent
burning of the Turkish flag by Armenians in Greece.
The protesters headed from the Fountain Square toward the Greek
embassy. However, 9 police officers tried to prevent the rally as it
was not sanctioned by the authorities. The police and the protesters
managed to come to terms and the march resumed.
The students chanted slogans condemning Armenians’ atrocities and
stating that those who burned the flag will be punished. They also
chanted support for Azerbaijan, indicating that the Upper Garabagh
conflict is not a problem of this country alone, but of the entire
Turkic world.
The police did not allow the protesters to approach the embassy
building.*

Middle East Online, UK
April 25 2005

Lebanese eye new era of self-reliance

Bekaa Valley residents are looking ahead to new era of Lebanese
self-reliance as Syrian troops leave.

By Joseph Barrak – ANJAR, Lebanon

As the last Syrian soldiers trickle out of Lebanon after 29 years of
domination, residents of the Bekaa Valley are looking ahead to a new
era of Lebanese self-reliance and control of law and order.

After the Syrians with their dreaded intelligence services have gone,
they say they hope friendship and trade will replace domination and
fear.

“I cannot even find words to express our happiness, but it does not
mean that we do not want good relations with Syria,” said Ali Hamdan,
a trader in mobile telephones along the main highway leading to
Syria.

Syrian troops were packing up and heading out of Lebanon on Monday,
restoring an air of independence to the tiny country which has been
in the military and political grip of Damascus for 29 years.

The last soldiers are due to leave Lebanon after a farewell ceremony
on Tuesday in Rayaq airbase in eastern Bekaa where Syria had recently
regrouped its troops ahead of the complete pullout requested by the
United Nations.

Lebanese troops took up positions in the main eastern cities of the
Bekaa Valley ahead of the final Syrian pullout and erected
checkpoints along the highway to Syria.

The Lebanese army has also deployed inside the border town of Anjar,
the notorious headquarters of the Syrian forces in Lebanon which was
declared a “military zone” Monday afternoon.

“We want our own army to protect us, we have had enough of foreign
armies. It is time for us to become really independent,” said Ali
Hassan, referring to the deployment of various foreign forces since
Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

“We have bad memories because the Syrians controlled the country
through the mukhabarat (intelligence services).

“We were constantly afraid, a lot of people went missing, some were
tortured, but we hope that this is all history now,” explained a
neighbor who asked not to be identified.

The man smiled as he added: “Once they leave, we can talk more
freely. We will tell you all about it. We waited for 29 years, we can
wait for a few more hours.”

Salim Nassar was ecstatic.

He finally recovered his house which had been occupied by Syrian
forces for over two decades on a hilltop overlooking the commercial
town of Shtaura.

“I had to rent an apartment in a nearby building and pay the rent for
20 years. Today, I took my son to see his ancestral home, which he
was never been able to approach,” he said.

Nazira, the manager of a clothing shop on the main highway, said that
“since Hariri’s assassination two months ago, we have not seen a lot
of tourists or Syrians because they are afraid to come here.”

“We hope that the Syrian withdrawal will be followed by stability and
that tourists, including Syrians will return,” she said.

“We want prosperity for the Syrians as much as for us. We want to
have good neighboring relations, based on trade and not intelligence
and security.”

Her friend, Samira, said: “We are extremely happy to see the Syrians
leave, and I suppose they are very happy too. I am sure they would
rather be home, with their own people.”

In Anjar, Syrian troops toured shops and restaurants to bid farewell
to their old neighbors for decades in this sleepy all-Armenian town.

“We are very happy because we will get back the tourists who have
been afraid to come here. We have great fish, good Arabic coffee and
beautiful Islamic archeological ruins,” said restaurant manager
Raffi.

In a shop in Anjar, Syrian soldiers shook hands with the owner, staff
and other curious bystanders.

“God be with you,” said the owner.

“Come back to buy from us,” said the employee, before adding in a low
voice to a journalist, “as a civilian, of course.”

Boston Globe
April 25, 2005
Obituaries

Gayane Kanayan

Of Watertown April 21, 2005 at the age of 105. Widow of the legendary
Armenian National Hero General Dro Kanayan. Mother of Martin Kanayan and his
wife Alice and Olga Proudian. Loving grandmother to five grandchildren and
three great grandchildren. Funeral services at Saint Stephen’s Armenian
Apostolic Church, 38 Elton Avenue Watertown on Wednesday April 27 at 11 AM.
Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend. Visiting hours at the
Aram Bedrosian Funeral Home, 558 Mount Auburn Street, WATERTOWN on Monday
and Tuesday from 7-9 PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to
Saint Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church and AFUSA Inc for the General Dro
Institute in Armenia. Interment Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.
Published in the Boston Globe from 4/24/2005 – 4/25/2005.
Guest Book – Flowers – Gift Shop – Charities

KGO, CA
April 25 2005

Bay Area Armenians Recall ‘Forgotten Genocide’

ABC7
Apr. 25 (ABC7) – The Bay Area’s Armenian community is bringing
attention to a very dark period in history.

Hundreds gathered on Mount Davidson in San Francisco Sunday for the
90th anniversary of what’s often called the forgotten genocide. From
1915 to 1923, as many as a million-and-a-half Armenians were killed
by the Ottoman Turks.

California has the largest Armenian-American population in the
country.

State Senator Jackie Speier introduced a resolution making April 24
the official day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide.

Watch this report:

PRESS RELEASE
Near East Foundation – Headquarters
90 Broad Street, 15th Floor – New York, NY 10004, USA
Phone: +1 (212) 425-2205 Fax: +1 (212) 425-2350

This speech was the keynote address for the April 20th Congressional
Armenian Genocide Commemoration held on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

200 distinguished guests attended including members of Congress and
Armenian American representatives from around the country, religious
leaders and the Armenian Ambassador to the US. If you have any
questions/comments pls contact Andrea Couture, Near East Foundation
[email protected] telephone in New York 212-425-2205 x17.

Also available, but not included here, is a 3-part series on the history
of the Near East Foundation which was founded to respond to the Armenian
Genocide and deportations and consequently is celebrating its 90th year
as this country’s oldest international development organization. I hope
you are interested in seeing the series as well.
_____

Keynote Remarks
Armenian Genocide Observance
Capitol Hill
Ryan A. LaHurd, Near East Foundation
April 20, 2005

Honorable congresswomen and congressmen and honored guests: I
am privileged to be addressing you today as we commemorate the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and deportations, one of the
darkest times of our era, and privileged to be representing the Near
East Foundation which this year commemorates the 90th anniversary of its
founding as America’s first nationwide international relief and
development effort, born in response to those tragic events.
On the wall of the offices of the Near East Foundation in
downtown Manhattan hang framed yellowed front pages from New York Times
editions of the autumn of 1915. In terms very reminiscent of what we
read in the New York Times these days about Darfur, lead stories tell of
almost unimaginable atrocities against innocent people and the
determination of Americans to respond to the victims’ needs. I pass
these newspapers every day as I work around the office, just as I pass
vintage posters by American artists of the early 20th Century with
legends like “They Shall Not Perish,” “Remember the Starving Armenians,”
and “Which Shall it be: Life or Death?” These artifacts are invitations
to despair, for they simultaneously recall the subsequent human
tragedies of the Nazi holocaust and of Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and
Darfur – inescapable evidences of humanity’s terrible propensity toward
what we have come to call “man’s inhumanity to man.” The fact that we
call such actions “inhuman” indicates our deep desire that such
murderous events remain unrepresentative of who we are essentially as
human beings.
Yet, in a very real sense, those same newspaper pages and posters stand
also as a monument to hope, heroism, and what is best in us as human
beings. And, notwithstanding the beating Americans have taken recently
in the forums of international opinion, I think we can feel comfortable
in the assertion that they truly report something representative of us
as Americans. For despite our vaunted isolationism and the warnings of
our national founding fathers against international entanglements,
Americans by and large understand the great privilege we have of living
in a land of freedom and bounty; and we are motivated to bring to others
in need the help we are able to give.
So it was that in September 1915, Henry Morgenthau, then U.S. Ambassador
to the Ottoman Empire, gave notice to President Wilson that the world
was witnessing “the destruction of the Armenian race in Turkey” and that
immediate assistance was needed. Despite the fact that the American
government had determined to maintain neutrality with regard to the
alliances fighting in the Ottoman Empire, the situation of the Armenians
demanded a response. At the request of the President, a private relief
committee was established in New York headed by industrial leader
Cleveland H. Dodge “with the remote hope of raising $100,000 for relief
in Turkey” for hundreds of thousands of Armenians, Greeks and suffering
members of other minorities. The committee received bipartisan
congressional support, including the active assistance of President
Wilson, who himself appealed to the American people for contributions.
The “remote hope” was not so remote after all. Between 1915 and 1918,
hundreds of thousands of refugees were fed, clothed, housed and cared
for in camps and orphanages in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, the Caucasus and
Persia. After the Armistice, the committee was chartered by an act of
Congress in 1919 as Near East Relief, and designated as the primary
channel for U.S. post-World War I aid to the region. Foreshadowing its
future name change, NER expanded its mandate beyond relief to address
the resulting huge social problems of the vast numbers of refugees,
including over one hundred thousand orphans. Help was for all
“suffering people” on the basis of “need not creed” and under the slogan
“Hunger Knows no Armistice.” As one of the founders of the organization
observed, they could continue to give relief forever and nothing would
change. If there was to be hope for the future, people must have their
capabilities developed so they could build their own futures.
Based on population, each American town and city was asked to
contribute, resulting in an unprecedented manifestation of American
generosity to provide hope and reconstruction. Among the innovative
fundraising approaches employed were the posters created by top American
illustrators. Thousands of tons of used clothing collected on “Bundle
Days” were sent overseas; and the “Milk Campaign” was spearheaded by
10-year-old child actor Jackie Coogan with movie theaters around the
country used as “food stations” for the collection of cans of milk.
Coogan even visited the Near East, traveling on a “milk ship” out of New
York Harbor. On “International Golden Rule Sundays,” families across
the nation ate a simple “orphanage meal” and donated the equivalent cost
of an average American Sunday dinner.
By 1930, when it was renamed the Near East Foundation, $110 million had
been collected and dispensed for humanitarian assistance, including $25
million in in-kind food and supplies in less than 15 years – at a time
when bread cost a nickel a loaf. More than one million people had been
rescued from certain death by starvation and exposure. Some 12 million
people had been fed, and at one point between 1919-20, an average of
333,000 people were fed daily. Forty hospitals were built as NEF
provided medical aid to six million patients. Over 135,000 children
were housed, fed and taught in orphanages and provided with medical
care.
In the almost 90 years since the Near East Foundation’s founding, calls
like that of Ambassador Morgenthau have continued to come. Though they
are usually less dramatic, they are no less critical to people in the
extremes of crisis, poverty and need. And NEF still answers these
calls, seeking to accomplish its mission of helping people in the Middle
East and Africa build the future they envision for themselves. Whether
it is a village woman in the mountains of Morocco learning to read, a
young man in Lebanon disabled by a landmine getting a job, a family in
Darfur getting food to celebrate a holiday, or a man in Egypt turning
his life from drug use to contributing citizenship – NEF continues what
it started by helping people one by one to have a better life today and
tomorrow.
What this continuing work demonstrates is that something of long term
benefit has come from the terrible malice perpetrated in the Armenian
Genocide. The work of NEF argues that humanity can respond to evil with
good, to despair with hope, and to destruction with rebuilding. Perhaps
more than anything, the Near East Foundation’s continuity recalls that
while human beings are capable of extreme self-interest, we are also
capable of great generosity – and we celebrate the choice of generosity.
Another lasting impact of the work of Near East Relief is the creation
of the idea of international development. One of NEF’s early leaders
noted that “everything we know we learned from the orphans.” What these
philanthropists learned is that if we are to truly help those in need,
we must move beyond relief into development, building their capacity
through education and supplying technical assistance and resources. In
this way they can build their own better future in independence and
self-reliance. Thus the work with the survivors of the Armenian
Genocide became through Near East Foundation the model for the Marshall
Plan of post-World War II recovery, Truman’s Point-4 Program, the US
Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peace Corps, and the
United Nations Development Program. Good has come from evil; hope, from
despair.
Perhaps most importantly, the notion that the Near East
Foundation learned its approach from dealing with the orphans of the
Armenian Genocide reinforces the value of dealing with recipients of our
philanthropic concern, not as projects, but as fellow human beings. In
the best spirit of our country, America’s citizens, not its
government, took responsibility for rescue and relief efforts among
these people they did not know, and formed an organization that has
lasted nine decades. The organization pioneered an approach its
leadership called “practical citizen philanthropy.” By this they meant
assisting people to gain the skills and resources they need, using an
approach that seeks partnership and equality with “no sense of
domination or superiority.” It is this approach the Near East
Foundation has continued to use throughout its history and still
employs, one which encourages participation of the people we seek to
assist and listens to their needs and plans, treating them with the
dignity and respect they deserve.
The reward of this approach is not only that the projects we work on
together are more likely to be successful but, in the process, we build
friendships and we build human beings. Our staff has seen repeatedly
over the years that dealing with people as dignified and honorable
equals builds their capacity more than any training sessions or
educational programs. By insisting on building the capacities of its
local partners and on programs that will be sustainable after NEF has
moved on, the Foundation has, over the decades, built local
community-based organizations that still exist. There are numerous
village organizations throughout Egypt; cooperatives and women’s
associations in Sudan and Mali; larger scale non-governmental
organizations birthed by NEF and then spun off as independent
organizations like GROW in the Mokhotlong province of Lesotho; a
cooperative for women who raise goats and produce and sell goat cheese
in Morocco continues today, fifteen years after NEF’s work introduced
such goat raising in the Atlas mountains.
The Near East Foundation was truly an American response to the Armenian
Genocide. This is true not simply because it occurred in the United
States, but because it combined private, independent entrepreneurship
with Americans’ great commitment to humanitarianism. These values came
together and developed a creative approach in a successful venture which
saved over a million lives and then went on to find new places of need.
Further, NEF values the American commitment to investment rather than
simply spending, understanding the time and energy needed to help people
learn new ways and change old approaches in a manner that preserves what
is most valuable in their culture. Ironically, this very approach which
gave birth to USAID has largely been abandoned. In an effort to
streamline their approach and supposedly become more cost-effective,
USAID and other government agencies which fund international development
now fund almost entirely short term, very large, tens-of-million dollar
projects. This approach has given birth to large contractors whose sole
purpose is to manage such grants, often leaving organizations like ours
– with our hands-on, people orientation — out in the cold.
I ask those of you in Congress to remember today not only the past, but
the living legacy of America’s response to the Armenian Genocide, first
in the people who survived it and went on to become valuable citizens in
our own and many other countries, and then the living legacy of those
Americans who helped them to survive. While we recall the horrors of
which humankind is capable, recognize the need to demand justice and
commit ourselves to preventing the recurrence of such inhumanity, let us
also recall the philanthropy and heroic generosity of which we are also
capable and commit ourselves to ensure its continuity as an American
value.

Assyrian International News Agency, CA
April 25 2005

Assyrians in Brussels Mark 90th Anniversary of Turkish Genocide

Brussels (AINA) — On Saturday 23rd April 2005 Assyrians from world
wide gathered to commemorate the ancestors that were killed during
the genocide of 1915 in Turkey. Two thousand people walked first
their demonstration through Brussels to the Ambriorix Square in front
of the European Parliament in Brussels. The people who gathered there
are the grandchildren of the Seyfo, the genocide committed by the
Ottoman Turkish government. And they still feel: there is still no
justice in this case. The grandchildren of the survivors and those
that did not survive the genocide gathered and felt the pain: young
and old, members of different churches of our people. Bishop Julius
Jesuh who is leading the Syriac Orthodox congregation of Middle
Europe, preceeded in the commemoration. Together with the Chorbishop
Abdo and the priest Sabri from Belgium, they started with a prayer
for the lost souls.

Ablahhad Stayfo from Belgium hosted the programme for the day. Bishop
Julius Jesuh started the first speech to the big crowd and mentioned
first that the Synod of the Syriac Orthodox church had decided in
1998 to commemorate the martyrs of our people of 1915 each year from
now on. ‘Ninety years after 1915 we have gathered here to commemorate
our people that became martyrs for Jesus Christ’, he said. They had
to die because they were Christians. When the bishop mentioned this,
his tears came down. The tears of a leader that felt sorry for the
lost souls: ‘these souls were not guilty but thrown into the rivers,
the wells and killed with swords’ he said with a broken voice.

Malham Ishak said in his speech that although only his grandfather in
his family had survived the genocide, and although all the villages
in mount Judi have been wiped out by the Turkish authorities, he
would like to see a Turkey that wants to develop a democracy in the
future. And if Turkey is not prepared to do that, including admitting
the genocide it had committed, then our wish is that the European
Union does not allow Turkey as a future member of the EU. ‘If Turkey
does not want us and accept our requests, then we do not want Turkey
either’, he said. After all, does the European want to accept a
member state that denies its past and the requests of its citizens?

Sabri Atman, expressed in his speech that on 23rd April 1923 the
Young Turks celebrate the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. For
them it symbolises a day of happiness, one day before the start of
genocide on the Christians. Naturally, one could not observe a nation
celebrating the start of the genocide annually and at the same time
eager to become a future member of the European Union. Mr. Atman
spoke part of his speech in Turkish. He said: ‘The Turkish media are
here, and since they do not understand our language, and are not
interested in learning it, I will have to talk their language to make
them understand my story’. He did this courageously. After that black
balloons were thrown into the air. They looked like the black grapes
in our parents’ vineyards, cut from their plants and lost in search
of their soul. They went high and remained dark, while the crowd
shouted with one voice: ‘We will not forget the Seyfo, martyrs do not
die’! Next year I want to see balloons that will not express the
sadness in my people’s hearts any more. I want to see balloons which
our future children will like; colours that humanity likes. Mr. Atman
ended his speech with the story of an Assyrian mother whose family
members were all killed and she was sent with her four years old
daughter on a death march. This march into exile ended sad for her
too: her last family member, her daughter, was taken from her and
kidnapped by Ahmed Pasha to become his future wife. The Assyrian
mother did not see her girl after that any more. Sabri Atman ended
his speech saying: ‘the question of the Seyfo is the question of all
our people; we all suffer and therefore it is not the question of a
few individuals only. This year, the bishop is here with us. Next
year I want our Patriarch and many more of our priests to precede in
the commemoration of genocide victims’.

August Thiry from Belgium read a short story from the Armenian
William Saroyan’s book ‘Seventy Thousand Assyrians’, which he wrote
in 1923. It is the story of the Assyrian Badal who ends up in Los
Angeles and works as a barber after having escaped the genocide. The
author Saroyan, who assumes that the Assyrian is an Armenian finds
out later that he is not, but that their story is similar: both their
people are decimated to a degree that Turkey can deny today that
there are and there were Assyrians or any other people except Turks
in Turkey. The sad tone in which the barber tells his story to the
Armenian author is striking: ‘once my people were a great people and
had a great civilization in Mesopotamia, and today I am just a barber
in Los Angeles’.

The young singer Ninorta Coban from Germany sang two songs in which
she expressed love and unity. The first song she sang was Gabriel
Assad’s song’Moth Beth Nahrin , lo nethe lech hdamo lmauto’
(Mesopotamia my motherland, I will never forget yout). The bishop and
the people were impressed by the performance of the eleven years old
girl.

Willy Fautre, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers hold a
speech in three languages. One of the elements he mentioned was that
the names of the Assyrian victims need to be inscribed on a black
wall in the city of Brussels where the European Union is based.

Elias Hanna from America represented the Assyrian American National
Federation and expressed their support to the stand of their people
in Europe regarding the Seyfo in Turkey.

George Farag (also known by his artists name Holo Melke) poet, actor
and director of plays and films, read from his poem ‘On the Night of
1st April I saw a dream’. In his dream he saw the atrocities
committed to the Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire. He ended his poem
questioning why the Mesopotamian heroes had not come to save his
people.

Today, seventeen organizations and churches of our people from all
over the world gathered to commemorate the victims of the genocide.
It got attention from different media, such as two Belgian TV
channels, Ashur TV and Beth Nahrin TV. Beautiful, colourful souls
shared with each other the sorrows of the last ninety years which
they had brought with them in the diaspora. The media recorded their
requests: Turkey should recognize the genocide it committed in WW I
and allow the rights of our people from today. The Assyrian
eyewitnesses that survived this genocide could not be with their
grandchildren on this day in Brussels. They stayed home to spare
their energy and to keep the memories alive, until justice is done to
them and to humanity.

NorthJersey.com, NJ
April 25 2005

Lyric Opera Theater fostered future stars

By ZINNIA FARUQUE
HERALD NEWS

PATERSON – It is the tragic story of a 15-year-old Japanese geisha
who falls in love with a philandering American naval captain. The
girl commits hara-kari, or suicide, when her love is not requited.
Well-known to opera lovers, the story is Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
In the 1960s, Paterson’s educated elite could see this and other
operatic classics at the starting price of $1.50 in the 600-seat
auditorium of School 26.

The now-defunct Paterson Lyric Opera Theater was a breeding ground
for future opera stars. In 1958, Armen Boyajian, a vocal coach and
Paterson native, founded the theater as a stepping stone for talented
young singers. “I began to meet a lot of these singers that I felt
needed an outlet,” said Boyajian, now 73. “There weren’t many opera
companies at the time. There was the Metropolitan Opera House and the
New York City Opera, but they wouldn’t take you unless you had some
experience.”

Boyajian met many of the singers who joined the opera theater while
he was performing as a piano accompanist. He accompanied such divas
as Beverly Sills, a prolific American soprano. Boyajian, a graduate
of Eastside High School and the son of Armenian immigrants, wanted to
set the stage in his hometown of Paterson. The theater company would
make the scenery in the basement of his parents’ home. Productions
would include an amateur chorus of housewives, plumbers and tailors,
who worked during the day and sang at night.

The opera theater had the distinction of performing productions that
had never before been performed in New Jersey, such as Puccini’s Suor
Angelica, the story of a nun who was banished by her noble family for
the birth of her illegitimate son. “It never did make any money,”
Boyajian said. “It was just for the purpose of getting experience.”

During its 15-year existence, the opera theater launched major
careers for many singers now performing at the Met, La Scala in Milan
and other prominent international opera houses. Most of the singers
were in their 20s and 30s when they joined the Paterson Lyric Opera
Theater. Paul Plishka started at the opera theater when he was 18. At
25, he joined the Metropolitan Opera as one of the youngest singers
to ever debut at the opera company. Samuel Ramey, a well-known bass,
also got his start in Paterson; he is still a major international
opera star. “Both of these guys are in their 60s, and they’re still
going,” said Boyajian.

It took 15 years before the fat lady sang for the Paterson Lyric
Opera Company. Boyajian, who is still a vocal coach in Sussex County,
New Jersey, began to tour with singers. He disbanded the opera
company for greater opportunities. “This was a chance to tour the
world free of charge and make a living,” he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AsiaNews.it, Italy
April 25 2005

Greek Orthodox Patriarch labelled as `Judas’ for having sold Church
properties in Jerusalem

The Orthodox community is asking for his resignation and removal.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) When Greek Orthodox Patriarch Ireneos was
leaving the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the end of his Church’s
Palm Sunday ceremonies, on Sunday, 24 April, he was met by lay
members of his own community, and others, demonstrating against him
and calling for his resignation or removal. Some of the demonstrators
called him “Judas Iscariot”, in reference to his selling out
important properties of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
This brought even greater intensity to the wave of demonstrations and
protests against Ireneos that has been going on for weeks, ever since
the press discovered – and published – that he had sold prominent
buildings owned by the Patriarchate just inside the “Jaffa Gate” of
the Old City of Jerusalem. Official investigations have also been
launched by three governments: The Republic of Greece, the
Palestinian Authority and the Kingdom of Jordan. This scandal has
been intensified that a key person in promoting Ireneos’s election,
and introduced by him several years ago as a most trusted friend, is
a notorious criminal, wanted by the police of several countries (he
was finally captured by Italian police, in Bologna, last weekend),
and that another key aide to Ireneos has also fled, under suspicion
of corruption and embezzlement.

For his part, Ireneos refused to answer questions from Greek
Government investigators, and has insisted publicly that he had never
“sold” the properties. This is only technically correct. Technically,
like all the many other land sales by a series of Greek Patriarchs of
Jerusalem over many decades, the transactions are officially leases,
but leases for decades and even centuries (in some cases, for 999
years, in others, for 99 years) so that, for all practical purposes,
they are indeed the same as sales. In all these cases, the properties
are effectively gone, while there is no public accounting of what is
done with the payments received from them. Attempts to challenge the
Patriarchate’s practices in the Israeli courts have always failed,
with the courts ruling that the Patriarch’s right to dispose of the
property and money of the Church is absolute, and not subject to
control.

Now pressure for Ireneos’s resignation and removal is growing even
among his Greek clergy, but it is probable that the Governments
concerned – and not only Israel – will not allow his removal. A
weak, divided, scandal-plagued church is, after all, much easier for
all governments to control than a strong, united church with moral
authority, says an expert observer in Jerusalem who wishes for
anonymity.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, as a concrete
historical organisation, dates back to the first half of the
sixteenth century. Then the Ottoman Empire, which had just occupied
the Holy Land (1516), extinguished, in effect, the indigenous
Eastern-rite Patriarchate, and imported Greek monks to take over its
structures and property. These monks are organised as a religious
brotherhood, the Hagiotaphitic Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the Holy
Sepulchre, which takes care to accept only ethnic Greeks, from
Greece, and to exclude the local Christians, all of them Arabs, from
any positions of power or influence. The same situation had existed
in Syira, in the Patriarchate of Antioch, until 1899, when the local
faithful and clergy rose up and drove the foreigners out. Since then
the Patriarchate of Antioch has had an indigenous leadership.
Recently this indigenous Patriarchate has tried to establish a branch
also deep inside the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s territory, in Jordan.

In addition to questionable personnel and business decisions, Ireneos
has also distinguished himself by hostility and aggression towards
other Christians, continually provoking disputes with the Armenian
Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and violating the rules governing
relations with the Catholic Church at the Holy Sepulchre. In the most
notorious incident, on 27 September last year, he ordered his monks
to launch a physical assault on the Jerusalem police who were
protecting a handful of Franciscans inside the Holy Sepulchre. The
violent frenzy lasted a full half hour before the police managed to
subdue the Greek monks. The whole event was captured on film by an
amateur videophotographer and this evidence has been widely viewed by
authorities and journalists.

This week Jerusalem police are nervously awaiting Orthodox Holy
Saturday when Greeks and Armenians may be in violent conflict at the
Holy Sepulchre. Ireneos has announced that he will not let the
Armenian Patriarch into the Edicule to light the “holy fire” together
with him, and all efforts by the Israeli government to convince him
otherwise have – until now – failed. The Armenians have asked the
Israeli Supreme Court to intervene, and to order that the Armenian
Patriarch be allowed into the Edicule, in accordance with the special
international legal régime at the Holy Sepulchre, but the Court has
refused to intervene. Israel has an international treaty with the
Holy See – the 1993 Fundamental Agreement – that obliges the State to
enforce the legal régime governing the Holy Sepulchre, but the
Armenian Patriarchate is obviously not a party to this treaty, and is
therefore powerless to invoke it directly (although the Armenians
benefit from it indirectly, whenever both they and the Catholics are
victims of Ireneos’s aggression). As regards the Catholic Church,
however, Catholic Church sources tell AsiaNews, Israel has recently
been showing a new willingness to control Ireneos, and to prevent him
from violating the rules or attacking the personnel of the Catholic
Church at the Holy Sepulchre – although the situation needs continued
careful monitoring, especially with a view to Orthodox Easter next
Sunday. Israel’s increased attention to protecting Catholic rights
and Catholic personnel, say the same sources, is attributable to the
Catholic Church’s ability to invoke Israel’s treaty obligations in
this regard.

Catholic leaders are deeply worried by the scandals surrounding
Ireneos, since the general public does not always distinguish among
the different organisations designated as “Christian” or as
“Churches”, with the result that the Christian religion itself risks
being brought into disrepute. (AC)

;art=3135

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V. Rev. Fr. Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

HIS HOLINESS ARAM I CALLS FOR JUSTICE FROM DEIR ZOR,
THE PLACE OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ANTELIAS, LEBANON – “As the son of a people who went through the terrible
experience of Genocide, and as the Spiritual leader engaged in the service
of a people who survived a major Genocide, I call for justice”. This appeal
came from His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia on 24 April, as he was
leading the celebration in Deir Zor (Syria), the very place where the
Genocide took place against the Armenians in 1915.

Addressing to thousands of Armenians who had gathered in the dessert of Deir
Zor from all parts of the world, His Holiness Aram I said: “I address my
first greeting to One and Half Million Martyrs, to those who have fallen in
this dessert. It is plain fact that the Armenian Genocide, the first
genocide of the 20th century was carefully planned and systematically
executed by Ottoman Turkey. The relics that are displayed in this church and
in the Chapel not far away from this place, as well as hundreds thousands of
relics that were found in the sands of this dessert are indeed eloquent and
tangible evidence of massacres that were committed in this very place by the
Ottoman army under the pretext of exodus and deportation”.

Addressing his second greeting to the Armenian people throughout the world,
His Holiness expressed his deep appreciation that through education and
nation building they had remained faithful to 90 years to the heritage of
the Martyrs: “Listen carefully to what your Martyrs say to you: one can not
hide the truth; one cannot ignore the collective memory of a people; one
cannot deny justice. Re-affirm your commitment to continue, with renewed
impetus, the straggle for the truth and dignity”.

Catholicos Aram I expressed his gratitude to all nations, states, churches
and international organizations who have formally recognized the Armenian
Genocide. He said: “Any attempt to exterminate a nation is a genocide; and
genocide is a crime against humanity. Hence, the international community and
particularly the United Nations must not remain silent about this crime”.
His Holiness reminded that the Armenian Genocide was followed by other
genocides in Africa, in Asia, and in the Middle East with different names,
forms and scope, and he strongly appealed for the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide as “to prevent new genocide against humanity”.

His Holiness concluded his strong message by making a direct appeal to
Turkey “which continues, through political and diplomatic means and by using
all of its information power to deny the Genocide. We don’t consider Turkey
as an enemy; nations must coexist on the basis of mutual respect and trust.
But, how is it possible to achieve such a coexistence when justice is still
denied for the Armenians, and their fundamental human rights are still
violated. Do we not have the right and the obligation, as the sons of a
people who were subjected to a genocide, to demand justice for our martyrs?
Do we not have the right to constantly remind Turkey, its people, its
government and particularly its youth that a genocide was perpetrated by
their forefathers against our forefathers and that a day, therefore, they
have the obligation to duly recognize it? Justice has been done in the case
of all genocides that have followed the Armenian Genocide. In order for
Turkey, as a member of the United Nations and as an applicant for membership
in the European Union, to demonstrate that it is fully committed to human
rights and the values and principles upheld by the international community,
it must formally recognize the Armenian Genocide and compensate the Armenian
people. This is the way to justice and reconciliation”.

The message of His Holiness was preceded by two acts full of profound
symbolism and spiritual appeal. Leading thousands of people His Holiness
prayed for the Armenian martyrs on the sands of Deir Zor, which in his words
are “imbued with the blood and faith of the Armenian Martyrs”. His Holiness
also baptized one boy and one girl with the participation of thousands of
pilgrims, in the river of Euphrates, as the symbol of the resurrection of
the Armenian people. He said: “This river in 1915 became a symbol of the
death of the Armenian People, where thousands of Armenian children were
killed even before without being baptized thrown. Today the same river
becomes the place of the renaissance of the Armenian people”.

Before leaving Deir Zor, Catholicos Aram I reaffirmed in the name of the
Armenian people his commitment to remain faithful to the sacred heritage of
the Armenian Martyrs. He said: “Dear Martyrs, you fell in the desert but you
did not remain here. We took you with us and you remained with us wherever
we went; your faith, your hope and your vision sustained our life. We always
remembered you we remembered you: we remembered you in our churches, in our
schools, in our personal and community life. We remained faithful to your
cause, becoming the ardent defender of your just rights”.

At the end of the Eucharistic celebration, His Holiness met in the hall of
the church with the heads of the tribes from different parts of Syria and
particularly from Deir Zor whose forefathers have helped those Armenians who
have survived the Turkish massacres.

##

*****

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress