Armenian opposition splits over constitutional reform – agency
Regnum, Moscow
18 Aug 05
[No dateline as received] The opposition Justice bloc does not see
any reason to take a positive position on the forthcoming referendum
on constitutional changes in Armenia. However, members of the bloc
decided at a meeting on 18 August to attend an extraordinary sitting
of parliament on 29 August. The sitting is due to discuss the package
of constitutional changes.
Among the members of the bloc, only the Republic Party did not back
this decision. Three MPs representing the party do not intend to stop
boycotting sittings of parliament, which they announced immediately
after the 2003 election. The party leader, Aram Sarkisyan, told
reporters that the party will keep to its position announced earlier
and is still saying “no” to the constitutional reform.
He said the position of other members of the bloc is close to that
of his party. “The Justice bloc today does not see any reason to say
‘yes’ in the referendum on the constitution,” he said.
The secretary of the Justice bloc, Viktor Dallakyan, has confirmed
that the opposition has no reason to back the referendum as almost
all their proposals have been rejected.
The opposition Justice bloc is comprised of nine parties and has 14
seats in parliament.

Armenia confirms capture of Azeri officer
Regnum, Moscow
19 Aug 05
[No dateline as received] The Armenian side has taken captive
Azerbaijani warrant officer Ramil Xudaverdiyev, the press secretary
of the Armenian Defence Ministry, Col Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, has told
Regnum news agency.
Shakhsuvaryan said that Azerbaijani sources reported earlier that an
Azerbaijani soldier had been taken captive, which is not true. He
clarified that according to verified information, the Azerbaijani
warrant officer was really taken captive about two weeks ago.
Azerbaijani sources said that the captive is held in a remand
centre in Yerevan. His health and the conditions in which he is
held are satisfactory. Representatives of the Yerevan office of the
International Committee of the Red Cross are permitted to visit and
register him.
[The Armenian news agency Arminfo on 18 August quoted Shakhsuvaryan as
denying Azerbaijani reports that Xudaverdiyev had been taken captive.]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Abu Dhabi chess: Ganguly finishes third
Chennai Online, India
Aug 19 2005
Abu Dhabi (UAE), Aug 19: Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly defeated
GM Konstanin Chernyshov of Russia 2-0 to finish third in the Blitz
event of the 15th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival here.
National champion Ganguly, who was leading 1-0 in the semi-finals
against Igor Kursonov of Russia, went down fighting in the next two
games and spoilt his chances for the top honour.
In the finals, GM Sergey Grigoriants of Russia defeated Kursonov 2-0
to emerge the winner of this 3,000 UAE dirhams prize money tournament.
Earlier, Ganguly had defeated International Master Othman Moussa of
UAE in the first round and outplayed Russian GM Vladimir Dobrov to
set up his quarterfinal clash with another Russian GM Dmitry Bochrov,
who had also lost after some brilliant play by the Indian. Ganguly
came under pressure in the semi-final.
The other Indian participants in the Blitz tourney Woman
Grandmaster-in-waiting Tania Sachdev, IM D V Prasad, Akshat Khamparia
and M B Muralidharan had lost in the first round itself.
In the Master’s section, which had a rest day, it has been a predicted
story for Ganguly, who has won two with white and drawn two as black
to reach 3 points out of a possible 4.
The Indian is placed joint fourth while Russian GMs Mikhail Kobalia,
Bocharov and Armenian GM Ashot Anastesian shared the lead with 3.5
points each in their kitty. (Agencies)

Ethnically-Armenian Bush attacker pledges to escape
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Aug 19 2005
Baku, August 18, AssA-Irada — Ethnically-Armenian individual accused
of an assassination attempt on US President George Bush and murder
of a police officer has said he will try to escape from the hospital
where he is kept, Georgian media quoted the country’s interior ministry
as saying.
While in hospital, Vladimir Arutyunian has repeatedly attempted to
hurt himself. A special video camera has been installed at Arutunian’s
cell to oversee his actions.
Arutyunian was detained in Tbilisi, Georgia on July 21. The 27-year
old individual faces several charges, including an attempt to commit
a terror act, murder, illegal possession and use of weapons.
Arutyunian admitted that on May 10, immediately after his arrest,
he threw a hand grenade to the rostrum where President Bush and his
Georgian counterpart Mikhail Saakashvili stood. He added that he would
‘continue attempts’ on Bush’s life ‘if he had a chance’.*

Asharq Alawsat (The Middle East), UK
Aug 19 2005
Iraq: A tactical Setback, A Strategic Gain
Amir Taheri
19/08/2005
Is the decision by the Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) to
postpone for a week its scheduled debate on a new draft constitution
“a major setback” for the newly liberated nation, a or just a bump on
the road to democratization?
There is no doubt that many who are nostalgic for the days of Saddam
Hussein had been hoping and praying that the 15 August deadline would
not be met. These are people who want Iraq to fail so that they could
prove that George W Bush and Tony Blair were wrong in toppling the
Ba’athist regime in Baghdad.
The postponement was a setback if only because this was the first
time that the new leadership was unable to meet a political deadline
it has fixed for itself. One cannot begrudge the opponents of the
liberation their unique moment of jubilation.
But if this was “a major setback”, as some dons of dilatory deeds
have claimed, why did Iraqi lawmakers broke into spontaneous applause
after they had voted to postpone the constitutional debate? Did they
know something that the serial filibusterers on Capitol Hill didn’t?
The answer is that while the postponement was a tactical setback for
the Iraqi lawmakers it represented a strategic advance for the
practice of democracy in the newly liberated country. The Iraqis
working on the draft resisted intense pressure from all quarters,
including Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the Shiite top
cleric, and the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, to brush
disagreements under the carpet and come up with “something.” They
were told to set aside the contentious issues and offer the assembly
the apple-tart and motherhood parts of their exercise.
But the drafters understood that the goal of the exercise could not
be making everybody happy for a brief moment. They understood that
the object of democracy is not to make everyone happy on every issue
every time. In fact, the opposite is often the case if only because
democratic decisions based on compromise as they are bound to be,
never fully satisfy anyone. What matters in democracy is that
everyone should feel happy about the way decisions are arrived at.
As far as the way decisions are made is concerned, the overwhelming
majority of Iraqis are happy. They know that the days when a
mustachioed despot could impose any constitution on them are gone,
hopefully for good. They also know that no single group can impose
its will on all others. More importantly, they know that if they
ignore the wishes of the people they wouldn’t be able to look their
neighbors in the face.
It is disingenuous to make much of the fact that the Iraqis have not
succeeded in writing a constitution in three months.
The physical act of writing a constitution is not difficult.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini asked one of his minions to translate the
constitution of the Fifth French Republic and then added a few
articles to enshrine his own despotic rule. The exercise took a few
days. The Pakistani military dictator Zia ul-Haq once told me that he
could write a new constitution “in a mater of weeks, if not days.”
General Douglas Macarthur is said to have assigned one of his
secretaries to write the Japanese Constitution, again in a matter of
days.
But the American “founding fathers” needed three years to write a
constitution which was, subsequently amended two dozen times.
And then remember that all “the founding fathers” were Christian
Protestant English gentlemen sharing the same ethnic, linguistic and
cultural background.
Iraq’s “founding fathers”, however, represent a complex mosaic of
ethnic, religious, and linguistic communities. The whole thing is
further complicated by the fact that five rival political coalitions,
representing some 60 different political parties- from the Communists
to the Islamists and passing by secularists and monarchists- are
involved in the writing of the constitution.
On top of all that the debate over the new constitution was widened
to involve virtually all Iraqis. Over 300 constitutional conferences
were held throughout the country, enabling some 50,000 people to
express the views of countless trade unions, cultural associations,
women’s organizations, human rights groups, guilds, tribal
leaderships and religious fraternities. An even broader debate took
place through the newly-born private media, including 150 newspapers,
dozens of talk-radio stations and half a dozen television channels.
Thus the exercise went far beyond a political task assigned to a
committee and developed into a nationwide course in politics, human
rights, civic duties, and public ethics. Many Iraqis discovered the
complexity of their society for the first time. They saw that Iraq
did not consist of the uniformed, mustachioed and gun-toting
individuals who marched in front of Saddam Hussein’s giant portraits
like so many robots.
“I didn’t know that we had a Luri minority,” a highly educated Iraqi
friend told me the other day.
“I had no idea that many Iraqi Kurds were Shiites,” another Iraqi
friend admitted.
Others discovered that there are Iraqi Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians,
Armenians, Chaldaeans, and Ahl-e-Haq in addition to a variety of
Kurds, Arab Sunnis and Arab Shiites. Iraq’s ethnic, linguistic and
religious diversity is further complicated by a rich array of
political and ideological sensibilities. On the left there are
Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and Labour Party-style
social democrats. On the right there are Islamists of a dozen
different sensibilities. In the middle there are democrats,
republicans and liberals who aspire after a Western-style system.
Imposing a constitution on all these different strata at gunpoint may
be easy. Getting them to agree on one is less so.
Recently, The Americans took six months to appoint an Ambassador to
the United Nations, and, even then, failed to agree. So imagine if
the Americans were to write their constitution in the multicultural,
multi-ethnic and politically divided United States of today rather
than in the homogenous country it was two centuries ago.
There is no doubt that every political move in Iraq today should take
into account two factors: the fight against the terrorists, and the
need for an early end to the US-led coalition’s military presence.
The speedy introduction of a draft constitution would be helpful on
both accounts. But it would be wrong to see the drafting of the
constitution as nothing but a tactical move related to the war
against terrorism and the departure of the foreign troops.
While the Iraqis must work hard and fast to meet the new deadline
they have set for themselves, there is no need to sacrifice quality
to speed. The terrorists will continue killing the Iraqis with or
without a constitution but are ultimately doomed to defeat. The
departure of he foreign troops is equally inevitable, although it
could be speeded up through the Iraqi political process.
The constitutional debate has turned Iraq into a giant school for
democracy. A nation that had been terrorized into silence for more
than half a century is beginning to learn to talk, to debate and to
engage in polemics. People, who never thought anyone would bother
about their views, or whether they could have any views of their own,
are now beginning to discover the power that they could have as
individuals and groups in a democracy. The new political elite is
learning the art of negotiation, diversion and, yes, even
filibustering. In Iraq today the past is fighting the future. The
future is sure to win.

Moreover / A language everyone understands
By Gideon Levy
Ha’aretz, Israel
Aug 19 2005
Sunday, Gemona, Italy
So who danced better? The Croat woman or the Czech woman? The argument
went on into the night, for as long as the party lasted. The Croat
was more stylish but the Czech was more rhythmic; the Czech more
modern, the Croat a little old-fashioned. The Maltese woman has an
unforgettable body, if you like broad women, like the Polish woman. The
two Armenian women were sexy, too, the Bulgarian was a bit vulgar. The
Guatemalan woman huddled with the Albanian woman in Italian. Simona,
the curly-headed Italian, changed her skirt for tight pants to dance
better. But the most beautiful of all, by general consensus, was Anna,
the tall Russian woman, always wearing a hat and a white dress and
sporting a dreamy look.
A hundred young people from around the world, 80 girls and 20 boys,
came for a month to Gemona, a town at the foot of the Italian Alps
that was totally devastated in a 1976 earthquake, lying not far from
the border with Austria and Slovenia. The International Laboratory for
Communications, a combination of a serious seminar on Italian culture
with a little Club Med in the evenings, is an impressive project,
which has also produced more than a few trans-oceanic weddings and
heartrending romances that were born and died in the 40 years of its
existence. It was only from the Arab states that no one came this
year: the Italians do not issue visas to citizens of those countries,
because of terrorism.
Advertisement
This evening there is a prize ceremony. The international singer Noa
is receiving the seminar’s annual prize for her activity on behalf
of understanding and peace. It’s 4,000 euros. She arrived at 7:15,
Ahinoam Nini, of Israel, like a true superstar, to judge by the fact
she is 45 minutes late and by the excitement her arrival causes. Her
children, Eineha, a Hebrew name, and Ayehli, an Indian name, stayed
in the hotel in Venice with their grandmother and the nanny; her
husband, a pediatrician, was on duty in a hospital in Israel. The
previous day she appeared in Germany, the next day she will sing in
Venice and next week in Spain. She is an honorary citizen of half
the cities in Italy – there is no other Israeli singer of this era
who has enjoyed a comparable international success. Only Bassem Eid,
from Jericho, has never heard her name before.
Her success seems to sit well on her. In a half-open black blouse,
black pants stuffed deep into brown boots, a beautiful necklace
(designed by Michal Negrin), she won the hearts of the seminar
participants in no time. Sitting with legs crossed on the chair,
flowing American English, tons of self-confidence and personal charm,
even for those who are not wild about her mannerisms. Motherhood and
territories, Israel and America, career and occupation, singing and
journalists – she talked about everything articulately, touching the
hearts of her listeners.
Afterward they stood in line to get her autograph and went to dance
until dawn in the student dorms. Hala Khoury, a beautiful young
woman from Fasuta, in Galilee, danced to Arab music. During her month
in Gemona she is staying at the estate of the physician Dr. Shalom
Silberschmidt, a former Israeli from Moshav Yogev – a childhood friend
of Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan and a friend of Hala’s mother, Jerais
Khoury – who for 30 years has been healing backaches and headaches
in Gemona by means of jaw treatment. Nini returned to Venice, to the
children, and in the alleys of Gemona a torch procession was held as
part of a medieval festival taking place here. “Fire to purify the
world,” cried the costumed marchers.

SECOND OPINION: Myth of ‘Qadiani in the works’ -Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press
Daily Times, Pakistan
Aug 19 2005
The Qadianis did it. The Jews did it. Why not add a few more categories
we don’t like? Why leave the Hindus out? The Urdu newspapers that
publish such statements contribute to the negative image Pakistan
has abroad. Don’t expect direct foreign investment to peak after this
piece of wisdom!
There are moments when a Pakistani Muslim plumbs the depths of his
negative side. One and all, we go cross-eyed when on the subject
of the Qadiani sect. All kinds of lies are in order. The Germans
had this kind of thing for the Jews, Iranians for Bahais, Turks for
Armenians… and one can enlist many other nations with a death-wish.
Quoted in daily Pakistan (22 July 2005) Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP)
leader Qari Zawwar Bahadur said in Lahore that the London bombings
were done by the Qadianis and the Jews as a conspiracy against Islam.
He said the Qadianis and the Jews had finally come together as enemies
of Islam and their plan is to victimise the Muslims of the world. He
said the breakaway factions of his JUP would soon reunite to face
the government on local elections.
It was reported that after the death of the JUP founder Maulana
Shah Ahmad Noorani, the Lahore faction of the Noorani faction led
by Shah Faridul Haq and General (Retd) KM Azhar rebelled against the
family of Maulana Noorani now headed by son Anas Noorani and formed
a new faction.
This is killing two birds with one stone. Get the Muslims to believe
that two of their permanent enemies had done the London thing in
tandem. Sotto voce, fall on them and kill them! The Jews, alas, are
absent, but no matter. Why should the press publish such provocative
and patently mendacious material? If nothing else, think of the
trouble it can get Pakistan into.
As reported in Jang (15 July 2005) chief election commissioner Justice
Abdul Hameed announced that all candidates standing for local elections
would have to submit affidavits of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat so that no Qadiani
could avail the right of standing for elections under otherwise joint
electorates. Non-Muslims are allowed but not Qadianis. The affidavit
denounces the apostatised sect.
Let the MMA come to power, then we will have a few others on the banned
list. In actuality, the Shias and the Ismailis are next. No election
commission can be really proud of making announcements like the above.
Columnist Irfan Siddiqi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (21 July 2005) that
Saad Saud Jan who died in Lahore was born in Lahore and became
additional sessions judge in the city in 1961 as a CSP officer. He
was a judge who refused to be drawn out into the social circuit. He
helped significantly in the drafting of the 1973 Constitution. He
became judge of the Lahore High Court in due course of time and was
the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1994 when
chief justice of the Court Justice, Nasim Hassan Shah, retired.
Justice Jan was not a favourite of the PPP after he had refused to
‘cooperate’ a number of times at the request of the PPP’s senior
politicians including President Leghari. Law minister after 1993,
Iqbal Haider, already had chosen to elevate Justice Qadeer, a junior
judge. Prime minister Benazir Bhutto asked law secretary Justice
Sheikh Riaz Hussain to give her a list of the senior-most judges of
the Supreme Court, but when the list was given, the senior most judge
Saad Saud Jan was excluded. The list comprised Abdul Qadeer Chaudhry,
Ajmal Mian and Sajjad Ali Shah. The last named was made chief justice.
Justice Saad Saud Jan who was retired as acting chief justice received
the pension of a chief justice till his demise; Chief Justice Sajjad
Ali Shah, who was unseated in 1997, receives the pension of a mere
Supreme Court judge. Why was Justice Jan denied his rights? This
needs to be investigated.
The crux of the injustice meted out to Justice Jan was the rumour on
which the PPP relied: that he was a Qadiani. One unspoken rule of
this nazism is that if someone denies being one, then he really is
one! Justice Jan’s greatness stands whether he was one or not. Some
of our worst-reputed judges were not Qadianis. All the great judges
were either Christian or Parsi! On a lighter note, an honest ban on
Sunni judges would be in order.
Speaking to Nawa-e-Waqt, (20 July 2005) a group of great Islamic
scholars of Lahore, including Sarfraz Naeemi of Jamia Naimiyya,
Maulana Abdur Rehman Makki of Jamaat Dawa, Pir Saifullah, Maulana
Nusrat Ali Shahani, Maulana Abdul Malik and others, said that Tony
Blair’s popularity was failing therefore he arranged the 7/7 London
bombings to unite his voters. They said that 9/11 too was a plan to
grab the Muslim states; and Musharraf was committing a blunder by
supporting Bush.
If one is looking for the process that creates suicide-bombers in
Pakistan, here it is in full view. Many of us take it to be the froth
that sticks to the beards of our holy men, but unfortunately some
youths take them quite seriously.
According to Khabrain, (20 July 2005) head of the journalism department
in Punjab University, Dr Mughisuddin said that new terrorism was
being spread in the name of ending terrorism. He said it was never
found out as to who was responsible for the 9/11 act of terrorism in
the United States.
Much has been published about the boys who did 9/11. Their families
have been interviewed, their friends interrogated and their social
backgrounds minutely screened. Muhammad Atta’s father in Egypt accepts
that his son led the attack. He says what happened on 9/11 will happen
again. Before 9/11 Atta’s father was quite secular in life. After 9/11,
he changed into an America-hater.
Quoted in daily Pakistan (21 July 2005) MMA leaders said in a
meeting in Lahore that 7/7 bombings in London were organised by
the Jews just like the bombings of 9/11 in America. JUP leader Mufti
Hidayatullah said that Pakistan was being run by the slaves of America
and Britain. Jamaat’s Lahore leader Hafiz Salman Butt said that the
West had put the label of Islam on terrorism.
The Jews did it. Why not add a few more categories we don’t like? Why
leave the Hindus out? The Urdu newspapers that publish such statements
contribute to the negative image Pakistan has abroad.
Don’t expect direct foreign investment to peak after this piece of
wisdom! *

Accused of smuggling books
Asheville Citizen-Times, NC
Aug 19 2005
A court in Yerevan, Armenia, this week handed a two-year suspended
sentence to a Turkish historian from Duke University who tried to leave
the country with centuries-old books, in violation of Armenian law.
Yektan Turkyilmaz, 33, was leaving from Yerevan on June 17, when
Armenian security agents pulled him from his plane. He was carrying
88 books, some of which dated to the 17th century, authorities said.
Armenian law prohibits anyone from taking a book that is more than
50 years old out of the country without permission. Authorities did
not return the books to Turkyilmaz.
Turkyilmaz is the only Turkish scholar to be allowed to study in
Armenia, which has tense relations with Turkey, because of lingering
bitterness over the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World
War I and Turkey’s support of Armenia’s regional rival, Azerbaijan.
Turkyilmaz, who was freed after the ruling, told reporters that
he planned to spend another two weeks working in Yerevan before
returning to Istanbul then North Carolina, where he is a doctoral
student at Duke.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
Aug 19 2005
Mikhail stuns Konstantin to take lead
By A Correspondent
19 August 2005
DUBAI – Kobalia Mikhail of Russia defeated overnight leader Grandmaster
Chernyshov Konstantin on the fourth day of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival
being held at Khalidya Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi.
Defending champion Grandmaster Bocharov Dmitry scored a brilliant
victory over top seeded Mamedyarov Shakhriyar of Azerbaijan in a long
battle lasting 64 moves from a Grunfeld defence Fianchetto variation.
It was an intensely contested match which went to the wire in a
complex endgame.
Kobalia Mikhail and Anastasian Ashot of Armenia also won convincingly
to join Dimitry at the top of the table with 3.5 points in the Masters
section at the end of the fourth round of Abu Dhabi Chess Festival.
Mikhail defeated Russia’s Konstantin in 35 moves from Sicilian defence
Richter-Rauzer variation. Mikhail conducted a dazzling attack after
saddling his opponent with weak doubled pawns. A combination of
positional and tactical moves culminated in a blistering attack
initiated by a piece sacrifice.
WFM Bogza Oana of Romania, Ali Mahmoud, Al-Khaja Arif and Khalifa
Khamis Ali of UAE, Azemati Amir of Iran, Khudaverdieva Afag of
Azerbaijan and Abdul Ghanee Madaran of Philippines are in the lead
with 4 points in the Open section.
In the Children’s section, Bajarani Ulvi of Azerbaijan, Vakilpour Azin,
Azad Bakhsh Farshid and Javadi Fatemeh of Iran, Dhruv Hingorani and
Vishnu Vijay of India and Mohammed Hamza Abdulkareem of UAE shared
the lead with 3 points at the end of the third round.

The Villager, NY
Downtown Express
Aug 19 2005
Soldier with a pen’ comes home to Village a last time
By Lincoln Anderson
Steven Vincent came back to the East Village from Iraq last week,
about the time he had been planning to.
Vincent, 49, had intended to come home to E. 11th St. this month to
work on a book on the historic city of Basra, from where he had been
reporting. But on Aug. 2 he was kidnapped and shot to death by masked
gunmen in that city, becoming the first American journalist to be
attacked and killed in the Iraq war. It’s believed his exposes on the
rise of Shiite fundamentalists and insurgents in Basra are what led
to his death.
Vincent was waked at Peter Jarema Funeral home on E. Seventh St. last
Saturday and Sunday, followed by a funeral Monday at Middle
Collegiate Church on Second Ave. The church was filled to capacity
with his friends and family.
As he lay in an open wooden coffin – the hole from the fatal bullet
covered over on his head by a mortician’s artifice – Vincent’s two
best friends spoke, recalling him as a man of great intellect and
provocative ideas with a thirst to always learn about life.
Jon Roth, who knew Vincent growing up in California from when they
were boys and who was his college roommate, said Vincent defied
categories.
“He was a soldier whose weapon was the pen,” he said. “Steve’s words
explored the murky ambiguity between conservative and liberal. He
often surprised or annoyed people when he went against their
perceived wisdom.”
Roth noted that Vincent, in everything he did, interacted with
people, whether it was hitchhiking to New York from the West Coast or
working as a late-night taxi driver or guard at the Met. He called
him a quintessential American – son of an Armenian mother and a
father who boasted U.S. Civil War veteran ancestors – in search of
the melting-pot dream.
Choking back emotion, his voice filled with rage, Roth turned to look
at Vincent and said, “The evil man who killed him could still his
voice – but not his vision, not his words.”
Verne Dertimanis, another college friend, recalled days at U.C.
Berkeley, road trips and digging the Clash, Pistols and Springsteen.
Ultimately, Vincent found the Bay Area “too confining” and left for
New York City.
“He was an American hero,” he said.
In the coffin with Vincent were mementoes to accompany him on his
final journey: Frank Sinatra CD’s, a cigar, Bombay Sapphire gin,
books by Nietzsche and Jung, a Spider-man comic, flash cards – like
the ones he had been using to work on his French, Arabic and Latin.
“Steven, like Jesus, was murdered doing what he thought necessary,”
said Jacqueline Lewis, Middle Collegiate Church’s senior minister.
She noted Vincent’s probing mind had kept her on her toes in theology
classes she led.
Lisa Ramaci, Vincent’s widow, his parents and sister gave him last
kisses goodbye before the coffin lid was closed.
Throughout the service, Ramaci clutched an American flag folded
military style into a triangle. Afterwards she said, no, it wasn’t
from the government, but from the funeral home.
“The government gave me nothing,” she said, “except his embalmed
body.”
The crowd was diverse, reflecting Vincent’s wide-ranging interests.
There were people from the art world, including from “Art and
Antiques” magazine, where he formerly worked, and from Sotheby’s,
where Ramaci worked. One of the twin hosts from “Antiques Roadshow”
was among them. There were the neighbors and community members and
former Councilmember Antonio Pagan whom Vincent worked with in the
early and mid-1990s to fight for cleaning up Tompkins Square Park and
making the streets safer. Vincent was one of Pagan’s most vocal
supporters. There were even some people from the fetish world, still
another interest of Vincent’s.
“Steven was my escort to many an event,” said one women wearing
tight, black latex and tall high heels, after the service.
When he was writing for the East Villager, helping Pagan and serving
briefly as a member of Community Board 3, Vincent had famously
sparred – once again, in words – with the East Village squatters and
anarchists over Tompkins Square Park, the homeless, the squats and
quality of life.
Last Monday morning, a police detail was posted in front of the
church. An officer said they were there not exactly at the request of
Ramaci, but that she had made a phone call, since there were “some
people that didn’t like” Vincent that she didn’t want to disrupt
things. But there were no disruptions.
Vincent was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His friends and
Ramaci plan to plant a tree for him and buy one of the paving stones
that are being used to raise funds for the park to be engraved for
him in Tompkins Square Park.