Ottawa Citizen
April 15, 2005 Friday
Final Edition

Hitler was wrong — Armenian genocide is not forgotten: Ninety years
later, the descendants of those who suffered the atrocities of mass
murder and expulsion are still haunted by their heritage of memory,
Patricia Sherlock reports.

by Patricia Sherlock, The Ottawa Citizen

Nearly a century after his grandmother’s death, Tony Boghossian is
plagued by a gruesome image. The day after his father and aunt, both
then children of seven and nine, buried the body, they returned to
the site only to find coyotes had dug it up.

For Mr. Boghossian, that’s not the kind of experience any child
should ever endure. But it was exactly that kind of experience that
millions of Armenians did endure. In September of 1915, newspapers
around the world ran headlines proclaiming “The Death of Armenia” and
“Terrible Tales of Turkish Atrocities.” Historians estimate massacres
and forced dislocations — the Armenian genocides, as it is now
called — resulted in the deaths more than one million Armenians.

Those deaths will be remembered today at 7:30 p.m. in Notre Dame
Cathedral in a multi-faith service commemorating the 90th anniversary
of the genocide of all but 200,000 of the Armenian population. The
Most Rev. Bagrat Galstanian, the primate of Canada’s Armenian Holy
Apostolic Church, says both Canadian houses of Parliament have
described the 1915 events as genocide, but the Canadian cabinet has
refused to do so. Bishop Galstanian calls it “a cause for concern
that the Canadian government will not change its policy accordingly.”

Turkey maintains Armenians lost their lives as a consequence of their
attempt to get more land from a collapsing Ottoman Empire, and the
Turks had to fight back.

Among those who survived were Mr. Boghossian’s father and aunt,
Movses and Yeghart Boghossian. The two children lost their mother
during the forced dislocation of their Black Sea village. She
probably died of hunger and disease, says Tony Boghossian. Their
father was also likely a victim of Turkish authorities. His father,
he said, remembered his own father leaving home in a soldier’s
uniform, never to be seen again.

Mr. Boghossian believes his grandfather was one of about 10,000
Armenians conscripted into the Turkish army and placed in labour
battalions to work on Turkish railway and construction projects. Many
died of the harsh conditions and others were murdered.

The journey of Yeghart and Movses lasted for about three years during
which they were moved from one place to another, sometimes staying
six or seven months before being forced to move again, never knowing
where they were going.

Along the way, they sometimes received help from ordinary Turks. Mr.
Boghossian remembers his father telling him as an old man of his
great joy when a Turkish police officer gave him coupons to buy
bread.

At some point, says Mr. Boghossian, Movses and Yeghart went back to
their village, but everything had been destroyed. Even the window
frames and doors had been removed for firewood. Relatives were unable
to care for them and placed them in orphanages in Istanbul.

Moses went through a series of orphanages moving from Istanbul to
Corfu, then Cyprus, and finally, at 18, to Beirut. As a young man he
moved to Aleppo, Syria, where he joined an existing Armenian
community, as well as Armenian survivors who had been forced to march
across the Syrian desert without food or water. His sister, who had
been at a girl’s orphanage in Istanbul, went to Bulgaria and he never
saw her again.

Mr. Boghossian’s father came to Canada under a foreign affairs
mandate that required entrants to be healthy young people. He didn’t
talk about the loss of his parents and homeland until he reached old
age.

Today, the Armenian community in Ottawa, and around the world, will
mark the 90th anniversary of the execution of Armenian leaders and
intellectuals in Istanbul, which they consider to be the beginning of
the genocide.

Ottawa-Centre MP Ed Broadbent will deliver the keynote speech and 25
spiritual leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and
Hindu faiths will participate. “We (will be) joined with friends and
interfaith groups, and we want to show our solidarity against any
atrocities to anybody and to pray for the souls of the departed,”
said Primate Galstanian. The Armenian genocide set a precedent for
other genocides that followed in the 20th century, he said, recalling
a statement made by Nazi Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, that no
one remembers the Armenians.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Gervais describes the Armenian
genocide as “ethnic cleansing at its worst.” He emphasized the
importance of remembering the atrocities, to prevent it from
“happening to anyone, anywhere.”

Today, according to Mr. Boghossian, the Turkish people are okay, and
even his father said nothing against them. But he does want the
Turkish government to stop denying the genocide and admit that what
happened under the Ottoman Empire was the systematic killing of
Armenians.

The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario)
April 15, 2005 Friday Final Edition

Area’s Armenians set to mark dark date in ancestors’ history

by: LIZ MONTEIRO

WATERLOO REGION

It was a dark page in the history of Armenians, and one they can
never forget.

On Sunday, members of the Waterloo Region’s Armenian community will
be commemorating the 90th anniversary of mass killings of 1.5 million
Armenians living in Turkey.

“It’s impossible to forget,” said 68-year-old Ara Baliozian, who
wrote a book about the Armenian genocide 20 years ago. “It’s part of
our collective memories and our identities. It is one of the most
important events in our lives.”

Baliozian’s 91-year-old mother was two years old when the massacre of
the Armenians began in 1915. The murder of innocent people by the
Turkish government continued until 1923.

Baliozian’s mother survived but most of her family didn’t. Today, she
lives with Baliozian in his Kitchener home.

She was left an orphan and raised by French nuns in Lebanon.

The massacre of the Armenians was the first genocide of the 20th
century. Armenia, a former Soviet republic, became independent in
1990.

On April 24, 1915, Ottoman Turkish authorities arrested 300 prominent
leaders of the Armenian community living in Istanbul and
systematically slaughtered them.

These were the intellectual leaders of the Armenian community and
included judges, scientists and educators, said Eric Chilingarian, a
member of the southwestern Ontario chapter of the Armenian National
Committee.

The Armenians were told they were being relocated but instead were
marched into deserts and starved and tortured. Women and young girls
were raped, Chilingarian said.

The Ottoman Empire justified the slaughter by saying Armenians had:

* taken up arms against it by joining Russia when the latter crossed
the empire’s border;

* Armenian revolutionaries were planning to overthrow the empire;

* revenge

Chilingarian, who emigrated to Canada from Iran in 1960, said it’s
important to remember the atrocities against Armenians 90 years ago.

“It’s an indignity we can’t forget,” the 75-year-old Guelph man said.

Many Armenians are also human rights proponents who have helped bring
to light other genocides, including the Holocaust and the mass
killings in Rwanda.

“If one goes unrecognized then history will repeat itself,” he said.

Chilingarian said there are two kinds of non-believers — those who
don’t know about the genocide and those who deny it happened.

“They add insult to injury and denying is worse,” he said.

To date, the Turkish government has not acknowledged the genocide or
taken responsibility for it.

The House of Commons recognized the genocide last year and denounced
the Turks for committing atrocities against the Armenians.

[email protected]

SUNDAY’S CEREMONY

Events Sunday starting at 3 p.m. to mark the 90th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide:

Placing of a wreath outside the Armenian Community Centre, 15
International Village Drive in Cambridge, at 3 p.m.

Lighting of 90 candles by elderly women and young people.

Attendance by dignitaries, including local MPs and MPPs, the mayor
and city councillors, who will address the gathering.

Keynote speech by Prof. Allan Whitehorn of the Royal Military College
in Kingston.

GRAPHIC: Photo: , PHILIP WALKER, RECORD STAFF; Eric Chilingarian, a
member of the area’s Armenian National Committee, stands before a
monument at the Armenian Community Centre in Cambridge. The monument
commemorates Armenians lost in the genocide 90 years ago.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 15, 2005, Friday

DIVORCE COMPLETE: WHAT NEXT?

SOURCE: Trud, April 13, 2005, EV

by Professor Alexei Malashenko, Carnegie Moscow Center

There are two attitudes to the CIS: it’s either a “civilized” form of
divorce for the former Soviet Union, or a creative form of
establishing something different. If the CIS is viewed as a form of
divorce – a system which has divorced former Soviet republics
relatively painlessly, with minimal conflicts and no wars – then I
think the CIS has fulfilled its function. Our divorce is complete.

What is the current state of the CIS? As a system for coordinating
mutual political efforts, it barely functions at all. The meetings of
CIS presidents have essentially turned into a kind of formal and
informal club. They discuss problems and express opinions, but they
are all perfectly well aware that this is just a curious form of
social gatherings for heads of state and their close associates.
Indeed, how can there be any political coordination when there is a
conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, for example? There is
tension in Russian-Georgian relations. Russia’s relations with
Moldova are deteriorating. Russian-Ukrainian relations are strained
as well. Turkmenistan has practically dropped out of the CIS, in
terms of political and economic participation. None of the member
states know their political goals, so the CIS as such does not
address these goals.

As regards economic cooperation, hundreds of decisions have been
approved – but only 30 to 40 of them have been implemented. To put
the problem in a nutshell, the economic interests of the post-Soviet
states are fairly contradictory. The chances of establishing a Common
Economic Area (EEP) seem slim. Essentially, this project will only
result in closer relations between Russia and Kazakhstan, and hence
closer relations between Russia and Kyrgyzstan (if its new government
is relatively pro-Russian). That’s about all. The remaining contacts
are on a bilateral basis.

The most recent attempt to provide some sort of common axis for
economic relations between post-Soviet states was made two years ago.
Anatoly Chubais started talking about a “liberal empire” and real
cooperation among many industry sectors, under Russia’s aegis, across
the CIS. To some extent, he was right; but it’s impossible to argue
that such an alliance could become the dominant economic factor.

There is a great deal of talk about the CIS being useful in security
matters. But there’s no clear definition of security here: does it
mean security against external threats, or fighting terrorism, or
countering internal destabilizing forces? There is the CIS Collective
Security Treaty, but of late this has been reduced to bilateral
cooperation only, and is gradually becoming irrelevant.

Here’s another factor that has a negative impact on the CIS: the
emergence of new, alternative organizations. How they emerge is
another question entirely; but interest in these organizations is
constantly growing. There’s the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), which has proved fairly effective – unfortunately, this
effectiveness is due to the presence of China, not Russia. There is
renewed discussion of the somewhat vague GUUAM organization, made up
of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. A few years
ago, this was presented as an alternative to the CIS, but then it
rapidly retreated into the shadows, and was apparently forgotten. But
now, in the wake of new developments in Georgia, Ukraine, and
Moldova, this idea is starting to be revived – and I get the
impression that there are plenty of politicians and business leaders
in those countries who want to revive GUUAM. Naturally, the West
would also have a hand in that.

To some extent, Moscow’s own policies are working against the CIS.
Moscow still can’t determine its own role in the former Soviet Union.
On the one hand, it’s obviously attempting to interfere in the
internal affairs of its neighbor-states. On the other hand, there are
the declarations that we’re not interfering at all – let them do as
they please. Russia’s own internal problems play a significant role
in this. It would be an advantage for the CIS to have a leader-nation
that is strong, wealthy, and prepared to offer material assistance.
But our neighbor-states don’t experience a rush of enthusiasm when
they look at what is happening in Russia itself: from the Kremlin’s
efforts to build a hierarchy of governance, to an economy mostly
dependent on high oil prices. Russia is the largest, most powerful,
and most problem-filled state in the CIS. Ten years of war in
Chechnya have shown how difficult it is for Moscow to solve its own
security problems. Obviously, this doesn’t make the CIS any more
authoritative.

In Russia, it has been said recently that the CIS might serve as a
framework for a unified humanitarian and cultural expanse. That’s
debatable. The organization and its subdivisions must have some sort
of positive, concrete activity – but at present this is not the case.
I get the impression that the CIS is doomed, and Russia needs to find
some qualitatively different ways of organizing the former Soviet
Union, based on national interests. If Russia can succeed in solving
its own economic and political problems, it could gain an entirely
lawful right to leadership.

Translated by Grigory Malyutin

The Mirror
April 15, 2005, Friday

IRISH DAILY MIRROR COMMENT: GET METRO ON TRACK

THE EUR20billion plan to create a 21st century public transport
network for Dublin is well timed.

After the absolute chaos caused by one lorry accident yesterday, it
is beyond doubt the capital’s salvation lies in modern trains, buses
and trams.

The 1.25million people who live in Dublin are crying out for an
efficient metro system.

It is the only capital in Europe, East and West, without an
underground.

It is shameful and a sorry indictment of successive governments who
have failed to invest in public transport.

At a time when even those in charge of the capital of
poverty-stricken Armenia are building a metro, it is especially
embarrassing for our Government that Dublin doesn’t have one.

The decision to build a wide-ranging, all-encompassing underground
rail system in Dublin must be made post-haste.

It cannot be piece-meal, deciding to build one section at a time. It
must be built in its entirety at the same time.

Bertie Ahern has promised – in this paper – to build a metro for
Dublin by 2016.

His pledge – if fulfilled – will be remembered forever by the people
of Dublin as the single initiative that saved the historic capital
from decades of chaos and degeneration.

There can be no more dithering. Sign the cheque now. Secure the
capital’s future prosperity, whatever the cost.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 15, 2005 Friday 3:26 PM Eastern Time

34 Armenian peacekeepers go on mission to Kosovo

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Thirty-four Armenian peacekeepers went on mission to Kosovo on
Friday.

“Armenia is increasingly becoming involved in the provision of
Euro-Atlantic and international security and stability,” Deputy
Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Artur Agabekian said. “Now that we have
achieved lasting peace with the international support, we cannot stay
indifferent to people who need peace in various corners of the
planet,” he said.

Armenian peacekeepers “are strengthening sustainable development of
their fatherland and its wish to live in peace and accord, with their
participation in the humanitarian mission and a small contribution to
international peace,” he said.

This is the second Kosovo mission for 18 servicemen. They had already
been there in February-September 2004.

Armenian servicemen, who had been stationed in Kosovo since last
September, returned to Yerevan on Thursday night. The platoon was on
mission near an Albanian village, and there was a Serb township
nearby.

A memorandum on the participation of an Armenian motorized infantry
unit in the Kosovo peacekeeping operation within a Greek battalion
was signed in Yerevan on September 3, 2003, and ratified by the
Armenian parliament on December 13, 2003.

Some of the Armenian peacekeepers, who have been in Kosovo, are
getting ready for a mission in Iraq, Agabekian said. He said the
Armenian Defense Ministry administration has permanent contact with
46 Armenian medics, sappers and drivers in Iraq. Armenian medics give
aid to local residents and peacekeepers, he said.

Newsday, NY
April 15 2005

Armenian man brought to the United States to face charges

15, 2005, 6:43 PM EDT

NEW YORK _ A man who allegedly photographed rocket-propelled grenade
launchers and other weapons in a plot to smuggle the deadly machinery
into the United States has been brought from Armenia to the United
States for trial.

Herbert Haddad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney David Kelley, said
Armen Barseghyan would appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in
the next week to face charges contained in indictments charging 20
defendants.

It was not immediately clear who would represent Barseghyan in court.

Barseghyan was accused in court papers of photographing
rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-to-air missiles and
other Russian weapons that were supposed to be smuggled into the
United States.

The plot was broken up by an FBI informant who posed as an arms buyer
with ties to terrorists, prosecutors said as they announced charges
in the case last month.

In the case, U.S. investigators went to South Africa, Armenia and the
Georgian Republic, put wiretaps on seven phones and intercepted more
than 15,000 calls.

An informant, an explosives expert, contacted the FBI after he was
approached by a man who said he had access to weapons from the former
Soviet Union and believed the informant could find a willing buyer,
federal prosecutors said.

Armenian among those marking sad anniversary

THE RECORD (Bergen County, NJ)
Friday, April 15, 2005

By CATHERINE HOLAHAN, STAFF WRITER ([email protected])

ORADELL – Ninety years later, Rahan Kachian still has the nightmares.

In the daylight, she is healthy and happy. The horrors of her youth in
Turkey are memories.

But at night, she is five years old again. Burying the remains of her
beheaded father in the family vineyard. Running. Watching strangers burn
churches filled with people. Hiding between mattresses.

Seeing her 2-year-old brother, Kourken, die of starvation.

“I was 5 years old but I remember,” said Kachian, 94, of Oradell. “I
remember.”

It’s a history Kachian and fellow survivors of the 1915 Armenian
massacre are trying to bring to light. The Turkish government denies the
killings were state-sponsored genocide.

On April 24, Armenians will gather in New York to mark the 90th
anniversary of the Turkish government’s arrest of more than 200 Armenian
community leaders. That date is considered the beginning of a genocide
that took the lives of more than 1 million Armenians in three years.

There will be services held at three New York cathedrals and a
remembrance in Times Square on that day.

“The genocide is a current issue,” said Ken Sarajian, a relative through
marriage of Kachian and an organizer of the New York events. “It’s about
justice, it’s about the prevention of genocide and what happened in
Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur. The threat of genocide still exists
in the world today.”

For Kachian, the genocide is current because the memories are still so
fresh.

“How could they deny it when they killed everybody?” she asks.

Kachian’s earliest memories go back to age 3, when she lived with her
father, sister and brother on a plantation in the village of Segham. Her
mother died in childbirth.

The family had vineyards, a large farm, a lake and animals. Her father,
Mardiros Delerian, was a university professor and also sold the excess
produce from the farm in the city.

“It was beautiful,” Kachian said. “We had everything we could want.”

Then, one morning, that all changed.

Turkish soldiers came to her village and began shooting her neighbors.
Kachian, her elder sister Marinos, and her brother hid. Kachian’s father
ran to woods behind the house where he was found, shot and beheaded.

Though Kachian did not know it at the time, the Turkish government had
ordered the deportation of Armenians to the Der El Zor desert, according
to Western history books. The deportations are thought, by some
scholars, to have been spurred by an Armenian movement for an
independent state.

Kachian believes the Turkish government wanted to seize the land of the
Armenians to increase its wealth.

When Turkish soldiers came, Kachian and her siblings fled to a Turkish
friend’s house in a nearby city. An aunt later made it to the same
friend’s house after being shot and left for dead by the soldiers.

Soon after their arrival, their family friend died and her sister forced
the Armenians to work the land for free in exchange for a place to hide.
At 5, Kachian had to tend the lambs and sheep. If she lost one, she was
beaten, she said. She and her siblings were given crusts of bread to
eat. Her brother eventually starved to death.

Kachian survived by eating wild vegetables as she tended the flocks.

Eventually, after the killings stopped, she escaped with her sister to
an orphanage. Her sister was married to an Armenian who had become a
U.S. citizen and soldier. He sent money to bring his wife to the United
States. The pair brought Kachian to New York to live with them when she
was about 17.

“When I came to the U.S., I wasn’t afraid to walk down the street,”
Kachian said.

She also wasn’t afraid to tell others what she remembered of the
genocide. But even now, she sometimes wakes up frightened, from the
memories.

PHOTO CAPTION: BY DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / Rahan Kachian, 94, is haunted
by painful memories of the 1915 Armenian massacre in Turkey.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

UCLA Armenian Student Association
405 Hilgard Ave.
Kerckhoff 146
Los Angeles, CA. 90095
Contact: Arpine Hovasapian
Email: [email protected]
Web:

PRESS RELEASE ~ April 14, 2005
Contact: Public Relations Director, Arpine Hovasapian [email protected]

UCLA STUDENT GOVERNMENT UNANIMOUSLY PASSES RESOLUTION
`FIGHT TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS IN TURKEY’

The UCLA student government, the Undergraduate Student Association
Council (USAC) unanimously passed a resolution introduced by the UCLA
Armenian Student Association (ASA) Wednesday night in support of an
initiative to ban the sale of Turkish goods at UCLA until Turkey
addresses its human rights record.

The resolution, entitled `Fight to Protect Human Rights in Turkey’
made reference to numerous historical and current human rights
violations which Turkey has committed towards its people, especially
minorities. `What makes this so important is that it not only
highlights the historical human rights violations committed by the
Turkish government, but also the crimes the government commits against
its citizens today,’ asserted Shant Taslakian, a fourth year
Philosophy major and ASA member who researched goods sold in the
ASUCLA store in preparation for the council meeting.

Other ASA members, including Garen Kirakosian and Ani Garibyan had
done extensive research ` starting in 2004 ` before presenting their
findings to USAC. `The passage of this resolution is a great step
toward justice throughout the world. It is important that institutions
of higher learning, like UCLA, take the necessary steps to make it
known that they will not conduct business with governments that
mistreat their people and attempt to deny and revise history,’
proclaimed Mr. Kirakosian, a third-year Political Science student.

The resolution sends a clear and bold message to the government of
Turkey by the UCLA student body. `This was a great victory not only
for the Armenian community at UCLA, but for all those who believe in
the protection of human rights,’ asserted Raffi Kassabian, president
for the Armenian Student Association at UCLA. `We have seen USAC pass
resolutions similar to this before whether it is with the divestment
from South Africa during Apartheid and divestment from Burma. It is
important for the UCLA student body to take a clear and consistent
stance on such human rights abuses.’

The ASA must now present the resolution to the Campus Services
Committee of the ASUCLA, which consists of various students and
economists, among others. The committee must determine the economic
impact the resolution would have on the university, before they can
implement it. `Going into May’s meeting with a resolution that has
been unanimously approved by USAC is a huge step for the ASA. We will
do our utmost to work with the services committee in implementing the
resolution,’ mentioned Miss Garibyan fourth-year Political Science
student.

The full text of the resolution will be printed in next Thursday’s
(April 21, 2005) edition of UCLA’s campus daily newspaper, the Daily
Bruin, which is the second largest circulating newspaper in Los
Angeles.

The UCLA ASA is one of the oldest Armenian-American student groups
in the United States. This year marks the 60th anniversary of its
existence. The UCLA ASA seeks to cultivate a true understanding and
appreciation of Armenian history, heritage, and culture through
cultural, social, and recreational activities.

PARTICIPANTS OF SESSION WCC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE HELD AT MOTHER SEE OF
HOLY ETCHMIADZIN WILL VISIT MEMORIAL FOR VICTIMS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. The participants of April 13-17 session of
the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) held at
the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin with participation of Orthodox
confessions will visit the Memorial for the Victims of the Armenian
Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 “Tsitsernakaberd” today, the
press-service of the Chancellery of Mother See pf Holy Etchmiadzin
informs ARMINFO.

ARMED FORCES OF ARMENIA WILL TAKE PART IN 8 MANEUVERS IN 2005: DEPUTY
DEFENSE MINISTER OF ARMENIA

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. The Armed Forces of Armenia will take part
in 8 maneuvers in 2005. Deputy Defense Minister of Armenia, Lt.General
Artur Aghabekyan informed ARMINFO today.

He said that among the major events would be maneuvers under the
Collective Security Treaty of CIS signatories. The deputy minister
refused from specifying the place and the date of the maneuvers.