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02/17/2005
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1) 90th Anniversary Commemoration Committee Finalizes Programs
2) Russian FM Discusses Bilateral Ties, Karabagh in Armenia
3) Tbilisi Incident Concerns Javakhk Armenians
4) Christian Minority in Azerbaijan Gets Rid of Armenian ‘Eye Sore’
1) 90th Anniversary Commemoration Committee Finalizes Programs
LOS ANGELES–This year marks the 90th Anniversary of first genocide of the
Twentieth Century–the genocide against the Armenian people. This page in
history–the annihilation of close to two million Armenians –will be
marked by
Armenians throughout the world.
The Armenian-American community of California, which has traditionally
organized an array of events during the month of April, and specifically
between April 17-24, will this year commemorate the Genocide’s 90th
Anniversary
by hosting a series of events jointly organized by over two dozen Armenian
political, cultural, and religious groups. With the recent addition of the
Organization of Istanbul Armenians, the Iraqi Armenian Community, and the
Armenian Youth Movement, the number of member groups of the United Armenian
Genocide 90th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of California, grew to 26.
The United Young Armenians, however, left the coalition.
Having begun its work in 2004, the Committee has nearly finalized its agenda,
and has resolved to mark the 90th Anniversary through:
– Organizing a large-scale cultural event;
– Hosting a commemoration in Sacramento with the participation of State-level
elected officials and government representatives;
– Organizing a demonstration adjacent to the Turkish Consulate of Los
Angeles;
– Hosting a requiem service at the monument, dedicated to the memory of the
Genocide’s victims, in the City of Montebello.
– Hosting requiem services at all Armenians churches throughout the State;
– Organizing a community-wide event, concluding the series of commemorative
events.
United Armenian Genocide 90th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of
California
2) Russian FM Discusses Bilateral Ties, Karabagh in Armenia
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with President
Robert Kocharian and other Armenian leaders in Yerevan Thursday on an official
visit which focused on bilateral relations and the Karabagh conflict.
The talks were also aimed at preparing for Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s upcoming visit to Armenia, his country’s main regional ally.
“We expect a very busy year for our partnership and allied
relationship,”
Lavrov said at the end of the one-day trip. “We have to implement agreements
reached by the [Russian-Armenian] inter-governmental commission on economic
cooperation last December. We agreed to accelerate implementation of all
issues
agreed by the parties so that our presidents can see… that their decisions are
put into practice.”
“There are no problems in our relations. But because those relations are
constantly developing, they need constant attention,” he added.
“We are happy with the results of the visit. I believe that it will give
an additional impetus to our relations,” Oskanian said for his part.
Kocharian told Lavrov that he is satisfied with the current state of
bilateral ties and hopes that Russia will help to lift transport blockades
resulting from the unresolved ethnic conflicts in the South Caucasus.
The Karabagh conflict was a major theme of the talks. “We hope that the
Prague process of regular meetings between the foreign ministers of Armenia
and
Azerbaijan will bear fruit,” Lavrov said. “The co-chairs of the OSCE’s Minsk
Group are ready to foster that. We will do our best to make sure that the
process progresses successfully.”
“Sergei Lavrov is a minister who probably knows more [about the Karabagh
peace process] than I,” Oskanian joked at their joint news conference,
underlining Moscow’s role as a key international mediator. He announced that
his next meeting with Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Prague will
take place on March 2.
Economic issues were another subject of discussions, with Kocharian and
Prime Minister Andranik Markarian again calling on the Russians to speed up
work on reactivating four of five moribund Armenian enterprises which were
handed over to them two years ago in payment for Armenia’s $100 million debt.
Markarian also expressed concern at Russia’s plans to finance a new railway to
Iran that would bypass Armenia and run through its arch-rival Azerbaijan
Lavrov, who revealed to reporters last year that his father was a
Tbilisi-born Armenian, assured Markarian that “Russia will take into account
Armenia’s interests and will not take any steps that would damage them,”
according to an Armenian government statement.
3) Tbilisi Incident Concerns Javakhk Armenians
YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–Voicing concern over a recent incident in Tbilisi
involving the desecration of Armenian gravestones, the Javakhk Union of
Georgian Armenians sent a letter to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili,
urging him to take measures to preserve Armenian cultural monuments in
Georgia.
On February 8, Armenian gravestones from the St. Virgin Church in Tbilisi’s
Norashen district were removed and replaced with Georgian ones. A Georgian
priest also told the Armenian clerics to pray in Armenia because “this church
is ours now.”
The 15th century church’s ornaments made by the Hovnatanyans are still
preserved. Head of the Georgian-Armenian diocese Archbishop Vazgen
Mirzakhanyan, said he is concerned that the next incident will involve
vandalism of the church.
4) Christian Minority in Azerbaijan Gets Rid of Armenian ‘Eye Sore’
By Simon Ostrovsky
(AFP)–When a Christian people in this predominantly Muslim republic ground
away the Armenian inscriptions from the walls of a church and tombs last month
to erase evidence linking them to Azerbaijan’s foe [Armenia], they thought
they
had the interests of their small community in mind.
But now the tiny Christian church in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan
has become the focus of a big scandal as the Udi minority struggles to find
its
identity in an ideological minefield. The church, which has not been used
since
Azerbaijan became part of the Soviet Union, has become the center of a dispute
between the Norwegian backers of the reconstruction, who consider the
alterations to be vandalism, and the Udi community.
“We have no God, our people lost their religion under communism and this
church is our only hope of reviving it,” said Georgi Kechaari, one of the
village elders who doubles as the ethnic group’s historian.
“But we live in Azerbaijan, and when people came into the church and saw
Armenian letters, they automatically associated us with Armenians,” he said.
The Udi, who once used the Armenian alphabet, have struggled to separate
their
legacy from that of their fellow Christians, the Armenians, who fought a war
with Azerbaijan and have been vilified here.
Since the beginning of the conflict with Armenia over Mountainous Karabagh,
which erupted just before the break-up of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has rid
of nearly everything associated with Armenia in has been wiped away, although
hundreds of thousands of Armenians lived here before the war that ended in a
cease-fire in 1994.
Armenian-sounding city names have been changed, streets named after Armenians
have been replaced with politically correct Azeri surnames, while Soviet
history glorifying Armenian communist activists has been rewritten in school
textbooks. But the white stone church in Nij, some two centuries old, had not
been tampered with until the Udi undertook to reconstruct it with help from
the
state financed Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise (NHE).
“It was a beautiful inscription, 200 years old, it even survived the war,”
Norway’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Steinar Gil told AFP. “This is an act of
vandalism and Norway in no way wants to be associated with it.”
But the Udis insist they erased the inscriptions to right a historic wrong.
Kechaari alleged that the Armenian inscriptions, which stated that the Church
was built in 1823, were fakes put there by Armenians in the 1920s so that they
could make historical claims to it.
The Udis are the last surviving tribe of the Caucasus Albanians, a group
unrelated to the Mediterranean Albanians, whose Christian kingdom ruled this
region in medieval times before Turkic hordes swept in from Central Asia in
the
13th and 15th centuries. They number under 10,000 people and Nij is the only
predominantly Udi village to survive to this day, and although they call
themselves Christian, there is little that Christians from other parts of the
world would find in common with them.
The Udis have not had a pastor for nearly a century and celebrate Islamic
holidays together with their Muslim neighbors. But while the Udis soul search
for an identity, Azerbaijan has used their legacy to strengthen its claims to
Karabagh.
Armenians argue that the multitude of churches in the occupied region proves
that they as a Christian people can lay a historic claim to it. But Azeris,
who
consider themselves to be the descendants of Albanians who were assimilated
into a Turkic group, say the area is rightfully theirs because the churches
were actually built by their ancestors the Albanians.
To the Udi, who used Armenian script when their church was built, toeing the
official Azeri line has become more of a priority than historical accuracy.
The
perception that they are one with the Armenians has meant that there has been
little trust from the authorities; Udi men for example were only allowed to
start serving in the Azeri Army two years ago.
But their use of power tools to fit the status quo took their Norwegian
sponsors by surprise. “They think they have erased a reminder of being
Armenian…instead they have taken away the chance to have a good image when
the church is inaugurated,” the director of the NHE in Azerbaijan, Alf Henry
Rasmussen said, adding that a visit to the church by Norway’s prime minister
will probably now be canceled.
“Everyone will stare at the missing stones. I’m not quite sure if we can
continue our work there,” Rasmussen said.
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