Thursday, September 02, 2004
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MIKOYAN’S ROLE IN THE STALINIST PURGES.
TOLSTOY, DOSTOEVSKY AND SHAKESPEARE.
GREGORIAN CHANT.
WHAT IS ARMENIANISM?
*************************************************
A number of Sovietologists have identified Anastas Mikoyan as the main architect of the Stalinist purges in Armenia. If he was, he was a reluctant one, writes Simon Montefiore. In his recently published book, STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR, based on interviews with the children of survivors, post-Soviet studies, and newly opened archives, he writes that Stalin chose Mikoyan for that grim task to test his loyalty. “In late 1937,” we read here, “Stalin tested Mikoyan’s commitment by dispatching him to Armenia with a list of three hundred victims to be arrested. Mikoyan signed it but he crossed off one friend. The man was arrested anyway.”
*
While in Siberia, Dostoevsky read some stories by a writer who signed himself “L.T.” Dostoevsky liked the stories but he said, “I believe he will write very little,” adding, “but perhaps I am wrong.” He sure was! “L.T.” stood for Leo Tolstoy, one of the most prolific writers of all time.
*
Though contemporaries, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky avoided each other. But the last book Tolstoy read shortly before his death was Dostoevsky”s BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, perhaps because his home situation, from which he was running away, was more Dostoevskian than Tolstoyan.
*
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky shared one thing in common: they didn’t much care for Shakespeare.
*
Readers sometimes complain that I don’t always answer questions. The truth is everything I write is an answer to a specific question, even when the questioner is anonymous and even when the question is disguised verbal vandalism and hooliganism. Case in point: on a number of occasions I have been asked if my mother was a concubine in a Turkish harem. My mother became an orphan at the age of one and was brought up by French Catholic nuns in Lebanon. Instead of lullabies she sang Gregorian chant to me, which to this day is my favorite kind of music – music in its purest form: simple, accessible, melodic, incandescent, with none of the technical fireworks of J.S.Bach or the rhetoric of Beethoven.
*
Whenever I read an ugly e-mail from an Armenian, I cannot help wondering: what if in our case the concept of survival of the fittest should be replaced with the concept of survival of the nastiest?
*
There are open minds and closed minds, but when an Armenian decides to close his mind, he locks it with seven rusty keys.
*
Why is it that some Armenians use the massacres as a license to do to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us? And more often than not, they are the very same Armenians who demand our unconditional love on grounds of Armenianism.
*
Writes Denis Donikian: “At one time or another we have all been victims of Armenianism.” Perhaps because no one has yet defined what Armenianism is and every Armenian thinks his own brand is the only true one.
#
Friday, September 03, 2004
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BAYROU ON TURKS.
MONTEFIORE ON MIKOYAN.
AXIOMS.
MEMO TO MY CRITICS.
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Francois Bayrou, identified as the President of the UDF, in a recent interview published in LE POINT (August 5, 2004): “Turkey’s geography, history, and sociology are not European. Its anthropology is not the same as ours. During a recent conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Nayyip Erdogan, he said: ‘For us, Europe must be a place where different civilizations meet and coexist,” thus conceding that our civilizations are indeed different. In order to qualify as a member of the European Union, Turkey must meet certain criteria. Even the recognition of the Armenian genocide, an indispensable condition in our eyes, is open to negotiation and compromise. That’s not the real stumbling bloc. The real stumbling bloc is the question: Is Turkey’s membership compatible with the political unity of Europe? My answer is, No.”
*
Simon Montefiore on Anastas Mikoyan: “This Armenian who had studied for the priesthood like Stalin himself, was slim, circumspect, wily and industrious, with black hair, moustache and flashing eyes, a broken aquiline nose and a taste for immaculate clothes that, even when clad in his usual tunic and boots, lent him the air of a lithe dandy. Highly intelligent with the driest of wits, he had a gift for languages, understanding English, and, in 1931, he taught himself German by translating DAS KAPITAL.” (And to think that most people can’t understand DAS KAPITAL even when they read it in their mother tongue).
*
We know what we think and how we feel. It is only by knowing what others think and feel that we may acquire a better understanding of our fellow men, and by extension, of the world in which we live – that is to say, reality.
*
Can we really understand ourselves if we don’t understand others? And if we don’t understand others, what can we really understand?
*
Understanding of reality is a seamless web. Partial understanding might as well be misunderstanding, and action based on misunderstanding is bound to fail.
*
Memo to my anonymous critics: “The merit of a criticism is diminished when the critic is too afraid to identify himself.”
#
Saturday, September 04, 2004
*********************************
THE ORIGIN OF WISDOM.
SOCRATES AND ERASMUS.
PERVERTED PATRIOTISM.
ARMENIAN-HATERS.
**********************************
All wisdom begins with the realization that what we know is only a very small fraction of knowledge, and very often so small that it would be more accurate to admit, like Socrates, that all we know for certain is that we don’t know.
*
And speaking of Socrates: there are people who reject ideas simply because they are new ideas. Whenever in history great men, like Socrates, have been persecuted, you can be sure of one thing: the persecution was organized by such people, namely, the scum of the earth who, in the words of Erasmus, prefer “the smell of their excrement,” simply because they are familiar with it.
*
Where hooligans are allowed to hijack the word “patriotism,” love of country becomes hatred of fellow countrymen.
*
To those who at one time or another have accused me of being an Armenian-hater, I say: You have no idea what you are saying. A real Armenian-hater is one who hates Turks not because they massacred us, but because they didn’t do a more thorough job; and I happen to be personally acquainted with such an Armenian, and he happens to be a genuine, bona fide, dyed-in-the wool born-again Christian whose every other line is a quote from the Bible. And he feels as he does because he is convinced Armenians are evil and the Turks massacred them because they were following orders from God – not their Allah, be it noted, but our God who can do no wrong. And if you were to say, I should be ashamed to admit that I have such friends, I will reply: I have made it my business to understand all kinds of Armenians and not just a fraction of them.
#

Turkey snaps over US bombing of its bretheren
By K Gajendra Singh

Asia Times, Hong Kong
Sept 17 2004

For the first time since the acrimonious exchange of words in July
last year following the arrest and imprisonment of 11 Turkish
commandos in Kurdish Iraq, for which Washington expressed “regret”,
differences erupted publicly this week between North Atlantic Treaty
Organization allies Turkey and the US over attacks on Turkey’s ethnic
cousins, the Turkmens in northern Iraq.

Talking to a Turkish TV channel, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned
that if the US did not cease its attacks on Tal Afar, a Turkmen city
at the junction of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Ankara might withdraw its
support to the US in Iraq.

“I told [US Secretary of State Colin Powell] that what is being done
there is harming the civilian population, that it is wrong, and that
if it continues, Turkey’s cooperation on issues regarding Iraq will
come to a total stop.” He added, “We will continue to say these
things. Of course we will not stop only at words. If necessary, we
will not hesitate to do what has to be done.”

Turkey is a key US ally in a largely hostile region. US forces use
its Incirlik military base near northern Iraq. Turkish firms are also
involved heavily in the construction and transport business in Iraq,
with hundreds of Turkish vehicles bringing in goods for the US
military every day. It is an alternative route through friendly
northern Kurdish territory to those from Jordan and Kuwait. But many
Turks have been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgent groups and some have
been killed.

Turkey contains a large ethnic Turkmen population and Ankara has long
seen itself as the guardian of their rights, particularly across the
border in northern Iraq, where they constitute a significant
minority.

The US attacks on Tal Afar, which Iraqi Turkmen groups in Turkey say
have left 120 dead and over 200 injured, were launched, the US says,
to root out terrorists. The US has denied the extent of the damage,
saying that it avoided civilian targets and killed only terrorists it
says were infiltrating the town from Syria.

US ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman commented, “We are carrying out
a limited military operation and we are trying to keep civilian
losses to a minimum. We cannot completely eliminate the possibility
[of civilian casualties] … We believe the operation is being
conducted with great care,” he said after briefing Turkish officials.
There have not been any reports of further attacks since the Turkish
warning.

The deterioration in US-Turkish relations underlines the
fast-changing strategic scenario in the region in the post-Cold War
era after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the September 11 attacks
on the US, the US-led invasion on Iraq, now conceded as illegal by
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the deteriorating
security situation in that country.

Despite negative signals on Ankara’s mission to join the European
Union, Turkey is moving away from the US and closer to the EU – it is
even looking to buy Airbuses, and arms, from Europe rather than the
US.

At the same time, Turkey is drawing closer to Syria, normalizing
relations with Iran and improving economic relations with Russia, as
well as discuss with Moscow ways to counter terrorist acts, from
which both Russia and Turkey suffer. Russian President Vladimir Putin
called off a visit to Turkey when the hostage crisis broke at Beslan
in the Russian Caucasus last week.

And Turkey has also moved away from long-time friend Israel, the US’s
umbilically aligned strategic partner in the Middle East. Turkey has
accused Israel of “state terrorism” against Palestinians. A recent
ruling party team from Turkey returned from Tel Aviv not satisfied
with Israeli explanations over charges that it was interfering in
northern Iraqi affairs.

With newspapers full of stories and TV screens showing the Turkmens
being attacked in the US operations at Tal Afar, many Turks are angry
at what is being done to their ethnic brethren. These have been large
protests outside the US Embassy in Ankara, and the belief that the US
attacks are a part of a campaign to ethnically cleanse the Turkmens
from northern Iraq is widespread.

“Some people are uncomfortable with the ethnic structure of this
area, so, using claims of a terrorist threat, they went in and killed
people,” said Professor Suphi Saatci of the Kirkuk Foundation, one of
several Turkmen groups in Turkey.

He claims that the the attacks are a part of a wider campaign to
establish Kurdish control over all of northern Iraq, and he points to
the removal of Turkmen officials from governing positions in the
region to be replaced by Kurds. He also says that the Iraqi police
force deployed in northern Iraq is dominated by members of Kurdish
factions. “The US is acting completely under the direction of the
Kurdish parties in northern Iraq,” says Saatci. “Tal Afar is a
clearly Turkmen area and this is something they were very jealous
of.”

While Kurdish officials deny any attempt to alter the ethnic balance
in the region, last week Masud Barzani, leader of one of the two
largest Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), said
that Kirkuk “is a Kurdish city” and one that the KDP was willing to
fight for, which certainly did not calm fears of the Turkmens and
angered the Turks. Many Turkmen see Kirkuk as historically theirs.
Turkey considers northern Iraq – ie Kurdistan – as part of its sphere
of influence, especially the Turkmen minority. Ankara is especially
concerned that the Kurds in Iraq don’t gain full autonomy as this
would likely fire the aspirations of Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

The US military disputes that its forces laid siege to Tal Afar,
saying that the operation was to free the city from insurgents,
including foreign fighters, who had turned it into a haven for
militants smuggling men and arms across the Syrian border. And a
military spokesman denied that Kurds were using US forces to gain the
upper hand in their ethnic struggle with the Turkmens. The US
characterized the resistance in Tal Afar as put up by a disparate
group of former Saddam Hussein loyalists, religious extremists and
foreign fighters who were united only by their opposition to US
forces.

Gareth Stansfield, a regional specialist at the Center of Arab and
Islamic Studies at Britain’s University of Exeter, said recently that
“the most important angle of what the Turkish concern is [and that
is] that there is a strong belief in Ankara that Iyad Allawi, the
Iraqi prime minister, and the Americans, were suckered into attacking
Tal Afar by Kurdish intelligence circles, and really brought to Tal
Afar to target ostensibly al-Qaeda and anti-occupation forces with
the Kurds knowing full well that this would also bring them up
against Turkmens and create a rift between Washington and Ankara over
their treatment of a Turkmen city.”

Turkey maintains a few hundred troops in the region as a security
presence to monitor Turkish Kurd rebels who have some hideouts in the
region. But any large-scale presence has been derailed by the
objections of Iraqi Kurdish leaders. “That has created an uneasy
state of co-existence between Ankara and the two major Kurdish
political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, a balance which any US military operation in the area
could easily disturb.”

Stansfield added that the incident shows how volatile tensions remain
between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds, despite ongoing efforts by both
sides to work together. “The Turkish position has become increasingly
more sophisticated over the last months, and arguably years, with
Ankara finding an accommodation with the KDP and PUK and beginning to
realize that while it is not their favored option to allow the Kurds
to be autonomous in the north of Iraq, it is perhaps one of the
better options that they are faced with in this situation,” said
Stansfield.

He added, “However, the relationship between the two principle
Kurdish parties and the government of Turkey will always be
sensitized by the Kurds’ treatment of Turkmens and indeed now the
American treatment of Turkmens vis-a-vis Kurds.”

Transfer of sovereignty and the Kurds

In January this year, the then Iraqi Governing Council agreed to a
federal structure to enshrine Kurdish self-rule in three northern
provinces of Iraq. This was to be included in a “fundamental law”
that would precede national elections in early 2005. The fate of
three more provinces claimed by the Kurds was to be decided later.
“In the fundamental law, Kurdistan will have the same legal status as
it has now,” said a Kurdish council member, referring to the region
that has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

“When the constitution is written and elections are held, we will not
agree to less than what is in the fundamental law, and we may ask for
more,” said the Kurdish council member. Arabs, Turkmens, Sunnis and
Shi’ites expressed vociferous opposition to the proposed federal
system for Kurdish Iraq. They organized demonstrations leading to
ethnic tensions and violence in Kirkuk and many other cities in north
Iraq. Many protesters were killed and scores were injured.

However, when “sovereignty” was transferred on June 30 to the interim
government led by Iyad Allawi, the interim constitutional arrangement
did not include a federal structure for Kurdish self-rule, although
to pacify the Kurds, key portfolios of defense and foreign affairs
were allotted to them.

A press release from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) stated
that “the current situation in Iraq and the new-found attitude of the
US, UK and UN has led to a serious re-think for the Kurds. The
proposed plans do not seem to promise the expected Kurdish role in
the future of a new Iraq. The Kurds feel betrayed once again.” It
added that “if the plight of the Kurds is ignored yet again and we
are left with no say in the future of a new Iraq, the will of the
Kurdish people will be too great for the Kurdish political parties to
ignore, leading to a total withdrawal from any further discussions
relating to the formation of any new Iraqi government. This will
certainly not serve the unity of Iraq.” Underlining that the Kurds
have been the only true friends and allies of the US coalition, the
release concluded that “the Kurds will no longer be second-class
citizens in Iraq”. However, the Kurds did not precipitate matters.

Demographic changes in north Iraq

Kirkuk, with a population of some 750,000, and other towns are now
the scene of ethnic and demographic struggles between Turkmens, Arabs
and Kurds, with the last wanting to take over the region and make the
city a part of an autonomous zone, with Kirkuk as its capital.

The area around Kirkuk has 6% of the world’s oil reserves. In April
2003, it was estimated that the population was 250,000 each for
Turkmen, Arab and Kurd. A large number of Arabs were settled there by
Saddam Hussein, and they are mostly Shi’ites from the south. The
Turkmens are generally Shi’ites, like their ethnic kin, the Alevis in
Turkey, but many have given up Turkmen traditions in favor of the
urban, clerical religion common among the Arabs of the south. Kirkuk
is therefore a stronghold of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement which has
given US-led forces such a hard time in the south in Najaf. The
influential Shi’ite political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), also has good support, perhaps 40%, in
the region. Kurds are mostly Sunnis, and were the dominant population
in Kirkuk in the 1960s and 1970s, before Saddam’s Arabization policy
saw a lot of Kurds moved further north.

According to some estimates, over 70,000 Kurds have entered Kirkuk
over the past 17 months, and about 50,000 Arabs have fled back to the
south. It can be said, therefore, that now there are about 320,000
Kurds and 200,000 Arabs in the city. The number of Turkmen has also
been augmented. During the Ottoman rule, the Turkmen dominated the
city, and it was so until oil was discovered. It is reported that,
encouraged by the Kurdish leadership, as many as 500 Kurds a day are
returning to the city. The changes are being carried out for the
quick-fix census planned for October, which in turn will be the basis
for the proportional representation for the planned January
elections, if these are even held, given the country’s security
problems. Both the Turkmens and Arabs have said that the Kurds are
using these demographic changes to engulf Kirkuk and ensure that it
is added to the enlarged Kurdish province which they are planning.
The Kurds hope to get at least semi-autonomous status from Baghdad.

North Iraq and Turkey’s Kurdish problem

Turkey has serious problems with its own Kurds, who form 20% of the
population. A rebellion since 1984 against the Turkish state led by
Abdullah Ocalan of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has cost
over 35,000 lives, including 5,000 soldiers. To control and
neutralize the rebellion, thousands of Kurdish villages have been
bombed, destroyed, abandoned or relocated; millions of Kurds have
been moved to shanty towns in the south and east or migrated
westwards. The economy of the region was shattered. With a third of
the Turkish army tied up in the southeast, the cost of countering the
insurgency at its height amounted to between $6 billion to $8 billion
a year.

The rebellion died down after the arrest and trial of Ocalan, in
1999, but not eradicated. After a court in Turkey in 2002 commuted to
life imprisonment the death sentence passed on Ocalan and parliament
granted rights for the use of the Kurdish language, some of the root
causes of the Kurdish rebellion were removed. The PKK – now also
called Konga-Gel – shifted almost 4,000 of its cadres to northern
Iraq and refused to lay down arms as required by a Turkish
“repentance law”. The US’s priority to disarm PKK cadres was never
very high. In fact, the US wants to reward Iraqi Kurds, who have
remained mostly peaceful and loyal while the rest of the country has
not.

Early this month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that
Turkey’s patience was running out over US reluctance to take military
action against Turkish Kurds hiding in northern Iraq. In 1999, the
PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader,
Ocalan. But the ceasefire was not renewed in June and there have been
increasing skirmishes and battles between Kurdish insurgents and
Turkish security forces inside Turkey. Turkey remains frustrated over
US reluctance to employ military means against the PKK fighters – in
spite of promises to do so.

Iraqi Kurds have been ambivalent to the PKK, helping them at times.
Ankara has entered north Iraq from time to time – despite protests –
to attack PKK bases and its cadres. Ankara has also said that it
would regard an independent Kurdish entity as a cause for war. It is
opposed to the Kurds seizing the oil centers around Kirkuk, which
would give them financial autonomy, and this would also constitute a
reason for entry into north Iraq. The Turks vehemently oppose any
change in the ethnic composition of the city of Kirkuk .

The Turks manifest a pervasive distrust of autonomy or models of a
federal state for Iraqi Kurds. It would affect and encourage the
aspirations of their own Kurds. It also revives memories of Western
conspiracies against Turkey and the unratified 1920 Treaty of Sevres
forced on the Ottoman Sultan by the World War I victors which had
promised independence to the Armenians and autonomy to Turkey’s
Kurds. So Mustafa Kemal Ataturk opted for the unitary state of Turkey
and Kurdish rebellions in Turkey were ruthlessly suppressed.

The 1980s war between Iraq and resurgent Shi’ites in Iran helped the
PKK to establish itself in the lawless north Kurdish Iraq territory.
The PKK also helped itself with arms freely available in the region
during the eight-year war.

The 1990-91 Gulf crisis and war proved to be a watershed in the
violent explosion of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey. A nebulous and
ambiguous situation emerged in north Iraq when, at the end of the
war, US president Bush Sr encouraged the Kurds (and the hapless
Shi’ites in the south) to revolt against Saddam’s Sunni Arab regime.
Turkey was dead against it, as a Kurdish state in the north would
give ideas to its own Kurds.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Gulf were totally opposed
to a Shi’ite state in south Iraq. The hapless Iraqi Kurds and
Shi’ites paid a heavy price. Thousands were butchered. The
international media’s coverage of the pitiable conditions, with more
than half a million Iraqi Kurds escaping towards the Turkish border
from Saddam’s forces in March 1991, led to the creation of a
protected zone in north Iraq, later patrolled by US and British war
planes. The Iraqi Kurds did elect a parliament, but it never
functioned properly. Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal
Talabani run almost autonomous administrations in their areas. This
state of affairs has allowed the PKK a free run in north Iraq.

After the 1991 war, Turkey lost out instead of gaining as promised by
the US. The closure of Iraqi pipelines, economic sanctions and the
loss of trade with Iraq, which used to pump billions of US dollars
into the economy and provide employment to hundreds of thousands,
with thousands of Turkish trucks roaring up and down to Iraq, only
exacerbated the economic and social problems in the Kurdish heartland
and the center of the PKK rebellion.

But many Turks still remain fascinated with the dream of “getting
back” the Ottoman provinces of Kurdish-majority Mosul and Kirkuk in
Iraq. They were originally included within the sacred borders of the
republic proclaimed in the National Pact of 1919 by Ataturk and his
comrades, who had started organizing resistance to fight for Turkey’s
independence from the occupying World War I victors.

So it has always remained a mission and objective to be reclaimed
some time. The oil-rich part of Mosul region was occupied by the
British forces illegally after the armistice and then annexed to
Iraq, then under British mandate, in 1925, much to Turkish chagrin.
Iraq was created by joining Ottoman Baghdad and Basra vilayats
(provinces). Turks also base their claims on behalf of less than half
a million Turkmen who lived in Kirkuk with the Kurds before
Arabization changed the ethnic balance of the region.

With its attacks on Tal Afar, the US is stirring a very deep well of
discontent.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador
to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served
terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently
chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Emai:
[email protected]

Ceasefire breach by Armenians wounds Azeri soldier

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 17 2004

Ismayil Nabiyev, a soldier in the Azerbaijan Army, was wounded after
the Armenian military units located in the occupied Shykhlar village
of Aghdam District fired at the positions of the Azerbaijani military
troops in Ortagishlag village at about 18:00 on Thursday. The wounded
soldier was hospitalized in Sarijali village of Aghjabadi District.
Armenians also fired at the Gapanli village of Terter District by
machine guns on Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry has not confirmed the report yet.*

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri, Armenian presidents meet in Astana

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 17 2004

The Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents held a four-hour meeting
in Astana, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, following a trilateral meeting
attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Ilham Aliyev gave a positive assessment to the meeting.
“I believe that the meetings of the two countries’ foreign ministers
held on a permanent basis with participation of the (OSCE) Minsk
Group are positive.”

Aliyev admitted that the two presidents cannot say anything specific
as to what they had discussed behind closed doors.

“We always have to confine ourselves to very general phrases, and
there will be no exception today, because the process is extremely
important.”

The Armenian leader Robert Kocharian told journalists that the
presidents have clarified certain positions and standpoints.

“Now we have to take time to find out where we stand”, he said.
The process of negotiations concerning the resolution of the Upper
Garabagh conflict is “underway,” Kocharian said. He admitted, however,
that “we can’t boast of anything special.”

The Armenian President said that the two sides approach the dialogue
“with patience”.

“We are discussing complex problems that we have inherited”, he said.

Assessing the meeting as a step forward, Russian President Vladimir
Putin expressed his confidence that the two countries’ presidents
will arrive at common decision on the issue.*

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SEISMOLOGISTS PREDICT NO MAJOR TREMORS

ArmenPress
Sept 17 2004

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS: Armenian seismological stations have
registered 29 earthquakes since the start of the year, the strongest
of which measured 3.4 points on Richter scale and was reported 70 km
north-east of the town of Ararat on January 4 and the lowest was 1.3
points on Richter scale, reported on July 19 near the town of Spitak,
the site of the destructive 1988 earthquake.

Judging by a set of indications, observed in the last 10 years,
Armenian seismologists predict that the possible strongest earthquake
that may hit Armenia will be no higher than 5-6 points on Richter
scale, saying its possible location may be in the southern-eastern
province of Syunik.

The national seismic service has already started a series of measures
aimed to raise the level of local population’s awareness concerning
earthquake risks. The Armenian government adopted in the last two
years two comprehensive programs on seismic risks, one encloses the
Law on Seismic Protection and the second lists the strategically
important facilities that need reinforced seismic protection.

Armenian national seismic service, included in the world seismic
networks, is considered one of the best services in Europe. The
service is cooperating closely with a German GFZ and US NASA and
UNAVCO organizations in identifying and registration of seismic risks.

70 DIASPORA ARMENIANS GRANTED THE RIGHT TO FREE EDUCATION IN YEREVAN

ArmenPress
Sept 17 2004

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS: Seventy young Diasporan
Armenians were granted this year the right to study free in Armenian
universities, while applications for paid education will be accepted
until October 31. According to an official of the education ministry,
the number of Diaspora Armenian studying in Armenia has doubled since
1997, which he attributed to the “purposeful policy of the ministry.”

Diaspora students granted the free education right are usually
majoring in Armenian linguistics and history. The majority of
students are from neighboring Georgia that has a 400,000 strong
Armenian community and local Armenian schools carry out the education
based on Armenia-developed programs, followed by Iran, Russia,
Turkmenistan, Syria, US, Canada, Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan
and other countries.

DARFUR: ACTION NOT WORDS

Azg/am
18 Sept 04

America’s declaration that genocide is taking place in Sudan has
injected fresh urgency – and controversy – into the international
debate about what the UN unhesitatingly calls the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis. It was only to be expected that the Khartoum
government would reject the charge, but there has also been a lukewarm
response elsewhere to Colin Powell’s statement to the Senate foreign
relations committee. The US secretary of state says genocide is
taking place on the basis of evidence that black African villagers
in Darfur are being targeted with the specific intent of destroying
“a group in whole or part”. Human rights organizations have welcomed
the shift. Britain’s official response is that grave crimes are
being committed by the government-backed Janjaweed Arab militias and
that the UN should mount an urgent investigation. Is this a case of
diplomatic sensibilities masking a brutal truth? Is it right to have
reservations about using the G word?

Situations previously characterized as genocide include the Turkish
massacre of 1.5 million Armenians during the first world war and,
less controversially, the Nazis’ extermination of six million Jews
in the second world war, when the term was coined from the Greek
word genos (race or tribe) with the Latin word cide (to kill). It
has been widely applied to Pol Pot’s Cambodia of the 1970s and made
bloody reappearances in Rwanda in 1994 and in the aftermath of the
wars of the Yugoslavian succession. Slobodan Milosevic, the former
Serbian president, is facing a genocide charge at the Hague war crimes
tribunal. Radislav Krstic, a Bosnian Serb general, was convicted of
genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre of 7,000 Muslim men
and boys.

Sudanese officials will admit to nothing more than a humanitarian
crisis created by ethnic strife and have contemptuously accused
Mr. Powell of seeking black votes in the forthcoming US presidential
election. Khartoum also argues that the intervention will undermine
delicate peace negotiations with Darfur rebel groups in Nigeria. Most
of the facts, though, are indisputable: 50,000 people have died since
February 2003 and over a million have been displaced. Aid workers
yesterday reported a new mass influx of refugees into one camp in
southern Darfur. Harrowing images have been on our TV screens for
long enough to fuel demands for something that goes beyond agonized
handwringing and ineffective quiet diplomacy

It is true that behind the debate in the US lies guilt about
the shameful failure to act when the first reports of genocide
emerged from Rwanda a decade ago. That is only natural. The genocide
characterization may also be intended to galvanise the international
community-though targeted sanctions such as an assets freeze and a
travel ban on senior Sudanese officials would be more effective than
the oil embargo currently being proposed by Washington. That is opposed
by China, an importer of Sudanese oil and a security council member,
as well as by Pakistan and Algeria. And there is the familiar dilemma
that such sanctions are a notoriously blunt instrument, as the Iraqi
experience taught. But urgent though the crisis is, Washington and
London are still not trying the sort of heavy-duty arm-twisting they
tried when seeking a second UN resolution authorizing war on Saddam.

Mr. Powell’s intervention puts the US a step ahead of the EU, which
says it wants a UN investigation. But the real question is not about
a dictionary definition of genocide. No one can claim that Sudan
is not experiencing a terrible human tragedy. As Oxfam has been
warning in appeals for help to save lives: time is short and people
are dying. Recognizing the scale of human suffering is a prerequisite
to action. Words, however resonant, are not enough.

The Guardian/UK, 11 Sept. 2004

Thursday, September 16, 2004
**********************************
To speak of the wisdom of propaganda is like speaking of the shadow of a non-existent object in a dark room.
*
Fascists make good speechifiers, but I see more eloquence in the braying of an ass.
*
Two individuals from two different cultural environments do not speak the same language even when they speak the same language.
*
Confucius: “Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good.”
A variant translation: “A garbage-mouth cannot harbor a golden tongue.”
*
I am not in the business of changing anything. I am in the business of understanding, and whenever I am allowed, to share my understanding.
*
When a reader tells me he hates what I write, I make an effort to be more hateful. I don’t write to entertain, amuse, and flatter.
*
All censors are cowards because they are afraid of ideas, especially ideas that will expose them as cowards.
*
Judge a tree by its fruit, a man by his ideas, and a belief system by its history.
*
To say nothing is better than to call someone an ignoramus, especially if he is one.
*
An easy riddle: “What does an Armenian with an opinion have in common with the Rock of Gibraltar?”
#
Friday, September 17, 2004
************************************
AGAINST TURKISH MEMBERSHIP IN THE EU.
ON THE ORIGINS OF PROVERBS.
WAS KOMITAS A TURK?
THE FALLACY OF CENSORSHIP.
************************************************
In an interview published in LE POINT (Paris, August 12, 2004) Pierre Moscovici, a member of the European Parliament, cites the following three reasons why Turkey cannot be admitted into the European Union: “The role of the military on the margins of the regime;
the rights of minorities, notably that of the Kurds; and
the recognition of the Armenian genocide – this final point is for me decisive.”
*
If “to kill with words is also murder” (German proverb), who among us will dare to plead not guilty to the crime of massacre?
*
Anonymous: “Let not your tongue cut your throat.”
*
More and more frequently now, in English-language books of quotations, Armenian proverbs are identified as Turkish. Since no one has ever come forward and said: “I was there when this proverb was first spoken,” I suppose, any nation can identify a proverb as its own. The same applies to the origin of dishes and folk tunes.
*
I remember to have read somewhere that in some Turkish reference works Komitas is identified as a Turkish musician, I suppose, in the same way that Mikoyan and Khachaturian are identified as “Soviet,” Saroyan as “American,” and Adamov as “French.” But since present-day Turkey has disassociated itself from its Ottoman past and its many crimes against humanity, it would be more accurate to use the qualifier “Ottoman” in reference to Armenian proverbs and personalities who were active in Istanbul before World War I.
*
By silencing a writer and suppressing his testimony, censorship attempts to arrest the advance of time, but the best it can do is to slow it down and to postpone the final catastrophe.
*
Whenever I reflect that a fellow Armenian, who insults me or bans me from a forum, would have betrayed me to the authorities or put a bullet in my neck in a different time, place, and regime, I feel like celebrating.
*
To how many of my Armenian critics I could say: “Your aim is not to contradict but to murder with words.”
#
Saturday, September 18, 2004
***********************************
ON PROPAGANDA AND
RELATED ATROCITIES.
*********************************
Propaganda is the enemy of literature because literature is the enemy of propaganda.
*
Speechifiers and sermonizers are not used to being contradicted.
*
One of our elder statesmen once told me: “Why do you bother replying to your readers? F*** them!” To which I remember to have replied: “No, I refuse to adopt our leaders as my role models.”
*
I write brief sentences to fit the attention span of my readers. To write long paragraphs would be like serving gourmet dishes to addicts of junk food.
*
When a jackass brays he does not expect to have the applause of his audience. But if the jackass is an Armenian he is sure to think his braying is as good if not better than an aria from DON GIOVANNI or THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.
*
I grew up among survivors of the massacres who spoke Turkish among themselves. They had no illusions about their fellow men regardless of nationality. They may have been functional illiterates but they had an instinctive understanding of the role of destiny in human affairs. They didn’t make a career of hatred and a full-time job of the massacres. If someone had said to them, by writing books, newspaper articles and letters to the editor, or by delivering speeches and sermons we may be able to persuade the Turks to apologize, they would have looked at him in silent astonishment as if to say: “Of the forty-four types of insanity I have heard about, this must be one of them.”
#

SAMVEL BABAYAN FREED

A1 Plus | 20:31:38 | 17-09-2004 | Politics |

On September 17 NKR President Arkadi Ghukasyan looked through the
applications on amnesty of the sentenced.

Under the decision of Arkadi Ghukasyan, NKR ex Defense Minister Samvel
Babayan and Erik Faramazyan who had attempted life of NKR President
on March 22, 2000 are among those granted amnesty.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
09/17/2004
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1) Armenian, Azeri, Turkish FMs to Meet in New York
2) Ex-Bulgarian PM Appointed New OSCE Envoy to Karabagh
3) Former Karabagh Army Chief Released From Jail
4) Turkey Under Fire over Reform Delay
5) Putin, Saakashvili Spar at CIS Press Conference
6) First Day of School at Pilibos
7) Oshagan’s Exhibit Explores Questions of Immigrant Identity

1) Armenian, Azeri, Turkish FMs to Meet in New York

YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–A tripartite meeting will be held with the foreign
ministers of Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan on the sidelines of the United
Nations (UN) General Assembly on September 17 to discuss ways of settling the
Mountainous Karabagh conflict and Turkey`s possible contribution to those
efforts.
Azeri foreign minister Elmar Mamedyarov said in a statement prior to the
meeting that issues between Azerbaijan and Armenia, particularly the Karabagh
conflict, will be raised during the talks.
Turkey`s possible contribution to the settlement of the conflict would
also be
taken up at the trilateral summit, Mamedyarov said, but he did not elaborate.
Turkish officials declined to give details of the planned meeting’s agenda.
The foreign ministers of the three countries had earlier agreed to meet once
again to discuss the issue at a previous foreign ministerial meeting held
during a NATO summit at the end of June in Istanbul.

2) Ex-Bulgarian PM Appointed New OSCE Envoy to Karabagh

VIENNA (Armenpress)–Former Bulgarian prime minister, Philip Dimitrov, was
appointed special OSCE representative to the Mountainous Karabagh conflict on
September 16.
Several days prior to this appointment, another former top Bulgarian
official, ex-president Petar Stoyanov, was appointed OSCE special
representative to deal with the conflict between Moldova and its splinter
region of Transdniester.

3) Former Karabagh Army Chief Released From Jail

STEPANAKERT (RFE-RL)–Samvel Babayan, the controversial former commander of
Mountainous Karabagh’s army, was pardoned and set free on Friday more than
four
years after being imprisoned on charges of plotting to assassinate the
president of the Armenian-populated republic, Arkady Ghukasian.
An official in the Karabagh government said that Babayan, 39, was in a group
of local convicts who were given an amnesty by a presidential decree. The
official added that the amnesty granted to the once powerful general is a
“partial” one, meaning that he will be on a one-year probation.
He is legally barred from holding a senior government post in Karabagh for
the
next five years.
A former car mechanic, Babayan became the commander of the Karabagh Armenian
army from 1991-1994 during its war with Azerbaijan.
Babayan lost power in late 1999 after his defeat in a bitter power struggle
with Ghukasian. He was arrested in March 2000 just hours after an attempt on
the life of the Karabagh president and was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment
a year for masterminding the plot. Also sentenced were the two men who
confessed to seriously wounding Ghukasian in a late-night ambush in
Stepanakert.
It is not yet clear who initiated Babayan’s sudden release from a fortress
jail in the Karabagh town of Shushi. Kocharian public hinted at the
possibility
of a pardon in November 2001. But Ghukasian has until now argued that Babayan
does not qualify for an amnesty because he has not admitted his guilt.

4) Turkey Under Fire over Reform Delay

ANKARA (Reuters)–Turkey’s ruling party has came under fire from the European
Commission over a decision to delay penal code reforms because of a row over
its plans to criminalize adultery.
The postponement, personally ordered by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan,
rattled
Turkish financial markets and sparked incredulity among Ankara’s diplomatic
community.
Leaders of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) discussed the problem
behind closed doors, but it seemed inevitable that parliament would not now
approve the reform package before the Commission’s progress report on Turkey,
due on October 6.
“Just when things were going so well for them they seem to have shot
themselves in both feet,” said one EU diplomat on Friday.
The AKP, which has roots in political Islam, withdrew the draft penal code
late on Thursday after its drive to include the adultery ban was stymied by
the
center-left opposition.
The proposal to jail cheating spouses had outraged women’s rights groups and
Turkish liberals and alarmed the EU. Earlier in the week the AKP had appeared
to shelve the plans, only to try to revive them after Erdogan’s return from a
foreign trip.
In Brussels, spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori said the Commission was
concerned.
“We understand this delay is due to attempts … to reintroduce adultery as a
criminal offense,” he said. “Such provisions would certainly cast doubts on
the
direction of Turkey’s reform efforts and would risk complicating Turkey’s
European prospects.”
Asked on his way to the mosque on Friday whether Erdogan’s party might still
reinsert the adultery ban into the penal code draft, AKP lawmaker Dengir Mir
Mehmet Firat said: “There is no such decision at the moment.” He made no
further comment.

DECEMBER DECISION

The October 6 report will form the basis of a decision in December by the 25
EU leaders on whether to open long-delayed entry talks with Turkey, a Muslim
country of 70 million people.
Financial markets are nervous that prolonged political wrangling could damage
Turkey’s EU prospects.
Turkish shares were down 1.6 percent to 21,356.55 points in afternoon trade
and the lira weakened against the dollar on the uncertainty.
“This (delay) is bad news for Turkey’s EU accession bid…This increases the
chances that the Commission will attach strings to any date they might give to
begin negotiations,” said Tim Ash, an economist at Bear Stearns International.
Columnist Murat Yetkin of the liberal daily Radikal said Erdogan was trying
not to upset the AKP’s mostly pious and conservative voters.
The EU diplomat said Erdogan had shown in the past–for example in tussles
with Turkey’s powerful secular establishment over religious schools–that he
knew when to back down.
“But this time he does not seem to realize how much ammunition he is handing
to opponents of Turkey’s EU bid,” he said. European public opinion remains
very
wary about admitting the large, relatively poor Muslim country into a wealthy
club whose religious heritage is predominantly Christian.
But it was not all bad news for Turkey.
Incoming European Commission president Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said in a
paper published on Friday that “the ongoing process of reform in the political
and civil life of Turkey is welcomed”.

5) Putin, Saakashvili Spar at CIS Press Conference

TBILISI (Civil Georgia/Interfax)–While speaking at a news briefing in the
Kazakh capital, Astana, President Mikhail Saakashvili said that restoration of
the railway link between Russia and breakaway Abkhazia was inadmissible, while
Russian President Putin said that the reopening of the rail link was agreed
with the Georgian side.
Both Presidents were speaking at a joint news briefing of the leaders of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) held in Astana on September 16.
Vladimir Putin said the resumption of the Sokhumi-Moscow railway link was
agreed during the talks in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on March 6-7,
2003 between him and Georgia’s ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze.
“We agreed over simultaneous return of IDPs to Abkhazia and resumption of the
railway link. The return of internally displaced persons is underway. Over
50-60 thousand refugees have already returned to the Gali district [breakaway
Abkhazia],” President Putin said.
However, the Georgian President said that those Georgian displaced persons
who
have already returned to the Gali district of Abkhazia “have no normal
conditions to live” as well as no security guarantees.
Saakashvili stressed the importance of resolving the problem of refugees.
“Three-hundred thousand Georgian citizens, who are ethnic Georgians, were
expelled [from Abkhazia] earlier, and some of them have returned to the Gali
district today actually as slaves. They are being subjected to terror,”
Saakashvili said.
“We are ready to discuss all current issues. Russia can and should play a
positive role in settlement of post-Soviet conflicts. It is in Russia’s
interests as well,” Saakashvili said.
Putin has said he is convinced that all disagreements between Russia and
Georgia should be resolved in a way that would meet the interests of all
parties concerned.
“An economic blockade, not to mention military pressure, do not result in
resolving problems. This is not a road that leads to Church,” Putin said,
rephrasing a quote from a film by prominent Georgian moviemaker Tengiz
Abuladze, which was extremely popular in the USSR in the late 1980s.
Relations between Russia and Georgia have deteriorated as of late. Georgian
parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze recently described Moscow’s policy
towards Georgia as hostile “because Russia is aiding Abkhaz and South Ossetian
separatists.”
Meanwhile, high-ranking Russian officials have repeatedly said Russia favors
Georgia’s territorial integrity and called on Tbilisi to settle the
problems of
relations with Tskhinvali and Sukhumi via a peaceful dialogue.

6) First Day of School at Pilibos

–35 years of Service to the Community

HOLLYWOOD–On September 7, another chapter opened in the history of Rose and
Alex Pilibos Armenian school. For the 35th time in its history, the school
welcomed students and faculty members to the new school year. Pride and joy
could be seen on the face of each student entering the gates of the school.
Friends, who had been temporarily separated by the months of summer, tightly
embraced each other and shared their stories. New students were awestruck not
only by the campus and its ark library and gymnasium complex, but also by the
warmth and hospitality of the Pilibos family.
Clinging to their parents and refusing to enter the halls of Kindergarten,
the
younger ones admittedly did not share the same joy. Some adamantly refused to
let go of their parents. Others, comforted by the calm and kindness of their
kindergarten teachers, relented, bid farewell, and embarked on the new journey
that is the school year.
After welcoming students and parents, Dean of students Charles Loussararian
invited Reverend father Viken Vassilian to lead the opening prayer. Student
Council president Ara Thomassian, led the pledges and gave a heartfelt welcome
to students. On behalf of Archbishop Mardirossian and the Prelacy, the Very
Reverend Vruyr Demirdjian, addressed students. A long time Pilibos family
friend and community supporter, Senior Lead officer of the Los Angeles Police
Department, Dikran Melkonian, addressed the importance of education and
student
activities in the development of one’s academic and social life. Principal
Viken Yacoubian, in his welcoming address, passed along his words of advice to
the student body, and thanked those who have tirelessly supported the school
and have been instrumental in its growth and expansion. He thanked the members
of the Finance and Education committees and all those who have had their
positive input in the development and enhancement of the school.
After the brief program, students were directed to their respective
homerooms,
where they spent the entire day settling in and orienting themselves to their
new teachers and classes.

7) Oshagan’s Exhibit Explores Questions of Immigrant Identity

>>From family retreats at Big Bear Lake, inmates in state prison in Blythe, and
church services in Pasadena, to demonstrations on the streets of East
Hollywood, a youth party in Studio City, a drug-rehab center in Palmdale,
and a
convalescent home in Eagle Rock, Ara Oshagan’s exhibit Traces of Identity: An
Insider’s View into LA’s Armenian Community 2000-2004, brings together the
strands of a diverse and vibrant Armenian presence across the breath of the
greater Los Angeles area. Though the works represent four years of work by
Oshagan with Armenians, they, nevertheless, addresses issues of identity and
displacement common to many immigrant communities.
The exhibit runs from September 24, to December 31, at the Los Angeles
Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. The opening reception is slated for
September 26, 2:00 to 5:00pm.
Documentary in nature, the 40 large-format black-and-white photographs in the
exhibit explore questions of immigrant and Armenian identity from a
multiplicity of anglesthe religious, familial, political, as well as from the
fringes of society and alternative lifestyles. Traces of Identity, sponsored
by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern
California and partially funded by grants from the California Council for the
Humanities and the Ignatius Foundation, is the first such photographic project
about Armenians in Los Angeles to be exhibited publicly.
“Armenians are an extremely diverse community in Los Angeles, although they
are united in the common tragedy of the 1915 genocide,” says project director,
Donald E. Miller. “Currently, Los Angeles is the largest concentration of
Armenians living outside the Republic of Armenia. Traces of Identity captures
both the vitality and complexity of this community and powerfully raises the
question, ‘What does it mean to be Armenian in the 21st century?’ ”
Oshagan’s photos are images of everyday life with a deep sense of
intimacy. “I
know almost everyone I photographif not personally, then through a familial or
community connection,” says the Beirut-born photographer. “This allows me a
unique portal into their lives and a shared intimacy.”
“Everything is about the relationships Ara creates with the people he
photographs,” says curator Charlie Hachadourian. “In that space, in that
tension that he shares with his subjects, is the ungraspable, ever-evolving
identity of the Armenians in LA. It is always present, that commonality of
sharing, the history, those traces that allow us to see ourselves as a
community, as a collective. Ara is constantly asking: how do we delineate our
identity as Armenians, how do we perpetually reinvent ourselves as a unique
ethno-specific component of a multifaceted and vast whole.”
As an insider to the community he documents, Oshagan’s work is ultimately a
well-polished mirrora multi-layered self-reflection used to explore questions
of being and identity. Sometimes fluid, sometimes truncated, Oshagan’s
photographs carefully balance the questions asked and answered in each image.
The answers he offers, finally, are questions: “Who am I? How do we define
ourselves as Armenians? Where do we stop and the others begin?”

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