The Economist
August 21, 2004
U.S. Edition

A matter of Russian honour; Russia

Four unresolved conflicts in the ex-Soviet republics are a festering
sore

Vladimir Putin should solve rather than stoke regional conflicts

AFTER a humiliating decline as a world power, Russia is working hard
to regain respect and authority. That is a fair, even praiseworthy
aim. But to achieve it, Russia must respect other countries too,
including places once ruled from Moscow. It will prosper more with
friendly, confident countries around it – not weak, frustrated ones.
Russia understands that, but often seems incapable of showing it.

By offering unconditional support to rebel regimes in the Georgian
provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia dishonours itself and
destabilises its neighbourhood (see page 35). Since South Ossetia
broke away from Georgia 12 years ago, it has degenerated into a
smugglers’ paradise. Russian soldiers prop up a sleazy regime that
peddles vodka and arms. Moves by Georgia to cut this illegal trade
have led to a violent summer. Heavier fighting, and open Russian
intervention, are a risk.

The crisis needs delicate handling, but the fundamentals are simple.
South Ossetia is not a viable state. It lives on crime. Its
government needs to be closed down as part of a generous settlement
which Georgia now offers. Abkhazia, Georgia’s other breakaway
province, is a tougher problem, and its local government even less
legitimate – in that it speaks for even fewer of the region’s lawful
residents – than South Ossetia’s.

Of the two places, Abkhazia has more claim to separateness – and it was
the scene, in 1992-93, of a war where both sides fought dirty. Any
settlement must include some deal for Georgians who fled Abkhazia;
but only a limited right of return may be possible – and not straight
away. On the positive side, Georgia wants to talk, and will offer
Abkhazia any arrangement short of independence. But by underwriting
the separatists, Russia is holding up such a solution.

Faced with this, America and Europe should give more help to
Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili, whose openness to ethnic co-existence
and western values make him the region’s most promising leader for
decades; the governments of the West should steady his hand while
affirming his choices.

They should also look beyond Georgia, to other “frozen conflicts” in
the region. One is in Moldova, where another rebel statelet,
Transdniestria, lives on smuggling and Russian guns. Then there is a
far bigger stand-off: over Nagorno-Karabakh and its environs, where a
decade ago Armenians broke free from Azerbaijan and expelled local
Azeris. That logjam has other causes besides Russian meddling – but it
would be easier to shift if Russia worked constructively with the
West.

All these conflicts destabilise countries on the new borders of NATO
and the European Union. The four Russian-backed statelets at the
heart of these disputes have something in common: they have no legal
existence, and can easily serve as a free-for-all for illegal
activity of every kind.

That should be a worry for Russia too. If it sponsors adventurism and
racketeering in Georgia and Moldova, that is partly because its
policy there has been captured by crooks. The West should take its
worries to the top, putting it to Vladimir Putin in plain language.
Will the president continue backing separatist regimes that live on
smuggling? Is a miserable bit of local power worth the harm done to
Russia’s name as a responsible state? Of course it is not. But only
when Mr Putin takes a stand will the behaviour of more lowly Russians
change. And he will do so only if other countries persuade him that
his reputation, and that of Russia, are at stake.

DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 20, 2004, Friday

US MILITARY BASES WILL APPEAR IN AZERBAIJAN

SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 18, 2004, p. 4

by Rauf Mirkadyrov, Igor Plugatarev

Baku is making preparations for the US troops that will turn up in
Azerbaijan this autumn within the framework of re-deployment of
American troops abroad currently under way.

According to what information this newspaper has compiled, Azerbaijan
and the United States came to an agreement on deployment of an
American mobile contingent in this country during the recent visit of
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Before that, US AF General
Charles Ward, US Second-in-Command in Europe, spared neither time nor
effort to condition official Baku into acceptance of American
military presence. Ward made two visits to Azerbaijan in 2004. He
made another statement on American military presence in countries of
the southern part of the Caucasus the other day. Addressing a special
meeting at the US Senate in Washington, Ward said, “Georgia,
Azerbaijan, and Armenia are recognized now as the new geopolitical
edge due to the Caspian oil, threats of terrorism, illegal arms
deals, and traffic.” The matter concerns “strategic military
partnership” with countries of the region even though “the United
States does not intend to establish a permanent base there.” Ward
said that American servicemen in Azerbaijan will patrol the Baku –
Tbilisi – Dzheikhan pipeline and ensure its security. Proving himself
a smooth talker, Ward promptly avoided a collision with the law on
national security recently adopted in Azerbaijan which bans
establishment of foreign military bases on the territory of the
country. State officials and the military in Baku and Washington take
care not to call the US troops about to appear in Azerbaijan a
military base. The latter are called “provisionally deployed mobile
forces”. In the meantime, some Azerbaijani officials and politicians
do on denying the fact that some US troops are getting ready to move
into Azerbaijan. Deputy Chairman of the Parliament Ziyafet Askerov
told INTERFAX – Azerbaijan yesterday that his country does not plan
to have any foreign troops on its territory. Foreign Minister Elmar
Mamedjarov categorically denounced the very idea of establishment of
US military bases in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani military expert Dzhasur Mamedov says that American
specialists have already examined airfields located in Kyurdamir and
in the settlements of Nasosny and Gala. “More than that, the military
base in Kyurdamir is fully ready for the Americans now. The runways
there were repaired recently. The cantonment was modernized and
upgraded to meet NATO standards,” said Mamedov. “The Kyurdamir base
is conveniently situated. It is right in the center of the country.
>From there, it is possible to instantly respond to what happens along
the Baku – Dzheikhan pipeline and even control the territory of
Iran.”

Mamedov says that some of these airfields (Kyurdamir and Nasosny) can
even receive heavy transports of Ruslan type. TRML-3D mobile radars
with the range of 200 km are to be installed in Sanchagal near Baku
where the Baku – Dzheikhan pipeline terminal is located.

Last week, Rumsfeld visited Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Russian military
experts await the reports on deployment of a mobile American
contingent in Ukraine as well. General Vladimir Dvorkin of the
Institute of Global Economics and International Relations is
convinced that “it is to early yet to draw conclusions because there
is no saying at this point what troops of what strength and arms will
be deployed in Azerbaijan and Ukraine.” “In any case, I do not think
that the matter concerns any major American plans with regard to
these countries,” said Dvorkin. “First, deployment of large garrisons
there is not expedient from the military point of view. Second, there
is the European Arms Limitation Treaty. On the other hand, it goes
without saying that Baku and Kiev would not mind appearance of US
troops on the territories from the political point of view. Foreign
military bases mean additional jobs for the locals and a steady
income.”

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 20, 2004, Friday

BAKU NEEDS HELP FROM MOSCOW

SOURCE: Vremya Novostei, August 18, 2004, p. 5

by Shakhin Abbasov

VISIT OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF AZERBAIJAN TO MOSCOW CENTERED AROUND
RUSSIA’S PARTICIPATION IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Eldar Mamedjarov came to Moscow with a
three-day official visit, yesterday. This is Mamedjarov’s first visit
to Russia in the capacity of the foreign minister. The visitor and
his Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov will discuss the war on
terrorism and problems of the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
Mamedjarov said before leaving for Moscow that “the central issue on
the agenda concerns Russia’s role as a mediator and chairman of the
OSCE Minsk Group in settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”
“This is a matter of importance for us,” Mamedjarov said.

The talks in Moscow are taking place against the background of active
Russian-Azerbaijan contacts. Five prominent Russian politicians
visited Baku in the last three months – ex-premiers Yevgeny Primakov,
Sergei Stepashin, and Viktor Chernomyrdin, CIS Executive Secretary
Vladimir Rushailo, and Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov.

Some discords have been already settled. The accord signed in 2002
divided the Caspian Sea into national sectors of Russia, Azerbaijan,
and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan joined construction of a railroad from
Russia to Iran and to the Persian Gulf via Azerbaijan.

In 2002, Azerbaijan made an important step in Moscow’s direction when
it leased Russia the Gabala radar installation. Azerbaijani parties
of the opposition and organizations of environmentalists still
maintain that the radar is harmful to the population of nearby areas.
The day before yesterday, PR Department of the Russian Space Force
found itself compelled to announce that the effect the radar has on
the population and environment does not exceed the established norms.
In fact, demands to sanitary norms in the USSR were stiffer than
anywhere else in the world. In any case, the final conclusion will be
drawn by specialists.

Political scientist Rasim Musarbekov maintains that “the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is like a time bomb” that jeopardizes
the otherwise good relations between Baku and Moscow. Mamedjarov’s
visit to Moscow is taking place against the background of
deterioration of the situation in Georgia. In Azerbaijan itself, not
one public statement of President Ilham Aliyev in the last twelve
years failed to boil down to the threats to resume hostilities and to
criticism of the OSCE Minsk Group. When a military exercise was run
in Nagorno-Karabakh in early August (participation of the Armenian
army in it was not even denied), Mamedjarov even went so far as to
question expediency of continuation of negotiations within the
framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Some specialists do not rule out the possibility that official Baku
may take radical steps to restore territorial integrity of the
country, simultaneously with analogous actions on the part of Tbilisi
against runaway autonomies. “Mamedjarov on his visit to Moscow will
try to gauge the readiness of the Kremlin to put Yerevan under
pressure so as to make it more docile in the talks,” Musarbekov
explained. The United States is another key member of the OSCE Minsk
Group, but the forthcoming presidential election in this country have
persuaded the US Administration not to grate the powerful Armenian
diaspora without a compelling reason.

On August 20, President of Russia Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet
with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharjan in Sochi. It is clear
that the course and the tone of conversation will take into account
the outcome of Lavrov’s negotiations with Mamedjarov that will have
ended by then.

Unless Baku secured Moscow support, Azerbaijan may begin buying arms.
Sources in the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan say that Baku is
already negotiating the matter with Pakistan and Ukraine. “These arms
deals will radically change the military parity between Azerbaijan
and Armenia,” Musarbekov said.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 20, 2004, Friday

VLADIMIR FEDOROV REPLACED THE HEAD OF THE BORDER GUARDS OF THE URALS
MILITARY DISTRICT MIKHAIL OGANESYAN

The Major-General Vladimir Fedorov was appointed the head of the
regional border administration of FSB of the Urals Federal district.
The appropriate decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin. The
former head of the Urals border guards Mikhail Oganesyan left for
Armenia. Journalists do not know the reasons for this yet. “He left
for the other country and does not work in the FSB now” – announced
the press service of the administration. The new head of the border
administration Vladimir Fedorov started his service in 1969 as a
soldier. He commanded border troops in the Caucasus, in the Pacific
Ocean and in Siberia. (…)

Source: UralPolit.Ru, August 18, 2004

In the Shadow of Moscow

Armenia Rebuilt by its Diaspora

Le Monde diplomatique
January 2004

By Vicken Cheterian

If you had been in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, last summer, you
wouldn’t have been able to visit any museums, since they were shut for
restoration; city streets and pavements were closed while being
rebuilt. Thanks to a generous donation from the US-Armenian
billionaire, Kirk Kerkorian, the city has been given a new look. Since
2001 Ker kor ian, owner of MGM studios in Hollywood and hotels in Las
Vegas, has allocated $170m for roads and housing in this vulnerable
earthquake region. Money has been lent to small businesses and to
provide employment for 20,000 people. The sum is a third of the annual
national budget.

Gerard Cafesjian, another US-Armenian, is spending $25m to renovate
the Cascade, a complex of stairways and workshops linking central
Yerevan with the Monument district, where he plans to build a modern
art museum (1). The diaspora is starting to return to Armenia, and its
activities make a difference. The population of Armenia is 3.8 million
but there are twice that many in the diaspora, with major
concentrations in Russia, the US, Georgia, France, Iran and
Lebanon. After the earthquake of 1988, which killed more than 25,000
and destroyed a third of the industrial potential, the diaspora sent
immediate massive aid. In the past two years investments have replaced
aid, supporting economic activities from software companies to hi-tech
medicine.

Politically, relations between Armenia and its diaspora are
complex. Traditional political parties from the diaspora have
influence in the country, for example the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (Tashnaktsoutyun) and the Liberal Democratic party
(Ramgavars), which have branches and media. But there are major
divergences and misunderstandings.

In 1988, at the beginning of the popular movement in Armenia, the
diaspora parties called for calm, in tacit support for the Soviet
authorities. With their traditional fear of their Turkish neighbour,
the Armenian parties thought that the weakening of the Soviet
(Russian) power in Armenia would expose the country to a Turkish
threat.

After the Soviet collapse, Armenians from Marseille, Cairo or Boston
came to Armenia and suffered from culture shock. They wanted to invest
but did not understand the subtleties of Soviet bureaucracy, the new
rules of a wild market economy, or the corruption or rela tivity of
the laws. Many lost their investments within months. The
disappointment was so great that some started talking of taking refuge
elsewhere. To make matters worse, the first president, Levon
Ter-Petrossian, did not appreciate the presence of organised diaspora
organisations in Armenia. In December 1994 a number of Tashnak
activists were arrested, their media closed and party activities
abolished. With Robert Kocharian’s accession in 1999, relations
improved: the activists were released and the Tashnaktsoutyun became a
junior partner in the government. It now has three ministers.

To change things, the Armenian state organised two major conferences
in 1999 and 2002, inviting the diaspora to invest. The current foreign
minister, Vartan Oskanian, born in Syria and US-educated, played a key
role in both (2). A number of organisations actively lobby for the
Armenian cause, increasing the importance of this tiny nation
internationally. The Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian
National Committee of America, two powerful lobby groups in
Washington, are struggling for the recognition of the genocide of 1915
and for a favourable US policy towards Armenia.

Recently Aram Abrahamian, an Armenian-Russian oligarch, launched the
World Organisation of Armenians with the direct blessing of President
Vladimir Putin of Russia. In Yerevan they fear this is another
manoeuvre by the Kremlin to increase its influence, not just on
Armenia, but on worldwide Armenian communities. Other analysts think
that, in this period of Duma elections, Putin is interested in winning
the favours of 2.5 million Russian citizens of Armenian origin (3).

The enormous effort by the diaspora to support Armenia has taken funds
away from its community organisation just as its identity was starting
to change under pressure from new migration trends and in a decade of
globalisation. This has weakened traditional Armenian community
structures, such as the parties, church and schools (4). Though the
overall influence of the diaspora is increasing in Armenia, its impact
on political, social and economic decision-making remains limited.

Vicken Cheterian is a journalist in Yerevan.

NOTES

(1) See

(2) The Armenian foreign ministry and its policy were influenced by
the diaspora. The first foreign minister was US-Armenian Raffi
Hovannesian, son of the famous historian Richard Hovannesian. After
his resignation in 1992, foreign policy was mainly the domain of the
presidential adviser, political scientist Gerard Libaridian, born in
Lebanon and later a US resident.

(3) See Sophie Lambroschini, “Russia: Putin Plays To Armenian
Diaspora, But For What Purpose?” RFE/RL, Prague, 13 October 2003.

(4) There are 390 Armenian schools outside Armenia, according to
ArmenPress, Yerevan, 20 November 2003.

The View from Tehran Avenue

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC 25 YEARS ON

Le Monde diplomatique
February 2004

By Wendy Kristianasen

Iranians might be going to the polls to cast their votes in
parliamentary elections on February 20. But how many of Tehran’s young
voters will take part? The feeling in the city is one of alienation.
Disenchantment with the political system is complete.

Noushin is 22 and a journalist with a cool culture e-magazine, Tehran
Avenue; she was 16 when Mohammad Khatami became president on 22 May
1997, swept into office by 20m of the 30m votes cast by an electorate
of 33m. His dovvom-e khordad reform movement was premised on civil
society, rule of law and freedom of expression. During his campaign he
had spoken of the particular need to meet the aspirations of youth and
women. The reformists’ victory was repeated in the municipal and
parliamentary elections of 1999 and 2000, and in Khatami’s re-election
in June 2001with more than 77% of the votes.

But for Tehran’s youth nothing really changed. Noushin says: “This
regime has been able to play on people’s vulnerabilities like
religion, fear of God, superstition. In my parents’ day some people
liked the idea of going back to tradition, but most felt they’d got
more than they’d bargained for. Growing up, we saw our parents’
reactions to all this and became even more confused than they were
about what’s right and wrong. People began to reject politics as a big
lie.

“And what was new in 1997 got boring because nothing changed. I grew
up with some interest in politics. But everyone younger than me is
completely uninterested and blames the Islamic Republic. We’ve all
become diplomats: you play by the rules to get things done.”

Before the 1990s only a tiny minority, those who were able to study
abroad, had any contact with the West. Then came satellite dishes and
the internet. The West gushed in, filling the young with new
impressions. Noushin says: “America is a symbol of freedom. Everyone
wants to go and live there, or just to go there and have fun. It’s a
mixture of people from different backgrounds and its ruling system
isn’t imposed on you. And people are more accepting there than they
are in Europe, where we feel like strangers.” The Iranian regime’s
views on the United States have made it even more an object of desire.

What about daily life? On the street the coffee shop is the most
important venue where boys and girls can meet openly outside the home,
in groups or couples. “That’s only in Tehran,” says Behrang
gloomily. He failed to get into Tehran University and is pursuing his
veterinary studies in Tabriz (1). Tehran’s revolutionary
law-enforcers, such as the basiji, have lightened up over the past two
years. Boys who want to be cool wear their hair long; girls push the
Islamic dress code to the limit: a scarf, a tunic (manteau) over
trousers. The approach is everything – chadors may be black, but black
is also the preferred colour for girls who like to wear their tunics
short and tight. Near the centre of town, in Motahari Avenue, I
spotted one in highestt of high heeled bright orange shoes, orange
handbag, minimal orange scarf and the tightest, shortest manteau,
barely covering her bottom. With bright orange lips to match. A
defiant statement of self.

Four boys were playing guitars in Laleh park that sunny winter
Friday. Close by, a girl was gliding, exquisitely, on roller blades:
Karina, 22, Armenian, had studied accountancy at a technical college
and now had an office job. She wore a short, tight manteau and a
brilliant blue scarf, so skimpy that her bright red curls tumbled from
under it nearly to her waist. What about the basiji? “It’s OK in the
park; there’s just the park police. Outside the park Muslim girls get
away with much skimpier clothes than we do. Life’s boring here:
nothing to do, nowhere to go. I don’t like the cinema: it’s full of
films about real life, and I have enough of that already.”

Nearby young people sat in groups round tables, the girls together,
facing the boys. Elsewhere boys and girls were quietly holding hands
on park benches. The real fun in Tehran is at the disco parties in
homes, in non-traditional households sometimes with alcohol.
Noushin’s eyes light up as she describes these: “They’re unique:
they’re made up of strong social groups of people you really care
about; there’s an intimacy about them.” And they are safe, protected
from outside intrusion.

Maryam, 14, still a schoolgirl, loves coffee shops, pizzerias, burger
bars and disco parties. She and her friends have a vocabulary of their
own (2): cool is plus, trendy is titanic, classy is ba-class,
14-year-old girls are fenchul (finches), the police are cactus,
intelligence agents kaftar (pigeons) and so on. She especially loves
Arian, the first Iranian pop group and a commercial success story –
they have sold more than half a million copies of their two albums, on
CD and video. This sunny Persian pop music has a big novelty – girl
singers: three of them, in cream hijabs, breaking all the old rules of
segregation and opening a new space for the dreams of Iranian girls.

This commercial music is looked down upon by the supercool folk who
run TehranAvenue, who organise underground music competitions and
bring together experimental bands – pop, rock, fusion – that have
seldom performed in public. The organisers of these events know that
the authorities keep them closely in their sights but since they are
far from mainstream, they are not too worried: the more alternative
the group and the smaller the audience, the less they need
worry. TehranAvenue’s website (in Persian, and in English for the
benefit of expat second gener ation Iranians) (3) has good graphics
and often irreverent reviews of what’s on in Tehran: movies, plays,
exhibitions, events. It also carries articles: one featured a team of
Tehran women footballers, who wear black hijabs over a red strip; and
another an article on sexual needs and Aids, plus an interview with
the owner of a shop that had the novel idea of selling condoms, legal
and available, through its website.

Along with alcohol and drugs – hashish, marijuana, ecstasy, anything
you want – there is sex. Noushin divides up Tehran’s youth into
generations: “The older ones – 23 up to 30-somethings – seem to value
the sanctity of sex as something you do for love, long-term,
serious. People under 23 live for the moment and hold nothing sacred,
not even sex. It’s just an event, something tem porary. And because
all these kids have grown up together, virginity isn’t so important
any more.”

But for the mid-20s-up age group, once they form serious
relationships, there are social problems. Shirin, 24, a successful
photographer, explains: “You can go to the cinema and the coffee shop,
but you can’t go away on a trip with your boyfriend or take him home
to your parents. So you have to get married.” Iran has an easy system
of temporary marriage, but this is frowned on. So she and her
boyfriend married, though they can’t afford a home, because “marriage
is the licence to live in this country. Our identity still revolves
around the family: it’s not just our parents, it’s our extended
families.”

Shahrzad, 25, is from Shiraz but she works in Tehran in
advertising. She has a different problem. She is one of the few
unmarried girls to live on her own and have her own flat. “It’s
tough,” she says. “My neighbours are always on the look-out for my
comings and goings; they’re like self-appointed relations.”

All this is confirmed by Dr Mohammad Sanati, a professor of psychiatry
at Tehran University who runs 25 therapy groups of 12-15 people each,
many of them young. He explains that less than half now care about
politics, while only a fraction are very angry. One of the angry
brigade, Yassin, was a member of the student union at university until
he got expelled. He says: “Politics isn’t seen as serious any more as
it was when Khatami came to power: only 10% of students count
themselves as radical these days.”

Dr Sanati believes that many of today’s young are still religious. All
the young agree that religion exists in every family, to different
degrees, mainly as tradition. But in the same way that the young have
rejected their parents’ values system, many of those that opt for
religion do so on their own entirely new terms. A young man might make
a pilgrimage to Mashad wearing a gold chain around his neck, defying
the rule that men only wear silver. There is interest in learning from
other cultures and setting a private spiritual agenda – when and how
to pray or fast.

Though Tehran’s young have abandoned trad itional values and Islamic
politics, they may perhaps have retained God.

NOTES

(1) In 2003 the percentage of girls entering into university in Iran
reached more than 62%.

(2) Published in a paperback dictionary by Nashre Markaz, Tehran,
2003.

(3)

Original text in English

The German Exodus

DEBATE OVER COMMEMORATION OF MILLIONS EXPELLED FROM LOST TERRITORIES

Le Monde diplomatique
March 2004

By Brigitte Pätzold

Should there be a centre to commemorate the Germans expelled from
Czechoslovakia and Poland after the second world war? And if this
buried collective memory is to be revived, where should the centre be
located – in Berlin, Wroclaw, Geneva, Strasbourg or Stockholm? There
is nothing accidental about this debate, which has been the focus of
German public opinion for some time now; 60 years on, Germany wants to
normalise its relations, particu larly with its East European
neighbours who will join the European Union in May.

For years Germans seemed paralysed by their sufferings under
bombardment and during the exodus towards the end of the war and
after. Now, with the third and fourth generations to be born since
then and with the deaths of so many witnesses to the events, the
silence has been broken. Writers have taken the lead in the
debate. Günter Grass, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, was
the first to break the taboo. He is a native of Danzig, a keen Social
Democrat and close companion of Willy Brandt, and unlikely to minimise
Nazi crimes (1). He dealt with the exodus in Crabwalk (2), the story
of the vessel Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed by a Soviet
submarine on 30 January 1945; 9,000 refugees fleeing the Red Army died
in the icy Baltic.

Does this book mark a change of heart by Grass, who has always been
convinced that the lost territories were the price Germany had to pay
for starting two world wars? Not really. Grass blames himself for not
tackling German sufferings earlier and says: “We should never have let
the right make the subject its own. People of my generation had a duty
to speak out.” The book has sold 400,000 copies in weeks.

Jörg Friedrich’s The Fire (3), which has had a similar shock effect,
is about the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Cologne 1943-45, the
Allies’ war of fire in which 161 towns were razed and some 600,000
people killed. Friedrich, a historian who has written about German
army crimes in Russia, now brings to the public a subject previously
covered only in specialist publications. This story of the sufferings
of ordinary people produced an amazing response from readers.

Young writers are also interested in the past and its last surviving
witnesses. Tanja Dückers, 36, unwittingly chose the same subject as
Grass for a novel (4). The discovery of old letters in an attic led
her to question her uncle and aunt, who narrowly escaped the Wilhelm
Gustloff disaster. Other young authors – Christoph Amend, Stephan
Wackwitz, Reinhard Jirgl and Olaf Müller – seek their material in the
German past, their grand parents’ experiences during the war, the
exodus and the lost territories.

Hilke Lorenz, 41, interviewed war children (5). “The people I knew
didn’t talk about the war. It wasn’t the done thing. Pity was out.” So
she decided to get survivors to talk about air-raids, their fears in
underground shelters, the rape of mothers or sisters (which sometimes
they witnessed helplessly), the loss of their parents. It is hard to
talk about these things: what are their sufferings compared with those
inflicted by the “nation of butchers”?

This is the background to the debate about a centre to commemorate the
Germans expelled at the end of the war. Its location has caused
controversy. A proposal for a German centre in Berlin was made by
Erika Steinbach, joint president, with Social Democrat Peter Glotz, of
the Expellees’ Union and author of a history of her native Sudetenland
and the exodus.

Another proposal, for a European centre in Wroclaw in Poland, came
from Markus Meckel, Social Democrat member of the Bundestag and
foreign minister in the last government of the German Democratic
Republic. Supporters of this project, launched in July 2003, include
the Nobel Prize winners Grass and Imre Kertesz.

Steinbach launched her project in February 2000, when she had just
been elected president of the Union. She set up a foundation for a
centre against expulsion, to collect funds to build a centre in the
capital. At first all went well. The president, Johannes Rau, and the
minister of the interior, Otto Schily, whose parents had been
expelled, appeared to support it, and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and
foreign minister Joschka Fischer were not against it.

It was officially adopted for debate but there were many hostile
reactions, particularly in Poland and the Czech Republic. A caricature
photomontage appeared in the Polish magazine, Wprost, showing
Steinbach in SS uniform, astride Chancellor Schröder, who was depicted
as a sheep. The commentary read: “The Germans owe the Poles a billion
dollars in compensation for the crimes committed during the second
world war.” This made it seem as if the Poles still feared German
revanchism, as though the good relations based on post-war
reconciliation might collapse. Politicians criticised the
project. “Chauvinism is now the order of the day in Germany,” said
former foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, and his contemporary
counterpart, Bronislaw Geremek, considered that the Berlin project
would not contribute to reconciliation but foment hatred.

In the Czech Republic the Sudeten question still poisons the political
atmosphere. History has left painful memories here. As Prime Minister
Milos Zeman pointed out, the first expulsion was that of the Czechs by
Germans after the Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland in October 1938 and
Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939; he has described the Sudeten
Germans as Hitler’s fifth column. The violence is well-remembered,
too, from the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942 and
the reprisal massacre at the village of Lidice on 10 June 1942, to the
expulsion of most Germans from the region in 1945-46.

In 1991 President Vaclav Havel apologised, on behalf of his people,
for massacres of Germans during the expulsion, and even suggested that
former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech
nationality to reclaim their lost properties. This gesture of
reconciliation seems to belong to another age. The present Czech
government will not repeal Edvard Benes’s 1945 decrees, which provided
the legal basis for the expulsion of three million Germans accused of
collective collaboration with the Nazi regime and the confiscation of
their property. Surveys suggest that public opinion is against any
such move. In this context it is not surprising that the plan for a
centre in Berlin has been opposed on the initiative of academics Hans
Henning and Eva Hahn, who have collected Czech, Polish and German
signatures.

Faced with the obvious distrust of Germany’s eastern neighbours,
Marcus Meckel launched his resolutely European project in July
2003. He has the support of the Polish president, Aleksander
Kwasniewski, son of an expatriate, the former Czech president, Vaclav
Havel, two Polish politicians Bartoszewski and Geremek, and Czech
politicians, including former prime minister and current president of
the senate, Petr Pithart, deputy prime minister Petr Mares, and Tomas
Kafka, co-director of the Joint Czech-German fund.

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, is
among the strongest advocates of Wroclaw as the location; it is at the
junction of two expulsions, of the Germans and of the Poles from Lvov
in Ukraine. Former Czech president Havel may be in favour of
establishing the centre at Wroclaw but his successor, Vaclav Klaus,
would prefer neutral Stockholm.

For Meckel the location is not important. What he wants is to set it
in a European context and persuade the future members of Europe to
regard expulsion, forced migration and deportation as a violation of
human rights. Democrats such as Winston Churchill and Franklin
Roosevelt may have thought it acceptable to uproot whole peoples to
establish ethnically homogenous communities and achieve a stable
peace, but the sufferings of civilian populations and the rise of
nationalist movements since prove that they were wrong.

In this context, the Germans are entitled to recognition of their
sufferings. This in no way lessens their responsibility for the war
and for genocide. The object is not to record of the number of victims
on either side but to alert nations to their duty of transnational,
non-selective commemor ation, with due respect to their
differences. As Otto Schily suggests, the centre against expulsion
should not be a museum or a court of law but a living history workshop
for future Europeans.

According to Peter Glotz, to offset one crime against another, even in
the name of collective responsibility, is to return to the law of an
eye for an eye. He is prepared to give way on the question of
location, as long as work on the centre starts: “If we have to give up
the idea of Berlin so be it. But we don’t need to go to Srebrenica or
Stockholm.” For him the most urgent task is education, starting with
an exhibition in 2005 in the historical museum in Bonn on the 20th
century, the century of expulsion, from the exile of the Armenians all
the way to Kosovo in 1999, taking in the Sudeten Germans. Meckel is in
a hurry. He does not want to wait for governments, or Europe, to
decide on a centre whose location and funding are problematic; he
wants to set up a European network against expulsion, with seminars,
conferences, history workshops, competitions and bursaries.

So the debate is still open. The Polish writer Stefan Chwin points out
that there is a difference between his mother, who was expelled by the
Nazis, and the Germans expelled from Danzig/ Gdansk by the Poles: the
difference between the aggressor and the victim of aggression. (Günter
Grass has never forgotten this.) But it does not alter for either the
pain of being exiled from home.

Brigitte Pätzold is a journalist

NOTES

(1) Der Brand, Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin, 2002.

(2) Himmelskörper, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin, 2003.

(3) Kriegskinder, List Verlag, Munich, 2003.

(4) Die Vertreibung. Böhmen als Lehrstück, Ullstein Verlag, 2003.

(5) Reproduced in Der Spiegel, Berlin, 22 September 2003.

Translated by Barbara Wilson

ARMENIA TREE PROJECT
65 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
617-926-8733
[email protected]
www.armeniat ree.org

Contact: Jeffrey Masarjian

August 18, 2004

ATP to Participate in Upcoming UN DPI/NGO Conference in New York City

WATERTOWN, MA – Armenia Tree Project (ATP) has been invited to attend the 57th
Annual United Nations Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental
Organization Conference (DPI/NGO) to be held at the UN headquarters in New
York City. The conference will be held from September 8-10 and is titled
`Millennium Development Goals: Civil Society Takes Action.’

The conference will focus on the roles of NGOs as well as civil society and
governments for implementing the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
adopted by the UN assembly during its high-level millennium session in 2000.

ATP was invited to participate in the conference by the Armenian General
Benevolent Union (AGBU) in association with Rotary International and Human
Rights Committee-Peace Action.

The MDG target areas that ATP specifically focuses on in Armenia through its
multi-faceted environmental restoration efforts include poverty alleviation,
hunger reduction, sustainable development, and reversing the loss of
environmental resources through reforestation programs.

ATP has already begun implementing ambitious programs in the villages of
Aygut and Dzoravank located in the Getik River Valley aimed at restoring the
environmental integrity of the surrounding areas while jumpstarting the
local economic development of rural communities. Village residents are
provided economic incentives for fostering the growth of tree seedlings to
be transplanted in nearby decimated forests, thereby helping to reduce
poverty. ATP also provides resources to local schools for teaching
fundamentals about environmental protection and is also strengthening
communities by helping to create fruit and nut orchards, which will provide
greater food security and economic development. Mr. Masarjian will outline
these and other ways that ATP is contributing to the development of civil
society in Armenia during a panel discussion with representatives of two
other NGOs.

Conference delegates will attend five plenary sessions with UN agency, NGO,
civil society, and governmental leaders to assess the challenges associated
with meeting each of the goals by the target date, set for 2015. That same
date marks ATP’s goal to have planted 15 million trees throughout Armenia.

Since 1994, Armenia Tree Project has been dedicated to restoring,
revitalizing, and protecting Armenia’s environment, while simultaneously
alleviating the socioeconomic burdens facing its people. Thus far, over
531,000 trees have been planted and restored under ATP’s guidance throughout
Armenia. By 2006, ATP programs will have the capacity to produce and plant
over 1 million trees per year.

For more information about ATP, please visit

###

Mighty mite Ali adds to Iraq’s Olympic triumphs with boxing win

By GREG BEACHAM
.c The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – For just one evening, Najah Ali felt 10 feet
tall and unbeatable.

Iraq’s only Olympic boxer added another triumph to his war-torn
nation’s unexpected success at the Olympic on Wednesday, beating North
Korea’s Kwak Hyok Ju 21-7 to advance to the second round in the light
flyweight bracket.

Ali, the games’ smallest fighter at 1.5 meters (4-foot-11) and 48 kg
(106 pounds), outslugged his taller opponent from the start, peppering
the Korean with jabs and combinations. With his nation’s flag on his
chest and his American coach’s chosen slogan – “Iraq Is Back” –
across his back, Ali punched, feinted and danced across the ring for
four impressive rounds.

When it was over, Ali pumped his fist over his head and jumped for joy
while a handful of flag-waving Iraq fans screamed and chanted his
name. Just reaching the Olympics was a triumph – but winning was
unimaginably better.

“It’s a victory for Iraq and for Iraqis all over the world,” said
Ali, who looks much younger than his 24 years. “I’m a symbol for a
lot of people looking for a good life. I’m a symbol for freedom.”

Ali’s victory arrived on the heels of the Iraqi soccer team’s wins
over Portugal and Costa Rica. The Olympics already have been
improbably successful for a nation that was banned from competition
last year by the IOC.

After the fight, Ali received several kisses from Maurice “Termite”
Watkins, a Texan who went to Iraq last year to provide pest control
for the U.S. Army – and wound up coaching 21 Iraqi fighters. Termite
and his mighty mite pursued their dream from the Philippines to
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – and for four rounds in Athens, everything
came together.

“I felt as good as a man can feel,” Watkins said. “Whether he wins
another fight or not, he’s a winner now in the Olympics.”

Ehad Hussain, the Iraqi press attache, was unsure of his nation’s
total number of Olympic boxing victories, but Iraq has never medaled.

“How can I express my feelings?” Hussain said. “It’s a wonderful
thing for the people of Iraq. Just a wonderful thing.”

The Iraqi boxing program largely was ignored when Uday Hussein ran the
nation’s sports programs – and that might have been a lucky break for
the boxers. Ali has seen the torture and abuse of athletes, mostly
soccer players, who didn’t live up to Hussein’s standards.

Ali, a college graduate who was working in a furniture factory before
joining the team, was introduced to boxing by his father, a former
Iraqi champion.

“I’m sure he’s jumping now in front of the screen,” Ali said. “In
Iraq, everyone is jumping.”

Ali spent six weeks training with the U.S. team in Colorado earlier
this year, also making stops in Houston and Marquette, Mich., with his
colorful coach. Watkins is a raconteur and a boaster, a former
used-car salesman and lightweight boxer who took time out from
dispatching black flies and snakes to rebuild Iraq’s national team.

After training in a bombed-out Baghdad gym, Watkins led his team
around Asia in several failed attempts to qualify any fighters for the
games. When asked to choose one boxer for the IOC’s special invitation
to Athens, he selected Ali.

The fighter carried the flag in the opening ceremonies, leading Iraq’s
delegation of six individual athletes and the soccer team.

Watkins was joined in Ali’s corner by U.S. head coach Basheer
Abdullah, who agreed to help out Watkins in Ali’s corner after getting
to know the Iraqi fighter during training.

The coaches knew Ali caught an enormous break drawing Kwak as his
first-round opponent. The Korean gave perhaps the most awkward
performance of any fighter at the games, completely unable to contend
with the diminutive dynamo ducking and dodging in front of him.

“I don’t want to say anybody is easy in the Olympics, but we thanked
God we had that type of draw to get him some confidence,” Abdullah
said.

After the Olympics, Watkins believes Ali will turn pro, perhaps also
returning to Houston to work on a master’s degree in computer science.

But first, there’s the matter of another Olympic fight Saturday
against Armenia’s Aleksan Nalbandyan. Ali will be a heavy underdog –
but he has faced bigger challenges.

“If he’s right, he can beat anybody,” Watkins said. “He’s that
good.”

08/19/04 02:01 EDT

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IWF suspends five more weightlifters for failing pre-Olympics drug tests

By ALAN ROBINSON
.c The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Five weightlifters were suspended Thursday for
flunking drug tests they took before the Olympics, including two who
were pulled out just before walking to the lifting stand.

The International Weightlifting Federation said the suspended lifters
were Wafa Ammouri of Morocco, Zoltan Kecskes of Hungary, Viktor
Chislean of Moldova, Pratima Kumari Na of India and Sule Sahbaz of
Turkey – raising to 20 the number of world-class weightlifters
suspended this year.

Normally, suspensions are for two years unless the athlete is a repeat
offender. Earlier this year, 2000 Olympic champion Galabin Boevski was
banned for eight years following a second failed drug test.

Sahbaz is the most accomplished of the latest group, winning a
European championship in 2002 and finishing third in the world
championships at 77kg in 2003. He was second in the European
championships in April. Kecskes had an eighth-place finish at the 1996
Atlanta Olympics.

Ammouri and Kecskes were to have lifted Wednesday, but were suspended
just before their competitions. Kecskes was on the start list
distributed to the media less than an hour before he was to have
lifted, but he didn’t compete.

The news was welcomed by International Olympic Committee president
Jacques Rogge.

“The IOC praises the work and determination of the weightlifting
federation in its fight against doping by testing its athletes on a
systematic basis according to its rules,” he said in a statement.

The cases are the latest setback for a sport plagued by cheating
athletes in the last two Olympics, one that is threatening to
overshadow some exceptional performances on the lifting
stand. However, unlike the Sydney Games, the latest suspensions do not
involve weightlifters who have already competed or won medals.

So far, only one lifter who competed has been suspended: on Monday,
Myanmar’s Nan Aye Khine was stripped of her fourth-place finish
Saturday at 48kg after failing her test.

Embarrassed by four failed tests at the 2000 Games – three that cost
Bulgarians medals – the IWF tried to crack down on cheating earlier
this year by banning three Bulgarians well before the games began. Two
of Boevski’s Bulgarian teammates, former world champions Zlatan Vanev
and Georgi Markov, drew 18-month suspensions that barred them from
competing in Athens.

The three tampered with their doping tests nine months ago at the 2003
world championships in Vancouver by submitting urine samples that came
from the same person, the IWF said.

Eleven other weightlifters from 10 nations failed drug tests in
Vancouver, according to the IWF – including Shang Shichun, who set
three world records while winning the women’s 75kg for China. Banned
substances were found in the tests of nine men and two women.

Other 2003 medalists suspended and stripped of their medals were 69kg
silver medalist Vladislav Lukanin, Russia; 77kg silver medalist Gevorg
Davtyan, Armenia; 105 kg-plus silver medalist Artem Udachyn, Ukraine;
and 62kg bronze medalist Henadzi Aliashchuk, Belarus.

Sahbaz moved up to a bronze medal in Vancouver because Davtyan failed
his drug test.

Others who failed in Vancouver were Sanjar Kadyrbergenov,
Turkmenistan; Vladimir Popov, Moldova; Khalid A. Himdan, Iraq;
Mohammad Swara, Iraq; Dmitriy Lomakin, Kazakhstan; and Hungary’s Ilona
Danko. Danko, who finished fourth, said she took an unspecified
diuretic to speed weight loss.

In Sydney, Bulgaria’s Izabela Dragneva’s gold in the first women’s
event at the Olympics was given instead to the United States’ Tara
Nott. Nott, now known as Tara Cunningham, and Dragneva returned to
Athens but neither won medals Saturday, the first day of
competition. Dragneva was suspended for two years before being
reinstated.

Two Romanians also tested positive just before the Sydney Games, and
the day the Bulgarian drug scandal broke, two Qatar lifters who
trained in Bulgaria were scratched from the event without explanation.

Bulgaria’s entire team was temporarily banned, but was reinstated by
the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Afterward, Alan Tsagaev went on to
win a silver medal. Romania’s team was also banned by the IWF
following three failed drug tests within a year, but was allowed to
stay in the 2000 Games by paying a $50,000 fine.

Thursday’s drug suspensions came a day after Croatia’s Nikolai
Peshalov won a record-tying fourth Olympic weightlifting medal, a
bronze; Zhang Guozheng lifted China’s third weightlifting gold medal
in as many events, and Ukraine’s Natalia Skakun overcame a big deficit
to take the gold and force Belarus’ record-setting Hanna Batsiushka to
settle for silver.

Next up Thursday, China looks for more golds from double gold medalist
Zhan Xugang in a very competitive men’s 77kg weight class and
19-year-old world champion Liu Chonhong in women’s 63kg.

08/19/04 06:15 EDT