Online Armenian Newspaper
yerkir
An ARF Publication
July 29, 2004
Need for mobilizing policy
When a nation rejects and distrusts both the authorities, and parties, it
means that the nation rejects any way of political organization.
In politics authority plays the role that money does in economy. Both are
meant for state construction.
If any of these two elements loses value, it impacts social-economic,
spiritual and political lives. Given that Armenia is in a dangerous region,
these issues are still more urgent. Only reliable mechanisms in interior
system can defy the external dangers.
We nee internal discipline, rule of law, interdependence of national and
business elements and legitimacy of national understanding.
The history shows that in such situation nations need a mobilizing policy.
Mobilization is really needed, when a nation is in a crisis and its core
existence is in jeopardized. The main steps for improving the situation
imply centralization of governance, establishment of a just system of
distribution, strict control and precision of political field.

ACCORDING TO PUBLIC OPINION POLL, 72% OF NKR POPULATION TO PARTICIPATE
IN ELECTIONS OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT BODIES
STEPANAKERT, July 28 (Noyan Tapan). 46% out of 300 participants of the
public opinion poll held upon the initiative of the Journalists’ Union
of Artsakh hold the opinion that the institute of local
self-government bodies of the republic formed through elections can’t
be considered established. A large percent of the respondents thinks
that the legislation doesn’t precisely define the functions of the
supreme power bodies and communal government bodies. More than a half
of the participants of the poll is sure that the current system of
formation of local self-government bodies doesn’t correspond to
principles of democracy. 54% consider that the elections of local
self-government bodies in Artsakh aren’t fair and transparent.
Meanwhile 72% of the respondents intend to participate in the
forthcoming elections. To recap, the elections of local
self-government bodies are scheduled for August 8 and will be held in
200 NKR communities. There are 6 candidates for the post of
Stepanakert Mayor.

La Nouvelle République du Centre Ouest
29 juillet 2004
MONCONTOUR
Fête de Sainte-Radegonde
Célébrée dimanche 22 août. Mgr Rouet la présidera. Le groupe
folklorique « Sasun » d’Arménie y participera.

AZERI-RUSSIAN CONFRONTATION AT ROOT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT
YEREVAN, JULY 27. ARMINFO. A confrontation between Azerbaijan and
Russia lies at the root of the Karabakh conflict. Russia wants
Azerbaijan to capitulate, says politologist Vafa Guluzade in his
article Battle for the South Caucasus in Zerkalo.
The analysis of the events in the Caucasus gives the impression of the
US’ victory and Russia’s defeat. But since the USSR collapse Russia
has outwitted American in some crucial questions not only making
Washington dependant but also forcing it to serve its interests. One
example is the Russia-orchestrated lightning occupation of 20% of
Azerbaijan. Guluzade also accuses Russia of secret arms supplies to
Armenia.
As for the US it think that the bad peace signed by Azerbaijan will
satisfy the Armenian lobby and will guarantee stability giving America
free hand to carry out its projects. Washington thinks that even bad
peace will give Azerbaijan an advantage and the US will be able to
easily pump up oil from the Caspian Sea. Washington is wrong thinking
that Moscow wants peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “They should
understand that Russia wants Azerbaijan rather than peace.” Russia’s
fixed idea is to tear off Azerbaijan from NATO and the US and to take
hold of its energy resources. It seeks to put an end to projects like
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and therefor it is plotting a sophisticated plan
like signing of disgraceful peace by Azerbaijan. “If such agreement is
signed Azerbaijan n will never have back its territories,” says
Guluzade.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMINFO NEWS AGENCY
July 29, 2004
SEVERAL THOUSANDS OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES FROM AZERBAIJAN THREATENED
WITH RESETTLEMENT FROM MOSCOW HOSTEL
YEREVAN, JULY 28. ARMINFO. Several thousands of Armenian refugees
from Azerbaijan are threatened with resettlement from Moscow hostel
in Molodtsova street.
According to Russian Mass Media, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov instructed
that the refugees residing there since 1989 leave the building on Aug
1. The regional authorities intend to tear down the old buildings,
and the have already instructed that water and electricity supply to
these buildings be stopped on Aug 1. At the same time, according to
witnesses, representative of the local authorities apply uncivilized
methods to the residents, penetrating into their premises and
breaking and throwing the furniture out of windows. According to the
source, many of the Armenian refugees have not registered their
documents, through many of them have become Russian citizens.
Meanwhile, in his interview to the Armenian Public Television,
Armenian Ambassador to Russia Armen Smbatyan said that in this case
resettlement from illegal occupied territories is in question, he
explained that the building is accident-prone.

ARMINFO NEWS AGENCY
July 29, 2004
AZERI DM WARNS ITS SERVICEMEN AGAINST COMMUNICATING WITH THEIR
ARMENIAN COUNTERPARTS
YEREVAN, JULY 29. ARMINFO. Azeri DM is instructing its servicemen
about possible contacts with their Armenian counterparts reports
Ekho.
The Azeri participants in the NATO Rescuer/Merduer-2004 exercises in
Lithuania have been warned against communicating with Armenian
servicemen. “After the Ramil Safarov case the Azeri DM has made
relevant conclusions and has instructed its servicemen not to yield
to provocations by Armenian soldiers,” says the newspaper.
Over 2,000 servicemen are taking part in the exercises representing
Lithuania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, the US,
Croatia, Latvia, Moldova, Romania and Poland among them observers
from Luxembourg, Germany and Holland.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
July 26 2004
`One of the conflicting sides must make concessions’ – Steven Mann

The US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Steven Mann said that one of
the sides to the Upper Garabagh conflict must be ready to make
concessions. He said that the co-chairs are aware of the current
state of relations between the conflicting sides and that they
support continuation of peace talks.
`We support Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and I believe that to
resolve the conflict, first of all, one of the sides must make
concessions’, he said.
President Aliyev reiterated during his recent visit to the country’s
northern regions that Azerbaijan will make absolutely no concessions
with regard to the Upper Garabagh conflict.*

Latinos like that Teresa speaks their language
Frank Cerabino
Thursday, July 29, 2004
BOSTON — Short takes from the Democratic National Convention:
-Playing ketchup with the Cuban-American vote
Teresa Heinz Kerry was a hit with the Latino Caucus on Wednesday,
effortlessly switching from Spanish to English to Portuguese and saying shehad a new
appreciation for Cuban-Americans and their struggles, likening it to her own
young life living in a dictatorship.
“I now understand, because I remember,” she said.
“Te-re-sa! Te-re-sa!” the caucus members chanted as she left. “Viva Teresa!”
-Star of vegetarian-friendly movie meets vegan candidate
Every politician has his own celebrity, it seems. Even Dennis Kucinich. The
elfin former candidate was making the rounds Wednesday flanked by his 6-foot-6
new friend, actor James Cromwell, who is perhaps best known as the farmer in
the pig movie Babe.
“I put on a fund-raiser for him in my house in California,” Cromwell said,
explaining how he met Kucinich. “Dennis speaks to my heart.”
That’ll do, Dennis. That’ll do.
-Instead of limousine liberals, it’s cuisine liberals
The Kerry campaign has an ethnic outreach director. George Kivork is an
Armenian-American born in Syria. Kivork can almost name from memory the 17
hyphenated-American ethnic groups he is trying to rally — most of them from
European countries.
Kivork urged members of the Ethnic Caucus to drum up local support for
Kerry.
“You could travel the country in August, going to ethnic festivals,” he told
them. “The food is amazing.”
-A stronger bladder for America
Inside the FleetCenter, the official slogan is “A stronger America.” But in
the streets of Boston, strolling delegates are more likely to see the words,
“Rest rooms are for customers only.”
-Cheney behind the scenes?
Vice President Dick Cheney recently told off Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in
colorful language on the floor of the U.S. Senate. So when Leahy got his chance
to speak from the podium at the convention Wednesday night, he started out
by trying to fire back at Cheney.
Convention speakers rely on a two huge television screens that face them from
behind the Florida delegation. The words scroll as they talk, allowing the
speakers to look straight ahead, rather than down at papers on the lectern.
“If the vice president is watching, he might want to turn off his TV,” Leahy
said in his speech.
And then the TelePrompTer malfunctioned, leaving the senator to ad lib:
“Apparently, he turned off the TelePrompTer, too.”
-How quickly they forget
John Wertman, 27, of Alexandria, Va., is a volunteer at the convention. It
got him onto the floor of the convention hall earlier in the week. But
Wednesday, he didn’t have a floor pass, so he tried to barter for one.
Earlier in the week, he stood in line for three hours to get a signed copy of
former President Clinton’s autobiography, My Life.
Wertman brought the book with him to a convention hotel lobby, standing with
the book in one hand and a sign in the other: “Autographed Bill Clinton My
Life for a floor pass.”
He waited, and waited, and waited. An hour later, he was still there.
“This is tougher than I thought,” he said.
-The Medea is biased
Medea Benjamin, 51, of San Francisco, was hauled off the convention floor
Tuesday night by Boston police officers when she unfurled a banner that read
“End the Occupation of Iraq” during Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech.
Benjamin founded a women’s peace group called Code Pink.
On Wednesday, Benjamin was back at one of the convention hotels with a
similar banner.
“I wasn’t arrested,” she said. “They interrogated me for a half-hour, then
let me go.”
She had borrowed a press pass to get on the floor, she said, and had hidden
the banner when going through security. She said Kerry’s wife inspired her to
unfurl it.
“She said that a true patriot speaks truth to power,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin said she wasn’t surprised to be hauled away.
“They’ve made this convention one void of debate about the one issue that’s
so important,” she said.
Benjamin is a frequent visitor to Palm Beach County. Her father and
stepmother live in Highland Beach.
As for politics: “Like most families, we’re divided.”
-Team players
The convention has its own house band, an ensemble led by New York drummer
Steve Jordan and featuring a horn section and three singers. Many of the
convention speakers get to take the stage while the band strikes up what is known
as “play ons.” These are usually just snippets of popular songs that seem
appropriate for the speaker.
For example, Jimmy Carter walked on to Georgia on My Mind, and the Rev.
Jesse Jackson got the the gospel anthem People Get Ready.
But what does the band play for someone such as Cheryl Jacques, president of
the Human Rights Campaign?
The answer: An instrumental version of Isley Brothers’ It’s Your Thing.
It’s your thing. Do what you want to do.
-Sounds more like hold-the-mayo than hold-the-marriage
It’s hard keeping track of the alphabet soup that is all the special interest
groups at the convention. The unions are all known by their abbreviations,
and then there’s the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus, known as the
GLBT Caucus.
When U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton addressed the caucus Wednesday, she
repeatedly mixed up the acronym, calling them “my good friends of the GBLT
community.” Find this article at:
d64145bd323d007a.html

A SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE DEDICATED TO GRIGOR NAREKATSI HELD IN MOSCOW
Azg/am
29 July 2004
A scientific conference under the title “Grigor Narekatsi and medieval
spiritual culture of Armenian” was held at the Institute of Literature
after Gorky in Moscow on July 23-24. Nine scientists from the Armenian
Academy of Sciences and seven scientists from Russia participated. In
his interview to Azg Daily Avik Isahakian, Dr. of philology, noted
that for the first time in the history they attempted to view Grigor
Narekatsi in the context of medieval spiritual culture. The report of
Alexander Kudelin, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
vice-president of the institute, was singled out for the profound
knowledge of the epoch and the material itself. In her report called
“Narekatsi and the great Ukrainian enlightener Grigoris Skovoroda”
Prof. Nina Nadiarnikh tried to give a comparative analysis of the
thinkers, find the common humanitarian, progressive and other features
in the works of the two.
Olga Sazonova’s report “The thought in the Eastern Europe in the early
middle ages. Narekatsi and Hilarion” depicted Narekatsi as someone
having the first ideas of world and faith in his works.
Father Danila, Russian Orthodox priest, approached Narekatsi’s
poemfrom a modern perspective. The author of the last translation of
Narekatsiâ=80=99s poem Vladimir Mikushevich presented all difficulties
connected with the translation and shared with his encouragements of
the work.
>From Armenia there were scientists Zaven Avetisian, Knarik Davtian,
Elena Aleksanian, Levon Chukaszian, Magda Djanpoladian, Azat
Eghiazarian. The latter presented an interesting observation into the
similarities of the Armenian epos “David of Sasoun” and Narekatsi’s
poem.
All the reports proceeded from comparative literature. Avik Isahakian
in his report called “Character of the poet in Isahakian’s â=80=98Abu
Lala Mahari’ and Narekatsi’s â=80=98Mournful Songs'” presented
philosophical peculiarities and similarities that the two poets
share. The Arabian poet and Narekatsi had almost the same denying
attitude towards the world, men, love, power and other.
By the end of the conference the presidents of the two institutes
signed an agreement of mutual cooperation in the field of publishing,
postgraduate students’ exchange and in other spheres.
The Armenian community was actively involved in the conference. The
Gorky institute’s interest in Grigor Narekatsi was obvious.
By Melania Badalian

THE DAY THE MELKONIAN WAS BOMBED
Azg/am
29 July 2004
A man who lived through the bombing of the Melkonian Educational
Institute as a recently graduated pupil was in Nicosia this week to
battle for the school’ s survival.
One of Nicosia’s best-known landmarks for over 77 years and the pride
of the region’s Armenian community faces closure.
The 1926 stone building and its surrounding land of 125,000 square
meters is estimated to be worth at least CYP 40 million.
The government has placed a preservation order on the school since May
this year, ruling that “no alteration or construction be executed on
the buildings… considered to be on special architectural/
historical/ social importance.” While this may have temporarily
scuppered plans to sell off the school, its future beyond June 2005
remains uncertain.
Raffi Zinzalian had just graduated from the Melkonian and had a
university place waiting for him in Lebanon when the 1974 troubles
began. He had spentthe day before the invasion on the beaches of
Famagusta and was in the school building when the Turkish planes flew
overhead on July 20, 1974.
“We were happy because the cease-fire would begin at 3pm and then at
2.45pm we saw the Turkish jets overhead. We thought they were headed
for the radio station (Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation-CyBC) but they
circled round and we heard a deafening noise, we had been bombed,” he
said.
Zinzalian said that even his years in war-torn Lebanon could not
compare to the fear he felt on that day. Thirty years later, and now a
married father of three, he still has nightmares of the bombing.
“The roof in the dormitories was about to cave in and we couldn’t
breath. We knew we had to escape, the roof was on fire and so we ran
outside to the principal’s residence. The fire brigade was called, but
the roof had collapsed,” Zinzalian said.
The students and teachers left at the Melkonian made for the
mountains. Turkish troops had surrounded Nicosia and the only way out
was on the road to Larnaca. For 6-7 weeks communication and travel was
almost impossible and Zinzalian was able to leave the island on a
Soviet cargo ship to take up his place in Lebanon. “Two years later,
the war started there,” he said.
Following his studies, Zinzalian was employed at the Press Information
Office (PIO) as a Turkish-English translator. “I saw Makarios
(then-President, Archbishop) everyday,” he said.
Zinzalian then left for the USA to study photojournalism and media and
is now a publisher at the University of LaVerne Press and on the board
of Armenia International Magazine (AIM). He is also the president of
the Melkonian Alumni and Friends in California.
“We are all very sad that the school may be closed. All the alumni I
have spoken to, in LA, in Ontario, in Cyprus, in Greece, in Lebanon,
in Turkey, all feel the same,” he said.
Zinzalian has spent the last few weeks on self-financed travels to
lobby members of the alumni. “There are 1300 members of the alumni all
around the world,” he said.
Having had meetings with the Cyprus alumni of the school and
representatives of the Armenian community on the island, Zinzalian
said that the passion for keeping the Melkonian up and running will be
hard to beat.
“We are also looking into the archives of the school because the
Melkonian brothers who founded the school made provisions before they
died for it never to close. Before they died, they put the school in
the care of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU),” he said.
The Melkonian Institute was built as an orphanage by Krikor and
Garabed Melkonian soon after the massacres of the Armenians in Turkey.
Zinzalian said that the closing of the school was “totally
unacceptable” not only because of the Melkonian’s important cultural
role and lengthyhistory, but also for the potential practical problems
faced by the 170 students continuing their studies at the school
following the graduation of a further 30 this past year.
“There are students at the school from all over the world who may not
be able to continue their studies as they have up until now,” he said.
“It seems ironic that the Melkonian school survived bombing and a war
and now is in peril from the people supposed to be protecting it,”
Zinzalian said.
He said that the alumni were prepared to keep up their peaceful fight
for as long as necessary, fund-raising – the California Alumni has
raised over $370,000 for the school over the past five years – and
meeting with people able to help the situation. “The Cypriot
government has been very supportive,” he said: “and the Cyprus alumni
is the best we have.”
Zinzalian also said that he believed the AGBU did not expect to have
as large scale a fight on their hands. “I think they expected to sell
off the school and take the money back to the USA without much
reaction.”
He also criticized the AGBU for sending a non-Armenian to manage the
planned closure of the school. US national Gordon Anderson has been
sent to take the place of the school’s headmaster and oversee the
school’s future.
“Feeling the way we do about the school, I feel that closing it will
be impossible,” Zinzalian said.
By Athena Karsera