Las Vegas Sun, NV
April 25 2004

Unhappy remembrance

Survivor recalls horror of Armenian genocide
By Ed Koch
<[email protected]>
LAS VEGAS SUN

Commemoration ceremony
What: Armenian Genocide Commemoration Ceremony, sponsored by the
Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas.
When: 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Where: West Sahara Library, 9600 W. Sahara Ave.
Who: Keynote speaker John Kasbarian, lecturer, activist and former
editor of the Armenian Weekly.

The passing of several decades has not dimmed the memory of the
horror Malvine Papazian Handjian witnessed as a 10-year-old Armenian
refugee on the streets of Izmir, Turkey, during the first genocide of
the 20th century.

Speaking in half-Armenian and half-English, the longtime Las Vegas
resident vividly recalled watching Turkish soldiers during a 1922
raid pull an Armenian priest by his long beard from his burning
church and laugh as they drove nails through the soles of his shoes
and into his feet.

Handjian wept recalling how Turkish soldiers carried off teenage
girls during the chaos to rape and kill them. She still sees the
terror in the eyes of young Armenian men who, to escape Turkish
bayonets, dove into the harbor and swam for foreign-flagged ships
only to be turned away and then drown.

“We must never forget — never forget,” said Handjian, 91. “I saw
these things with my own eyes. And I will never forget.”

Today marks the 89th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian
genocide in Turkey, which lasted eight years. On Sunday the
Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas will hold a
commemoration ceremony at the West Sahara Library to thank those who
have kept alive the memory of one of the world’s worst atrocities.

On April 24, 1915, the genocide began when about 200 Armenian
intellectual and political leaders were arrested in what is now
Istanbul and publicly executed. What followed was the systematic
slaying of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children. Many,
including Handjian, were taken on long death marches, where a number
of them succumbed to hunger and thirst.

“Perhaps if we had done more to remember the plight of the Armenians,
we would not have seen repeats of genocide in the 20th century,” said
John Dadaian, coordinator of the Las Vegas ceremony, Handjian’s
son-in-law and local spokesman for the Armenian National Committee of
America.

“Perhaps the Holocaust of World War II could have been prevented, as
well as the killing fields of Cambodia, the tribal slayings in Rwanda
and the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.”

Dadaian said, however, because the United States has long been an
ally of Turkey and benefits from its oil production, many American
leaders have been hesitant to put pressure on Turkey to admit to the
genocide, which it steadfastly denies happened.

“Turkish officials spend million of dollars lobbying Congress,
pushing an agenda of revisionist history that the genocide never
happened,” Dadaian said.

But, he said, many Nevada officials have not bought into the Turks’
denials. One is Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who at Sunday’s ceremony
will be honored as the Armenian National Committee’s Western Region
Man of the Year.

Last year Ensign, along with Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., introduced a
Senate resolution reaffirming there indeed was a genocide of
Armenians. Ensign said the measure “represents a renewal of America’s
commitment to preventing future genocides.”

Also, Gov. Kenny Guinn has issued this year a strongly worded
proclamation confirming Nevada’s position on “the genocide of the
Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.” In that document Guinn calls
Turkey’s actions a “systematic and deliberate massacre of the
Armenian people.”

Some experts believe the Turks’ failure to admit and atone for the
actions of their ancestors has hampered Turkey’s attempts to gain
admission into the European Union despite its growing economy.

Supporters of Turkey’s position say claims that a genocide occurred
are part of efforts to drive a wedge between Muslims, including the
Turkish people, and Christians, including Armenians.

“Armenian-Americans have attempted to extricate and isolate their
history from the complex circumstances in which their ancestors were
embroiled,” reads turkishembassy.org, the Turkish Embassy’s Web site.
“In so doing, they describe a world populated only by white-hatted
heroes and black-hatted villains. The heroes are always Christian and
the villains are always Muslim.”

The Turkish Web site further claims that the numbers of Armenians
living throughout the Ottoman Empire in 1915 were fewer than 1.5
million, and thus the numbers of the dead have been inflated; that
many Armenian victims were casualties of World War I and disease; and
that the Armenian losses were “few in comparison to the over 2.5
million Muslim dead from the same period.”

But opponents of the use of the term “Armenian genocide” cannot
easily shrug off the accounts shared by the traumatized Armenian
survivors, including Handjian.

In 1917 her father, a dentist, was abducted and put on a train
supposedly bound for battlefields to treat wounded Turkish soldiers.
News later came back to the family he died in a hospital far from a
war zone, she said.

A Turkish dentist who was in partnership with Handjian’s father then
took her family’s home and property, leaving Handjian, her mother,
two sisters and her brother homeless, she said. Hanjian went to live
in a suburb of Izmir with a family friend, Mari Yerganian, who became
her surrogate mother.

In 1922, during a post World War I Greek-Turkish conflict, Yerganian
and Handjian found themselves on the streets of Izmir, then called
Smyrna, in western Turkey, as Armenian-owned homes were burned by the
forces of future President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after they had
routed the Greek army.

Handjian said Yerganian protected her on their long march to
abandoned army barracks, where hundreds of Armenians were starved as
they awaited execution. Once, she said, Yerganian took a gold coin
she had sewn into her dress and gave it to a Turkish soldier who in
turn gave Handjian a sip of water.

“The day before we were to be slaughtered, a miracle happened when
the American Relief Society came and rescued us,” said Handjian,
referring to the BibleLands Missions Aid Society, which today is
known simply as BibleLands. “They got us on a ship to Greece. I could
never thank the Americans enough.”

In Greece, at age 15, Malvine married fellow Armenian genocide
survivor Kourken Handjian. They moved to France in 1929, where
Malvine became a volunteer with the Armenian Blue Cross, helping
other Armenian refugees. They moved to the United States in 1958,
where she became a volunteer with the Armenian Relief Society in Los
Angeles. They moved to Las Vegas in 1990.

The Handjians had three children, eight grandchildren and 13
great-grandchildren. Kourken, a retired candy maker, died in 2002 at
age 95.

The Handjians were the subject of the 2002 documentary film “The
Handjian Story: A Road Less Traveled,” produced and directed by their
granddaughter Denise Gentilini.

At last year’s Moondance International Film Festival in Denver, the
film won best feature documentary. Handjian joined her granddaughter
onstage at the awards ceremony and received a standing ovation.

Handjian said she is proud that her great-grandchildren today show
the film in their classrooms so that new generations from all ethnic
backgrounds will learn the truth about the brutal murders of her
people and perhaps remember.

Dadaian said his ancestors’ plight sends a foreboding message from
which the world can benefit. He recalled a London Times story of Nov.
24, 1945, which reported chilling words from Adolf Hitler that
perhaps best exemplify why the Armenian genocide should never be
forgotten.

“Speaking to his generals before Nazi troops invaded Poland, Hitler
assured them that they need not worry what the world would think of
their actions,” Dadaian said. ” ‘After all,’ said Hitler, ‘Who
remembers the Armenians?’ “

Los Angeles Times, CA
April 25 2004

Armenians Mark Genocide

Events including a protest and rally commemorate the 1915 start of
violence against the ethnic group that took 1.5 million lives.

By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer

Thousands of Armenian Americans throughout the Los Angeles area
commemorated a grim chapter in their history – the killing of 1.5
million of their countrymen and women by the Turks between 1915 and
1922 – with protests, prayers, a blood drive and even a rock concert.

The events included a solemn ceremony in Montebello, a raucous
protest along Wilshire Boulevard and a rally in east Hollywood that
some said was more a display of national pride than a somber
remembrance of the Armenian genocide.

Despite the diversity of events, Armenian American organizers across
town said they were pleased that their history is being honored and
taught to the younger generation.

Ashot Dermenjian held his daughter Alyssa’s hand as he walked up to
the plaque at a towering Montebello memorial, a cluster of pillars
reaching skyward. The cream-colored structure was surrounded by
flowers Saturday as hundreds paid their respects. Officials,
including Mayor James K. Hahn and City Councilman Antonio
Villaraigosa, addressed the crowd.

Dermenjian said a prayer and made the sign of the cross. “This is her
first time here,” Dermenjian said of his 10-year-old daughter. “I’m
going to bring her every year now. They have to know what their
ancestors went through.

“The sad thing is, I don’t know anything about my family past my
grandfather. I don’t know what they did, where they are from or what
kind of work they were in.”

The Wilshire Boulevard Turkish Consulate was fenced off and guarded
by LAPD officers Saturday as a boisterous crowd of hundreds of
teenagers and young adults outside expressed their passion by
chanting to passersby.

Urged on by members of the local chapter of the Armenian Youth
Federation, they held up placards and shouted: “1915, Never Again” to
passing cars.

“This can happen to any people if the denial keeps going on,” said
Armen Soudjian, a 19-year-old college student carrying a video camera
to make a documentary about the protest.

The Hollywood resident said he would attend a rock concert at the
Greek Theatre that night held by System of a Down, a popular Armenian
American rock group who chose the performance date for its historic
importance.

“No matter what you’re doing today,” Soudjian said, “we’re all still
here for that one cause” – official recognition by Turkey of what
Armenians call the Armenian genocide. Turkish officials deny that the
genocide occurred.

In Glendale, home to more than 40,000 Armenian Americans, the civic
auditorium displayed modern artwork reflecting the atrocities of the
genocide, old articles from the New York Times and a telegram from
1915 written by the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau,
advising the State Department of the killings.

Alongside the paintings, the Red Cross set up a blood bank at the
event because “89 years ago, so much blood was shed for no good. Now
we can give it to anyone who needs it,” said one of the event’s
organizers, Stepan Partamian.

Partamian, who is host of an Armenian television show in Glendale,
said many Armenians suffer from an identity crisis because the
diaspora dispersed them to so many countries after they fled
persecution. He said April 24, the day historians say the killings
began, unites Armenians of different backgrounds, whether their
families fled to Lebanon, Egypt, Iran or any other country.

How to commemorate the day is another matter. In Armenia, people make
a pilgrimage to Tsitsernakaberd, a hilltop where a giant memorial
stands.

“They climb up there, they leave flowers out of respect and there are
no speeches,” said Partamian, a 42-year-old Glendale resident.

That more solemn approach is in stark contrast to the raucous
demonstrations around Los Angeles, especially in east Hollywood,
where some protesters complained that the event resembled the
atmosphere of a national soccer game.

“People honking? That’s inappropriate,” said 18-year-old Hovsep
Hajibekyan, sitting at the entrance of the Hollywood and Western
subway station. “It’s disappointing. This is a day to go to church
and be with family.”

Pasadena Star-News, CA
April 24 2004

Armenians speak out against genocide Armenians mark anniversary of
genocide
By Jason Newell @Staff writer:Staff Writer

:Garbis Der Yeghian wants the so-called “forgotten genocide’ to have
its place in history.

Eighty-nine years ago this week, a group of Young Turks forcibly
escorted Der Yeghian’s great-grandfather – a senior clergyman in the
Armenian Church – to the banks of the Euphrates river, stripped him
naked and beheaded him in front of 41 members of his family.

“They asked him to deny his Christian faith, and he said, ‘I will
never do that,” Der Yeghian said.

Der Yeghian, an Armenian activist and college president who lives in
La Verne, is one of thousands who will speak out during today’s
Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day.

Ottoman Turks are accused of killing 1.5 million Armenians between
1915 and 1923, in a systematic effort to destroy the entire Armenian
population.

Armenian-Americans will mark the 89th anniversary of the genocide’s
start with several memorials and events across Southern California.

Organizers of a 10 a.m. march through the Little Armenian
neighborhood of Hollywood expect 100,000 people to participate.

Others will attend a commemoration event at the Armenian Martyrs
Memorial in Montebello at 1 p.m.

A protest is planned in front of the Turkish Consulate on Wilshire
Boulevard in Los Angeles at 4 p.m. The Turkish government denies the
genocide, saying far fewer people died amid multiparty conflicts.

Der Yeghian, 53, past district governor for Rotary International and
current president of Mashdots College in Glendale, said the events
are important because they help bring attention to a tragedy many
young people haven’t heard about.

Der Yeghian, who is in Canada for three separate speeches today,
rarely passes up speaking engagements to talk about genocide and the
need for peace; he accepted 18 this week alone.

“Educating Armenian youth is not enough,’ he said. “We need to
educate all youth, because such genocide should never happen again.’

The Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, was
the forerunner for subsequent genocides that claimed the lives of 170
million people, he said.

Diario La Capital de Mar Del Plata, Argentina
4/23/2004

A 89 años de una tragedia que marcó a fuego el perfil de una
nacionalidad

Los armenios recordarán el genocidio que sufrió su pueblo

La comunidad armenia de Mar del Plata organizará actos conmemorativos
del genocidio que sufrió su pueblo a manos del Estado turco hace 89
años.

La Asociación de Residentes Armenios en Mar del Plata convocó a los
actos recordatorios al cumplirse el 89° aniversario del genocidio que
sufrió el pueblo armenio a manos del Estado turco.

Mañana, a partir de las 18, se presentará el coro femenino Shnorhalí
en el teatro Colón, ubicado en Hipólito Yrigoyen 1665, con el
auspicio de la Unión General Armenia de Beneficencia de Buenos Aires.
Esta actuación se repetirá a las 20 en la Iglesia “Nuestra Señora de
Fátima”, ubicada en Alberti entre Olavarría y Güemes.

Al día siguiente, a las 11, se llevará a cabo un acto recordatorio al
pie del monumento al general San Martín, con la colocación de una
ofrenda floral, un discurso conmemorativo, y el Sagrado Responso por
los mártires de tan luctuoso genocidio. Luego, a partir de las 13, se
organizará un almuerzo ritual (Madagh) en la sede de la Asociación de
Residentes Armenios de Mar del Plata, que está ubicada en 11 de
Septiembre 3680.

Genocidio

“Hasta la Primera Guerra Mundial, el Imperio Otomano gobernaba la
Armenia Occidental y Cilicia, donde desde el siglo XI y como
resultado de la diáspora por la irrupción de las tribus turcas en los
territorios históricos, se había asentado un Reino Armenio que
también terminó por sucumbir en el siglo XIV”, explicaron los
referentes de la entidad representativa de la comunidad armenia en
Mar del Plata respecto al contexto histórico de la masacre sufrida
por su pueblo.

“Entre 1894 y 1923, el gobierno otomano emprendió un sistemático plan
genocida que culminaría con una república turca expurgada de armenios
y otras minorías”, añadieron.

“A partir de 1915, el Estado turco deportó, expropió y masacró a más
de 1.500.000 armenios, sobre un total de 2.100.000. Los
procedimientos fueron variados: detención y ejecución o desaparición
de intelectuales y notables; allanamientos y matanza de familias
enteras; incendio de iglesias atestadas de fieles; formación de
caravanas de la muerte con destino al desierto, que fueron marchas de
mortificación y exterminio”, explicaron los referentes armenios de la
ciudad.

“Se produjo una gran diáspora y sólo se pudo salvar del cataclismo
parte de la Armenia Oriental, dominada antes por los zares. Allí se
estableció una república independiente, que se refundó en 1991. Está
ubicada en el Cáucaso del Sur y ocupa una décima parte de los
territorios históricos armenios. Incluso, el monte Ararat, símbolo
ancestral de la nacionalidad, quedó separado de Ereván. Está del lado
turco, junto a la frontera”, señalaron ante la inminencia de un nuevo
aniversario de la masacre.

“Turquía se niega sistemáticamente a reconocer el genocidio
perpetrado, que fue señalado como el primero del siglo XX. Como el
problema del genocidio toca a toda la armenidad, su reconocimiento
está incluido en la agenda de la política exterior de la República de
Armenia. Paulatinamente aumentan los países y organismos
internacionales que lo reconocen”, informaron.

Goergian Times
April 23 2004

Karabagh armed forces – an example for Abkhazia

N. Alyev E. Alekperove. Azeri newspaper `Echo’. Baku

Media outlets again report that the separatist republics in South
Caucasus are going to establish close military cooperation with one
another.
`Strong Abkhaz state guarantees security and human right protection
for Armenian population. This position is shared in Armenia as well.
I think Armenian political circles in Abkhazia see a geopolitical
ally in South Caucasus. I would like to underline the fact that the
outlines of cooperation and mutual understanding has been established
with the mountainous Karabkha republic,’ said Prime Minister of
breakaway Abkhazia Raul Khajimba at the session of Armenian
community.
Abkhaz separatists have been holding close relations with the
Karabagh administration. As Afsni-press news agency reports, `the
government uses the military experience of the Karabagh military
forces.’ That manifests that the mutual cooperation would serve as a
steady basis for Armenian-Abkhaz cooperation,’ said Khajimba.

Azerbaijani does not take the similar statements at face value. Mirza
Metini, head of press-service of Azeri Foreign Ministry, said that he
had heard similar rhetoric many times before.
`The unrecognized separatist republic endeavor to draw attention of
the world community. Let’s just recall the case of Dnetre coastal
when Armenian and Dnetr separatists claimed they would assist one
another in the fight for independence. But all that is just
statements and nothing more.’

Mirza admits he can `hardly imagine how Armenian and Abkhaz
separatists can assist one another while none of them have military
potential’. He says neither Georgia nor Azerbaijan recognize the
self-proclaimed republics.

When given a similar question Ramiz Melikov, spokesman for the
Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan, replied that the statements by the
so-called Prime Minister should not be taken serious. The mountainous
Karabagh and Abkhazia are separatist regions. International community
does not usually respond to actions of unrecognized republics.’
Azeri newspaper Eko has connected the Georgian embassy to Azerbaijan
to get comments. The embassy official stressed that neither he is
going to comment on the statements of the so-called Prime Minister
who is not recognized by a single country.

Military expert Ezeri Japarov remarked: `Lately separatist republics
have intensified relations and consultations at the level of the so
called `ministries of foreign affairs’. They continue meeting one
another and try to draw attention of international community.

The expert says their efforts are vain as none of the state
recognizes their existence. Japarov said that there cannot be any
kind of military cooperation between the breakaway regions.
Abkhazia’s and Karabgh’s armed forces are nothing but a formation of
beoviks.

Salt Lake Tribune, UT
April 25 2004

Manookian’s kinder, gentler Requiem

Composer Jeff Manookian rehearses with soloists Julie Wright-Costa,
left, and Aubrey Adams McMillan. (Paul Fraughton/The Salt Lake
Tribune)

By Catherine Reese Newton
The Salt Lake Tribune

No fire and brimstone for Jeff Manookian, thanks. His new
Requiem, which the Oratorio Society of Utah will premiere tonight as
part of the Madeleine Festival, focuses on a compassionate God and
the promise of resurrection.
“In going through the [Requiem] literature, I was taken aback by
all the references to hellfire and brimstone and God as this awful,
vengeful creature,” Manookian said. So rather than write a thundering
composition in the tradition of Verdi or Berlioz, he set only the
more peaceful and joyous movements of the traditional Mass for the
dead.
The gentler approach puts the Salt Lake composer in good company,
said tonight’s soprano soloist, Julie Wright-Costa. Faure, Durufle
and Brahms also eschewed the darker movements. “The Brahms has a
message specifically for the living,” Wright-Costa said. Likewise,
“[Manookian] wanted a more compassionate and benevolent spirit — a
loving image of Christ and God, rather than wrath, rage and
judgment,” she said.
Manookian considered setting poetry of Walt Whitman rather than
the traditional liturgical text, but decided “if I kept strictly to
the Latin, the focus would be on the music,” he said. “I didn’t want
the audience to be tethered to the text.”
The movements he used are “Requiem Aeternum (eternal rest),” for
choir, soprano and alto; “Offertorium,” a soprano solo; “Tuba Mirum
(the trumpet shall sound),” for choir alone; “Pie Jesu (blessed
Jesus),” duet for soprano and alto; “Te Deum (we praise thee),” choir
alone; “Lux Aeternum (eternal light),” alto solo; and “In Paradisum
(in paradise),” choir and soloists.
The symmetrical structure “just happened,” Manookian said, adding
his music tends to write itself: “When I have to force something,
that’s when I rip it up, until it flows naturally.” He wrote the
Requiem in 44 days. “I was living like Howard Hughes, going for days
on end in my bathrobe and letting my beard grow,” he said. “The piece
came very fast; it surprised even me. — It’s amazing what you can do
on a deadline.”

Manookian’s last venture with the Oratorio Society was in 2000
with “Symphony of Tears,” commemorating the Armenian genocide of
1915.
“This one is more upbeat,” said Oratorio Society president
Richard Grossen, who sings tenor in the chorus and also performed in
“Symphony of Tears.” The earlier work “had to grow on you more.”
Manookian agreed that the Requiem is more readily accessible, the
aural equivalent of “sinking into the most comfortable, warm
bathtub.” He added that he intended the Requiem, unlike the more
programmatic “Symphony of Tears,” to be “generic in the best sense —
[so] every person can identify with it on his or her own terms. It’s
a much more universal piece.” The music is in a “blatantly
post-Romantic style.”
Manookian said he wrote the Requiem “during the period of a broken
heart, a down period in my life. — It represents the end or death of
a major section of my life.”
Also on the program are Manookian’s 1991 composition “Endless Are
the Clouds” and the 2002 work “Khachkar” for alto flute, harp and
strings. Manookian explained that “Khachkar” is Armenian for
“Christ’s cross.” The 10-minute piece, based on two Armenian folk
songs, is “an orchestral prayer, an invocation to the Requiem.”

Manookian at the Madeleine

* The Oratorio Society of Utah, with the Intermountain Chamber
Orchestra, flutist Laurel Ann Maurer, soprano Julie Wright-Costa and
alto Aubrey Adams McMillan, will perform the Requiem and other works
of Jeff Manookian tonight at 8 in the Cathedral of the Madeleine, 331
E. South Temple, Salt Lake City. The composer will conduct.

* Admission is free.

Moscow Times, Russia
April 26 2004

Armenians Remember 1915

Alexandra Kocho-Schellenberg / MT

Armenians lighting candles Saturday at a chapel at the Armenian
Cemetery.

YEREVAN, Armenia — Hundreds of thousands of Armenians, many of them
emigrants returning from abroad, converged Saturday on a hilltop
memorial in Yerevan to commemorate the 89th anniversary of mass
killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The annual gathering at the vast Genocide Victims Memorial
overlooking the capital is a significant day in the country’s
emotional life, drawing huge crowds to lay flowers.

In Moscow, the Armenians lighted candles at churches and laid flowers
at the Armenian Cemetery.

Armenia accuses Turkey of the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians
between 1915 and 1919, when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey rejects the claim and says Armenians were killed in civil
unrest during the collapse of the empire.

Although the deaths began before April 24, memorial services are held
on this date because it is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when
Turkish authorities executed a large group of Armenian intellectuals
and political leaders, accusing them of helping the invading Russian
Army during World War I.

Armenia has pushed for the United States and other nations to declare
the killings a genocide. Many countries, including Russia and France,
have officially recognized the event as genocide, along with some
U.S. states.

Canada’s Parliament last week backed a resolution recognizing the
deaths to be genocide, a move that was praised Saturday by Armenia’s
parliamentary speaker, Artur Bagdasaryan.

“Only through the condemnation of this kind of crime can its
occurrence be avoided,” he said.

Tehran Times, Iran
April 26 2004

Iran to Launch 3 LNG Projects

TEHRAN (PIN) — Iran is determined to launch three big liquefied
natural gas (LNG) projects, Minister of Oil Bijan Namdar Zanganeh
said Sunday. “One project will be handled by French Total and
Malaysian Petronas to produce 10 million tons of LNG. The second
project goes to British Shell while the third one will be implemented
inside the country,” Zanganeh told reporters on the sidelines of a
conference on gas exports being held in Tehran.

“At moment, we can allow up to 49 percent of foreign investment and
welcome foreign companies to help us launch LNG projects,” the
minister said.

Deputy Oil Minister Mehdi Mirmoezi said Iran has decided to award
French oil giant Total a 1.2 billion dollar contract to develop phase
11 of the massive South Pars offshore gas field. “Total has been
chosen to develop phase 11 of South Pars,” he said. “The final
negotiations are in progress, and unless there is a problem, the
contract will be signed in one or two months.” Zanganeh also said
that Iran has already signed an oil exports deal with a company from
the United Arab Emirates. “We are negotiating with Kuwait and our
talks are going on with Armenia for gas exports.”

Regarding oil prices, he said that he believed an oil price hovering
around 28 dollars per barrel would be a “good price” for the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“I consider that 28 dollars a barrel is a good price for OPEC, or one
or two dollars more or less,” the minister told reporters.

“The objective should be to maintain the price of a barrel in the
upper part of the 22 to 28 dollar bracket,” said the minister.

Iran is OPEC’s second exporter. OPEC ministers agreed in March to
press ahead with an output cut of four percent from April 1,
dismaying importers such as the United States. But Zanganeh blamed
the high prices on “refining problems in the United States and the
political tensions in the Middle East, and OPEC can do nothing to
solve these two problems.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

New Kerala, India
April 25 2004

A lady entrepreneur who made replica of Golden Temple

>From Ravinder Singh Robin, Amritsar Apr 25 (ANI):

Jaspreet Kaur the entrepreneur took a lead
in making a memorable gift for notable public figures, who visit the
Golden Temple. Gold polished, lacquer finished, framed and encased in
a velvet jewellery box, the new creation immediately became a hit
when it was selected over the traditional model of the Golden Temple
encased in glass.

This woman found instant acceptance for her ‘first-of its-kind’
creation of “embossed plaque of the holy Golden Temple. Handier and
easy to handle, it was readily acknowledged as an apt gift for
visiting dignitaries to the holiest Sikh shrine.

Jaspreet’s joy knew no bounds when her very first creation was gifted
to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak
Committee (SGPC) in March last year (2003).

The tremendous response to her creation propelled an assignment for
‘a special piece’ for the Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to the
Golden Temple. She created a dazzling plaque with a smattering of
cultured diamonds as the haloed sun rays and framed with an inlay of
real pearls and blue sapphires. Even the velvet jewellery box for
this plaque was encrusted with ‘traditional kundan work’. The gift
drew profuse appreciation by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretian on
his visit to Golden Temple on Diwali day on October 25 last year.”

Queries flew in from the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s office for
another piece that could be presented to the Armenian President on
his visit. However, it could not be readied in the short duration,
she claimed.

A dual polish (gold-silver) plaque was presented subsequently to
British Columbian Premier Gordon Campbell recently. ” The plaque is
not only handier as a memento but can be conveniently carried home by
visiting dignitaries compared to the bulkier counterpart of the model
of Golden Temple. Besides this, it has an added advantage of multiple
display choices. A sturdy back-stand holds it as a photo frame, it
can be displayed on a plate stand or could be simply hung on a wall.”

Many of the large mock models of the Golden Temple became cause for
baggage rationalisation, but these plaques have the immediate and
sleek advantage over that, says the young artist.

33-year old Jaspreet started out with an input of Rs four lakh which
she earned from a lecturer’s job. A gold medallist in MA, M.Phil.
history, she is proud to have created hitherto a product that
commemorates history. Her destiny automatically connected her with
Sikh history after she married Manbir Singh, the grandson of Master
Tara Singh, the seven- time president of SGPC.

Armed with a degree in electrical engineering and a keen artistic
taste, Manbir became the inspiration and guide for Jaspreet when she
came up with an idea of the European-style embossment to be
replicated for the Golden Temple on a brass plate.

Countless computer designs and six months of tireless effort to make
a master-layout of the Golden Temple with near perfect angles of its
varied architectural marvels proved fruitful, she says.

“Later, the finished plaque is given pure gold polish and
electrophoratic lacquer treatment to retain finish and negate
oxidation visible in blackening,” says Jaspreet.

However, Jaspreet wants to retain the exclusivity of her product. The
success of her creation has boosted her to innovate and use her
skills to create plaques of other shrines like Gurdwara Khadoor Sahib
for their 500 anniversary celebrations of Guru Angad Dev next year.
She is already in the crafting stage for other shrines including
Gurdwara Hazoor Sahib, Mata Vaishno Devi and Gurdwara Hemkund Sahib.

Manila Times, Philippines
April 26 2004

DOUBLETAKE

Ignoring genocide

By Eric F. Mallonga

SUPERPOWER America possesses vast information on world events before
they even happen. Its government either makes world events happen or
wait for events to happen to it or to other countries before it even
react. Often, America ignores the world event, especially when it
has no bearing or consequence to America’s security and economy. As
the only superpower nation today, it claims the moral authority to
direct world events and shepherd other interest in shepherding are
those that possess vast natural resources, the destruction of which
would substantially affect the American economy, such as Iraq and the
other oil-producing Middle East countries.

Former President Bill Clinton knew about the fierce rivalry between
the Hutus and Tusis of Rwanda. He had been informed about the
genocidal assaults by one tribe against the other even as they were
still on the planning table. He took no action – nothing remedial nor
preemptive. Obviously, America has no economic or security interest
in the Dark Continent, or in any of its countries, except for one
phase in its historical past when its people engaged in the
shamelessness of African slavery in America. In many African
countries, genocide takes place on a daily occurrence albeit on a
lesser scale than the Rwandese bloodbath or the Kurdish massacre by
the Hussein regime in Iraq. I was shocked when one Congolese social
worker informed participants at a Monte-Carlo symposium last year
that children as young as eight years or even younger, were recruited
by both government and insurgency forces into their respective armies
for as long as they could carry a gun. These child combatants would
commit massacres, rapes, torture and other atrocities as directed or
allowed by their military commanders. Sometimes, the comparison with
the Philippine situation is surprisingly similar as we now witness on
our television screen the participation of teenagers or children in
their pre-teens, as young as eight years, in armed conflict, having
been recruited into the communist or extremist Islamic insurgency
groups. It is a legacy of bloodbath and violence that Marxist rebels
and Muslim jihadists wish to pass on to the younger generations of
Filipinos, or to the world.

Today, nobody seems to be aware or even outraged by the genocide
taking place in Sudan. Dubya Bush is not interested. Neither is Kofi
Annan raising a voice against the bloody purges. In Darfur, Sudan,
thousands of people have already been massacred, with one million
black Africans driven from their homes by lighter skinned Arabs in
the Janjaweed. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof points
out that Darfur, a region which is the size of France, has been
burned and emptied as the Arab Janjaweed militia, armed by the
Sudanese government, have destroyed the water wells, or fouled them
up by dumping corpses into them, to prevent the villagers from ever
returning to their ancestral lands. When tribal African men and
teenage boys show up at the wells to gather water for their families,
they are shot. When it is African women and girls, they are raped.
One thousand people are dying weekly and the world is not paying any
attention.

The United Nations Security Council was not established for the
parochial interest of its five most powerful council-member nations.
As hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees are escaping into the
Chad border, hundreds of thousands of fresh graves are being dug up
for Sudanese children. In the Darfur villages, isolated and
unschooled tribal peasants are suddenly confronted with modern
helicopters opening fire with their machine guns and missiles on
their innocent children. The United Nations was created to respond to
the evils of genocide as it had never been able to respond
appropriately to past genocidal events – in Armenia, in Germany, in
Cambodia, in Vietnam, in Bosnia. But Kofi Annan should not rely on
Bush for any support as the world knows that America’s interests are
delimited to its own national security and economy. American
companies might even be earning billions from the purchase by the
Sudanese government of war equipment, vehicles, helicopters and
armaments used in the Sudanese genocide so that maintaining political
instability in that side of the world remains beneficial to American
economy.

How many more children have to be massacred, tortured, burned to
death, raped, branded like animals, recruited into the army and
transformed into killing and raping machines before the world finally
demands accountability from the participants to this genocide,
including those countries which supply armaments that make genocide
possible?