16 April 2004
Martyrs’ Week at First Armenian Presbytarian

By The Porterville Recorder staff
“A Rebirth of Armenia: Christian Missions in the 21st Century Republic” is
the theme of the Martyrs’ Week Missions Luncheon at California’s oldest
Armenian Church.

The luncheon will be at 1 p.m. Sunday at the First Armenian Presbyterian
Church of Fresno, 430 S. First St., midway between historic Huntington
Boulevard and the Kings Canyon Promenade.

The luncheon is complimentary and a free-will offering will be taken to
benefit home and foreign missions projects. Reservations should be made by
calling FAPC Administrative Assistant Alidz Anspikian at 237-6638.

Elder Bryan Bedrosian of Fowler, chairman of the FAPC Committee on Missions,
will present a video and commentary about the work of the Armenian
Missionary Association of America in the Armenian homeland.

Founded in 1918, the nonprofit AMAA maintains a range of educational,
evangelism, relief, social service, church and child care ministries in more
than 20 countries around the world.

Bedrosian and his wife Rosie, principal of the Armenian Community School of
Fresno, traveled to Armenia shortly after the 2003 Advent Season to observe
and photograph the ongoing spiritual, educational, medical and relief
programs of the AMAA.

The Rev. Mgrdich Melkonian is the Senior Pastor of FAPC and the Rev. Samuel
Albarian is the associate pastor for mission and outreach.

FAPC is a member congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the
Armenian Evangelical Union of North America, a confederation of Armenian
Protestant churches, missions and fellowships in the United States and
Dominion of Canada.

International Association of Genocide Scholars
Robert Melson, President
Department of Political Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907

NEW YORK TIMES CHANGES POLICY ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

The New York Times has recently revised its guidelines for editors
regarding the Armenian genocide. The new policy notes, `After careful
study of scholarly definitions of `genocide,’ we have decided to accept
the term in references to the Turks’ mass destruction of Armenians in
and around 1915.’ The guidelines continue, `The expression `Armenian
genocide’ may be used freely and should not be qualified with phrasing
like `what Armenians call,’ etc.’

The Times’ new guidelines state that: `By most historical accounts, the
Ottoman empire killed /more than one million/ Armenians in a campaign of
death and mass deportation aimed at eliminating the Armenian population
throughout what is now Turkey.’

The memo notes, `While we may of course report Turkish denials on those
occasions when they are relevant, we should /not/ couple them with the
historians’ findings, as if they had equal weight.’

– end –

For more information contact: Peter Balakian <[email protected]>
Robert Melson <[email protected]> or
Samantha Power <[email protected]>

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Monday, March 29, 2004

Page 3

National Group to Honor Former Justice Arabian At Ellis Island in May

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Former California Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian will be among those
honored by a national umbrella group for ethnic organizations at a gala
event in New York City in May, the group said.

In a release last week, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, Inc.
said it would extend to Arabian its Ellis Island Medal of Honor at a black
tie reception to be held May 15 in the historic Great Hall on Ellis Island.

The medal is given, according to NECO, “to Americans of diverse origins for
their outstanding contributions to their own ethnic groups and to American
society.”

Honorees typically include U.S. presidents, Nobel Prize winners, leaders of
industry, and gifted artists, performers, and athletes.

Arabian, the first Armenian American to serve on California’s highest court,
has won a number of honors, including the Mesrob Mashdots Medal. That honor,
named for the creator of the Armenian alphabet and among the highest in the
Armenian church, was presented by the head of the church at a ceremony in
Lebanon in 1999.

Arabian retired in 1996 after 20 years in the state judiciary. He is now an
attorney and private judge in Van Nuys.

Glendale News-Press | 2004 April 17

FROM THE MARGINS

Armen can neither forgive nor forget

In memory of the perished segment of my family

Armen has his days. His latest episode with gloom coincided with the
anniversary of a dark tragedy.

On a typical April night, surfing the tube, he comes across the
local news. There was a mass killing of a family on the 1994 block of
Rwanda Street; the murderers successfully fled the scene. Some
neighbors had witnessed the killings, but refused to intervene.

Armen grabs his humongous black remote, points it toward the
television set and clicks to end the calamity. He is surprisingly
calm, yet feels the need for a late-night drink. He walks toward the
bar, pours himself half an inch of Knob Creek Straight Bourbon (neat),
picks up his latest paperback, on the early Malcolm X, and walks over
to the bedroom in the absolute dark. He is finally positioned in
bed. His reading on Malcolm lasts no more than half an hour.

Armen is obsessed with how the psychology of hate takes root in
ordinary people. His last sip is followed by the final sentence for
the night: “If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it
out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the
way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound . . .”

Armen is wide awake at 7 a.m., to the sound of his television
alarm. The mountebank on the screen is making wild claims about how to
become a millionaire by selling vitamins.

Armen pulls the covers over his head to shield himself from the spring
light; the salesman continues. He twists from one side to another. His
legs feel immobile. One short nap follows the next, concluding with
him lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Armen’s feelings of
disgust for the vitamin salesman take over his self-inflicted
paralysis; the remote is nowhere to be found. He gets up to put an end
to the vitamin pusher.

He walks to the bathroom. Once the grand deed is taken care of, he
hops into the shower. It is on days like this that the shower is a
blessing. As the water strikes Armen’s head, it finds its way to the
surface of his forehead. His dark eyebrows momentarily block the flow,
but the transparent liquid wins the tussle. His unprompted tears await
the drops of water right below; together, they pass through a familiar
corporal landscape. He can cry silently in the wet cube.

He can always judge his own mood by how long he is in the shower. The
longer the shower, the less willing he is to face the world. The
coffee grind is the first order of the day. While the water comes to a
boil, he calls his secretary and cancels appointments with his
psychotherapy patients for the entire day. His secretary knows the
routine; if there is an emergency, she knows where to reach him.

Armen takes a sip of the coffee, lights up a Marlboro Red, and points
his silver-colored remote at the entertainment center. The agonizing
sounds of duduk (an Armenian wind instrument with sounds similar to
the clarinet) fill the room. He positions himself by the window. He
takes a deep puff and turns to the family portrait resting on the
television set. Everyone is present in the picture: his children,
Cecilia, Daron, Karen, Michelle, Tamara and Vanna, as well as his
wife, Ani.

It was not long ago that Armen lived with his family on the 1915 block
of Armenia Road. He still carries the unwarranted shame of being the
only survivor from that horrific April night, when he lost every
single member of his household to murder and rape. Armen is a man with
deep wounds.

The conspirators of the crime not only successfully avoided
prosecution, but they also managed to take over Armen’s ancestral home
and attach it to their existing living quarters. The road has been
renamed Wasneverarmenia.

Armen now lives alone in the plush neighborhood of West Hills. Just a
few days ago, he had a chat with one of his well-intentioned
neighbors, Joanne.

“Armen, you need to forget and forgive.”

“Hmmm . . .”

“Some neighbors even say you are blowing this whole thing out of
proportion.”

“Ahhhh . . .”

“You know, Armen, we all have tragedies in our lives. Just the other
day, my poodle was run over by a drunk driver. I cried for a few days,
but look at me now. I am dealing with it.”

“I am sorry about your dog, Joanne.”

“Yeah, so am I. The whole neighborhood is tired of you dwelling
. . . It is time for you to forgive . . .”

“Joanne, let’s say you stick a knife nine inches into my back and
twist it from time to time, and claim it’s my imagination. How am I
supposed to forgive? Even if you pull it out all the way, how can I
forgive? Forgiving begins with the acknowledgment of the wound, and if
you are not willing to admit that the knife and the wound ever
existed, how can you ever expect me to forgive or forget?”

Patrick Azadian lives and works in Glendale.
He is an identity and branding consultant for the retail industry.
Reach him at [email protected]
Reach the Glendale News-Press at [email protected]

Armenian president, World Bank official discuss reforms

Arminfo
15 Apr 04

YEREVAN

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and the head of the World Bank’s
Yerevan office, Roger Robinson, discussed the implementation of World
Bank programmes in Armenia today.

The Armenian presidential press service has reported that they
discussed the possibility of expanding those programmes by involving
new spheres, in particular the social sphere and the production
infrastructure. The participants in the meeting noted with
satisfaction that cooperation between Armenia and the World Bank was
developing quite effectively and that the World Bank had played an
important role in conducting reforms in the republic.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Top MP urges Armenian authorities, opposition to call time out

Arminfo
15 Apr 04

YEREVAN

Given the current domestic political situation, the Armenian
authorities and opposition had better call a time out, the deputy
chairman of the Armenian National Assembly, Tigran Torosyan, told a
news conference at the discussion club of the Pakagits newspaper
today.

He said that it would be good to take a break at least until the
parliament finally adopts the law on demonstrations and marches. The
deputy speaker recalled that this law had already been adopted in its
first reading and that over 100 amendments had been made to the law
since the resolution of the Venice Commission of the Council of
Europe. Only the proposal on holding counter-demonstrations by
different political forces at the same time and in the same place was
declined. The opposition boycott in this regard is absolutely
irrelevant since this law protects the rights of the opposition in the
first place, Tigran Torosyan said.

Commenting on the domestic political situation on the whole, he said
that unfortunately, he had to say once again that the country’s
political field had not been fully formed yet and therefore, relations
between different political forces sometimes reach a point when the
law-enforcement agencies have to intervene.

“It is a pity that absolutely innocent people, including journalists,
often suffer,” the deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament said.

He believes that responsibility lies with all the political forces in
the country and that maximum effort has to be made to prevent this,
the deputy speaker said. He noted that if he had been in the shoes of
the opposition leaders, he would have tried to persuade people to
leave Bagramyan Avenue and postponed the demonstration for security
reasons, on seeing water cannons, barbed wire and lots of policemen
armed with shields and truncheons.

INTERESTS OF ARMENIAN AND AZERI OPPOSITION COINCIDE

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. First of all, the executive power should
make conclusions. We should watch our work in a new way, Armenia’s DM
Serzh Sargsyan says in an interview to Golos Armenii commenting on the
present internal political crisis in Armenia. You know, nobody neither
the president nor prime minister or any minister said that there is no
problem in their sphere and everything is OK. There are numerous
problems. Specifically in my sphere there are many problems but we are
stemming from a principle: everything becomes known in
comparison. Otherwise a question will undoubtedly rise: “But who are
the judges?” From this point of view if we compare 2004 and 2000,
progress is obvious. We should aspire the progress be more noticeable,
but at the same time we should and will tame those is trying to play
on the people’s emotions, who is trying to flatter the people.

Sargsyan quotes Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak’s words “to flatter the
people is a crime”, and Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli’s words “Every
person feels himself a strategist when he watches a battle from
aside.”

It seems to them that they can do something. But it is obvious: these
people do not even have an ability to organize a meeting. All their
activity is based on lie and falsification. They lie and are not shy
to look into the eyes of those who came to support them. I cannot
imagine how seeing 5-6 thousand people one can say: “My dear people,
thank you that 100,000 of you have come.” How may be assessed speeches
of the opposition leaders in foreign press, first of all in Russian?
They were assuring themselves that we are leading the people to
disaster and now they are trying to persuade other people in this, our
friends as well as enemies. What is this if not betrayal?It turns out
that they are aspiring to assure Azerbaijan: “Look, the authorities in
Armenia have neither basis nor army. Come and settle your problems!”

Sargsyan refutes the opinion that the opposition is acting in unison
with Azerbaijan. No, certainly there is no direct connection. Here
there may not be two opinions. Another question is if the interests
coincide. The problem is that people are unscrupulous. There is only
one slogan for them – the worse in Armenia the better for
them. Azerbaijan is certainly guided by the same slogan, and not only
Azerbaijan.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA FIRM IN KARABAKH ISSUE

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. The Armenian authorities are strong and
unchangeable in the Karabakh problem, Armenia’s DM Serzh Sargsyan says
in an interview with Golos Armenii. Asked if domestic political
tension can negatively affect foreign policy objectives of the
country, in particular the diplomatic settlement of the Karabakh
conflict, Sargsyan says: “It is clear that there is no benefit of this
situation. During any talks our positions will be stronger if there
are not such kind of situations. It is no secret that solidity of any
country especially of a country that is in “neither war nor peace”
state, solidity of any army mostly depends on solidity of its rear.”

There three known principles about impossibility of subordination of
Artsakh Karabakh

to Azerbaijan, about impossibility of an enclave existence of Artsakh
and security guarantees. We have neither desire nor potential to give
up something more and we shall to stand up for our position. It is
also known that today the negotiation process has become slower by an
initiative of Azerbaijan.

Commenting on the statement of Azerbaijan’s new foreign minister
Sargsyan says that such kind of statements are first of all directed
to local usage, as it is known that the Azerbaijani like to boast not
only of this. Sometimes they liberate some villages, sometimes
something else. No serious leader of a secret service of a serious
country will not say openly that his secret service is acting in
another country. Such kind of boyishness is not fitting to a leader of
secret service.

ARMENIA AND ARMENIAN ARMY GUARANTOR OF SECURITY KARABAKH PEOPLE

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. Armenia and in particular our army is a
guarantor of Nagornyy Karabakh people’s security, nobody has and must
not have illusions in this, Armenia’s DM Serzh Sargsyan says in an
interview to Golos Armenii asked if Armenia’s Defence Ministry is
going to re-consider its military doctrine and in case of resumption
of combat actions to transfer the NKR army to direct subordination of
the Armenian armed forces. We have a military doctrine. It is a part
of the whole security system. May be we need one general document, the
composing part of which will be our military doctrine. But as a rule
such tactical problems are not touched on in the military doctrines.

A doctrine changes – does not change, there is a doctrine – there is
no doctrine. Armenia is a security guarantor of Nagornyy Karabakh.

INTERNAL POLITICAL CRISIS IN ARMENIA PROVOKED BY SUPER POWERS

YEREVAN, APRIL 15. ARMINFO. The leader of the Armenian Aryan party Armen
Avetissyan says that Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan will have to
answer before the international court for its tough actions against
the Apr 13 opposition rally. Avetissyan is convinced that a video
recording of the incident filed by the US embassy cameras is already
on Kocharyan’s table and he has already been told to answer for what
he did. But even if he makes certain concessions they will be of
territorial rather than economic or moral nature. “The blood of
Armenians was shed according to the scenario of super powers. They
seek to pressure the president into retreating in the Karabakh issue.”