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Haig Shahinian, South American Party Activist Dies

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  • Haig Shahinian, South American Party Activist Dies

    HAIG SHAHINIAN, SOUTH AMERICAN PARTY ACTIVIST DIES

    AZG Armenian Daily
    01/11/2008

    Diaspora

    BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- On Saturday, October 25, Haig Shahinian,
    a member of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, Tekeyan Cultural
    Association and Armenian General Benevolent Union of South America,
    died after a short illness.

    For the last 30 years, Shahinian was the main philosopher who helped
    shape the policies of the ADL, AGBU and Tekeyan, and he was able to
    work constructively with the ARF, Hunchakyan and Armenian Communist
    Party of South America for the betterment of then-Soviet Armenia and
    later, independent Armenia, as well as the Diocese of the Armenian
    Church of that time, which was under the administration of the ARF. His
    level-headed approach to the problems and their solution earned him
    the nickname of "Machiavelli" from his friends.

    He was one of the founders of Sardarabad trilingual weekly newspaper
    in 1976, which is still going strong with the largest circulation
    in the community. In 1987, Shahinian was a delegate to the Annual
    Convention of AGBU held in Chicago. At that time, AGBU was going
    through a transition period and its annual allocations to the AGBU
    Buenos Aires School were dwindling. Through Shahinian's suggestion
    at the meeting, the statistics of the school history were presented,
    which impressed the membership. The AGBU's allocations to the school
    continue strong until today.

    In 1997, Shahinian represented South America at the meeting of ADL
    leaders that was held in Boston. The meeting could not solve existing
    party problems and Shahinian returned to Argentina and pressed harder
    to strengthen the party in South America and convince other regions
    to follow suit.

    In 1984, he took the initiative to form an association of Armenian
    professionals who through their representative, participated in the
    United Nations Human Rights

    Commissions' Geneva meetings as an observer, with the help of
    representative of Argentina, Ambassador Leonardo Despuis, who convinced
    British historian Benjamin Whittaker to include the Armenian Genocide
    as a Turkish state-sponsored act in his report.

    During the last years of his life, Shahinian started work to declare
    through United Nations all the destroyed churches in Turkey as Armenian
    properties, with the intention of apply the international principal and
    law that when a building belongs to a person, the land also belongs
    to that person, Shahinian's family members were also devoted AGBU
    leaders. His uncle, Haig Emirian, an AGBU honorary member, was the
    principal mover of the construction of Alex Manoogian Center; his
    brother-in-law, Antranik Ekshian, was chairman of local AGBU chapter
    and his wife's brother, Hovsep Yousefian, as an honorary AGBU member
    as well as the chapter's chairman and a member of the group's Central
    Committee, based in New York. His brother, Vartan Shahinian went to
    live in Karabakh, where he passed away few years ago.

    Haig Shahinian was married to Eva Yousefian and had four children
    Carlos, Rebecca, Caroline and Haiko and many grandchildren.

    His funeral was from Saint Kevork Church in Vicente Lopez, Buenos
    Aires on October 26.
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