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VOLUME 27, ISSUE 41 (1341)
SATURDAY, November 17, 2007
--- News Bulletin ---
Violence against chairman of SDHP "Sargis Dkhruni" students' union.
20 year old Narek Galstyan, chairman of the Social Democrat Hunchak
Party's "Sarkis Dkhruni" students' union, was beaten at 11:00 am
November 15 2007. While stopping the taxi, assailants forcefully
grabbed the car keys from the driver, making Narek Galstyan get out of
the vehicle before which the assailants subsequently struck him
brutally, causing severe blows to his head.
The assailants warned Galstyan that if he continued giving information
or conducting interviews with the press, they would kill him next time.
The assailants fled the scene in with a license plate number "VAZ-2106."
Narek was taken to the Infection Hospital of Nork where he received
the initial care, and was then transferred to "Saint Grigor
Lusavorich" Hospital for intensive care where he is now in the
rehabilitation division.
As reported in the current issue of Massis Weekly, Narek Galstyan and
another member of the Social Democrat Hunchak Party on November 12th
were arrested and sent to the Police Station for distributing
opposition leaflets. After an interrogation was conducted by the head
of the Police of Yerevan, Nersik Nazaryan, whom Galstyan was assaulted
and battered by, a crowd of supporters had started gathering in front
of the police station, as the detained subjects were set free and
advised not to engage in oppositional political activities any more
and not to tell the media about the detention, otherwise they would be
punished.
------------------------
- SD Hunchakian Activists Detained and Assaulted By Police
- Armenian To Hold Presidential Elections On February 19
- Serzh Sarkisian Confirmed As The Presidential Candidate Of The
Ruling Republican Party
- Karabakh War Could Flare Again, Warns Western Think-Tank
- Lecture At NAASR On Armenian Genocide By Lemkin Award-Winner Donald Bloxham
- Holocaust Denial in The White House
-------------------------
- SD Hunchakian Activists Detained and Assaulted By Police
YEREVAN -- Narek Galstyan, chairman of ?Sargis Tkhruni? Youth Student
Union of Social Democratic Hunchakian Party and Eduard Makaryan,
member of the party leadership were detained on November 12th at 23.30
p.m. for distributing leaflets advertising upcoming opposition rally
which will be held on November 16. Both activists were taken to the
central department of the police and detained until 3 am. They were
set free when a crowd of supporters had started gathered in front of
the police department.
The Armenian authorities have stepped up their crackdown of activists
and companies owned by a millionaire businessmen who have supported
and are close to former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Also alleging government retribution is a television station in
Armenia?s second largest city of Gyumri that broadcast a September 21
speech in which Ter-Petrosian harshly criticized the administration of
President Robert Kocharian. The STS accused the GALA TV on Monday of
evading 26 million drams ($80,000) in taxes over the past two years.
Ter-Petrosian and his allies say the crackdowns on SIL Group owned by
Sukiasian family and GALA are politically motivated and aimed at
stifling dissent ahead of next February?s presidential elections, a
view shared by other major opposition parties. Armen Martirosian, a
parliament deputy from the opposition Zharangutyun party, urged the
authorities on Tuesday to stop the ?tax persecution? of defiant
businessmen. ?It is inadmissible to place restrictions on free media,
citizens and economic entities in the run-up to a fateful event like
presidential elections,? Martirosian said in a speech at the National
Assembly.
- Armenian To Hold Presidential Elections On February 19
YEREVAN -- Armenia?s Central Election Commission (CEC) officially set
the date of next year?s presidential election for February 19 thus
marking the beginning of formal processes leading up to the vote.
Following the requirement of Armenian law, CEC Head Garegin Azarian
made a brief announcement in this regard through the country?s public
television and radio on Friday afternoon. ?In line with the Armenian
election law and constitution, I am authorized to declare that the
elections of the republic?s president will be held on February 19,
2008,? Azarian said. According to the Armenian constitution, an
election must take place 50 days before the end of the current
president?s term.
In accordance with Armenia?s election law, the Election Day (Tuesday)
is declared a day-off in the country. The timetable of all stages of
the electoral process is expected to be defined soon after this
announcement. Regardless of whether February 19 election goes into a
runoff or not, the next elected president of Armenia will be sworn in
on April 9.
If adopted in the second reading any time soon, the amendments to the
election law approved by lawmakers in the first reading early this
week will stipulate that only political parties can nominate
presidential candidates, or persons wishing to stand for president in
elections can do so themselves.
So far candidates in Armenia?s presidential elections have been
nominated by political parties and blocs of political parties as well
as by civic initiatives. Critics say the amendment has ?psychological?
implications as it will make impossible the appearance of the names of
several political parties at a time on the ballot-paper next to the
name of a candidate they support. They further claim that it is done
deliberately to contain a possible consolidation of different
opposition parties around a single candidate in the run-up to the
election.
- Serzh Sarkisian Confirmed As The Presidential Candidate Of The
Ruling Republican Party
YEREVAN -- Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian attacked and warned former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian against attempting to change Armenia?s
existing political system over the weekend as he was formally
confirmed as the presidential candidate of the ruling Republican Party
(HHK).
The HHK leadership unanimously backed his candidacy in the upcoming
presidential election at a congress held in Yerevan on Saturday.
Sarkisian was also elected HHK chairman, completing his takeover of a
party which controls most government bodies in the country and claims
to have 135,000 members.
With Sarkisian long seen as President Robert Kocharian?s preferred
successor, the four-hour congress was expected to be a mere formality.
As was the case during the previous HHK gatherings, there were no
discussions on key issues facing Armenia and the party?s electoral
strategy and tactics. The only visible novelty this time around was
the presence of shapely fashion models who helped 650 or so delegates
find their seats in a sports arena in Yerevan that served as the
congress venue.
Sarkisian spent half of his 30- minute acceptance speech responding to
Ter-Petrosian?s harsh criticism of the current Armenian leadership. It
was a clear sign that he considers the enigmatic ex-president to be
his main election challenger.
?They want to break up the state,? the influential premier said of
Ter-Petrosian and his opposition loyalists. ?They won?t succeed. Any
[such] attempt will be thwarted.? Breaking his nearly decade-long
silence, Ter-Petrosian has accused Kocharian and Sarkisian of turning
Armenia into a ?gangster state? where government corruption and
suppression of dissent are the norm. He has urged Armenians to help
him bring down the ruling ?criminal regime? in the election scheduled
for February 19.
?It is pathetic that Levon Ter-Petrosian has lost a sense of reality
to such an extent that he ? advises President Robert Kocharian and
myself to leave the political arena,? said Sarkisian. ?To avoid
staying in his debt, let me give him another advice. He had better
repent and apologize to the Armenian people for, to put it mildly,
mistakes committed by him.?
?I am sure he won?t do that because he is filled with spite and has
Genoirreversibly fallen behind the course of life,? he added.
Sarkisian apparently referred to the first years of Armenia?s
independence marked by an economic slump, mass unemployment and severe
electricity shortages. Ter-Petrosian and his loyalists say much of the
resulting enormous hardship was the result of the wars in
Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia that all but cut off Armenia from the
outside world. Kocharian insisted, however, that the Ter-Petrosian
administration simply ?ruined? the economy.
Sarkisian, who had help key government positions in Yerevan during
most of Ter-Petrosian?s 1991-1998 presidency, would not say if he
thinks he too bears responsibility for the alleged misrule.His
comments were dismissed on Monday by Ararat Zurabian, the nominal head
of the former ruling Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh), one of the
several opposition parties aligned with Ter-Petrosian.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Zurabian stressed that neither Kocharian, nor
Sarkisian have directly commented on concrete accusations leveled
against them by Ter-Petrosian. The HHSh chairman suggested that they
try to disprove those accusations in a live televised debate with
Ter-Petrosian.
Addressing a big rally in Yerevan on October 26, Ter-Petrosian
specifically accused Kocharian, Sarkisian and their close associates
of pocketing billions of dollars in taxes and informal payments
allegedly extorted from local businesspeople.
In his Saturday speech, Sarkisian acknowledged that bribery, nepotism
and other corrupt practices are widespread in Armenia. He indicated
that if elected president, he will make sure that businessmen and
other wealthy individuals close to the government do not get away with
enriching themselves by illegal means.
?Tax evasion and corruption must be regarded as a disgraceful and
condemnable phenomenon,? said Sarkisian. ?We must not take into
account family ties and friendship and must not regard as friends and
supporters those people who will avoid paying taxes and tolerate this
vicious phenomenon.?
The Armenian premier himself has long been accused by his opponents of
sponsoring government-connected entrepreneurs who enjoy de facto
monopoly on lucrative forms of economic activity. Most of the
so-called ?oligarchs? are now affiliated with the HHK.
- Karabakh War Could Flare Again, Warns Western Think-Tank
BRUSSELS - The 20-year-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
could re-ignite into a war that would threaten the region?s oil
exports, an influential think-tank said on Wednesday. The
Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report the
fragile truce is under threat because Azerbaijan is using cash from
oil exports to beef up its military and both sides are refusing to
compromise.
A major oil pipeline linking Azerbaijan?s Caspian Sea oilfields to the
Mediterranean Sea runs a few dozen kilometers (miles) to the east of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Operated by a BPled consortium, it will soon pump
one million barrels of oil a day. ?The international community needs
to take the threat of war seriously,? said Magdalena Frichova, ICG?s
Caucasus Project Director.
?The risk of armed conflict is growing, and the dangers of complacency
enormous.? The report said the riskiest period could be around 2012,
when Azerbaijan?s oil exports are expected to start slowing, possibly
triggering economic problems.
?A military adventure might seem a tempting way to distract citizens
>From economic crisis,? ICG said in a preface to the report. ?Important
oil and gas pipelines near Nagorno-Karabakh would likely be among the
first casualties of a new war, something Europe and the U.S. in
particular have an interest in avoiding.?
The ICG report said the United States and European Union should make
resolution of the conflict a condition of their relations with
Azerbaijan and Armenia. It also said Baku and Yerevan should sign a
document of basic principles to establish ground rules for peace
talks. It said this should be done before elections in both countries
next year which could complicate the search for peace.
- Lecture At NAASR On Armenian Genocide By Lemkin Award-Winner Donald Bloxham
BELMONT, MA -- Prof. Donald Bloxham, Professor of Modern History at
the University of Edinburgh and currently the J. B. and Maurice C.
Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in
Washington, D.C., will give a lecture entitled ?The Role of the Great
Powers in the Armenian Genocide? on Thursday, December 13, at 8:00
p.m., at the National Association
for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave.,
Belmont, MA. This lecture, Bloxham?s first in the Boston area, will
take place the same evening as NAASR?s Christmas Open House.
The lecture will be based on Bloxham?s acclaimed book The Great Game
of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the
Ottoman Armenians (Oxford Univ. Press), recently released in
paperback, and for which Bloxham has been awarded the Raphael Lemkin
Award for 2007 by the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
The Great Game of Genocide will be on sale and available for signing
by the author.
- Interaction Between Ottoman Empire and Great Powers
Bloxham has written, ?The project from which the book evolved
originally intended to focus upon Turkish denial of the Armenian
genocide, and Western acceptance of that denial. But it soon
became clear that denial and its accommodation could not be properly
understood without knowledge of how the outside world related to the
deeds of the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after the First
World War ? [and that] it was impossible to explain this pattern of
interaction between the Ottoman state and the ?Great Powers? in the
Armenian Question up to and during the genocide.?
Bloxham is the youngest full professor of history in the UK and the
winner of several prizes and honors for his work in addition to the
Lemkin Award for genocide scholarship. He is also the author of
Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust
History and Memory, The Holocaust: Critical Historical Approaches
(with Tony Kushner), and the forthcoming Genocide, the World Wars, and
the Unweaving of Europe. He is also author of nearly fifty articles
and book chapters, and serves on the editorial board of four journals:
Holocaust Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, Zeitschrift für
Genozidforschung, and the Journal of Genocide Research.
- Holocaust Denial in The White House
The Turks Say The Armenians Died In A ?Civil War?, And Bush Goes Along
With Their Lies
By Robert Fisk
(The Independent, UK)
How are the mighty fallen! President George Bush, the crusader king
who would draw the sword against the forces of Darkness and Evil, he
who said there was only ?them or us?, who would carry on, he claimed,
an eternal conflict against ?world terror? on our behalf; he turns
out, well, to be a wimp. A clutch of Turkish generals and a
multimillion-dollar public relations campaign on behalf of Turkish
Holocaust deniers have transformed the lion into a lamb. No, not even
a lamb ? for this animal is, by its nature, a symbol of innocence ?
but into a household mouse, a little diminutive creature which, seen
>From afar, can even be confused with a rat. Am I going too far? I
think not.
The ?story so far? is familiar enough. In 1915, the Ottoman Turkish
authorities carried out the systematic genocide of one and a half
million Christian Armenians. There are photographs, diplomatic
reports, original Ottoman documentation, the process of an entire
post-First World War Ottoman trial, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George
and a massive report by the British Foreign Office in 1915 and 1916 to
prove that it is all true. Even movie film is now emerging ? real
archive footage taken by Western military cameramen in the First World
War ? to show that the first Holocaust of the 20th century,
perpetrated in front of German officers who would later perfect its
methods in their extermination of six million Jews, was as real as its
pitifully few Armenian survivors still claim.
But the Turks won?t let us say this. They have blackmailed the Western
powers ? including our own British Government, and now even the US ?
to kowtow to their shameless denials. These (and I weary that we must
repeat them, because every news agency and government does just that
through fear of Ankara?s fury) include the canard that the Armenians
died in a ?civil war?, that they were anyway collaborating with
Turkey?s Russian enemies, that fewer Armenians were killed than have
been claimed, that as many Turkish Muslims were murdered as Armenians.
And now President Bush and the United States Congress have gone along
with these lies. There was, briefly, a historic moment for Bush to
walk tall after the US House Foreign Relations Committee voted last
month to condemn the mass slaughter of Armenians as an act of
genocide. Ancient Armenian-American survivors gathered at a House
panel to listen to the debate. But as soon as Turkey?s fossilised
generals started to threaten Bush, I knew he would give in.
Listen, first, to General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish armed
forces, in an interview with the newspaper Milliyet. The passage of
the House resolution, he whinged, was ?sad and sorrowful? in view of
the ?strong links? Turkey maintained with its NATO partners. And if
this resolution was passed by the full House of Representatives, then
?our military relations with the US would never be as they were in the
past... The US, in that respect, has shot itself in the foot?.
Now listen to Mr Bush as he snaps to attention before the Turkish
general staff. ?We all deeply regret the tragic suffering (sic) of the
Armenian people... But this resolution is not the right response to
these historic mass killings. Its passage would do great harm to our
relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror.? I
loved the last bit about the ?global war on terror?. Nobody ? save for
the Jews of Europe ? has suffered ?terror? more than the benighted
Armenians of Turkey in 1915. But that Nato should matter more than the
integrity of history ? that Nato might one day prove to be so
important that the Bushes of this world may have to equivocate over
the Jewish Holocaust to placate a militarily resurgent Germany ?
beggars belief.
Among those men who should hold their heads in shame are those who
claim they are winning the war in Iraq. They include the increasingly
disoriented General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, and the
increasingly delusional US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, both
of whom warned that full passage of the Armenian genocide bill would
?harm the war effort in Iraq?. And make no mistake, there are big
bucks behind this disgusting piece of Holocaust denial.
Former Representative Robert L Livingston, a Louisiana Republican, has
already picked up $12m from the Turks for his company, the Livingston
Group, for two previously successful attempts to pervert the cause of
moral justice and smother genocide congressional resolutions.
He personally escorted Turkish officials to Capitol Hill to threaten
US congressmen. They got the point. If the resolution went ahead,
Turkey would bar US access to the Incirlik airbase through which
passed much of the 70 per cent of American air supplies to Iraq which
transit Turkey.
In the real world, this is called blackmail ? which was why Bush was
bound to cave in. Defence Secretary Robert Gates was even more
pusillanimous ? although he obviously cared nothing for the details of
history. Petraeus and Crocker, he said, ?believe clearly that access
to the airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be very
much put at risk if this resolution passes...?.
How terrible an irony did Gates utter. For it is these very ?roads and
so on? down which walked the hundreds of thousands of Armenians on
their 1915 death marches. Many were forced aboard cattle trains which
took them to their deaths. One of the railway lines on which they
travelled ran due east of Adana ? a great collection point for the
doomed Christians of western Armenia ? and the first station on the
line was called Incirlik, the very same Incirlik which now houses the
huge airbase that Mr Bush is so frightened of losing. Had the genocide
that Bush refuses to acknowledge not taken place ? as the Turks claim
? the Americans would be asking the Armenians for permission to use
Incirlik. There is still alive ? in Sussex if anyone cares to see her
? an ageing Armenian survivor from that region who recalls the Ottoman
Turkish gendarmes setting fire to a pile of living Armenian babies on
the road close to Adana. These are the same ?roads and so on? that so
concern the gutless Mr Gates. But fear not. If Turkey has frightened
the boots off Bush, he?s still ready to rattle the cage of the
all-powerful Persians.
People should be interested in preventing Iran from acquiring the
knowledge to make nuclear weapons if they?re ?interested in preventing
World War Three?, Bush has warned us. What piffle. Bush can?t even
summon up the courage to tell the truth about World War One. Who would
have thought that the leader of the Western world ? he who would
protect us against ?world terror? ? would turn out to be the David
Irving of the White House?
(The Independent, UK)
--
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VOLUME 27, ISSUE 41 (1341)
SATURDAY, November 17, 2007
--- News Bulletin ---
Violence against chairman of SDHP "Sargis Dkhruni" students' union.
20 year old Narek Galstyan, chairman of the Social Democrat Hunchak
Party's "Sarkis Dkhruni" students' union, was beaten at 11:00 am
November 15 2007. While stopping the taxi, assailants forcefully
grabbed the car keys from the driver, making Narek Galstyan get out of
the vehicle before which the assailants subsequently struck him
brutally, causing severe blows to his head.
The assailants warned Galstyan that if he continued giving information
or conducting interviews with the press, they would kill him next time.
The assailants fled the scene in with a license plate number "VAZ-2106."
Narek was taken to the Infection Hospital of Nork where he received
the initial care, and was then transferred to "Saint Grigor
Lusavorich" Hospital for intensive care where he is now in the
rehabilitation division.
As reported in the current issue of Massis Weekly, Narek Galstyan and
another member of the Social Democrat Hunchak Party on November 12th
were arrested and sent to the Police Station for distributing
opposition leaflets. After an interrogation was conducted by the head
of the Police of Yerevan, Nersik Nazaryan, whom Galstyan was assaulted
and battered by, a crowd of supporters had started gathering in front
of the police station, as the detained subjects were set free and
advised not to engage in oppositional political activities any more
and not to tell the media about the detention, otherwise they would be
punished.
------------------------
- SD Hunchakian Activists Detained and Assaulted By Police
- Armenian To Hold Presidential Elections On February 19
- Serzh Sarkisian Confirmed As The Presidential Candidate Of The
Ruling Republican Party
- Karabakh War Could Flare Again, Warns Western Think-Tank
- Lecture At NAASR On Armenian Genocide By Lemkin Award-Winner Donald Bloxham
- Holocaust Denial in The White House
-------------------------
- SD Hunchakian Activists Detained and Assaulted By Police
YEREVAN -- Narek Galstyan, chairman of ?Sargis Tkhruni? Youth Student
Union of Social Democratic Hunchakian Party and Eduard Makaryan,
member of the party leadership were detained on November 12th at 23.30
p.m. for distributing leaflets advertising upcoming opposition rally
which will be held on November 16. Both activists were taken to the
central department of the police and detained until 3 am. They were
set free when a crowd of supporters had started gathered in front of
the police department.
The Armenian authorities have stepped up their crackdown of activists
and companies owned by a millionaire businessmen who have supported
and are close to former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Also alleging government retribution is a television station in
Armenia?s second largest city of Gyumri that broadcast a September 21
speech in which Ter-Petrosian harshly criticized the administration of
President Robert Kocharian. The STS accused the GALA TV on Monday of
evading 26 million drams ($80,000) in taxes over the past two years.
Ter-Petrosian and his allies say the crackdowns on SIL Group owned by
Sukiasian family and GALA are politically motivated and aimed at
stifling dissent ahead of next February?s presidential elections, a
view shared by other major opposition parties. Armen Martirosian, a
parliament deputy from the opposition Zharangutyun party, urged the
authorities on Tuesday to stop the ?tax persecution? of defiant
businessmen. ?It is inadmissible to place restrictions on free media,
citizens and economic entities in the run-up to a fateful event like
presidential elections,? Martirosian said in a speech at the National
Assembly.
- Armenian To Hold Presidential Elections On February 19
YEREVAN -- Armenia?s Central Election Commission (CEC) officially set
the date of next year?s presidential election for February 19 thus
marking the beginning of formal processes leading up to the vote.
Following the requirement of Armenian law, CEC Head Garegin Azarian
made a brief announcement in this regard through the country?s public
television and radio on Friday afternoon. ?In line with the Armenian
election law and constitution, I am authorized to declare that the
elections of the republic?s president will be held on February 19,
2008,? Azarian said. According to the Armenian constitution, an
election must take place 50 days before the end of the current
president?s term.
In accordance with Armenia?s election law, the Election Day (Tuesday)
is declared a day-off in the country. The timetable of all stages of
the electoral process is expected to be defined soon after this
announcement. Regardless of whether February 19 election goes into a
runoff or not, the next elected president of Armenia will be sworn in
on April 9.
If adopted in the second reading any time soon, the amendments to the
election law approved by lawmakers in the first reading early this
week will stipulate that only political parties can nominate
presidential candidates, or persons wishing to stand for president in
elections can do so themselves.
So far candidates in Armenia?s presidential elections have been
nominated by political parties and blocs of political parties as well
as by civic initiatives. Critics say the amendment has ?psychological?
implications as it will make impossible the appearance of the names of
several political parties at a time on the ballot-paper next to the
name of a candidate they support. They further claim that it is done
deliberately to contain a possible consolidation of different
opposition parties around a single candidate in the run-up to the
election.
- Serzh Sarkisian Confirmed As The Presidential Candidate Of The
Ruling Republican Party
YEREVAN -- Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian attacked and warned former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian against attempting to change Armenia?s
existing political system over the weekend as he was formally
confirmed as the presidential candidate of the ruling Republican Party
(HHK).
The HHK leadership unanimously backed his candidacy in the upcoming
presidential election at a congress held in Yerevan on Saturday.
Sarkisian was also elected HHK chairman, completing his takeover of a
party which controls most government bodies in the country and claims
to have 135,000 members.
With Sarkisian long seen as President Robert Kocharian?s preferred
successor, the four-hour congress was expected to be a mere formality.
As was the case during the previous HHK gatherings, there were no
discussions on key issues facing Armenia and the party?s electoral
strategy and tactics. The only visible novelty this time around was
the presence of shapely fashion models who helped 650 or so delegates
find their seats in a sports arena in Yerevan that served as the
congress venue.
Sarkisian spent half of his 30- minute acceptance speech responding to
Ter-Petrosian?s harsh criticism of the current Armenian leadership. It
was a clear sign that he considers the enigmatic ex-president to be
his main election challenger.
?They want to break up the state,? the influential premier said of
Ter-Petrosian and his opposition loyalists. ?They won?t succeed. Any
[such] attempt will be thwarted.? Breaking his nearly decade-long
silence, Ter-Petrosian has accused Kocharian and Sarkisian of turning
Armenia into a ?gangster state? where government corruption and
suppression of dissent are the norm. He has urged Armenians to help
him bring down the ruling ?criminal regime? in the election scheduled
for February 19.
?It is pathetic that Levon Ter-Petrosian has lost a sense of reality
to such an extent that he ? advises President Robert Kocharian and
myself to leave the political arena,? said Sarkisian. ?To avoid
staying in his debt, let me give him another advice. He had better
repent and apologize to the Armenian people for, to put it mildly,
mistakes committed by him.?
?I am sure he won?t do that because he is filled with spite and has
Genoirreversibly fallen behind the course of life,? he added.
Sarkisian apparently referred to the first years of Armenia?s
independence marked by an economic slump, mass unemployment and severe
electricity shortages. Ter-Petrosian and his loyalists say much of the
resulting enormous hardship was the result of the wars in
Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia that all but cut off Armenia from the
outside world. Kocharian insisted, however, that the Ter-Petrosian
administration simply ?ruined? the economy.
Sarkisian, who had help key government positions in Yerevan during
most of Ter-Petrosian?s 1991-1998 presidency, would not say if he
thinks he too bears responsibility for the alleged misrule.His
comments were dismissed on Monday by Ararat Zurabian, the nominal head
of the former ruling Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh), one of the
several opposition parties aligned with Ter-Petrosian.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Zurabian stressed that neither Kocharian, nor
Sarkisian have directly commented on concrete accusations leveled
against them by Ter-Petrosian. The HHSh chairman suggested that they
try to disprove those accusations in a live televised debate with
Ter-Petrosian.
Addressing a big rally in Yerevan on October 26, Ter-Petrosian
specifically accused Kocharian, Sarkisian and their close associates
of pocketing billions of dollars in taxes and informal payments
allegedly extorted from local businesspeople.
In his Saturday speech, Sarkisian acknowledged that bribery, nepotism
and other corrupt practices are widespread in Armenia. He indicated
that if elected president, he will make sure that businessmen and
other wealthy individuals close to the government do not get away with
enriching themselves by illegal means.
?Tax evasion and corruption must be regarded as a disgraceful and
condemnable phenomenon,? said Sarkisian. ?We must not take into
account family ties and friendship and must not regard as friends and
supporters those people who will avoid paying taxes and tolerate this
vicious phenomenon.?
The Armenian premier himself has long been accused by his opponents of
sponsoring government-connected entrepreneurs who enjoy de facto
monopoly on lucrative forms of economic activity. Most of the
so-called ?oligarchs? are now affiliated with the HHK.
- Karabakh War Could Flare Again, Warns Western Think-Tank
BRUSSELS - The 20-year-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
could re-ignite into a war that would threaten the region?s oil
exports, an influential think-tank said on Wednesday. The
Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report the
fragile truce is under threat because Azerbaijan is using cash from
oil exports to beef up its military and both sides are refusing to
compromise.
A major oil pipeline linking Azerbaijan?s Caspian Sea oilfields to the
Mediterranean Sea runs a few dozen kilometers (miles) to the east of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Operated by a BPled consortium, it will soon pump
one million barrels of oil a day. ?The international community needs
to take the threat of war seriously,? said Magdalena Frichova, ICG?s
Caucasus Project Director.
?The risk of armed conflict is growing, and the dangers of complacency
enormous.? The report said the riskiest period could be around 2012,
when Azerbaijan?s oil exports are expected to start slowing, possibly
triggering economic problems.
?A military adventure might seem a tempting way to distract citizens
>From economic crisis,? ICG said in a preface to the report. ?Important
oil and gas pipelines near Nagorno-Karabakh would likely be among the
first casualties of a new war, something Europe and the U.S. in
particular have an interest in avoiding.?
The ICG report said the United States and European Union should make
resolution of the conflict a condition of their relations with
Azerbaijan and Armenia. It also said Baku and Yerevan should sign a
document of basic principles to establish ground rules for peace
talks. It said this should be done before elections in both countries
next year which could complicate the search for peace.
- Lecture At NAASR On Armenian Genocide By Lemkin Award-Winner Donald Bloxham
BELMONT, MA -- Prof. Donald Bloxham, Professor of Modern History at
the University of Edinburgh and currently the J. B. and Maurice C.
Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in
Washington, D.C., will give a lecture entitled ?The Role of the Great
Powers in the Armenian Genocide? on Thursday, December 13, at 8:00
p.m., at the National Association
for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave.,
Belmont, MA. This lecture, Bloxham?s first in the Boston area, will
take place the same evening as NAASR?s Christmas Open House.
The lecture will be based on Bloxham?s acclaimed book The Great Game
of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the
Ottoman Armenians (Oxford Univ. Press), recently released in
paperback, and for which Bloxham has been awarded the Raphael Lemkin
Award for 2007 by the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
The Great Game of Genocide will be on sale and available for signing
by the author.
- Interaction Between Ottoman Empire and Great Powers
Bloxham has written, ?The project from which the book evolved
originally intended to focus upon Turkish denial of the Armenian
genocide, and Western acceptance of that denial. But it soon
became clear that denial and its accommodation could not be properly
understood without knowledge of how the outside world related to the
deeds of the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after the First
World War ? [and that] it was impossible to explain this pattern of
interaction between the Ottoman state and the ?Great Powers? in the
Armenian Question up to and during the genocide.?
Bloxham is the youngest full professor of history in the UK and the
winner of several prizes and honors for his work in addition to the
Lemkin Award for genocide scholarship. He is also the author of
Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust
History and Memory, The Holocaust: Critical Historical Approaches
(with Tony Kushner), and the forthcoming Genocide, the World Wars, and
the Unweaving of Europe. He is also author of nearly fifty articles
and book chapters, and serves on the editorial board of four journals:
Holocaust Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, Zeitschrift für
Genozidforschung, and the Journal of Genocide Research.
- Holocaust Denial in The White House
The Turks Say The Armenians Died In A ?Civil War?, And Bush Goes Along
With Their Lies
By Robert Fisk
(The Independent, UK)
How are the mighty fallen! President George Bush, the crusader king
who would draw the sword against the forces of Darkness and Evil, he
who said there was only ?them or us?, who would carry on, he claimed,
an eternal conflict against ?world terror? on our behalf; he turns
out, well, to be a wimp. A clutch of Turkish generals and a
multimillion-dollar public relations campaign on behalf of Turkish
Holocaust deniers have transformed the lion into a lamb. No, not even
a lamb ? for this animal is, by its nature, a symbol of innocence ?
but into a household mouse, a little diminutive creature which, seen
>From afar, can even be confused with a rat. Am I going too far? I
think not.
The ?story so far? is familiar enough. In 1915, the Ottoman Turkish
authorities carried out the systematic genocide of one and a half
million Christian Armenians. There are photographs, diplomatic
reports, original Ottoman documentation, the process of an entire
post-First World War Ottoman trial, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George
and a massive report by the British Foreign Office in 1915 and 1916 to
prove that it is all true. Even movie film is now emerging ? real
archive footage taken by Western military cameramen in the First World
War ? to show that the first Holocaust of the 20th century,
perpetrated in front of German officers who would later perfect its
methods in their extermination of six million Jews, was as real as its
pitifully few Armenian survivors still claim.
But the Turks won?t let us say this. They have blackmailed the Western
powers ? including our own British Government, and now even the US ?
to kowtow to their shameless denials. These (and I weary that we must
repeat them, because every news agency and government does just that
through fear of Ankara?s fury) include the canard that the Armenians
died in a ?civil war?, that they were anyway collaborating with
Turkey?s Russian enemies, that fewer Armenians were killed than have
been claimed, that as many Turkish Muslims were murdered as Armenians.
And now President Bush and the United States Congress have gone along
with these lies. There was, briefly, a historic moment for Bush to
walk tall after the US House Foreign Relations Committee voted last
month to condemn the mass slaughter of Armenians as an act of
genocide. Ancient Armenian-American survivors gathered at a House
panel to listen to the debate. But as soon as Turkey?s fossilised
generals started to threaten Bush, I knew he would give in.
Listen, first, to General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish armed
forces, in an interview with the newspaper Milliyet. The passage of
the House resolution, he whinged, was ?sad and sorrowful? in view of
the ?strong links? Turkey maintained with its NATO partners. And if
this resolution was passed by the full House of Representatives, then
?our military relations with the US would never be as they were in the
past... The US, in that respect, has shot itself in the foot?.
Now listen to Mr Bush as he snaps to attention before the Turkish
general staff. ?We all deeply regret the tragic suffering (sic) of the
Armenian people... But this resolution is not the right response to
these historic mass killings. Its passage would do great harm to our
relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror.? I
loved the last bit about the ?global war on terror?. Nobody ? save for
the Jews of Europe ? has suffered ?terror? more than the benighted
Armenians of Turkey in 1915. But that Nato should matter more than the
integrity of history ? that Nato might one day prove to be so
important that the Bushes of this world may have to equivocate over
the Jewish Holocaust to placate a militarily resurgent Germany ?
beggars belief.
Among those men who should hold their heads in shame are those who
claim they are winning the war in Iraq. They include the increasingly
disoriented General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, and the
increasingly delusional US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, both
of whom warned that full passage of the Armenian genocide bill would
?harm the war effort in Iraq?. And make no mistake, there are big
bucks behind this disgusting piece of Holocaust denial.
Former Representative Robert L Livingston, a Louisiana Republican, has
already picked up $12m from the Turks for his company, the Livingston
Group, for two previously successful attempts to pervert the cause of
moral justice and smother genocide congressional resolutions.
He personally escorted Turkish officials to Capitol Hill to threaten
US congressmen. They got the point. If the resolution went ahead,
Turkey would bar US access to the Incirlik airbase through which
passed much of the 70 per cent of American air supplies to Iraq which
transit Turkey.
In the real world, this is called blackmail ? which was why Bush was
bound to cave in. Defence Secretary Robert Gates was even more
pusillanimous ? although he obviously cared nothing for the details of
history. Petraeus and Crocker, he said, ?believe clearly that access
to the airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be very
much put at risk if this resolution passes...?.
How terrible an irony did Gates utter. For it is these very ?roads and
so on? down which walked the hundreds of thousands of Armenians on
their 1915 death marches. Many were forced aboard cattle trains which
took them to their deaths. One of the railway lines on which they
travelled ran due east of Adana ? a great collection point for the
doomed Christians of western Armenia ? and the first station on the
line was called Incirlik, the very same Incirlik which now houses the
huge airbase that Mr Bush is so frightened of losing. Had the genocide
that Bush refuses to acknowledge not taken place ? as the Turks claim
? the Americans would be asking the Armenians for permission to use
Incirlik. There is still alive ? in Sussex if anyone cares to see her
? an ageing Armenian survivor from that region who recalls the Ottoman
Turkish gendarmes setting fire to a pile of living Armenian babies on
the road close to Adana. These are the same ?roads and so on? that so
concern the gutless Mr Gates. But fear not. If Turkey has frightened
the boots off Bush, he?s still ready to rattle the cage of the
all-powerful Persians.
People should be interested in preventing Iran from acquiring the
knowledge to make nuclear weapons if they?re ?interested in preventing
World War Three?, Bush has warned us. What piffle. Bush can?t even
summon up the courage to tell the truth about World War One. Who would
have thought that the leader of the Western world ? he who would
protect us against ?world terror? ? would turn out to be the David
Irving of the White House?
(The Independent, UK)
--
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