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04/17/2006
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1) Central Genocide Commemoration Event to Be Held in Montebello
2) Karabagh Holds War Games
3) ARF Holds Ceremony in Memory of Shahen Meghrian
4) US Considers Setting up Naval Bases in Turkey
5) Armenian Women Politicians Discuss Lack of Female Representation
1) Central Genocide Commemoration Event to Be Held in Montebello
The commemoration of the 91st anniversary of the Armenian genocide will be
held
Sunday, April 23 at 4:30 PM at the Armenian Genocide Monument in Montebello’s
Bicknell Park, announced California’s Central Commemorative Body.
The program will feature local and state officials, including State Senator
Jackie Speier. The keynote speaker will be Professor Peter Cowe, Narekatsi
Professor of Armenian Studies at UCLA.
After the political portion of the program, there will be a requiem service
for the 1.5 million victims of the Genocide.
Transportation to and from the event will be provided at the following
locations:
GLENDALE, St. Mary’s Apostolic Church
GLENDALE, St. Gregory’s Armenian Catholic Church
PASADENA, St. Gregory the Illuminator Church
PASADENA, St. Sarkis Church
VAN NUYS, St. Bedros Church
HOLLYWOOD, St. Hovhannou Garabed Church
HOLLYWOOD, St. Garabed Church
California’s Central Commemorative Body urges all Armenians to attend
Sunday’s
event and remember the victims of the Armenian genocide.
2) Karabagh Holds War Games
YEREVAN (Armenpress)–The armed forces of Mountainous Karabagh Republic (MKR)
will hold three-day military games starting April 18. The Armenian Ministry of
Defense reported that the defense ministers of Armenia and Karabagh and other
top army officers will watch the drills.
MKR Defense Ministry spokesman Senor Hasratyan told journalists the war games
are going to be held in compliance with the 2006 army training plan.
“The measure aims at improving the combat readiness of Armenian forces of
Nagorno-Karabagh and coordinating their work during defense and counterattack
operations,” he said.
3) ARF Holds Ceremony in Memory of Shahen Meghrian
YEREVAN (Yerkir)–Monday marked the 13th anniversary of the death of Karabagh
war hero Shahen Meghrian and Nigol Aghbalian Student Union member Grigor
Grigorian. Marking the date, eleven new members were inaugurated into the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF).
The ceremony was attended by Meghrian’s relatives, officials, and students
visiting the hero’s grave. Parliament Vice Speaker and ARF Bureau member Vahan
Hovannisian, who was also godfather of the ceremony, said the new members were
taking their oaths at the grave of one of the most beloved heroes of the ARF
who, if alive, could have held a top post at the Defense Ministry. The eleven
students took their inauguration oaths with their hands on the ARF charter,
program, and a weapon.
Hovannisian said, “We swear on the charter since it unites us for our
work, we
swear on the program because it unites us for our ideas, and we swear on the
weapon, which symbolizes not only war, but also struggle, freedom, and the
defense of our country.”
4) US Considers Setting up Naval Bases in Turkey
ANKARA (RIA Novosti)–The United States is considering setting up three naval
bases in Turkey, a Turkish newspaper reported Monday.
Cumhuriyet said the bases would have the same legal status as the
American-Turkish Air Force base at Incirlik, where the presence of Turkish
representatives is mandated and all activities must be coordinated with the
local authorities.
The paper said the port of Iskenderun on the Mediterranean coast and Urla in
the Aegean Sea, as well as Mordogan on the Aegean Sea coast are possible
locations for the bases, which are likely to host large naval ships including
aircraft carriers.
The US has been searching for appropriate locations for the last eight
months,
the paper said, and had been considering the use of current Turkish ports or
establishing new ones.
Initially, Washington wanted one of the three bases to be located on Turkey’s
Black Sea coast. But the request was denied because Turkey is a signatory to
the 1936 Montreux Convention, which regulates navigation in the Black Sea
straits and bans non-littoral states from maintaining a permanent naval
presence in the Black Sea.
5) Armenian Women Politicians Discuss Lack of Female Representation
YEREVAN (RFE/RL/Armenpress)–One of few women members of Armenian Parliament,
Alvart Petrosian from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), said Monday
that Armenia must demand democracy in order to boost the role of women in the
country’s political life.
Armenian women are grossly underrepresented in government. Armenia has no
female government ministers and only six out of 131 members of its parliament
are women.
Armenia has a legal provision stipulating that at least five percent of
candidates from a party or alliance must be women. However, female candidates
have usually been low on the electorate slates of competing political groups,
meaning that they have very low chances of winning parliament seats.
The most common explanation for this phenomenon is that Armenia is still a
conservative male-dominated society where women are largely confined to minor
positions outside their homes.
But according to one of the country’s best-known female politicians, this is
not necessarily the case. Speaking at a roundtable discussion in Yerevan,
Ruzan
Khachatrian, a senior member of the People’s Party of Armenia, said that
Armenian women have primarily themselves to blame for their extremely weak
presence in the executive and legislative branches of government.
“Strangely enough, during elections in Armenia a woman is far more reluctant
to elect another woman than a man is,” said Khachatrian. “Why is this so? I
don’t know.”
Khachatrian was the main opposition candidate in last October’s local
election
in Yerevan’s central administrative district which a businessman won. She
believes that that the vast majority of some 5,000 local residents who voted
for her were men.
Lyudmila Harutunian, a prominent Armenian sociologist who leads a small party
called Arzhanapatvutyun (Dignity), agreed that winning an election or securing
a high-level government post is extremely difficult for local women, but laid
the blame squarely on the men. She said Armenia’s government affairs have long
been monopolized by wealthy businessmen and other powerful men reliant on
brute
force and there is little women can do about that.
Harutunian said women should play a bigger role in moving the country towards
true democracy. She said democracy has no alternative, adding that a
democratic
Armenia would face fewer problems in its efforts to settle the Karabagh
dispute.
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