Inca Kola News
Dec 5 2009

Armen’s superb rant

By Otto Rock

Dec. 5, 2009 (Inca Kola News delivered by Newstex) —

The Kouyoumdjian Weekly hit my mailbox this morning, and even by his
high standards he knocked one out of the ballpark today with the rant.
I’ve been given permission to reproduce here, so with no further ado
here’s the script. Excellent stuff.

LEAVE THOSE LEADERS ALONE!

And Tie Up Your Own Sharval!

By Armen Kouyoumdjian
kouyvina (AT) cmet.net

December 5, 2009

If you are disappointed that this is not a report about the first
round of the elections in 8 days time, just be patient. The next one
will treat the subject a couple of days before the polls, but I have
to warn you that it will be mainly structural rather than topical. The
only valid electoral analysis will be the one written after the
January second round, when we know for sure who the winner is and what
sort of congress he has to work with.

This week therefore, I am referring to a subject that has increasingly
bothered me over a long period, and which is now getting out of hand.
This is the propensity not only to criticize the way other countries
are run, which anyone has the right to do (as long as they get their
facts right), but without being a citizen of such places, actively
working for the said government to be overthrown, if necessary by
violent means. This ranges from virulent media campaigns to sneaky
subversion and if all else fails, unashamed military action.

I know in advance that many people will disagree, accuse me of all
sorts of hidden allegiances and agendas, and God knows what else. The
only allegiances I have is to Truth, Justice and the Armenian cause.
To those who disagree I say, please visit a Mexican village called La
Chingada, which is in a region called La Punta del Cerro, and book a
room for a long stay in a hostelry called La Chucha.

The Å`Sharval I am referring-to in my subtitle is a type of light
trouser worn by both sexes in many parts of the Middle East and the
Indian subcontinent. Its characteristic is that it is held in place
not by an elastic band or a belt, but by a tie-up lace. In Turkey at
least, when someone speaks out of order, it is customary to tell them
to Å`tie up your own sharval, meaning that make sure you are behaving
correctly before criticizing others.

WHAT RIGHT TO INTERVENE? Interestingly, the subject of criticism
coming from the man or woman in the street, the media, politicians and
business leaders always tends to be Å`Leftist or Å`Radical regimes.
These same people sitting in judgment obviously had no such qualms
when unappetizing dictatorships were in power, committing the worst
atrocities. A common butt of such criticism is Å`Islamic regimes,
though the problem goes much beyond that.

I was at a national celebratory dinner at an elegant Viña hotel, more
out of obligation than enthusiasm. It was by no means cheap, and
though we were in the same room eating the same food as the other
guests, our party was given miniscule paper napkins, whereas other
guests had proper ones, and they initially insisting on serving only
Pisco Sour (to a group including many Moslems) as aperitifs.

However, it is not yet another expensively disappointing dining
experience in Chile I want to talk about (I have touched upon the
problem several times in the past, and concluded that it had no
solution). One of the fellow guests asked me what party was in power
in Armenia. Unflinchingly, I answered Å`the Corruption Party. For her,
that was irrelevant. Å`Are they Right or Left? she insisted (a silly
question to ask about a former Soviet Republic, but the lady, despite
being wealthy, had no culture- Nie Kulturny- as the Russians say. Not
only she did not find anything wrong with the fact that we were
treated like second class citizens by the hotel, but she had never
heard of Pol Pot, or the Peter Principle).

Å`What do you think of Chávez?, was her next question. I knew it was a
trap, but could not care less. Å`I am fed up of people always
criticizing him without knowing anything about the country, his
predecessors, and the present reality, I answered. Å`I do not like him,
she said, Å`he is a threat. Å`In what way do you personally feel
threatened by Chavez?, I asked. Å`Not me personally, but others are,
was her feeble explanation.

We shall talk more about Chávez later, but in a general fashion, who
has the right to decide which person or party another countrys
citizens elect or support, particularly in democratic elections?
Coming from people who have never even visited that country, looked at
a single newspaper published there, do some background research,
etc..They take their view first and foremost from their own
prejudices, and lean on that countrys voluble opposition who get a
more sympathetic ear at home than abroad. How did you conclude that
Iranian or Saudi women are in a majority unhappy wearing the veil or
the Burka? From reading Persepolis by that promiscuous drug addict
author Marjane Satrapi? How would you like it if the Iranian air force
or the Taliban bombarded your wedding party, because they do not like
the tangas worn by your promiscuous daughters (who in Chile, according
to a study financed by the French embassy, are all penetrated by the
average age of 14 years and 2 months), the ugly sight of their
brassiere straps, their disgusting piercings and tattoos, not to
mention their big bumsand ugly bare midriffs? Who are you to decide
how they are going to run their lives in the Middle East, or in
Caracas, Santa Cruz or Guayaquil? Have you talked to foreign Western
women accompanying their husbands on postings to the Gulf, saying they
never felt as cared and respected as women in their lives as during
the time they spent there?

Despite all its failings which are soon bringing it to the level of a
mediocre Third World country, at least there is some decency left in
Britain. The current Chilcot enquiry is leaving no stone unturned in
revealing how the Blair administration, lied, cajoled, threatened and
even drove officials to suicide in order to join the US attack on
Iraq.

Though I myself have only been there twice (when I was 7 months old
the first time, and 5 years the second time), two branches of my
family lived there for some 350 years, as businessmen, company
executives, landowners and senior civil servants (my fathers eldest
brother was Chief Executive of the Baghdad Electricity Company, and
one of his cousins the Director of Exports at the Oil Ministry). None
are left there now, but we have enough collective experience of the
place to know when it was well run and when it was not. At least when
I write about something, I know what I am talking about, and I do not
get my sources from Rupert Murdochs publications or the Israeli
embassy cheque books.

Let us now look at two specific cases of demonisation at two opposite
extremes of the world: Iran and Venezuela.

IRAN Since the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran thirty years
ago, that country has been among the favourite whipping boys of the
West. Å`Ayatollahs in the backyard, as The Economist headlined just
before the president of Iran visited Latin America, as if only
American navy vessels and Hillary Clinton were permitted to come to
the area. Things in that direction reached their paroxysm with the
coming to power of president Ahmadinejad, who was recently re-elected
after an election deemed controversial. If anyone bothered to follow
closely the last few elections in Iran, they would have noticed a
diversity of policies and options on offers among the candidates which
the more-of-the-same Chilean (and other) electorate would love to
have. Those Å`oppressed women are much more present at top jobs, both
in public and private life ( a former World Bank executive told me how
the chief lawyer on the Iranian side, in a loan negotiation he
undertook many years ago, was not only a woman, but also Armenian,
which goes to prove that minorities even Christian ones, are not
excluded).

Ahmadinejad may indeed sometimes be a loose cannon in terms of what he
says and does, but this is no reason to lie about him. The attacks on
the president and his country became more virulent after accusations
that he denied the Jewish Holocaust. In fact, if you read his exact
words, he did no such thing, but just to please the ignorant masses,
let us assume that he did. We Armenians find that accusation fantastic
in its partiality. What about all the countries (the USA, Britain,
etc..) who join Turkey, itself shamefully supported by no less than
Israel, and the Anglo-Saxon Zionist gutter press (such as The
Economist and the BBC to name but two). Why isnt world public opinion
being Å`outraged at the killing of over half our race 95 years ago, and
instead suggesting (like the Swiss) to name a Å`commission to look at
the facts ? Where are the demonstrations by the Yiddische restaurant
owners in Copacabana against the Turkish consulate, or do they only go
out against Ahmadinejad?

Now to the second accusation against Iran, that of attempting to build
a nuclear arsenal. Last year, at a talk he gave in Flacso, I gently
cornered Mr El-Baradei on the matter of proof. He had to admit that he
had been asked by others to find it, so far with nothing concrete.
This does not stop others to continue lying. Some weeks ago, the dean
of an obscure German university, who is also a political scientist,
gave a talk at a Viña university. He described both Chávez and Iran as
threats, insisting on the latter that the IAEA had discovered Å`proof
(it has done nothing of the kind). One wishes that when Israel
illegally started building up a nuclear arsenal now amounting to
several dozen warheads, the world had been so keen to stop them (and
there, contrary to Iran, we HAVE proof).

Oh yes, the parallel accusation that Iran Å`threatened Israel. Wow,
what a sin. It does not matter that Israel not only threatened but
destroyed both the economy and social fabric of Lebanon, starves the
Palestinians, threatens Iran itself, but nobody says anything, even
when they elect war criminals as leaders.

HUGO CHAVEZ In February 1989, a few weeks into his second presidency,
the then head of the Venezuelan state Carlos Andrés Pérez (C.A.P.) had
to face massive protests from the urban shanty town dwellers against
high inflation and low salaries. He sent the troops against them and
even the official admission is 276 dead (though to this day there are
2,000 disappeared from whom nothing more was heard again, a figure
marginally lower than in the 17 years of the Pinochet regime).

During his first mandate, C.A.P. had managed to rob half the countrys
wealth and he was now going for the second half, in the most corrupt
regime the country had ever seen. Nobody mentions that when
criticizing Chávez, who has democratically won all but one poll he has
faced. Maybe because he cared for the less favoured among the
population, always a sin among the local elites (viz. Arbenz, Allende,
etc..) ? As a country risk analyst, I would be the first to admit that
he has made many errors on the economic side. Too many hopes on the
price of oil remaining high, and an over-extended fiscal commitment,
with heavy reliance on debt whilst lending to others. A public
services infrastructure falling apart, and a currency policy which has
miraculously survived longer than logic would expect (though no
Chilean is in a position to criticize another countrys handling of the
exchange rate, when its own currency is subject to the vagaries of a
team of manic-depressives).

All the above be as it may, the Venezuelans have elected Chavez, and
will unelect him when they feel like it. It is not a job for the USA,
the SOFOFA, El Mercurio or The Economist. A recent reportage by
Chilean writer Rafael Gumucio, supported by my own findings on reading
an opposition Venezuelan paper every day, reflect a free press and
debate which Chileans have not seen in nearly 40 years in their own
country. Public talk about politics is the national hobby, and on
every week-end and holiday, roads and travel agencies are clogged with
travelers going to resorts at home and abroad. The real threat to
stability in the region is not Chávez but Colombias Uribe, with the
millions of Colombian refugees of whom some 400,000 have escaped to
Ecuador and Venezuela. As Gumucio writes, this is neither a Socialist
country nor a bloody dictatorship. But nobody wants to know what it
is. So, let the well-run Latin American countries tie up their own
sharvals and let Chavez swim or sink on his own, but you have no
moral, ethical or legal right to actively undermine his regime from
abroad.

OTHER LEADERS Of course. Chávez is not alone as a regional whipping
boy. Every time a country elects or reelects a popular leader who
wants to change things, the missiles start flying. Bolivias Evo
Morales, who is a shoo-in for imminent re-election, is just finishing
a first term during which his country had the highest growth in 30
years, and government revenue as a percentage of GDP has risen by 20
percentage points (over double the US figure).

Ecuadors Rafael Correa may not be everyones cup of tea, but I was
quite impressed at a recent presentation their investment office gave
in Santiago (less impressed by the Chilean businessman whose only
worry as expressed during question time was the power of unions). His
42 % popularity is higher than Gordon Browns government. Paraguay is
admittedly a mess, but then it has always been so. Uruguays second
Frente Amplio government takes over a country which has managed even
in 2009 to have positive growth and lower unemployment. Tie up your
own sharvals.