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.