ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Monday, March 21, 2005
In this issue:
Senate hearing highlights demand for Genocide affirmation
U.S. praises Armenia for assistance on attempted smuggling case
New Armenian ambassador to the U.S. appointed
Oskanian speaks on human rights, Genocide and Karabakh
SENATE HEARING HIGHLIGHTS DEMANDS FOR U.S. AFFIRMATION OF ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE
Senator George Allen (R-VA), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee for Europe, has dismissed claims that U.S. affirmation
of the Armenian Genocide should be avoided due to Turkish
“sensitivity” towards the subject. Speaking during the hearings on
“The Future of Democracy in the Black Sea Area” held on March 8,
Allen said that while the U.S. wants good relations with Turkey, that
does not mean that Washington is “willing to sweep history under the
rug.” “The basis of a truly enduring and reliable U.S.-Turkey
relationship is the truth… It is past time for America to affirm
the historical record and recognize the Armenian Genocide,” he
stressed.
Former Department of Defense official Bruce Jackson who, as President
of the Project on Transitional Democracies, works closely with the
newly independent states of Eurasia, testified at the same hearing
and declared in a statement for the record: “Just because Turkish
officials become indignant at the mention of a genocide campaign
conducted by Ottoman authorities against Armenian civilians in the
early years of the last century does not mean that coming to terms
with history should not be discussed between democratic allies. If
we are to succeed where democracy is at risk, we must be clear in
what we say and do.”
Senior U.S. officials, including the late President Ronald Reagan,
have affirmed the Armenian Genocide, and President George W. Bush has
used a textbook definition of the crime in his annual commemorative
statements, but under pressure from Turkey, the U.S. does not
officially refer to the deaths of over a million Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey as genocide. While denying the Armenian Genocide, senior
Turkish officials have accused the U.S. and Israel of “genocide” in
Iraq and Palestine, respectively. Last week, in what is seen as a
sign of continued difficulties in relations, the U.S. Ambassador to
Turkey Eric Edelman resigned from his post. (Sources: AAA Press
Release 3-11; Agence France Presse 3-18)
ARMENIA ASSISTS U.S. IN ATTEMPTED ARMS SMUGGLING CASE
U.S. officials have praised the Armenian government for its help in
investigation of attempted arms smuggling from one or more former
Soviet republics. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI]
appreciates the professionalism and active cooperation of the
Armenian authorities,” FBI’s legal attaché to the Caucasus Bryan
Paarmann was quoted as saying in a U.S. Embassy to Armenia statement
last Friday.
The FBI last week arrested 18 people, including citizens of Armenia,
Georgia and South Africa on suspicion of seeking to import
Soviet-made weapons, including missile and grenade launchers, into
the United States. The individuals reportedly approached a South
African businessman and explosives expert with offers to obtain the
weapons, while the individual in turn informed the FBI, leading to a
year-long investigation. One of the Armenian citizens arrested,
26-year-old Artur Solomonyan, was in the U.S. illegally and is also
wanted in Armenia on charges of draft evasion. He is now facing up to
30 years in a U.S. prison.
Both the U.S. and Armenian officials stressed that no weapons
actually entered the United States from Armenia. But Solomonyan was
able to obtain pictures of the weapons he claimed he could smuggle to
the U.S. Armenia’s Deputy National Security Director Hrachya
Harutiunian reported last Friday that three individuals were detained
in Armenia on suspicion of involvement in the case. The detained
include an individual who allegedly acquired pictures of the weapons
on Solomonyan’s request, but did not have access to weapons
themselves. FBI’s Paarmann told local reporters that Armenia “takes
the [attempted smuggling] seriously” and is not a country from where
arms can be easily smuggled. (Sources: AP 3-15; Regnum.ru 3-17;
Arminfo 3-21; Mediamax 3-21)
NEW ARMENIAN ENVOY TO U.S. APPOINTED
President Robert Kocharian has appointed Deputy Foreign Minister
Tatul Margarian to be Armenia’s new Ambassador to the United States,
the Foreign Ministry reported over the weekend. Margarian replaces
Ambassador Arman Kirakossian who has completed his five-year tour. In
a farewell message issued two weeks ago, Kirakossian noted that
“U.S.-Armenia relations have strengthened and expanded greatly within
the last five years.” Highlighting the growing security and
commercial ties, Kirakossian added that “in part, the quality of our
bilateral relations today reflects an Armenia that is more stable,
economically dynamic, and confident domestically than it was five
years ago.”
Margarian will be Armenia’s third Ambassador to the United States
since independence in 1991. Since 2000 Margarian served as Deputy
Foreign Minister in charge of international security issues and from
2002-2003, he was also the President’s special envoy for Karabakh.
Born in 1964 in Kapan in Armenia’s southern Syunik province,
Margarian previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the United
States (1994-98) and as advisor to the Foreign Minister (1999-2000).
He holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Johns
Hopkins University in Washington, DC and PhD in Economics from the
Yerevan Institute of National Economy. (Sources: Armenian Embassy in
U.S. Press Release 3-7; Mediamax 3-19)
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Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan’s speech
at the UN Commission on Human Rights [excerpts]
March 15, 2005
Geneva
Mr. Chairman, […]
For Armenians, the human rights principle, the concept of man’s
inalienable rights touches a raw nerve. We lived the greatest part of
the last century under a regime that endured solely because of the
absence of human rights, civil liberties and freedoms. […]
After living, as I said, under an ideologically different helmet only
fourteen years ago, our domestic experience has been difficult and
sometimes bumpy. We have learned to believe less in snap changes, we
have our reasons to be skeptical of revolutions, we know that smooth
public relations do not last as long as decent human relations.
Therefore, as last year, so next year, we will continue to build on
our successes, through evolutionary, incremental ways: poverty
reduction, protecting the rights of conscientious objectors and
religious sects, reforming the judicial system, strengthening
political diversity and free expression, protecting and promoting the
rights of women and children, fighting human traffickers.
As for Genocide, Mr. Chairman, it is the ultimate manifestation of
the violation of human rights. This year marks the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. Two-thirds of the Armenian population
perished between 1915 and 1918. As a minority, living in the Ottoman
Empire, their call for the application of the lofty principles of
liberty, equality and fraternity, led to their death sentence. Today,
their survivors, living within and outside the Republic of Armenia
expect that the world¹s avowal of the universality of those same
noble principles will lead to recognition that Genocide was committed
against Armenians.
Ninety years after the event, we still live with the memory of
suffering unrelieved by strong condemnation and unequivocal
recognition. In this we are not alone. The catharsis that victims
deserve and societies require in order to heal and move forward
together, obliges me to appeal to the international community to call
things by their name, to remove the veil of obfuscation, of double
standards, of political expediency.
Very recently, at the highest levels, the Turkish leadership called
for a historical debate. They suggested that historians from Turkey
and Armenia go thru archives and sort out this issue. My immediate
response that Armenia would not participate in a historical debate
was interpreted as rejection of dialogue.
Let’s not confuse the two kinds of dialogue. One is a debate about
history. The other is a political discussion. Periodic calls by
various Turkish administrations for historical debate simply delay
the process of reconciling with the truth. The facts are clear. The
historical record is clear. We know well what happened to our
forebears. Even in the first days of the Turkish Republic, the local
Turkish authorities who had actually carried out the genocidal acts
were tried and found guilty by their own Turkish courts. The Turks
themselves, for their own reasons, put aside that historical record
and moved away from that honest, dignified approach to one of denial
and rejection. Turkey owes the world’s generation that recognition so
we move forward. […]
A financially bankrupt government is turned over to international
organizations until it reforms and renounces its wrongs. Can we
tolerate any less of a government which is morally bankrupt? Do we
want successive generations to believe that genocide is inevitable in
each generation, on each continent? Can we allow governments to
commit such massive violence against their own people? How can we
explain why a report on Threats Challenges and Change must consider
genocide a threat, even at the beginning of the 21st century?
Finally, the third human rights issue is that of the
self-determination of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh. Ironically,
Mr. Chairman, even as societies have learned to support the victims
of domestic violence, we have not yet graduated to offering the same
support to victims of international or government violence. At best,
the world watches silently as the victims attempt to defend
themselves, and if somehow, against great odds, they succeed, then
the world quickly pulls back, as the state loudly cries foul and
claims sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Just as the perpetrator of domestic violence loses the moral right to
custody, so does a government that commits and promotes violence
against its own citizens lose its rights. It is in such instances
that the notion of self-determination is significant and legitimate.
This is exactly what happened to the people of Nagorno Karabakh
during the days of the collapse of the USSR when they opted,
peacefully, for self-determination. The government of Azerbaijan
immediately not only rejected the peaceful dialogue but resorted
immediately to forceful suppression of those aspirations. Azerbaijan
continued to militarily respond. At one point, the people of Nagorno
Karabakh were on the verge of annihilation had there not been the
last minute mobilization and their determination to fight for their
lives, homes and their homeland. Today the government of Azerbaijan
has lost the moral right to even suggest providing for their security
and their future, let alone to talk of custody of the people of
Nagorno Karabakh.
Mr. Chairman, for us, defense and protection of human rights is not
an abstract principle. It is the difference between survival and
annihilation. We believe it is the same for many in the world. Yet,
our individual and collective tendency is to ignore or neglect
problems for which we have no immediate answer or prospect for
solution. This is even more true in situations which defy belief,
surpass common norms, and shake our very assumptions and values. For
these very reasons, in our ever-shrinking world, what is required is
resolve on the part of the committed in order to expand the
engagement of those still hesitant.
–Boundary_(ID_hMVsBzpD9wcl2mdMaQwzbg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress