Author: Badalian Vardan

Tulsa World (Oklahoma)
May 26, 2006 Friday
Final Home Edition

Let’s stop the shouting and solve the problem

by TAD BARTIMUS

The Los Angeles cabbie who’d passed us by 10 minutes earlier rolled
up to the curb: “You tired ladies get in. I’ll take you where you
want to go.”

During the ride to our hotel, Mr. A, as he asked us to call him, told
of emigrating from Armenia and becoming a naturalized American
citizen. What did he think of the growing illegal-alien crisis in his
adopted country?

“It has to be fair to everyone. I don’t want to see people sent back
to Mexico. Most of them work hard, spend money, are good people. They
do jobs nobody else will do. But they should earn the right to be
here like I did.

“I had to go through the process,” said Mr. A, now in his 50s.
Speaking in accented English he learned during a six-month paid
language course, he said the three years of citizenship paperwork
that cost him $5,000 “without a lawyer” were worth it.

“I earned the right to be here legally, to vote and pay taxes and
serve on a jury,” he said, navigating through traffic in his
independently owned taxi. “First, I got a visa in Armenia. When I
came to America, I got a white card, then a green card so I could
earn enough money to live. I learned about the Constitution. My kids
went to public school, made good grades.

“Tomorrow,” he said proudly, “my daughter graduates from law school.”

The words on the Statue of Liberty say, “Give me your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” They don’t say,
“Keep a knockin’ but you can’t come in.” What makes us strong is our
willingness to accept others, mix our ideas with theirs and celebrate
our differences.

We can’t say no to Mexico any more than we can say no to hurricanes
and earthquakes. Perhaps if we’d been a better friend to that
developing nation, its most hopeless people wouldn’t be so desperate
to migrate.

Some say that if we help Mexico develop its petrochemical industry,
there will be plenty of work for everyone. Certainly that would be
better than offering nothing, which is what we’ve done for 200 years.

NAFTA notwithstanding, we can do much more to stimulate the growth of
the Mexican economy. A more prosperous, egalitarian neighbor to the
south means less pressure on us and much more hope for them.

Before we voice an opinion about immigration, we should turn down the
volume on talk radio, pull the plug on TV pundits and educate
ourselves instead of depending on Lou Dobbs, Minuteman vigilantes,
campaigning congressmen and special-interest lobbyists who spoon-feed
us biased, inaccurate information.

Once we’ve researched firsthand the big picture — illegal
immigration’s impact on social-welfare programs (in many states
overwhelmed), our national economy (billions of dollars contributed),
crime statistics (fluctuates regionally) and the lunatic fringe on
both sides of the debate — we should seek out naturalized citizens
and illegal immigrants willing to share their stories.

“Illegal immigrants are everywhere,” said my retired friend Andy, who
volunteers as an English teacher at a Los Angeles nonprofit learning
center. He said many of the adult students are increasingly
terrified.

“Everything already is a hassle because they’re flying under the
radar,” he said. “Now they’re scared to death they’ll lose their
children if they’re caught and deported.”

Andy said his illegal-immigrant students “study so hard and are so
eager to learn, yet many of them are afraid to apply their skills to
get better jobs because that raises their profile and brings them
more attention.”

It’s implausible to think the U.S. government can force millions of
undocumented workers back to Mexico permanently.

Before he drove away to prepare for his daughter’s law-school
graduation party, Mr. A said, “We can solve this immigration problem
if everybody would stop shouting, calm down and be fair.”

Spoken like a true American.

Newspaper Enterprise Association

SECOND DEPUTIES’ GROUP CREATED AT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

YEREVAN, MAY 25, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The second deputies’
group called “Gortsarar” (Business) was created at the RA National
Assembly. It involves 10 of the 11 deputies having recently left the
“Orinats Yerkir” (Country of Law) faction. The head of the group is
Grigor Margarian who is more known as the owner of the “Bellagio”
restorant complex, the group Secretary is Mekhak Mkhitarian. NA Deputy
Speaker Tigran Torosian made public the application on creating the
group at the May 25 plenary sitting of the Parliament.

According to it, group members mention that they form the
above-mentioned group “having common imaginations concerning the
country’s development, to use own possibilities more productively to
participate in development of the country’s political life, free
economic relations and strengthening of democratic values more
actively and well organized.”

ENERGY INSECURITY, FROZEN CONFLICTS PREOCCUPY GUAM SUMMIT
By Vladimir Socor

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 25 2006

The GUAM summit in Kyiv on May 23 called international attention
to the challenges and threats posed to the four member countries by
energy insecurity and secessionist conflicts. Furthermore, Moldova
and Georgia are the targets of politically motivated Russian embargoes
on agricultural products and wine, their main exports.

The founding Declaration of the new GUAM Organization for Democracy and
Economic Development asserts that economic pressures and monopolization
of energy markets are unacceptable. The document commits the member
countries to work together to promote the security of energy supplies.

In their speeches at the summit, Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili
and Vladimir Voronin cited Azerbaijan’s and Ukraine’s emergency
deliveries of gas to Georgia and Moldova, respectively, when Russia
stopped supplies in January of this year. Although the emergency
deliveries were small, they were vital at that time and a mark of
political solidarity (Channel 5 TV [Kyiv], May 23). However, GUAM
Organization member countries have yet to begin discussions toward a
common energy-security policy. Voronin’s chief adviser, Mark Tkachuk,
told the media during the summit that such a policy would require a
two-fold focus: attracting investments to create alternative routes
of supply and concluding agreements on the free flow of supplies
through member countries’ territories (Kommersant, May 23).

For his part, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko urged the president
of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to consider the possibility of setting
up a network of gasoline and fuel supply stations in Ukraine.

Yushchenko would order a Ukrainian working group to deal with this
issue “within three days,” he stated. Furthermore, he sought Azeri
commitments to: supply crude oil to the Odessa-Brody pipeline in the
northward direction; co-invest in expanding the terminal capacity at
Odessa to take Azeri and Kazakh oil; co-invest in building a refinery
in Brody to refine that oil; and support extending the pipeline
to Gdansk — a project that the European Union may help finance
(Interfax-Ukraine, 1 + 1 TV [Kyiv], Interfax-Ukraine, May 23).

Kyiv has submitted such proposals to Baku repeatedly during the
last year and Yushchenko has aired them internationally. They seem
unrealistic, because the great bulk of Azerbaijan’s crude oil output
is pre-committed to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Building a refinery
at Brody seems incompatible with extending the pipeline to Gdansk,
inasmuch as the Odessa-Brody line’s annual throughput (projected at 8
million tons, potentially up to 14 million) can hardly sustain both the
refinery and the extension. In any case, the Odessa-Brody pipeline’s
future depends almost entirely on the availability of Kazakh oil,
but Russia stands in the way.

The summit’s Declaration expresses a shared concern in pointing out,
“Occupation of a country’s territory through military force or threats
of force is unacceptable. Territorial annexations and the creation of
enclaves can never become legal. No country may intervene into another
country’s affairs through military, political, or economic pressures.”

Yushchenko referenced the controversial plan that carries his name
regarding settlement in Transnistria, which he claimed was “supported
by both the Moldovan and the Transnistrian side.” Moreover, he advised,
“A plan along the same lines should be developed for Karabakh and one
along the same lines for Abkhazia.” But he seemed to change thought
immediately: “The solution to each conflict, however, requires an
individual plan and there can be no recipe on resolving the Karabakh
problem along with the problem of Transnistria or Abkhazia. It takes
an individual approach” (Interfax-Ukraine, May 23). Voronin chose
to focus on the positive side, expressing gratitude for Ukraine’s
recent cooperation with Moldova and the EU in curbing Transnistria’s
contraband trade.

Aliyev and Voronin called for better coordination among GUAM member
countries in international organizations regarding the secessionist
conflicts and foreign troops (Moldpres, 1 + 1 TV [Kyiv], May 23). The
unspoken reason behind that call is that Ukrainian representatives
have stopped subscribing to joint GUAM positions on those issues in
some meetings of the OSCE’s Permanent Council and Joint Consultative
Group in recent months.

That joint stand was GUAM’s primordial raison d’etre. The group emerged
during debates at the OSCE in 1996 on the Treaty on Conventional Forces
in Europe in order to seek Russian compliance with force limitations,
specifically on GUAM countries’ territories.

The four countries’ joint stand, authorizing one of them to speak for
the four, had become its hallmark in international organizations and
one of the few tangible manifestations of GUAM’s viability. Kyiv’s
recent tendency to stand aside from the GUAM position at the OSCE
has become a matter of concern to some NATO diplomats as well. This
situation might now be corrected after the presidents’ private
discussions at the Kyiv summit.

SIXTH INTERNATIONAL TOURIST FAIR “CTS’2006” TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN ON 26-27 MAY

Yerevan, May 24. ArmInfo. The 6th International Tourist Fair “CTS’2006”
will be held at Moscow Cinema in Yerevan on 25-27 May.

The “CTS’2006” press center informs ArmInfo the event organizers
are Armenian Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, American
Society of Tourist Agents (ASTA) and Armenian Tourism Agency. The
opening ceremony is scheduled to be held at 1:30pm at Moscow Cinema
on 25 May. Yerevan Brandy Company is the chief sponsor of the event,
other sponsors are Golden Tulip Yerevan Hotel, Czech Airlines, and
Congress Hotel. Information sponsors are “Spyur” News Agency, Radio
“Ardzagank,” and “Tourinfo” monthly. Over 30 companies from Adzharia,
Belarus, Georgia, Nagorny Karabakh and Armenia, including from the
regions of Armenia, participate in the Fair. The Fair has become a
traditional event in the sphere of tourism, the source reports.

SOMEBODY HERE IS NOT AT ALL TELLING THE TRUTH
By Robert Fisk

Gulf Times, Qatar
May 24 2006

LONDON: A letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the Court of Saint
James arrived for me a few days ago, one of those missives that send
a shudder through the human soul. “You allege that an ‘Armenian
genocide’ took place in Eastern Anatolia in 1915,” His Excellency
Akin Alptuna told me. “I believe you have some misconceptions about
those events …”

Oh indeedy doody, I have. I am under the totally mistaken conception
that one and a half million Armenians were cruelly and deliberately
done to death by their Turkish Ottoman masters in 1915, that the
men were shot and knifed while their womenfolk were raped and
eviscerated and cremated and starved on death marches and their
children butchered. I have met a few of the survivors – liars to a
man and woman, if the Turkish ambassador to Britain is to be believed
– and I have seen the photographs taken of the victims by a brave
German photographer called Armen Wegner whose pictures must now,
I suppose, be consigned to the waste bins. So must the archives of
all those diplomats who courageously catalogued the mass murders
inflicted upon Turkey’s Christian population on the orders of the
gang of nationalists who ran the Ottoman government in 1915.

What would have been our reaction if the ambassador of Germany
had written a note to the same effect? “You allege that a ‘Jewish
genocide’ took place in Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945 … I
believe you have some misconceptions about those events …’ Of
course, the moment such a letter became public, the ambassador of
Germany would be condemned by the Foreign Office, our man in Berlin
would – even the pusillanimous Blair might rise to the occasion –
be withdrawn for consultations and the European Union would debate
whether sanctions should be placed upon Germany.

But Alptuna need have no such worries. His country is not a member
of the European Union – it merely wishes to be – and it was Blair’s
craven administration that for many months tried to prevent Armenian
participation in Britain’s Holocaust Day.

Amid this chicanery, there are a few shining bright lights and I should
say at once that Alptuna’s letter is a grotesque representation of the
views of a growing number of Turkish citizens, a few of whom I have
the honour to know, who are convinced that the story of the great
evil visited upon the Armenians must be told in their country. So
why, oh why, I ask myself, are Alptuna and his colleagues in Paris
and Beirut and other cities still peddling this nonsense?

In Lebanon, for example, the Turkish embassy has sent a “communique”
to the local French-language L’Orient Le Jour newspaper, referring
to the “soi-disant (so-called) Armenian genocide” and asking why the
modern state of Armenia will not respond to the Turkish call for a
joint historical study to “examine the events” of 1915.

In fact, the Armenian President, Robert Kotcharian, will not respond
to such an invitation for the same reason that the world’s Jewish
community would not respond to the call for a similar examination
of the Jewish Holocaust from the Iranian president – because an
unprecedented international crime was committed, the mere questioning
of which would be an insult to the millions of victims who perished.

But the Turkish appeals are artfully concocted. In Beirut, they recall
the Allied catastrophe at Gallipoli in 1915 when British, French,
Australian and New Zealand troops suffered massive casualties at the
hands of the Turkish army. In all – including Turkish soldiers –
up to a quarter of a million men perished in the Dardanelles. The
Turkish embassy in Beirut rightly states that the belligerent nations
of Gallipoli have transformed these hostilities into gestures of
reconciliation, friendship and mutual respect. A good try. But the
bloodbath of Gallipoli did not involve the planned murder of hundreds
of thousands of British, French, Australian, New Zealand – and Turkish
– women and children.

But now for the bright lights. A group of “righteous Turks” are
challenging their government’s dishonest account of the 1915 genocide:
Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran, Halil Berktay, Hrant Dink, Ragip Zarakolu and
others claim that the “democratic process” in Turkey will “chip away
at the darkness” and they seek help from Armenians in doing so. Yet
even they will refer only to the 1915 “disaster”, the “tragedy”,
and the “agony” of the Armenians. Dr Fatma Gocek of the University
of Michigan is among the bravest of those Turkish-born academics
who are fighting to confront the Ottoman Empire’s terror against the
Armenians. Yet she, too, objects to the use of the word genocide –
though she acknowledges its accuracy – on the grounds that it has
become “politicised” and thus hinders research.

I have some sympathy with this argument. Why make the job of honest
Turks more difficult when these good men and women are taking on
the might of Turkish nationalism? The problem is that other, more
disreputable folk are demanding the same deletion. Alputuna writes
to me – with awesome disingenuousness – that Armenians “have failed
to submit any irrefutable evidence to support their allegations of
genocide”. And he goes on to say that “genocide, as you are well aware,
has a quite specific legal definition” in the UN’s 1948 Convention. But
Alputuna is himself well aware – though he does not say so, of course –
that the definition of genocide was set out by Raphael Lemkin, a Jew,
in specific reference to the wholesale mass slaughter of the Armenians.

And all the while, new diplomatic archives are opening in the West
which reveal the smell of death – Armenian death – in their pages. I
quote here, for example, from the newly discovered account of Denmark’s
minister in Turkey during the World War I. “The Turks are vigorously
carrying through their cruel intention, to exterminate the Armenian
people,” Carl Wandel wrote on July 3, 1915. The Bishop of Karput
was ordered to leave Aleppo within 48 hours “and it has later been
learned that this Bishop and all the clergy that accompanied him
have been … killed between Diyarbekir and Urfa at a place where
approximately 1,700 Armenian families have suffered the same fate …

In Angora … approximately 6,000 men … have been shot on the road
… even here in Constantinople (Istanbul), Armenians are being
abducted and sent to Asia …” There is much, much more. Yet now
here is Alptuna in his letter to me: “In fact, the Armenians living
outside Eastern Armenia including Istanbul … were excluded from
deportation.” Somebody here is not telling the truth. The late Wandel
of Copenhagen? Or the Turkish ambassador to the Court of St James?

BOOK REVIEW: LIBERATION MOVEMENTS
Ronnie H. Terpening

Library Journal Reviews
School Library Journal Reviews
May 15, 2006

Steinhauer, Olen Liberation Movements Minotaur: St. Martin’s Aug.
2006. c.304p. ISBN 0-312-33204-1 [ISBN 978-0-312-33204-4 ]. $24.95. M

This fourth entry in Steinhauer’s (The Bridge of Sighs ) Eastern Bloc
crime series deposits us in the late summer of 1968, as “the flowers
of Prague’s spring” are being crushed by the Warsaw Pact’s invading
tanks. In a nearby unnamed country, Brano Sev of the Ministry of
State Security, the protagonist of 36 Yalta Boulevard , is now a
colonel in his late fifties. He and his officers, Capt. Gavra Noukas
and homicide inspector Katja Drdova, all have secrets to hide and a
major crime to solve. Armenian hijackers have blown up an airplane
en route to Istanbul, aboard which was a fellow officer of Armenian
origin. Was the Ministry involved in the plane’s destruction? Is
there a connection to a crime committed seven years earlier? To find
the answers, Gavra and Katja must confront their own demons. Using
alternating time lines, reverse chronology, and disrupted sequence,
Steinhauer again displays his masterful manipulation of character,
plot, and reader expectations. Tightly entwined story lines, compact
scenes that evoke a grim world while capturing character subtleties,
and a style pared to the essential make this a fast, intriguing read.

Highly recommended. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 4/1/06.]- Ronnie H.

Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Publishers Weekly Reviews May 15, 2006

Liberation Movements

Liberation Movements Olen Steinhauer. St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95
(304p) ISBN 0-312-33204-1

Steinhauer’s dazzling fourth book in his series about various police
and intelligence agents in an unnamed Communist-era Eastern European
country gives a large role to Brano Sev, the seriously conflicted
spy who starred in the previous entry, 36 Yalta Boulevard (2005). Sev
sums up the new book’s theme when he says to a younger subordinate,
“Intelligence work is precisely what it says-it’s about intelligence.

We are not murderers.” There’s some irony here: we know that Sev has
killed several people himself. But there’s also an unexpected note of
humanity, as Sev supervises the investigation by two junior agents
of a murder in Russian-occupied Prague in 1968 that’s later tied to
a plane hijacked by Armenian terrorists on its way to Istanbul in 1975.

Another new element is the Turkish capital, alive and yeasty compared
to the drab, restricted home city of 36 Yalta Boulevard . And the
emergence of a major female character-a homicide investigator looking
for personal justice-shows how a skilled writer working at the top
of his form can keep a series from faltering.

RAMKAVAR AZATAKAN BRACES UP FOR 2007 ELECTIONS

Armenpress
May 23 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 23, ARMENPRESS: Ramkavar Azatakan (Democratic Liberal )
party of Armenia said it will contest the 2007 parliamentary elections,
but added that before launching the election campaign it has developed
a chain of amendments, which it would like to be incorporated in the
draft election code.

This party that contrary to big expectations, failed to overcome the
required threshold of collected votes to win a seat in the parliament
in 2003 polls, said today its amendments call for annulment of
one-mandate constituencies election system which must be replaced
by the so-called proportional election system when all seats are
contested by parties.

Another major amendments proposed by the party refers to parliament
members immunity. “The proposed amendment calls for elimination of
parliament member immunity so that people who consider the legislative
body as a safe heaven to avoid criminal and other responsibility leave
it alone and allow people who want to move this country forward come
and do their job,” party chairman Harutyun Arakelian said to a news
conference today.

Citing a provision from the draft election code that establishes a
seven percent voter threshold for blocs made up of two parties and a
ten percent threshold for three-member alliances Arakelian said the
election code does not reflect the interests of out-of- parliament
forces, but added that despite these challenges his party will fight
for seats in the parliament and will also nominate a candidate for
2008 presidential election.

Arakelian indicated also his party was not delighted with the
activity of the World Armenian Congress, run by the Russia-based
Armenian tycoon Ara Abrahamian, saying they are very likely to quit
the organization. He said though the Ramkavar Azatakan party was
one of its cofounders it learns about its plans from newspapers. He
also slammed Ara Abrahamian’s declared campaign of suing Turkey at
the International Human Rights Court for its denial of the Armenian
genocide, saying that would be tantamount to declaring war on Turkey.

He also argued that the first country to stand trial for the Armenian
genocide is Great Britain because ‘some documents leave no doubt that
the government of Great Britain in the early 20-th century instigated
Armenian pogroms in the Ottoman empire.”

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CONNECTED FIRST OF ALL WITH IDEOLOGY: RUSSIAN HISTORIAN

Yerevan, May 23. ArmInfo. The attempts of a number of Turkish
historians to justify the Genocide of Armenians with the pro-Russian
sentiments of Armenians are absolutely baseless like the statements
that “the Armenians and Turks had normal relations before Russia’s
coming to the Caucasus.” Head of the 19th Century Section, State
Historical Museum, Victor Bezotosny told ArmInfo.

He stressed that for centuries the Turkish state government machine
repeatedly organized ethnic purges accompanied with pogroms of the
Christian nations in the Ottoman Empire: Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, and
Armenians. The history of Russian-Turkish wars shows that every time
after war Russia would undertook the protection of Christian peoples
in the Ottoman Empire, the historian said. After the Russian-Turkish
war of 1887-1878, Russia insisted on its military presence in Western
Armenia as a guarantor of security of western Armenians before the
Sultan would carry out reforms. West-European super powers headed
by great Britain were against these plans for the fear of the future
expansion of the Russian Empire. And Alexander II yielded to Europe
for the results of the Crimea war were fresh in the memory of the
Russian public.

Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey as well as the annihilation of
Jews in Germany under Hitler were connected with domestic political
matters and first of all with ideology, he said. He underlined that
historical documents leave no doubts that Genocide was committed
against the Armenian people in Ottoman Turkey.

HRAYR KARAPETIAN TO HEAD NA ARF FACTION

Noyan Tapan
May 22 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. Former ARF Secretary Hrayr Karapetian
will head the ARF faction of the RA National Assembly from now
on. National Assembly Deputy Speaker Tigran Torosian made this decision
of the faction public at the May 22 sitting of the Parliament. To
recap, Levon Mkrtchian who was appointed the RA Minister of Education
and Science on May 17, occupied the post of the ARF faction head.

GROUP OF ARMENIAN AND FRENCH ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND FIRST EVER OPEN SETTLEMENT OF PRIMEVAL MAN

Yerevan, May 19. ArmInfo. For the first time in Armenia a group
of Armenian and French archaeologists has found a open Stone Age
settlement in the territory of the National Park of Dilijan, Tavush
region.

The head of the group Boris Gasparyan says that the find is a planned
and organized proto-settlement near the village of Kalavan on the
right bank of the river Barepat. Last year archaeologists found in
Kalavan early Bronze age graves with remarkable ceramic and metal
articles. Deeper exploration revealed stone constructions, obsidian
and flint quarries, primitive weapons, bones of animals with spearheads
inside. Experts say that this may be not just one site but a settlement
consisting of several Stone Age camps.

The most remarkable finds are weapons of jasper, flint and obsidian
– mostly spearheads, cutters and scrapers. Experts infer that the
Kalavan settlers were hunters. They probably hunted goats and rams and
processed their bones and skins. The radiocarbon and geo-morphological
tests will show how primeval people lived there.