A1plus
| 12:41:59 | 28-04-2005 | Official |
PRESIDENT DECREED
April 27 Robert Kocharyan signed a decree on the re-organization of the
Ministry of Territorial Administration via unification of departments of
Emergency Situations, Migration and Refugees under the RA Government and the
State Committee of Water Industry.
By another decree Hovik Abrahamyan was appointed Minister of Territorial
Administration. He will also function as Coordinating Minister.
Alcatel 1st Quarter Results 2005
PR Newswire
Wednesday April 27, 2005
PARIS, April 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Serge Tchuruk, Chairman and
CEO, Mike Quigley, President and COO, and Jean-Pascal Beaufret, CFO,
will present Alcatel’s (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) 1st quarter 2005
results in a simultaneous Audio Webcast and Telephone Conference.
When: Thursday 28 April 13:00 CET/0700 EST
Where: To register for the live event, click on the address below:
PRN contact: Antoun Sfeir (t) +33-(0)1-40-28-25-27
The event will be archived on the same URL as listed above for 30 days
from the date of the event.
(Minimum requirements to listen to the broadcast: Real Player
software, downloadable free from
,011204rpchoice_c1&dc=262524
and at least a 20 Kbps connection to the Internet.)
Contact: Source: Alcatel
A1plus
| 17:26:55 | 27-04-2005 | Politics |
DAVID HAROUTYUNYAN AND THE OMBUDSMAN IN DIFFERENT FIELDS
«We do not limit the ombudsman’s authorities. We simply try to find out if
they correspond to the Constitution or not», announced Minister of Justice
David Haroutyunyan. According to the Minister, the opinion of any official
is a pressure on the Court. «Imagine an argument between two citizens or a
citizen and the community, and the ombudsman expressed opinion. If I am
asked questions about Court processions, I don’t answer. The opinion of the
Minister of Justice can affect the Court».
He also mentioned that his disagreement with the Ombudsman does not mean
that he underestimates the role of the Human Rights Defender. «I hope the
Ombudsman Institute will be taken into consideration during Constitutional
amendments and it will become a Parliamentary Institute», said the Justice
Minister.
Ombudsman Larissa Alaverdyan, to put it mildly, does not share Mr.
Haroutyunyan’s position. «They try to keep the Court away from the eye of
the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman can demand information about any case in Court
to guarantee the defense of the rights of teh citizens in Court. We do not
speak about the details. That is, the Ombudsman will no how interfere with
the case. He will simply see to it that no encroachments are done towards
the rights of the people in Court».
According to Larissa Alaverdyan, in order to have an independent court we
must contribute to the realization of the court system my means of the
Ombudsman, as we do not have independent Judges.
Agence France Presse
27 avril 2005 mercredi 12:15 PM GMT
La question du génocide, une entrave à la normalisation
turco-arménienne (Erdogan)
ANKARA 27 avr 2005
La campagne d’Erevan visant à une reconnaissance internationale des
massacres d’Arméniens en 1915 comme un génocide constitue une
entrave à l’établissement de relations entre la Turquie et
l’Arménie voisine, a déclaré mercredi le Premier ministre turc
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Avant que nous ne prenions une décision politique (pour normaliser
les liens), il y a une question fondamentale qui devrait être
résolue et il s’agit de problèmes qui prennent leur source dans
l’histoire”, a-t-il dit aux journalistes.
Il était appelé à commenter une lettre du président arménien
Robert Kotcharian qui a répondu mardi par un oui conditionnel à la
proposition d’Ankara de créer une commission d’experts pour étudier
les massacres d’Arméniens, déclarant qu’il fallait au préalable
établir “des relations normales” entre les deux pays.
Ankara réclame qu’Erevan renonce à sa campagne pour que soient
considérés comme un génocide ces événements, qui se sont
produits aux dernières années de l’empire ottoman, avant
l’établissement de liens diplomatiques bilatéraux.
La Turquie a reconnu l’Arménie à son indépendance en 1991, mais
sans établir de relations diplomatiques. Elle avait fermé sa
frontière avec l’Arménie en 1993 à la suite de la conquête par
des forces arméniennes de l’enclave du Nagorny Karabakh en
Azerbaïdjan, un pays turcophone proche de la Turquie.
M. Erdogan a affirmé que son pays avait ouvert ses archives à tous
les historiens pour étudier cette période et exhorté l’Arménie Ã
en faire de même.
“Pourquoi n’ouvrent-ils pas leurs archives officielles. C’est crès
curieux”, a-t-il dit.
Les Arméniens ont commémoré dimanche les 90 ans des massacres, qui
ont été officiellement reconnus comme génocide par plusieurs pays
et dont ils estiment le bilan humain à 1,5 million de morts.
La Turquie rejette catégoriquement la thèse d’un génocide,
estimant qu’il s’agissait d’une répression dans un contexte de
guerre civile où les Arméniens s’étaient alliés aux troupes
russes qui avaient envahi l’empire ottoman.
Ankara évalue à 300.000 le nombre d’Arméniens massacrés et
affirme qu’au moins autant de Turcs avaient été tués.
PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V. Rev. Fr. Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
PRAYERS AT MARGADE AND A REQUIEM SERVICE IN DEIR-ZOR FOR THE SOULS OF THE
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS
Antelias, Lebanon – During his pilgrimage to Deir-Zor for the commemoration
of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, His Holiness visited the
St. Haroutioun Chapel in Margade on April 24 and prayed for the souls of the
one and a half victims of the Genocide.
His Holiness and the pilgrims accompanying him stopped in the desert on
their way to Deir-Zor and sang the hymn “Keta Der”, while walking into the
depths of the desert. A requiem service for the victims of the Armenian
Genocide was held in the desert under the burning sun.
“90 years ago our mothers and father, our brothers and sisters, old and
young, children and adults walked through this desert. This sand under the
open sky became the collective grave of their unburied corpses,” said His
Holiness.
“Our nation walked through this desert hungry, thirsty and abandoned, until
they collapsed and mingled with the desert as their last haven. But you have
now flourished this desert oh reborn children of an immortal nation. You’re
equipped with an unyielding will that defeats the perpetrator’s evil will.
You know how to replace hopelessness with hope, how to transform suffrage to
happiness and even how to resurrect from death,” said His Holiness speaking
to the pilgrims who accompanied him.
The Catholicos added: “At this moment, we express our utmost gratitude to
the Syrian Arab people, who gave refuge to the Armenians deported by the
Turks, welcomed them in their tents, shared their bread with them and
provided a home to our people’s unburied remains. Standing here, at the site
of the martyrdom of our victims, we vow to remain loyal to their legacy.”
##
View picture here:
Also:
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.
economicprincipals.com banner
April 24, 2005
David Warsh, Editor
The Man Who Succeeded Gerschenkron
Anyone who hasn’t read The Fly Swatter: How My Grandfather Made His Way
in the World, Nicholas Dawidoff’s account of the life of Alexander
Gerschenkron, the great 20th-century scholar of economic development, is
missing a good thing.
Anyone who doesn’t know about Daron Acemoglu is missing a good thing,
too.
There will be many fewer of the latter now, since Acemoglu last week was
named winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to
the American economist under 40 judged to have made the greatest
contribution to economics. Acemoglu is the man who, for all practical
purposes, has become the Gerschenkron of present-day economics.
The process by which this succession of scholarship takes place was
described a few years ago by David Kreps (himself a Clark medalist in
1989) in an article, “Economics — the Current Position,” in Daedalus,
the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For the hundred years or so before World War II, wrote Kreps, economics
had been a decentralized discipline, organized around a common core but
with many topical concerns –labor markets, international trade,
industrial organization, money and banking, public finance, development
and so on. These shared a certain amount of vocabulary, but otherwise
concentrated mainly on developing typologies and describing
institutions.
“There were, if you will, a number of regional dialects of ‘Economese,’
dialects that were close to being distinct languages,” he wrote.
Mathematization conquered the core of economics in the years before,
during and after World War II. Then, both because of the power of formal
reasoning and the prestige they conferred, those who espoused formal
methods tackled the applied fields, one after the other. The
mathematizers were not welcomed like so many liberators; acceptance was
often grudging.
Moreover, as mathematical technique was brought to bear, a reduction in
detail took place. New insights were more easily transferred from field
to field; new tools could be deployed quickly. But the study of
institutions, which before mathematization had loomed so large,
gradually was eclipsed.
“The new dominant dialect of mathematical economics lacked some
topically important vocabulary,” wrote Kreps; “rather than speak in an
unfashionable dialect, some things were just not discussed.”
Hence the image of an hourglass that had been suggested by his colleague
Paul Romer, with the scope or breadth of topical economics (on the
horizontal axis), plotted against time (on the vertical axis). As the
language of economics is unified, a dramatic narrowing of topical
concerns takes place — followed in turn by a commensurate widening, as
speakers of the language learn to tackle topics that they had been
temporarily unable to address. Kreps ventured in 1997, “É[T]he field now
seems to be returning to something like the breadth of the discipline
before World War II.”
Dawidoff’s book about his grandfather chronicles the life of a scholar
lived in the first half of the hourglass — the period of the narrowing
of the subject. It is difficult to exaggerate the merits of his tale.
His previous book, about one-time major-leaguer Moe Berg, The Catcher
was a Spy, exhibits the same story-telling grace and sympathy, but here
Dawidoff is writing about an altogether bigger man, and his grandfather,
to boot.
“My grandfather was said to know all about everything,” he writes.
“German historiography, the emigration theory in Romanian history, the
complexities of infinitely divisible time. He understood Kant, Chekhov,
Aristotle and Schopenhauer better than people teaching them at Harvard
for a living, and had once critiqued Vladimir Nabokov with such brio
that the novelist retaliated by lampooning him in his next book.
“Even his vacations were erudite. He spent a pleasant summer with my
grandmothers examining one hundred translations of Hamlet’s quatrain to
Ophelia, ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,’ in languages ranging from
Catalan to Icelandic to Serbo-Croatian to Bulgarian — all as
preparation for an essay in which they argued that translation
inevitably distorts meaning.”
Dawidoff traces Gerschenkron’s flight from the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine
to Vienna, and from the Nazis to Berkeley, California, where wrote,
translated and worked in the shipyards for a time. By 1944, he had found
his way to the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C., and then, in
1946, as professor of economic history, to Harvard.
Gerschenkron arrived in Cambridge just as mathematization was beginning
to sweep the profession, emanating from the department in the
institution at the other end of town — the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. (He and Paul Samuelson immediately became fast friends.) He
had one big idea, and he made the most of it: the advantages of
backwardness in economic development.
Thorstein Veblen had said as much in telegraphic form in 1915 in
Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution: late-adopters could
sometimes move out to the frontiers of development more easily than the
pioneers of the industrial revolution. Gerschenkron now made various
forms of slow economic development his specialty. He himself, with his
late start, having had to learn to work in two new languages as an
adult, exemplified the possibilities. “The more backward a country,” he
wrote, “the more complex and exciting its industrial history.”
The great thing about The Fly Swatter — the title refers to the arsenal
of swatters Gerschenkron kept on the porch of his country home in New
Hampshire and the enthusiasm with which he wielded them, certain “that
each swatter had its own particular entomicidal capabilities” — is that
the author talked to nearly everyone still living who had known his
grandfather, and everyone talked back. In Dawidoff’s book you see whole
the career of a great professor in a great university, not just a
handful of insights and a few arguments, but everything the man lived —
the rivalries (Walt Whitman Rostow his longtime bÂÂte noire), the battles
with his critics (Yale’s William Parker said, “The resounding theses of
Gerschenkron tell the size and shape and weave of the stockings the
family hangs out on Christmas eve, but say nothing of when or why Santa
Claus comes down the chimney”), the relationships with his remarkable
students (“he was an armed man; he could hurt you,” remarked D.N.
McCloskey), the continual stream of acts of familyship, friendship,
citizenship.
And now all this glorious humanism is to be passed on, reduced, by dint
of having passed through a metaphorical hourglass, to an applied
economist with a knack for manipulating a handful of instrumental
variables?
Not exactly. But when Dawidoff writes, “Fifty years after Economic
Backwardness in Historical Perspectives was published, there is no new
model, and scholars are still tilting at [Gershenkron’s],” he is
mistaken.
Daron Acemoglu’s good fortune was to graduate from the University of
York at the very moment that the hourglass of development economics was
at its narrowest, when all the complications of economic growth had been
briefly reduced to an argument about the causes of “technical change.”
Like Gerschenkron, Acemoglu had been raised in a developing society —
in Istanbul, a Turk of Armenian descent. His father was a professor of
law, later an attorney for banks and corporations. Political economy and
development strategy came naturally to the dinner table.
But his parents died when Acemoglu was in his teens. Political science
at York disappointed him; he switched to economics instead. And when MIT
admitted him to graduate school but failed to offer a scholarship, he
did his doctorate at the London School of Economics instead, writing a
dissertation on a variety of labor and macroeconomic topics. A year
later, MIT hired him to teach — an intriguing but unknown quantity at
whom they wanted a closer look. Four years later they gave him tenure.
He added dual citizenship as well.
The committee that gave the 38-year-old Acemoglu the Clark medal last
week described him as “extremely broad and productive,” noting that in
the course of a dozen years he had made significant contributions to the
study of labor markets before moving on to “especially innovative” ideas
about the role of institutions in development and political economy.
In fact, it was a series of investigations in the history of the
European colonization of much of the rest of the world, beginning in the
15th century, that made Acemoglu’s reputation, demonstrating that
institutions of various sorts were more important to development than
economists previously had thought. The “rules of the game” — the
structure of property rights, the presence of markets, and their various
frictions, the form that governments take — are key determinants of
what happens next, Acemoglu showed, in some unusually inventive and
convincing ways.
Take the rise of Europe in the first place. The importance of the
Atlantic trade had long been noted, and various reasons for it
advanced. With Simon Johnson of MIT’s Sloan School and James Robinson
of the University of California at Berkeley, Acemoglu argued in “The
Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic
Growth” that England and the Netherlands leapt out front because a newly
emergent merchant class benefited most from trade — and was able to
successfully demand institutions to protect their property and
commerce. In contrast, although they had been the first to discover the
richest lands, Spain and Portugal stagnated because their monarchies had
managed to capture the early returns, they argued — and thus were able
to thwart their merchants’ drive for power.
In “Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective,” Acemoglu and
Robinson argued that political elites can be expected to pursue
“blocking” strategies when innovation threatens their monopolies and
when there is little threat to their power from politics. External
threats reduced the temptation to block, they found — producing a model
that suggested why Britain, German and the United States had
industrialized during the 19th century, while the landed aristocracies
in Russia and Austria-Hungary sought to hold back the tide.
In “Reversal of Fortune,” Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson argued that
colonial powers pursued very different strategies in different lands,
with fateful consequences. In rich and densely populated countries such
as Mexico and Peru, they extracted wealth; in poor and sparsely settled
countries such as British North America and Argentina, they encouraged
investment.
And in “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development” they
inventively teased evidence from differing mortality rates faced by
Europeans in different countries of how the choices made in those
circumstanced gave rise to different institutions and so to different
development paths.
The Clark committee noted that some of the methods and conclusions were
still being debated — but that a broad and substantial rethinking of
the development process was underway no matter what. The appearance
this summer of Acemoglu’s book with Robinson, The Economic Origins of
Dictatorship and Democracy will stimulate much further discussion. The
MIT course that he teaches with fellow professor Abhijit Bannerjee on
development issues is routinely oversubscribed. And a long list of
projects underway testifies to his staying power.
Thus Acemoglu joins a short list of remarkable economists going back to
MIT’s Paul Samuelson, to whom the first Clark medal was awarded in 1947.
The most recent winner, Steven Levitt, of the University of Chicago,
recently published, with journalist Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics: A
Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
Other medalists who recently have been in the news include Harvard
University president Lawrence Summers, New York Times columnist and
Princeton University economist Paul Krugman, best-selling author Joseph
Stiglitz of Columbia University and Harvard economists Martin Feldstein
and Andrei Shleifer.
ON THE EVE OF CELEBRATIONS
Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
22 April 05
In summer Artsakh is going to celebrate the 1600th anniversary of
invention of the Armenian alphabet and foundation of the school in
Amaras. The celebrations will take place on June 3 – 5. By the January
26 decision of the NKR government a republic committee in charge of
organization of celebrations was set up, and the program of
celebrations was adopted. We talked to the chairman of the committee,
NKR vice prime minister Ararat Danielian for information about the
preparations for the celebration. He said that the all-Armenian
significance of the event obliges them to get ready for it seriously.
Therefore, several working groups were set up under the committee for
better coordination of work. Once a month the committee meets to
discuss the work done and consider proposals. The celebrations are
organized in accordance with the adopted schedule. The first point on
the list is the publication of the book `Artsakhfrom Ancient Times to
Our Days’. The book will come out on these days. The next event is
publication and staging of a production of `Mashtots in Amarasâ=80=9D
at Stepanakert Dramatic Theatre after V. Papazian. The scenery and
costumes are ready. The committee visited the monastery of Amaras,
where the premiere of `Mashtots in Amaras’ will take place in the open
air. A theatrical event with 200 participants will take place
there. The representatives of almost all the cultural centers of
Karabakh will take part in it. The performance will be special in the
sense of combination of natural and artificial scenery part of which
will be personages wearing national costumes (a blacksmith, women
grinding grain, spinning thread, making national dishes, etc.)
imparting the festivity withethnic colouring. The memorial plaque
devoted to the 1600th anniversary of the invention of the Armenian
alphabet and the foundation of the school in Amaras will be
opened. One of the most important events devoted to the jubilee is the
international scientific conference, and much work is done to organize
it duly. As the celebration is of all-Armenian character, a similar
committee was set up in the Republic of Armenia too. Certainly, they
cooperate and coordinate their work. The members of our committee
regularly visit Yerevan to extend to them the proposals set forward in
Artsakh. Colour booklets and posters will be published in Armenia, the
emblem of the celebrations and the conference, the design of the
memory medal are ready. The committee in charge of the program of the
conference is preparing the proceedings of the conference for
publication. Already a great number of articles have been submitted
to the committee on the subject. A large number of guests are expected
to arrive in Karabakh from abroad. Among them there will be both
Armenians and foreigners. Already several applications have been
sent. Although the main events are scheduled on June3 – 5, the
celebrations have already begun and will last till the end of the
year.A composition contest is held at schools. A scientific conference
was held at Mesrop Mashtots University. Artsakh State University
delivered lectures in the regions of Martuni, Hadrut, Martakert. As
the majority of the celebrations will take place in Amaras, building
and repairs are carried out around the monastery. Roadworks will begin
in mid-May when weather improves. Accordingto the chairman of the
committee Ararat Danielian, the invention of the alphabet has never
been celebrated so widely. Besides the spiritual and cultural role,
the celebration will also have a political role, for it will be a good
opportunity to prove to the world the unity of the Armenian
nation. The world must know Armenians not only as a nation which
survived the genocide but also a nation which has scientific and
cultural traditions and potential. A. Danielian mentioned that soon
the website devoted to the 1600th anniversary of invention of the
Armenian alphabet and the foundation of the school in Amaras will be
available.
SVETLANA KHACHATRIAN.
22-04-2005
Jordan Times, Jordan
April 25 2005
Burden of memory
By Charles Tannock
All wars end, eventually. But memories of atrocity never seem to
fade, as the government-fanned anti-Japanese riots now taking place
in China remind us. The 90th anniversary of the Armenian massacres of
1915, ordered by the ruling Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire and
carried out by the Kurds, is another wound that will not heal, but
one that must be treated if Turkey’s progress towards European Union
membership is to proceed smoothly.
It is believed that the Armenian genocide inspired the Nazis in their
plans for the extermination of Jews. However, in comparison with the
Holocaust, most people still know little about this dark episode.
Indeed, it is hard for most of us to imagine the scale of suffering
and devastation inflicted on the Armenian people and their ancestral
homelands. But many members of today’s thriving global Armenian
diaspora have direct ancestors who perished, and carry an oral
historical tradition that keeps the memories burning.
It is particularly ironic that many Kurds from Turkey’s southeastern
provinces, having been promised Armenian property and a guaranteed
place in heaven for killing infidels, were willingly complicit in the
genocide. They later found themselves on the losing end of a long
history of violence between their own separatist forces and the
Turkish army, as well as being subjected to an ongoing policy of
discrimination and forced assimilation.
Historically, the ancient Christian Armenians were amongst the most
progressive people in the East, but in the 19th century Armenia was
divided between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. Sultan Abdulhamit II
organised the massacres of 1895-97 but it was not until the spring of
1915, under the cover of World War I, that the Young Turks’
nationalistic government found the political will to execute a true
genocide.
Initially, Armenian intellectuals were arrested and executed in
public hangings in groups of 50 to 100. Ordinary Armenians were thus
deprived of their leaders, and soon after were massacred, with many
burned alive. Approximately 500,000 were killed in the last seven
months of 1915, with the majority of the survivors deported to desert
areas in Syria, where they died from either starvation or disease. It
is estimated that 1.5 million people perished.
Recently, the Armenian diaspora has been calling on Turkey to face up
to its past and recognise its historic crime. Turkey’s official line
remains that the allegation is based on unfounded or exaggerated
claims, and that the deaths that occurred resulted from combat
against Armenians collaborating with invading Russian forces during
World War I, or as a result of disease and hunger during the forced
deportations. Moreover, the local Turkish population allegedly
suffered similar casualties.
Turkey thus argues that the charge of genocide is designed to
besmirch Turkey’s honour and impede its progress towards EU
accession. There are also understandable fears that diverging from
the official line would trigger a flood of compensation claims, as
occurred against Germany.
For many politicians, particularly in America, there is an
unwillingness to upset Turkey without strong justification, given its
record as a loyal NATO ally and putative EU candidate country. But,
despite almost half a century of membership in the Council of Europe
– ostensibly a guardian of human rights, including freedom of speech
and conscience – Turkey still punishes as a crime against national
honour any suggestion that the Armenian genocide is an historic
truth. Fortunately, this article of Turkey’s penal code is now due
for review and possible repeal.
Indeed, broader changes are afoot in Turkey. The press and
government, mindful of the requirements of EU membership, are finally
opening the sensitive Armenian issue to debate. Even Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under increasing EU pressure as accession
negotiations are due to begin this October, has agreed to an
impartial study by academic historians, although he has reiterated
his belief that the genocide never occurred.
In France, the historical occurrence of the Armenian genocide is
enshrined in law, and denial of its occurrence is regarded in the
same way as Holocaust denial.
The European Parliament is pressing for Turkish recognition of the
Armenian genocide. It is also calling for an end to the trade embargo
by Turkey and its close ally Azerbaijan against the Republic of
Armenia, a reopening of frontiers, and a land-for-peace deal to
resolve the territorial dispute over Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan
and safeguard its Armenian identity.
Armenia, an independent country since 1991, remains dependent on
continued Russian protection, as was the case in 1920 when it joined
the Soviet Union rather than suffer further Turkish invasion. This is
not healthy for the development of Armenia’s democracy and weak
economy. Nor does Armenia’s continued dependence on Russia bode well
for regional cooperation, given deep resentment of Russian meddling
in neighbouring Georgia and Azerbaijan.
There is only one way forward for Turkey, Armenia and the region. The
future will begin only when Turkey – like Germany in the past and
Serbia and Croatia now – repudiates its policy of denial and faces up
to its terrible crimes of 1915. Only then can the past truly be past.
The writer is chairman of the European Parliament’s Human Rights
Committee. ©Project Syndicate, 2005.
L’Humanité, France
23 avril 2005
Trace indélébile dans l’histoire turque;
Arménie
par Gérard Devienne
à partir du 24 avril 1915, des dizaines de milliers de citoyens
arméniens de l’ex-empire ottoman ont été massacrés ou déportés.
Depuis, les gouvernements turcs ont tenté de cacher cette monstrueuse
réalité.
Perpétré il y a quatre-vingt-dix ans, le premier génocide du XXe
siècle, dont fut victime le peuple arménien de l’empire ottoman,
s’inscrit comme une tache indélébile dans l’histoire de la Turquie.
Les faits remontant à 1915-1920 ont été analysés, décortiqués,
archivés, reconnus par les historiens et les appareils politiques de
la plupart des États. Las ! tous les gouvernements qui se sont
succédé à Ankara jouent la carte de la négation. Il convient en cette
date anniversaire de rouvrir une des pages les plus tragiques de
l’histoire afin de rappeler à la Turquie ses devoirs.
En 1914, le Parti Jeune-Turc, soucieux de btir un État moderne sur
les ruines de l’empire ottoman, prend les rênes du pouvoir. Il s’agit
de créer alors une nouvelle classe moyenne spécifiquement turque.
L’idée de spolier la bourgeoisie arménienne et grecque, qui détient
les clés de l’économie, s’accompagne d’une idéologie de «
purification ethnique », que justifierait la « trahison » des sujets
arméniens au profit de la Russie, au moment où éclate la Première
Guerre mondiale. À partir du 24 avril 1915, les conscrits arméniens
sont systématiquement massacrés, puis les intellectuels et les hommes
gés de plus de douze ans, soit environ 300 000 personnes. Et vient
le tour des femmes et des enfants, qui seront déportés vers l’est et
le sud-est. En cours de route, des « filtres » situés dans des lieux
sauvages sont le thétre de tueries dues à des mercenaires, les «
tchétés », Tcherkesses et Tchétchènes de l’ancienne armée ottomane,
parfois à des montagnards kurdes. Les récits de survivants témoignent
de l’horreur absolue de ce plan élaboré avec soin et exécuté avec
zèle par les administrations provinciales des « villayets ». Ceux qui
ne sont pas égorgés ou brûlés périssent de faim, de soif, de
maladies. Moins de 20 % arriveront dans les déserts syriens où se
dressent des camps tel celui de Der-Zor où ils seront exterminés. Le
bilan de ce génocide est de 1 300 000, auxquels il faudra ajouter
plus de 200 000 nouvelles victimes aux marges de la Turquie dans les
années qui suivent. Le plan des dirigeants jeunes-turcs d’éradiquer
la culture arménienne d’Asie mineure (les pogromes anti-arméniens à
la fin du XIXe, puis en 1908 qui firent 300 000 morts firent figure
de répétition) est achevé en 1918, sans que les grandes puissances
belligérantes aient tenté d’y mettre un terme.
Depuis cette époque, les gouvernements turcs ont tenté de cacher
cette réalité, en forgeant une histoire dispensée dans les écoles et
universités, une version épurée où les faits sont occultés, le plus
souvent, falsifiés : on y fait état, évoquant les actes désespérés
des résistants arméniens, de « massacres de Turcs ». Or les sources
abondent qui ont permis aux historiens d’écrire et de décrire des
faits corroborés par une multitude de récits de rescapés, de témoins
tels des bergers nomades ayant assisté aux tueries, les documents
envoyés par les ambassades occidentales, les documents de l’Église
arménienne considérée comme partie civile dans le procès des
dirigeants jeunes-turcs en 1919 et qui eut accès aux pièces de
l’instruction.
Mustapha Kemal, Attaturk, fera lui-même mention de la responsabilité
du Parti Jeune-Turc dans les massacres de Kurdes et d’Arméniens
lorsqu’il décidera de se débarrasser des gêneurs. Le « père de la
Turquie moderne » adoptera ensuite la négation vis-à-vis du génocide
des Arméniens.
L’attitude des gouvernements de la Turquie ne laisse pas de
surprendre et de choquer. Pourquoi ce pays n’a-t-il pas agi comme
l’Allemagne demandant pardon pour la Shoah ? La question des
indemnisations et de la rétrocession des territoires majoritairement
peuplés d’Arméniens avant 1915 peut-elle faire obstacle au droit des
descendants des victimes à faire leur deuil et à la vérité historique
d’être connue ? Les dirigeants turcs semblent le penser. N’ont-ils
pas depuis quatre-vingt-dix ans condamné les archives aux chercheurs,
puni les contrevenants à la loi du silence, comme l’éditeur Ragip
Zarakolu, régulièrement poursuivi pour publier des ouvrages sur le
génocide, comme Taner Akçam, obligé d’aller enseigner à l’étranger
l’histoire réelle de son pays, ou comme l’écrivain Orhan Pamuk,
menacé par les milieux extrémistes et insulté dans la presse, comme
avant lui le Nazim Hikmet, poète exilé qui évoquait le génocide dans
les Romantiques.
Combien de temps encore la Turquie restera-t-elle en marge des
nations, si on considère que les plus grandes, à l’exception notable
des États-Unis et d’Israël, ont officiellement inscrit dans les
textes la réalité du premier génocide du XXe siècle (dans le sillage
de l’Uruguay en 1965, le Parlement européen en 1987, la Russie en
1995 ou la France en 2001 l’ont fait) ?
El Pais Digital, Montevideo-Uruguay
Sábado 23 Abril 2005
Editorial
[hoy importa]
¿Acercamiento turco-armenio?
Mañana, 24 de abril, se cumplirán 90 años de la masacre generalizada
del pueblo armenio por parte de los turcos otomanos. No era la
primera vez que ello sucedía – en 1894-96 también se había producido
un exterminio similar – pero sí la más cruel y sangrienta de que se
tenga memoria: un millón y medio de armenios, radicados en Turquía,
fueron asesinados a sablazos o por hambre luego de agotadoras marchas
a fuerza de látigo. Teniendo en cuenta la población total de armenios
en esa época (unos 3 millones) esa masacre, que se extendió a lo
largo de un lustro, constituye, porcentualmente, el mayor genocidio
del s. XX. Es la mancha indeleble que pesa sobre la conciencia de
quienes jamás han reconocido que aquella espantosa matanza de
hombres, mujeres y niños quiso cumplir con el propósito de eliminar a
un pueblo, esto es, que fue un genocidio.
Ultimamente, la aspiración turca de formar parte de la Unión Europea
dio un vuelco fundamental a esta cuestión secular. En efecto, no se
puede integrar dicha comunidad sin ser una democracia plena y sin
hacer del respeto a los derechos humanos una realidad incontrastable
En tal sentido, el prestigio de Turquía entre los miembros
occidentales de la Unión Europea es muy bajo y ello es así,
principalmente, porque aún está muy vivo – inmigración de por medio –
el recuerdo de la tragedia que martirizó a la nación armenia, la
primera en el mundo que abrazó oficialmente la religión cristiana.
Europa se encuentra muy sensibilizada ante los padecimientos sufridos
por ese pueblo a manos de los turcos y por la diáspora a que dio
lugar.
No es de extrañarse, entonces, que Ankara trate de hacer buena letra
frente a la UE y que procure acercarse a su víctima histórica. Así se
explica que el primer ministro otomano, Tayyip Eydogan, en acuerdo
con todos los partidos de la oposición, haya invitado al presidente
armenio, Robert Kocharian, a iniciar conversaciones sobre el espinoso
tema de referencia. Es un primer y muy importante paso dado en la
dirección correcta. Sin duda, la reunión proyectada tendrá momentos
de suma tensión. Pero el sacrificado pueblo armenio – y toda la
comunidad internacional, de todas las latitudes – espera que la verdad
histórica prevalezca y que, finalmente, pueda tener la compensación
moral de que los turcos reconozcan – aunque sea de manera elíptica –
que cometieron una barbarie, una increíble barbarie. Será, esa, la
única manera de llegar a una difícil pero no imposible reconciliación
entre los dos pueblos.
Nuestro homenaje a nuestros amigos armenios que, manteniendo su
valiosa identidad, se han consustanciado con nuestra nación oriental.