Author: Basmajian Ani

Israel Insider, Israel
Aug 4 2004

Why do they hate us? (and why do we care?)
By Patrick D O’Brien August 4, 2004

Originally published by IsraPundit.

This is a topic that doesn’t relate directly to Israel, although it
does affects people’s attitudes about the morality of Israel’s (as
well as the United States’) defense of its citizens against Islamic
terror. So to preclude any confusion, henceforth when I use the term
“we,” it will be in reference to both Israel and AmericaÑtwo nations
united in democracy and strong western values like freedom, justice,
love of life, and opportunity.

I believe that now more than ever, many Americans are acutely aware
of the special affinity between our nation and Israel. I think that
some Americans are starting to “get it” when it comes to the deadly
menace of Islamofascism which Israel has been up against for decades.
I am somewhat ashamed that it took a cataclysmic event of the
magnitude we saw in the 9/11 attacks, but I honestly feel that many
of us now have a much greater appreciation for what our brothers and
sisters in Israel have been living with for so long.

As human beings, we instinctively think causally. It’s absurd to
assert that anything “just happens.” So, we automatically look for
the causes of the effects we see around us. The stunning effects of
terror cry out deafeningly out for a reason. As far as I’m concerned,
terror is the pinnacle of man’s depravity. As for the definition of
terror, I use Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d), which
states:

The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated
violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational
groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an
audience.

The term “international terrorism” means terrorism involving the
territory or the citizens of more than one country.

Ñ The term “terrorist group” means any group that practices, or has
significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

When we here in the west are faced with the monstrous nature of
terror, we are forced to somehow make sense of the senseless. We
search for a reason behind this madness; we search for the now
proverbial “root cause.” I think sometimes we naively forget that,
irrespective of grievance or cause, there is no excuse for the
intentional murder of unarmed innocents. Be that as it may, for
practical reasons of academia and governmental policy, terror must be
understood.

The perennial question falling off the lips of many intellectuals
since 9/11 has been, “Why do they hate us?” More often than not, this
query comes from those on the left, because most on the right are
quite beyond trying to understand “root causes” by the time buses are
being blown up and a pregnant woman and her children are being shot
dead in her car. If you think about it, such a question answers
itself as far as the leftist is concerned. If this question is
seriously asked, it is already presupposed that there must be
something we do that enrages these people so greatly that they are
willing to immolate themselves with high explosives in order to kill
us. I personally believe that no one deserves to suffer the demonic
attacks of terror that are increasingly hitting western targets
outside of Israel. Asking this question also erroneously ascribes the
concept of sense and legitimacy to acts of terror. But still, it is a
fair question to ask, since terror doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

One of the most famous caricatures of the western liberal is that of
someone who wants to throw a lot of money at social ills in the hopes
of buying a solution. In register with such thinking, many pundits
and academics on the left have posited that Islamic terror comes from
the desperation of economic deprivation. Many of us here in the west
buy into this idea. I almost did, but thankfully Daniel Pipes saved
me from that folly. Subscribing to this notion says far more about
the western mind than it does about the cause of Islamic terror. It’s
a bit presumptuous of us to think that what the Islamic world needs
and wants is material gain. We are projecting our secular values onto
a quasi-religious problem. Of course everyone likes to eat and to
receive basic medical care, but that is not what this is about.

If you begin looking into just who gets involved in terror groups and
who carries out suicide attacks, you will see that it is not the
disenfranchised and impoverished. It is usually intelligent young men
from middle class (or higher) backgrounds, with college educations
(often at western universities). They are devout Muslims who are well
versed in many aspects of their faith. It’s definitely not about
money. It’s about Islam and its doctrine.

Westerners are flummoxed when they encounter a problem of such
Herculean dimensions that can’t be solved with money. We have become
complacent in secular democracy. We are sometimes unmindful of our
vast freedoms (because we are free to be) and how precious they are.
It is only through our hard-won freedom that we were able to conceive
our western secular democracy which protects these freedoms. It is
the freedom afforded us by secular democracy that has resulted in
great achievements in art, science, technology, and other areas of
human endeavor.

Islam, on the other hand, has contributed nothing to science and
reason in the last millennium due to its static and grindingly
intolerant state. Islam is a totalitarian ideology which affects
every minute aspect of the Muslim’s life from personal hygiene, to
mundane everyday matters, to how man should be governed. The west has
outpaced and surpassed the Islamic world as sensationally as it has
because we have moved on and separated religion from state, thus
effecting a secular environment in which science, the humanities, and
reason may thrive. These priceless assets which many of us take for
granted are impossible under shari’ah.

Additionally, we see here how President Bush’s notion that “they hate
us for our freedoms” was somewhat misguided. Muslims do not want our
“freedom” because it is anathema to them. The most repugnant sin to a
Muslim is what is known as “shirk.” Shirk, while often used to denote
polytheism, really means putting anything on the same footing with
God. Man-made law is shirk, since Muslims were given the revealed
word of God as concerns how they are to be governed. So, no, they
don’t hate us for being free per se, but they do hate us for being
free in an unIslamic way.

Also, Islam causes economic malaise. Before the west taught the Arab
world how to extract and process its oil, the Islamic world was still
back on its heels over the western primacy after the industrial
revolution. The recent phenomenon of Islamic terror began with the
Muslim Brotherhood and the newly enriched Wahhabi/Salafi sects in the
K.S.A. around the same time that Arabian oil fields opened up. It was
further exacerbated during the last oil boom in the seventies.

So, if they don’t hate us over economic disparity or because we’re
free, then why the heck do they hate us? What on Earth could drive
people to detonate bomb vests in a crowded restaurant or bus; or saw
someone’s head off while droning “God is great,” or fly planes full
of passengers into skyscrapers full of people trying to go to work?
Again, justification for such ignoble acts aside, when a Jew watches
someone he loves blown into several hundred bloody pieces before his
eyes, or when a mother watches her son’s severed head or other body
parts being displayed as gruesome trophies for the video camera, or
when a country reels with the deep psychic shock of witnessing its
citizens being murdered en masseÑwhen confronted with such sheer
madness, it is only natural to want to know: Why do they hate us?

Well, I know why they hate us. And it’s not even because we and the
“evil Zionist entity” are complicit in the ongoing “occupation” and
“oppression” of the Palestinians (although this ruse is a useful red
herring to the Arab world). They hate us because according to their
scriptureÑwhich they view to be inerrantÑit is the entitlement of
Muslims to lead all of mankind and to establish God’s kingdom on
Earth (Khilafah); and we have spectacularly robbed them of that
absurd notion with the awesome power of secular, liberal democracy
and capitalism.

Before the west put the capstone on the edifice of capitalism and
industrial power, Muslims were always successful, powerful, and to
their minds, superior. We’ve ruined all that now. Even the oil
doesn’t help them, because until they can effect Khilafah, they will
settle for the devil they know (corrupt, local despots) over the
devil they don’t know (shirk, secular democracy). This provides
another reason to hate us. We are seen to be in league with the
tyrants who oppress and exploit the umma (the Muslim community). We
may secure transitory geopolitical alliances with these thugs (the
shah, Saddam, Mubarak), but to Muslims (and their western enablers),
we’re a big part of the problem, if not the entire problem. We are
Satan to them.

So, it doesn’t really matter what economic stratum a Muslim comes
from. What matters is that it is categorically obligatory for any
able-bodied Muslim male to engage in jihad when jihad is waged. As
for the western Muslims who aren’t out on the field of battle killing
infidels, they are engaged in da’wa (calling the infidels to Islam)
and taqiyya (lying about the faith) here among us. And anyway, I
submit that anyone who doesn’t actively oppose terror is condoning
it, if only tacitly.

A worldwide Islamic state is the goal of Islam. Islam is a dystopian
nightmare, which its adherents think is utopian. So, rich or poor,
when they are met with our flat refusal to accept the notion of their
theocracy, there is conflict, and as we’re beginning to see here in
America, it gets deadly. Muhammad’s hordes, who raged out of the
Arabian Peninsula conquering nations from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, were wealthy menÑvery wealthy. They did if for Islam. They
did it because the Qur’an and the hadith say that it is their right,
and this scripture is God’s revealed word.

Islamic terror is really about the establishment of God’s law on
EarthÑeverywhere on Earth. That is more important to a Muslim than
material comfort. As westerners, we are baffled by such an idea, and
so the more “progressive” among us think that a fusillade of money
might be in order to get those angry young men with that faraway
glint of suicide explosions in their eyes to stop killing us. Because
we deserve it. All the money in the world won’t solve this problem,
though. It’ll only fund more terror. And who wants money when you
have a mission from God? Many wealthy and “westernized” Muslims are
just as convinced that Khilafah is the pinnacle of man’s mission on
Earth as their destitute brethren. They can do their part by
contributing to Muslim “charities.”

When we begin to understand that we are dealing with a
quasi-religious ideology that can take a wealthy and educated
profligate like Osama bin Laden (who once enjoyed sex, drugs, and
rock and roll in the discotheques of Beirut) and turn him into the
scourge of God, then we begin to understand the true power of this
threat.

For Israelis, there is the added dynamic of the virulent
anti-Semitism endemic to Islam and the Arab world. The privations,
pogroms, and humiliation visited upon the Jews living in dhimmitude
in Arab nations is well documented throughout the ages. The Jews are
depicted in the Qur’an and several sunna in an extremely unfavorable
light, which is easily interpreted as grounds to indulge in lurid
hatred and persecution against them. In the Arab press, all manner of
lies and slander about the Jews and Israel are presented as fact. To
the Arab/Muslim sensibilities, it is an affront that not only did the
despised Jew return to claim his homeland, but he additionally
brought democracy and developed the means to defend it. I think the
fact that the Jews can fight back nowÑmore than effectivelyÑbothers a
lot of people, actually.

Alan Dershowitz also reminds us that another “root cause” of terror
is that it works. Our open media are used against us in mass coverage
terror acts. Western governments often respond to terrorist demands,
caving in when pressured by their populace. Any quarter given to
terrorists is exploited as weakness in their cruel calculus. Even
when terror groups do not get what they’ve demanded, they gain much
when the whole world pays attention to what they’ve done. To quote
the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s chief observer at the
United Nations, Zehdi Labib Terzi, “The first several hijackings
aroused the consciousness of the world and awakened the media and the
world opinion much moreÑand more effectivelyÑthan twenty years of
pleading at the United Nations.” So, it is clear that when terrorism
is rewarded, it causes more terror. Any parent of a three-year-old
could tell you as much. The Turkish Armenians and Kurds were ignored
when they tried to use terror to make their case, so you don’t ever
hear about Armenian or Kurdish terror. There’s a reason.
Additionally, you don’t hear too much about Tibetan Buddhists, and
many other groups who have genuinely been wronged, resorting to
terror out of desperation and financial woe.

In the end, I really don’t care why the degenerate Islamic killers
hate us. I happen to think that the United States and Israel are not
what is wrong with this world. But even when there are legitimate
hardships for Muslims, murder is the wrong way to go about expressing
your outrage. As far as I’m concerned, the minute you murder
innocent, unarmed civilians to advance your “cause,” you have shown
me that whatever your grievance was, it is no longer relevant in any
sense. That’s not desperation or fighting for freedom. That is
murder, and it is evil.

Soon the more liberal-minded among us here in the west will get it.
Frankly, they will have no choice. I am sure that it was a bitter
pill to swallow for many leftists in Israel when they had to face the
fact that Islamofascism cannot be appeased. But when murderous fiends
are killing your family, your friends, and your countrymen, despite
your most honest, magnanimous, and lofty efforts, it’s time to face
facts.

No, I don’t care that they hate us. I have an functional moral
compass, and I’m not in thrall to relativism. I know that we’re in
the right here.

Tech Central Station
Aug 2 2004

Genocide: Not to Be Alleged Lightly

By Stephen Schwartz Published 08/02/2004

Genocide is a big word; much bigger than it might at first appear to be.

The term did not exist until the aftermath of the Second World War,
when it was coined in reaction to the Nazi attempt to physically
eliminate millions of European Jews as well as to enslave and
culturally degrade whole populations of Slavs, and wipe out Gypsy and
other minorities. It was legally defined by the United Nations in the
1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

The definition is specific:

“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group, as such:

“(a) Killing members of the group;

“(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

“(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part;

“(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

“(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

It had other precedents, even before the rise of Nazism. The mass
deportations of Armenians from eastern Turkey to Syria, during the
first world war, constituted a genocide. While few in the West
understand it, Koreans see the campaign by Japan to wipe out their
culture, in the decades when it ruled over their peninsula,
similarly; Koreans were forced to take Japanese names at birth, and
were routinely massacred by their overlords. Japan is also accused of
genocidal crimes by the Chinese. Joseph Stalin committed genocide
when he induced a famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, resulting in millions
of dead. Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded him, said
Stalin would have sent all the Ukrainians to the gulag, but there
were too many of them.

Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan were not the only Axis powers to
engage in genocidal practices. Fascist Italy, although reluctant to
adopt Nazi anti-Jewish policies, sought the expulsion of hundreds of
thousands of Slovenes and Croats and their replacement by Italian
colonists in territories it occupied on the eastern Adriatic coast.
The threatened Slavs then joined the Tito Partisans en masse.

But the Ustasha regime in Croatia, a puppet state whose domain was
divided between Germans and Italians, was busy carrying out its own
murderous assault on the large Serb minority in Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina The result was an uprising in July 1941, about
which the Bosnian historian Enver Redzic, of Muslim origin, has
written, “The establishment of the Independent State of Croatia under
the protection of German and Italian occupying forces was accompanied
by systematic pogroms against the Serbian population throughout the
entire Croatian territory. Bosnia-Hercegovina was transformed into a
slaughterhouse in which unbridled hatred raged against Serbs. The
outbreak of rebellion could not have been prevented by any military
force or by the threat of wholesale extermination.”

Stalin imitated the Nazis during the second world war by liquidating
thousands of Polish officers and deporting entire nations from the
Caucasus, mainly Muslims – thus wiping out half of the Ingushes and
some 40 percent of the Chechens. This partially explains bad
Chechen-Russian relations today.

Political Charges

Large-scale slayings of Armenians, Koreans, Jews, Chinese, Slavs,
Caucasian Muslims, and others were immense, bloody undertakings that
deeply stained the 20th century. But the term “genocide” was, almost
from the time it was introduced, also abused for political purposes.
In 1951, American Communists, pushed by the Soviets to paint the
United States as a fascist regime, declared “We Charge Genocide!” in
a petition to the UN, alleging that denial of African-American civil
rights was equal in evil to Nazism. One would never have imagined,
reading such absurd rhetoric, that President Harry Truman, then in
office, had ordered the desegregation of the U.S. military. Truman’s
civil rights platform enraged the southern white leadership in the
Democratic party, leading to their separate “Dixiecrat” presidential
campaign in 1948. But the Soviets and their agents were hardly
sticklers for consistency in propaganda.

Still, the lesson was learned by “progressives” – “genocide” was a
word that could be thrown around at will. I distinctly remember a day
in 1983 in San Francisco when I heard a leftist mob, protesting U.S.
policy toward Nicaragua, happily chanting, in the merriest of voices,
“Ronald Reagan, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” The
upbeat, buoyant tone of the chorused allegation unintentionally
undermined its seriousness, and made the term “genocide” seem
ridiculously trivial.

Genocide in Mexico?

But genocide is not frivolous, and Mexican judge Julio Cesar Flores
reaffirmed its seriousness on July 24, when he refused to charge
former president Luis Echeverría Alvarez, who ruled Mexico from 1970
to 1976, with that crime.

Echeverría, or LEA as he was universally known, was a stalwart of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, which ran Mexico as a de
facto one-party state from 1928 to 2000. In truth, it would be absurd
to minimize the crimes of the PRI-ocracy, especially after it began
abandoning its populist and reforming legacy, with the election of
president Manuel Avila Camacho in 1940. By 1946, and the presidency
of Miguel Alemán Valdés – since 1934 Mexican presidential terms are
limited to six years, without the right of reelection – the party and
its leaders swam in corruption. Mexico’s élite benefited fabulously
from the country’s trade with the U.S. during the second world war.
Mexico’s poor remained poor, or came north across the border, legally
or illegally.

PRI rule was a kind of Sovietism without class ideology, although the
PRI’s claim to represent the “brown” indigenous masses of the country
also made it resemble fascism. The PRI bought off the entire leftist
intellectual class by providing them with government positions
requiring no work. The corruption of the intelligentsia was so
extensive that when, after of the horrific massacre of leftist
students in Tlaltelolco Plaza, in Mexico City in 1968, the poet
Octavio Paz resigned from his ambassadorship in India, few of his
peers believed he was serious. Paz was sincere in his protest, but
for other Mexican writers it was simply impossible to imagine life
without PRI patronage.

The PRI kept its grip on the working class through its system of
state labor unions, and on the peasants, consumers, and indigenous
groups through parallel “people’s” organizations, while also
maintaining rigid control of education and repression of the Catholic
church. The price of dissent in PRI-ocratic Mexico was steep.
Striking workers, discontented peasants, and rebellious indigenous
communities were all susceptible to the punishment meted out to the
student left in Tlaltelolco on the evening of October 2, 1968: the
murder of hundreds of demonstrators, whose bodies were removed and
buried secretly.

The next day the Mexican government daily Excelsior reported that
just after 6 p.m., the Plaza of the Three Cultures was lit up by two
flares, and gunfire “poured from all sides, from the top of a
building of the Unidad Tlaltelolco as well as from the street, where
military forces in light tanks and armoured vehicles fired machine
gun volleys almost without interruption… Three hundred tanks, assault
units, jeeps, and military trucks had surrounded the entire zone…
they permitted nobody to enter or leave unless they could satisfy a
rigorous identity check.”

The atrocity was ordered by then-president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and
coordinated by Echeverría, who served him as secretary of the
interior, with responsibility for the maintenance of internal order.
Indeed, Echeverría was the “tapado” or “hidden one,” the PRI-ocratic
successor personally chosen by Díaz Ordaz, whom he replaced two years
later. In 1971, Echeverría summoned gangs of thugs to attack student
leftists in the streets of Mexico City, leaving some dozens dead.

The charge of genocide, which current Mexican special prosecutor
Ignacio Carrillo sought to bring against Echeverría, was based on the
1971 events and drawn under a 1967 Mexican statute.

Nobody doubts the responsibility of Echeverría in either atrocity.
But the PRI itself asks if a genocide accusation would not represent
a form of political revenge by the post-2000 administration of
Vicente Fox. Fox is the leader of the National Action Party or PAN, a
Catholic movement that labored under political restrictions for many
years, and to which even many disfranchised leftists, who sprang from
the people and not the élite, turned for succor against the
PRI-ocracy. Fox is the first non-PRI chief executive in Mexico in
more than 70 years. (Most of his immediate predecessors are better
designated “thief executive,” like President Carlos Salinas, who
ruled from 1988 and 1994, and whose brother organized at least one
political assassination while he was in office. President Salinas
fled to Ireland, but eventually returned to Mexico.)

The greatest irony of Echeverría’s history is that even while he
spilled the blood of his fellow-citizens on the hot pavements of the
Mexican capital, he presented himself to the world as a
“progressive,” a friend of the Palestine Liberation Organization no
less than of Fidel Castro, whose government Mexico long supported as
evidence of its independence from its powerful northern neighbor.
When Salvador Allende’s socialist regime fell in Chile in 1973,
Echeverría took in hundreds of radical refugees from the South
American republic. Yet perhaps that was no irony at all, since most
leftist rulers – the kind-hearted Allende having been an exception –
have shown brutal yearnings, if not habits, in office.

But… genocide?

The Milosevic Comparison

Here is how the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for genocide in
Bosnia-Hercegovina read, at his trial before the International
Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague:

“COUNTS 1 and 2

“GENOCIDE OR COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE

“From on or about 1 March 1992 until 31 December 1995, Slobodan
MILOSEVIC, acting alone or in concert with other members of the joint
criminal enterprise, planned, instigated, ordered, committed or
otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation and execution
of the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Bosnian Muslim
national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such, in
territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…. The destruction of
these groups was effected by:

“a. The widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during and
after the take-over of territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina…
In many of the territories, educated and leading members of these
groups were specifically targeted for execution, often in accordance
with pre-prepared lists. After the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995,
almost all captured Bosnian Muslim men and boys, altogether several
thousands, were executed at the places where they had been captured
or at sites to which they had been transported for execution.

“b. The killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina…

“c. The causing of serious bodily and mental harm to thousands of
Bosnian Muslims during their confinement in detention facilities
within Bosnia and Herzegovina… Members of these groups, during
their confinement in detention facilities and during their
interrogation at these locations, police stations and military
barracks, were continuously subjected to, or forced to witness,
inhumane acts, including murder, sexual violence, torture and
beatings.

“d. The detention of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in detention
facilities within Bosnia and Herzegovina… under conditions of life
calculated to bring about the partial physical destruction of those
groups, namely through starvation, contaminated water, forced labour,
inadequate medical care and constant physical and psychological
assault.”

Milosevic has yet to be judged, and the opponents of U.S.
intervention to save the Bosnian Muslims, as well as Serb
nationalists and others who have made themselves his defenders for
reasons of their own, typically challenge the Hague indictment. But
the whole world knows what Milosevic did, and what genocide is. To
apply that word to the ordinary habits of corrupt Mexico under the
PRI is to devalue the term and dishonor both groups of victims – the
many millions of dead at the hands of Nazis, Stalinists, Serb
extremists and others, and the too-numerous corpses piled up by the
PRI-ocracy. Mexican judge Flores acted correctly in rejecting the
indictment of ex-president Echeverría.

Mathaba.Net, Africa
Aug 2 2004

Right to Return of `Ahiska’ Muslims
Posted: 08/02
From: Muslim Weekly

By: Shahed Alam

If I put this term -Meshetia- into a crossword, I am pretty sure ,
most of you will hardly be able to guess what country we are speaking
about, where it was and is located. The reason is, that Stalin – the
former leader of the Soviet Union not only evicted the Meshetian
people -the Meshetian Turks- from their own Meshetia, but liquidated
the name itself of their country, and crossed it out from the
geographical guidebooks, encyclopedias, and from literary sources in
general. Where was it located? Why its people were guilty before
Stalin?

The country with such a name was situated of South and SouthWest
Georgia -a former Republic of the ex-Soviet Union. It was located at
the height of 2000 metres over the sea level, in a big, wide and long
valley with a general territory ot 8600 km. Before the Meshetian
Turks’ eviction from their own places, their number was 158000 men
and they lived in 212 villages. All these villages are located near
the city of Batumi -the capital of Autonomous Republic of Adzharia-
between two rivers – Chorokh and Kura.

Repatriation of Meskhetians became a political issue, involving
different parties in and outside Georgia, in Russia and Turkey.
Confrontation and debate is already reflected in the labelling of
deported Meskhetians made by different key players. They are referred
to as Meskhetian Turks, Ahiska Turkleri, Muslim Meskhetians, Muslim
Georgians from Meskheti – depending on the intent to present them as
representatives of the one or the other nation. Obscurity of the
ethnic background of deported people forms a fertile ground for
different interpretations. Meskheti is a historical Georgian region,
at the Turkish border well advanced until late middle ages in
politics and culture, but which due its geographical situation for
centuries was a prey to its more powerful neighbours- Ottoman empire,
Perssia and Russia.

Ahiska, the ancient Oguz region was called as “Ak-S¦ka” (White
Castle) in Dede Korkut’s Book and “Akesga” in the records pertaining
to the year of 481. Ahiska is also rendered as the Turkish or Farsi
form of Ahal-Thise that mean “Yeni Kale” (New Castle). In the course
of the first Islamic conquests, Habib b. Mesleme, one of the
commanders of Damascus’ Governor Muaviye conquered Ahiska in the
period under the caliphate of Hz. Osman. It was under the Mongolian
dominion between the years of 1267-78 and then it was administered by
“Atabeg’s, the autonomous governors of the region in the subsequent
years.

Ahiska Atabegs were connected to the Ottoman dominion as a result of
C¦ld¦r War (1578) in the command of Lala Mustafa Pasha. The last
atabek, Minücihr declared its dependence to Ottomans. He reverted to
Islam and given the name of Mustafa Pasha. Pursuant to that date,
Ahiska had become the centre of C¦ld¦r province that was newly
established and it was drawn up thereof. However, Ahiska became a
province when C¦ld¦r got worn out due to the wars. The city that was
once conquered by Safevis got under the dominion of Ottomans again in
the year of 1635. Until it was subjected to the Russian dominion in
the year of 1828, Ahiska remained as a forefront city of the Ottoman
State. When it was separated from Turkey, the Serhat Turks that lived
in this region met with their bad destiny.

Contrary to beleive by western historians, due to their ill
intention, Meshetia, the country of the Meshetian Turks was always
located in the Caucasus, in Georgia but not in Turkey. It was seized
by the Ottoman Empire in its time, during the great Turkish conquests
in Fore Asia. In 1829, according to the Adrianopol Peace treaty, this
part of the Ottoman empire was transferred to Russia. Russia on the
basis of Ahalgtsikh vilayet (province), where Meshetia was located,
formed a district of the same name. The Meshetian Turks, at the
transference to Russia, were already Muslims of the sunnite trend,
though before that time they were Christians, belonged to two
churches – the Orthodox and the Catholic. Some scholars consider that
they are Turks by origin, who settled down there since the time of
coming the Turks to Fore Asia. By their arrival at the Caucasus, the
Turks, as the scholars say, forced out the local population from
their places and settled down themselves in that district. The other
scholars think that the Meshetian Turks from anthropological point of
view and many other elements of the Georgian ethnography are
Georgians by descent. They adopted not only Islam from Turks, but
their language. In this aspect, their fate is very close to the fate
of the Adzharians and the Lazes. They both adopted Islam, but
preserved their Georgian language. On the contrary, the Meshetian
Turks adopted the Turkish language and Islam from the Turks. Though
the Georgians consider the Meshetian Turks their own compatriots,
this part of the Georgian population was considered during almost 300
years to be Turks with the Turkish language and the Muslim culture.

In the course of the Ottoman-Russian war in 1853-1856, some of Ahiska
people ran away and took shelter in Erzurum due to the intense
pressure imposed upon them on the grounds that they collaborated with
the Ottoman army. Pursuant to this war, Kars was broken off from the
Ottoman borders and Ahiska remained far away from the border of
Turkey. In this period, an Armenian migration was experienced from
the North East Anatolia towards the Ahiska region.

The country Meshetia and the Meshetian Turks always arose Stalin’s
suspicion, as the Turks lived in an important military, strategic
region of the former USSR, on the border with Turkey, which after
President Ata-Turk’s death was always closer to the West than to
Russia, as constantly feared its mighty neighbour – Russia. In the
period of the World War II Turkey was preparing to attack the USSR
together with fascist Germany in case its successful invasion to
Stalingrad on the Volga river and Japan’s interference on the side of
Germany. By this, Stalin justified his decision to evict the
Meshetian Turks, who were preparing a white horse for Hitler with the
golden harness. Certainly, it was a big lie. Nevertheless the
decision about the exile of the Meshetian Turks out of Meshetia was
made by the State Defence Committee under the signatures of
Stalin-Chairman, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Malenkov and
others. At night 14-15 of November 1944 the Internal Ministry troops
were moved there, which began massive eviction of the Meshetian Turks
to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. These troops chased all the Turks to
the village streets, dipped them into the lorries of “Studebackers”
and sent them to the nearest railway stations, in which they had
transported before that the livestock.

Imagine, that was November in Russia! it was the time of severe
frosts and snowfalls, of frosty winds, but the wagons were not heated
and the Turks had to go to the places of destination during one
month. In each carriage there were not less than 18 families, who
received 2-3 loaves of bread and a bucket of watery soup. All the
Turks went in 4 trains – all in all 112 000 and 40 000 were mobilized
for the front. After awful tribulations and sufferings in cold
carriages, in which they were without appearing in the air, they at
last arrived in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

In Central Asia they were transfered to the regions of Mirzacol,
Sirdaria, velikoalexeevskava, and Golden Horde. And everywhere there
was an uninhabitated steppe hungry desert, called like this because
nothing could grow on its soil. As a result of the diseases and
famine in the first two months, 17000 people died and mainly children
and elderly people. At that time, when the Turks, as slaves of 20th
century, were labouring in the Hungary Steppe, the KGB spread a
rumour, that the Turks had hidden their gold and golden handicrafts
in their houses. And who will find it, will receive them for
themselves.

KGB influenced animals arms with axes, picks, shovels and crow-bars
crushed everything around what could obtain the hidden treasures. But
they could not find anything, though all the houses were destroyed,
including the mosques. Nothing was left for the Meshetian Turks, who
would be able to return home.

Stalin evicted the Meshetian turks from their Motherland, and the
Uzbek nationalists killed all whom they met of children, women and
elderly. The Muslim Uzbeks were destroying all the Muslim Turks. It
happened on 10-12 of June of 1989. The masses of the Turks rushed to
railway stations, occupied the places in the trains and rushed to the
North Caucasus near to their own Meshetia. Together with them, they
took the killed children.

Today, Ahiska Turks live in 264 different regions of 13 Republics.
There are approximately 629,000 of Ahiska Turks dispersed into the
various regions of former USSR. They are without a homeland and
without any rights.

Despite all struggles, the will to return never dies.

In 1956 after 19th congress of the Communist party of the USSR and
N.Khrushev’s report at it, where he exposed tne personality cult of
Stalin, the Meshetian Turks were rehabilitated. They were allowed to
go from Kazakhstan and Central Asia to any point of the USSR, except
their Motherland – Meshetia. They decided to go to many republics and
provinces of the USSR – Azerbaijan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Naghorny
Karabagh, Chernobyl, Smolensk, Saratov, Voronesh and many others.

In order to prevent them from coming back to Meshetia the local
authorities built up a wide frontier zone, up to 78 km, and the
former one was only 2-7 km in width. They put the border barrier up
to the resort city of Borjomi. It meant, that only the local
Georgians, but not the Meshetians, could come there as there was a
passports’ regime. In each passport a person’s nationality was
written. The border guards, looking at the passports, could recognize
the Meshetians at once and refused them the visa entry.

Despite all these hardship, Meshetian Turks were not broken
psychologically and moraly. They carried out their own national
congress in Central Asia, created the Provisional Organisational
Committee under the name “Vatan” -i.e. Motherland. The main target of
this organisation is to return to their native Meshetia.

The decision to settle the Turks in all the former USSR is not the
solution to the problem of these people. It is only a superficial
surgery operation, capable to lighten the condition of a patient at a
certain stage. The main and basical for the Turks is to return to
their Motherland in Georgia. The delegates of the lst Congress of the
Turks in 1992 appealed to the General secretary of UNO Butrus Ghali
to take measures to acknowledge the rights of the Meshetian Turks
from the part of Georgia, to return to their Motherland – to
Meshetia-Java- hetia and secure them their human rights in the places
of their current existence before their return to the historical
Motherland.

Today, many of the survivors and their descendants are seeking to
return to their ancestral home. The Georgian government has
undertaken the task of repatriation of deported Meskhetians over
decades. There is also serious international commitment to accelerate
this process. Still, careful planning is required because this
process involves a number of complicated real-world economic,
political, social, and legal issues, as well as serious psychological
challenges. However, planning does not mean dispersing a community or
given citizenship to another country. That is why, last week’s U.S
offer to move 7000 Ahiska Muslims raise suspicion. We are all happy
to see the Ahiska Muslim brothers found a new life in Pennsylvania.
But, what about other Meskhetians. Can they move back to their
homeland or will they face deportation like Palestinians with no
right of returns.

Prof. Konstantin Matveev contributed to this article.

July 31, 2004
Judge Approves $20M Armenian Settlement
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:11 a.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge Friday formally approved a $20 million
settlement in a class action lawsuit between New York Life Insurance
Co. and the descendants of Armenians killed nearly 90 years ago in the
Turkish Ottoman Empire.

The landmark legal agreement approved by U.S. District Court Judge
Christina A. Snyder is believed to be the first ever in connection
with what Armenians say was genocide but that Turkey describes as
civil unrest.

Snyder granted preliminary approval for the unpaid death benefits
earlier this year.

“As lawyers and descendants of victims of the genocide, we were able
to bring to court a lawsuit that brings some recognition of the
genocide,” said attorney Brian S. Kabateck, who, like co-counsel Mark
Geragos, is Armenian-American.

One of the plaintiffs, 89-year-old Martin Marootian, will receive
$250,000 stemming from his efforts to bring about the lawsuit. His
mother first sought benefits in 1923 for Marootian’s uncle, who bought
a policy in 1910 and was killed in 1915.

“What it really is is an insurance case and not an Armenian genocide
case, but the two are interwoven together,” Marootian said Friday.

Armenians have asserted that 1.5 million people were executed between
1915 and 1923 by Turkish authorities who accused them of helping the
invading Russian army during World War I. Turkey has rejected the
genocide claim, saying Armenians were killed in civil unrest during
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

New York Life sold about 8,000 policies in the Ottoman Empire
beginning in the 1880s, with less than half of those bought by
Armenians. It stopped selling insurance there in 1915.

Many of the policies languished because remaining heirs could not be
found, the firm said. The company has located about one-third of the
policyholders’ descendants to pay benefits.

About $11 million will be set aside for potential claims by heirs of
some 2,400 policyholders, $3 million will go to Armenian charities and
the rest will pay attorneys’ fees and administrative costs.

France and Russia are among 15 countries that have recognized the
genocide. The United States has not made such a declaration.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press

Latinos like that Teresa speaks their language
Frank Cerabino
Thursday, July 29, 2004

BOSTON — Short takes from the Democratic National Convention:
-Playing ketchup with the Cuban-American vote
Teresa Heinz Kerry was a hit with the Latino Caucus on Wednesday,
effortlessly switching from Spanish to English to Portuguese and saying shehad a new
appreciation for Cuban-Americans and their struggles, likening it to her own
young life living in a dictatorship.
“I now understand, because I remember,” she said.
“Te-re-sa! Te-re-sa!” the caucus members chanted as she left. “Viva Teresa!”
-Star of vegetarian-friendly movie meets vegan candidate
Every politician has his own celebrity, it seems. Even Dennis Kucinich. The
elfin former candidate was making the rounds Wednesday flanked by his 6-foot-6
new friend, actor James Cromwell, who is perhaps best known as the farmer in
the pig movie Babe.
“I put on a fund-raiser for him in my house in California,” Cromwell said,
explaining how he met Kucinich. “Dennis speaks to my heart.”
That’ll do, Dennis. That’ll do.
-Instead of limousine liberals, it’s cuisine liberals
The Kerry campaign has an ethnic outreach director. George Kivork is an
Armenian-American born in Syria. Kivork can almost name from memory the 17
hyphenated-American ethnic groups he is trying to rally — most of them from
European countries.
Kivork urged members of the Ethnic Caucus to drum up local support for
Kerry.
“You could travel the country in August, going to ethnic festivals,” he told
them. “The food is amazing.”
-A stronger bladder for America
Inside the FleetCenter, the official slogan is “A stronger America.” But in
the streets of Boston, strolling delegates are more likely to see the words,
“Rest rooms are for customers only.”
-Cheney behind the scenes?
Vice President Dick Cheney recently told off Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in
colorful language on the floor of the U.S. Senate. So when Leahy got his chance
to speak from the podium at the convention Wednesday night, he started out
by trying to fire back at Cheney.
Convention speakers rely on a two huge television screens that face them from
behind the Florida delegation. The words scroll as they talk, allowing the
speakers to look straight ahead, rather than down at papers on the lectern.
“If the vice president is watching, he might want to turn off his TV,” Leahy
said in his speech.
And then the TelePrompTer malfunctioned, leaving the senator to ad lib:
“Apparently, he turned off the TelePrompTer, too.”
-How quickly they forget
John Wertman, 27, of Alexandria, Va., is a volunteer at the convention. It
got him onto the floor of the convention hall earlier in the week. But
Wednesday, he didn’t have a floor pass, so he tried to barter for one.
Earlier in the week, he stood in line for three hours to get a signed copy of
former President Clinton’s autobiography, My Life.
Wertman brought the book with him to a convention hotel lobby, standing with
the book in one hand and a sign in the other: “Autographed Bill Clinton My
Life for a floor pass.”
He waited, and waited, and waited. An hour later, he was still there.
“This is tougher than I thought,” he said.
-The Medea is biased
Medea Benjamin, 51, of San Francisco, was hauled off the convention floor
Tuesday night by Boston police officers when she unfurled a banner that read
“End the Occupation of Iraq” during Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech.
Benjamin founded a women’s peace group called Code Pink.
On Wednesday, Benjamin was back at one of the convention hotels with a
similar banner.
“I wasn’t arrested,” she said. “They interrogated me for a half-hour, then
let me go.”
She had borrowed a press pass to get on the floor, she said, and had hidden
the banner when going through security. She said Kerry’s wife inspired her to
unfurl it.
“She said that a true patriot speaks truth to power,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin said she wasn’t surprised to be hauled away.
“They’ve made this convention one void of debate about the one issue that’s
so important,” she said.
Benjamin is a frequent visitor to Palm Beach County. Her father and
stepmother live in Highland Beach.
As for politics: “Like most families, we’re divided.”
-Team players
The convention has its own house band, an ensemble led by New York drummer
Steve Jordan and featuring a horn section and three singers. Many of the
convention speakers get to take the stage while the band strikes up what is known
as “play ons.” These are usually just snippets of popular songs that seem
appropriate for the speaker.
For example, Jimmy Carter walked on to Georgia on My Mind, and the Rev.
Jesse Jackson got the the gospel anthem People Get Ready.
But what does the band play for someone such as Cheryl Jacques, president of
the Human Rights Campaign?
The answer: An instrumental version of Isley Brothers’ It’s Your Thing.
It’s your thing. Do what you want to do.
-Sounds more like hold-the-mayo than hold-the-marriage
It’s hard keeping track of the alphabet soup that is all the special interest
groups at the convention. The unions are all known by their abbreviations,
and then there’s the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus, known as the
GLBT Caucus.
When U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton addressed the caucus Wednesday, she
repeatedly mixed up the acronym, calling them “my good friends of the GBLT
community.” Find this article at:

d64145bd323d007a.html

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
July 28, 2004, Wednesday

Majority of Lithuanians would welcome further E.U. expansion

Vilnius

More than 60 per cent of Lithuania’s population welcome further
expansion of the European Union according to a new poll, the Foreign
Ministry reported Wednesday. The ministry cited a survey carried out
by Vilmorus public opinion and market research centre in mid-July.
“Two thirds of Lithuanian population are in favour of the expansion
of the European Union,” the survey published Tuesday said. According
to the poll, some 62 per cent of respondents supported expanding the
E.U., while 12 per cent were against and the remaining 24.8 percent
were undecided. Ukraine topped the list of countries that would be
welcomed as new members in the current 25-member bloc. Lithuanians
also supported E.U. membership for Turkey, Croatia, Moldova and
Georgia in the near future, but were more reluctant regarding the
accession of neighbouring Belarus, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan
in the near future. The Baltic republic joined the E.U. on May 1.
Main sceptics included people between 40-49 years of age, those with
university education, and people living in Lithuania’s five largest
municipalities. Some 1,005 Lithuanian residents aged 18 and over were
polled in 18 cities and 58 villages. The margin of error was 3 per
cent. dpa egs pw

US MEDIATOR URGES PARTIES TO KARABAKH CONFLICT TO MAKE COMPROMISE

Turan news agency
26 Jul 04

BAKU

The USA is interested in a negotiated settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict. Washington stands for stability in the region and
against any developments that could undermine it, the US co-chairman
in the OSCE Minsk Group, Steven Mann, has told Regnum news agency.

The breach of regional stability could pose a threat to such major
regional projects as the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, he added.

Commenting on the results of a recent visit to the region by the Minsk
Group co-chairmen, Mann noted that it was an attempt to bring the
sides’ positions closer together and help them find ways of resolving
the conflict.

According to him, co-chairmen understand how difficult the situation
is for the heads of the two countries. Tensions on both sides run
high, however, the issue must not be dealt with under the influence of
emotions.

“We will do everything to prevent a new tragedy,” Mann stressed.

Responding to the criticism of the Minsk Group Mann said: “We are not
gods, a solution to the conflict has to be found by the parties to the
conflict themselves.”

The US co-chairman believes that a solution has to be found by the
heads of the two states. Responsibility rests with them, not with
mediators, Mann said. He added that the parties to the conflict had
chosen the OSCE themselves and that the Minsk Group would continue its
work.

Mann also spoke in favour of Nagornyy Karabakh’s involvement in the
talks. In his opinion, this may speed up a settlement.

At the same time, the diplomat dismissed reports that he had urged
Armenia to unilaterally vacate some of the occupied territories.

JOHN ORDWAY: “ARMENIAN PEOPLE HAS GREAT POTENTIAL FOR BUILDING OF FREE,
INDEPENDENT AND ECONOMICALLY DEVELOPING COUNTRY”

YEREVAN, July 22 (Noyan Tapan). John Ordway, the Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the US to Armenia, who is
finishing his diplomatic mission in Armenia, had the last meeting with
representatives of Armenian mass media on July 22. In his opening
speech in Armenian he mentioned that in 3 years he had an opportunity
of being in all the regions of the Republic of Armenia, saw the beauty
of the country and the cultural values, got acquainted with many
interesting people. The Ambassador said that during his numerous
visits he was able to estimate the results of the American aid on the
spot and to get acquainted with the problems of people. According to
him, these 3 years were very efficient: “Jointly with the RA
government we tried to develop economy, establish supremacy of law and
form a civil society.” Ambassador Ordway mentioned that the US highly
estimates the assistance of the RA government in the issue of struggle
against terrorism. The US, in particular, wants the principles of
democracy to strengthen, poverty to reduce, economic reforms to go on
and investment field to improve in Armenia. According to him, security
and stability in the whole region should be strengthened. John Ordway
declared that the US will continue working with the co-chairmen of the
OSCE Minsk Group for the purpose of “fair and mutually admissible
solution” of the Artsakh problem. “Having the experience of these 3
years, I may say with confidence that the Armenian people has a great
potential for building of a free, independent, economically developed
and prospering country, being the US Ambassador to RA and having a
contribution to development of Armenian-American relations is an
honour for me,” the Ambassador declared. John Ordway expressed his
gratitude to Armenian journalists for efficient work and wished them
success.

International Journalist’s Network
July 21 2004

Photojournalists eligible for nine-month course in Armenia

Photojournalists from countries in the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) can apply for a new nine-month photojournalism course in
Yerevan, Armenia.

Organized by the Caucasus Media Institute and World Press Photo, the
program is scheduled for October 2004 through June 2004. Students
will learn about the history of photojournalism, different genres and
developments in the industry, and ways to confront the most common
problems facing photojournalists.

The participants will work for local print media, photo and news
agencies in Yerevan during the course of the program. They are also
eligible to participate in CMI’s other journalism courses.

World Press Photo will hold an exhibition of the students’ work in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, following the completion of the course.

Citizens between 17 and 30 years old from CIS countries are eligible
to apply. They should submit a completed application form, available
at in English
and 22 in Russian,
along with a curriculum vitae, a letter explaining why they want to
attend, and examples of published photojournalistic work. Details are
available at

ARMENIA’S PREMIER MEETS WITH AMBASSADOR OF GERMANY TO ARMENIA

YEREVAN, JULY 20. ARMINFO. Prime Minister of Armenia Andranik
Margarian today met with Germany’s Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary to Armenia Hans-Wulf Bartels, who is completing his
diplomatic mission in the republic.

Arminfo was informed in the press office of the government, during the
meeting the prime minister has highly assessed the activities of the
german diplomat in Armenia, his contribution to the development of
Armenian-German political and economic relations. The prime minister
has stressed the necessity of further deepening of the relations of
Armenia and Germany as one of the important members of the European
Union. Andranik Margarian has also mentioned that despite the
achievement there are still probabilities which have not been used
fully, in particular, in the plan of bilateral economic relations,
establishment of joint ventures, increase of the volume of trade
turnover.

In his turn, the ambassador mentioned with satisfaction the effective
visit of the prime minister of Armenia to Germany in June of the
current year and expressed hope that it will attache an additional
stimulus to the development of economic relations between two
countries. At the end of the meeting the prime minister wished the
German diplomat a success in his further activities.