Author: Chakrian Hovsep

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 26, 2007 Monday

DELEGATION OF ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY TO HAVE OFFICIAL VISIT TO
CHINA

The delegation of Armenian Defense Ministry headed by Serzh
Sarkisyan, Defense Minister and Secretary of the Security Council,
will go on an official visit to China on March 26. On Friday, Colonel
Seiran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of the Defense Minister,
reported that the visit would include meetings with top ranking state
and military officials of China.

The program of the visit also includes examinations of military
educational institutions and military formations of China. The
Armenian delegation will return to Yerevan on March 29.

March 28 announced day of mourning in Armenia

ArmRadio.am
27.03.2007 11:40

On March 26 RA President Robert Kocharyan signed a decree on
announcing a day of mourning in the Republic of Armenia on March 28
connected with the death of Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan.

RA Ministries, agencies, Marzpets and the Mayor of Yerevan have been
instructed to lower all the RA state flags in Armenia and diplomatic
representations of the Republic of Armenia abroad.

ARKADY GHUKASIAN: "ANDRANIK MARGARIAN HAS HIS UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION IN
IMPROVEMENT OF NKR AS SECOND ARMENIAN INDEPENDENT STATE"

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 27, NOYAN TAPAN. On the occasion of RA Prime
Minister, Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia Andranik
Margarian’s sudden death, NKR President Arkady Ghukasian sent telegram
of condolence to the late’s family. The telegram reads the following:
"A person prematurely passed away who completely devoted his rich
experience, knowledge and patriotic vigour to creation and
strengthening of the Armenian independent statehood, security of the
economic progress of Armenia, increase of the Armenian people’s
well-being.

>From the first days of the Artsakh movement Andranik Margarian had
active participation in our national-liberating struggle, introduced
his unique contribution in the affair of gaining the victory,
improvement of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh as the second Armenian
independent state, its social-economic development. The veritable
patriot’s memory will remain very bright in the memory of all of us,
in the whole Armenian people’s memory. Accept my sincere condolence at
this moment of hard grief for your family and all of us. I wish you
patience and might of soul." As Noyan Tapan was informed by the NKR
President’s Press Office, on the occasion of RA Prime Minister
Andranik Nahapet Margarian’s death, NKR President Arkady Ghukasian
signed a decree on March 26 on announcing mourning on March 28, in the
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.

The Messenger, Georgia
March 23 2007

Heads should roll

Having banged on for over a year about how the final status of Kosovo
would set an inevitable, unavoidable precedent for Georgia’s
breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian elite
have now decided that it won’t after all. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov, appearing before the Duma, was asked about the issue,
and the mealy mouth semi-reply he gave (he didn’t even get round to
finishing, he was saved by the bell and the session ended) is ample
evidence of the totally short sighted, reactive, and frankly inept
policy Russia has in regards to Georgia.

"We emphasize that any decision about Kosovo will create a
precedent…But projection of this situation to, South Ossetia and
Transdnistria would not be appropriate. I repeat there is no link"
fumbled Lavrov.

What sort of precedent is it that doesn’t create a precedent? Lavrov
has created a precedent of his own by redefining the very word, but
that is the least of his problems re Georgia. The fact is that
Russian foreign policy has totally failed. Everything they have tried
has been totally wrong footed from the word go. Lavrov probably has
bigger fish to fry, it’s likely not his fault, but some people really
need to get fired.

The first to lose their job should be the person who came up with the
idea of blowing up the pipeline last January. As if Georgia, a
country that did without electricity, gas and virtually everything
else for much of the nineties, would suddenly crumble after few days
of wearing coats indoors. The plan was doomed to failure form the
start, whoever came up with clearly doesn’t possess an atlas, and
didn’t realise they’d be hurting Russia’s long suffering but loyal
ally Armenia in the process.

The wine ban man also needs a dressing down, all he managed to do was
make a world that usually doesn’t care feel sorry for plucky little
Georgia. But the person who really should never eat lunch in Moscow
again is the man that dreamt up the idea that Igor Giorgadze could
become president. They must have spent million on him. The offices in
the centre of all Georgia’s towns, one on Rustaveli, one on
Perovskaya and one on Chavchavadze, must have cost a pretty penny.
All the rallies, whose participants were paid between five and ten
lari, would have run up quite a tab too. And for what? To promote
probably the least popular man in Georgia as an alternative
president, it’s like putting Marshal Petain up for president of
France in 1945. Whoever came up with the idea is either barking mad
or a comedy genius.

And the really baffling thing is: they haven’t learnt their lesson.
Whatever apparatchik-on-acid came up with Giorgadze subsequently
pinned their hopes on Irina Sarishvili, possibly because she is as
crazy as they are.

Everything they do is totally counterproductive, but they are unable
to change their methods. Another prime example is the neutrality
issue. Russia really, really doesn’t want Georgia to join NATO, but
by calling for Georgia neutrality they only boosted the already
formidable support for NATO membership. Anyone could have told them
that would happen. How many boobs are the people who decide Georgia
policy allowed before they find themselves out of a job? Who are
these people, where do they work-the foreign ministry, the Kremlin,
la la land?

We should be told.

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
March 24 2007

Culture plays role in police diversity

Armenian community more receptive to law enforcement jobs

BY EUGENE TONG, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 03/23/2007 09:51:26 PM PDT

GLENDALE – Tigran Topadzhikyan was born in Soviet-era Armenia, a
repressive place where police officers didn’t have the best public
image.

So it wasn’t entirely a surprise that his mother would frown on his
decision to pursue a law enforcement career.

"My mom was a little apprehensive," said Topadzhikyan, 31, who has
served as a Glendale police officer for more than a decade. "She
thinks it was dangerous even when I was an (police) Explorer. I was
the first one in my family doing something like that. She supports me
throughout now."

Topadzhikyan and Lola Abrahamian, also of Armenian descent, were
among four officers recently promoted to sergeant – a boon to a
department that has been trying to diversify its force to police an
increasingly diverse city of 207,000.

According to city and census estimates, at least 30 percent of its
residents are Armenian-American, 20 percent are Latino and 17 percent
Asian-American.

But the current force of 253 officers – 6 percent are of Armenian
descent, 23 percent Latino, 6 percent Asian-American and 60 percent
white – still needs to catch up.

"Ideally, you want your police force to match the demographics of the
city," Glendale Police Chief Randy

———————————————– ———————————

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Adams said in a recent interview. "The reality is, that does not
happen overnight."
The department has made progress – a decade ago, only three officers
out of a force of 195 were Armenian-American, compared with seven in
2002 and 14 today.

The difficulty lies in finding enough recruits who meet department
standards – and a cultural bias of some Armenian families who view
law enforcement as a blue-collar profession to be avoided, Adams
said.

"In order to match the demographics of the city, you certainly
shouldn’t compromise your standards," he said.

However, critics say change isn’t happening fast enough. Zanku
Armenian of the Armenian National Committee said the department needs
to step up recruitment while training current officers to better
navigate the community.

"Just like you would have diversity training in a major corporation,
there needs to be that kind of fundamental training in the department
in order to evolve the culture," said Armenian, a board member of the
group’s western region chapter. "It takes a long time and very
thoughtful effort."

Past friction between the department and some Armenians has fostered
a measure of distrust. Stephan Partamian, an Armenian community
activist, said police made it a point to pull over people of color in
the 1980s, a time before the city’s demographics shifted.

"I think right now, it’s the best as ever," said Partamian, who hosts
a call-in television show. "Glendale police have done very well in
adapting to the multicultural face of Glendale. … But every week,
people call me to complain."

A lot of the calls are rooted in cultural misunderstanding, Partamian
said. He recalls a run-in he had last year with an officer during a
traffic stop:

"He came to the window. … In a very bad manner, he asked me
something – then he spit on the floor, like something I had seen in a
Western movie.

"I gave him my driver’s license, and he asked me how many times had I
been arrested," Partamian said. "I think it’s impolite."

Partamian said he took the issue to the City Council – three of the
five councilmen are of Armenian descent – and met with Adams, who
listened to his concerns.

"It turned out he was a rookie officer and had a habit of chewing
tobacco."

That’s not to say would-be Armenian-American criminals won’t try to
take advantage of a common ethnicity.

"Obviously, that’s happened," said Abrahamian, a 10-year Glendale
police veteran who was born in Iran and grew up in Los Angeles. "I’ve
arrested somebody and they would say, `How is it? Can you let me go?’

"The answer is, no."

DetNews.com, MI
March 24 2007

Author will sign book on Armenian genocide

The Detroit News

SOUTHFIELD — Taner Akcam, a University of Minnesota historian, will
sign copies of his book, "A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and
the Question of Turkish Responsibility," at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the
Manoogian School, 22001 Northwestern Highway in Southfield.

Akcam has attracted attention because he is one of the first Turkish
intellectuals to devote his career to studying the Armenian Genocide,
the Ottoman Empire’s systematic slaughter of more than 1 million
Armenians from 1915-1923. The modern Turkish government still
officially denies such a slaughter ever took place.

THE TRUTH SHOULD BE PROCLAIMED LOUDLY
by Robert Fisk

ZNet, MA
March 21 2007

Stand by for a quotation to take your breath away. It’s from a letter
from my Istanbul publishers, who are chickening out of publishing
the Turkish-language edition of my book The Great War for Civilisation.

The reason, of course, is a chapter entitled "The First Holocaust",
which records the genocide of one and a half million Armenians by
the Ottoman Turks in 1915, a crime against humanity that even Lord
Blair of Kut al-Amara tried to hide by initially refusing to invite
Armenian survivors to his Holocaust Day in London.

It is, I hasten to add, only one chapter in my book about the Middle
East, but the fears of my Turkish friends were being expressed even
before the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was so cruelly
murdered outside his Istanbul office in January. And when you read the
following, from their message to my London publishers HarperCollins,
remember it is written by the citizen of a country that seriously
wishes to enter the European Community. Since I do not speak Turkish,
I am in no position to criticise the occasional lapses in Mr Osman’s
otherwise excellent English.

"We would like to denote that the political situation in Turkey
concerning several issues such as Armenian and Kurdish Problems,
Cyprus issue, European Union etc do not improve, conversely getting
worser and worser due to the escalating nationalist upheaval that
has reached its apex with the Nobel Prize of Orhan Pamuk and the
political disagreements with the EU. Most probably, this political
atmosphere will be effective until the coming presidency elections of
April 2007… Therefore we would like to undertake the publication
quietly, which means there will be no press campaign for Mr Fisk’s
book. Thus, our request from [for] Mr Fisk is to show his support to
us if any trial [is] … held against his book. We hope that Mr Fisk
and HarperCollins can understand our reservations."

Well indeedydoody, I can. Here is a publisher in a country negotiating
for EU membership for whom Armenian history, the Kurds, Cyprus
(unmentioned in my book) – even Turkey’s bid to join the EU, for
heaven’s sake – is reason enough to try to sneak my book out in
silence. When in the history of bookselling, I ask myself, has
any publisher tried to avoid publicity for his book? Well, I can
give you an example. When Taner Akcam’s magnificent A Shameful Act:
The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility was
first published in Turkish – it uses Ottoman Turkish state documents
and contemporary Turkish statements to prove that the genocide was
a terrifying historical fact – the Turkish historian experienced an
almost identical reaction. His work was published "quietly" in Turkey –
and without a single book review.

Now I’m not entirely unsympathetic with my Turkish publishers. It is
one thing for me to rage and roar about their pusillanimity. But I
live in Beirut, not in Istanbul. And after Hrant Dink’s foul murder,
I’m in no position to lecture my colleagues in Turkey to stand up
to the racism that killed Dink. While I’m sipping my morning coffee
on the Beirut Corniche, Mr Osman could be assaulted in the former
capital of the Ottoman empire. But there’s a problem nonetheless.

Some months earlier, my Turkish publishers said that their lawyers
thought that the notorious Law 301 would be brought against them –
it is used to punish writers for being "unTurkish" – in which case
they wanted to know if I, as a foreigner (who cannot be charged under
301), would apply to the court to stand trial with them. I wrote that
I would be honoured to stand in a Turkish court and talk about the
genocide. Now, it seems, my Turkish publishers want to bring my book
out like illicit pornography – but still have me standing with them
in the dock if right-wing lawyers bring charges under 301!

I understand, as they write in their own letter, that they do not want
to have to take political sides in the "nonsensical collision between
nationalists and neo-liberals", but I fear that the roots of this
problem go deeper than this. The sinister photograph of the Turkish
police guards standing proudly next to Dink’s alleged murderer after
his arrest shows just what we are up against here. Yet still our own
Western reporters won’t come clean about the Ottoman empire’s foul
actions in 1915. When, for example, Reuters sent a reporter, Gareth
Jones, off to the Turkish city of Trabzon – where Dink’s supposed
killer lived – he quoted the city’s governor as saying that Dink’s
murder was related to "social problems linked to fast urbanisation". A
"strong gun culture and the fiery character of the people" might be
to blame.

Ho hum. I wonder why Reuters didn’t mention a much more direct and
terrible link between Trabzon and the Armenians. For in 1915, the
Turkish authorities of the city herded thousands of Armenian women
and children on to boats, set off into the Black Sea – the details
are contained in an original Ottoman document unearthed by Akcam –
"and thrown off to drown". Historians may like to know that the man
in charge of these murder boats was called Niyazi Effendi. No doubt
he had a "fiery character".

Yet still this denial goes on. The Associated Press this week
ran a story from Ankara in which its reporter, Selcan Hacaoglu,
repeated the same old mantra about there being a "bitter dispute"
between Armenia and Turkey over the 1915 slaughter, in which Turkey
"vehemently denies that the killings were genocide". When will the
Associated Press wake up and cut this cowardly nonsense from its
reports? Would the AP insert in all its references to the equally
real and horrific murder of six million European Jews that right-wing
Holocaust negationists "vehemently deny" that there was a genocide?

No, they would not.

But real history will win. Last October, according to local newspaper
reports, villagers of Kuru in eastern Turkey were digging a grave for
one of their relatives when they came across a cave containing the
skulls and bones of around 40 people – almost certainly the remains
of 150 Armenians from the town of Oguz who were murdered in Kuru on
14 June 1915. The local Turkish gendarmerie turned up to examine the
cave last year, sealed its entrance and ordered villagers not to speak
of what they found. But there are hundreds of other Kurus in Turkey
and their bones, too, will return to haunt us all. Publishing books
"quietly" will not save us.

RICE DODGES QUESTIONS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 21 2007

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the
United States should not be involved in a dispute between Turkey and
Armenia over whether the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians almost
a century ago constituted genocide.

Under intense questioning from Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the sponsor
of a resolution that would declare that Turkey’s Ottoman predecessor
state committed genocide, Rice repeatedly avoided answering whether
she believed there was any basis for historical debate on the matter.

"What we’ve encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have
joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts
to examine their past, and in examining their past to get over it,"
she said. "I don’t think it helps that process of reconciliation for
the United States to enter this debate at that level."

The dispute involves the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians
during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Armenian advocates,
backed by many historians, contend they died in an organized genocide;
the Turks say they were victims of widespread chaos and governmental
breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in the years before
Turkey was born in 1923.

RULING PARTY REFUSES TO INVESTIGATE ‘ROGUE’ GOVERNOR
By Astghik Bedevian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 21 2007

The governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) on Wednesday refused
to investigate allegations that the controversial governor of the
southeastern Syunik region affiliated with the HHK bullied a prominent
opposition leader and obstructed his recent visit to the area.

The leader, Vazgen Manukian, toured Syunik last week together with
several other senior members of his National Democratic Union (AZhM).

He alleged on Tuesday that local authorities prevented them from
holding indoors gatherings with voters. He said they were even barred
from spending a night in the regional capital Kapan and were barely
able to check into a hotel in the nearby town of Goris.

Manukian claimed to have received a threatening phone call in his
hotel room from an unknown man who warned him to stay away from Syunik
until the May 12 parliamentary elections. He said he is confident
that the anonymous caller is connected with the Republican Governor
Surik Khachatrian, also known for his "Liska" nickname.

Goris and surrounding villages have long been considered an exclusive
zone of influence of Khachatrian and members of his extended family.

Khachatrian, who is seen as a protege of Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian, has tolerated little dissent both in the Goris area and
the rest of Syunik.

"The people of Syunik live under an ordinary feudal system," charged
Manukian. Branding the governor as an "uneducated criminal," the
veteran oppositionist said the HHK should bring him to account if it
is serious about its promises of turning Armenia into a democratic
and rule-of-law state.

"This is not a separate case of insults and intimidation of a single
citizen," he said. "This is a phenomenon illustrating the situation
in Armenia."

But the HHK’s parliamentary leader, Galust Sahakian, made it clear
that the ruling party, which plans to win the upcoming elections,
has no intention to censure Khachatrian or look into Manukian’s claims.

"That is not a matter of political evaluations," he told RFE/RL. "Mr.
Manukian had better ask law-enforcement bodies to conduct an
investigation."

Manukian, whose party is boycotting the vote, did not deny that
one of the aims of his trip to Syunik was to campaign against
Aleksandr Sarkisian, the defense minister’s flamboyant brother
who is running for parliament in a constituency that encompasses
the Goris area. His main challenger is Samvel Babayan, the former
military leader of Nagorno-Karabakh who claims to be in opposition
to Armenia’s leadership.

In a recent interview with RFE/RL, Manukian said that he will try to
help Babayan get elected because he believes "every ballot cast for
Aleksandr Sarkisian is an insult to the Armenian people."

The AZhM leader came up with another argument at a news conference
on Tuesday. "If Serzh Sarkisian’s brother is defeated there, that
will be a big blow to Serzh Sarkisian," he said. "And I want Serzh
Sarkisian to get a big blow."

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SIGNS LAW ON TAX PRIVILEGES FOR MEGHRI-KAJARAN GAS PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION WORK

Noyan Tapan
Mar 20 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian President Robert
Kocharian on March 15 signed the laws on tax privileges in aviation
and construction work of the Meghri-Kajaran gas pipeline, as well
as laws on making amendments and additions to to the RA Water Code,
the RA Administrative Infringements Code, the Civil Procedure Code,
the Criminal Procedure Code, and to the following laws: on the RA
Control Chamber, on organization and Conducting of Check-Ups in the RA,
on Licensing, on State Duty, on Energy, on Electronic Communication, on
Advocacy, on Court Service, on Court Composition, on Justice Council,
and on the Public Services Regulatiory Body.

According to the RA President’s press service, on March 16 the Armenian
president signed the RA law on making an amendment to the RA Criminal
Procedure Code.