Author: Chakrian Hovsep

Aravot, Armenia
Oct 27 2006

THREE JUSTIFICATIONS

Every time when our drivers hardly drive round the holes on Tigran
Mets or Comitas streets of Yerevan, they curse the authorities of
Armenia. Because nobody wants to be responsible for the holes digged
4 months ago, and the citizens think that everybody is guilty.

In answer to the citizens’ complaint, the authorities bring three
type of justification; 1/ we were thinking during digging in summer
that «Lins’» money will be sent, 2/ we have no money to repair, 3/
Upper Lars is closed, we can’t get bitumen.

The first justification is nonsense. Every normal person when arrange
an action he accounts what he must to finish it in the determined
limit. If no, he has no right to be even the father of family.

The second justification isn’t also so convincing. I suggest the
following settlement. For example the mayor holds the following
action: 10 oligarchs of the authority refuse of having dinner a day
and give that money for repairing the streets. All TV Companies are
invited and show the following scene; the oligarchs with their
bodyguards stand on Comitas avenue and eating shortcakes look how the
streets are repaired by their money.

The third justification though has an objective ground but it isn’t
complete. As our authorities declare every time that their Russian
partners are their `close brothers’. Ask them to solve that problem.
When it is spoken about your positions, you are brothers, but when
the problem is the security of inhabitants, you are remote relatives.

October is over soon, and it may snow in November. Do you imagine how
many cars will drive into those holes in case of ice? Who is
responsible, the municipality, government, `Lins” Yerevan office? Or
maybe Russian-Georgian strained relations.

Aram Abrahamian

FIRST SITTING OF REGIONAL SAKREBULO IN JAVAKHK ARE LATE

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Oct 26 2006

AKHALKALAK, OCTOBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The first
sitting of the regional sakrebulos formed after the October 5 elections
of local self-government bodies did not take place yet in the regions
of Akhalkalak, Ninotsminda, Tsalka and Akaltskha. According to the
Georgian law "On Local Self-Government Bodies," those sittings must
take place during two weeks after summing up results of the elections
by the electoral commission. To recap, the regional electoral
commissions already summed up results of the elections on October
8-10. "A-Info" was informed by the regional electoral commissions that
the delay of the sittings is just of technical character. In words of
Maksim Mahtesian, the Chairman of the Akhalkalak regional electoral
commission, and Seyran Kyureghian, the Chairman of the Ninotsminda
regional electoral commission, the first sittings of the regional
sakrebulos will take place in their regions on October 27.

ARMENIE ET TURQUIE
Stephanie Renaud

La Tribune de Geneve
25 octobre 2006 mercredi
Edition Tribune de Genève

Versoix, 19octobre. Enfin un geste ne serait-il pas temps pour
les Turcs d’assumer l’histoire de leur pays? Et tout simplement,
d’assumer leurs erreurs? Nier un tel massacre est pire que tout pour
la memoire des Armeniens et cela vaut pour tous les massacres qu’il y
a eu. Tolererions-nous que les Allemands descendent dans les rues pour
nier le massacre des juifs? Clamant haut et fort qu’ils n’y etaient
pour rien et que ca ne s’est pas passe? Non. La Turquie veut rentrer
dans l’Europe? Très bien, mais une telle fuite devant des actes passes
reflète bien la lâchete de ce pays et le fait qu’il n’assume rien. ( )
Regarder simplement la moyenne d’âge des Turcs qui manifestent contre
cette loi et vous comprendrez bien vite que les mentalites n’ont pas
change et ne sont pas pretes de changer

–Boundary_(ID_0lLB9Nkv+cZjrje5AccLyg)–

READ A BOOK NOT TO READ A CASE
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir, Armenia
Oct 20 2006

When the Attorney General announced to the National Assembly that he
did not have time to address the parliament earlier to indict Hakob
Hakobyan because one case followed the other, the society laughed
at this statement for a long time. But if we try to imagine this
situation, horror will replace laughter. Whenever a case is brought
against a figure of the Armenian government, an entire chain of cases
opens up, which means that the system of government is buried in
nepotism, corruption and crime. And it is not only Hakob Hakobyan’s
case that leads to such a conclusion. The case of the murder of
Shahen Hovasapyan, the chief of the department of investigations of
the State Tax Agency is vivid evidence too. After that the picture
of relations within the State Tax Agency began to outline. Nepotism,
businesses. It became clear that drivers have an important role in
the system of government, they can solve problems, act as mediators.

Of course, all this is clear to every citizen of the Republic of
Armenia, but it is not revealed that soon because the officials in
particular and the system in general tend to hide carefully this
reality to avoid public criticism and to appear law-abiding. But as
soon as they appear in a difficult situation, they prefer to reveal
phenomena, having very little in common with the law and order, which
in this case can be used as an alibi. This concerns every high-ranking
official having hundreds of charges behind their back, because they
believes that a person either lives or works as a librarian.

They were taught this when they were young, when their fathers worked
as heads of building companies, and their sons thought that if a
library were a good thing, the building company would have a library.

And the question occurs why they fear the library so much. The answer
is clear. They think that reading is a way of spending one’s free time,
and it is not a way of making money. And since they were taught to
make money out of everything, even their free time, they think that
the book is a punishment. In other words, they associate the library
with the prison, where there is nothing to do, no way of making money,
and one has but to read.

It would be worthwhile to explain to them that the book is not a
shame, and is not even dangerous for health. Only one needs to read
carefully. If you do not feel the effect after reading once, do not
worry, read twice, in a loud voice, thus the body will communicate
with the book more easily. Start with small books, three times
a day, before meals, because you lie after meals, and lying and
reading damages the eyesight. If you again do not feel the effect,
consult librarians. Do not be afraid, they are healthy people, and
most importantly, they are not vindictive and will gladly help you
to understand where you must start reading a book.

Do not be afraid if people around you laugh at you. The one laughs
who does not laugh in prison. Also do not be afraid of financial
problems. Books will cost you several thousand drams, but on the
other hand, it is not as expensive as the gifts to give each other on
birthdays, weddings and even at lunch. Therefore, the money spent on
books will not crack your budget. Even if you appear in a difficult
situation, it is possible to offer a public demand to the government
to exempt every official who spends money on two pages a month on
average from the profit tax or the water bill for a year. Thereby,
buying books will not only open up for you the aspects of life which
are not fit for chewing, but will also legalize your avoidance to pay
the profit tax and the water bill. Oh yes, only do not forget to read
the book after buying it, and for God’s sake, do not be lazy and open
the book before reading it.

CONTROVERSIAL MASTER OF DIZZYING AMBIGUITY
by Heidi Maier

The Courier Mail (Australia)
October 21, 2006 Saturday
First with the news Edition

Orhan Pamuk’s works divide his nation, writes Heidi Maier

Entering into the world that is The Black Book is a dizzying,
unconventional experience . . .

WHEN the news emerged last week from Sweden that Turkish writer Orhan
Pamuk had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the condemnation and
criticism were both fierce and unsurprising.

Regarded by many as a deserving but controversial winner, Pamuk is
his country’s best-known and best-selling novelist, but he is also
regarded by many there as a traitor and a criminal.

In late 2005, Pamuk was pilloried by conservatives when he spoke out
on two of Turkey’s most politically and historically sensitive issues
— claims that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against the Armenians
nine decades ago and the plight of ethnic Kurds in modern-day Turkey.

He was acquitted in January of criminal charges of denigrating his
country, but Pamuk remains a man who uneasily inhabits a country
wherein he is a hero to Istanbul liberals, but reviled by nationalists.

His winning the Nobel Prize, for which he beat prolific American
writer Joyce Carol Oates and Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said, comes hot
on the heels of the publication, by Faber and Faber, of a new English
translation of Pamuk’s sprawling fantasist novel, The Black Book.

A hugely innovative literary writer, Pamuk’s greatest influence in
writing the novel was James Joyce’s Ulysses and it shows. Perhaps
more so than in any of his other novels, The Black Book is a work
that delights in its mastery of ambiguity and the ingenious, often
perplexing, ways in which Pamuk toys with the reader’s preconceptions
and understandings of the world as we know it.

Like other modern fantasists such as Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino
and, more recently, Jeanette Winterson, Pamuk’s epic narrative about
a lawyer searching for his lost wife in Istanbul, revels in usurping
and reconfiguring the very dualities and dichotomies in which it is
seemingly grounded.

What sets Pamuk apart from these other writers, however, is his wilful
refusal to offer the reader any answers, easy or otherwise.

The Black Book opens with two of its main protagonists, married couple
Ruya and Galip, emerging from sleep, the sounds and smells of the
bustling city outside their hotel room infiltrating their dream world.

We learn that "the first sounds of the winter morning penetrated
the room: the rumble of a passing car, the clatter of an old bus,
the rattle of the copper kettles that the salep maker shared with the
pasty cook, the whistle of the parking attendant at the dolmu stop".

It is the first of many descriptions — intense and evocative —
that characterise this new translation, further revealing what many
consider to be Pamuk’s masterwork as a novel rich in colourful,
often seductive, geographical and descriptive detail.

Marketed to Western readers as a sort of literary whodunit in which an
increasingly tired and frustrated lawyer traverses Turkey’s capital
in search of his missing wife, The Black Book is more Borgesian
labyrinth than conventional mystery. Lovers of such novels — in which
resolutions are tidy and assured — may find entry into Pamuk’s world
more a strange and disappointing mistake than a rewarding endeavour.

Yet it is the very subversiveness and elusiveness that characterise
both Pamuk’s narrative and the fanciful, other-worldly prose that,
in part, make this novel such an extraordinary work. Multi-layered and
profoundly allegorical, this is a tale in which the city of Istanbul
is as much a character as any of the human protagonists.

For much of the novel, the narrative consists of a surreal intertext
that weaves together Galip’s existential musings and discoveries with
newspaper columns by Jelal, the half-brother he is convinced his wife
has absconded with to begin a new life.

The tools of magical realism that Pamuk employs to tell his story
— unconventional and disquieting as it often is — are regarded by
many writers and critics alike as a postmodern way of subverting from
within, or an approach that blunts the hard-edged political commentary
with which the author has become associated in recent years.

The Black Book is an unwieldy work that defies the conventions or
categories of most genres and, in doing so, is as much a pleasure to
read as it is an unerring frustration.

In large part an exercise in magical realism, it is also a decidedly
contemporary narrative that conveys a world of troubled, and troubling,
double standards, identities, and disquieting, ever-shifting personal,
political and geographical boundaries.

Maureen Freely’s translation reveals the novel to be more than mere
literary artifice, making apparent the myriad ways in which Pamuk
explores the themes that have always preoccupied and dominated
his work.

Questions of modernity, identity, mystery, Westernisation and the
culture of Islam permeate this text in ways that are at once so
subtle and so overt that both their mind-boggling implications and
the author’s steady, almost imperceptible way of inserting them into
the text itself are easily glossed over on a first reading.

Entering into the world that is The Black Book is a dizzying,
unconventional experience wherein many small stories are fused together
in a most beguiling and singular fashion, ultimately creating a novel
that, as Galip himself notes, plunges the reader headlong into misery
and then, finally, back into the messy business that is life.

The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely. (Faber
and Faber $22.95)

REGIONAL TV CHANNELS MADE TO BROADCAST KENTRON PROGRAMS

Panorama.am
13:44 20/10/06

Mesrop Movsisyan, editor of A1+, told Panorama.am that Grigor Amalyan,
chairman of TV and Radio National Committee, makes 11 regional TV
channels re-broadcast the programs of Kentron TV station. "They even
tell when the broadcast should be made and mention that it must be
done in pre-election period," Movsisyan details.

Movsisyan said that Amalyan refers to violations by these companies as
an excuse in forcing them to show this or that program. For example,
they show films, which have no license, the committee says.

It must be mentioned that Murad Guloyan, member of parliament, is the
main shareholder of Kentron TV company. Guloyan is a close friend of
Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of Prosperous Armenia and also a member of
parliament. Prosperous Armenia has launched active advocacy programs
in the regions. No wonder that Kentron TV station is required to be
aired in the regions. /Panorama.am/

Turkish Daily News
Oct 20 2006

Turkish Press Yesterday
Friday, October 20, 2006

The French made ‘a bad mistake’:

Yeni ªafak yesterday reported statements from European Union term
president Finland’s Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja on the adoption
of a bill by the French Parliament making it a crime to deny claims
of genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.

The Finnish foreign minister said that the French Parliament’s decision
was "a bad mistake" and expressed hope for its rapid withdrawal.

"Parliaments and governments are not to intervene in by legislating
which historical truths are to be allowed and which are not,"
he added. Tuomioja also said the bill would increase the power of
hard-liners in Turkey.

–Boundary_(ID_JZXbpfARPjIewtoWQcO4Jg)–

CEREMONY DEDICATED TO 15th ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE OF ARMENIA
HELD IN PARIS

PARIS, OCTOBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian
and the RA delegation members, who are on a working visit in France,
participated on late October 18 in a ceremony dedicated to the
15th anniversary of independence of the Republic of Armenia held in
the Garnier Opera in Paris. Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the French
Minister of Culture made a speech after the opening speech made by
Edvard Nalbandian, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of Armenia to France. Then the floor was given to the RA Prime
Minister. Mentioning that the Armenian people celebrated with
great lustre the 15th anniversary of the independence of Armenia,
A.Margarian emphasized that the young Republic of Armenia and the
people made great efforts to overcome political, economic, social
and other most difficult problems arisen on the independence way. The
Prime Minister also touched upon the process fixed in the economy of
Armenia after overcoming difficulties of the first years, reforms
aimed to building democracy, free market relations, a legal state,
growth of the country’s defensive capacity. The RA government head
also touched upon in his speech the practical assistance of friendly
countries and first of all, of France, in the issue of recognition and
condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, mentioning that Armenia observes
it as a preventing factor for similar crimes against the mankind are
never repeated in future. According to the information submitted to
Noyan Tapan by the RA Government’s Information and Public Relations
Department, RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian’s meeting with Paris
Mayor Bertrand Delanoe took place on October 19 during which issues of
mutual interest relating to the bilateral cooperation were discussed.

"RESPOND FRANCE BY PROMOTING FREEDOMS"
Erol Onderoglu

BÝA, Turkey
Oct 18 2006

PEN’s Sayar gives out signals on freedom of expression after "genocide
vote" in France saying "retaliation should be by abolishing article
301". TGC’s Erinc refutes France PM’s statement. Prosecuted journalist
Duzel wants to see what happens ýn practice.

BÝA (Istanbul) – What kind of messages do statements made by Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government after the French
Parliament’s vote on the "Draft Law to Punish Those Who Deny The
Armenian Genocide" entail for development of freedom of expression
in Turkey?

International PEN Turkey Chair Vecdi Sayar who believes the statements
are encouraging says "In retaliation to the Genocide Bill, Turkey
should rid herself of article 301 and similar constraints on freedom
of expression".

Journalists Association of Turkey (TGC) chair Orhan Erinc, meanwhile,
refers to television news program on which the Prime Minister is being
quoted saying "Freedom of expression is banned in France. Over here
we can talk as we wish".

"I wish" says Erinc. "I prefer to see these remarks of the Prime
Minister as a message that the obstacles placed in front of the freedom
of expression in the Penal Code (TCK) and the Anti-Terror Law (TMY)
will be lifted".

Subject to a series of enquiries and prosecutions based on her
important interviews published in the "Radikal" newspaper, journalist
Nese Duzel believes one should not take the government for its words.

"I don’t know what will be changed in Turkey. Let’s see what happens
in practice" she cautions.

Government doesn’t give credit to "tit for tat"

In the days during which the Armenian genocide bill was being debated
in France and passed at parliament, messages of "boycotting French
products" spread in Turkey.

The Parliament Justice Commission chaired by Justice and Development
Party deputy Koksal Toptan intended to react to the bill with a Turkish
draft that was alleged to be five months old which would recognize
the Genocide in Algeria [committed by France] and criminalize the
recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Although criticism of France was severe and sporadic boycotts occurred
at public level in some wok places, government members agreed on the
position that Turkey should not make te same mistake.

Historian, EU and RSF reaction to France

In this period France, a part of the European Union that has on the
international arena wanted for article 301 in Turkey to be abolished,
was accused itself of shackling down opinions.

Not only Turkey but officials of the EU as well as the Paris-based
Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF) organization reacted to France.

Following these developments, bianet asked their opinion of the future
of freedom of expression from International PEN Turkey Center chairman
Vecdi Sayar, TGC chairman Orhan Erinc and journalist Nese Duzel.

Sayar: Retaliate by lifting 301

PEN Turkey Center chairman Vecdi Sayar believes that in retaliation
to the French bill, Turkey most conclusive step would be to abolish
article 301 of the TCK and similar other restrictive legislation.

"Government statements are giving such positive indications in this
direction" he says. "I believe this would be the correct thing to do.

Perhaps we can extract something right out of the mistake in France".

Erinc: We can’t talk how we want

Referring to PM Erdogan’s remarks on a CNN Turk television program
saying "Freedom of opinion is banned in France. Over here we can talk
the way we wish" TGC’s chairman Erinc says he does not share this view.

"While it is impossible not to share he view of the Prime Minister
in his first sentence, the remark that we can talk the way we wish
is a view that unfortunately we cannot share" Erinc said.

Erinc prefers to see Erdogan’s remark as an indication that
restrictions on the freedom of expression brought on by some articles
of the TCK and TMY will be lifted and adds, "Otherwise, looking at
the prosecutions launched against freedom of expression, it is not
possible to accept these words of the Prime Minister".

Noting that 69 court cases had been filed in Turkey under article 301
in the past year, Erinc says the effect of the French vote on Turkey
could have been negative. In his words, "With its vote France has not
only completely disregarded its own freedom of expression, but has
also pulled up a wall in front of the changeability of the articles of
law that impose a bottleneck on the freedom of expression in Turkey".

Duzel: Not waiting for anything, looking at practice

Journalist Nese Duzel who has been charged for "enticing hatred
and enmity" but later acquitted for her important interviews in
"Radikal" newspaper with Alawite leaders is now subject to an enquiry
and prosecution for "propaganda of a terrorist organization" due to
her reporting on the views of various experts and politicians on the
Kurdish issue.

"I don’t know what will be changed in Turkey" she says "but we need
to look into what happens in practice".

Duzel has a gloomy look at the future and recalls "With 301
the government withdrew what it had given. Many leaps towards
democratization in the past two years have been withdrawn with the
TMY and the new TCK".

Noting that legislation restricting freedom of expression continued
to exist in the new penal code, Duzel says "A progressive step has
not yet been taken. In practice it has started to become like the
past too because cases that to me once had come to an end are being
revived again".

Dink: Let us do what is correct

Appearing on an NTV live program the previous evening, Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink who is prosecuted in Turkey for his remarks
recognizing an Armenian genocide, said the French vote results could
actually be favorable for Turkey and that Turkey should do what
is correct.

Editor-in-Chief of the Armenian-Turkish "Agos" newspaper, Dink said,
that Turkey would not be the one to lose out of this bill and expressed
belief that "after this, Turkey will display the freedom of expression
that has been taken from its hands".

Stating that until the French vote the world public opinion saw
the Armenians as the aggrieved and the Turks as being unjust, Dink
noted "From now on the Turkish expression has become the one that is
aggrieved. I believe that the Turkish official expression will use
these conditions and will display the freedom of expression that has
been taken from its hands".

Dink said that anti-EU circles could be expected to exploit the
development and that this itself could lead to problems in Turkey’s
relations with the Union.

Saying that the French Parliament continuously used the expression
that "Turkey should look to itself", Dink asked "is Turkey going to
be able to look to itself? They have mentioned [Penal Code] article
301. These are not wrong either. There we are against the [violation
of] freedom of expression. But in Turkey there are laws, cases, that
repress the freedom of expression. Let us do what is right. After that,
as France has done in their mistake, they will be left isolated".

What did government officials say?

On the freedom of expression, senior government officials have made
some recent remarks that were widely reported in the media. State
Minister and chief negotiator Ali Babacan told Turkish journalists
in Brussels that the French decision would affect feelings towards
the EU in a negative way.

Babacan said, "If the French make mistakes, it is not correct for
us to give a response with further mistakes. We will continue with
our reforms. What is correct is clear and we will continue what is
correct with reforms".

Gul: Progress will continue

Visiting Luxembourg for a meeting Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul emphasized the difference between Turkey and other countries.

"Our difference is that we are aware of what we are missing," he said
adding, however, that the country had advanced much in a short time.

"Some things do overshadow the progress we have made," he said. "We
still have things to do and we are determined to do them".

–Boundary_(ID_owa4mItPNAnqJMmNZ4Tj9Q )–

TAKE THAT BACK
John Hanratty

Georgian (St. George Bay), Canada
Oct 18 2006

We live in strange times.

The National Assembly of France has just passed a controversial
new law. They’re making it illegal to say that the Turkish
expulsion/massacre of Armenians in the early 1900s was not genocide.

Let’s repeat that: the new law says you can’t deny that the Armenian
deaths constituted genocide.

It’s always weird when a government tries to tell you what to believe
or what you can say. With a few exceptions, democratic societies
allow their citizens to believe or say whatever they want to.

In Canada, even when people want to deny that the Holocaust happened,
they’re allowed to. But Canadians are not allowed to incite hatred
against identifiable groups.

Perhaps the French politicians would argue that any denial of the
Turkish genocide against the Armenians is automatically inciting
hatred against Armenians, but that’s a stretch.

The Turks did execute or starve over a million Armenians around the
time of World War I. The Turkish government makes a counter-claim
that the Armenians killed over 500,000 Turks around the same time.

But it will soon be illegal in France to debate or discuss this
question, or use the wrong terminology to do so.

The point is: where will this stop? What statement or belief will
they outlaw next?

A somewhat similar kind of controversy erupted in Canada last week.

Federal Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff set off a
firestorm when he accused Israel of war crimes in its recent attacks
in Lebanon.

After a couple of clumsy efforts to clarify his remarks, Mr.

Ignatieff finally made the point that there were crimes on both sides
of the recent Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

What’s striking about both the French and Canadian controversies
is the degree of passion that has been aroused. Large protests and
threats in Turkey against the French law, versus strong lobbying
by Armenians.A huge uproar in Europe outside of France, because of
Turkey’s application to enter the European Union.

By the way, the new Canadian government says that it was indeed
genocide against the Armenians, but they won’t jail any of us who
choose to deny or doubt it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ignatieff has lost some key supporters from his
front-running campaign for the Liberal leadership because of his
poorly-chosen remarks about Israel. (He had previously gotten himself
into trouble over other opinions about Ukraine, I believe it was.)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper quickly jumped in and tried to label
all of the Liberal leadership candidates as anti-Israeli.

Who says politics is boring these days, anyway?

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