Author: Chaltikian Arsine

THE PERSIAN ABYSS: IRANIAN EVOLUTION: FACTS AND FANTASIES
by Reza Zarabi

Jerusalem Post
Oct 16 2007

One thing must be clear. By "Islamic government," nobody in Iran
means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of
supervision or control [1].

In the fall of 1978, France’s preeminent philosopher, Michel Foucault,
penned those words absent of any understanding of Iran’s monarchial
power or the role of the cleric in Iranian life. Even a nominal
appreciation for the historical milieu of Western actions against
the country and how they shaped the Iranian psyche were foreign to
Foucault’s assessment of the uprisings. Instead, he drew his analysis
from a more familiar place, spawned from his theoretical persuasions
on the idea of man and what he can ultimately become. His optimism
was rooted not in what would result from a revolution in a particular
country but simply the idea of a revolution, of the common man’s
defiance against the injustice of an oppressive government.

Philosophies aside, this same delirium has now infected the current
Iranian debate but with more long-lasting and consequential effects
on the region as a whole. As an Iranian, I am sometimes mystified by
the jejune idealism and the pseudo-prescience that have become endemic
in the rhetoric of Washington policy makers and columnists regarding
Iran’s future. Yet, from propping up despots who inflict hell upon
their citizenry in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to aligning with fascists of
convenience like Saddam Hussein when he was decimating the unwanted of
his society and then going to war with that same tyrant once American
economic interests were threatened, and to being overtly complicit in
arming and training of Islamic psychopaths like Bin Laden who later
attacked the American mainland, it would appear that Washington may
attempt to reconcile its past failures by introducing a monumental
one, a grand finale, if you will. In this respect, one must inquire,
why would the current US strategy towards Iran be the successful
aberration in the stream of failures that make up American foreign
policy in the Middle East?

Washington’s checkered past

When viewing the panoramic of America’s relations with Middle East
nations, Washington seems to have prostituted its moral imperative
long ago. For decades, American ideology has been largely compromised
and in some instances outright abandoned for the sake of establishing
de-facto hegemony in the region. Although the era of colonialization
and the act of usurping another’s territory has long past, a method
commonly used by global powers to bring about the same results is
aligning oneself with undemocratic systems that will acquiesce to the
host country’s objective. This is clearly the paradigm that America
has adopted in the Middle East. In turn, financial assistance of all
kinds is provided by the American regime while human rights abuses
and even the most egregious acts are overlooked.

Up until the end of the 1970s, American policy in the Middle East
was primarily motivated by fears of Soviet expansionism and American
energy concerns. The disparity of the Middle East nations and the
complex rivalries and alliances that were in place for decades
forced Washington to adopt a foreign policy position of "being all
things to all peoples" in order to assure each respective country that
Washington would assist in the permanence of each regime, irrespective
of their proclivities. Within each Middle Eastern nation, the notion
of representative government, viable economic policies, and a modicum
of social freedoms for their populations were clearly absent. Yet,
what was remarkably ubiquitous was overt US support for each political
system, governments that ordinary Americans would never tolerate.

The mass protests and worker strikes in Teheran that eventually led
to the Iranian revolution put an end to the established US policy
for the Middle East. Having lost a powerful ally who consistently
acquiesced to American interests and having been demoralized by the
hostage crisis in Teheran, Washington made the calculated decision
to provoke and overtly support, with all its means, Teheran’s Western
neighbor Sadamm Hussein into attacking and possibly overthrowing the
incipient Iranian government.

At the same time, the tentacles of the Soviet Empire had reached deep
into a troubled Afghanistan. Fearing a communist outbreak and the
possibility of Soviet puppet states spreading throughout the Middle
East, the American government saw fit to arm, train, and assist what
was then known as the Mujahadeen. These were primarily radicalized
Islamicists from across the Middle Eastern spectrum yet because they
were doing Washington’s bidding, the US was only happy to offer the
necessary time, resources, and energy to their mission. However,
after the Soviet defeat in this fractured country and long after
the last CIA operative had gone back to Washington, elements of what
later became al-Qaida coalesced and began questioning why the American
government was propping up the tyrants who ruled their countries.

The Nascent Islamic Republic

The circumstances that gave rise to Khomeini and the velayat-e faqih
ideology were not anomalies to the conditions of other regional
nations. Within the region’s autocratic societies, whether the former
Shah’s Iran, the current Saudi system, or Mubarak’s Egypt, all and any
political opposition, civil institutions, or any non-governmental
organization are banned outright. As a result, every political
opposition to the status quo emanates from the only other entity
with the financial means and constituency to counter the autocracy,
in other words, the religious establishment. It was these circumstances
that made the Khomeinists the most powerful opposition to the Shah.

They were more organized, had more resources, and a loyal base.

The decades of rule under the Shah’s brutality and the 1953 CIA coup,
which vanquished Iran’s only experience with democracy, were still
fresh in the minds of Iranians. As Texas Congressman Ron Paul rightly
states, "They remember everything and we forget everything". It was
this Iranian paranoia and the animus against decades of American
involvement in the internal affairs of their country that drove
radicalized students to storm the US embassy in November of 1979.

The subsequent Iraqi invasion of Iran and the unabashed support that
Sadamm garnered from America in terms of weaponry, intelligence,
and financial aid further hardened Iranian notions of a US attempt to
control their nation. The salient role that America and other Western
nations had in supplying Iraq with chemical weapons that were later
used on Iranian soldiers and their unwillingness to condemn Hussein
for the atrocities augured well for the most reactionary elements
within the Iranian political arena in their attempts to solidify
power and marginalize all opposition. Even today, both clerics and
politicians amongst Iran’s conservative-wing evoke American complicity
with Hussein.

Yet after the 8-year war of attrition with Iraq, grandiose but empty
promises made by uneducated clerics who possessed not even a nominal
understanding of basic economics, and having undergone such a radical
social metamorphosis in so short of a time, the overwhelming majority
of Iran’s population along with elements of its political elite have
become disillusioned with the Islamic Republic. Although he and his
successor brought many changes to Iran, Khomeini’s promise that "no one
should remain homeless in this country," and that Iranians would have
free or relatively inexpensive telephone access, heating, electricity,
public transportation, and oil have yet to be realized [2]. In the
words of notable journalist and democracy activist Akbar Ganji, "There
has always been a gap between the ideals [of the Islamic Republic] and
their practice" [3]. As someone who initially supported the revolution,
he concludes that "every honest" revolutionary must reconcile with
the aftermath of the revolution, initially believing that the leaders
have betrayed the foundational tenets of the revolution, to realizing
the deficiencies of the revolution, and to finally accepting that the
ideology of the revolution was fundamentally flawed from the onset [4].

A Fool’s Errand

Although the US-sponsored sanctions against Iran have undoubtedly
hurt the nation, the ideological absurdity of the Islamic Republic
hierarchy is to blame for the country’s economic woes. When
considering a resource-rich nation with the economic potential of
Iran and then juxtaposing that to its current economic stagnation,
there is universal consensus that the culpability lies solely with
its leaders. Since coming to power, the Mullahs have not only missed
every opportunity to improve the economic conditions for their people
(i.e. courting foreign investment, reviving the tourism industry,
etc.) but have also alienated countries that once had natural ties
with the Iranian nation while attempting to build ties with nations
that have an inherent odium towards their people and government.

Take, for instance, Iran’s stance towards the Israeli-Palestinian
issue. No matter what result ensues, the nation of Iran, its leaders,
or its citizens will gain nothing from the outcome. In light of this,
one wonders why Iran would even involve itself in such a distant
affair? Understanding the worldview of the Islamic Republic government
and how incompatible its ideology is with its own survival will shed
light on why the Iranian nation is experiencing such massive economic
decline and so many unresolved security threats to its regime.

The Mullahs of Iran consistently portray themselves as the Vanguard
for the protection of Muslim rights, yet their own history states
otherwise. In nearly every conflict that has pitted a Muslim country
against a non-Muslim country, the government of Iran has seldom,
if ever, allowed its Islamic dogma to entangle itself within
the respective conflict. In 1988, when the ex-Soviet nations of
Armenia and Azerbaijan, a country that not only has religious ties
to Iran but is also ethnically linked to it, engaged in hostilities
towards each other due to Armenia’s territorial claims over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan, Iran was notably silent,
and in many ways, offered muted support to Christian Armenia due
to its own regional interests. When considering the Cyprus issue,
which involves the Christian country of Greece against Iran’s fellow
Muslim neighbor Turkey, Iran has silently supported Greece due to its
long-standing economic relations with that nation. Regarding Chechnya
and its separatist tendencies within the Russian Federation, the
Islamic Republic government has utterly failed to show the slightest
degree of sympathy to the war-torn enclave as Christian Russian tanks
bulldoze the homes of their fellow Muslim brethren. Within the former
Yugoslavia, when fellow Muslims were being butchered as a result of
Milosevic’s genocidal policies, Iran failed to dispatch any members
of Hizbullah or the Revolutionary Guards to their aid.

So why has the Islamic Republic chosen to entangle itself in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Israel, unlike America, had no evident role in propping up the former
Shah. Unlike America and the overwhelming majority of the Arab World,
Israel overtly helped Iran by providing it with weapons in its war
with Iraq. Israel and Iran have never had any territorial dispute or
historical grievance against each other. Therefore, what has led the
Islamic Republic government to display such uncontrollable rancor
towards such a banal country?

It is here that the Islamic Republic’s ideology becomes an impediment
to its own development and ultimately a threat to its survival.

Iran’s animus towards Israel is spawned primarily by two reasons.

Iran, motivated by its paranoia of possible American involvement
in its internal affairs and American support for Israel, does not
view the Jewish state as a sovereign nation. It views Israel as an
American satellite, a nation that has a foreign policy so intertwined
with American objectives, that it, in essence, has become America’s
de-facto 51st state. Iran’s despots view any recognition of the
"Zionist entity" as a security threat to their regime, yet this belief,
which is only shared by Iran’s ruling conservative wing, is based on
a false construct. A proper historical analysis of the region clearly
indicates that it is in Iran’s strategic interests to have a Middle
East with a multi-ethnic presence to counter the historical rivalries
between Iran and the vast array of Arab governments. The presence of
countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Israel serve Iran’s interest.

The second false assumption that drives the Islamic Republic to an
anti-Israel platform is Iran’s goal to garner favor in the broader
Arab World in order to fully implement its designs over the Middle
East. Yet, for the better part of thirty years, Iran’s attempts to
curb Arab suspicions have largely failed and, in many instances, have
backfired. Today, it is not the Israeli government that is warning of a
"Shiite crescent", but the Sunni Arab nations to Iran’s west.

Within nations such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, there have
been a slew of Sunni clerics and government officials that not only
have excoriated Iran for its nationalist objectives but have made
statements suggesting that the Shia faith itself is a perversion
of Islam. In this respect, we see Iran’s anti-Israeli platform
undermining the Islamic Republic’s regional objective. Certainly
Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric has reaped a constituency in the Palestinian
territories, southern Lebanon, and other parts of the Arab world,
but one must question how garnering favor with taxi drivers in Cairo,
sandwich shop owners in Damascus, or college students in Amman will
serve Iran’s security and regional objectives?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently attempted to expand these ludicrous
policies in Latin America by courting third-tier tyrants in developing
nations like Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua. Yet, it appears that the
utter uselessness of these alliances to Iran’s economic development
and security concerns has yet to permeate the mind of the Iranian
president. America and Israel possess nuclear-tipped ICBMs that can
evaporate Tehran in 8 minutes yet Ahmadinejad feels that the annual
supply of mangos he receives from Chavez or the newly-shipped crates
of figs from Assad can somehow counter this threat.

If Iran’s regional policy was motivated by pragmatics, it would have
realized that a strong, tactical alliance with Israel would not only
counter American threats, but nullify the years of American sanctions
against the Islamic Republic. Israel, unlike the Arab world, is a
rich, technologically-advanced nation that could help Iran with its
internal development and act as a bulwark for the Iranian regime
against anti-Iranian actions from the American government. An
alliance with a nation like Israel would reap several economic
benefits for Iran but entities such as Lebanon, Palestine, Syria,
Cuba, and Venezuela are of no value, providing nothing but liability
risks to the Islamic Republic.

Israel, like Iran, is isolated and unpopular in the international
community and therefore needs as many allies as it could possibly
acquire, regardless of US concerns. Even now, if the Islamic Republic
would adopt a foreign policy that is aligned with its own strategic
interests, the Jewish state would welcome it. Israel, unlike the Arab
world, does not have an archaic rivalry with Iran and is indifferent
to the possibility of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, assuming
that its own security would not be threatened. Israel is certainly an
American ally, yet it ultimately is responsible for its own security
and if building diplomatic ties with certain rogue nations serves its
own regional interests, then it would not hesitate to take those steps,
regardless of who it may offend.

Had the Islamic Republic leadership not sacrificed its own security,
economic potential, and the technological advancement the country for
a misguided ideology, the prosperity of the Iranian state and Iran’s
role as a regional power would have long ago been realized.

Musharaff or Pinochet

Today, the Islamic Republic government is a sinking ship. What the
three decades of a US embargo, an Iraqi invasion, constant threats
of war, and harsh UN sanctions could not accomplish will most likely
materialize by reason of the Mullah’s own economic ineptitude. Yet,
in all probability, the notion of a democratic system being installed
the night the Mullahs fall is overly optimistic and should not be
entertained. Power, either economic or political, and the subsequent
wielding of it is seldom born in a vacuum. The years of governmental
encroachment upon economic, political, and social rights has left
a marginalized Iranian population with neither the economic potency
nor the political will to bring about a replay of 1979. However, the
gradual demise of the Mullahs has been underway for some time now
and because of the perpetuation of ineffective policies regarding
the economy and the nation’s security, a fifth column of power has
risen within the Iranian political arena. This latent force is the
Revolutionary Guards, and regardless of what happens in terms of a
possible war against Iran, the prospect of worker strikes and protests,
or any nominal democratic movement, it will be this entity, and most
probably only this entity, that will steer the nation in the future.

Many in the West still view the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a
group of hired mercenaries that are fully under the control of the
demagogues of the Islamic hierarchy. Although this was certainly true
for most of the 1980s, since Khomeini’s death and especially within
the last decade, the IRGC has played a critical role in not only
Iran’s military affairs but also in massive internal development
projects and increasingly in Iran’s attempts to revive a failing
economy. Because of the fiscal irresponsibility of Iran’s leaders,
it was announced earlier this year that the government would privatize
some of its national oil companies. Most Iranian economists understood
who would be acquiring these firms, for it was certainly not Shell
Oil or British Petroleum but most likely the IRGC.

What makes this group vastly different from Iran’s Mullah leadership
is that it is not composed of ideologues that base their fiscal and
national security policies on a religious book. The IRGC hierarchy
consists of economists, engineers, military strategists, chemist,
lawyers, special force reconnaissance units, and an espionage network
that rivals the Mossad or the CIA. As the Mullahs of Khomeini’s era
gradually meet their demise, there is growing speculation within Iran
that the IRGC might even play a more overt role in Iranian affairs,
both internally and externally. Although, it has spent the better part
of 3 decades defending the ideals of the revolution, at some point,
this powerful and ever-increasing autonomous group must reconcile
itself with the failures of the Islamic Republic system.

Whether there are those within the IRGC who are contemplating crossing
their proverbial Persian Rubicon is still a matter of debate. However,
the reality is that the policies of the Mullahs are endangering
the security apparatus of Iran’s power structure and because of the
fact that the IRGC leadership has essentially married this system,
it can no longer outsource the future security of the paradigm it
helped create to incompetent, uneducated clerics with no record of
success. If the policies that Khamenei and his ilk in the Council of
Experts eventually lead to an economic collapse or an imposed war on
Iran, a coup d’etat of some kind will most likely ensue.

Although Iran’s hierarchy has certain nuances that are unique
amongst its neighbors, this very scenario is all too common in the
Middle East, as nations such as Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, Qatar, Iraq,
Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran itself have previously experienced. It is
difficult to say what type of government will take form as a result of
an IRGC coup, yet the possibilities for both progressive and militant
extremes are present. Assuming that no war is imposed upon Iran and
for whatever reason, the IRGC decides to replace the government,
there is a strong chance of a Musharaff-style government taking
hold in Iran. Although Pervez Musharaff of Pakistan is by no means
a symbol of democracy or representative government, this change in
Iranian leadership could have many positive results for Iran and her
people. Yet if another war were introduced to this disheveled region
of the world, a military dictatorship of the same level of cruelty
as Chile’s Pinochet is all but certain.

The Waning of the West

Eventually, every era has its end and it is not unreasonable to
suggest that overt American influence within the broader Middle East
is now gradually diminishing. Within each respective population of the
Middle Eastern nations that constitute America’s allies in the region,
except for Israel, there is an undeniable detestation towards American
involvement in their internal affairs. From Egypt, to Jordan, to Saudi
Arabia, to the Persian Gulf Sheikdoms, the same dynamics that brought
about Khomeini are manifest within each society. In comparison,
a nation like Iran, having gone through the Islamic euphoria of
the post-revolution phase only to be disappointed by corruption and
repression that emanated from the highest levels of their government
is gradually shifting towards secular self-determination. America’s
oblivious attitude and lack of a counter policy will only precipitate
the inevitable.

With Iran, Washington has a chance to revert the damage caused by
its foreign policy within the region. Instead of labeling the IRGC a
terrorist organization, which only results in a reactionary response
with no substantial behavior change within Iran, the US should
be reaching out to elements within the IRGC, realizing that their
increasing power can act as the sole catalyst for change within Iran.

If they have done so in Pakistan, which holds a vehement anti-American
population, what makes them doubt that events in Iran would differ?

American self-image is not the pervading representation that
most people in the Middle East have towards it, whether they are
pro-American populations like that of Iran or anti-American populations
like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Because of the chasm between its rhetoric
and action, the U.S. is primarily viewed as an opportunist whose
actions are clearly motivated by its own interests and not for
the betterment of Middle Eastern citizens. The chaos in Iraq and
the unfinished endeavor in Afghanistan have only further tarnished
America’s scarred reputation. After decades of the same foreign policy
in such an eclectic region, US policy makers should now understand
that to forfeit long-term goals of building democratic societies
for short-term economic and strategic gains is not only naïve but
detrimental to its own interests, both regionally and globally.

Notes

[1] html An excerpt
from Foucault and the Iranian Revolution Gender and the Seductions
of Islamism Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson First published in Le
Nouvel Observateur, October 16-22, 1978.

[2] l

[3] CNN interview with Akbar Ganji, January 15, 2007.

8195334668566075&q=akbar+ganji&total=24&am p;start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search& plindex=3

[4] Ibid.

–Boundary_(ID_TdhGXsI1nIqcHhx79k09fQ)–

=1385001

Note: this article contains numerous links to supplemental information.

Exclusive: Why Does a Close U.S. Ally Deny Its Genocide? (Part Two of Three)

Author: Adrian Morgan
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: October 16, 2007

Predominately Muslim Turkey insists that their genocide of Christian
Armenians not be identified as such. Why? And why is America’s
reaction split along party lines? FSM Contributing Editor Adrian
Morgan continues to disclose the answers in the second installment of
this riveting account.

Why Does a Close U.S. Ally Deny Its Genocide?

(Part Two of Three)

By Adrian Morgan

The Atrocities of August 1894

"A number of able-bodied young Armenians were captured, bound, covered
with brushwood and burned alive. A number of Armenians, variously
estimated, but less than a hundred, surrendered themselves and pled
for mercy. Many of them were shot down on the spot and the remainder
were dispatched with sword and bayonet."

"A lot of women, variously estimated from 60 to 160 in number, were
shut up in a church, and the soldiers were ‘let loose’ among them.
Many of them were outraged to death and the remainder dispatched with
sword and bayonet. A lot of young women were collected as spoils of
war, Two stories are told. 1. That they were carried off to the harems
of their Moslem captors. 2. That they were offered Islam and the
harems of their Moslem captors; refusing, they were slaughtered.
Children were placed in a row, one behind another, and a bullet fired
down the line, apparently to see how many could be dispatched with one
bullet. Infants and small children were piled one on the other and
their heads struck off. Houses were surrounded by soldiers, set on
fire, and the inmates forced back into the flames at the point of the
bayonet as they tried to escape."

"In another village fifty choice women were set aside and urged to
change their faith and become hanums in Turkish harems, but they
indignantly refused to deny Christ, preferring the fate of their
fathers and husbands. People were crowded into houses which were then
set on fire. In one instance a little boy ran out of the flames, but
was caught on a bayonet and thrown back"

The above are accounts of massacres of Armenian villagers. These took
place in the district of Sassoun (Sassun) in southeastern Anatolia
near Lake Van, in August 1894. They had taken place following false
rumors of an uprising which developed in the spring. The Sassoun
massacres were duplicated in the neighboring districts of Bitlis and
Mush.

In March 1895 an inquiry committee was held in London, with details
reported in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. An Armenian priest and his
son were ordered to sign a document, claiming that the massacre at
Sassoun had been carried out only by Kurds, and clearing the Turkish
authorities of all blame. When they refused, heated iron triangles
were placed around their necks. The pair was too ill to testify before
the committee.

Kurds had been involved in the Sassoun massacre, but the strategy was
concocted and put into effect by Turkish soldiers. In adjacent Mush
district, "a witness hiding in the oak scrub saw soldiers gouge out
the eyes of two priests, who in horrible agony implored their
tormentors to kill them. But the soldiers compelled them to dance
while screaming in pain, and presently bayoneted them."

An account of the Bitlis massacre, published in 1895, stated (page 63):

"As soon as the Pasha of Bitlis sent word to Constantinople that the
Armenians were in revolt, without waiting for proof, the Turkish
troops were sent to the scene with orders to suppress the revolt –
orders which they knew they must interpret as meaning the
extermination of whole villages if they would please the Sultan. After
wholesale butchery, Zeki Pasha reported that, ‘not finding any
rebellion, we cleared the country so that none should occur in the
future.’ This stroke of policy was afterward praised in the Court as
an act of patriotism."

The massacres of 1894 would be repeated, becoming more ferocious and
claiming the lives of more people, over the next two years.

The Ottomans

The regions within Turkey’s current borders have seen various cultures
and civilizations arise and become replaced by others. The "Turks" are
only the latest of a long line of invaders who moved into the region.
9,000 years ago Neolithic farming peoples at Çatal Hüyük formed a
complex community. Almost 3,000 years ago Assyrians entered the
region, and the Hittites developed a civilization in Anatolia until
around 900 BC. Later, Medes (probable ancestors of the Kurds),
Persians, Phrygians, Lydians, Armenians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines
flourished in the region.

The Turkish-speaking people (Western Turks) arrived in Anatolia in
large numbers in the 11th century AD, and their consolidation of
power would hasten the end of the Byzantine Empire based at
Constantinople. The language of the Western Turks gradually replaced
the indigenous Indo-European languages of the region. The nomadic
Turkic peoples originated in the Altai mountain regions in Central
Asia, but from the 5th century AD onwards they had engaged in mass
migrations. Turkic peoples are found in China (Uighirs) and and
Siberia (Yakut). The Western Turks founded the Ottoman dynasty at the
Western end of (modern) Turkey. From 1299 until its demise in 1924,
this dynasty was known as the Ottoman Empire.

In 301 AD, Armenia had been the first nation in the world to
officially adopt Christianity. As a distinct culture with an
Indo-European language, Armenia had thrived in the mountains of Asia
Minor from the 6th century BC. In the 16th century, Armenia lost its
independence and was swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman
aims were expansionist and warlike, and hostile to independent
Christian nations. Sultan Bayezid I, nicknamed Yilderim or
"Lightning," who ruled from 1389 to 1402, famously promised to feed
his horse from the altar of St. Peter’s in Rome.

At its height in 1683, the Ottoman Empire controlled territories
stretching to the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea in the East, the land
surrounding the Red Sea (including Mecca and Medina and Yemen) in the
south, and the North African coast as far as Algeria in the West. In
the north, it controlled the Crimea and all the land westwards nearly
as far as Vienna. An attempt to invade Vienna itself was defeated by
John Sobieski, king of Poland, on September 12, 1683. With more
conflicts Hungary was freed from Ottoman rule, confirmed in the treaty
of Karlowitz in 1699.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was a
diminished force. European imperialism had broken its hold on
territories in North Africa, and European regions had declared their
independence. Under Sultan Mahmud II (ruled 1808 – 1839), reforms and
attempts to socially and economically modernize the Empire had been
made, but these did not stem the decline. Greece successfully fought
for and achieved independence in 1829, with its territorial borders
formalized in a treaty in 1832. Several Balkan regions declared their
independence in 1875, and on April 24, 1877, Alexander II of Russia
declared war on Turkey.

Abdul-Hamid II and the Hamidian Massacres

In 1876, 34-year-old Abdul-Hamid II became the Sultan. Soon after
taking power, he issued the first Imperial constitution on December
23, 1876. This constitution had been originally drafted by the grand
vizier, Midhat Pasha. It allowed equal judicial rights for all
citizens, and initiated a two-house parliament. Abdul-Hamid preferred
to rule as a despot and when the Russo-Turkish war started he
dismissed Pasha in February 1877, and in 1878 he abolished the
constitution.

The Russian conflict ended with Turkey acknowledging defeat. As a
result, on March 3, 1878 the Empire officially lost the territories of
Serbia, Montenegro and Romania in the Treaty of San Stefano.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was granted autonomy and Bulgaria was placed under
Russian protection under this treaty. The Treaty of Berlin, signed on
July 13, 1878 by the Turks, Russians and European powers, lessened the
Turks’ financial debt to the victors and saw Bosnia-Herzegovina given
to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Immediately before Abdul-Hamid’s reign, the Armenians had lived
peaceably under Ottoman rule. As Christians, they were second-class
citizens and had to pay the "jizya" tax, but they were not regarded as
subject to persecutions. In 1856 an edict called the Hatti Humayoun,
issued by Sultan Abdul Medjid in 1856, guaranteed Christians rights
never seen before under the Ottomans. Armenians wanted to be granted
more freedoms under the Treaty of Berlin, which saw Batum (modern
Armenia and parts of Georgia) ceded to Russia. Article 61 of the
treaty guaranteed Armenians protection from attacks by Kurds and
Circassians (who lived in the south-east of Turkey). Article 62 of the
treaty demanded that people of all religions could work and travel
freely throughout Turkey.

With these conditions not fulfilled, a radical group known as the
Huntchagists emerged among the various Armenian populations, who lived
in scattered locations in Turkey, with its apparent headquarters in
Athens. In 1893 a U.S. missionary condemned this revolutionary
movement. Cyrus Hamlin quoted an Armenian who said of their motives
(p. 242): "These Huntchagist bands, organized all over the empire,
will watch their opportunities to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to
their villages and then make their escape into the mountains. The
enraged Moslems will then rise and fall upon the defenseless Armenians
and slaughter them with such barbarities that Russia will enter in the
name of humanity and Christian civilization and take possession." The
Huntchagists aimed to attack U.S. Protestant missionary centers in
central Turkey.

The American missionaries were allowed in central Turkey since 1844,
and they were to prove reliable witnesses to the deteriorating
situation in Turkey, and also the first massacres of Armenians. The
Huntchagist movement disintegrated after 1896, but Hamlin’s testimony
was cited in a letter to the New York Times of August 23, 1895. This
letter tried to discredit the genuine massacre which took place at
Sassoun, even though Hamlin had specifically blamed the Ottoman
government for carrying out the Sassoun atrocities.

In 1896, Reverend Edwin Munsell Bliss published a book called Turkey
and the Armenian Atrocities. He acknowledged the destructive elements
of the Huntchagists, (page 336) and later noted that some
revolutionaries, whether Huntchagists or not, sought to draw attention
to their aims of a separate state. On January 5, 1893, placards were
erected in Marsovan and Yuzgat, and indiscriminate arrests followed.
Disturbances ensued in Yuzgat, Gemerek, Cesarea, and elsewhere, and
the Turkish authorities reacted punitively, rounding up and torturing
suspects. The polarization of communities had begun in earnest.

Rumors of a Hutchagist presence led to the Sassoun massacre, the first
of the major atrocities against Armenian villagers. An investigative
report into these massacres claimed (page 14) that Armenian Christians
were being subjected to forcible conversions to Islam. In January,
1896 the local Ottoman authorities in Kharpout and Diarbekir told
"converted" villagers that they should not admit to being Muslim if
questioned. Conversions were happening in the provinces in Siras,
Kharpout, Diarbekir, Betlis and Van. Priests and pastors lived in
hiding, lest they be attacked for interfering with the forcible
conversion of villagers. In 28 villages in the district of Kharpout,
there had been no Christian worship since November of 1895.

"Another indirect method of destroying the Christian communities in
the provinces lay in the systematic debauching of Christian women as
though to destroy their self-respect and undermine their religious
ethic. At Tamzara in the district of Shaska Kara Hussar, in the
province of Livas, all the men were killed in the massacres early in
November, of a prosperous Armenian population of fifteen hundred only
about three hundred starving, half naked women and children remained.
Trustworthy information said that the most horrible feature of their
situation was that passing Mohammedan soldiery or civilian travelers
attacked them and outraged them in their homes without hesitation or
restraint."

On October 1, 1895 200 Armenians tried to make a protest in
Constantinople, and were ordered by police to disperse. Panic broke
out, and fearing an uprising, mosques encouraged reprisals. The
following night, at least 70 Armenians were killed in the capital. At
Trebizond (Trabzon) on the Black Sea coast in the east, a local Pasha
was attacked, and soldiers were sent on regular foot patrols around
the city. On October 8th, these soldiers began shooting Armenian men,
and shops were looted. On October 30, 1895 at Erzerum, soldiers and
Turkish civilians had started firing at Armenians. After attacks that
lasted two days, many of the bodies were mutilated and stripped. One
man’s forearms had been cut off, his upper arms and chest skinned. A
British consul wrote that 1,200 people had been killed, and 512
wounded. The bodies were buried en masse in trenches (pictured above).

On November 11, 1895 the village of Husenik near the eastern city of
Harput was attacked by soldiers, some of whom dressed as Kurds. 200
Armenian villagers were killed. These marched on the city where around
100 Armenians were killed. Shortly after, the city of Arabkir was
attacked, with 2,000 Armenians killed. Attacks also took place on
numerous small villages. In many of these villages the women were
carried off. At the town of Diarbekir, 2,000 were killed, at Chunkush
680 Armenians were slaughtered.

British missionary Helen B. Harris wrote on April 24, 1896 from the
American College in Aintab: "There were about 300 killed here,
November 16, 1895, and numbers mutilated, hands and right arms cut
off, and eyes gouged out, to render the poor people helpless. Dr.
Fuller says when they first got among these, the day after, the
massacre, it was awful hearing them crying for death to end their
sufferings." On November 18, 1895, a massacre of thousands took place
at Marash. On December 28th, another massacre of Armenians took place
at Urfa with at least 3,000 lives lost.

There were more massacres at that time, and in many cases Armenian men
were forced to convert or die. In Birejik in January 1896, about 96
men converted to Islam, and an equal number were killed. When one
elderly man refused to convert to Islam, live coals were placed on his
body. As he lay in pain, a Bible was held over him, and his tormentors
asked him to read the passages of salvation that he had trusted in.

In the summer of 1896 one event took place which would instigate a
catastrophic crackdown on the Armenian population of Turkey. The main
office of the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople was raided by a group of
26 Armenian revolutionaries on August 26th. Nine members of the group
were killed in the initial raid, including their leader Babgien Siuni,
and guards were shot. The remaining raiders, members of the Dashtun
party, took 140 bank workers hostage.

The raiders intended to draw international attention to the plight of
Armenians in Turkey, but before the situation came to a resolution,
recriminations against Armenians began, with 7,000 people killed by
angry Turkish citizenry in Constantinople. The Patriarch of
Constantinople, Maghakia Ormanian, excommunicated the bank raiders,
but this did not quell general Turkish anger at the Armenian
communities.

The massacres at the end of the 19th century, which were carried out
with the connivance and approval of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, are
collectively known as the Hamidian massacres. In 1896, Abdul-Hamid was
chastened by international condemnations, and his orders to attack and
forcibly convert Armenians stopped. The attacks lessened, but only for
a while. Soon, another campaign of massacres would take place. This
campaign was instigated not by Abdul-Hamid but by a new breed of
Turkish political activists, who would go on to commit the genocide of
1915. These activists were known as the Young Turks.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a
British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance
since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously
contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New
Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.
read full author bio here

TURKEY’S PAST VICTORIES SPAWN TODAY’S DEFEATS

Washington Post
/nikos_konstandaras/2007/10/turkeys_past_victories _spawn_t.html
Oct 15 2007

Athens – It should be the obligation of every individual, every
country and every transnational organization to try to prevent – or,
failing that, to condemn – a crime of such magnitude as the organized
extermination of Turkey’s Armenian population. You are either on the
side of right or you are not. So, on the face of it, this should be
a simple issue for the United States and for every other country.

Reflecting this, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Resolution
106 claims, "Despite the international recognition and affirmation of
the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international
authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is
a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the
future." It concludes that, "a just resolution will help prevent
future genocides." (That remains to be seen: The Holocaust, though
it was officially recognized and its perpetrators were punished, was
followed by genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda and "ethnic cleansing,"
genocide’s little brother, in several other instances.)

The complications in condemning genocide begin when countries begin
to consider their own present interests and when we try to untangle
the web of grievances, victories and defeats that constitute nations’
conflicting histories. And all this is complicated further by the
great length of time that has passed since that dreadful time in the
Middle East, whose aftershocks are still at the center of dramatic,
historical events.

There is no doubt that there was a concerted military effort at the
end of the Ottoman Empire to remove the Armenians from Anatolia.

Whether this was prompted by Armenian collusion with the Russian
enemies of the Turks or the execution of an old wish to rid eastern
Turkey of the Armenians is for historians to decide. What actually
happened – the massacre of an ancient nation and its extermination
from its ancestral homeland – is not up for debate.

The massacres and deportations were not unprecedented, as it was
general practice throughout human conflict for conquerors to remove
unruly subject peoples or defeated neighbors from their homes through
deportation or extermination, or both. An obvious instance is the
removal of the Jews to Babylon. The Armenians were the victims of
massacres as recently as 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1909. So when Russia
attacked the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians were more likely to side
with the invaders than with the Turks. That’s where the Turkish
authorities base their argument that there was no genocide: that
the deaths resulted from the general turmoil in the Ottoman Empire’s
dying days, and that there were many victims on both sides.

The problem for the Turks is that they were executing a tried and true
method of solving historical problems in an era when, for the first
time, there were enough foreign witnesses and international interests
involved to seize on the slaughter and portray it for what it was in
terms of modern sensibilities: a crime of monumental proportions.

The Turks of the time got away with it, even though the crimes
hardly went undetected, because most of the Western World was already
chin-deep in blood shed in the Great War. Since then, Turkey, always
of great strategic importance, has, through judicious alliances,
sharp business acumen and wily neutrality, managed to keep friends
and enemies by tiptoeing around its past. For the Turks, their
country’s modern history begins with the establishment of a secular,
Westward-looking republic in 1923, after Kemal Ataturk’s forces
defeated an ill-judged Greek military campaign in Asia Minor. The
years before that, during which the Ottoman Empire collapsed, are seen
as a glorious struggle to save the Turks’ honor from the ignominious
defeats that the Empire suffered at the hands of foreign invaders,
and to create a nation out of many disparate parts. This is the
mythic underpinning of the Turks’ identity, which, like all nations,
arises out of a benevolent reading of great victories and unjust
defeats. Demanding that the Turks acknowledge that their forefathers
were the perpetrators of genocide, in effect, demands that they
undermine their very identity. After denying the Armenian genocide
for so long, which government (indeed, which individual?) can accept
accountability for such a crime without putting up stiff resistance?

But this is where the Turks, who have never seemed to accept the fact
that military might is not the automatic answer to every problem,
have met their match. Yesterday’s victory spawned today’s defeat. The
remnants of the crushed Armenia spread out all over the world, reliving
the horror of slaughter and dispossession in their collective memory
without respite. They raised their children to demand recognition
of the horror that removed the Armenians from their ancestral
homeland. The genocide drove them to America, to Canada, to France,
to other great democracies. And as their wealth and influence grew,
so did their political power. They have proved themselves implacable
foes. This, too, is part of the genocide’s legacy: the Armenians
have had nothing to lose and everything to gain from their demand
for historical restitution.

Today Turkey finds itself in a position where its value as an ally is
countered by the political clout of Armenians within its allies. So
time has run out. Turkey will, eventually, have to come to terms with
its history or face the prospect of turning its back on the world that
it set out to join in 1923. The only way that this can be achieved
is if the Armenians and their backers make clear that the matter is
moral and not political – because the issue is to honor the victims of
the past, and not to undermine the common future of Turks, Armenians,
Azeris and all the other nations of this troubled region.

As for Turkey’s allies, including the United States, they need only
consider the simple part of the question: are you on the side of right,
whatever the cost – or are you not?

Arizona Republic, AZ
Oct 13 2007

Washington myopic as migrant war rages
Oct. 13, 2007 12:00 AM

It’s been one of those weeks around here. Which is to say, like most
weeks around here anymore on this, the front line of the nation’s
immigration wars.

The Valley’s police chiefs announced that they have no intention of
allowing their officers to check the immigration status of people
they pull over. And the spokesman for the actual cops who cruise the
streets of Phoenix – and one, Officer Nick Erfle, who no longer can –
revealed that eight of 10 believe their inability to check the
immigration status of people they pull over has degraded the city’s
quality of life.

Meanwhile, 2,348 miles away in Washington, the House Foreign Affairs
Committee approved a resolution this week that designates the killing
of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

Maricopa County’s chief judge and chief prosecutor were back at it
this week in their ongoing feud over whether judges are properly
denying bail to illegal immigrants. A federal judge gave the
Legislature until March to pony up millions more to teach kids
English – or else.

And the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – which is suing us for
trying to do something, at least, about illegal immigration – came to
town to warn us to ease off employers. This, as a Yuma farmer took to
the airwaves to warn that the nation’s winter vegetables may die on
the vine next month because we’re chasing off workers needed to
harvest them.

Meanwhile, 2,348 miles away in Washington, a congressman from Ohio
and a senator from South Carolina vowed to sponsor bills next year to
allow the word God on certificates accompanying flags flown over the
Capitol. Never mind that the rules were changed this week and that
God is already allowed on certificates accompanying flags flown over
the Capitol.

Instead of worrying about flags at the Capitol, they might want to
consider what has happened to flags in Tucson.

For 53 years, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has flown the flags of
the United States and Mexico, side by side, at the entrance to the
renowned museum. It makes sense, given that the ecosystem it seeks to
protect stretches into both countries. It makes sense, given that the
museum is named for the state of Arizona and the state of Sonora.

Lately, however, the museum has come under attack.

"We started getting calls from all over the country from people who
had never been to the desert museum and had no idea what it was or
anything about it," Rick Brusca, executive program director, told me.

"They were demanding we take the Mexican flag down because they felt
it represented a statement of political refuge for illegal aliens
from Mexico," he said.

Actually, the non-profit museum is a refuge. For bighorn sheep. For
the ring-tailed cat. For all manner of desert life on both sides of
the border.

Naturally, in today’s climate, the facts were cast aside and the
complaints turned to threats, vile enough that the museum has now
taken down the Mexican flag. And, in an attempt to avoid offending
anyone, it also took down the U.S. flag.

Such is the hysterical state of the Union now, when people are dug
deep into whatever foxhole they’ve chosen in this fight, where there
is no room for middle ground or rational discussion.

Meanwhile, 2,348 miles away in Washington, Republicans were gleefully
attaching harsh anti-illegal-immigration clauses to every bill they
could get their hands on this week, not to get them passed but to get
ammunition for next year’s campaign brochures. Not to strengthen this
country but to strengthen their chances of retaking Congress.

Proving, once again, that there really are some jobs that Americans
won’t do.

l/articles/1013roberts1013.html

The Conservative Voice, NC
Oct 13 2007

Bush and Pelosi Boost Richardson Plan
October 13, 2007 12:00 PM EST

by Scott Sullivan

With their massive escalation in the US confrontation with Turkey,
President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are boosting Bill
Richardson’s plan for bringing home the US troops, now.

No one doubts that the US has escalated a confrontation with Turkey.
The US has actually been in conflict with Turkey ever since Bush took
office. While occupying Iraq, the US has steadily and ever more
insistently promoted Kurdish independence from Iraq. Bush tolerance
of the recent Kurdish-Hunt Oil agreement is a prime example of US
support for Kurdish independence.

Moreover, the US has refused to check grandiose Kurdish territorial
ambitions against Turkey. Kurdish militants including Kurdish
president Barzani (a.k.a., Che Guevara) claim to one-third of
Turkey’s territory as part of a Greater Kurdistan. In the wake of the
US occupation of Iraq, the PKK moved its camps to northern Iraq and
launched military operations against Turkey. US forces are now
protecting PKK camps in northern Iraq from Turkish reprisals. In
effect, the US has declared war on Turkey, which has yet to respond
to a more hostile US policy.

Against this backdrop, Speaker Pelosi is moving through Congress the
Armenia Genocide resolution. In a tremendous provocation to Turkey,
the House of Representatives is soon expected to pass the Armenia
Genocide resolution.

In short, Bush and Pelosi constitute a self-appointed wrecking crew
to demolish US-Turkey relations. However, as noted at the outset,
Bush and Pelosi are actually helping Richardson’s troop withdrawal
plan by attacking Turkey.

First, Turkey could retaliate by withdrawing support from US
operations in Iraq. As a result, Bush would be compelled to withdraw
US troops from Iraq. Turkey provides up to 70% of the logistics
support for US forces in Iraq.

Second, the US public does not want war with Turkey. If Bush
continues to confront Turkey, popular US support will grow for the
Richardson Plan of immediate and total withdrawal of US forces.

Third, Kurdish president Barzani is a Che Guevara type, i.e. an
excessively ambitious ultra-leftist who is determined to destabilize
the region. The more powerful Barzani becomes, due to Bush support,
the more the US public will want to withdraw US forces from Iraq.
Richardson wins, again.

8.html

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 12 2007

THE HARD VICTORY OF JUSTICE

The process of recognizing the Armenian Genocide is inevitable

After long and tough discussions, the US House of Foreign Affairs
Committee approved Resolution # 106 recognizing the Armenian
Genocide, with 27 Congressmen voting for and 21 other Congressmen
voting against the bill. The further fate of the Resolution is now
dependant upon the firmness of the fundamental and honest attitude
adopted by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
However, despite the further development of such a harsh victory,
one thing became clear after the historic debate that took place last
Wednesday. None of the two parties representing the legislative power
of the United States has the slightest doubt that Genocide against
the Armenian people was really committed in Ottoman Turkey in
1915-1923.Therefore, the October 10 discussions were in major part
devoted to two contradictory questions, which, however, were on
different planes.
The representatives of the Republican minority were trying to
convince the participants and the whole Armenian nation that they had
no doubt with regard to the historical fact that was included in the
draft resolution submitted by Congressman Adam Schiff.
There is simply one obstacle: the US national interest and first
of all – the problem of providing further supplies to the American
troops of Iraq demand that the Americans be extremely cautiousness
and avoid making Turkey angry. That’s to say, the Republicans
subordinate the issue of recognizing the Armenian Genocide to the
task of providing support to the US military operations of Iraq.
Unlike the Republicans, the representatives of the Democrat
majority firmly stood against this kind of primitive pragmatism and
proved that Resolution # 106 cannot harm the US national interests,
since it is not of binding nature and serves purely for the task of
condemning and preventing genocides. That means, the democrats denied
any attempts aimed at intermingling the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide with current political issues and at the same time showed
that the conversations about any serious counteraction by Turkey were
unfounded.
The voting that took place at the end mainly reflected the
contents of the speeches made in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
During the preceding years the US Republican Administration was not
particularly concerned about the decisions made by the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, because it had a
speaker like Dennis Hastret, who simply wouldn’t put the Resolution
to vote. The situation existing now is just the contrary, so the
Administration had previously made considerable efforts to kill the
Draft Resolution in the Foreign Affairs Committee and thus prevent it
from passing under the control of Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Therefore,
the victory achieved can be considered a serious breakthrough in
terms of the final adoption of Resolution # 106.
However, we believe that the US House of Foreign Affairs Committee
discussions, publicized all over the world, are much more important.
They finally put an end to all the arguments of the Turkish denial
policy.
Actually, the speakers pilloried the country that had committed
the Armenian Genocide and publicized all over the world that Turkey’s
arguments regarding the 1915-1923 events were totally unfounded. This
kind of signal cannot remain unnoticed for the whole civilized
mankind; therefore, we are in store of a new wave of developments
regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. And this wave of
developments may surpass all the others that have preceded it.
The next important achievement was the following idea included in
Resolution # 106 on the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide: the
Armenians were not only subjected to physical extermination but also
deprived of their homeland where they had been living for nearly 2.5
years. Thus, it turns out that unlike the Jewish Holocaust, the
Armenian Genocide is not only Genocide but also a `patroiocide’; i.e.
depriving the Armenians of their fatherland and destroying their
centuries-old homeland.
What is in store after the historic victory, and is there a
possibility for such a development of events that may be unfavorable
for us?
We believe that the only possible surprise that may occur before
the Plenary Session of the House of Representatives is the
realization of Turkey’s intention of invading Iraq and eliminating
the PKK fulcra. Nonetheless, Turkey may, at the last moment, give up
it intention, receiving certain guarantees in return. And these may
include such guarantees that concern the Armenian Issue. It is also
possible for the October 10 voting to have a more distinct
continuation with the purpose of preventing the operation of the
Turkish military machine and punishing the country.
Be it as it may, the realization of the Iraqi federalization
project and the inevitability of Turkey’s responsive counteraction
present the new stage of America’s Near East project in which Armenia
has been given the role of a `strategic reserve’.
After all, this is the factor that makes the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide inevitable and turns the Armenian Issue into a most
serious counteraction aiming to restrain and disintegrate the
responsive steps of Turkey, which always resists the US programs.

VARDAN GRIGORYAN

Cape Times (South Africa)
October 12, 2007 Friday
e1 Edition

Classic Italian cinema at festival

JANE MAYNE

Federico Fellini will always be remembered for unforgettable
celluloid creations such as Satyricon and Roma.

This weekend, film buffs will be able to review Italy’s contribution
to international cinema at the Italian Film Festival, which screens
at Cinema Nouveau at the V&A Waterfront from today until Sunday.

Features included in the programme are Fellini’s 1960 classic La
Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), as well as a Sophia Loren/Marcello
Mastroianni retrospective – they star in three films Una Giornata
Particolare (A Special Day), Ieri, Oggi E Domani (Yesterday, Today,
Tomorrow) and Matrimonio All’Iitaliana (Marriage Italian-Style).

Massimo Vigliar, producer of Matrimonio All’Iitaliana, who re-stored
Carlo Ponti’s original version of the film, said: "I am proud to
present my picture at this South African screening of Italian cinema.
It is also memorable that Matrimonio All’Iitaliana will be presented
a few days later in Rome to open the Rome Film Festival.

"On the same day, October 19, Sophia Loren will receive the
honourable award of the 2007 Rome Film Festival.

"She has chosen this film for the opening gala because she considers
the role of Filomenta the best of her illustrious career."

Some of the latest Italian re-leases also on show in Cape Town are
the 2007 Notturno Bus (Night Bus), Moshen Melliti’s acclaimed Io,
L’Altro (I, The Other) and the poignant La Masseria Delle Allodole
(The Lark Farm).

Producer Grazia Volpi says of La Masseria Delle Allodole: "It was
presented for the first time in Ar-menia at the beginning of July.

"I’ve always tried to embark on projects with a social commitment and
I am proud of this film which focuses on the Armenian genocide.

"It is our duty to tell the younger generations what happened, just
as it was important after the fall of Nazism or during the genocide
in the Balkans or the present hell raging in Africa, which is the
subject of my latest film project."

Early productions include director Mario Monicelli’s Armata
Brancaleone (For Love and Gold, 1966) with Vittorio Gassman,
Catherine Spaak and Gian Maria Volonté. In Armata Brancaleone, a
knight is robbed by brigands and left in a ditch. One of the
assailants talks his friend Brancaleone into taking up the knight’s
identity. Brancaleone becomes the brigands’ commander but the road to
Aurocastro is full of perils and unexpected adventures.

In director Ettore Scola’s Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day,
1977), a fascist Rome celebrates Hitler’s visit to Mussolini. In a
working class tenement, Antonietta, wife to a fervent "black shirt"
fascist, cherishes a photographic album filled with Mussolini’s
pictures and famous words. Then she meets a neighbour who has lost
his job because he is a homosexual.

Films are screened in Italian with English sub-titles.

l Free entry. Tickets are available from the box office two hours
before screenings. See

The Guardian, UK
Oct 12 2007

Making difficult situations worse

Leader
Friday October 12, 2007
The Guardian

Outside Turkey there is a broad consensus that the massacre and
forced deportations of more than a million Armenians in the latter
years of the Ottoman empire were nothing less than genocide. Last
year France voted to make it a crime to deny that, and on Wednesday a
US congressional panel approved a bill describing the massacres as
genocide. But the country where this debate matters most is Turkey –
and officially it continues to claim that as many Turks as Armenians
died in the civil unrest of the crumbling empire. The real test of
the vote by the US house committee on foreign affairs is whether or
not a Turkish reassessment of the events of 1917 is likely to happen.

The issue is not just a lightning rod for nationalists, but a litmus
test for the human-rights agenda on which EU entry talks depend. The
Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted under article
301, a law that makes insulting the republic punishable by up to
three years in prison. He had said in an interview with a Swiss
newspaper that the Armenian massacres and the killings of over 30,000
Kurds in the 1990s were taboo topics in Turkey. A Turkish-Armenian
journalist, Hrant Dink, was shot dead outside his newspaper in
January for saying the killings were genocide; he had been prosecuted
under article 301, and yesterday his son Aram received a suspended
sentence under the same law. The US vote is unlikely to make it
easier for Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, to amend article 301, as
he would wish; in fact it will reinforce nationalist support for it.
The tangled web of cause and effect does not stop there. Turkey has
yet to respond to attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) which
have killed 15 soldiers and 12 civilians in the past 10 days. There
are about 3,000 PKK guerrillas, many operating from camps in the
Qandil mountains in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, and the US is
desperate to stop a Turkish incursion. Ankara says that if neither
the leadership in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq nor the US is able
to curb the PKK, its troops will. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, succumbed this week to months of pressure from the army
chief of staff, agreeing that cross-border raids may have to happen.
Should they do so, the stability of the only area of Iraq untouched
by civil war would be under threat.

Mr Erdogan is a moderate on the Armenian and Kurdish questions, but
he knows that Turkish support for US regional policy is a house of
cards waiting to collapse. The US Democrats may hope to pick up easy
votes from the Armenian diaspora for their own election battles in
2008. But they should bear in mind that more than just domestic
politics are at stake: another country’s people is looking on.

PanARMENIAN.Net

H.Res.106 will entail condemnation and recognition of
Armenian Genocide in many states
12.10.2007 14:11 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `Actions held in Turkey are initiated by the Turkish
Workers’ Party led by Dogu Perincek, who is using the occasion to gain
political weight. However, Turkey will face more serious trouble when
the House of Representatives announces the date of vote on the
Armenian Genocide Resolution. Presently, everything depends on
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who should choose a politically favorable date
for the vote,’ Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the RA
Academy of Sciences, Prof. Ruben Safrastyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter.

Turkish government may take drastic steps if the House passes
H.Res.106, according to him.

`Adoption of the resolution will have a stupendous effect. For the
first time a power like the United States stands close to name mass
killings in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 Genocide. The whole scope of
the Turkish-American relations will be endangered. The Gul-Erdogan
government will take up a foreign policy less dependent on the
U.S. and tending to Middle East,’ he said.

As to Armenia’s interests, Prof. Safrastyan said, adoption of the
resolution will have a political importance. `Even though it’s just
`the opinion of the House’, it will entail condemnation and
recognition of the Armenian Genocide in many states. There is also
another important circumstance – the world comes to know about the
`Armenian factor’ in politics with the aid of a superpower, the United
States. This fact brings us political dividends,’ he underscored.

OSU – The Lantern, OH
Ohio State University
Oct 12 2007

Leave allies alone

Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: Opinion

Beginning in 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a campaign by
the Ottoman Empire to rid eastern Turkey of its Armenian population.
It was one of the most despicable acts of the 20th century. And it is
mostly forgotten.

In fact, when confronted by a German reporter concerned about
Germany’s plans for what would become the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler
replied, "Who remembers the Armenians."

It is a topic largely ignored by high school history classes and is
generally neglected when people talk about the big tragedies of the
20th century.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee voted
Wednesday to condemn the killings as an act of genocide, and The
Lantern can only reply: Why now?

The problem with the committee’s decision is that Turkey is one of
the United States’ only allies in the Muslim world, and now our
Congress has greatly offended them. The last thing we need are
Turkish citizens having public demonstrations against the U.S., as
they have in recent days over the resolution.

Turkey President Abdullah Gul was right when he said, "Some
politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for
common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor
domestic political games."

If we are going to stay in Iraq – and no matter who is elected in
2008 it looks like we are – we will need Turkey’s assistance.
According to The New York Times, 70 percent of all air cargo to Iraq
passes through Turkey, along with 30 percent of fuel and almost all
new armored vehicles.

For some in Congress to vote for this resolution – a hollow gesture,
by the way – shows a blatant disregard for the nation’s international
position. If they want to make a difference, it would be more prudent
to take steps against the current genocide in Dharfur, not one that
happened 90 years ago.

The U.S. is currently trying to keep Turkey from launching an
offensive into northern Iraq, which could have terrible consequences
for our efforts there. Now is not the time to offend one of our only
allies in a region that almost universally hates us.

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