Author: Jagharian Tania

The New York Times
September 26, 2005

Try and Try Again
By GARY J. BASS

Princeton, N.J. – “For these crimes,” wrote Hannah Arendt during the
Nuremberg trials, “no punishment is severe enough. It may well be
essential to hang Göring, but it is totally inadequate.”

Saddam Hussein’s punishment will surely be inadequate too – all the
more so if he is executed too soon.

The Iraqi war crimes tribunal’s first case against Mr. Hussein, which
opens Oct. 19, charges him with the 1982 massacre of at least 143 men
and boys from the village of Dujail. This was meant to be a test case
of manageable scope and strong evidence. Unfortunately, Laith Kubba, a
spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, says that once the
court has reached a guilty verdict in the Dujail case, the
near-certain sentence of death “should be implemented without further
delay.”

But if Mr. Hussein is executed for the Dujail killings, he will never
be called to account for the larger atrocities on which he was
arraigned in July 2004: killing political rivals, crushing the Shiite
uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, invading Kuwait in 1990, and waging
the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988, including
gassing Kurdish villagers at Halabja.

It is easy to understand the temptation to get the high-profile trial
over with quickly. The lives of the tribunal’s officials – including
the young chief investigative judge, Raid Juhi, who confronted
Mr. Hussein in a televised courtroom showdown – are at constant risk
from the raging insurgency. And the international tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia, where Slobodan Milosevic has dragged his trial into
its fourth year with his theatrics, furnishes a cautionary example. A
shorter trial would afford less time for Mr. Hussein to make defiant
final speeches to Arab nationalists.

What’s more, the tribunal is a political football. The Dujail trial is
set to start just four days after Iraq’s referendum on its draft
constitution – a time when ethnic rivalries will probably run high –
and not long before the Dec. 15 elections. Saleh al-Mutlak, a former
Baathist who led the Sunni delegation’s rejection of the draft
constitution, has accused the Iraqi government of speeding Mr. Hussein
to trial in order to win election-season political points, presumably
with Shiites and Kurds. Mr. Mutlak menacingly warns that the trial
could touch off more violence.

Nonetheless, the Iraqi tribunal would do well not to rush Mr. Hussein
to the gallows. A hasty execution would shortchange Mr. Hussein’s
victims and diminish the benefits of justice. Baathists would be all
the more likely to complain about a show trial. Kurds would rightly
feel that they were denied their day in court for the Anfal
campaign. Shiites in the south would also be deprived of a reckoning.

A thorough series of war crimes trials would not only give the victims
more satisfaction but also yield a documentary and testimonial record
of the regime’s crimes. After Nuremberg, the American chief prosecutor
estimated that he had assembled a paper trail of more than five
million pages. A comparably intensive Iraqi process would help drive
home to former Baathists and some Arab nationalists what was done in
their names. The alternative is on display in Turkey, where the
collapse of a war crimes tribunal after World War I paved the way for
today’s widespread Turkish nationalist denial of the Armenian
genocide.

In June, Mr. Kubba said that Mr. Hussein could face as many as 500
charges, but that Iraqi prosecutors would pursue only about 12
well-documented counts. Now it may be down to just one. Because Iraq
and the United States have chosen the hard road of courtroom justice,
the war crimes tribunal should see it through. The Dujail case is a
good start but not a good finish.

Gary J. Bass, an associate professor of politics and international
affairs at Princeton, is the author of “Stay the Hand of Vengeance:
The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals.”

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Associated Press Worldstream
September 25, 2005 Sunday

Turkish scholars find support in Turkey for open look at massacres of
Armenians

BENJAMIN HARVEY; Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey

Scholars attending a conference that addresses the mass killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks said Sunday that, after decades of
opposition, public opinion in Turkey was moving in favor of an open
discussion.

The Turkish media and top government officials expressed support for
the two-day conference, which started Saturday. But for a second day
nationalist protesters hurled eggs and rotten tomatoes at arriving
speakers they accused of treason, showing deep resistance to
addressing claims that Turks committed genocide.

Turkey aspires to join the European Union, and the EU said it would
view the conference as a test of freedom of expression.

A headline in Turkey’s largest newspaper, Hurriyet, on Sunday
welcomed an open discussion, saying: “Not for Europe but for
ourselves.”

Another headline in Radikal newspaper read: “The world is still
spinning and Turkey remains in its place.”

“I suppose more and more people are getting to realize that the old
positions are untenable,” said Murat Belge, a member of the committee
that organized the conference. “I mean the smoke over the question,
the policy of denial.”

The conference faced heavy opposition from the outset and was
canceled twice – including on Thursday by an Istanbul court that
demanded to know the academic qualifications of the speakers – before
beginning Saturday at Istanbul Bilgi University.

“Especially after that absurd court decision three days ago …
looking at the press the next day, at the magnitude of the public
reaction, I knew this was going to be a success,” said Halil Berktay,
a historian and member of the organizing committee. “The old clich’s
of official, conventional, denialist ideology are dead.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed support for the
conference and criticized the court order, which organizers skirted
by changing the venue.

Participants at the conference – including Turks and ethnic Armenians
– were mostly careful to avoid emotional language. On Saturday,
historians discussed the events leading up to and following the
massacres in 1915-1923, going through them year by year. On Sunday,
they dealt with broader issues, including “The Armenian problem and
Turkish democracy” and “Press Freedom and the Armenian problem.”

Delegates to the conference had no plans to issue a declaration on
whether genocide occurred, Berktay said, but were using the gathering
as a forum to openly examine the historical experience of Armenians
around the time of the Ottoman collapse. Many of the panelists have
previously said the killings constituted genocide. A number of them
have received death threats in Turkey for doing so.

Turkey vehemently denies that a genocide was carried out on Armenians
as the Ottoman Empire collapsed around the time of World War I,
saying that Armenians who rose in rebellion and sided with Russian
invaders were killed along with Turks in intercommunal fighting.

Armenians say that 1.5 million of their ancestors were killed by
Ottoman Turks in a vicious policy of extermination.

Turkey had never permitted the issue to be discussed in public until
this conference.

“A lot of people now understand that, if a certain society says only
one thing about a question, that is not a sign of strength, but the
opposite,” Belge said. “The atmosphere in the media has changed
overnight, and that’s going to influence public opinion.”

Turkey is under intense pressure to improve its performance on issues
of freedom of expression and human rights as it moves toward
negotiations beginning Oct. 3 for EU membership.

KUWAIT SUPPORTS AZERBAIJAN IN NAGORNO KARABAKH QUESTION

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Sept 22 2005

Foreign minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov met the
Kuwait-Azerbaijan Inter-parliamentary Group’s delegation lead by
Kuwait’s MP Hamood Mansour El-Hajiri.

Noting that opening of the Azerbaijan embassy in Kuwait creates
favorable atmosphere for close cooperation between the two states,
Minister Mammadyarov wished Kuwait to open its embassy in Azerbaijan,
too, which, according to him, would promote significant impact on
development of bilateral links.

Minister Mammadyarov updated the guests on current situation in the
negotiations concerning the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh
conflict and Azerbaijan’s position in these process, emphasized that
settlement of the conflict is possible only in the frame of territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan.

Underlining that the State of Kuwait supports Azerbaijan in settlement
of the conflict, Mr.

Hamood Mansour El-Hajiri expressed hope for further development of
bilateral cooperation.

Touching upon the situation in Iraq, Mr. Mammadyarov said strengthening
of territorial integrity of this country is necessary; otherwise,
it will cause threat in region.

The sides also had exchange of views on cooperation in the political,
economic, cultural and tourism fields between the two counties.

NA DEPUTY DID NOT CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY

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| 17:00:52 | 22-09-2005 | Politics |

NA deputy Hmayak Hovhanissyan did not celebrate the Independence day
yesterday. To be more precise, he refused to take part in the official
solemn banquet.

According to H. Hovhanissyan Armenia has lost independence form the
very moment it launched the constitutional reform proceeding not
from the domestic political problems but for the sake of honoring
the commitments to European forces and justifying their hopes. “It
proves that we are not independent”, he says.

During a press conference titled “Internal political issues of Armenia”
held in Pakagits club the deputy tried to explain why he speaks out
against the constitutional amendments. One of the reasons is that
the Armenian leadership does not wish to make the post of the Mayor
of Yerevan elective.

The independent deputy did not forget to touch upon the topic of
deceived depositors, which can be referred to the unfulfilled
commitments undertaken by Speaker Atrur Baghdassaryan. In
Hovhanissyan’s words, the Speaker is trying to consign to oblivion
the fact that last year Hovhanissyan has collected 66 signatures to
include the issue in the agenda, however Artur Baghdassaryan stated
of his inability to solve this issue. “It means that the President
does not want the problem to be solved”, the deputy noted.

PRICE OF DASHNAKTSUTYUN

The defeat of ARFD at the presidential election in Karabakh Hmayak
Hovhanissyan rated as “shattering”. Though the Dashnaks disliked
such assessment Hmayak Hovhanissyan keeps on commenting on ARFD’s
participation in the LGB election. In part, the deputy said, “They
garnered 67 votes in Nubarashen community. This is all they deserve.”

ARMENIA’S AMBASSADOR TO ITALY RUBEN SHUGARYAN MEETS WITH DEPUTY FM OF ITALIA MARGERITA BONIVER

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 19 2005

YEREVAN, September 19. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Ambassador to Italy Ruben
Shugaryan met with Deputy Foreign Minister of Italy Margerita
Boniver, press-service of the RA Foreign Ministry reported ARKA
News Agency. They discussed issues of Armenia’s Eurointegration
within the program of new neighborhood, possible development of the
Armenian-Turkish relations in the context of the European processes
and the negotiations on Turkey’s entrance to the European Union.

According to the press-release, the sides discussed in details the
issues related to the organization of Italian-Armenian Friendship
Days in October, 2005 in Armenia. This initiative is sponsored by
the President of Italia Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and the President of
Armenia Robert Kocharyan. Boniver expressed her satisfaction with
the development of Armenian-Italian relations. A.A. -0–

CHEESE 2005 – NEW INTERNATIONAL CHEESE PRESIDIA

SlowFood, Italy
Sept 19 2005

On Saturday, at ‘Cheese 2005’ (Bra, September 16-19), Piero Sardo,
President of the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, presented a
series of new Slow Food Cheese Presidia from all over the world.

Agnesa Sargsyan, of the Motal Presidium (Armenia), accompanied by
producer Vanik Chgroyan spoke about their distinctive goat cheese,
matured in clay to preserve it for the winter. Today it is only
produced by families, but the Presidium hopes to create new markets,
hence improved development prospects.

Kamal Mouzawak, a journalist and Slow Food representative based in
Beirut, amazed the audience with Darfiyeh, a raw goat’s milk cheese
preserved with layers of ricotta in a goat skin, washed, sewn and
salted on the inside.

Another product that captured the public’s imagination was Yak Cheese
from the Chinese province of Qinghai. Paola Vanzo, a representative
of the Trace Foundation, a New York City-based non-profit NGO for the
promotion of the cultural continuity and sustainable development of
Tibetan communities within China, explained how, in collaboration with
AVEC (Association of Veterinary Surgeons for Developing Countries)
and the Slow Food Foundation, it has been possible to build a dairy
for a school for nomad children founded by the Tibetan monk, Jigme
Gyaltse, who was also present at the meeting.

Two young Italian cheesemakers, Massimo Nurisso and Massimo Mercandino
went to Tibet for a few months to teach herders a processing technique
that allows them to produce a cheese suitable for aging, hence for
surviving the long journeys required to reach new markets.

Mihai Pasku of the Brânza de burduf Presidium (Romania) proudly
described the history of his native area and the cheese that reflects
its identity. As the producer Dorin Olteanu pointed out, Brânza can
age from 40 days to several months and the more it matures the more
piquant it becomes.

Last but not least, Pascale Baudonnel, dressed in a colorful
traditional Norwegian costume, outlined the history of artisan
Geitost, produced in the village of Undredal on the fjord of Sogne,
a sweet brown cheese made with the whey from raw goat’s milk. It is
currently produced only by the Undredal Stolsysteri cooperative.

–Boundary_(ID_jM5q6dM1fsvRwNaHLStKWg)–

UNICEF COOPERATING WITH THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA

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| 13:22:48 | 19-09-2005 | Social |

YEREVAN, 19 September – Partnering with Armenian diaspora organizations
such as the Millennium Armenian Children’s Vaccination Fund (MACVF) is
crucial for successful implementation of programs benefiting children,
UNICEF said today, speaking of the importance of the vaccination
program in Armenia.

“UNICEF values highly its partners in the diaspora, and one of our
most important partnerships in Armenia is with the Millennium Armenian
Children’s Vaccination Fund. Financial support to UNICEF from MACVF
has enabled us to procure essential vaccines for Armenian children
and has helped to sustain the high immunization rate in the country,”
UNICEF Representative, Sheldon Yett noted.

UNICEF and the Millennium Armenian Children’s Vaccination Fund sealed
a long-term partnership agreement in 2002 in order to support the
implementation of the National Immunization Program in Armenia. The
agreement covers the 2002-2009 period during which the Millennium
Armenian Children’s Vaccination Fund pledged to provide 500,000 USD
for procurement of vaccines to prevent such deadly childhood diseases
as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and diphtheria.

MACVF has contributed over 100,000 USD to UNICEF to date. In 2005
alone, MACVF funding has enabled the immunization of approximately
100,000 children in Armenia against measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus
and diphtheria.

The assistance provided by MACVF to children in Armenia is invaluable
and has helped protect thousands of children from serious illness. Not
only do these children benefit directly from the vaccinations, but
immunization also provides a mechanism through which health services
can make contact with children and women whom they need to reach with
other interventions, further enhancing the value of immunizations.

“We will continue to strengthen our relationships with Armenian
diaspora organizations and will seek their active involvement in
the implementation of programs that contribute to the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals,” UNICEF Representative Sheldon
Yett stressed.

A1+

| 12:26:41 | 17-09-2005 | Politics |

POTENTIAL VOTERS ARE NOT NUMEROUS

The constitutional referendum to all appearances will be held on November
20. According to the preliminary data, the draft will be submitted to the
last reading in the NA October 3-7. The operating Constitution says that the
draft submitted to the referendum is considered adopted of over half of the
voters but no less that a third of those included in the electoral rolls
vote `for’.

This week we tried to find out whether our citizens are going to take part
in the upcoming referendum. We surveyed 100 people. Only 19% of the
respondents are going to participate in the referendum. `I wish dual
citizenship were adopted’, a woman said. Some are going to vote `for’
because according to the draft the Mayor of Yerevan should be elected but
not appointed.

24% of those surveyed are going to vote `against’. `I am going to vote
`against’ over some reasons, for example, after the resignation the
President cannot be called to account’, one of them said.

35% confessed that they will not take part in the referendum because they
are not aquatinted with the issue. 22% found it hard to answer. Some of them
cannot decide whether the reviewed Constitution is progress or regress.

“ENEMY” WAS DEFEATED

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| 16:32:28 | 13-09-2005 | Politics |

There are no obstacles on the way of promotion of the Armenian-Russian
military cooperation,” Secretary of the National Security Council at
the Armenian President, Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan stated
today when commenting on the Armenian-Russian joint exercise held on
the ground after marshal Baghramyan in Armavir region of Armenia.

1307 servicemen took part in the exercise.

Today the federal forces were eliminating the “enemy” and preventing
terrorist acts. The operations were watched by Armenian Defense
Minister Serge Sargsyan, CSTO Sec. Gen. Nikolay Bordyuzha and Commander
of Russian troops in Transcaucasus Andrey Popov.

“Not the effect of exploding bombs, but efficient cooperation of the
Armed Forces of the two countries is the thing that is important,”
he said. “We observed exercises held at a high level,” Bordyuzha
remarked. At that in his words, there is always space for expansion
of joint activities. “It might be as well for the special forces to
take part in the next exercise to work out counter-terror tasks,”
he summed up,

When commenting on the recent statement by Ilham Aliyev regarding the
Azerbaijani military budget Serge Sargsyan said, “The Azeri President
wished to demonstrate that they have strong army. But it does not
mean that our army is weak. The efficiency of our army is very high”.

President: Azerbaijan is strong enough to solve Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict by force

.c The Associated Press

LYANKARAN, Azerbaijan (AP) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev said
Thursday that while the ex-Soviet nation still hopes for a peaceful
solution to the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it has enough
military strength to solve it by force.

Aliev made the statement while campaigning for the ruling Yeni
Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan) party in the run-up to the Nov. 6
parliamentary elections in an apparent response to the opposition’s
claim that a change in government is necessary to win back control
over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed enclave that has been under the
control of Armenian separatists since the early 1990s.

“We are creating a strong military potential, and the enemy must know
that Azerbaijan is capable of liberating its lands at any moment,”
Aliev said in a speech in the town of Lyankoran, some 270 kilometers
(170 miles) south of the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

He said the oil-rich Caspian nation, which budgeted over US$300
million (euro240 million) for defense this year, will double its
defense spending next year.

Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a decade
after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left
Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenian hands. Some 30,000 people were killed and
a million displaced, and the lack of resolution of the enclave’s
status has impeded economic development in the region.

09/08/05 14:51 EDT