Author: Kalantarian Kevo

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

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7 September 2004
BELARUS: WAS BAPTIST FINE AN “EXCEPTION”?
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Although unregistered religious communities still face intermittent fines
for religious activities, Protestants in Belarus have told Forum 18 News
Service that a fine imposed in January on Baptist Union member Yuri
Denishchik for holding a religious meeting in a private home was an
“exception”. They say that ahead of October’s parliamentary elections, the
authorities are not currently interfering in services, open-air
evangelistic meetings and youth camps held by registered Protestant
communities. “There are a lot of active Protestants in Belarus and
President Lukashenko can’t afford to alienate them right now,” one source
told Forum 18. He assumed there to be “some kind of instruction not to
touch Protestants at the moment”. But senior Baptist pastor Gennadi Brutsky
told Forum 18 that problems persist, though so far they have been solved
through compromises.

9 September 2004
EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION – A REGIONAL SURVEY

Ahead of the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and the Fight against Racism,
Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September 2004 in Brussels, Forum 18
News Service surveys some of the more serious
discriminatory actions against religious believers that persist in some
countries of the 55-member OSCE. Despite their binding OSCE commitments to
religious freedom, in some OSCE member states believers are still fined,
imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their faith, religious services are
broken up, places of worship confiscated and even destroyed, religious
literature censored and religious communities denied registration. Forum 18
believes most of the serious problems affecting religious believers in the
eastern half of the OSCE region come from government discrimination.
* See full article below. *

10 September 2004
TURKMENISTAN: BAPTISTS RAIDED AND JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES REJECT PRESIDENTIAL
PORTRAITS

In the third known set of raids on religious communities in August, police
interrogated and threatened members of a Baptist church in the western town
of Balkanabad, warning Nikolai Matsenko that any further unregistered
services in his home will lead to fines. Meanwhile a Jehovah’s Witness
elder told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ashgabad that if his
faith gets registration, it will reject official demands made of other
faiths to hang the country’s flag and a portrait of the president where it
worships. “These are unacceptable demands,” he declared. Forum 18 has been
unable to get confirmation of a 5 September report that President
Saparmurat Niyazov ordered the registration procedure for religious
organisations to be tightened up once more.

9 September 2004
XINJIANG: SECURITY SERVICE INVESTIGATION FOLLOWED ORTHODOX PRIEST’S
DEPORTATION

Kazakhstan-based Russian Orthodox priest Fr Viarion Ivanov had visited
China’s north-western Xinjiang region to serve the local Orthodox who have
no priests, but in December 2003 was detained by Chinese customs, was
interrogated for a week, had his religious literature confiscated and was
deported. “They questioned me for five hours a day. The special services
representatives proved to be amazingly well-informed,” Fr Ivanov told Forum
18 News Service. Local Orthodox told Forum 18 in Xinjiang in early
September that virtually all the Orthodox believers in the city of Ghulja
were questioned by the security services about Fr Ivanov’s activity. In
Ghulja the Orthodox can at least meet for prayers in church without a
priest, but in another Xinjiang town, Tacheng, local Russian Orthodox have
had no success so far in applying to rebuild their church.

9 September 2004
EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION – A REGIONAL SURVEY

By Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has
as members all the states of Europe, Central Asia and North America, works
not by coercion but by consensus and persuasion. Membership is not
compulsory: states have the free choice whether to accept the binding OSCE
commitments by joining or not. The commitment of all OSCE states to respect
freedom of religion is clear. The 1990 OSCE human dimension conference
declared “everyone will have the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion. This right includes freedom to change one’s religion or
belief and freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief, either alone or in
community with others, in public or in private, through worship, teaching,
practice and observance. The exercise of these rights may be subject only
to such restrictions as are prescribed by law and are consistent with
international standards.” Yet government discrimination against religious
believers remains disturbingly pervasive.

As delegates assemble in Brussels for the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and
the Fight against Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September
2004, many ask how violators of these fundamental OSCE commitments –
especially Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia – can
be allowed to continue as members of an organisation whose fundamental
principles they blatantly flout. OSCE officials argue off the record that
it is better to keep violators in, with the hope that they can be persuaded
to mend their ways, rather than expel them, abandoning local people to the
clutches of their governments. The result is that persecuted believers
Forum 18 News Service has spoken to in a number of states
now have little faith in what the OSCE can and will do for them to protect
their right to religious freedom.

The OSCE has reaffirmed that discrimination against religious believers is
as unacceptable as discrimination against ethnic or other social groups or
individuals. Meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht in 2003, the OSCE
Ministerial Council stressed in its Decision No. 4 on Tolerance and
Non-Discrimination that it “[a]ffirms the importance of freedom of thought,
conscience, religion or belief, and condemns all discrimination and
violence, including against any religious group or individual believer” and
“[c]ommits to ensure and facilitate the freedom of the individual to
profess and practice a religion or belief, alone or in community with
others, where necessary through transparent and non-discriminatory laws,
regulations, practices and policies”. The ministerial council also
emphasised what it believed is the importance of a “continued and
strengthened interfaith and intercultural dialogue to promote greater
tolerance, respect and mutual understanding”.

While many governments would prefer this conference to concentrate on
tackling social discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, in
much of the region it is important to stress that the most serious
discrimination against religious believers, at least, comes from
governments. In many states discrimination is enshrined in law and in
official practice (from national to local level). Believers will only be
free of such discrimination if such discriminatory laws are abolished or
amended, and if other laws and international commitments guaranteeing
religious freedom are put into practice.

Social discrimination against religious minorities does exist – especially
among Orthodox in Georgia, among Muslims in Central Asia, and among ethnic
Albanians (whether Muslim or Catholic) in Kosovo – but only in exceptional
circumstances has this led to persistent denial of believers’ rights.
Governments have a duty to promote tolerance and harmony in society, but
many could start with improving their own behaviour.

It is also important to remember that criticising the beliefs of another
faith does not constitute a crime: only violence or incitement to violence
is. A key element of religious freedom is the right peacefully to expound
and promote the beliefs of one’s faith and to set out how they might differ
from those of other faiths.

In the run-up to the July 2003 OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting
on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Forum 18 News Service
surveyed some, but not all, of the continuing abuses of religious freedom
in the eastern half of the OSCE region (see F18News 9 July 2003
). Discrimination against
believers also occurs in other OSCE countries (such as the About-Picard law
in France, restrictions on newer religious communities in Belgium and
discrimination against minority faiths in Turkey). It is disturbing that
one year on, almost all the abuses Forum 18 noted in 2003 have continued
unchecked.

RELIGIOUS WORSHIP: An alarming number of states raid religious meetings to
close down services and punish those who take part. Turkmenistan is the
worst offender: all unregistered religious activity is illegal and no
non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox religious communities – even the few
registered minority communities – are able to hold public worship freely.
Uzbekistan and Belarus specifically ban unregistered religious services. In
Belarus, numerous Protestant congregations – some numbering more than a
thousand members – cannot meet because they cannot get a registered place
to worship. Officials in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan also raid
places where worship is being conducted. In Macedonia, members of the
Serbian Orthodox Church have difficulty holding public worship and leaders
have been prosecuted. In Russia and some other states, minority faiths are
often denied permission to rent publicly-owned buildings available to other
groups.

PLACES OF WORSHIP: Opening a place of worship is impossible in some states.
In Turkmenistan non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox communities cannot in
practice open a place of worship, while those that existed before the
mid-1990s were confiscated or bulldozed. Uzbekistan has closed down
thousands of mosques since 1996 and often denies Christian groups’ requests
to open churches. Azerbaijan also obstructs the opening of Christian
churches and tries to close down some of those already open, while in 2004
it seized a mosque in Baku from its community and tried to prevent the
community meeting elsewhere. Belarus makes it almost impossible for
religious communities without their own building already – or substantial
funds to rent one – to find a legal place to worship. An Autocephalous
Orthodox church (which attracted the anger of the government and the
Russian Orthodox Church) was bulldozed in 2002. In Slovenia, which
represents the incoming OSCE Chair-in-Office, the Ljubljana authorities
have long obstructed the building of a mosque. In Bulgaria, the current
Chair-in-Office, in July 2004 the police stormed more than 200 churches
used by the Alternative Synod since a split in the Orthodox Church a decade
ago, ousting the occupants and handing the churches over to the rival
Orthodox Patriarchate without any court rulings.

REGISTRATION: Where registration is compulsory before any religious
activity can start (Turkmenistan, Belarus and Uzbekistan) or where
officials claim that it is (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), life is made
difficult for communities that either choose not to register (such as one
network of Baptist communities in the former Soviet republics) or are
denied registration (the majority of religious communities in Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan). Registration in Turkmenistan is all but impossible,
despite the reduction in 2004 from 500 to 5 in the number of adult citizens
required to found a community. In countries such as Azerbaijan or
Uzbekistan, registration for disfavoured communities is often made
impossible – officials in the sanitary/epidemiological service are among
those with the power of veto in Uzbekistan. Belarus, Slovenia, Slovakia,
Macedonia, Russia and Latvia are also among states which to widely varying
degrees make registration of some groups impossible or very difficult.
Moscow has refused to register the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city, despite
their national registration. Some countries – including the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Austria, with plans for similar moves in Serbia – grant full
status as religious communities to favoured religious communities only.
Faiths with smaller membership or which the government does not like have
to make do with lesser status and fewer rights.

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE: Belarus and Azerbaijan require compulsory prior
censorship of all religious literature produced or imported into the
country. Azerbaijani customs routinely confiscate religious literature,
releasing it only when the State Committee for Work with Religious
Organisations grants explicit written approval for each title and the
number of copies authorised. Forbidden books are sent back or destroyed
(thousands of Hare Krishna books held by customs for seven years have been
destroyed). Even countries without formal religious censorship – eg.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – routinely confiscate imported religious
literature or literature found during raids on homes. Uzbekistan routinely
bars access to websites it dislikes, such as foreign Muslim sites.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Believers from minority religious communities in
institutions such as prisons, hospitals or the army may face difficulties
obtaining and keeping religious literature, praying in private and
receiving visits from spiritual leaders and fellow-believers. In
Uzbekistan, even Muslim prisoners have been punished for praying and
fasting during Ramadan. Death-row prisoners wanting visits from Muslim
imams and Russian Orthodox priests have had requests denied, even for final
confession before execution.

DISCRIMINATION: Turkmenistan has dismissed from state jobs hundreds of
active Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other religious
minorities. Turkmen and Azeri officials try to persuade people to abandon
their faith and “return” to their ancestral faith (Islam). Although the
order has now reportedly been rescinded, Armenia ordered local police
chiefs to persuade police officers who were members of faiths other than
the Armenian Apostolic Church to abandon their faith. If persuasion failed,
such employees were to be sacked. Belarus has subjected leaders of
independent Orthodox Churches and Hindus to pressure – including fines,
threats and inducements – to abandon their faith or emigrate. Officials in
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus repeatedly attack disfavoured religious
minorities in the media, insulting their beliefs, accusing them falsely of
illegal or “destructive” activities, as well as inciting popular hostility
to them.

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL CLASSES: Some states have allowed the dominant faith to
determine the content of compulsory religious education classes and
textbooks in state-run schools. In Belarus, minority faiths complain their
beliefs are inaccurately and insultingly presented. In Georgia, classes
often became denominational Orthodox instruction, with teachers taking
children to pray in the local Orthodox church.

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: Many governments meddle in the internal affairs of
religious communities. Central Asian governments insist on choosing
national and local Muslim leaders. Turkmenistan ousted successive chief
muftis in January 2003 and August 2004. Tajikistan has conducted
“attestation tests” of imams, ousting those who failed. Islamic schools are
tightly controlled (in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, schools have either
been closed or access to them restricted). Turkmenistan obstructs those
seeking religious education abroad. Some countries with large Orthodox
communities (but not Russia or Ukraine), try to bolster the largest
Orthodox Church and obstruct rival jurisdictions (Belarus, Bulgaria,
Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova). Russia has prevented communities from
choosing their leadership, expelling a Catholic bishop and several priests,
and dozens of Protestant and other leaders, while the secret police tried
to influence the choice of a new Old Believer leader in February 2004.

PROTECTION FROM VIOLENCE: Law enforcement agencies fail to give religious
minorities the same protection as major groups. Between 1999 and 2003,
Georgia suffered a wave of violence by self-appointed Orthodox vigilantes,
with over 100 attacks on True Orthodox, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals
and Jehovah’s Witnesses in which believers were physically attacked, places
of worship blockaded and religious events disrupted. The authorities – who
know the attackers’ identity – have punished only a handful of people with
suspended sentences. In some cases, police cooperated with attacks or
failed to investigate them. In Kosovo the Nato-led peacekeeping force and
United Nations police have repeatedly failed to protect Serbian Orthodox
churches in use and graveyards, especially during the upsurge in anti-Serb
violence in March 2004, when some 30 Orthodox sites were destroyed or
heavily damaged. Few attackers have been arrested or prosecuted.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MIGRANTS: Many religion laws restrict the rights of
legal residents who are not citizens, requiring founders and leaders of
religious organisations to be citizens. Azerbaijan provides for deportation
of foreigners and those without citizenship who have conducted “religious
propaganda”. In the past decade, Turkmenistan has deported hundreds of
legally-resident foreigners known to have taken part in religious activity,
especially Muslims and Protestants. Some states (including Russia and
Belarus) have denied visas to foreign religious leaders chosen by local
religious communities.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: Major laws and decrees affecting religious life are
drawn up without public knowledge or discussion. Examples are the
restrictive laws on religion of Belarus and Bulgaria in 2002, and planned
new laws in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. International organisations,
such as the OSCE or the Council of Europe may be consulted but governments
often refuse to allow their comments to be published or ignore them. Many
countries retain openly partisan and secretive government religious affairs
offices. Between 1999 and 2003, Slovenia’s religious affairs office refused
to register any new religious communities. Azerbaijan’s has stated which
communities it will refuse to register and what changes other communities
will have to make to their statutes and activities to gain registration.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORTING: Those reporting on religious freedom such as
Forum 18 News Service and groups campaigning on the issue
face lack of cooperation, obstruction and harassment. Those suspected of
passing on news of violations have been threatened in Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, with the aim of forcing silence. In a region
without much government transparency or a genuinely free media, officials
involved in harassing religious communities often refuse to explain to
journalists what they have done and why. Local religious freedom
campaigning groups are denied registration or kept waiting. Demonstrators
protesting in Belarus against the restrictive 2002 religion law were fined.
In September 2004, the Belarus bureau of the Union of Councils for Jews in
the Former Soviet Union, which included monitoring religious persecution in
its work, was denied registration. Government reports on religious freedom
issues to bodies such as the OSCE or Council of Europe are often
confidential and closed to public scrutiny.

CONCLUSION: Many of these discriminatory restrictions predate the 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks – and 1999 Islamic-inspired incursions
into Central Asia – so governments cannot validly argue that such
restrictions are necessary to ensure public security. The comprehensive
nature of many of these measures shows the hostility of some OSCE member
states to the right to exercise the faith of one’s choice freely, something
described by the European Court of Human Rights in 1993 as “one of the
foundations of a democratic society”.
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News

Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

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KLO Protests in Sheki

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 9 2004

09/09/2004 23:44

Members of the Karabagh Liberation Organization’s (KLO) branch
in Shaki, a city in the West of Azerbaijan have held a picket in
protest against the planned participation of Armenian officers in
NATO exercises to be held in Baku in September.

AssA-Irada — The KLO deputy chairman Shamil Mehdi told AssA-Irada
that during the picket arranged close the city’s Cemetery of Martyrs
the protesters showed placards “Shame on those who invite Armenians
to Azerbaijan!”, “Freedom to Garabagh!” and “Release KLO members!”.
A statement condemning Armenian officers’ planned visit to Azerbaijan
was issued at the end of the protest action.

Iranian, Armenian presidents sign cooperation agreement

Mediamax news agency
8 Sep 04

Yerevan, 8 September: The Armenian and Iranian presidents, Robert
Kocharyan and Mohammad Khatami, today signed a treaty in Yerevan on the
principles and foundations of cooperation between their two countries.

The leaders of the two states also adopted a joint statement describing
the Iranian president’s visit to Iran as “the beginning of a new stage”
in bilateral relations, Mediamax news agency reports.

“Having discussed recent events in the region and having exchanged
opinions on the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement process, the presidents
stressed the need to resolve this issue peacefully,” the statement
says.

Economic Miracle And Belgian Analyst’s Ears

A1 Plus | 18:24:00 | 06-09-2004 | Social |

“I don’t believe my ears when I hear there is economic progress in
Armenia”, Belgian International Crisis Group /ICG/ senior analyst
Philip Noubel said at a seminar held Sunday in Tsakhkadzor, Armenia,
on prospects of conflict settlement.

He specified that there is certain progress but for a minority
of people. Only 3 or 4 percent of the republic’s population live well.

Noubel is convinced that there can’t be any economic growth amid
ongoing corruption, human resources mismanagement and a dependent
justice system.

He also sees serious problems linked with the republic authorities’
legitimacy that led to civil unrest.

Belgian analyst said he had managed to notice certain difference in
perception of Karabakh conflict by Armenia’s population, Karabakhis
and Armenians living overseas.

In his words, Armenia’s many residents say they became captives of
Karabakhis, Armenians from foreign communities say there is need of
fighting for Karabakh, but, at the same time, they say they don’t
want to fight because they live, for example, in California.

Noubel hasn’t been in Karabakh but talked to many Karabakhis
who accused Armenia’s population of being not so patriotic
considering Karabakh issue. The ICG representative said he saw no
favourable-for-dialogue atmosphere in Armenia.

The Caucasus mountains, a turbulent crossroads between Caspian and Black Sea

Agence France Presse — English
September 5, 2004 Sunday 2:03 AM GMT

MOSCOW Sept 5 — The Caucasus, scene of a hostage drama that ended
with hundreds of dead and wounded, is the turbulent home to scores of
ethnic and religious groupings prone to regular outbreaks of violence.

The mountainous region, roughly the size of California, forms a
natural crossroads between east and west, north and south and currently
comprises three newly independent states — Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Georgia — along with part of the regional superpower, Russia.

The seven Russian republics in the region are themselves highly
diverse, including strife-torn Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North
Ossetia, Karachai-Cherkessia, Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Dagestan alone, wedged between the Caspian Sea and Chechnya, is
inhabited by 30 nationalities, each with its own language and customs.

Many of the region’s languages are of Indo-European or Turkic origin,
others are indigenous.

Islam is well-established in the Caucasus, notably in Azerbaijan and
several of the Russian republics, but Orthodox Christianity in its
Armenian, Georgian and Russian variants is also widespread.

Its key position made the Caucasus a target for regional empires
including those of the Ottomans and Persia.

More recently the Russians have dominated the region, and many of the
conflicts of the past decade have been exacerbated by administrative
demarcations decided during the Soviet era and the wholesale
deportations ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World
War II.

Nationalist sentiment among the rugged, fiercely independent mountain
peoples was never entirely extinguished, and aspirations to self-rule
contributed significantly to the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The first out-and-out conflict erupted in the late 1980s between
Armenians and Azeris scrapping over the remote enclave of Nagorno
Karabakh, administratively part of Azerbaijan but inhabited mainly
by Armenians.

That conflict, like others that have broken out subsequently, has
still not been resolved.

In 1992, in the months following the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
South Ossetia, part of Georgia, fought a brief war with government
forces to claim independence from Tbilisi, while Christian North
Ossetia, part of Russia, battled with Muslim Ingushetia over a
territorial claim.

The same year, Georgia’s western Abkhazia region — with suspected
Russian support — fought a year-long separatist war that won de
facto independence at a cost of thousands of dead and a ruined economy.

In December 1994 then Russian president Boris Yeltsin poured troops
into Chechnya to put down a separatist insurgency headed by Dzhokhar
Dudayev. Less than two years later he was forced to withdraw the
troops, leaving rebel leaders in control.

Chechnya’s de facto independence, marked by chaos and warlordism,
lasted less than three years as an incursion by rebels from Chechnya
into Dagestan triggered a further invasion by Russian troops, ordered
this time by Yeltsin’s prime minister and heir apparent Vladimir Putin.

Putin has made frequent claims since then to have stabilised the
situation in Chechnya, usually finding them belied by events.

The Caucasus region, particularly its Russian republics, are also
dogged by lawlessness despite — some say because of — the presence of
Russian troops, with oil-trafficking, clan warfare and hostage-taking
rampant.

Xinhua News Agency – French
4 septembre 2004 samedi 5:00 PM EST

Procès de Malabo: mission d’enquête équato-guinéenne en Arménie

YAOUNDE

Une délégation judiciaire équato-guinéenne se trouve en Arménie dans
le cadre du procès de 14 mercenaires, dont six Arméniens, accusés à
Malabo d’une tentative de coup d’Etat avortée en mars dernier, a-t-on
appris samedi soir de source judiciaire de Malabo.

Cette mission enquête particulièrement sur un contrat passé entre la
société arménienne Tiger Air et une société allemande que
représentait à Malabo Gerhard Eugen Merz, un ressortissant allemand
arrêté en même temps que les 14 mercenaires présumés et décédé
quelques jours après en détention, a précisé cette source.

L’un des six accusés arméniens avait expliqué lors de son audition au
procès de Malabo que ses cinq compatriotes et lui, tous membres de
l’équipage d’un Antonov, étaient venus travailler en Guinée
équatoriale en vertu de ce contrat par lequel la société de M. Merz
louait l’avion et l’équipage.

L’avion n’avait effectué, entre l’arrivée en janvier 2004 de
l’équipage arménien en Guinée équatoriale et son arrestation début
mars, qu’un unique vol, affrété par la société Triple Option du
sud-africain Nick du Toit, présenté par l’accusation comme le chef du
groupe de 14 mercenaires.

Le procès des 14 accusés, au côté desquels comparaissent cinq
Equato-guinéens, s’est ouvert le 23 août et a été suspendu sine die
le 31, à la demande de l’accusation.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
09/03/2004
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP://

1. ANCA Endorses Senator Barbara Boxer
2. Bush Administration Disastrous for Armenian American Voters Announces AADLC
3. Injuries, Lack of Funds Justification for Poor Olympic Performance
4. For Whom The Zell Tolls
5. Cultural Amnesia: The Museum of Tolerance
6. Glendale Police Department Seeks to Diversify Force

1. ANCA Endorses Senator Barbara Boxer

WASHINGTON, DC–The Armenian National Committee of America announced on
Thursday it will endorse two term Democrat from California, US Senator Barbara
Boxer for reelection. Boxer is challenged by Republican Bill Jones who most
recently served as California’s Secretary of State.
The ANCA endorsed the Senator based on her long and faithful record of public
service with special consideration to Armenian-Americans living in the
State of
California. Since her tenure in Congress, Boxer has held an open door policy
toward her constituents, carrying their message to the halls of Congress. In a
letter to Senator Boxer, the ANCA stated that while the Senator’s
responsibilities as an elected official have increased, she has managed to
maintain close working relationships with even her smallest constituencies.
California is the nation’s most populous state and home to the nation’s
largest
Armenian American community.
On issues of concern to her constituents of Armenian heritage and to the
Armenian-American community at large, Senator Boxer has time and again
defended
their history and rightful place in American society. As recently as this
year,
she made statements of support for the official reaffirmation of the Armenian
Genocide, including letters to President Bush urging to end the illegal
Turkish
blockade of Armenia. In addition to these measures, Senator Boxer has
co-sponsored legislation, and actively sought the support of Democratic party
leaders, on the issue of Genocide reaffirmation. Additionally, Senator Boxer
has been a staunch advocate of aid to the Republic of Armenia as it undergoes
the difficult process of transition towards democracy and a free market
economy. Senator Boxer traveled to Armenia to witness firsthand these changes
and returned as an even stronger advocate than before.

2. Bush Administration Disastrous for Armenian American Voters Announces AADLC

LOS ANGELES–The nation’s largest Armenian American Democratic political
organization announced on Friday that the Bush Administration has compiled one
of the most anti-Armenian American records in history. From actively denying
the Armenian Genocide, seeking to slash US assistance to Armenia in half,
attempting to list Armenian immigrants on a terrorist-watch list, to
forcefully
attempting to provide four times more military aid to the Republic of
Azerbaijan than to Armenia, the Bush track-record represents an affront to
tens
of thousands of Armenian American voters in California and other Western
States, according to the Armenian American Democratic Leadership Council
(AADLC).
“George W. Bush and his advisors in the Pentagon, like Paul Wolfowitz, have
carried on a four year sustained campaign of attacking Congressional
legislation that is of concern to the Armenian American community,”
remarked an
AADLC spokesman. “At the behest of foreign governments, like the Republic of
Turkey, the Bush Administration has denied the Armenian Genocide, weakened US
ties to Armenia, and worked hard to boost the military strength of
Azerbaijan –
a nation which is committed to the total destruction of Armenia,” the
spokesman
added.
The AADLC is working with Democratic Party officials and the Kerry
campaign in
reaching out to Armenian American voters in swing states like Arizona, Nevada,
and Oregon. All three states already boast Armenians for Kerry groups and are
working with the official Armenians for Kerry organization
(<;).
In its evaluation of the Bush Administration, AADLC officials stressed
that in
2002, the Bush Administration attempted to require that Armenian immigrants
register with an anti-terrorism program. Armenian Americans learned of the
Bush
Administration registration plan only after the Federal Register–the official
record of government regulations–stated that males age 16 and up from Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and Armenia would join a list of men from 18 other countries
considered at risk for terrorism. Such men would be required to visit local
Immigration and Naturalization Service offices to be photographed,
fingerprinted and show certain documents. Only a massive grassroots protest,
led by the ANCA, overturned the Bush Administration’s attempt to list
Armenians
as individuals “at risk for terrorism.” The Bush Administration never
offered a
full explanation of why Armenians were listed in the initial Federal Register
notice.
According to the AADLC, the Bush Administration has also continued to support
the Republic of Turkey, even after Turkey’s refusal to allow access for the
United States to mount a northern front in the war against Iraq. Specifically,
the Bush Administration supported a $1 billion taxpayer aid package to Turkey
that was passed by Congress in 2003. The Bush Administration also continues to
be the one of the few countries pushing for Turkey’s admission into the
European Union.

3. Injuries, Lack of Funds Justification for Poor Olympic Performance

YEREVAN (RFE-RL)–Senior sports officials and coaches on Thursday blamed
Armenia’s extremely poor performance at the Olympic Games in Athens on a lack
of state funding and injuries suffered by their top athletes.
None of the 18 Armenian athletes that participated in the games won
medals–the country’s worst Olympic showing since independence; several
Armenian-born athletes now representing other countries won silver and bronze
medals.
The results sparked an outcry from the media and leading politicians who
unanimously pointed the finger at Ishkhan Zakarian, the head of the State
Committee on Sport and Physical Fitness and the National Olympic Committee,
who
was accused of incompetence and mismanagement.
In a newspaper interview published on Thursday, Zakarian rejected the
accusations, saying he will not resign voluntarily. “I could not have stepped
on the arena in place of a boxer, wrestler, or weight-lifter,” he said.
Zakarian did not appear at the news conference, but was represented by his
deputy Mikael Ispirian who said that only seven Armenian athletes had
realistic
chances of doing well in Athens and most of them suffered injuries in the
middle of the competitions. Asked about the quarterfinal elimination of
Aleksan
Nalbandian, Armenia’s sole boxer at the Olympics, he said, “Maybe he lost
narrowly. But in essence, it was a victorious bout.”
“If we felt that resignation would change things positively we would all be
ready to quit,” Ispirian said. “And if you think that the specialists sitting
here are not as professional as you journalists are, then you are wrong.”
The coaches, for their part, complained that government funding allocated to
sports is highly insufficient for proper training of their athletes. The Sport
Committee’s budget for this year is only 350 million drams ($680,000).
“To win medals you need money, money and money,” said Vahan Bichakhchian, the
head coach of the national weight-lifting team. “What do you think I can
achieve with a monthly salary of $50?”

4. For Whom The Zell Tolls

By Skeptik Sinikian
Asbarez Columnist

This has been some week! The Olympics are finally over and I heard that an
Armenian from Uzbekistan or Khazakhstan or one of the other stans (except
Hayastan) finally won a bronze medal (that’s third place for the metallurgic
challenged)! My friend who called me to tell me about this medal reassured me
that even though the medal is only a bronze, the winner has some relatives who
work in the Jewelry District in Downtown LA who will have it gold plated at no
extra charge. So I guess that should hold us over until 2008. But the
Olympics aren’t making headlines anymore, so let’s put the ancient games to
bed. The fabricated CNN and Fox News headlines are being churned up in New
York where the Republican Convention has captured the attention of the
nation.

On Wednesday night the key note speaker was US Senator Zell Miller, an
unabashed Democrat turned Bush supporter. Senator Miller, or Zell as we will
call him, took the podium and delivered a fiery “Armageddon is upon us if
Kerry
is elected” speech that had Republican delegates hooting and hollering like
the
Dukes of Hazzard. Zell tore into Kerry’s voting record like a rabid hyena
attacking a carcass. Even if you disagree with his statements, almost
everyone
agrees that Zell was the best speaker so far at the convention, outshining
even
Dick “potty mouth” Chenney. But even with the Zellmeister beating up on Kerry
like a birthday piñata, there was very little substance in his remarks.
Now wait! (I can hear Republican Party loyalists and conservative readers
grinding their teeth or sharpening their knives). I think that Zell did a
heck
of a job of painting Senator John Kerry as the flip-flopper who wants to arm
the US army with spitballs instead of bombers, missiles, and jet fighters. In
fact, if I were Kerry and were watching this speech, I’d make sure to have my
assistant or butler or sidekick take Zell off the Christmas card list. But
there’s more to this speech than meets the eye. Aside from being a superb
Republican hatchet job, it was rift with moronic rhetoric. Here’s my favorite
line from the speech that exemplifies the ignorance of war mongers in our
country.
“In the summer of 1940, I was an 8-year-old boy living in a remote little
Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war, but even we children knew
that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they
could.”
That’s right folks, a brilliant gem of a statement (not taken out of context,
I assure you) from Senator Zell Miller. What a brilliant child he was at the
tender age of 8. Apparently young Zell thought the Germans and Italians were
“crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could.” The same
Germans
and Italians who gave us Mozart, Beethoven, the Roman Republic, the Catholic
Church, spaghetti and pizza, hamburgers and hotdogs, Sigmund Freud, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, not to mention Michalengelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and
countless other contributions which this country is based on. These same
folks
have been reduced to being irrational homicidal maniacs. But I guess if
you’re
running around the Appalachian valley in overalls covered in mud, chasing
frogs
and playing the banjo when you’re not steeling moonshine from the neighbor’s
still, then it’s pretty hard to see Germans and Italians as anything other
than
“crazy men” bent on killing innocent children. Is it any wonder why this
administration and the Republicans see Arabs as maniacs and wild freaks who
live in the desert, one notch above the Jawas and one notch below the Tusken
raiders (Star Wars reference folks).
I haven’t met one person yet who thinks that if Kerry is elected
President, he
will ask everyone in the army to turn in their guns for rhythmic gymnastics
batonsthe ones with long flowing ribbons like Will Ferrell’s in “Old School.”
I’m just tired of having patriotism shoved down my throat night after night
after night. We get the point already! The Republican party claims to be the
party of Homeland Security and superior intelligence; yet before the
convention
even started, a well-known news agency reported that “a welcome e-mail that
was
sent to hundreds of volunteers for the Republican National Convention
inadvertently included the name, address, social security number, race, and
other personal information of those volunteers.” This is the Party of
securitydefending the rights of every Americanyet they can’t even send out an
email without botching the job.
The real sad thing about this whole election is that Kerry is taking all of
this without any comebacks. Maybe it’s part of the “play dead and they’ll
leave you alone” campaign strategy that’s going to pan out later on. But
seriously, there are two months left until the election and Kerry just got
handed the ass whooping of a lifetime. In fact, the Republicans hit him so
hard that he should pack his bags and head back to his palatial resort getaway
in the Cape. When you can’t harm a monolingual President who can’t even speak
English coherently, then you have problems.
Anyway, Zell has spoken and regardless of what people say about this
political
Judas, he has dealt Kerry a body blow. Kerry needs to win states in the
southand having pretty boy Edwards by his side just won’t cut it. It’s time
for Kerry to follow the Boston Red Sox motto from last year and either “Cowboy
Up!” or resign himself to the Michael Dukakis Massachusetts Presidential
Candidate Hall of Shame. Time is running out.

Skeptik Sinikian loves to make bold accusatory statements with no factual
foundation. Skeptik claims that if you’re not with him, then you’re against
him and if you’re against him, then you don’t love America. If you would like
to “bring it on,” do so at [email protected] or visit

5. Cultural Amnesia: The Museum of Tolerance

By Farris Wahbeh

“The world should know we are not building a bunker. We’re building something
that breathes with life, just as God breathed life into us.”

So said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last May 2, in Jerusalem at the
groundbreaking ceremony for a new Simon Wiesenthal Center for Human Dignity
and
a Museum of Tolerance, which is the Center’s educational arm. The Simon
Wiesenthal Center (SWC), named after the Ukrainian-born survivor of the Nazi
Death camps who later became a world famous Nazi-hunter, was founded in
1977 as
an international center for “Holocaust remembrance, the defense of human
rights
and the Jewish people.” The organization is supported by an international
member base of 400,000 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in
New
York, Toronto, Miami, Jerusalem, Paris and Buenos Aires. The SWC’s first
Museum
of Tolerance (MOT) was opened in 1993 in Los Angeles as a “high tech, hands-on
experiential museum that focuses on two central themes through unique
interactive exhibits: the dynamics of racism and prejudice in America and the
history of the Holocaustthe ultimate example of man’s inhumanity to man.”
The new MOT in Jerusalem, which was conceived by SWC’s Dean and Founder,
Marvin Hier, is slated to open between 2006 to 2008 with a price tag of $150
million. The MOT Jerusalem will be designed by the esteemed international
superstar-architect-of-the-moment, Frank Gehry. The SWC in Jerusalem will
house
not only MOT but also a full three-acre museum campus including an
international conference center, a grand hall, an education center and a
library.
While the SWC in Jerusalem seems like an ideal ground for highlighting
violations of human rights against the Jewish people, something seems to have
been forgotten in the processhuman rights violations against Palestinians in
Israel by the Israeli government. One example of this historical amnesia is
the
fact that the SWC will be built on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery that has
now become a dilapidated parking lot.
The leftist politician and former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Meron
Benvenisti,
writing in Ha’aretz, confirms the hesitation that many feel about the SWC and
MOT moving into Jerusalem: “It is difficult to imagine a project so
hallucinatory, so irrelevant, so foreign, so megalomaniac, as the Museum of
Tolerance. The mere attempt to stick the term tolerance to a building so
intolerant to its surroundings is ridiculous.” Benvenisti also acknowledges
the
plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories: “Fanatic, brutal
Jerusalem,
saturated with the ambition to gain exclusive possession over it, will take
pride in a site that preaches equality between communities and the brotherhood
of nations, and from its rooftops will be seen the homes of Palestinians,
whose
struggle for freedom is always defined as ‘terror.'”
According to Samuel G. Freedman in the New York Times, while the museum’s
content is still in the early stages, the director of Los Angeles’ MOT, Liebe
Geft, has already solicited ideas from Israeli novelists, political scientists
and religious leaders. So far, however, the central exhibition at MOT
Jerusalem, which is conceived by Mr. Hier, will highlight the journey of the
Exodusa ship that carried Jews from Europe after WWII and was later denied
entry into British controlled Jerusalem.
Since the museum’s mission is to specifically highlight the violations of
human rights against Jews, Mr. Hier, speaking to the New York Times, has said
that MOT is not about Palestinians. “It’s not about the experience of the
Palestinian people. When they have a state, they’ll have their own museum.”
For
a museum that boasts of highlighting the effects of human rights violations
and
the practice of tolerance, it seems rather odd that such an intentional
omission would be allowed.
The SWC’s MOT Jerusalem directly conflicts with their mission of confronting
“important contemporary issues,” such as racism, terrorism and genocide, when
it turns its back on the Palestinian situationa situation that is known
worldwide as an “important contemporary issue.” For instance, in 1949, the
United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 302 (IV) to carry out direct
relief and works programs for Palestinian refugees that were displaced
following the Israeli incursion into Palestine, otherwise known as the
Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1950, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which works with refugees and
refugee camps in Israel and has seen the number of Palestinian refugees
rise to
4 million in 2002, was the off-spring of Resolution 302 (IV), and the General
Assembly has renewed UNRWA’s mandate repeatedly since 1949 until June 2005.
After Israel invaded East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967
Six-Day-War, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 242 which
calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in
the recent conflict” and highlights the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of
territory by war.” Interestingly, the SWC is an accredited NGO at both the UN
and its cultural division of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Even if this form of cultural etiquette may come as a surprise to many, this
is not the first time that the SWC has turned its back on human rights
atrocities. The center’s MOT in Los Angeles came under fire by the city’s
Armenian communitywhich is one of largest outside of Armenia todayin 2003 when
the museum retracted their pledge of including the Armenian genocide by the
Turkish Ottoman Empire as part of their permanent installation. A group of
Armenian-American college students [Armenian Youth Federation members] even
staged a six-day hunger strike in front of the MOT as a sign of protest
against
the museum’s refusal to incorporate the topic into the permanent exhibition.
Another Los Angeles-based artist/activist group created an on-line museum
titled Museum of Amnesia (MOA) in protest against MOT’s omission of the
Armenian genocide. One of the members, speaking to F News about MOT’s handling
of political themes within their museum, responded by saying, “In general I
think the MOT (LA) appears as this fortress that exhibits filtered-down
(Wiesenthal’s filter) and in some cases filtered-out information on complex
issues. I think the Palestinian writer/ scholar Daoud Kuttab who was quoted in
the [New York Times] article really echoes part of MOA’s position when he said
“What we often see is an attempt to give a superficial meaning to tolerance.”
In response to the Armenian community’s protest, MOT’s Director Geft
responded
the Jerusalem Post, saying, “Whatever we do, it won’t be enough for some
members of the Armenian community.”
Clearly, the SWC’s track record in recording human rights violations at their
museums is shaky at best. What that means for Palestinians living within
Israel, in a museum meant to display Tolerance and Human Rights abuses within
that very same country, remains contentious.

Israeli Reservist Art
While Israel is bracing herself for a new cultural display of “tolerance,”
several Israeli reservists are exhibiting the exact opposite. In a June
exhibition titled “Breaking the Silence” at the Academy for Geographic
Photography in Tel Aviv, three Israeli Reservists, Micha Kurz, Yehuda Shaul
and
Yonathon Baumfeld, who finished their three years of mandatory service in
Hebron, exhibited videotapes and photographs detailing the mistreatment of
Palestinians under Israeli army rule. The exhibition was intended to portray
what actually occurs during mandatory service with the Israeli army. In a
letter addressed to visitors at the entrance of the exhibit, the soldiers
said:
“We decided to speak out. Hebron isn’t in outer space. It’s one hour from
Jerusalem.”
Among the exhibition photographs, some images included Palestinians that are
blindfolded and bound, and countless pictures of racist and near fascist
graffiti created by Israeli settlers and directed towards the Palestinians.
One
such photo includes the phrase: “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.”
The videotapes included in the exhibition comprise testimonials by 70 Israeli
soldiers who reveal the use of Palestinians as human shields and the overall
mistreatment of Palestinians in general. The Israeli Military Police
interrogated several of the artists-cum-reservists, including Micha Kurz.
Kurz,
after a seven-hour questioning session, responded to the press: “The army
wants
to keep us quiet and scare us way. They’re not going to shut us up, because we
have a lot to say, and they’re not going to scare us off.”

6. Glendale Police Department Seeks to Diversify Force

By Ani Shahinian
Asbarez Staff

GLENDALENever in the history of the Glendale Police Department have more
positions been available for those thinking of pursuing a career in law
enforcement. “It’s a golden opportunity; there are positions for officer
recruits, police cadets, and community service officers,” says Sergeant Vahak
Mardikian who is always ready to talk to potential applicants. “It is always
helpful to talk to any officer within the department to gain a better
understanding of what it takes.”
Lt. Bruce Fox, who heads the department’s Professional Standards Bureau
and is
responsible for all hiring, said that while the department is working more
diligently to be representative of the community, the task becomes difficult
when trying to expand and hire in larger numbers.
“The pressure is on to not only expand but to also diversify the
department at
the same time,” says Fox, addressing the number of applicants who actually
qualify.
While there were a good pool of applicants seven to ten years ago, there has
been a huge shrinkage among all nationalities since then.
Fox explained that all Southern California departments face the same problem,
and attributed the trend to the current low level of unemployment, along with
the public’s perception of police in general.
But Fox says that the opportunities are expansive. He especially described
the
department’s Cadet Program as an ideal means to attain experience in law
enforcement.
The part time program is open to full time college students currently
enrolled
in an accredited college or university carrying 9 units or more per semester,
or eight units or more per quarter, with a GPA of at least 2.0.
The program allows participants to tailor work schedules around school
schedules, allowing exposure to a variety of areas in the police department,
and the opportunity to attain diverse experience.
The process to become a police officer begins by filing an application,
followed by a written test covering basic writing, vocabulary, and
comprehension skills in English. If successful, applicants go through a
physical agility test, followed by an oral examination. It is during the oral
examination that maturity level and decision making skills are measured.
Once an applicant successfully completes these stages, a background check,
which can take up to three months, is conducted.
It is during this stage of the process, says Fox, that many problems arise.
Considering that trustworthiness is a must for all positions, Fox emphasized
the importance of a clean background.
In order to better inform the community about what it takes to become a
successful police officer, an information session will be held on Tuesday,
September 7, at the Glendale Police Department’s Community Room. It is
presented by the Glendale Human Resources Department in conjunction with the
Glendale Police Department. “The session will allow prospective applicants to
better understand whether they are ready to serve the community,” says Lt.
Fox.
The program, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will have speakers and officers on
hand to answer any questions, including Sgt. Mardikian who says that the
Glendale Police Department is ready to assist in any way it can.
“The community has so much potential and is such a positive place to work. In
the bigger departments you get lost in the shuffle, but in Glendale, you feel
like you accomplish something every day. It’s a good balance,” says Lt. Fox,
who has wanted to be a Glendale police officer since 8th grade.
For more information go to or call (818)
548-3117.

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Armenian politician predicts dissolution of parliament, government

Aravot web site, Yerevan
30 Aug 04

If the ruling coalition does not strip opposition MPs of their
mandates, President Robert Kocharyan will dissolve the National
Assembly and sack the government, the leader of the Democratic Party of
Armenia, Aram Sarkisyan, has told the Aravot paper. The following is
an excerpt from report entitled “Stripping MPs of mandates is a trial
balloon” posted on Armenian newspaper Aravot web site on 30 August:

The leader of the Democratic Party believes that Armenia is just one
step away from an “authoritarian, criminal and oligarchic system”.

“The public is no longer protesting against injustice and
arbitrariness. Next the following will happen: Robert Kocharyan
will dissolve the government as he is fed up with infighting in the
coalition, the distribution of spheres according to party affiliation
and so on. We shall again return to the appointment of ministers on
the strength of their professional qualities.

“However, to do this, a formal reason is required. This move will
be possible if the coalition votes against stripping the opposition
MPs of their mandates. The situation will then become critical which
will provide grounds for dissolving the parliament. The next National
Assembly will represent a gathering of ‘cronies’ which suits Kocharyan
very well.

“If everybody in the country keeps silent when (a former head of the
Credit-Yerevan Bank) Levon Markos states that officials misappropriated
50m dollars, cites facts of corruption and accuses the defence
minister, yet nothing happens, this manifests that our society is
seriously ill and that those who have taken the responsibility for
ruling the country have turned us into idiots,” the DPA leader said.

At one point, when information was leaked that the National Assembly
and the government would be dissolved, the prime minister immediately
said that he would defect to the opposition and the speaker hinted at
the possibility of starting the process of impeaching the president. At
that time, Robert Kocharyan through his press secretary was compelled
to issue a statement that no changes were expected.

On the basis of what Aram Sarkisyan claims that Kocharyan, for fear
of losing his political support, can resort to the dissolution of
the legislative and executive bodies?

“[Prime Minister] Andranik Markaryan and [Speaker] Artur Bagdasaryan
made a big mistake by stating prematurely that they would switch
to the opposition if they were relieved of their posts. Kocharyan
started to think about how to neutralize a possible threat and decided
to bring the punitive bodies up to the level they are at present. To
the incumbent president, the notion of ‘political support’ is double
Dutch, he does not understand what it is. Why should he want political
support if he can simply use the services of oligarchs’ bodyguards?,”
Sarkisyan said.

Aram Sarkisyan did not rule out the possibility that not all the
opposition MPs will be stripped of their mandates at once, but rather
two or three of them, and the rest will be compelled to surrender
their powers. [Passage omitted.]

Speaking about the return of the opposition MPs to parliament,
Sarkisyan recalled that the reasons for the political boycott
had still not been removed: the amendments to law “On referendum”
are not being debated, those guilty of lawlessness have not been
brought to book, and the preliminary investigation into the criminal
case against the [opposition] Justice bloc has been extended for
another two months. “None of the points in the Council of Europe’s
resolution has been honoured,” the DPA leader said, adding: “If the
coalition in the course of negotiations assumes responsibility for
honouring these important conditions, we shall have reason to return
to parliament. However, I am convinced that nothing depends on the
coalition parties. Everything is at will of one man.”

TROIKA DISCUSSES BOOSTING ENERGY EXPORTS

Putinru.com, Russia, Russian Independent Internet Digest
Aug 31 2004

Vladimir Putin has given German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and
French President Jacques Chirac a sidelight on Russia’s plans for
the development of the national pipeline system.

The French and German leaders said that “the Russian government
is paving ground for boosting the export of energy resources by
encouraging the development of pipeline transport,” presidential aide
Sergei Prikhodko told journalists after the trilateral summit talks
in Sochi.

Chirac and Schroeder have been provided with information on the
construction of the Baltic pipeline system, development of the Northern
gas pipeline, Prikhodko said.

“It was important for the German and French leaders not just to
hear assurances from the Russian leadership but also to learn of its
concrete steps towards stepping up the production and export of energy
resources,” Prikhodko noted.

He explained that the energy theme emerged at the troika meeting
in discussing the Middle East and Iraq situation, which affects the
sustained and continuous shipments of oil to the world market.

“In this connection, the Russian president reminded his colleagues
that Russia has never violated its obligations in the supply of gas and
holds the same position in oil supplies,” the presidential aide said.

As regards international problems in discussion in Sochi, Prikhodko
said that, except Iraq and the Middle East, the three leaders spoke
of the Nagorny Karabakh settlement, the situation in Georgia and
Transdniestria.

The issue of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia and Estonia was
also raised at the talks, Prikhodko said. “It was not the Russian side
but our guests” that brought up the subject of observance of European
standards regarding the ethnic minorities in the Baltic countries.

After the talks with FRG Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and
French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin
accompanied the high guests to the airport.

The French and German leaders have left home.

Some find the power to love their enemies

By DON SMITH

In his book, “Wounds That Heal,” Stephen Seamands tells the true story
of a young Armenian girl whose village was attacked in 1956 by an
enemy military unit. Her parents were killed, her sisters were given
to the enemy soldiers, and the officer in charge took her for
himself. After several months of slavery and sexual abuse, she managed
to escape, and in time attended school and became a nurse.

One night several years later, this officer was admitted to the
intensive care unit of the hospital where she was working. His
desperately ill, mostly semi-conscious condition required
round-the-clock care. After a lengthy period of time he began to
recover. A doctor told him that he was a fortunate man, for without
the constant devotion of a certain nurse he would never have made it.

Upon recognizing her as the one he had ruthlessly abused, he said, “I
don’t understand. Why didn’t you kill me when you had the opportunity?
Why didn’t you just let me die?”

The nurse replied, “Because I am a follower of one who said, ‘Love
your enemies.’ ”

In recent months, I have often felt an inner satisfaction when reading
reports of enemy terrorists being killed in the continuing conflict in
Iraq. Though I believe our cause there is justified, God has convicted
me that I am supposed to love our enemies and pray for them rather
than rejoice over their deaths into a Christless eternity.

God does not condone their actions. He condemns such evil acts they
commit, and evil must be dealt with lest it spread further. But God
still loves them and desires that they repent and be saved, and so
should we.

There are moral enemies of our nation who push and promote such evils
as abortion, gay marriage, pornography and the removal of God from all
segments of public life. One’s enemies may consist of some within
their own family unit such as parents or relatives who have abused
them physically, sexually, or emotionally. Whoever one’s enemies may
be, Jesus teaches that we are to love those who are our personal
enemies (Luke 6:27-36).

However, Jesus does more than just teach or command us to love our
enemies. He also provides us with both the pattern and the power to do
so. The Bible says that Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example
to follow (I Peter 2:21). When insulted, he did not retaliate. While
suffering, he made no threats. Rather, he bore our sins in his body on
the cross (I Peter 2:23, 24). And he prayed, “Father, forgive them,
for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Christ is not only our example, but he also empowers us to follow his
example. When one receives Christ by faith, he becomes a new creature
(II Corinthians 5:17) with a new power for carrying out the command of
Christ to love one’s enemies.

That young nurse was enabled by God to love the one who killed her
parents, took away her sisters, and enslaved and abused her for
months. In like manner, as we choose to love our enemies, I believe
God will impart that ability to us as well.

These are the opinions of the Rev. Don Smith of Cornerstone Grace
Brethren Church.

Originally published Saturday, August 28, 2004

Copyright ©2004 News Journal. All rights reserved.