Author: Karabekian Emil

RAMIL SAFAROV’S LAWYER SUBMITS AN APPEAL – ADIL ISMAYLOV
Author: J.Shakhverdiyev

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 18 2006

An appeal has been submitted against the sentence issued on Ramil
Safarov, Trend reports with reference to lawyer Adil Ismaylov speaking
at the conference in the International press center.

Mr Ismaylov said violations have been admitted at the last session
on R. Safarov’s case held in Budapest Court. For instance, when Mr
Safarov was saying his last word, the judge interrupted him, which is
prohibited by Hungarian laws. “The judge stopped Mr Safarov, saying
Azeri officer supposedly offends Armenian officers. Thus, the judge
was trying to oppress R. Safarov. However, Mr Safarov’ lawyers have
brought to the attention of the court that there was no offense in
his words. In general, the judge’ opinion on R.Safarov was biased
and this resulted in a life imprisonment verdict” – Mr Ismaylov said.

The lawyer said also the judge had openly shown his bias yet a year
ago. “Yet prior to the legal investigation, examination of accused
and witnesses, the judge said he would sentence R.Safarov to life
imprisonment anyway” – the lawyer claimed.

Mr Ismaylov said he hoped for change of the verdict by Appeal Court
that shall process the appeal within the year. “I think The Appeal
Court will change the penalty and there will be no need to address
the higher instances, including European Court.”

GENOCIDE IN SUDAN BEGS FOR ATTENTION
Tim Nonn

San Francisco Chronicle
April 16 2006

Darfur death toll will be spotlighted by Sunday of vigils.

I used to be a dedicated bystander. Whenever I caught a glimpse in
the media of the genocide in Sudan, I turned away.

One night, I stopped — and heard the story of a young Sudanese
mother who had walked for days through the desert with her children
until they reached the safety of a refugee camp. Her village had been
destroyed and her husband killed by government-sponsored militia. She
saved her children, and changed my life.

I asked my church to contribute funds for the refugees in Darfur. A few
months later, my tranquil existence as a husband, father and editor of
technical journals was turned upside-down when I was asked by national
church leaders to form a grassroots interfaith campaign called Dear
Sudan. Our goal, as part of a larger movement, is to stop the genocide.

How do we persuade others not to turn away?

A bystander rarely allows himself or herself to confront genocide.

The risk of making a moral choice is too great. A bystander refuses
to think about genocide. It’s just another issue, the refrain goes,
and it doesn’t involve me. Thinking about genocide is dangerous
because one must make a conscious moral decision about being a
bystander. Could we live with ourselves knowing we made the choice
to ignore mass murder? It’s better to convince oneself that it is
not happening or cannot be prevented. What could one person do?

Today, the official U.S. position is supportive of international
intervention to protect innocent civilians in Darfur. President Bush
said recently, “The genocide needs to be stopped.” But some foreign
governments argue intervention is premature or inconvenient. “Wait,”
they say, as 500 Darfurians die each day. In years to come, they also
may say, “We never knew,” or, “We apologize.” We apologize to the
Armenians. We apologize for Nanking. We apologize for the Holocaust.

We apologize for Cambodia. We apologize for Bosnia. We apologize for
Rwanda. We apologize for Darfur.

Since early 2003, more than 400,000 people have died in Darfur and
2.5 million have been uprooted. Jan Egeland, head of U.N.

humanitarian operations in Sudan, said security has collapsed, and
today, humanitarian operations and the lives of more than 300,000
people are immediately endangered.

In an age of genocide, the moral choice to be a bystander damages the
human bonds that make society possible. Martin Luther King Jr. called
these bonds an “inescapable network of mutuality.” A bystander may
refuse to make a choice about genocide in Darfur because he or she
claims the truth is unclear. Maybe it is time to start thinking with
our hearts. Our hearts might not be entirely clear about all of the
facts, but somehow they connect us to the suffering people of Darfur.

There is a certain truth in compassion. Maybe it is this truth —
the recognition of mutuality — that will help us get through the
violence tearing apart our world.

The voices of many Americans are being raised in a national movement
to end the genocide in Darfur. From high school and college campuses
to places of worship to the steps of government buildings, people
are making hope visible by refusing to be bystanders.

On Sunday, April 30, in vigils from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco,
we will stand together against the genocide in Darfur.

Please join our vigil on the Golden Gate Bridge. Don’t turn away.

Yehuda Bauer, a prominent scholar on the Holocaust, said: “You shall
never be a perpetrator. You shall never be a victim. You shall never
be a bystander.”

Tim Nonn lives in Petaluma and is national coordinator of Dear Sudan.

(Vigil registration is at ). Contact us at
[email protected].

ARMENIAN MEMORIAL VANDALIZED IN FRANCE AHEAD OF GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY

AP Worldstream
Apr 18, 2006

A memorial in southeast France honoring those killed in what Armenians
call a genocide by Ottoman Turks was vandalized just a week before
it was to be unveiled, Armenian organizations said.

The memorial in Lyon was scrawled with graffiti reading, “There was no
genocide,” according to the Committee for the Defense of the Armenian
Cause, and the Council of Armenian Organizations in France.

The groups expressed indignation at the incident, which occurred
Monday, and demanded tight security for the unveiling of the monument
April 24 and for other commemorations that day around France.

April 24 is when Armenian communities around the world mark the
killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. Turks
claim the number of deaths is inflated and say the victims were killed
in civil unrest.

OUR DEAD HAVE NAMES WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY

Yerkir
17.04.2006 12:36

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – A number of representatives of the Armenian
Diaspora addressed 9 million Armenians worldwide to start Our Dead
Have Names campaign.

The call specifically says, “On April 24, 2006, the Armenian community
will commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915 which was perpetrated
by the Young Turk government of Ottoman Empire. This will be the 91st
commemoration. 90 too many! Historical revisionism by the State,
which has overstepped its boundaries since 2005 (when the Republic
of Turkey began negotiations for entry in the European Union), is
drowning us out and thereby prolonging Armenocide.

In turn, our sons and daughters should not have to struggle to make
the Turkish State recognize the ignominy of the Genocide inflicted on
our people. Their future should be normal and happy within a society
that has made peace with itself. This is why we are making a solemn
call to the whole community so that every one of its members can
witness the drama that has affected them personally on 1915.

We are asking men and women from all continents to stand vigilant,
as the memory of the Martyrs is decried, as unprecedented violence
is being inflicted on the sons and daughters of the survivors of
the Armenian Genocide, and as the very existence of our identity,
symbolized by the vestiges of our culture, is being willfully wiped
out. Today, Armenians are the target of the denial of the crime
of which their parents were innocent victims. Scorned, bruised,
exasperated, but nevertheless Armenian, we have to tell the world, once
and for all, that the time for geopolitical procrastination has passed.

We are not claiming to be victims, but protesters for simple
justice. The first of these is to allow us to pay respect to our
graveless parents’ remains. We will do this on April 24, as we
have done every year since 1916. In the absence of burial sites,
enables every one of us to write in the names of
those who lost their lives on our ancestral soil.

Once this has been done, another task will be invoked: to insure the
permanent recognition of the Genocide of the Armenian people and
the inevitable consequences of recognition. Just like a petition,
the recording of the names of the victims will become a recognized
document render to the United Nations, the only institution whose
competence in this area is acknowledged by Turkey.”

Governor of Ulyanov region to visit Armenia

ArmRadio.am
15.04.2006 15:12

April 20-21 Governor of Ulyanov region of Russia Sergey Morozov will
visit Armenia.

The Russian `Commersant’ newspaper informs that Sergey Morozov will be
accompanied by governmental and business delegations. The major aim of
the visit is to establish trade relations between Ulyanov region and
the Republic of Armenia. In the framework of the visit Sergey Morozov
will meet President Robert Kocharyan and business circles of the
Republic.

Interfax, Russia
April 15 2006

Karabakh not a drug transit route – Stepanakert

STEPANAKERT. April 15 (Interfax) – Stepanakert has criticized the
naming of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as a
territory used for illegal drug transit in a U.S. Department of State
report.

Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosian and police chief
Armen Isagulov sent a letter to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Anne Patterson, in which they declared that “Nagorno-Karabakh is not
a transit route for illegal drugs.”

The Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report (INCSR) for 2006 “again identifies Nagorno-Karabakh and
territories it controls as a drug transit route, unlike in the
previous years, when explanations given by the Nagorno-Karabakh
authorities helped reach understanding on this issue,” the
Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry told Interfax.

“We would like to once again assure you with all die responsibility
that Nagorno-Karabakh is not a drug transit route, not only due to
the absence of a developed transportation and communication system
resulting from Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of the republic, but
primarily thanks to efficient preemptive efforts by Nagorno-Karabakh
law enforcement agencies,” Petrosian and Isagulov said in the letter.

“This incorrect information was given by Azerbaijan, which has made
the falsification and discrediting of Armenia an element of its
policy,” they said.

The authors regretted that “the report cites unconfirmed information,
while repeated calls by the Karabakh authorities on putting together
an independent monitoring team and sending it to Nagorno- Karabakh
with a fact-finding mission have not yet evoked a response from the
relevant international institutions.”

Nagorno-Karabakh would welcome such a monitoring team capable of
drawing an independent and objective conclusion, they said. va

Panorama.am

14:10 14/04/06

MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE ANNOYED AT `DISSIDENTS’ IN THE
SYSTEM

This year the school leaving ceremonies are going to be held on June
10. `This year we are also going to have modest ceremonies expressing
the past 10 years at school. The Ministry doesn’t prohibit anything to
anyone, and I ask the managers and teachers at your schools not to
seek for any other explanations,’ Minister of Education and Science
Sergo Yeritsyan said during the meeting with the head of Board of
regional education today.

The Minister was a bit annoyed at the fact that school principals and
workers of the Board often discuss questions that have long ago been
discussed and passed by Government resolution. `If one is against
something how is he going to hold a reform? It’s quite another thing
if they say, for example, that they have difficulties concerning this
or that question,’ the Minister said.

However, the finals will end on June 28 and either June 30 or 31 will
be the days of handing over the school-leaving certificates.

Concerning finals and entrance exams the Minister mentioned that no
meaningful changes are going to be made. That is to say, unlike last
year, neither new points will be added nor excluded form the book of
questionnaires for entrance exams.

To note, the Minister mainly touched upon such technical questions
omitting the fundamental question concerning progress in studies. And
as a result we have what we have. /Panorama.am/

YOUTH OF AKHLTSKHA PUT IN GOOD ORDER ARMENIAN SURB NSHAN CHURCH AND
ITS YARD

AKHALKALAK, APRIL 14, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Works of
improvement started inside the Surb Nshan Armenian church of
Akhaktskha and in its yard, on the initiative of the “Zori Zorian”
youth union. Doors of the Surb Nshan church were close during the
Soviet years, and after independence of Georgia the Georgian Orthodox
Church pretended for this Armenian church, what, according to the
“A-Info” agency, has caused serious disagreements many times. Maybe
for this reason, the issue was frozen by the interference of the
state, and the church was left careless. According to the youth of
Akhaltskha, irrespective of the fact, what a position the Georgian
state and the Orthodox Church will have, the Surb Nshan church is an
Armenian sanctuary for them and deserves at least modest attention
paid by them.

CONGRESSMAN KOLBE: “REPEAL OF SECTION 907 MIGHT BE DISCUSSED DURING AZERI PRESIDENT’S VISIT TO WASHINGTON”

Today, Azerbaijan
April 13 2006

The repeal of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act can be discussed
in the course of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s official visit
to the United States, Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AR), the chairman of
the sub-committee on foreign assignments, stated to a news conference
in Baku on 13 April.

During the visit the Azerbaijani President will have an opportunity
for meetings the Congressmen, while final resolution on the repeal
of the section will depend on the Committee on foreign assignments.

Section 907 can also be fully repealed until the resolution of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Moreover, the key point is not repeal of
Section 907, but is that it has been waived for 5 years in succession.

Concerning the reasons for non-inclusion of Azerbaijan in the
program “Millennium Challenges” Mr Kolbe said that while selecting
the claimants the key attention was paid to “quality of government
in the country” and level of corruption (on the base of data by
international organizations).

According to Trend, Congressman noted the steps taken in Azerbaijan
in this direction and his impatience for the time when Azerbaijan
will meet the necessary requirements. Until it occurs, the United
States intends to assist Azerbaijan in the military sector, in the
development of democracy and health.

Mr Kolbe said that during short stay in Baku he held meetings at the
Foreign Ministry, parliament, non-governmental organizations, and
representatives of the Armed Forces and peacekeeping contingent in
Iraq. He expressed his gratitude to Azerbaijan for an important role
in fighting with the international terror and peacemaking operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

URL:

PARLIAMENTARY DISCUSSIONS AROUND MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE PROGRAM TO BE DISCUSSED

National Assembly of RA, Armenia
April 13 2006

On April 12, RA NA President Artur Baghdasaryan received the delegation
headed by Congressman Jim Kolbe, U.S. Chairman of the Appropriations
Foreign Operations Subcommittee and Ambassador John Danilovich, Chief
Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. John Evans,
Ambassador of U.S. to Armenia attended the meeting.

During the meeting issues concerning the implementation of the
Millennium Challenge Compact Armenia program were discussed. The 235
million dollars Millennium Challenge Compact program, which is focused
on the economic development and reduction of rural poverty, designs to
rehabilitate up to 943 km of rural roads, irrigation infrastructure
schemes, provide technical and rural credit assistance. The NA
President Artur Baghdasaryan highlighted the Millennium Challenge
Compact Armenia program from three main viewpoints: the development of
the marzes of Armenia – reduction of the disproportionate development
of the capital and marzes, deepening of democracy and the input of the
public monitoring mechanisms by the civil society. As the NA President
assessed, the program will greatly assist to the development of the
marzes, reduction of rural poverty.

During the meeting the Millennium Challenge Compact Armenia program
was also highlighted within the framework of 2007 and 2008 pan-national
elections as assistance to the development of democracy.

Conveying his thanks to the U.S. Government for the continuous
assistance to Armenia, the NA President highlighted the importance
of external assistance for the democratic processes in the country,
noting that “the economic development and deepening of democracy in
Armenia should proceed side by side.”

Mr. Danilovich and Congressman Jim Kolbe, touching upon the democratic
reforms and economic development of Armenia, noted the necessity
of political will, providing political freedoms, priority of laws
and publicity of the program implementation, holding the coming
pan-national elections in accordance with international standards
for deepening those reforms. In meeting those terms the program
will fully work. The Ambassador Danilovich emphasized once again
the resolve of the U.S. higher ranking political leaders and the
Millennium Challenge Corporation to be led with the main standards,
by which is conditioned the assistance to Armenia within the program.

The Ambassador Danilovich and Congressman Danilovich highlighted
the high awareness of the deputies of the National Assembly and their
participation in the monitoring of the implementation on the Millennium
Challenge Compact Armenia program. An agreement was reached to organize
parliamentary hearings in the National Assembly with participation
of Government members, NGOs, the Millennium Challenge Corporation,
U.S. Embassy and other parties concerned, during which a detailed
program will be introduced, the problems of public monitoring and
efficiency of program implementation will be discussed.

RA NA President Artur Baghdasaryan asked to convey his greetings
to Mr. Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. Congress, and as there were
congressmen in the delegation, the NA President also touched upon the
problem of close relations and strengthening of the dialog between the
U.S. Congress and RA National Assembly, highlighting the involvement
of RA NA in the programs implementing upon the initiative of the
U.S. Congress Democracy Assistance Committee. Congressman Jim Kolbe,
U.S. Chairman of the Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee
promised to assist in that issue.

During the meeting other issues were also discussed.