Author: Karagyozian Lena

NATO leader visits South Caucasus

ISN, Switzerland
Oct 9 2004

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited the three South
Caucasus countries in early November to signal the alliance’s
commitment to the region and to encourage leaders to take advantage
of Individual Partnership Plans (IPAPs).

By Vladimir Socor for The Jamestown Foundation (09/11/04)

On 3-5 November, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
visited, for the first time in this capacity, the three South
Caucasus countries. He conferred with the head of state, the defense
minister, the military leadership, and other top officials in each of
the three capitals. The visit’s goal was twofold: to signal that
NATO’s Partnership program is rapidly moving its focus towards this
region, as decided at the alliance’s summit in Istanbul in June; and
to encourage the three countries to take advantage of Individual
Partnership Plans (IPAPs). Ambassador Robert Simmons, newly appointed
as the NATO Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the South
Caucasus and Central Asia, accompanied de Hoop Scheffer on the visit.
NATO views IPAPs as the instrument that allows willing partners to
develop individualized relationships with NATO, focusing on military
reform, establishment of effective state institutions, and certain
basic democratization goals. IPAPs are two-year programs, with their
implementation assessed at periodic review conferences. IPAP can
potentially serve as an avenue towards membership for countries that
aspire to that status; the alliance’s motto in this regard being that
it would go as far as the country chooses to go, subject to IPAP
performance.

Georgia’s NATO hopes
Georgia became the first South Caucasus country to have its IPAP
approved by NATO. Originally submitted ahead of the Istanbul summit
for promulgation there, the document was ultimately accepted by the
North Atlantic Council in Brussels on 29 October. In the joint news
conference with de Hoop Scheffer in Tbilisi, President Mikhail
Saakashvili reaffirmed Georgia’s goal to join NATO as a full member
before the end of Saakashvili’s second and final presidential term –
a goal he had first announced during his recent visit to the Baltic
states. Without dampening Saakashvili’s optimism, de Hoop Scheffer
tempered it with realism by remarking that a long winding road leads
towards full membership. He stated openly for the first time that
Georgian membership was possible, and noted “an enormous drive on the
part of the Georgian government and people to fulfill that ambition”.
Remarks by both sides during the visit indicated that NATO’s liaison
officer for the South Caucasus would be stationed at the Defense
Ministry in Tbilisi. The NATO leader chose a cautious, non-specific
wording to remind Russia of its obligations to fulfill the 1999
Istanbul Commitments regarding Georgia. He expressed his “hope” in a
bilateral Russian-Georgian “solution” to the problem of Russian
troops and bases, rather than calling for an internationally assisted
withdrawal of those forces from Georgia. Georgia is already behaving
as a de facto ally, with platoon-size units serving under NATO
command in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and company-size units with the
US-led coalition in Iraq, where Georgia is now augmenting its
contingent to 300 troops and has offered to increase it further to
850. Georgia is balancing its security consumer’s role with that of a
security provider in both the NATO and the ad hoc coalition context.

In Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, final preparations for NATO approval of that country’s
IPAP topped the agenda of de Hoop Scheffer’s visit. Deputy Foreign
Minister Araz Azimov, who handles Azerbaijan-NATO relations, noted
that procedural issues had held up IPAP’s promulgation since the
Istanbul summit. The document also includes a concept for developing
Azerbaijani rapid-deployment units for service with NATO’s Response
Force. As could be expected, de Hoop Scheffer faced persistent public
questioning in Baku about NATO’s position on the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict and a possible NATO role in conflict-settlement. His answers
indirectly confirmed NATO’s reluctance to take a position or play a
role. He advised Azerbaijan that it was perhaps time to “turn a page”
in its approach to Karabakh conflict-settlement. For his part, Azimov
held out the possibility of NATO contributing peacekeeping troops to
an international contingent, if one were deployed in the conflict
zone under an international organization’s mandate. The familiar
small group of Karabakh Liberation Organization militants staged a
vociferous picket during de Hoop Scheffer’s visit, protesting
preventively against Armenian participation in an upcoming NATO
Parliamentary Assembly seminar in Baku. The police rounded up a few
of the protestors only after they had finished their demonstration.
Milli Majlis Chairman Murtuz Aleskerov declared that Armenians could
be allowed to participate in this seminar because they are civilian,
rather than military. In September, Azerbaijan’s leaders, including
Aleskerov, had ruled out the participation of a few Armenian military
officers in NATO’s Cooperative Best Effort 2004 large-scale staff
exercise in Baku, thereby leaving NATO no choice but to cancel this
annual event. Azerbaijan’s NATO aspirations suffered an unnecessary
setback as a result of political advisers overruling the foreign
policy professionals on this matter and giving in to a handful of
militants. Inclusiveness is a bedrock principle of NATO’s Partnership
programs. Further setbacks may ensue if political advisers insist
that Azerbaijan, rather than NATO, should determine what kind of
personnel may or may not participate in NATO exercises in Azerbaijan.

In Armenia
In Armenia, de Hoop Scheffer underscored the significance of that
country’s recent decision to draft an IPAP with NATO and to appoint
an envoy to the alliance. Implicitly acknowledging the national
tradition of close links with Russia, he noted in an address to
Yerevan University faculty and students that Armenia may develop its
NATO partnership without damaging its relations with Russia, and that
any residual mistrust towards NATO was a Soviet propaganda legacy.
Armenia could prove that a country can maintain close relations with
Russia while becoming an active NATO Partner, he concluded. One
pro-NATO politician, Hovhanes Hovhanissian of the Liberal Progressive
Party, commented that good relations with Russia need not mean being
“Russia’s vassal”, local media reported. At every stop during the
visit, de Hoop Scheffer made the point that NATO does not compete
with any country or organization (that is, Russia and the CIS
Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Armenia is a
member) in the region. He underscored that NATO has no intentions,
plans, or interest in establishing military bases in the South
Caucasus, nor would this meet the interests of the region’s
countries.

–Boundary_(ID_g+hc6ziAuWMrT89+dHrn2g)–

Marten Yorgants Gives Concert In His Native City Of Istanbul

ISTANBUL, November 8 (Noyan Tapan). A concert of singer Marten Yorgants
was organized in Gyunay park of Shishli upon the initiative of the
“Shishli” sport and cultural club on November 6 evening.

M. Yorgants, being originally an Armenian from Constantinople, hadn’t
an opportunity to give concerts in Istanbul for over 37 years. This
time he came to his native city at the invitation of dwellers of
Shishli.

According to the “Marmara” daily newspaper of Istanbul, Marten Yorgants
thanked the organizers of the concert, he invited participants to dance
during his songs. Marten Yorgats preferred to song more in Italian,
French and English songs regardless of the fact that participants would
more prefer to listen to his Armenian songs. But M. Yorgants created
fine atmosphere, and the invited people enjoyed the concert a lot.

OBSERVERS CALL ON TO MOBILIZE DIPLOMATIC RESOURCES FOR NEUTRALIZATION
OF AZERBAIJAN’S INITIATIVES IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

YEREVAN, November 5 (Noyan Tapan). The November 5 seminar organized
by the Center for Development and Public Dialogue was dedicated to
discussion of the situation formed in CE in the issue of peace
settlement of Karabakh conflict. Arayik Margarian, Head of the CE
Department of RA Foreign Ministry, briefly represented the history of
discussion of Karabakh issue in CE. He touched upon the report made by
Terry Davis, former PACE reporter on Nagorno Karabakh issue.
Margarian declared that this report once more affirmed the anxiety of
the Armenian side about the fact that high-ranking officials or
organizations who aren’t aware of all the necessary details regarding
the issue aren’t able to make an objective document. As for David
Atkinson, the new PACE reporter, the Foreign Ministry representative
declared that Atkinson was among the few PACE deputies who displayed
interest to Karabakh settlement from the very start. Arayik Margarian
also mentioned that the Armenian side has always strived for making
the discussions on Karabakh issue in CE only of information character
in order that no structure competing with OSCE should be established
within the framework of CE. What, according to him, can’t be said
about Azerbaijan, which has always strived for establishment of
another format besides OSCE for Karabakh peace settlement. According
to Khachik Galstian, expert of the Media Model research center,
experience shows that the more structures are involved into discussion
of this or that problem the less effective the results of the
decisions are. He called on for mobilization of all diplomatic
resources of Armenia for neutralization of Azerbaijan’s initiatives in
international organizations.

Financial Times (London, England)
November 6, 2004 Saturday

Injury time Anti-Semitic taunts from Dutch football crowds highlight
a classic dilemma of democracy. We might not like what someone says,
or who is saying it – but are we prepared to force them to give up
the right to say it?

By IAN BURUMA

The Dutch nurture their reputation for tolerance and moderation with
loving care. Perhaps that is why some Dutch people, in a rebellious
mood, like to put such a dent in it. And also why, when they do so,
there is such huge dismay. The latest outrage to set the Dutch press
on fire concerns the behaviour of football hooligans in The Hague.

ADO, of The Hague, were playing Ajax, from Amsterdam. Ajax, like
Tottenham Hotspur in London, have the reputation of being “the Jews’
club”. This is not based on anything very real. Jewish football
players are a rarity, at Ajax or anywhere else. But Amsterdam had a
sizeable Jewish population before the war, and many of them supported
Ajax. Hence the reputation. And since hooligans from Rotterdam, The
Hague and Utrecht began taunting the Ajax team a few decades ago with
such slogans as “filthy rotten Jewboys”, or “We’re going Jew
hunting!”, Ajax supporters responded by waving Israeli flags. This,
in turn, prompted the appearance of Palestinian flags in the
anti-Ajax ranks.

The ADO thugs actually did much worse than that. In fact, they did
just about the worst thing possible: they made hissing noises,
mimicking escaping gas, and chanted “Hamas, Hamas, send the Jews to
the gas!” The Hamas slogan, heard on other football terraces as well,
is relatively new, but the hissing is not. About 10 years ago, I had
the misfortune to be in the Feyenoord block when the Rotterdam club
played Ajax. It was like being surrounded by a crowd of foaming
neo-Nazis. The odd thing was, however, that “Jews” had very little to
do with actual Jews. Every time an Ajax player, including blacks from
Surinam, touched the ball, he would be called a “filthy Jew”.

It is probably the same with the flags, or the references to Hamas.
These bear little or no relation to actual countries or their
politics, of which most hooligans will have only the sketchiest
knowledge. I say most, because there are well-organised extremists
who use the stadiums as recruiting grounds. But the thugs know very
well that their chants are bound to cause maximum offence, especially
in Holland, where anything to do with the Holocaust, or Jews, has
been treated over the years with a mixture of sentimental piety and
residual guilt. They have crossed a well-established line: they are
saying the unsayable.

What to do about it? Ajax tried to ban Israeli and Palestinian flags
in the stadium, as though they were the problem. Referees were urged
to stop the games at the first sign of trouble. The football
association held the clubs responsible and threatened to ban the
public from attending games altogether if this behaviour went on – a
curious notion: football games in empty stadiums. A special
government committee, convened to look into the matter, concluded,
rather weirdly, that “racism” and “causing offence” were separate
issues. The first was a matter for the police, the second for the
clubs. One can try to arrest some of the perpetrators, which has been
done with notable success in Britain. Police monitoring and higher
ticket prices also seem to have cleansed the air. But even if you can
drive violent language out of stadiums, it is likely to re-emerge in
other ways, at heavy metal concerts, for example, or on the internet.
The young like to shock. The Dutch prime minister’s talk about
strengthening “norms and values” is hardly going to stop them.

The problem goes beyond the comfort of football spectators. We know
from the past how pushing the extremes of racial prejudice can
undermine the most civilised societies. Calling for the murder of
others, even in jest, or as a provocation, should not be permissible.
But democracy can suffer from too much protection against verbal
offence. Banning the expression of certain views does not get rid of
them. It is an illusion, common to totalitarian states, that thought
can be controlled by policing language.

Where there is freedom of speech, people will be offended. It has
become common in Europe to deal with the problem through legislation
against language or opinions deemed to be inappropriate, or to ban
people who express them from public life. The British home secretary,
David Blunkett, suggested that members of the far-right British
National Party should be excluded from the civil service. An Italian
candidate for the European Commission, Rocco Buttiglione, has been
rejected by members of the European parliament because of his view
that homosexuality is a sin. I have no sympathy for the BNP, and
disagree with Buttiglione, but as long as such people do not call for
violence to impose their views, I see no reason for their exclusion,
even though a man with Buttiglione’s opinions may not be best placed
to deal with justice and freedom.

Some commentators on the Salman Rushdie affair concluded that
toughening blasphemy laws was more important than protecting the
right to free speech. They believed that Muslims had a perfect right
to demand protection from offence, and demanded the same for
Christians and other religious believers. Both France and Germany
have laws against Holocaust denial, which cover more than the
genocide of the Jews. The distinguished Middle Eastern scholar
Bernard Lewis was tried at a French court for claiming that the
Turkish massacres of Armenians after 1915 were not planned by the
Turkish government, and thus could not be called genocide. This
considered opinion was offensive to many Armenians. Lewis lost.

Americans are more protective of the right to free speech than
Europeans. When Frenchman Robert Faurisson got into trouble for
claiming the Holocaust was Jewish propaganda, Noam Chomsky came to
his defence by writing an introduction to his book. He didn’t agree
with Faurisson’s views, but he believed in his right to express them.
In another case, Arieh Neier, acting for the American Civil Liberties
Union, defended the right of American neo-Nazis to march through
Skokie, Illinois, home to many Jews including Holocaust survivors.
The march was offensive, but Neier, Jewish himself, born in Hitler’s
Berlin, believed that the First Amendment, protecting freedom of
expression, was one thing that distinguished his adopted from his
native country.

I recently came across an interview with the former Belgian foreign
minister, and current European commissioner, Louis Michel. He was
questioned about his most cherished values. Was there anything he was
prepared to die for? Yes, he replied, freedom of speech. Later, he
lashed out at journalists who spoke to politicians of the rightwing
nationalist Vlaams Blok, “as though it were a normal party”. What
about free speech, asked the interviewer. “Yes,” said Michel, “but no
freedom for the enemies of freedom. Racists have no right to that
valuable freedom of speech.”

Michel’s commitment to the freedom of expression clearly does not
come up to the standards of the US constitution. If Belgian
journalists behaved according to his wishes and refused to take the
views of a major political party (33 per cent of the votes in
Antwerp) seriously, it would be difficult to have any debate on such
contentious issues as political asylum or immigration.

A history of persecution often helps to clarify people’s minds. Milos
Forman, the Czech movie director who moved to the US after Soviet
tanks smashed any chance of free expression behind the iron curtain,
made a brilliant film in 1997 about the case of Larry Flynt: The
People vs. Larry Flynt. Flynt is the owner of Hustler magazine, and
not known for his taste. He published a pornographic caricature of
the televangelist Jerry Falwell having sex with his mother. Falwell
took offence and sued. He won in the district court but the US
Supreme Court overturned the verdict on appeal. A pornographer’s
right to free speech was given priority over a public figure’s
emotional distress. Forman said he made his film as “a love letter to
the First Amendment”.

The defence of free expression in the US has not always been so
robust. Think of the trouble Nabokov had in publishing his
masterpiece, Lolita. The traditional enemies of freedom in the US are
usually to be found on the right. But when it comes to gender or
race, liberal-leftists can be just as censorious. Maybe speech bans
are necessary to maintain a civilised society. But where do we draw
the line, and who is to decide?

A good example of the perils of language policing is the case of the
burakumin, or outcasts, in Japan. Officially, the caste system was
abolished in the late 19th century. Unofficially, the descendants of
those whose occupations were considered ritually unclean, such as
butchering, tanning, or executing criminals, are still subject to
discrimination. There are several organisations that wish to protect
their rights. One way is by acting as watchdogs on offensive
language. Derogatory words for the outcasts, such as eta or yotsu,
are as far beyond the pale now as “niggers” in the English-speaking
world. But even the more correct burakumin causes problems. If used
in any way thought to be inappropriate, the mere mention of burakumin
can be criticised. As a result, the Japanese media have stopped
mentioning them at all. When Rising Sun, Michael Crichton’s
inflammatory and offensive novel about Japanese businessmen taking
over America came out in Japan, the only thing the publishers removed
was an inoffensive reference to the outcast problem. When a Japanese
newscaster, in a story about drug-related violence in America, warned
that the streets of New York could turn into a “slaughterhouse”, he
was fiercely attacked for a whole year. The mention of the word
slaughterhouse could conceivably have been construed as a slur on a
traditional outcast occupation. And so a social problem that urgently
needs to be discussed in public is silenced.

“Word hunting” is not limited to the outcast community. Japanese
television producers, newspaper editors and publishers work with long
lists of words to be avoided at all costs. Terms for blind people, or
left-handed people, or deaf people, or any other vulnerable group,
are all scrutinised, a task made more difficult by the fact that
standards of acceptability change. The results can be absurd. A
famous author, named Tsutsui Yasutaka, wrote a science fiction story
about a man arrested by robots because of “irregular brain waves”.
This caused an outcry from the Japanese Epilepsy Association, because
the story could offend people with odd brain wave patterns, including
epileptics.

Japan might be an extreme case. Arthur Koestler once described the
Japanese people as suffering from “social haemophilia”, terrified
that the smallest prick will cause interminable bleeding. But fear of
giving offence does not necessarily translate into greater compassion
for the vulnerable. A physically disabled person, or indeed a black
person, would still be better off living in the ruder, cruder
societies of Britain or the Netherlands than in the linguistically
fastidious Japan. And yet Japan’s social haemophilia should be a
warning to us. To have the freedom to speak freely, we must be
prepared to take the rough with the smooth. Just as crass tabloids
have a legitimate place in a free press, offensive language is
something we must be prepared to live with in a free and open
society. There are limits, of course. Even the First Amendment draws
the line when words are designed to incite violence and disturb the
peace.

Abusive chants in a football stadium might indeed disturb the peace
of other spectators. But then a football stadium is an odd place to
go looking for peace. If the slogans were not only designed to shock
or offend, but to incite violence, the perpetrators should be
arrested. But apart from that there is a case to be made that
football stadiums are a contained venue for ritualised bad behaviour,
which would be more dangerous if it were unchained in daily life.

If you cannot suppress prejudice or the desire to shock, then you
have to find ways in which these urges can be expressed without
people getting hurt. Prejudices can fade away. Now that every
football team in Britain has black players, there are fewer monkey
noises. American baseball teams are a complete mix, which may be one
reason why ethnic taunts are largely absent from US stadiums

I believe all the above to be true, and yet I would never again want
to find myself in the midst of fully grown idiots who find amusement
in mimicking the sounds of mass murder. Anything short of that, I
would put up with as a price for my freedom.

Ian Buruma is professor of human rights, democracy and journalism at
Bard College, New York.

NATO chief hails ties with Armenia

Mediamax news agency
5 Nov 04

YEREVAN

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Yerevan today
that “relations between NATO and Armenia are developing very well”.

The secretary-general said this at a briefing on the results of his
meeting with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Defence Minister
Serzh Sarkisyan and Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, Mediamax news
agency reports.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stated that Armenia has taken a very important
step, having expressed its readiness to sign the Individual
Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with NATO. The NATO secretary-general
pointed out in this connection that Armenia itself should define its
priorities and submit them to NATO for examination. In any case, Jaap
de Hoop Scheffer stressed “the IPAP will be a product of the Armenian
side”.

Talking about his visit to all three South Caucasus countries, Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer stressed that “NATO has no intention of competing with
any country or international organization in this region”.

PRECONDITIONS LEAD TO IMPASSE

Azg/Arm
2 Nov 04

Foreign minister of Nagorno Karabakh Republic Ashot Ghulian called a
press conference yesterday to tell about his US visit. He noted that
he left for America on invitation of the Michigan University and said
that he had meetings with social-political figures in other US cities
as well. Ghulian met with the OSCE Minsk group co-chair Steven Mann,
representatives of the US Congressional staff, members of the
America’s Armenian Congress, with the Armenian representative to UN
and others. All meetings were useful and mutually beneficial.

Speaking of his speech at the Michigan University, minister said that
he gave a survey of the Karabakh conflict history, causes and process.

Ashot Ghulian had a meeting with Luiz Simon Manukian at the AGBU
center. He emphasized that the establishment has a great potential for
cooperation and thanked for contribution so far. The Diaspora is very
interested in the modern state of Artsakh and in the perspectives of
conflict settlement.

Commenting on Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister Araz Azimovâ=80=99s
refusal to take part in the conference, the minister said that
Azerbaijan’s step was an attempt to prevent the conference. There were
9 issues included in the conference agenda and only one of them
concerned Karabakh. Ghulian said that Azerbaijan strives for
undermining all promising projects instead of supporting the
international community to get the true perception.

Presenting Steven Mann’s views on Karabakh conflict, Ghulian said that
the latter thinks that the social dialogue between the sides is
necessary in order to uproot the hostility in societies.

Ashot Ghulian said that Turkey’s possible involvement in the talks was
also discussed and noted that a representative of a non-official
Iranian organization said that Iran as well may have its say in the
talks as it is also an interested side, particularly in this case when
Turkey’s stance does not differ from Azerbaijan’s.

By Kim Gabrielian from Stepanakert

The Gazette (Montreal)
October 30, 2004 Saturday
Final Edition

Playing musical name games

by ARTHUR KAPTAINIS, The Gazette

The sensational recital appearance last Sunday of the 19-year-old
Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan raises an interesting question:
How should we spell his name?

Usually the individual whose name it is has total authority over the
matter. But when names are transliterated – from Cyrillic or, as in
this case, Armenian script – the destination audience is entitled to a
say in the matter.

First, know that his surname is identical to that of the composer Aram
Khachaturian. As fate would have it, young Khachatryan has recorded
Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto. The spellings are not harmonized. Nor
is it hard to imagine Sergey playing Sergei – Prokofiev.

Make that Prokofiev as opposed to Prokofieff, the spelling seen during
the composer’s lifetime. Rachmaninoff is also starting to slip in
favour of Rachmaninov – in spite of the fact that the California-based
composer habitually signed his name with two f’s.

Transliterations come and go – French and English do not agree on a
host of musicians, including Stravinsky (Stravinski), Tchaikovsky
(Tchaikovski) and Shostakovich (Chostakovich).

Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, in English, are themselves obsolete
spellings by current academic standards. I recall a music library in
which the card catalogue cross-referenced Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich
– universal in English – to “correct” spellings that in fact are never
used.

I have not mentioned German, a language with spellings of its own,
including eyesores like Schostakowitsch and Prokofijew. Since Sergey
Khachatryan lives in Frankfurt – he appears to be an interesting
example of an Armenian violinist not schooled in the Russian style – he
cannot afford to disregard the priorities of his second home. At any
rate, he is young enough to change his name and mind. Sergei
Khachaturian looks good to me. Possibly Prokofiev and Aram would
approve.

– – –

Pro Musica subscribers have been pleasantly surprised this season by a
renovation – if that is the word – of the stage of the Theatre
Maisonneuve. Hiring its own team of three technicians in the post-IATSE
era, the chamber society covers the pit of the second-largest
performance space in Place des Arts before each performance, thus
extending the stage apron and bringing artists closer to the audience.

The rear is defined by a curtain, dramatically illuminated by coloured
lights shining from the floor of the stage. It is a great improvement
over the drab beige shell we have known for years. Black panels in
front of this curtain give the musicians visual definition. More
importantly, they project sound more crisply to the crowd. The new
stage takes less than an hour to assemble, according to Pro Musica
managing director Monique Dube.

Necessity was the mother of all this invention last season when Pro
Musica found itself squeezed by the sets of Odyssee, a long-running
musical. All the same, with a few bold and simple strokes, the
long-suffering PdA resident has transformed a midsize chasm with
mediocre acoustics into a pleasant chamber hall.

Can something then be done with larger Salle Wilfrid Pelletier, home,
for better or worse, of the MSO? If the experts answer no, this is
probably because they have never bothered to try.

– – –

Ross Pratt, a former director of chamber music at the CAMMAC music camp
and pianist known for post-Romantic and French repertoire, has died in
Montreal at the age of 88.

Born in Winnipeg, Pratt had a wide-ranging education and career. He
trained in London before the Second World War and toured Asia and
Australia during the conflict to perform for servicemen. Gazette
clippings reveal that he toured Western Canada in the winter of 1944
and Mexico and central America in the summer of 1945.

Pratt was an educator as well as a performer. He taught in London
intermittently in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as at the University of
Alberta and Carleton University. His home base, however, was Montreal,
where he was a teacher at the Conservatoire. Among his notable
performances was the Canadian premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a
Theme of Paganini, which he gave in 1940 with the Montreal Orchestra
under Douglas Clarke. He was also the soloist in Ravel’s Piano Concerto
in G in the Montreal debut (with the MSO) of conductor Leonard
Bernstein in 1944.

Canadian composers often figured in Pratt’s solo programs. He also
enjoyed the lecture-recital format. The last Gazette review of Pratt,
on March 1, 1985, was of a Debussy program at Marianopolis College with
spoken comments in English and French.

After this the record then falls silent. A friend of Pratt says he died
on Oct. 6 of pneumonia, after a long illness.

There will be a memorial concert tomorrow at the Unitarian Church, 5035
de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., at 3:30 p.m. Pratt is survived by his wife
Audrey, who suggests a memorial donation to CAMMAC, 8 Chemin Cammac,

Harrington, Que. J8G 2T2 .

– – –

Yannick Nezet-Seguin has earned a 21-gun rave for his last-minute
leadership last week of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra through
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.

“I doubt the excellent, absent (Emmanuel) Krivine, even on a good day,
could have kissed the sleeping beauty of this symphony awake as surely
as this young prince of the conductor’s art did on Thursday,” wrote
Globe and Mail contributor Ken Winters.

Praising the interpretation in some detail, the veteran critic asked
why Nezet-Seguin was not considered for the directorships of the MSO or
TSO.

“Genuine talent is rare,” he concluded, “but when it comes, it can
change your perspective and your mind. Nezet-Seguin is that genuine
article.”

Criticism does not mean hostility

Yerkir/arm
October 29, 2004

One might very often come across an opinion that those who criticize
American president George Bush’s foreign policies go against the
civilized and democratic world thus assisting the international
terrorism. Similar opinions are expressed by some of our political
leaders, analysts and media.

This sort of contemplations have resulted in another `brilliantâ=80=9D
observation suggesting that those who are against sending Armenian
troops to Iraq are against civilized and democratic values thus
supporting the international terrorism and adopting an anti-American
position.

The authors of these brilliant ideas tend to overlook one fact –
Bush’s foreign policy is criticized not only by the American
Democratic Party and its presidential candidate John Kerry but also
Bzezinsky, Soros, Kissinger, andmany other American analysts, research
centers and media. Finally, almost half of America’s population shares
this criticism of Bush’s foreign policies. Does this mean that they
are all against democracy? Do they all support international
terrorism? Can they all be considered anti-American?

Following this logic, France, Germany, Russia, Spain and other
countries can be added to the list of anti-democratic, anti-American
and pro-terrorist countries.

But let us come back to the Armenian political forces that are
intensively trying to reveal the anti-democratic and anti-American
forces in Armenia. They fail to understand that criticism does not
mean hostility.

The logic of these forces suggests that if you criticize the
government, then you are the government’s enemy. If you criticize the
opposition, then you are the opposition’s enemy. If you criticize the
media for ungrounded gossiping then you are the enemy of freedom of
speech.

This logic is the reason why the government and the opposition are not
working efficiently in our country and this is why freedom of speech
is very often equalized to merely flattering or freely swearing.

Internews-Armenia to conduct radio show training

International Journalist’s Network
29 Oct. 2004

Armenian radio journalists and producers can apply for an upcoming
Internews seminar called “Radio Hour Production.”

Internews-Armenia said it will accept 12 participants for the seminar,
which is scheduled for November 29 to December 10 at the
Internews-Armenia headquarters in Yerevan. The application deadline:
November 25.

As with other Internews programs, the seminar will emphasize practical
work as a key part of the training. The consultant for this seminar
will be Bruce Gellerman of the United States. Gellerman is a veteran
radio journalist and producer who has worked with National Public
Radio, 60 Minutes, the BBC, CBS News, Deutsche Welle and the New York
Times.

For more information, contact training coordinator David Aslanyan at
[email protected] or telephone +374-1-58-36-20.

Internews-Armenia:

“ROBERT KOCHARIAN CANNOT RESOLVE KARABAKH ISSUE,” US POLITICAL SCIENTIST CONSIDERS

27.10.2004 15:40

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Political scientist, University of Chicago Professor
Ronald Suny considers that Armenian President Robert Kocharian “cannot
resolve the Karabakh issue.” The scientist stated it when commenting on
the act of terrorism taken place in the Armenian Parliament in 1999.
“These events were a tragedy for Armenia, the entire Caucasus and
even the former Soviet Union, – the political scientist noted. –
Without those people kind of a stagnation touched the region and the
solution of the important problems.” Answering the BBC question on who
could have organized the crime, Suny said: “It seems to me that it was
an action by a plotter group. There were people who became stronger
after it, but this was the consequence, not the cause of the crime.”