Author: Karakhanian Suren

London Free Press, Canada
Aug 13 2004

Schools join anti-hate campaign

HAILEY EISEN AND CLIFF VANDERLINDEN, Special to the Free Press

Local high school teachers are preparing to turn their students into
anti-hate activists. More than 40 teachers are taking part in a
week-long London conference, the first Gen. Romeo Dallaire Summer
Institute on Teaching Genocide and the Holocaust. The institute, one
of the first of its kind in Canada, provides educational tools to
promote tolerance and uphold human rights.

Sponsored by the Association for the Elimination of Hate, the
week-long seminar will arm teachers with ways to educate their
students in the lessons of the Holocaust and genocide.

“We don’t want the teachers to shock students, because shock wears
off,” program co-ordinator Rich Hitchens said. “What they really have
to do is provide their students with lasting moral lessons.”

Here, teachers get insight into how to teach some of the most
horrific genocides of the 20th century: from Armenia to the current
crisis in Sudan. They hope to convey to students a sense of moral
justice the youngsters can use in their neighbourhood schoolyards and
in global activism.

They will be shown how best to incorporate literature and film
resources into their lessons.

The sessions are led by university professors, community members and
military officials.

“To play Schindler’s List for 3 1/2 hours is going to take most of
the time teachers have dedicated to the unit, whereas they could show
a 28-minute documentary film that will generate three hours of
discussion,” said Amanda Grzyb.

Grzyb is a professor of genocide and Holocaust studies at the
University of Western Ontario and is giving a seminar on teaching the
Holocaust through film.

The institute’s namesake, retired Gen. Romeo Dallaire, was in London
this week to offer his support to teachers who volunteered to take
part in the program.

Dallaire led the UN coalition during the 1994 Rwanda operation, where
he defied direct orders to evacuate his troops from the troubled
region when violence escalated into full-scale genocide.

It’s estimated one million Tutsi and Hutu moderates were killed
within 100 days.

For the past three years Dallaire has been working with Canadian high
school and university students to promote awareness and action in
areas of international crises and genocide.

“My aim in this whole education process is to gel Canadian youth into
getting into an activist mentality,” Dallaire said.

“So far I’m getting a lot of positive vibes.”

The institute is the result of a co-operative effort between various
religious and ethnic communities, along with London’s Association for
the Elimination of Hate.

Organizers expect to run the conference every other year.

RUSSIAN AND AZERBAIJANI FMs INTEND TO DISCUSS KARABAKH CONFLICT’S
RESOLUTION

YEREVAN, AUGUST 12. ARMINFO. The issue of the Karabakh conflict’s
settlement is planned for discussion in the course of Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov’s forthcoming visit to Moscow,
Assistant Offical Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry
B.Malakhov told the Russian Mass Media, the press-service of the
Russian FM reports.

Malakhov said that Russia welcomes continuation of the
Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue at various levels, and, first of all,
the dialogue of the presidents.

“We think that it is the conflicting parties that should reach a
mutually acceptable resolution to the conflict. As regards Russia, it
is ready exert active contribution to them both on the bilateral basis
and as an OSCE MG co-chair, as well as to become a guarantor of the
agreement reached,” Malakhov said. The visit of the Azerbaijani
minister to Moscow is fixed for Aug 17-19.

Messenger.com.ge, Georgia
Aug 12 2004

Frequent flier pilots Georgia’s diplomacy

Nine months have passed since the Rose Revolution and its
leader-turn-president has conducted twenty-one visits abroad both on
the state level and unofficial level. Averaging over two visits a
month, President Mikheil Saakashvili has redefined Georgia’s foreign
policy as proactive, engaging and ambitious.

A geographical survey of his visits shows the variety of interests of
the Georgian leader in his strive to establish economic progress and
achieve territorial security of the country.

The opposition prefers to criticize his frequent travels and suggests
that he should stop traveling abroad and instead concentrate on
Georgia’s internal affairs of the country. However, in the case of
Georgia it is often difficult to distinguish between the country’s
foreign and internal affairs as they are very closely linked with
each other.

The first country visited by Saakashvili after the Rose Revolution
was Ukraine in December 2003. At the time the Georgian leader met
with Ukrainian opposition leaders who were planing to perform a
Ukrainian version of Rose Revolution against President Leonid Kuchma.
This meeting created a noticeably cold climate between official
Tbilisi and Kiev.

However, later the strategic interests of the two countries prevailed
over personal sympathies/antipathies. In April 2004 while on an
official visit to Kiev, President Saakashvili repeatedly confirmed
the strategic-partner relationship between Georgia and Ukraine and
outlined the prospects of strengthening those relations.

In January 2004, during his visits to Switzerland, France and
Germany, newly elected President Saakashvili firmly asserted
Georgia’s intention to integrate into European structures thus
underscoring Georgia’s strategic path for the future.

In April-May 2004 President Saakashvili visited Poland and Rumania.
The attitude of the Georgian government is that deepening
relationships with these countries and sharing their experience for
integration into the European commonwealth and NATO would very much
assist Georgia in doing the same.

Saakashvili twice visited Moscow, in February and recently in June.
Immediately after the Rose Revolution, the Georgia administration
tired to establish a completely different relationship with Russia.
It suggested forgetting past misunderstandings and starting a new
phase of relations from a blank slate.

However, in doing so Georgia is combating the legacy of its past
questionable policies and Russia’s deeply entrenched imperialists who
became only further secured in Russia’s Parliamentary elections this
year. While the war of words has ricocheted back and forth between
parliamentarians, ministries and officials, it is notable that
President Saakashvili has never uttered a single word of criticism
against President Vladimir Putin. Correspondingly, Putin has ever
criticized Saakashvili.

This coming fall Putin is expected to visit Tbilisi. It is envisaged
that a new framework agreement between the two countries should be
signed. There is significant hope in Tbilisi that this tete-a-tete
meeting will let the two leaders to overcome the antagonism shared by
their underlings and Georgian-Russian relations will be clarified and
developed in a better direction.

President Saakashvili has also visited countries of the Mid East –
Turkey, Iran and Israel. With Turkey, Georgia maintains one of its
closest partner relationships. The president of Georgia has invited
Turkish businessmen to participate in the privatization process now
underway in Georgia. Wednesday’s visit of Prime Minster Erdogan
accompanied by 115 businessmen is a clear evidence of the deepening
neighbor relationships.

Strengthening of relationships with Iran is also planned. With Israel
Georgia’s relationship is more unique and Saakashvili tried to
interest Israeli citizens who had left Georgia many years in reviving
their ties with their former homeland by accepting dual citizenship.
Reviving lost ties was also a theme of President Saakashvili in other
countries though the potential for Israeli-Georgian relationships
appear the greatest.

During Saakashvili’s visit to Azerbaijan and Armenia he encouraged
the neighbors to establish a common Caucasus market and suggested
Georgia could play a role of locomotive in integrating the region
into Europe. However, in this particular case the Kharabakh conflict
creates serious problems for Azerbaijan and Armenia to cooperate.

It was very important for Georgia to participate in the NATO Istanbul
Summit this June. There he once and forever attached the Georgia’s
development to western interests. It was also very significant that
the summit participants urged Russia once again to fulfill its
commitment and withdraw military bases from Georgia.

Saakashvili visited the United States twice, and his most recent
visit was very timely as it coincided with the deterioration of
relations with Russia and controversy over the BTC pipeline in the
Borjomi Gorge.

Judging by Saakashvili’s relentless personality, it is safe to assume
that his intense travels will continue. Compared to former President
Shevardnadze’s foreign policy of balancing interests, Saakashvili has
chosen a very goal oriented and clear-cut strategy of pointing
Georgia’s orientation towards the west and defining the country’s
interests before others do that for him.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Aug 10 2004

AZERBAIJAN, EGYPT: COOPERATION EXPANDING
[August 10, 2004, 20:11:42]

Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to Azerbaijan Cihan Amin
Mohammad Ali on 10 August met the foreign minister of Azerbaijan
Republic Elmar Mammadyarov on the occasion of ending of her
diplomatic mission.

Ambassador Cihan Amin Mohammad Ali expressed gratitude for rendered
assistance during her activity in the Republic and for efficient
cooperation, noting that the friendly and brotherly relations between
Azerbaijan and Egypt would further expand, the foreign ministry said.
Ms. Cihan Amin Mohammad Ali stated that she is eyewitness of
development of the people of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani statehood
during her four years of activity here.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated that he adheres strengthening and
expansion of the friendly and business relations, effective
cooperation between the two countries. Noting that the Arab Republic
of Egypt is an influential country in the Islamic world, the Minister
expressed gratitude that Egypt supports fair position of Azerbaijan
in the international organizations, in particular, in the
Organization of Islamic Conference, in fair settlement of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorny Karabakh conflict.

Minister Elmar Mammadyarov wished to ambassador Cihan Amin Mohammad
Ali success in her future diplomatic activity.

The Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico)
August 2, 2004 Monday

‘THROUGH STRENGTH, YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR DESTINY’

by JEFF TOLLEFSON

Raffi Papazian once spent a year and a half doing double duty, or
close to it, almost 1,000 feet under the Nevada desert.

Each day, he took the same ride down a mine shaft to work on the same
nuclear test, dubbed Ledoux after a small town in New Mexico. He was
six years into his career at the Nevada Test Site and 30 years into
his life as an American citizen.

Given his childhood experiences in Egypt and Lebanon, a career in the
United States’ nuclear-weapons program must have seemed a bit
surreal. But somehow it all made sense.

His grandparents fled to Egypt to escape the Turkish slaughter of
Armenians in 1915. He was born in Egypt at a time when Christians
were under persecution there, and he remembers sitting on the balcony
of his boyhood home worrying and waiting for his father to come home.

The family left for Lebanon in 1966, when Raffi was 10. They waited
four years for a ticket into the United States, during which time
Raffi and his sister went to an English-speaking school.

“Believe it or not, that left a tremendous impression on me,” he
said. “When I left college, I always wanted to work in the national
defense industry, because I wanted to make sure my kids never had
that feeling. … That might sound hokey to you, but it’s not.”

Papazian is a mechanical engineer who worked his way up through the
ranks at Los Alamos National Laboratory, substituting post-graduate
studies with under-the-ground experience designing nuclear tests. His
job was to ensure the physicists got what they needed when the ground
shook.

The lab detonated Ledoux in 1990, on the tail end of nuclear testing.
Two years later, the testing moratorium went into effect, and things
changed at the Nevada Test Site. All three of the major
nuclear-weapons laboratories still have operations there, and
Papazian is among a small group of Los Alamos employees who make the
commute each week.

Papazian’s work on the nuclear-weapons program might have made sense
to him, but he says his two daughters have had their doubts. Over the
years, Papazian has spent a lot of time explaining what the lab does,
and why, and how he feels about it.

“At some level, if you look at history, wars have been minimized by
nuclear weapons,” he said. “I’m one of the people who believes
there’s a lot of validity in being strong. Through strength, you can
control your destiny.”

PAN-DIASPORAN EDUCATIONAL FORUM TO BE HELD IN ANTELIAS ON AUGUST 5-7

YEREVAN, August 4 (Noyan Tapan). The pan-Diasporan educational forum
will be held in Antelias on August 5-7 with the support of Catholicos
of the Great Cilician House Aram I. The forum will be dedicated to
problems of education in Armenian spirit. Hrach Tadevosian, Chief of
the Diaspora Department of the RA Ministry of Education and Science,
told NT’s correspondent that about 70 delegates will participate in
the forum from the different colonies of the Diaspora.

Levon Ananian, Chairman of the Writers’ Union of Armenian, is already
in Lebanon with the purpose of participation in the forum from
Armenia. According to Hrach Tadevosian, the issue of other
participants will be specified today.

According to Hrach Tadevosian, issues put before the gymnasias of the
Diaspora will be discussed during the forum, a number of issues
available in the colonies will be also discussed. “The problems of the
education of the Armenian children are exposed to danger, and the
number of Armenian students decreased in the colonies in general,
which worries everybody. I think this issue should be first of all put
to the agenda of the forum,” stressed H. Tadevosian. The Chief of the
Department, speaking about the issue of the closing of the Melgonian
Gymnasia, mentioned that though the decision on the closing of the
gymnasia has already been made, parents of the graduates and students
of the gymnasia carry out work in order that the educational
establishment having 78-year history will continue serving the
Armenian Community.

ARMENIAN CHESS-PLAYERS AMONG LEADERS IN EUROPEAN JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP
HELD IN TURKEY

YEREVAN, August 3 (Noyan Tapan). 670 young chess-players from
different countries of the world participate in European Junior
Championship held in the Turkish city of Urgup. 14 Armenian
chess-players are among them, they perform in all five age
groups. Robert Aghasarian and Khachatur Yeranian successfully perform
in the 10-year group. They earned four points each after four rounds.

12-year-old Areg Arakelian earned 3.5 points. Five Armenian
chess-players earned three points each and lead the tournament table
in their age groups. Five rounds are left until the end of the
championship.

RA PRIME MINISTER AND NEWLY APPOINTED AMBASSADOR OF IRAN TO ARMENIA
EMPHASIZE IMPORTANCE OF TREATY ON CONSTRUCTION OF IRAN-ARMENIA GAS
PIPELINE CONCLUDED IN MAY

YEREVAN, August 2 (Noyan Tapan). Armenia attaches great importance to
bilateral relations with Iran, as well as the widening of multilateral
relations. Contacts on high level and mutual visits contribute to it
essentially. RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian said about it on
July 30, receiving newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of Iran to Armenia Ali Reza Haqiqian. Congratulating
the Ambassador with the beginning of his diplomatic mission, Andranik
Margarian, in particular, expressed hope that the tradition of the
successful Armenian-Iranian relations will also continue in the period
of his tenure in Armenia. The sides stressed the importance of the
visit of President Mohammed Khatami to Armenia scheduled for September
8-9, 2004. According to the RA government’s press service, Andranik
Margarian and Ali Reza Haqiqian stressed that multilateral cooperation
between Iran and Armenia meets the interests of the two peoples, as
well as it is advantageous for the region on the whole. The Ambassador
of Iran emphasized that both the peace in the region and
intra-political stability and the economic development of neighboring
Armenia is of great importance to his country. The interlocutors
stressed the great importance of, in particular, the signing of the
treaty on the construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, the joint
construction of the Kajaran tunnel and an HPP on the Arax river. They
highly estimated the work of the 4th joint sitting of the
Inter-Governmental Economic Commission held in Tehran on December
9-11, 2002, and the importance of the documents signed at the sitting.
Andranik Margarian wished the new Ambassador every success in his
mission in Armenia and promised to contribute to his work.

BBC News, UK
Aug 1 2004

Iraqi Christians’ long history

Iraq’s Christians comprise many rites
Christians have inhabited what is modern day Iraq for some two
thousand years, tracing their ancestry to ancient Mesopotamia and
surrounding lands.
Theirs is a long and complex history.

Before the Gulf War in 1991, they numbered about one million, but
that figures is now put at 650,000 and falling.

Under Saddam Hussein, in overwhelmingly Muslim Iraq, some Christians
rose to the top, notably the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and
the Baathist regime kept a lid on anti-Christian violence.

Biblical city

In the wake of the 1991 Gulf War and the imposition of sanctions,
many Iraqi Christians, who had lived in relative harmony with their
Muslim neighbours for decades, left to join family in the West.

The secular government of Saddam Hussein largely suppressed
anti-Christian attacks, but it also subjected some communities to its
“relocation programmes”.

For Christians this was particularly marked in the oil-rich areas,
where the authorities tried to create Arab majorities near the
strategic oilfields.

Christians live in the capital, Baghdad, and are also concentrated in
the northern cities of Kirkuk, Irbil and Mosul – once a major
Mesopotamian trading hub known as Nineveh in the Bible.

Most Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans, Eastern-rite Catholics who are
autonomous from Rome but who recognise the Pope’s authority.

Chaldeans are an ancient people, many of whom still speak Aramaic,
the language of Jesus.

Monasteries

The other significant community are Assyrians, the descendants of the
ancient empires of Assyria and Babylonia.

After their empires collapsed in the 6th and 7th Centuries BC, the
Assyrians scattered across the Middle East.

They embraced Christianity in the 1st Century AD, with their Ancient
Church of the East believed to be the oldest in Iraq.

Assyrians also belong to the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Chaldean
Church, and various Protestant denominations.

When Iraq became independent in 1932, the Iraqi military carried out
large-scale massacres of the Assyrians in retaliation for their
collaboration with Britain, the former colonial power.

Their villages were destroyed, and churches and monasteries torn
down.

In recent years, however, some places of worship were rebuilt.

Other ancient Churches include Syrian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox
and Armenian Catholic Christians, who fled from massacres in Turkey
in the early 20th Century.

There are also small Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities,
as well as Anglicans and Evangelicals.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
July 30 2004

Opposition party’s protest actions not sanctioned

Mayor’s Office of Baku has not sanctioned the protest actions of the
opposition Whole Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (WAPFP) scheduled to
be held outside the embassies of NATO member-states in Baku,
ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.
The party chairman, MP Gudrat Hasanguliyev says the issue will be
considered at the WAPFP board meeting on Monday.
The WAPFP plans to hold up to 10 pickets starting August 2 in protest
against the participation of Armenian officers in NATO training
sessions due in Baku in September.*