Author: Kharatian Ani

California Courier Online, September 16, 2004

1 – Commentary
Jewish Writers Blast Israel, US
And Turkey for Denying Genocide

By Harut Sassounian
California Courier Publisher
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2 – Cookbook Review
Simply Armenian: Naturally Healthy Ethnic Cooking Made Easy
3 – Ceremony for Donation of Karabian Papers
Held Sept. 18 at CSUF’s Madden Library
4 – Bal Family Sets Up $100,000 Ph.D
Scholarship Fund at Zoryan Institute
5 – L.A. County
Honors Terzian
6 – Armen Will Exhibit Photos
At Oakland Church Bazaar
7 – Armenian Court Awards $460.
To Owner of Electrocuted Pig
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1 – Commentary
Jewish Writers Blast Israel, US
And Turkey for Denying Genocide

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

The Turkish government spends millions of dollars to deny the Armenian
Genocide. Yet, despite such intense Turkish efforts, and sometimes because
of them, the Genocide is becoming more widely known to the world. Scores of
countries and international organizations have officially acknowledged it
in recent years. The international media frequently refers to the Armenian
Genocide.
Despite the Israeli government’s shameful support for Turkish revisionism,
Jewish scholars and commentators have played a major role in reaffirming
the facts of the Armenian Genocide. In recent weeks, two more Jewish
writers have published very important articles on this issue.
Hillel Halkin, an Israel-based author, in an article published in the
August 17 issue of The New York Sun, castigated the “Republican
congressional leadership and the Department of State” for opposing
congressional resolutions “that do nothing more than express official
American acknowledgment of the pre-meditated murder, mostly in 1915, of an
estimated 1 to 1.5 million Armenians by the armies of the Ottoman Empire.”
He asserts: “this murder is a well-documented episode that only the rare
pro-Turkish historian bothers to challenge these days.”
Halkin points out that the Turkish government “for decades has conducted a
concerted campaign to deny that the Armenian Genocide took place. To this
day, what happened to the Armenians in World War I is a banned subject in
Turkey.” The writer describes as “utterly absurd” Turkey’s systematic
efforts “to censor its own history as if it were an article in a Stalinist
encyclopedia.” He suggests that “far from bringing shame on them, a frank
admission of what their armies did to a helpless population nearly a
century ago would only rebound to the Turks’ credit. Just think of the
esteem that the German Federal Republic, in the years after World War II,
earned in the world by its honest confronting of the Holocaust.”
The Turks, Halkin writes, have threatened other countries “with dire
consequences should they acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Although some
governments stood up to such intimidation (most notably France which
officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2001), others have caved
into it. One of the saddest cases in this respect, apart from America, has
been that of Israel, where programs on what happened to the Armenians have
even been barred from state television.”
Halkin describes as “pathetic” those countries that have “yielded to
Turkish pressure on this issue.” He wonders: “What exactly is the Bush
administration afraid of?” He correctly points out that should the US
Congress adopt a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, the Turks
would just “splutter and get over it, which is exactly what they did three
years ago vis-à-vis France.”
Halkin blasts the Israeli foreign ministry for being “chock-full of fearful
bureaucrats needlessly anxious about jeopardizing their country’s good ties
with Turkey.” He accuses both the Israeli government and “some Jewish
lobbies in America,” for having “collaborated shamefully with the Turks on
the Armenian issue.”
Halkin concludes his powerful article by pointing out that since the
“Jewish State does not recognize” the Armenian Genocide “for reasons of
realpolitik,” the Jews should then stop blaming other countries that for
their own reasons of realpolitik did not lift a finger while the Nazis were
slaughtering the Jews!
A second important article, written by Israeli attorney Nir Eisikovits,
appeared in the September 1, 2004 issue of “In the National Interest,” an
online weekly published jointly by The National Interest magazine and The
Nixon Center.
The writer points out that Israel’s denial of the Armenian Genocide is
based on two considerations: the belief in the “uniqueness” of the
Holocaust, and Israel’s self-perceived strategic interests or
“realpolitik.”
Eisikovits considers the first argument “both morally warped and
empirically unfounded.” By asserting that “Jews do not have a monopoly on
pain,” he emphatically states: “Jews cannot, simultaneously, attack those
who deny the Holocaust and assist others who deny the Armenian Genocide.”
The writer also points out that the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides have
not in any way diminished the Nazi atrocities.
As for the considerations of “realpolitik,” Eisikovits sadly concludes that
Israel’s appeasement of Turkey “does not seem to be working.”
Recalling that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently accused Israel
of “state terrorism,” he concludes that Israel has apparently sold its
“moral integrity in vain.” He also argues: “Realism in international
affairs, with all its merits, must be subordinate to a nation’s most basic
principles rather than dictate them.” By refusing to recognize other cases
of genocide, “Israel would have undermined the main reason for its own
existence,” Halkin states.
The courageous positions taken by these righteous Jewish writers, combined
with all other efforts by Armenians and non-Armenians worldwide would
eventually force the governments of the United States and Israel to stop
parroting the lies and start telling the truth on the Armenian Genocide.

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2 – Cookbook Review
Simply Armenian: Naturally Healthy Ethnic Cooking Made Easy
By Barbara Ghazarian, $17.95 Softcover, 296-page, illustrations ISBN:
1-931834-06-7 o Pub Date: August 2004
MONTEREY, CA -Armenian cooking is one of the world’s great culinary melting
pots. Veteran author, Barbara Ghazarian has created a masterful blend of
food and culture. Simply Armenian contains over 150 exiting and inspired
classic dishes (including favorites from family and friends) adapted for
North American home cooking. You will be delighted and amazed at the
authentic flavor of these easy-to-prepare recipes.
The context for Armenian cuisine in the United States is woven throughout
this collection with a light, almost invisible thread of historical,
geographic, cultural, linguistic, and religious elements. Her personal
reminiscences and anecdotes make it easy for the reader to join her on this
exceptional journey into this ancient yet ultra contemporary cuisine.
With justifiable ease, Ghazarian pairs foreign flavors like Syrian
“Mortadella” and Izmir Kufteh with Rice Pilaf made with College Inn chicken
broth and Uncle Ben’s rice. Remaining true to her own Armenian immigrant
family roots, which date back to the turn of the last century, Ghazarian
recommends lamb over beef and has included a generous and exotic array of
quince-based recipes (preserves, jelly, paste, stuffed with walnuts, and
cooked with lamb) because her aunt had three fruit-bearing trees in her
yard in Massachusetts and Armenians are frugal, thrift-driven cooks willing
to incorporate any accessible bounty.
Also in keeping with traditional Armenian cooking, there are a significant
number of vegetarian dishes-over 50, meeting Orthodox fasting requirements
(vegan), are clearly marked. Ghazarian promises that you will learn the
magic of creating a feast out of a basket of vegetables and a handful of
cracked wheat bulgur.
Admitting to wanting to please her 100%-Armenian, Syrian-born husband-who
like most husbands no matter what their nationality, prefers the tastes and
combination of foods traditional to his mother’s kitchen-she has included
“starter spreads” like Hummus and Baba Ghanoush that are not traditional to
the Armenian table but, rather, are additions assimilated from Arab
neighbors and brought to the United States by recent Armenian immigrants
from the Middle East.
What further sets this book apart from others is the generous sprinkling of
intriguing line drawings reprinted from Armenian manuscripts dating back to
antiquity. Living up to the promise of simplicity, Ghazarian has included a
good-sized glossary and gives mail-order sources for readers living outside
greater metropolitan areas who can’t find some of the more foreign
ingredients that are hard to substitute. Her well-written, readable text
gives detailed, step-by-step instructions ending with dish combination
suggestions for those new to the cuisine.
Ghazarian admits this collection is a labor of love, taking years to “get
it right,” and her effort shows on every page. No one has made the Armenian
table as accessible and user-friendly to home cooks as she has. This
cookbook ensures success for beginners while also making the cuisine
appealing to experienced home cooks.
About the Author
Barbara Ghazarian is an experienced cook and a natural teacher with a gift
for storytelling. This is her second cookbook (The Kindred Kitchen, 1996).
Barbara lectures from coast-to-coast on Armenian-related topics to both
Armenian and American audiences. She authored a long-running weekly
culinary column for a Los Angeles newspaper and has years of experience
teaching culinary writing to adults in greater Boston.
Simply Armenian, published by Mayreni Publishing (), can be
purchased from leading online bookstores or by sending $17.95 plus $4.00
shipping to P.O. Box 5881, Monterey, CA 93944-5881.
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3 – Ceremony for Donation of Karabian Papers
Held Sept. 18 at CSUF’s Madden Library
FRESNO – A ceremony for the donation of former California Assemblyman
Walter Karabian’s papers to the Central Valley Political Archive of the
Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno was held Sept.
18, at Fresno State.
Karabian, who was born and raised in Fresno, donated papers from his
1966-74 state Legislative service.
In addition, panel discussions were held focusing on Karabian’s career with
an emphasis on his opening the doors of politics to young Latinos, his
commitment to his Armenian heritage and his various legislative
contributions such as the Species Preservation Act, the ratification of the
Equal Rights Amendment and the California Invasion of Privacy Act.
Art Torres, Democratic Party chairman, as well as other former staff
members to Karabian participated in the panel discussions.
The Karabian papers received at the CVPA measure approximately 30 linear
feet and include correspondence, press files, photographs, campaign
material, articles, speeches, memorabilia and other records documenting
Karabian’s legislative and civic activities.
After leaving the Legislature, Karabian has practiced law and is a partner
in the Los Angeles law firm Karns & Karabian.
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4 – Bal Family Sets Up $100,000 Ph.D
Scholarship Fund at Zoryan Institute
TORONTO, CANADA – A new scholarship fund has been established at the Zoryan
Institute by the Bal family for PhD students preparing their thesis on the
Armenian Genocide or comparative genocide with a focus on the Armenian
Genocide.
The creation of this fund was the initiative of Dikran and Sonia Bal of
Montreal, who made it possible by their generous donation of $100,000 as a
seeding fund for this purpose.
The Bals have been regular supporters of the Zoryan Institute. In just the
last two years, in addition to this new scholarship fund, they have
contributed $200,000 for scholarly research and publication in general, and
the Genocide and Human Rights University Program in particular.
The scholarships will be awarded to a total of four candidates each year,
and are renewable, pending an annual review. Applicants must have completed
an MA in one of the social sciences, such as history, international law,
political science, psychology, or sociology and be enrolled full-time in an
accredited PhD program. Knowledge of the Armenian and Ottoman Turkish
languages will be considered an asset for applicants. The amount awarded
will vary according to the individual needs of each research project.
In explaining why they chose to create such a fund, Dikran Bal commented,
“It is important for people like us, who are not specialists but care about
this field of study, to support those who can make a scholarly
contribution. The fruits of their research go directly towards helping us
understand the Genocide and its impact on our history, the formation of
modern Armenian society, and on our identity.”
Sonia Bal stated: “I hope that this scholarship fund will be a catalyst for
drawing young scholars to pursue their academic dreams in this field. I
feel that the Zoryan Institute is the right organization to administer such
a fund, as it has a proven record of over twenty years of original
scholarship and a reputation for academic integrity, directed by board
members who are world-renowned scholars, such as Prof. Vahakn Dadrian, Dr.
Roger Smith, and Dr. Yair Auron, to name only a few.”
Professor Dadrian, Director of Genocide Research at the Zoryan Institute,
explained, “It is exciting to see people like the Bals get involved
actively and personally in the support of genocide studies. The
establishment of such a fund will definitely facilitate the recruitment of
interested and qualified candidates.”
For more information about the scholarship, contact the Zoryan Institute,
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310, Toronto, Canada M3B 3H9, E-mail
[email protected].
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5- L.A. County
Honors Terzian
LOS ANGELES – Carl R. Terzian and his associates have been honored by the
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on the occasion of the public
relations firm’s 35th anniversary for “dedicated service to the affairs of
the community and for the civic pride demonstrated by numerous
contributions for the benefit of all the citizens of the county.”
The resolution was recently offered by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
Following graduation magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and student body
president from USC in 1957, Terzian was a State Department Goodwill
Ambassador for President Eisenhower; public relations director for the
Lutheran Hospital Society of Southern California; dean and professor of
government at Woodbury University; and public affairs director for
architect Charles Luckman. In 1969 he started his own successful firm of
consultants in corporate, product, institutional, executive and crisis
marketing to more than 4,500 clients.
Terzian has been recognized for civic, philanthropic and professional
leadership by Congress, Her Majesty the Queen of England, California
Assembly and Senate, City and County of Los Angeles, USC, Boy Scouts,
California Junior Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Business Council,
Arthritis Foundation, Break the Cycle, Dubnoff Center, United Way,
California Lutheran University, Theta Chi Fraternity, The Jeffrey
Foundation, International Visitors Council, Woodbury University,
Exceptional Children’s Foundation, and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley
Forge.
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6 – Armen Will Exhibit Photos
At Oakland Church Bazaar
OAKLAND, CA – Southern California photographer Karine Armen will exhibit
her photographs from Armenia during the St. Vartan Armenian Church’s
Armenian Bazaar, Oct. 1 and 2, at the church grounds, 650 Spruce Street,
Oakland.
Armen — always on the go, always in search of the new, and the different –
takes her camera around the world, from China to Spain, from North American
to the southern borders.
She earned a M.A. in Educational Administration and a B.A. with a double
major in Photography and Social Work. She has traveled extensively and has
had several photography exhibitions in the Los Angeles area. She
participated in photography treks in Portugal, and China. Her work has been
published in “Armenian International Magazine,” Ararat Quarterly, The
Glendale News Press, Nor Gyank, Marmara, and Eighties.
Karine’s first trip to Armenia was a mental health counselor. She worked
with the earthquake survivors of Gyumri in March of 1990. She was impressed
and touched by the people’s hope to continue their lives with dignity.
Karine Armen has been teaching at an elementary public school in Glendale
for the past 14 years. Prior to that she worked as an Information
Specialist for a hotline. She has also worked as manager of a homeless
shelter. Her diverse interests and multi-cultural approach is reflected in
her photographs.
Some of Karine’s photographs can be viewed at her web site photo27.com. For
more information, contact the artist at [email protected].
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7 – Armenian Court Awards $460.
To Owner of Electrocuted Pig
ALAVERDI, Armenia – An Armenian court ordered a branch of the Armenian
Electricity Supply Network to pay about $460 to the owner of a pig which
was electrocuted while munching on an exposed underground electrical cable
earlier this year in the northern town of Alaverdi.
The pregnant sow was zapped after it had dug up a thin layer of dirt which
covered the electric cable in the backyard of a building.
The loss was especially heavy to the animal’s owner as the animal was
pregnant with 10 piglets and due in a week.
According to standards for power lines, underground cables must be laid at
a depth of at least 70 centimeters. A representative of the court who
visited the spot found out that the cable had been laid at a depth of 40
centimeters.
The court granted the owner partial damages, finding the plaintiff himself
at fault for having allowed his pig to wander into the yard of the
apartment building. Thus, the electric company was required to pay only 80
% of the damages – 240,000 drams (about $460).
The chief engineer of the Armenian Electricity Supply Network disagreed
with the ruling.
“The pig had no business in the yard; children would not have been able to
dig through that layer of soil,” said Misha Piruzyan. The company has taken
their case to the Court of Appeals, and hopes for a favorable ruling.
But, the animal’s owner, Samvel Tsatinyan, is determined to defend the
rights of his pig, her ten piglets, and the people who live in the
building, “even if I have to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.”
In the meantime, the electric company is working on its power lines.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Funeral or barbecue arrangements were not disclosed.
********************************************************
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Putin, the prisoner of the Caucasus
by Vladimir Rozanskij

AsiaNews.it, Italy
Sept 8 2004

After the Beslan massacre, an expert analyzes where Russia and the
West is going in the confrontation with Islamic terrorism

Moscow (AsiaNews) – A famous novel by Pushkin tells of the dangers
and perils that Russian travellers could expect in the early
19th century, among the gorges and harshness of those ancient and
mysterious lands that rise as southern guard of the Asian continent.
The novel is entitled “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”, and has never
before seemed so prophetic of the condition in which the president
of that very Russian state, Vladimir Putin, currently finds himself.
His ascent to the head of government and, 5 years ago, to the Russian
Federation itself, had in fact been conditioned by the explosion of
terrorist bombs that had sown so many victims, not only in the lands
of the south, but also in Moscow itself, giving a final blow to what,
by then, was the teetering throne of Yeltsin and clearing the way
for a new “strong man”.

Putin’s leadership was subsequently confirmed, almost by acclamation,
in the general elections of March 2000, effectively making any
political or administrative consultation redundant: in fact, he
and his candidates are absolutely unbeatable; theirs is the same
cast-iron probability of the single-party candidates of Soviet memory.
The reason for such absolute pre-eminence has always been tied
to the deep drama of events: Russia needs to use force to resist
the destructive attack of the forces of evil. Today as yesterday,
the inhumane face of terror stands out against the silhouette of the
Caucasian mountains, and calls all of Russia to unite as one person in
its response, making its leader a banner for revival and liberation.
Certainly, Russian citizens are ever more asking themselves why,
after 5 long years, this dramatic issue has gone from bad to worse,
why it has gone from destroyed homes to devastated cities in the entire
Chechnya, in a ferocious conflict with no holds barred on both sides,
up to the slaughter of hostages in the Dubrovka Theatre of Moscow, and
now even the slaughter of the innocents of Beslan. Grozny, with the
assassination of its leaders, has been a revolving door of generals,
mediators, puppet-governments; draconian measures have been taken
in the entire country to the point that civil liberties have been
limited almost more than in the Soviet period. The ever-present
police continues its surveillance and the use of violence, if not
physical at least psychological, against any passer-by whose skin
is in the least bit olive-tinged. Yet underground train stations
continue to be a place of fear and mutual suspicion, when not of
actual pain and desperation. Certainly, there has been American’s
September 11th, which confirmed what Putin himself has been saying
since 1999: there exists a network of international terrorism that
has declared war on advanced countries, uniting even Russia and
America in a single axis of evil, like at the times of German Nazism.
Wars come along in Afghanistan and Iraq, with all their contradictions
and open questions, making Russians think that, after all, the worst
is elsewhere, and the Americans too are able to pass themselves off
as wicked. Yet there is no respite from dismay, there can never be
enough force to ward off terror, a sense of resignation and anguish
starts to take hold, there is no possible future on the horizon.
And then Beslan, the worst of horrors, worse than the Twin Towers,
worse than any Iraq or any Palestine, mothers that shoot at children.

Resignation is becoming tangible not only in Russia, but in the
entire world where, more than fighting terrorism, there are those
who, by now, are seeking to exploit things in the name of partisan
interests: Russia against America, France against England, the right
against the left. The time has come perhaps to say unequivocally
that there is no clash of civilizations underway, there is no war
of Islam against Christianity, of the poor against the rich or of
moderates against radicals: war is only a tragedy of men against
men, in which the losers are but human beings, the most weak and
defenceless. The Caucasus symbolizes this distraught world; however
much one tries to compartmentalize reality, it is impossible in that
land to draw the line of one against the other, of Orthodox Ossetians
against Muslim Ingush, or Buddhist Kalmuckians, or Jewish Daghestan,
or Gregorian Armenians. There is no limit between moderate Islam
and international fundamentalism, between nationalist Cossacks and
pro-American Georgians. The sociology and history of religion become
a card game to deal out on the green table of cynical international
politics, raising the stakes on the basis of what is convenient for
the arms trade, the petroleum market and the poppy fields, if not
for holding on to the petty seats of some national or continental
parliament. Causes are invented to defend vested interests;
recriminations are made to hide one’s own lies.

Putin’s attackers are trigger happy, this is clear. A bit like
American cowboys, they are not standing by waiting for a smoking gun:
they prefer to shoot first. The Russian President himself has little
faith in the search for dialogue and consensus: he grew up in the
school of unique thought and armed peace; many shortcomings can be
attributed to his colleague in Washington, certainly not a champion of
multicultural tolerance. But, it is hard to imagine that others in
their place would have done better, above all those who preach easy
pacifism and the embrace of diversities, when the problem is losing
one’s own identity in the tragedy of a war that started long ago.
There is no anti-Putin in Russia, there is nowhere in the world an
anti-Bush capable of putting an end to all this horror with the shake
of a hand and calls to mutual understanding. Putin’s speech to the
nation, following the tragedy, made his powerlessness dramatically
clear: in promising yet another security service reform, he called
on citizens of the Russian Federation to give proof of unity and
solidarity. In the name of what, he was no longer able to say, nor
was he able to put on display the anger of early days, when he would
promise to conquer all enemies. Solidarity among people is not a
product of promises or ideals, it needs to be lived day after day,
bowing one’s head in the face of pain, learning from wounds not to
judge, as not to be judged; fighting evil, from whatever side it
arrives, without professing to be the incarnation of Good. He who
said to be so was not, in fact, a prince of the world: He was a Man
on the cross.

Iran, Armenia review expansion of relations

IRNA, Iran
Sept 8 2004

Yerevan, Sept 8, IRNA — The chairmen of the Iran-Armenia Joint
Commission explored ways of expanding ties between the two countries
here Wednesday.

The Iranian chairman stressed Tehran`s firm will to expand bilateral
ties, and expressed hope the current visit of Iranian President
Khatami to Armenia would further consolidate and expand relations.

He pointed out that major steps have already been taken by the two
countries to boost relations in the energy and trade areas. He said
the volume of trade exchanges of the two countries in the cuurent year
shows an increase of 30 percent compared with the figure last year.

The Armenian official said he believes relations between the two
countries received a remarkable boost after the latest visit of the
Armenian president to Iran, and expressed satisfaction with ongoing
Iran-Armenia joint projects. He also called for the expansion of
mutual ties in agriculture, culture and commerce.

He said new contracts that are to be signed by the two sides during
the current visit of President Khatami to Yerevan would further
enhance relations.

President arrived in Armenia on Wednesday morning on the first leg
of a three-nation regional tour.

Setroit Free Press

Pergrouhi Javizian: Gave time to Armenian church

September 4, 2004

BY JEANNE MAY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Pergrouhi Terzian Javizian, who spent her early life in a Turkish orphanage
and came to this country to become a pillar of St. John’s Armenian Orthodox
Church, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Regency Health Care Centre, Taylor.

She was a week short of her 97th birthday and lived in Dearborn. Her
American friends called her Pearl.

Mrs. Javizian was born in Kourtbelen, a little village outside Istanbul, and
when she was 3, her father was killed in a massacre that eventually left 1.5
million Armenians dead.

Her mother became a servant in the home of a wealthy family, and she was put
in an orphanage.

When she was 16, a friend from her village who had come to the United States
went to Barkev Javizian, a Ford Motor Co. worker, and said, “Why don’t you
save these two?’

Armenians in America helping Armenians from the old country was not unusual
in those days, but there was a hitch: a young woman would be required to
marry a man who sponsored her.

“But my dad said, ‘I will consider them to be my mother and my sister, and I
will take care of them until they get on their feet,’ ” her son Simon said
Friday.

Then Mrs. Javizian arrived, and she had blonde hair and blue eyes and her
savior was oh-so-handsome.

“When I saw your father, he looked just like Robert Taylor,” Mrs. Javizian
told her son.

And they were married.

Children came along at a fairly rapid clip, and Mrs. Javizian took care of
them and her home.

“After I was born, she would go to night school, and many times she would
take me with her,” her son said. “She never did graduate, but she went to
night school at Southwestern High School.”

When her children were old enough not to need her constant attention, she
threw herself into the life of the Armenian-American community.

She’d always attended St. John’s Armenian Church, Southfield, and she became
chairwoman of its Ladies Auxiliary. She also was secretary of the Detroit
Chapter of the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

But she was most famous for her hours in the church kitchen.

“She was a great, great cook,” her son said. “She would man the ovens. She
would be standing there, and the sweat would be pouring off her, and the
more she sweated, the better she liked it.

“She was always cooking. It gave her the greatest pleasure to present her
food and eat, eat, eat. The more we ate, the more she smiled.”

She also performed in her church’s stage presentations commemorating St.
Vartan, who fought for Christianity against the Persians in 451. He lost,
but managed to persuade the Persians that the Armenians would never give up
their religion.

Mrs. Javizian’s son owns Simon Javizian Funeral Home, Detroit.

In addition to her son, survivors include another son, Garry; two daughters,
Helen Javizian and Margaret Zadikian; 11 grandchildren; seven
great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-grandchildren.

Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at St. John’s Armenian Church,
22001 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, where prayers will be at 7:30 p.m.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church, with Armenian
clergymen from all over the area participating. Burial will be in Woodlawn
Cemetery, Detroit.

The family suggests memorial donations to St. John’s, 22001 Northwestern
Highway, Southfield 48075, or St. Sarkis Armenian Church, 19300 Ford Road,
Dearborn 48128.

Contact JEANNE MAY at 586-469-4682 or [email protected].

DetNews.com, MI
Aug 25 2004

Gritty images tell story of auto industry’s past

By Eric Mayne / The Detroit News

WINDSOR – Louis M. Papp’s modeling career began and ended the same
day – but at least he worked with the best.

The 70-year-old Windsor businessman was a teen when renowned
photographer Yousuf Karsh showed up at Ford of Canada’s now-defunct
Windsor trade school, where Papp was a student. Karsh, who gained
fame for a 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill, had been commissioned
by Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. to document the company’s Windsor
operations for its 1950 annual report.

The photographer enlisted Papp and his classmates to pose for him.

`I was somewhat of an amateur photographer myself,’ Papp recalled.
`But when I saw his equipment, I knew he wasn’t a beginner.’

The photo featuring Papp is part of a long-forgotten collection of
Karsh images on display through Nov. 14 at the Art Gallery of
Windsor. They not only reflect Karsh’s distinctive use of light and
shadow, they are snapshots of an industrial era before automation.

There are gritty images of tradesmen with meaty forearms and brows
glistening with perspiration. Some workers are focused on the task at
hand – spray-painting or tending a foundry furnace – while others
smile directly at the camera, transporting the viewer back to a time
when people were more intimately involved in auto manufacturing.

`They give the machines life and movement,’ Karsh said at the time.
`It is really their skill that gives a car strength and beauty.’

The exhibition also mirrors the auto industry’s growth pattern.

One hundred years ago this month, Henry Ford chose Windsor as the
site of his first international expansion and opened a factory to
build a Model T precursor, the Model C. As the Canadian company grew,
similar to Ford’s evolution in Detroit, job seekers flocked there
from around the world.

Karsh’s subjects – with names such as Fraser, LaMarsh and Wasyke –
reflect an ethnic diversity that survives in Windsor today. And all
are depicted with a sensitivity that borders on reverence.

`He saw everyone exactly the same, whether it was a head waiter or a
head of state,’ said Jerry Fielder, curator of the Karsh estate’s
collection and a former assistant to the photographer. `Whenever he
was photographing anyone, they had 100 percent of his attention and
nothing else mattered.’

Karsh, whose work is included among the permanent collections at New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s National Portrait
Gallery, emigrated from Armenia to Canada in 1924, eventually opening
a studio in Ottawa, the nation’s capital. The capital setting
afforded him access to political leaders and other influential
thinkers who sat for his most memorable portraits.

They included John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Jawaharlal Nehru,
Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Muhammad Ali and
Andy Warhol.

Karsh also had some rather offbeat assignments, such as documenting
behind-the-scenes activity during filming for the 1969 movie, `Planet
of the Apes.’

Karsh, who died in 2002 at 93, was commissioned to shoot industrial
scenes for other annual reports and some of these photos are also
part of the Windsor exhibition. But the Ford shots, of which there
are about two dozen, are the focus.

The photos were so well-received when originally published that Ford
of Canada featured the shots in a national touring exhibition. In the
half-century since, however, the collection has gradually been
dismantled, with photos haphazardly dispersed to decorate boardrooms
and workshops.

Cassandra Getty, curator of the Windsor gallery exhibition, restored
the collection with help from Ford of Canada. Partly because of those
efforts, Fielder donated two Karsh pieces to the Art Gallery of
Windsor’s permanent collection.

One is a Churchill portrait and the other features Maurice Lehoux,
who worked in the paint shop at Ford’s former Windsor car plant,
where the automaker now builds engines. When Maurice’s photo was
taken, Karsh’s greatness was lost on Lehoux, said his widow, Gloria
Lehoux, 70, of Windsor.

`He thought it was just … nothing,’ she said with a shrug.

Gow Crapper considered the exercise a bit of a joke. Sylvia O’Neil
Crapper of Windsor recalled how her late father-in-law described the
day Karsh spotted him on the assembly line and chose him as a
subject.

`He said to Gow, `You come with me.’ So Gow said, `Hey fellas! I’m
going to Hollywood!’ ‘

Gow Crapper, who died in 1987 at the age of 62, received $1 for the
use of his likeness – the same fee paid to Karsh’s other Ford
subjects. Crapper’s widow, Shirley, has the original image Karsh shot
of her husband.

Signed by the famed photographer, Fielder estimated its value at
between $5,000 and $8,000.

Papp, who now coordinates overseas joint ventures through his
company, Manufacturing Advisory Services, doesn’t have a copy of his
photo. He recalled seeing it once, many years ago, and was unaware it
was part of the Windsor exhibition – until his daughter visited the
gallery.

`I had to do a double take,’ Patricia Papp said.

Christian Science Monitor
Aug 23 2004

A shattered peace between Muslims and Christians

De Bernières returns 10 years after ‘Corelli’s Mandolin’

By Ron Charles

That rumbling sound just over the horizon is a stampede of giant
novels set to arrive in a cloud of publicity. Pity the midlist author
who pushes a new book into the path of this horde next month. To the
extent Hollywood rises or falls on Thanksgiving weekend, publishers
are concentrating more and more of their big literary novels in the
fall, a self-destructive tendency sure to overwhelm the nation’s
shrinking body of readers (and newspaper book sections). If, as
Calvin Trillin observed, the average shelf life of a book is
somewhere between milk and yogurt, we’re about to see some major
spoilage.
That would be a shame because from the first novel to arrive this
looks like a particularly good season. “Birds Without Wings,” by
Louis de Bernières, is a deeply rewarding work about the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire. It’s both exotically remote and tragically
relevant in our age of confident nation-building.

As he did in his bestselling “Corelli’s Mandolin” (1994), de
Bernières roots his examination of the byzantine complexity of
history in the life of a small town. For generations, Christians and
Muslims have lived harmoniously in Eskibahçe, a fictional coastal
village carved into a hillside in what we now call Turkey. The novel
opens in 1900, on the eve of political and social calamities that no
one could possibly imagine, least of all these simple folk, whose
lives have more in common with 1500 than 1950.

One by one, they tell their stories – short, simple scenes that
gradually cut new facets in the hard substance of world history.
“With us there has been so much blood,” Iskander the Potter says in
the first paragraph, but it’s easy to ignore that warning as he and
his neighbors describe the everyday joys and trials of their lives as
though these were the riffs of some Ottoman Garrison Keillor.

There’s young Philothei, a Christian girl so beautiful she must wear
a veil to quell quarrels in the town. And Ibrahim, her betrothed, who
can “mimic the stupid comments of a goat in all its various states of
mind.” Karatavuk and Mehmetçik play among the hills, endlessly
blowing their bird whistles and flapping their arms. The proud
Christian priest accepts “offerings from Muslims who were anxious to
hedge their bets with God by backing both camels.” Ali the
Snowbringer lives with his asthmatic donkey in the trunk of a tree.
And Levon, the Armenian pharmacist, graciously helps the Muslim drunk
who once assaulted him in the street.

These are often charming, even comic stories, but they’re quickly
forced to contend with stunning scenes of violence. “It is one of the
greatest curses of religion,” de Bernières writes, “that it takes
only the very slightest twist of a knife tip in the cloth of a shirt
to turn neighbors who have loved each other into bitter enemies.”

That twist turns fathers against daughters and husbands against
wives, slicing through ligaments of affection in one haunting chapter
after another. With his presentation of this ecumenical community, de
Bernières suggests that these eruptions of domestic violence – tragic
as they are, motivated by pride and religious absolutism – can be
controlled and minimized by the essential goodwill of reasonable
people who know one another well.

But “Birds Without Wings” maintains a bifocal vision. One eye stays
focused on the village, while the other sees nations foolishly
slipping toward World War I. Among the scenes of life in little
Eskibahçe, de Bernières interjects blood-soaked snapshots of the
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the chaotic ascension of
Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey. With wry disgust, he
races through revolutions and counterrevolutions, massacres and
deportations, the craven interference of European powers and their
disastrous passivity, atrocities reflected endlessly in the mirror of
revenge.

It’s often difficult to follow the swift crosscurrents of this
complex period, but de Bernières’s thesis is strikingly clear:
“History,” he writes, “is finally nothing but a sorry edifice
constructed from hacked flesh in the name of great ideas.”

Eventually, of course, obscurity can protect Eskibahçe no longer. The
rabid demands of fanatics who know nothing of this delicate town rain
down upon it, fertilizing sectarian strife that these people had
managed to hold in check for centuries. Again and again, we see the
way reckless acts by vain leaders function as the flutterings of that
proverbial butterfly that incites a hurricane far away. Friend is set
against friend, neighbor against neighbor, always against their true
will. With his unfailingly wise perspective, de Bernières notes, “The
triple contagions of nationalism, utopianism and religious absolutism
effervesce together into an acid that corrodes the moral metal of a
race.”

Karatavuk, one of the Muslim boys who played so happily with his
Christian friend, takes us into the smoke of trench warfare with all
its ghastly farce and startling moments of compassion. His burning
faith in the jihad is slowly smothered by the senseless horrors he
witnesses and commits. “It is only people like me,” he writes, “who
wonder why God does not do just one good miracle, and make the world
perfect in an instant.”

So much is remarkable about this novel, from the heft of its history
to the power of its legends. In this great bazaar of family life and
international politics, the bittersweet metaphor of “birds without
wings” grows deeper and richer. The people of Eskibahçe are blessed
with soaring aspirations, but like all of us they must live firmly on
the ground, forced to cope with one another and the earthquakes of
history. This epic about the tragedy of borders is likely to cross
all borders, moving readers everywhere as it describes the harrowing
cost of remaking faraway places in the image of our dreams.

– Ron Charles is the Monitor’s book editor. Send e-mail comments
about the book section to Ron Charles.

Official Kremlin Int’l News Broadcast
August 16, 2004 Monday

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY, STATE DUMA VICE SPEAKER
AND LDPR LEADER IZVESTIA MEDIA CENTER, 15:10, AUGUST 16, 2004

Moderator: Good day. Our guest today is State Duma deputy and vice
speaker of the Duma Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky. The press
conference is devoted to the recent trip by Vladimir Volfovich to
Abkhazia. You know that the trip took place after Saakashvili’s
statement that he would shoot and sink boats with our tourists. And
immediately after the Duma went into recess, the only faction to go
to Abkhazia was the LDPR faction led by its leader. Why Vladimir
Volfovich felt it was necessary to go there, what he saw there, whom
he met there and what impressions he got from the trip he will now
tell you. And you are welcome with your questions.

Q: What are your main impressions of this trip? — (inaudible) —

Zhirinovsky: We had a long-standing invitation to visit Abkhazia. But
last year was election year and so we could not avail ourselves of
that invitation. The last time I was there was in November 1990, that
was still in the Soviet Union. And this time around it is summer and
vacation time and we went on a tour of our Black Sea holiday resorts
which took us to Anapa, Sochi and we also decided to go to Abkhazia.
We left Sochi by boat. This was the choice because it takes almost
six hours by car from Anapa to Sochi. And going by sea is always
better: it’s cool, the air is fresh and you can see a lot more. From
a car you can’t see much.

So, partly the motives are political because we hadn’t been there for
a long time, especially after the transformations of the USSR and
Georgia and Abkhazia of course is a seat of tensions connected with
the disintegration of Georgia. And the immediate political pretext
was the statement by the Georgian leadership that they are going to
use force if tourists go to Sukhumi by sea. Such statements are odd
and they may raise eyebrows and even indignation. Not a single leader
in the world has ever made such statements. Even the most abhorrent
and barbaric regimes always treat tourists well because tourists is
just a plus, and no minuses.

And we wanted to see for ourselves what the situation is in the
territorial waters of Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia, the Caucasus as a
whole, the holiday resorts. The impressions are very favorable. Even
we — and LDPR always pays particular attention to trouble spots, we
have gone to Yugoslavia, Transdniestria and Iraq — even we had an
impression that some kind of hostilities were still going on there.
Actually, there is peace and quiet, people live normally, everybody
works, all the sanatoria, guest houses and beaches are filled. The
entertainment industry is flourishing. You see all the traditional
things like speedboats and sea bicycles, “bananas”, horse riding,
tamed bears and birds. All the restaurants and cafes and discos. In
short, it’s business as usual, like many years ago.

Of course, in some parts of Abkhazia you see shattered buildings. In
fact, our visit coincided with the 12th anniversary of the liberation
of Abkhazia, of the end of their “patriotic war”. It was indeed a
patriotic war because they fought for their independence. Over its
history Abkhazia was independent and it fell under various
influences, but for 12 years now it has been an independent state.
And even though it hasn’t been recognized, the Soviet Union, too, was
unrecognized for a long time. The United States recognized us only in
1936 when Hitler came to power. Apparently, they were frightened that
they might find themselves face to face with him. So, the fact that a
state is not recognized doesn’t mean that such a state does not
exist.

It has all the trappings of a state, the president, the government,
the parliament, the heads of local administrations, everything
functions — the schools, hospitals, police, fire service. So, it’s a
normal state with all its attributes: the flag, the anthem. All the
institutions are working. The population is calm. There are no gunmen
in the streets, no one wears camouflage fatigues, all the trade
outlets work. Everything is normal and calm.

We met with the leadership of Abkhazia, with the vice presidents, the
prime minister, the parliament chairman and his deputies and the
members of parliament, the mayor of Sukhumi. Wherever we were there
were representatives of the administration and everywhere we heard
one sentence that etched itself on our minds: “Abkhazia has broken
away from Georgia for all time and it will never be with Georgia.”
Any options, but never with Georgia.

While in 1989-1990 there might still have been talk about some kind
of agreement and the division of powers, after that terrible war when
the “troops of the State Council” which was what they were called
because Georgia was in the process of disintegration, just as it is
now. Well, these “guards” burned and looted everything there, they
killed and raped and maimed many people. If the Tbilisi soldiers
thought that it was Georgia, they would never have behaved like this
for almost two years. They invaded on August 14, 1992 and it was only
a year and a half later that this terrible “patriotic war” ended. The
Abkhazians were fighting for their native land.

And if Georgia thought that it was part of the country, why did all
the Georgians leave? All the Georgians left with these troops.
Obviously, they left as occupiers. And by the way the claims that
there is a problem with refugees, the Georgians who left Sukhumi and
Abkhazia just returned to their homeland. In his time Beria forcibly
resettled them to Abkhazia. There was even an organization called
“Pereselenstroi” by analogy with GULAG. He set up such an
organization and he lured Georgians from remote Georgian villages in
order to observe demographic balance so as to get a pretext for
Georgianization of Abkhazia. This was done on the cultural front and
in terms of personnel.

In short, Abkhazia was fighting for its right to be an independent
state for a long time. It was not just a case of some individuals
quarrelling between themselves. This is a long-standing case of
historical hostility because the Abkhazian Kingdom was part of the
Russian Empire in its own right. It joined Russia in 1810. Six years
from now we will mark the 200th anniversary of Abkhazia’s voluntary
accession to the Russian Empire. And later Easter Georgia joined
Russia separately. And it too, when it entered, said it was for all
time. The Georgian tsar Georgy signed the so-called Georgian Treaty.
So, historically, legally, morally, economically and demographically
Abkhazia was and can be an independent state.

If you look at the ethnic aspect, Abkhazia is closer to our Adygians,
Kabardins, Balkarians, but certainly not Georgians. It’s like Russia
and the Baltics. We are Christians, but the Balts are a different
people altogether. They are Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians. And
when they wanted to leave we did not hold them by force. We didn’t
want them to break away from the USSR.

Abkhazia is to Georgia what the Baltics are to the USSR. Totally
different populations and Abkhazians have always considered
themselves to be an oppressed nation. And that is how it was. But at
present they are happy. They live normal lives. There are no ethnic
problems. And they said when talking to me that an ethnic Russian
should perhaps be appointed as prime minister. If Abkhazia is a
multinational country, Abkhazians make a majority of the population
today, but there have lived lots of Russians, Armenians, Greeks,
Estonians and other nationalities there. And they are now even ready
to have a Russian prime minister of Abkhazia. This way they would
show their benevolence to Russia and those ethnic Russians still
living in Abkhazia. There are Russian parliament members there, and
even a vice speaker of parliament. So my impression was very good
there.

The main thing was that our visit there was related to vacations. We
started in Anapa, the only major children’s resort. Then we moved to
Sochi, our main health resort, and then we visited Abkhazia —
Sukhumi, Novy Afon, Gudauta, Pitsunda, all of their major recreation
centers, Lake Ritsa. They are all well known tourist routes, which
have existed for two hundred years.

And their attitude to Russia and Russians is very good. They speak
Russian everywhere. Abkhazians only speak Abkhazian among themselves,
but the common language is Russian. And children in Abkhazia, brought
up in a new environment speak Russian very well. The Abkhazian
language uses the Russian alphabet. So my impression was very
positive.

Had it not been for destroyed buildings somewhere, I would have had
the impression that we visited a Soviet Abkhazia.

Naturally we do not fully understand the sanctions regime. Why have
sanctions, economic sanctions introduced against Abkhazia? Abkhazia
is a victim of aggression by Tbilisi, but the sanctions regime has
been effected against Abkhazia. I cannot understand this.

This obstructs normal navigation on the Black Sea, because an hour
away from Sukhumi and you enter the area which is not considers
Russia’s territorial waters. And it is similar when you go in the
direction of the Crimea. When you pass Anapa, there is Kerch and the
Crimea, territorial waters of yet another state. This certainly
impedes the development of navigation, tourism, business on the whole
of the Black Sea coast.

But despite all those problems, limitations, on the whole the entire
coast is in the state of recreation. It’s the peak of the season.
This year 500,000 tourists will visit that area. And some time ago
they started with 50,000. So the number of tourists has grown tenfold
over the past years. And in Soviet times, around 7 million people
passed their vacations there. So there is room for growth. They are
ready to build new hotels. They are waiting for investment, and our
business people could buy real estate very cheaply there now. They
could expand those facilities and increase the flow of tourists.

I cannot understand Saakashvili’s statement about holiday boats
moving from Sochi to Sukhumi. They can go there by other roads, round
the clock. There are lines there to enter Abkhazia, not far from
Adler, on the Psou River, the border bridge. The very word “border”
is unapplicable. Naturally you cannot see any border posts there.
This is all very conditional, it is a former administrative border
between the Krasnodar Territory and Abkhazia.

While staying in Abkhazia, we certainly did not feel as foreigners,
not even guests. We felt at home there. We should consider our whole
country, the Russian empire and the Soviet Union as our big Russian
home, and that is the Abkhazian apartment in that house, with windows
overlooking the Black Sea, the warm and pleasant sea.

It was very good there, very calm and very inexpensive for our
citizens. All those Maldives, Seychelles, Canaries, Cyprus — that is
very expensive for most Russian citizens. But the Black Sea,
especially Abkhazia, is the least expensive tourism. You can find
where to stay and you can get good nourishment, because they do not
import anything, they offer what they produce themselves. They have
animal breeding, dairy products, fruit. It’s all fresh and they
produce it themselves.

There is a warm sea, nearly 30 degrees Centigrade. That’s very good
for kids. There are vast empty areas on the coast. Those who like it,
those who want stay alone, those who like it to be quiet and calm —
when we were traveling from Anapa to Sochi, it’s all packed full,
including Anapa, Gelendzhik, Dzhubga, Lazarevskoye, everything. But
it is not so packed there. And there are lots of empty areas, where
people can recreate.

There is no political problem — actually there is a political
problem. There was a war. Georgia fell into pieces. It disintegrated
like Yugoslavia, like the Soviet Union. People of various
nationalities decided that they did not want to live in one state.
There have been lots of provocations, there have been lots of money,
there was corruption, there was the desire by ethnic elites to get
privileges for themselves. That is a natural process.

It happens to families sometimes that they cannot live together. They
create new families. For us Abkhazia is interesting not only because
it likes Russia and wants to stay with us. It may get an associated
status in the CIS or join a union state of Russia and Byelorussia.
Lots of options. They are ready to accept anything. The only thing
that they do not agree to is to return to Georgia’s fold. Tbilisi
should realize this and they cannot do anything by use of force.

But why should they stop tourists? I cannot understand Tbilisi’s
logic. They have not paid pensions to them. We have paid pensions to
our pensioners. Thousands of our pensioners live there, and our
pension agencies pay pensions to them. Why does not Tbilisi pay
pensions to them, if they regard them as part of Georgia? Let them
pay pensions in that case. But they would not. And they have not
financed anything there.

So there is no link with Georgia. On the contrary, they have wide
ties with Russia. There are lots of our business people there. Some
Muscovites buy houses, land plots there. That is, a normal economic,
tourist process, cultural process is under way. They held a chess
tournament at Sukhumi recently. Our chess players from various
Russian regions took part. So Abkhazia is ready for wide ties with
Russia.

They would like their football team to play in our premier league or
in some other league, so it would take part in our championships, so
Abkhazians could compete with their colleagues in various kinds of
sports. They are ready to hold various festivals, festivities,
competitions. So there is nothing there but positive things.

And the psychological climate is also very pleasant, because they
welcome any progress in the development of relations with Russia.

Naturally there are some questions. They would like to have the
regime for entry to the Krasnodar Territory to be facilitated. They
want to have an opportunity to get Russian citizenship faster. On
August 10 this resumed, free registration of Russian citizenship.
They want credit and financial ties to be restored with the Central
Bank. They use the Russian ruble there. So they have all the
attributes of the Russian state there: the Russian language, the
Russian ruble, Russian tourists, Russian culture, Russian athletes,
Russian health farms. Several sanatoria there are still controlled by
Russia’s Defense Ministry, as they used to be in the past. Land plots
have been granted to it for eternal use.

So Tbilisi should not worry. Abkhazia lives calmly and normally. It
develops and I think that in the future decisions will be made on its
status. It will now live as it is for decades. This does happen in
the world. Countries live for 50-60 years before their status is
decided. International legal documents are then adopted. For example,
we do not have a peace treaty with Japan. But this does not mean that
we are at war with Japan. In legal terms, we are at war with Japan,
because we declared a war, but we have not signed a peace treaty so
far. We are still in a state of war, but we do not fight.

So, it’s the same here. If Tbilisi doesn’t want to recognize an
independent Abkhazia, let it be so. But Abkhazia is an independent
state and… It’s 12 years, and in another 30 years young Georgians
and Abkhazians will have grown up and they will come to their own
arrangement. But Tbilisi’s claims that the Abkhazian are an ancient
Georgian tribe — we might as well say that the Latvians are an
ancient Russian tribe. Because there are some Slavic words in the
Latvian language, it doesn’t prove anything.

So, the wish of the Abkhazian people to live as an independent state
in every respect — linguistically, culturally, historically,
legally, militarily — in every way. International law must be on the
side of the Abkhazians. If you proceed from the standards of NATO and
the US, if they backed the dismemberment of Yugoslavia into six or
seven states, they should have supported this too because it was the
same variant. And today Saakashvili is trying to a Georgian
Milosevic. He will shoot people, then he will sit in the Hague for
having issued his orders and decrees because what is happening is
violence, there are already casualties in South Ossetia. The
Saakashvili regime answers for this.

But if you look at history, then of course there have been a lot of
atrocities in a few months of occupation. They burned down whatever
they could. They struck at culture in the first place, that is extra
proof of evil intent. They deliberately smashed Abkhazian monuments,
burned an Abkhazian library, the university, the archives in order to
destroy any traces that prove that Abkhazia was a state in its own
right. And that is a telltale sign. And I am not speaking about the
violence against civilians and any other nationalities — Abkhazians
and Russians were killed — and Armenians and everyone who was there.
They were abducted, taken hostage and their property was taken away.

I have seen all this with my own eyes. I have heard it from refugees
who fled from Abkhazia. And now we spent several days there and we
have seen it with our own eyes. There are many Russian tourists, they
are relaxing, they are happy, because people are pleased to revisit
the places where they hadn’t been for a long time. And we too had
such a chance. After 14 years of separation our relations have been
restored. I think there will be more tourists every year. The
deputies from other factions can also go there and they will be
welcomed by the Abkhazian parliament and they will be able to rest
there. Perhaps, I should stop here, but in answering your question I
took the opportunity to cover some other questions and perhaps to
provoke some more.

Q: Can you see a situation when more than half of the citizens of
Abkhazia will obtain Russian citizenship?

Zhirinovsky: Already 60 percent of Abkhazian citizens have Russian
citizenship. And in the next year or two the absolute majority are
dreaming of becoming citizens of the Russian state.

Q: If it is an independent state, how can all its people become
Russian citizens?

Zhirinovsky: It indicates their love of Russia. Although they
declared independence, they dream of becoming citizens of Russia. In
this way they are displaying their love. Well, about 20 percent will
remain Abkhazian, they will be purely Abkhazian citizens. But the
trend is there, already 60 percent are Russian citizens. And the rest
are lining up. They want Russia to understand that they had not aimed
at destroying the USSR, they had come out against the breakup of the
USSR.

And under the 1990 law On the Right of a Union Republic to Secede
from the USSR, it was expressly stated that if an autonomous republic
that is part of a union republic does not want to secede from the
USSR together with the union republic, it remains within the USSR. In
other words, they are following the law. Under the 1990 law, Abkhazia
chose not to break away from the USSR together with Georgia, and so
it is now automatically part of the USSR.

But the USSR does not exist, so, they found themselves in a kind of
limbo: territorially they are an independent state and as citizens
they consider themselves to be the citizens of the Russian Federation
which is the heir to the USSR. And they repeatedly send documents to
us asking that Abkhazia be included in the Russian Federation or that
a special status be conferred on Abkhazia, for example, an associated
member of the CIS or the Russian Federation. All this is possible, it
is realistic.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation allows of increasing the
number of the subjects of the Russian Federation and the Union State
of Russia-Byelorussia is open to any new member. So, everything will
depend on them. But in the meantime they just live peacefully and
they want as many tourists to come to Abkhazia as possible. And the
number of tourists has grown by ten times in as many years.

Q: Still, what are the chances that Russia — (inaudible) —

Zhirinovsky: I think the chances are good because Georgia is anxious
to be fully under NATO, under America. This is against the will of
the Georgian people and especially of the Abkhazians. So, the sooner
Tbilisi moves toward NATO, the faster the Abkhazians will move
towards Russia. Just like South Ossetia, Batumi did not want to
become somebody’s colony together with Tbilisi. Just as Dzhavakhetia
where the majority are Armenian.

If Georgia wants to follow international standards, it must first of
all allow Meskhetian Turks in. Turks used to live in Meskheti. There
are 100,000 of them. Let them solve that issue. They live here in
Russia but they have the right to return to their homeland. So, if
Georgians want their kin to return to other places of the former
Soviet Georgia, let them begin by allowing them into their own home.

So, neither Shevardnadze nor Saakashvili have acted in a way that
makes sense. Shevardnadze was an elderly man, he was 75, he knew that
one shouldn’t engage in saber-rattling, but Saakashvili is probably
too young to be the leader of Georgia and so he decided to some
saber-rattling. Although he himself has not served in the army, he
doesn’t know what army life. He is a Georgian Yavlinsky or a Georgian
Kostunica, or a Georgian Yushchenko. But Yavlinsky hasn’t been let
into the Kremlin, Yushchenko hasn’t yet been elected president of
Ukraine and most probably will not be, and Saakashvili made it
because he had American money behind him.

This velvet revolution was the most brazen overthrow of the regime.
He chased the president out of the parliament and declared himself
president. The elections, of course, were all rigged. So, there is no
question of a velvet revolution. It’s the right of the Abkhazians:
they want to live with Russia and to have the closest ties, they want
to be the citizens of Russia and they are entitled to that.

Q: And another question. If Georgia suddenly moves its troops into
Abkhazia, can Russia move its troops in, citing that 60 percent of
its people are Russian citizens?

Zhirinovsky: Yes, of course. It will be our duty to do so because
already tens of thousands of Russian citizens live on the territory
of Abkhazia, whatever its status may be, they are our pensioners, we
pay them pensions.

But there are peacekeeping forces there and the mandate of the
peacekeeping forces confers power on the commander, General Yevteyev.
And there are only two powers: to disarm any illegal arm units or
destroy them. So, if anyone encroaches on Abkhazia’s independence or
tries to perpetrate violent actions, these troops will be disarmed,
the weapons will be seized and they will be sent home. And if they
resist, they will be destroyed.

Another thing the Abkhazian side wants is for the peacekeepers’
mandate to cover not only the land, but also the sea. This was
somehow forgotten. There are territorial waters and they must be
patrolled by our ships. Several Russian naval vessels must be there
in order to keep the peace and protect democracy on the whole space:
on land and at sea. I think it will happen: our naval ships will
appear in the territorial waters of Abkhazia. In fact, at present
they are deployed in places that enable them to control the territory
and there are no armed units, no threats to the integrity of Abkhazia
and no threat of armed conflict. Peace and quiet, holiday season.

What is good about Abkhazia is that the holiday season last through
October and even November. I was there in November and it is warm in
Sochi, but Anapa is further to the north. But in Abkhazia the season
can be stretched to 8 months.

Q: Can you react to the statement by the US Defense Secretary
regarding the movement of NATO troops closer to the Russian borders?

Zhirinovsky: Well, this is what they have always dreamt of because
the Americans have never fought, they are afraid to fight. As for
putting their bases in various points on the planet, they have been
doing it for 60 years and they have practically occupied 150
countries, mostly by deploying their military bases in those
countries.

On the other hand, Western Europe is sick and tired of them. It is
like a gift to Western Europe for its good behavior during the past
50 years. For its pro-American course, and they are now trying to end
this occupation. Germany is actually still under occupation. US
troops are deployed there along with French, Dutch and British
troops.

So they will try to move troops from European, Western European
countries and deploy them in Eastern Europe, in Poland, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria — all those willing this, and
they will try to shift the burden of spending on them. This is a very
comfortable option — having an army financed by the country where
those troops are deployed. But this is not in our favor, because this
brings land troops closer to our borders.

The historic vector is the same. Napoleon also moved towards our
country. But he was more honest. He conquered Europe, declared a war
and crossed the border on June 12, 1812. In some respect Hitler was
also more frank. He invaded Europe, and Moscow knew that sooner or
later he will attack us. America follows suit. It is the third
crusade against Russia. The French, the Germans and the Americans.
The Americans want to do it using a more democratic variant,
gradually, via military bases, by replacing regimes.

It’s like with Saakashvili. They would also benefit if they managed
to install such a Saakashvili in Baku, in Yerevan, in Moldova, in
Ukraine and Byelorussia. They have a program for 20 years ahead. But
they will get stuck. Like Napoleon did and Hitler did. The Americans
will also get stuck because internal contradictions have aggravated.
The main thing is that the example of Iraq and Afghanistan shows that
they have been unable to do this: they cannot control their
territory, they have failed to succeed, there will be no election
there. The only thing that will happen is that the crime rate, terror
and drugs will grow.

But perhaps this is what they want. And one should not forget this.
When we weigh negative consequences for America’s foreign policy,
perhaps this is what they really want. They do not need a victory in
Iraq. They need a pretext so the world would ask the Americans to
stay, because otherwise no one knows what will happen there. So they
have intentionally created a situation under which they now act as
the United Nations. The United Nations has not made any decision yet
but they claim that they are the UN troops. They are ready to hand
over power to anyone. They have already handed power. Who to?
Puppets. Those the people do not want.

They now have reasons to surround Iran from Afghanistan. They do not
need Afghanistan. What they really wanted is blocking Iran from the
east, then from the west, via Georgia, Turkey, and from the south,
via Iraq. So it is the last country which irritates Israel and the
United States itself because it poses a certain military threat. And
then they will go farther — to the north, they seek to block Russia
from the west and the north, and, via China, the Far East.

This way they want to control the whole planet. They have done
everything purposefully. They have done it all right. Plus they skim
the cream from the whole planet. The best minds have come to their
country. Naturally the flow is not so substantial any longer. They
have now shifted to Meskheti Turks — this is not an elite certainly.
Still, they are as though spare parts for the population. But they
are Muslims and naturally they will not let all of them come there.
They have let about 500 people in, but they will not let others come
there. They already have 3 million Muslims there, and they do not
know what to do about that.

America replicates Napoleon’s advance to the east, then there was
Hitler. And they are now doing it themselves, doing it more
skillfully. Initially they arranged it all properly in the Far East,
in Korea, in Japan. Then they waged a war in Vietnam. Then
Afghanistan and the Balkans followed, and it’s now Iran’s turn. This
would lead to a logical end of the American empire. The American
empire has been disintegrating. This is the last step, closer and
closer to Russia and the end of the American empire.

Q: (Off mike.)

Zhirinovsky: By the strengthening of its military power. They marked
a jubilee, fifty years, in Novaya Zemlya. We have a testing ground
there, and we should resume tests of new weapons so everyone would
know and see that we have excelled them in technology terms, in
military aircraft.

The whole Europe cannot create a fighter plane. They have good
Mercedes cars and passenger airliners. But they cannot create
military aircraft in Europe. Our Sukhoi and MiG aircraft are the best
in the world. The same is in the space field. They can only continue
space research in collaboration with us. So while cooperating with
them we should bear in mind that America has ambitions to control the
world alone, but this is impossible.

It would be much better if there are four zones, four centers of
influence — Washington, Brussels, Moscow and Tokyo. So it is
necessary to divide the planet among the four: Japan would control
Asia, America would get the American continent, Brussels would have
Europe. Americans, as they are greedy, could also be given half of
Africa, half of the Middle East, let them get stuck there in the
sands, in the desert, let them be drowned in Middle Eastern oil. We
do not need other countries’ oil, other territories.

I think by 2030 the mankind will develop in line with this scenario.
Four individuals will decide the fate of the planet. The American
president, the high commissioner in Brussels, the Russian president,
and the Japanese prime minister.

For the time being China will be adopted to the G8, it would then be
followed by India, Brazil, to bring the number to 10-12. And then
that dozen would go to naught and it will be easy to come to terms
among four leaders. They would gather, the four of them, in Moscow,
in Washington, in Brussels, in Tokyo, discuss what velvet revolution
should be accomplished, where a new Saakashvili should be trained and
released to see whether or not he fits the role. If he fails, another
one should be released, a Yushchenko.

We will do the same in European countries, in Africa, elsewhere. We
have done that, and the Americans replicate. We invented what the
Americans are doing now. We invented concentration camps, and Hitler
then used our ideas. We invented imposing regimes, and the Americans
now replicate it. They follow our example.

Russia itself thought of political ideas. An experiment with
communism. The European Union today is like a stage in socialism:
they have one currency almost everywhere, they will soon have one
party, one religion and a common living standard for the population.
They have repeated what we were doing, even if in softer forms
adjusted to Europe. Because we have Asian influence.

Q: (Off mike.)

Zhirinovsky: Where should those weapons be used?

Q: In Abkhazia.

Zhirinovsky: In Abkhazia, like in Vietnam in the past.

Q: Yes, with your image, you managed to resolve half of our problems,
problems of our diplomacy and all Georgian diplomatic problems, if
they have diplomacy there. Why should you need this, if we leave
alone advertising? Have you discussed this with the Foreign Ministry?

Zhirinovsky: I have not agreed anything with anyone. I do not need to
do this. We are the country’s second most influential party after
United Russia and the most influential party among opposition
parties. We do not have any bosses. And I visited Abkhazia before the
Russian president or anyone else visited it. We have long established
friendly relationship with that area. Like with Transdniestria. And I
repeat, it’s been a long time since I visited it, I can pay a visit
there. Plus recreation. Plus I like sea cruises. Plus they invited
me. Why should not I go if they invite me? The sea in summer.

As for the possibility that the conflicts will develop the way it
happened in Vietnam, that is quite possible. We will be rivals in
some areas. We would benefit from developing new weapons, and
Americans would also benefit from doing this. And we need to test
them somewhere. So I think we will come to terms with the Americans.
We will never attack each other. But in some hot spots we will
support different regimes, and this will let us keep the balance. A
certain balance. When we need a certain individual to win in America,
we will play into their hands — so they would succeed in some hot
spot for the American public to see that. When we need the same, the
Americans will help us succeed somewhere, because it is hard to
attract people by economic promises alone. Some actions, mainly in
the field of foreign policy are needed. So, it will be sort of an
orchestra, a spectacle, and the main conductors will be sitting in
Washington, Brussels, Moscow and Tokyo. These will be the four main
conductors and the people will be like extras on a film set. But
there are of course some solo performers — Saakashvili and
Yushchenko are running errands for the director who tells them run
here, run there, say this, say that. But this is a natural process of
confrontations in some points on the planet.

In Iraq, well, let them be killed every day. We do not interfere, we
think they are wrong. This is our confrontation. Our confrontation
with Tbilisi is that we believe issues should not be settled by force
of arms. But they think that the territorial integrity of Georgia
should be preserved. But we believe that perhaps the territorial
integrity of the Soviet Union could have been preserved. Especially
since this is what the Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE says. At that
time they were in favor of preserving the territorial integrity of
the Soviet Union, but then they granted recognition to its breakaway
parts. Now they are for the preservation of the territorial integrity
of Georgia and in five years time they will recognize its breakaway
parts. It’s a normal process.

So, we should look forward to the creation of new states, as many as
300. In the next 20 years about 100 new states will appear on the
political map of the world: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh, I
don’t know, Transdniestria and it will be the same all over the
world. Belgium will split up because they have the French language in
Flanders and the Flemish language in the Flemish part. So, there will
be a process of division and we will sometimes encourage it and
welcome it and sometimes oppose it. So, the whole planet is acting
out a play: communism, fascism, racism, democracy, reforms, press
freedom, no press freedom, jail, visiting a jail, releasing from
jail, the Olympic Games. That’s the way things are.

Q: Is the LDPR and its faction going to do anything, I mean regarding
the independence of Abkhazia?

Zhirinovsky: Of course. We had a resolution on August 5 on the
situation in Georgia and Transcaucasia, in South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. We proposed a number of measures that might help Abkhazia.
For example, deputy Ostrovsky contributed amendments to this
resolution, but they were turned down. Whenever there is a debate and
issues connected with Abkhazia crop up and the Duma and our Foreign
Ministry pass documents, we try to influence them in favor of
Abkhazia just as in Moldavia we are in favor of Transdniestria. This
is an honest and clean position.

Q: What is your thinking about elections in Ukraine and what is your
position?

Zhirinovsky: Our position is against Yushchenko. As to which
candidate to back, we will decide later. The elections will be in
October. And anyway, support cannot be direct because Ukraine is not
today part of Russia. But the main thing is that Abkhazia too will
elect its president. We do not back anyone there because it is up to
them, but we are against a pro-Tbilisi president coming to power in
Abkhazia. We were against Saakashvili, although Shevardnadze was no
better, but he was softer and more calm than Saakashvili.

So, we are quick to express our position against Yushchenko and
against Saakashvili, and let the Georgians, the Abkhazians and
Ukrainians decide for themselves. I think if they decide against
Yushchenko, a pro-Moscow candidate will win. There can be only two
options: either a pro-Western one, Yushchenko, or a pro-Moscow one,
probably Yanukovich because the registration has finished.

Q: Does Russia and its Foreign Ministry have some program regarding
Abkhazia?

Zhirinovsky: Well, Georgia thinks that we have always backed the
Abkhazians. As early as 1989, Georgian nationalists, writers thought
that they could entertain imperial ambitions with regard to their
small peoples, but Moscow was not supposed to have any imperial
ambitions with regard to our small union republics. This is not
logical and it is a hindrance to them.

So, since 1989 we have been basically on the side of the autonomies
in those union republics which sought to break away from the USSR, in
the first place Georgia and then Moldavia, mainly Transdniestria.
Those were the two hot spots: Transdniestria, Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. I think the Foreign Ministry has sympathy with the
pro-Russian sentiments of the population in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. After all, there are many diplomats who stick to the letter
of the law and since we have recognized Georgia, we should not, in
their opinion, in the opinion of some diplomats, the Foreign Ministry
openly expresses sympathy for other territories claimed by Tbilisi.

We, the LDPR, have our own position, we believe Abkhazia should be
recognized as an independent state and we should promote relations
with it. Especially since we are neighbors. It is not Chile or Cuba
or Mozambique or Angola or Vietnam. It is territory that can
practically be considered to be part of the Sochi area, further on
there is the Greater Sochi. At the same time one can respect the
Abkhazians with their culture, language and so on.

And it is very good for us. It’s the southern borders of the
Caucasus. Because if we lose the whole of Transcaucasia, the North
Caucasus will be in a difficult position because the whole territory
of Georgia will be used to provoke conflicts. We will get not one
Chechnya, but four or five and things will go from bad to worse.

So, from the historical point of view, from the military, demographic
and cultural point of view we should have relations with Abkhazia and
South Ossetia rather than with Georgia because Georgia has always
been against Russia. I served in the army there in the times before
Gorbachev, this was under Brezhnev in the 1970s and it was at the
time the only union republic from which there was an outflow of the
Russian population. This was under Soviet government. According to
all the censuses, the Russian population in Georgia was diminishing.
It was growing or it remained stable in all the other republics but
it was diminishing in Georgia. So, Georgia has always pursued an
anti-Russian policy. Regardless of perestroika, the Stalin or
Brezhnev regime, it has always been hostile. We shouldn’t admit it,
it was the tsar’s mistake, but a mistake made 200 years ago cannot be
rectified. But we should avoid mistakes in the future. So, our future
is to be friends with Abkhazia. And especially since it occupies the
best part of the former Georgia.

Q: What is the current state of the Abkhazian armed forces? It looks
as if Saakashvili is set to regain that part of Georgia by force
sooner or later. Will the Abkhazians be strong enough to stop his
offensive? Without Russian help.

Zhirinovsky: But one can look at it the other way: Will Georgia be
able to attack Abkhazia without US assistance? If Georgia attacks
Abkhazia with US assistance, Abkhazia should turn for help to Russia
and defend itself from Georgia with Russian help. This is what a
comrade said, Vietnamization. Only it’s the other way round. South
Vietnam was under the American flag and we were helping North
Vietnam. Now the US will be helping Northern Georgia and the Tbilisi
government and we will help Southern and Western Georgia as
represented by Abkhazia. So, Eastern Georgia is under the influence
of the US and Abkhazia is under the influence of Russia.

Q: If a conflict flares up, then surely both sides will —

Zhirinovsky: Military aid will come from both sides. And nothing will
happen because if the Abkhazians want to they can turn to their North
Caucasus brothers for help: the Adygians, Kabardinians, Balkarians,
the Karachais, the Circassians. It will be a battle of peoples and
Georgia will have a very hard time. Especially since in its time it
did seize and assimilate territories. Why were there militants in the
Pankisi Gorge? It used to be part of Chechnya, but Stalin gave it to
Georgia. He has given Abkhazia to Georgia. These are all hangovers of
Stalin’s strokes on the map of the world, on the map of the Soviet
Union. He bequeathed it to us.

After the 1917 revolution, Abkhazia was independent and it joined the
Soviet Union as the Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic…
Just an ordinary republic. It became autonomous and now it has again
become independent. So, there were various formats, but it was all
illegitimate with regard to Abkhazia. But the Soviet period is over,
the Russian Empire is gone and the Georgia imperial status must also
end. If we come out for democracy, then we must support the wish of
the Abkhazian people. It has already gained its freedom. We cannot
decide its destiny, the Abkhazians have decided their destiny. They
have restored their fate, because they have always been an
independent state that had nothing to do with Georgia.

Q: When there was the first war and the Abkhazians fought the
Georgians, the Chechens helped them and Shamil Basayev was on their
side. Now Maskhadov says that if Georgia again attacks Abkhazia, the
Chechen militants will help Saakashvili. How do you account for this?

Zhirinovsky: It just shows the true face of the remnants of
Maskhadov’s bands. They are fighting where they are paid. If
Saakashvili promises to pay them, they may fight for him. But
Saakashvili wouldn’t want it himself because if they help Georgia,
they will remain in Georgia and may at any time turn their weapons
against Saakashvili himself. So, Saakashvili will not call in
Chechens. He has no need to.

And in their mentality, religion, beliefs, language and culture the
Chechens are closer to the Abkhazians than the Georgians are. They
are one big family of Caucasus peoples. They are also close to
Albanian tribes which have reached as far as Europe and are now in
Albania and then there are Kosovar Albanians and so on. So, they are
ready to fight anywhere. Russians also fought on the side of Tbilisi
and other Russians fought on the side of Abkhazia. And what cause did
they die for? In 10 years, 100 peacekeepers died of whom 40 died at
the hands of bandits from Georgia. We are losing our soldiers there
today. It means that we have been losing four soldiers a year there.
It’s bad. But it’s still less than some other kind of war that might
happen if there are no peacekeepers. So, peacekeepers are performing
a good mission, but they must have more funding, more opportunities
so that their sphere of activities does not contract, and the naval
component should be added to the peacekeeping forces so that Russian
naval ships control the territorial waters of Abkhazia. Have I
answered all the questions?

Q: Could I ask a question that is not strictly within the declared
topic?

Zhirinovsky: Yes.

Q: (Inaudible).

Zhirinovsky: Let them lower the cut-off rate, the more parties, the
higher the level of democracy. But it’s about representation, not
decision-making. One can retain the five percent barrier and that
means there will be 5 or 6 parties in the Duma. But they will between
them have only 120 votes and most of the votes will still belong to
the majority party or whatever you call it. This is like the Japanese
parliament or the Italian parliament and so on.

Let it be so, we don’t mind. We may settle for a 10-percent barrier,
we are in favor of a two-party system. But other parties are weak and
they are advocating a reduction of the cut-off percentage from 7 to
5. Perhaps, it will enable these former or new democratic parties to
get some kind of representation. I think roughly the alignment in the
new Duma, from the new year, will be as follows: the majority party
(I do not name it) has 250 votes, the second largest party, I mean
the LDPR, may have 100-120 votes and four other parties — the CPRF,
the Rogozin team which is something like SPS or Yabloko, will have 20
votes each. That makes six parties.

But the decisions will be taken by the majority party with the
support of some other party which will have to back the majority
party sometimes because it abhors all the other parties such as the
CPRF, the Rogozin team or SPS or Yabloko. We choose the lesser of two
evils. All of them are bad, but United Russia is a little bit better
than the CPRF and the Rogozin team. So, we would rather cooperate
with them.

That would be the disposition in parliament. But the decisions will
be taken quickly mainly by two parties. One of them may be the LDPR
because over 15 years we have proved that we are viable, that we have
an influence and we have our own niche.

Our voters will not vote for United Russia or the CPRF or pro-
Western democrats. These are our voters, they have matured, they were
ten years old and today they are 25. They have passed through the
school studying the history of Russia and knowing that there exists
the LDPR. We could see it even in Abkhazia because people know us and
respect us and love us.

So, if we reduce the barrier to 5 percent and adopt the proportional
system to strengthen all the parties, including the majority party
and to rule out corruption in the regions and wrest deputies from the
influence of the governors, then the situation will be quite
acceptable. The Kremlin will have the necessary majority in the State
Duma and all the political forces will be represented in the Duma.
And let the democrats and the communists and all the rest coo. They
will have 100-120 votes and they won’t be able to force any decision,
but they will be represented. They will have a chance to say
something and to declare their position from time to time. But no
matter how they vote, they will never be able to cause any decision
to be taken. That is all. Exactly an hour.

Moderator: Thank you.

Zhirinovsky: Good bye.

Azerbaijan has “most likely” agreed to host US bases, increase troops in Iraq

Zerkalo, Baku
19 Aug 04

The Azerbaijani leadership has probably already decided to contribute
more troops to the Iraqi anti-terror coalition and to agree to the
deployment of US forces in Azerbaijan and is just waiting for the
right moment to reveal this, an article in Baku daily Zerkalo has
said. The deployment of US troops runs the risk of Azerbaijan getting
embroiled in a conflict with Iran, the article said, and also rules
out resolution of the Karabakh conflict by force. “With the appearance
of Americans in Azerbaijan, the danger of becoming a target of Islamic
terrorists will certainly grow… for Islamic terrorists US troops are
like a red rag to a bull,” the article concluded. It saw as advantages
of US troop deployment greater economic development for the region and
integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures. According to
the article, Russia is not ready for global confrontation with the USA
and will probably yield on the issue of US troops in Azerbaijan. The
following is an excerpt from Rauf Mirqadirov’s report in Azerbaijani
newspaper Zerkalo on 19 August entitled “Azerbaijan, ally of the USA
forever” and subheaded “But there is another side to the coin”;
subheadings inserted editorially:

Official Baku will soon have to take very tough decisions within the
framework of its participation in the US-led anti-terror
coalition. These decisions, most likely, have already been adopted,
and the Azerbaijani leadership is waiting for a suitable moment to
make them public.

The first decision is about the participation of the Azerbaijani
peacekeeping contingent in the Iraqi coalition forces. To be more
precise, for the time being, we are not talking about participation,
but the expansion of the peacekeeping mission. Azerbaijani officials
have said more than once that the issue of withdrawal of our
peacekeeping mission from Iraq is not on the agenda. Moreover, very
recently Azerbaijan, with other allies in the coalition, issued a
statement that they will not make concessions to terrorists if their
troops are taken hostage.

Azerbaijan has probably decided to deploy US troops

Now we are talking about contributing extra forces to maintaining
security in the elections to be held under the UN aegis. Officially,
Azerbaijan will not make concessions to the leaders of the anti-Iraq
coalition, i.e. the USA and Britain, whose ranks are gradually
thinning, but will build up its military contingent within the
framework of the UN resolution to maintain security in the upcoming
Iraqi presidential elections.

The second important question, on which reliable sources claim a
decision has been adopted, is the deployment of US “mobile forces”, in
essence, military bases, on the territory of Azerbaijan.

[Passage omitted: Russian defence minister’s comment on US
redeployment]

First, I shall try to answer the question on to what extent it was
expedient to participate in the US-led anti-terror coalition, to be
precise, the pros and cons of this step. Most likely, due to the
following reasons, it was the right step.

Azerbaijan itself is a victim of terror. Various terrorist
organizations, first of all, Armenian ones, committed about 40
terrorist acts in Azerbaijan over the last 10 years. Incidentally,
some terrorist acts in Baku were committed by organizations of Islamic
orientation.

Second, Azerbaijan, being one of the rare Islamic countries oriented
to the West, could not stay aloof from the anti-terrorist
coalition. This step could have seriously undermined Azerbaijan’s
position at international level. Because, none of the Western
countries, even France – an eternal opponent of the USA – did not go
against the establishment of the anti-terror coalition. Simply, there
was a serious difference of opinion regarding the methods used to
combat international terrorism. Therefore, in the existing
circumstances, Azerbaijan could hardly remain beyond the limits of the
anti-terror coalition.

Third, for a certain period, the direct participation of Azerbaijani
troops in peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations, conducted by
NATO, as a whole and directly by the USA, met the interests of our
country. Our troops acquired invaluable experience, as it was in
Kosovo, in Afghanistan.

[Passage omitted: description of situation in Iraq, Afghanistan]

Azerbaijani troops to become targets of Islamic terrorists

Given these conditions, naturally, any soldier, who is a
representative of the Anglo-American coalition, irrespective of
ethnicity and religion, is an occupier in the eyes of Iraqis,
especially after the abuse of prisoners by troops of those countries.

Thus, all claims that the deployment of Azerbaijani troops during the
presidential elections in places of residence of Shi’is, engulfed in
the uprising, will be conducive to the stabilization of the situation,
does not stand up to criticism. For Shi’is, who most likely will
boycott the upcoming presidential elections if the current conflict is
not resolved, the Azerbaijani troops are not better than others all
together, and maybe, worse. They will be perceived as defectors who
deserted to serve the devil.

Bearing in mind that during the elections, the number of terror acts,
most likely, will soar, then one might suppose that the Azerbaijani
troops too will become “targets” for the terrorists.

The deployment of US troops in Azerbaijan also has its pros and
cons. Let us again start with the pros.

First, Russia is hardly likely to react so sharply to the appearance
of Americans in Azerbaijan, as many analysts suppose. At present,
Russia is not ready for global confrontation with the USA, first of
all, in the economic sphere. Therefore, it will also yield in this
issue at the end, as was the case in many others.

Second, the situation in the region will become extremely clear and
predictable. This is also a very important advantage, i.e. all
conditions will be created to intensify the region’s economic
development and its integration into Euro-Atlantic and European
structures.

Now about the cons. First, regrettably, the Americans do not rule out
that Iran is their future target. If all these statements are made in
order to frighten Tehran, then it is another issue. However, if the
Americans start another mess, moreover, on our borders, then
Azerbaijan, irrespective of its wishes, will be dragged into this
conflict.

Second, the appearance of the US military bases will fully deprive
Azerbaijan of operational space in the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict. In other words, without supreme desire, Azerbaijan will not
have an opportunity even to try to resolve this conflict by force. Now
hardly anybody believes that the USA will allow Azerbaijan to resume
hostilities after its troops have been deployed in our country.

And finally, third, with the appearance of Americans in Azerbaijan,
the danger of becoming a target of Islamic terrorists will certainly
grow. Islamic terrorists do not even hide that they are planning to
strike US allies. And for Islamic terrorists US troops are like a red
rag to a bull.

ArmenPress
Aug 17 2004

ASSUMPTION OF THE MOTHER OF GOD

ANTELIAS, AUGUST 17, ARMENPRESS: On August 15 all the Armenian
Churches in the world celebrate the Assumption of the Holy Mother of
God (Verapokhoum). Although in modern Armenian Verapokhoum means
change again, in Classical Armenian it means transport up. For
fifteen years after the Crucifixion Mary remained in Jerusalem under
the watchful eyes of the apostles, especially John to whom she had
been entrusted. When she died all of the apostles were present at her
burial, except Bartholomew. When he returned to Jerusalem he went to
her grave to pay his respects. The apostles gathered in the cemetery,
but when the gravestone was lifted, they were surprised to find that
her body was not there, instead there was an exceeding sweet
fragrance. It was believed that Mary was physically taken into
heaven. Based on this the church fathers established the Feast of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Blessing of the Grapes, although not connected with the
Assumption, is generally commemorated on the same day. First the
special hymn of the day is sung, then passages from the Gospel are
read, after which the prayer pertaining to the blessing of grapes,
which was composed by Catholicos Nerses is read. In this prayer it is
mentioned that on the third day of Creation, God created the
fruit-yielding trees and vegetation on earth. The prayer seeks the
blessing of God to be bestowed on those who give the first yield of
their vineyards as gifts to the church, and asks the Lord to protect
the crops and gardens from harm. After the prayers, the grapes are
blessed and distributed to the congregation.
On Saturday 14 August 2004, The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia
celebrated the feast of the Holy Virgin Mary’s Assumption. The
Catholicosate also celebrated the pilgrimage day of St. Mary’s
Armenian Monastery in Bikfaya, Lebanon, site of the summer residence
of the Catholicos, and also site of the Seminary. A celebration
dating from 1952, when the Chapel was consecrated in the name of St.
Mary.
Since the first year of his Pontificate (1995), His Holiness Aram
I has emphasized the importance of the feast as a special day of
spiritual renewal, and especially the pilgrimage day as the day of
the youth. This year, along with thousands of faithful, youths from
many of the Armenian youth organizations walked from Antelias to
Bikfaya as pilgrims of St. Mary’s Monastery, where they joined His
Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, who presided over the
ceremony.
Thousands of people attended the Divine Liturgy which was
celebrated in the courtyard of the monastery. His Holiness delivered
his pontifical message to the faithful. This year His Holiness
focused his message on the importance of family. Family is the basis
of society. I cannot imagine, spiritually and morally healthy
society, without the family. I cannot imagine an organized and
credible society without the family. Indeed the family remains an
important point of reference, in any society. That is why we as
Catholicos declared this year as the Year of Family. We consider the
family, in a sense, the extension of the church, of the school, of
our homeland. It is in and through the family that the foundation of
Christian formation and Armenian education is laid down. Therefore a
crucial role is given to the Armenian family. It is called to
preserve and promote our Armenian Christian values and tradition in
the context of a world which constantly question the credibility and
relevance of spiritual and moral values. We must, therefore, preserve
the integrity; the credibility of the Armenian Family said His
Holiness.
Following the Divine Liturgy, the ceremony of blessing of grapes
and Madagh took place headed by His Holiness Aram I.

In-Forum , ND
Aug 14 2004

MeritCare program just what the doctor ordered
TerryDeVine,The Forum

The guest services program at MeritCare Medical Center has proven to
be a great success in its four years of existence and a public
relations bonanza.

And a year-old pilot program, also designed to enhance customer
service, is so popular with patients and their families that it will
become a permanent fixture, says Patricia Dirk, MeritCare coordinator
of guest services.

The pilot program was started with $200,000 in seed money from the
MeritCare Foundation and the MeritCare Auxiliary, but Dirk says it
will be included in next year’s budget as a separate line item.

“The guest services program was a strategic initiative to enhance
customer service and the patient experience,” says Dirk.

“Dr. (Roger) Gilbertson (MeritCare president) is very concerned about
easing the burden of illness, about having employees who are
compassionate and help patients and friends through illness,” says
Dirk. “He wants to know what we can do to make things better for
them. After all, they don’t choose to be here. The stress of illness
can make simple things much more difficult.”

The program is designed to alleviate that stress. By all accounts, it
is succeeding.

The key is having the right people in place, says Dirk, and she now
has 26 full- and part-time guest services representatives operating
throughout MeritCare’s health system.

The pilot program is operating on two medical/surgical floors, with
an eye toward future expansion.

In fact, Dirk says she’s currently seeking and training volunteers to
help with the pilot program.

She’d be happy to have you apply.

The person who makes the pilot program go on the two medical/surgical
floors is Karine Pogosyan, a 29-year-old sparkplug from Armenia, who
emigrated to the U.S. with her parents back in 1992.

“I don’t only laugh with patients, I also cry with patients,” says
the personable Pogosyan, who will shortly finish a master’s degree in
counseling at NDSU and start a doctoral program in human development
in the fall.

“My passion is love for people,” says Pogosyan. “It’s what keeps me
going.”

Need a movie? She’ll run down to the video store and get it for you.
Need a motel room? Count on Pogosyan. Want to know where you can find
a certain kind of cuisine? She’ll point you in the right direction or
go carry it out for you.

Pogosyan, who is fluent in Armenian, English and Russian, is a breath
of fresh air. She makes people smile, even those who don’t feel much
like smiling because they don’t feel well.

During the week, Pogosyan can be found roaming her two floors,
stopping in all the rooms and talking to patients and their families,
assisting them in any way she can. No request is too small or too
large for her to deal with.

“It makes my day to satisfy an ill person who is not in a good mood,”
says Pogosyan. “It’s my job to build a relationship so people trust
me enough to ask for something.”

Every Wednesday afternoon guest services serves coffee for patients,
family, friends and anyone who wants to come. Cookies and popcorn
come with the coffee.

“People laugh and have a great time,” says Pogosyan. “They forget
their stresses. It’s something positive and gives them a chance to
vent.”

Pogosyan says she sees her job as simply making people happy. “I
never know what I’m walking into. It’s very challenging and very
unpredictable and I love it.”

Many of her patients and family members, often from rural areas, are
now friends and keep in touch from time to time.

“We all have a purpose in life,” says Pogosyan. “My purpose is to be
here. My motto is do whatever it takes and always treat others as you
would like to be treated yourself. I always ask myself that
question.”

Dirk, a veteran of more than 20 years with MeritCare, shares that
philosophy with Pogosyan.

“The clinicians care for the patients and we care for the families,”
says Dirk.

“If someone is here with a loved one in critical care, they need as
much care as their loved one,” says Dirk. “Some don’t ever leave the
hospital.”

The goal of guest services is to attend to those needs.

“If we walk away every day feeling like we made a difference in the
lives of the people we serve, that’s what keeps us motivated,” says
Dirk.

Judging by the results of patient satisfaction surveys, the program
is an unqualified success.