Author: nina hovnanian

La Croix, France
Mardi 24 Février 2015

L’Arménien Grégoire de Narek sera proclamé docteur de l’Église

Recevant samedi le cardinal Angelo Amato, préfet de la Congrégation
des causes des saints, le pape François a validé la prochaine
proclamation de saint Grégoire de Narek, mystique arménien du Xe
siècle, comme docteur de l’Église.

par SENEZE Nicolas

Qui est saint Grégoire de Narek?
Né vers 950, orphelin de mère très jeune, Grégoire de Narek est éduqué
par son père évêque avant d’entrer au monastère de Narek (est de la
Turquie) dirigé par son oncle. Prêtre en 977, il enseigne ensuite à
l’école du monastère avant d’être écarté par des moines jaloux qui
l’accusent d’être trop proche des thèses byzantines. Il meurt vers
1003, laissant une abondante oeuvre, notamment un Commentaire du
Cantique des Cantiques et de nombreux poèmes et hymnes et odes. Mais
son chef-d’oeuvre demeure le Livre des Lamentations (achevé vers
1003), monument de la langue arménienne classique et pièce majeure de
la littérature mystique, qu’il décrivait comme une série de «
conversations avec Dieu venues des profondeurs du coeur ».
Qu’est-ce qu’un docteur de l’Église?

L’Église catholique attribue le titre de docteur de l’Église à ceux
dont elle reconnaît une autorité théologique exceptionnelle en raison
de la profondeur de leur foi, de la sûreté de leur doctrine et de la
sainteté de leur vie, conférant ainsi une place particulière à leurs
enseignements. Attribué à 35 reprises, il l’a été pour la première
fois en 1295 par Boniface VIII (saints Augustin, Ambroise, Jérôme et
Grégoire le Grand) et pour la dernière fois en 2012 (saint Jean
d’Avila et sainte Hildegarde de Bingen). Seules quatre femmes ont été
honorées du titre (les premières étant saintes Thérèse d’Avila et
Catherine de Sienne, en 1970) et huit orientaux (le dernier étant
saint Éphrem le Syrien, hymnographe de langue syriaque, en 1920).
Actuellement, la cause de saint Bernardin de Sienne serait en bonne
voie, tandis que les évêques de France poussent celle de saint Jean
Eudes.

Pourquoi proclamer Grégoire de Narek docteur de l’Église?

Reconnu dans l’Église arménienne (où il est fêté le 9 octobre),
Grégoire de Narek l’est aussi chez les catholiques, dans l’Église
arménienne-catholique comme dans l’Église latine il y est célébré le
27 février où son oeuvre, connue depuis le XVIIe siècle, a eu un fort
retentissement. Sa mystique, fondée sur l’aspiration de l’homme à
combler l’abîme qui le sépare de Dieu, exprime aussi la possibilité
pour le croyant de ressentir la proximité immédiate de Dieu, la nature
humaine pouvant aller jusqu’à s’unir à la nature divine. Il dessine
aussi l’idée d’un cheminement personnel avec Dieu fondé sur
l’humilité, tout à fait en phase avec la spiritualité dessinée par
l’Église depuis Vatican II.

L’annonce faite hier par le Saint-Siège intervient aussi au moment du
centenaire du génocide arménien au cours duquel le monastère de Narek
fut d’ailleurs entièrement détruit que le pape marquera lui-même le 12
avril prochain lors d’une messe place Saint-Pierre en mémoire du 1,5
million de victimes. De son côté, le 23 avril, le catholicos arménien
Karekin II canonisera toutes les victimes du génocide, tuées « pour la
foi et pour le pays ».

CENTRAL BANK OF ARMENIA RESPONDS TO CRITICISM OF THOSE AGAINST TOUGHENING OF THE CBA’S NEW REQUIREMENT TO COMMERCIAL BANKS’ MINIMUM TOTAL CAPITAL

by Vahagn Mamyan

Saturday, February 28, 00:17

The opponents having no sufficient information about the Armenian
Central Bank’s decision to increase the commercial banks’ minimum total
capital standard from the current 5 bln AMD to 30 bln AMD by 2017 have
recently been voicing generalized statements and comments on it. The
CB press service has told ArmInfo that in some cases the comments of
the opponents, who intentionally manipulate the situation, ungroundedly
whip up the citizens’ concerns. The CB thinks that manipulation on the
banks’ names allegedly for their own safety is especially inadmissible.

The CB believes that the tangible growth in the specified standard
is aimed at maintaining the Armenian banking system’s reliability,
ensuring stability in the banking sector and deepening financial
mediation. The source points out that the given measure does not at
all aim to close some banks or reduce the number of the banks.

Before taking the relevant decision, the Central Bank had repeatedly
discussed that issue with the shareholders and heads of the commercial
banks, which expressed readiness to meet the new requirement. Several
banks have already replenished their capitals, increasing them to
the standard level of 2017.

Not a single bank in Armenia causes the Central Bank’s concerns about
possible failure to meet the new requirement. “The banking system
of Armenia is stable and meets all international standards. So, the
customers of the banks have nothing to worry about. Only enhancement
of the service quality should be in the focus of their expectations”,
says the source.

To note, starting January 1 2017, a new standard of minimal total
capital – 30 billion drams versus current 5 billion drams – will be
introduced in the banking system of Armenia. The Central Bank Council
made the given amendment to the provision 2 of the Law “On Regulation
of the activity of banks and basic economic standards of the banking
activity” on 30 December 2014. The amendment will apply to all the
participants in the banking system of Armenia. The banks have enough
time to meet the new requirements. This tightening will lead to merger
of banks and bigger actors will emerge in the banking sector, which,
in turn, will ensure a higher quality and more accessible banking
services and health- competition. In addition, the banking sector
will become more efficient and stable. Favorable environment will be
created for introduction of new technologies and products, which will
help involving Armenian banks into the international equity market
and creating a basis for further enhancement of cooperation. The banks
will become more flexible and resistant to economic shocks. This will
promote also financial mediation.

Turan Information Agency, Azerbaijan
February 27, 2015 Friday

Court of Appeal Leaves Arif Yunus in Custody

The Baku Court of Appeal chaired by Abid Abdinbekov dismissed the
complaint brought by the conflict expert Arif Yunus about the
extension of his arrest until August 5.

As the lawyer Afghan Mammadov told Turan, Yunus declared illegal the
extension of his arrest, as well as the prosecution itself.

In this case, Yunus pointed to special diligence of the judge Babak
Panahov at the Nasimi District Court in the decision to extend the
arrest.

The lawyer also considers unreasonable the unfair extension of the
detention. The investigation motivated this by standard wording that,
remaining free, the accused “can hide from the investigation and use
his authority to influence the witnesses.”

The lawyer also pointed out that any active investigation against
Yunus is not carried out.

The detention has a negative impact on the health of Yunus, who
suffered a hypertensive crisis before his arrest and suffers from
cardiovascular disease.

* Yunus was arrested on August 5, 2014, a week after the arrest of his
wife, human rights activist Leyla Yunus. The couple is accused of
espionage in favor of Armenia. Amnesty International has recognized
them as “prisoners of conscience”.

Gilmer Mirror, TX
March 1 2015

The Unfinished War against Christians

WASHINGTON, DC – During a rousing talk at the DuPont Circle Hotel,
sponsored by the Woman’s National Democratic Club (WNDC), Joe David,
author of The Infidels, took a sell-out crowd of WNDC members and
their guests on a journey to the beginning of Christianity over two
thousand years ago.

“With little more than a Bible, a cross and some bread,” David said,
“the early Assyrian Christian missionaries followed the trade route
(known generally as the Silk Route) to China and spread the gospel,
according to Jesus to world. By the 12tth Century, The Assyrian Church
of the East became the largest church in the world with over 80
million followers, larger than the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox
Churches combined.”

Unfortunately, these peaceful and cultured Assyrians who build the
first Christian nation on the ruins of the ancient Assyrian empire
faced a major threat in 630 AD. “With the fall of the Eastern Roman
Empire in 1453, Christianity in the Middle East was boldly reduced to
ashes, leaving behind only a few sparks of life here and there. The
cause: the rise of radical Islam which left its imprint on the area by
brutally slaughtering millions of Christians.”

By revisiting the past, David identified the uninterrupted pattern of
genocide, perpetrated by radical Muslims against Christians that began
in the 7th Century. “I worry,” he said, “that if we don’t acknowledge
the lessons taught to us by history and end today’s terrorism, we may
soon see a holocaust like none before it.”

The Infidels is David’s sixth book. It is about one aspect of the
often overlooked war in Middle East, when the Muslim Turks, with the
blessings of the Germans, began to savagely massacre nearly two
million Christians during a jihad, declared to cleanse the Ottoman
Empire of racial impurities, exactly 100 years ago. The book is a
novelization of his mother’s experience in Persia during World War I.

The Book Only London’s Thames River Press Was Brave Enough To Publish

The Infidels
by Joe David

A terrifying story about a religious war Led by the Muslim Turks
against the Christians

Joe David’s latest book is in the great tradition of novels like Forty
Days of Musa Dagh and histories like the Rape of Nanking. It reveals
the scars of brutality and inhumanity as history intersects with the
ordinary lives of innocent people.

Editor George Thomas Kurian

The World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 2001)

The Nelson New Christian Dictionary (Thomas Nelson, 2002)

I found Joe David’s version of a rarely discussed genocide, the
plotted murder of the Assyrians by the Kurds and the Turks during
World War I, to be thoroughly engrossing. In writing his novel, David
not only demonstrates a significant knowledge of the customs and
history of the times, but he also vividly brings to life the past in
an exciting and meaningful way.

Anahit Khosroeva, PhD

Senior Researcher, Institute of History

National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

The Great War began with two shots: one aimed at the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and the other aimed at his
wife, Sophie. What many thought would be just another Balkan squabble
quickly escalated into a major war felt around the world.

As Europe burst into flames and millions of soldiers began battling
the forces of nationalism, the Ottoman Turks joined arms with the
Germans and extended the conflict to their longtime enemies, the
Russians and the Christians. Incited by secular leaders in
Constantinople, northwestern Persia became a warzone in which radical
religious tribes invaded Christian villages and systematically
martyred hundreds of thousands of ‘infidels” who dared to resist
conversion.

On a small slice of ancient, isolated land owned by a wealthy Assyrian
family, a young Christian girl awakens to the brutal massacre of her
race in a war that she is too young to understand. Stripped of her
privileged and comfortable existence, pursued by a Muslim governor – a
symbol of the rising new world order – and surrounded by hostility and
greed, deep-sated hatred and unspeakable horrors, she must somehow
come to terms with the nightmare that her life has become.

Visit the past to grasp the present – and the terror facing us in the future

Author: Joe David’s first book, The Fire Within, because of its
successful dramatization of important issues in education, made the
reading list at two universities and received national public
attention in the 1980s. For nearly nine years, he was a frequent radio
and television talk show guest in major U.S. cities, where he candidly
discussed issues in education.

Over the years, he has written for professional journals, newspapers,
magazines, newsletters, and books, including the Annenberg/CPB Math
and Science Project, NPR Radio (The Best of Our Knowledge), The Forum
(University of West Florida), U.S. Airways, Basic Education (Council
for Basic Education), Christian Science Monitor, and much more. He is
the author of six books.

Author Joe David’s national TV interview

with Connie Martinson can be viewed on YouTube.

`I am returning to where my story began, I am returning home’

Maral Dink 03.01.2015 12:15 CULTURE AND ARTS

The Syrian singer Lena Chamamyan is one of the most popular names in music
in the Middle East today. Chamamyan brought her first album out in 2006,
and she mostly sings in Arabic and Armenian, blending traditional folk
music with jazz. Beside pain and death, her voice and lyrics convey life
and hope.

Chamamyan’s family is from MaraÃ…=9F on her father’s side, and from Mardin and
Diyarbakır on her mother’s side. She settled in Paris when war broke out in
Syria. `I used to be part of the Armenian Diaspora, now I am part of the
Syrian Diaspora,’ she comments. Her each sentence contains a sense
of
displacement, and yearning for her homeland. The most significant change in
her life since her interview published in Agos two years ago, is that she
is now considering settling in Istanbul… Chamamyan is planning to give
concerts in Istanbul and Diyarbakır this year, and so is returning to
where
her story began, to her homeland.

To be in Turkey in 2015 and to give a concert, what does that mean to you?

The centennial of the Genocide will be commemorated across the world with
various events. As an Armenian singer from Syria, I want to take part in
such projects with my own message and voice. Doing this in Turkey has an
additional meaning. I have a concert in Istanbul in April. I also want to
organize a concert in Diyarbakır. I don’t only want to say `We are here’; I
also want to say, `We are living, changing, and we are staying here’. In
addition to all that darkness and pain, we have to talk about the hope for
the future, about life. I think that is the way in which we can continue.

I know you are working on a new album. How would you describe the soul of
this new album?

The music I make is a precise reflection of my experiences. I am from
Syria, and I am an Armenian. These identities combine in the songs I write
and compose. It wasn’t easy to make music in Armenian during the time I
lived in the Arab world. Now I am making an album that is almost entirely
made up of songs in Armenian. Music in Armenian touches my soul in a
different way, because it is the first type of music I listened to… This
album is also a gift to myself.

Did the special meaning of this year influence your choice of more
Armenian songs?
I feel a distinct, added responsibility this year. Armenian music is often
about painful experiences, it is melancholic. However, we know very well
that in addition to pain, there is life and breath, and dance in this
music, too. That is what I want to show the world. On the new album, we
worked with the renowned musician André Manoukian from France. We began
with two songs in Armenians. A while later we realized that apart from two
songs in Arabic, we had selected only Armenian songs. What I want to convey
with these songs is how Armenians managed to continue and live, not only as
victims, but also as survivors… The song titled `Sareri Hovin Mernem’ is
included on the album with a new arrangement. I also sang one song in
Syriac. My mother is Syriac, and this year is also the centennial of the
Syriac Genocide. I made two songs in Arabic, and I dedicated them to Syria.
It has been a century, but the Diaspora stories are the same, there is
blood, there is death. I do not only feel pain, but shame, too, for all
these events.

You give concerts in many countries, what were the differences you
witnessed from one country to the next regarding the Armenian Diaspora?

I was a jury member at `Tsovits Tsov’, the first international Armenian
language song contest organized in Moscow in 2014. It was one of my
favourite experiences. I had the chance to witness how music continues in
different cities of the Diaspora. For instance, Argentinean Armenians sang
an Armenian song that contained Latin harmonies. The music of Armenians
from Spain had flamenco elements. I love to combine and to mix as well. I
met young musicians there. The new generation does not only preserve
culture; but it also reflects all its experiences in art to produce
culture. And I also understood that, although we may be dispersed across
all corners of the world, we are actually very close to each other.

In our interview two years ago, you spoke about your hope to some day
return to Syria, to your home. How do you see the future of Syria today?

I feel a great emptiness, a vacuum. I don’t want to say there is no hope to
establish a new life. People are tired of war. I know of people who have
returned. They seek ways of living there again. They are trying to build
their lives anew. Singers are performing all across Syria, which has become
a battlefield, in streets, in squares. People continue to go to work. In
the past, you smoked indoors, now I hear of cafes where you are not allowed
to smoke indoors. Even that is a sing that life is being constructed anew.
Yet I am not very hopeful for Armenians, for Aleppo. I have lost many
relatives in the war. I don’t know how the next generation will build a
life there.

What if we asked you about home?

To gradually lose my hope of returning home, in a sense, helped me. I have
understood that some times, there is no way to return home. So then you
need to take your home wherever it is you are heading. To create your home
anew, perhaps… To continue to carry your culture and your values with you,
and to tell the world about them sustains you. Besides, this is not a new
thing for me. My family is from MaraÃ…=9F on my father’s side, and from Mardin
and Diyarbakır on my mother’s side. I used to be part of the Armenian
Diaspora, now I am part of the Syrian Diaspora. Isn’t it everyone’s
birthright to live in your own country? But I have to constantly struggle
to stay in my country. Now I want to come here and sing songs in Armenian.

Could you say you feel at home in Turkey?

I always feel a sense of belonging when I come here. My roots are here. Now
I look around and see certain faces, certain expressions. I feel the common
suffering and experiences. Four years ago, when I set foot in Istanbul, it
was a sunny day. For me, the sun here was the same as the sun in Syria. I
saw how the sun added colour to everything. To the buildings, streets,
people… But the sun in Europe is not mine; it gives no colour.

Would you consider living in Istanbul one day?

I have been thinking about that for two years now. I have been in Europe
since the war in Syria began. But I feel I could be happier here. I will
most probably give a concert in Diyarbakır this year. I will arrange for my
father to come to that concert as well. My family still lives in Damascus.
They have never been here. I want to show my father that his daughter
understands and loves her roots and has returned to sing there. I am sure
it will be a life’s gift for him. As a person who has constantly been
exiled from her home, and always wants to return, this is perhaps why I
have come all this way. I want to return where my story began, I want to
return home.

`I feel less alien now’

What has changed for you in the last two years?

It took me a while to understand how I feel. When you grow up in the
Diaspora, you listen to stories full of pain and savagery. They render you
blind, and prevent you from seeing what is happening in the outside world.
I believe the time has come to get rid of that. You have to face the fear
and the pain, and to acquire your own experience. I did not want to come
here initially, too. I came, I saw, and I shed my fears. At the concert I
held in Istanbul two years ago, I sang an Armenian song in memory of Hrant
Dink. On his land, on my land, I sang out to him in my mother tongue. That
was what I wanted, that’s what I realized…

I feel less alien now. And now, especially around Taksim, I hear a lot of
Syrian accents. My people are everywhere. But the Syrian children I saw in
the streets concerned me a lot. They cannot go to school, they have to
work, and a good future seems difficult for them at the moment. They are
victims of the war. This time around seeing that was the thing that
affected me most.

Have you had the chance to meet Armenians from Turkey?

At that contest, I met Armenians from Istanbul. I can say I felt closer to
them. Perhaps because we grew up in the same lands. The most important
thing I realized about them was that they carried no hate. Staying and
living here had distanced them from hate. They may have succeeded in
remaining in their own country, but throughout history, they were subjected
to a lot of pain, their voices were silenced. I, too, want to come here and
live with them. That is how I can give meaning to my life; that is how I
can continue. Those who grew up in the Diaspora, who have never been here,
have boundaries. It is not easy to go beyond those boundaries.

How do you feel when you meet people from Syria here, or in Europe?

To meet people from Syria outside Syria is a bit like returning home for a
short time… It gives me the strength to carry on. I meet up with Syrian
communities in the cities I give concerts in. The two hours we spend
together means, for them and for me, to return to Syria, and to remember.

`You cannot make art by only focusing on death’

As the Syrian Diaspora has grown, Syrian music, culture and art has become
better known. How do you define your position in this field?

I always made traditional music. The only new thing for me is to write and
compose new songs with a distinct Diasporan sense… Since the war, people
want Syrian artists to tell them about things in Syria that they don’t
know. But it is difficult to convey that pain and loss. You cannot make art
by only focusing on death. You have to talk about the life there, about
struggle and hope. That is the path I take. I write about beautiful
memories and the values we had in Syria; that is how I want to show what we
have lost.

How has the war and being away from home affected your music?

I used to think that traditional folk music could not convey new pains and
fears. Since the war, in Europe, I have faced up to my fears and myself. I
had no support; I could see nothing but pain and darkness. Then I wrote a
song. I sang about how we could dream in the dark. I used to write lyrics
in the past as well, but this was the first time I composed and arranged.
There aren’t many women singers in the East who compose. It was a painful
process, but it made me, and my music, much stronger…

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
March 1 2015

Russian frontier guards detain trespasser at Turkish-Armenian border in Gyumri

1 March 2015 – 7:21pm

Employees of the Russian border department of the Federal Security
Service detained an offender in Armenia, who on the night of March 1
illegally crossed the Armenian-Turkish border.
As reported by the border department, “the leaders of the department
organized a search of the offender, who was placed under arrest a few
hours later. The personal inspection revealed a permit to return to
the Czech Republic. The law-breaker was transferred to the National
Security Service of Armenia for further proceedings.

Employees of the Russian border department of the Federal Security
Service detained an offender in Armenia, who on the night of March 1
illegally crossed the Armenian-Turkish border.

As reported by the border department, “the leaders of the department
organized a search of the offender, who was placed under arrest a few
hours later. The personal inspection revealed a permit to return to
the Czech Republic. The law-breaker was transferred to the National
Security Service of Armenia for further proceedings.

CANADA
1915 : les documents pointent l’Arménie, non la Turquie selon Justin McCarthy

Justin McCarthy, le thuriféraire de l’Etat Turc, a indiqué détenir des
milliers de preuves démontrant que ce n’était pas la Turquie mais
l’Arménie qui avait commis un génocide.

Lors de la conférence > organisée à l’Université Toronto, McCarthy a donné des
informations concernant 1915.

Précisant que pour comprendre la Turquie de 1915, il fallait regarder
l’image sur toute son ampleur, McCarthy a mis l’accent sur le facteur
russe dans le cours des évènements.

“Les Arméniens Dashnak ont commis tout un massacre à Van quand ils
l’ont assiégé” a repris McCarthy en évoquant également les
propositions faites par les Arméniens aux Anglais.

> a relevé
McCarthy.

.

le fait que les gens s’entretuent. Les incidents de
1915 n’étaient pas un génocide, c’était une guerre >> a souligné le
négationniste américain.

dimanche 1er mars 2015,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

KIM KASHKASHIAN PERFORMED AT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION CONCERT IN TORONTO

17:10, 2 March, 2015

YEREVAN, 2 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. A concert dedicated to the Centennial of
the Armenian Genocide was held with the support of the Embassy of the
Republic of Armenia in Canada on March 1. As the Department of Press,
Information and Public Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
the Republic of Armenia reports to “Armenpress”, the concert called
“In Memory” was held at the Mazzoleni Concert Hall of the Royal
Conservatory of Toronto and included performances by the famous Amici
Trio and world-famous violist, Grammy Award winner Kim Kashkashian.

In his welcome speech prior to the concert, Armenia’s Ambassador
to Canada Armen Yeganyan touched upon the events dedicated to the
Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, talked about the importance of
the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide and stressed
the need to rule out such crimes against humanity in the future.

Assyrian International News Agency AINA
March 1 2015

How Syria’s Assyrians Stopped Turning the Other Cheek

By Richard Spencer

Posted 2015-02-28 21:38 GMT

Assyrian fighters in Syria.Like many of Syria’s warriors, Kino Gabriel
was a student four years ago, training to be a dentist.

Like many other Syrians, he resisted the call to war, until he saw the
threat to the towns and villages where he grew up and worshipped.

Like countless thousands, he soon found himself, gun in hand, snow
falling in the bitter Syrian winter, fighting for his life, claiming
his first kills.

Mr Gabriel, though, is a rarity in this remorseless conflict. He is a
Christian, a member of a minority that in both Syrian and Iraqi wars
has tried desperately to stay on the sidelines.

No longer. Christian militias have existed for a number of years,
sometimes patrolling neighbourhoods, sometimes venturing further
afield. But now they are engaged in their first major battle.

For the last week, they have been fighting the jihadists of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant across a major front in
north-west Syria, in alliance with the YPG, the Kurdish defence
forces. They have had mixed fortunes, but the battle has energised
Middle East Christians worldwide – many of them exiles who fled the
chaos of post-Saddam Iraq.

“We saw what happened in Iraq in 2003,” Mr Gabriel said, speaking by
Skype from Qamishli, near the front line. “Our people were left alone,
with no autonomy, no army that could defend them.

“Most of our people have emigrated, thanks to attacks from Al-Qaeda
and other groups. They couldn’t defend themselves. We learned that
lesson and have prepared ourselves.”

In 2003, the Christian population of Iraq was well over one million.
Now it is less than half that. In June last year, more than 600,000
were driven out of their homes when Isil swept across the Nineveh
plain, traditional homeland of Assyrian Christians, in northern Iraq
last summer.

In Syria, when the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in
2011, the church was split, with many bishops supporting the regime
but individuals joining forces with liberal activists in protest
against him.

Few actually felt compelled to fight, though, until the onslaught
against Christian villages and churches, first by Jabhat al-Nusra, and
later by Isil.

Christians have seen churches blown up, crosses torn down, and those
living under jihadist rule have been forced to pay the “jizya”, a
special tax.

In a particular irony, Armenian Christians who came to Syria in flight
from pogroms in their native Turkey 100 years ago have now been forced
to flee in the opposite direction.

Syria, even more than Iraq, is a patchwork of sects and languages:
many of these Christians speak and conduct services in Aramaic, the
language of Christ.

Mr Gabriel’s chance at the front came at Christmas 2013, when he
joined a militia known as the Syriac Military Council, which was
fighting alongside Kurds in a battle for the town of Tel Hamis, south
of Qamishli, his home city. Tel Hamis was in the hands of Jabhat
al-Nusra, the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch from which Isil then split off.

“I think I was prepared,” Mr Gabriel, a former lay servant in the
church, said. “I was a little bit afraid – it was my first battle.”

He and his fellow fighters managed to drive the Jabhat al-Nusra
fighters back, but the attack stalled in the December snow. The area
has been fought over ever since, with the YPG and their Syriac
Military Council allies claiming on Friday to have finally retaken Tel
Hamis, this time from Isil, which took over Jabhat al-Nusra positions
last year.

The local Arab population is split, with some supporting the Kurds,
others the Islamists.

The effect on the wider community of the expanded fighting front,
though, has been disastrous. Many of the Christians have fled – more
than 1,000 families in the last week alone, according to George Merza,
head of the local Assyrian council.

On Monday, more than 300 of those Christians that remained were taken
hostage in a lightning Isil counter-offensive in villages around Tel
Tamer, in north-west Syria’s semi-desert.

“They are innocent people, children, women and elders,” Mr Merza said.
“We demand an immediate intervention to save our people, who have
lived on this land for thousands of years in peace. Today they are
driven to death and destruction. This is inhuman.”

The Syriac Military Council is hoping to offer Isil a prisoner swap,
returning eight jihadis captured in the battle for Tel Hamis for the
civilian captives, but no negotiations have yet begun.

The resistance put up by the Christian fighters from these ancient
communities, heirs to Senacherib and Ashurnasirpal, the great Assyrian
emperors of the Biblical era, has heartened an international diaspora
which has up to now watched events unfold with glum, helpless horror.

Assyrians and Syriacs as far afield as London, New York and Sweden
have posted patriotic appeals online. For many, it is their cousins
who have been captured, and who are dying in battle.

Some have also taken it upon themselves to return home to join up, and
have been joined by a number of other Western volunteers. Ashley
Johnston, a former Australian soldier, became the first Westerner to
die fighting alongside the Kurds and Christians in the battle for Tel
Hamis on Monday.

“Ashley was a good man who never complained and was always positive,”
Jordan Matson, the unofficial leader of the Kurds’ foreign legion,
said in a Facebook tribute. “I consider it an honour to have known and
served with him.”

Mr Matson pointed out that Mr Johnston was considered a criminal in
Australia, which has made it an offence to fight in the war on either
side.

The question of whether to fight or not remains, though, a major big
question for the Christian exiles. They ask themselves whether it is
right or even worthwhile to risk their lives for a diminished, violent
homeland.

The Christians of the region have long held that they should “turn the
other cheek” in the face of assault and discrimination.

Father Tony Malham, an Assyrian priest who has left Iraq and now
serves the community in London, says that this is the only pragmatic
response, given that Christians are overwhelmingly outnumbered.

“On the one hand, this is our homeland; on the other, it’s not true to
say it’s our homeland any more,” he said. “If we want to have a home
for ourselves we have to fight for it, but as Christians we can’t
fight, we can’t kill.

“We have to talk, we have to talk in a civilised way. But these people
who are against us can’t talk, they can only fight and kill.

Mr Gabriel acknowledges that at just 1,000 strong, his militia is a
small force compared to those ranged against it. But he says he can no
longer stand by and watch his people driven from their homes like
sheep.

“Over the past century, our people six times have suffered
displacement, massacres, other forms of aggression,” he said.

“This has targeted the Syriacs and the Christian presence in the
Middle East. We are acting based on the facts before us – to protect
ourselves on our historical land. This is our right and duty.”

IRAK : LES KURDES BLOQUENT LE RETOUR D’ARABES DANS DES REGIONS CONTESTEES

IRAK

Les forces armees kurdes ont empeche des habitants arabes deplaces par
les violences de retourner dans des zones d’Irak que la region autonome
du Kurdistan irakien dispute aux autorites federales, a affirme jeudi
Human Rights Watch dans un rapport, conteste par le gouvernement kurde.

L’ONG, basee a New York, met en garde le gouvernement regional
du Kurdistan contre l’imposition d’une “punition collective a des
communautes arabes entières” pour les violences commises par les
jihadistes du groupe Etat islamique (EI).

“Bloquer les habitants arabes et refuser d’autoriser leur retour
chez eux semble bien au-dela d’une reponse securitaire raisonnable”,
juge ainsi Letta Tayler, experte de HRW.

Selon le rapport, les forces kurdes empechent depuis plusieurs mois
les habitants irakiens arabes ayant fui l’offensive lancee l’an
dernier par l’EI, de rentrer chez eux dans des zones disputees.

En revanche les Kurdes ont pu retourner dans ces memes zones et
dans certains cas ont ete autorises a s’installer dans des foyers
appartenant a des residents arabes deplaces, souligne l’ONG.

HRW dit avoir repertorie des “actes vraisemblablement discriminatoires”
dans les province de Ninive et Erbil (capitale du Kurdistan) lors de
visites en decembre et janvier.

Lorsque le groupe EI a lance son offensive fulgurante dans les regions
sunnites du nord de l’Irak en juin 2014, les forces kurdes ont occupe
le vide laisse par les forces de securite federales ayant fui devant
l’avancee des jihadistes.

En repoussant l’EI, les forces kurdes ont pris le contrôle de zones
contestees de longue date, revendiquees a la fois par le gouvernement
central a Bagdad et le Kurdistan autonome (nord), elargissant d’environ
40% la region sous contrôle kurde.

Le gouvernement de la region autonome du Kurdistan a conteste ces
allegations et un responsable a assure qu'”aucune maison appartenant
a un Arabe n’a ete occupee”.

Selon ce responsable kurde, Dindar Zebari, quelques habitants ont ete
empeches de revenir chez eux dans les zones reprises aux jihadistes
de l’EI par les forces kurdes, de crainte d’etre exposes aux bombes
et autres engins explosifs laisses sur le terrain.

Les jihadistes s’etaient empares de plusieurs de ces zones
multi-ethniques et multi-confessionnelles en août, mais les forces
kurdes, aidees par les raids aeriens de la coalition internationale,
ont repris du terrain.

Selon HRW, certains responsables kurdes ont defendu les mesures
discriminatoires en arguant que les habitants arabes sunnites de la
region avaient soutenu l’offensive des jihadistes et collaboraient
toujours avec le groupe EI.

HRW a affirme que certaines restrictions imposees aux Arabes sunnites
avaient ete allegees en janvier, mais souligne que les autorites
kurdes devaient faire plus.

lundi 2 mars 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com