Author: Taslakhchian Andranik

South Ossetia: Activism of the Georgian Government Tests International Efforts
by Jaba Devdariani / 2004-06-17 16:25:33

Civil Georgia
June 17 2004

Reposted from Central Asia – Caucasus Analyst

Breakaway region needs a complex of social
and economic rehabilitation projects.

The Georgian government has taken decisive steps to address some of
the most pressing political and economic problems related to the
post-conflict area of South Ossetia and proposes revision of the
current peacekeeping mandate.

Recent developments in South Ossetia have shown the inadequacy of the
current peacekeeping arrangements to the complex state-building and
conflict resolution tasks that the new Georgian administration
pursues. Pro-active economic rehabilitation and social assistance
programs that are offered to South Ossetian residents hold promise
for boosting the political negotiations, but also a risk for a
militant backlash.

Somewhat paradoxically, the international organizations involved in
conflict resolution could prove the least ready to catch up with the
new developments.

Background: The conflict in South Ossetia, leading to the death of
ca. 1,000 and the displacement of some 60,000 persons ended in a
ceasefire in July 1992. A somewhat unorthodox ceasefire arrangement
introduced a joint peacekeeping force (JPKF) composed of Georgian,
South Ossetian and Russian elements.

Russia took the factual, as well as the legal lead of the military
operation. The OSCE has been the most actively involved international
institution in the political aspect of conflict settlement, but a
quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC) involving Georgia, South
Ossetia, Russia as well as Russia’s North Ossetia Republic became the
main political discussion forum. The OSCE acts as a JCC participant,
while UNHCR and EU involvement in the process has varied over times
and is by now rudimentary.

Although the OSCE drafted a settlement proposal in August 1994,
Russian mediation (with OSCE participation) proved more fruitful in
moving the political dialogue forward. Meetings between the South
Ossetian and Georgian presidents Lyudvig Chibirov and Eduard
Shevardnadze in 1996-98 led to a general détente in the conflict
area.

By the end of the 1990s, road communications between Tskhinvali and
neighboring Georgian provinces were restored, and the region became a
booming hub for largely illegal trade between Georgia and Russia.

While economic détente was apparent, a political settlement proved
evasive. In July 2000, the conflicting parties agreed through OSCE
mediation on demilitarization, joint economic projects, elaboration
of the legislative base for repatriation of displaced persons, and
even on joint law enforcement activities.

Yet hopes for eventual political settlement were dashed in December
2001 with the election of Eduard Kokoev as South Ossetia’s president.
Kokoev, a Russian businessman, has reportedly monopolized the illegal
trade and squeezed the previous leadership out of the political
arena, accusing them of pro-Georgian sentiments. Kokoev also presided
over a massive acceptance of Russian citizenship by South Ossetian
residents.

South Ossetia became a tangible economic security threat to Georgia.
Goods smuggled via Ossetia, such as petrol and flour, reportedly
capture up to 30% of the Georgian market. The “war economy” in South
Ossetia has also involved the Georgian and South Ossetian law
enforcers, as well as the peacekeepers, in smuggling and corruption.

In late May 2004, President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered interior
troops to crack down on smuggling. These moves harmed the interests
of the South Ossetian political elite, and apparently upset the
Russian peacekeeping commander, resulting in a standoff between
Georgian special services and the Russian and South Ossetian
peacekeepers.

In addition to these measures, Saakashvili proposed a complex of
social and economic rehabilitation projects in South Ossetia,
pledging to extend the Georgian government’s protection to its
Ossetian citizens. For the first time, the Georgian leadership took
the initiative in South Ossetia and made some reconciliatory moves,
albeit carefully backed by credible force.

The reaction of foreign players has been rather perplexed. Russia has
reacted with warnings to Georgia against a resumption of hostilities.
The OSCE has made no official reaction apart from expressing general
concern. However, State Minister for Conflict Resolution Giorgi
Khaindrava has indicated that the Georgian government will propose a
revision of the peacekeeping mandate in South Ossetia.

Implications: Georgia’s economic concerns are real. However, it is
impossible to effectively address these concerns in the current
format of peacekeeping, and OSCE diplomats seem to grudgingly agree
that the current format, which concentrated on the separation of
warring forces, has outlived its usefulness.

Effective anti-smuggling operations by Georgia put a stranglehold on
the South Ossetian leadership and may push them towards militarism if
political solutions are lagging. The domination of the Russian and
Ossetian components in the JPKF also seems to end as Georgia brings
its peacekeeping battalion to full strength in personnel and
equipment, and concentrates well-trained troops and heavy equipment
in adjacent Georgian provinces.

The need for a new level of political mediation is urgent, but
international actors seem hesitant to take risks and accept that
function. The OSCE has the longest history in handling this
particular conflict. However, its political decision-making is
burdened by consensus voting in Vienna, which would render the
organization incapable in case of Russia’s opposition.

OSCE-Russia interaction failed to produce results in 2003, when a
Transdniestria peace plan strongly influenced by Russian interests
was met with opposition in Western capitals and eventually failed,
spurring heated criticisms towards the OSCE, which the organization
may see as an obstacle in addressing South Ossetia.

The EU has crucial tools at its disposal that may come into play if
initial political consultations on South Ossetia are successful. The
EU has generated significant experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina by
running the police mission (EUPM) tasked with reconciliation and
synchronization of the hostile ethnic groups within a single police
force and also rendered significant assistance to improvement of the
border controls there.

In South Ossetia, the interoperability of local police with Georgian
counterparts would be crucial in ensuring joint anti-smuggling
efforts and precluding an armed standoff similar to that of May 31,
2004.

South Ossetia has historically been overshadowed by the conflicts in
Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The interest and involvement of the
international organizations and foreign powers, except Russia, has
been very weak.

However, at present the Georgian government is determined to first
“unfreeze” and then resolve the conflict, and is choosing a
long-term, economics-based approach coupled with a “hearts and minds”
campaign to achieve this goal. Together with a relatively low degree
of inter-community tension, South Ossetia has the chance of becoming
a one-of-a-kind conflict resolution success in the post-Soviet space
and likely set a precedent.

There is a fierce battle among international organizations for
political know-how, donor attention and finite funding. The
organization or state that puts stakes in South Ossetia conflict
resolution is likely to rip significant political benefits, while the
consequences of failure are unlikely to be catastrophic.

Conclusions: Current actions of the Georgian government to articulate
new policies towards South Ossetia provide a good background for
productive political mediation by third parties. The international
organizations present in the South Caucasus such as the OSCE and the
EU have comparative advantages to take up this role. Georgia’s recent
détente with Russia allows for positively involving the Kremlin in
this process.

It would take decades to amass the political will for peaceful
resolution comparable to the current mood in Tbilisi. Unless the
international organizations overcome their lethargy towards the
relatively low profile of South Ossetia to see the region-wide
benefits of successful conflict resolution, promising developments
may go in vain, leaving the scene to the “parties of war” on both
sides of the conflict.

Front Page Magazine
June 18 2004

Revisiting the Right of Return
By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 18, 2004

Try to imagine what the world would be like if Israel had granted the
“Palestinian refugees,” who fled from Israel in 1948-49, the right
to return to Israel. Not to the West Bank. Not to the Gaza Strip —
but to Israel within its pre-1967 borders.

Imagine a situation in which Israel agreed to allow tens of thousands
of Arabs who fled from the battle zones of the Israeli War of
Independence the possibility of returning to Israel, in many cases to
the very homes they had abandoned during the fighting. Imagine how the
same world, currently obsessed with achieving a “right of return” for
“Palestinian refugees,” would be forced to acknowledge that Israel had
already granted the possibility for tens of thousands of these refugees
to return to Israel, in many cases decades ago. How then could the
world continue to bash Israel? What ammunition would anti-Semites
have left? And what about the crowd claiming to be “anti-Zionists
but not anti-Semites” or the self-hating leftist Jewish anti-Semites?

Well, hold on to your hat, because I have a whopper of a revelation
to make to you. Israel DID grant the “Palestinian refugees” the
right to return to Israel!

Let us back up a bit. In 1947-48, the UN proposed partitioning
“Palestine” into a Jewish and an Arab state of approximately equal
sizes. The Jews accepted the plan, and the Arabs rejected it. When the
UN ended the British Mandate over “Palestine,” the Arab states attacked
the newborn state of Israel, tried to annihilate it and its population,
and at the same time gobbled up most of the territory that the UN
had allotted to become a Palestinian Arab state. The territory that
became Israel had NEVER been a Palestinian Arab state.
Most of the Arabs in “Palestine” had migrated there from neighboring
Arab countries after the 19th Century start of the Zionist Jewish
immigration, taking advantage of the influx of capital and the
availability of jobs and services, like hospitals. In other words,
the Arabs of “Palestine” in 1948, just like the Jews, were by and
large people from families who had been in the country for three
generations or less.

During the fighting in the 1948-49 war, thousands of Arabs living in
the territory that became Israel fled. The main reason they fled was
that they understandably wanted to put some distance between their
families and the battle zones. At the same time, they were ordered
by the Arab political leadership to leave the territory of Israel.
Why take my word on this? Listen to Arab sources:

“The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes
temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.”
– Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949.

“The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we
got out, but they did not get in.” – from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa,
September 6, 1954.

“”The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from
the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM
TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND” (emphasis added), Abu Mazen,
erstwhile “Prime Minister” of the Palestinian Authority, in “What We
Have Learned and What We Should Do,” published in Falastin el Thawra,
the official journal of the PLO, of Beirut, in March 1976.

There are scores of other Arab sources confirming this.

So how many Arabs fled? The number has become enormously distorted
over time by the Bash-Israel lobby and by Arab propagandists and
their apologists, who usually claim between 500,000 and a million.
A more realistic estimate is between 300,000 and 450,000, based in
part on Arab and UNRWA sources themselves. Most of these refugees
ended up in some of the twenty-two sovereign Arab states, including
those Arab countries from which they had migrated in the late 19th
and early 20th Centuries in the first place. In other words, the
“refugees” went back to their earlier homelands in Lebanon, Syria,
and Jordan. It was a semi- “right of return.” At the same time,
the Arab states carried out a near-total ethnic cleansing of around
a million Jews, who had been living there since Biblical days and in
many cases before these states had Arab populations. The Jews from
Arab countries left behind far more property than did the Palestinian
Arab refugees. Most of these Jewish refugees were resettled in Israel

In the years immediately following World War II, there were more than
50 million refugees: Poles, Germans, Indians, Pakistanis, Hungarians,
Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. etc. They were all long ago resettled
and forgotten, all except for the “Palestinian refugees”. How come?

Because for decades, the Arab aggressor states found it convenient
to utilize the “refugees” as a political and military weapon
against Israel, not only of propaganda and spin, but of terrorism.
“Palestinians” inside Arab states were trained as terrorists and
sent out to murder. At the same time, there was enormous incentive
for the Arab locals in the countries into which the refugees had
entered to pretend also to be “Palestinian refugees.” After all,
the UN and other agencies were handing out free food and perks to
anyone pretending to be a refugee from “Palestine”.

Unlike all those many millions of other people considered refugees
in the late 1940s, the “Palestinians” were the only ones for whom
the “right of return” to their previous homes was considered an
entitlement. The reason was not a selective affection for Palestinians,
but a selective hostility towards Israel and Jews. Those demanding the
wholesale “return” to Israel of Palestinian “refugees”, including the
countless thousands of non-Palestinians pretending to be Palestinian
refugees, had one goal in mind, the eradication of Israel.

Israel would have been insane to allow itself to be inundated with
real and make-pretend Palestinian “refugees”, this in a tiny sliver of
land the size of Maryland, at the same time that the 22 Arab states
have territory-galore stretching from the Atlantic Ocean all the way
to Central Asia! The Palestinian Arabs and their sponsors had tried
to annihilate Israel and failed. Just like the infant United States,
which refused to allow any of the tens of thousands of Tory Loyalists
expelled by the patriots to “return” to the United States after the
War of Independence, Israel was entirely in its rights to refuse to
allow the “return” of masses of “Palestinians”, whose migration was
being demanded by those seeking to liquidate Israel via a demographic
flooding.

There is just one little caveat though.

Israel DID let the Palestinian refugees return! Tens of thousands of
them were quietly allowed to return to Israel, in many cases to their
original homes, once the fighting in 1949 subsided. Many continue
to be admitted today within the framework of “family reunification”
agreements.

>>From 1948 until 2001, Israel allowed about 184,000 “Palestinian
refugees” or their families to “return” to Israel proper (Jerusalem
Post, January 2, 2001; see also Ha’aretz 28 December 2000). These are
in addition to about 57,000 Palestinians from Jordan illegally in
Israel, towards whom the authorities are turning a blind eye (Ha’aretz,
4 April 2001). Not the West Bank, not Gaza, but Israel inside its
pre-1967 “Green Line” borders! In the Camp David II meetings in 2000,
Israeli leftist Prime Minister Ehud Barak rather insanely offered to
allow another 150,000 “refugees” to enter Israel as part of a peace
accord. The PLO’s response was to launch pogroms and four years of
atrocities, because the number was finite.

The demand for a “right of return” by Palestinians to Israel is no
doubt the most absurd political demand floating anywhere around the
planet. There is already an Arab state in two thirds of Mandatory
Palestine, named Jordan, and most Palestinan Arabs make up most of its
population. The Oslo Accords and Israel’s Camp David II offer would
have created a second Arab state in Palestine, in the West Bank and
Gaza, as part of a comprehensive peace settlement. Any “Palestinian”
from anywhere could have moved to “Palestine” or to Jordan, within
the framework of such a peace, the same way any Jew who wishes to may
immigrate to Israel, or any Armenian may immigrate to Armenia, and
Greeks from the Greek Diaspora are automatically welcomed in Greece.

The PLO and the Islamo-Fascist states backing it demand that in
ADDITION to establishing a second Arab state in Palestine within
the framework of any peace settlement, Israel itself must ALSO be
converted into a third Arab Palestinian state, via unlimited massive
immigration of people claiming to be Palestinians. Benjamin Franklin,
who opposed granting even a dime in compensation to the Tory refugees
expelled from the United States during the War of Independence,
would be splitting his sides laughing.

But the most Orwellian absurdity of all is that Israel DID grant the
“right to return” to tens of thousands of “Palestinian refugees”
long ago. Did this earn Israel the world’s gratitude for its uniquely
generous gesture? Did the world denounce the Arab Fascist states that
ignored this generosity and continued to seek Israel’s destruction
and the genocide of its population? Do today’s bleeding hearts and
recreational compassion poseurs, pretending to feel uncontrollable
pain and caring for Palestinian refugees, even know about the limited
“right of return” granted by Israel over the past decades?

Hindus have never been returned to Pakistan, Muslems from Pakistan
have not been returned to India, ethnic Germans were not returned to
their pre-war homes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia or Romania,
Japanese have not been returned to Manchuria, Greeks have not been
returned to Anatolia, Jews have not been compensated for the billions
they left behind when ethnic cleansing of Jews in Muslem countries
took place, and Tory Loyalists were never returned to New England.
But tens of thousands of “Palestinian refugees” had their chance.

It is time to say enough is enough. The only remaining reasonable
plan regarding those still claiming to be “Palestinian refugees”
is simply: Forget about it.

Lori-Berd power plant to cost $90-$100 mln

Interfax
June 15 2004

Yerevan. (Interfax) – It will cost $90 million – $100 million to build
the Lori-Berd hydro power plant in Armenia’s Lori region, Alexander
Beck, representative of the German engineering company Fichtner,
which is working on a feasibility study to build the hydro plant,
told Interfax.

The study for the plant, with a capacity of 56 megawatts, will be
finished by the end of 2004 and will be financed by an EU grant.

Feasibility studies under the EU program to build five to seven
hydro power plants with a total capacity of 70 megawatts in Armenia
are planned to be completed by the end of 2004. The Lori-Berd is the
largest of the plants.

German Bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau plans to extend Armenia
a loan worth 30 million euros in 2005 to implement the program to
build small hydro power plants.

Fichtner works in the power and environmental protection sectors.

World Bank Approves Aid for Various Projects in Armenia
Strategy for 2005-2008 focuses on quality-of-life issues

14 June 2004

The World Bank on June 10 announced support for several new assistance
projects for Armenia including an overall strategy for bank operations in
that country during 2005-2008.

A press release said the goal of the new country assistance strategy (CAS)
is to support efforts to improve the quality of life for the people of
Armenia. To do this, the strategy will focus on improving the business
environment to create more jobs, promote better and more effective
governance, and improve health, education and basic infrastructure. Special
attention will be paid to development in rural areas.

Financing for the various projects could total as much as $220 million,
according to the release.

Armenia’s Social Protection and Administration Project will receive a $5.15
million credit to help public employment, pension and social assistance
agencies provide better services to the public
(,,contentMDK:20211317~menuPK
:34463~pagePK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html).

The Health System Modernization Project will receive a $19 million credit to
provide more accessible, efficient and sustainable health care services and
to better manage public health threats
(,,contentMDK:20211356~menuPK
:34463~pagePK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html).

The Irrigation Dam Safety Project II will receive a $6.75 million credit to
rehabilitate 47 dams and to install upgraded monitoring and safety equipment
at 56 dams:
(,,contentMDK:20211363~menuPK
:34463~pagePK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html).

Following is the press release on the World Bank’s CAS for Armenia:
( NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20211358~menuPK
:34463~pagePK:6 4003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html):

(b egin text)

World Bank
Washington, D.C.

June 10, 2004

ARMENIA: WORLD BANK LAUNCHES NEW ASSISTANCE STRATEGY

Program envisages support of up to $220 million for next four years

WASHINGTON, June 10, 2004 — The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors
today discussed a new Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for Armenia. The CAS
is a document that details the Bank’s work plan to assist client countries
in achieving their development goals. It describes all of the Bank’s planned
operations in the country — lending, analytical work, and technical
assistance. The new CAS for Armenia covers the period 2005-2008 and
envisages a lending program of up to $220 million.

Priorities of the new CAS include assisting the government in improving the
business environment and thus create more jobs, promoting a better and more
effective governance; and improving health, education, and the basic
infrastructure.

“The goal of the CAS is to support the country’s efforts to improve the
quality of life of its people”, says Donna M. Dowsett-Coirolo, World Bank
Country Director for Armenia. “This is why improving social protection
systems are key in the Armenia CAS, as is climate for private sector
development that will promote the creation of new jobs.”

Despite a strong economic performance since 2000, which has been accompanied
by considerable progress in Armenia’s transition agenda, serious challenges
remain for the country. About half of Armenia’s population still live in
poverty. Growth has been uneven, with poor rural regions and segments of
population falling further behind. Access to high quality education, health
care and basic services is restricted. That is the reason why the new CAS is
paying special attention to the developments in the rural areas of Armenia.

The CAS is organized around three central themes:

– Promote private sector led economic growth. The Government regards the
private sector as the main driver of the economic growth needed for
employment creation and poverty reduction. The CAS aims to help improve the
environment for private sector growth, with an emphasis on facilitating
economic diversification (both in terms of the number of sectors and the
number enterprises).

– Make growth more pro-poor. The PRSP puts a major emphasis on ensuring that
a larger share of population benefits from economic growth. The CAS program
accordingly has a focus on helping make the benefits of growth more widely
available by improving formal sector jobs and stimulating the rural economy.
For those who are not yet able to share in these benefits, the CAS focuses
on improving social protection.

– Reduce non-income poverty. The PRSP and the CAS focus on the need to
increase the well-being of the poor by improving their access to affordable
healthcare, education, drinking water, sanitation and heating.

The previous CAS for Armenia covered the period 2002-2004 and envisaged a
lending program of up to $190 million. In the framework of this strategy,
the Bank assisted the government in implementing reforms in education and
health sectors, public service and private sector development, agriculture
and environment, energy and roads. These projects have already yielded
positive results. Some examples include over 120 km of roads have been
maintained on a periodic basis; civil service reform has been launched under
a new law based on an Institutional Governance Review; over 130 community
projects improving the quality of life of some 340,000 people living in the
countryside; 80 rural hospitals have been built and 118 physicians retrained
as family practitioners to better serve needs of the rural population;
rehabilitation of over 2,000 km of irrigation canals have increased the
productivity of some 80,000 hectares of agricultural land; 112 new textbooks
and 50 teachers’ guides have been published and made available to students
throughout the country.

The CAS was prepared in partnership with the Government of Armenia and in
consultation with local experts and representatives of civil society
organizations. It is based on the participatory developed PRSP approved by
the government last year.

For more information on the World Bank’s activities in Armenia, please
visit:

Contacts:
Washington: Miriam Van Dyck (202) 458-2931 Email: [email protected]
Yerevan: Vigen Sargsyan, (374 1) 524-884 Email: [email protected]

(end text)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: )

Azeri efforts to bar Karabakh’s international telecom access still fruitless

Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
4 Jun 04

[Presenter] The work of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications
and Information Technology to bar the international access of the
Karabakh Telecom company has been fruitless. In a news conference
at the headquarters of the New Azerbaijan Party today, Minister of
Communications and Information Technology Ali Abbasov said that the
countries offering roaming services are responsible for the issue.

[Correspondent over video of the news conference] The removal from
the GSM system of the Karabakh Telecom company, which is operating on
the occupied [Azerbaijani] lands, depends on the countries offering
roaming services to the separatists. Minister of Communications and
Information Technology Ali Abbasov said that Baku’s work in this
sphere was still fruitless.

[Abbasov speaking at the news conference] The GSM Association can
deprive them of roaming services. It can appeal to those countries,
asking them not to offer roaming services to the company. However,
it is impossible to force them to do this.

[Correspondent] The minister said that serious steps will be taken
in the near future to maintain the country’s information security.

[Abbasov] A project is being drawn up to create a new telephone
and information system in order to ensure the country’s information
technology. After a certain period, I think, the Azerbaijani National
Security Ministry and the state security department [as heard] will
take complete control of all this.

[Correspondent over video] Mr Abbasov said that the new project will
also ensure the security of Azerbaijani web sites.

[Passage omitted: About privatization plans in the telecom sphere]

Tunzala Rafiqqizi and Dilqam Mirzayev for “Son Xabar”.

Permanent Mission of the Republic of Armenia
to the United Nations
119E 36th street, New York, NY 10016
Tel.: 1-212-686-9079
Fax: 1-212-686-3934
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

June 2, 2004

PRESS RELEASE

Ambassador Martirosyan received a group of young
Armenian professionals from the Fletcher School

On June 2 Ambassador Armen Martirosyan received a group of 15 young
Armenian professionals who were undergoing an advanced training at the
Fletcher School. Dr. Joyce Barsam, Trustee of the Tufts University
and Trustee of the Tavitian Foundation, who is facilitating the
program, accompanied the group to New York. The group was comprised
of employees from the President’s Office, the Ministry of Economy,
the Ministry of Health, the Central Bank of Armenia and the Armenian
Development Agency.

The six-month program of advanced training is sponsored by the Tavitian
Foundation. The program, that became possible through the generous
donation of Mr. Aso Tavitian, was initiated in 1999 and provided
specialized training at the Fletcher School for two groups of young
diplomats from the Foreign Ministry of Armenia for two consecutive
years. Since 1999 about 50 young Armenian professionals obtained
qualified education at one of the best schools of the United States.

Last year the program broadened to include young professionals from
the field of banking and economics. This year it intends to send
teachers for graduate programs to teach at the summer schools in
different universities in Armenia.

During the meeting different aspects of the current challenges
in the field of education were discussed. The young professionals
expressed their gratitude for the unique opportunity provided to them
by the Tavitian Foundation in advancing their education and getting
closely acquainted to the current discourse in the field of economics.
They expressed confidence that with enhanced knowledge they will be
able to better serve their country and respective institutions and
share the newly acquired knowledge with their coworkers.

END

MEETING IN ECHMIADZIN TOOK PLACE

A1 Plus | 20:18:03 | 02-06-2004 | Politics |

The meeting initiated by MP Hakob Hakobyan took place in
Echmiadzin. About 1500 people partook in the rally.

In his speech Mr. Hakobyan stated that Coalition is occupied with
distributing posts. He announced it’s necessary to ask President to
enter into a serious dialogue with Opposition.

This meeting was sanctioned and security of everyone was guaranteed.

Armenian paper says president plans to dissolve parliament

Azg, Yerevan
1 Jun 04

Text of Tatul Akopyan’s report by the Armenian newspaper Azg on 1
June entitled “Robert Kocharyan will possibly dissolve parliament”

1 June: According to a source close to Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan, the latter intends to dissolve the National Assembly. Under
Article 63 of the Armenian Constitution, the president of the republic
has the power to dissolve the parliament and to call extraordinary
parliamentary elections.

Incidentally, our source said that Kocharyan might dissolve the
parliament in the summer before the autumn session. The president’s
intention to dissolve the parliament can be explained by two main
reasons: first a parliamentary crisis, with the opposition boycotting
the Armenian parliament’s work, and second, falsifications during
the 2003 elections. This is why the West and international judicial
and democratic organizations are putting pressure on Armenia, and
our country’s authority in the eyes of the world community has fallen.

In fact, during his tenure President Kocharyan may try to arrange at
least one election which will be more or less fair according to the
results of which it will be possible to hand over the power to his
“chosen successor”.

The Simon, CA
June 2 2004

Alternative History: The American Way
By Josh Schollmeyer
Jun 1, 2004

I organize history for a living. As the digital archive editor at
the famed foreign affairs and national security journal The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, I take what Manhattan Project scientists
wrote about the nuclear age and turn it into made-to-order term
papers and research material for high school kids, graduate students,
and paranoid leftists who believe I’m filling in the blanks of their
right-wing conspiracy theories.

Here’s what I’ve learned while doing this: I’m glad American children
can’t find France on a map. After 18 months of reading intelligent,
nominally biased, first-person accounts of the nuclear age, I’m pretty
sure that if France exists it’s not where my teachers told me it was.

A sharp history student, I thought I knew everything about our
country’s past. The abridged version:

Those exploitative Brits raped us economically until we couldn’t take
it anymore and were forced to revolt. Plus, they locked our women
and children in churches and burned them. (I got that one from Mel
Gibson’s The Patriot, but since he’s considered such an authority on
history lately, I figured that’s how it really happened.)

But all would not be well for long as soon we were faced with our
greatest challenge – the Civil War. It took us a little while, but
finally us Northerners (I’m from Chicago) figured out that slavery was
bad. So we took it upon ourselves to teach the South a very important
moral lesson. Brothers were forced to kill brothers, but in the end
the backward South figured out that Jim Crow laws were just as an
effective way to oppress black people as slavery.

>>From here on, we’re pretty much the righteous moral compass of the
world. We had a couple slip-ups here and there (woman should probably
be allowed to vote, too), but we basically kept to ourselves and
bailed out Europe whenever it got into a jingoistic pickle.

This brings us to the most poorly taught era of them all: the nuclear
age–defined here as the stuff that’s crammed into the last two weeks
of any history course. From grade school to college, the latter half
of the 20th century is drawn in the broadest strokes imaginable. The
long and short of it: The big, bad Soviets held the world hostage
with their gigantic nuclear arsenal and bellicosity, reluctantly
forcing us to send our equally potent military to fight freedom
wherever freedom was threatened. (Sound familiar?) Without us and our
brilliant, forward-thinking leaders such as Harry Truman and John F.
Kennedy, today the world would be a cockroach’s Shangri-la.

Sure, in a couple spots we weren’t that great. Like segregation,
Vietnam, and Watergate. But we realized our ills – hey, it was of a
time – fixed all that and said we were sorry.

Well, guess what? That’s all nonsense.

You see, we can’t possibly be the bad guys. It’s too unappetizing to
imagine, so we view our history with rose-colored glasses, teaching
it so it’s palatable and easy-to-understand. When we absolutely
must admit serious wrongdoing, we make sure to include a proviso that
absolves total blame. Sure, Manifest Destiny was a more poetic term for
genocide, but those heathen Native Americans weren’t good at sharing
(other than Thanksgiving) and we needed the land.

The American classroom peddles as much propaganda and provides as
many misconceptions about the world as the Islamic schools in the
Middle East. The only difference is the American education system
doesn’t incite violence. This, in turn, creates both leaders who
pursue misguided, ignorant foreign policy and a general populace that
fervently supports such policies. After all, we’re somberly following
the lessons of history. Best yet, when a more balanced version of
historical events is finally taught, the generations that learned it
the jingoistic way can grouse that liberal schools and teachers are
teaching anti-American dribble.

To wit, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American history curriculum and
popular culture recalls the event as this: Unprovoked, the Soviets
aggressively moved nuclear weapons into Cuba with the intention
of destroying the United States unless their demands were met;
the Kennedy administration met this Cold War volley brilliantly and
graciously saved humanity from nuclear annihilation.

A more balanced account doesn’t comfort our nationalistic psyches
as much. Cuba was the Soviet Union’s strategic North American ally –
much like West Germany and Turkey were our strategic European allies.
We provided a nuclear umbrella for each with nuclear weapons that
were strategically placed throughout their countries and aimed at
Soviet military installations and cities. Turkey, coincidentally,
borders Georgia and Armenia, both of which were then Soviet republics.

By inviting Cuba underneath their nuclear umbrella, the Soviets
were attempting to reestablish a nuclear balance. (This deterrence
two-step defined the Cold War – especially in the ’50s and ’60s.) The
Soviets never intended to give the Cubans control of these weapons.
The Turkish and West German governments certainly didn’t possess the
launch codes to the nuclear missiles within their borders – although
many members of the American military and NATO pushed for a system that
would allow Turkey and our other allies access to these weapons under
the guise of a non-proliferation initiative. The Soviets, in fact,
were shocked at Castro’s callous attitude regarding the weapons –
privately, they considered Castro a lunatic.

Kennedy had only himself to blame for the escalation. The peace-loving
JFK who would’ve prevented Vietnam and quelled the Cold War is a
myth. He ran for president on a hawkish platform, claiming that the
Eisenhower administration irresponsibly allowed a missile gap to
develop. While his prose was poetic, his actions were inflammatory.

Kennedy did not stave off nuclear annihilation, he courted it.
Imagine how we would have responded had the Soviets covertly attempted
to topple the Turkish government.

Why isn’t this version taught in our public schools? Because teaching
our hypocrisies is unpatriotic – no matter the provisos. So it was
the big, bad Soviets who initiated the arms race. It was the big,
bad Soviets who bucked any and every arms control measure. It was
the big, bad Soviets who insisted on supporting brutal, totalitarian
regimes throughout the Third World. The truth becomes irrelevant;
the bold strokes are easier for adolescents to commit to memory.

We’re incapable of stopping. Part of the American way is being
the hero. Damn our actions if they frame us otherwise; we’ll twist
the facts until they’re in our favor. For our next trick, watch us
justify this nasty little prison scandal where a few patsy soldiers
(probably ordered by some higher-ups) staged sexual shenanigans between
Iraqi prisoners of war. These barbaric insurgents simply would not
provide us information about their insurgency. We tried everything,
but they would not talk. If we didn’t make them rape each other,
American soldiers might have lost their lives. It was a sad chapter
in our history, but a chapter we were forced to write.

These are the lessons subsequent generations will be taught. Thirty
years from now, a high school student will regurgitate for a history
exam that in 2003 we (along with a Coalition of 60 other nations!)
toppled that evil Saddam Hussein (he gassed his own people!!) and
freed the Iraqi people from their bondage (we helped them destroy
Saddam effigies!!!), finally bringing democracy to an unenlightened
people. And that student will receive an A.

Peterson attorney lives in limelight, fights for underdog
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
May 27, 2004, Thursday, BC cycle

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — He charms jurors, attorneys and judges with
his easygoing style. Lawyer to the stars, talk show pundit, the
mustachioed man in crisply pressed suits is now the man of the hour.

As lead defense attorney for Scott Peterson, Mark Geragos is the
former fertilizer salesman’s best hope of avoiding a death sentence
in the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their fetus.

Defendants are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty
– but Geragos has said police and prosecutors did all they could to
convict Peterson in the court of public opinion before a gag order
was imposed on the case.

That’s one reason why Geragos is so chummy with reporters – “What
drives me just crazy is when I think that somebody is getting a raw
deal,” he explains in an interview.

During breaks in the proceedings, Geragos saunters from the courthouse,
says a few well-chosen words, takes a couple of questions and strolls
off, cell phone to his ear.

That’s the face much of the world sees, a man who appears confident,
deliberate and deftly in charge of his surroundings, the kind of
attorney many friends and colleagues say they would want on their side.

Geragos was catapulted to fame after he secured acquittals for
Whitewater figure Susan McDougal and took on the cases of Winona Ryder,
former Congressman Gary Condit and rapper Nathaniel (Nate Dogg) Hale.

Beyond the cameras’ glare, Geragos is a man like any other – committed
to his job, his family and his Armenian-American culture.

“The thing that drives me is fighting for the underdog and taking on
causes that are generally not well recognized,” Geragos said. “Being
Armenian and having all four of my grandparents who fled genocide,
I have a great and deep and abiding appreciation for what it’s like
to be the subject of tyranny.”

One of his proudest achievements is a settlement in January that went
mostly unnoticed. The descendants of some 1.5 million Armenians who
were killed nearly 90 years ago in the Turkish Ottoman Empire will
share in a $20 million settlement for unpaid life insurance benefits.
Geragos served as plaintiffs’ attorney in the class action, which
took four years of work.

That’s why he took on the Peterson case, even as others assured him
it was a loser.

“The whole idea … is to defend people and to fight for their rights
and their liberties,” Geragos said.

Married with two children, Geragos, 46, is managing partner of a Los
Angeles law firm that includes his father and brother. The arrangement
allows them to take cases at no charge, if the cause is right. “I’m
the luckiest lawyer on the planet that I’ve got the kind of practice
that I do.”

Geragos was defending both Peterson and Michael Jackson, until the
pop star complained his child molestation defense wasn’t getting
enough attention. Geragos shrugged off his firing, saying only that
“I truly, truly wish him well and am hopeful for a favorable outcome
for Michael.”

His friend and fellow Los Angeles attorney Harland Braun says Geragos
“understands people more than most lawyers do.”

Another thing he understands, according to Geragos’ co-counsel Pat
Harris, is that high-profile clients cannot be defended solely inside
courtrooms – not when jurors are constantly in danger of being exposed
to every supermarket tabloid take on the trial.

Geragos has lost his share of cases, but even the best lose some,
according to Shepard Kopp, a lawyer at his firm. “That’s the ultimate
challenge. As a trial lawyer, you take cases that appear to be
unwinnable and you find a way to win.”