Question remains urgent

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
June 24, 2003

QUESTION REMAINS URGENT

Along with positive tendencies the transition to market economy
brought a number of problems. Some of them are especially urgent in
the sphere of health care connected with introduction of paid medical
service and low purchasing capacity of the population. And although
the government has undertaken the free of charge medical care of the
socially insecure and separate groups of patients the problem remains
urgent. The system of medical care is especially vulnerable in the
regions, especially in those areas which even temporarily appeared in
the hands of the enemy who destroyed and plundered the hospitals and
schools with special ardour. In 1992-1993 the regional hospital of
Martakert was ruined and plundered by the Azerbaijanis. In the
post-war period certain reconstruction works were carried out here on
both budget and humanitarian means. The department of maternity and
gynecology and policlinic, partly the surgical department were
reconstructed, and the local hospitals, which have been placed in
other buildings, minimum conditions have been provided, mainly for
maternity care and out-patient treatment. By the means of the
Stepanakert office of the Red Cross and the communities certain
reconstruction work was carried out in the maternity wards of the
region. Nevertheless, the situation is far from being satisfactory
especially in the villages where the maternity wards are placed in
houses, do not have necessary equipment. Recently at the meeting of
the regional council the director of the Martakert Medical Union
after Sergey Ohanian presented a report on the work done in 2003. The
NKR Minister of Health Zoya Lazarian was also present. The Medical
Union includes the regional hospital with surgical, therapeutic,
pediatric, maternity, infectious, policlinic departments, three local
(villages Haterk, Vank, Getavan) hospitals with 10 wards, two
out-patient treatment and 39 maternity wards, provides free medical
care and service within the framework of state medical programs, as
well as paid services. Free medical care is provided to invalids of
the 1st, 2nd and 3rd groups, veterans of the World War II and people
with an equal status, families of the servicemen who were killed or
died during the defence of NKR and military service, participants of
the disposal of the damage of Chernobil, life pensioners and sole
mothers, parents of the families having 4 and more children under 18.
In 2003 within the framework of the state medical care the regional
hospital provided care of 53 million 314 thousand drams instead of
the provided 52 million 211 thousand and received additional 53
patients. In 2003 for medical care and aid 79 946 patients against
the provided 69 855 visited the hospital of which 34 598 the
maternity wards, 6848 the local hospitals and 37 300 the regional
hospital. 1441 patients received in-patient treatment. It was
mentioned that the positive tendencies in the improvement of medical
care in 2003 are stable. The number of visits of patients grew, cases
of hospital death, as well as the rate of child death (under 12
months) and stillbirth dropped, the number of home calls and doctor
visits increased. Nevertheless, medical service in the region needs
serious improvements. Among these the director of the medical union
mentioned the problem of cadres: of the 17 doctors involved in the
union 12 work in the regional center. Compared to the volume of work,
the number of registered and potential patients this is a small
number. For example, in the therapeutic department of the regional
hospital 1 doctor works instead of 3. In the policlinic department
not all the surgeries have necessary specialists. The same is with
the pediatric and gynecology, and venereal and dermatological
departments. It was mentioned that all the three local hospitals have
ambulance cars. There is one doctor in Vank and in Getavan and 3
doctors in Haterk hospital. In 2003 the local hospitals together
received 17 117 patients, 124 births were registered. There were also
8 cases of delivery at home. Continuing on problems, S. Ohanian
mentioned the necessity of new equipment, repairs of the therapeutic,
infection and surgical departments, construction of new maternity
wards in all the village communities. It was mentioned that the
supply of medicine to villages is carried out on the means provided
by village municipalities which is trifling compared to the demand.
The gap is filled with the humanitarian aid provided by the
international organizations. The minister of health promised to study
the problems raised and start their settlement as soon as possible.

NIKOLAY BAGHDASSARIAN

BAKU: Azeri radio says Armenians re-deploy troops on border

Azeri radio says Armenians re-deploy troops on border

ANS Radio, Baku
18 Jun 04

The situation is relatively calm on the contact line of the armed
forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, Armenians are bringing
troops and military hardware towards the Qazax direction of the
border. Residents of Mazam village, which borders Armenia, came to
this conclusion on the basis of the Armenian aggressors’ intensified
activities on the border. The locals say that the Armenian military
have been re-deploying their positions over the past week and the
enemy’s positions are now closer to the village.

Let us recall that four to five kilometres of the road to the villages
of Mazam and Qusci Ayrim go through the front line. The residents of
the villages are moving children to safer areas in order to protect
them from Armenian aggression, as there is a great possibility of
the road being blocked.

The head of the district executive authorities admitted that the
situation in Mazam village is tense. As the road to the village
has been under constant fire from the enemy during the past week,
movement to and from the village has been suspended.

The head of the district executive authorities, Asad Orucov, said
that the enemy used to fire at the village and the road. The OSCE
Minsk Group’s mission which carried out monitoring in the village
on 12 June was informed about the situation which had developed in
the last two weeks. However, the Armenian side ignored the OSCE’s
recommendations. Orucov said that a strong military contingent sent to
defend the village is capable of repulsing the enemy. Thus it is out
of the question that Armenians can besiege the village, end of quote.

[Lider TV, Baku, in Azeri 0800 gmt, said Mazam village came under
Armenian fire on Thursday night 18 June]

Boxing: I’ve been idle for a year ‘cos they’re all so scared of me..

Glasgow Daily Record, UK
June 16 2004

I’VE BEEN IDLE FOR A YEAR COS THEY’RE ALL SO SCARED OF ME KNOCKING
THEM OUT

ABELYAN FIRES WARNING SCOTT

By Hugh Keevins

WILLIAM ABELYAN was once expelled from a Californian college for
decking a member of the school gridiron team.

Now he insists he’s come to Scotland to teach Scott Harrison a lesson
on Saturday and leave with the WBO featherweight title as his diploma
in determination.

The self-confessed Armenian immigrant punk turned upright citizen
says he got fed up being a troublemaker as soon as he realised there
was money in knocking people unconscious for a living.

Abelyan has been out of the ring for over a year and he boasts it is
because American or Mexican fighters are too scared to go anywhere
near him.

He said: ‘I couldn’t get a fight because I knock people down.

‘Or else I make them retire from boxing completely.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I read an old man like Manuel Medina had
gone 12 rounds with Harrison and then taken his title on points.

‘I was once a sparring partner for Medina and I knocked him down
twice.’

Harrison paid Abelyan money to step aside and give up his right to
fight Medina for the title which the Scot won back last November.

But even Harrison’s manager Frank Maloney won’t predict anything
other than a nail-biting bout.

Maloney said: ‘I wouldn’t have taken on this fight for Scott if there
had been a way of avoiding Abelyan.

‘But it’s a mandatory defence and the truth is that Scott is fighting
for his career.

‘Abelyan is a master boxer and his people fancy this fight big time.

‘Scott will need to rip him apart like a lion with a piece of meat
between his teeth if he wants to win against Abelyan.

‘There are massive pay days at stake and this will be one of the
best fights Scotland has ever seen. I am very concerned because there
might be no way back for Scott if he loses this one.’

In Abelyan’s camp,however, there wasno such fear.

Trainer Don House said: ‘I think Harrison is a decent fighter.

‘I would like to thank him for holding on to our belt until we could
get here to take it back to the States.William hasn’t fought for a
year but he is ready to take on anybody,anytime.

‘He could find harder fighters than Harrison if hewent to Mexico.

‘Sometimes it’s good to have some time out of the ring but we’ve
never stopped working in the gym.’

Abelyan arrived in the USA from Armenia when hewas eight years old
and regards his adopted country as his home.

But it took him time to remember that California was the Sunshine
State and didn’t welcome his dark side.

He said: ‘I never went back to school after they threw me out for
fighting.

‘I graduated through a home correspondence course.

‘But I got fed up with being a troublemaker and channelled my
aggression into boxing.

‘I’m not a fighter in the ring. I am a tactician and Harrison will
find out the difference between one and the other from the moment
the bell sounds to start the first round on Saturday night.

‘The ring is my house and from what I have seen of Harrison so far,
he reminds me of a Mexican fighter. He has no real movement but just
comes on to you.

‘My dream is to hold a world title and he is standing between me and
my destiny.

‘I don’t think I have had the best win of my career so far. I believe
that has still to come on Saturday night.’

Rumsfeld’s Monster Pictures And The Fallout From Abu Ghraib

>>From the Wilderness
June 11 2004

1104_rumsfeld_monster.html

Theatrical Militarism Gets More Bad Reviews:

Rumsfeld’s Monster Pictures And The Fallout From Abu Ghraib (Part II)

by
Stan Goff

[In the first installment of this multi-part report, Stan Goff found
the neocons squirting a few apologies at the media. Their
embarrassment was somebody else’s psychic and/or physical maiming. In
this sequel, Goff looks at a few other public relations disasters (PR
is what diplomacy amounts to these days) leading up to the second War
on Iraq. Less than delighted with American looting of the post-Soviet
economy, Russia surely gave Iraq clandestine help; and when the Bush
administration administered Turkey the arrogant assumption of total
compliance with U.S. warplans, Turkey administered them a robustly
democratic flourishing of the middle finger. Coupled with the
undeniable monstrosity of Abu Ghraib – which we now know was sent
straight from the Defense Department’s highest echelons – all this
suggests that the next stop on the endless warpath will not be a
cakewalk. – JAH]

JUNE 11, 2004: 1100 PDT (FTW) — What goes around, comes around.

The Russians didn’t say it in 2002, but the hauteur of the Bush
administration toward Russian aspirations, their own lingering,
resentful inferiority complex at having begun their forced march into
modernism only in the 1930’s, the humiliation of having collapsed
under the strain of the Cold War, and the very tangible new reality
that the U.S. was about to kick the Russians into the global
periphery, all coalesced into icy retribution.

Russia began advising Iraq. Their political advice and maneuvering
was intended to delay, delay, delay… in particular, to incrementally
make concessions to the United Nations as a means of raising the bar
for the Americans to legitimize their sought-after invasion.

By March 2002, London’s Telegraph reported, this link was firmly
established. The Telegraph hinted hint that military advice and
assistance might also have been provided.

I had said the same thing in Full Spectrum Disorder (Soft Skull
Press, 2004).

Accusations by the United States that the Russians were providing
material assistance were likely true. The Russians had now thrown in
their lot with “old Europe” and China, and they were aiming to
undermine U.S. power at every opportunity. I suspected they had not
only provided equipment and training on that equipment, but advisory
assistance on the reorganization of the Iraqi military.

Someone surely had.

The Iraqi military had abandoned its former Soviet-style doctrine,
predicated on armor, mass, and centralized command. It had now
seemingly adopted tactics more suited to Special Operations: agile
and decentralized. Such a switch requires a very intentional and
systematic reorientation from top to bottom. This is an
“asymmetrical” response to the high-tech doctrine the U.S. developed
to overcome the doctrine of its own predecessor. This Iraqi doctrinal
reorientation proved stunningly effective, even though it was often
tragically amateurish in its execution, with Iraqis simply stepping
into the street to fire RPG’s and being cut down by a tsunami of fire
and lead.

In December 2003, the United States retaliated openly with a Pentagon
announcement that barred Russia from any post-invasion contracts in
Iraq.

Dmitry Rogozin of the Duma said this action “shows the very primitive
vindictiveness of the current U.S. administration.”

Asia Times reported this year (Sergei Blagov, “Putin to expand
strategic partnership with China,” Asia Times, March 12 2004) that it
would expand its agreements with China. Part of that agreement was a
strategic energy pact. Another part was an increase in the Chinese
importation of Russian weapons.

Like balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil… petroleum and guns.

But back to our account of how these circumstances built into a
political storm, catalyzed by some photographs that could very well
destroy the Bush administration.

While the bully boys advising the White House were rampaging around
with the pre-capsized Ahmed Chalabi, NATO ally Turkey was in the
throes of an election.

It is important to note that Turkey is a “democracy” that serves at
the pleasure of its own military, a military that itself has a
historical power base that is deeply involved in the drug trade. Note
also that the U.S. has traditionally relied on the Turkish military
to secure policy outcomes favorable to Washington. The majority of
Turkish citizens are ethnic Turks (which is itself a historical
composite of many groups) and religiously Muslim.

Istanbul, the capital, is on the Bosphorus, a strait that divides
Europe from Asia, and, as Louis Proyect pointed out after a visit
there to see his in-laws in January 2003, it points to a geographic
fault that could rival San Andreas.

The geological fault line obviously has a counterpart in the city and
country’s precarious location on the political-tectonic plates that
divide the Christian West from the Islamic East. If these plates
clash with each other at full force, the impact can be as devastating
as any earthquake. Istanbul is geographically unique. It is the only
city in the world, as far as I know, that straddles two continents.
Imagine getting in your car each morning in Asia and driving across a
bridge to get to your workplace in Europe. Not only is the city
divided spatially, it is also divided culturally and politically.

This division that the Turkish economic, military, and political
elites have so carefully negotiated over the years was brought into
bold relief after September 11.

It needs to be noted that the Bosporus is a huge trans-shipment point
for oil. In 2003, Russia complained bitterly that passage through
Turkey was far too slow for Urals crude. The establishment of a
permanent U.S./NATO base, Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo after the
NATO-engineered breakup of Yugoslavia (with the assistance of the
heroin-funded “Kosovo Liberation Army”) paved the way for U.S. oil
companies operating in the Caspian region (which has since turned
into the biggest oil bust in recent history) to bypass the Bosporus.
This was a huge political betrayal for Turkey – a NATO member state –
which deepened Turkish suspicions about their European allies.

Bondsteel was built (it should be no surprise) by Halliburton, Dick
Cheney’s company.

Without belaboring Turkey’s history overmuch, it is important to
understand that Kemalism, the prevailing political current in Turkey
– often mistakenly seen by the west as a rejection of Islam – is a
system where the state exists over and above religion. It was built
up within the complexities of the 20th Century and in the wake of
Turkey’s disastrous alliance with the Germans in World War I. The
official ideology was initially pan-Islamic, but evolved into a
pan-Turk racial identity, which was an effective method of social
control of the majority Turk while the state systematically massacred
the Albanians and subjected the Kurds as an internal colony.

Over time, the economic and political stability of Turkey came to
depend absolutely on the suppression of the Kurds (Turkey’s largest
“minority”), and this suppression forged a revitalized movement for
Kurdish autonomy. This ability to divert the general public’s
discontents into racially coded nationalism becomes increasingly
important in times of economic instability – which for Turkey began
in earnest in 1991 and has only gotten worse under the direction of
the International Monetary Fund.

But the fact remains that contiguous Kurdish living space – referred
to by some as Kurdistan – extends beyond Turkey into Iraq, Iran, and
less so into Syria. The “Kurdish question” for Turkey, then, is
necessarily internationalized.

Not coincidentally, Iraqi Kurdistan is sitting atop the richest oil
fields in the nation, with its political center in Kirkuk.

Kurds once ruled a significant portion of the region, after the
Kurdish military leader, Saladin, threw the Europeans out of
Jerusalem in 1187. They prospered because the region – not yet
dragged into the age of hydrocarbons – was a trade crossroads between
Europe, Africa, and Asia. But with the so-called discovery of the
Americas, the region went into a permanent economic slump, and the
Kurds largely reorganized as criminal syndicates led by warlords.

In his February Swans piece, “The Kurdish Pawn,” Louis Proyect says:

In addition to being economically marginalized, the Kurds were
isolated geographically as well. Preferring to dwell in the mountains
or rocky hills, they subsisted on sheep-herding and small-scale
farming…

After the Ottomans created a new regional economic system based on
trade between North Africa and Central Asia, they were not sure how
the Kurds fit into the big picture. They finally decided to co-opt
them into the Hamidiye, a warrior caste functioning more or less like
the Janissaries — slaves of Christian origin enjoying privilege and
political power in spite of their subject status. Despite the high
ideals of their nationalist leaders, Kurdish soldiers joined with the
Turks in slaughtering other subject peoples like the Armenians…

For decades their leaderships have subordinated the needs of the
Kurdish nation as a whole for their own narrowly self-defined
political goals within each state. Backstabbing, backroom deals and
suppression of more radical trends within the Kurdish struggle have
been the norm rather than the exception.1

Proyect goes on to quote scholar Amir Hassanpour:

The Kurdish movement for self-determination has thus been
factionalized. In a supreme irony, Iraqi Kurdish leaders unleashed
their own peshmergas (militias) in the early 1990s against the
Turkey-based Kurdish separatists of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK),
in part to please their U.S. benefactors in the struggle against
Iraqi Arabs. The U.S. had declared, on behalf of its NATO ally
Turkey, that the PKK was a “terrorist” organization. 2

The PUK and KDP are two Kurdish factions in Iraq, each supported by
the U.S. to weaken the Iraqi Ba’athists. Their rivalry exploded into
a fratricidal mini-war in 1992 that claimed 3,000 lives, almost as
many as were killed in the chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War
which gained so much propaganda currency in the run-up to the latest
U.S. invasion.

In “Reckless Disregard,” a 1999 article by Vera Saeedpour quoted by
Proyect in his superlative Swans piece, she noted:

The Iraqi Kurds, long accustomed to suffering in wars between
guerrillas and governments, found themselves again beleaguered, this
time not by Baghdad but by Kurds. Their new lament came to be, “Even
Saddam Hussein didn’t do this.” But no one wants to hear, much less
publicize, their plight. Only Amnesty International would produce a
belated report in 1995 on human rights abuses of Kurds under Kurdish
administration. Human Rights Watch has yet to bring out a word on the
topic. In their zeal to provide documentation in support of the State
Department’s case against Saddam Hussein for his abuses of Kurds in
the 1980s — for which they have received considerable funding —
they deliberately ignored abuses of Kurds by Kurds in the 1990s. 3

The Kurdish peshmergas of northern Iraq were maintained courtesy of
the U.S.A throughout the low-intensity war between the two U.S.
invasions of Iraq, and they actually fought alongside American
Special Forces in the last ground campaign. They are now a huge and
unpredictable political factor in a zone where a decade of
U.S.-protected political autonomy has only fed into the popular
desire for an independent Kurdistan – which is anathema to Turkey’s
elites.

There are still new military and political storms waiting to form out
of these turbulent winds.

This contextualizes the Turkish elections of 2003, where the U.S.
suffered its first political defeat. That translated into a military
setback which advanced the development of a credible Iraqi guerrilla
resistance by several years.

By 2002, the widespread Turkish sense of humiliation at the hands of
the Americans – national humiliation and economic humiliation –
peaked in a political upheaval.

In a bit of political irony, the Turkish “proportional
representation” system that requires at least 10% of the vote to
qualify a party for any seat in parliament, a system designed to
protect the domination of the incumbents, became a surprise landslide
victory for the Islamic Party of Justice and Development (AKP), who
got only 35% of the vote (far more than any other formation) and
ended up with two thirds of the parliamentary seats.

At this point, Turkey was preparing to authorize the use of Turkish
soil for the U.S. military to launch its north-to-south ground
offensive into Iraq, even though more than 90% of the Turkish public
passionately opposed this plan. That authorization required passage
of a law by the Turkish parliament.

Even the newly empowered AKP had to take into account the Turkish
military, which supported assistance of the American invasion. The
Turkish military had already demonstrated that they would stand back
from politics only so far.

When the vote was taken on March 1, after the invasion plans were
already laid out and preparations were in the 11th hour, in a
stunning defeat the parliament narrowly voted to deny the U.S., even
in the face of massive bribery and intimidation by both Washington
and factions within Ankara. The decisive pressure on the Turkish
parliament, elected as an Islamic Party, was the mass movement in
Turkey opposing the war, and the weight of the international mass
movement against the war that stood behind it.

>>From Full Spectrum Disorder:
How had the antiwar movement become a material force on the
Iraqi battleground?

A snapshot of the tactical situation, as least what could be
gleaned from different accounts, revealed that the original battle
plan was scrapped. The complexity of planning a military operation of
that scope is simply indescribable, and it takes months to do it
right. But the unexpected loss of ground fronts, in Turkey in the
north and Saudi Arabia in the south, forced a complete reconstruction
of plans in a matter of days. The operation could be put off no
longer. The aggressor’s back was against the weather wall. The
pre-summer sandstorms had already begun, and by late April the heat
index inside a soldier’s chemical protective gear could be 140
degrees Fahrenheit.

The international antiwar movement had firmed up political
opposition around the world and forced the delays that culminated in
the UN Security Council becoming a key arena of struggle. For the
ossified left who couldn’t see beyond their own simplistic
shibboleths and who dismissed the UN on ideological – and therefore
idealist – grounds, there was an example of how politics translates
dialectically into military reality.

We had stalled the Bush administration to push the war back, and
there was an effect. There is an effect to this day. Never doubt it.

The entire 4th Infantry Division was still sitting in the
barracks waiting for their equipment to steam around the Arabian
Peninsula in cargo ships because the Turkish parliament denied them
their battlefront. Medium- and short-range tactical aircraft that
could have struck dozens of key targets were sidelined because they
were forbidden to take off from Saudi Arabia to deliver their
payloads.

Inside the Department of Defense there was another war raging
between the Generals of the Army and Marine Corps and the clique of
doctrinal “revolutionaries” pushing Rumsfeld’s crackpot theory,
cyberwar combined with commandos.

The new “doctrine” was creating a military debacle in Iraq.
Rumsfeld was refusing to learn what was in front of him, that in war,
which is an extreme form of politics, success is not measured on a
point system like a golf tournament. It is not measured in body
counts or inventories of destroyed war materiel. In fact, it is not
perfectly measurable at all. Success has to be gauged against the
expectations of the military operation and its final objectives –
which are always political. The U.S. inflicted a terrible empirical
toll on Southeast Asia and ultimately lost the Vietnam War. The U.S.
never grasped the political character of that war…

Fragile Turkey was beset by a severe economic crisis. Its
majority-Muslim population had just elected a moderate Islamic Party
and the popular opposition to the war was overwhelming.

The Turkish ruling class could not afford another insurrection
from Kurdish nationalists, and the Turkish military had no intention
of watching a Kurdish state take form to their south. As a result of
the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Turkey was becoming a powder keg behind
its stable exterior, and Kurdistan was a furnace.

The political implications reach deep into Europe, where less
than two years ago the U.S. pushed behind the scenes for Turkey into
the EU as a U.S. stalking horse. Germany has a substantial population
of Turks and Kurds, and the German government still has a real and
justifiable fear that open warfare in Iraqi Kurdistan will spill over
into the streets of Germany.

To mollify the Kurds, the U.S. had to menace back the Turkish
military, and the Kurds softened their language about an independent
Kurdistan.

Oh, the tangled web we weave… One could almost hear Ian Malcolm
saying, “I’m really getting tired of being right all the time.”

Then there is Saudi Arabia.

1 Louis Proyect, “Resistance: In The Eye Of The American Hegemon: The
Kurdish Pawn,” Swans, Special Issue on Iraq – February 2, 2004.

2 “The Kurdish Experience,” Middle East Report, July-August 1994.

3 Reckless Disregard, Peacework, November 1999,
9/119914.htm

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/06
http://www.swans.com/library/art10/iraq/proyect.html
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/119

Armenian Independence Day Picnic-Festival Attracts 1500

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Youth Federation
Western United States
104 N. Belmont St. Suite 206
Glendale, CA 91206
Contact: Raffi Semerdjian
Tel: 818.507.1933
Fax: 818.240.3442
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

Armenian Independence Day Picnic-Festival Attracts 1500

The Armenian American community of Southern California concluded its
Armenian Independence Day celebrations with a picnic-festival held at the
Holy Martyrs Ferrahian Armenian Pre-School on Monday May 31st.

The picnic-festival officially began with the singing of the Armenian
National Anthem performed by Sose Keshishian. Thereafter singers Paul
Baghdadlian, Harout Hagopian, Nersik Ispirian, Joseph Krikorian, Ara
Sahagian, Sako, and Hovannes Shahbazian performed cultural and patriotic
songs for a mixed crowd of over 1500.

“We are honored to provide our community a vibrant venue through which they
can celebrate our first independence,” said Shant Baboujian, director of the
organizing committee. “While celebrating the victories of 1918 however, we
must always continue our work to overcome the many challenges our nation
faces today,” explained Baboujian.

Over 25 vendors lined the picnic field where they sold artwork, ceramics,
jewelry, T-shirts, clothes, and desserts. Community organizations including
the Armenian Relief Society, Homenetmen, ANCA, and Pyunic were also
available to disseminate organizational information to guests.

The picnic concluded at 8pm with the singing of Aruynod Trosh.

The Armenian Youth Federation Western United States serves Armenian American
communities west of the Mississippi through education, athletics, political
activism, cultural activities and social settings. To learn more about the
AYF please log on to

####

http://www.ayfwest.org
www.AYFwest.org.

NATO challenges Russia’s influence in the CIS

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
June 9, 2004, Wednesday

NATO CHALLENGES RUSSIA’S INFLUENCE IN THE CIS

SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 8, 2004, p. 5

by Yuri Simonjan, Tatiana Ivzhenko

In Warsaw and Brussels yesterday, NATO structures held important
talks with representatives of the defense ministries of Ukraine and
Georgia. These two countries are expected to receive invitations
to the NATO Istanbul summit by the end of this month, and they will
attend the summit with the status of NATO’s special partners. NATO
has been making active advances to the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan
since late May. It is reasonable to assume that NATO is interested in
consolidating some key GUUAM members around the idea of integration
into Western structures.

As Russia becomes more active in establishing and consolidating
economic blocs in the CIS, NATO’s operations in this area are
growing more intensive as well. The West must fear that Moscow’s
initiatives and efforts might lead to the rise of a new and fairly
powerful international alliance, with relations between its members
not restricted to economic contacts alone. This could even deprive the
West of its ability to influence key areas of post-Soviet territory.
That is why NATO countries, those which criticized their CIS partners
only recently, are now changing their tune and promoting closer
relations with the CIS. Off the record, some NATO representatives
speak of the possibility of granting Ukraine and Georgia permission
to join NATO as soon as 2007 – even though it’s obvious that neither
country is ready for it in economic, political, or military terms.

Douglas Bereteur, president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
spoke of NATO membership prospects for Ukraine during a recent visit
to Kiev. But NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a
correspondent of Day that although NATO’s doors are open to Ukraine,
it’s too early as yet to talk of any exact dates. Commenting on
speculations by some Ukrainian analysts about the negative impact
of Russia on NATO-Ukraine relations, Scheffer said: “Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said recently that any decision Ukraine makes
will be its own sovereign decision. I don’t think Ukraine’s intentions
can have any effect on relations between NATO and Russia.”

Judging by certain statements of NATO officials, the Alliance is more
concerned about Ukraine’s present undemocratic system and problems with
its military reforms. But despite all its misgivings, NATO has signed
a mutual understanding memorandum with Kiev. Under this agreement, NATO
will use Ukrainian AN-124 Ruslan transport planes in its operations.

Expanding Ukraine’s participation in joint operations with NATO
was also discussed at a conference organized by NATO and the Polish
Institute of Foreign Affairs. Ukrainian analysts, however, attach
considerably more importance to NATO’s consent to arrange a meeting of
the NATO-Ukraine commission in Istanbul on June 28 and 29. A previous
meeting of this commission was to take place in Prague in autumn 2002,
but it was cancelled because of the scandal over alleged unlawful
deliveries of Kolchuga Chain Mail systems to Iraq. NATO didn’t even
invite President Leonid Kuchma to the meeting last year. Ukraine was
represented by its foreign minister there.

These days, NATO considers it necessary to reestablish relations with
the Ukrainian leader, who keeps saying that Ukraine is not going to
knock at the doors of Western structures if those doors are closed to
it – instead, it will turn to more loyal foreign partners. Ukrainian
Foreign Minister Konstantin Grischenko said the other day that Kiev
has not yet made up its mind concerning the format of participation
in the Ukraine-NATO meeting in Istanbul. This might mean that NATO
will find it necessary to exert more effort (and perhaps even made
some concessions) to change the pro-Russian direction of Ukrainian
foreign policy.

In its relations with pro-Western Georgia, NATO doesn’t have the sort
of problems it has with Ukraine. A team of experts from the Defense
Ministry of Georgia has been in Brussels since June 1, working with
their NATO counterparts on a draft development program for the Georgain
miliary. This plan may be signed today. Tbilisi is represented at
the talks by Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili. Bezhuashvili is
currently in Brussels, but his time has run out. Fulfilling the plans
will probably be the prerogative of Georgy Baramidze, Bezhuashvili’s
successor, who will soon be endorsed by the parliament of Georgia.

Bezhuashvili told journalists that he was going to Brussels with a
detailed plan specifying all Georgia’s commitments to NATO, the dates
of their implementation, and a program for developing and restructuring
the Armed Forces. The Georgian military’s troop strength will be cut
from 14,000 to 10,000, and a transition to contract service will
be made eventually. In line with NATO standards, 85% of employees
at the central staff of the Defense Ministry will be civilians. The
functions of the Defense Ministry and General Staff will be divided.

All the same, Georgia will have to solve a lot of problems if it’s
really aiming for full membership of NATO. Withdrawal of Russian
military bases from its territory appears to be the most difficult
of these. Moscow still insists on 11 years it claims to require for
the withdrawal, but Tbilisi insistes that three years will suffice.
Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nato Chikovani told us: “Russia
hasn’t even appointed a head of the expert team, despite our requests.”

Georgian experts hope that some way of dealing with the problem will
be found during the talks in Brussels, even though Scheffer never
misses a chance to emphasize that NATO has no intention of spoiling
its relations with Russia. “I take care of these relations and value
them,” he said the other day.

Azerbaijan is also active on its path to NATO. Azerbaijani officers
have attended the NATO Peacekeeping Operations courses. The exercise
took place in Oberammergau, a town in Georgia, within the framework
of NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program. The Best Effort exercise
will be organized in Azerbaijan this summer under NATO’s aegis.
Still, Azerbaijan is several steps behind Ukraine and Georgia on
its path to NATO, and membership is out of the question for the
time being. Judging by the West’s efforts, however, the situation
may change soon. A special agreement on closer contacts between NATO
and the government of Azerbaijan will be signed during the Istanbul
summit. Observers in Azerbaijan are apprehensive that this may have
a negative impact on Azerbaijan’s relations with Moscow. They point
out that the declaration signed by the governments of Russia and
Azerbaijan during President Ilham Aliyev’s recent visit to Moscow
states that cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan must not
be directed against any other country. If things sour, however,
official Baku could use its most convincing argument in the dialogue
with Moscow. Azerbaijan itself is annoyed by the presence of Russian
military bases in Armenia, just like Moscow may be frustrated by the
activization of Baku’s relations with NATO.

BAKU: Daily questions US diplomat’s optimism on “fundamental changes

Daily questions US diplomat’s optimism on “fundamental changes” in Azerbaijan

Yeni Musavat, Baku
7 Jun 04

Text of Qosqay report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat on 7 June
entitled “Fundamental changes?”, subheaded “Seven months ago the West
returned Azerbaijan from threshold of these changes”

Speaking at a conference entitled “With Women towards Victory”,
the deputy US ambassador for political issues, Nancy McEldowney,
voiced an intriguing opinion. She said Azerbaijan was in the run-up
to fundamental changes and called on women to play a more active role
in public life. While mentioning fundamental changes, the diplomat
meant oil revenues (will there be revenues? – author), a peaceful
resolution to the Karabakh conflict, democratic elections and a
guarantee of freedom of speech.

Undoubtedly, these are fine words. We regret that what the experienced
diplomat mentioned as fundamental changes cannot simply be implemented
in Azerbaijan.

This process has been going on in Georgia. [Georgian President]
Mikheil Saakashvili has won democratic polls and is implementing the
democratic changes mentioned by Mrs McEldowney. The country’s budget
revenue has grown, important steps are being taken almost every day
towards building civil society. Finally, territorial conflicts, like
the long-drawn-out Karabakh conflict, are being resolved peacefully
as mentioned by the diplomat.

Following the West’s erroneous stance towards the last [presidential]
elections, Azerbaijan was halted on the threshold of radical
changes. To be more precise, voters’ hopes were betrayed, those
who showed the will were again returned to the Aliyev clan’s
enslavement. Everybody was in favour of changes and we regret that
this was impossible.

What changes have taken place since Ilham Aliyev stepped into
his father’s shoes (on 31 October 2003)? We have no intention of
mentioning them. There is no need for a guide if the mountain can be
seen. Budget money is being spent sporadically, corruption is rife,
freedom of assembly is suppressed.

We should not also forget that women, who are invited to play an active
role in public life, come across tremendous deprivations. Are women,
who sell their bodies for a loaf of bread, not a hostage to Aliyev’s
10-year-old policy?

Now the country’s population understand that nothing will change for
the better unless the dynastic regime disappears from Azerbaijan. Or
the other way round, without a radical power change.

Eastern Prelacy: If you think the Armenian Apostolic faith saysnothi

PRESS RELEASE
Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
138 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-689-7810
Fax: 212-689-7168
e-mail: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: Iris Papazian

May 28, 2004

If you think the Armenian Apostolic faith says
nothing about current moral issues, think again!

New York, NY – Abortion, reproductive technologies, homosexuality,
gay marriage, suicide, euthanasia – these issues are hotly debated and
highly politicized. Various faith communities and organizations are
grappling with them for all sorts of different agendas. Whether we
like it or not, we are forced to face these issues in our personal,
professional and communal lives. One cannot have an intelligent
conversation nowadays without discussing these issues. Our faith,
steeped in the Holy Scriptures and the rich theological tradition,
gives us ample resources to think critically and intelligently about
these moral and ethical topics.

For this reason, the Armenian Religious Education Council (AREC)
of the Eastern Prelacy has organized a unique program for adults in
the Mid-Atlantic region entitled “Critical Issues of Life and Faith,”
scheduled to take place at St. Mary of Providence Center in Elverson,
Pennsylvania, June 25-27, 2004 (for details, please visit the Prelacy
web site at ). An eminent Armenian Orthodox
ethicist and theologian, Prof. Vigen Guroian, will be the main speaker
for the Saturday portion of the program.

Dr. Vigen Guroian is a Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola
College in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of six books and
nearly 150 articles, and three books are forthcoming. Professor
Guroian is the first Armenian theologian ever elected to the
American Theological Society and the Orthodox Theological Society
of America. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Society
of Christian Ethics, has been active in both the National Council
of Churches and the World Council of Churches. He has established
himself in the American academic community as a prominent Orthodox
theologian and ethicist. AREC recently commissioned Prof. Guroian to
write pamphlets on moral and ethical issues for the general public.

In addition to the presentations by Prof. Guroian, the Saturday program
will include small group and panel discussions. The panelists will be
Very Rev. Fr. Krikor Chiftjian (Media Relations Officer, Catholicosate
of Cilicia), Dr. Carlo Bayrakdarian (Psychiatrist), and Dr. Meline
Karakashian (Psychologist and Educator). On Friday evening, the program
will begin with a Bible study – ” Jesus Christ claims our total being –
body and soul,” led by Deacon Shant Kazanjian, director of AREC.

The general public and specially parents, educators, Church delegates
and board members should take advantage of this unique edifying
Christian educational program. Those who wish to attend only a portion
of the program may do so. For further information and registration,
please visit the Prelacy web site

http://www.armenianprelacy.org
http://www.armenianprelacy.org.
www.armenianprelacy.org

Attempt Upon Life Of “Armenia-Lada” Head

ATTEMPT UPON LIFE OF “ARMENIA-LADA” HEAD

A1 Plus | 20:46:02 | 26-05-2004 | Social |

“Hayotc Ashkharh” Daily informs, at May 25 night an attempt was made
upon life of Rafael Shahmuradyan, businessman, Chair of “Armenia-Lada”
Company.

A burst from a driving “Niva” car was fired at “Nissan-Patrol”
of Shahmuradyan who was driving. Those attacking hided themselves,
Rafael Shahmuradyan is in hospital with severe injuries.

“Armenia-Lada” Company is a huge importer of Russian cars into
Armenia. At the same time “Karkomauto” Company headed by Shahmuradyan
is “Peugeot” and “Nissan” dealer in Armenia.

Plastic Bottle Imprisoned For 1,6 Years

PLASTIC BOTTLE IMPRISONED FOR 1,6 YEARS

A1 Plus | 20:06:47 | 26-05-2004 | Social |

The First Instance Court of Center and Nork-Marash Communes brought
in a verdict to sentence Edgar Araqelyan, who hit a plastic bottle
on the head of a policeman during April 12 rally, to 1,6 year-long
imprisonment.

During the trial Edgar’s Advocate Tadevos Alexanyan made a
speech. According to him, the preliminary investigation group intended
to aggravate purposely the accusation whereas Edgar’s behavior could
be labeled nothing more than hooliganism. “The defendant resorted to
this after policemen had done violence to people”.

Mr. Alexanyan assures before hitting a policeman, Edgar was brutally
beaten by policemen. Then he had informed General Office of Prosecutor
in written about it but didn’t get answer.

“Preliminary investigation bodies try to prove that Edgar was present
to stir up anti-constitutional actions. But he was there as fate
willed”.

At the end the defendant was granted the right of final plea. “I
regret what I have done and ask to commute”, he said.

Judge asked whether Edgar would again hit if the bottle were glassy. “I
saw the bottle wasn’t glassy and was sure the hit wouldn’t threaten
life of the policeman”, Edgar said.

Those present for the trial were sure the verdict was a political
order.