Armenian president, OSCE envoy discuss ties, Karabakh settlement
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
23 Sep 04
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan received the special envoy of the
OSCE chairman-in-office on the Nagornyy Karabakh issue and the former
prime minister of Bulgaria, Filip Dimitrov, today. An official report
only noted that they discussed relations between Armenia and the OSCE
and the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.
RosBusinessConsulting Database
September 22, 2004 Wednesday
Russian Duma wants to amend Georgian and Armenian laws
The Russian State Duma has proposed Armenia and Georgia to amend
their laws covering the issue of countering terrorism. The step is
aimed at enhancing public security as international terrorists have
become more active. Russian lawmakers recommended the Russian
government to propose Georgian and Armenian parliaments to tighten
their laws aimed at countering and preventing the activities of
illegal armed groups, which conduct terror attacks and make penalties
for terrorist supporters stricter.
In Our View: Sanctions not enough for Sudan
The Daily Herald
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
While most of the country’s attention has been focused on Iraq, a
human-rights crisis has been unfolding in north Africa.
In Darfur, Sudan, more than 50,000 people have been killed and 1.2
million displaced by Arab militias — the Janjaweed — since February
2003. That is when rebel groups in Darfur accused the Arab-led
government in Khartoum of discrimination and neglect.
Many of the displaced are in refugee camps where starvation and
disease run rampant.
The United Nations, at the behest of the United States, is responding
to the crisis but, as usual, not with the forcefulness the situation
demands. The U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on the
country and its oil industry if the government fails to curb the
violence, and the United Nations will appoint a committee to determine
if the killings of Africans by the Arab militias constitute genocide.
Allow us to save the United Nations the time and trouble: It’s
genocide.
When one group sets out to annihilate another because of racial,
ethnic or religious differences, that’s the plain and simple
definition. There is no magic number you have to reach. Just look at
what happened in Hitler’s Germany, Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia, Tibet and
Armenia, just to name a few places where man’s inhumanity to man came
to full flower.
Sanctions are a legitimate tool in the diplomatic arsenal for dealing
with misbehaving countries. But it’s not always the right tool for the
job. And it is definitely not the right one to fight genocide.
The main problem is that any sanction takes time to be felt. It is,
after all, an economic version of siege warfare, in which one side
tries to outlast the other. That may work in cases of forcing a
government to drop a weapons program or to stop supporting terrorist
activities. But it does nothing to halt genocide. Before the pinch of
sanctions is felt Sudan, the death toll could easily double or triple.
Sanctions won’t persuade the Janjaweed and its supporters in the
government to mend their ways. Instead, they may accelerate the
killing as the perpetrators blame the people in Darfur for their
latest woe.
The correct response to genocide is military force. The only way for
the killing to stop is to confront the Janjaweed with
force. Interposing an army is the only way to stop the genocide in its
tracks and safeguard the victims of the planned extermination.
Sadly, the United Nations doesn’t have a good track record when using
its own force for this sort of job. U.N. peacekeepers stood by
helplessly, for example, while Serbian troops slaughtered people in
the former Yugoslavia. But the United Nations can at least authorize
African nations to send in their own troops — forces that know the
territory and the enemy they’re up against.
A force composed mostly of Africans would negate any claim that action
was undertaken as a reprise of European colonialism or
imperialism. Rather, it would be seen as Africans helping their own
people. An all-African force would make outside intervention
unnecessary. The United States, for example, is already spread thin
around the world and is not in the best position to do the United
Nations’ heavy lifting in Sudan.
Since World War II, the civilized world has said “Never again” to
genocide. It’s time to put guns behind that sentiment.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A6.
PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Communications Officer
Tel: (212) 686-0710; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
September 21, 2004
___________________
TODAY MARKS ARMENIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
Today (9/21) marks Armenian Independence Day. On September 21, 1991,
the people of the former Soviet Republic of Armenia voted in a special
referendum to live as a free and independent state. During that
historic choice, 95 percent of the Armenian people voted in the special
referendum; of that voting population, 99.3 percent voted for
independence and sovereignty. The following day, September 22, 1991,
the Parliament of Armenia announced the results and officially declared
independence.
Our website has resources to help you celebrate Armenia’s independence,
help strengthen the nation, and educate your children on today’s
Armenia. Just click to:
* * *
SHARE YOUR PRIDE
On our website, you can share your Hye pride with your friends and
family by sending an free, animated electronic postcard celebrating
Armenian Independence Day. Just click to our website to send a free
e-mail postcard today:
;cat=armeni
an_Independence&lang=english.pm
* * *
CATHOLICOS ISSUES MESSAGE ON INDEPENDENCE
His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians, issued a message this week celebrating Armenia’s Independence
Day. “With a unanimous voice, our people chose independence for
Armenia, which was the dream of many centuries,” his message reads.
The Catholicos reminds us that in spite of the devastating earthquake of
1988 and the fighting in Nagorno-Karabagh, Armenians focused on
establishing. “(The earthquake and fighting in Nagorno-Karabagh) did
not become forces which could stop Armenians from making this important
act of declaring independence for Armenia.”
# # #
Armenian leader to resign if national movement starts – opposition leader
Mediamax news agency
17 Sep 04
Yerevan, 17 September: A forum of opposition forces took place in
Yerevan today at the initiative of the Justice bloc.
As Mediamax agency correspondent reports, speaking at the forum,
the secretary of the Justice bloc, Viktor Dallakyan, said that
“Armenia is in a crisis, and the way out of the existing situation
is in the union of our society”. He expressed his confidence that
the leadership would resign if national movement started.
Speaking on the possibility of the opposition continuing rallies,
Shavarsh Kocharyan from the Justice bloc said that society was not
satisfied with the existing situation in the country, it should be
ready for active confrontation, “however, it is prospectless to be
limited to rallies only”.
“Instead of establishing a democratic legal state, Armenia is going
towards authoritarianism and dictatorship,” Shavarsh Kocharyan said.
Canada Free Press, Canada
September 17 2004
Exclusive
A Position John Kerry Has Held for 20 Years
by Marinka Peschmann, Special to Canada Free Press
What do Canada, France, the Vatican and Presidential hopeful John
Kerry have in common? Armenian Genocide. “Between 1915-1923 the
rulers of the old Ottoman Empire killed or deported over 1.5 million
Armenian men, women and children in a systematic policy of ethnic
extermination.” John Kerry — April 22, 2004. In August 2004, Kerry
pledged, “as President, I will continue to fight against the denial
of the Armenian Genocide.” But under both Democratic and Republic
administrations, President Reagan, President Bush, Sr., and President
Clinton, the Armenian Genocide resolution didn’t pass both houses.
Canada’s Armenian Genocide resolution passed on April 21, 2004, “and
condemn this act as a crime against humanity.” Prime Minister Paul
Martin and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham stated that the
resolution does not represent the Canadian government’s position. On
January 29, 2001, “France publicly recognizes the Armenian Genocide
of 1915.” Pope John Paul II’s September 27, 2001, declaration read in
part, “The extermination of a million and a half Armenian Christians,
in what is generally referred to as the first genocide of the
twentieth century…” And accused flip-flopper, Senator Kerry, is
cosponsoring the latest Genocide Resolution, S.Res.164″ and has been
“resolute” and “steadfast for 20 years” on this issue.
In 1990, Kerry voted in favor of Republican Senator Bob Dole’s
Genocide Resolution. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd gave notice that
he would filibuster and succeeded in stopping its passage. Kerry
cosponsored legislation, “S.1557, granting Armenia permanent normal
trade relations status” and champions initiatives to “lift the
Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades,” including last January, when he
called on President Bush to press Turkey’s Prime Minister “to lift
his nation’s illegal blockade of Armenia.” , a position that
President Bush already held and enforced early on in his
administration. Bush, like Clinton, commemorates April 24th, Armenian
Remembrance day. Armenia shares borders with Turkey and Iran. “There
are individuals on both sides who are obstacles and supporters,” says
Aram Sarafian of The National Organization of Republican Armenians,
“in time – it will pass. It’s an eventuality. Every year it gets
closer.”
This highly charged “moral” issue within the Armenian community has
been a global hot button issue for decades. Do the ramifications of
acknowledging “genocide” and passing a U.S. “genocide resolution”
reach wider on the World stage, affecting U.S. National Security
interests and stability in the region? Some argue “no,” suggesting
that claim is overblown, “Turkey needs the U.S. more than the U.S.
needs Turkey.” Others claim “it’s purely lobbying.” The
American-Armenian groups first gathered politically in the 1970s and
have grown more powerful and effective during the 1990s.
Turkey, a member of NATO, rebuffs Armenia’s genocide allegations,
claiming the death toll is lower and both the Turks and Armenians
suffered causalities when the Ottoman Empire collapsed before
Modern-day Turkey was created in 1923. Currently seeking European
Union (EU) membership Turkey must first implement human rights
reforms and halt the “Continued torture and maltreatment of
prisoners… widespread abuse of women, and restrictions on free
expression.” Belgium is calling for an Armenia Genocide inclusion.
Britain, the USA and Germany support Turkey’s EU bid. This December,
a date is to be scheduled for Turkey’s EU application.
On October 19, 2000, Republican House Speaker Dennis Haster pulled
the latest Genocide resolution, citing a letter written by President
Clinton, who wrote, “We have significant interests in this troubled
region of the world:” Violence between Israelis and Palestinians had
escalated, the bombing of the USS Cole sharpened conflict in the
Middle East and the continuation of U.S. forces using South Turkey’s
Incirlik air base to maintain Saddam Hussein’s containment was in
jeopardy. “Consideration of the resolution at this sensitive time
will negatively affect those interests and could undermine efforts to
encourage improved relations between Armenia and Turkey.”
On January 28, 2004, New York Life Insurance Co., reached a $20
million class action settlement negotiated in part on behalf of the
Armenian-American plaintiff’s by, double-murder accused Scott
Peterson’s, famed attorney, Mark Geragos. New York Life will pay “to
resolve more than 2,000 insurance policies issued to Armenians in the
Turkish Ottoman Empire prior to 1915… and contribute at least $3
million to Armenian civic organizations.”
In Los Angeles on August 31, 2004, a class action lawsuit was filed
on behalf of Armenians against two German banks, Deutsche Bank and
Dresdner Bank who: “1) made deposits, 2) were killed in the Armenian
Genocide and 3) whose heirs were not repaid deposits on their
accounts.
Anthony Barsamiain, Chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America is
committed to seeing the resolution passed. “There will be a date soon
when the President and the Congress regardless of party reaffirms the
Armenian Genocide,” said Barsamiaian, “and in turn will bring to
light the truth of the American response.”
If elected would Kerry honor his pledge or repeat history? “I think
he”s gone so far,” says Barsamian, “and has such a record that I
don’t think he could.” A high level Kerry official confirmed that
Kerry is “solid” on passing the Armenia Genocide resolution. When
pressed on specifics the official acknowledged, “That’s a tough one”.
Council of Europe report urges Armenia to withdraw from Azeri lands, MP says
Zerkalo, Baku
16 Sep 04
Text of Farid report by Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo on 16 September
headlined “Armenia should vacate occupied territories” and subheaded
“Samad Seyidov says this idea is reflected in the report on Armenia’s
commitments to the Council of Europe”
A report by the rapporteurs on political prisoners in Azerbaijan,
Andreas Gross and Andres Herkel, was heard at the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) Monitoring Committee
yesterday [15 September], the head of the Azerbaijani delegation to
PACE, Samad Seyidov, has told Zerkalo.
He said the report reflects Azerbaijani realities and noted that
despite the fact that some parts of the report are arguable, it
is generally constructive and is aimed at developing Azerbaijan’s
relations with the Council of Europe.
The head of the Azerbaijani delegation added that the report would
be discussed at the PACE session in October and “we will certainly
propose amendments”.
Seyidov said the report contains both positive aspects of what is going
on in Azerbaijan and certain criticism on the part of European MPs.
The head of the Azerbaijani delegation said further that during
the meeting the European MPs had spoken highly of the latest
presidential pardon. Seyidov added that the release of [leader of
the self-proclaimed Talis-Mugan Republic in the south of Azerbaijan]
Alikram Humbatov was particularly welcomed as he was one of the three
people on the Council of Europe’s list of those who the organization
wanted to be freed or retried. Seyidov said “we can already say
that significant steps have been taken towards removing the issue
of political prisoners from the agenda and the issue has practically
been resolved”.
At the same time, he said that European MPs are unlikely to abandon
the topic so easily and will continue to trace the way developments
unfold in the future as well.
During the discussions, the European rapporteurs expressed the
hope that the trial of those involved in the [post-election] October
events would be completed soon. He said the issue of setting up public
television had also been discussed.
The report touches on the Karabakh issue as well, Seyidov said. The
document says that the problem should be resolved within the framework
of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He added that the section of
the report dedicated to Armenia’s commitments says in plain terms
that Armenia should unconditionally withdraw its troops from the
seven occupied Azerbaijani districts [around Nagornyy Karabakh].
The Guardian (London)
September 16, 2004
Anything goes: Wooden legs, slobs in love, Armenian menus… Alan
Plater on what makes a great jazz song
Mr Topsy-Turvy . . . Slim Gaillard, who played piano with his hands
upside-down
In 1923, at the Palais de Danse in Ladywood, Birmingham, 17-year-old
Lily Goodman from Cannon Hill broke the British record for marathon
dancing. She danced for 24 hours and five minutes, covered 68 miles,
used up two partners – Mr Harold Quiney and Mr R Webster-Grinling –
and 482 tunes. This was the inspiration for Lily’s Dancing Feat, a
swinging instrumental by reeds player Alan Barnes, which he performed
in the year 2000 as part of a Birmingham jazz festival programme. (I
introduced it: my job was to tell the stories behind the music and
divert the audience’s attention from the bar.) Another of Alan’s
pieces celebrated Peg-Leg Bates, a tap-dancer with a wooden leg, who
toured the UK in the 1950s with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars.
After hours, Alan and I discovered a mutual interest in writing songs
about unsung heroes like Lily and Peg-Leg, and places and
institutions largely neglected by the music industry. It was, as Eric
Morecambe might have said, like the moment when Gilbert met
O’Sullivan. Since then, we have celebrated fast food joints on the
A66, being in love with a slob, and the psychological complexities of
a vegan chicken.
A key element of our approach to songwriting is laughter, a quality
that doesn’t always sit comfortably in jazz clubs and concerts. The
larger-than-life exuberance of Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy
Gillespie, while adding enormously to the gaiety of nations, was
frequently victim of tut-tutting from some of our music’s most solemn
devotees. For years, the music of the US pianist/composer/ bandleader
Carla Bley was under-valued because of her triple error of being
political, a woman and funny.
This is odd, since jazz musicians themselves are legendary for their
relish of the comic and the absurd. The tenor player Zoot Sims, for
instance, following a US State Department tour of the Soviet Union
with the Benny Goodman band, was asked about the experience. He said:
“When you’re working for Benny, everywhere is the Soviet Union.” The
same Zoot Sims, watching the first moon landings in the back room at
Ronnie Scott’s in 1969, commented: “Imagine – we’ve got men on the
moon and I’m still playing Cherokee.”
Despite this attitude, many of the most original, inventive and witty
of performers tend to be marginalised and redirected to the cabaret
room: singer/pianists like Mose Allison, Bob Dorough, Blossom Dearie,
Dave Frishberg and our very own George Melly. The central stance is
one that Allison has defined, naturally enough, in song: “I’m another
little middle-class white boy who’s out to have some fun.” Allison
would be the first to acknowledge everyone’s debt to the great black
rhythm and blues singers like Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris, and
the blissful surrealist Slim Gaillard, whose considerable oeuvre
includes Yep Roc Heresy, with lyrics taken from the menu of an
Armenian restaurant in New York.
In a long, colourful career, Slim invented a semi-private language
called Vout, was the centrepiece of a chapter in Jack Kerouac’s On
the Road, played Clair de Lune on the piano with his hands
upside-down and, with Down at the Station, could claim to be the only
jazz musician to contribute a genuine nursery rhyme to the children
of the world.
His early life – or legend, the two things being difficult to
disentangle – included time spent as a professional boxer, a
mortician and a truck-driver for bootleggers before going into
vaudeville as a tapdancing guitarist and singer. He became a handsome
young man about Hollywood (“They used to call me Dark Gable”), who in
his later years was a genial and benign presence at the Chelsea Arts
Club. Slim’s verbal gymastics concealed a serious and poetic
understanding of the music. Of the tenor player Lester Young, he once
said: “He played real quiet – like a rat walking on silk.”
Among the middle-class white kids, Dave Frishberg, an outstanding
jazz pianist by any standards, has contributed many of the definitive
songs to the canon, from I’m Hip, co-written with Dorough, a guide to
being cool in a square world, to My Attorney Bernie, a sardonic hymn
to the American legal profession:
“Bernie tells me what to do
Bernie lays it on the line
Bernie says we sue, we sue
Bernie says we sign, we sign
On the dotted line.”
Frishberg’s announcements reflect the same sweet-and-sour attitude.
“I have reached that time of life when everything gets worse,” he’ll
say, before drifting into a song bemoaning such footnotes to life as
unwanted changes to the rules of baseball. With the seriousness of a
true clown, he also wrote Dear Bix, an exquisite tribute to the great
Beiderbecke.
This isn’t, and never will be, mainstream music, but it is a lovely
tributary where writers, musicians and audiences can splash about,
irritate the grown-ups and have a lot of fun. That’s pretty much what
Alan Barnes and I have been doing this past couple of years, enabling
Liz Fletcher to sing our hymns to the unnoticed, the unwanted even
the unwashed – not to mention a tenor saxophonist who’s still playing
Cherokee.
(C) Alan Plater. His Songs for Unsung Heroes is out now on Woodville
Records. It will be presented as part of the Scarborough jazz
festival on Saturday. Box office: 01723 376774.
Azerbaijan joins CIS agreement on antiterror fight at Astana summit
Bilik Dunyasi news agency
15 Sep 04
Baku, 15 September: Meetings of the councils of government heads
and foreign ministers have finished in Astana. Issues of fighting
international terrorism and illegal migration were high on the agenda
at the meeting of foreign ministers.
Azerbaijan has joined the agreement on fighting international terrorism
and the Address to the peoples of the Commonwealth [of Independent
States, CIS] and the international community on the occasion of the
60th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War [World War II].
At the same time, Baku has refused to sign the address by CIS
member states to the OSCE due the fact that it is not interested in
transferring cooperation within the OSCE framework into the plane of
cooperation within the CIS. Neither did Azerbaijan join the agreements
in the military sphere and on a coordinated borderline policy.
[Passage omitted: reported details of the meeting of the Azerbaijani
and Armenian presidents]
Police breaks up radical group’s picket outside Foreign Ministry
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 14 2004
On Monday, the Garabagh Liberation Organization (GLO) picketed the
Foreign Ministry in protest against the planned visit by Armenian
officers to Baku.
The protesters showed placards “Either Garabagh or death!” and “Down
with Armenians!”.
The police break up the protest action and took some of the radical
group members, who attempted to march towards the Interior Ministry
along Husu Hajiyev Street, to the police precinct. The detainees were
released later.
The GLO will hold another protest action outside the Defense Ministry
on Tuesday.*