Author: Varosian Antranik

Fresno Bee (California)
February 14, 2005, Monday FINAL EDITION

Fresnans celebrate son’s safe return from Iraq war

by Diana Marcum THE FRESNO BEE

In Balad, Iraq, on the grounds of Saddam Hussein’s former airport,
Air Force surgeons — including Fresno native Lt. Col. Greg
Abrahamian — made history over the past five months.

The surgeons established the first Air Force casualty-receiving
hospital since the Vietnam War; and during the first rotation, a
highly trained team with a wide range of specialties never lost an
American they operated on — including during the battle of Fallujah,
when Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters delivered patients every five
minutes and mortars hit close enough to shake the buildings.

During that six-day period, Air Force doctors performed 600
operations and handled 99% of the Marine casualties.

Any soldier who came back from Fallujah injured, but alive, probably
passed through the 332 Air Force Theatre Hospital.

“It was historic. The Air Force sent their best, and they sent a lot
of us, and we were able to save lives,” said Abrahamian, 40, in a
phone call from his home in San Antonio.

“We had lower death rates than have been seen in war before.”

He might have saved one more life when last week he made it home
safely from his tour of duty.

For the first time in five months, his 72-year-old father, Albert
Abrahamian, can sleep. Albert still doesn’t drive by a church without
praying, only now he no longer asks, “God, please help Greg get
home.”

Instead, he whispers, “Give the soldiers the strength they need to
come home to their families.”

In the same house near Huntington Boulevard where Greg Abrahamian
grew up, Albert Abrahamian sits at the dining room table and pulls
out pictures from his son’s time in Iraq; Greg’s sisters printed them
off e-mails.

“I’m not that sophisticated, what with computers and e-mails. They
had to bring me Greg’s letters,” he says.

Greg never wrote details about the war. He always said, “I’ll tell
you when I get back.” But Albert knows war. He grew up in Russia
during World War II and lived through the Nazi invasion. He was
drafted into the U.S. Army in the 1950s and served in France and
Turkey as a translator.

“I’ve seen war. I hate this war. I hate all war,” he says. “But when
you are in war, at first, you are scared, and then you get used to
it. When your child is in war, you never stop being scared.”

Albert knew that as a surgeon, Greg was a little more protected than
front-line soldiers. But after a December mess hall bombing in
northern Iraq, Albert grew more nervous, convinced anything could
happen anywhere.

Albert’s wife Alice wouldn’t even tell her friends that Greg was in
Iraq. She’s the superstitious sort; she believed it might jinx him.

Even when Greg was in Germany two weeks ago on his way back to the
states and Albert wanted to celebrate, Alice said, no, not until Greg
was really home.

“The way she thinks, the plane might still crash, see?” Albert says.

In 45 years of marriage, he’s seldom seen her cry.

“Me? I watch a movie, I cry. I watch sports and there’s a beautiful
pass, and I cry. But her, I never see her cry.”

Until they got the call that Greg was home in San Antonio with his
wife and two daughters. Then Alice cried, and Albert brought out a
really good bottle of wine.

Greg, a Roosevelt High School and California State University,
Fresno, graduate, joined the Air Force knowing it would help him pay
for medical school. It did, and later it sent him to Harvard to
specialize in organ transplants. Since 1998, he has been the Air
Force’s only transplant surgeon. Albert says that for an Armenian
immigrant family, a son at Harvard was a very big deal.

“It meant that you can make it in this country if you work.”

Greg Abrahamian expected to serve in combat, but the call came much
later than he had anticipated, with less than a year left in his
13-year military commitment.

“It would have been easier 10 years earlier. Now I had a wife and two
daughters. My new baby, Vienne, was 2 months old when I left.”

In a war relying heavily on National Guard troops, Abrahamian saw
lots of older soldiers with families.

“We were seeing injured that looked as old as my dad — these guys
had ranks of private or corporal and were out on convoys. We were
dealing with heart attacks and kidney stones and chronic pulmonary
disease. It was kind of crazy.”

Then came the battle of Fallujah and the nonstop parade of young.

“Emotions were running strongly during Fallujah. We were seeing
hundreds of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old Marines with mangled arms and
legs. We’d explain that we were going to have to operate to remove a
limb to save their life and then send them home, and they’d say, ‘No,
you can’t send me home. My buddies need me.’ ”

As a transplant surgeon, Abrahamian, deals with the sickest patients.

“Death and dying are not new to me. I see it. But to see war with so
many young and strong dying is different.”

He would see his patients only quickly before operating, and briefly
in recovery before they were on planes to Germany.

“It was such a brief period of time. I don’t know those kids’ names.
They’re faces are getting fuzzy, I can’t remember their tattoos,
their dogtags,” he says.

But he’s going to tell his dad what he remembers.

His parents are going to San Antonio next week to celebrate
granddaughter Natalia’s fifth birthday. Sometime during the visit,
Abrahamian will tell his dad what he saw and ask his dad to tell him
his war tales.

“He has a lot of stories. I’m going to have him retell them so I
don’t forget.”

Abrahamian says he feels good about what he did while he was in Iraq.
But it’s only now that he’s home that he understands how much his
father worried.

“I’m only just beginning to appreciate how hard it was on him. How
hard it is for all the families.”

The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (559)
441-6375.

Russia to heed Armenia interests in transport projects
By Ksenia Kaminskaya, Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
February 17, 2005 Thursday

YEREVAN, February 17 — Russia would maximally take into account the
interests of Armenia in transport projects, the Armenian government’s
press service said.

It said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Armenian Prime
Minister Andranik Margaryan discussed this topic at their meeting in
Yeravan on Thursday.

Armenia expressed concern over an international project of the
transport corridor North South, part of which is a plan of constructing
a railroad from Iran to Azerbaijan (Kazwin-Resht-Astara) bypassing
Armenia.

Lavrov said he would inform the chief of Russian Railways company,
Gennady Fadeyev, about this, the press service said.

It said a memorandum on setting up a Russian-Azerbaijani-Iranian
enterprise for building the Kazwin-Resht-Astara railroad had been
signed after the recent meeting of a commission for organisation of
the transport corridor.

It is expected that a 300-kilometre stretch of the railroad will be
built within two year with assistance from Russia and Azerbaijan.

The cost of the project will be more than 600 million roubles.

Lavrov and the Armenian prime minister also discussed the time of
launching the railway-ferry crossing Caucasus-Poti.

Margaryan said Armenia attached great important to this link, as
“it will allow substantially increasing trade with Russia.”

He and Lavrov discussed prospects for resumption of a link at
Abkhazia’s segment of the Georgian railway.

The press service cited Margarayn as saying at the meeting with Lavrov
that there was the need “for rehabilitating as soon as possible and
increasing the production capacity of enterprises that had been turned
over to Russia’s property in repayment of the state debt to Russia”.

Lavrov assured that Russia was doing “everything possible for making
necessary investment in the enterprises turned over to it and ensuring
their full capacity activity”.

Armenians and Turks Speaking the Language of Love

Zaman Online, Turkey
Feb 16 2005

“He looks at the tree – does not see the tree – sees himself
Looks at the road – does not see the road – sees himself
Looks up – there are stars in the sky
And looks at the mirror – does not see himself
Says hi”

Armenian poet Zahrad, whose real name was Zareh, proves in his poem
that not seeing anyone else except ourselves prevents us from seeing
others.

I got acquainted with a young man sitting next to me while I was
going to the United States. His family was sitting on the other three
seats just next to him. After he spoke a few words, he said that he
was an Istanbul Armenian and the conversation deepened: “I used to
hate Turks while living in Turkey. My family sent me to a university
in the U.S., as they did not want me to get involved in the events.
This is because I used to begin talking by saying, “I am an
Armenian,” and I used to take offense at everything and suspect
everything.”

While talking to G., who was frustrated by thinking that the
privileged ones were Turks, I perceived how much he felt himself like
a Turk. It was not a racial effect but a cultural effect in meaning.
He told me how he has been saved from the hatred feeling in the
United States: “I had an opportunity to obtain information for the
first time. The U.S. structure, that consists of different races and
cultures softened me a lot. For the first time, I learned from the
intellectual structure here that the claim of the [so-called]
Armenian genocide was not true as I had thought.”

That is, a foreigner did not do what official history did. I wonder,
how patriotic is the nationalism, which has not been able to explain
this? He speaks Turkish with his son. His pretty one-year-old
daughter cannot speak, yet. His wife also came to Istanbul and she
admired it. In short, the family speaks Turkish not Armenian. It is
very obvious that we swim in a pool of a joint culture. The family,
that cannot do without coming to Turkey several times a year,
recently discovered Bodrum. Saying, “I live in California, what will
I do with the sea?” G. is now a buff of Bodrum. He adds that although
one of his Armenian friends in the U.S. was born there, he speaks
Turkish with his grandmother.

“The presence of some fanatical Armenians did not lessen the love for
Anatolia,” says G. He also says that he became a good religious man
after the birth of his son.

After one or two weeks I met an Armenian from Ferikoy in Santa
Monica. Arte settled there 18 years ago. He does business with China
and Korea. And he adds, “China is so rich that it can feed the entire
world.” I tell him about my impressions, “China: The Sleeping Giant,”
I wrote in 1992, and he makes the following explanation on textile,
“The U.S. textile industry, which opened its doors to Korean and
Chinese textile, has collapsed. ”

Arte often comes to Istanbul because he says that he misses it and
tells me one of his memories: One of our friends died. Two men were
waiting near the coffin while the deceased was lying on the musalla
[the stone on which the body is placed for washing before being put
in the coffin, according to Islamic rites]. Then it was my turn and I
began waiting. The only Armenian friend of my Turkish friend was me.
Then my friends made fun of me. They said, “Go to the mosque and
pray.” I said, “Yes I can, what is wrong with that? Is our God not
the same? What happens if I enter a mosque and take out a cross? I do
not consider myself a stranger.”

How many Turks are there who consider themselves strangers to this
culture? Is it important that this attribution was made by a writer
or something else? They are the ones who dogmatize without getting up
from their seats, and travel to the cities in their country under
police escort, they are not much of my fellow citizens like those
above.

“The white whale swims freely and opens the way with the grudge of
Captain Ahab,” says writer Moby Dick. With his hatred Ahab hangs on
the back of Moby Dick. The wound cannot be healed with hatred in the
name of veracity. Children of this culture know how to embrace each
other in spite of the official history.

OSCE MISSION IN ARMENIA ONE OF MOST SUCCESSFUL: OSCE
SECRETARIAT

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9. ARMINFO. The OSCE mission in Armenia is one of
the most successful OSCE missions abroad, says the “OSCE History,
Activities and Prospects” book devoted to the 5th birthday of the
OSCE Office in Armenia.

The director of the office Vladimir Pryakhin says that there is
much to do yet. The international community, Armenia’s authorities
and civil society trust the office and consider it contributive to
prosperity, one thing the Armenian nation has certainly deserved by
its centuries-old state history.

The book is the OSCE’s first national language project. It presents
the OSCE’s activities: the past, present and future of this 55-member
organization. Armenia’s Science and Education Ministry recommends
the books as a guideline for Armenian politology and international
relations students and as an option for human rights men, scientists,
researchers, journalists and ordinary readers.

Philadelphia Inquirer , PA
Feb 7 2005

A cautionary tale about disaster relief

Armenia, hit by a quake in ’88 and swamped with aid, still struggles.

By Mark McDonald

Inquirer Foreign Staff

SPITAK, Armenia – When rescuers began pulling victims from the rubble
of the sugar factory here in 1988, the corpses seemed like ghastly,
crimson ghosts, covered with an awful goo, a coagulating mixture of
blood and powdered sugar.

The 6.9-magnitude earthquake that crushed the sugar plant also
destroyed every other factory in this mountainous patch of northern
Armenia. It flattened schools, churches, homes and hospitals, killing
more than 25,000 people and leaving half a million homeless.

The 1988 disaster was nowhere near the scale of the Dec. 26 tsunami,
but the horror and grief were the same.

So was the international response – huge, immediate, global and
heartfelt.

But despite the donations and many successes, post-earthquake Armenia
could serve as a cautionary tale: Even the most heavily financed and
best-intentioned relief missions can be derailed by the aftershocks
of economic crises, corruption, politics and war.

“The people in the tsunami, their pain is our pain,” said Asya
Khakchikyan, 70, who lost her husband, daughter and granddaughter
in the quake. “When I see the faces of those poor people in Asia,
I see the faces of the ones I lost.”

Other disaster zones have had bitter experiences with relief efforts
that quickly dwindled or disappeared. When the news media move on,
aid missions often do the same.

That did not happen in Armenia, government officials, diplomats,
aid workers and survivors say. After 16 years, international efforts
continue, many of them generous and effective.

A housing program under the U.S. Agency for International Development
ended only last month in the shattered city of Gyumri. The Peace Corps
has 85 volunteers in Armenia. Several U.N. programs remain active,
and dozens of agencies and private foundations continue to work in
the region.

“We haven’t recovered yet, but at least say we’re no longer dying,”
said Albert Papoyan, mayor of Shirmakoot village, the quake’s
epicenter. “We’re finally starting to breathe.”

An estimated 20,000 people in the quake zone still live in metal
shipping containers known here as domiks. The containers once held
emergency provisions that came from abroad. Only one of Spitak’s
factories is functioning, employing a fraction of the numbers it
used to.

The quake struck just before noon on Dec. 7, 1988, when children
were in school and most adults were at work in the sugar plant,
the elevator factory, the leather tannery, or the sewing collective.
Spitak Mayor Vanik Asatryan said every house and apartment building in
his city – all 5,635 of them – collapsed. Spitak lost 5,003 people,
nearly a quarter of its population. Other towns and villages also
were reduced to rubble.

“Everyone,” Asatryan said, “was homeless.”

Asatryan and others praised the quick response of the Soviet
government – Armenia was part of the Soviet Union in 1988 – even as
communist construction teams inexplicably began erecting row upon
row of low-quality concrete apartment blocks exactly like the ones
that had just collapsed.

International aid poured in. The total after 16 years is difficult
to estimate, although government officials suggest it could be close
to $2 billion, half of what has been pledged for tsunami relief.

Today, Spitak’s neighborhoods – built to exacting new codes – are
known as the French, Italian and Uzbek districts, commemorating the
countries that financed them.

The United States also dispatched assistance, despite Cold War
tensions.

“This was the first time we offered and the first time they accepted,”
said John Evans, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia. In 1988, he helped
scramble relief supplies from his post on the State Department’s
Soviet desk in Washington. “It’s not too much to say it was historic.”

But the initial success encountered new challenges in the mid-1990s,
as Armenia endured terrible seismic shifts on the political and
military fronts.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, along with much of Armenia’s
economy and government services. The concrete apartment towers remain
unfinished and empty. “Soviet promises were not kept,” Asatryan said.

Skirmishes with Azerbaijan over the Armenian enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh erupted into a war that drained resources until a
1994 cease-fire.

Aware that rebuilding efforts had stalled, USAID started a housing
program in 2001, awarding cash vouchers to 7,000 displaced families.

Today, Armenia reportedly is second only to Israel as the world’s
largest per-capita recipients of U.S. government aid. A big,
influential immigrant population helps drive those appropriations,
as Armenian American businesspeople donate heavily.

Still, aid workers grumble that the deluge of assistance created a
caste of “professional victims” hooked on handouts. One former Red
Cross worker said residents would become enraged when deliveries of
free medicine were a day or two late.

“They think all the world owes them everything,” said Yulia Antonyan,
a program officer at the Eurasia Foundation.

The foundation’s country director, Ara Nazinyan, said it had been
“a major problem to prevent this dependency on aid.”

“But right after a disaster, people need fish,” Nazinyan said. “You
can’t say to someone, ‘Stay hungry while I teach you how to fish.’
Humanitarian assistance is necessary.”

‘Frank’ the tumor surgery successful

CNN.com
February 3, 2005

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — A 9-year-old boy successfully
underwent surgery Wednesday to remove most of a brain tumor he
nicknamed “Frank,” and which was the subject of an online auction to
help raise money for medical bills.

“It really went very well. I’m thrilled,” said Dr. Hrayr Shahinian,
who performed the surgery at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Skull
Base Institute in Los Angeles.

Cells from the tumor, which had been treated with chemotherapy and
radiation, will now be studied to determine if it is malignant.

David Dingman-Grover, of Sterling, Virginia., went into surgery around
10 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Frank Groff, spokesman
for the Institute. A little more than two hours later, he was awake
and talking, Shahinian said.

Shahinian said David’s oncologists must now decide whether to give him
one more round of chemotherapy. “We have to sit tight and wait to see
… is Frank dead?” he said.

The doctor said he was able to remove nearly all the tumor, but that
some scar tissue in the area may still contain traces of it. He said
David would likely be discharged Thursday.

The boy was diagnosed in 2003 with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. A
grapefruit-sized tumor was impinging on his optic nerves and carotid
arteries, causing blindness and headaches.

The size and location of the tumor made it impossible for doctors to
take out, according to his mother’s ad on eBay.

Chemotherapy and radiation shrank it to the size of a peach pit,
restoring his vision, but there were side effects. For a while he
couldn’t walk or eat and had to be fed through a tube, his mother
said.

David named his tumor after Frankenstein’s monster, who scared him
until he dressed up as the fictional character for Halloween. His
parents auctioned off a bumper sticker reading “Frank Must Die” on
eBay to raise money for his treatment.

The Courier, TX
Feb 4 2005

Unlikely sidekick flick “Sideways” garners five Oscar nominations

By: Michael Huckaby, Movie reviewer 02/04/2005

“Sideways” is a heartfelt adult comedy about the complexities of
romantic commitment, long-term male friendship and coping with the
disappointments of lost youth.

This charming, sometimes hilarious character study was nominated for
five prestigious Oscars, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay
and Director. With a subtle though strong and hopeful ending, this
beautifully-paced film is engaging and provides moving cultural
commentary.
The day-by-day story unfolds when two 40-something best friends begin
a road trip to the beautiful wine-growing Santa Ynez Valley of
California, a weeklong tour of vineyards, restaurants and golf
courses, a coastal vacation the best man arranges in lieu of a
mundane bachelor party. Former college roommates, the pair are
diametrically opposite in appearance, character and personal ethics.
Yet this unlikely friendship between an introvert and extrovert is
rock solid and endures incredible challenges.
A connoisseur of wines, sad-sack Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) is a
paunchy San Diego eighth-grade English teacher and struggling
novelist, woebegone over his divorce of two years from Victoria
(Jessica Hecht). Celibate since the breakup, Miles confessed to being
unfaithful, an inebriated one-night transgression he felt
morally-compelled to divulge.
Nominated for Supporting Actor, Thomas Hayden Church plays “Handsome”
Jack, a has-been Los Angeles soap opera star and ladies man who
enthusiastically beds all comers. Genuinely fond of pretty fiancée
Christine Erganian (Alysia Reiner), the daughter of a wealthy
Armenian real estate developer, the marriage promises financial
stability. The future father-in-law has offered Jack a cushy job and
thoughtfully bought him an expensive set of golf clubs for the
journey.
A stop in Santa Barbara, purportedly to wish Miles’ doting mother
(Marylouise Burke) a happy birthday, reveals the mom’s understanding
of her son’s fragile sensibilities. Instead of just handing Miles the
cash he needs, she keeps it in a special hiding place so he can help
himself without the embarrassment of having to ask.
After having devastating Miles with the offhand news that Victoria
remarried a few weeks back, Jack makes a promise he intends to keep.
“My best man gift to you will be to get you laid,” he casually
informs a sullen Miles as the odd couple approaches their hotel. That
evening Jack is quick to note the shy glances Miles exchanges with a
curly-haired blonde waitress at Miles’ favorite valley restaurant.
Earning a Supporting Actress nomination, Virginia Madsen’s portrayal
of Maya is a comforting study of a woman who can come to love a man
for his inner qualities and vulnerabilities rather than his
appearance or accomplishments. A wine aficionado soon to earn a
graduate degree in horticulture, the wholesome Maya was once married
to a boorish philosophy professor.
The following afternoon the buddies meet the motorcycle-riding
Stephanie (Sandra Oh), a wine pourer who believes Jack’s blarney.
When Jack finds out the women know each other, he arranges a double
date, swearing Miles to secrecy about his coming marriage. A
slapstick sequence that finally reveals Jack’s underlying character
involves the misadventures that follow after he goes home with Cammie
(Miss Doty), a chubby waitress married to a truck driver (M.C.
Gainey).
Director Alexander Payne, the real-life husband of Sandra Oh, also
wrote the nominated screenplay.

Russian MP says Georgian premier’s death was an assassination

Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow
3 Feb 05

The death of Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania is down to Georgian
patriots who want the country to be re-united with Russia, the leader
of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and deputy speaker of
the Russian State Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, has said.

Reporting on the reaction among Russian parliamentarians to Zhvania’s
death, Russian Ekho Moskvy quoted Zhirinovskiy as saying that he had
“long predicted that, following the velvet revolution, the events in
Georgia would take precisely this course. There have been frequent
attempts on the lives of the leaders of that republic in the past,
too, but according to Zhirinovskiy, the powerful KGB structure
prevented possible murders. Now the system of security is
insufficiently developed in Georgia and that is why Zhvania
died. Moreover, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
has no doubt that it was an assassination rather than an accident
because a normal adult would always be able to detect the smell of
gas. Moreover, Zhirinovskiy is sure that this tragic situation will
continue to develop further. Zhvania’s death is most likely to have
been caused by Georgian patriots who are for re-unification with
Russia. This is merely the first stage. It is a warning to [Georgian
President Mikheil] Saakashvili that he will be the next to
go. Georgia’s only way out, Zhirinovskiy opines, is to ask for
re-unification with Russia. If Saakashvili decides not go for that, he
too will be killed, the deputy added,” the radio said.

ARMENIA RENDERS HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE TO SRI-LANKA

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 3. ARMINFO. Armenia’s humanitarian assistance to
Sri-Lanka suffered from tsunami has already been supplied, Adviser of
the Head of the Armenian Governmental Emergency Situations Department
Nikolay Grigoryan informs ARMINFO.

He says that the humanitarian cargo weighting over 5.6 tons, including
3.5 tons of blankets, medicines, was supplied at Feb 1-2
night. Besides, Armenia will finance purchase of several mobile
generators.

MEMBER OF “CLUB OF POLITICAL DISPUTE” NEGATIVELY ESTIMATES AMENDMENTS
TO LAW “ON PARTIES”

YEREVAN, January 28 (Noyan Tapan). The law “On Parties,” in essence,
froze the desperate situation formed in this sphere and closes the way
to formation of new political forces. Vigen Khachatrian, a member of
the “Club of Political Dispute,” declared this during the discussion
of the amendments to the law “On Parties” organized on January 27 in
the club. According to him, under the formed conditions when really
the parliament and parties don’t form the executive power and aren’t
able to control it effectively the amendment introduced to the law
gives new levers for control over the parties to the executive power.
Khachatrian also said that this “innovation” will contribute to
strengthening of monopoly positions of pro-governmental parties.

According to him, the amendments introduced to the law are really
aimed at limitation of political competition as the most important
condition of modern democracy. “Not encouraging but hampering
principles are the basis of the amendments.” In Khachatrian’s opinion,
the main provision of the Constitution, according to which the parties
are free to be formed and contribute to formation of political life of
the country, should be fixed and developed in the law. According to
another proposal of the speaker, they should introduce additions to
the law taking into consideration the demand of Article 7 of the
Constitution, according to which the structure and work of the parties
can’t contradict the democratic principles. According to Vigen
Khachatrian, the law badly reflects the mechanisms that will provide
fulfilment of the constitutional demand regarding publicity of
financial activity of parties. Samvel Nikoyan, an MP, a member of the
“Republican Party of Armenia” faction, and Stepan Zakarian, an MP, a
member of the “Ardarutiun” (“Justice”) faction, made reports during
the discussion.