Author: Zakarian Garnik

KARABAKH INDEPENDENCE NOT SUBJECT TO BARGAIN

Pan ARMENIAN Network, Armenia
July 21 2005

21.07.2005 05:15

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ There are no big changes in the settlement of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Nagorno Karabakh Foreign Minister (FM) Arman
Melikyan stated at a news conference in Yerevan today. In his words,
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs work to form the negotiation atmosphere
today. Simultaneously he remarked that the stands of the parties
to conflict are far from each other and “speaking of capitulation
is early.” In the FM’s words, no official statements have been made
over the talks yet. When commenting on the media frequently reporting
on possible return of lands to Azerbaijan and possible referendum
in Nagorno Karabakh, Melikyan noted Azerbaijan is guilty for the
media leak. NK is ready to participate in the talks is spite the
issue is still being discussed by Azerbaijan and Armenia. “NK can
take part in the negotiations, however it is not a goal in itself,”
Melikyan remarked. He added, “We are ready to cooperate with Baku,
if it bears fruit.” At that he noted that the coming parliamentary
election in Azerbaijan can theoretically influence the talks. In the
FM’s words, NK authorities consider the Republic’s independence is
not subject to bargain. The Minister also said that speaking of the
time of resolution of the conflict is “a thankless affair.” “We forget
that we are not alone in the world and today serious processes take
place in the world,” the FM said. Answering the question whether one
or two states will be formed afterwards, the FM said, “NK has already
self-determined and it is a fact already. The question whether 2
states or 1 will be formed depends on the situation.”

Karabakh leader sacks his political aide

Mediamax news agency
20 Jul 05

Yerevan, 20 July: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic,
Arkadiy Gukasyan, has signed a decree relieving Manvel Sarkisyan of
his post as assistant for political issues, Mediamax learnt today
from the press service of the head of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic.

Azeri representative at OSCE PA discontent over Foreign Ministry statement

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
July 18 2005

Baku, July 15, AssA-Irada — The Azerbaijani delegation at the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly (PA) has expressed discontent over the Foreign
Ministry statement on a draft resolution on the Upper Garabagh conflict
prepared by the Assembly’s rapporteur Goran Lennmarker.

Head of the Azerbaijani delegation at the Assembly, MP Sattar Safarov
told AssA-Irada that unlike the Ministry, Azerbaijani representatives
want ‘things to be presented as they are’. Armenia should be called
“invader” in the resolution to be passed by the OSCE PA and sanctions
imposed on this country.

The Foreign Ministry, in its statement issued following the OSCE PA
session, said that Azerbaijan is satisfied with Lennmarker’s draft
resolution.*

Applied Armenology as a component part of national security

Yerkir
July 15, 2005

In the present-day world the precondition to secure competitiveness
for Armenia and Armenians and self-reproduction is the problem of
self-knowledge, that’s to say deep knowledge of our own country’s
history, geography, language, culture and other components of spiritual
and material identity.

Armenology is a complex of sciences investigating that field: It
forms a complete ideology concerning to cognition, preservation and
enrichment of Armenian political values.

In the present processes of mutual exclusion and interosculation
is formed a competition of “nation-values” and a new informational
reality reflecting the struggle among the civilizations. Now days
the plans of global and regional states as well as neighbor countries
with clear geopolitical and ideological goals concerning to Armenia
and Armenians turn into a conception of the nation’s history and
culture. Spreading throughout the world they often form not real
ideas about Republic of Armenia (RA) and the Armenians.

These conceptions deteriorate not only the harmony of our inner
spiritual-ideological field but also have a bad influence on the
processes carried in international institutions concerning to Armenia
and Armenians. Among these processes we must single out the political
and military-political developments in the context of Genocide and
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Artsakh).

In these conditions the problems of Armenology overstep the limits
of scientific definitions characteristic to the previous epochs
and is re-interpreted as state strategy aiming to preserve Armenian
state interests and state security. In these circumstances of civil
competition the problems of the developments of Armenology has turned
into national security and a precondition to preserve informational
security (especially in its spiritual-cultural part) as its most
important component. Thus scientific-cognitive functions of Armenology
are conditionally divided into two parts – fundamental and applied.

The aim of applied Armenology is to use the results produced from
fundamental researches in informational, ideological and political
spheres as productively as possible and to employ it in RA national
security. In this context applied Armenology plans to realize such
systematic functions in ideological-political field which will be in
keeping with the logic of civilization clashes at the present stage of
globalization ensuring spiritual-cultural security and competitiveness
of RA and Armenians.

It’s worth mentioning that the functions of applied Armenology,
streaming from the items in informational security, don’t push the
problem of self-knowledge to the background and don’t change into a
primitive propagandistic and politicized process. On the contrary,
making the discussed scientific problems urgent, the applied functions
of Amenology internationalize and extend the existing ideas about
them in the fundamental level too. Furthermore, such a modernized
approach to the problem will further to combine different spheres of
Armenology and to develop new directions of fundamental investigations.

Among the functions realized in the context of applied Armenology
should be particularly singled out the following directions: 1. The
formation of Armenian peculiar civilization with pivotal components
of Western and Eastern system values and the ability of Armenians to
move in accordance with global processes. Elaboration and utilization
of the mechanisms necessary to develop Armenian language in today’s
assimilated environment. 2. The incessant inhabitation of the
Armenian nation in Armenian highland, which formed the ethnic
majority till the Armenian’s Genocide, and the consolidation
of the idea of succession in Armenian’s history, statehood and
civilization. The formation of the succession idea in the Armenian
nation’s struggle for existence, the consolidation and extension
of the idea of Armenian policy as an exporter of cultural values.
3. Realization of the necessity to develop the Armenian nation at
the present conditions, the usage of up-to-date net technologies for
self-organization and self-governing. To stress up the importance of
discovery and elucidation problems of Armenian identity in the context
of common perception of preservation of Armenians. 4. The elaboration
of symmetric and asymmetric approaches to withstand the strategies
contradicting our national interests in the field of Armenology.

The realization of above mentioned functions supposes successive
implementation of the complex of interconnected scientific researches
and informational processes, which will solve the problems urgent for
Armenology and will introduce the produced results to the national
and international community.

Noravank Foundation

Taking cover

Where can people go for sanctuary when the bombs go off, as they did
in Srebrenica 10 years ago? Into the timelessness of good writing,
GORAN SIMIC says

By GORAN SIMIC

Saturday, July 16, 2005 Page D15

I know where my nausea comes from every time I get into a situation
that resembles a war. The stomach pain is like an inherited disease:
Your family pretends not to see it until somebody else notices. Once,
by accident, I was cornered by a crowd at the Orange Parade in Belfast,
surrounded and scared by angry drummers and pipers, and I found myself
running toward the nearest bar as if running to a basement. I spent the
New Year celebration in Bari, Italy, with piles of pillows over my head
because of the firecrackers exploding on the streets. In a Paris park,
I was ashamed to find myself jumping over the bench after some kid’s
balloon suddenly deflated, sounding like a whistle of a grenade. And
then there was the time I finished an AC/DC rock concert in Toronto
outside the hall because artificial cannons started shooting from
the stage.

There is no country where one’s Pavlovian reflexes fade, once they’ve
been acquired. I asked myself more than once, am I a coward? I doubt
it. A coward would immediately leave a city under siege. Not me:
I stayed four years in war-torn Sarajevo. I lived with those other
400,000 humiliated citizens who were forced to burn the books from
their own shelves to warm up the stoves when the city’s gas and
electricity supply was cut off. My only excuse is the fact that
minus-20 Celsius in a room is almost equal to the minus 20 books
missing from my shelves. (My biggest comfort for burning my dearest
friends, books, was the fact that I helped organize the rescue of
300,000 books from the burning National Library when Serbian grenades
set the building on fire.)

Like so many of my fellow poets who’ve experienced violence and
bombings, I didn’t choose to get into trouble — but I chose to stay,
to be a witness. I was haunted by the idea that what isn’t written
will be forgotten.

Compared with stories, essays or newspaper reports, it seems to me
that poetry is the best writing form to express such experience.
There is no more resistant literary form than poetry; it lets writers
absorb the horror and yet produce sorrow and condemnation wrapped in
a form of beauty. That’s probably why Soren Kierkegaard once said that
poets are humans with unique lips — their inner suffering sounds like
beautiful songs. Still, I don’t like the romanticization of poetry, at
least out of respect for the graveyard of those poets who took the risk
to criticize those in power. Since there is no adequate way to measure
human pain and suffering, out of curiosity I decided to weigh three
of the books I consider to be guides to the dark side of our times.

Against Forgetting (Norton, 1993), which weighs 989 grams, is an
anthology of the 20th-century poetry as a witness, edited by Carolyn
Forche. It’s a guidebook through the last century’s conflicts, in
which poetry has been used as a testimony. I just love a selection
that begins with Siamanto (born Atom Yarjanian), who refused to let the
Turks’ massacre of Armenians be forgotten, and goes on to the Austrian
writer Georg Trakl’s poems about the Great War; Marina Tsvetayeva,
who committed suicide in 1941 as a response to Stalin’s repression;
Holocaust witness Paul Celan — and ends with the poems of Duoduo
and his struggle for democracy in China.

Even if this book were not a shortcut through the dark side of the
last century, I would still love it because it follows the observation
of Bertolt Brecht: “In the dark times, will there also be singing?/
Yes, there will be singing./ About the dark times.”

Scanning the Century (Viking, 1999), edited by Peter Forbes, is also
an anthology of 20th-century poetry, weighing 946 grams. It captures
the relevant dilemmas, from decolonization, civil-rights struggles
(including Lewis Allen’s lyrics to the Billie Holiday song about
lynching, Strange Fruit) to the way we live right now. But the best
part is the selection of poetry dealing with war. From the Great
War to the war in Bosnia, poets tirelessly take up the challenge to
fight against forgetting. Pity there’s no poetry from Rwanda, but no
collection is perfect.

Crimes of War (Norton, 1999), edited by Roy Gutman and David Rieff,
is a collection of essays by journalists and scholars — a kind of
dark guide to those politicians who think force of arms is the way
to a better world. During the Sarajevo siege, I met Rieff through his
mother, Susan Sontag, on one of the city’s worst days of bombardment.
Instead of going to see a film about Bosnia, we spent the day in a
basement, talking. Why watch a film about a crime if we’re living it?
This book reminds me of Rieff: sharp, honest and grounded in reality.
Oddly, Crimes of War weighs just 652 grams. I expected more.

So now I contemplate three books that I consider to be crucial to
my understanding of cities and people suffering through times of
violence. Together they weight just 2,587 grams. Is this all? I ask.
Where is the weight of human suffering?

Unfortunately, there is no measure for that.

Goran Simic, a poet and short-story writer, is the author of From
Sarajevo, With Sorrow. He and his family arrived in Canada in 1996,
after surviving four years of siege.

In Search of a New Middle Eastern Paradigm
by Alan Bock

AntiWar.com
July 15 2005

I don’t remember how long I have been using Leon Hadar for his
insights into the Middle East and the complications engendered by
the prolonged and increasingly aggressive American interventions –
indeed, as Leon puts it, the ongoing efforts to establish the United
States as the hegemonic power – in that endemically troubled region.
The former United Nations bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post,
longtime foreign policy research fellow for the libertarian-oriented
Cato Institute, author of a previous book on the region, and current
Washington correspondent for the Singapore Business Times has always
had provocative things to say when I called him, backed by up-to-date
information lodged in historical context and surrounded by more details
and cultural insights than I have ever been able to get into a column
or editorial.

It was Leon who first laid out for me what I had long suspected through
general knowledge but hadn’t put into precisely those terms. With the
end of the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict had become, from the
standpoint of core U.S. interests, simply another regional conflict
that was likely to continue until both parties were exhausted enough
to end it, but whose outcome had about the same genuinely geostrategic
implications as Bosnian-Serb, Azerbaijani-Armenian, or any of a dozen
or more other regional conflicts in the world. The continuing American
effort to mediate or “do something” about the conflict, he argued –
let alone American subsidies to the military capabilities of both
sides – more likely prolonged the conflict rather than shortening it
because it prevented the parties from shouldering the full economic
and social burdens of war, thus postponing the day when they were
ready to end it or negotiate a settlement.

Besides being a helpful source for me, Leon Hadar has also been a
prolific writer, appearing often on Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com,
as well as writing insightful policy papers for Cato and pieces for
magazines. Now he has made his insights available to all, in the form
of a new book. Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East challenges
almost all the conventional wisdom in every wing of the U.S. foreign
policy establishment. He argues that the most sensible course for the
United States now would be a policy of “constructive disengagement”
from the Middle East, allowing regional powers or the Europeans to be
the “balancers of last resort” in the area, if they saw it in their
interests to do so.

He’s not predicting that his advice will be followed soon, so he
suspects the eventual outcome is more likely to be “destructive
disengagement” – arising from a situation in which the cost to the
United States, in money, blood, and rising anti-American sentiments
translated into anti-American actions, simply becomes too much for
the American people to endure. But he writes in the hope that at
least a debate will ensue on the wisdom of continuing to throw more
money and American lives into the region’s sandy terrain while there
is time to cut at least some potential losses.

The Old MEP

Leon doesn’t attribute the United States continuing to follow policies
that harm the country to a clever cabal of Israelis whispering in
Washington ears, the oil lobby, or a widespread lust for imperial
glory, though he acknowledges that these are all factors that continue
to sustain policies that do the United States more harm than good. In
addition, however, he sees a larger picture that includes commitments
entered into in the wake of World War II and before, which few
U.S. policymakers have questioned. The time to raise such questions,
however, is long past.

He argues,

“Current American policy toward the Middle East results from entrenched
assumptions of long standing. During the Cold War there evolved what
I call a Middle East Paradigm (MEP) that guided U.S. administrations
beginning in the late 1940s. Central to this MEP was the belief that
competition with the Soviet Union made American involvement in the
Middle East a costly but necessary way to protect American interests
as the leader of the Western alliance.” (p. 5)

Three factors provided the rationale for ongoing U.S. involvement
in the region. The first was what were perceived as the necessities
dictated by geo-strategy. The assumption was that the Soviet Union
sought dominance in the region and had to be contained. Consequently,

“[T]he United States replaced Great Britain and France – militarily
and economically weakened in the aftermath of World War II – in the
role of protecting the interests of the Western alliance in the Middle
East. The Soviet Union was an aggressive global power with a huge
economic and military force and a crusading ideological disposition
that was perceived to be as threatening to America and the West in
the Cold War as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had been in World
War II.” (p. 5)

The U.S. simply had to be there as a counter to Soviet ambitions.

The second reason had to do with geo-economics. Given the larger
context of the need to counter Soviet moves, the U.S. figured it was
worth the cost to be involved in the Middle East not only to protect
its own access to Middle East oil, but to protect “the free access
of the Western economies, including those of North America, Western
Europe, and Northeast Asia (Japan and South Korea) to the energy
resources in the Persian Gulf through a costly partnership with Iran,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other oil-producing states in the region.”
(p. 5) It seemed to make strategic sense during the Cold War to let
those allies or putative allies “free-ride” on American military power.

Third, with the establishment of Israel as a state in 1948, “the United
States has underscored its historic and moral commitment to ensure
the survival of a democratic Jewish commonwealth in the Middle East
by helping Israel to maintain its margin of security as it coped with
hostile Arab neighbors.” (p. 5) During the Cold War, during which the
Soviet Union worked to establish a beachhead in certain Arab states,
this commitment evolved, at least in the minds of U.S. policymakers,
from an essentially moral commitment into a geo-strategic one, with
Israel seen as the one reliable democratic partner in the region.

Leon Hadar argues that this essential paradigm has been accepted not
only by U.S. neoconservatives, who have come to dominate policy in the
wake of 9/11, but by liberal internationalists and conservative and
liberal realists as well. There may be disagreements about tactics and
emphasis among these elements of the U.S. foreign policy establishment,
but all agreed that U.S. activity to dominate policy in the region,
or at least to serve as balancer of last resort when conflicts arose,
was essential.

Contradictions Within

Even during the Cold War, this MEP led to contradictions that required
delicate balancing by U.S. policymakers. Most of the oil-producing
states, especially Saudi Arabia, seemed reliably anti-Soviet most
of the time, but they were hardly pro-Israel, and from time to time
faced internal opposition that could upset their relationship with
the United States and the West. So the U.S. had to seem to be always
“doing something” to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace to keep
the Arab oil-producing states on board.

At the same time, the U.S. seemed to see no alternative but to tolerate
the militant version of Islam known as Wahhabism that was the state
religion of Saudi Arabia. The Saud family considered it important, to
maintain its power at home, not simply to tolerate Wahhabism, sometimes
in a fairly extreme form, but to promote and subsidize its spread
overseas, especially in the form of madrassas, or religious schools,
that increased the influence of this strain of Islam worldwide.

Of course, Osama bin Laden was a product of or at least heavily
influenced by this brand of Islam. Both the United States and Saudi
Arabia believed it was in their interest to encourage and subsidize
the essentially Wahhabist resistance to the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan during the 1980s. Thus thousands of guerrilla fighters
were trained and “blooded” in that conflict, and at least implicitly
encouraged to believe that once Soviet power in Afghanistan had been
neutralized it was legitimate to look to a wider mission, which led
eventually to blowback in the form of 9/11.

Within the Middle East, the U.S. under the old MEP not only had to
safeguard Israel, but to placate Arab states by pressuring Israel to
come to some kind of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians and
other neighboring Arab entities. Thus various American administrations
– Bush I and Clinton – applied pressure delicately on Israel to make
concessions, all the while proclaiming their underlying loyalty to
the idea of Israel as an independent Jewish state.

Not only has this proven to be a difficult job – despite various Camp
David meetings and the Oslo process, a peaceful resolution seems,
if anything, further away than before – it “produces disincentives
for the players involved to do what they need to do in their own
self-interests.”

“The Israelis and the Palestinians assume that they should be rewarded
by Washington for making concessions that are perceived as ‘favors’
for the Americans. At the same time, the Arab and European governments
refrain from assuming responsibility for trying to help resolve the
conflict.” (p. 155)

During the Cold War, all these costs seemed to be justifiable because
of the need to counter or neutralize Soviet influence. With the
end of the Cold War, however, that factor receded in importance.
Unfortunately, U.S. policymakers did not reconsider not only
the overall strategy of seeking U.S. dominance in the world,
but specifically the MEP for U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Consequently, when 9/11 occurred, the MEP was the framework within
which the U.S. response was fashioned.

A New Paradigm

Leon Hadar argues that it is time to develop a new paradigm for
relations with the Middle East. He notes that “the American economy
is not dependent on Middle Eastern oil – 70 percent of American energy
supplies do not originate in the Middle East.”

“The United States is actually more dependent on Latin American oil
than it is on Saudi and other Persian Gulf oil. And the notion that
American policy in the Middle East helps to provide Americans access
to ‘cheap and affordable oil’ makes little sense if one takes into
consideration the military and other costs – including two Gulf Wars
and the current Pax Americana in the Middle East – that are added
to the price that the American consumer pays for driving his or her
car.” (p. 154)

He does not say so directly, but implies that U.S. military force is
quite likely not necessary to maintain access to Persian Gulf oil,
either for the U.S. or for Western Europe and Japan. The oil-producing
states have few resources other than oil, and if they don’t sell oil
to somebody they will have little wealth with which to maintain their
power and curb domestic challenges. So they need to sell oil more than
the United States needs to buy it. If political and military influence
is required to keep the oil flowing to Western Europe and Japan (and
increasingly to China) – which I rather doubt – the countries that
are truly dependent should be the ones to bear the cost.

The book includes insightful discussion of U.S.-European relationships,
though the rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters,
which took place after it was completed, could alter a few details. In
light of all his analysis, Hadar proposes “to bid farewell to the
old MEP and try to draw the outlines of a new American policy in
the Middle East. There is a need for a long-term policy of American
‘constructive disengagement’ from the Middle East that will encourage
the Europeans to take upon themselves the responsibility of securing
their interests in the region and while the regional actors solve
the problems they have created.” (p. 158)

With the demise of the Soviet threat, continued American intervention
in the region serves mainly to promote anti-Americanism and
terrorism. If a “balancer of last resort” is needed, let the Europeans
do it. Likewise, “The main threat to its [Israel’s] survival as a
democratic Jewish state is not the lack of U.S. assistance, but
Israel’s control over the West Bank and Gaza and the continuing
conflict with the Palestinians.” (p. 158) U.S. support for Israel
now creates disincentives for a settlement rather than hastening the
day. So “the prospects for American disengagement from the Middle
East and for a lower diplomatic profile in the Palestinian-Israeli
dispute should produce incentives for both sides, as well as for the
Arab states and the EU, to deal with it.”

Destructive Disengagement

Of course, the necessary condition for constructive disengagement
from the Middle East is a larger U.S. reconsideration of the idea
that the U.S. should be the final arbiter, if not the actual ruler,
in disputes throughout the world, which would mean not only tolerating
but welcoming European activity in regions the U.S. viewed as essential
during the Cold War. Abandoning what might be viewed as the imperial
attitude that every problem in the world is automatically an American
problem that requires American action will not be easy.

Consequently, it is more likely that the U.S. will eventually pull back
from its dominant role in the Middle East not through a responsible
rethinking of U.S. engagement, but through a series of mounting costs
and disasters that eventually lead to a “destructive disengagement”
from the region that will look like (and to a great extent will be)
a U.S. defeat and retreat.

If Americans are interested in a more gradual, rational and
constructive approach to the Middle East, however, Leon Hadar has
provided many of the arguments and much of the information that will
be needed to justify a more sensible approach.

Die Welt, Deutschland
14 Juli 2005

“We did not commit Genocide” – An Interview with Hikmet Özdemir,
chief historian of the Turkish Government, on the Genocide of the
Armenians.

“Wir haben keinen Genozid begangen”

Ein Gespräch mit Hikmet Özdemir, dem Chefhistoriker der türkischen
Regierung, zur Aufarbeitung des Völkermordes an den Armeniern

DIE WELT: Herr Özdemir, warum steigt die Türkei erst jetzt in die
Debatte um die armenische Tragödie ein? Schämte man sich, oder war
das Thema politisch zu riskant?

Hikmet Özdemir: Das ist eine gute Frage. Ich habe sie mir selbst oft
gestellt. Ich glaube, es hat mit all den blutigen Konflikten,
Vertreibungen und Migrationen 1911 bis 1923 zu tun. Atatürk hat
danach eine Politik der “Rehabilitation” betrieben. Schmerzhafte
Wunden nicht wieder aufzureißen, war eine Art, sich von dem Trauma zu
erholen. Aber jetzt herrschen andere Bedingungen. Die armenische
Diaspora hat die Welt von der Genozid-These überzeugt, und dieses
Vorurteil kann schwere politische Folgen für die Türkei haben. Wir
müssen daher Klarheit schaffen. Wir fordern eine offene,
internationale Diskussion dieser Frage. Wir haben unsere Archive
geöffnet. Wir fordern alle anderen Beteiligten auf, auch ihre
Dokumente auf den Tisch zu legen.

DIE WELT: Es scheint auch ein großes Vorurteil zu geben – nämlich,
daß es keinen Genozid gab.

Özdemir: Wir haben keine Vorurteile. Ministerpräsident Erdogan hat
vorgeschlagen, eine internationale Historikerkommission unter
Beteiligung der damaligen Großmächte zu schaffen. Da sollen dann alle
Seiten ihre Dokumente auf den Tisch legen, und wenn dabei
herauskommt, daß es einen Genozid gab, werden wir das akzeptieren.

DIE WELT: Warum ist eine offene Diskussion in der Türkei so schwer?
Ist der politische Druck, gewisse Positionen zu beziehen, zu stark?

Özdemir: Es gibt bei uns keinen politischen Druck in der
Armenier-Debatte.

DIE WELT: Wie bitte? Kürzlich wurde eine internationale Konferenz zu
diesem Thema in Istanbul abgeblasen, nachdem der Justizminister sich
in wüstesten Verbalattacken gegen die Organisatoren erging.

Özdemir: Die Konferenz hätte stattfinden können. Niemand hat die
Organisatoren gezwungen. Ich bedaure, daß die Tagung nicht stattfand,
aber das geschah eher aus Propagandagründen, um Stimmung gegen die
Türkei zu machen.

DIE WELT: Der Deutsche Bundestag hat die Türkei aufgefordert, sich
ihrer Vergangenheit zu stellen.

Özdemir: Deutschland hat eine große Chance verpaßt. Es wäre der
ideale Vermittler in dieser Frage. Statt dessen wurde ein einseitiges
Urteil gefällt, noch dazu, ohne uns anzuhören. Ministerpräsident
Erdogan hatte angeboten, mich nach Berlin zu entsenden, um unser
Verständnis der Ereignisse zu erläutern. Die Deutschen haben das
abgelehnt.

DIE WELT: Welche Argumente würden Sie überhaupt akzeptieren, um der
Genozid-These beizupflichten?

Özdemir: Wenn jemand ein Dokument zeigt, aus dem hervorgeht, daß die
Regierung die Vernichtung der Armenier beabsichtigte, dann akzeptiere
ich das. Das Gegenteil ist jedoch der Fall. Die Armenier kämpften
gegen uns, und ihre Deportation wurde aus militärischen Gründen
notwendig. Dabei geht aus allen Dokumenten hervor, daß die Regierung
um den Schutz der Zivilisten bemüht war, sogar die Vertreibung vom
Winter auf den Frühling verschob, um die Menschen zu schonen. Daß so
viele starben, war Folge der Kriegswirren, der Witterung, der
primitiven Umstände.

DIE WELT: Einen schriftlichen Vernichtungsbefehl gab es auch unter
Hitler nicht. So gesehen gab es keinen Holocaust.

Özdemir: Es gab bei uns keinen Haß gegen die Armenier wie in
Deutschland gegen die Juden, und Armenierhaß war nicht Bestandteil
der Staatsideologie wie der Antisemitismus in Deutschland. Es sind
ganz andere Ausgangslagen.

DIE WELT: Der Historiker Erich Zürcher – und viele andere – sagen, es
gab zwei Operationen. Die Vertreibung, die für sich genommen noch
nicht zum Völkermord führen mußte, und eine verdeckte Operation der
regierenden Jungtürken, die die Aufgabe hatte, die Vertreibung zum
Todesmarsch zu machen.

Özdemir: Im Rahmen einer internationalen Historikerkommission werden
alle relevanten Dokumente auf den Tisch kommen.

DIE WELT: Willy Brandts Kniefall in Warschau leitete eine Wende in
der Beziehung zwischen Polen und Deutschen ein. Ist ähnliches
zwischen der Türkei und Armenien denkbar?

Özdemir: Ich persönlich verbeuge mich vor allen armenischen Opfern.
Wir müssen aber nicht vergessen, daß allein 1915 mehr als 102 000
Türken von Armeniern getötet wurden, und insgesamt 570 000 Türken von
armenischer Hand starben. Wir brauchen Gesten der Aussöhnung auf
beiden Seiten. Aber Willy Brandts Kniefall wird bei uns in Verbindung
mit dem Holocaust gesehen, und da wir keinen Genozid begangen haben,
kann man das nicht vergleichen.

DIE WELT: 570 000 türkische Opfer? Am Ende starben nach gar mehr
Türken als Armenier?

Özdemir: Der Anteil an der Bevölkerung war bei den armenischen Opfern
größer, auch wenn in absoluten Zahlen vielleicht weniger Armenier als
Türken starben. Ich kann das noch nicht definitiv sagen, die Zahlen
werden wir im November veröffentlichen.

DIE WELT: Wie kann man zu einer Aussöhnung gelangen?

Özdemir: Atatürk hat nach dem Weltkrieg zu Briten und Australiern
gesagt: Mütter, weint nicht, eure Toten sind in unserer Brust. Sie
sind auch unsere Söhne geworden. – In diesem Sinne müssen wir
aufhören, Tote gegeneinander aufzurechnen.

Mit Hikmet Özdemir sprach Boris Kalnoky

——————–

Hikmet Özdemir
Istanbul – Hikmet Özdemir ist ein Idealist. 1989 schrieb der
Historiker ein mutiges Buch, das ihn fast ruinierte: “Militär und
Regime”. In ihm argumentierte er, das Militär habe einen “Staat im
Staate” errichtet, um die Grundlinien der türkischen Politik für
immer festzuschreiben. “Ich war danach zwei Jahre arbeitslos”, sagt
der leise und bescheiden auftretende Mann.

Wie sich die Zeiten ändern. Heute ist er es, der Grundlinien der
Politik mitformuliert. Er ist als Leiter der Armenienabteilung der
Türkischen Historischen Gesellschaft der Mann, der die Welt davon
überzeugen soll, daß es keinen Genozid an den Armeniern gab. Özdemir
berät Regierung und Militär, prägt die Argumente, mit denen die
armenischen Thesen entkräftet werden sollen, und erklärt die
türkische Sicht der Dinge in TV-Auftritten und Interviews.

Ist der mutige Polit-Rebell zum Manipulator der Geschichte im Dienste
der Regierung geworden? Im Gespräch mit ihm gewinnt man den Eindruck,
daß er zutiefst an seine Thesen glaubt, aber nicht nur als
Historiker, sondern auch als Türke spricht. Das ist nicht unbedingt
kompatibel – so wenig wie auf der Gegenseite armenischer Patriotismus
historische Genauigkeit bedeutet.

Hikmet Özdemirs Rhetorik ist die eines Mannes, der eine Festung
verteidigt. Er konzentriert das Gespräch auf zu verteidigende
Stellungen (“der Vertreibungsbeschluß war kein Genozidbefehl”),
umgeht heikle Themen (Gab es eine verdeckte Operation der Jungtürken,
um die Vertreibung zum Todesmarsch zu machen?) und erhebt die
Abwesenheit schriftlicher Belege zum Beweis dafür, daß es keinen
Völkermord gab.

Die einfache Frage, ob die Genozid-Frage offen sei, will er selbst im
vierten Anlauf nicht mit Ja oder Nein beantworten. Ein Ja würde
bedeuten, daß es vielleicht einen Genozid gab, und ein Nein, daß die
Türkei zu keinem Dialog bereit ist. So sprechen Politiker, nicht
Historiker.

Ganz klar ist seine Liebe zum Vaterland und die Sorge um den Schaden,
den die Armenierdebatte dem türkischen Staat bereiten kann. Auch
Mitgefühl für die Opfer auf beiden Seiten ist unverkennbar. Özdemir
ist ein liebenswürdiger Mensch. Ob der Historiker recht hat oder die
Armenier oder beide, darüber wird man sich eines Tages einigen – wenn
die Gemüter ruhiger sind. oky

RESIDENTS OF DISTANT VILLAGES WILL HAVE OPPORTUNITY TO LISTEN TO RADIO

A1+
14-07-2005

The government has approved a series of measures to provide radio
broadcasting in the distant settlements, where no signal of the
National Radio of Armenia is received.

The Minister of territorial Administration was ordered to secure the
works on road repair and electric main construction in all the
inhabited localities.

The Ministers of Finance and Economy, Transport and Communications
were also given instructions.

LIFTING BLOCKADE OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH TRANSPORT COMMUNICATIONS WILL ADD
0.54% TO GDP

YEREVAN, JULY 13. ARMINFO. The lifting of the blockade of the
Armenian-Turkish transport communication in future will add only 0.54%
or some $20 mln to the GDP of Armenia. The data of the research “The
consequences of the lifting of the blockade of Armenian-Turkish border
on the economy of Armenia” carried out by the Armenian-European Policy
and Legal Advice Center, which was presented in Yerevan, Wednesday.

According to the survey, if the border open, the average annual growth
of employment in Armenia within 5 years will total 1,000 people or
0.08%. The growth of the export from Armenia will annually make up
4.5%, the imports – 2.6%. Growth of domestic selling will make up 0.2%
per year, the annual inflation growth will be 0.13%, the state budget
receipts will grow by 0.7% or 3.4 bln drams (about $7.7 mln) from the
opening of the border. The growth of real investments will be 0.59%,
transport expenditure of Armenian economy will decrease by 5%.

According to Armenian Director of AEPLAC Tigran Jrbashian, the
operation of communications between Armenia and Turkey will allow to
improve the social indices in eastern districts of Turkey, where the
GDP per capita is five times less than in the whole country in
average, and 2.5 times less than in Armenia. In this connection the
release of the blockade of the border should be considered in the
context of regional development, as after Turkey’s accession to the
European Union, similar social-economic indices of its eastern
districts may become a serious problem for EU.

The survey was conducted on the basis of the analysis of 200
macroeconomic indices and 4,225 financial flows in the economy by
modern economic methods. The survey was held from July 2004 to March
2005 by the order of Armenian Government.

To remind, now the trade turnover between Armenia and Turkey because
of inactivity of the border is carried out through Georgia’s
territory. Since 1998 the annual trade turnover between the countries
have been fluctuating $37-40 mln.

WHY ESPECIALLY CHECHNYA?

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
07 July 05

Why did especially Chechnya raise categorically the issue of secession
from Russia among all the other autonomies of the former Soviet Union?
And why do the Chechens, unlike other peoples of the North Caucasus,
defy the situation in the region and continue resisting the federal
centre? To answer these questions it is necessary to take into account
a set of global, regional and internal factors which caused the
appearance of independent Ichkeria in the 1990s and its subsequent
downfall. In this article only one of these factors is discussed,
which seems to influence the behavour of the Chechen people and
leaders most of all. It is the ethnic and religious factor. Imparting
the developments in Chechnya that followed the dissolution of the USSR
with a geopolitical and geo-economic meaning, we cannot overlook this
factor because it is one of the main components of the Chechen
issue. Without considering the ethnic and religious factor of the
issue we cannot understand why, unlike the other unrecognized states
formed in the post-Soviet space (Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, South
Osia, Transdniestr), the Chechens did not succeed in forming their own
viable structure of power required for building an independent
state. The aspiration of any people for freedom and independence is
determined by the national idea which foresees achievement of freedom
and independence through building a state. The national idea is formed
in the course of decades and centuries and is modified by the
historical, ethnic, religious, social, economic and cultural factors
which constantly feed the national idea, determining its content. Like
the history, culture, religion, social and political development of a
nation, the national idea cannot expire either. Therefore, the
attainment of freedom and independence and state building is only one
(although fundamental) of the stages of constant development of the
national idea. The national idea is the dominant unifying force, which
in a way cements all the ranks of the society within one ethnic unit
and determines the essence and peculiarities of their social
behaviour. Now let us observe what idea exactly dominated among the
Chechen people up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the history of the Chechen people is not studied
sufficiently. It is generally accepted that the Chechen society,
unlike the other peoples of the North Caucasus, was chiefly
egalitarian up to the 19th century. It differed from the other North
Caucasian societies which were based on a strong hierarchy. In the
Chechen society the tukhums (clans) of free peasants and warriors were
dominant. The relationships within the society were regulated by
unwritten, traditional rules; one of the most important rules was that
of vendetta. Murder of a Chechen or crime committed against a Chechen
was very dangerous and serious. This type of society supposes the
utter importance of such notions as freedom and equity. As a rule, it
does not accept subjection to any external or internal
force. Consequently, the opinion of strangers (the tukhum of another
people) means nothing to this society. It is here that the origin of
Chechens defiance of the Russians perceived by them as enslavers,
destroyers of the Chechen way of life with weapon, should be looked
for. As a result, the idea of liberation from Russians at any price
becomes dominant in the Chechen society, that is to say, it becomes
their national idea. The clan-based mode of life (the sanctuary of
Chechens), which caused the division of Chechens at peacetime, is,
therefore, pushed to the background when the issue of fighting the
Russians rises. This system of values that has survived up to this
day, as well as the anarchic disaccord and similarly anarchic unity
is, as it appears to us, the cause of all the achievements and losses
of the Chechen people. As to the religion, we think, it did not and
cannot have played a deciding role in proclamation of independence of
Chechnya. This is explained by the fact that in their approach to
Islam they have always been traditional. They preferred the
deeply-rooted customs rather. The long-lasting struggle between Islam
which entered the Caucasus as Sufism and the customs did not end in
the victory of the former which had to be adapted to the customs.

Therefore, at the time of dissolution of the USSR the religion was not
strong enough to cause radical separatism among Chechens, whereas the
national idea of the Chechen society anchored in extreme defiance
against the Russians was. It was this idea that spurred the line of
attaining the independence of Chechnya whatever it might cost the
Chechen people in the future. That is to say, state building in the
Chechen society was based on the idea of struggle against the Russian
invasion. Once in the critical period of the Caucasian war (1864) the
Chechen sheik Kunta Hajji Kishlinski warned his people against the
danger that the intolerance against the Russians contained. Brothers,
stop fighting If they make you go to church, go. It is only walls. Let
your souls be Muslim. I will never believe that some Turks may help us
Therefore, learn to live side by side with Russians, but if they make
you forget your language, your customs, rebel and get killed as one,
called Kunta Hajji Kishlinski. His words prove that the customs
prevail over Islam in the Chechen society. Anyway, the main motive for
state building in the Chechen society, the struggle against the
Russian invasion, was apparently insufficient for building their
independent state. And in the last 14 years the Chechen society did
not come up with a natural idea, whereas they badly need a new
ideological ground. Otherwise they are doomed to perpetual war against
the Russians. The evidence to this is the words of the first president
of Ichkeria Djohar Dudayev about the future of his home country in his
interview to BBC in January 1996. In answer to the question if the
Chechens are willing to negotiate directly with the Russian top
officials for signing an armistice Dudayev said that he personally
would rather continue the war. He explained his standpoint saying that
after ceasefire it would be more difficult for him as a president to
rule the country because he would have to reconstruct the country.

However, according to Dudayev, Russia would not aid Chechnya in any
way. On the contrary, Moscow would aspire to hinder the rehabilitation
of the Chechen economy at any way and divide the Chechen society.
Dudayev argued that it would be much difficult to counteract Moscows
actions than to fight against Russia. Therefore, he said, the war had
better last. It is much simple at war. There is the enemy and it
should be defeated. However, it is not correct to think that the
Ichkerian leaders did not recognize the necessity for a new
ideological basis. They also understand that the new ideology should
have the same action at peacetime, that is to say, fulfill the same
function as the idea of struggle against the Russian invasion used to
fulfill in the times of the clan-based structure of the Chechen
society (and fulfills now). Frankly speaking, since 1991 all that the
statesmen of Ichkeria have been doing was invention of an idea which
would underlie the structure of the future statehood of independent
Chechnya. Thus, the chief ideologist of Ichkeria Movladi Udugov
proposed a project of total Islamization of Chechnya, that is to say,
making a step towards Islam as a uniting idea. According to him, Islam
is a meta-racial, national ideology, therefore, only Islam can bring
together the Chechen society. Moreover, Udugov turns to one of the
branches of Islam, Wahhabism, and not the traditional Islam
(Sufism). However, Wahhabism was strange to the Chechen society. He
was opposed by Aslan Maskhadov and the mufti of Ichkeria then Ahmad
Hajji Kadirov killed in the terrorist action in Groznyy. The grey
cardinal of Chechnya, the president of the multinational holding
company Khozh Ahmed Nuhayev proposed another model of clan-based mode
of life of the Chechen society. According to him, the Chechens are
divided by ignoring the factor of clan-based mode of life of Chechens
in the political resolution of the Chechen issue rather than the
clan-based mode of life itself. There were also other artificial
proposals which were rejected by the Chechen society. Generally, it
can be said that the idea of struggle against the Russian invasion is
able to unite the Chechen people only at war. It is not accidental
that only at war did the Chechens manage to have an orderly state with
its president, army with its headquarters and commanders. As soon as
there is no war, the Chechen anarchism rises, dividing the society
into tukhums. Therefore, building a viable state by Chechens will be
enabled only if they admit the uselessness of their national idea,
sacrifice their hatred for the Russian people, as well as their
personal and clan interests to the national cause. Therefore, the main
task of the Chechen national elite is to free the consciousness of the
Chechen people from the folkloric and emotional perception of the
world and instill a reasonable perception of the reality in them.

ALEXANDER GRIGORIAN.
07-07-2005