Author: Zakarian Garnik

China, India find higher profile at biotech expo
By Leonard Anderson

Reuters
06/08/04 19:51 ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The fledgling biotechnology industry is
already reinventing itself — as an economic booster in emerging
countries.

To this end research scientist Kiran Sharma expects India will develop
an edible vaccine against cholera within five years.

And Weiping Yang is working on “biochip” technology at a new company in
China to wed molecules with computers in systems to detect infectious
viruses like SARS.

India and China are among 59 foreign countries and 16,000 scientists,
executives and government officials crowding into three big meeting
halls for the BIO 2004 Annual International Convention in San
Francisco. The forum, which first began in 1993, ends Wednesday.

“We always had strong international representation from Canada, Great
Britain, France and Germany, but nothing like we have now,” said Dan
Eramian, a spokesman for the Biotechnology Industry Association,
which organizes the conference. The number of countries attending
has doubled since 1999.

“More countries now see building biotech industries as a way to
strengthen their economies.” Eramian added.

The global biotechnology industry posted about $47 billion in revenues
last year, according to a study by the Ernst & Young accounting firm.

“We have two goals here,” said B.P. Acharya, secretary of Industries
and Commerce in the Andhra Pradesh government in India: “Showcase what
is happening in biotechnology in India to change the view that the
industry is all U.S. and Europe. And take advantage of the networking
opportunities for new business.”

Acharya, who is promoting “Genome Valley” in southeast India as the
nation’s biotech hub, attended the 2001 convention in San Diego
alone. At this week’s conference, however, he has 30 colleagues
to help him scout for new business and take part in scientific
presentations. India’s total delegation numbers 89.

VACCINE IN A PEANUT

Indian scientists with the International Crops Research Institute
are linking life sciences and agriculture to develop edible vaccines
against polio, cholera and other diseases that could be delivered in
peanuts or other plants at greatly reduced costs, said Sharma.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has expressed interest in
the work, said Acharya.

Yang said four biotech companies from China attended the San Francisco
meeting and “visa problems” prevented four more from showing up. This
was the first year that China had its own “pavilion” on the convention
floor to present technologies.

Beijing-based three-year-old Capital Biochip Corp., part of China’s
National Engineering Research Center, is developing a range of medical
detection systems founded on biochips — electronic devices that use
organic molecules and form a semiconductor.

The technology can examine tens of thousands of genes in a scanning
system in 10 minutes versus years in conventional detection systems,
Yang said.

“We have developed some interesting leads from companies in the
U.S. and Europe who are interested in our overall technology,” he said.

This year’s conference also signed up 11 new member nations — Algeria,
Armenia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Peru, Romania, Slovenia,
Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen.

Wales also had nine biotech companies and research organizations
represented at its pavilion.

Bioscience in Wales is developing healthcare diagnostic systems,
clinical trials for cancer drugs and chronic wound treatments,
medical devices and instruments, and doing research in grassland-based
livestock agriculture, said Bob Wallis, research manager for the
Welsh Development Agency.

Closer to home, 28 U.S. states set up pavilions to vie for business
leads, contracts and jobs.

A study issued on Tuesday by the Los Angeles-based Milken Institute
think tank said San Diego is the top U.S. city for biotech business,
with Boston second and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle third.

Hellenic News of America
June 6 2004

The Genocide of Greeks of Pontos (Black Sea).

Professor Konstantinos Fotiadis (2004).
The Genocide of Greeks of Pontos (Black Sea).
Athens: Editions of Institution of Parliament of Greeks for the
Parliamentarism and the Democracy, p.600 + photographs.

Presentation by Theofanis Malkidis Ph.D
Demokritus University of Thrace
GREECE

1. A owed action of debt
The investigation of genocide of Greeks of Pontos (Black Sea) from
the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) arrangement constituted a
question taboo for the Greek historical and political science. The
Greek-Turkish pact of friendship 1930, the simultaneous integration
of Greece and Turkey in the NATO in 1952, but also simultaneously the
called approach of two states, constituted points stations (and) for
the Pontian question. They are these parameters “that the Genocide of
Hellenism of Pontos did not acquire the compurgation that it was
imposed it acquires “, as stresses the writer in his import.
On one side because the political climate did not allow is
investigated the crime of mass murders of against Greeks, on the
other side when this became after initiative of scientists and
intellectual as minimal debt against the collective memory, faced a
very hostile environment.
However after fights and efforts of many years from Pont’s
inhabitants of second generation and associations of interior and
abroad, the Greek parliament recognized in 1994 the genocide of
Greeks of Pontos, establishing him 19 May as day of memory and price.
The law on the recognition of mass crime was from an alone him
station in the newer Greek history, that more precious perhaps it had
it offers the Hellenic state to the victims of liquidation from the
historical homeland and to their descendants, the refugees that
reached poor in Greece and nevertheless contributed in the Greek
politician, economic, social and cultural life.
The recognition of genocide by the Parliament of Greeks had a lot of
components and other so much priorities. The protection of the 19 th
May as day of memory of genocide of Greeks of Pontos, “action of duty
to the history and action of responsibility opposite in the newer
generations of Greeks”, her internationalisation in all the levels
(recognition from Turkey, the trespass of rights Pontians that lives
in Turkey and particularly in their place of existence in the
Pontos), the installation of Native of the Pont refugees from the
former Soviet Union in Greece, the documentation of genocide.
For reasons that are known and comprehensible as we reported more and
are connected with interests foreigner with the memory and the real
friendship between the populations the decision of national
delegation on the publication of documents genocide of Greeks of
Pontos, was not materialised immediately. Thus they passed 10 entire
years until the Greek Parliament publishes the book of professor
Konstantinos Fotiadis, which argued the murders of 353000 Greeks in
the Pontos the interval 1916-1923.
The book is separated in 13 chapters which cover the history of
Greeks of Pontos, the ethnological situation in the region, the
Ottoman reforms and the Young Turks arrangement, that was turned
against the Greeks (and the Armenian), program of Mustafa Kemal
arrangement for the crimes in the Pontos. The book includes primary
sources, the result of research of writer in government and owned
files of former USSR, France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Italy,
Vatican, Society of Nations and Greece, while is mentioned also rich
bibliography in Greek and other languages.

2.The crime
The genocide of Pont’s inhabitants (1916 – 1923) with above 353.000
victims, constitutes a big genocide the 20 th century The term
genocide as it was shaped afterwards the end of second world war,
means the methodical extermination, total or partial, national,
racial or religious team and it is a primary crime, that does not
have interrelation with martial conflicts.
The partial or total annihilation national, racial or religious team
raises, accordingly to the article of 1 special Convention, which has
voted the General Assembly of UN in 1948 in the crime of genocide,
that is different from the crimes of war, after «it does not only
force the martial rules, but the himself it constitutes crime at the
humanity, provided that it refers in concrete individuals or nation,
but concerns entire the humanity “.
Thus the genocide constitutes the heavier crime according to the
international right, for which in deed does not exist prescription.
The one which commits the genocide does not exterminate a team for
something that e you do, but for something that is, s the case of
Greeks of Pontos, because they were Greeks and Christians.
The 19 May 1919 date the arrival of s Moustafa Kemal in the
Samsounta, is the beginning for the second and harder phase of
Genocide. The terrorism, the working battalions, the exiles, the
obliteration of leadership in the Amasia in 1921 , the rapes, the
mass murders, forced the Greeks of Pontos to abandon their homes and
leave after courses, in Greece, in the USSR, Iran, Syria, and
elsewhere (Australia, USA) or as means of self-defence is undertaken
resistance action against the organised drawing of extermination. He
has become henceforth today perceptible that t a victims of genocide
would be very more, if did not exist the guerrilla movement. The
conclusion of Pontian genocide it constitutes violent liquidation
surviving afterwards 1922 -1923.

3. The importance of publication
The recognition of genocide of Greeks of Pontos and the publication
of author’s work of Mr Fwtja’di from the Parliament of Greeks despite
the delay it vindicated Hellenism of Pontos and connected the modern
Hellenism with his past via the collective memory, that is to say
truth. The particular publication of professor Fotiadis is henceforth
a basic element of memory and « it rests with in the Parliament of
Greeks it transmits in the parliaments other countries her intention
to render her respectable memory that of Genocide “. Hellenism of
Pontos is a big and important part of Greek nation and it is not
possible to be ignored from the State and the Greek society. The
safeguarding and the further appointment and internationalisation of
day memory of genocide, which exceeds the Hellenism of Pontos and
penetrate all the Greek society, it constitutes main constitutive
element of institutions and society that are defended the history and
truth. And as lead the bigger, perhaps, Pontian writer, Dimitris
Psathas “it is not allowed we sacrifice the historical truth in no
expediency, as unfortunately, it was established it becomes from the
time that was engraved the said Greek-Turkish friendship. The non
critical silence of makes of History, he was perhaps also one from
their reason s that so much bad headed the ‘ friendship ‘ with Turks.
Throw the veil of oblivion in the past, but dry with, no we hide.
Know also same the Turks what they made their parents, in order to
they avoid what they stigmatised them in the same time who want they
take the place between the civilized nations. Only knowing Turks and
knowing those us and their stigmatised past, can sometimes engrave a
Greek-Turkish friendship on solid bases “.

Destexhe, A., Rwanda and genocide in the Twentieth Century, New York:
New York University Press. 1996, p. 2
Fotiadis, op. cit. Capital I Martyrology 1921, p. 365-419.
Âë. ÖùôéÜäçò, Ê. op.cit. Chapter ÉC¨ p. 457.
Fotiadis, K. op. cit. p.17.
Psathas D. (1953) Ground of Pontos, Athens: Editions of Estia p. 8.

;lang=US

Geghamian Thinks Armenia Is In Danger Of Disappearing From World Map
By Tatoul Hakobian

AZG/am
3 June 04

Artashes Geghamian said in yesterday’s press conference that Armenia is
in danger of disappearing from the world map. He stated that the topic
for the June 4 opposition rally will be “How to Save Armenia?” While at
present he will leave for Gegharkunik marz to meet with his electorate.

Simon Amirkhanian and Razmik Ktjoyan, members of National Unity party,
were arrested in this marz recently, as, according to Geghamian,
they informed the people about the envisaged meeting. He reminded
once more that the items, including documents, equipments (computers,
video cassettes, scientific researches) taken away from the office
of the party about a month ago haven’t been returned yet.

The leader of National Unity said that Armenia, particularly, the
borderline villages of the republic are losing their dwellers. He also
complained that TV channels “unfortunately don’t take an interview
from him”. “Unfortunately, Tigran Karapetian (meaning Director of ALM
TV) hasn’t invited me for 7-8 months,” Geghamian said. He reminded
that he will not begin trade with the authorities expecting to get a
post, even the one of Yerevan’s Mayor. “I was the Mayor 15 years ago,
when they (perhaps, meaning Robert Kocharian and Serge Sargisian)
were serving to I don’t know whom,” he said. Geghamian is an extreme
optimist and doesn’t suspect that a power shift is going to take
place in Armenia. He said that this year Igor Ivanov, RF Secretary
of Security Council, will visit Armenia. (Geghamian meant the recent
events in Georgia, when in November on the very day of Ivanov’s visit
to Georgia Shevardnadze resigned. Afterwards, Ivanov visited Batumi
and escorted Aslan Abashidze to Moscow).

In a time of war, celebrating Memorial Day becomes fraught with conflict, challenge
By Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic

San Francisco Chronicle, CA
May 28 2004

Ninety-nine years ago, Ohio Sen. Joseph Benson Foraker opened a 1905
Memorial Day address to “fellow comrades, ladies and gentleman” at
Arlington National Cemetery: “This day belongs to our soldier dead;
not of one war, but of all our wars; and particularly here, in this
cemetery, where on these shafts and stones we read names that illumine
so many periods of our history.”

The sentiments of Foraker, a Civil War veteran, may sound like so much
standard-issue oratory to us now. At the time, they were anything
but. In a campaign that was doomed to failure in his lifetime, the
Ohio senator’s inclusive rhetoric was aimed in part at the neglect
of black soldiers who had fought in the Civil War and enjoyed none
of their white counterparts’ honors.

A century later, the American rite of remembering the war dead remains
as fractious as ever. Clouded by an increasingly troubled conflict
in Iraq, the looming threat of what’s to come in an amorphous war on
terror, and the current complex symbology of public monuments and
wartime imagery, Memorial Day arrives in 2004 in a highly ionized
climate.

Saturday’s dedication of the new World War II Memorial on the National
Mall in Washington, D.C., caps yet another such process — like that
of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Oklahoma City National Memorial
— steeped in controversy and strong feelings. The positioning,
sightlines, scale and design of the relatively old-fashioned
neoclassical World War II project underwent substantial revision
during the years it took to get it approved and built.

>>From the ongoing search for a fitting World Trade Center memorial to
a presidential campaign inflected by Sen. John Kerry’s meticulously
documented Vietnam record (and subsequent protest activities) and
the ellipses in George Bush’s National Guard years, the impact and
layered implications of a collective national memory continue to
grow. Nothing gets remembered simplistically anymore, whether in a
monument, ceremony, stump speech or campaign ad.

In many ways the trend is a healthy one. A culture that can openly air
and debate its history and the way it is celebrated seems intrinsically
better off for acknowledging its own grief, determination and dark
ambivalence. As George Santayana famously advised, around the time of
Sen. Foraker’s Arlington address, those who fail to remember the past
may be condemned to repeat it. Whether it follows that our means and
rituals of registering the past can help liberate us from its violent
cycles is another question.

It’s also true, and patently so, that any act of celebrating the war
dead is intrinsically political. No matter how neutral he might try
to sound in his Memorial Day remarks, or even if he never mentions
Iraq, Bush can’t help but speak to the present crisis and loss of
American life on the battlefield. Any wartime president faces the
same challenge — and opportunity (especially in an election year).

Memorial Day has never been a neutral event. Even its beginnings are
contentiously charged. Established as Decoration Day during the Civil
War, and fixed at May 30 on the calendar in 1868, it was initially
conceived as a tribute to those killed in the war between the North
and South. More than two dozen cities and towns claimed ownership of
the idea to decorate soldiers’ graves with flowers and wreaths.

Many Southern communities balked at the notion of a unifying
national ritual, insisting on ceremonies for the Confederate dead on
a different day. Lyndon Johnson resolved the matter, on paper, with
a 1966 declaration of Waterloo, N.Y., as the birthplace of Memorial
Day. Several Southern states still remember Confederate soldiers
on a separate date. No war, as Memorial Day faithfully reminds us,
is ever completely done and gone.

Moina Michael’s 1918 poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” crystallized
that feeling for a nation freshly traumatized by World War I. “The
Poppy red,” as she put it, “seems to signal to the skies/ That
blood of heroes never dies.” Poppies became the emblematic flower
of remembrance.

It was not until after World War I that Decoration Day’s name and
concept changed. Then, and thereafter, Memorial Day would honor those
who lost their lives not only in the Civil War, but in any U.S. war.
Foraker’s plea to remember soldiers “not of one war, but of all wars”
was ahead of its time.

With the National Holiday Act in 1971, Congress moved Memorial Day
to the last Monday in May. That creation of a three-day holiday, at
a time of growing resistance to the Vietnam War, helped demilitarize
and domesticate the holiday. Along with the picnics, potato salad and
swimming-pool-opening rites that came to mark the beginning of summer,
Americans have added their own meanings to Memorial Day.

More and more, as the clarity of a day devoted to honoring only the
war dead blurs, the holiday’s meaning has changed and evolved. Loss
itself, and the rites and consolations of memory, have become its
themes. Memorial Day flowers now decorate the graves of infants and
grandparents, spouses and lovers, celebrities and friends.

At the same time, the desire for collective grief and healing has
expanded. Over the past few decades, major public memorials have been
mounted for AIDS, for the Holocaust, for slavery and for genocide in
Armenia, Rwanda and elsewhere.

Almost as soon as some catastrophe happens now — in Oklahoma City,
Waco, the World Trade Center, Columbine — discussion of how to
memorialize it begins. Just as important as what gets built or said
or sung is the way it happens. How can the grief and sorrows and rage
of survivors be balanced with the summons of history, the call to
speak truthfully to future generations of what happened here and now?

Any memorial records two different and by no means concordant things —
the event that is its ostensible subject and the temper of the present
era. One of the marvels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt was its homespun
spontaneity, its use of an American heartland commonplace to stitch
the lives of gay people into the broader fabric of American life. That
was a radical and radically inclusive message 20 years ago. The quilt’s
mobility, fragility and even its cumbersomeness became integral to its
meaning. Unlike a piece of carved granite sitting in a field somewhere,
this was something fundamentally organic. It was a memorial for both
life and death ongoing.

And so, in a sense, is whatever happens on any given Memorial Day.
The day, the weekend, will pass in more than 290 million ways this
year. Many people will visit gravesites, both military and civilian.
Many won’t think of death or war at all. A few may pass the time by
reading “Memorial Day,” a cheery new novel by Vince Flynn about an al
Qaeda nuclear attack on Washington, D.C., during the dedication of
a World War II memorial. Somehow, together, we’ll be adding another
page to our national book of memory.

Along the chillier things President Bush has said of late is his
response to Bob Woodward’s question about how history might assess
the war in Iraq. “We won’t know,” the president said. “We’ll all
be dead.” Maybe so, but many millions will be here to remember, to
grieve and pay tribute and try to make it part of how to move forward.

E-mail Steven Winn at [email protected].

AllAfrica.com, Africa
May 19 2004

NCC Executive Board Asks Urgent Intervention in the Sudan

National Council of Churches USA (New York)

PRESS RELEASE
May 19, 2004
Posted to the web May 19, 2004

Chicago, Ill

Urgent intervention to stop the killing in Sudan was the call of the
National Council of Churches USA Executive Board in a resolution
adopted unanimously today during its spring meeting here May 17-18.
The Board committed the NCC and its member churches “to intensifying
their efforts” to stop the apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing in
Darfur, western Sudan, that already has claimed tens of thousands of
lives and displaced a million people, and that risks deepening to
genocide.

It condemned the involvement of all parties perpetrating genocide in
the Sudan and called upon the government of Sudan to bring an end to
this practice immediately, including stopping attacks by its military
and proxy militia against civilians in Darfur.

And it called on the U.S. government “to continue to press the
Sudanese government to bring to a halt this unfolding horror and to
support appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian, conflict resolution and
peace enforcement efforts by the United Nations to these ends.”

Today’s resolution also called upon the international community and
non-governmental organizations to investigate and monitor reports of
crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan.

Among those voicing passionate support for the action was Bishop
Vicken Aykazian of Washington, D.C., Ecumenical Officer of the
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. It is estimated that 1.5
million Armenians perished between 1915-23 in the Armenian Genocide,
and that a million were deported forcibly.

“My family is victim of the first genocide of the 20th century,”
scattered to the far corners of the earth, said Bishop Aykazian. “I
am very much concerned when I see that people in other nations now
are being massacred as well ­ in Sudan, simply because they are
black. Ten years ago, in Rwanda, in front of the civilized world, one
million people were slaughtered. The same thing is happening now in
Sudan. The NCC must take this very seriously and do something.” On
April 23, the NCC sponsored an observance of the 10th anniversary of
the Rwandan Genocide, held in Los Angeles and featuring Samantha
Power, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her book ”A Problem from
Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide.’

She and other speakers noted that despite the world’s pledge to
‘never again’ allow genocide, the world is not stepping up
effectively to stop the killing in Sudan.

“Knowing the history of genocide in the 20th century, beginning with
the Armenian Genocide through the Jewish Holocaust and ending with
the Rwandan Genocide, we are appalled that this legacy of death and
destruction should be carried into the 21st century,” the Board
stated.

Today’s resolution by the NCC’s Executive Board, whose 80 members are
delegates from the Council’s 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican
member churches, reaffirms and extends the Board’s extensive 2002
resolution on the continuing crisis in the Sudan.

In today’s action, the Board also commended actions already taken by
member communions and recommended that they prayerfully consider
further actions that they might take, individually and together as
the NCC, conducive to the establishment of peace in Sudan.

NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar urged U.S. churches not to let
current preoccupation with Iraq, the elections, the Middle East and
the U.S. economy distract them from action on Sudan. “This is an
urgent moment,” he said.

Georgian premier visits Armenian-populated region

Yerkir web site, Yerevan
18 May 04

17 May: Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania made an unofficial
visit to Javakhk [Georgia’s Samtskhe- Javakheti region predominantly
populated by Armenians] on 15 May, A-Info news agency reported.

He toured the Georgian church at the village of Poka on the shore
of the lake Parvana, meeting with the nuns. He also engaged in a
conversation with the local residents, who asked the prime minister
to provide the village with an antenna so that they could watch
Georgian TV. Prime Minister Zhvania has not held any meetings with
local officials.

Union of Armenians calls for comeback of chamber of nationalities
By Lyudmila Yermakova

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 14, 2004 Friday

SAMARA, May 14 — The Union of Armenians of Russia called for setting
up a public expert council under the permanent Russo-Armenian economic
cooperation commission.

Bringing forward this proposal at the conference on inter-regional
Russian-Armenian cooperation, the first vice-president of this
all-Russian public organization Khachatur Avetisyan noted that the
participation in the expert council of the Union of Armenians of Russia
“not only would contribute to the development of bilateral ties, but
also increase the responsibility of our diaspora in Russian-Armenian
strategic partnership.”

The largest Armenian community lives in Russia, being “a solid bridge
for Russian-Armenian cooperation,” president of the Union of Armenians
of Russia Ara Abramyan said.

He said in an interview with Itar-Tass that it was time to consider the
comeback of the house of nationalities in Russia’s Federal Assembly,
where many ethnic minorities could represent their interests.

In his view, it is necessary to strengthen inter-regional partnership
while taking into account the demand on the Russian labour market. A
transparent and economically justified tax system should contribute
to it, Abramyan said, adding that it should exclude high tax rates
and the motivation of illegal employment.

A legal socio-economic and psychological adaptation of refugees and
displaced persons is also of considerable importance, he said.

Economic cooperation has a special place in bilateral strategic
partnership, Abramyan emphasized. The repayment of Armenia’s foreign
debt by transferring a number of its companies to Russia’s ownership
is one of the forms to boost bilateral relations.

He believes that the transfer of part of the shares of these companies
– on a competitive basis – to private hands is expedient. It would
be fair to let business people from the Armenian community in Russia
take part in the tender.

The president of the Union expressed concern in connection with
instability in Transcaucasia, in particular in Georgia. In this
connection, he proposed more active involvement of the business and
public potential of the Armenian and Georgian communities in forming
a stable Russia-Georgia-Armenia transport link.

The Union of Armenians of Russia calls for uniting their potential for
the sake of the objectives aimed at strengthening Russia and providing
assistance to Armenia, Abramyan said, reiterating President Robert
Kocharyan’s statement that “Armenia with its diaspora and without it
are not of same weight.”

Excuses, à qui le tour ?, par Tony Judt

Le Monde
12 Mai 2004

Nous vivons à l’ère des excuses. Lorsqu’une crise se produit ou quand
un scandale est dévoilé, la première réaction de nombreux personnages
publics de nos jours est de jaillir en un torrent de remords. Ces
geysers inépuisables de contrition non dissimulée ont fait naître les
espoirs de tout le monde : les victimes – réelles ou présumées –
n’exigent pas seulement la justice mais le repentir, et les
journalistes y mettent allégrement du leur.

C’est ainsi que la commission publique qui enquêtait sur les
défaillances de la sécurité avant le 11 Septembre a été transformée
en soap opera. Condoleezza Rice allait-elle suivre la réplique de
Richard Clarke et proposer un “désolé” télégénique pour ne pas avoir
empêché que ça se produise ? De quoi aurait-elle l’air si elle
présentait des excuses sur tous les points ? Et – encore plus
intéressant du point de vue médiatique – de quoi aurait-elle l’air si
elle ne le faisait pas ?

Le Dr Rice est une médiocre conseillère pour la sécurité nationale,
mais c’est une bonne tacticienne. En refusant d’exprimer le remords
(“Il ne serait pas bon pour les victimes ni pour le pays que je
m’excuse de ne pas avoir empêché le 11 Septembre de se produire. Ce
serait s’appesantir sur le passé”, comme elle l’a expliqué à Ed
Bradley dans l’émission “60 Minutes”), elle n’a pas payé cher sa
participation aux enjeux de la sympathie, tout en détournant avec
fermeté l’attention des journalistes de tout ce qui avait de
l’importance. Les sentiments du moment de Condoleezza Rice occupaient
le devant de la scène, plutôt que ses actes passés. Nous avions
l’habitude de nous intéresser à ce que faisaient ou pensaient les
personnages publics.

A présent, nous ne voulons véritablement savoir que ce qu’ils
ressentent. Et tout le monde, même le président des Etats-Unis, s’y
prête avec enthousiasme. Il s’agit d’un fait nouveau. Par le passé,
devant des mauvaises nouvelles, les politiciens avaient l’habitude de
dissimuler. Plutôt que de dire ce qu’ils ressentaient face à quelque
chose de désagréable dont on pouvait les considérer comme
responsables, ils se contentaient de démentir : “Cela ne s’est jamais
produit.”Plus tard, quand il n’a plus été possible de démentir, ils
ont minimisé le problème : “D’accord, cela s’est produit, mais ce
n’était pas aussi grave que vous le dites.” Plus tard encore, quand
l’étendue du crime ou du scandale était évidente pour tout le monde,
ils ont admis “eh bien oui, cela s’est produit et cela était en tout
point aussi grave que vous le dites. Mais c’était il y a si
longtemps. Pourquoi remuer le passé ?”

Cela reste la réponse en de nombreux endroits. Au Japon, les mauvais
traitements infligés pendant la guerre aux Chinois et aux Coréens
sont encore embourbés dans un semi-démenti et une mémoire officielle
truquée. Les autorités turques – et beaucoup de Turcs – oscillent
inconfortablement entre une réécriture qui les disculperait et un
démenti pur et simple lorsqu’ils sont confrontés au massacre des
Arméniens. Les dirigeants australiens ne nient plus le quasi-génocide
des Aborigènes, mais il est tellement ancien qu’ils refusent de
s’appesantir sur le sujet. Même quand la pression internationale a
rendu inévitables les “regrets” et les réparations officiels, comme
dans le cas de l’Holocauste, le remords officiel sincère est rare.
Les excuses récentes du président polonais Kwasniewski pour la part
prise par ses compatriotes dans l’extermination de leurs voisins
juifs pendant la seconde guerre mondiale ont eu une portée d’autant
plus grande qu’elles étaient sans précédent.

Bref, les excuses publiques ne sont pas une réponse politique
universelle aux mauvaises nouvelles. Elles semblent constituer une
particularité américaine – Tony Blair s’y adonne aussi, mais, par sa
religiosité bien affichée et sa propension à se faire moraliste,
Blair est le premier ministre le plus américain de l’histoire
britannique moderne. Il est de la même génération que Bill Clinton,
Al Gore, George W. Bush et autres baby-boomers façonnés par la
révolution pédagogique des années 1960 et les préoccupations
narcissiques de l’époque.

Pour cette génération de dirigeants politiques – et leurs partisans –
il a toujours été important d’avoir les sentiments adéquats et de les
afficher généreusement. Ainsi (selon son porte-parole), le président
Bush – jusqu’ici apparemment imperméable aux susceptibilités de sa
génération – est désolé de “la douleur causée” par la publication de
photos et de reportages sur des soldats américains torturant des
Irakiens. Selon ses propres termes, Bush se sent “mal” à cause de ce
qui est arrivé, “désolé de l’humiliation” des prisonniers irakiens.
Il ne dit pas tout à fait qu’il “ressent leur douleur” – c’est un
sentiment plus en rapport avec Clinton – mais l’idée générale est la
même.

Pour une génération élevée dans le culte de l’amélioration
personnelle, que ce soit par la psychothérapie ou la renaissance
religieuse, on est meilleur si on se sent mieux avec soi-même ; dire
qu’on est “désolé” fait qu’on se sent incontestablement mieux. La
victime aussi se sent mieux. On gagne donc sur trois tableaux : on
est bon, on fait du bien et on se sent bien.

Mais en passant des relations privées aux affaires publiques, les
excuses rencontrent quelques paradoxes fascinants. En premier lieu,
elles se sapent elles-mêmes. Comme le savent tous ceux qui se sont
occupés de jeunes enfants, dire “pardon” ou “désolé” a un double but
: reconnaître la culpabilité et disculper l’auteur de la faute :
“J’ai dit que j’étais désolé : pourquoi es-tu encore fâché ?” Ainsi
George W. Bush espère-t-il indubitablement qu’en disant à quel point
il est désolé que son armée se soit déshonorée, il pourra rapidement
laisser cette affaire derrière lui. En cela, il se trompe assurément.

A notre époque de remords instantanés, le cours du repentir a subi
une énorme inflation et a perdu presque toute valeur. La plupart de
ceux qui ont entendu le président exprimer ses regrets, surtout parmi
les Arabes et les musulmans auxquels ils étaient plus
particulièrement destinés, se seront fait l’écho de la réponse
célèbre de Mandy Rice-Davis au plus fort de l’affaire Christine
Keeler dans le Swinging London des années 1960, lorsque Lord Astor a
nié sous serment avoir été en relation avec elle : “Enfin, on
s’attendait à ce qu’il dise ça, non ?” En outre, alors que les
regrets du président sont sûrement sincères, il est probable que son
auditoire international, sceptique, se dise qu’il n’est pas moins
“désolé” que l’information ait été divulguée. Il pourrait aussi en
venir à regretter amèrement les excuses soigneusement mitigées
présentées par ses subordonnés. Le général de division Geoffrey
Miller, responsable de la prison d’Abou Ghraib, a commencé par
présenter ses excuses puis a passé un certain temps à expliquer qu’il
faisait référence aux “actes illégaux et non autorisés” d’un “petit
nombre de soldats”. Le général de brigade Kimmitt, porte-parole de
l’armée américaine en Irak, a pareillement nuancé l’expression de ses
regrets – “un petit nombre de soldats commettant un impair”. Ce
repentir de pure forme accordé à contrecœur (la sodomie au moyen d’un
manche à balai est donc devenue “un impair” ?) ne fait qu’attirer
l’attention sur son insuffisance – et appelle une accusation de
mauvaise foi.

Alors, que doit faire un dirigeant démocratique ? S’excuser trop tôt
sonne faux – notamment pour les étrangers qui connaissent mal le
culte américain de la contrition. Le silence fait croire à une
indifférence sans pitié ou à une tentative pour étouffer l’affaire.
Les crimes d’Abou Ghraib et d’ailleurs ne sont pas comparables au
massacre de My Lai ou autres atrocités de guerre commises dans le feu
du combat par des GI terrifiés et des officiers incapables. Ils
découlent de cette insigne indifférence aux lois, aux règlements, aux
droits et aux devoirs qui a caractérisé cette administration depuis
le début et qui devait fatalement, tôt ou tard, s’infiltrer jusqu’aux
sergents et aux mercenaires qui font le sale travail. Le président
Bush n’avait donc pas d’autre choix que de reconnaître immédiatement
que des choses terribles avaient été faites en Irak – et il ferait
bien de s’assurer qu’on lui a raconté toute l’histoire et qu’il la
raconte à son tour complètement. L’expression publique de sa douleur
et de son chagrin ne sera toutefois plus suffisante.

Ce qui manque au culte américain moderne du “désolé”, c’est le sens
des responsabilités. Qu’il s’agisse de l’incompétence des services de
sécurité avant le 11 Septembre, d’une aventure impérialiste mal
conduite et ratée, de la mauvaise administration et de la dégradation
de l’armée ou du comportement criminel des Américains en Irak, tout
le monde se sent “mal”, tout le monde exprime ses “regrets” – mais
personne, semble-t-il, ne se sent “responsable”. D’après le président
Bush (interviewé sur Al-Hurra), “nous croyons à la transparence parce
que nous sommes une société libre. C’est ce que font les sociétés
libres. S’il y a un problème, elles abordent ce problème de manière
franche et directe”. Sauf que, bien sûr, nous ne le faisons pas.

Car juste après, dans la phrase suivante, George W. Bush affirme à
son interlocuteur : “J’ai confiance dans le secrétaire de la défense
et j’ai confiance dans les commandants sur le terrain… parce que
eux et nos troupes font du bon travail pour le peuple irakien.” Les
commandants sont donc tirés d’affaire. Pendant ce temps, le New York
Times (6 mai) rapporte une petite histoire touchante sur les GI
déroutés et désemparés, les véritables auteurs des tortures, qui
prétendent avoir suivi les ordres / ne pas avoir reçu d’ordres /
avoir mal compris ces ordres / avoir été eux-mêmes mal compris /
avoir subi un stress important à ce moment-là / subir un stress
encore plus important à présent, et ainsi de suite.

Tout le monde est désolé que “ça” se soit produit. A moins que leurs
dirigeants puissent aller au- delà de cette réaction moralisatrice et
intéressée, les Etats-Unis vont avoir de gros problèmes. Si Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz ou le général Richard Myers étaient des
hommes d’honneur, ils auraient honte et démissionneraient. Mais ils
ne le sont pas. Si George W. Bush avait l’envergure d’un président,
il les aurait déjà virés et aurait assumé personnellement la pleine
responsabilité de leur incompétence. Par les temps qui courent,
toutefois, le président ne prendra certainement pas cette
responsabilité. Pourtant, seul ce type de devoir désuet est de nature
à rendre aux Etats-Unis leur place dans la communauté des nations.

Pour le reste du monde, les excuses de Bush ne sont que des exercices
pour limiter les dégâts. Ce même président, qui parlait de mener la
croisade de Dieu contre le Mal et qui se complaisait dans l’aura
d’autosatisfaction fournie par ses guerriers invincibles, va avoir du
mal à convaincre le reste de l’humanité qu’il s’intéresse réellement
à quelques Arabes brutalisés.

Comme l’ont montré les événements récents, l’Amérique, sous la
présidence de Bush, peut encore avilir et humilier ses ennemis. Mais
elle a perdu le respect de ses amis et elle perd rapidement le
respect d’elle-même. Voilà une raison d’être désolé.

Tony Judt est professeur d’études européennes et directeur du
Remarque Institute à l’université de New York.

Traduit de l’anglais (Etats-Unis) par Florence Lévy-Paoloni. ©Tony
Judt.

GEORGIAN FIRST LADY VISITED SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETIA

13.05.2004 17:37

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ May 12 spouse of the Georgian President Sandra
Saakashvili visited the Samtskhe-Javakhetian region mostly populated
by Armenians. She visited the market of Akhalkalaki town, familiarizing
herself with local prices. Then Sandra Saakashvili visited Poka village
of Ninotsminda region, where she met with acolytes of Georgian cloister
complex recently founded on the Parvana lakeside.

Fresno Bee (California)
May 4, 2004, Tuesday FINAL EDITION

Local devil was inspired by zoo’s Angel Fresno’s Sid Haig, known for
being a heel in cult films, will use his celebrity to aid Chaffee
Zoo.

Jody Murray THE FRESNO BEE

This is what 30-plus years of lunch-bucket toil as a Hollywood heavy
gets you. Cult stardom. Horror-film conventioneers tripping over
their tongues in your presence. One highly placed B-movie fan,
Quentin Tarantino, giving you a part in “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.”

And it was less than six decades ago that Sid Haig was performing a
Christmas skit with other children in the display window of the
downtown Fresno J.C. Penney.

Ah, kids. They grow up so quickly. Especially when they’re 10 pounds
at birth and stand 5 feet 7 inches tall by age 9.

Haig, now 64, 6 feet 4 inches tall and splitting his time between
homes in Fresno and Simi Valley, is semiretired from show business.
He lets the roles comes to him. He works when he wants to. He has a
second career as a hypnotherapist at a clinic in Tarzana.

But since last fall, he’s been heavy on the convention circuit,
hitting about two events a month. That’s not counting Saturday’s
appearance at Heroes comic book store in Fresno to benefit the
Chaffee Zoo.

Fans want to talk to him about movies such as “Spider Baby,” “The Big
Doll House” and “THX 1138.”

Some remember his turn as the evil Dragos in the kid show “Jason of
Star Command,” or his appearances in the original Pam Grier action
movies (“Foxy Brown,” “Coffy” and “Black Mama, White Mama”).

All of those roles, however, are at least 25 years old. His current
popularity is powered largely by a more recent character: Capt.
Spaulding, the malevolent master of ceremonies, in 2003’s “House of
1000 Corpses.” Haig got top billing in the movie, which was written
and directed by shock-rocker Rob Zombie.

Haig, a friend of Zombie, learned at Zombie’s wedding a few years ago
that the groom was writing a screenplay that plugged Haig into the
Spaulding role.

“Corpses” plays off the classic horror shtick of rain-soaked folks
stumbling across an isolated residence inhabited by unhinged freakos.

Spaulding, all bug-eyed and unnerving in a grimy Uncle Sam costume,
“is kind of the force that drives the innocent people to the house,”
Haig said. “Then everything just goes bad from there.”

The character didn’t die with the movie. He appears several times in
“Spookshow International,” a comic book that spins off from the film.

And later this month, filming begins on a “Corpses” sequel, “The
Devil’s Rejects,” with Haig back at blood-slickened center stage.

The book is what led Haig into Heroes one afternoon three months ago.
He wanted to see if the Fresno shop had copies of the title (it did).
The visit led to discussions with store owner Dave Allread. Those
talks spun into Saturday’s fund-raiser.

Haig will hang out at the shop and sign “Corpses” posters, comic
books and whatever else people push his way. (Parents, please note:
“Spookshow International” is an adult-themed comic.)

He also will sell various memorabilia from his career, with proceeds
going to the cash-strapped zoo.

Haig said he was inspired by Angel Arellano, who at age 9 made an
endearing appeal for zoo support that captivated the community and
led to more than $450,000 in donations.

“I thought, ‘I should be able to do something like that,’ ” he said.
“If you can’t make something of the celebrity you have, then what are
you doing, you know?”

That B-movie celebrity was enough to earn him a small role as Jay the
Bartender in the current hit “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.” His link to
Tarantino began a decade ago, when he just missed getting a role in
Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.” Two years later, the director cast him in
a bit role in “Jackie Brown,” which starred Grier; Haig said he got
the part because of his work in Grier’s early classics.

“He has a family of actors,” Haig said of Tarantino, “and he just
uses the same people over and over.”

Haig has been a performer for as long as he can remember. Born in
1939 in the heart of Fresno’s Armenian community (his birth name is
Sid Mosesian; Haig is his father’s first name), he was taking dance
classes at age 7. Music and theater were added to the mix as he grew
into his teens.

After graduating from Roosevelt High School, he and some friends
formed a band and cut a single called “Full House.” His career as a
rocker lasted only two years, though it helped him land an uncredited
role a few years later as The Righteous Brothers’ drummer in a “Beach
Ball,” a teen bikini movie.

>From 1960 through 1992, Haig went nearly nonstop through hundreds of
roles in film, television and theater. Producers saw his tall, blocky
build and rough-hewn features and plugged him into countless
tough-guy parts.

His movies had such titles as “The Don is Dead,” “Swashbuckler” and
“Commando Squad.” On TV, he popped up on “Gunsmoke,” “Fantasy
Island,” “Mission: Impossible” (nine episodes), “Star Trek” and
“Batman” (as a sidekick to Victor Buono’s villain, King Tut).

“I got a lot of work just because they knew I was going to show up on
time, I was going to do my homework and that I wasn’t going to make
problems on the set,” he said.

Years of playing the heavy eventually wore Haig down. He wanted to do
more in front of a camera, but he was not getting the chance.

“At that point in my career, such as it was, I thought, ‘These guys
aren’t getting it. They don’t understand I can do more than point a
gun at somebody,’ ” he says.

He stopped actively seeking roles in 1992. Five years later, he got
his certification as a hypnotherapist.

Nowadays, Haig is perfectly happy to pick and choose the
opportunities that cult status bestows — even if that status still
makes him shake his head in disbelief.

“I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it,” he said. “I’m still
amazed that anyone remembers any damn thing I did.”

The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or at (559)
441-6367.

INFOBOX

IF YOU GO

What: A fund-raiser for the Chaffee Zoo, featuring actor Sid Haig

When: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday

Where: Heroes comic book store,

110 E. Shaw Ave., Fresno

Details: (559) 229-4376

GRAPHIC: LIONS GATE FILMS Sid Haig had top billing for the 2003
horror film “House of 1000 Corpses.” He will sign posters from that
film and sell memorabilia Saturday at Heroes comic book store in
Fresno. Proceeds will be donated to Chaffee Zoo.