The Economist
May 8, 2004
U.S. Edition

Protest voters; Armenia

A strong president stays in charge

The chances of change in Armenia remain small

UNTIL recently, Armenia was quieter than its neighbours. Armenians
seemed to have little to complain of. The economy has racked up ten
years of growth, inflation is low, the currency stable. President
Robert Kocharian’s government has largely ensured access to light,
heat and other basics. Yet the opposition has been staging
increasingly noisy protests calling for the departure of Mr
Kocharian, whose March 2003 re-election was widely seen as
fraudulent. As a minimum, the opposition wants a referendum to test
support for the government, a compromise recommended by Armenia’s
constitutional court. Mr Kocharian has given dark warnings to
participants in “illegal” protest rallies, and arrested ringleaders.
Vehicles driving into Yerevan have been forced back, for fear they
might carry demonstrators. One 6,000-strong protest was greeted by
water cannons.

Armenia lacks some necessary ingredients for a Georgian “rose
revolution”. Corruption is rampant, and few people outside Yerevan
enjoy the fruits of growth. But Mr Kocharian is less widely hated
than was Edward Shevardnadze. Generous foreign aid—Armenia is one of
the biggest per-head recipients in the world—has obscured government
thievery. Mr Kocharian keeps a steely grip on the local airwaves, in
contrast to the thriving independent media of Georgia. Russia is
still a strong supporter. And the Americans, who helped to push out
Mr Shevardnadze, seem more concerned with stability than
democracy—though American presence in Armenia is quietly increasing.
The opposition is led by Stepan Demirchian, who lacks the charisma of
Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili. Many local observers fear that he and
Artashes Geghamian, another opposition leader, are more interested in
a turn at the trough than in real change. The marked absence of young
people at most protest rallies reflects a deep cynicism about
politics.

Meanwhile, the ten-year ceasefire in the war over the disputed
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is under strain. Azerbaijan’s president,
Ilham Aliev, has been sabre-rattling to drum up support. At a recent
World Economic Forum meeting in Warsaw, where the three Caucasian
presidents met, Mr Aliev dismissed any talk of freeing up trade until
Armenia stopped occupying part of his country. The blockade of
Armenia’s borders by Azerbaijan and Turkey looks like continuing. And
prospects for change in Armenia remain bleak.

United Press International
May 7, 2004 Friday

The Peter Principles: Prisoner’s base

By PETER ROFF

WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI)

The Bush administration’s public standing appears badly damaged by
the unfolding scandal that was kicked off by the discovery of
photographs seeming to show U.S. military personnel mistreating
inmates at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Since the revelations, Bush’s approval rating in the Gallup Poll
dropped 3 points, from 52 percent in mid-April to 49 percent in early
May. Those who said they disapproved of the way he is handling his
job as president increased by the same amount.

Like Claude Raines in Casablanca, there are any number of people who
claim they are “shocked, shocked” to discover that prisoners may have
been tortured or abused. While upsetting — and a potentially
damaging revelation as far as U.S. diplomatic relations with the Arab
world are concerned — the news is hardly Earth shaking. Anyone with
an even passing knowledge of what occurs in U.S. correctional
facilities on a daily basis is aware that prisons are not, to put it
mildly, nice places.

Prisoners are assaulted — and worse — on a regular basis by other
inmates and, if some claims are to be believed, also by their
warders. The same is true in countless prisons and detention
facilities throughout the world, some of the worst of which were
located in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. There, prisoners were routinely
tortured in unspeakable ways for political reasons or simply for
amusement.

While the purported incidents in the Abu Ghraib prison are disturbing
by U.S. standards, they are fairly benign when measured against what
goes on in the rest of the world. In reality, it is President George
Bush’s reaction that should really give the world pause, because it
explains yet again why the United States is different from most other
nations.

In remarks following his meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan,
comments certain to be broadcast throughout the Arab world, Bush
addressed the issue at length. The two leaders talked, Bush said,
“about what has been on the TV screens recently, not only in our own
country, but overseas — the images of cruelty and humiliation.”

“I told His Majesty as plainly as I could that the wrongdoers will be
brought to justice,” Bush said, “and that the actions of those folks
in Iraq do not represent the values of the United States of America.”

“I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi
prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him
I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures
didn’t understand the true nature and heart of America.”

And, in what may be one of the most remarkable admissions ever made
by a U.S. leader in wartime, “I assured him Americans, like me,
didn’t appreciate what we saw, that it made us sick to our stomachs.
I also made it clear to His Majesty that the troops we have in Iraq,
who are there for security and peace and freedom, are the finest of
the fine, fantastic United States citizens, who represent the very
best qualities of America: courage, love of freedom, compassion and
decency.”

In the Arab world, where much worse torture and abuse is routine if
not required, the president’s words must come as a true revelation.
The leader of the world’s most powerful nation humbled himself and
his country not just before its own citizens but before the people of
the world, admitting that an injustice had been done, not by another
nation but by the United States itself. More importantly is Bush’s
commitment that the perpetrators of the abuse would be punished and
that steps would be taken to insure that the abuse would not occur
again.

Other nations are rarely if ever as public in their expressions of
humility.

The People’s Republic of China has not apologized for the 1989
massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. The
Turkish government has never apologized for the slaughter of
Armenians. Neither the Soviets nor the members of the Commonwealth of
Independent States that succeeded it have fully atoned for the gulags
or uttered meaningful expressions of remorse for the pogroms
committed by the Czars against Russia’s once considerable Jewish
population.

The Japanese have never fully atoned for the infamous 1937 “Rape of
Nanking.” The British are still silent about their invention of the
concentration camp during the Boer War, the violence they perpetrated
against the Irish people over centuries and for not doing all they
could to alleviate 1942’s Bengal famine that killed at least 2
million people.

An even longer list of similar atrocities, against which the alleged
abuses in Abu Ghraib prison pale by comparison, could be assembled.
What is unique to the Abu Ghraib incident is not the abuse but the
apology.

That Abu Ghraib matters, not even but especially at the highest
levels of the U.S. government, should stand as proof before the world
that the United States is a great nation full of good people who can
do amazing things. It is not just a matter of not letting the single
bad apple spoil the entire barrel but a triumph of the idea that, in
the view of the United States, all men are created equal and should
be treated accordingly, with respect.

(The Peter Principles is a regular column on politics, culture and
the media by Peter Roff, UPI political analyst and 20-year veteran of
the Washington scene.)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Zaman, Turkey
May 8 2004

Taboos Hinder Publishing

“Diversity in society does is not reflected in publishing. Expression
of only one opinion is emphasized in Turkey, like in almost all other
countries, because of the influence of neo-liberal globalization,”
said journalist Ragip Duran during a meeting of the Turkish
Publishers Union (TYB).

The TYB met on Friday at Bilgi University Dolapdere Campus for the
first time since 1998. TYB President Cetin Tuzuner delivered the
opening speech, where he mentioned that the first TYB meeting was
held in 1936. “But we still have problems today because of the fact
that problems and issues discussed in previous congresses were never
resolved,” he said.

Journalist Ragip Duran participated in a session on the freedom of
publishing in Turkey, where he brought attention to the monopoly in
the sector. He said that diversity of opinion is not represented in
published works. Duran also mentioned that several taboos that could
prevent a work from being published. These include the Armenian
issue, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), Islam and Ataturk.

Meanwhile, Prof. Turgut Tarhanli claimed that the boundaries of
freedom of speech are not well defined. He said that the press’
biases on the issues of ethnic discrimination and violence are
particularly noticeable.

05.08.2004
Elif Tunca
Bursa

BBC News
Last Updated: Thursday, 6 May, 2004, 10:23 GMT 11:23 UK

Regions and territories: Ajaria

A mountainous semi-autonomous region of Georgia, Ajaria is situated on the
Black Sea coast on Georgia’s southwestern border with Turkey.

Its narrow band of coastal lowland has a lush sub-tropical climate while
high in the mountains there can be snow for six months of the year.

OVERVIEW

The port in the capital, Batumi, is used for the shipment of oil from
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from
Azerbaijan which arrives by pipeline to Supsa port and is transported from
there to Batumi by rail.

Batumi is also an important gateway for the shipment of goods heading into
Georgia, Azerbaijan and landlocked Armenia. The Ajarian capital is a centre
for shipbuilding and manufacturing. Ajaria has good land for growing tea,
citrus fruits and tobacco.

History

The people of Ajaria are ethnically Georgian and the region also has a
substantial Russian-speaking population. Under Ottoman rule from the 17th
until the 19th century Islam predominated. The word Ajarian came to mean a
Georgian Muslim.

In 1878 Ajaria was annexed by Russia and, following the Bolshevik
revolution, incorporated into Georgia as an autonomous republic within the
USSR. Under Stalin, Islam, like Christianity, was ruthlessly repressed.
Nowadays about half the population professes the Islamic faith.

Tensions erupt on the internal border between Georgia and Ajaria
Unlike the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Ajaria has been
spared major violence and ethnic unrest since Georgia became independent
after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The region was led between 1991 and May 2004 by Aslan Abashidze under whose
tight control it enjoyed political stability and relative economic
prosperity. Election results gave him at least 90% of the vote every time
and he ruled in what many observers described as an autocratic style.

Autonomy

Ajaria achieved a substantial degree of autonomy from Tbilisi, which accused
it of failing to pay a large proportion of the sum due in tax and customs
duties. It also had its own security and interior ministries which were
under the full control of the Ajarian leadership.

After Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown as Georgian president and the
results of the November 2003 elections were annulled, a state of emergency
was declared in Ajaria. Its leadership refused to recognise the full
authority of Mikhail Saakashvili as Georgian president.

Mr Saakashvili wanted to reassert control, abolish the Ajarian security
ministry and end what he said was corruption in the Ajarian tax and customs
authorities.

Standoff with Georgia

In a bid to assert his authority after he was prevented from entering Ajaria
in the run-up to the March 2004 elections, the Georgian president imposed an
economic blockade. It was lifted within days after talks between Mr
Saakashvili and Mr Abashidze.

However, the standoff grew increasingly ominous. In early May, Mr Abashidze
claimed that Georgian forces were preparing to invade. His forces blew up
bridges connecting the region with the rest of Georgia and pulled up rail
tracks, disrupting exports of Caspian oil from the port of Batumi.
Immediately afterwards, Mr Saakashvili gave the Ajarian leader 10 days in
which to comply with the Georgian constitution and start disarming or face
removal.

The Georgian president imposed direct rule on Ajaria on 5 May. Subsequently,
after talks with a Russian envoy, Mr Abashidze resigned and left the region.

Ties with Russia

Ajaria maintained close ties with Russia, which has a military base there –
a source of great tension with Tbilisi. Following the departure of Eduard
Shevardnadze, this tension rose still further when Russia eased entry visa
regulations for residents of Ajaria.

Developments unfolded under Moscow’s watchful eye. Russia had warned Tbilisi
that the use of force to resolve the situation would have “catastrophic
consequences”.

FACTS

Status: Autonomous region within Georgia
Population: 400,000
Capital: Batumi
Major languages: Georgian, Russian
Major religions: Islam, Christianity
Natural resources: Citrus fruit, tobacco, tea
Industry: Oil refining, shipping, manufacturing, wine-making

LEADERS

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili imposed direct presidential control
over the region on 5 May 2004. Hours later the Ajarian leader Aslan
Abashidze resigned, ending more than a decade in power by flying, with his
family, to Russia.

Georgian officials appointed an interim administration to run the region
pending elections in June and abolished the post of Ajarian leader.

Aslan Abashidze, a teacher turned Communist bureaucrat in the Soviet era,
was appointed leader in Ajaria by Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgian independence. He
proved remarkably adept at establishing absolute control.

Former Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze

Mr Abashidze was born in Batumi in 1938 into a family which has been
influential in Ajarian affairs for many years. Observers often described his
style of leadership as autocratic. Ajarian election results had always given
him 90% or more of the vote.

A family affair

All opposition was suppressed and the economic reins were firmly in his
hands. Close relatives of his late wife headed the important security and
interior ministries, and other relatives also held public office.

Mr Abashidze also played a prominent role in Georgian political affairs
outside Ajaria. He was leader of the Revival of Georgia political bloc which
was the main rival of Eduard Shevardnadze’s party in parliamentary elections
in 1999. He at first stood as a candidate in the Georgian presidential
elections of 2000 but withdrew, leaving victory in Mr Shevardnadze’s grasp.

When mass protests erupted over the conduct of the November 2003
parliamentary elections in Georgia, in which the Ajarian leader claimed 95%
of the regional vote, Mr Abashidze rallied to Mr Shevardnadze’ support. He
denounced Mr Shevardnadze’s overthrow as a coup and declared a state of
emergency in Ajaria.

Differences with Tbilisi

The pro-Western Mr Saakashvili insisted that the Russians pull out of their
base in Ajaria. The pro-Russian Mr Abashidze took a different view. Mr
Saakashvili vowed to bring Ajaria into the Georgian mainstream and eradicate
corruption and nepotism.

Mr Abashidze insisted he simply wished to retain the status quo and did not
want Ajaria to secede from Georgia. He had indicated that military force
remained an option should Mr Saakashvili try to enforce his wishes.

Despite what appeared to be frequent tensions between former President
Shevardnadze and Mr Abashidze, the two always managed to come to some
arrangement in the end.

MEDIA

The Ajarian authorities operate TV and radio networks in the region.

Reporters Without Borders, the media rights body, reported in 2004 that two
private Georgian TV stations had been banned from operating in Ajaria. It
added that five journalists had been physically assaulted.

Television

Adjara TV – operated by Ajarian authorities
Channel 25 – private
Radio

Radio Adjara – operated by Ajarian authorities

Karabakh
AGBU.org
April 2004

Kashatagh: Rebuilding in old Lachin
Karabakh

Vahan Ishkhanyan

Kashatagh may be the only region of “two Armenias” where there are no
magnificent villas or foreign cars. As one resident said, there are no rich
or poor here and all are equal.

Outsiders still know it as Lachin, famous for the corridor that was the
hard-won link between Armenia and Karabakh, gained during fierce fighting in
1992. But to the locals, this area retaken from Azerbaijan and made the
sixth region of Karabakh has regained its ancient name.

“Kashatagh is the land of our ancestors,” says head of administration of
Kashatagh Alexan Hakobian. “Armenians living here began thinning out 100
years ago and as a result of the policy conducted by Stalin it became a part
of Azerbaijan.”

For many Armenians, Kashatagh is an escape. It lacks the dramatic gap
between social classes seen in Stepanakert or Yerevan. Here, they can move
to a new region and start a new life where they become landowners instead of
refugees. With the exception of officials, it is hard to find any who say
they settled here for patriotic reasons.

Together with his wife and two children Karo Meseljian moved from Yerevan to
Berdzor (the city formerly known as Lachin). the provincial seat of
Kashatagh, two years ago. He left his older son in Yerevan with his parents
while he attends chess school there.

“In Yerevan everything gets on my nerves: bureaucrats, cops, traffic
police,” says Karo. “At every turn people’s pride is mortified. Trying to
get any document, people are dishonored. Here you feel like a human being
and don’t feel the influence of authorities on you. People understand each
other very easily here, they are friendly.”

In Yerevan, Karo had a small shop which was somewhat profitable. Now he
rents out that shop and has started a business in Berdzor, bringing goods
from Yerevan and selling them to local shops. “When I had a shop in Yerevan
every day I had to deal with bureaucrats,” he says. “I had good profit
there, but it is better to have small profit here than to see their faces.”

His wife, Gayaneh, is a nurse. She didn’t work in Yerevan, but in Berdzor
she works in a kindergarten. “When you work your life becomes more
interesting,” she says. “The staff is very good. We made new friends.”

People move to Kashatagh for many reasons. Some have sold their houses in
Armenia to cover debts, and come here to start debt-free living. Some young
couples want to start families separate from their parents. Most see the new
region of Karabakh as offering opportunities they don’t see in their old
homes.

And one can meet various types of former officials in Kashatagh. In one
village the director of the school is the former head of the Education
Department of Yerevan. In another village one of former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian’s security service raises cattle. Former Karabakh Minister of
Defense Samvel Babayan’s assistant is head of the Social Department.

After a decade of resettlement, the region of 300 square kilometers now has
about 13,000 residents. Of 127 settlements, only 57 have electricity.
(Authorities say villages in the southern part of the province should have
electricity within a year, however the northern parts don’t expect
electrical service for at least five years.)

There are two hospitals in the region, in Berdzor and in Kovsakan (formerly
Zangelan), the second largest town, near the border of Iran. Each community
has a nurse. At the Berdzor hospital, director Artsakh Buniatian insists on
keeping his hospital a place where residents can receive free treatment.

“If a doctor takes money from a patient he will be punished for that,” says
Buniatian, age 69. “However, we can’t treat all diseases and when we send a
patient to Yerevan or Goris then he finds himself in a completely different
world and falls into the hands of hawks, where they demand money and
medicines of him. There, residents of Kashatagh are taken for third rate
people, who cannot cover their treatment expenses.”

Eight doctors work in the Berdzor hospital. They earn 45,000 drams (about
$80) a month. Buniatian says that it is almost impossible to find a doctor
who will agree to work in the region. Nobody wants to come here and work
only for salary, without taking money for services, he says. Buniatian spent
the war working in a field hospital in Karabakh. After the war he again
returned to his former work, as a surgeon at a hospital in Abovian (just
north of Yerevan).

“I hadn’t seen my family for three years. Three daughters were waiting for
me. After the slaughter of war it was hard for me to adapt to civilian
medicine.”

While he was trying to adapt he was invited to Berdzor hospital’s opening
ceremony. “I was invited to spend two days, but, at the opening ceremony a
Karabakh Minister handed over the order of appointing me to this position,”
Buniatian says. “I thought that during the war I had been in so many
difficult places and now it is God’s will and it means that people need me.”

The surgeon’s abilities are limited by a lack of facilities and about the
most complicated case he can treat is appendicitis. “I used to perform any
type of difficult operation, but, what can I do,” he says. “I sacrificed my
skills to the war, and now to Kashatagh in this way.”

While laying the foundation for a new society, culture has not been ignored
in the resettling of Kashatagh.

In 1996 a Museum of History was opened in Berdzor, which now holds some 300
exhibits, including bronze and stone items that date to the 4th millennium
B.C. Armenian household items from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 19th
century show the rich heritage of the region. Most items in the museum were
collected by director Livera Hovhannisian, who before moving to Berdzor had
worked for 18 years in the Yerevan Museum of History.

“During one month, I had traveled in 47 villages and collected all these
exhibits to be in time for the museum’s opening,” she says. “Those days many
villages hadn’t been settled yet. Accompanied by two men, I was going to
every village by truck and we were searching and finding in every house
things we had been looking for. In one village we were fired upon. Residents
of that village hadn’t seen other people for a long period of time and when
they saw us they were very scared and thought we were Azeris.”

About 200 paintings are displayed in the gallery including works by
Parajanov and Carzou. Some paintings were sent from the Ministry of Culture
in Yerevan.

“The director of Yerevan Art Gallery said: ‘How can I give them to you? What
if this territory is retaken?’,” Hovhannisian recalls. “I said that if this
territory is retaken then let these paintings be lost with the territories.
And he agreed and gave 25 paintings.”

As Armenian life in previously enemy territory is formed, one feature, the
Church, lacks a significant presence in Kashatagh. In the entire province
the only functioning church is Holy Ascension, built in Berdzor in 1997.

In 2002, Diaspora benefactors restored a 4th century church in the village
of Tsitsernavank, however there are no clergy there. “We need at least three
clergymen in the north and three in the south,” says the only priest of the
region Ter Atanas. “People of the south need just one chapel but there is
nobody to give money and construct it.”

The highest settlement in Kashatagh is 1,700 meters above sea level; the
lowest, 330. In the mountainous north, life is harsh and most villagers
exist raising cattle. To the south, however, farms prosper from generous
growing seasons and fertile valleys of the Hakar River.

It was in such a valley that the first families resettled, mostly in
Tsaghkaberd (formerly Gyuliberd) where 70 families now live.

The Vardanian family, refugees from Kirovabad (Azerbaijan) were among the
first. “My husband knew that this area was populated and I took my children
and came here,” says Gohar Vardanian. “It was a good time for collecting
fruits. We collected many fruits and I told my husband, ‘Ashot, we will stay
here.’ We are here for 10 years now.”

Three Vardanian children finished school here and one now studies at
Stepanakert University. The family income is, literally, their “cash cow”.
Each year the Vardanians sell a calf to cover essential expenses. “My
children have already finished their service in the army,” Gohar says. “The
only thing left is to pay for my son’s education. I think this year we won’t
sell a calf.”

Like their neighbors, the Vardanians harvest mulberry, fig, quince and
pomegranate in addition to traditional crops. They make about 400 liters of
mulberry vodka each year. Residents had hoped that by now there would be
food processing plants in Kashatagh, but investments haven’t materialized.

And, though nature offers favorable conditions, many villagers rent out
their land because they cannot afford equipment to cultivate it. A typical
lease is about $25 per hectare, plus 200 kilograms of wheat.

“I have the land but how can I cultivate it if they don’t grant credits and
don’t give a seeding machine,” says school director Samvel Sedrakian, a
former Yerevan journalist. “I have eight hectares of land but I can’t sow
it. It’s true, villagers feed themselves, there are not hungry people, but
they cannot make any profits.”

Slava Tokhunts is an exception. He moved to Kashatagh from the Goris region
and brought a seeding machine with him. Every year he sows wheat on his 5.5
hectare property.

“I don’t ask anything from anybody and I can also help those who are
hungry,” he says. He makes cheese from milk of his six cows and then
barters the cheese for various items such as sugar and clothes. Selling
products out-right is difficult because trading involves going to one of the
towns in Armenia, and most villagers can’t manage such trips.

Over the past five years, the area of cultivated crop-lands has increased in
Kashatagh from 5,000 hectares to 12,000 hectares. The number of livestock
has increased to about 26,000 head (cattle, goats, sheep).

At the same time, the stream of migrants has tapered. Between 1997-98,
nearly 800 families moved to the province. Last year, 80 new families
settled there and about the same amount left.

“Sometimes I’m sad when people leave. But it’s normal that some of them will
come back,” says Berdzor official Alexan Hakobian. “It shows that the
process of repopulation is free and nobody is forced to live here.”

Karabakh
AGBU.org
April 2004

The Karabakh Question: After a decade of cease-fire, now what?
Karabakh

Tony Halpin

The ceasefire that ended the fighting in Nagorno Karabakh between Azerbaijan
and Armenian forces sees its 10th anniversary in May. It is a date that is
both a remarkable landmark and a symbol of the continued elusiveness of a
permanent solution to the conflict.

February marked an older anniversary, the 16th year since the emergence of
the Karabakh Movement that was the catalyst for the independence of Armenia.
The two events define the modern republic and its relationship with the
worldwide Diaspora, perhaps even more than recognition of the Genocide in
the immediacy of its importance for the future security of the Armenian
nation.

Few of the one million people who massed in the streets of Yerevan in those
early heady days of demonstrations would have predicted that Armenia would
have a Karabakhtsi as head of state within a decade and another as defense
minister. Fewer still might have believed that the “Karabakh Question” would
remain unsolved in the international arena.

That question is settled in the minds of the men and women on the street,
who have paid a terrible price in blood and endured massive economic
sacrifice to secure military victory and Artsakh’s (historic Armenian name
of Karabakh) independent status. But it remains open to interpretation in
the arena of international politics and there are many signs that 2004 will
see a marked increase in the pressure for a final settlement.

President Robert Kocharian occupies a unique position. His political
authority as a wartime leader and former President of Karabakh is viewed by
many as a guarantee that he won’t make concessions that undermine the
country’s de facto independence. Conversely, he is seen as someone who can
sell possibly painful concessions to the Armenian public, in Armenia,
Karabakh and further afield, precisely because of his political authority.
He runs the risk of being damned if he does, therefore, and damned if he
doesn’t.

The suggestion of compromise with Azerbaijan was enough to force former
president Levon Ter Petrosian from office in 1998, partly at the hands of
Kocharian, whom he had brought to Yerevan as Prime Minister. Kocharian does
not forget that he owes his present position to negative public reaction and
that he may lose it the same way.

That political crisis exposed a philosophical divide at the top of the
Armenian leadership. The Ter Petrosian faction considered a settlement to
the conflict an essential precondition of economic recovery for Armenia,
burdened by the impact of the Azerbaijani blockade and the cost of
sustaining the defense of Karabakh, and that it could be achieved through a
step-by-step process of confidence-building measures. Kocharian represented
the view that a stronger Armenian economy was possible without a settlement
and would improve the prospects of achieving one through an all-embracing
package deal.

The latter policy has dominated for five years now and Armenia’s economy has
certainly improved, recording the fastest growth of any former Soviet
republic in 2003. This year will likely put Kocharian’s argument to the
test: Has his hand been strengthened in striking a deal-or perhaps resisting
one-with Azerbaijan under the auspices of the international mediators in the
Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE)? Or has pursuit of a “package” solution over step-by-step measures
weakened Armenia’s bargaining position through delay?

About the only thing that unites the different elements of the divided
political landscape in Yerevan is the view that a settlement must
incorporate one of these two objectives. The gray area is what may be
conceded to achieve it and whether it is achievable at all in the face of
Azerbaijan’s repeated refusal to entertain any solution that does not leave
Karabakh under Baku’s jurisdiction.

The position of the government in Stepanakert is clear: Karabakh must either
be independent or reunited with Armenia. One of the ironies of Kocharian’s
elevation in Yerevan, however, has been Karabakh’s relegation from any
involvement in talks on its future status. Armenia used to argue that the
issue was best addressed by dialogue between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, in
which it was the guarantor of Karabakh’s security. Kocharian, however, has
taken upon himself the responsibility of representing the position of both
Karabakh and Armenia, dropping any pretense that the two may be separate.

In many ways this is only common sense (though diplomatically it may cause
problems). Stepanakert remains dependent on Yerevan for financial support,
encouragement of inward investment, and transport links to the wider world.
It could not support anything at odds with Armenia’s view of the conflict,
even assuming there were circumstances in which it would wish to.

Drive the road from Yerevan to Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh-the
linking Artsakh section built with money raised in the Diaspora-and the two
already feel as one. Nothing any longer defines the strip of land between
Armenia and Artsakh as Azeri territory. Only a road sign and a traffic
police post mark the passage into Nagorno Karabakh Republic, as if you were
driving from one region of Armenia into another.

Kocharian has made plain that a final settlement must include a common
border between Armenia and Artsakh and it is inconceivable that it could be
any other way now. The land between the two is being populated with Armenian
families, creating facts on the ground that the Minsk Group mediators will
find impossible to ignore.

The secrecy that envelopes the negotiating process, however, makes it almost
impossible to divine the shape of the settlement being put together by the
mediators. Kocharian and the late Heydar Aliyev were believed to have
achieved the outline of a deal at the Key West summit hosted by Secretary of
State Colin Powell in 2001, only for it to break down after the latter
balked at selling it to his public.

With power now passed to Aliyev’s son Ilham as president, the question is
whether discussions pick up where they left off or whether the new Aliyev
has a different perspective on the future shape of a deal. Kocharian’s
meeting with him in Geneva late last year was little more than an
opportunity to look his opponent in the eye to see what measure of a man he
was dealing with. The hard bargaining remains and always with the risk that
the outcome may be derailed by negative public reaction in either country
once the details are revealed. In that regard, Kocharian’s recent offer to
put any proposals to a referendum can be viewed in two lights. Approval by
the public narrows the scope for being ousted by hardliners in the manner of
Ter Petrosian. Kocharian also knows that public rejection in a vote offers
him an escape route from international pressure to agree to an
unsatisfactory deal involving, for example, an exchange of territory
involving the southern Meghri region.

Two issues could break the deadlock. One, inevitably, is oil. Construction
of the pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan in Turkey is well advanced and oil is
expected to start flowing by the middle of next year. Azerbaijan is on the
brink of a boom in which it expects to earn some $20 billion in oil revenues
over the next two decades. For comparison, Armenia’s total state budget this
year is about $480 million.

It does not follow, as some commentators insist, that a newly wealthy
Azerbaijan will rearm for the specific purpose of launching a war of
“liberation” over Karabakh. Desperate people fight because they have nothing
to lose. The more comfortable life becomes in Baku, the less likely its
young men will be willing to exchange the pleasures of a consumer life for
the prospect of a painful death in a land most will never have seen. Far
from fueling conflict, oil may give Azerbaijan a reason to avoid war and an
incentive to seek a deal with Armenia. Azeri prosperity, therefore, may
become a security goal for Armenia and certainly a bargaining chip in
securing a settlement that allows Baku to enjoy the fruits of its good
fortune while giving Karabakh effective independence.

The second issue relates to Kocharian’s changed status. With the senior
Aliyev’s death and the sudden demise of Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia’s
“rose revolution”, Armenia’s president has gone from junior head of state to
elder statesman of the Caucasus. Georgia’s new young president Mikhail
Saakashvili has already expressed a determination to build closer ties with
Armenia. Separatist movements in different parts of Georgia present him with
considerable challenges in holding his country together.

It may be that Kocharian can achieve a permanent solution to the Karabakh
issue by enlarging the context to include a broader common view of Caucasus
stability. All three countries in the region have an interest in avoiding
war and promoting prosperity, yet each is locked into narrow ethnic
conflicts whose resolution appear to demand a winner and a loser. Seeking
common approaches to securing minority rights may permit them to escape the
traps of a Soviet landscape that was never designed to serve their
interests.

Perhaps his seniority would give Kocharian an opportunity to take just such
an initiative. Now into his second term, he knows that history’s judgement
of him will be shaped by his ability to settle the Karabakh Question, the
issue that formed him as a man and that brought him to the presidency. He
feels the pressure of time. It remains to be seen whether 2004 will provide
the opportunity for him to seize the moment.

Saturday, May 8, 2004
Armenian group releases latest Bedoukian ‘Studies’
World Coin News

The Armenian Numismatic Society has published the second volume of Dr. Paul
Z. Bedoukian’s Selected Numismatic Studies.

Bedoukian is considered the foremost authority in the study of Armenian
numismatics. His great knowledge of chemistry, metallurgy and Armenian
history has greatly added to the numismatic field.

The non-proft ANS was founded in 1971 and is the only Armenian numismatic
organization in existence. It publishes a number of books and journals of
Armenian ancient and medieval coins.

For more information on prices and ordering, write to: Armenian Numismatic
Society, Attn: Y.T. Nercessian, 8511 Beverly Park Place, Pico Rivera, CA
90660, or call (562) 695-0380.

TELECOM ITALIA MASTERS
Rome, Italy
May 8, 2004
Nalbandian, Moya to Clash in Rome Final

© Getty Images
Fifth seed David Nalbandian and sixth seed Carlos Moya will meet in a
blockbuster final of the Telecom Italia Masters in Rome on Sunday after
different semifinal victories Saturday.

Moya denied an all-Argentina final when on Saturday he clipped Mariano
Zabaleta 6-3, 6-4, which followed his crushing quarterfinal victory over
Andrei Pavel, in which Moya conceded just three games.

Moya advances to his fifth different ATP Masters Series final (Indian Wells,
Miami, Monte Carlo and Cincinnati) and this year alone he has reached five
ATP finals on five continents.

Nalbandian rallied from a set down to defeat 2002 Roland Garros champion
Albert Costa 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-4. He is chasing his first ATP title since Basel
in 2002. Since returning from a six-week injury lay-off last month,
Nalbandian has reached quarterfinals in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and now the
Rome final.

WHAT THE PLAYERS SAID
Nalbandian: “It wasn’t an easy week with the rain and everything. I played
two matches one day, which is quite tiring. Tomorrow it is going to be
another difficult match, but you have to be 100% because it is a Masters
Series final and you don’t play one every day.”

On a very long game, when he broke at 4-all in the final set against Costa:
“Yeah, very difficult. I have a lot of chances to break it. Was very, very
tough but I tried to keep my focus on my return, on my game. But I think I
make it in the 4-all, so that’s very important.”

Moya: “Well, I knew that it was a matter of time because I like the
tournament, I feel well here, I like the courts, is a clay court tournament.
So there was no reason that I didn’t do well the past years. So I knew that
this year or the next one or maybe two years I was gonna play well, so looks
like this year.”

“I came here very confident, and I won the first two matches and I got more
confidence even, and now I’m in the final. So, I mean, it’s been a great
week so far for me. I’m in a Masters Series final. It doesn’t happen every
day, so I’ll try to enjoy tomorrow and try to win my third title as a
Masters Series.”

Karabakh
AGBU.org
April 2004

City of Dreams? Karabakh’s center of culture hangs on and hopes
Karabakh

Marianna Grigoryan and Sona Danielyan

Gray-haired and aged by war and hardship, 68-year old Rima Danielian moves
with care down the edge of a bluff approaching a row of unremarkable shops
in her town, Shushi.

She passes children coming home from school who are growing up in a Shushi
far different than the one Rima sees in her memory.

“My city is the most beautiful,” says Rima. “For centuries Shushi had been
considered as the heart and center of culture of Artsakh. And today it seems
life has become silent. Many things have changed.”

In fact, in the decade since Shushi-on its strategic vantage point
overlooking the capital, Stepanakert the site of prolonged and vicious
fighting between Armenian and Azeri forces-almost everything has changed.

Rima’s memory is good and its facts well known. Before the war, Shushi had
12,000 residents. It was a beacon of culture, a center of art, of publishing
and of a refined life that, if found in Shushi today, is somewhere under the
city’s scarred exterior where 3,500 hang on.

A Borrowed Life: Roosters announce the beginning of the day in Shushi, soon
followed by the ringing of bells at St. Ghazanchetsots Church-33 clangs from
the tower, one for each year of Christ’s life.

The bells mark the beginning of Anahit Danielian’s working day. She sells
candles at the church and says that even though most of her neighbors have
nothing to do with their days, even the poorest ones come to pray; probably
for a better life.

“It’s true that it seems that people’s life conditions don’t change,” Anahit
says. “But in recent years people have been getting married more often and
it delights the heart.” It has become tradition, she says, for couples from
Stepanakert (about 10 kilometers away) to come to the church for their
weddings.

And the occasion to have outsiders in Shushi is welcomed by owners of the
little shops that are evidence of the commerce of necessity, even in a
skeleton of a city.

“Residents of Shushi mainly buy vermicelli, sugar, oil and cheap vodka,”
says 24-year old Liana Harutyunian, a shop worker. But “buy” is not exactly
the right word. “They mainly borrow,” she says. There are two bottles of
champagne on her shelf, so long there that Liana can’t remember where they
came from.

“Sometimes those who come from Stepanakert for wedding ceremonies plunge
themselves into excesses like that if, of course, they forget to bring that
stuff with them. Such things are not for residents of Shushi.”

Liana moved to Shushi from Masis six years ago with her two little girls and
says that they couldn’t live and exist here if her parents didn’t help them
by sending flour, potatoes and other necessary foodstuff from Masis.

“Many people don’t work but I have a job,” Liana says. “However, for two
months I haven’t been getting my monthly 15,000 thousand drams (about $26).
She shows a notebook in which she keeps a record of “borrowed” food. “Only
this copybook grows thicker and thicker. This month people’s debt to the
shop has become more than 100,000 drams (about $177).”

Buying on credit has become a way of life that, for many, is necessary but
humiliating.

Stella Hakobian has seven children and receives a government subsidy for
having a large family-an incentive by the State. “Every month the owner of
the shop gets my children’s allowances,” says Stella, who moved to Shushi
from Hrazdan, a town north of Yerevan. “During the month we take some things
from the shop and then take my children’s allowances directly to the shop.
This is how our debts are covered.”

Stella recently was given an apartment, another perk of having a large
family. She and her children have a three-bedroom flat, but the only
furniture in it is beds. “We have no job,” says Stella. “The only good thing
is that in winters we can go ‘sticking’ in the neighborhood forest for wood
to heat our apartment. And in the spring we pick berries and sell them for
cheap prices to earn money.”

Shushi has not recovered in any comparable way with the development that has
taken place in neighboring Stepanakert. And while the number of “large”
families (having four or more children) is increasing in response to the
State programs, the overall birth rate has dropped, officials say.

“When we were at war we thought everything would be ok,” says veteran
Karineh Danielian. “However, it was understood that there would be
difficulties in the future. Anyway, hope still lives.”

Culture as Pastime: City leaders say that Shushi’s future lies in finding a
way to keep its young people and assure a future for them in their city.

“The majority of young people don’t think about leaving the city because
they haven’t got enough opportunities for thinking about it,” says 22-year
old Armen Poghosian. “For many of them a marshrutka (Russian for mini-bus)
ticket from Shushi to Yerevan is as much as the sum they spend for living
during a month.”

But even in the diminished version of its former self, Shushi shows glimpses
of what it once was, and efforts are made at providing a “normal” life that
would encourage youth to stay.

In fact, cultural life shows the most obvious development in Shushi.

In this place of damaged and vacant buildings one can find an arts college,
a drama theater, a puppet theater, a choir, a quartet, a dance group, and
the list can continue. A few summers ago an arts festival was even started.

The State Humanitarian College named after Arsen Khachatrian is the only
educational option given to students from Shushi and neighboring or remote
villages. The college mainly teaches various arts and crafts such as
painting, carpet making, decorative art, etc.

In May 2003, a technical school was renamed into the college, which, though
small, is a sign of Westernization in a place that seems largely detached
from the rest of the world-or more connected to its former Soviet regime.

The college was reopened in 1992 after the liberation of Shushi. Today the
college has 181 students, ranging in age from 15 to 23.

During a recent day in the winter session at the college, students gathered
to discuss the topic: “Love, Marriage, Family and Law”, while teachers sat
at a table to moderate the discussion.

After a short introduction students discussed questions on divorce, on
children’s rights and whether love is enough reason to get married, and
looked for answers from their experienced teachers.

As is often the case in small towns, the youth of Shushi and their teachers
have relationships that are open and relaxed. After the day’s special
program they all met to sing songs, read poetry, dance, eat, drink, then
dance and sing some more. The scene, not typically found in institutions of
learning, for example, in Yerevan provides a glimpse of life in Shushi.

Such events are a big thing for the youngsters here. It is noticeable that
the day was planned with great care, especially through the way the girls
prepared themselves in their best manner.

Shushi doesn’t offer many opportunities, outside school, for its younger
generation to socialize and even then, the events are restricted to daylight
hours. When the sun goes down, activity is mostly limited inside apartments
among family.

Our future is vague, the youngsters say. And they complain that their city
of rich cultural heritage is too often overlooked.

“Stepanakert is Karabakh’s advertising town,” says David Avagimian, age 22,
who joins other actors at the puppet theater after school. “For some reason
they prefer to concentrate everything there.”

The kids at the puppet theater say officials making promises to revive
Shushi’s cultural life don’t seem to understand that culture is all that’s
developing in Shushi.

In fact the only singing ensemble in Karabakh is from Shushi (so, too, is a
former “Miss Karabakh”).

First it was a quintet founded in 2000 by girls singing in Shushi’s Varanda
choir, and now it is a quartet called Nareh who have become celebrities in
Karabakh.

Karine,19, Alina 27, Christina 23 and Gayane 22, have taken part in some
folk and pop festivals in Stepanakert where they’ve taken first place. The
girls are mainly performing folk songs but in a modern way.

First they would travel around Karabakh and perform for free, just to become
known. Sometimes they get paid today and they consider $200 ($50 each) a
fair price. However they don’t always get that much.

“If we have a good sponsor we’ll get promoted,” says Gayane. “If not we’ll
stay here and no one will probably know about us except Karabakh.”

Anush Danielian, 22, says she dreams of having an Internet café in Shushi to
connect youth with each other and the outside world. “The only thing we do
now is visit each other, but that gets old.

“All of us have interesting dreams but to make them come true we need
opportunities. And if dreams and possibilities coincided with each other,
then Shushi would become the city of our dreams.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Internews
May 7 2004

Armenia Hosts its First Youth Film Festival

Internews Armenia Programs Manager David Matevossian granting an
award to the film “Noradus.”
(May 6, 2004) Internews presented a special incentive prize to two
young Armenian filmmakers, Artak Margaryan and Susan Simonyan, during
the first youth film festival in Armenia.

The special prize – a certificate and 200 US dollars – was presented
by Internews Programs Manager David Matevossian for camera work and
sound design in the documentary, `Noradus,’ a film that highlights
the history and present concerns of an Armenian village near Lake
Sevan, one of the largest high altitude lakes in the world.

More than 160 films were featured at the `It’s Me’ Film Festival in
Yerevan held April 25 through May 2 and organized by the
Cinematographers’ Union of Armenia, the Institute of Cinema and
Theatre and Internews. The festival brought together young filmmakers
from Armenia, Russia, Syria, Iran, Canada and France.

The grand prize went to Yevgenya Shekoyan for her film `There I saw
the World,’ which was distributed to Armenian TV stations by
Internews under the Open Skies project, `Films of Crisis Times.’ A
film produced during an Internews training project about a children’s
development center was among the finalists and was screened at the
festival.

Internews Armenia is funded by grants from the United States Agency
for International Development.