The Globe and Mail, Canada
April 2 2004

Bloodbath in the making

Ten years after Rwanda, the world must not abandon Sudan, says
GREGORY STANTON of Genocide Watch

By GREGORY STANTON

Ten years ago, the world abandoned Rwanda’s Tutsis to genocide. An
estimated 800,000 people were murdered by their Hutu neighbours.
Although a heroic Canadian general, Roméo Dallaire, requested
reinforcements for the 2,500 United Nations peacekeepers in Rwanda
and a mandate to stop the genocide, the UN Security Council instead
voted to withdraw UN troops. We watched and washed our hands.

Today 800,000 Africans from Darfur, Sudan, have been driven from
their homes by Arab militias, supported by Sudanese government air
strikes, in the worst case of ethnic cleansing since Kosovo. About
700,000 are in camps inside Sudan that are closed to relief
organizations and the press. More than 100,000 have fled across the
desert border into Chad, where they are dying of hunger and thirst. A
thousand people die daily.

Armed by the Sudanese government, the Arab Janjaweed militias murder,
rape, and pillage African villages with impunity. Their leaders
credit the “Arab race” with “civilization,” and consider black
Africans to be abd (male slaves) and kahdim (female slaves). In
Tweila, North Darfur, on Feb. 27, according to the UN Darfur Task
Force, the Janjaweed and Sudanese army murdered at least 200 people
and gang-raped more than 200 girls and women, many in front of their
fathers and husbands, who were then killed. The Janjaweed branded
those they raped on their hands to mark them permanently so they
would be shunned.

Genocidal massacres and mass rape are the tactics of ethnic
cleansing. Their intent is to terrorize Africans such as the Fur,
Massaleit, and Zaghawa into leaving Darfur, where an African kingdom
and sultanate ruled for 2,000 years.

Genocide is the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Ethnic cleansing is not
quite genocide, because its intent is the expulsion, rather than
physical destruction of a group. But genocidal massacres are a common
tactic. The Arab militias of Darfur want to drive out black Africans
because they want to confiscate their grazing lands, water resources
and cattle.

Farther south, the Sudanese government wants to confiscate rich oil
reserves under the lands of the Nuer, Dinka, Shilluk, Nuba and other
black African groups. A 20-year civil war has driven thousands of
Africans into refugee camps, which the Sudanese air force has
regularly bombed. The Khartoum government has repeatedly cut off food
aid. More than two million people have died.

A “peace process” mediated by the United States, Britain, Norway and
Italy is hammering out an agreement to end the civil war in the
south. Recently there was much exultation when the Sudanese
government and southern rebel leaders agreed to divide up the oil
revenues. But you can be sure no African peasants will ever see a
penny of the money. You can also be sure that in five years, when the
southerners are to decide on self-determination, the northern Arabs
won’t let them.

Many governments and human-rights groups now call for another peace
process. They also call for another UN relief program for the
refugees and displaced persons. Both are needed. But neither will
solve the fundamental problem, which is the genocidal nature of the
government in Khartoum. Ethnic cleansings in Sudan will end only when
President Omar al-Bashir’s government is overthrown.

Diplomats always prefer “peace processes.” But in Arusha, Tanzania,
in 1993-94, the “peace process” was a sideshow that distracted
attention from preparations for genocide in Rwanda. In Sudan, as in
Rwanda, diplomats see their job as “conflict resolution.” Genocide
isn’t conflict; it’s one-sided mass murder. Jews had no conflict with
Nazis. Armenians posed no threat to Turks. Tutsis did not advocate
mass murder of Rwandan Hutus. Conflict resolution isn’t genocide
prevention.

The Darfur ethnic cleansing has already spilled over the Chad border.
As a threat to international peace, it should be on the agenda of the
UN Security Council. But the UN will be paralyzed by Arab League and
Non-Aligned Movement solidarity, and Canada and the European Union
won’t act without UN authorization. The U.S. and Britain have more
than they can handle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why, 10 years after Rwanda, has the world reacted so slowly to ethnic
cleansing in Darfur?

Racism is one reason. African lives still are not seen to equal the
value of the lives of Kosovars and other white people, who are inside
our circle of moral concern.

National sovereignty is another. The norm of international law is
still against intervention, even when a government has forfeited its
own claim to legitimacy by committing genocide or ethnic cleansing
against its own people.

Also, the world’s leaders know they can kill with impunity. The
International Criminal Court does not have universal jurisdiction
unless a situation is referred to it by the UN Security Council. The
United States will prevent that. Sudan has not ratified the ICC
treaty, so is not subject to it.

Finally there is our indifference. We still don’t care enough to
demand that our political leaders send our sons and daughters to
prevent and stop genocides.

Two years ago, Genocide Watch and the International Campaign to End
Genocide called for the appointment of a UN Secretary-General’s
special adviser for genocide prevention, to warn the UN Security
Council of incipient genocide and ethnic cleansing. We hope Kofi
Annan will announce the creation of such a position on April 7, the
anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide.

We need military forces that can intervene with heavy infantry to
prevent or stop genocides when they begin. Canada has led the way in
preparing its armed forces for international peacekeeping. We are
hopeful about the European Union’s creation of a Rapid Response
Force, and the EU deployment to the Eastern Congo. The African
Union’s announcement that it will create a similar force is a sign
that “never again” may become more than an empty slogan.

We need a world movement to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing, an
effort as great as the anti-slavery movement. Ultimately, preventing
genocide and ethnic cleansing means creating the political will in
our leaders to lead. We must tell them that never again will we
believe their excuses that they didn’t know. Never again will we
excuse their failure to act. Never again will we forget that we are
all members of the same race, the human race.

Gregory H. Stanton is president of Washington-based Genocide Watch.
He served in the U.S. State Department from 1992 to 1999, where he
wrote the UN resolutions that created the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda.

Armenian president briefs European envoys

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
1 Apr 04

[Presenter over video of meeting] President Robert Kocharyan has met
the ambassadors of the EU member countries accredited to Armenia, the
representative of the European Commission and Polish charge
d’affaires.

Robert Kocharyan welcomed Armenia’s involvement in the Wider Europe:
New Neighbourhood programme.

The participants in the meeting touched also upon the republic’s
domestic situation. They agreed that the main task is to preserve
stability in the country, which is the guarantee of current and future
development.

The president also outlined the current situation in the settlement of
the Karabakh problem and official Yerevan’s approaches to it.

Three killed in cable car accident in Armenian capital

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
2 Apr 04

[Presenter over video of a crashed cable car] At least three people
have been killed in a Yerevan cable car accident. The tragic accident
took place at 1420 [0920 gmt] today. Seven people were injured and
rushed to hospital. One of them died on the way to hospital. According
to witnesses, the cable car, which was coming down from Nork hill to
the city centre, came off the cable and fell down from a height of
15-20 m into a courtyard.

Many ambulances have arrived at the scene. Employees of the State
Emergencies Department arrived at the scene recently. People from
nearby houses rendered first aide to the victims. Details of the
accident are being clarified.

The Globe and Mail, Canada
April 2 2004

Soprano soars with passion, panache

TSO program features a miscellany of good things and ends with a zinger

By KEN WINTERS
Special to The Globe and Mail

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Isabel Bayrakdarian, soprano
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor/pianist
At Roy Thomson Hall
In Toronto on Wednesday

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s concert Wednesday at Roy Thomson
Hall was very much a “this, that, these, them and those” affair,
musically verging on the miscellaneous, though full of good things,
including the services of the trimmed down and remodelled conductor
laureate Sir Andrew Davis and the superb, gorgeously gowned young
Canadian-Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian.

The “those” (of my opening conceit) were the Symphonies of Wind
Instruments by Igor Stravinsky, which began the concert and which
would have been another of the good things in another context. These
tiny, severely elegant pieces are not symphonies in the 19th-century,
symphonic-hall sense of the word. In them, Stravinsky returned to the
original meaning of the word symphony: “a sounding together of
instruments.”

To achieve the very particular “soundings-together” he had in mind,
he used only 21 wind instruments to create what he called “an austere
ritual . . . unfolded in terms of short litanies between different
groups of homogeneous instruments.”

In other words, a large but not very large chamber piece, almost by
definition out of place in Roy Thomson Hall, however neatly done by
Sir Andrew and the Toronto Symphony winds.

The “this” was Mozart’s Concert-Rondo in A, K. 386, a beguiling
little movement for piano solo, two oboes, two horns and strings,
which Mozart had left only partially orchestrated.

Sir Andrew had completed the orchestration, and in Wednesday’s
performance he both conducted and played the solo, the latter
stylishly if not impeccably. (He was fine in the lyric bits but he
fudged the pyrotechnics.) But the Rondo was nicely placed between the
“these,” a brace of arias from the young Mozart’s opera Il Re
pastore, K. 208, and the great concert aria with obbligato piano Non
temer amato bene, K.505, which the mature Mozart composed for himself
as pianist and the English soprano Nancy Storace (who had been his
Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro) to perform at her farewell Vienna
concert.

Isabel Bayrakdarian sang all three arias exquisitely, her radiant
soprano calmed for the first aria, brilliant for the second and
impassioned for the concert piece, with Sir Andrew graduating from
the Rondo to Mozart’s own role in the last, again playing very well
except in the fancy bits.

The “them” were two Rossini arias, the one Miss Bayrakdarian did sing
after intermission and the one she didn’t but might have sung as well
if the Stravinsky had been replaced by something more in keeping with
the rest of the occasion.

The one she sang, with stunning panache, was En proie à la tristesse
from Le Comte Ory. The contrasting one she didn’t sing, alas, might
have been the beautiful Willow Song from Rossini’s Otello (less
famous but more lovely even than Verdi’s), or possibly the melting
Sombre forêt from the same composer’s dramatic masterpiece Guillaume
Tell.

But all musical errors and omissions were redeemed by the splendid
“that” which ended the program: Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, in a
zinger of a performance, with Sir Andrew and the orchestra at their
sonic and rhythmic best, which is saying quite a lot.

Armenian opposition slams prosecutor for taking action against rally-goers

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
1 Apr 04

[Presenter] The first figures of the Justice bloc held a press
conference today [in connection with the criminal cases against
opposition members following a rally on 28 March].

[Correspondent over video of the press conference] On Thursday [1
April], the Justice bloc held a press conference which was devoted to
the statement of the Prosecutor-General’s Office issued on 31
March. The activists of the Justice bloc assessed the decision of the
Prosecutor-General’s Office as an unprecedented attempt at political
harassment. Speaking about the steps and measures taken by the
Prosecutor’s Office, Albert Bazeyan (Republic Party leader) did not
deny that they (opposition) had weapons and ammunition. We have a lot
of weapons and this is legal, the chairman of the Republic Party said.

The leaders of the Justice bloc stated that the actions of the
Prosecutor’s Office were illegal. The question is that they
[opposition] were having only a meeting with their voters. The
developments of the recent days, as Albert Bazeyan noted, prove that
the struggle is moving from the political field to the confrontational
field. The Justice bloc confirms that it has closed ranks to speed up
the process of changing power.

[Stepan Demirchyan, leader of the Justice bloc] We have done and will
do everything possible to stage these actions peacefully to the very
end for the sake of our state and nation.

[Correspondent] The Justice bloc stated that the illegitimate
president and his underlings are responsible for the explosive
situation in the country.

Nune Aleksanyan, Aylur.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State info agency
April 2 2004

MOSCOW DECLARATION MEETS AZERBAIJAN INTERESTS
[April 02, 2004, 15:27:06]

A meeting of the Milli Majlis Standing Commission on Security and
Defense Affairs was held on April 1 to discuss the draft laws `On
Ratification of Moscow Declaration of the Republic of Azerbaijan and
the Russian Federation’, `Agreement on Mutual Secret Data Protection
between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Government
the Russian Federation’, and `On Introducing Amendments and
Supplements in Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of
Azerbaijan’.

Deputy Chairman of the Milli Majlis, Chair of the Commission Ziyafat
Asgarov said the Moscow Declaration whose foundation was laid by our
nationwide leader Heydar Aliyev, would play an important role in
development of Azerbaijan-Russia strategic partnership.

The document was signed in the course of the President of Azerbaijan
Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Moscow in February. The Declaration says that
the parties pursue joint activity in political, trade and economic,
humanitarian, security and defense, universal and regional spheres,
as well as in the Caspian. The document also confirms that Russia
recognizes territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, stands for
unconditional fulfillment of the resolutions of UN Security Council
and OSCE concerning Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
and bilateral military cooperation not directed against the third
party.

The three draft laws have been decided to be submitted to the Milli
Majlis for discussion.

Attack on Armenian rights activist “state terror”, wife says

A1+ web site
1 Apr 04

The chairwoman of the Pen club, Anna Akopyan, who is the wife of the
chairman of the Helsinki Association, Mikael Daniyelyan, has described
the violence against her husband as terror. “I expected it,” she said,
adding that the development was to be predicted from the publications
in the pro-government press.

She said that insults had been published against Mikael Daniyelyan,
but he had not responded as he would not stoop to that level.

Anna Akopyan said that Mikael Daniyelyan had described the accident as
“obvious state terror”. He monitors the authorities’ behaviour and
cannot neglect those in trouble. “In their time the Dashnaks were in
trouble, tomorrow it could be [President Robert] Kocharyan,” the
victim’s wife said.

At the same time she is sure that there are many who speak out against
the authorities now. “But why Mikael? Because he speaks harshly,
pulling no punches.”

Has a criminal case been instituted? “No. I call it state terror,
because it took me four hours to manage to bring policemen to the
scene. They came and found that Mikael was not able to speak and they
said they would come later. They have not yet come,” the chairwoman
of the Pen club said.

One of the journalists asked why this incident was politicized. “Are
not the examples of Mark Grigoryan, Nikol Pashinyan, A1+, Tigran
Ayrapetyan enough? How many examples like this do you need to
convince you that they are all ordered from above?” Anna Akopyan said
in conclusion.

Interfax
April 2 2004

Foreign investment in Armenian economy up 5.6% in 2003

Moscow. (Interfax) – Foreign investments in Armenia’s economy in 2003
totaled $229.6 million, a 5.6% increase from 2002, the country’s
National Statistics Service told Interfax. Direct foreign investment
increased 8.9% to $153 million.

In particular, investment from Russia jumped 92.2% to $91.8 million,
from the United States 9.2% to $10.7 million and from Greece 55.4% to
$29.3 million. German investments were up 32.5 times at $1.8 million.

Armenia’s communications sector attracted $29.3 million, its food
industry $12.9 million and iron ore extraction business $122 million.

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
April 2, 2004

COMMUNIQUE FROM THE SUPREME SPIRITUAL COUNCIL

With deep concern, the Supreme Spiritual Council received the news from the
Diocesan Council of the Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Church, that the
Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia has brought to its painful
conclusion, the process of the establishment of a parallel administrative
structure within the region of the Canadian Armenian Diocese, canonically
comprised as part of the Pontificate of All Armenians, in spite of the
fraternal exhortations made by the Catholicos of All Armenians and the
Supreme Spiritual Council.

This move has neither justifiable explanation nor foundation whatsoever,
from ecclesiological or hierarchical perspectives, or within the context of
the unspoiled preservation of the spiritual unanimity of the Armenian
people. The issue is more than the establishment of one more un-canonical
diocese. It is the confirmation that the Catholicosate of the Great House
of Cilicia, is not ready to reconsider its divisive spirit adopted in 1956,
and in accord with the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, to reestablish the
canonical status within the Armenian Church. In spite of its assurances of
being dedicated to the motto “One Nation, One Homeland, and One Church”, the
Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, with “new reorganizations” is
attempting to persistently expand and to solidify the dioceses it seized
with political motivations, from the Catholicosate of All Armenians during
the years of the cold war, deepening the division within the Armenian
Church, and jeopardizing the improved relations which began in 1988 with the
Mother See.

The Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia does not desire to see the
changed circumstances prevailing in this present world or the imperatives
conditioned by the reality of the independence of the Homeland, nor does it
value the spirit of the new era, which proposes the demand to reestablish
and keep unspoiled the unity of the Armenian Church and Nation.

Any attempt to breach the unanimity and unity of our people dispersed
throughout the world, which is the supreme and timeless goal of the Armenian
Church, will face the firm resolve of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin to
keep that unity unspoiled and unshaken.

Holy Etchmiadzin appeals to all faithful children of Canada and all seized
dioceses of the Mother See, stating that her paternal love towards all is
unchangeable, because regardless of under what guise and despite references
to “the will of the people”, (a transparent old device used to attempt to
justify such measures), undoubtedly no nation has the desire to be in
dissention.

The Mother See once again fraternally calls on the Catholicosate of Cilicia
to sound judgment, welcoming every step directed to overcoming the discord
and the reestablishment of the canonical status within the Armenian Church,
and invites her children to be zealous and unified on the road of the
settlement of disunity – a rift born from the dictates of difficult times,
and in effect for half a century. “Primacy of Love” – here is the mystery
of the supremacy of the Mother See, as it was yesterday, as it is today, and
forever.

(signed)
Supreme Spiritual Council
Catholicosate of All Armenians

##

Associated Press
April 2 2004

Some Facts and Figures on Kurds

PEOPLE – An estimated 20 million to 25 million Kurds live mostly in
four countries – Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. The largest community,
with about 12 million people, is in Turkey.

—__

HISTORY – Kurds trace their history to ancient Mesopotamia. They were
a significant power in the early Middle Ages and after World War I
were promised an independent homeland. Recent decades have seen
Kurdish rebellions in Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

—__

LANGUAGE – Kurdish is an Indo-European language like English and is
closely related to Iran’s Farsi. The various Kurdish dialects are to
a large extent mutually incomprehensible. The dialects include:
Kurmanji, or northern Kurdish, the largest spoken dialect, which is
spoken in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria as well as parts
of Armenia and Georgia; Sorani, or central Kurdish, which is spoken
mainly in parts of northern Iraq and western Iran; and Zaza, which is
spoken in eastern Turkey.

Kurdish dialects have borrowed heavily from other languages,
including Persian, Arabic and Turkish, but they are grammatically
distinct.

Submitted by Janoyan Ana