Armenian News
Armenia's new government is beginning to take shape, with the naming of six ministers this week. Only three will be new faces, however.
Armenia's former ambassador to France, Eduard Nalbandian, has assumed the position of foreign minister. Seyran Ohanian, the former chief of Armenia's armed forces, has become the defense minister. The third new face has been known for more than a week, with the appointment of former Central Bank chief Tigran Sarkisian to the post of prime minister.
Three ministers retained the positions they held in the outgoing government. Gevorg Danielian (Republican Party) will stay on as justice minister, while Armen Grigorian (Prosperous Armenia) will continue as minister of sport and youth affairs and David Lokian (Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun) as agriculture minister.
Consultations Continuing
The ruling coalition -- led by President Serzh Sarkisian's Republican Party and including Prosperous Armenia, Orinats Yerkir, and Dashnaktsutiun -- is continuing consultations, and a full cabinet is expected to be formed by the end of this week.
The new government will have its work cut out for it in winning over a population still recovering from the bloodiest postelection violence Armenia has ever seen.
After weeks of protests contesting the results of the country's February 19 presidential election, police on March 1 moved in with force to drive opposition supporters from the capital's Freedom Square. Dominated by backers of second-place finisher Levon Ter-Petrossian, the rallies were staged daily to voice the belief that the election was rigged and to call for a new vote.
Ten people -- including protesters and two police officers -- were killed as a result of the chaos that followed the police action. Armenian authorities followed up by imposing a 20-day state of emergency, making mass arrests, introducing a ban on public demonstrations, and curtailing media freedoms.
As a result of those steps, the new government also faces an uphill climb in restoring its image in the international community.
The Monitoring Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution on April 17 urging the Armenian authorities to implement a number of reforms aimed at improving the situation in the country. PACE suggests launching an independent inquiry into the clashes, releasing all prisoners who did not commit crimes, amending the law on public rallies, and engaging in a dialogue with the opposition.
PACE warns that, unless those conditions are met, it will consider suspending the voting rights of Armenia during its next session, which takes place in June.
'Attempts To Increase Legitimacy'
Alexander Iskandarian, the director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Media Institute, says the Armenian authorities are well aware of the need to improve their image.
"Everything that the authorities are doing now represents their attempt to increase legitimacy," Iskandarian says. "Be it through appointments of some neutral figures; through attempts to talk to the public and assure them that steps will be made to improve the situation; through appropriation of the opposition's slogans; through the removal of figures from the government who particularly irritate people; and so on. These are attempts to increase legitimacy -- attempts to make people trust the government and president more. The authorities are lacking this right now. Whether they will be successful in their attempts remains to be seen."
Most observers do not expect significant changes in the country's foreign or domestic policies.
New Foreign Minister Nalbandian, is a 52-year-old career diplomat who, apart from France, has also served as the country's ambassador to Israel, Andorra, and the Vatican. He replaces Vartan Oskanian, a veteran diplomat who announced his resignation last week.
"At this moment, it is difficult to predict what the next president will do," Oskanian told RFE/RL's Armenian Serviceafter his resignation. "It's his choice, what kind of foreign policy he will implement -- whether he will maintain the notion of 'complementarity' [between Russia and the West] or not. But given my experience, I don't think Armenia's room to maneuver is very wide. Our options are limited. What can be done is simply to make some changes in accents, not necessarily in direction."
New Defense Minister Ohanian, who is 46, is a close associate of the new president, Serzh Sarkisian. Both men hail from Nagorno-Karabakh and have a longstanding friendship.
"Seyran Ohanian has a somewhat standard background for Armenian high-ranking officials," says Iskandarian. "Just like nearly the entire political and, moreover, military elite of Armenia, his 'roots' are in the Karabakh war. He is a veteran of the war and has firsthand military experience. After that, he worked at various posts at the Defense Ministry."
The new administration's attitude on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh -- an Armenian-controlled and -populated enclave within Azerbaijan over which Baku and Yerevan fought a war in 1988-94 -- has perhaps gained the most clarity.
In his first major foreign-policy speech on April 16, Armenia's president was uncompromising.
"Azerbaijan must understand the simple reality that the existence of the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh's independence is irreversible,"Sarkisian said. "The people of Nagorno-Karabakh have won their right to a free and independent life. And through our efforts, that right must be recognized by the international community."
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By Ruzanna Stepanian in Strasbourg
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) on Thursday
condemned the Armenian authorities' post-election crackdown on the
opposition and warned that failure to reverse it would put at risk
Armenia's full membership in the Strasbourg-based organization.
In a resolution, the assembly demanded an `independent, transparent and
credible inquiry' into the March 1 deadly clashes in Yerevan between
security forces and opposition supporters and `the urgent release of the
persons detained on seemingly artificial and politically motivated
charges.' It also said that the recently enacted legal amendments which
effectively banned opposition rallies should be repealed `with immediate
effect.'
The resolution stressed that these measures are necessary conditions for
a dialogue between the Armenian government and the opposition as well as
far-reaching political reforms which it said need to be implemented in
the country. It warned that failure to take them would mean that `the
credibility of Armenia as a member of the Council of Europe is put into
doubt.'
`The Assembly should therefore consider the possibility of suspending
the voting rights of the Armenian delegation to the Assembly at the
opening of its June 2008 part-session, if no considerable progress has
been made on these requirements by then,' read the resolution.
The authorities in Yerevan have faced similar calls from the Council of
Europe's decision-making Committee of Ministers as well as the European
Union and the United States. Nonetheless, their crackdown on the
opposition led by former President Ter-Petrosian appears to have
continued unabated in recent weeks.
`The Assembly condemns the arrest and continuing detention of scores of
persons, including more than one hundred opposition supporters and three
members of parliament, on what appear to be politically motivated
charges,' read the PACE resolution. `This constitutes a de facto
crackdown on the opposition by the authorities.'
While disagreeing with some of its provisions, the head of the Armenian
delegation at the assembly, David Harutiunian, described the document as
`reasonable' and `balanced' and said the administration of President
Serzh Sarkisian should comply with it.
`We must immediately start taking steps towards the country's
democratization,' Harutiunian told RFE/RL. `This should be done not to
let the Armenian delegation retain its voting rights at the PACE or get
somebody here to report progress in Armenia. We should realize that we
are doing that for ourselves.'
The Armenian government's handling of the February 19 presidential
election and the ensued dramatic developments were high on the agenda of
the PACE's weeklong spring session in Strasbourg. As well as adopting
the resolution, the assembly discussed earlier this week a separate
report presented by a PACE delegation that monitored the election along
with more than 200 Western observers.
The head of the delegation, Britain's former Deputy Prime Minister John
Prescott, stood by the observers' initial conclusion that the vote was
administered `mostly in line' with democratic standards. Prescott also
reiterated his concerns about what he and other PACE observers see as a
lack of public trust in the electoral process.
The adopted resolution likewise noted that serious irregularities
observed during the vote `raised questions among the Armenian public
with regard to the legitimacy of the outcome of the election.' `This
lack of public confidence was the basis for the peaceful protests that
ensued after the announcement of the preliminary results, initially
tolerated by the authorities,' it said.
The PACE at the same time backed Prescott's calls for the
Ter-Petrosian-led opposition to accept last month's Constitutional Court
ruling that upheld Sarkisian's disputed election victory. `This should
not be interpreted as the obligation to accept the merits of the court's
decision,' it said, adding that the ruling can be appealed at the
European Court of Human Rights.
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April 17, 2008
Vintage postcards tell about culture
A historical study of vintage postcards by researcher Osman Köker sheds
light on the daily lives of Armenians who lived in Anatolia a century ago.
Old postcards showing Armenian orphanages, schools, monasteries and
churches, constitute unique primary sources on the history of Turkey's
Armenian community
Vercihan Ziflioglu
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News
Postcards have been an important means of communication since the early
20th century. They have carried evidence of different cultures and
lifestyles from one corner of the world to another. Today vintage postcards
constitute a unique source of information about life in the past for art
collectors and researchers.
Researcher Osman Köker decided in the late 1990s to conduct a study of
Armenians in Anatolia during the Ottoman Empire. Speaking to the Turkish
Daily News, Köker explained his desire to study such a historical topic, "My
daughter was given a text about the history of Tokat, a province in northern
Turkey, as homework. All the sources we scanned said that Tokat had always
been a Turkish province throughout history. But how could that be? We Turks
entered Anatolia in 1071."
What Köker aimed to do was to break the rigidities the official Turkish
history taught to students in all state schools and many of private ones.
Köker began his study with a 4,000-piece private postcard collection owned
by collector Orlando Carlo Calumeno. During his examinations of Calumeno's
huge archive, Köker discovered a total of 700 postcards reflecting the
social life of Armenians living in Anatolia from 1895-1914.
After paying Calumeno copyright fees for the postcards, Köker gathered all
his sources, complied, edited them and decided to have them published as a
book. However, things did not go as he hoped. He faced problems in
publishing his study and so, with his own financial resources, founded
Birzamanlar Publications in 2005 and published his book, titled "100 Yil
Once Türkiye'de Ermeniler," or Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago." A second
edition was published last week
Book in three languages
Köker's book has been published in Turkish, English and German. The
postcards used in the book were exhibited in Turkey, Germany and France in
recent years and they will be moved to Europe for display in fall 2008. The
exhibition will also travel to Armenia.
"My aim is not only to write history. This is a kind of cultural
activity," said Köker. "I have been writing about Armenians in various
newspapers and journals for many years. Therefore, the topic is one of my
special areas of interest." Köker said, and pointed out the significance of
such a study for Turkey, "Turkey spends large amounts of money for lobbying
activities against the Armenian Diaspora. But my study shows that we, here
in Turkey, can speak freely on all issues. This book is a source of prestige
for Turkey."
"100 years ago was the golden age of Armenians in Anatolia. They were at
the highest level they could reach socially, culturally and economically.
And besides, we used to have a more peaceful atmosphere a century ago. That
is the reason I chose to study that era," he said.
Köker's study began with one question: In what parts of the Ottoman Empire
did Armenians live at the beginning of the 20th century?
A province-by-province and even village-by-village documentation of the
areas where Armenians lived in the Empire formed the second phase of his
project. With the help of Calumeno's postcard archive, Köker also
identified, one by one, the Armenian neighborhoods, churches, monasteries
and orphanages that existed in Anatolia at the beginning of the 20th
century. Köker even learned the Armenian language in order to read primary
and secondary sources in Armenian. All in all, his study took four years and
resulted in a qualified documentation of Armenians' way of life at the time,
from economics to the social sphere.
During his research, Köker found some 50 postcards among the postcard
collection that were sent by the same person. These dispatches outlined an
itinerant's journey, step by step. He also found several panoramic photos of
Anatolia in Calumeno's collection.
About 7,000 people have visited Köker's exhibitions since 2005. During
exhibitions held in Turkey, interesting coincidences have taken place. "No
matter whether Armenian or Turk, many people have encountered old pictures
of their hometowns during those exhibitions," he said. The only negative
reaction to Köker's work came from a visitor at the Tüyap Book Fair in 2005.
"A visitor from Bafra, a district in the Samsun province of Turkey, said
that we filled everywhere with Armenians. I did not reply to him and just
took him to see the board with photos and postcards showing Bafra at the
time. He was shocked by what he saw. A century-old Armenian school in one of
the postcards was the school he had attended. That person had absolutely no
idea about the history of the school where he himself had been a student
once upon a time."
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