Sunday, 28 December 2008

Economic News from Armenia‏

ARMENIAN BUSINESS CONFIDENCE SINKS IN Q4
Venla Sipila
World Markets Research Centre
Dec 18 2008

The newest confidence survey by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
signals weakening sentiment among the country's producers. ARKA
News reports that the economic performance indicator, which measures
overall confidence on a 100-point scale, in the fourth quarter of the
year measured 40.7, falling by a fourth in annual comparison and by
around 38% from the third quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, the business
sentiment indicator slid by some 12% year-on-year (y/y) and 16%
quarter-on-quarter (q/q), standing at 41.5 in the fourth quarter. Only
the composite consumer confidence index managed to avoid an annual
fall, rising by a marginal rate of 0.3% y/y, but also this indicator
fell from the third quarter, its level of 48.7 marking a decrease of
5.6% q/q. The CBA has conducted quarterly confidence surveys since
2005. Over 800 industrial, construction and service companies and
nearly 1,900 households were surveyed.

Significance:While consumer confidence remained virtually stable
in annual comparison, all components of the survey signal weakening
sentiment. Moreover, the values of all three components stand below
the critical 50-point mark, signalling negative sentiment. The newest
official data put Armenian GDP growth in January-October 2008 at 9.2%
y/y (see Armenia: 24 November 2008: ). After growing at double-digit
rates for the past several years, the Armenian economy finally looks
set to cool, and the official growth projection of over 9% for 2009
seems overly optimistic to us, while we do not see recession likely
in Armenia as domestic demand, still rising from a relatively low
base, should still remain strong enough to support growth at positive
rates. The global financial crisis will not have any notable direct
impact on Armenia, due to the still-undeveloped and relatively isolated
nature of its financial sector. However, indirect negative effects
from the international crisis will likely be felt as moderating
investment and current transfer inflows, while the country's already
meagre export prospects have also weakened further.

REMITTANCES TO ARMENIA WILL DECREASE BECAUSE OF ECONOMIC

CRISIS, ARMENIAN DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE ADMITS
NOYAN TAPAN
Dec 18, 2008
YEREVAN

The negative consequences of the global economic crisis will affect
the socioeconimic state of Armenia first of all due to a growth in
raw material prices, the RA deputy minister of finance Vardan Aramian
stated during an international TV bridge organized at Novosti-Armenia
information center on December 18. He added that another consequence
of the crisis will be a decline in prices of goods and services in the
world, as a result of which Armenia's exports will suffer. And finally,
according to V. Aramian, the crisis will be dangerous for Armenian
people because remittances from abroad will considerably decrease.

In the opinion of Ukrainian economist Oleg Ustenko, the global economic
crisis will cause positive changes as well, the most essential of
which is that the economic imbalance among CIS member states will
decline. The negative consequences of the crisis in these counrtries
will especially affect the banking systems. In the words of O. Ustenko,
the state should first of all protect tax payers, vulnerable groups
and depositaries.

The deputy minister of economy of Moldova Yuri Muntian said that the
policy of liberalization of economy adopted by the government will play
a great role in withstanding the economic crisis in their country. The
head of the Social Policy Center of the Institute of Economics of the
Russian Academy of Sciences Yevgeni Gontmakher announced that with the
aim of reducing the consequences of the economic crisis in Russia, a
decision was made not to take back the apartments from those who have
received mortgage loans, until they pay for their apartments. However,
according to him, a considerable growth of unemployment is inevitable
in any case.

EXPORTS FROM ARMENIA GROW BY 0.9%, IMPORTS INTO COUNTRY

BY 42.8%
NOYAN TAPAN
Dec 18, 2008
Yerevan

In January-October 2008 the foreign trade of Armenia amounted to 1
trillion 381.8 bln drams or 4 billion 520.4 million USD, including
exports of 287.7 bln drams or 941.2 mln USD and imports of 1 trillion
94.1 bln drams or 3 bln 579.2 mln USD. The foreign trade balance was
negative by 806.4 bln drams (2 bln 638 mln USD), the same balance
without goods received as humanitarian aid was negative by 789.6 bln
drams (2 bln 583.1 mln USD).

According to the RA National Statistical Service, exports grew by 0.9%,
imports by 42.8% in January-October 2008 on the same period of 2007.

OVERALL ASSETS OF ARMENIAN BANKING SYSTEM PASS THRESHOLD

OF 1 TRILLION DRAMS
Noyan Tapan
Dec 19, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. Last week the overall assets of
the Armenian banking system grew by 16.2 billion drams and made 1
trillion drams (about 3 bln 243.5 mln USD), passing this threshold
for the first time.

There was mainly a growth in correspondent accounts in banks, cash
in banks and credits. The credits increased by 3.3 billion drams,
incliding a growth of 1.8 bln drams in credits to legal entities and
that of 1.4 bln drams in credits to natural persons.

According to the PR Service of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), the
overall capital of the banking system increased by 5.9 bln drams in
the indicated period and made 229.4 bln drams, which was conditioned
by replenishment of a total of 4.2 bln drams in the authorized funds
of 3 banks and a profit of 1.7 bln drams made by the banking system
last week. The liabilities of the system grew by 10.3 bln drams to
771 bln drams. The deposits of natural persons grew by 3.7 bln drams.

GEOGRAPHY OF VISITORS TO NKR KEEPS ON EXPANDING
De Facto
Dec 19, 2008

YEREVAN, 19.12.08. DE FACTO. In 2008, tourists from dozens of countries
of the world visited the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

According to the data by the NKR MFA Consular Service, most of them
are the citizens of the USA, France, Canada, Russia, Iran and Great
Britain. As compared with 2007, the number of tourists increased
approximately by 15%.

The geography of the visitors to the NKR keeps on expanding. Tourists
from Pakistan, Singapore and Somali visited Nagorno Karabakh for the
first time this year.

Besides ethnic Armenians, people of various nationalities, in
particular the youth, visit the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. The most
visited places are the historical-architectural monuments and monastic
complexes: Amaras (4-19c.), Dadivank (4-13c.), Gandzasar (13c.), etc.

In 2008, about 70 journalists from 25 countries and a dozen of film
crews visited Nagorno Karabakh to prepare reportages on various
spheres of life of the NKR.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turkish Online Apology to Armenians‏

Introduction

Organizers of the Turkish initiative, posted on the Internet
(www.ozurdiliyoruz.com) along with a non-binding petition to gather
signatures, was meant to allow Turks to offer a personal apology and to
end an official silence.

Stopping short of using the word "genocide", the petition, entitled
'I apologise', reads:

"My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the
denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were
subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share,
I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I
apologise to them."

There is a counter-petition on www.ozurdi liyorum.com" with the
following sentence: "there was no genocide ... was to defend the nation,
... we will no excuses."

Turkey's President Defends Armenia Apology Campaign
Reuters

Turkish President Abdullah Gul distanced himself on Thursday from
criticism by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan over an apology by 200
Turkish intellectuals for the alleged genocide of ethnic Armenians in
World War One.

The Internet campaign, which has drawn the ire of nationalists who
regard it as an act of national betrayal, coincides with a diplomatic
rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia led by Gul himself to end
almost 100 years of hostility.

"The president's view is that the fact that the issue is discussed
freely in academic and public circles is proof of the presence of
democratic discussion in Turkey," a statement from Gul's office said.

On Wednesday, Erdogan said the campaign had no other benefit than
"stirring up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps which
have been taken".

Gul, a moderate former member of the ruling AK Party, was foreign
minister under Erdogan until he was elected to the largely ceremonial
post of president in July 2007. Media reports have speculated the two
men have grown apart.

Turks, including Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted
in the European Union candidate country for affirming that the mass
killings of Armenians in 1915 amount to genocide. Turkey accepts that
many Armenians were killed during the waning years of the Ottoman
Empire, but strongly denies Armenian claims it was genocide, saying that
Muslim Turks also died in inter-ethnic conflicts. Western historians
have backed Armenian claims that the killings amounted to genocide.

The apology, which avoids the word genocide and uses instead the term
great catastrophe, threatens to reignite a controversy that challenges
one of the ideological foundations of modern Turkey. It comes at a time
of heightened nationalism in Turkey.

The staunchly nationalist opposition MHP party condemned the campaign,
saying Turkey had "no crime to apologize about". "Nobody has the right
to demand apology by distorting history and smearing our ancestors by
portraying them as criminals," the party said in statement.

Organizers said the initiative, posted on the Internet
(www.ozurdiliyoruz.com) along with a non-binding petition to gather
signatures, was meant to allow Turks to offer a personal apology and to
end an official silence.

Gul became the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia in September.
Several meetings between Turkish and Armenian officials have followed
and the two countries have expressed hopes of restoring full diplomatic
relations soon.

TURKISH PRESIDENT'S OFFICE SAYS ARMENIAN APOLOGY

CAMPAIGN SIGN OF DEMOCRACY
Anadolu Agency
Dec 18 2008
Turkey

ANKARA (A.A) -The Presidential Press Centre has said that President
Abdullah Gul considered recent discussions in the Turkish public
opinion and academic circles over the events in 1915 a sign of
existence of a democratic discussion atmosphere in Turkey which was
more civilized and freer than many other countries and of Turkish
people's reconciliation with their history and their self-confidence.

The Presidential Press Centre said in a statement on Thursday that
Gul had always clearly expressed Turkey's ideas and proposals about
the events and Turkish-Armenian relations on numerous occasions and
in many international platforms.

"During Gul's term in office as the foreign minister and deputy
prime minister, Turkey proposed Armenia to establish a committee of
historians to examine Turkish and Armenian archives. Gul advocated
the proposal on the international level," it said.

The centre also expressed President Gul's profound regret that the
issue was distorted for some political purposes although his views
were well-known. Gul was criticized by the opposition parties.

A group of people issued an apology on the internet for the events
of 1915 boosting a nationwide discussion.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he did not
accept or support the campaign recently launched by a group of Turkish
intellectuals and academicians aiming to apologize to Armenians for
the incidents of 1915.

"They might have committed such a crime themselves, as they
are apologizing now. Republic of Turkey does not have such a
concern. One can apologize if there is a crime necessitating such
an apology. Neither my country, nor my nation has such concerns,"
Erdogan said, replying to questions following his meeting with
Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov in Istanbul.

Erdogan said that it was unacceptable to support such a campaign just
because it was launched by intellectuals.

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations and their shared
border has been closed since 1993 when Turkey protested Armenia's
occupation of the Upper Karabakh.

In September, President Gul visited Armenia in to watch a World Cup
qualifying match as a goodwill gesture.

TURKISH PM SAYS APOLOGY CAMPAIGN TO ARMENIANS UNACCEPTABLE
Hurriyet
Dec 17 2008
Turkey

It is unacceptable to affirm support to the recent internet campaign
launched to issue a public apology to Armenians, Turkish Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry said
the issue is highly sensitive for them.

Around 200 Turkish academics, writers and journalists launched
a website issuing an apology to the Armenians regarding the 1915
incidents and calling for people to sign on in support.

The efforts of the intellectuals drew fierce reaction in Turkey.

"I neither accept nor support this campaign. We did not commit a
crime, therefore we do not need to apologize," Erdogan said, adding
the issue is still being discussed by historians.

He said such initiatives only reverse the positive steps taken
by Turkey.

Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million
of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915.Turkey
rejects the claims saying that 300,000 Armenians, along with at least
as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took
up arms, backed by Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.

Turkey has opened an air corridor to the land-locked country and
renovated a historic Armenian church, while opening its archives to
researchers to study incidents.

The issue remains unsolved as Armenia drags its feet on accepting
Turkey's proposal to form an independent commission to investigate
the claims.

A spokesman from the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the issue is
highly sensitive for the ministry, reminding that many bureaucrats
were victimized by Armenian terror organizations in the past.

Burak Ozugergin said the ministry does not support reacting to this
move and that it did not urge the retired diplomats and ambassadors,
who said Monday the campaign is "unfair, wrong and unfavorable for
the national interests", to respond.

Ozugergin said Turkey's stance on the 1915 incidents was well known
by everybody, adding people should be able to comfortably discuss
all issues in Turkey.

"However our foreign policy is not so flimsy as to shift as a result
of daily debates. We will continue to act on principles," he said.

GENERAL STAFF DISAPPROVES "APOLOGY CAMPAIGN"
Today's Zaman
Dec 19 2008
Turkey

Turkey's powerful generals on Friday stepped into a deepening
controversy over an apology by Turkish intellectuals for the mass
killings of Armenians in World War One, saying the campaign had
"harmful consequences".

The General Staff has said that it disapproved the online apology
campaign for the events of 1915.

Gen. Metin Gurak, chairman of the General Staff Communication
Department, said at a press briefing in Ankara on Friday, "we
definitely do not consider the campaign right. This apology is wrongful
and it may lead to harmful consequences."

A group of Turkish intellectuals and academicians issued an apology to
Armenians on the internet earlier in the week for the events of 1915,
boosting a nationwide discussion.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he did
not accept or support the campaign. "They might have committed such a
crime themselves as they are apologizing now. The Republic of Turkey
does not have such a concern. One can apologize if there is a crime
necessitating such an apology. Neither my country, nor my nation has
such concerns," Erdogan said.

Yesterday, the Presidential Press Center said in a statement that
President Abdullah Gul considered recent discussions in the Turkish
public opinion and academic circles over the events in 1915 a sign
of existence of a democratic discussion atmosphere in Turkey which
was more civilized and freer than many other countries and a sign
of Turkish people's reconciliation with their history and their
self-confidence.

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations and their shared
border has been closed since 1993 when Turkey protested Armenia's
occupation of the Upper Karabakh.

In September, President Gul visited Armenia to watch a World Cup
qualifying match as a goodwill gesture.

RETIRED DIPLOMATS AGAINST INTELLECTUALS' APOLOGY
Today's Zaman
Dec 17 2008
Turkey

Deniz BÃ¶lukbaÅ~_Ä± claims that in Turkey there is an Armenian lobby
and a campaign of apology forms a part of their objectives.

A group of retired Turkish ambassadors signed a declaration on Monday
urging intellectuals BaskÄ±n Oran, Ahmet Ä°nsel and Ali Bayramoglu,
who had recently launched a campaign to apologize for the Ottoman
killings of Armenians in 1915, "not to be a part of an insidious plan
against Turkish national interests."

Recently, some Turkish intellectuals began to collect signatures for
a statement that contained a personal apology for the events of 1915,
which the Armenian claims of genocide are based on.

"My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the
denial of the Great Catastrophe that Ottoman Armenians were subjected
to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my part, I empathize with
the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them,"
the intellectuals' statement said.

But the group of retired diplomats, which includes former Foreign
Ministry undersecretaries Korkmaz HaktanÄ±r, Å~^ukru Elekdag and
Onur Oymen, in a counter-declaration stressed that the move was a
"disrespectful act toward Turkish history and its martyrs."

"Such a wrong and unilateral initiative is disrespectful to our
history and also to our people who lost their lives in violent
terrorist attacks during the history of the republic and during the
last years of the Ottoman Empire," the declaration stated.

The diplomats' declaration made a point of mentioning the Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) in which 70 people,
including five ambassadors, four consul generals and 34 public workers,
lost their lives and 574 people were wounded.

It further claimed that "concessions such as unilateral apologies"
do not serve the aim of improving relations between Armenia and Turkey.

"If the aim is to improve relations between Turkey and Armenia and
come closer, the proper way to do this is not to make concessions
such as unilateral apologies, but to mutually recognize borders and
territorial integrity and it will be inevitable that we will share the
pain that both sides suffered during history," the declaration claimed,
and added, "Otherwise unilateral acts like apologizing will be wrong,
against the facts of history and will have grave consequences."

The diplomats underlined that the forced immigration of Armenians in
1915 had "bitter results" under war conditions, "but the pain of the
Turks were no less than that of the Armenians due to the Armenian
insurgency and terrorism," the diplomats claimed.

"First of all, Armenians who have killed innocent Turkish diplomats,
public servants and their families in the recent past should apologize
to the Turkish nation. These killers are still alive and unpunished
as they have been protected by Armenia and some other countries,"
the declaration noted.

The diplomats also claimed that the apology was the second phase of
a plan, the first phase of which was to influence world opinion with
terrorist attacks. They claimed that they are aware of the third phase
of plan, which is to demand compensation and make territorial claims.

The other diplomats who signed the declaration include former Foreign
Ministry spokesmen Necati Utkan and Omer Akbel. It was also signed
by former Ambassadors AkÄ±n Alp Tuna, Ertugrul CÄ±ragan, Onur Oymen,
Candan Azer and Gun Gur, together with some others.

The retired Ambassadors are supported by Oktay Vural, the deputy
chairman of the parliamentary group of the Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP), who said the retired ambassadors had done the right thing but
interestingly the Foreign Ministry had kept quiet.

Former ambassador and now-MHP deputy Deniz BÃ¶lukbaÅ~_Ä± claimed that
in Turkey there is an Armenian lobby and a campaign of apology forms
a part of their objectives.

"Who is apologizing for who? If there is anyone who should apologize,
it should be the intellectuals and Armenians. They should apologize
to the thousands of Anatolian people who suffered the Armenian
atrocities. Are these intellectuals apologizing to the Armenian
terrorists who killed Turkish diplomats and are still living in
Armenia?" BÃ¶lukbaÅ~_Ä± asked.

TURKEY'S DIASPORA IN EUROPE DESCRIBES APOLOGY CAMPAIGN

AS GAME OF ARMENIAN DIASPORA
Trend News Agency
Dec 18 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 18/ Trend News, B. Hasanov/ Union of Turkish
Democrats in Europe, uniting all Turkish diasporas in Europe, located
in Koln city of Germany, strongly denounced apology the campaign
launched by a group of intellectuals in Turkey.

"The campaign launched by a group of "intellectuals" in Turkey does
not reflect position of Turkish people and we consider it a game of
Armenian diaspora," Salih Altinishik, secretary general of Union of
Turkish Democrats in Europe, said to Trend News by telephone from Koln.

Around 200 Turkish academics, writers and journalists launched
a website issuing an apology to the Armenians regarding the 1915
incidents and calling for people to sign on in support. Over 5,000
people have registered on the website, Turkush media reported.

Armenia and Armenian lobby worldwide state that in 1915 the Ottoman
Empire, Turkey's predecessor, committed genocide against Armenians
living in Anatolia. Armenians striving to make their statements
recognized worldwide have strengthened their propaganda of the
so-called genocide in several countries and have achieved recognition
of the "Armenian genocide" at several Parliaments.

Altinishik said relevant measures are needed to be taken against
this campaign. He described it as a part of a scenario carried out
stage-by-stage.

"There is no any crime and criminal to apologize for," he added. He
said this campaign will not have any impact on so-called "genocide"
claims in Europe.

"We will successfully continue our diaspora efforts for the favor of
our nation," Altinishik said.

TURKISH PARLIAMENTARIAN HINTS AT ARMENIA ROOTS OF

ABDULLAH GUL
ArmInfo
2008-12-18 19:29:00

Armenian apology campaign launched by a group of scientists,
writers, artists, journalists and representatives of nongovernmental
organizations was discussed at the meeting of Foreign Relations
Commission of Turkish parliament on December 17.

APA reports quoting Turkish media that parliamentarians from opposition
parties Republican People's Party (CHP) and National Movement Party
(MHP) offered to make a statement condemning the persons supporting
the campaign.

Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) objected to it. Following
the discussions, decision was made on the parliamentarians' condemning
the apology campaign by collecting signatures individually. Member
of MHP, parliamentarian Janan Aritman called the organizers of the
campaign betrayers.

"The false scientists signing it should apology to Turkey," he said.

Aritman also criticized President Abdullah Gul's attitude towards
the campaign. Saying that Abdullah Gul was encouraged by his visit
to Armenia, Aritman dropped a hint that the president's mother was
Armenian. "We see that the president supports this campaign. Abdullah
Gul should be the president of the whole Turkish nation, not of his
ethnic origin. Investigate the ethnic origin of the president's mother,
and you will see," he said. Some claim in Turkey that Abdullah Gul's
mother was born to an Armenian-origin family from Kayseri and father
was an Arab moved to Kayseri.

COLUMNISTS JOIN ARMENIAN APOLOGY DEBATE
Turkish Daily News
December 18, 2008 Thursday

The debate over the campaign launched by a range of professionals and
intellectuals to apologize for the Ottoman killings of Armenians has
spread to the columns of the country's dailies. Meanwhile, a counter
online signature campaign has emerged, by a group calling themselves
"The Real Turkish Intellectuals."

Turkish columnists widely criticized the apology campaign. Erdal
Safak from daily Sabah argued the campaign would do more harm than
good because it "would be evaluated as a confession of genocide,"
and "would harm the proposal to establish a history commission to
investigate the 1915 events."

Ertugrul Ozkok from daily Hurriyet said he considered the campaign a
joke, asking who would apologize for the Turkish diplomats murdered
by the ASALA terror organization, or the Turks and Kurds who were
slaughtered by Armenian gangs in 1915.

Nuray Mert from daily Radikal argued the campaign aimed at "scraping
the Turkish intellectuals from their historical shame and to make
them feel good and civilized." She also questioned the apology part of
the statement asking, "On whose behalf and to whom should I apologize?"

"I am really disturbed by the act of apologizing to a nation in the
name of national or ethical belonging. This is no different than
bragging about ones nationality. Therefore, I would like to sign the
text without the apology part," she wrote.

The new Web site "ozurdilemiyoruz.com" (we do not apologize) opened by
a group calling themselves "The Real Turkish Intellectuals," posted
a statement saying "we do not have any apology for anybody. We only
have a call to account from those who murdered our ancestors and
brothers." More than 2,000 people have signed the statement so far.

TURKISH WEBSITE OZUR DILIYORUZ REMOVES THE 13.315 NAMES

SIGNATORIES OF THE PETITION APOLOGIZING TO ARMENIANS
De Facto
Dec 19, 2008

YEREVAN, 19.12.08. DE FACTO. Yesterday, on December 18, after a 3 hours
interruption, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., website Ã¶zur diliyoruz,
which diffuses the petition of the intellectuals Turks be sorry " to
the Armenians for the Great Catastrophe of 1915", erased the 73 pages,
on which were registered 13 315 signatories names brought together
in 3 days, an independent French journalist Jean Eckian told DE FACTO.

According to Eckian, one cannot prevent oneself from thinking that
the initiative is to be brought closer to the declaration of Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who declared yesterday "I do
not accept nor supports this campaign. We did not commit a crime;
therefore we do not need to present excuses". It thus seems, for this
hour, that the censure fell once more on the freedom expression in
Turkey, unless the authors of the petition considered it necessary to
protect the identity from the thousands of people come to give their
support for the declaration. Probable or not, the Turkish authorities
already had to raise them. Always it is that it is not possible any
more maintaining to join the 250 original signatories. The petition
is blocked on number 13.315.

For answer to the petition of the intellectuals, Turkish nationalists
also launched a similar website "www.ozurdi liyorum.com" with the
following sentence: "there was no genocide was to defend the nation,
we will no excuses." And in Germany, Union of European Turkish
Democrats denounced the "campaign initiated by a group of so-called
intellectuals".

In addition, Azeri Press Agency, reports that, according to Turkish
information, "Member of MHP, parliamentarian, Janan Aritman, dropped
has hint that the president's mother was Armenian. "We see that the
president supports this campaign. Abdullah Gul should be the president
of the whole Turkish nation, not off his ethnic origin. Investigate
the ethnic origin off the president's mother, and you will see,"
he said, adding "the organizers of this petition are traitors".

In Eckian's words, summon claim in Turkey that Abdullah Gul's mother
was born to year Armenian-origin family from Kayseri and father was
year Arab moved to Kayseri.

To note, that the petition of Turkish intelligentsia aroused a great
interest in the international press.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday, 19 December 2008

Eilian Williams - Press Release

Armenian Solidarity with the Victims of All Genocides

Nor Serount Cultural Association

C.H.A.K.(Centre of Halabja)

c/o The Temple of Peace, Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales

Tel:07718982732

eilian@nant.wanadoo.co.uk

Press Release

A Recognition of the Armenian Genocide made public in the House Of Commons

The 60th anniversary of the UN Genocide convention was marked in the House of Commons this week, on tuesday, 9th December, by a public recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Socialist Party of Kurdistan (PSK). Participating in the event were Professor Khatchatur Pilikian, author Desmond Fernandes, Akif Wan of the KNK and Adnan Kochar of CHAK. Lord Hylton chaired and Andrew Pelling MP participated.

The PSK statement read :"Turkey has not confronted its history and is adamant and stubborn in its behaviour. It is less than a century since the Armenian Genocide happened in front of the eyes of the world. This shameful act for humanity was condemned by the parliaments of many countries. Each time the Turkish government and its parliament has responded to these condemnations with anger. Excluding few conscientious intellectuals, the so called intellectuals and artists of Turkey have followed the footsteps of their politicians and tried to hide, deny, even falsify history and are using every trick in the book to blame the Armenians.

Of course, in Turkey, the example of a shameful act is not just the Armenian Genocide, but what was done to the Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds are crimes against humanity too. During the genocide of the Armenians, the Assyrians got their share in this slaughter" (whole statement below)

Author Desmond Fernandes described the way that Lemkin conceptualised the term "genocide". The Armenian 'genocide' - which he recognised, as such - had occured, he noted, without the perpetrators being brought to justice. Lemkin's conceptualisation of the term "genocide", and campaign to make it an international crime (through an international initiative that resulted in the United Nations' Genocide Convention being passed exactly 60 years ago), was aimed at trying to address these types of concerns in a practical manner. Fernandes then outlined the way in which Armenians, Chaldeans-Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds and "Others", have been subjected to genocide - not only during the 1915-1918 period, but also during the so-called 'War of Independence' and Turkish republican period.

He provided case studies to highlight the nature of the genocides, and detailed the manner in which Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, a renowned genocide scholar, has reiterated the fact that Turkey still remains, in terms of the nature of ill-treatment of Kurds, in breach of two articles of the Genocide Convention. Kurds, as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and others have further shown, are also being subjected to 'linguistic' and ongoing 'cultural genocide'. Concerning the nature of targeting of "minorities" in Turkey, Fernandes outlined the manner in which Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, Greeks and "Others" continue to be subjected to cultural genocide (just as "Greek Cypriots and 'Christian' Others" also continue to be subjected to cultural genocide in the north of Cyprus).

'Deep political' and 'deep state' linked circles continue to adopt ideological positions that are all too willing to engage and 'profit from' genocidal actions. Recent statements by the Turkish Prime Minister (4th November 2008) and Vecdi Gonul, the Defence Minister, have merely encouraged those who advocate targeting of the 'non-Turkish Other'. Their positions, he noted, have been deeply criticised by the Society for Threatened Peoples, the Socialist Party of Kurdistan (see attached statement, in full), Arat Dink (the son of assassinated Hrant Dink), amongst other human rights campaigners, parties and organisations. Concerning the perspectives of two leading Kurdish parties over the 'cultural genocide' debate, he noted that Abdullah Ocalan was recently (in September 2008) quoted as saying: "I am warning the people against the cultural genocide and the dangers: I express my opinions". Murat Karayilan has also been quoted (in Alternatif in September 2008) as referring to the "cultural genocide policies" of the state. For the Socialist Party of Kurdistan (PSK): "The genocide against the Kurds has been ongoing since the time of the Ottoman Empire ... We can say that, all the things done to the Kurds, and at different times and places, ... are physical and cultural genocide. The system that started this policy towards the end of the Ottoman Empire and that spread all through [the Turkish] Republican period wanted to exterminate tens of millions of Kurds through genocide, deportation and assimilation. Even if this has not been fully achieved, [to date], such policies had a huge destructive impact on the lives of the Kurdish people. Has the situation changed today? No. Today, Turkish statesmen are neither brave enough to confront their history nor to make real changes in their policies that are suitable for our times. They are disregarding world public opinion and international law and carrying on with their policies without fear. Today the system is using the terror that it had created, carrying on with its militarist and racist activities. It is resisting" initiatives aimed at "opening a peaceful path for a solution".

Professor Khatchatur Pilikian in his major speech said:

"The literary genius John Milton, whose 400^th anniversary of birth is exactly today, but it will be marked tomorrow at the Library, Conway Hall, once uttered this eye-opening remark in his Apology of 1648: “they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.”

Even in the first decade of our 21^st century, the oppressors’ mantra has remained essentially the same: ‘if you don’t like to be oppressed, then accept your fate. If not, you better leave your abode, home and country. At best we will encourage such a move, and at worst we will force you to leave’. In other words, you are not free to stay and try to change the status quo of iniquity. If you choose the latter and struggle for your human rights -- enshrined in International Laws, Covenants and Conventions, not only as an individual, but also as a people, especially when diverse from the ruling and the oppressing class -- then individual terror or even murder might be your Damoclean sword. Otherwise deportation and probably state terror leading to Genocide might befall your ethnic community.

That is exactly why the eminent Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in January last year. And that is what the recent Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic, Recep Erdogan really meant, on November 4, this year, when he warned the disenchanted citizens of the Republic in general and the oppressed minorities in particular, saying: "Turkey consists of one nation, one flag and one land and that anyone who is not in agreement with this should leave the country". On November 10, 2008, less than a week after Erdogan’s warning, his Defence Minister Vecdi Gönül, was in Brussels, marking the 70^th anniversary of death of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Gönül’s eulogy of Ataturk contained these revealing words: "Would it be possible today to maintain the same national State if the existence of Greeks in the Aegean region and of Armenians in several regions of Turkey had continued as before?"

Curiously enough, the recent Defence Minister of Turkey chose to forget what Ataturk himself had thought about such state terror accomplishments. The Turkish historian and sociologist Taner Akcam informs: “Mustafa Kemal has dozens of speeches in which he defines the treatments reserved to Armenians as "cowardice", or "barbarity", and names these treatments "massacre". (See T. Akcam’s: The Geemnocide of Armenians and the Silence of the Turks, From Empire to Republic, A Shameful Act.)

"We all know of course that Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term "genocide" in 1943, did not mince his words, stating that genocide “happened so many times… First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action." (Dadrian. History of the Armenian Genocide, p. 350)

According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, 1,700 people were tried in 2006 alone, under the racist Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Prosecutors of the status quo have a field day in prohibiting so-called “insulting Turkishness”, utilizing Article 301 to silence those valiant intellectuals who dare challenge the false premises of the official state denials of historical truths related with the Empire’s and the Republic’s tragic acts of ethnic and cultural annihilations. Hrant Dink himself was victimised by Article 301, before his assassination. Not surprisingly, therefore, that the eminent Turkish civil rights campaigner and publisher Ragip Zarakolu was found guilty of “insulting the institutions of the Turkish Republic”. Just recently the BBC announced that a Turkish court has sentenced a Kurdish politician, the European Parliament's Sakharov human rights 1995 award winner, 47-year-old Ms Leyla Zana, to 10 years in prison. That is what the racist Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code is all about—annihilating dissent and multiculturalism.

It is indeed refreshing to note that all the major Universal Declarations, International Charters and Conventions are not in agreement with the monolithic and rabid nationalism of the past and the present Turkish ruling elite, the like of Erdogan and Gönül, mentioned above".........

....." Here again Raphael Lemkin’s thoughtful contribution is welcome: “I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience […] It became clear to me that the diversity of nations, religious groups and races is essential to civilization because every one of those groups has a mission to fulfill and a contribution to make in terms of culture.”

All the above notwithstanding, UNESCO has been warning the world, for decades now, that the greatest shame of the current civilisation is the fact that thousands of children die of hunger every single day. Today that number has reached the staggering 44,000 hungry children dying each day of the year, as if a Hiroshima bomb is unleashed every single day just to kill children. I would like to pose the following: that the Goebbels’ of this world, “releasing the safety-catch of their pistols”—in modern parlance cluster bombs & co, ill-Ltd --should also be seen responsible for the modern massacres of the innocents. Can there be any doubt that this child cleansing is also the unmentioned genocide of humanity, ongoing and an authentic one at that, which surely is the outcome of our own socio-economic and industrial military system, now coined with cynical panache as Globalisation, whereby tens of thousands of nuclear warheads, each averaging at least 20 times the destructive power of a Hiroshima bomb, are already in deployment all around the world.

Meanwhile billions pour into the pockets of the warmongers of modern metropolises. These warlords of Mammon would eventually thrive in an ‘Inorganic Paradise’—a ‘paradise’ void of universal human rights and sustained by legalised torture; glorification of violence geared towards maximising profit at any cost; xenophobic state terror protected with religious fervour. And, topping as if the macabre orgy, genocide has been already tested, for a century now, to become the collateral damage of its inorganically modernised and sweat-shopped ‘global village’ of hunger and debt."

Akif Wan of the Kurdish National Congress (KNK) spoke about present human rights abuses in Turkey, particularly about the 10-year sentence inflicted on Leyla Zana, the former MP.

Adnan Kochar , director of CHAK spoke about the ecoside inflicted on the countryside of Kurdistan by the Turkish military.

During the questions,Lord Hylton said that the recent comments by the Turkish ministers seemed to disqualify Turkey from progressing towards EU membership. Andrew Pelling MP also participated and expressed his great interest in the issues.

PRESS STATEMENT BY THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF KURDISTAN (PSK).

English translation from the Turkish original.

THE ON-GOING PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL GENOCIDE

The rulers of Turkey are unaware of what century and what kind of world they live in as once again the latest developments have showed. As if they are behind times for a hundred years or even more. As if they are unaware of international law and the development of goodwill between different languages , cultures that became common value of humanity within the past century. Germany apologised to the Jews and the world public opinion about the genocide of the Jews. To make sure that it is not forgotten, genocide monuments erected in Germany and the concrete evidence of this tragedy, ensures that concentration camps are protected and open to the public. Putting it another way, Germany has confronted its history. Australia has apologised for what was done to its indigenous population, Aborigines, they too confronted their history.

It may not be on the same scale but in our world, no civilised country's intellectuals, rulers are trying to cover-up, deny or defend the genocides against other people which are shameful events in their history. But in Turkey everything is the opposite of this. Turkey has not confronted its history and is adamant and stubborn in its behaviour. It is less than a century since the Armenian Genocide happened in front of the eyes of the world. This shameful act for humanity was condemned by the parliaments of many countries. Each time the Turkish government and its parliament has responded to these condemnations with anger. Excluding few conscientious intellectuals, the so called intellectuals and artists of Turkey have followed the footsteps of their politicians and tried to hide, deny, even falsify history and are using every trick in the book to blame the Armenians.

Of course, in Turkey, the example of a shameful act is not just the Armenian Genocide, but what was done to the Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds are crimes against humanity too. During the genocide of the Armenians, the Assyrians got their share in this slaughter. In the following years, that means before the Greek and Turkish governments exchanged populations, the Greeks who were oppressed and threatened were deported from Anatolia in their hundreds of thousands … One of the leading figures carrying out such activities was CELAL BAYAR who was nicknamed 'GALIP HOCA' and was from the CUP (Committee for Union and Progress Party).^¹ After the war and the exchange of the populations, some Greeks were allowed to stay in Istanbul because some Turks stayed in Western Thrace. [But] most of these Greeks left Istanbul as a result of oppression and the events of 6/7 September which were organised by the state.

The genocide against the Kurds has been ongoing since the time of the Ottoman Empire. Marshal Moltke's memoirs are full of such stories. During the First World War, alongside the genocide of the Armenians, 700,000 Kurds from Kurdistan were exiled, and deported to central and western Anatolia. This was an ethnic cleansing and many of these people died as a result of hunger and cold.

After the war, in order to Turkify Anatolia and to establish a unitary state, the second biggest population group, the Kurds, were declared as non-existent. The state was established according to only Turkish elements. Kurdish history, language and culture was banned. The Kurdish peoples just reaction to all this was brutally and bloodily suppressed. After each uprising was put down, the civilian population of the region, without any discrimination – [including] women, children, young and old - were subjected to genocide. For example, after the Sheikh Said rebellion, they killed 20,000 civilians. After the Agri uprising, in Zilan Stream region, a population of more than 30 villages was exterminated. After the 1938 Dersim uprising, 60,000 people, disregarding [the fact that many were] women and children, were bayonetted, shot, herded en masse into the mills and burnt or were killed in caves.

The journalist AYSE HUR recently reported on an interview that had taken place in 1986 with the ex-Foreign Minister of Turkey, IHSAN SABRI CAGLAYANGIL. [He said]: "The Dersimis [i.e. Kurds in the region] had taken refuge in the caves. The (Turkish) army used poison gas. Through the caves entrance ... they were poisoned like rats. Aged from 7 to 70, … the Kurds in Dersim were slaughtered … The [military] operation was bloody. The Dersim case was finished. The government's authority was established in the villages and in Dersim ... Today, anyone can go to Dersim. Gendarma can go, so can you. But lately, especially in the borders region, the Kurds influenced by the external powers started an independence movement. Some Kurds live in Turkey, some in Iran...." (AYSE HUR, 16/11/2008 TARAF GAZETESI).

After these uprisings and many smaller ones, the masses were exiled. By doing
so they wanted to clear out the Kurds from the region. The appearance of the PKK and its armed struggle was used as a pretext to evacuate and demolish more than 4,000 villages and towns. 3-4 million [Kurdish] people were exiled from their homeland as thousands of 'unsolved murders' of Kurdish intellectuals and patriots occurred that took the form of full massacre. These are the end result of policies that have been implemented over the past 30 years.

The oppression and bans continued along with forced assimilation and Turkification policies. They wanted to wipe out the language, culture – in short, the very existence of the people who lived on their land for thousands of years, who had deep roots and contributed to the civilisation of Anatolia, Iran and Mesopotomia, who had their own distinct and rich
history and language.

In conclusion, we can say that, all the things done to the Kurds, and at different times and places, were beyond ethnic cleansing and they are physical and cultural genocide. The system that started this policy towards the end of Ottoman Empire and that spread all through [the Turkish] Republican period wanted to exterminate tens of millions of Kurds through genocide, deportation and assimilation. Even if this has not been fully achieved [to date], such policies had a huge destructive impact on the lives of the Kurdish people.

Has the situation changed today? No. Today, Turkish statesmen are neither brave enough to confront their history nor to make real changes in their policies that are suitable for our times. They are disregarding world public opinion and international law and carrying on with their policies without fear. Today the system is using the terror that it had created, carrying on with its militarist and racist activities. It is resisting [initiatives aimed at] opening a peaceful path for a solution. They are not allowing [Kurdish] exiles to return to their land. The ban on language and culture is on going. Even today, there is no freedom of expression and organisation for the Kurds. The intellectuals who support them are punished according to the laws such as Turkish Penal Code article 301 and by similar articles.

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently visited the Kurdish region and had this to say to the people who asked for cultural and political rights:

"...The ones who don't accept the idea of one state, one nation, one flag, should leave the country ...".

In fact, this is an infamous slogan of fascism: "love it or leave it ..".

On 10/11/2008 (The anniversary of Ataturk's death on10/11/1938), the Defense Minister, Mr.VECDI GONUL, who was in Brussels for a meeting, openly claimed that without the genocide of the Armenians and the deportation of the Greeks, there would have been no national state. These are Vecdi Gonul's exact words:

"...The most important step during the establishment of the nation was exchange of the populations. Just think, would it have been possible for us to become a nation state, if the Greeks had continued to live in Aegean region and the Armenians in many parts of Anatolia?"

The Defence Minister, Mr. V.Gonul went on with an example from Ankara:

"... Just one district of Ankara were Muslims in those days …" and added that another one [was] Greek and another one Armenian. He also stated that, at the time, Izmir Trade Organisation was made up of non-Muslims. Mr. Gonul is admitting that with genocide and deportations, Turkey was ethnically cleansed, the finances were gained by Muslim Turks, and by doing so, the nation state was set up and what is more, he defended such action.

Honestly, there are no Greek or Armenian districts, Greeks or Armenians left in Ankara. Such Greek or Armenian districts don't exist in Istanbul either. Despite all that the ones who stayed behind and how they feel is not a secret. The events that took place in Malatya and murder of HRANT DINK with the knowledge and support of the police and gendarme authorities are still fresh in our minds.

Today, the extermination of the Kurds, and the physical and cultural genocidal policies that are implemented against the Kurds are a continuation of that "NATION BUILDING" mentality. It is obvious that the Turkish statesmen believe that they have not completed the task yet ....

1 Celal Bayar was Prime Minister of Turkey in 1937 & later President in 1950.

THE CRIME AGAINST MULTI-CULTURAL CIVIIZATION

Khatchatur I. Pilikian

60th Anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention

9th December 2008 In Committee Room 17 of the House of Commons London

Sponsor : Dr. Bob Spink MP (Independent)

Co-organisers: Solidarity with the Victims of All Genocides, (SVAG)

Nor Serount Cultural Association, CHAK (Centre of Halabja), supported by Seyfo Centre

Allow me to announce loud and clear, at the onset: that the alpha and omega of my reflections on Genocide remains this: that deep in my heart I wish Armenians had no such experience to talk about. Indeed I feel perhaps I would even have been a happier human being if peoples all over the world whether Congolese, Nama, Herero, Abyssinians, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Jews, Palestinians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Poles, Serbs, Kossovans, American-Indians of the north and the Indigenous communities of the south, Timorese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Rwandans, Darfurians, and alas many others had also no such terrorising experience. But most importantly, I truly believe that our precious and only world will be a much better place to live, and die for that matter, if that ultimate state terrorism is banished out of existence for all times to come. No wonder this plea, mentioned in an Armenian dictum: “I pray God not to let this evil befall my worst enemy.”

The crucial question remains: to prevent Genocide ever happening again, what kind of human relations humanity should aspire to? Perhaps the first step is what the brave Archbishop Desmond Tutu wants us to consider, saying: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”

Hence the need to choose: to have or not to have a world cleansed of Genocide, that ultimate tool of the oppressor. Furthermore, let us also be aware that it is obscene to let a major inhuman calamity like Genocide monopolize intellectual resources to eventually establish an exploitative industry. Such an obsessive monolithic approach diminishes any cultural heritage—exactly what oppressors and Genocide perpetrators desire most.

An eminent educator and a renowned scholar, Paulo Freire has put that vital choice in perspective: “Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed […] Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as people […] It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the ‘rejects of life’ [...] It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate man, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well) […] For the oppressors, however, it is always the oppressed […] who are disaffected, who are ‘violent’, ‘barbaric’, ‘wicked’, or ‘ferocious’ when they react to the violence of the oppressors.” (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Education 1977. Pp 31-32)

I firmly believe that a genuinely humanist Democracy, once best defined as “the rule of the people, by the people, for the people”, might prove to be the only guarantee to obliterate a major raison d’être of exploitative oppression and terrorism, the latter being the parasitic louse of reactionary, deformed democracy. Wherever hopelessness, insecurity and pessimism are injected as ingredients for the idealistic belief in violence, there violence manipulates terror as a cathartic pathos in an anti-historical, solitary action, a pathetically individualistic fetish that is only capable of and encourages an extreme reactionary change of the state/military power, leading to Fascism, the apotheosis for megalomaniac state terrorism—the fuel of Genocide.

Let us not forget that a substantial part of the history of empires or states, whether kingdoms or republics, past and present, especially those that entertain such megalomaniac status, not excluding the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, is the history of the oppressed and their oppressors.

The literary genius John Milton, whose 400^th anniversary of birth is exactly today, but it will be marked tomorrow at the Library, Conway Hall, once uttered this eye-opening remark in his Apology of 1648: “they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.”

Curiously enough, the recent Defence Minister of Turkey chose to forget what Ataturk himself had thought about such state terror accomplishments. The Turkish historian and sociologist Taner Akcam informs: “Mustafa Kemal has dozens of speeches in which he defines the treatments reserved to Armenians as "cowardice", or "barbarity", and names these treatments "massacre". (See T. Akcam’s books: The Geemnocide of Armenians and the Silence of the Turks; From Empire to Republic; A Shameful Act.)

We all know of course that Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term "genocide" in 1943, did not mince his words, stating that genocide “happened so many times… First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action." (Dadrian. History of the Armenian Genocide, p. 350)

According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, 1,700 people were tried in 2006 alone, under the racist Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Prosecutors of the status quo have a field day in prohibiting so-called “insulting Turkishness”, utilizing Article 301 to silence those valiant intellectuals who dare challenge the false premises of the official state denials of historical truths related with the Empire’s and the Republic’s tragic acts of ethnic and cultural annihilations. Hrant Dink himself was victimised by Article 301, before his assassination. Not surprisingly, therefore, that the eminent Turkish civil rights campaigner and publisher Ragip Zarakolu was found guilty of “insulting the institutions of the Turkish Republic”. Just recently the BBC announced that a Turkish court has sentenced a Kurdish politician, the European Parliament's Sakharov human rights 1995 award winner, 47-year-old Ms Leyla Zana, to 10 years in prison. That is what the racist Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code is all about—annihilating dissent and multiculturalism.

* UNITED NATIONS CHARTER 1945

* UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 1948

* CONVENION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE 1948

* INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINAION 1965

* INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 1966

* UNIVERSAL DECLERATION OF THE RIGHTS OF PEOPLE 1976

* UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE 1984

* THE GENEVA DECLARATION ON TERRORISM 1987

* EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL AND MINORITY LANGUAGES 1992

* INTERNATIONAL COVENENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS 199

* FRAMEWORK CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES 1995

* UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 2007

On December 2, 2005, in a presentation at the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights, Dr Fatma Müge Göçek candidly admitted the following: “I, as an ethnically Turkish citizen, am not guilty, but am responsible for what happened to the Armenians in 1915. I did an analysis of the Deputies of the first National Assembly, I have found enough documentation that implicates about 25-30% of the Deputies of having participated in the massacres against the Armenians... Not only was there no accountability and no punishment for those who committed crimes against the Armenians, but many of the perpetrators, unfortunately, then became leaders of the Turkish Republic.”

As if emulating Dr F. Müge Göçek’s example, few days ago, on December 5, 2008, correspondent Ayşe Karabat in Ankara signed this note in the journal TODAY’S ZAMAN: ”A group of Turkish intellectuals have apologized for the “great disaster that Ottoman Armenians suffered in 1915” but have fallen short of calling on the state to do the same. A petition initiated by a group of intellectuals, including professors Baskin Oran and Ahmet İnsel, journalists Ali Bayramoğlu and Cengiz Aktar, personally apologizes for the events.” The petition reads: "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them." This is a first step, but a courageous one, especially when taken in the home country.

During the tragic times of 1915, a scientist and one-time minister of Education in Turkey, Ahmed Riza, was appalled by the wide spread usurpation of the Armenian properties. Even though he was a Young Turk activist, but an anticolonialist sympathisor nevertheless, he was adamant that: “the Armenians […] did not abandon their properties voluntarily; they were forcibly, compulsorily removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its efforts is selling their goods… If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can’t do this. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it.^” (Y. Bayur. Turk Inkilabz. vol. III, part 3 op. cit. in Dadrian. History of the Armenian Genocide)

But the law did allow it and with no regard whatsoever to any human conscience. On September 13, 1915, the Ottoman parliament passed the "Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation". The ‘lawful’ plunder of homes, livestock, land and all was mercilessly unleashed. Months before that draconian Law, the proto-Nazi regime of the Young Turks gave no credance to the Triple Entente, when the latter warned them, on May 2, 1915 that "In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied Governments announce publicly… to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres." (FO 371/2488/51010 (May 28, 1915)

It’s worth noting that the notion “crimes against humanity and civilization”, thus had its first entry in the annals of human history, which still serves as one of the best definitions of Genocide, the latter to be coined nearly three decades later.

Trying to assess the enormity of the Aremnian cultural loss, the Editor in Chief of Documents on British Foreign Policy, Prof W. N. Medlicott, wrote, on September 14, 1974: “Hardly less tragic than the actual destruction of life has been the disruption of an age-long cultural and religious heritage and the loss of an ancestral home tenaciously defended for over 2000 years. It is well that these events should be recorded and that we should pay a tribute to the courage of the survivors of the massacres and their descendants, scattered though they now are throughout the world.”

History has taught us, time and again, that when racist ideology gets hold of politics and the power to oppress, then a ‘chosen’ race becomes the cult, or the ‘divinely’ cultivated one, and all the other races are expected or even forced to be their slaves to cultivate the soil of the world for the cult-race to cherish its ‘divine’ privileges. Characteristically, the human culture itself becomes abhorrent to the ‘divinely cultivated elite’. No wonder an arch racist Dr Goebbels, once confessed: “whenever I hear the word culture I release the safety-catch of my pistol”. The question remains, why the all-powerful Nazi cult leader was terrorised by the mere utterance of the word culture?

What a fantastic metaphorical term, culture, to denote the social, spiritual, intellectual and artistic endeavours of human societies, indeed of humanity as a whole. Culture has no proper antinomy, unlike Civilization, which can be contrasted with Barbarism. The so-called ‘barbaric’ people or societies were also thought to be in possession of culture, albeit ‘less civilized’ ones. The cultivated human beings became closer to being civilized. For many centuries, the meaning of culture was focussed on the concept of a process, as in the act of cultivating the soil of the earth, not only individually, but especially as a society of humans. Civilization, having the ‘city’ as its core, pushed the development of the metaphor to mean not only the process, but also the product of that process. As a result, language, being the most valued commodity of that product, became also the yardstick of civility.

When culture began to be recognised as the end product of a process, civilization was envisaged as the means for that end; in other words, culture signified the values and meanings of that process, while civilization implied its material organisation. It is in that contextual process that culture developed to express the most cherished desire of us all-- freedom, ultimately aspiring for its end product-- happiness. But it is in civilization or Civic Society that the human desire for freedom and happiness can be materialised. A Civic Society therefore essentially implies a non-racist, multi-cultural society-- the building block of multi-cultural civilization.

Here again Raphael Lemkin’s thoughtful contribution is welcome: “I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience […] It became clear to me that the diversity of nations, religious groups and races is essential to civilization because every one of those groups has a mission to fulfill and a contribution to make in terms of culture.”

All the above notwithstanding, UNESCO has been warning the world, for decades now, that the greatest shame of the current civilisation is the fact that thousands of children die of hunger every single day. Today that number has reached the staggering 44,000 hungry children dying each day of the year, as if a Hiroshima bomb is unleashed every single day just to kill children. I would like to pose the following: that the Goebbels’ of this world, “releasing the safety-catch of their pistols”—in modern parlance cluster bombs & co, ill-Ltd --should also be seen responsible for the modern massacres of the innocents. Can there be any doubt that this child cleansing is also the unmentioned genocide of humanity, ongoing and an authentic one at that, which surely is the outcome of our own socio-economic and industrial military system, now coined with cynical panache as Globalisation, whereby tens of thousands of nuclear warheads, each averaging at least 20 times the destructive power of a Hiroshima bomb, are already in deployment all around the world.

Meanwhile billions pour into the pockets of the warmongers of modern metropolises. These warlords of Mammon would eventually thrive in an ‘Inorganic Paradise’—a ‘paradise’ void of universal human rights and sustained by legalised torture; glorification of violence geared towards maximising profit at any cost; xenophobic state terror protected with religious fervour. And, topping as if the macabre orgy, genocide has been already tested, for a century now, to become the collateral damage of its inorganically modernised and sweat-shopped ‘global village’ of hunger and debt.

Sixty years ago this same day of the month, December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. To morrow, December 10, 2008, will be the 60^th anniversary of another momentous event—the adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Its good to believe that the two documents will remain as beacons for lucid endeavours such that humanity at large might ‘rage against the dying’ of its dreams and refuse to become cannon fodder for Mammon, Racism and Terror, thus guarding its deeds of tolerance and justice, fair share and good care, compassion and conscience—the true wealth of nations, hence the health of the world.

Yet a crucial question still remains. How many of the 192 UN member states can genuinely welcome these two humanist documents with clear consciousness and not confront it with hypocritical adherences to the lustre of the texts? Nonetheless, the tenacity of those who dared survive the ultimate state terror and all its horrendous manifestations, persisting then to pass on that struggle to the next generation, aspiring to regain full justice, peace and humanity for all, is in itself, I humbly believe, a valiant act of altruism, of stretching out to the denier too that ultimate gift, worthy of all the material riches of the world--Humanism. Therein lies the essence and valour of truth, reparation and reconciliation, surely the happiest way towards welcoming the 60^th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide—the Crime against multi-cultural civilization.

Khatchatur I. Pilikian. Sometime university professor of music (USA), Pilikian is a performing musician, painter and a writer. He has studied art and music at the Fine Arts and Music Academies in Rome and Siena. “Leonardo da Vinci on voice, music and stage design” was the title of his research as a Fulbright scholar at I.U. School of Music. In 1976, he designed and directed, at Wayne State University, the public radio WDET-FM series HARC-The Heritage of Armenian Culture. In 1984, he published Refuting Terrorism - Seven Epistles From Diaspora (in English and Armenian). He has contributed the entry Music and Turner in the Oxford University Press encyclopaedic publication titled THE TURNER COMPANION. The Spokesman for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation published his paper for the 2005 European Network for Peace and Human Rights Conference, The Spectre of Genocide as Collateral Damage is Haunting the World. His most recent book is UNESCO Laureates: Nazim Hikmet & Aram Khatchaturian (Garod Books of the Gomidas Institute).

----- Original Message -----

From: Eilian Williams

To: k.hopayan@btinternet.com

Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 5:48 AM

Subject: Re: invitation

Dear Friends

These are two new EDMs in the House of Commons.(177 and 27) Could you please e-mail your MP (and other MPs if possible) asking them to sign them? You may find this tiring but it is the only avenue open to us at the moment to pressurise the government. There is a small mistake in the first one . It should have read "Lemkin was inspired " not "orgainiser Lemkin is inspired " of course, but this does not alter the thrust of the motion

Regards

Eilian

EDM 177

UN GENOCIDE CONVENTION 60TH ANNIVERSARY

08.12.2008

Spink, Bob

That this House notes that on 9 December, meetings in the House on the continuing persecution of minorities will mark the 60th anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention; further notes that organiser Raphael Lemkin is inspired by the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians in 1915, the subsequent massacre of Assyrians at the birth of modern Iraq, and his personal experience following the invasion of Poland; further notes that the Government has never consulted any reliable genocide scholars; and urges the Government to honour Raphael Lemkin's work by changing its untenable position of denial of the Armenian and Assyrian genocide.

Signatures( 13)

EDM 27

SAFETY OF MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN IRAQ

03.12.2008

Spink, Bob

That this House is concerned that the failure to honour promises made after the First World War to the Assyrians and Kurdish minority communities on autonomy, the creation of a centralised Iraq in 1932 without provision for the security of minorities, the recent war of 2003 which led to the rise of fundamentalism, and the ethnic cleansing of the Mandaeans and Assyrian-Chaldeo-Syriacs in Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, place a special responsibility on the Government to these minorities; calls on the Government to therefore take a sympathetic attitude to asylum claims from these minorities; and urges the Government to learn from past mistakes and to use its influence in a robust way on the government of Iraq to ensure the safety of the aforementioned minorities as well as of Yezidis, Faili Kurds and Shabaks, so that a dishonourable withdrawal from Iraq is avoided.

Signatures( 21)

----- Original Message -----

From: Eilian Williams

To: k.hopayan@btinternet.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:46 AM

Subject: invitation

Wales-Armenia Solidarity Appeal to Help the Armenians of Iraq

Dear Friend

Today we launch a world-wide appeal to give financial and other help to the Armenians of Mosul and Baghdad who have had to flee for their lives (this last week following the killing of 15 Christians in Mosul and previously) . This follows my visit to the Armenian community of Havrest and Zeikho on Friday of last week and the Chaldean Church in Dohuk on Saturday.

On Thursday, I had visited the Municipality of Ankawa, an entirely Christian town just outside Erebil. It was there that the Head of the Municipality informed me of what had happened to Christians in Mosul the previous week. I met the KRG Foreign Minister and thanked him for the assistance given to fleeing Christians of the Arab-controlled Mosul city, and asked him to ensure their protection .

On Friday, in Zako, Father Miran Yousif Murad showed me around the Armenian Church, built in 1923 by Genocide Survivors and introduced me to several who had previously fled to Zakho from Mosul. He agreed to accept any money collected in Europe and America to help the local refugees from Mosul and from Baghdad.

He took me to a village called Havrest, built for the Armenians by the Kurdish Regional Government. With me was Jwan Taher Ahmed a journalist who represents the Dohuk Governate. About 60 local people came to meet us and we sat outside the school. When I asked what are the main problems, their spokesman replied that they are helping the refugees arriving this week by sharing them around people's homes. The refugees receive nothing, only the help of themselves for several weeks or months. Later they are given about 40 dollars per month by the Kurdish government, as well as enough diesel to run generators to provide electricity for 3 hours per day

Financial help for the new refugees would be most welcome, as well as help for two other problems. There are presently 9 children who need to travel to the High School in Dohuk. They would like 12,000 dollars to buy a van to carry them to school. I was impressed by their willingness to help others even though their own situation was not flourishing. Surely throughout the world we can raise

12, 000 dollars for the vehicle, and some more to help the newly arrived refugees? When I asked them do you receive help from Europe or America they said that they had no contacts there.

I was afterwards taken to the home of a family who showed us her two-year old daughter (more details, names etc will follow about them) She has two holes in her heart and when they lived in Baghdad, a German doctor was going to take her to Germany with a humanitarian organisation to have the required heart operation. Unfortunately the doctor fled Baghdad because of the terrorism and then they also fled, loosing the chance of this operation.

Can anyone please help by persuading the US, UK , French or Armenian government to provide a 6 month visa for the mother and daughter? Does anyone know of Humanitarian organisations who could help them? Can you put us in touch with every Armenian heart specialist that you know of? Father Miran will provide more details very soon.

On Saturday in Dohuk,I was taken by translator Kamal Hussain Mawlood to met the members of the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Assembly, including Jameel Zaito, the chairman.They include all but one of the Christian political parties, and they confirmed the truth of the news of killings and flight of Christians from Mosul. I met a brave lady, Ms Basima Issa Salman, a Christian Member on the Niniveh Council, who had been threatened with assassination 13 times. She gave me copies of the letters which had been posted into the houses of Christians, ordering them to leave, and threatening to kill them in the name of Islam.

In the Dohuk Chaldean Catholic Church, over 60 people were given shelter. They came into a church room to recount their experiences.

Professor Samir Rahim began.. "The 6th of October passed quietly but on the 7th what hit us was like a volcano or a flood. Terrorists asked the people for their IDs and if they were found to be Christian they were killed. Assassinations had began on the streets. Two were ordinary building workers. A group of terrorists came and killed them . One of the victims was named Amjad. Assassinations were sporadic to start with and grew more intense . By Thursday the 9th, 14 had been killed. They attacked three families, kicked them out of their homes, stole their belongings and blasted their houses. In one house they came through the roof and slaughtered the whole family.People were now living in panic and terror. The terrorists said "We do not want Christians living amongst us. If you stay here we are going to kill you" The municipality for 10 days was as if it did not exist. On the 8th we fled for our lives to Kurdistan. The events happened in front of the local police with the assistance of the by police. The army did not interfere with the situation for 10 days. A total of over 2,000 families have fled. "

Ablahad Khoshaba Zaiya, a floor tile layer showed me where they were sleeping in the Church and said "I know nothing about my future . All I know is that now I live in the house of God We have no future at all here. I just want a safe place to raise my children". .There were 7 in his family .Gorgis Shamon Esho , Haitha Petros and Faleel Eskandar Istefo agreed with him.

An Armenian woman Mariam Sepan Sarkismeherian said that her family was originally from Dehe in Armenia, and had fled to Mosul after the 1915 genocide.Only her father survived from his whole family. They all said that they were too afraid to go back to Mosul. Even if things improve, the terrorists will always come back, because they want the "Christian infidels" to leave. Many of the people said that they would be willing to go to Europe if they were accepted.

I ask you to e-mail eilian@nantperis.wanadoo.co.uk if you can help in a financial or other way.

Details of the Wales-Armenia Solidarity bank account are as follows:Direct transfers could be made

HSBC Bank plc

Sort Code : 40-16-02

Account Number: 11578922

Account Name: BRAWDGARWCH CYMRU-ARMENIA

WALES-ARMENIA SOLIDARITY

Account Number for international transfers : GB64MIDL40160211568922

For anyone sending cheques the address is

Eilian Williams

Wales-Armenia Solidarity

7 Nant Ffynnon,

Nant Peris,

Gwynedd,

Wales,

LL55 4UG

United Kingdom

Cheques should be made out to Wales Armenia Solidarity. I will send all the money to father Miran. He will provide details of what vehicle is bought and will also give details of a spokesman for the village of Havrest.

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