17:10, 29 November, 2012

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. The release and honoring of murderer Safarov by the Azerbaijani side is unacceptable. The Rector of the Kadir Has University of Turkey Dr. Mustafa Aydin expressed this conviction. Dr. Mustafa Aydin visited Armenia to partake in the annual international forum “Dynamics of Regional Security in the South Caucasus”, which kicked off in Yerevan on November 29.

Among other things Mustafa Aydin underscored that despite the fact that Azerbaijan and Turkey are strategic partners, but such a step of their staunch ally is neither comprehensible, nor acceptable. As reports “Armenpress” the Rector of the Kadir Has University of Turkey emphasized: “Azerbaijan should not undertake such a step.”

At the same time he does not share the viewpoint of the Turkish authorities regarding the closed borders with Armenia. Aydin stated: “Notwithstanding I realize that we must spare no effort for it, but the border must be opened, we must undertake a number of steps for it. There is no hostility between the Turkish and Armenian peoples.” He also admitted that Azerbaijani issues have negative impact on the Armenian-Turkish relations as well.

Referring to the intolerant announcements and speeches of the Prime Minister of Turkey the Turkish political scientist noted that Erdoğan has his own convictions and “they do not always coincide with ours.”

Entering Isfahan’s Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Savior on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List is among the priorities of our organization, Head of the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Office in Isfahan Province Mohsen Moslehi told Iran’s news agency IRNA in an interview.

According to Moslehi, the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Savior, one of the valuable historical monuments in Isfahan, attracts many tourists from around the world.

Referring to Armenian cultural monuments located in the territory of Iran, deputy head of Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization Masoud Alavian Sadr said to Iran’s news agency Fars recently in an interview, “Karakilisa Church located in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province has already been entered on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List along with 9 Iranian cultural and historical monuments. Another Armenian church, St. Mary, is located in Maku, West Azarbaijan. St. Stephanos (10-12 centuries) is another significant Armenian church, which is located in Julfa, East Azarbaijan Province, on the bank of Arax River.”

BY MARIA TITIZIAN

Anyone who lives in Armenia or who follows politics in this country understands that impunity is one of the causes of widespread disillusionment, distrust in the justice system and the prevailing cynicism. These sentiments are grounded in facts and not perceptions as some things invariably can be in societies where there is no cohesion or solidarity. There have been countless cases where those with powerful connections to the ruling regime have been able to manipulate the system and escape prosecution squandering all hope for the application of the fundamental precept of equality before the law for all.

A case in point was the appointment of Gagik Beglaryan as Minister of Transport and Communication, a potentially “lucrative” posting after he was forced to resign as mayor of Yerevan for beating up a member of President Sargsyan’s protocol office. The violence was motivated because this official asked Mr. Beglaryan’s wife to change her seat at a Placido Domingo concert in Yerevan a few years ago. This is not breaking news, nor has Mr. Beglaryan misbehaved recently, at least not to my knowledge. However, men like Gagik Beglaryan (Chorni Gago), Ruben Hayrapetyan (Nemets Rubo), Suren Khatchatryan (Liska) and many others with similarly colorful nicknames continue to operate, conduct business, maintain relationships and steer clear of any recrimination through their very powerful connections and by having a plethora of volunteers to act as their fall guys. And those who wield no influence, who do not have access to unlimited amounts of cash and resources, who are not related to anyone who can provide them with protection are the ones upon whom the heavy hand of the law comes to rest.

As long as there is an absence of political will, as long as the justice system is not independent, as long as society tolerates this kind of behavior, and as long as mainstream media does not report on it these men who hold the levers of power are free to act in a manner which they feel entitled to. It doesn’t have to be so. Recently, events unfolding in Brazil have underscored how persistent, professional and relentless investigative journalism can bring those whom the justice system hasn’t been able to touch to answer.

On November 12, 2012, Jose Dirceu, former chief-of-staff (2003-2005) of Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) was sentenced to almost 11 years for corruption by the country’s Supreme Court. He is known to be the mastermind behind Mensalao, a massive corruption scheme that diverted public funds to pay legislators in the ruling coalition to vote in favor of government initiatives.

The verdict was significant for Brazil who suffers from a long tradition of impunity and absence of freedom of expression and even more so because it was handed down seven years after the scandal first broke (and which almost cost Lula his re-election in 2006) and five years after the Supreme Court decided to hear the case.

Reporting on the verdict, an article in Al Jazeera stated: “The high profile sentences have been seen by many in Brazil as evidence that politics is no longer immune from punishment.” Reuters reported the following: “The corruption trial, which has been running live on Brazilian TV for the last two months, could have repercussions for future trials involving senior politicians, who have long been regarded as untouchable.”

About a month ago, Transparency International and the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute, IPYS) gave three Brazilian journalists, Andreza Matais, Jose Ernesto Credendio and Catia Seabra the annual Latin American Investigative Journalism Award for their reporting on the scandal that eventually led to the resignation of another chief-of-staff, Antonio Palocci (of current president Dilma Roussef). Their investigative journalism in Folha de Sao Paulo began with a story about a questionable purchase of a luxury apartment. “As they followed leads and pieced evidence together, a complex network of illicit activities came into view, much of it centering on a consultancy firm in which Palocci was involved.”

According to Global Investigative Journalism Network, none of this would have been possible without the tenacious and fearless reporting of Brazilian journalists.

Addressing the Latin American Investigative Journalism Conference in Bogota, David Kaplan of the Global Investigative Journalism Network said, “If you invest in investigative journalism, you get dividends in democracy, transparency and accountability.”

Could exposing real cases of corruption lead to fundamental changes in our own country? Perhaps, but it is also true that there have been cases where criminal activity among the so-called elites of Armenia have been made public with the same disappointing result  – a slap on the wrist, a forced resignation coupled with a convenient loss of memory and a promise of a better, more influential appointment at a later date.

While the Brazilian experience is encouraging, to expect mainstream broadcast media in Armenia (who is only as free as the president’s office allows it to be) or semi-independent print and web media outfits to engage in such investigative journalism where we would see the departure of people who abuse their positions of power and influence might be premature because of the atmosphere of fear which persists.

Forcing accountability and “encouraging” the executive branch of government to release the chains around the judiciary’s neck so that it can ensure the equal application of the law will come about when we liberate the individual, the reporter, the anchor, the editor, the writer, the media mogul from the chains of their own forbearance. Investigative journalism, citizen journalism, and social media will be effective tools only when we begin to believe that we are free. The consequences of that freedom might be threats and intimidation which might deter the journalist from reporting on cases of abuse and blatant corruption. However, if all those who report the news, also support one another, exercise their civic rights, express their solidarity with one another, mobilize society to join forces, then not even the long arm of our privileged elite can touch them. Yes, the Brazilian example is encouraging and we should learn from it by applying constant, consistent and unrelenting pressure by reporting, elucidating and enlightening fearlessly. The dividends for democracy, transparency and accountability will far outweigh the consequences for all of us.

YEREVAN—Heritage Party founder and former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian on Friday urged Baku to recognize Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) during a speech he delivered in Baku at an International Conference of Asian Political Parties.

The 7th General Assembly of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) brought together 250 delegates representing 60 political parties from 25 Asian nations, together with a host of Azerbaijani functionaries.

The Heritage Party press service provided the text of Hovannisian’s speech, which is presented below.

Mister chairman, distinguished colleagues:

I shall speak but once, so let it be crystal clear.

In a critical but good-faith search for peace, security, and reconciliation in Asia, I came to this beautiful city of Baku, where hundreds of thousands of Armenians once lived before they were forcibly dispossessed and expelled in January 1990 and whose erstwhile presence has been reduced to one remnant church which has been shut down and transformed to foreign purpose.  Virtually none remains today, and although our Azerbaijani colleagues make reference to the existence of several thousand ethnic Armenians, I have seen no evidence of that claim.  I have asked the authorities here to arrange for me a meeting with even one Armenian who dares to identify himself as such in current-day Baku.

I came here with a different, dialogue-driven spirit and intent, but have immediately faced a stark but expected reality of partisanship, selective propaganda, repetitive rhetoric, unparalleled l xenophobia, and an untruthful presentation of parochial positions—not only in society and political circles but also at the presidential level.

Everything that stands against the precepts and principles of ICAPP.

There can be no peace, security and reconciliation in our region as long as:

1. Azerbaijan launches a failed war of aggression against Mountainous Karabagh and its freedom-loving people, as well as against its own minorities living in its midst, and then blames the self-defenders for that failure;

2. Azerbaijan pursues an official policy of intentional destruction of cultural heritage, and most particularly the daylit destruction in December 2005 of thousands of hand-crafted khatchkars (cross-stones) at the medieval Armenian cemetery at Jugha, Nakhichevan—not as collateral damage of war, but 11 years after the ceasefire and hundreds of miles away from the conflict zone—and ever since has blocked all international missions to the site of this shameful desecration;

3. Azerbaijan continues to release and glorify convicted axe-murderers for the sole reason that the victim is Armenian, without even one voice of condemnation of this cowardly act of hatred in what the founder of ICAPP has referred to as “this inclusive democracy”; and

4. Azerbaijan, in a redundant war of words and terminologies, throws about at meetings such as this the loaded language of “occupation,” when in reality it was liberation, decolonization and everybody’s right to self-determination, and when “occupation” in fact applies most appropriately to Azerbaijani and Turkish control—through genocide, ethnic cleansing, and then the shame of official denialism—of large swathes of the Armenian patrimony from Shahumian and Nakhichevan to the western reaches of the Armenian Plateau.

Peace, security, and reconciliation are possible, however, when we all live by the same standards:

1. achievement of good, self-critical governance, public accountability, and the assumption of responsibility for safeguarding the equal civil rights and human dignity of our own constituents, opposition parties, non-governmental organizations, and minorities;

2. empowerment of the average citizen, civil society, and true democracy, not rule by dynasty or dictatorship;

3. recognition of the liberty, sovereignty, and integrity of all states, old and new, including the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh, whose return to the status quo ante is impossible, but rather whose recognition within its constitutional frontiers will enable a simultaneous, multilateral, and reciprocal right of return for all refugees of all nationalities—not only the displaced Azerbaijanis, but also the more than half million Armenian deportees from Shahumian, Nakhichevan, Artsvashen, and Azerbaijan proper, together with the descendants of the victims and survivors of the great genocide and national dispossession of the Armenian people;

4. protection of all cultural heritage and condemnation of all desecration of that heritage, whether Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, or other;

5. prevention and punishment of all genocides and crimes against humanity; and

6. the exercise of humanity and upholding of the common understanding that pain and suffering are universal and, in this connection, due remembrance of the thousands of righteous Turkish neighbors who demonstrated these virtues in saving Armenian lives, including my grandmother’s, during the Genocide of 1915, as well as the hundreds of Azerbaijanis of good conscience who attempted to do the same during the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Baku decades later.

For this I am grateful.  And hopeful for a better day for the sake of our generations to come.

I thank you for your kind invitation, hospitality, and attention to the whole truth, however terrible or uncomfortable it might be.

PanARMENIAN.Net – Upon his return to Armenia, Heritage party leader and presidential hopeful Raffi Hovannisian addressed a letter to the co-chairmen of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, the 7th General Assembly of which Hovannisian had addressed in Baku on Nov 23.

“The “Baku declaration” is a sham and a forgery. It was imposed upon the delegates to the Assembly in flagrant disrespect of their rights and dignity; in intentional violation of the procedures of the organization which required a) adoption by consensus (at least I opposed it publicly and in no uncertain terms) and b) distribution of its final draft to all delegates before the closing session (which was purposefully not done); and in what appeared to be a premeditated conspiracy of commission (at least by the distinguished senator from Pakistan who headed the drafting committee and was informed in advance that I demanded, in accordance with the aforementioned procedural preconditions, to see the draft declaration and to speak in reference to it if it turned out to be one-sided, partisan and/or untruthful) and of silence (both of you sat quietly by as the ICAPP rules and regulations were being railroaded by the Azerbaijani delegation and the senator in charge of drafting the resolution),” Mr. Hovannisian said.

“As you well know, not only was I denied the right to reply when during the 4th plenary session at least five Azerbaijani delegates attacked me by name with slanderous falsehoods and calls to arms, but I was expressly refused my fundamental prerogative to express my position on participating in, or opposing, the consensus required for adoption of the declaration.”

“In short, there was no consensus; the rule of law was mocked in broad daylight; and, what is worse, the text of the “final” document included a section on Nagorno Karabakh which was stealthily added at the last moment, hence rendering it a declaration of standard Azerbaijani propaganda which not only was spurious and self-serving but effectively supported their war rhetoric and incitement to violence (as manifested in the most uncivil banging of fists to which all of us can testify) instead of the cause of peace, security, and reconciliation. How ironic. I do not know if this was the price the ICAPP leadership had to pay in exchange for the arrangements and other undisclosed benefits delivered by the host state and its ruling party. Frankly, that is not my concern, but rather a matter for your conscience and of your own fidelity to the high principles and values of ICAPP,” the Armenian politician said.

“I hereby demand that you do the right thing, correct your misconduct, and cancel the corruption called the “Baku declaration,” as well as its publication, forthwith and in toto. That failing — and even if no other delegate of good conscience registers his or her protest in formal Fashion — I demand that you remove the word “Armenia” from that falsified piece of paper. If the ICAPP leadership wishes to remain complicit in this deceitful, bellicose affair, and wants to associate itself with war and not pacific settlement, that is your choice. I will not be a part of it,” he said.

17:01, 26 November, 2012

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Presidents of Armenia and Lebanon highly appreciated the efficiency of their meeting held in Beirut. The Presidents underlined the expediency of the development of the reciprocal relations and the necessity of strengthening ties with each other. As reports “Armenpress” citing Lebanese media, in frames of the joint press conference the President of Lebanon expressed his gratitude to Serzh Sargsyan for supporting Lebanon. President Suleiman manifested his willingness to strengthen ties with Armenia both in political and economic spheres and cultural and social realms. He also emphasized the necessity of collaboration on the international level against terrorism.

Among other things the Presidents referred to the international and regional issues and stressed the Arab-Israeli conflict and the strong necessity to find solution of the Palestinian issue. The sides expressed conviction that the aforesaid questions alongside with the Syrian crisis can be regulated by means of dialogue without the military interference of the foreign powers.

In turn the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan also thanked the Lebanese president for the invitation to visit their country and warm reception. Sargsyan stated: “Last year we hosted the President of Lebanon in Armenia and this year we visited Lebanon. This certifies our willingness to continue the dialogue between our countries.”

In addition he said that they had very efficient discussions with President Suleiman regarding the development of Armenian-Lebanese relations. Serzh Sargsyan said: “This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Armenian-Lebanese relations. We have signed 30 agreements and this number have increased during this meeting.” In addition Serzh Sargsyan suggested Michel Suleiman to cooperate in the international realm.

In the course of the conference President Sargsyan expressed his deep anxiety with the current situation in Syria saying that Armenia is always against the bloodshed and adheres to the solution of the problems by means of dialogue. He also announced that Armenia spares no effort for the stability in the South Caucasus and noted that Azerbaijan takes no notice of all the suggestions of the OSCE Minsk Group and draws its people into a new war. The mere fact of releasing the criminal is to prove this.

The President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan paid a three-day official visit to Lebanon.