Migrant crisis: Record 4,000 go from Serbia to Hungary

September 13, 2015 By administrator

The number of migrants entering Hungary from Serbia hit a new record on Saturday amid tension in eastern Europe over how to deal with the crisis, the BBC reports.

More than 4,000 people walked across the border with Serbia just as the authorities in Hungary were completing preparations to seal the frontier.

Europe is struggling to cope with an enormous influx of people, mostly from Syria, fleeing violence and poverty.

Hungary has been criticised for how it deals with those crossing its border.

Officials estimate that 175,000 migrants have crossed from Serbia into Hungary so far this year.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised to seal the country’s borders and arrest any illegal migrants. The country is close to finishing a 4m-high (13ft) fence along the border with Serbia.

More than 4,000 Hungarian soldiers have been brought in to help police enforce a ban which Mr Orban has ordered must come into effect on Tuesday.

The BBC’s Nick Thorpe – reporting from Szeged near the Hungarian-Serbian border – says the humanitarian infrastructure to deal with the migrants is finally being established at the Roske migrant camp.

On Friday, footage emerged of migrants being thrown bags of food at the camp amid criticism that they were being treated like animals.

On Saturday, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann drew parallels between Hungary’s treatment of refugees and Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews.

In response, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Mr Faymann’s comments were “slanderous”.

What ghosts of Armenia could tell us about the migrant crisis Report “Irish Independent”

August 29, 2015 By administrator

By Mary Fitzgerald,

In April this year, Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic row by calling the massacre “the first genocide of the 20th century”, leading Turkey to accuse him of inciting hatred

Avenue 24 April 1915 runs through a neighbourhood of my adopted city of Marseille, where the names on many local businesses betray their Armenian origins. This district in France’s second-largest city is known affectionately as ‘Little Armenia’. The avenue that bisects it is named after the date when what many historians and a growing number of countries now call a genocide began in Ottoman Turkey.

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were subsequently killed against the backdrop of World War One. The legacy of those mass killings and the forced deportations that accompanied them – which Turkey still insists was not genocide – remains a running sore in the region and beyond.

On April 24 this year, Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan described the killing of Armenians a century ago as “unprecedented in terms of volume and ramifications” at that stage in history. “Around 1.5 million human beings were slaughtered merely for being Armenian,” he said.

The 100th anniversary of the killings reopened the debate over whether what happened that year constituted genocide.

An increasing number of nations have backed Armenia’s position that it was indeed genocide.

Turkey argues that the mass killings were a tragic chapter in a vicious war, but not a planned genocide.

In an interview with me in 2010, Turkey’s then president, Abdullah Gul, outlined the government’s position on the issue, saying Turkey would support a commission of inquiry composed of historians who would examine archival and other evidence to see if the atrocities collectively fitted the definition of genocide.

It’s an issue that touches on all kinds of sensitivities, past and present, in Turkey.

In April this year, Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic row by calling the massacre “the first genocide of the 20th century”, leading Turkey to accuse him of inciting hatred.

At an Armenian rite Mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark the centenary of the killings, Francis became the first head of the Catholic Church to publicly use the word “genocide” to describe them.

The forced exiling that accompanied the massacre in 1915 caused Armenians to scatter across the world, so becoming one of the world’s largest diasporas, now estimated at up to 10 million people.

The countries where the highest concentrations settled – including France, which is said to have the world’s third-biggest Armenian population – have tended to be more sympathetic to the call to describe the mass killings as genocide.

At a memorial speech in the Armenian capital Yerevan in April, French president Francois Hollande said a law passed in France in 2001, recognising it as genocide, was “an act of truth” and he argued: “Denial amounts to the repeat of massacres.”

France is one of a dozen EU member states to take this position. The recent decision by the German parliament to use the word ‘genocide’ unsettled Ankara, given that Germany is Turkey’s biggest trading partner in the EU and is home to many ethnic Turks.

The US and others, who are keen to maintain good relations with an important regional partner like Turkey, have avoided using the term. US president Barack Obama pledged while running for election in 2008 that he would use the word “genocide” to describe the killings, but he has failed to do so. Boasting the second-largest military in NATO, Turkey is a crucial ally for Washington, even if relations have become somewhat strained in recent years.

Ireland, which has cultivated good links with Turkey in recent years and is considered by Ankara to be one of the most supportive of its bid to join the EU, has also baulked at using the word.

In a statement issued during the anniversary in April, the Department of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the “terrible events which resulted in the tragic deaths of very large numbers of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire” but did not describe them as genocide, instead calling for Armenia and Turkey to engage in reconciliation.

Here in Marseille, the memory of that time is preserved in the form of a stone memorial on Avenue 24 April 1915 and in the lives of the estimated 80,000 residents of Armenian descent. The city boasts eight Armenian churches, one cathedral and a bilingual school, where French-Armenians can study the language, culture and history of their homeland.

They have established their own heritage centre, which attempts to document the past.

The Armenian community in Marseille, and France more generally, dates back to before the killings of 1915, but the majority fled here after the massacre.

Armenians played a prominent role in the French Resistance during World War Two and have distinguished themselves in French intellectual life, particularly as artists, musicians and writers.

As Europe grapples with massive numbers of refugees fleeing violence and persecution, while xenophobia rises at home, perhaps it would do well to recall a time when desperate Armenians sought and were given sanctuary here.

Irish Independent

Germany gains €100 bn from Greece crisis: study

August 10, 2015 By administrator

Germany, which has taken a tough line on Greece, has profited from the country’s crisis to the tune of 100 billion euros ($109 billion), the AFP reports, citing a new study.
The sum represents money Germany saved through lower interest payments on funds the government borrowed amid investor “flights to safety”, the study said.

“These savings exceed the costs of the crisis – even if Greece were to default on its entire debt,” said the private, non-profit Leibniz Institute of Economic Research in its paper.

“Germany has clearly benefited from the Greek crisis.”

When investors are faced with turmoil, they typically seek a safe haven for their money, and export champion Germany “disproportionately benefited” from that during the debt crisis, it said.

“Every time financial markets faced negative news on Greece in recent years, interest rates on German government bonds fell, and every time there was good news, they rose.”

Germany, the eurozone’s effective paymaster, has demanded fiscal discipline and tough economic reforms in Greece in return for consenting to new aid from international creditors.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has opposed a Greek debt write-down while pointing to his own government’s balanced budget.

The institute, however, argued that the balanced budget was possible in large part only because of Germany’s interest savings amid the Greek debt crisis.

The estimated 100 billion euros Germany had saved since 2010 accounted for over three percent of GDP, said the institute based in the eastern city of Halle.

The bonds of other countries – including the United States, France and the Netherlands – had also benefited, but “to a much smaller extent”.

Germany’s share of the international rescue packages for Greece, including a new loan being negotiated now, came to around 90 billion euros, said the institute.

“Even if Greece doesn’t pay back a single cent, the German public purse has benefited financially from the crisis,” said the paper.

Greek crisis: Yanis Varoufakis accuses Europe of terrorism – as it happened

July 4, 2015 By administrator

Greeks are being asked to say yes (nai) or no (oxi) to an EU bailout deal

The polls will be opening in less than 13 hours and it feels like time for a closing summary.

Germany has softened its stance on Grexit and indicated that any possible Greek exit from the eurozone may only be temporary. The German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Greeks would not be left in the lurch.

Greece is a member of the eurozone. There’s no doubt about that. Whether with the euro or temporarily without it: only the Greeks can answer this question.

When he made those remarks, Schäuble probably hadn’t heard that Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, thinks the country’s creditors are trying to “terrorize” Greece.

Varoufakis said Greece’s creditors wanted to “instil fear” and blamed them for the government having to close the banks.

What they’re doing with Greece has a name — terrorism. What Brussels and the troika want today is for the yes (vote) to win so they could humiliate the Greeks.

We will be looking forward to the next eurozone finance ministers meeting if Varoufakis does stay in office – he has promised to resign in the event of a yes vote.

Matteo Renzi reiterated his message of reassurance that Italy will not be following in Greece’s footsteps. The Italian prime minister said Italy was no longer the sick man of Europe.
Around 1,000 people gathered in London urging the cancellation of Greece’s debts. Similar rallies took place in other UK cities, following demonstrations in Brussels, Rome and Paris earlier this week.

That’s all from me. The Guardian live blog team will be back tomorrow to guide you through polling day and beyond.

Source: The guardian

Turkey facing identity crisis – Armenia’s diaspora minister

May 22, 2015 By administrator

Armenia’s Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan spoke of six groups of events that marked the Armenian Genocide centennial.

The first group is political events, approved resolutions, commemorations. The second group is propaganda work.

The mass media provided extensive coverage of the events, especially after a media forum.

“The third group included academic issues and research. All prestigious universities and certain parliaments organized academic conferences. Even Turkish universities did it,” Ms Hakobyan said.

She highlights Islamized Armenians’ problems.

“Experts say that the number of disguised, or Islamized, Armenians reaches 2.5-3 million,” Ms Hakobyan said.

The events marking the Armenian Genocide centennial are highly important if that the disguised Armenians are now openly identifying themselves.

“In a word, Turkey is facing an identity crisis now because an Armenian says he is an Armenian, a Jew says he is a Jew, a Greek says he is a Greek. That is, people are returning to their roots,” Ms Hakobyan said.

According to her, Islamized Armenians are showing a tendency to adopt Christianity.

“The fourth group has to do with publishing activities,” the minister said, adding that different books and editions covering the Genocide issue have been published in different languages.

Speaking of fifth group, the minister highlighted the importance of different community programs, cultural initiatives and acknowledgement events.

The sixth group, she said, addresses legal issues. The minister said that the Holy Mass in Vatican (in which Pope Francis acknowledged the massacres of Armenians as the 20th century’s first crime of genocide and honored the 10th century Armenian monk and poet Gregory of Narek as a doctor of the church) and the canonization of the Armenian Genocide victims marked the culmination of the different religious events commemorating the tragedy.

Identity crisis among Kurdish Yazidis in Armenia

May 29, 2014 By administrator

By Deniz Serinci

YEREVAN, Armenia,— In the small Caucasian country Armenia there is a dispute over the identity of the area’s Yazidis, a religious minority found only among the Kurds, thorough history mistakenly believed to be “devil worshippers” and persecuted for some of their beliefs.

Last week Yazidis in Armenia held a protest in front of the UN Office in Yerevan against the recent attacks on Yazidis in Iraq. The protest was led by The Yezidi Union in Armenia, which are known for sharing the view that Yazidis have no connections to Kurds. The approximately 40,000 Yazidis came to Armenia as refugees from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and are the largest minority group in the mainly Christian country.

During a visit, Aziz Tamoyan, the director of the Yezidi Union in Armenia, told Rudaw:
“We are not Kurds. They speak Kurdish, we speak Ezdiki. They come from the Middle East, Yazidis come from the ancient Babylonians.”

Tamoyan showed the Union’s newspaper “Yezidikhaya” which on the front page write “My nation is Yezidi, my language is Ezdiki and my religion is Sharfadin”, a term for the belief. In 2002 the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia at the request of a group of Yazidis of Armenia, headed by Tamoyan have recognized Yazidis as a separate ethnicity and their language as Ezdiki. This is now taught in Armenian universities, where ‘Kurdish’ and ‘Ezdiki’ are taught as different languages.

In addition they have their own flag, consisting of a white and red color, and a yellow sun. The flag is similar to the Kurdish flag, but missing the green color, as this color in their opinion symbolizes Islam.

Kurdologist Garnik Asatrian from Yerevan State University supports the Yezidikhaya project’s denial of being Kurdish, although disagreeing voices refer to the fact that Ezdiki sounds just like Kurmanji-Kurdish.

“Yazidis and Kurds are completely different ethnic identities. Language is not a decisive criterion, some people in Africa speak English, but has nothing to do with British,” Asatrian told Rudaw.

However, the Yezidikhaya project is not, condoned by academic specialists on Yazidis outside of Armenia, who say that Yazidis speak Kurmanji Kurdish and belong essentially to Kurdish culture.

Philip G. Kreyenbroek is professor and director of Iranian Studies at University of Göttingen and told Rudaw:

“Obviously the Yazidis are Kurds. Their common language, including that of their sacred texts, is Kurmanji Kurdish, and they originate in the Lalish area in Northern Iraq.”

He says the denying of being Kurdish is due to the Armenian genocide in 1915 during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, in which the Kurdish Hamidiyye regiments played an important role in killing Armenians.

Barzoo Eliassi, researcher at University of Oxford, agrees with Kreyenbroek.

“There are no doubt Yazidis are Kurds. Kurdishness is not a homogenous category. Turks and some Kurds were involved in genocidal acts against the Armenians in 1915. So for Yazidis, to avoid being Muslim and Kurd, mean avoiding double stigmatization in the Armenian context,” he told Rudaw.

Matthias Bjornlund, a Danish historian and author to books about Armenia, believes Yazidis in Armenia feel a need to distance themselves from Non-Yezidi Kurds, some of which helped to carry out the genocidewAgainst Against Armenian in 1915. After the Nagorno-Karabakh war 1991-94 between the Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis Yazidis once more felt pressure to appear loyal.

“The war has contributed to an increasing number of Yazidis in Armenia saying they are ‘pure’ Yezidi, rather than Kurds, because it is less controversial and not associated with Islam,” Bjornlund told Rudaw.

Titale Kerem is editor of the newspaper Riya Taze, the world’s longest-lived Kurdish newspaper, founded in Armenia in 1932. He describes himself as a “Kurd by ethnicity and Yezidi by religion”.

“Of course we are Kurds. We speak Kurdish. However many Yazidis hold grudges due to past massacres against them by non-Yezidi Kurds and therefore will not be associated with them,” he told Rudaw.

Aziz Gerdenzeri is a Yezidi Book Author, theater writer and doctor, born in Georgia, but lived for many years in Armenia and Central Asia. He believes that some Yazidi groups after political events have begun to consider the word “Kurd” as synonymous with “Muslim” and therefore reject a relationship with the Kurds.

“Yezidi and Kurds are one and the same nation. We have the same language, history and traditions. But due to historical massacres against Yazidis, people perceive the word ‘Kurd’ as ‘Muslim’,” he told Rudaw.

Outside Armenia most Yezidi associations do not share their views of their co-religionists in the Caucasian country. Chairman of Ezidi Culture Association in Denmark, Yilmaz Yildiz is questioning why generations of Yazidis have fought side by side with Muslim Kurds as Kurdish partisans, Peshmergas in Iraq, Turkey and Syria if they themselves were not Kurds.

“The Yezidi are and have been part of the Kurdish resistance movement throughout Kurdistan, simply because they consider themselves indigenous Kurds and are part of the Kurdish community. When Saddam Hussein killed Yazidis during Anfal, it was because of their Kurdish identity and not because they were Yazidis. When he burned their houses and gave their land and villages to the Arabs, it was because they were Kurds,” Yildiz told Rudaw.

“If they Yazidis are not Kurds, why do we talk the same language as all other Kurds? Why do we not have our own common language?” he added.

Deniz B. Serinci, a freelance Danish professional journalist. You can visit his official website at: www.serinci.dk.