Have you ever heard the phrase “powerful Armenian Diaspora?”

I have heard that phrase many times, of course from Turks and Azerbaijanis. These people blame on the “powerful Armenian lobby/diaspora” for the liberation of Artsakh, for the official recognition of the Armenian genocide in many countries and for the last European Union resolution accusing Azerbaijan in violating UNESCO convention for destroying the last remaining monuments of Old Jugha cemetery! Whenever there is something going on in the world, it is always the “Armenian lobby.”

If you ask this blogger about the Armenian lobby, I will say there is none. This comes from a person who knows many members of the Armenian “lobby,” especially the one in the United States. This comes from a person who has many friends among the Armenian “lobbyists” and from a person who has “lobbied” the Congress for Armenian issues.

Map: from Hewsen's "Armenia: A Historical Atlas"

If the Armenian “lobby” in the United States was powerful, once upon a time noted Prof. Armen Aivazian, the US administration would have recognized the independence of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh and would have dared to use the phrase “Armenian genocide.” An ANCA leader from the United States once upon a time told me over the phone about the “absurdity” of the “Armenian caucus” of the US congress. The caucus includes over 150 congressmen, but most “pro-Armenian” bills are struggling to get several co-sponsors. What does this mean? This means that the Armenian caucus is a BS, nothing more. Oh, something else. According to the same source, the most “pro-Armenian congressman George Radanovich (R-CA)” had sent staff members to other congressmen’s offices asking to vote against Rep. Adam Schiff’s H.Con.Res.195 resolution about the Armenian genocide…

If you do not agree with the above evidence that there is no Armenian lobby in the United States, you might have a point. But, please explain me why the US administration proposes $3.5 Million Foreign Military Financing to Armenia and $4.5 Foreign Military Financing to Azerbaijan. Is it because Armenia has nothing to offer to the United States? Perhaps. But that “nothing” also includes the powerful Armenian lobby…

The proposed 2007 military budget is as follows:

Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
$3.5 Million (Armenia) $4.5 Million (Azerbaijan)

International Military Education and Training (IMET)
$790,000 (Armenia) $885,000 (Azerbaijan)

The budget also includes $50 million in economic aid to Armenia, which is $25 million less from the total amount Congress allocated to Armenia in FY 2006.

-from AAA's "ASSEMBLY THIS WEEK" (6 Feb 2006) newsletter

Khatchig Mouradian sent this photo through Armenian-Turkish workshop. It is from
http://www.bendib.com/newones/2005/decembe…ust-Deniers.jpg.

I have decided to write about hatesites. As an Armenian, I will be evaluating anti-Armenian websites, but for non-Armenians it will be interesting to see how hate works.

So this is the first part of the hatesite entries. Let me note that, though Google contains a few search results on the word “hatesite,” I came up with this word on my own some time ago. Definition of the word: “Hatesite is an internet site that demonizes, dehumanizes and spreads hate about national, ethnic, religious or other social groups" (Blogian dictionary, 2005).

Being Armenian I might have trouble finding Armenian hatesites, but I am sure there are some. Nevertheless, generally speaking, Armennet (Armenian internet, another new word!) is clear of hate and dehumanization of others.

Why? I have a theory. I think the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Diasporas are checks and balances on each other. Since you cannot find any country in this world that Armenians have not lived or are not living in, politically speaking Armenians are very diverse. And Armenians like criticizing each other, sometimes to an extent that Armenians think they will never be united. I will write on this theory more…

But again, I think the diversity of Armenians is a mechanism of checks and balances on each other. So that’s the reason that I have not encountered Armenian hatesites, but I promise to share with you whenever I encounter one!

The “honor” of the first hatesite goes to www.tallarmeniantale.com, an epitome of human hatred against humans. This website is more known for denying the Armenian genocide, but it is not the denial that makes this website to a hatesite category!

I have said before that tallarmeniantale.com is a sick nationalistic bsite, which says that Ashkenazi Jews, Native Americans and others are Turks. It also says that the Renaissance and the Reformation was due the fact that Turks conquered Constantinople… Well, nationalism and revisionism does not make it to a hatesite either, so don’t think I don’t defend ones right to say that Turks are God-given creatures who always do the best!

So what makes www.tallarmeniantale.com a hatesite? Well, the “simple” fact of quoting an “unknown source” that “proves” Armenians are rodents… And then some people doubt whether Holdwater (the author of tallarmeniantale.com) is not the same Botas, who called Fatma Gocek, a Turkish professor admitting the Armenian genocide, a “fat lady.”

Armeni-lemmings identify with this rodent
– from http://tallarmeniantale.com/psychology.htm

Harut Sassounian’s latest “Boycott PBS Stations that Air ‘Balancing’ Panel on Genocide” editorial (California Courier, 9 Feb 2006) informs that PBS will be broadcasting a “panel discussion” on the Armenian genocide after showing Andrew Goldberg’s "The Armenian Genocide" documentary on 17 April, 2006.

Photo: This is Justin McCarthy. You will not believe, but the photo is from a Turkish website: actually, from a Turkish governmental website. I do not want to comment on this photo. It is self-explanatory enough (photo credit: www.byegm.gov.tr)

The discussion has already been taped earlier today (6 Feb 2006), featuring genocide deniers Justin McCarthy (whose Turkish payroll includes one-month family vacation in Cyprus) and Omer Turan, a professor from a Turkish university. The “Armenian side” is presented by Turkish professor from the University of Minnesota Taner Akcam, and Colgate University professor Peter Balakian (who has Armenian origin).

Photo: This is Omer Turan. Nothing special about him as a Turk, despite the fact that knows English pretty well (photo credit: eastweststudies.org)

Sassounian asks, “[s]ince PBS executives would never think of including neo-Nazis in a panel discussion following the airing of a Holocaust documentary, why would they do it in the case of an Armenian Genocide documentary?”

Photo: This is Taner Akcam, one of the “traitors” among the Turks who does not fear to say, “my country committed genocide against the Armenians.” One day I will write about Akcam more, since I have seen him every single day during my genocide course in Canada. You will be surprised to learn that he is not a traitor at all… (photo credit: Nisan Sarican)

I understand what Mr. Sassounian means, but I would not mind seeing a Holocaust denier “convincing” that there were no gas chambers, and then a historian showing what an idiot that person is.

Photo: This is Balakian. He is not as outgoing and modest in life as Akcam, but his writings are important in genocide studies. Akcam is one of the most charismatic people I have ever seen in my life. It is impossible not to love Akcam, well, unless you are a member of the Bozkurt fascist group… (photo credit: wwwlb.aub.edu.lb)

Coming to Akcam and Balakian, I personally know both of them (met Akcam in Canada and Balakian in Colorado) and both of them seem to be good enough to smash the deniers.

I actually would love to “debate” the Genocide with McCarthy! Perhaps it comes from my selfishness of laughing at idiots…

…As I had stated in an earlier review, Goldberg’s documentary is already excessively fair and balanced. It includes remarks by several Turkish revisionists. There is no need to further balance it by adding more denialists in a panel after the show. I suggest that all those who disagree with the PBS decision to provide a platform to genocide revisionists take the following actions:

1)Send an e-mail to Jacoba Atlas, Senior Vice President of PBS programming, asking her to cancel the airing of the panel discussion. Her e-mail address is: [email protected];

2)Contact your local PBS station and urge the programming director not approve the airing of the panel discussion (each station, independently of PBS, decides whether or not to air this optional panel discussion);

3)Advise your station manager that if he goes ahead with the airing of the panel discussion, you would neither watch nor financially support the station. Furthermore, you would urge the station’s corporate and foundation sponsors to cease their support;

4)If no satisfactory action is taken by PBS, then contact your Congressional representative, asking that Congress cut back the funding to PBS because of its insensitivity to viewers’ concerns;

5)If the panel discussion is aired, whenever PBS broadcasts a Turkey-related documentary in the future, demand that a panel discussion be held after each show to balance the Turkish propaganda.

All those who care about upholding the truth should not allow PBS to question the veracity of the Armenian Genocide under pressure from the Turkish government and its hired guns.

A press release from ANCA informs about an Africa Action rally organized on 04 February 2006 outside the White House to stop the genocide in Darfur.


Photo: This child had his face bashed in, presumably with a rifle butt, during a massacre in Hamada in January (from www.darfurgenocide.org)

Only 200 people participated in the rally, among them noted radio personality Joe Madison, Africa Action Executive Director Salih Booker and ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

"As Americans, we will look back on February of 2006 with either pride or regret," said Hamparian. "The regret of our shameful indifference to the killing in Darfur, the same cold inaction of our response to past genocides – against Armenian Americans joined over 200 genocide prevention activists at the Africa Action White House rally on Darfur Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans, and too many others. Or the pride that, during this month, we will have helped create a new, better approach to the international community. An approach that not only saves lives today in Sudan, but that helps re-orient our foreign policy toward saving lives, alleviating suffering, – and in so doing, helps prevent the next genocide."

A U.N. decision to "re-hat" the Africa Union (AU) mission as a U.N. operation would grant it a strong civilian protection mandate from the international community. The authorization of a U.N. force to be deployed as soon as possible to the region would provide critical support to the AU mission and provide desperately needed security to the people of Darfur.

Photo: Protesting the genocide in Darfur in Washington, D.C. 04 February 2006 (from www.anca.org)

Another ANCA leader, Steve Dadaian, confronted “CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Dan Rather at a gathering of over 1,000 attorneys at the Southern California Association of Defense Counsel's annual meeting in Century City, California,” by criticizing media’s ignorance against the genocide in Darfur.

In response, Rather admitted the failure of the mainstream news to provide proper coverage of the Darfur Genocide, explaining that news organizations are often motivated by commercial interests to cover "celebrity topics" instead of meaningful stories like Darfur. He agreed that there has been a "dearth of coverage" about Darfur, and said that the issue should receive greater media attention. Rather made no comment on the U.S.'s international legal obligations relating to genocide.

Trafficking Documentary on PBS – 7 February 2006, 9:00pm (for local listings in the United States and for e-mail reminder visit here)

As our friend Ara Manoogian informs at Martuni or Bust!!!, PBS (Channel 6, etc.) will be broadcasting a human trafficking documentary on 7 February 2006, evening schedule.

Photo: Katia (last name withheld) was sold into the sex trade against her will. In Sex Slaves, airing February 7, 2006 on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE follows Katia's husband, posing as a pimp, who carried this photograph in his pocket and met with sex traffickers in order to buy her freedom. Credit: FRONTLINE/WGBH (from www.pbs.org)

The documentary is based on the life of a sex-slave from an Eastern European country.

As PBS writes in its website:

Sex Slaves
coming Feb. 07, 2006 at 9pm (check local listings)

(60 minutes) An estimated half-million women are trafficked annually for the purpose of sexual slavery. The women are kidnapped — or lured by traffickers who prey on their dreams of employment abroad — then they are "exported" to Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere, where they are sold to pimps, drugged, terrorized, locked in brothels, and raped repeatedly. In Eastern Europe, since the fall of communism, sex trafficking has become the fastest growing form of organized crime, with Moldova and Ukraine widely seen as the centers of the global trade in women and girls. On Feb. 7, FRONTLINE presents a unique hidden camera look at this world of sexual slavery, talking with traffickers and their victims, and exposing the government indifference that allows the abuses to continue virtually unchecked. Sex Slaves also follows the remarkable journey of one man determined to find his trafficked wife by posing as a trafficker himself to buy back her freedom.

Friends and family from Yerevan (Capital of the Republic of Armenia/RA) are informing that the city is covered with snow and it still snows. I talked to my sister an hour ago and she says it is almost impossible to walk in the streets.

Photo: A view from Yerevan via Arminco’s webcam. To check the constantly updated photos, visit http://www.hayastan.com/armenia/webcam/.

I received a letter in the mail from my best friend from High School. She says her clothes got wet when she went to the Post office (she is funny; she writes stuff from the Post office too before putting the letter in the envelope).

I don’t usually write about personal stuff in my blog, but I want to share the last part of my friend’s letter. “I pray for you once a week,” she writes in Armenian, and then adds in English, “I asked God to give you Happiness. He said, ‘No, I give him blessings. Happiness is up to him.’”

I obsessively wrote about the recent destruction of Armenian headstones in Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan). Yes, I am obsessed with the Azerbaijani denial of their crimes of cultural cleansing against the Armenian heritage, and I am also obsessed with the Armenian, let alone world, silence in regards to the destruction.

But it is not only the Armenian monuments in Turkey and Azerbaijan that I am obsessed with. I am also obsessed with the preservation of Muslim monuments of the Republic Armenia, since I consider those monuments not only treasures of world, but also treasures of Armenian heritage.

Because of this, I always try to find out information on Muslim monuments in the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh Republic). You may remember the Azerbaijani fabrication about “destruction of Agadede,” which followed the news about Nakhichevan’s recent destruction. I did some to find out about that place, but I could find no mention of it in any written account.

Now about another story. Once upon a time Azerbaijanis were lamenting the fabricated destruction of an Azerbaijani cemetery in Fizuli, currently controlled by the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

Despite the fact that the cemetery has no much historical significance, I truly understand the feeling of Azerbaijanis when they are concerned about the faith of their cemeteries. But I won’t be able to understand the feeling of those Azerbaijanis who will see the photo below, taken in mid-January 2006, and find the state of the cemetery just the same way it was when Azerbaijanis were living in this place. I won’t be, because Azerbaijanis have no similar photos of Armenian monuments to show me. I wish I were wrong!

Photo: the Azerbaijani cemetery of Fizuli (Nagorno Karabakh Republic controlled territory) in mid-January, 2006 (photo originally posted by "Maraga" user at www.day.az/forum)

When I wrote about Steven Sim’s report on Nakhichevan (a historic Armenian landmark now under Azerbaijani control) in a previous entry, I also posted a photo taken by him that showed “the ruins” (actually it showed some ground, since there are not even ruins left) of an ancient Armenian church.

The church is St. Karapet (St. John) of Aprakunis, built before 1381A.D. The supporting-founders of the church were Hovnan Vorotnetsi (Hovnan of Vorotn) and Grigor Tatevatsi (Grigor of Tatev), important figures in Armenian history.

According to an old tradition, snake poisoning was treated in this cathedral with the “blessed soil.” Because of that, the Christian cathedral was also a holy place for local Muslims.

St. John of Aprakunis (or Aprakunyats Surp Karapet) was rebuilt during 1655-1678, and a religious school was opened next to it in 1869.

Until the 1980s, there were cross stones (khachkars) dating back to 1475 A.D. next to the cathedral.

The cathedral was partially destroyed during the Armenian genocide of 1915, but it still remained until the late 1980s; until Azerbaijan decided they will teach their children that no Armenians ever lived in these lands…

I am posting here photos of the cathedral before the 1990s and the photos taken by Scot Steven Sim in 2005. Please note, that Azerbaijanis say that there had never been such a church in Nakhichevan…

St. Karapet before the 1990s


St. Karapet in 2005 (photo by Steven Sim)

St. Karapet before the 1990s

St. Karapet in 2005 (photo by Steven Sim)

Comparison

via Groong California Courier Online, February 2, 2006

Is Denial a Hate Crime?
By Simon Maghakyan
Special to the California Courier

If you have not seen the mid-December (2005) video from Hin Jugha (now
Julfa, Nakhichevan) that shows Azerbaijani soldiers destroying the last
headstones of the ancient Armenian cemetery, visit www.julfa.cjb.net
and do so. Watch it closely, because this is the first documented "hot action"
of cultural genocide against the Armenian heritage. Watch it and know that
most Azerbaijanis look at these scenes and deny. They deny this
happened.

[…]

I never truly realized the deep and hateful evil of the Turkish denial
of the Armenian genocide before I faced the Azerbaijani denial Jugha's
destruction. While we can assume that Turkish deniers may sincerely
believe in their fabricated lies due to the fact that the Genocide happened 90
years ago, the same cannot be said about Azerbaijanis who shamelessly
deny what they can clearly see in the video. This means they know they are
lying; this means denial is not as naïve as we think it is.

Only a week after the news about the destruction, the Azerbaijani
government simply "dismissed the Armenian claims," by stating "no such
thing happened." Then, the Azerbaijani media fabricated a story about
"the destruction of a Muslim holy site in Armenia," trying to show that "we
did it but you it too." After this fabrication was uncovered, an
Azerbaijani academician announced that there had been no Armenian cemetery in
Nakhichevan. This absurd lie did not make it to anywhere either, since
even Azerbaijani websites have information about Jugha's Armenian khachkars.

Now, after the Euro Parliament called on Azerbaijan to stop the
destruction of the Armenian cemetery in its 19 Jan 2006 resolution, Azerbaijan is
giving up the denial. It is "simply" silent. An Azerbaijani national from
Baku, in contrast, is not silent. At www.day.az/forum (the relatively
tolerant Russian-language Azerbaijani forum), that person "justifies"
the vandalism in Hin Jugha's cemetery with the following phrase: "for those
resting under the cross stones, the living ones will come with arms."

Whether the living ones will ever go to Nakhichevan one day, I do not
know. But I know for sure that Hin Jugha will always live with the living
ones, the same way Msho Surp Arakelots and Varagavank live; the same way
Ararat will always belong to the living ones.

Simon Maghakyan is a graduate of the International Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies and can be reached at [email protected].