We have a unique opportunity to document the Armenian culture and material history before it is completely wiped out in Turkey and in Azerbaijan. This would cost about 1 million dollars, but I highly hope rich Armenian foundations will realize the importance of such a project. In terms of fully satellizing the destruction of the Djulfa cemetery, it would only require about $3,000.

Although having access to American satellites, NATO member Turkey has decided to lunch an 80-centimeter-resolution satellite into the orbit by 2011. According to The Space Review (“Turkey’s military satellite program: a model for emerging regional powers”), “Space-based observation is one important way that they can keep track of activities in places like Armenia” and other places.

In fact it was due to the genocide that Turkey committed against Armenia and the crime’s acknowledgement by the French government that delayed the process of satellitizing Turkey’s military espionage in the region. Back in 2001, “The Turkish Defense Ministry canceled a contract to purchase a US$259 million high-resolution Earth observation satellite from Alcatel Space in retaliation for the French parliament’s vote to condemn the Turkish killings of Armenians in the early 1900s.” An Israeli corporation, according to Space and Tech, was supposed to benefit from the Turkish angriness, but it remains a question why Turkey still wants to lunch its own satellite. Why Israel? According to the report, the Jewish state doesn’t mind doing business on spy satellites: ”Israel seems to be willing to sell spy satellites to other countries. Reports about negotiations with Singapore have appeared in the Singapore and Malaysian press.” Why not Turkey then?

The government-owned Turksat already has several broadcast satellites for promoting “cultural, economic, and political influence” from Turkey to Central Asia – the area that many Turkish nationalists have hoped to unite in a Pan-Turkish empire.

The report says the Turkish military plans to spend 200 million dollars on the project. Turkish personnel have been training in Torrejon, Spain for satellite interpretation and technology. The military satellite will be used for “taking pictures of nations that directly border on Turkey.” According to the Turkish Press, November 17, 2006, was the deadline for “bidding in the tender for Turkey’s first military-purpose satellite project.”

But Turkey has already started documenting its neighbors. It “is already buying imagery from commercial sources” – that are available to everyone for the same price.

The report about Turkey’s satellite ambitions came three weeks after I purchased a 2003 satellite image of Nakhichevan’s (part of the Republic of Azerbaijan) Julfa’s (Culfa, Jugha) region’s western portion – that shows the ancient Armenian cemetery (now destroyed), the village Gulustan, several other monuments such as caravanserais, churches, and a historic Mulsim tomb.

I purchased the image from Digital Globe. Since then I have been wondering whether the Armenian government owns this available-to-everyone satellite images of the region. It would cost Armenia about 1 million dollars to get Digital Globe’s entire coverage of the Armenian Republic and the Republics of Azerbaijan and Turkey, at least the immediate bordering areas.

If you are wondering about the image posted above, it is the September 2003 inverted satellite image of now-gone Djulfa cemetery. Although I have no expertise or training in satellite interpretation, there are still many conclusions that can be made from that image without having professional background:

1. The cemetery was over 70% intact in September of 2003, even after the deliberate acts of official vandalisms in 1998 and 2002 that UNESCO had ordered to stop.

2. The 1998 and 2002 vandalisms were done by heavy technology – the entire level of the soil was scrapped off. The darker side is the most recent and the deepest scrap. This could not have been done by a group of hooligans. This was not done in a search for treasure.

3. The scrapped trace proves the intent of totally wiping out the cemetery even before 2005. A very thick level of the soil had been removed. Hundreds of skeletons must have been exhumed in this process and destroyed.

4. Although it is not too clear – but if it is zoomed in and studied closely it can be noticed that most, if not all, headstones (khachkars) were pushed down to the ground and none were standing in Sept. of 2003. This may have been done either in 1998 or 2003, as a first step of destroying the headstones. In fact, if you compare a December 2005 photograph with the Sept 2003 satellite image you will notice that in both places the khachkars were laying down on the ground instead of standing in their regular positions.

I do have many other images of the surrounding area, but would like to keep them for sharing on possible future presentations about the vandalism. All the images are from the big file that I got from Digital Globe.

The negative aspects of Digital Globe satellite imagery are that these areas are taken on different dates and times. Thus, “coverage” of the region could have been from 2002-2006, and many things might have changed in the meantime. Another problem would be getting detailed imagery. Digital Globe does not provide 80-cm imagery, as the one that Turkey aspires. But even so, the satellite images will provide much information. In fact, Azerbaijan is aware of what I am talking about. When this hostile neighbor accused Armenia of deliberately “burning forests,” they immediately provided several satellite images of the area with different dates of download (these images are available here).

How did Azerbaijan get this imagery (that didn’t really “prove” anything other than that the forests were really destroyed due to a fire)? Digital Globe, as far as I know, would not have been able to provide information that fast. In fact, it takes them up to 60 days to download a current image of an area. So, Azerbaijan either used U.S. technology with the help of its ally and NATO-member Turkey, or has another secret access to satellite imagery, OR, there is another simple access to such images that Armenia is not even aware of. The images say “Space image,” but my Google search did not provide such a copyright holder. I doubt that Azerbaijan has its own satellite in the orbit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had one very soon.

The text released by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry gives confusing details about the satellite imagery they obtained. According to the statement, the satellite imagery show that “[o]n the 132,2 square km area a number of towns, villages, agricultural lands, cultural and historical monuments, existing flora and fauna, living dwellings have been destroyed or burnt by the fire.” Interestingly, the statement also mentions the possibility that the fires “are nature-caused,” yet it holds Armenia accountable and says “these actions by Armenia constitute a gross violation of international humanitarian law.”

I have discussed it earlier that there is no reason that Armenia would have burnt forests. But an Azerbaijani blog says that the fire was deliberately done “perhaps in an attempt [to] clear land mines at the perimeter of the disputed area.” This wouldn’t make sense either, because there are no people living in these areas, and, as far as I understand, Armenia is planning to give up the particular territory to the Azerbaijanis in the future peace deal. Nor does Nagorno Karabakh President’s assertion – that Azerbaijanis have shot fire starting balls to the forests to blame the Armenians – make sense. Again, I don’t think any side would have deliberately started destruction of forests – although both Armenian and Azerbaijani governments are infamous for environmental degradation in their countries. Though, wait a minute, I may have double thoughts about Azerbaijan on this… I mean, it would be totally “worth” to cause forests fire in Karabakh to blame on Armenia in Azeri officials’ eyes, to balance the pressure on Azerbaijan for destroying the Djulfa cemetery. But, no, I don’t think they are that sick. What if ones of those mines blew up and started the fire? In any case, I think had the conflict was solved earlier the forest fire would have not been so widened in the area. Now let’s get back to satellite wars.

I wonder whether the Armenian government knows that satellite images can be purchased. By didn’t the foreign ministry purchase satellite images of the Djulfa cemetery before and after the destruction? As I already mentioned, I purchased the before image for “The New Tears of Araxes,” but I haven’t found a sponsor to help purchase a current satellite image that would cost between $1,200 and $2,000. It would cost only $1,500 years to have a final documentation of the vandalism, but interested parties are either not genuinely interested or don’t know they can do this.

After all, sometimes satellite images are not helpful at all. Look at the satellite image of Iran’s Embassy in Armenia.

Would you be able to figure out from this that a small Armenian Nazi group (the “Armenian Aryans”) gets financial support from this building?

In fact, not really having much hope for the current Armenian government, I hope an Armenian organization (a library, museum, etc.) in America will find ways to document historic Armenia in satellites (and then perhaps share the info with the Armenian government). We have a unique opportunity to document the Armenian culture and material history before it is completely wiped out in Turkey and in Azerbaijan. This would cost about 1 million dollars, but I highly hope rich Armenian foundations will realize the importance of such a project. But first we need people who would be interested to communicating and organizing all these. An Armenian Research Center at a U.S. university sounds the best option here. One non-Armenian university professor, according to the CNN, has already purchased many photos of Mount Ararat with the ambition to find Noah’s ark.

Finding Noah’s ark would not be the next cool thing after documenting the Armenian monuments. The non-Armenian monuments of historic Armenia should also be documented. If Armenia ever ends up liberating more historic lands, these monuments must be preserved, and we need to document them today so that we take care of them tomorrow. I don’t want the non-ingenious people of historic Armenia (the Turkic-Mongoloid peoples) die and disappear, but history shows that, in the long-run, Armenians end up staying in their homeland, while the newcomers continue their journey.

The Muslim tomb Gulustan (middle ages) not too far from now-gone Djulfa

More realistically, this (80 million Turks leaving the region) will not happen, but future liberation of Nakhichevan – the region that Stalin gave to Azerbaijan and the region where the Djulfa cemetery was wiped out along with thousands of other ancient Armenian monuments – is realistic, so even though all of the Armenian culture has been wiped out there, we should document the Muslim culture to preserve it in the future.

Tonirtrash

Speaking of preserving culture, let’s talk about our own. A Blogian reader from the Czech Republic has visited Armenia lately and got shocked after seeing the treatment of the Armenian monuments in Armenia. He sent us a photo of a tonir (the well where the traditional Armenian bread – lavash – is made) from one of Armenia’s most ancient monasteries – Khor Virap, where Grigor Lusavorish (Krikor the Illuminator) was imprisoned for many years before he converted Armenia to Christianity in 301 A.D. The tonir in the sacred site has been used by a garbage bin by visitors.

A local Armenian would blame the government – or whoever is in charge of taking care the historic monastery – for not putting trashcans in the area. But I think it also has to do with the visitors. For one reason, I can almost swear that no Diasporan Armenian would have thrown trash into the tonir. Has to do a lot with “dastiarakutyun” (the English term doesn’t come to mind); has to do a lot how people are taught about this world. There is lots of chances that even if the monastery was overpacked by trashcans people would still throw garbage into the tonir.

I visited Mother Cabrini’s shrine in Colorado last year. The sacred Catholic site had a sacred water fountain where people say water was found by God’s guidance. There were free plastic cups to drink the water and, as you can imagine, dozens of trashcans all over the place. When I tried to put a small donation in the huge can next to the water fountain, I saw used plastic cups smashed in it that blocked from putting the money in. Why would they do that? Well, perhaps they did not understand the “donation” sign, because most people who go there are Hispanics and perhaps don’t speak English. But hey, what has happened to the thing called common sense? I guess the mere presence of trashcans is not the final and complete solution.

(Khor Virap by Andy Abrahamian)

Well, let’s blame the absence of trashcans for the tonirtrash in Khor Virap, but what about the graffiti on the same monastery done by Armenians? Oh, these are done by unholy communists who hated the Armenian Church. Well, what about the 2005 Alphabet statues? Why is there graffiti on them too?

(the alphabet from pbase.com)

The first Turkish professor to recognize the Armenian genocide as such has been charged for “insulting Turkishness” in Turkey for a newspaper article where Taner Akcam mentioned “the Armenian genocide.”

Taner Akcam, who teaches at the University of Minnesota, has been in exile for many years. Although he has spent youth years in a Turkish jail, this is the first incident when the famous historian is charged for referring to the Armenian Genocide in a Turkish newspaper.

Akcam’s new “Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of the Turkish Responibility” book has made news from The New York Times to local newspapers around America.

I hope he will not have to go to Turkey for his trial in mid-April because he has been announced as our speaker on the Armenian Genocide at the Jewish Mizel Museum of Denver, Colorado, on April 15, 2007.

The Republic of Turkey denies that its ancestor Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian citizens during and after WWI. To say the genocide did place is a federal crime in Turkey.
Thanks to Lou Ann Matossian for forwarding the news item from Groong.

WELCOME TO THE ARHCIVES OF BLOGIAN (2005-2006)!

visit http://blogian.net/

From October 2005 (the creation month) to January 2007 Blogian has been hosted at the page you are viewing. In January of 2007 it moved to www.blogian.net, but is still parked on Hayastan[dot]com.

With a new look and renewed spirit, www.blogian.net promises to become even better! So make sure to continue reading Blogian, and feel free to revisit the archives as they will stay here for a very long time.

I meant to post the news several hours ago, within an hour it appeared on the Los Angeles Times, but the server was down again (that is why we will be transferring to wordpress script based www.blogian.hayastan.com very soon). For those of you who didn't get my e-mail or the news itself, today's Los Angeles Times has published an article containing several interviews with unnamed U.S. State Department Officials.

One Senior official said that the Department had never said the Armenian genocide wasn't genocide. "We just haven't used that word."

According to the article, the official basically said that they hope Turkey will first use the term genocide and then America will follow the example. America just doesn't want to make this sound like an international pressure, according to them. And God damn with the Armenians…

Armenian genocide question hits home
The former U.S. ambassador's use of the term leaves Congress poised for a battle between pragmatism and principle.
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
January 7, 2007

WASHINGTON � Nearly two years ago, John Evans did something no U.S. ambassador to Armenia before him had done: He used the word "genocide" � in public � to describe the deaths of about 1.2 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks.

It has long been a sore point with Armenian Americans that the U.S. government does not refer to the killings that began in 1915 as genocide, and Evans' use of the word did not signal a change in that policy. It did set off a slow-boiling controversy that eventually cost him his job.

Now, the issue is preparing to boil over again, setting up a clash between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Republican White House. The dispute has stalled the confirmation of Evans' successor and strained U.S. relations with Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

"Based on what I've seen, this is headed to a confrontation," said a senior Democratic congressional aide. "It's an issue that's a flashpoint of controversy for both parties."

It started at UC Berkeley, in February 2005, soon after Evans took up his ambassadorship.

"I will today call it the Armenian genocide," Evans said, according to a transcript by one of the groups attending the gathering hosted by the university's Armenian studies program.

Evans' comments floored � and pleased � his audience, even though he made it clear that he was articulating a personal view, not U.S. policy.

"I recall being surprised at that moment," said Stephan Astourian, executive director of Berkeley's Armenian Studies program, who organized the session.

Though Armenian Americans and others consider Evans' statement an act of courage for which he has been unfairly punished, policymakers call it a misjudgment that could fuel anti-Western sentiment in Turkey.

Historians have long used the term "genocide" to describe the murderous campaign against the Armenians in Turkey. Nearly the entire population of Armenians was executed, starved or forced into exile on the orders of the ruling Young Turk Party. Outside Turkey, there is little debate over the facts or the use of the word "genocide."

In Turkey, however, official history has long disputed the use of that term. As a result, American officials have used all sorts of others � "mass killing," "massacres," "atrocities," "annihilation" � but have stopped short of "genocide."

"We have never said it wasn't genocide," explained a senior State Department official, who agreed to discuss formation of U.S. policy in detail on condition he not be further identified. "We just haven't used that word."

State Department officials believe that Turks will come to their own acceptance of the term from internal debate.

"That debate needs to happen, but it needs to be a Turkish debate," the official said. "It has been our view that our position of encouraging that debate � and not allowing Turks an easy out to say, 'This is foreign pressure' � is more effective."

Most Armenian Americans and many members of Congress disagree, arguing that the U.S. government should call the killings "genocide."

In a short interview, his first since leaving the State Department, Evans declined to discuss his motives in making the genocide statement, but said that "it wasn't a slip of the tongue."

"I knew it was not the policy of the United States" to use the word "genocide," Evans said.

"Ninety years is a long time," Evans added, referring to the decades since the genocide began. "At some point you have to call a spade a spade."

In the months after Evans' remark, the State Department made clear its displeasure. By July 2005, "it was absolutely crystal clear" that he would be forced out, he said. Still, it took more than a year more for him to leave.

"Evans was a career foreign service officer, and you do not go after a career foreign service officer lightly," said a second State Department official.

Evans left Armenia in September and formally retired from the State Department last month.

Meanwhile, the American Foreign Service Assn., the organization that represents U.S. foreign service officers, granted Evans its 2005 award for "constructive dissent" by a senior diplomat. But weeks later, the group rescinded the prize, arousing suspicion that the State Department had intervened.

Foreign Service Assn. officials who agreed to discuss the matter said they took back the award after learning that Evans apparently did not first go through internal channels of dissent before publicly stating his views.

"Ambassador Evans' action � admirable as it was � did not fit the category of 'constructive dissent,' " the group said in a statement.

State Department officials said they felt blindsided by Evans' genocide remarks.

The unanswered questions about Evans' departure have stalled the nomination of a successor.

In May, President Bush nominated Ambassador Richard Hoagland, who most recently served as ambassador to Tajikistan. But in September, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) put a parliamentary hold on Hoagland's nomination, blocking it until the end of the congressional session, when the nomination expired.

Some Armenian Americans took issue with Hoagland, complaining that in written responses to questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was dismissive of the Armenian genocide. Last month, Menendez and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) demanded the administration send over a new nominee.

Bush will have to decide whether to renominate Hoagland. The administration appears to be standing behind him, and complains that he has been turned into a scapegoat over Evans' dismissal.

"Senators can say that our policy on the Armenian massacres is wrong, but it's wrong to punish the president's nominee for adhering to the president's policy," said the senior State Department official, adding that some of Hoagland's opponents had "twisted" his responses on the genocide.

"He's being tarred as a [genocide]denier," said the senior State Department official. "And the only reason it's being done is that they are angry about Evans for the wrong reasons."

Not all Armenian Americans oppose Hoagland's nomination. The Armenian Assembly of America has said that although it opposes administration policy, it would support Hoagland. And the Armenian government has said that policy on the genocide issue should take second place to more immediate problems, including diplomatic relations with Turkey.

The Republic of Armenia became an independent state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and today has a population of about 3 million.

To both Democrats and Republicans, support from Armenian Americans is important. There are an estimated 1.4 million Armenian Americans, with the largest population center in Glendale.

In the end, Democrats now in control of Congress may need to decide between pragmatism and principle.

"To the extent that Armenia goes without a U.S. ambassador, that's a bad thing by anyone's standard," said a Democratic staffer involved in the confirmation process. "We're 1,000% supportive of the Armenian community on the genocide issue. But in this case, the [State Department] policy is going to be very tough to change, and I don't think holding up an ambassador is going to get them to change their policy."

[email protected]

With a new look and a renewed spirit, Blogian is back. The archives are still and will be available at http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=2&.

AGBU's online version, has published an article about the Armenian bloggers, and also features a paragraph or so about this blog.

Hrag Vartanian of AGBU conducted the interview about Blogian in the spring of 2006.

The print version of AGBU is the largest Armenian magazine reaching about 70,000 Armenians worldwide.

Very soon, there will be better technological changes in Blogian. After that, I will be posting a detailed account of satellite pan-Turkism and Armenia's future. I will also post the never-before-posted satellite images of a vanished Armenian cemetery.

Until then, enjoy the archives. There are 23 pages of entries in Blogian. The www.blogian.hayastan.com link is now unavailable because it is where the changes are made. http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?automo…p;blogid=2& (the permanent link of the site you are viewing now) will remain the archival addition to new and fresh Blogian.

Colorado-based blogger and human dynamo, Simon Maghakyan, is the author behind “Blogian: Once Upon a Time in Hayastan” (www.blogian.hayastan.com); the site digests what the rest of us don’t have the time and patience to peruse. It debunked the rumor that a group of “Hayastan.com hackers” vandalized an Azeri opposition party website and it regularly passes along snapshots that include everything from new construction projects in Yerevan to diasporan events.

Parked on the Russian site, Hayastan.com, Blogian is also no stranger to news coups. Last year Azeri authorities were caught on video desecrating the medieval Armenian cemetery of Old Julfa, in Nakhijevan, Azerbaijan. “I had directly received the file via e-mail from a friend at the Armenian Prelacy of Teheran,” Simon says, pointing out how small the world has become.

On December 16, 2005, Simon posted a story the Russian Regnum News Agency generated on the crime and then, three days later, he uploaded the video file to a site he created, www.azerivandalism.cjb.net. In a few weeks, the video was downloaded hundreds of times.

Word of the crime against global heritage spread quickly and soon reached the halls of the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament. The Europeans adopted a resolution on February 16, condemning the act of vandalism. A European contingent even requested to visit the site but was denied access.