With a number of journalists in prison, Azerbaijan’s authorities are now attacking ordinary citizen’s freedom of speech. A 58-year-old man in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan’s “region without rights,” has been given an 18-month-sentence for writing dozens of “slanderous” anonymous letters to government officials.
APA’s local bureau reports the investigations found out that resident of Gahab village of Babek region, Aliyev Novruz Safar, 58, had written tens of groundless slanderous letters.
Novruz Aliyev faced charges under article 147.2 (slander, which is connected with accusation of committing serious or especially serious crime) of the Criminal Code. Nakhchivan city court sentenced Novruz Aliyev to 18 months in jail.
Too short for Armenians and too long for the Turkish government, a two-hour CNN documentary by Christiane Amanpour on genocide includes a 45-second mention of the WWI extermination of Ottoman Empire’s indigenous Armenian population. Premiered on December 4, 2008, Scream Bloody Murder has made many Armenian bloggers angry, leading them to recall Hitler’s rhetoric for impunity, “Who, after all, remembers the Armenians?”
Armenia-based blogger, photographer and designer Arsineh had concerns even before watching the documentary. Writing on Ars Eye View, she says:
[…]
I’m preparing to watch the program for myself, but given this much prior information, I have to ask. If you are going to cover the epidemic of genocide, starting with the campaign to criminalize genocide, continue to show the struggle so many have endured to (as you titled your program) “SCREAM BLOODY MURDER” while the world turned a deaf ear only to allow genocide to continue around the world, shouldn’t you be talking about the biggest cover up of genocide, the very one which inspired Lemkin to coin the word, the very one which also inspired Adolf Hitler to follow through with the Holocaust? Afterall, it’s this denial that scares CNN from ever using the word “Genocide” in their reporting on related matters.
Writing in detail, West of Igdir says a previous CNN press release suggested the coverage of the Armenian Genocide was going to be more intense.
[…]
The release specifically mentioned Armenia as one of the cases of genocide it would be examining. This naturally created some excitement that finally a major news organization would be dedicating a program partly to the so often overlooked Armenian Genocide of 1915 and inform a nationwide audience about it.
[…]
I had been feeling hopeful about the documentary and might have given it more of a pass on this omition until I saw this interactive map on the section of Scream Bloody Murder section of CNN’s website about the world’s killing fields. It appears that despite the fact when it had first been announced Armenia was prominently mentioned as one of the examples of genocide that would be covered, it was overlooked as being pinpointed on the interactive map as an example of genocide.
[..]
Clearly the documentary did not go unnoticed in Turkey, despite the fact it says almost nothing about the Armenian Genocide, as the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet yesterday declared “Genocide feature worrisome.”
[…]
Sevana at Life in the Armenian Diaspora is also unhappy.
When will this second class genocide victim status end? I guess CNN is afraid that CNN-Turk will be cut off the air if they include the Armenians… how very, very sad.
Another diasporan voice, Seta’s Armenian Blogposts an action alert by the Armenian National Committee of America to protest CNN’s almost exclusion of the Armenian Genocide.
I just came across to imprisoned Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev’s case on the European Court for Human Rights website. Fatullayev was initially imprisoned for challenging Azerbaijan’s official version of the Khojalu massacre (by Armenians) during the Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s. Below is the full facts as summarized by the court:
09 September 2008
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 40984/07
by Eynulla FATULLAYEV
against Azerbaijan
lodged on 10 September 2007
STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Eynulla Fatullayev, is an Azerbaijani national who was born in 1976 and lives in Baku. He is represented before the Court by Mr I. Ashurov, a lawyer practising in Baku.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant was the founder and chief editor of the newspapers Realny Azerbaijan (“Реальный Азербайджан”), published in the Russian language, and Gündəlik Azərbaycan, published in the Azerbaijani language. The newspapers were widely known for often publishing articles harshly criticising the Government and various public officials.
Prior to the events complained of in this application, on 26 September 2006 the applicant had already been convicted for defamation and conditionally sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He had also been sued for defamation in a number of civil proceedings.
In 2007 two sets of criminal proceedings were brought against the applicant in connection with, inter alia, two articles published by him in Realny Azerbaijan.
A. “Karabakh Diary”
In 2005 the applicant visited, as a journalist, the area of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories controlled by the Armenian forces. There he met with, among others, some officials of the self-proclaimed unrecognised “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”. In the aftermath of this visit, in April 2005 the applicant published an article called “Karabakh Diary” (Russian: “Карабахский дневник”) in Realny Azerbaijan.
One of the topics discussed in “Karabakh Diary” concerned the Khojaly massacre of 26 February 1992. Discussing this topic, the applicant made certain statements which could be construed as differing from the commonly accepted version of the Khojaly events, according to which hundreds of Azerbaijani civilians had been killed by the Armenian armed forces during their assault on the town of Khojaly in the course of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Specifically, the article contained the following passages (translated from Russian):
“For the sake of fairness I will admit that several years ago I met the refugees from Khojaly, temporarily settled in Naftalan, who openly confessed to me that, on the eve of the large-scale offensive of the Russian and Armenian troops on Khojaly, the town had been encircled [by those troops]. And already several days prior to the attack, the Armenians had been continuously warning the population about the planned operation through loudspeakers and proposing that the civilians abandon the town and escape from the encirclement through a humanitarian corridor along the Kar-Kar River. According to the Khojaly refugees’ own words, they had used this corridor and, indeed, the Armenian soldiers positioned behind the corridor had not opened fire on them. Some soldiers from the battalions of the NFA [the National Front of Azerbaijan, a political party], for some reason, had led a part of the [refugees] in the direction of the village of Nakhichevanik, which during that period had been under control of the Armenians’ Askeran battalion. …
When I was in Askeran [in Nagorno Karabakh], I spoke to the deputy head of the administration of Askeran Slavik Arushanyan and compared his recollection of the events with that of the Khojaly inhabitants who came under fire from the Azerbaijani side. I asked S. Arushanyan to show me the corridor which the Khojaly inhabitants had used [to abandon the town]. Having familiarised myself with the geographical area, I can say, fully convinced, that the conjectures that there had been no Armenian corridor are groundless. The corridor indeed existed, otherwise the Khojaly inhabitants, fully surrounded [by the enemy troops] and isolated from the outside world, would not have been able to force their way out and escape the encirclement. However, having crossed the area behind the Kar-Kar River, the row of refugees was separated and, for some reason, a part of [them] headed in the direction of Nakhichevanik. It appears that the NFA battalions strived not for the liberation of the Khojaly civilians but for more bloodshed on their way to overthrow A. Mutalibov [the first President of Azerbaijan] …”
On 23 February 2007 Ms T. Chaladze, the Head of the Centre for Protection of Refugees and Displaced Persons, lodged a civil action against the applicant with the Yasamal District Court. She claimed that the applicant “has, for a long period of time, insulted the honour and dignity of the victims of the Khojaly Tragedy, persons killed during those tragic events and their relatives, as well as veterans of the Karabakh War, soldiers of the Azerbaijani National Army and the entire Azerbaijani people”. She alleged that that the applicant did so by making the above-mentioned statements in his article “Karabakh Diary” as well as by making, in 2006 and 2007, similar insulting statements on the interactive forum of the website called AzeriTriColor. These internet forum postings, the authorship of which Ms Chaladze attributed to the applicant, contained the following statements:
“I have visited this town [Naftalan] where I have spoken to hundreds (I repeat, hundreds) of refugees who insisted that there had been a corridor and that they had remained alive owing to this corridor … But a part of the Khojaly inhabitants had been fired upon by our own [troops] … not by [some] mysterious [shooters], but by provocateurs from the NFA battalions … [The corpses] had been mutilated by our own [soldiers] …”
In his submissions to the court, the applicant argued that the forum postings at the AzeriTriColor website had not been written by him and denied making these statements. He also argued that, in “Karabakh Diary”, he had merely written about the information given to him by persons that he had interviewed.
On 6 April 2007 the Yasamal District Court, presided by Judge I. Ismayilov, upheld Ms Chaladze’s claim and ordered the applicant to pay compensation in the amount of 20,000 New Azerbaijani manats (approximately 16,000 euros).
Thereafter, a group of former soldiers and other persons who had been involved in the Khojaly events, represented by Ms Chaladze, filed a criminal complaint against the applicant with the Yasamal District Court, under the procedure of private prosecution. They asked that the applicant be convicted for defamation and false accusation of Azerbaijani soldiers of having committed an especially grave crime.
At a preliminary hearing held on 9 April 2007, the applicant filed an objection against the entire composition of the Yasamal District Court. He claimed that all of the judges of this court had been appointed to their positions in September 2000 for a fixed five-year term and that their term of office had expired in 2005. He therefore argued that such a composition of the court could not be considered as a “tribunal established by law”. This objection was dismissed.
The hearing of the criminal case took place on 20 April 2007 and was presided over by Judge I. Ismayilov.
In his oral submissions to the court, the applicant pleaded his innocence. In particular, he denied making the statements on the forum of the AzeriTriColor website and maintained that those statements had been made by someone else who had used his name for this purpose.
The court heard a linguistic expert, who gave an opinion on the applicant’s statements, and a number of witnesses, who testified about the Khojaly events. The court also found that the internet forum of the AzeriTriColor website, in essence, replaced the internet forum of the Realny Azerbaijan website, which had become defunct in 2006, and that the statements posted on that forum under the screen name “Eynulla Fatullayev” had indeed been made by the applicant himself. Lastly, the court found that, through his statements made in “Karabakh Diary” and his internet forum postings, the applicant had given a heavily distorted account of the historical events in Khojaly and had deliberately disseminated false information which damaged the reputation of the plaintiffs and accused them of committing grave crimes which they had not committed. The court convicted the applicant under Articles 147.1 (defamation) and 147.2 (defamation by way of accusing a person of having committed a grave crime) of the Criminal Code and sentenced him to two years and six months’ imprisonment.
The applicant was arrested in the courtroom and taken to the Investigative Isolator No. 1 on the same day (20 April 2007). Until 23 April 2007, his lawyer was not allowed to visit him as he was required to obtain a court’s permission to do so.
On 6 June 2007 the Court of Appeal upheld the Yasamal District Court’s judgment of 20 April 2007.
On 21 August 2007 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s cassation appeal and upheld the lower courts’ judgments.
B. “The Aliyevs Go to War”
In the meantime, on 30 March 2007, Realny Azerbaijan published an article called “The Aliyevs Go to War” (Russian: “Алиевы идут на войну”). The article was written by the applicant but published under the pseudonym “Rovshan Bagirov”. This analytical article was devoted to possible consequences of Azerbaijan’s support of a recent “anti-Iranian” resolution of the UN Security Council, which had called for economic sanctions against that country. The article referred to the current Azerbaijani government as “the Aliyev clan” and “the governing tribe” and expressed a view that the latter sought US support of President Ilham Aliyev’s “remaining in power” in Azerbaijan in exchange for Azerbaijan’s support of the US “aggression” against Iran.
The article continued as follows (translated from Russian):
“It is also known that, immediately after the UN [Security Council] had voted for this resolution, [the authorities] in Teheran began to seriously prepare for the beginning of the “anti-Iranian operation”. For several years, military headquarters of the Islamic regime had been developing plans for repulsing the American aggression and counter-striking the US and their allies in the region. After 24 March 2007 Azerbaijan, having openly supported the anti-Iranian operation, must prepare for a lengthy and dreadful war which will result in large-scale destruction and loss of human life. According to the information from the sources close to official Paris, the Iranian General Staff has already developed its military plans concerning Azerbaijan in case Baku takes part in the aggression against Iran. Thus, the Iranian long-range military air force, thousands of insane kamikaze terrorists from the IRGC [the Islamic Revolution’s Guardian Corps] and hundreds of Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 missiles will strike the following main targets on the territory of Azerbaijan …”
The article continued with a long and detailed list of such targets, which included, inter alia, active oil platforms on the shelf of the Caspian Sea, the Sangachal Oil Terminal and other oil plants and terminals, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, the building of the Presidential Administration, the building of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, buildings of various ministries, the Baku seaport and airport, a number of large business centres accommodating offices of major foreign companies doing business in Azerbaijan, etc.
Further, the article continued to elaborate on the issue of possible unrest, in case of a conflict with Iran, in the southern regions of Azerbaijan populated by the Talysh ethnic minority who are ethnically and linguistically close to the Persians. Among other things, the article appeared to imply that the current ruling elite, a large number of whom allegedly come from the region of Nakhchivan, engaged in regional nepotism by appointing people from Nakhchivan to government posts in southern areas of the country, including the Lenkoran region. In particular, the article stated:
“Thus, the Talysh have long been expressing their discontent with the fact that [the central authorities] always appoint to the administrative positions in Lenkoran persons hailing from Nakhchivan who are alien to the mentality and problems of the region. … The level of unemployment in the region is terribly high, drug abuse is flourishing, every morning hundreds of unemployed Talysh cluster together at the “slave” [that is, cheap labour] market in Baku. Is this not a powder keg?”
On 16 May 2007 the investigation department of the Ministry of National Security (“the MNS”) commenced a criminal investigation in connection with this publication under Article 214.1 of the Criminal Code (terrorism or threat of terrorism).
On 22 May 2007 the investigation authorities conducted searches in the applicant’s apartment and in the office of the Realny Azerbaijan and Gündəlik Azərbaycan newspapers. They found and seized certain photographs and computer discs from the applicant’s apartment and twenty computer hard drives from the newspaper’s office.
On 26 May 2007, pursuant to a decision of the Sabail District Court, the applicant was transferred to the MNS detention facility.
On 31 May 2007 the Chief Prosecutor made a statement to the press, noting that the article published in Realny Azerbaijan, founded by the applicant, contained information which constituted a threat of terrorism and that a criminal investigation had been instituted in this connection by the MNS.
On 3 July 2007, by a decision of an MNS investigator, the applicant was formally charged with committing the crimes of threat of terrorism (Article 214.1 of the Criminal Code) and inciting ethnic hostility (Article 283.2.2 of the Criminal Code).
On the same day, 3 July 2007, pursuant to a request by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the Sabail District Court ordered the applicant’s detention on remand for a period of three months in connection with this criminal case. The court’s decision reiterated the charges against the applicant and justified the necessity of the applicant’s detention as follows:
“Eynulla Emin oglu Fatullayev, if he remains at large, may escape the investigation and trial and hinder the determination of the objective truth in [this criminal] case.
Due to the above considerations, the prosecutor’s request to select the preventive measure of detention on remand in respect of Eynulla Emin oglu Fatullayev is well-founded and must be granted.”
The applicant appealed. On 11 July 2007 the Court of Appeal upheld the Sabail District Court’s decision.
On 4 September 2007 the applicant was also charged with tax evasion under Article 213.2 of the Criminal Code due to the alleged failure to duly declare taxes on his personal earnings as a newspaper editor.
During the trial, among other evidence, the prosecution produced evidence showing that in May 2007 the full electronic version of “The Aliyevs Go to War” had been forwarded by e-mail to offices of a number of foreign and local companies in Baku. A number of employees of these companies testified that, after reading the article, they had felt disturbed, anxious and frightened. On 30 October 2007 the Assize Court found the applicant guilty on all charges and convicted him of threat of terrorism (eight years’ imprisonment), inciting ethnic hostility (three years’ imprisonment) and tax evasion (four months’ imprisonment). Partial merger of these sentences resulted in a sentence of eight years and four months’ imprisonment. Lastly, the court partially merged this sentence with the applicant’s sentence of two years and six months’ imprisonment imposed on him in the previous criminal case, which resulted in a total sentence of eight years and six months’ imprisonment.
On 16 January 2008 the Court of Appeal upheld the Assize Court’s judgment of 30 October 2007.
On 3 June 2008 the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts’ judgments.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention about the conditions of his detention in the Investigative Isolator No. 1 and the MNS detention facility. In particular, he complained that he had not been allowed to receive newspapers and magazines, had been handcuffed and searched every time when taken out of his cell, had not been allowed personal visits, and had been held in a single cell of 8 square meters which had been badly ventilated and in which the electric light had been switched on throughout the day and night.
2. The applicant complained under Article 5 §§ 1 (c), 3 and 4 of the Convention about the detention order of 3 July 2007. In particular, he complained that there had been no reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime and that the domestic courts had failed to give sufficient reasons for his detention on remand.
3. The applicant complained, relying on Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention, that:
(a) the court of first instance in the first set of criminal proceedings had not constituted a “tribunal established by law” because the terms of office of its judges had expired in 2005;
(b) that the domestic courts in both sets of criminal proceedings, and in particular the court of first instance in the first set of criminal proceedings, had not been independent and impartial; and
(c) that he had been deprived of his right to have a fair determination of the criminal charges against him and right to an effective domestic remedy.
4. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention that his presumption of innocence had been violated by the fact that on 31 May 2007, before the trial in the second criminal case, the Chief Prosecutor had made a public statement accusing him of having committed a serious crime, as well as by the fact that, during the trial, he had always been brought to the courtroom in handcuffs and placed in a metal cage during the hearings.
5. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 3 of the Convention that, despite having been transferred to the MNS detention facility on 26 May 2008 due to investigation-related reasons in the second set of criminal proceedings, he had not been informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him until 3 July 2008.
6. The applicant complained under Article 7 of the Convention that the acts for which he had been convicted did not constitute a criminal offence.
7. The applicant complained under Article 8 of the Convention that the searched conducted on 22 May 2007 in his apartment and the newspaper’s office had violated his right to respect for his home.
8. The applicant complained under Article 10 of the Convention that his convictions in both sets of criminal proceedings had violated his right to freedom of expression.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have fair hearings in the determination of the criminal charges against him in both sets of criminal proceedings, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? Moreover:
(a) Could the court which heard the applicant’s first criminal case be considered as a “tribunal established by law”, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? Had the term of office of the presiding judge expired before the trial commenced and, if so, did he have competence to participate in the trial?
(b) Was the court which dealt with the applicant’s first case independent and impartial, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, given that the applicant’s criminal trial was presided over by the same judge who had previously examined the civil claim against the applicant relating to the same subject matter?
2. Was the presumption of innocence, guaranteed by Article 6 § 2 of the Convention, respected in the present case? In particular, was the Chief Prosecutor bound to respect the presumption of innocence when making his statement to the press on 31 May 2007?
3. In connection with each of the applicant’s criminal convictions, has there been an interference with the applicant’s freedom of expression, in particular his right to impart information and ideas, within the meaning of Article 10 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference necessary in terms of Article 10 § 2?
4. The parties are requested to submit, inter alia: (a) a full copy of the applicant’s article entitled “Karabakh Diary”, as published in Realny Azerbaijan; (b) a copy of the Yasamal District Court’s judgment of 6 April 2007 concerning the civil claim against the applicant; (c) copies of all the evidence, as contained in the case file of the criminal proceedings, which was examined by the Yasamal District Court during the trial for the purpose of establishing the applicant’s authorship of statements posted on the forum of the AzeriTriColor website; and (d) copies of all appeals and any objections filed by the applicant during both criminal trials, including a copy of his objection to the participation of the judges of the Yasamal District Court in the first set of criminal proceedings.
FATULLAYEV v. AZERBAIJAN – STATEMENT OF FACTS AND QUESTIONS
FATULLAYEV v. AZERBAIJAN – STATEMENT OF FACTS AND QUESTIONS
While I have been silent on the recent developments of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, it doesn’t mean I have not been following the news. My silence reflects a complicated mixture of cautious optimism, confusion, excitement, fear, cynicism, and a busy schedule (which includes observing the US presidential elections). We live in historic and unpredictable times. These unknown globalized waves can translate into almost anything in Nagorno-Karabakh – from long-term solutions to further conflict.
Internationally, Obama’s election, Georgia’s unsuccessful bid for South Ossetia, Turkey’s continuous struggle to join the European Union, and international – particularly US and Russian – interest in the South Caucasus have contributed to the recent developments in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, which was vocalized in a set of principles that Azerbaijan and Armenia signed in Moscow in early November 2008. One can only hope that Armenian and Azeri leaders will make tough choices and negotiate for a solution. Locally, both countries have a great chance to make the piece.
Background:
For those of you who don’t know, Nagorno-Karabakh is an indigenous Armenian region (called Artsakh by locals) within the country of Azerbaijan. This small territory declared its independence from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1991, less than seventy years after USSR chief Joseph Stalin gave Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. The conflict escalated into a war between Armenia/Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, killing thousands of people and leaving many more homeless.
Today, Nagorno-Karabakh is an internationally unrecognized republic with a common border with mother Armenia. Nationalist sentiment is at peak high in Azerbaijan where most people see Armenians as invaders and aggressors. The sentiment was reflected in December 2005, when a contingent of Azerbaijan’s army reduced the largest medieval Armenian cemetery – Djulfa – to dust. (Official Azerbaijan until this day denies the destruction, even though it was videotaped.) While most Armenians are nowadays much less antagonistic against Azerbaijan, during the war, in 1992, armed Armenian groups massacred a few hundred Azeri civilians when fighting in Khojalu, although both official Armenia and some Azeri sources question some of the facts of the tragedy: particularly suggesting that Azeri forces deliberately banned Khojalu’s residents to leave through a humanitarian corridor the Armenian army had left for civilians. Furthermore, Armenians claim that the conflict itself started in Azerbaijan when mobs attacked hundreds of Armenian citizens, killing several dozen, in their homes in Sumgayit in 1988 while the Police stood by. Azeris claim that there were riots against their kin in southern Armenia at the same time.
Armenian and Azeri Attitudes:
In short, both Armenia and Azerbaijan see themselves as the victim and the enemy as the aggressor in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. And while abuses by both sides have been almost always symmetrical in the conflict, official Azerbaijan – until recently – has been using both verbal threats and disproportional acts of destruction. Threats have included official statements by Azerbaijan’s president to win Nagorno-Karabakh back by any price, including by war, and predictions by a senior Azeri military chief that Armenia will not exist in several years. Disproportional acts of destruction by Azerbaijan have included total elimination of all ancient indigenous Armenian monuments on its territory, especially in the exclave of Nakhichevan (another region granted to Azerbaijan by Stalin). This is not only inconsistent with Azerbaijan’s self-promotion as “the world’s most tolerant country,” but is also an act of cultural genocide (what I call “genocidal vandalism” in my honors thesis) which in no way contributes to the peace process.
Armenia’s diplomacy in the conflict has been more moderate, which may be a reflection of the following: Armenia’s victory in the early 1990s war, oil-rich Azerbaijan’s military boom, and limited open international support for Armenia in the conflict. Moderate diplomacy, nonetheless, hasn’t resulted in worldwide condemnation against Azerbaijan for blockading Armenia (although until George W. Bush, the United States didn’t give military aid to Azerbaijan). And in general, the world has been very careful not to take sides in the conflict (neither in the case of the Khojalu massacre by Armenians nor in the recent case of Djulfa’s destruction by Azeris): an approach which is difficult to determine as productive or not.
Ideal Solutions and Militant Positions:
One reason why it has been difficult to defend one position or another has been the polarized Armenian and Azerbaijani demands, a “normal” situation in every conflict.
Azerbaijan wants to return its borders to pre-1991, entirely reversing what the bloody war did before the 1994 cease fire. It says that Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will be Azerbaijan’s citizens, but that they will never have the right or the option to succeed from Azerbaijan. In short, the legal concept of “territorial integrity” has been the supreme law and the sacred doctrine in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has about a million refugees who live in horrible conditions. Azerbaijan hopes that all these people will return to their homes, now under Armenian control. Armenians say and an Amnesty International report agreed last year, that Azerbaijan is deliberately ignoring its refugees and making their lives even miserable in order to gain international support.
Armenia says that Nagorno-Karabakh’s return to Azeri control would mean giving 150,000 Armenian lives into captivity. If Azerbaijan reduces unarmed ancient Armenian graves to dust, what will it do with live Armenians? Many, if not most, Armenians insist on also keeping the seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenian forces gained control of during the war. While not many Armenians lived on these lands during the war, there are hundreds of ancient monuments that Armenians see as proof for their historic claim to the land. Some Azeris criticize Armenians for capitalizing on history and, thus, denying Azeri inhabitants the right to return to their homes. Some Armenians respond that Azerbaijan is trying to capitalize on rewriting history, and denying indigenous Armenians their right to self-determination.
On surface, Azerbaijan doesn’t agree to any solution that will let Nagorno-Karabakh be separate from it. In the same way, many Armenians consider the possibility of giving much of the seven surrounding territories back to Azerbaijan a loss. Neither party considers all the damage that has happened – and will continue to happen – to people in both countries because of the unresolved conflict. Nationalism has overridden cost-benefit analysis (with a human rights perspective) or mutual respect for the rights of the other.
Undemocratic regimes in both Armenia and Azerbaijan have perhaps contributed to the conflict. Wars unite populations, and perhaps the conflict has worked well for both Azeri and Armenian political elites. A few months ago, a former Azerbaijani serviceman (now studying in the United States) told me that Azerbaijan’s economic elite is using nationalism to hold power in the country. While Azerbaijan’s economy is booming due to oil exports, ordinary people are not experiencing change in their lives. Hatred against Armenia, some Azeris say, is the perfect tool for Azerbaijan’s rich class to distract the majority’s attention. And in Armenia, between 1992 and 1994, people would die from hunger and economic desperation. While the government was blaming everything on the war, several government-protected families were illegally becoming superrich. According to widespread claims, independent Armenia’s regime (both Levon-Ter Petrosyan’s and Kocharyan’s) elites stole billions of dollars from the people of Armenia through neoliberal privatizations of several industries and by other means.
Time for Change?
But even undemocratic regimes can solve problems, especially when their hegemony and reputation is at stake. In the last few months, there have been interesting developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. First, Azerbaijan’s ally and Armenia’s historic enemy Turkey demonstrated diplomatic will to cooperate with Armenia. Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul accepted his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan’s invitation to watch a soccer match between both countries in September 2008. The historic event, deemed as “football diplomacy,” was followed by recent meetings brokered by Moscow between Armenia and Azerbaijan where, for the first time, leaders of both countries seemed to be pleased. More surprisingly, Turkey has been reducing its pro-Azerbaijan rhetoric while trying to become a mediator between its two South Caucasus neighbors.
Many Armenians, who are usually skeptical in international relations given their experience of genocide, are discouraged with the recent development. Skeptics see Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, who came to power following a bloodshed during the March 2008 post-election protests, as trading his own presidency for a solution unbeneficial for Armenia. Turkey’s involvement in the process is less encouraging for the residents of Armenia, a country that Turkey has been blockading since the Karabakh conflict.
While Turkey may not be a friend of Armenia, it sure has its interest in helping the Nagorno-Karabakh process. Turkey is under enormous pressure to open the border with Armenia (which Turkey thinks will help persuade US president-elect Barack Obama to back off from his pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide). It will be very hard to open the border, though, without solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Thus, by helping to broker a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s current regime would silence the United States (and also its own ultranationalist deep state), have better prospects for joining the European Union, and make a claim to sort things out in the region (Turkey has surely expressed interest in brokering a deal between the United States and Iran, and unsuccessfully tried the same with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
Azerbaijan may be more interested in solving the problem now than in the past. Authoritarian leader Ilham Aliyev, the son of Azerbaijan’s former, now deceased, president Heydar Aliyev, just won a second (and final term) with the opposition boycotting the election (and giving him a perfect argument for a democratic victory). Not having to worry about reelection, Aliyev may be more interested in toning down his militant rhetoric. More importantly, the recent Georgian-Russian escalation over South Ossetia has likely demonstrated to Azerbaijan that war is not as good of a choice as Azerbaijan thought it might be. After all, Georgia not only didn’t win South Ossetia back, its attempt to get international sympathy faded away, if not being replaced with anger and distrust toward Tbilisi. Furthermore, the United States may want to partner with Azerbaijan even further more, especially in the case of an escalation with Iran, if it solves its problem with Armenia.
Armenia may be more inclined to change not only due to alleged pressure against president Sargsyan, but also due to the fact that an open border with Turkey will be a great asset for Armenia (Turkey thinks it may not be able to afford the border without a Karabakh solution). Furthermore, in two years, there won’t be many 18-year-olds in Armenia to qualify as soldiers. That’s because 1992-1994 are Armenia’s “dark and cold days,” when few families had children. So if there is to be war in the next four years, Armenia will have few bodies to fight.
A fight between Armenia and Azerbaijan, nonetheless, is not desired (at least at this time) by any of the superpowers, especially by the United States. Back in July, when I met with the acting US Ambassador to Armenia, I heard extremely nice remarks about president Serzh Sargysan’s offer of watching football match with his Turkish counterpart. The United States is seeking stability, especially with the mess that the Iraq war has created. Russia is also interested in stability between Armenia (a strong ally) and Azerbaijan (an ally), especially since Moscow’s interest in the Baku oil. Thus, internationally speaking, prospects for a peaceful Karabakh deal are possible, if not real.
Realist solutions:
Both sides need to accept that no solution is going to be perfect for either side. I don’t want to suggest what the solution should or will be, but it is clear what the solution cannot be. Azerbaijan cannot recover all the territories that it had before 1991; Armenia cannot retain all the territories that it gained after 1991. This is not a simple cliché, but a psychology that Azerbaijani and Armenian governments must start embedding in their populations. Any solution, though, would be a hard-sell both in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The governments in both countries might want to employ the same tactic they have used for a long time – information wars. Instead of dehumanizing the enemy this time, Armenian and Azeri TV channels (both are government-controlled to a large degree) should broadcast stories that rehumanize their neighbors. This strategy hardly needs to be called ‘affirmative propaganda,’ because there are so many true stories of mutual help and respect that can help in bringing change. One thing that is clear is that a peaceful solution at this time would be great for Armenia, Azerbaijan, their neighbors and the world.
[the post below was a mass-email to an Armenian-Turkish group. It is being republished by the author’s permission]
An interesting report that appeared in the 4 November 2008 issue of Milli Gazete, the mouthpiece of the hardline-Islamist Felicity Party, says that the Turkish government plans to enact a “Law on National Archives” with the principal aim of “enabling Turkey to defend itself better” against “Armenian allegations of genocide.” The report is entitled “Legal Armor Against Genocide.”
The Turkish government has indeed prepared a “Draft Bill on National Archives,” but it does not appear to be overtly related to the Armenian genocide. To the best of my knowledge, Milli Gazete is the only publication that has presented the bill in this light. In view of the political inclinations (extremely anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-West) and the very poor journalistic standards of this paper, the report may not be taken seriously. Nonetheless, a closer look at the law (whose text in Turkish can be accessed at http://www.memurlar.net/haber/44086/) suggests that public access to key documents may be denied on grounds of “national security and interests” and “secrecy.” Unlike the situation in the past, this denial of access will now enjoy “legal armor,” as Milli Gazete describes it.
The draft bill consists of four sections and 39 articles and, when enacted, will be the first law about state archives. Most of the articles are related to the organization, functions, and responsibilities of a reorganized Directorate General of State Archives (DGSA); definitions of archival documents; and the protection, preservation, and classification of archival documents. The bill states that the DGSA will have supervision authority over archival material in the custody of public institutions such as public universities, libraries, ministries, institutes, local governments, and so forth. However, the bill exempts “the Office of the President, the Turkish National Assembly, the General Staff, the Ministry of National Defense, and the National Intelligence Organization” from direct supervision. These agencies are required “to implement the principles stated in the law through their own organizational units.”
The bill creates four departments within the directorate, the two most important of which are the “Republican Archives Department” and the “Ottoman Archives Department.” The other two departments are related to documentation and relations with foreign archive departments. Several “consultative” entities such as legal counsels, public relations, human resources, and “strategy development” units are also enumerated in the new organization.
On the positive side, the bill establishes principles and guidelines that regulate the sorting and destruction of archival documents at even the lowest levels of government. It also formally criminalizes the theft, willful destruction and adulteration, and trading of archival documents.
However, the bill also contains clauses that codify the potential denial of free public access to archival documents in the custody of all public agencies. The clauses that are of most interest to this group are summarized or translated below. My comments follow those.
The first three paragraphs of Article 25 state that archival documents “cannot be removed from their repositories” except under special circumstances, which are specified; that copies of the documents may be provided under certain circumstances; and that “documents which have been cataloged and whose last procedure is more than 30 years old” will be open for research.
The fourth paragraph of this article is the most interesting. It says:
“(4) Archival documents that have been assigned some level of secrecy classification or whose publication may harm national security and interests, the country’s external relations, or the rights of individuals shall retain these attributes after they are transferred to the Directorate General and may not be opened for scholarly research. The Directorate General may decide to remove secrecy classifications from certain archival documents in consultation with [the agency from which the archival document originated] and within the framework of laws.”
The fifth paragraph is also of interest (though standard):
“(5) Access to archival documents by domestic and foreign real and corporate persons and the implementation of procedures and principles stated in this article shall be governed by a statute of regulations.”
This paragraph is typical of virtually all Turkish laws which pass on the responsibility of “implementation of procedures and principles” to lower levels of administration. This provides deniability and vagueness in the case of laws that are known to be discriminatory in advance. This is exactly the way the “Deportation Law” of 1915 and the “Wealth Tax Law” of 1942 (as well as the “Religious Foundations” laws of 2000 and 2007) were drafted: the laws did not mention the actual targets of the actions taken but statutes of regulations created at lower or local levels of administration targeted only certain groups. This allowed the Ottoman and Turkish governments to deny charges that the laws they enacted were discriminatory against certain groups and to argue that “the laws were justified but the implementation went awry.”
In conclusion, although Milli Gazete’s claim that this bill is aimed at “self-defense” against Armenian genocide allegations is not readily apparent in the language of the bill, it is clear that the law provides substantial leeway to a wide range of Turkish government agencies to restrict selectively access to a very large set of sensitive documents. The exemption from direct supervision given to “power agencies” such as the General Staff, the Presidency, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Intelligence Organization; together with the “secrecy” and “national security” exemptions of Article 25(4) and the vague implementation provisions through “statutes of regulations” provide sufficient tools to a fairly large and deep bureaucracy to deny access to any archival document on an arbitrarily selective basis.
The draft bill is expected to go to the National Assembly for discussion and enactment into law during the current legislative session.
An interesting report that appeared in the 4 November 2008 issue of Milli Gazete, the mouthpiece of the hardline-Islamist Felicity Party, says that the Turkish government plans to enact a “Law on National Archives” with the principal aim of “enabling Turkey to defend itself better” against “Armenian allegations of genocide.” The report is entitled “Legal Armor Against Genocide.”
The Turkish government has indeed prepared a “Draft Bill on National Archives,” but it does not appear to be overtly related to the Armenian genocide. To the best of my knowledge, Milli Gazete is the only publication that has presented the bill in this light. In view of the political inclinations (extremely anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-West) and the very poor journalistic standards of this paper, the report may not be taken seriously. Nonetheless, a closer look at the law (whose text in Turkish can be accessed at http://www.memurlar.net/haber/44086/) suggests that public access to key documents may be denied on grounds of “national security and interests” and “secrecy.” Unlike the situation in the past, this denial of access will now enjoy “legal armor,” as Milli Gazete describes it.
The draft bill consists of four sections and 39 articles and, when enacted, will be the first law about state archives. Most of the articles are related to the organization, functions, and responsibilities of a reorganized Directorate General of State Archives (DGSA); definitions of archival documents; and the protection, preservation, and classification of archival documents. The bill states that the DGSA will have supervision authority over archival material in the custody of public institutions such as public universities, libraries, ministries, institutes, local governments, and so forth. However, the bill exempts “the Office of the President, the Turkish National Assembly, the General Staff, the Ministry of National Defense, and the National Intelligence Organization” from direct supervision. These agencies are required “to implement the principles stated in the law through their own organizational units.”
The bill creates four departments within the directorate, the two most important of which are the “Republican Archives Department” and the “Ottoman Archives Department.” The other two departments are related to documentation and relations with foreign archive departments. Several “consultative” entities such as legal counsels, public relations, human resources, and “strategy development” units are also enumerated in the new organization.
On the positive side, the bill establishes principles and guidelines that regulate the sorting and destruction of archival documents at even the lowest levels of government. It also formally criminalizes the theft, willful destruction and adulteration, and trading of archival documents.
However, the bill also contains clauses that codify the potential denial of free public access to archival documents in the custody of all public agencies. The clauses that are of most interest to this group are summarized or translated below. My comments follow those.
The first three paragraphs of Article 25 state that archival documents “cannot be removed from their repositories” except under special circumstances, which are specified; that copies of the documents may be provided under certain circumstances; and that “documents which have been cataloged and whose last procedure is more than 30 years old” will be open for research.
The fourth paragraph of this article is the most interesting. It says:
“(4) Archival documents that have been assigned some level of secrecy classification or whose publication may harm national security and interests, the country’s external relations, or the rights of individuals shall retain these attributes after they are transferred to the Directorate General and may not be opened for scholarly research. The Directorate General may decide to remove secrecy classifications from certain archival documents in consultation with [the agency from which the archival document originated] and within the framework of laws.”
The fifth paragraph is also of interest (though standard):
“(5) Access to archival documents by domestic and foreign real and corporate persons and the implementation of procedures and principles stated in this article shall be governed by a statute of regulations.”
This paragraph is typical of virtually all Turkish laws which pass on the responsibility of “implementation of procedures and principles” to lower levels of administration. This provides deniability and vagueness in the case of laws that are known to be discriminatory in advance. This is exactly the way the “Deportation Law” of 1915 and the “Wealth Tax Law” of 1942 (as well as the “Religious Foundations” laws of 2000 and 2007) were drafted: the laws did not mention the actual targets of the actions taken but statutes of regulations created at lower or local levels of administration targeted only certain groups. This allowed the Ottoman and Turkish governments to deny charges that the laws they enacted were discriminatory against certain groups and to argue that “the laws were justified but the implementation went awry.”
In conclusion, although Milli Gazete’s claim that this bill is aimed at “self-defense” against Armenian genocide allegations is not readily apparent in the language of the bill, it is clear that the law provides substantial leeway to a wide range of Turkish government agencies to restrict selectively access to a very large set of sensitive documents. The exemption from direct supervision given to “power agencies” such as the General Staff, the Presidency, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Intelligence Organization; together with the “secrecy” and “national security” exemptions of Article 25(4) and the vague implementation provisions through “statutes of regulations” provide sufficient tools to a fairly large and deep bureaucracy to deny access to any archival document on an arbitrarily selective basis.
The draft bill is expected to go to the National Assembly for discussion and enactment into law during the current legislative session.
An 8-page report by Amnesty International documents widespread domestic violence and sexual abuse of women in Armenia. According to the findings, while one in four Armenian women are physically violated by family members, many more are psychologically abused.
Worst of all, violence against women is a taboo in Armenia, with all-male government agencies reluctant to investigate “private matters” and women afraid to report abuse in the first place. Moreover, the report says that many women in Armenia help perpetuate the widespread abuse by treating violence as normal. Amnesty quotes an infamous Armenian saying that translates, “A woman is like wool; the more you beat her, the softer she’ll be.”
The government of Armenia in essence denies that domestic abuse is an issue in the Republic, although there has been some talk by officials about change. There are still no laws that deal with the issue.
This conventional violence in Armenia, as the report carefully suggests, has translated into people not carrying about human trafficking.
Please fax a brief letter to Senate Indian Affairs Committee urging that a hearing be held on these issues as soon as possible. The Committee fax number is 202-228-2589.
Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites; Save the Peaks Coalition; Indigenous Environmental Network; International Indian Treaty Council; Seventh Generation Fund; Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council; Morning Star Institute
For Immediate Release: September 25, 2008
Tribal Nations, Native Rights Organizations, and Social/Environmenta l Justice Allies Call on Congress and Administration to Immediately Address Tribal Sacred Lands Protection
Senate Indian Affairs Committee & Other Congressional Committees Urged to Convene Hearings on Sacred Lands
Indian Country, USA— Tribal Nations, Native rights organizations, and social/environmenta l justice allies are calling on the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee and other Congressional Committees to conduct hearings concerning federal land management practices that threaten or destroy Tribal sacred lands. The Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, The Save the Peaks Coalition, Indigenous Environmental Network, International Indian Treaty Council, Seventh Generation Fund, Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council, and Morning Star Institute have joined together to address the lack of federal government cooperation and consultation with Tribes in balancing destructive corporate development of Tribal ancestral lands an d honoring Tribal rights and needs. The groups are also calling on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to investigate federal government non-compliance with Tribal consultation requirements and to assist in immediately remedying the problems. “Corporate development of federal lands that overlap sacred Tribal ancestral lands not only further the desecration and destruction of sacred places and areas which Indigenous Peoples have traditionally used and safeguarded, but harm longstanding and positive Tribal social and cultural structures, increase threats to endangered and threatened species, and cause environmental destruction,” stated Mark LeBeau, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites. “The protection and preservation of sacred places are essential to the practice of Indigenous Peoples’ freedom of religions, a fundamental human right which is recognized by both federal and international law.”
The
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007. This Declaration represents the dynamic development of international legal norms and sets an important standard for the treatment of Indigenous Peoples by states. It is a significant tool towards eliminating human rights violations against the planet’s 370 million Indigenous Peoples and assisting them in combating discrimination and marginalization. Article 12 of the Declaration affirms that “Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies and the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites.””Congress and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation must intervene where the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other federal agencies have fallen short in their fiduciary responsibilities to federally-recognize d Tribes, including working cooperatively and constructively with Tribes to resolve disputes,” said Radley Davis, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites.
On July 11, 2008, more than 1,000 Native rights and environmental justice advocates arrived in Washington, DC after walking across the US to raise awareness about key issues affecting Native peoples and the environment. The successful journey, known as the Longest Walk 2, delivered a 30-page manifesto and list of demands to Congress, which included the protection of sacred places and climate change mitigation.
House Judiciary Chair, US Representative John Conyers (D-MI) promised representatives from the Longest Walk 2 that their issues would be addressed but set no timetable. “The Committee on the Judiciary will hold hearings on each one of these items that you have outlined here,” stated Rep. Conyers.
Tribal Nations and Native rights organizations are aware of hundreds of threatened sacred places throughout the US and are highlighting two critical threatened sacred places as evidence for immediate political action: The Medicine Lake Highlands located in California and the San Francisco Peaks located in Northern Arizona.
The Medicine Lake Highlands, northeast of Mt. Shasta, are sacred to the Pit River, Wintu, Karuk, Modoc, Shasta, and other Tribal nations. The Pit River people believe that the Creator and his son bathed in the lake after creating the earth, and then the Creator placed healing medicine in the lake. In the 1980s the BLM gave energy development leases in the Highlands to developers, without first conducting adequate environmental review and consulting any of the Tribes that would be affected by the projects. Developers such as Calpine Energy Corporation have used any tactic that money could buy to try to achieve their goal of building massive power plants in the sacred Highlands to harness geothermal energy, including activating teams of20lawyers, lobbying state and federal representatives, buying-off some adversaries, and information spinning.
“The developers are attempting to move ahead in spite of the fact that project-drilling in the Highlands would likely release dangerous chemicals, including arsenic, chromium, and hydrogen sulfide, into the surface and ground waters that Californians and all other living things in this region rely upon,” stated James Hayward, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites. “This proposed project must be stopped and the US government must assist in this effort.”
In November 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal agencies neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to the Pit River Nation by violating the National Environmental Protection and the National Historic Preservation Acts and that the agencies never took the requisite “hard look” at whether th e Highlands should be developed for energy at all. As a result, the court rejected the extension of leases that would have allowed Calpine to build geothermal plants and ordered judgment in favor of Pit River. Now BLM and Calpine are at it again as they prepare to attempt to conduct geothermal resource exploration in the sacred Glass Mountain region of the Highlands. BLM contends that the ruling was not explicative enough and so it is moving forward with the exploration. The Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites strongly oppose BLM’s reinterpretation of the ruling and will stop the agency.
Louis Gustafson, Citizen of the Pit River Nation, says, ”The government has agreements not to bomb holy mosques when they’re at war, but we have to go through all these hoops just to protect our holy place.”
Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks are recognized internationally as a sacred place. The Peaks are a unique ecological island and are held holy by more than 13 Native American Nations. Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort, located on the holy Peaks, is attempting to expand development, clear-cut acres of old growth trees, and make fake snow from treated sewage effluent, which has been proven to have harmful contaminants. The US Forest Service manages the San Francisco Peaks as public land and has faced multiple lawsuits by the Navajo Nation, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Yavapai Apache, Hualapai, and Havasupai tribes, as well as the Sierra Club, Flagstaff Activist Network, Center of Biological Diversity, and others after it initially approved the proposed ski area development in 2005.
On August 8, 2008 the 9th Circuit of Appeals overturned a previous court ruling stopping the proposed development. The case is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
“We have no guarantee for the protection for our religious freedom when it comes to government land use decisions,” stated Klee Benally of the Save the Peaks Coalition. “This case underscores the fact that we need legislative action to ensure protection for places held holy by Native American Tribes. Federal land management policies are inconsistent when addressing Native American religious practice relating to sacred places. From the San Francisco Peaks, Medicine Lake Highlands, Yucca Mountain, Bear Butte, Mt. Taylor, Mt. Graham and the hundreds of additional sacred places that are threatened or are currently being desecrated, we need consistent protective action now.”
“The corporate projects proposed in the Medicine Lake Highlands and on San Francisco Peaks must be stopped. Key federal lawmakers and administration officials must work more rigorously with Tribes to ensure adequate cooperation and consultation on proposed projects that overlap Tribal sacred lands,” stated Radley Davis. “Our call for hearings is a critical measure that must be taken seriously to ensure that balancing corporate and agency development of Tribal ancestral lands and the needs and rights of Indigenous Nations are honored.”
Please fax a brief letter to Senate Indian Affairs Committee urging that a hearing be held on these issues as soon as possible. The Committee fax number is 202-228-2589.
Native American activist Russell Means, known for long-time activism and for the recent controversial declaration of Lakota independence, is looking forward to August 25. But he won’t be in Denver to attend the first day of the Democratic National Convention or protest Columbus Day holiday, which was first celebrated in the Mile High City in 1907.
Instead, “America’s angriest Indian” will be in his native land with a group of supporters protesting what they consider violation of a federal treaty.
In the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Russell Means, the Chief Facilitator of the Republic of Lakotah, is organizing a group of Lakotah Indians to enter Sheridan Lake Recreation Area near Rapid City, South Dakota, refuse to pay the admission fee, and fish without paying the license fee. Means claims that Lakotah retained the right to fish and pass in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty territory and that those rights continue today and backed by Article VI of the Constitution of the united states of America.
The event, which is being billed as the Lakotah Freedom Fishing Day, is about much more than the admission fee or the fishing license fee; it is about getting the South Dakota and United States governments to follow their own laws. Means said, “After having been an occupied nation for over 150 years, we have asked the United States government to leave our country. Meanwhile, until the United States Government leaves Lakotah territory we will take every opportunity to insist it follow its own laws and that its states do the same.”
Lakotah have given notice to Larry Long, the Attorney General of South Dakota, of its plans for this event. Means said he has not heard from Long yet and does not know if the state plans on allowing the Indians to fish and pass or if the park rangers will issue citations or arrest any of the Lakotah fishermen. Means plans to call in federal marshalls to enforce the treaty rights. Means said, “According to the Civil Right Act, federal marshalls should arrest any state official who tries to stop Lakotah from entering the park and fishing. However, if the United States ignores its own laws to deny Lakotah rights, it will certainly not be the first time.”
This historic event is planned for Monday, August 25th, at 1:00 p.m.
In a few hours, the U.S. Senate will vote on Bush’s Ambassadorial nominee to Armenia. We predict that Marie Yovanovitch will be confirmed. And the question is whether the previous nominee was denied because of not using the word genocide or because of being gay.
Making clear that she can’t use the word ‘genocide’ in referring to the Armenian extermination of WWI due to Bush’s foreign policy not to use the term, ambassadorial nominee Marie Yovanovitch’s Senate hearing became quite stressful last week.
She will most likely get the Senate confirmation given her honest hint that ANY Bush nominee would follow the order not to use the term genocide. Yet it wasn’t easy to deliver this message.
A photo posted (surprisingly) by the State Department sponsored Voice of America’s Armenian page, shows Marie Yovanovitch cleaning her nose during the hearing. More interestingly, the Armenian report refers to the Armenian genocide without quotation marks – something that U.S. State Department officials are not allowed to do themselves.
While it seems like Yovanovitch will be confirmed as the Ambassador despite that she follows her employer’s orders, one wonders whether the Genocide issue was the decisive factor in previous nominee Richard Hoagland’s failure to get the confirmation.
On January 12, 2007, the Armenian-language Hayastani Hanareptutyun (Republic of Armenia) wrote of some concerns in Armenia about Hoagland’s open homosexuality. According to the newspaper, the editor of Armenia’s Azg Daily, Hakob Avetiqyan (Hagop Avedikian), said during a press talk seating along with an ARF (Dashnaktustyun leader):
«Շատ անխոհեմ նշանակում էր սա՝ անկախ ցեղասպանության հարցից։ Անխոհեմ, քանզի Հայաստան, որտեղ ավանդապաշտությունը բավական կարեւոր գործոն է, ուղարկել մեկին, որը ոչ ավանդական սեռական կողմնորոշում ունի, չի բխում նաեւ Միացյալ Նահանգների շահերից»։(This was a very inconsiderate appointment [nomination] despite the question of the genocide. Inconsiderate, because sending somone who doesn’t have traditional sexual orientation to Armenia – a country where tradition-worshiping is a quite important factor – is not in the interests of the United States.)
As unzipped reported last year, Armenia’s anti-Semite and homophobic leader of “Armenian-Aryans” Armen Ayvazyan thanked those who ““freed the Armenian nation from the sad perspective of having a sick Ambassador, who was also denying the reality of the Armenian Genocide.” While Ayvazyan is not, to say the least, a popular figure in Armenia, Azg Daily editor’s open announcement that it is not a good decision to send a homosexual ambassador to Armenia seems worrysome.
Indeed, the editor was seating next to one of the leaders of the ARF (known as ANCA in the U.S.), the organization which heavily campaigned against the Hoagland nomination in 2007. This year, interestingly, ANCA hasn’t been actively campaigning against the new nomination. One reason might perhaps be the recent image-damaging violent post-election protest in Armenia. The new ambassador might be a compromise for continuous U.S. assistance to Armenia despite the recent poor democratic record.
Hoagland’s G-factor still seems important. Was it his refusal (without another choice) to say “genocide” or him being gay that cost him his job? Or maybe because tensions were high given the firing of Ambassador Evans – the only U.S. official in the Bush administration who openly recognized the Armenian Genocide?
