Archive for the 'Military' Category

Bloggers Commemorate Djulfa’s Third Anniversary

Three years after a cemetery dating back to the 9th Century was deliberately destroyed in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, bloggers recall an ancient culture annihilated and condemn the world for closing its eyes to what many consider to be an official attempt to rewrite history.

NoThingfjord, a Turkish blog, writes:

Today is the commemoration of the 3rd anniversary of Djulfa’s destruction. …This [is] not only a crime against Armenian culture, but against our collective cultural heritage as humankind. Don’t let it go unnoticed.

Between 10-16 December 2005 over a hundred uniformed men were videotaped destroying the Djulfa cemetery using sledgehammers, cranes, and trucks. The video was taken from across the border in Iran.

More than just a loss to global culture, Ivan Kondratiev [RU] says that Djulfa’s destruction was meant to change the story of Nakhichevan’s indigenous heritage.

Азербайджанские власти на протяжении всего советского периода старались уничтожить этот некрополь, поскольку для них он был всего лишь свидетельством о том, что именно армяне были хозяевами этой территории на протяжении веков, вопреки тому, что говорилось в азербайджанских советских мифах о собственной “древности”… Это кладбище, вполне достойное названия чуда, было даже не внесено в реестр архитектурных памятников Азербайджана… После распада СССР, во время карабахского конфликта, продолжалось разорение кладбища, и, наконец, оно было окончательно уничтожено….

The Azeri authorities throughout all Soviet period tried to destroy this necropolis as for them it was only a testament that Armenians were owners of this territory throughout centuries in spite of Azerbaijan’s Soviet myths about own “antiquity”… This cemetery, quite worthy to be called a wonder, was not even placed on the register of architectural monuments of Azerbaijan… After USSR’s collapse, during the Karabakh conflict, the cemetery’s demolition continued, and, at last, definitively destroyed….

An Iranian blogger also argues that Djulfa was undesirable evidence of an inconvenient past.

آنان از سنگ قبر ارامنه هم نگذشته اند و با تخریب دوازده هزار قبر با سنگ قبر هایی منحصر به فرد که متعلق به چند قرن پیش بوده و جزئی از میراث فرهنگی ارامنه به حساب می آمد، هیچ اثری از ارمنی نشین بودن آنجا، بجا نگذاشته اند.

[After acquiring Nakhichevan, Azeris] did not even tolerate Armenian gravestones. They destroyed twelve thousand Armenian graves. These unique gravestones with several centuries’ history were part of Armenian cultural heritage. However, through destruction of these gravestones, [Azeris] destroyed all signs indicating the existence of Armenians in that land. [translated by Loosineh M.]

iArarat, remembers Djulfa by discussing Robert Bevan’s The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, a book that was “part of a class I teach at a Texas university on nationalism and ethno-political conflicts.”

[…]

While reading Bevan’s book I was inevitably reminded of the destruction of the medieval Armenian cemetery in Jugha, presently in Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers at the command of their superiors without as much as blinking an eye would embark at destroying and erasing the last vestige of the Armenian civilization in that territory as if the Armenians had never as much as existed there, as if Armenians had never as much as created anything, something to celebrate their faith and commemorate their dead…

The Stiletto, an award-winning blog posts a well-researched account of Djulfa’s destruction and attempts by Azerbaijan to deny it ever existed.

Adding insult to injury, earlier this month Baku, Azerbaijan hosted a little-noticed two-day conference of Council of Europe culture ministers to discuss “Intercultural dialogue as the basis for peace and sustainable development in Europe and its neighboring regions.” In his opening remarks to the attendees Azeri president Ilham Aliyev, astonishingly claimed:

“Azerbaijan has rich history and the cultural monuments here are duly preserved, and a lot is being done in this direction…”

Meanwhile, nrbakert_tashuk [Ru] asks whether one should laugh or cry at attempts to represent other indigenous Armenian monuments as Turkish or Azerbaijani. However, Kornelij [RU] says Armenia is also to blame for not participating in a conference held early this month in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku.

Unzipped agrees.

[T]he Armenian Ministry of Culture failed to deliver a message by boycotting the conference. They either should have properly boycotted the conference by making an appropriate statement explaining the reasons for non-participation, or they should have participated there to raise the all important issues of destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan, as well as protecting and restoring the multinational cultural heritage in all three South Caucasus countries [Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan].

old-dilettante [RU], says that Djulfa’s destruction was the last stage of Azerbaijan’s attempt to eradicate Nakhichevan’s Armenian heritage. Commenting on a post about churches in Georgia, she writes:

Теперь там не найдется ни одной армянской церкви, несмотря на фотографии и книги, изданные всего ничего – лет 20 тому назад. Все церкви уничтожены. Все могилы. Все хачкары.

И кто через 20 лет скажет, что там вообще жили армяне? … А ведь мой дед был “местным жителем”.

…Now, not a single Armenian church will be found [in Nakhichevan] despite of photographs, some as recent as 20-years-old. All churches are annihilated. All cemeteries. All khatchkars.

And who will say in 20 years that Armenians ever lived there? … It wasn’t that long ago that my own grandfather was a “local” there.

Also recalling family history, Washington-based Armenian journalist Emil Sanamyan, a native of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, commemorates the destruction of Djulfa.

In Baku Armenian cemeteries with less historical but more immediate sentimental value to many (including my family whose three generations made their home in Baku for nearly a century) were paved over for roads or new construction. That does not justify the disrespect they were afforded but makes some remote sense.

In the case of Jugha khachkars stood in the middle of nowhere and were simply crushed, dismembered, thrown into the river. They were targeted and wiped out as the last remaining Armenian outpost.

Sarcastically, the journalist-blogger considers how other Armenian monuments on Azerbaijani territory could be protected.

Now I am thinking, perhaps Armenians should disassemble the remaining Azeri mosques and gravestones on their territory and exchange them for the khachkars and other Armenian heritage items of value?

Certainly some of the Azeri items have cultural value for Armenia and I would rather not see them go. But what other options are there?

Reacting to a comment on his above-mentioned post, Ivan Kondratiev [RU] also says that if Azerbaijanis wanted to cleanse their territory of Armenian heritage, they could have at least given the monuments to Armenia even if such a transfer would amount to acknowledging Djulfa’s Armenian history.

Is the world willing to confront deliberate destruction of historic monuments? In her long post on Djulfa’s destruction, The Stiletto sees hope in an Obama administration.

[T]here is reason to be optimistic that [Barack Obama’s] foreign policy team will… have a very different response to the ongoing stonewalling by the Azeris than [current US Secretary of State] Rice’s utter disinterest [about Djulfa’s destruction], which is rooted in the Bush administration’s pro-Azerbaijani, pro-Turkey foreign policy.

In addition to secretary of state nominee Hillary Clinton […] prospective U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has a particular interest in genocide and is an advocate of military action to stop mass killings, rather than ineffective “dialogue” as slaughters continue apace. And Harvard professor Samantha Power, author of “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” (2002), has been quietly advising Obama behind the scenes […].

Given that past is prologue, with these women’s combined emphasis on championing human rights and genocide prevention, it will not be easy for the Obama administration to ignore or overlook the genocide that preceeded – and encouraged – all others in the 20th and 21st centuries, or the ongoing “cultural genocides” in Azerbaijan and Turkey against the archeological remains of a once-thriving, centuries-old Armenian population that is no more.

More photographs of the cemetery, before and after its destruction, are available at www.djulfa.com.

Originally published at Global Voices Online.

Turks Conquer Belgium’s Defense Ministry Website

Belgian government website hacked

January 14, 2007

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The Web site of Belgium’s Defense Ministry was hacked Sunday by a group of Turkish nationalists, news reports said.

The group, which called itself “grandchildren of Ottoman Empire and Children of Turkey” posted text in English on the site defending the World War I-era killing of Armenians in Turkey and asserting that there was no Kurdish problem in Turkey. It also claimed that the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was a terrorist organization supported by the West, according to footage shown on RTBF, Belgium’s French-language public TV broadcaster.

There was no suggestion why the group had chosen a Belgian government site.

Late Sunday, the site, http://www.mil.be, was still inaccessible.

“We must clearly identify the perpetrators and take additional measures to avoid a repetition of this in the future,” Belgian Defense Minister Andre Flahaut told RTBF.

Satellite Armenia: Military or Cultural Security?

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.
inverted-djulfa.gif

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.
untitled-1.gif
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).

forest.jpg

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.

iran-embassy.jpg
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.

djulfa-gulustan-tomb.gif 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.

khorvirap_tonir.JPG 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.

khorvirap_wall.jpg (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?

new-statues.jpg (the alphabet from pbase.com)