David Boyajian, whose letter to an editor sparked local and national outrage against Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for its denial of the Armenian Genocide, has now written a guest column that deals with a local ADL member’s opposition to an Armenian Genocide memorial.  A powerful column.

The magnificent New Center for Arts and Culture, sponsored by the Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, will probably soon rise on Boston’s new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

But suppose – hypothetically – that the chairperson of the Greenway Conservancy, which is charged with the future maintenance of the Greenway, had been impeding final approval of the New Center’s construction. Suppose, too, that he or she was a leading member of a Holocaust denying organization that also opposed Holocaust resolutions in Congress. Impossible, you say?

Probably, but the Armenian Heritage Park is actually undergoing just such an ordeal. The Mass. Pike, which owns the Greenway, approved the Armenian Park in 2005, but construction has been held up, mostly by Greenway Conservancy chairperson Peter Meade.

Meade sits on the board of the New England Anti-Defamation League (ADL). As the national and international media have reported, ADL has worked with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide of 1915-23 and to defeat Armenian genocide affirmation by Congress.

It is a conflict of interest, therefore, for a person with strong ADL ties to sit in judgment of anything Armenian.

Peter Meade – he’s Catholic, not Jewish – is a long time Vice-President of Blue Cross Blue Shield and travels in Boston’s elite corporate and political circles. He is an outspoken supporter of Israel, whose government has log aligned itself with Turkey in refusing to recognize the Armenian genocide.

Interestingly, Meade was instrumental in getting Blue Cross to fund ADL’s “No Place for Hate” anti-bias programs, which are now mired in scandal because of ADL’s genocide denials. Blue Cross was the first company that ADL certified as “No Place for Hate.”

Why does Meade oppose the Armenian Park? He says that Conservancy policy bans “memorials” on the Greenway. Part of the Armenian Park will, indeed, commemorate both the Armenian genocide and all genocides.

However, the alleged “no-memorials” policy has never been written down or formalized, and the Mass Pike itself has no such policy. Indeed, there are or will be many memorials on, next to, and near the Greenway.

For example, the Greenway’s Chinatown Park contains the Tiananmen Square Massacre memorial. A memorial for community leader Mary Sou Hou is in the works.

The Greenway’s North End Park has a lengthy Memorial Railing that will honor the neighborhood’s past Irish, Italian, Jewish, and other immigrants. Conservancy Executive Director Nancy Brennan is promoting a Mother’s Memorial Walkway with named bricks in the Wharf District Parks.

The Greenway itself memorializes the venerated Kennedy matriarch, while underneath runs the Tip O’Neill tunnel.

Christopher Columbus Park, which abuts the Greenway, contains the Beirut U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, the Frank S. Christian Memorial, and the Rose Kennedy Memorial Garden honoring the Gold Star Mothers of WW II.

It looks like the Conservancy’s “no memorials” policy may be a “no Armenians” policy.

Steps from the Greenway are the Holocaust Memorial’s six towers of glass 54 feet high with steam rising from subterranean chambers named after concentration camps. The memorial also commemorates Poles and other victims of Nazi Germany. It is impressive, somber, and moving.

Nearby are the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighters Memorial, the Irish Famine Memorial, and other memorials too numerous to mention.

The Armenian Park and a wide-ranging human rights lecture series at Fanueil Hall are permanently endowed by the Massachusetts Armenian community and endorsed by the North End/Waterfront Residents Association.

It has been alleged that the Armenian Park would be out of place as too ethnic. Yet the Greenway’s Chinatown Park will, quite properly, feature various Asian cultural elements, including waterfalls and streams based on Feng Shui.

The New Center, “rooted in Jewish culture,” was designed and funded by Jews. Its director and board are Jewish. Every event it has held thus far, in non-Greenway venues, has centered on a Jewish theme, such as the 1933 Nazi Book Burning. The New Center will surely also be commemorating the Holocaust in many ways, and rightly so.

Thus the Greenway does have ethnic projects.

We forgot to mention that Peter Meade was instrumental in having the world famous bridge near the northern end of the Greenway named after Lenny Zakim, the late, respected regional ADL director. He also co-chaired its Dedication Committee and is an advisor to the Lenny Zakim Fund. Not surprisingly, Meade has won ADL’s prestigious Chairperson’s Award.

We should also add that national ADL’s recent alleged acknowledgment of the genocide, which implied that Turkey did not intend to kill Armenians, knowingly contravened the UN’s official 1948 definition of genocide.

Peter Meade is an accomplished and generous man, and I am not accusing him or anyone of impropriety. However, a top ADL leader must recuse himself from any matter relating to Armenians. This is unfortunate but necessary.

Why should you care about any of this? Fairness. And your taxes, after all, paid for the Big Dig, which created the Greenway.

Meanwhile, the ADL and kindred organizations need to halt their Turkish-organized proxy war against the Armenian people.

Our friend Art Tonoyan from iArarat.com has published an interesting opinion piece on the Armenian Genocide resolution at Wacotrib.

Some 90 years ago the Ottoman Turkish government set out in the most thorough fashion to destroy its Christian minorities. But the brunt of the Turkish ire fell on Armenian Christians.

Death came in many guises. As a result, some 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children were killed — nearly two-thirds of all Armenians in Turkey.

You might ask why I care.

By chance or providence, my grandparents managed to survive the massacres.

“Apparently, some Turks think that by attacking the Armenians in Brussels they can convince the world that the Turks never committed a genocide of the Armenians,” writes Paul Belien for rhw Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2588).

Apparently, “On Sunday night Turkish youths in Sint-Joost destroyed the pub of Peter Petrossian, an ethnic Armenian who had to flee for his life.”

The United States Postal Service has issued two stamps commemorating the Armenian Genocide and urging Recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic…NOT!

But YOU CAN. I just created the above stamps from http://www.yourstamps.com, ordered 40 copies of the Genocide stamp and 20 copies of the Artsakh stamp. These stamps are as valid as the ones with the American flag.  There are other options of creating your own stamps that you can find about at http://www.usps.com/postagesolutions/customizedpostage.htm (for US residents only).

Takuhi Ghasapian (later Maghakian) is my great-grandmother, and if you wonder who is she looking at – the answer is me. This is the one and only photograph with me and my great-grandma (taken in 1986) who survived the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire with the help of a kind Turkish woman. 

If you live in Canada, you can do the same by visiting https://www.picturepostage.ca/picpostageprod/DispatcherServlet?op=welcome_public&lang=ENGLISH; if in France, visit http://tpp.laposte.fr/accueil.pgi?cmd=afficher; and if in UK, visit http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content2?mediaId=3800008&catId=5200022.

If you want to use my designed stamps, send me an e-mail at [email protected] and I will send you the contents for free.

Disturbing photographs and documentation of recent desecrations in Ani, western Armenia, as observed by Steven Sim.

Source: http://www.virtualani.org/2007/index.htm

DAMAGE TO ANI BETWEEN 2006 AND 2007

Those Employed to Guard Ani are Destroying Ani

During the 1980s and 1990s, when the whole site of Ani was under the full control of the Turkish Army, very little damage was done to the remains as a result of the activities of treasure hunters. This was in marked contrast to most other archaeological sites in Turkey.

In 2004, as a result of a decision made by the Turkish Ministry of Defence, the responsibility for the day-to-day control of the Ani archaeological site was passed from the Turkish Army to the Turkish Ministry of Culture. The immediate effect of this was that it was now possible to travel to Ani without needing a permit, photography within the site was now permitted, and only a token number of soldiers would now patrol the site.

Part of the conditions set by the Turkish army before allowing this hand-over was that civilian guards had to be appointed to supervise the site and replace the duties previously performed by the soldiers. These guards are not actually employees of the Ministry of Culture because the task of guarding Ani was subcontracted to a Kars-based business.

All the guards are inhabitants of Ocakli village, located just outside Ani’s walls. At night they use their position of authority to roam the ruins at will, digging anywhere they think may contain treasure. The following photographs document some of the damage they have done. All of this destruction took place between August 2006 and August 2007.

Photographic Evidence

It is probable that considerably more damage has been done to the remains than is depicted here. In many cases the evidence is located in little-visited parts of Ani and would be be noticeable when actually walked over.

In 2002 and 2003, French archaeologists from the Sorbonne excavated a series of structures located beside the west façade of the cathedral. A row of three chambers was uncovered. At the southern end of the row is a chamber open to the south. Inside it is a grave that may have been that of Queen Katranide who had the cathedral completed. The archaeologists excavated the contents of the grave, but no human remains were found. Treasure hunters have now dug out the entire contents of the grave.

To the north of the Katranide tomb is a small chapel, then there is a rectangular chamber that contains a row of six gravestones, two of which have inscriptions on them. Because of the significance of the location, in the shadow of the cathedral, it is probable that only Ani’s most important personages would have been interred there. The above photograph shows the chamber in 2006.

The above photograph shows the same view in 2007.

The broken gravestone and the upturned gravestone were the two stones that had inscriptions in Armenian on them.

On the floor of the apse of the cathedral, an area of disturbed ground indicates the spot where the Ani guards had dug a large hole in their quest for treasure.

The photographs above show a series of sarcophagus-like structures, almost certainly graves, located near the Church of St. Gregory of the Abughamirs. Between 2006 and 2007 their contents were dug out, then roughly filled in again.

This photograph was taken inside the Church of Tigran Honents. Several large gravestones set into the floor in front of the apse have been moved and the ground beneath them has been dug up.

Inside the north-west corner of the Tigran Honents church. The medieval floor paving has been pulled up to allow the digging of a hole, and has then been roughly re-laid.

This part of Ani is located to the east of the cathedral and overlooks the Tigran Honents church. It contains the site of a medieval cemetery. Several of the graves have been dug up, and gravestones and capping slabs have been broken.

Human bones are visible inside one of the desecrated graves.

No, I didn’t Google to find the worst possible photograph of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president who is now warning Armenia with a war if Armenia fails to return Karabakh that the Soviet Leadership had annexed from Armenia to Azerbaijan in the early 1920s.

This photo is from the Armenia Liberty article that talks about Aliyev’s threats:

Azerbaijan will increase its defense spending by nearly one third next year to build up its strength in a long-running territorial dispute with Armenia, President Ilham Aliev said on Monday.

He told a government meeting that the military budget will grow by $300 million to $1.3 billion in 2008.

“The country will allocate funds to buy new hardware, weapons and ammunition, to create a powerful military-industrial complex and improve the professionalism of the military,” Aliev said. “We are creating a powerful army.”

The message of the 45-year-old president was primarily targeted at Armenia, the main backer of Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The insincere behavior of Armenian occupation forces, dragging out the negotiation process, forces us to devote greater attention to military issues,” Aliev said. “Azerbaijan must be ready to liberate its lands by any means.”

[…]

Here is an interesting cartoon from the Fresno Bee via the Armenian Assembly of America. Click ON THIS LINK to see the entire cartoon.

Here is a true ghost story for Halloween, based on facts and a bit of superstition…

On a cold December day soldiers in the Djulfa region of a remote area in the mountainous region of the Caucasus were told they had to travel to the Iranian border where an old cemetery of their enemy existed. 

When the Muslim soldiers said they were not going to walk in the cold just to see an old Christian cemetery of their enemies, the head of the Djulfa army said, “You will be the last people to see the cemetery; don’t worry.”

As the soldiers reached the remote cemetery, they were given sledgehammers and told to smash every single gravestone to dust. It was December 14, 2005. They had to come beck the next day, because there were too many graves there.

On their second visit to the cemetery soldiers saw some men in the Iranian border taping what they were doing. The soldiers were reluctant to continue, and although some didn’t touch one gravestone, most of them followed the orders and there was no more cemetery left in the next few days.

When the police chief of Djulfa, Asif Guliyev, read in newspapers that their enemies had videotaped the destruction of the cemetery and showed it to the world, he got angry at the reports.  He had given approval for the destruction of the cemetery and had promised to cover it up.

On the night of December 24, 2005, Guliyev – a Muslim – could not sleep. He knew it was the day for a Christian holiday, and he was fearful that the ghosts of the Christian cemetery destroyed in his region wound hunt him.  This was because his grandfather had told him that if anyone touched the graveyard of any person they would die.  And the gravestones in this case that had been destroyed were not of one person – but of about 10,000 medieval Armenians.

Guliyev heard knocks on his door.  He reluctantly opened the door and saw a thousand white spirits looking at him with blood dropping from their eyes as tears. He shook his head up and the ghosts had disappeared.

The next day Guliyev saw the same dream, and also someone who might have been the prophet Muhammed telling Guliyev he should arrest those who destroyed the cemetery. But instead, Guliyev decided to leave his region for a vacation to the city of Nakhichevan with a friend visiting from Baku.

TREND news agency tells the rest:

In the night for 8 January [2006] the head of the Djulfa district police department Asif Guliyev and his family members died at the result of the fire which had broken out in his apartment in Nakhchevan, the press service of the Interior Ministry told Trend.

The cause of the fire was malfunction in the “Aygaz” type heater in the apartment of the people died. After the fire had been distinguished the corpses of Guliyev, his wife and two daughters, as well as the Baku resident Faig Imanguliyev have been found.   

Whether “Aygaz” (an Armenian male’s name otherwise spelled as Haygaz) or any of the 10,000 Armenian ghosts of the Djulfa cemetery had killed Guliyev was not known.  But since his bosses and no one in his country were going to punish him or be punished for the destruction, people say that he burnt his apartment down after being visited by the Djulfa ghosts every single day.

And it is said that whoever reads this story and denies or glorifies the destruction of Djulfa will be visited by the ghosts of the ancient cemetery who are roaming across the world to find a place where they can rest with no fear of being disturbed again.

I wasn’t even considering to post this unoriginal Huffington Post entry on the Armenian Genocide resolution, that echoes the State Department’s official guidelines in denying recognition for the Armenian Genocide, until I saw at the buttom of the post that the author was a pastor!

It is always great to see a pastor-blogger, but it also surprises to see a pastor who doesn’t dear truth as dear as Jesus, or in fact any other founder of a religion, would.  After openly talking about the Armenian Genocide without denying it, the pastor-blogger goes ahead to the tale that State Department and the administration have been telling in the last ten days.

Like its predecessors, the Bush administration, opposes the measure, calling it an insult to a key ally. Moreover, strategic reasons also play into the president’s thinking, as an estimated 70 percent of U.S. military cargo bound for Iraq goes through Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

“Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that is providing vital support for our military every day,” the president opined at a press conference last week.

The president is absolutely right!

[…] However important it may be to publicly acknowledge Armenian genocide, it is more important that we put our own house in order now.

However important it is for Pastor Byron Williams to practice his freedom of speech, it is more important that folks in Oakland put their Pastor back to order – perhaps a theology school where Christianity’s core value – TRUTH – and not genocide denial for political gains is a priority.

LINK

I am reading at Today’s Zaman that the 17-year-old ultra-nationalist Turk who killed Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink was given about 10 year sentence recently. I remember the court hearings of the several weeks ago but for some reason I don’t recall anything about the actual sentence.

I feel like I missed the news of the sentence. Anyhow, if I am not mistaken the underage murderer could have received up to 18-years of jail time, but apparently killing an Armenian in Turkey in an act of hate is not the worst type of killing.

Oh, and by the way. The Turkish Ambassador who left Washington for “consultations” is back from Ankara. That’s one day less from the anticipated 10-day absence. 

Oh, and here is an excellent coverage of recent blogenocide by Onnik Krikorian.