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I was just working on a deal at work and a weird thought crossed my mind. There is a lot of lending activity in Armenia, however everything pretty much resembles an asset based lending. How about securitization of these loans, pooling them together and selling back to public or other investor organization. It would free up a lot of cash and generate lots more lending activity. Just a thought.

Sassun I just want to point that money and investments follow profits and returns, not citizenships and borders. Also, how would you define Armenianness. Is quarter Armenian is considered an Armenian? There are many Turkified Armenians in Turkey, would they be allowed to become citizens of Armenia. Please be more clear with this point. Also, why would you want to keep your citizenship of Canada, Australia, or France? Is it because when things get tough you can pack your bags and leave the country. If a person wants to be loyal to French Republic and live in Armenia they can do so under the current conditions. 10 year residency passport will give people the rights to live, work and become an integral part of the society, and when they feel like they are truly committed to the principals on which the Republic of Armenia is founded on they can become citizens of Armenia.

What’s the point of dual citizenship? There are many solid arguments against it but there hasn’t been a single good point for it. If there is no ban on dual citizenship, what can forbid Turks, Iranians or other ethnic groups in the Middle East or anywhere else from applying to get a dual citizenship, while living in Ankara, Teheran or any other far fetched part of the world? Denying them dual citizenship is just discrimination. There is a simplified process to get a citizenship of Armenia for ethnic Armenians, but like many others they have to be loyal only to Armenia, so in case things get hard they don’t pack up their bags and leave the country. Some very patriotic Diaspora Armenians moved to Armenia, got a citizenship of Republic of Armenia, and denounced their US, Canadian or French citizenship. If the likes of Raffi Hovhannisyan or Vardan Oskanyan could do it than anybody else could do it. If a person wants to do business in Armenia or just live there, without relinquishing their existing citizenship they can apply for a 10 year temporary status, which is equivalent to US Green Card. It costs only $300, so it’s not a huge amount of money. I have not come across any valid argument for dual citizenship. If someone can show me the benefits of allowing dual citizenship for Republic of Armenia citizens I’d welcome.

Which provider of satellite programming offers the best value for Armenian and Russian programming in Greater LA area. I think the choices are between Dish Network, Direct TV and Globecast.

Does anyone know how to send a text message to a cell phone in Armenia whether through internet or directly from a cell phone. I get text messages from my friends in Yerevan but don't know how to reply. Please help.

some information about this topic appeared in today's AZG. http://www.azg.am/?lang=AM&num=2005063011

Harsanik@ barov xerov aneluts heto myus or@ aghjka tun kanach xndzor en ugharkum. Es aghchka tsnoghnern el hartsnum en ba es kanach xndzor@ inchi hamar a, es xndzor beroghn el asum a, "Axchikt axchik er, hama tsitsikneri het mi kich xaghatsel ein".

After what happened to Najarian family, one of the most patriotic Armenians, I think nobody should invest in Armenia, and should let the country to slowly decay. It's just embarrasing to how low the country sinked. Neither Courts nor Officials Care That We Were Defrauded in Armenia By K. George Najarian and Carolann S. Najarian, M.D. We would like to relate a sad, but true account of what we have experienced within Armenia's legal system over this past year. Let us first introduce ourselves: our humanitarian efforts in Armenia and Artsakh have spanned nearly 16 years. Our projects began after the earthquake and during the Artsakh liberation war and continue through today, with more than 50 trips to Armenia, the delivery of millions of dollars of medical supplies to both regions; the establishment of the Primary Care Center in Gyumri (1994) and the Arpen Center for Expectant Mothers in Artsakh (1995); hospital renovations; and many other efforts, including the rebuilding of Tsitsernavank, the 4th c. basilica in Kashatagh (Lachine corridor), assistance to villagers, invalids, veterans, orphans, and schools. Our work has been carried out through the Armenian Health Alliance, Inc. and its supporters as well as through our own private funds. In response to the Armenian government's pleas to the Diaspora to invest in Armenia, George undertook a project with a young man whom he met after the earthquake and with whom he subsequently became a friend. (We even brought him to Boston to have surgical correction of his infertility for which we paid; he now has two children, thanks to us!) In 1996, after a year of prodding George to finance a business venture, they opened a photo shop as partners - he did the work and George paid for everything. He also introduced George to various people with other business propositions. One introduction led to our purchase of two parcels of land in the Ethnographic Center at Tzorakugh with spectacular views of Ararat. Throughout this time this 'friend' presented himself to us as an honest person, thankful for the assistance we had given to him and wanting to help George in whatever way he could. This 'friend' was George's representative, not partner, in the development of these two parcels of land. Thus, he had Power of Attorney to represent George in his absence. However, he used this Power of Attorney to fraudulently privatize in his name these lands and our two newly constructed buildings, in effect expropriating our substantial investment. When we understood what he had done, with the hope of avoiding a legal battle, we tried to negotiate with him for the return of the properties. This failed, despite offers of significant sums of money. Without any other recourse open to us and based on the advice of legal experts in Armenia, we filed a criminal case against him, first with the Yerevan City Prosecutor's Office (September, 2003) and later with the Prosecutor General of Armenia's office (March, 2004). We had assumed the facts in the case were obvious -- "open and shut" -- given the evidence of scores of witnesses, bank documents, receipts, etc. We had not anticipated that our 'friend' would enlist the help of well-connected persons in the government who could influence the case through bribes and whatever other means available to them, including intimidating witnesses and threatening lives. In December, 2003, after a long but superficial investigation, the Yerevan City Prosecutor's Office dismissed the case and referred us to civil court. (We suspected the prosecutor had been bribed but could not prove it.) On appeal, the case was reopened at the Prosecutor General level. This time prosecutors agreed we were the victims of fraud. They also found that the 'friend' was guilty of tax evasion. Attempts were again made to hijack the case through dismissal at this point but failed. While the Yerevan City Prosecutor who previously dismissed the case admitted during a meeting at the General Prosecutor's Office, in George's presence, that he made a mistake by dismissing the case, the current prosecutors said that the evidence was too powerful to dismiss, and sent the case to the next phase within the criminal process -- that of acquiring evidence for the trial. Two investigators were assigned the task of preparing the evidence for trial: witnesses were repeatedly called and subjected to hours of interrogation; George returned to Armenia again to testify - this time for more than 40 hours; and, documents were requested and provided by us for a third time. Again, the investigation dragged on for months and despite mountains of evidence supporting our claims, and little on the other side supporting his claim of ownership, the two investigators doing the work dismissed the case! Their decision, a shabby, crude, and even absurd document completely ignored or marginalized important evidence supporting our claims and falsified facts --openly. We were again referred to civil court. We had information that these investigators were following orders from persons within the government who stand to benefit from expropriating these properties from us. Prominent legal minds in Armenia, including experts within the government, have advised us that this is a criminal case of fraud punishable under Armenian law. Similar cases, with less evidence, have been fully prosecuted by the Prosecutor General's Office. The attempt to move us into civil court is an attempt to kill the case completely. Under Armenian law, we have no civil case because there is no partnership agreement between the parties - we were not partners with this 'friend.' It pains us to tell you we did not find an objective, fair justice system in Armenia, but instead we have seen the inside of a system wrought with deceit and corruption that crushes even their own when they try to resist. During this past year, in addition to our direct appeals, others, including a high ranking member of the Armenian government, have appealed repeatedly for a fair and objective hearing of our case to persons within the judicial system and to President Kocharian himself. The US Embassy is fully aware of the circumstances of our case as are a number of US congressmen who have written to the Armenian ambassador in Washington expressing concern over the conduct of our case - judicial processes must be open and fair otherwise investors will be leery of undertaking investment risk in Armenia. It is impossible to recount all that we have been through this past year. It has been an emotional roller coaster as we faced the fact that persons within this government would participate in this humiliating and base fraud against us. It appears due process of law and the protection of rights and investments are still fragile concepts for the government of Armenia. As we understand other Diasporans have encountered similar problems and have been treated in this same manner. We hope with our case being made public there will be a willingness to discuss these critical issues, and the Armenian government will take the necessary steps to clean up corruption: the judiciary should not exist to guarantee people in power wealth. It is no way to build a country! Writing about our ordeal is a very painful step taken reluctantly after one year of struggling to get a fair hearing of our case. Although we are still in the appeal process, we understand that our property - including the place where we anticipated living out our retirement years - has been taken from us. What you are not seeing, though, are the tears we have shed over knowing that we may never be able to return to Armenia, to live and continue our work, and knowing not only has our property been expropriated, but we as people who have loved and worked for the good of Armenia and its people have been so dishonestly treated. The pain goes very deep.

Harut, Monopoly is not illegal in most countries I know of. However, it is illegal when a company that has a monopoly abuses it. When the government broke up AT&T, way back in 80’s it wasn’t because AT&T was a bad monopoly and Microsoft is, but because AT&T was badly abusing its monopoly. In countries like Armenia, where the market is fairly small Wal-Mart size stores are not practical, so chances are there won’t be any Wal-Mart in Yerevan in the near future. It’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that the Company that dominates the marketplace does not abuse its power. Government should create a competitive field that promotes fair competition not hinders it. The government of Armenia does not promote free and fair competition, and in essence breaks the law. Article eight of the constitution of Armenia states the following: ”The state shall guarantee the free development and equal legal protection of all forms of property, the freedom of economic activity and free economic competition.” This is not the first time that the government broke the law, so we are used to it.

With current leadership Russian state is headed to failure, just like Mussolini did half a century ago. Moscow's Mussolini By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI September 20, 2004; Page A20 Thou art so pitiful, Poor, and so sorrowful, Yet of great treasure full, Mighty, all-powerful, Russia, my Mother! Citing these stirring words of the poet Nekrasov, Vladimir I. Lenin, the new dictator of Russia, published on March 12, 1918, his reasons for moving Russia's seat of government from St. Petersburg (Petrograd) to Moscow. Amid the chaos, confusion, and violence of those revolutionary days, Lenin, having just five days earlier entrenched himself in the Kremlin, proclaimed: "Russia will become mighty and abundant if she abandons all dejection and all phrase-making, if, with clenched teeth, she musters all her forces and strains every nerve and muscle. . . . work with might and main to establish discipline and self-discipline, consolidate everywhere organization, order, efficiency, and the harmonious co-operation of all the forces of the people, introduce comprehensive accounting of and control over production and distribution -- such is the way to build up military might and socialist might." Moscow -- which centuries earlier had been the capital of Ivan the Terrible but was demoted to the status of a provincial town when Peter the Great opened a window to Europe by constructing St. Petersburg as his new capital -- thus once again became Russia's epicenter. And so it remains to this day, with Lenin's slogans eerily anticipating Vladimir Putin's recent justification for centralized power. It is important to recognize that to the Russians the Kremlin is more than just the seat of government. It epitomizes the centralizing tradition of the Russian autocracy. It is a tradition that is fearful of any regional autonomy, of any genuine decentralization, a tradition that fosters the chauvinist paranoia that political pluralism will almost inevitably precipitate the breakup of Russia itself. That mentality fitted well into the Stalinist notions of central planning, and it fit well into the bureaucratic mentality of the KGB with its ethic of suspicion and hierarchic discipline. For products of the KGB, such as Mr. Putin, it is axiomatic that if Russia is to be "mighty, all-powerful," it must be ruled from the top down. * * * Two significant realities flow from the above. The first is that Moscow is the home of a parasitic political elite that identifies the interests of Russia with its own interests. Subordinating an enormous country with 11 time-zones to all decision-making concentrated in the hands of remote Moscow bureaucrats is a formula instinctively favored by parasites. The monopolistic power of the Muscovite elite suffocates local initiative and prevents the various regions of Russia from exploiting their own talents and resources. It is not an accident that under Stalin as well as in recent years, Moscow has been and remains the privileged beneficiary of modernization and development. In contrast, other Russian cities continue to stagnate and the Russian countryside remains largely reminiscent of the days of Tolstoy. To this day, much of all foreign investment is devoured by Moscow alone (or recycled abroad) while in many other cities (like Vladivostok, for example) even rudimentary services -- housing, hospital care, etc. -- are almost primitive. Secondly, the leeching and self-centered mindset of the Moscow political elite stifles political democratization. Mr. Putin's move is popular with the elite because it propitiates the basic interests of a power elite that still harbors nostalgia for great- power imperialist status, that identifies its own well-being with domination over all of Russia, and through Russia over at least the former states of the Soviet Union. To the power elite, the independence of Ukraine, or of Georgia, or of Uzbekistan is an historic offense. To it, the resistance of the Chechens to Russian domination is a "terrorist" crime. To it, autonomy for 20 million ethnically non-Russian citizens is a challenge to its own privileges. The turn toward statist centralism under Mr. Putin's KGB regime should not be confused, however, with a return to some form of communist totalitarianism. Today's Russian rulers realize that communism meant stagnation and the elite knows that communism also would mean relative deprivation for itself. State-capitalism, subject to central control, as well as the advantages of wealth and travel abroad provide the best formula for both self-gratification and nationalist aspirations. Mr. Putin's regime in many ways is similar to Mussolini's Fascism. Il Duce made "the trains run on time." He centralized political power in the name of chauvinism. He imposed political controls over the economy without nationalizing it or destroying the economic oligarchs and their mafias. The Fascist regime evoked national greatness, discipline, and exalted myths of an allegedly glorious past. Similarly, Mr. Putin is trying to blend the traditions of the Cheka (Lenin's Gestapo, where his own grandfather started his career), with Stalin's wartime leadership, with Russian Orthodoxy's claims to the status of the Third Rome, with Slavophile dreams of a single large Slavic state ruled from the Kremlin. That combination may be appealing for a while but ultimately -- probably within a decade or so -- it will fail. The younger and better educated and more open-minded Russian generation will slowly permeate the ruling elite. The upcoming generation will not be satisfied with life in a Fascist petro-state in which the Kremlin glitters (because of oil profits) while the rest of the country falls further and further behind not only Europe but also China. They are aware that decentralization of their huge country, which can unleash social initiative, is the key to modernization. That reality cannot be obscured forever by the slogans about "terrorism" that Mr. Putin used to justify the imposition of stifling political centralization. Indeed, already today the neighboring Ukraine of nearly 50 million people (whom the Bush NSC has so studiously ignored while naïvely courting Mr. Putin) is beginning to provide a contrast in two major domains: its economic progress is more diversified and more evident in other cities than just in the national capital; and its politics (while still vulnerable to manipulation) have produced two genuinely contested presidential elections. As of today, no one can predict the outcome of the Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled for late October, a fact that stands in sharp contrast with the Russian "elections" in which Mr. Putin was the candidate. Unfortunately, over the last several years the White House has fostered a cult of Putin that has done great harm to the increasingly isolated Russian democrats. Their cause deserved support. There were Russians who bravely stood up and opposed the progressive silencing of Russia's free media. There were Russians who voiced concerns regarding the narrowing scope of Russia's democracy. There were Russians who protested against the inhuman and almost genocidal massacres of the Chechens. Never once did any of them hear any measure of support from the top leadership of the country that once held high the standard of human rights in opposition to communist tyranny. Moreover, the Bush administration should wake up to the fact that what happens in Russia bears directly on what may also happen in the space of the former Soviet Union. Today, many in the newly independent post-Soviet states fear that in the name of a war against terrorism the U.S. may also ignore Mr. Putin's intensifying efforts to encourage manipulated elections in Ukraine, to promote separatism in Georgia (while fiercely crushing the Chechens for seeking it), and to isolate Central Asia from the international economy. The fact is that prospects for democracy within Russia are interconnected both with the existence of national pluralism within the space of the former Soviet Union and with the spread of political pluralism within Russia itself. There is a basic lesson for America in all this: For democracy to thrive in Russia, its neighbors must be truly secure, the rights of non-Russian minorities must not be forgotten, and Russian democrats must not be ignored.

Interesting examples of successful business practices in the region. Turkish Surprise: A Business Blazes Path for Nation To EU's Doorstep --- Appliance Maker Koc Finds Place in Skeptical Market; A French Secret Revealed --- Europe's Most Efficient Fridge By Hugh Pope 7 September 2004 The Wall Street Journal A1 English (Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) ISTANBUL, Turkey -- It's the biggest conglomerate in Turkey, with 54,000 employees and a reputation at home for quality. But when Koc Group tried to introduce a new line of its Beko brand washing machines at French furniture chain Conforama in January, the French sales staff protested. "People think Turks can't make anything decent," says Valerie Lubineau, Beko's marketing chief for France. So she let the sales people in on a secret known only to Conforama's senior managers: Koc had been manufacturing Conforama's well-regarded in-house brand for years. Eight months later, the sleek blue and silver Beko machines are outselling European rivals. "We gave them arguments to break the taboo," says Ms. Lubineau. Koc Group's struggle for respect in Europe reflects many of the obstacles Turkey has faced on the way to its goal of joining the European Union, now at a critical stage as the EU debates a decision due in December on whether or not to open accession negotiations with this country of 70 million people. Talks could last a decade and could still fail, but the debate over Turkish membership raises deep questions about where to draw the eastern edge of the Western world. The U.S., eager to anchor Turkey in the West and buttress the country's secular democracy, strongly backs Turkish membership. For its part, Turkey has reduced the political role of the army to address concerns about a record of military coups, curbed human-rights abuses and brought triple-digit inflation down to single figures this year. Such issues had for years persuaded the EU to keep putting off negotiating membership, despite Turkey's 50 years of service as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance. European doubts about Turkey could still derail this mainly Muslim country in its half-century-long effort to find a place among the Christian states of Europe. Some Europeans worry about a wave of immigration at a time when the European economy is suffering sluggish growth and high unemployment. Some also fear that Turkey's population could overtake Germany's within a generation -- which could make it the most populous country in the union. In France and Germany, polls typically show more than 50% oppose Turkish entry to the EU. "People are concerned which way Europe will go, and they're scared of Turkey because it has borders with Iran and Iraq," said Walter Posch of the EU's Institute for Security Studies. "They don't want to believe something good and modern can come from there," he says. Still, businesses like Koc Group -- whose consolidated revenue rocketed up 61% in dollar terms in 2003 to $11.1 billion -- underscore a simple but critical part of the reason why the balance appears to be currently leaning in Turkey's favor. "As Koc Group, at least, we are already in Europe," said Bulend Ozaydinli, Koc Group's chief executive. Exports from Koc Group's 96 companies quintupled to $4.1 billion in the five years through 2003, mostly to Europe. From Portugal to Russia, Koc counted a market share of 4.3% for home appliances, up from almost nothing five years before. Koc's success underscores how fast Turkey is becoming a major manufacturing export center, for both international companies looking to sell into Europe and Turkish companies alike. The country now produces more than one-half of Europe's television sets, with most coming from Turkey's Vestel Electronics. Leading strong growth among several international car companies that have flocked to Turkey, French auto maker Renault is in a joint venture that exported $1 billion of cars to more than 100 countries in 2003. Turkey's conflicted relationship with Europe dates back to the Middle Ages, when, bearing the standard of Islamic conquest, Turkish armies of the Ottoman Empire overran the Balkans and were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Europe's fear and occasional awe turned to scorn in the 19th century as it forced the Ottomans into retreat. Soon after 1923, when the Turkish Republic was founded on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Vehbi Koc started what was to become the Koc Group in the new capital of Ankara. The young republic had virtually no economy. Armenian and Greek Christians had done most of the manufacturing in the empire, but most of them were expelled or killed during the preceding wars. Muslim Turks considered business "shameful," Mr. Koc later wrote in his memoirs. And yet, he recorded, "I noticed the minorities led a better life." Mr. Koc, who died in 1996, and whose family still controls 70% of the shares of Koc Group's holding company, Koc Holding AS, was determined to help Turkey catch up. Progress was slow. Mr. Koc labored in a protectionist climate. The Turkish state, afraid of European and other foreign companies taking over Turkish markets as they did during the dying decades of the Ottoman Empire, maintained high tariff barriers. The companies that grew into Koc Group exported only a tiny fraction of their output. Turkey's 1963 decision to move politically closer to Europe forced a gradual opening of its markets. By the 1990s, managers of some Koc units realized they had to counterattack or be crushed by bigger European competitors even in Turkey. In 1991, the main Koc company -- Arcelik, a maker of washing machines and other household appliances -- set up a research and development center to end the conglomerate's dependence on foreign patents and licenses. The group was in a race against time. A 1996 deal with the EU removed the last trade barriers, like a $100-per-machine levy on imported dishwashers. But Arcelik (pronounced AR-che-lick) managed to defend its domestic market share of above 50% in most categories it competes in. By 2000, Arcelik engineers had enough technology to replace their last main licensed product, a dishwasher designed by Germany's Bosch. Now more than 500 people work in Arcelik's sprawling R&D complex on the eastern edge of Istanbul, including 30 doctoral students from Turkish universities working on subjects like the movement of hot air in clothes driers. Young engineers cost a fifth of what they would in Germany. And as one of Turkey's most prestigious companies, Koc attracts the best of each class. In white lab coats and jeans, they are now experimenting with ideas like a microwave clothes drier and a refrigerator powered by magnets. In 2002, the Japan Institute of Product Maintenance chose Arcelik's vast washing-machine factory for the first award for excellence given to any washing machine plant outside Japan. In February 2004, the European Commission honored an Arcelik-made refrigerator with a special award for using as little electricity as a 16-watt light bulb, significantly better than the European competition. "Technology [relating to appliances] used to be generated mainly in Germany. Not any more," said Semsettin Eksert, Arcelik's head of research, himself the winner of a patent for a variable-height shelf on the upper rack of dishwashers. Still, continued slow growth in Europe forced Koc to directly confront its branding problems. The Arcelik name, for example, was deemed unpronounceable in Europe. Its products were initially shipped to Europe under the company's Beko brand name. But even that offered no quick way to crack the more profitable upper reaches of the European market. The outlook shifted on Sept. 11, 2001. Brandt, the French home-appliance conglomerate, happened to file for bankruptcy that day. Even as turmoil spread across the globe after the terrorist attacks on America, the Koc board voted to dispatch executive Nedim Esgin, then president of the Arcelik unit, to France the next morning to try to buy the company. "Everyone was frightened of everything that day. It took real courage to go ahead," says Mr. Esgin. Koc lost out to an Israeli investor for control of Brandt's French operations. But within a year, Mr. Esgin obtained prestigious former Brandt brands in Germany and Austria. An athletic former member of the Turkish national basketball team, the 47-year-old shared the company founder's determination to match the prosperity of the West. Like many Turks, he had experienced prejudices personally. While studying management at San Francisco's Golden Gate University in the late 1970s, Mr. Esgin navigated a world that lumped secular Turkey in with neighboring Iran after the Islamic revolution there, and associated Turkey with the prison abuse depicted in the hit movie "Midnight Express." "I started telling everyone I was Yugoslav," says Mr. Esgin, who left Koc last year after 21 years and now hopes to start up a business representing foreign investors here. Other Koc companies have been following suit, expanding market share in Europe by snapping up well-known brand names. Koc bought the Blomberg brand in Germany and Elektra Bregenz in Austria, both makers of refrigerators, dishwashers and washing machines, as well as Arctic, the leading brand of refrigerators in Romania. In their most remarkable coup, Koc television and electronics manufacturing unit Beko Elektronik teamed up with a British partner this year to buy Grundig, one of the proudest names in German television and radio. Marketing director Erem Demircan, who helped shepherd the deal, had cut his teeth in the early 1990s selling Koc electric motors in Europe. He too felt prejudice against Turks was behind many a question about his company's ability to produce to high standards. In a German fair in 1992, just after Europe lifted border controls, he was humbled to see that none of the maps of the new Europe included Turkey. "I reckoned the only way to put us on the map of Europe was through trade," says Mr. Demircan, who lobbied one partner, a unit of South Korea's LG Corp., to move Turkey from LG's Middle East division to its European division. LG says the change was for "geographical reasons" and didn't apply to the whole company. Mr. Demircan's success mirrored other Turks who lobbied international television channels to move Turkey from the Middle East to Europe on weather forecasts. (MORE) "The way people approach us in the 1990s and now is totally different. Then it was being discussed whether Turks can even be Europeans. Now it is whether Turks can be members of the EU," said Mr. Demircan, 37, touring a plant where workers were busy erecting new buildings to help the company ramp up production from 4.2 million televisions in 2002 to a planned 9 million to 10 million in 2005. "Now, our customers just ask for prices. If you're in the TV business, you accept that it is Turkey's job to make TVs, just like carpets or Turkish delight," the candy. Still, Mr. Demircan proceeds carefully, drawing on lessons Koc has learned. He was thrilled to be part of the Koc team that took possession of the Blomberg household appliance factories in Germany in 2002. At the headquarters, German management greeted their new owners with a Turkish flag and emotional Turkish immigrant workers, who said they never believed they'd see the day that their company would become Turkish. But when Koc took over Grundig this year, Mr. Demircan sent an advance message asking that no Turkish flags be displayed. Koc also hired a German design house to help get the right plain, square German look for new product lines. And visitors to the Grundig and Blomberg Web sites have to dig deep beneath prose about their status as historic icons of German engineering to find out that Turks actually own the companies, design the insides and make the products. "We want to create a Grundig that is a purely German company, that Germans can be proud of," said Mr. Demircan. "We're not disappointed as Turks. We know it'll take us another 10 or 20 years to establish our brands. That will certainly happen, as Turkey becomes more European." Koc's Beko Elektronik expansion dates back to 2001, when it became Grundig's sole external TV supplier. Grundig's new chief, Hubert Roth, says that Beko's low-price and attractive models helped lift Grundig's sales even as it was in bankruptcy proceedings last year. By June Grundig's market share in Germany had doubled to 6% to 8% from its low point of 3% to 4% a year ago. "It's unbelievable," Mr. Roth said, comparing Turkey's achievement in Europe with the paths followed by Japan, Korea or China. "Nobody here . . . thinks about these developments in Turkey. They don't think about the enemy until he's at the door."

Don't blame Islam, it's a peaceful religion hijacked by fanatics. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Harut, Appreciation of dram will play a positive role only when it’s accompanied by corresponding the productivity of Armenian economy, otherwise Armenian industry will be even more priced out of international markets. Steep fluctuations in currency in a short period of time is mostly a result of Central Bank’s inefficiency, which failed to stabilize the Dram. I strongly believe that Tigran Sargsyan should either be dismissed from his position or have answers about inactivity of Central Bank. Steep fluctuations in currency just add an additional risk to doing business in Armenia. Why would someone do business in a country that is filled with political risk, currency risk, geopolitical risk, and many other risks. Business likes stability, which gives the owner an opprotunity to plan ahead and concentrate on his core competencies. Imagine if a businessman buys an insurance against all the risks listed above, the cost of doing business would be astronomical.

While I accept your argument about unsophistication of Armenian economy, however the fact that Armenian products will price themselves out from both external and internal markets due to currency appreciation is an economic axiom. It will have serious repercussions on Armenian economy and fragile manufacturing industry. The disappearance of the last remnants of industrial production, will consequently lead to decrease in demand for services that support manufacturing. The impact of such dire scenario will ultimately hit the pockets of already poor Armenian working class, whose patience is not limitless. Additionally I’d like to add that most of Armenia’s workforce is employed at small enterprises that are not controlled by “Kocharian and Co.”. These people pretty soon will find themselves even more dependent on outside remittances from their relatives.

It's not the opposition who will change the government, its the events like this and financial wreck that will take people to streets. Appreciation of dram will have serious consequences for the country. The price of exports will rise making already fragile Armenian economy more dependent on money transfers. This will ultimately kill what is left of Armenian industry. AMD STABILIZATION RESULT OF IMPROVEMENT OF TRADE BALANCE 21 July 2004 ARMINFO News (Armenia) © 2004 ARMINFO News Agency. YEREVAN, JULY 20. ARMINFO. The AMD stabilization of Armenia's currency market is the result of improvement of the country's trade balance, said Gayane Matevosyan, Head of the Department for Operations of Financial Markets, RA Central Bank. She said that steady economic growth is being maintained, and inflation is lower than the CB-forecast inflation. The situation on the financial market testifies that liquidity in Armenia's banking system reached the highest level ever recorded, and a steady downtrend in interest rate can be observed. Considering a high level of poverty in the country, the AMD stabilization results in greater confidence in the Armenian AMD. She accounted for the fall in the USD exchange rate by a number of factors, such as inflow of foreign exchange, a large number of tourists and increase in exports. According to the CB, a 40% increase in exports was recorded in the first half of this year as against the corresponding period of last year (precious and semi-precious stones, metals and articles from them exclusive); imports increased by 14%. In other words, exports exceed imports 2.5 times. Private transfers to physical persons increased by 46% in the first half of 2004: a 31% increase was recorded in the first quarter, a 55% increase in the second quarter as against the corresponding period of last year. According to the CB, on July 21 the USD exchange rate got stabilized within 505-510 AMD per US $1. -T- Armenian Dram Gains More in Value against U.S. Dollar By Gevorg Stamboltsian One U.S. dollar was worth 500 drams on the morning of 20 July, whereas in the evening it had slumped to 493 drams. According to employees of currency exchange bureaus, the dollar tends to lose against the dram in July every year. But they have never before witnessed such sharp fluctuation. "Nothing like this has happened during the last 10 years. They say the dollar will fall against the dram to 450 per dollar," a woman working in an exchange bureau told RFE/RL. The head of the Financial Markets department of Armenia's Central Bank, Gayane Matevosyan, mentioned three reasons for the strengthening of the Armenian dram. One reason is increased private inflows of cash from abroad. "Private transfers from abroad compared to the same period last year have increased up to 46 percent," Matevosyan told RFE/RL. A second reason, according to the Central Bank official, is an increase in exports. Compared to the first half of last year, exports have risen by 40 percent. Officials attribute the trend to the traditional peak period in visits to Armenia by foreign tourists. Some analysts do not agree with these arguments, however. Independent expert Eduard Aghajanov told RFE/RL: "This is money laundering. There are no other explanations for this. If we attribute this to tourism, we had a peak in tourism in 2001 and even then we did not see such unbelievable fluctuations." Talking about the mechanisms of money laundering, Aghajanov said he means first of all the flow to Armenia of money of "suspicious origin." "Only huge flows of such money can provoke such fluctuations," Aghajanov said. The Central Bank official, though, denies those suggestions. Gayane Matevosyan admitted that the average sum of private transfers to Armenia has grown. But she said this growth is not enough to substantiate suspicions of money laundering. Although the dollar has seriously slumped against Armenian Dram, market prices have grown even higher. The Central Bank, however, argues that market prices are not directly connected to the currency market. Besides, those prices have not grown too much. "We don't see any serious growth in market prices. In the first six months, prices grew only by 4.4 percent compared to the planned 5.2 percent," Matevosyan said. The Central Bank declined, though, to predict the currency rates for the coming days. But Aghajanov suggested that one cannot analyze the situation from an economic point of view. "Everything depends on the appetite of some clans," he said.

I came acroos one of the funniest associations between google and Armenia. When you go to www.googlism.com and type Armenia one of the opinions of google about Armenia is - armenia is also known as "tamada country". This just cracked me up.

The same Council of Europe also advised authorities to learn from Shevardnadze and not to use force against its own people. If Armenian authorities do not abide bo the obligations they undertook before being admitted to the Council of Europe embarrassing expulstion of Armenia from the Council will not let itself wait for too long. Now we have political prisoners in Armenia and people are beaten up for protesting. Just ask yourselves, does such a country belong to Europe when it does not adhere to European values. With current ruling regime we resemble more Syria or Turkey, then any other country. Council Of Europe Assembly Threatens Sanctions Against Yerevan By Emil Danielyan, Hrach Melkumian and Ruzanna Khachatrian The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has warned the Armenian authorities to end their crackdown on the opposition and immediately release all political prisoners or face embarrassing sanctions later this year. In a resolution adopted late Wednesday, the PACE denounced the government’s heavy-handed response to the opposition campaign for President Robert Kocharian’s resignation, saying that it is “contrary to the letter and the spirit” of its earlier recommendations to Yerevan. The Strasbourg lawmakers also dropped from the initial version of the resolution a clause that discouraged the Armenian opposition from challenging Kocharian’s disputed reelection with street protests. The resolution, drafted by a committee monitoring the 45 member states’ compliance with their commitments, demanded that the authorities scrap “unjustified restrictions” on peaceful demonstrations, release the individuals detained for their participation in the recent anti-Kocharian rallies, investigate the “human rights abuses” and “inform the Assembly of their findings and possible legal actions against people responsible.” It called in this regard for an “immediate end” to the renewed enforcement of Armenia’s controversial Administrative Code under which dozens of opposition supporters have been imprisonment this month. The PACE also urged the authorities to “guarantee freedom of movement inside Armenia,” an apparent reference to the effective disruption of public transport communication between Yerevan and the rest of the country ahead of virtually every opposition rally. The extraordinary measure has been aimed at preventing provincial residents from swelling the opposition crowds. The resolution says the government in Yerevan should submit by next June a written report to the PACE detailing the steps it has taken in response to the recommendations. Their implementation will be assessed by the monitoring committee’s two Armenia rapporteurs, Rene Andre of France and Jerzy Jaskiernia of Poland. They were instructed to make a fact-finding trip to the country “as soon as appropriate.” The resolution warns that if Yerevan makes no progress in addressing these concerns, the PACE will “reconsider the credentials of the Armenian delegation” at its autumn session next September. Presenting the document to the Strasbourg lawmakers, Jaskiernia made it clear that while he strongly disapproves of the crackdown, he believes that the Council of Europe should not question the legitimacy of last year’s Armenian presidential and parliamentary elections because the serious fraud that marred them was “not so extensive that we could disqualify the result.” “The election naturally delivered results, and now many people are satisfied, so our approach to Armenia should be objective and balanced,” he said. The remarks drew criticism from some of the parliamentarians attending the debate, notably Hungary's Matyas Eorsi who has monitored Armenian polls in the past. "On the one hand, there are demonstrators who want to achieve certain political goals and, on the other hand, there is a state that wants to suppress the demonstrators," he said. "We do not need to be balanced about that." "It is difficult for us to make decisions if the factual evidence is not presented to us objectively,” complained Malcolm Bruce, a British lawmaker. Eorsi drew parallels between the Armenian crisis and the situation in Georgia during the November “rose revolution,” saying that Yerevan should “learn” from deposed President Eduard Shevardnadze’s decision not to use force against protesters. “This should stop now,” he continued. “If it does not, we will have to make a decision about whether such a country is suitable to be a member of the Council of Europe.” Eorsi was instrumental in the PACE’s decision to change a paragraph which said the Armenian opposition “should refrain from attempts to use street demonstrations to reverse the results of last year’s elections.” Its revised version only urges the opposition to “strive to achieve its goals within the constitutional framework.” The Armenian members of the PACE representing Kocharian’s governing coalition tried unsuccessfully to block the change. But they did succeed in keeping a passage that the 2003 vote irregularities “did not decisively change the outcome of the elections nor invalidate their final results” in the adopted text. The assembly also rejected a proposal to endorse the idea of the national vote of confidence in Kocharian floated by Armenia’s Constitutional Court last year. But it at the same time did not state explicitly that such a referendum must not be held. “The Assembly calls upon the authorities and the opposition to refrain from any action which may lead to further violence and to engage in a dialogue without preconditions,” the resolution reads. Still, it admits that “there seems to be little room for dialogue between the authorities and the opposition” at present. The PACE calls seem to have satisfied both the opposition and the three pro-presidential parties making up Armenia’s coalition government. “That is certainly in tune with the opposition demands,” Stepan Demirchian, the leader of the Artarutyun alliance, told reporters. “They are not subject to negotiation, they are simply constitutional norms that must be respected.” “If it weren’t for the international community, I think the regime’s efforts to cling to power would be much more brutal in Armenia,” said Vazgen Manukian, another leading member of the block. But Galust Sahakian, the parliamentary leader of Prime Minister Andranik Markarian’s Republican Party, downplayed the significance of the PACE criticism. “In essence, nothing new was added to the proposals made by the PACE in January,” he said. “We expected such a reaction. We also see our approaches reflected in those provisions,” said Hrair Karapetian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, another governing party. Both Sahakian and Karapetian urged the opposition leaders to resume their talks with the ruling coalition which broke down on Tuesday. But Demirchian brushed aside the calls. “As long as we don’t see certain practical steps, it will be unserious and pointless to talk about a dialogue,” he said, adding that the opposition will continue to fight for regime change “in a peaceful way.”

Those of you that claim that beating protestors is common in democratic countries, the recent demonstarion in Washington DC is just a proof that demonstration is an accepted means of expressing a decent and dissatisfaction. Isn't Kocharyan and the ruling junta surprised that nobody got hurt in a pro-abortion demonstration in Washington DC. It's amazing how calmly the slogans like ''We are here to take back our country.'' are accepted in democratic countries. Abortion-rights march targets Bush By Kristina Herrndobler, Washington Bureau. Tribune news services contributed to this report. 891 words 26 April 2004 Chicago Tribune Chicagoland Final 1 English Copyright 2004, Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved. WASHINGTON Abortion-rights activists turned out by the hundreds of thousands Sunday, packing the National Mall with a sea of pink signs and a warning to the White House that they will go to the polls in November. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood, along with about 1,400 other organizations, organized the March for Women's Lives after a series of legislative setbacks that they say could lead to a reversal of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The march was one of the biggest ever on the Mall. Organizers said the crowd was much larger than at the 1992 March for Women's Lives, which National Park Police said drew about 500,000. The Park Police no longer gives official crowd counts, but the Associated Press quoted police sources as informally estimating the number at 500,000 to 800,000. Representatives from at least 56 countries joined American men and women from across the nation at the march, saying the Bush administration's anti-abortion policies affect women everywhere. Speakers including actress Susan Sarandon and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright blamed White House policies for the deaths of thousands of women worldwide--caused, they said, by the ban on federal funding for family-planning groups that work abroad to provide information about abortions or perform them. Although organizers said the march was non-partisan, thousands wore Kerry for President stickers. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) urged the crowd to help elect John Kerry. Recalling the election of her husband, President Bill Clinton, she noted that the last time such a march was held, in 1992, "we elected a pro-choice president, and this year we must do the same." Activists said the march was not just about abortion but also about access to health care, family planning and justice. Holding a wire hanger in front of the crowd, actress Whoopi Goldberg spoke about what she called a generation of women under 30 who don't understand the significance of the hanger--sometimes the tool for illegal back-alley abortions before the Supreme Court's ruling. "This is what we used," Goldberg said. "But never again will this be the choice of anyone in our hemisphere, in our world. Never again." Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, said the vast majority of Roman Catholic women in America support a woman's right to choose. "We will not put up with religious leaders who tell women they don't have the right to control their own destiny," Kissling said. "Not the church, not the state -- women will control their own fate." Michelle Williams of Wilmette, Ill., joined her mother, Lenore Zake of Palm Beach, Fla., at the march. The women, in homemade "Freedom" shirts, attended an ACLU-sponsored breakfast for Illinois activists Sunday. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) received a standing ovation after she addressed the large crowd. "We are marching as if our lives depend on it because they do," Schakowsky said. Williams, a middle-school art teacher and mother of two daughters, said women deserve the right to make decisions about their families. Williams, now 52, had an abortion when she was 28. She said it was the right decision for her at the time, and she supports the right of other women to make the same decisions. "Unwanted children breed criminals and other problems in our society," Williams said. As the activists made their way from the kickoff breakfast to the Mall, they were met by about 200 counter protesters. Brandi Swindell, the national director of Generation Life, said the post-Roe vs. Wade generation should stand up for the dignity of life. The group, which does not believe in the use of oral contraceptives, said unmarried people should abstain from sex and married couples should use condoms if they want to avoid pregnancy. "There is no such thing as a safe abortion," Swindell said. "A little boy or girl dies and it is terrible on a woman's body." Students from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., filled four buses Saturday night, sleeping uncomfortably through the eight-hour trip. Ashley Barton, a freshman, said some of the students questioned their decision midway through the trip. "I kept telling them it will be worth it when we get there," Barton said. "And I am really glad we came because I don't think they can really ignore something this size." The rally's size--estimated at 500,000 to 800,000 by police sources but put as high as 1.15 million by organizers--was in a league with few other demonstrations on the Mall. Among them: the 1995 Million Man March, which drew 800,000, according to independent researchers; a rally after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, which drew about 800,000, and a 1997 Promise Keepers gathering that attracted 480,000 to 750,000.

Not everything in the world is propaganda. Read eyewitness accounts and make a judgement of what's right and wrong. Everyone should have it's own definition of righteousness. Unfortunately there are still people who try to find excuses to inexcusible acts of beating and violence. http://www.armenianow.com/2004/april23/new...ition/index.asp Hell Night: A victim’s story of police brutality By Zhanna Alexanyan ArmeniaNow reporter Ani Kirakosyan is 22. She will not let us take her photograph, because she is afraid. By her accounts of what happened to her during a police crack down on Armenia’s political opposition, her fear is justified. Ani got a degree in journalism at Yerevan Pedagogic Institute and after graduation was offered a job collecting information for the online magazine of the Republic party. On the evening of April 13, Ani was in the headquarters of the party. It is oppositional leader Aram Sargsyan’s office, but Ani is not a member of the party and says she is apolitical. For her, the work is a job, not a passion. Police raided the office where Ani works during a sweep of oppositional members ordered by authorities on a night when hundreds were attacked with water canon, percussion grenades and beaten by police with batons. At about 2 a.m., police reached the Republic party headquarters near the Opera House. First, police took away the men in the office. Then they came back for the women. Ani was one of 13. “We switched off the lights and were waiting,” says Ani. “I was terribly afraid. When police officers began beating a woman under our window, I approached the widow as I decided to help that woman. But at that very moment they began fiercely knocking at our door.” One man was left in the office, Artak Zeinalyan a disabled veteran who lost his left leg in the war in Artsax. He tried to intervene when police came in, but was pushed to the floor. “They were cursing us and roughly dragging us into a car,” Ani recalls. “There was an elderly woman with us who was feeling very bad. We asked them to at least let her go but they refused.” When Ani asked: “Where are you taking us?” A policeman replied: “I don't know. Somewhere, where we find spare place.” Lockup was at a premium that early Tuesday morning as an estimated 400 arrests were made. More would follow. The women were taken to the Erebuni Community Police Department. Ani was questioned by an officer named Grigor Mitoyan. “First, Mitoyan entered the room with four or five policemen then a high-ranking policeman came and everybody stood,” Ani recalls. “I was sitting and watching. I didn't know what would happen next. He approached me and kicked me: ‘Stand up, I say!' I stood up and he began kicking my legs, belly and hitting my face with his hands. I was crying but I didn't say anything. He was cursing us using profanity toward me. I was so scared that I urinated on myself.” Ani says she was beaten for about 10 or 15 minutes by an officer named Poghosyan. One of the women in the group identified him as Kamsar Poghosyan, deputy head of the department. When that officer left the room, other officers gave Ani water and warm clothes. “I asked what I did and why he beat me? He could have had a daughter of my age. Policemen told me that nobody beat me and it was only my imagination.” In a few minutes she heard shouts and curses coming from a corridor. The policemen quickly took away the warm clothes and water from Ani. At that moment head of Erebuni Community's Police Department Nver Hovhannisyan entered the room. “I don’t remember, at that moment I was standing . . . He came at me in a fury and was kicking me. I urinated on myself three times. I dropped on my knees, I was crying: ‘What have I done, why are you beating me?’,” Ani says. “You were at demonstration, I saw you there,” she recalls the head of police saying. “You were standing in the front rows. So you wanted to change the president?” “I told him he mistook me for someone else,” Ani says. But he continued to kick my back and belly.” Ani says the department chief threatened that “he would bring all his policemen and they would rape me or he would arrest me”. One of the 13 women, Oghide Harutyunyan, was taken to police department with her 19-year-old daughter. They were kept in the department for 36 hours, in separate places. Harutyunyan, 45, has a degree in law. She previously held the rank of major in the Ministry of Defense. She says she tried to defend the women by telling police of their rights. She says a policeman told her: “Don’t you live in Armenia? The law is at the top. We do whatever we are told to do.” From a floor above her, Harutyunyan heard screaming and feared it was her daughter. (She and her daughter were also beaten by Hovhannisyan, she says.) “I could clearly hear horrid yells of a girl coming from the third floor. I didn't know whether it was my daughter crying or someone else. Later I knew it was Ani Kirakosyan,” Harutyunyan says. When Hovhannisyan left the room (according to Ani, he was beating her longer than the deputy head) Ani continued to cry loudly. One policemen asked her not to cry so loudly. “If he hears you crying, he’ll return and beat you again,” the policeman said. Eventually, police took Ani to the Erebuni Medical Center. In a waiting room one of the nurses saw bruises on the girl’s legs and back. The nurse asked Ani if she had fallen. “I said I was beaten in the police department,” Ani says. “A doctor, who was present during the conversation, interrupted the nurse and was treating me roughly. I saw an investigator waiting in the lobby.” Ani, afraid that she had passed out during the worst of her experience, asked to be examined by a gynecologist. She was denied. She was examined by sonogram, then asked to pay 5000-6000 drams (about $9-$11), however, Ani said she had no money with her. She was discharged, but not given documents of her examination. “I never knew what had happened with me,” Ani says. “They said everything is ok but their faces said completely different things to me.” (Ani is currently recovering at home. She suffers acute abdominal pains and doctors say her internal organs are bruised.) When Ani left the hospital she saw her parents and relatives waiting at the entrance. However, an investigator didn’t allow her to talk with them and again she was taken to Erebuni Police Department. After spending 15 hours in the Police Department seven women were gathered in one room. “All of them were beaten but not so much as I was,” Ani says. “There was a woman among them, who was also beaten very fiercely. All of us were crying.” At 7 p.m. five women, including Ani, were let go. When Ani tried to find out why only five had been set free policemen told her: “Because you are not guilty”. Editor’s note: Twice during the preparation of this article, ArmeniaNow made attempts through police department officials to verify the claims of women in this article. We told a police spokesperson that allegations were being made, and that members of the department should be given an opportunity to respond. Sarkis Martirossyan, Head of Operations at Erebuni Police Department “categorically rejects the fact of women being beaten” at the department. Press and Public Relations Department of the Republic of Armenia Police Mushegh Kroyan told ArmeniaNow: “If these women were subjected to acts of violence, then let them go to the law. It is natural that policemen of Erebuni Police Department will not confess that they had beaten them.”

Despite all the doubts by the financial community our compatriot is again on the winning side of the deal. MGM 'in talks for $5bn buy-out' The major US film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer is in talks about a possible purchase by Sony and two other buy-out firms, US media report. The talks are said to be at an advanced stage for a deal that could be worth up to $5bn (£2.8bn). Buy-out firms including Texas Pacific Group are negotiating with billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian to buy his 70%-plus stake, Reuters news agency said. Talks are understood to be taking place over how to finance any deal. MGM, Sony, Texas Pacific Group, which may be partnered by Providence Equity Partners in any deal, declined to comment. Shares in MGM ended up $2.10 at $19.75 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, after hitting a two-year high of $20.25. The studio was founded in 1924 after a merger between Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B Mayer Productions. Classic MGM films include Gone With The Wind, Ben Hur, The Wizard Of Oz, Doctor Zhivago, How The West Was Won and Mutiny On The Bounty as well as many musicals. The company's large movie library also includes the rights to James Bond films. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/3648089.stm Published: 2004/04/21 22:30:25 GMT

РОБЕРТ КОЧАРЯН. 898 words 20 April 2004 Известия (Россия) 1 Russian © [2004] Izvestia, All Rights Reserved На этой неделе армянская оппозиция обещает устроить новые, еще более масштабные акции протеста в Ереване. Главное и по сути единственное требование - отставка действующего президента. Требование это на данном этапе не имеет шансов на выполнение, но, по мнению экспертов, попытки провести "армянскую революцию" в ближайшем будущем будут только нарастать. О том, как власть собирается реагировать на действия и лозунги оппозиции, что является причинами политического обострения, президент Армении Роберт КОЧАРЯН рассказывает обозревателю "Известий" Екатерине ГРИГОРЬЕВОЙ. - Роберт Седракович, то, что сейчас происходит в Армении, это политический кризис, недоразумение, временное явление? - Видимо, временное явление вместе с недоразумением, в некой комбинации. Происходит то, что наша оппозиция под впечатлением от грузинских событий решила спроецировать эту ситуацию на армянскую действительность. В результате мы имеем то, что имеем. Это - недоразумение, потому что нельзя сравнивать нашу действительность с грузинской. И это безусловно временное явление. - Тем не менее действия армянских властей вызвали критику как внутри страны, так и извне, со стороны, например, европейских структур. - Есть реакции сбалансированные, есть не очень. Но что важно отметить: подобные заявления должны отражать причинно-следственные связи того, что происходит. Если они не отражают эту причинно-следственную цепочку, то они могут просто поощрять политический экстремизм. Мне кажется, большая часть заявлений, поступающих в наш адрес, вполне сбалансированы. - Но если говорить о причинно-следственных связях, то что, помимо наглядного и близкого грузинского примера, является причиной активизации оппозиции? - А других причин, собственно, и нет. Очевидно, что наша страна пока является страной переходного периода, очевидно, что часть населения живет плохо, собственно, так же, как и в России. И очевидно, что на этих социальных условиях, так как и везде, оппозиционные силы пытаются собирать политические дивиденды. Но очевидно также, что страна динамично развивается, страна дает двузначные темпы экономического роста, и с каждым годом сокращается количество людей, живущих за чертой бедности. Это та ситуация, когда страна последовательно преодолевает сложности и идет к тем целям, которые намечены программой развития государства. - Возможны ли какие-либо компромиссы с оппозицией ради снятия напряженности? - Я не знаю, какие оппозиция выдвигает еще требования, кроме требований отставки президента. Я не понимаю, почему нужны такие действия, если оппозиция представлена в парламенте, она может активно работать, доказывать обществу свою состоятельность и свою способность решать вопросы лучше, чем действующий президент или правительственная коалиция. Все это должно происходить в стенах парламента, а не на улице. Я понимаю, что на улице не нужна программа действий, на улице не нужна кропотливая работа над законами, там все это гораздо проще, но я не считаю, что все это полезно для страны. Также не думаю, что это полезно для самой оппозиции. Пока она таким образом последовательно ведет себя к маргинализации. А такую оппозицию опять-таки не полезно иметь для страны. Я искреннее считаю, что оппозиция должна быть, что она должна подпирать своей работой исполнительную власть, заставляя ее быть более динамичной, работать более эффективно. И отсутствие такой оппозиции - это тоже потеря для страны. Относительно компромисса - я сказал именно об этом. Парламент - это дом оппозиции, она там представлена, она там должна работать по определению и по своей обязанности. Что-то ей предлагать для того, чтобы она вернулась в свой дом и выполняла то, что должна выполнять, - для меня это не совсем понятно. Ей никто не мешает заниматься тем, чем она должна заниматься по Конституции. - А не планируете ли вы, исходя из ситуации, внести некие коррективы в собственную политику, например, устроить масштабную кампанию по борьбе с коррупцией, как это делает новый президент Грузии? - Нет. Мы планируем более энергично работать над программой преодоления бедности, которая разработана вместе с Всемирным банком, МВФ, другими организациями и утверждена в Армении. Экспертный потенциал этой программы очень высок, она предполагает серьезные шаги, направленные на весь спектр действий исполнительной власти. Программа предполагает ежегодные, очень серьезные увеличения затрат на социальные нужды. Думаю, она в гораздо лучшей степени может оздоровить ситуацию, чем какие-либо другие решения. Разрабатывается также программа по борьбе с коррупцией, но здесь у нас подход несколько другой, чем в Грузии. Ситуация не диктует неких авральных действий, она предполагает последовательную работу по сокращению коррупционных рисков по конкретным направлениям работы исполнительной власти. Эта программа также разрабатывается совместно со многими организациями, в частности, экспертами ОБСЕ и международных финансовых институтов. - И все же, если митинги оппозиции будут продолжаться, какова будет реакция властей? - Если митинги не будут переходить в перекрытие важных транспортных магистралей, никто не намерен мешать оппозиции высказывать свою точку зрения. Собственно, что и было у нас на Театральной площади в течение многих дней. Никто не мешал оппозиции проводить сидячие акции протеста, митинги. Но если со стороны оппозиции будут попытки привлечения внимания к себе путем перекрытия магистралей или блокирования работы госучреждений, то полиция будет делать то, что она обязана делать. И президент будет делать то, что он обязан по Конституции делать. То есть обеспечивать нормальное функционирование органов власти. Это моя прямая должностная обязанность. Вот если я этого не буду делать, тогда можно будет меня обвинять в бездействии. И подобное бездействие может быть причиной импичмента. - Армения планирует провести конституционный референдум по внесению в Основной закон изменений, которые увеличат объем полномочий Национального собрания. Будет ли это означать движение в сторону парламентской республики? - Этот конституционный референдум мы пытались провести год назад, вместе с парламентскими выборами, но не набрали достаточного количества голосов. Сейчас речь скорее идет о более правильной сбалансированности всех ветвей власти, о большей независимости судебной власти (проект, который представлен, уделяет много внимания этому компоненту). Кроме того, должен быть сделан больший уклон на защиту прав человека, что должно получить институциональное закрепление в Конституции. Но речь не идет о парламентской республике. Я убежден, что Армении еще долгие годы нужна сильная президентская власть. Document IZVEST0020040419e04k00005

Is it Serge Sargsyan's job to take care of ministry of internal affairs. Isn't he the Minister of Defense. Why is he going beyond his authority. It's synonymous of Oskanyan commenting on what Hovik Abrahamayan is doing. We have such a democratic republic that is beyond comprehension. It just makes one proud how journalists are beaten up and people are detained for their opinions. The republic is in its path to democracy, a couple more beatings and closures of alternative sources of information there won't be any dissent in the country, then we can enjoy the fruits of democracy and stability. Good job Mr. Serge Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan. http://www.armenianow.com/2004/april16/outsideeye/index.asp Outside Eye: A non-Armenian's view of life in his adopted home Events of this week have placed some of us in the unfamiliar position of necessarily agreeing with Minister of Defense Serzh Sargsyan who, after unleashing brutalizing force on oppositional party demonstrators Tuesday said: “Nobody would have understood us if 2,000 people had paralyzed all Yerevan.” Except for the fact that a much less number of minibus drivers paralyze Yerevan everyday, there’s no argument here. Nosir. Not a right-minded dictator in all the universe would have understood if 2,000 (!) common and probably mislead Armenians had been allowed to dance away their blues outside the Presidential Residence Monday night. "Bagramian Avenue is no place for dancing," the minister said. Right again. The street of embassies and government administration is instead a place for convincing demonstration of who's in charge here and to what extent measures will be taken to make it so. To be fair, these weren’t just down in the mouth “nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen” malcontents of the “we shall overcome” variety. Some of them were carrying sticks and tools for cutting fences. What better way than water canons, percussion grenades and thick rubber beating mallets to maintain international respect in the face of threats backed up by discarded lumber and hand tools? Thank St. Gregory the Illuminator, forces were on hand to defend Armenia’s dignity. Poster boys of restraint, they were, as they hosed down threats to national security and exterminated these streets of those predatory stick toters and wire-pliers ne’er do wells. “Nobody would have understood us . . . ” the minister says. Here’s something a bit hard to understand, unless you live here and learn the reality behind perception: Does anyone ever question why it is always the Minister of Defense speaking on behalf of law enforcement in Armenia? I mean, if unrest breaks out in your town isn’t it the mayor, the chief of police, the city manager who represents order and with whom responsibility lies? Not in this city. Not in this country. And not, surely, on Bagramian Avenue, where Robert Kocharyan represents the country, but Serzh Sargsyan runs it. But I don’t want to lose the real focus here, which is that, limits of power notwithstanding, the MOD made some good points. Among which, was his recommendation that journalists have proper identification during the clubbing and water blasting of ordinary citizens so that reporters may without interference fulfill their duty to expose the wrongdoing of paid public servants, for which the offices of government authority would no doubt extend their grateful thanks. By the way: While batons are waving and police are chasing down evildoers, how big would my id need to be on a dark street in a heated confrontation? “Just because someone has a camera or Dictaphone, it doesn’t mean he or she is a journalist,” Mr. Sargsyan said. Right again. In this environment provocateurs masquerade as “journalists” and splash their propaganda as fact in newspapers that would be supermarket tabloids, if Yerevan had supermarkets and Armenians more interest in Elvis sightings. I’m not saying such imposters deserve to be beaten, but if they are, it ought to be for their “journalism” instead of their politics. But think about the message behind the minister’s suggestion. If you’re a citizen with a camera or a tape recorder, but not a badge calling you a journalist, does that disqualify you from a right to record the actions of public officials in public places? Further, does lack of a government-approved id imply that police have immunity against destruction of your private property? How many people “would understand us” if those are to be the conditions of civil liberty in Armenia?

Human rights organizations prompt response to the disgraceful events in Armenia. Rights Group Calls for End to President Kocharian Rule in Armenia Melanie Sully Vienna 14 Apr 2004, 15:48 UTC The International Helsinki Federation, a human rights body that advises the United Nations, said harsh treatment of anti-government protesters in Armenia is a violation of political and human rights and that international experts should investigate the abuses. The Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) accused authorities in Armenia of using violence against demonstrators, and called for the end of what it says is the authoritarian rule of President Robert Kocharian. Demonstrations against the Kocharian government have occurred almost daily since the beginning of the month. The IHF says police used water cannons to break up a rally Tuesday near the presidential palace in the capital, Yerevan. President Kocharian insisted the measures were necessary to combat political extremists who he said were threatening the constitutional order. However, IHF Director Aaron Rhodes says the oppression is likely to lead to more confrontation and instability. "What they [the authorities] are doing by disallowing these demonstrations, they are really perpetuating disorder," he said. "There are many reports of police brutality, and including brutality to journalists and a number of people have been beaten in the context of these demonstrations and have wound up in hospital." Mr. Rhodes added that some journalists had their cameras smashed and cell phones were disconnected. He also said that copies of a Russian daily newspaper covering the demonstrations were stopped at the border and that some television stations were unable to transmit for a time. Police were reported to have raided opposition offices, smashing computers and detaining activists. Mr. Rhodes called for an independent investigation into such incidents with experts from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Armenia is a member. The OSCE has criticized recent Armenian presidential and parliamentary elections, saying they were flawed. The State Department has said it is concerned over the sharp escalation in confrontation between the government and its opponents in the Caucasus republic, once part of the Soviet Union.

Most oppostionists know the essence of Kocharyan really well. They have worked with him for quite long time. Don’t forget that Vagharshak Harutyunyan, Albert Bazeyan, Aram Sargsyan and many others worked with him before the massacre in Armenian parliament. What soft stance are you referring to, is it when he so laconically in front of the national TV talked about “soap bubble revolution”, or when Serj Sargsyan was referring about “ksatkatsnenk bolorin”. Soft spoken? You probably are not well informed. The brutality of the violent disbursement of rally lies in the fact that it was indiscriminate, they beat up everyone, including women and elders. Don’t they have an ounce of shame in them. What if it was their friends mother, or neighbors grandparents. Do you think the struggle is about seizing power? Power can not be seized by declaring your plans. When Kocharyan seized the power from Ter-Petrossian did he declare of his plans? No of course he didn’t. Have you heard of a revolution in the history humanity when the date and place of it is declared. If the goal of the opposition was violent revolution then some violent acts could’ve been taken by them, weapons would’ve been distributed. Most of the oppositionsisThe police attacked peaceful demonstration, and that is nothing but treason toward Armenian people. You’ve asked why 236,000 people did not take the streets. Don’t you think that only the most politically active segment of the populace takes the streets. The people for whom “danak@ arden hasel a voskorin, vor el hamberutyan bajak@ hatel e yerkrum tirogh anardarutyunnerits”. Even as an ardent supporter of the junta, you yourself have admitted that they have taken away the constitutionally reserved right of the people to travel freely in their country? Don’t you think that when people break the law, even if it’s a president there should be some consequences? Did you see what happened to the president of Lithuania a few days ago, for breaking the law. It doesn’t matter who is the president, \ by definition he should a servant of the people, be it Kocharyan, Poghosyan or Petrossian, the point is that no one should be above the law.

ARR, I urged you to back your arguments with factual information, which you did not. I advise you to not be engaged in arguments if you don’t have any facts. I called Kocharyan turk? When? Why?. Turks are our neighbors, and establishing normal relations with them should be our priority. But that’s not the point of my argument. 1. George Washington used nationalism to come to power too, So what? I don’t know how familiar you are with US history, but where did you obtain the fact that George Washington used nationalism. He simply used commercial interests of colonies to rally people. There was no nation, to use nationalism at that time. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War only one third of colonists supported the Independence of the colonies, but at the end George Washington had the support of most colonists. 2. It is your assumption that Kocharian got fewer votes than Demrichian. I think Kocharian won, but not with such big margin as officially claimed. Falsifications were from both sides. Of course government resources are of advantage to incumbent. European monitors gave their opinion about the elections. Read their report. We want to be part of EU, so their opinion should matter, shouldn't it? 3. Using force against rioters is a common practice in all civilized countries. I think your definition of “civilized countries” need to be refined. Humans are species that are able to reason. Civilized people use dialog instead of force. Let’s see what Kocharyan’s regime did for your good of Armenia. 1. Artaskh within Armenia. Artsakh is not part of the negotiations anymore after junta usurped the power. The issue became a territorial one, instead of self determination of Artsaxi people. Current world structure does not endorse separatism, yet liberal ideas of self-determination are looked upon as an essential rights of people. 2. Recognized Genocide What will this give to citizens of Republic of Armenia? 3. Strong Economy If you look at the numbers that come out of Statistical Office of Armenia, you’d think they are talking about Switzerland, yet most people there are living at poverty levels. The country is experiencing huge current account deficit, which is bad for the economy in the long run. 4. Socially Supported Population What do you mean by this. 5. Independent and fair justice structures Appoitment of criminal like Aghvan Hovsepyan as chief prosecutor will definitely serve this He is doing his job right by issuing search warrants like it's 1937. 6. Freedom of speech Closure of A1+ and beating of journalists will enhance freedom of speech. 7. European country, but not at expense of Russian relations Creation of totalitarian regime by suppressing the opposition will turn Armenia into a Middle Eastern fiefdom like Syria, not a European country.