I’d like readers to see an article I wrote about the youth and also Armenian society at-large that was published on Hetq.am. The following is an excerpt and a link to the page.

“An epidemic has erupted throughout Armenia and has also begun to take a strong hold of the Armenian nation as a whole. It can be described as the ‘vochinch’ syndrome, and it is severely threatening the way Armenians think and function as responsible, progressive-minded citizens.”

For the full article click here.

Hovhannes Kourghinyan is better known as the lead singer of Vostan Hayots, one of the most popular Armenian rock bands of recent years. Considered to be representative of what has become known as the “third wave of Armenian rock,” Vostan Hayots successfully fused national influences with a progressive rock sound. Today, Kourghinyan performs with a new band, “Army of God,” in his “Downtown” club situated in central Yerevan.

This interview is one in an occasional series of interviews that will form the basis for an article on the contemporary rock scene in the Republic of Armenia.

The interview can be read online here.

The big story in Baku press is a visit to Karabakh by a reporter from Azerbaijan, Eynulla Fatullayev of the Monitor Journal. Fatullayev visited Stepanakert and traveled around Artsakh and adjacent areas for more than a week this February. It is significant in that the government of Azerbaijan has explicitly prohibited any so called “second track” activities, like exchange visits or tours by journalists from Azerbaijan to Armenia and Artsakh.

Thus, Fatullayev’s visit required great courage and landed him great coverage domestically and in Armenia. He was also interviewed on Yerkir TV. Unfortunately, his journalist comrades in Azerbaijan condemned him for visiting Armenia and Artsakh.

It’s refreshing to see a journalist in Baku willing to go to great lengths to address a sensitive subject in his country. Of course, we see similarly positive efforts in Armenia to address sensitive subjects, by HETQ and others.

For a story on Fatullayev, click here.

This week’s Hetq Online continues to publish more articles on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia, and in particular, the investigation conducted by Edik Baghdasarian and Ara Manoogian who visited Dubai a number of times over the past year. If this latest installment is anything to go by, the remaining installments will be even more illuminating.

Marietta has been wanted by Interpol since 2003. It would be naive to think that the United Arab Emirates Police or the local Interpol office didn’t know that Marietta Musayelyan was in Dubai. Today we know the whereabouts of six Armenian women who are being sought by Interpol — we managed to find them in three visits to Dubai within one year. It would only take Dubai law enforcement a few days to find them and send them back to Armenia. They just don’t want to.

Then why did Marietta Musayelyan and her boyfriend-bodyguard Armen Ghazaryan come back? A year ago Marietta ’s son was arrested for bringing drugs to the UAE from Iran. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, which he is now serving. It is possible that Marietta is trying to somehow transfer her son to Armenia to serve his sentence here. Or perhaps that she’s trying to get her name off Interpol. All she’ll have to do is spend a couple of months in jail, just like last time. Armenian prosecutors only seek mild sentences for human trafficking.

The full text of the article along with other articles on trafficking and an update on the Carolann Najarian case can be read online at: http://www.hetq.am/

There is a story on the Azg website about the Ud minority in Azerbaijan. “Christian minority in Azerbaijan gets rid of Armenian eyesore”
Afraid of being associated with Armenians, they have erased Armenian inscriptions on their church and tombs.

“Armenian-sounding city names have been changed, streets named after Armenians have been replaced with politically correct Azeri surnames, while Soviet history glorifying Armenian communist activists has been rewritten in school textbooks. But the white-stone church in Nij, some two centuries old, had not been tampered with until the Udi undertook to reconstruct it with help from the state financed Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise (NHE)”, France Presse informs.

According to the article, “The Udis are the last surviving tribe of the Caucasus Albanians, a group unrelated to the Mediterranean Albanians, whose Christian kingdom ruled this region in medieval times before Turkic hordes swept in from Central Asia in the 13th and 15th centuries.”

In a twist to the story, they insist that the Armenian inscriptions were fakes, put there by Armenians in the 1920s so they could make historical claims to it.

Read the full article.

A continuing study of homelessness in Yerevan by Hetq Online

Today I made a return visit to a derelict school in the Shengavit district of Yerevan at the request of UNICEF who were assisting Shant TV in the production of a film on birth registration in the Republc of Armenia. At this school there are nearly 100 children from somewhere between 44-50 families who are effectively squatting on the territory of the deserted school because they have no homes. Many of the children have no official documents including birth certificates and therefore do not officially exist. Anyway, after working with RFE-RL and Hetq Online on a few stories about these families, other media outlets also visited to cover their situation.
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Today has been declared “Free Mojtaba and Arash Day”.
Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are two Iranian bloggers.

They have both been arrested for what they wrote on their blogs, and Arash Sigarchi is still in Lakan prison in the Iranian city of Rashat, while Mojtaba Saminejad has been released but still faces charges.

I am posting this here as part of a global protest against their arrest - simply for posting their thoughts online.

To learn more about their plight, read here.

Azg reports that “Greece is going to support Armenia to open a unique tourism school”.

This school will be called “Armenian-Greek Tourism School” and amongst other things will teach Greek. Armenia is certainly in need of a tourism school, but I am not sure about Greek, there is not likely to be an influx of tourists from Greece anytime soon.

However, I am sure the Greeks have a thing or two to say about tourism as it’s a large part of their economy. Perhaps Armenia should rather go for the Bhutan model, where they only issues visas to tourists who sign up for expensive tours. Personally I don’t think that is the right approach.
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Our fifth blogger has joined our ranks. His name is Christian Adanalian, and he has been living and working in Armenia off and on from 2002 to the present.

In my essays about life in the homeland, I aim to accurately describe my impressions and experiences–as well as those of others–of life in Armenia.
I will post some links to articles I have written soon as well as to other points of interest.

Christian will be blogging under the name of Garo. He can otherwise be found writing about Armenia at his site, Notes from Hairenik.

Welcome Garo!

I sometimes run a Google-News search on Armenia, and noticed that with exception of Azg, there are no other direct hits on links with news reports from any Armenian media. Moreover, there are plenty of hits on Russian (Tass, Ria-Novosti), Turkish, and Azeri English-language sources (the last two mostly propaganda and direct lies). Turkish and Azeri sources, in particular, account for at least 20% of reports mentioning Armenia (if you exclude marginal references, at least 50%).

There are obviously English-language Armenian media sources, like Groong, Arminfo, Arka, Yerkir, etc, but they never make it to Google-news. Any idea why it works that way? It may be simple search engine “optimization” and placement. This seems to be working against Armenia, given Google’s popularity and utility.

http://news.google.com

The Kanach Foundation has released an Armenian version of its guide to hiking and rock climbing in Armenia.

There will be a presentation on Thursday 24 February, 17:30-19:30 at Artbridge Bookstore & Cafe from the publisher.

Yet more coverage of a problem in Armenia that is fast-becoming serious but this time by RFE / RL’s Emil Danielyan, perhaps the best journalist / analyst in Armenia today. As in other former Soviet Republics, sooner or later the government will have to act to control the monsters that they somewhat ironically created. I wonder when it will happen in Armenia?

The Armenian authorities have been under domestic pressure in recent weeks to end what many see as the virtual impunity enjoyed by the country’s tiny class of millionaire businessmen with close government ties. The Armenian version of post-Soviet “oligarchs” are widely hated — and feared — for their utter disregard of laws and conspicuous wealth that contrasts with the country’s widespread poverty.

The ruling regime has heavily relied on the oligarchs to manipulate elections and bully its political opponents, making it doubtful that any serious action will be taken to rein them in.

Unfortunately, one part of the current regime relies on the oligarchs to retain power so it isn’t as easy as using the mechanism of the law. However, the ARF-D suggests that a law should be passed to restrict and control these gangs of bodyguards and other hired muscle employed by powerful individuals that owe their positions to senior government officials.

Continue Reading ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT PRESSED TO REIN-IN LAWLESS OLIGARCHS

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Armenia Service reports that the IMF is satisified with Armenia’s fiscal and monetary policy and is negotiating a fresh loan with the Armenian Government. However, the news report also highlights the growing need to tackle the significant problem of government-connected businessmen and oligarchs avoiding paying their taxes.

McHugh added that the IMF officials will be specifically pressing the government to crack down on large companies which he described as Armenia’s “genuine tax evaders.” In an extensive report on the Armenian economy released last November, the IMF suggested that profit taxes paid by them could easily be tripled.

Many of the big businesses are owned by government-connected individuals and are believed to be highly lucrative. However, they routinely post financial losses. Economists regard them as the prime beneficiaries of Armenia’s economic growth which, according to official figures, continued at a robust rate of 10.1 percent last year.

In December and January, President Robert Kocharian admitted that this was the case and promised to crack down on both tax evasion and rampant corruption within the tax and customs agencies. Hopefully, during 2005, we will see signs that such a statement was genuine and not merely declarative.

Read: Armenia, IMF To Open Talks On New Loan

The American ambassador to Armenia met with Glendale cops to discuss Armenian citizens committing crimes in the area. The LA Daily News has covered this story.

What I found amazing is that ” As many as 500 criminals are believed to be associated with Armenian organized crime gangs in the Los Angeles area, said Sgt. Steve Davey of the Glendale Police Department’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force.”

500 Armenian criminals and a Eurasian task force? Wow!

I also found this article archived.

What’s going on out there? Who are these people and why isn’t the Armenian diaspora community of California stepping up and creating some programs targeted at pre-teens and other communities that could use some assistance.

Is it going to take the destruction of the good reputation of Armenians in California to bring some positive change?

Finally, the secret is out although I did hint at it coming when one person commented on this blog that Ara Manoogian should be prosecuted for his investigations. Anyway, in that case, Ara wasn’t involved at all but he has been working with Edik Baghdasarian on quite a big story. For over a year they have been investigating the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates but unlike other journalists, they actually went at great risk to investigate the problem on the ground on quite a few occasions.

The first of a series of articles was published today by Hetq Online. The remaining articles will be published over the coming weeks and a film will be broadcast on TV (by Yerkir TV, I think). Kudos to Edik and Ara, I think.

Hetq has been investigating the problem of trafficking in Armenian women for more than a year now, trying to find out how these women get into the United Arab Emirates, what forces them to take this path and engage in prostitution, who runs this business in Armenia and the UAE and why they are not punished, and what steps law enforcement agencies in Armenia and the United Arab Emirates have taken to stop human trafficking. Our investigative team will provide some answers to these questions in a series of articles and in a video film entitled Desert Nights.

The full text of this first article can be read online at http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0502-dub.html

Last night I went to see the young Armenian band, Sard, play at a bar in Yerevan. I think they really show a lot of promise although there are obvious obstacles in any potential career. Firstly, their bassist has to split his time between Armenia, Russia and England while studying design and the drummer has just been drafted into the army. Hopefully, their second CD will be out sometime later this year. For more info on this band see their web site at http://www.arminrock.am/sard/. An interview with their bassist is also available online.

However, the point of this entry is simply to mention their guitarist, Artur Margarian, a 22 year old who seems to be more of a session musician than a permanent musical fixture. For example, he also played the same night in the band, Army of God, who followed Sard. AOG is led by Hovnann, the former singer of Vostan Hayots and boy do they do some storming rock and blues covers. Unfortunately, Artur will also be drafted once he finishes his studies so his days on stage are growing shorter.
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This is rather off-topic by recent standards, but I found a rather nice image of Ararat produced by NASA from a mixture of satellite imagery and elevation data.

You can download the full resolution image from here.
(125kb)

Here’s an RFE/RL report (somewhat light on history and chronology) on the OSCE monitoring mission to Artsakh security zone, aka liberated areas, aka occupied territories. It confirms what most Armenians know anyway, that in addition to Karabakh proper, the Lachin (Berdzor) district or part thereof is also instrumental for security of Artsakh, and represents non-negotiable guarantee.

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Armenia/Azerbaijan: Mediator Sees No Organized Settlement Policy In Occupied Lands
By Jean-Christophe Peuch
RFE/RL

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) last week completed an unprecedented fact-finding mission into Azerbaijan’s occupied territories to verify claims that Armenian authorities are sending settlers to the area. The mission, which was supervised by the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, was the first of its kind since the suspension of the 1988-94 Nagorno-Karabakh war. In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, France’s Minsk Group co-chairman, Bernard Fassier, discussed the mission’s preliminary findings.

For the rest of the story, click here

Once again, according to today’s Press Review from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the sensitive issue of dual citizenship has been touched upon by the Aravot newspaper. For the Diaspora, it’s an issue of significance perhaps but I tend to suspect that for Armenia, it’s a more a matter of bringing the Constitution into line with Council of Europe recommendations. Nevertheless, some discussion on the subject is once again beginning to appear:

“Aravot” writes that the introduction of dual citizenship, envisaged by one of the proposed amendments to Armenia’s constitution, creates “serious dilemmas for residents of Armenia.” “In that case, a majority of our deputies could be from places like Los Angeles. One wonders whose state interests they would defend. On the other hand, if Diaspora Armenians gain voting rights, falsifying election results would become more difficult.”

The paper claims that most residents of Armenia are apparently against dual citizenship “despite the fact that they make use of their right to vote only in theory.” “But in any case, they will feel psychologically suppressed and subdued at the mere thought that they have to suffer at the hands of not criminal elements that came to power with vote bribes but a government elected by the prosperous Diaspora.”

However, I can’t help but think that people are jumping to too many conclusions about what dual citizenship actually means.
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Here’s an interesting blog entry about the Ethiopian Armenian Community.

I’d love to learn more about this community.