Eastern U.S. edition - Armenian Reporter

Number 118
June 13, 2009
the armenian
reporter
Reporter.web.review 1.0
National
National
Arts & Culture
Arts & Culture
Emil Sanamyan launches a new
column on Armenian topics on
the Web. He notes that three separate
videos of Sirusho’s “Qele, qele”
have been viewed more than a million
times each on YouTube. No
other video on an Armenian subject
comes close..
See story on page 5m
U.S. agency cuts $67 million in Armenia funding
The Millennium Challenge Corporation
(MCC) board met on June
10 and decided that it “will not
resume funding for any further
road construction and rehabilitation”
in Armenia. The funding had
been suspended after U.S. officials
French-Armenian filmmaker Robert
Guediguian’s new movie The
Army of Crime was screened at the
Cannes Film Festival last month.
Starring Simon Abkarian, Virginie
Ledoyen, and Gregoire Leprince-
Ringuet, the film retraces the life
blamed the Armenian government
for the violence that followed last
year’s presidential elections, Emil
Sanamyan reports.
See story on page 2
and editorial on page 22m
Students at Little Angels Art School in Burbank, Calif., kiss wooden crosses
presented to them by Abp. Hovnan Derderian on the Feast Day of the Ascension..
See story on page 19m
Armenia
At the Zangakatun Center in Vanadzor, all
children are loved equally
At the Zangakatun Center in Vanadzor,
10-year-old Maria and five
dozen other schoolchildren are not
only fed properly, but also receive
the educational, spiritual, emotional,
and other kinds of support
Armenia
Amb. Yovanovitch: There are many ways for more
Armenian-Americans to get involved with Armenia
National
Amb. Marie Yovanovitch spoke to
Armenian Reporter editor Vincent
Lima and Senior Correspondent
Tatul Hakobyan at her residence in
Yerevan on June 10 to give a preview
of issues she will discuss during an
upcoming visit to Armenian-American
communities in Greater Boston,
New York, Washington, and Southern
California. She discussed specific
ways more Armenian-Americans
can get involved with Armenia.
See interview on page 3m
all the children in the world need
– thanks to the Tufenkian Foundation’s
“Our Duty to Live” project.
Tatul Hakobyan reports.
See story on page 21m
AGBU given “exceptional” rating by watchdog
The world’s largest Armenian nonprofit
organization, the Armenian
General Benevolent Union (AGBU),
received a four-star rating – the
highest allotted – for sound fiscal
management from charity watchdog
Charity Navigator. AGBU outranked
other leading nonprofits
such as the American Cancer Society,
American Red Cross, Amnesty
International, and the Smithsonian
Institution.
See story on page 5 m
Armenian fighter in French Resistance is focus of
Robert Guediguian’s movie screened in Cannes
of Armenian poet and worker Missak
Manouchian, who led a real-life
army of foreigners who fought for
the French Resistance during the
Second World War and died for it.
See story on page 12m
U.S. urges no Karabakh link
for Armenia-Turkey relations
Turkish-Armenian
process “can’t go on
forever”
Vote will be “a
part” of Karabakh
settlement
by Tatul Hakobyan
Yerevan – The newly confirmed
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
for European and Eurasian Affairs,
Philip Gordon, announced in Yerevan
on June 9 that there should
be no preconditions or linkages
“to anything else” in the process
of normalizing Armenian-Turkish
relations. The U.S. statement
came after repeated announcements
by Turkey’s Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan that
Turkey would not open its border
or establish diplomatic relations
with Armenia so long as Armenian
forces have not been removed from
Azerbaijan’s territory.
Speaking at a news conference
at the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Gordon
said, “Turkey-Armenia normalization
would benefit Turkey, it would
benefit Armenia, and it would benefit
the entire region. And because
of that, we do not think it should
be linked to anything else.”
Armenian Genocide
curriculum
withstands denialist
challenge
by Lou Ann Matossian
Boston Closing the covers of a
textbook case on Armenian Genocide
denial, U.S. District Judge
Mark L. Wolf on June 10 dismissed
the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations’ complaint
that a Massachusetts education official
had unlawfully removed “contra-genocide”
references from the
state’s Armenian Genocide curriculum
“for political reasons.”
Without commenting on the historical
facts of the Genocide or the
ATAA’s contention that a legitimate
controversy exists regarding the
events of 1915, the court ruled that
the state’s public school curriculum
was a form of “government speech”
and therefore not generally subject
to First Amendment scrutiny.
“There is no requirement that
such government speech be balanced
or viewpoint neutral,” wrote
Judge Wolf, adding that “public
officials are generally entitled to
change their minds about what is
recommended or required to be
taught in public school classrooms.”
Such decisions “must be made by
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, Yerevan, June 9, 2009. Photo:
Tigran Tadevosian/Photolure.
The State Department in late
April called for the normalization
of Armenian-Turkish relations
“without preconditions and within
a reasonable timeframe.” Asked to
elaborate, Mr. Gordon said, “A reasonable
timeframe is a reasonable
timeframe. That is not really for us
to say. It means the process can’t
be infinite; it can’t go on forever.
But I think both sides do appreciate
that they need to move forward,
and I think they are, and I think
they will.”
As the Armenian Reporter’s Emil
Sanamyan reports from Washington,
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton announced on June 5, after
her meeting with Turkey’s Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu,
state and local school boards and
not federal judges.”
Moreover, in regard to the circumstances
of this case, the U.S.
District Court ruled that “plaintiffs
do not have a right to receive contra-genocide
information in the
classroom.”
Armenian Genocide
is part of advisory
curriculum
In 1998, the Massachusetts Legislature
had directed the state Board of
Education to prepare and distribute
to all school districts an advisory
curriculum guide on genocide
and human rights. As originally issued
on January 15, 1999, the draft
guide included a section on the Armenian
Genocide.
“I have been very encouraged by the
progress that has been made and
by the commitment of the governments
involved. Certainly, Turkey
and Armenia, with the assistance
of the Swiss government, have
committed themselves to a process
of normalization. We’re well aware
that this is difficult. It requires patience
and perseverance. But we
have seen no flagging of commitment.”
Mrs. Clinton continued, “The
minister and I discussed this at
length. He brought me up to date
on developments. And we are continuing
to encourage the parties
to proceed on the path which they
Continued on page 23 m
Federal court dismisses ATAA’s case
against Mass. education authorities
U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf.
But in March of that year, at the
urging of the Turkish American
Cultural Society of New England,
Commissioner of Education David
Driscoll added references to several
so-called “contra-genocide” Web
sites, prompting counterprotests
from the Armenian community
and its supporters.
To the displeasure of the ATAA
and other Turkish groups, Commissioner
Driscoll later removed
the denialist references, saying that
they were inconsistent with the
Legislature’s direction to include
materials concerning the “Armenian
genocide” as such. He recommended
that the Turkish community
pursue its concerns through
“legislative channels.”
“Since the legislative intent of the
statute was to address the Armenian
genocide and not to debate
whether or not this occurred, the
Board and Department of Education
cannot knowingly include resources
that call this into question,”
Mr. Driscoll and Board of Education
chairperson James Peyser replied
to a complaint from an ATAA board
member. “The explicitness of the
statute has also forced us to reverse
our earlier decision to include the
website listing for the Turkish Embassy.”
The embassy’s site explicitly
denies the Armenian Genocide.
Six years later, in a letter to the
plaintiffs’ attorneys, Mr. Peyser
Continued on page m