Monte "Avo" Melkonian talk about the Artsakh liberation movement - part 5

Can you say MONOPOLY?

FLIGHT SCHEDULE AT "ZVARNOTS" AIRPORT DISTURBED BECAUSE OF FUEL CRISIS

ArmRadio.am
07.07.2006 10:58

In the recent days some flights from "Zvartnots" airport are either not executed, or the planes refuel at reserve airports, Press Secretary of the Chief Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia Gayane Davtyan told "Noyyan Tapan."

According to her, the problem with the avian fuel is connected with its sole importer "Mika Armenia Limited," which has not imported a sufficient quantity of fuel. It is hard to say when the issue will be regulated.

For executing direct Yerevan-Moscow flight, the planes have to land at Sochi airport for refueling.

The price of avian kerosene at "Zvartnots" airport currently makes US$843 per one ton. It is expected that in 10-15 days "Mika Limited" Company will supply kerosene at a higher price.

It should be noted that recently the price of tickets of the traditional Russian flights rose with 10-15 percent and it is not clear so far whether the rise of fuel prices will lead to new rice in ticket prices.

Google Earth in Artsakh

I’ve discovered Google Earth and wow, what an adventure it is to fly from one end of Earth to the other.

I found it interesting that there are some areas in Artsakh that have high-resilution (not as high as they have of Los Angeles, but still high enough to make out what is on the ground).

The area of Stepanagert (which on the map is referred to as Xankandi) is a much lower resolution than Shushi (referred to as Shusha).

Mardakert and Aghdam are both in a low resolution where you really can’t make out anything, but low a behold, Martuni had been photographed at the same resolution as Shushi.

I wonder what is so special about Martuni and who ordered it to be photographed so well? Our military bases in our region sure are detailed.

I’m kind of glad that we have the high-res pictures as it was fun to see what my neighbors have in their back yard and to better understand where things are and all the little hidden roads I didn’t even know about or those I do, where they lead to.

The picture I’ve posted is of our government square where between the three big buildings is Monte Melkonian’s statue.

I’m guessing these picture were recent or taken last year around this time, as in some of the areas on Artsakh territory you can see fires burning in the recently harvested fields.

Thanks Google Earth, you’re the best!!!

What really happened on 9/11?

For those of you who doubt the official story of what happened on 9/11, I recomend that you watch a documentary titled Loose Change 911. It's a bit long, but worth watching. One warning is that once you finish watching it, your going to start to think what the hell is really going on in this world and what games are our govenment playing with us. Not just the U.S. government, but all governments.

Also, here is a 7:29 long documentary I found on YouTube to give you a taste of what the longer and more detailed Loose Change 911 has:



and this one:

ACTION PROTEST OF RESIDENTS OF ALIENATED TERRITORIES HELD

Panorama.am
18:24 03/07/06

A protest action was held today in Yerevan at the residential house of president. The protestors were the residents of Biuzand, Arami and Lalayants streets who were demanding their ownership rights on land and adequate money compensation for houses destroyed for "state needs."

In the words of the protestors, their houses were estimated in a very low sum on which they cannot buy new houses. "We received only $300 per one sq. meter in case when Yerevan municipality paid $900 per sq. meter," they say.

Police officers regulating the demonstration advised to write another letter to the head of the state. The protestors do not see any more point to apply to Yerevan municipality.

Losing one's fear

At the beginning of June 1993, a friend of mine (who reads these logs from time to time) arranged for me a trip to Karabagh. I convinced another Armenian-American who was working in Yerevan at the time as part of his studies at Stanford University in Northern California to join me.

The trip was awesome and I saw things in those 3 days that changed my life, most notably our last 2 hours on the road out via Kelbajar.

Along our trip we had visited the Gandzasar monastery, where everyone in our party, believers and non-believers, purchased crosses that we wore. One of the crosses our driver Vartan hung on his rearview mirror of our jeep.

The last Church we visited was Dadivank, a place where for some reason I had the urge to put my whole body up against the outside wall of the main Church, as if taking on some type of energy from it as I said a prayer.

As we were exiting Artsakh via Kelbajar, it had been raining on and off the whole day and the roads were very muddy and slow going.

We came to a place where there was a very steep hill and trucks were waiting at the bottom of this hill to be pulled up by a very large tractor.

Part of our party had exited the jeep to show our driver the road and as we climbed the hill, our jeep had some mechanical problem and slipped out of gear.

As we descended back down the kill, all I knew was that the end of my road in life was coming and I would be meeting my maker in a matter of moments. There was no need to fight it, so I figured that I better do a good job of taping the last seconds of my life so if by chance the video camera was recovered, my family and friends would know what had happened.

I knew the end was inevitable, as along our journey, the people who were now on foot watching us speed down the hill backwards had been collecting samples of enemy munitions. One which was stuffed under my seat was an projectile used in a shoulder launched device to take out tanks. All it needed was to bump into something hard enough and it would explode, give off enough heat to fry all of us in the jeep to a crisp.

Obviously we didn’t die and were saved for some reason to continue living to do what He had intended us to do.

For those of you who do not get squeamish at the sight of blood, I invite you to take a look at the following video clip from that experience. It may also give you a better idea as to why I fear very little and am a true believer that when it is your time to go, there is nothing you can do to change it, so don’t fight it and by all means don’t live your life in fear. Of course that does not mean you don’t look before you step, but when you do step, you should never be fearful of moving forward.



One thing that you should notice is that during that mishap, there was no rain coming down. The minute and I mean in a matter of seconds of me making my way up the hill and into our jeep, the rain started coming down harder than we had ever seen on that whole trip with lightning and thunder.

It was clear to all of us that someone was watching over us that day.

The Azeri Triangle

In The Jerusalem Report July 10, 2006 issue they have an article titled "The Azeri Triangle" which is about a delegation from Israel who visited Azerbaijan. The article is quite long and caught my eye as it talks of Israel helping Azerbaijan with its problems in Washington.

What comes to mind is a few things that I've always been wondering and that is, what does Israel have against us?

During the Artsakh liberation war when their was a ban on weapon sales to Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel was active in selling Azerbaijan missiles/rockets (weapons of this nature).

Dr. Brenda Shaffer, director of research of the Caspian Studies Project at Harvard University who lives in Israel was quoted quite a bit in this article. This same Brenda Shaffer I had a chance to attend a lecture she gave in Israel in 1999, which she spoke of Azerbaijan and its neighbors.

I was ready to videotape her talk, the same talk she claimed at the time I could video at the time when she gave it in the states to the Armenian community a few months later (which she never gave). In short she didn't allow me to video and I would say for good reason, as what she had to say was all crap and her arguments were full of holes. Fortunately, my video camera that I put on my lap was running and I got the audio of her attempt to spread misinformation.

In short, Shaffer, the Azeri propagandist went on to talk about Black January, the day the Azeris were stopped by Russians forces from continuing their bloodbath of Armenians (though she never mentioned why the Russian forces were brought in and just that they went in an killed a bunch of people for no reason). According to her, that's when the conflict began in the region.

I'll get around one day to post the audio so you can hear what she said for yourself.


So what does Israel have to gain from helping Azerbaijan? Could a strong Armenia be a threat to the well being of Israel? Could a conflict in Armenia prevent us from moving forward, thus less of a threat to Israel?

I'm not sure, but according to the article, Mark Levin, the executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, a Washington-based advocacy organization and member of the coalition of Jewish groups that have worked on behalf of Azerbaijan's interests on Capitol Hill, has "worked closely with the administration to implement the presidential waiver of 907 in 2002, and the coalition "continues to express support on a regular basis for the waiver," which is subject to annual review.

For those of you who don't know what 907 is, it is a U.S. congressional amendment to the 1992 Soviet Freedom Support Act, aimed at boosting economic and humanitarian aid to all of the 15 emerging former Soviet republics except Azerbaijan. Passed at the urging of the Armenian-American lobby in 1993, when the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was flaring, 907 barred the U.S. from military or other cooperation with Azerbaijan.

For those of you interested, you can read the whole article at: http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg155232.html

Armenians in America

There seems to be a show called Reno 911, which is a cop reality show. This clip shows what happens to an Armenian on drugs in Reno. Note that his last name is the same as mine, but as far as I know he is not related, though he looks a little bit like a cousin who I have not seen in years who goes by a different first name.

ONE ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF SON OF FORMER ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN

Yerevan, June 26. ArmInfo. A citizen of Yerevan, certain Stepan Hakobyan (1978) was arrested on June 24 charged with the murder of Sedrak Zatikyan, the son of Vahan Zatikyan, the former prefect of Malatia-Sebastia community, Sona Trouzyan, RA Prosecutor General's Press Secretary, told ArmInfo.

S. Hakobyan is charged with Article 235 of RA Criminal Code (illegal possession of weapons). In his turn, a reliable source reports that the detainee is a relative of Armenian MP representing Malatia-Sebastia community Hakob Hakobyan (nickname "Lady Hakob"). To note, bloody quarrels with participation of Hakobyan and Zatikyan clans are not a news.

Sedrak Zatikyan, born in 1980, was murdered on June 22 in daytime on Sebastia- Tichinin crossroad. The unknown fired at Zatikyan's car "Jeep." Wounded, S. Zatikyan lost control and crashed into a lorry. A resident of the nearby houses karine sarksyan - born in1969 fell victim to the incident. 24 shells of the same gun were found on the spot.

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Shots were taken in the so called «Banki krug» place of Malatia-Sebastia community at 14:40 and the son of the former died district mayor of Malatia-Sebastia community Vahan Zatikian, Sedrak /born in 1980, father of two children/. One of the citizens said that shot were taken from a “Jeep”. A passer-by, Karine Sargsian born in 1969 was also killed. Sedrak Zatikian was the president of Erkrapah Voluntary Union branch in Malatia-Sebastia community. According to Sedrak’s friends, two shots were taken at his head, 3 shots were taken at his chest. There was the following version yesterday; “He wanted to find out the reasons of his father’s death, that’s why he was killed”. There were also gossips that there had been a quarrel two days before with General Manvel Grigorian’s participation and yesterday shots were the continuation of that quarrel.

Ex-Karabakh Strongman Eyes Seats In Armenian Parliament

RFE/RL Armenia Report - 06/30/2006
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Samvel Babayan, the once powerful ex-commander of Nagorno-Karabakh's army, said on Friday he is confident that his Dashink (Alliance) party will win seats in Armenia's parliament in next year's elections. Babayan also warned that he and his loyalists would not hesitate to use force against those who would try to steal votes from Dashink.

`That our party will be represented [in parliament] is beyond doubt,' he told RFE/RL, attributing his confidence to Dashink's platform and the `young and sound team' surrounding him. He would not be drawn on the number of parliament seats Dashink plans to have in the next National Assembly.

Babayan insisted that he will not form electoral alliances with any other political group, despite claims to the contrary made in the Armenian press over the past year. He also claimed that the Armenian authorities will find it much harder to rig the next elections not least because they will have to deal with Dashink. `There won't be falsifications. There will be a bitter fight,' he said.

`We will resort to all legitimate and illegitimate steps if illegal actions are carried out against us by the government or the opposition,' he added without going into details.

Babayan, who commanded the Karabakh army from 1993-1999, held the founding congress of his party last November just over a year after his unexpected release prison. The 39-year-old retired general was serving a 14-year prison sentence in Karabakh for allegedly masterminding a botched March 2000 attempt on the life of the disputed region's president, Arkady Ghukasian. He never pleaded guilty to the charges.

Political observers have suggested differing explanations for his liberation. Some have speculated that Babayan was set free in return for agreeing to secretly cooperate with President Robert Kocharian and his likely successor, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian. All three men come from Karabakh and led the Armenian-controlled territory during its successful war with Azerbaijan.

Babayan has repeatedly denied such speculation and insists that his party has a neutral stance on the Armenian authorities. He predicted on Friday that the country's main pro-government factions will likely join forces to contest the 2007 elections. `The authorities need to act in a single team because for them divisions will be tantamount to defeat,' he said.

Babayan confirmed the widely held belief that one of the most ambitious pro-government forces, the Prosperous Armenia party of tycoon Gagik Tsarukian, was set up earlier this year to serve as Kocharian's new support base. `The thing is that Gagik Tsarukian and Robert Kocharian's team as a whole are setting up a structure to secure their future,' he said. `This is a fact.'

Babayan further disagreed with those who believe that the Armenian opposition stands no chance of unseating the country's current leadership. `They have that power,' he said. `The results of the 2003 elections show that about 70 percent of the public do not vote for government forces.'