WHY I AM NOT IN COPACABANA TODAY And what happened to Brazil, past and present

These papers are resuming a bit sooner than expected, because instead of being in Brazil, as I was scheduled to be, I find myself back in Viña del Mar. The reasons for the change of plans will be explained later in this paper, but I thought it was a good opportunity to also write about Brazil. I am after all a consultant covering most of the region, and there are some lucky readers who also get a Latin American monthly I prepare regularly. I also want to show (not that I am obliged to), that I can dissect and describe the contents of other corpuses besides Chile. I hasten to add that this is not a full country risk assessment of Brazil, but an impressionistic analysis putting my own recent experience in context.

ME AND BRAZIL I cannot claim to be a specialist on Brazil, though my coverage extends to the whole region, and that obviously includes the biggest country therein. I have travelled there many times for over 25 years, but my longest stay has been less than a week, and all my visits have been confined to the Rio do Janeiro-Sao Paulo-Brasilia triangle, if I except a landing in Camboriu as part of a cruise. I can decipher written Portuguese quite well, though I cannot really carry out a proper conversation in the language.

WHAT MADE BRAZIL EXCITING I had always liked, particularly in Rio (which is our subject matter today) the upbeat and carefree attitude, the tactile secretaries who took you by the arm to visit their bosses, the food served straight from the pot in the Bozano Simonsen executive restaurant, the good humour and disposition to solve problems or take care of complaints to your satisfaction. The vibrancy of Rio itself needs no introduction, and it has some smart hotels and a hard-to-beat beach. Service efficiency was never a strong point (and in Brasilia could be very dreadful indeed), but they aimed to please, particularly the Cariocas. The food is tasty, the football is great and played with panache. The women sure know how to move (interpret that as you wish).

On the macro aspect, it is the only country in Latin American which got anywhere near to being what is called a N.I.C. (Newly Industrialised Country), but actually never managed to get its act completely together. It is more India than China. A redeeming factor is that, despite the imperial splendours of some of its embassies, it has not thrown its diplomatic weight around too blatantly. It has some military "folie des grandeurs", like a nuclear submarine which is taking longer to build than a medieval cathedral, at the same time as

the commander of its navy reveals that half his ship and aircraft are immobilised for lack of maintenance. Even its dictatorships have been mild by regional standards, with no major civil conflict, guerrilla group or such strife in modern history. It got early empowerment when the colonial Portuguese government had to seek refuge on its territory during the Napoleonic wars. Together with Mexico, it is the only country in Latin America to have had an emperor (whom they eventually sent off to exile, and then begged in vain to return).

Its military equipment was utilised in the Iran-Iraq war, and

Embraer's commuter jets are to be found on most continents. Its civil

engineering companies construct worldwide, and its exportable offer

has long passed the stage of "there's an awful lot of coffee in

Brazil". In fact, coffee now represents an infinitesimal proportion of

sales abroad.

For the anecdote, the country's navy (which contrary to Bolivia's, has

a sea to operate into), holds the unique record of actually having had

a ship sink itself during WWII. A badly lined deck machine gun was

being tested on a destroyer. Normally it should have been so

positioned as to fire only over the deck. It was not. The bullets shot

onto the deck, which also stored ammunition for the big guns, and the

whole thing exploded. It took weeks to find out what had happened when

a few lone survivors were found in a lifeboat. Lack of precision is a

problem, as I found out at the otherwise most pleasant Rio Sheraton

when the Club lounge supposed to open for breakfast at 7.00 (the time

we actually needed to have breakfast because of a plane to catch), was

still closed at 7.15.

HOW THINGS STARTED GOING WRONG Brazil has had some bad hits, not all

of which have been from external causes. It was badly hit by the 1973

and 1979 oil crises, just as it was taking off, and though it has

since developed self-sufficiency in crude production and been a

pioneer in alcohol powered vehicles, the latter is now much questioned

on both economic and environmental considerations.

The death of president-elect Tancredo Neves in 1985, from a botched-up

diverticulis emergency operation (another lack of "precision" by the

week-end duty surgeon in Brasilia) probably deprived the country of

the chance of a new approach to politics. His stand-in, Jose Sarney,

sticking to Machivellian precepts, was only interested in holding on

to a power he was never supposed to have in the first place. Fernando

Collor was a drug addict whose shifty body language immediately caught

my attention at a London reception for him when he was

president-elect. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, an academic, tried to

solve the problems by issuing debt, which now makes Brazil a country

with a DAILY interest bill of some U$ 230 million on its U$ 870 bn

internal and external public debt. Despite some gimmicky programmes

such as "Fome Zero" and "Bolsa Familia" Lula betrayed his origins,

principles and electorate pretty much like his Polish Solidarity

counterpart Lech Walensa. As a former local politician once said, when

asked if he was a conservative., "in a country where millions of

children go to bed hungry, there is nothing to conserve. Over 51 % of

Brazilian households are not even connected to a sewerage network.

I do not know if any of this helps explain the story I am about to tell.

WHY I AM NOT IN COPACABANA I do not really know why I am not in

Copacabana today. Well, maybe because I am unlucky with freebies. In

fact, over the decade and a half of providing free services to

hundreds of institutions, I have only ever had one invitation to go on

an expenses-paid trip abroad unrelated to providing consultancy

services, but just for the sake of it. The same embassies, think

thanks and universities that spend zillions on flying out every

two-penny journalist, uniformed personnel, civil servant and "opinion

leader", have ignored me royally, even though I was often the first

one to tell them what was happening. Maybe because I am neither Jewish

nor Opus Dei, which seem to be the main criteria even for getting

quoted by foreign journalists. So be it. Luckily, I can afford to

travel on my own, so I do not have to beg the generosity of a bunch of

ungrateful sods who cannot even organise their caterers to serve real

food at their parties until most of the guests have gone home (yes,

that is you, the Santiago diplomatic corps, in case you have not

recognised yourselves).

This year, I was supposed to go on freebies to Rio not once, but

twice. The first instance was in late April, to attend LAAD, the local

version of FIDAE. I have been friendly (and generous) for years with

the owner/editor of a Brazilian defence publication, who were

co-sponsoring the fair. He said he would recommend the organisers that

they invite me. Some weeks later, he said I was not being invited.

Subsequent to that he stopped contacting me altogether.

I did not worry too much, as it had not disturbed any other

arrangements I had. However, when the second invitation came on August

9, it was a different proposal altogether. A prestigious international

public relations firm, with whom I have a long and excellent

relationship at the Cannes film festival, wrote to tell me that I was

invited, all expenses paid, to the Rio film festival that would be

taking place from September 20 to October 4. Over that period, I could

choose any 5 days I wanted, and they would take care of the rest.

Great! I emailed my enthusiastic acceptance by return, happy that my

11-year Cannes coverage (which I can immodestly say has been rather

good) was having a wider recognition. I was scheduled to be in Armenia

until September 28, so I asked if I could come for the last 5 days of

the event, which is the largest of its kind in Latin America. I also

requested that, as I would only have 48 hours between the two trips

and would need to organise myself, furthermore over a week-end, where

what you can do is more limited. I asked if possible to travel by LAN

as they have the only through flights between Santiago and Rio.

I advised the editors of the two publications for whom I cover Cannes,

refused other social and professional commitments for the first week

in October, and even paid some bills in advance (something most of the

Chilean financial system finds difficult to cope with, as I am the

only person in the country who does not wait until banks shut on the

last due date to settle his accounts). I advised friends and contacts

in the film industry, in case we would coincide there.

Two weeks after the initial invitation, I received an email from one

Tessa Maia of the festival staff. Copied to several of her colleagues,

it was accompanied by a draft reservation on LAN, going out at

lunchtime on Sunday 30, returning at 2 AM on October 5 (a dreadful

hour but that is the schedule the planners at LAN have for their

flight back). The message said that I should respond quickly so that

they could firm up the booking, and once that was done, any changes

would be my financial responsibility. I answered immediately, saying

it was fine, adding that I hoped the timing of the return flight would

still allow me to be present at the award closing ceremony on the

night of the 4th. It took a few days to get an answer, which said that

there would be no problem, and furthermore I would get assistance with

airport transfers etc..

There followed two weeks of silence, and my other trip was getting

closer, so I asked for confirmation that the flights as proposed (and

accepted) were firm. It took some time and effort to get an answer,

and when it came, the outgoing flight had been changed to 7.30 AM.

This would mean having to spend the previous night in Santiago in

order to catch it, which was most impractical as I was just returning

the day before from Armenia. I expressed my surprise and

disappointment, particularly as I had accepted the previous

arrangements. I was told that "this was the best available" but "they

would try to revert to the initial booking".

Another period of silence followed, during which time I chased four

times for an answer. With just two working days left for my departure

to Armenia, I started to get really worried and upset. I decided to

ring the person who had been writing to me (Tessa Maia). After some

effort, she came on the line and was very apologetic.

She said that "her coordinator" (Marcos Silva) was told several times

to write to me with the final arrangements, but had not done so. She

absolutely promised that I would get the full details of the trip and

local arrangements that same night. I also rang LAN Chile who

confirmed that there were four (!) bookings in my name going out to

Rio on the 30th of September, on the original noon flight, but none

had as yet been confirmed and paid.

Nothing came that night, and I waited until lunchtime the next day,

with still no news. I tried to ring Tessa again, but was told "she was

in a meeting". So I sent her another mail. Two hours later,

coordinator Marcos Silva finally contacted me. In a short and curt

mail, he said that "as I seem to be having scheduling problems" (sic),

it was better if I did not some.

I immediately wrote back saying this was outrageous. I had not sought

an invitation, but when it came accepted it enthusiastically. I had

answered all communications by return, and made no request beyond that

of having my arrangements finalised prior to leaving for Armenia (that

gave them 5 weeks from the time the invitation came). I had refused

other commitments, advised people I know in Rio I was coming, and of

course offered my coverage to La Nacion and El Mostrador.

Last but not least, in my Levantine culture, not returning hospitality

or withdrawing an invitation after it is made, is the worst possible

social affront. I copied the mail to all those to whom previous

communications had been circulated. Nobody came back with an

explanation or an apology, save the public relations contact who had

passed-on the invitation in the first place, who was as baffled as I

was. In case anyone tries to deny my version of the facts, I have kept

copies of all the correspondence.

POST-MORTEM There is an old regional joke whereby a Brazilian politician is making fun of Bolivia because they have a navy but no sea, to which the Bolivians retort that it is no stranger than Brazil having a ministry of Culture, and a ministry of Justice…

In my nearly 31 years of Latin American experience, over half of which based in the region itself, this is the strangest behaviour I have ever come across from any person or organization. To the extent that it was so upsetting and disruptive, I decided that it would not stop there. If the idea of the invitation was to promote Brazil, Rio or its festival, it is a rather curious way of going about it.

I looked up the various festival authorities, and I copied my last mail of protest to them. I did the same with the main sponsoring cultural organization. I also looked up the website of the ministry of Culture (yes, they have one), and mailed every single senior official in the audiovisual arts department. Lastly, I copied the message to the cultural attaché at the Brazilian embassy in Santiago.

Three weeks have passed since I was kicked out of a festival I never asked to go to in the first place, but not a single authority of the festival, organizers, ministry or embassy has even acknowledged receipt of my messages.

I understand that this sort of thing is called a Bosta in vulgar Brazilian. The perpetrators are Babacas.

How my Family Coped with the Armenian Genocide - More Alive than Dead

Well, it can be denied, distorted or ignored, but it won't go away. Still, people try. The last example being the UN's U/Secretary for Communications, Japanese diplomat Kiyotaka Akasaka. This narrow-minded international uncivil servant closed down an exhibition in the UN building's entrance dedicated to the massacres in Rwanda. Why? Because the Turkish delegation complained about a small reference to "genocide", which explained that the word had been coined specifically to describe what happened to the Armenians in 1915.

Once again the commemoration is upon us. On April 24, we remember the 92nd anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, and a ceremony will take place in Santiago's Armenian Community House this Sunday 22nd at 11 AM (Irrarazaval 5455, Ñuñoa). A couple of years ago, I covered the history of the Kouyoumdjians, who saw the writing on the wall and left Turkey in the 1890's when the first preliminary "rehearsals" started, eventually becoming the owners of Fallujah in Iraq. This year, I would like to recount the story of my maternal families, who were more directly involved, but survived to tell the tale.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION Probably as a result of the contact with the Crusades, and mixed marriages with Frankish kings and princes settled in the area, the Armenians of Asia Minor have been French-leaning for centuries (the last king of the Armenian kingdom of Cicilia, Leon VI, which fell to the Mameluks in 1375, is buried in Saint Denis, with the Kings of France). Through the circumvolutions of History, the crown of Armenia has devolved to the Italian royal family house of Savoy.

I do not know when the formal relationship of my family with France started, but by the turn of the 20th century, my great-grandfather Ludwig Khoubesserian was the representative of the French government in the coastal city of Adana, where he grew cotton and fruit. His formal title was that of "drogman honoraire", and he reported to the French Consul in the larger city of Mersin. For those who are not familiar with the meaning of the word "drogman", a post which no longer exists, it comes from the Arabic root "tarjim", meaning interpreting or translating. However, drogmen in diplomatic posts, were more than mere interpreters. They were people with good local knowledge and connections, who acted as intelligence agents and advisers to the foreign diplomat or authority.

In April 1909, there took place another Genocide "dress-rehearsal" in the shape of a major massacre of Armenians in and around Adana. An estimated 25,000 people were killed, often with the help of Turkish regular troops (this is confirmed by the official dispatches, among many others, of Commander Prére, second-in-command of the French warship Victor Hugo, which had been sent to help the victims. Details are kept in the archives of the Service Historique de la Marine, where they were dug up, together with other documents concerning my family kept in the archives of the Foreign Ministry, by researchers in the Paris-based Armenian Noubar library).

There was not much my great-grandfather could do, apart from protecting himself and the family. Despite the French flag flying on it, his house was pillaged and burned on April 28 (as mentioned in Cdr. Prére's report). In fact, the massacres took place in two stages. During the first part, armed Armenians organized resistance, but after a visiting British officer negotiated a cease-fire conditional on the defenders surrendering their weapons, the killings started again without any means of defence (obviously the British were also rehearsing their own selling down of the Armenians, as was subsequently reflected by the shameful episode of Gal Dunsmore and the Baku Soviet in the early 1920's).

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES When the "Big One" came in 1915, organized by a triumvirate of Pashas, the Khoubesserians had another stroke of luck. Ludwig had been a classmate of one of the leaders, Djemal Pasha, who had earlier fallen out of grace with the Sultan and had been sent as governor of a distant region (I think Iraq). He then lost that job too and came back a lonely and friendless person. Though all his former friends were evading him, Ludwig Khoubesserian gave a big reception in his honour. The man must have had some conscience, because as the Genocide started, he gave the extended family (Ludwig alone had 8 children, one of whom being my maternal grandmother Marie) a safe-conduct to Jerusalem, where they settled in the Armenian monastery for several years.

Ludwig did not remain idle and soon left for England, where he had previously exported the cotton of his estates. He spent some time in Lancashire and family lore has it that he may have become a member of the Cotton & Wool Exchange. He then moved on to New York, where he might have been a member of the commodity exchange there (on my first visit to the USA in 1971, I tried to find out for sure but they did not have on hand records going back that far). His idea was to bring the whole family over, but unfortunately he died in the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic, and is buried in a New York cemetery. That is one reason why I am not an American.

THE INTELLIGENCE AGENT After WWI ended, Cilicia, the part of Turkey which includes Adana, came under French Mandate, and French troops, including an Armenian Legion formed during the conflict, were stationed there. The family returned from Jerusalem and retook possession of their properties. One of Ludwig's sons, Vahan, got into the French administration, as drogman to the governor of the region of Djebel Bereket.

Djebel Bereket was apparently a lawless place during the French mandate. Former Ottoman soldiers of the disbanded army, having kept their weapons, practiced banditry in its mountainous terrain. Vahan Khoubesserian obviously played a major role in its pacification, to the extent that he was decorated with the Order of the Nichan Iftikhar, a Franco-Arab award of North African origin. Document N° 3110/11 of the French Administration dated November 1st, 1919, was a request to that end addressed by Col. Bremond, governor of Cicilia to Georges-Picot, High Commissioner for Syria and Armenia. Here is an extract:

"Through his deep knowledge of people and things, he was always able to inform his superior in the best form, and managed to organize by himself in Dortyol, through his undoubted influence on the Armenians, a company of 100 volunteers who performed the highest services in the close defence of the city and the surrounding mountains…He in fact did the job of a French officer in Djebel Bereket. He is a totally devoted civil servant about whom there can only be praise "

Before he died July 1926 during an attack on a passenger train by rebel Druze tribesmen in Syria, where the family had settled after the French Mandate on Cicilia ended in October 1921, Vahan had another important task. He was a member of the Armenian delegation which visited Europe from March to August 1920 in order to plead the cause of autonomy, headed by the Catolicos (head of the Armenian Church).

Armenians had not been able to participate in the Versailles peace conference and were trying to claim what they had been promised (in the event, we were sold down the river again, that is why a kingdom which once stretched from the Caucasus to Northern Syria is now down to a 20,000 km2 "reservation").

There is an anecdote, which I have no reason to doubt, that when the delegation was received by French president Paul Deschanel, they were a chair short, and the president himself went to the next room to fetch one for Vahan. Some years earlier, in happier times, one of Vahan's brothers, Hagop, had been honoured in a different way. He served as interpreter to the visiting French orientalist Pierre Loti, who mentions him in one of his books..Being the first of the family to later settle in France, he became one of the pioneers of clinical acupuncture and practiced into his eighties until his death.

VICTIM AND JUDGE I have less information about my maternal grandfather, lawyer Leon Hazarabedian, who died a couple of years before I was born (on the other hand, except for Vahan, who died young as mentioned, I knew all of Ludwig's remaining 7 children, and one of those great-aunts bequeathed to me and my sister the apartment we have in Cannes, the last remaining link with the old family that remains).

Leon Hazarabedian was a young lawyer in Istambul when the Genocide started. He had started practicing in 1912 and like many Armenian intellectuals, he was arrested and about to be deported on a death march. Waiting in an open compound with other detainees, he spotted one of the Turkish magistrates on duty who were trying to give a semblance of legality to the whole episode. He recognized him as a classmate from law school. He tried to catch his attention to see if he could do something for him. The man looked his way but pretended to ignore his existence. Soon afterwards, they were herded to be transported, but taking advantage of a distracted guard, my

grandfather escaped.

I ignore what happened to him in the following years, and there is nobody left whom I can ask. However, the post-war French mandate finds him as a magistrate in charge of prosecuting war crimes in Turkey (there actually were trials of war criminals until the process was interrupted by the Kemalist upsurge and the end of the mandate). Justice was rather summary, and magistrates had the power of life and death. One day, who would appear in front of judge Hazarabedian but the former classmate who ignored him when he was about to be killed. When the man saw who was in charge of deciding his fate, you can imagine his feelings. However, my grandfather told him that he was a better friend than he had been, and said he was free to go. The Turk

fell sobbing on the floor and said; "of all the punishments you could have given me, this is the worst, because I shall have to live with my shame for the rest of my days".

Though the French mandate ended in Turkey, it continued for some 20 more years in Syria and Lebanon. During this time, Leon Hazarabedian was a fully-fledged French civil servant, first in Damascus and then in Beirut, reaching the post of Inspecteur Général des Services Fonciers de Syrie et du Liban. Among the people he was in contact with was a young French army major called Charles de Gaulle. (The latter was posted in Beirut from November 1929 to October 1931, as head of military intelligence). Later, my grandfather took up a private law practice, but died from tuberculosis a few years later in 1945. Among his clients was the Great Dervish, also exiled from Turkey. He had a sister and two brothers, only one of whom left descendants, who were born in France and live in the Reims area.

THE AFTERMATH As you can see, the Genocide left my direct ancestry pretty unscathed, if you forget the geographical movements, and on my maternal side, everyone eventually ended up in France from 1921 onwards. This continued over a long period (about 50 years) as things gradually deteriorated in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.

Our association with France was therefore very strong. Unfortunately, in my own lineage, I am the last French speaker, and since arriving in Chile, have fought a losing war against the indifference of successive French "cultural counsellors", who have ignored all my attempts at getting involved with French cultural activities. This year, France is celebrating "The Year of Armenia", but the same embassy did not even answer when I suggested that they organize a premiere for "Voyage en Armenie", the award-winning latest film from French-Armenian director Robert Guediguian. It is an uncontroversial movie about a French-Armenian girl going to Armenia to rediscover their roots. When I insisted, I was sent packing with the following sentences "you can keep your analysis to yourself". I hope you will understand that on the basis of the above family history, it was not just another ungrateful diplomatic seat (of whom I have many on my list), but an insult to generations of my family in the service of the French Republic.

AND A WORD FROM ONE OF OUR SPONSORS

"I join California's Armenian-American communities and all Armenians worldwide in remembering those who were killed and persecuted during the Armenian Genocide, and urge people throughout the world to never forget these horrific crimes against humanity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim the week of April 22nd through April 29th, 2007, as "Days of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide."

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have here unto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 6th day of April 2007."

Arnold Schwarzenegger

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

A TRIBUTE TO HRANT DINK Sacrificed on the Altar of Freedom of Speech

I am devoting this week's paper to the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul last January 19. The reason is that the act represents an affront to freedom of speech which transcends the Armenian cause. We know at our cost that the latter is of little interest to most non-Armenians. I am spurred in writing these words by the fact that the Chilean audiovisual press totally ignored the event, and the written press gave it a perfunctory mention. Far beyond the Turkish assassin and his backers, there are a number of other accomplices, by design, neglect or omission. An old Armenian curse on all of them. 

MEETING HRANT DINK

I write these words with Hrant's visiting card in front of me. It is entirely written in Turkish, describing him as Gemel Yayin Yönetmei (which roughly translates into General Executive Publisher). I was glad and honoured to meet him in Yerevan last September, when he was a much-applauded speaker at the Diaspora Conference I attended. I told him that even the Chilean press had mentioned his tribulations with the Turkish authorities, and asked him if he had any plans to visit Latin America. He said that indeed he had an invitation from the Armenian community in Buenos Aires (the largest in Latin America), which he was hoping to take up in 2007. I gave him a copy of my private-circulation study on the Geopolitics of Armenia, and insisted that he should add Chile to his itinerary. It was not to be.

THE WORLD MEDIA

I heard about the murder an hour or so after it occurred, following a call from a foreign ambassador friend in Santiago, who had seen it on CNN. For the next 24 hours, the US network ran it as its top story. I quickly updated myself of the known facts, and realising that I was most probably the only person in Chile to have ever met the victim, I got in touch with my three favourite medias: Radio Cooperativa, CHILEVISION, and El Mostrador. In each case I explained what had happened (none of them had watched CNN or looked at agency wires over the past 2 hours, it seems). In coming days, they totally ignored the event, even though several of them have been prosecuted for revealing the truth on many scandals in Chile..El Mercurio did publish a letter of mine, after cogitating about it for five days. I then started receiving articles, comments and agency reports from various sources. The ones from Anglo-Saxon countries had obviously not absorbed the enormity of what had happened. They continued to use euphemisms such as the "massacres", or put "alleged" in front of Genocide, or the word itself with quotation marks. The same medias who have no hesitation whatsoever in calling Genocide the killing of a few tribesmen here and there, still cannot bring themselves to use when it comes to the Armenians. CNN at least gave the story the importance it deserved, and interviewed people in Turkey itself who had no qualms in using the G word. Reuters had no balls, as usual. The current issue of The Economist has a leader on Dink, but not a single article, or letter, and the Obituary is dedicated to some Ugandan spiritist. The leader speaks about "horrors" against the Armenians, halves the number of victims, and declares itself against the penalization of negationism (understandably, otherwise most of The Economist staff would be in jail by now).


Hrant Dink Armen Kouyoumdjian

I have been a reader of The Economist for 36 years, and I have stoically withstood their blinkered support of Thatcherism, their lack of concern for the evils of the free market, followed by their mercenary backing of the Bush administration's foreign policy. However, when they started taking the Turko-American-Israeli silver pieces to rubbish the Armenians, I have decided to call it a day. When my subscription comes to an end next May, its Executive Editor Daniel Franklin is going to get a piece of my mind, jointly with my cancellation.

I have to single out the BBC, that paragon of international journalism whose total cost to the British taxpayer is higher than Chile's defence budget. Some months before the latest events, I was in correspondence with its European Editor, Mark Mardell, to complain about the "allegeds" and "genocide with quotation marks" notes on their website. His answer was very revealing. He said that as an "independent" organisation, they had to give all points of view, including those of the Flat Earth Society. When I asked him whether this generous pluralism applied to the Jewish Holocaust, there was a pregnant silence. After Dink's murder, when the "allegeds" and the "genocide with quotation marks" reappeared, I graphically reminded him of his sin of omission, and the fact that we were not The Flat Earth Society. He got offended at my language. Troppo Vero, as the Pope told Michelangelo. Oh how the British and the Chileans are alike in their verbal mariconeria…No wonder men in both these countries have tremendous sexual hang-ups! As they say in Turkish, tembel pezevenkler..

At least, Hrant Dink was oppressed by Turkish legislation talking its own book. The world media whose careful euphemisms encouraged his murderers, had no such excuse.

GOVERNMENTS

Though the new US Congress with its Democrat majority has another resolution before it recognising the Armenian Genocide, it has little hope of succeeding. The last one under the Clinton administration was withdrawn from the floor of the house half an hour before its assured vote, for "reasons of national security". The Bush administration has gone even further. Last year, it fired its own career ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after the courageous diplomat said at a conference that it was high time to stop playing word games. A tribute to him will take place at a Los Angeles dinner on March 4. In his place, the president named one Richard Hoagland, who again had semantic problems during his Senate confirmation hearings. Everyone expected that a more objective person would be proposed instead, but GW has gone on and re-proposed the same Hoagland!

It was a good few months for disseminating the Armenian cause. Pamuk's Nobel prize in literature last October, and the proposed French legislation to penalize Genocide negation, aired the matter to all corners of the world. However, people should know that the said legislation did not have the support of the French government, which in fact was hostile to it. Though France is currently hosting the Year of Armenia, it is obviously doing it, as we say in Armenian about the unenthusiastic, with half its mouth.

Award-winning French-Armenian film director Robert Guediguian launched a new film last year, called "Voyage en Arménie". For all practical purposes it is an uncontroversial French film, about modern Armenians seeking their roots, and the relationship between the Diaspora and the Republic of Armenia. It won a prize at the Rome Film Festival last year. I thought it might be a good idea to screen it here, as an offshore activity related to the Year of Armenia.

Hrant Dink Armen Kouyoumdjian

Having obtained the enthusiastic backing of the chief commissar to the Year of Armenia in Paris, and the producers of the film, I approached the French embassy's cultural department, copying all my correspondence to the ambassador. They did not even answer my message, despite three reminders, and when I really got angry, they said they had decided that the film was "of no interest to the local market", and did not think it even necessary to inform me. Just in case you wonder, anybody who has anything to do with French diplomacy has been eliminated from my distribution list. It was a painful affair. Three generations of my family were French civil servants (two of them in Turkey, as it happens), but I do not accept messing around with the Armenian cause from anyone. Some years earlier, The Canadian embassy, which has a 5-strong "cultural" department, refused to have anything to do with the film Ararat, even though it had won the prize of top Canadian movie the year before.

Last but by no means least, we have to return to the shameful collaboration (in the WWII sense of the word) between the State of Israel and the Turkish authorities. The former have sought the help of the Jewish Diaspora in their evil deed, with varying degrees of success, but this may explain the hostility of some press organs to the Armenian cause. Anyway, what do you expect from a country who has a convicted multiple rapist as a president. At least in Chile we only have pederast senators.

TURKEY & THE TURKISH PEOPLE

The outpour of sympathy from ordinary and not so ordinary Turkish citizens, the strong condemnation in much of that country's press, and the massive crowd at Dink's funeral, might optimistically indicate that maybe the negationists in Turkey are a minority, held in ignorance and abeyance by nationalist forces which have dominated the country's politics for the past century. It is early to say how the wind will blow, but considering that Dink had been attempting a rapprochement and not a confrontation, even criticising Diaspora verbal extremism, maybe something good will come out of this mess.

As did Dink, I also support the negotiations for Turkey's entry into the EU, but probably because I am not as nice a person as he was, my purpose is more Machiavellian. I think the negotiations should be actively pursued, during which time Turkey will have, by law or by pressure, to change its policies and attitudes. Once that is achieved, they would still probably not get in (if only because of opposing referendums in some countries). The Armenians would have meanwhile had their Genocide recognition, the Republic's border with Turkey would have been opened, and even the Karabagh conflict may have found a solution. The rest, quite frankly, we should not care about, insomuch as few people have cared about us in the past 92 years.

Already, in the past few days, I have seen documents circulating on the web, from non-Armenian organizations, using the Dink murder as another excuse to stop Turkey entering the EU. One of the first things Nicolas Sarkozy said after being designated his party's presidential candidate, is that there was no room for Turkey in Europe. One of his chief advisers is Patrick Devedjian. To stop negotiations now would only strengthen the hand of nationalists and make things worse for the Armenian cause. Let us play the game for a while and fleece the opponent's chips one by one, rather than kicking the table.

POPULISM, POPULARITY & THE PEOPLE The Fear of Real Reforms in Latin America

The announcement of utility nationalisations by Venezuela's president Hugo

Chávez and his earlier cancellation of a broadcasting licence to a

well-established TV station, were accompanied by a row with the Chilean

Secretary-General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza. The whole episode,

though it transcends Chilean borders, merits some observations. More than

ever, this report is going to be a counterpoint to fashionable views and

attitudes, and I can even draft myself in advance some of the comments

which I am bound to get. So let it be. I have come to the conclusion that

brains can be circumcised as well, and contrary to the other part of the

body, it does not improve their performance.

WHAT'S IN A WORD? The word "Populism" has acquired a pejorative

significance, from its original meaning of "doing things to please the

people", to which was added the sin that whatever you did "for the people"

had an ulterior motive. Playing with words is nothing new in politics and

sociology. The definitions are not even the same everywhere.

In England, being "an intellectual" is, contrary to France, an insult. When

Prince Charles got engaged to Diana, the conservative British press,

meaning it as a compliment, commented:" and above all, she is not an

intellectual". The English have another way to disparagingly describe

someone intelligent and efficient, "too clever by half". In the USA,

"Liberal" is almost an insult, on par with "Communist", whereas everywhere

else or nearly, it means having a broad mind and tolerant attitudes.

"Neo-liberal", of course, means something completely different, and should

indeed be an insult everywhere.

For centuries, the people of Latin America were successively subjugated by

their indigenous leaders, colonial governors, civilian and military

dictators, and pseudo-democratic governments dominated by the rich and

powerful. Nobody really took care of the majority of the people. Whenever

anyone tried to do something different, all hell broke loose before they

had a chance to show if they were genuine socially-minded reformers or

power-thirsty megalomeniacs. From Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala (and I could

start earlier in the XXth century), to Salvador Allende in Chile, going

through Fidel Castro, and now Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and a number of

lesser figures, they were all demonized and satanised. Shaking the tree of

the status quo was unacceptable. Maybe they went about it the wrong way,

but from the earlier pioneers, most were not given the chance of falling

flat on their face by themselves.

No other part of the world has been subjected to as many experiences of

"vivisection economics" as Latin America over the past six or seven

decades. They have been the economic equivalent of the Nazi medical

experiments in the concentration camps. From Left-wing military regimes to

unrestricted Chicago boys appended to dictatorships or pseudo-democracies,

and from collective farms to old fashioned oligarchies, everything has been

tried by the academic Mengeles. However, apart from Black Africa, no other

part of the world has been less successful in developing minds, bodies,

livelihood, production and infrastructure as the countries of Latin

America. One of the region's weaknesses is its lack of a real identity.

Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, and the Protestant work ethic have fashioned

and consolidated other areas of the world.

Latin America is a badly-made potato salad of a miscellenea of different

indigenous beliefs and traditions, on which was implanted a Hispano-Arab

fusion to which were added, in different proportions, sauces from other

European cultures, from Basque to Italian, and from Germanic to Yugoslav.

After a brief flirtation with the British, who restricted their input to

civilian and military infrastructure, US influence started from the end of

the XIXth century, after which Soviet and other varieties of Marxism also

landed, and polarised regional politics.

The result is a total lack of indigenous diagnosis and solutions, because

it has no original spine on which to be hung. Whichever foreign wind (or

fart) is fashionable at any given moment is the order of the day. They need

Norwegian, Irish, New Zealand or Danish solutions, because they think

Western civilisation is the salvation to all ills, and cannot be bothered

to work out a national diagnosis and a national solution.

HUGO CHAVEZ Chileans (many of whom consider Insulza as the best president

they never had-yet), were incensed at his being called the "Viceroy of the

Empire", and a "pendejo", and the calls for his resignation after he

criticised a domestic decision by Chavez. For those unfamiliar with the

vernacular, "pendejo" strictly speaking means pubic hair, and is used as an

insult similar to "jerk" in the Central America and Caribbean countries.

When it comes to insulting foreigners, Chileans are hardly in a position to

throw the first stone. During the military government, admiral Merino

called Bolivians "animals", whereas when he was still commander in chief of

the army, Gal Pinochet made some very disparaging remarks about the

Germans. There is not a lot of love lost between Chile and Venezuela,

after the dilly-dallying on the UN Security Council membership vote and the

cowardly abstention, and the support of the then Chilean ambassador for the

failed anti-Chavez coup, before it fizzled out after a few days.

I would like to start quoting from a report issued earlier this week by the

Wall St. firm of Hallgarten & Co, under the pen of its analyst Mark Turner:

" Chavez has been made out to be a crackpot, a fool and a dictator by the

western news services. We believe that this picture is biased largely by

political interests and does not take into account the reality". Quite. For

an English-language portrait of Hugo Chavez, I recommend Richard Gott's

book "In the Shadow of the Liberator" published by Verso.Though sympathetic

to his subject, Gott, an eminent British expert on Latin America, does not

lose his objectivity.

The man was elected for a third term with around 63 % of the votes, in

elections that no independent observer has doubted in terms of fairness.

That is what the majority of the people want in Venezuela, and another

recent poll showed up that most of the population also feel there is more

democracy now than before. It seems that the quest for democracy is

selective among the critics (viz. what happened to Hamas in Palestine). The

Chilean press, which was classified last year as Latin America's second

most restricted after Cuba's, is hardly in a position to criticise "freedom

of expression" in Venezuela. The Caracas press is full of insulting

articles about Chavez. How many insults to president Bachelet have you read

in the Chilean papers? There are only two ongoing independent and incisive

sources of news and comment in Chile (apart from these papers, of course).

They are both online. One is El Mostrador (www.elmostrador.cl), and the

other, which I also strongly recommend, is www.granvalparaiso.cl

Ask about the US academics who lost their tenure for criticising the Bush

administration, before you pontificate on freedom of expression. In Chile,

if you are asked to speak in public, and make even a mild criticism of

anything or anybody important, the least that happens to you is that you

are never invited again. At worst, you are taken to court. If you reveal

corruption or wrongdoing, you are fired or even arrested for "breach of

privacy". If you are a journalist, your editor or programme producer will

get calls from business leaders threatening to withhold advertising. Dejen

de ser tan pendejosŠ

So Chavez flirts with Cuba. He gives them free oil, against the supply of

thousands of teachers and medical staff who provide educational and health

services in parts of towns and the countryside, which a century of oil

revenue could not be bothered to reach. Chavez also set up cheap

state-owned supermarkets in poor neighbourhood shops where previously the

monopolistic stores of the local cacique fleeced the population that did

not have access to the large supermarkets. Such shops are still to be found

in most Chilean "poblaciones". A recent article in Foreign Policy by one

Francisco Rodriguez (formerly a congressional aparachik in Caracas, and now

a lowly lecturer at Wesleyan College), points out the continuingly bad

poverty and social statistics, concluding that Chavez had done nothing for

the poor, and explaining his reelection by "high economic growth".

Can anyone seriously believe that 63 % of the population would have voted

for a guy, just because of an economic statistic, if they did no feel a

positive effect in their daily lives? Do you think that the mass of the

population in Latin America reads the financial pages and identifies

Euromoney's Finance Minister of the Year on the cover? According to the

same Rodriguez, over a million adults are still illiterate in Venezuela, so

they can't even read those statistics. What matters is the "feel good"

attitude. Abraham Lincoln was already aware of it in his Gettysburg address

when he referred to "the pursuit of happiness" as a national goal. At the

end of the day, irrespective of the political label attached to rulers or

governments, the main, neigh, the ONLY criteria of success is that the

majority of the population is, and more importantly FEELS better off than

under the previous guys.

Do you prefer the Venezuela of Carlos Andrés Pérez, who not only stole

zillions which he stashed away with the help of his mistress in New York,

but also shot several hundred poor protesters soon after the beginning of

his second term?

So Chavez is going to nationalise utilities. Well, did he say sequestration

without compensation? I have never been to Venezuela, but after living

nearly 16 years in a country where all public services (including some

formerly public urban streets) are privatised, I must say I am less than

impressed by "market forces". Anyway, when he jacked up taxes on oil

companies last year, not a single one of them left the country. JC Penney &

Carrefour left Chile, as did or are doing several utilities, and Occidental

Petroleum left Peru, without anybody nationalising anything in these

countries.

So Chavez is going to change the country's name from "Bolivarian" to

"Socialist" Republic. That is going to cause more wincing by the

"bien-pensant", for whom such words are anathema in Latin America. Only in

Latin America, mind you. How come the same people do not wince when

referring to the "People' s Republic" of China. Is it because Chavez's

Venezuela cannot supply them with U$ 60 DVD players or U$ 1 string

underwear for their daughters?

Where is the downside? With his undoubted popularity, Chavez may think that

he can get away with anything, and overstep the mark somewhere. So far, he

has been quite pragmatic, and in fact the business sector has done pretty

well under him. The Caracas stock exchange was a top performer in 2006.

Probably his weakest point is the financial situation. Paradoxically, many

people consider that as his principal strength. They are wrong. Despite the

huge increase in oil revenue, expenditure has risen much faster than

revenue. Public debt has quadrupled during his tenure, and he increasingly

has to resort to budgetary acrobatics such as raiding the Central Bank to

pay his way. Nationalisation also requires resources, both in acquiring the

assets, and then to provide the investment needs. The recent sharp drop in

the price of oil to a 20-month low obviously does not help. Any financial

squeeze may take some time to be felt by the public, and faced with such a

situation, various assistance programmes to third countries may be the

first to be curtailed rather than domestic social expenditure. More

perceptible by the public are the continuing bad situation of criminality

and corruption, for which Venezuela has been notorious much before Chavez

even joined the army.

RAFAEL CORREA & OTHERS With Ecuador's new president Rafael Correa taking

over on January 15, his rapprochement with Chavez, calls for suspending

debt service and going for a constitutional assembly, have already earned

him the ire of the mercenary commentators. Unfortunately, his oil resources

are too modest to allow profligacy of any sort. Far from being a Communist,

he is in fact a Catholic with a social conscience (something Chilean

Christian Democracy once was). His Belgian wife, Anne Malherbe, comes from

a very conservative family, and her brother Michel is a senior official at

the Foreign Ministry in Brussels. Correa himself has a Masters in Economy

from Belgium's Louvain university, and did voluntary work for the Salesian

order in his youth.

Other regional leaders have handled their situation in different ways. Lula

has reneged his metal worker militancy and background, forgetting almost

everything he stood for during several campaigns. He still managed to get

re-elected. Probably the cleverest has been Argentina's Nestor Kirchner. He

reneged on most of the debt, and obtained special powers that allow him to

do a lot without even consulting congress. He has not held a single press

conference or even cabinet meetings since he came to power. His popularity

is as high as ever at home, his economic statistics largely stupendous, and

hardly anyone even attempts to demonise him. He or his wife are almost

certain to be re-elected in October.

Mexico's PRI was once able to be all things to all men with hardly any

repression, but lost its way when some of its technocrats forgot about the

pendulum principle, ran away with the ball in a single direction and ended

up losing the game.

Nicaragua's re-elected Daniel Ortega is not really up to scratch, being the

second choice to originally lead the Sandinista movement. His rambling

inauguration speech on January 10 tried to be all things to all men, from

embracing the Church into which he miraculously became reconverted during

the campaign, to the closing singing of El Pueblo Unido and the Palestinian

flag flying behind him all the time. The recently defrocked bishop in

Paraguay is a man to watch for the 2008 polls (another "populist").

Uruguay's once militant president has hardly made waves once he assumed

power.