Raffi Hovannisian's letter to the editor (below) about the article I posted really expresses what I was thinking too. Hugh Pope really twisted what was hours of conversation to suit the article he had already decided to write. Regarding Zabel, my girlfriend, he wrote that her grandmother urged her "to someday rebuild the family's crushed homeland". She definitely NEVER said "crushed". So why would he add it? When Zabel was growing up, Armenia was a Soviet Republic and was strong, so why would Hugh put those words in her mouth? Then he goes on to quote one of the most negative things she said the entire evening in which she was mostly talking about the positive here... and to top it all off, he seems to imply that her "falling in love" (which was never said at all) accounted for her staying here, when in fact she had decided to stay here before there was anything at all between us. Just another example of how you should not believe everything you read.

    RAFFI K. HOVANNISIAN TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    July 9, 2001



    Dear Editor,

    Hugh Pope's feature story (WSJ, July 6) on Armenia and the problem

    of emigration underlines an alarming phenomenon of strategic

    proportions for the Armenian republic, its people and

    policymakers. Evidently poignant, the piece does not, however,

    display the journalistic comprehensiveness that one has come to

    expect from the writer.



    The Armenian nation, having suffered conquest, genocide, and

    partition over the years, has recently been given a special second

    chance to forge a strong, democratic, sovereign state out of the

    legacy of a painful past.  Amid a variety of positive development

    indicators, external realities such as military conflict,

    blockades, and closed borders have combined with serious

    shortcomings in leadership to create a crisis of public trust and

    confidence. The political, socioeconomic, and psychological

    subconditions prompting the exodus have resulted in a mixed record

    of independent Armenia' s first decade.



    The Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire were responsible for

    the great Armenian dispossession of 1915, which included all the

    components of the crime of genocide the destruction of the historic

    Armenian homelands, and the murderous finality for millions of

    human lives. Modern-day Azerbaijan was responsible for unleashing,

    and later losing, a war of aggression against the Armenian land of

    Mountainous Karabagh. The perpetrators unfortunately evade

    acceptance of responsibility yet eventually might mature toward

    facing their history and themselves. But there still remains the

    question: Who is to answer for the departure over the last ten

    years of more than one million Armenian citizens from their very

    own Republic of Armenia?  Their interests in the matter aside,

    certainly not Turkey or Azerbaijan, neither Russia nor the United    States.

    This issue and its resolution lie within. Yes, we are to blame. And

    contrary to the prevalent tenor of Mr. Pope's article, Armenia and

    her people can and will put their house in order, establish the

    rule of law, empower the body politic, and demand accountable

    government. They will find the courage and fortitude to call a

    spade by its name, and they will turn the tide on emigration. For

    this, the Armenians and their country must be able at once to

    defend their rights in respect of ill-willing neighbors and their

    transgressions and to exercise critical introspection in order to

    face and then meet their many contemporary challenges, both foreign

    and domestic.



    These are but a few of the thoughts I expressed during a

    comprehensive interview with the noted author, from which he

    selected and put to print a couple of facially correct, but

    textually misplaced and essentially incomplete soundbites that

    apparently fit into the predetermined scheme of his story.



    Raffi K. Hovannisian

    Founding Director, Armenian Center for National and International Studies

    Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Armenia