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ARMENIA EMBRACES SYRIANS, WARILY
Wall Street Journal
Dec 4 2012
NY
YEREVAN, Armenia-Syria's war, which has already sparked refugee crises
just across its border in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, is also bringing
strains to Armenia, a Christian country hundreds of miles away.
Ethnic Armenians fleeing primarily from Aleppo, Syria's commercial
hub and a major battleground in its civil war, have found an unlikely
meeting point in Armenia's capital, on a dusty side street bracketed
by Soviet-era apartment blocks. Buzzing with machinery, and heavy
with the smell of motor oil, Glinkai Street houses more than a dozen
metal and auto workshops where groups of Syrian-Armenian men gather
to seek jobs, drink tea and trade the latest grim news from home.
"I'm lucky, since there's not much work here," said a 27-year-old
who gave his name as Tigran. He said he arrived from Aleppo with his
mother in September and now makes $200 a month replacing pistons in
car engines. "People who can't work have no way to block out what
they've left behind."
So far in Syria's 20-month uprising, about 6,000 members of Syria's
Armenian community have fled to the country-a journey that in many
cases marks a new displacement for families who fled killings a
century earlier in the Ottoman Empire. Many have arrived in just the
past few months, Armenia's Diaspora Ministry says, raising fears that
the country may be bracing for a much larger wave.
Roughly 100,000 Armenians call Syria home, part of a larger population
of Christians there who fear reprisals from opposition sympathizers
because many of their communities have backed President Bashar
al-Assad's regime. Many Armenians fear a repeat of the past decade
in Iraq, where sectarian violence after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam
Hussein forced half of the Christian population to flee.
"The government has looked overwhelmed," said Richard Giragosian,
director of the independent Regional Studies Center in Yerevan. "No
one [in the government] is talking about it, but everyone is thinking
about the prospect of a surge in refugee numbers if Christians get
persecuted as they did in Iraq."
The refugee influx, though minor relative to the 400,000-plus
people that the United Nations says have taken refuge in countries
bordering Syria, poses an outsize problem for this small, landlocked
and impoverished former Soviet republic of three million people. The
government is already battling unemployment of over 20%, according
to the International Monetary Fund, and a decline in remittances from
diaspora communities ahead of national elections due in February.
"We have said all Armenians are welcome, but our country is not in
the best economic situation," said Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobyan.
"These people need jobs and they need income."
Armenia has offered returning Armenians visas upon arrival,
recognized Syrian driver's licenses and expedited applications for
Armenian passports as part of a dual-citizenship law. Two state
elementary schools in the capital, Yerevan, are offering classes
where Syrian-Armenian children follow the Syrian curriculum. Many
new arrivals are staying with relatives in Yerevan. Others have
sought shelter in state accommodation. The congregation of Yerevan's
17th-century St. Sarkis Church has swollen with refugees.
The influx began in earnest in late summer, when Aleppo-home to
more than 80% of Syria's Armenian community, the Diaspora Ministry
estimates-became the focus of an offensive by rebels opposing
President Assad. Since then, Syria's largest city has been engulfed
in street-by-street fighting between government forces and opposition
militias, including some that residents and rebel fighters have said
are al Qaeda-allied extremist bands.
Some Armenians fled quickly with few belongings, catching a direct
flight from Aleppo on former state airliner Armavia. Others, laden
with bags packed for a longer stay, boarded buses set for a dangerous
two-day journey through rebel-held territory before heading north
through Turkey and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
Predominantly middle-class merchants, members of the community paint a
picture of Syria's descent into violence that is at odds with the one
presented by opposition activists. The opposition narrative describes
one-sided aggression by Syria's regime, an account bolstered by an
October estimate by the United Nations that more than 20,000 civilians
have been killed by government forces since the uprising began in
February 2011.
But many displaced Armenians here echo Mr. Assad's portrayal of
rebel fighters, almost exclusively Sunnis from Syria's countryside,
as terrorists. They voice support for Damascus's efforts to crush
the uprising.
One 22-year-old former shop manager in Aleppo's Armenian-dominated
Midan district, who gave his name as Hakob Jackian, said he fled
in September with his mother and 20-year-old brother. A series of
rebel-instigated gun battles and car bombs made it impossible to
remain in the city, he said.
"You wouldn't know when it would start. It would be quiet then
terrorists with machine guns would come and explosions would send
shrapnel flying toward us," he said, as he played YouTube clips of
violent clashes in his neighborhood in which Sunni militias paraded
in pickups and appeared to be looting residents' houses. "I still
love my president. Even now 80% of people are still happy with him."
Syria's Assad regime, dominated by the Shiite-linked Alawite sect,
actively courted the country's 2.5 million Christians as a bulwark
against the country's majority population of some 17 million Sunni
Muslims. The patronage translated into relative prosperity, meaning
many refugees here have left behind properties, gold holdings and bank
savings. International sanctions and a government cap on withdrawals
have made it difficult to transfer money out of the country.
"We all smuggled the family gold, including in my son's Pampers,"
said Hovig Asmaryan, a 34-year-old trader, who fled Aleppo in late
September with family and friends in a nine-car convoy and said he
plans to stay. "The violence isn't going to stop anytime soon and
our president won't be able to hold power," he said.
Mr. Asmaryan was one of the few refugees who agreed to be identified
by his full name. Syrian intelligence services are still active in
Armenia, according to refugees and Armenia's government, and refugees
say they fear that revealing their identity could hurt their chances
of returning home or leave family members in Syria vulnerable to
retribution.
For some here, the shock of being uprooted from their homes is
magnified by the ghosts of previous sectarian slaughter. The majority
of Syrian Armenians are descended from communities who fled what
Armenians say was the mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by
Turks during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Turkey rejects
the accusation, saying there were heavy losses of life on both sides.
"My grandfather lost all three brothers when the family fled from
Turkey," said Samvel, a 62-year-old houseware manufacturer who said
he expected to return to Aleppo, and his family's gold, after a month.
Now he doesn't know if he'll be able to return. "We are again
refugees."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324595904578123003728255308.html
Wall Street Journal
Dec 4 2012
NY
YEREVAN, Armenia-Syria's war, which has already sparked refugee crises
just across its border in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, is also bringing
strains to Armenia, a Christian country hundreds of miles away.
Ethnic Armenians fleeing primarily from Aleppo, Syria's commercial
hub and a major battleground in its civil war, have found an unlikely
meeting point in Armenia's capital, on a dusty side street bracketed
by Soviet-era apartment blocks. Buzzing with machinery, and heavy
with the smell of motor oil, Glinkai Street houses more than a dozen
metal and auto workshops where groups of Syrian-Armenian men gather
to seek jobs, drink tea and trade the latest grim news from home.
"I'm lucky, since there's not much work here," said a 27-year-old
who gave his name as Tigran. He said he arrived from Aleppo with his
mother in September and now makes $200 a month replacing pistons in
car engines. "People who can't work have no way to block out what
they've left behind."
So far in Syria's 20-month uprising, about 6,000 members of Syria's
Armenian community have fled to the country-a journey that in many
cases marks a new displacement for families who fled killings a
century earlier in the Ottoman Empire. Many have arrived in just the
past few months, Armenia's Diaspora Ministry says, raising fears that
the country may be bracing for a much larger wave.
Roughly 100,000 Armenians call Syria home, part of a larger population
of Christians there who fear reprisals from opposition sympathizers
because many of their communities have backed President Bashar
al-Assad's regime. Many Armenians fear a repeat of the past decade
in Iraq, where sectarian violence after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam
Hussein forced half of the Christian population to flee.
"The government has looked overwhelmed," said Richard Giragosian,
director of the independent Regional Studies Center in Yerevan. "No
one [in the government] is talking about it, but everyone is thinking
about the prospect of a surge in refugee numbers if Christians get
persecuted as they did in Iraq."
The refugee influx, though minor relative to the 400,000-plus
people that the United Nations says have taken refuge in countries
bordering Syria, poses an outsize problem for this small, landlocked
and impoverished former Soviet republic of three million people. The
government is already battling unemployment of over 20%, according
to the International Monetary Fund, and a decline in remittances from
diaspora communities ahead of national elections due in February.
"We have said all Armenians are welcome, but our country is not in
the best economic situation," said Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobyan.
"These people need jobs and they need income."
Armenia has offered returning Armenians visas upon arrival,
recognized Syrian driver's licenses and expedited applications for
Armenian passports as part of a dual-citizenship law. Two state
elementary schools in the capital, Yerevan, are offering classes
where Syrian-Armenian children follow the Syrian curriculum. Many
new arrivals are staying with relatives in Yerevan. Others have
sought shelter in state accommodation. The congregation of Yerevan's
17th-century St. Sarkis Church has swollen with refugees.
The influx began in earnest in late summer, when Aleppo-home to
more than 80% of Syria's Armenian community, the Diaspora Ministry
estimates-became the focus of an offensive by rebels opposing
President Assad. Since then, Syria's largest city has been engulfed
in street-by-street fighting between government forces and opposition
militias, including some that residents and rebel fighters have said
are al Qaeda-allied extremist bands.
Some Armenians fled quickly with few belongings, catching a direct
flight from Aleppo on former state airliner Armavia. Others, laden
with bags packed for a longer stay, boarded buses set for a dangerous
two-day journey through rebel-held territory before heading north
through Turkey and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
Predominantly middle-class merchants, members of the community paint a
picture of Syria's descent into violence that is at odds with the one
presented by opposition activists. The opposition narrative describes
one-sided aggression by Syria's regime, an account bolstered by an
October estimate by the United Nations that more than 20,000 civilians
have been killed by government forces since the uprising began in
February 2011.
But many displaced Armenians here echo Mr. Assad's portrayal of
rebel fighters, almost exclusively Sunnis from Syria's countryside,
as terrorists. They voice support for Damascus's efforts to crush
the uprising.
One 22-year-old former shop manager in Aleppo's Armenian-dominated
Midan district, who gave his name as Hakob Jackian, said he fled
in September with his mother and 20-year-old brother. A series of
rebel-instigated gun battles and car bombs made it impossible to
remain in the city, he said.
"You wouldn't know when it would start. It would be quiet then
terrorists with machine guns would come and explosions would send
shrapnel flying toward us," he said, as he played YouTube clips of
violent clashes in his neighborhood in which Sunni militias paraded
in pickups and appeared to be looting residents' houses. "I still
love my president. Even now 80% of people are still happy with him."
Syria's Assad regime, dominated by the Shiite-linked Alawite sect,
actively courted the country's 2.5 million Christians as a bulwark
against the country's majority population of some 17 million Sunni
Muslims. The patronage translated into relative prosperity, meaning
many refugees here have left behind properties, gold holdings and bank
savings. International sanctions and a government cap on withdrawals
have made it difficult to transfer money out of the country.
"We all smuggled the family gold, including in my son's Pampers,"
said Hovig Asmaryan, a 34-year-old trader, who fled Aleppo in late
September with family and friends in a nine-car convoy and said he
plans to stay. "The violence isn't going to stop anytime soon and
our president won't be able to hold power," he said.
Mr. Asmaryan was one of the few refugees who agreed to be identified
by his full name. Syrian intelligence services are still active in
Armenia, according to refugees and Armenia's government, and refugees
say they fear that revealing their identity could hurt their chances
of returning home or leave family members in Syria vulnerable to
retribution.
For some here, the shock of being uprooted from their homes is
magnified by the ghosts of previous sectarian slaughter. The majority
of Syrian Armenians are descended from communities who fled what
Armenians say was the mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by
Turks during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Turkey rejects
the accusation, saying there were heavy losses of life on both sides.
"My grandfather lost all three brothers when the family fled from
Turkey," said Samvel, a 62-year-old houseware manufacturer who said
he expected to return to Aleppo, and his family's gold, after a month.
Now he doesn't know if he'll be able to return. "We are again
refugees."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324595904578123003728255308.html