The following text was circulated to members of the Cyprus House of Education Committee during it's meeting today.

Deputies present, once again called on the government to step in while the co-Chairman of the Committee suggested that during the next session, date to be announced, the Minister of Education should appear before the committee to state what the government is doing regarding this issue.

Some 15 months have passed from the day this Committee first heard about the problems arising from the unilateral decision of the New York based AGBU Corporation to close the historic Melkonian school in Nicosia.

You were told at the time that “alternative” plans were drawn up, ranging from transforming the Melkonian to a day school, to establishing a College. You told the AGBU representative to show you the alleged plans and also to enter into a dialogue with the Armenian community as well as the Melkonian graduates and parents.

And in order to safeguard your determination to help save the 80 year old center of education and culture, the last bastion of secondary education for Armenians in the new enlarged European Union of 25 and a pillar of pride for Cyprus’s own history, you also issued a resolution unanimously approved by the House plenary session on March 26, 2004, calling any such decision to close the school as a “hostile act.”

Unfortunately you have been lied to, the same way that parents and the worldwide community of graduates have been lied to. There were no plans other than to close the school from the beginning, to sell the assets and flee the country with the tens of millions earned from such a commercial deal.

These people have humiliated this parliament by ignoring any decision or resolution or even any simple request put forward by the members of this Committee.

They have lied to parents and cheated students, primarily from Cyprus and Greece and other neighbouring countries, of any hope of secondary education. They have struck up secret deals with other schools in Cyprus to accommodate a select number of students, but offer no Armenian schooling of language and history. The few children who have survived these dirty tricks and continued to study at the school under extreme conditions, have endured the psychological warfare of these people who have resorted to tactics of the last century to fake trouble and introduce an army of patrol guards, as if these children live in a concentration camp, where even rations have been cut down.

Our Heritage is not for sale. The haven built for 500 orphans who survived the genocide 90 years ago is not for sale. Our Armenian national identity and unique language, which has been recognized by the European Union as a non-territorial minority language, thanks primarily to Greek Cypriot MPs, is not for sale.

The Ministry of Education has pledged to help the school AFTER it has been saved, as it seems unable to intervene in this matter.

The Ministry of Interior has declared 60% of the land, including the twin historical buildings and the beautiful forest, as a National Heritage site. Ridiculous as it may sound, this decision is being challenged by the same people who want to cut down the trees and bulldoze the buildings in order to raise a concrete jungle and make millions on the back of the innocent Armenian school children.

The struggle to prevent the closure of yet another school, by the same organisation that is copying this plan in Greece, France, Lebanon and elsewhere, has found a single ally. Despite all the obvious political or other difficulties that may surround him, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, as the only true inheritor of the Melkonian Trust, has filed a court action in Nicosia District Court, challenging the ownership of the Melkonian Estate and subsequently challenging the AGBU’s self-appointed right to dispose of this property, which was never theirs to sell in the first place.

We appeal to you, in this final hour, to exert pressure on the Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus to take action and join the legal battle to defend the survival of the school. We ask you to exert pressure on the Ministry of Education to intervene directly and to undertake the temporary custody of the school in order to continue to provide decent education to Armenians in Cyprus, Greece, the European Union and the neighbouring countries, just as we outlined in our rescue plan sent to each one of you in February of this year. We urge you to pressure the Ministry of Interior to fend off any attempts to challenge the National Heritage declaration. And finally, we urge you to pressure the Government of this democratic and peace loving Republic to intervene directly and prevent the realization of this criminal and hostile act that could wipe out the education, culture and subsequently the national identity of the future Armenian generations.

Our children’s survival is in your hands.

Shavasb Bohdjalian, Chairman
Masis der Parthogh, Vice Chairman