Students lead condemnation of Melkonian closure plan

Cyprus Weekly - Friday, March 19, 2004

A HURRIEDLY-written placard read: “WHAT TURKEY FAILED TO DO IS BEING DONE NOW” as shocked students, many of them openly weeping, refused to go back to their classrooms at the Melkonian Educational Institute in Nicosia on Tuesday.

Instead, they poured out into the schoolyard and surrounded the marble monument over the twin graves of the Melkonian Brothers, shouting “unfair” and “cruel” whilst another placard came into view which simply said: 1915-2004.

The spontaneous protest, extensively covered by local and worldwide TV channels, came minutes after teachers and students were called into the school auditorium to be told by the Headmistress, Ani Lachinian, that the AGBU Central Board had decided to close down the school in June next year. The shock news came almost 80 years from the day when the first group of orphans of the Armenian Genocide, graduated from what was to become the most important centre of “Hayabahbanoum” in Europe and the Middle East.

The students drew themselves together to sing the Cyprus and Armenian national anthems and the Melkonian school song to the sound of drums which members of the school band had brought out. A third grade child of mixed parents was numbed. She said: “I can’t describe what I feel. I want to throw up”. Soon, other placards in Armenian, English and Greek appeared saying: “Stealing the future of students is a crime”, “Ataturk would laugh at us”, “This is a second genocide”.

Another placard read: “In Gordon We Trusted But Now We Are Busted” (referring to the AGBU envoy Gordon Anderson). TV reporters on the scene said Anderson refused to comment and indicated that a statement would be released by a Cypriot advertising and public relations company. A parents meeting on Wednesday developed into heated discussion as angry reaction messages arrived from neighbouring countries. The meeting was followed by a candlelight vigil by students at the memorial of the founder brothers.

“We wanted to do this outside the main gate but we couldn’t,” said a student from abroad. This was confirmed by Headmistress Lachinian who said: “They were told not to demonstrate outside the school’s boundaries. If they do they automatically become sanctionable. As boarders they can only go outside with permission.” Both the parents’ union and the alumni, however, interpreted this as a threat of expulsion, and warned students accordingly.

Cypriot Armenians said they planned to stage a demonstration on March 24 against the closure of the school, while the Melkonian alumni hope to take legal action both on the island and in the USA.

“It is not just a matter of the sale of the land and the flight of some 80 million dollars to the US in violation of a 1926 will by the founders,” a spokesman of the alumni said. “It’s also abuse of the rights of Armenian children who are being deprived of their human right to a fair education based on their cultural heritage,” adding that the AGBU Central Board had refused to discuss ways to save the school because their main aim was “to take the money and run”.

“The ultimate objective is to lay their hands on the land and take the funds out of Cyprus,” Shavasb Bohdjalian, head of the alumni, told local journalists.

Since the controversy began, the Armenian community has managed to have the Melkonian declared a listed historical building and has persuaded the Forestry Department to file an application to declare the wooded area in the grounds as a protected forest. Legal action is now being considered, Bohdjalian said. If there is a case, it is likely to be fought in the Cyprus and American courts, he said.

In a paid advertisement that appeared in local papers 10 days ago, Gordon Anderson, the American representative of the AGBU, said that “several options are being considered” to accommodate the 200 or so students at other schools so that they can gain an education “that will have an Armenian component”, though he would not elaborate. In its 15 March announcement the AGBU said that “after extensive deliberations and thorough assessment” the Central Board had resolved “unanimously” to discontinue the school in June 2005.

“The Melkonian Educational Institute, as a significant and historical institution within AGBU, has been a concern of the Central Board over many years. This decision is based largely on the Board’s conclusion that MEI no longer meets the challenge of its mission in the present context of the Armenian world,” the AGBU said. It added that the Central Board fully recognised and honoured the continued legacy of the Melkonian Brothers, and “is determined to perpetuate their memory through new educational programmes to be implemented within and outside Cyprus, in line with the spirit of their donation to AGBU”.

However, the alumni said the AGBU’s talk of co-operating with other institutions, research centres, and even universities was a public relations gimmick.

The move by the AGBU, which said only three months ago that the 78 year old school was not for sale, has incensed the 3,000 strong Armenian community on the island as well as Armenians in Lebanon, Syria, Greece, Bulgaria and other countries who send their children to the school.

Masis der Parthogh, vice-chairman of the alumni, pointed out that the Melkonian had been a haven for decades for Armenian children in times of war and upheaval throughout the Middle East.

“We and the parents’ association were plannning to help bring children from war-torn Iraq. This plan obviously has been killed.”

In an extensive report to the Armenian Mirror-Spectator, one-time Vice President of the AGBU Haygachen Ouzounian said, inter alia: “It will be the most tragic move made by the AGBU, and will cause the most harm to our nation. Those determining the current policy of the Central Board will be subject to severe indictment by our people in the court of history”, he said.

Ouzounian, one of the early graduates of the Melkonian, blamed the Central Board for the decrease in the number of boarding students. The school, he said, could accommodate up to 350 boarders but this was the thwarted by the Central Board, who hiked the fees to such that Armenians from East Europe, the Middle East and Armenia could not afford.

Last month, Armenian Representative Bedros Kalaydjian headed a three-member delegation to New York in an effort to persuade the Central Board to stay the execution of any plans to either close down or sell the Melkonian.

“The Central Board came up with a number of arguments but failed short of any commitments. In fact we felt that we are being clearly ignored”, he said. He added the Cyprus governmen