Turks
and Armenians ‘agree to disagree’
Gerry Wachovsky/ On-line Forty-Niner
2003-04
CSULB A.S. Senate
By
Gerry Wachovsky
On-line Forty-Niner
The
Turkish and Armenian Student Associations
have finally put their differences aside
and “agreed to disagree,” a
conclusion that took more than five months
to arrive upon.
The
A.S. Senate voted today on a resolution
opposing crimes against humanity, ethnic
atrocities and human rights violations,
an issue that has been the epitome of discussion
in the Senate since last semester. Last
October, Armenian Student Association President
Shant Baboujian appealed to the Senate urging
them to pass a resolution denouncing the
Armenian genocide that he said took place
between 1915 and 1923 at the hands of the
Young Turk government.
The
original resolution, which passed with no
opposition, was revisited this semester
when Isil Rahmanian, president of the Turkish
Student Association, urged the Senate to
rescind this original ruling. Since then,
the two groups have come together to form
a new resolution, a resolution that passed
Wednesday in the Senate chambers.
Sen.
Morgan Wheeler, when discussing the final
draft of the new resolution, said that a
small number of statements were removed
from the first draft that seemed to be “pointing
the finger.” Wheeler assured that
the content of the document remained unchanged
and thanked the Senate, as well as Vice
President Guido Piotti, for working together
in the hopes of settling this age-old dispute.
“I’m
really happy that we came together, put
this to rest, and eased [the Turkish Student
Association’s] minds,” Wheeler
said.
In
other news, Richard Haller, executive director
of Associated Students Inc., presented the
Senate with its 2004-05 A.S.I. operating
budget, with a special focus on the stipends
that senators have received in previous
years. This year the senators will not receive
the stipend of $250 due to a legal discrepancy
that was discovered.
A
referendum was included on this year’s
student government elections that would
allow senators to receive the stipend again,
this time with the full blessing of the
voting students. The referendum passed,
but it is still unclear if senators would
receive any stipends for this year. Wheeler
noted that the Senate stipend of $250 is
one of the smallest rewarded. “If
you took the number of hours a senator works
as three hours a week, multiply that by
the number of weeks we are here, and pay
the senators 6.75-per-hour, minimum wage,
you come to $325, more than the stipend
itself,” Wheeler said.
When
it came to voting on the budget, however,
Haller made it clear that senators who would
be serving next year could not vote on the
issue, since it would constitute a conflict
of interest. Several ideas were discussed,
including issuing a retroactive stipend
payment for this year, but the issue remained
unresolved.
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