BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
Armenians woke up on April 30 to the breaking news: “Ruslan Tsarni Apologizes to Armenian Community,” as reported by Alin Grigorian, editor of the Armenian Mirror-Spectator of Watertown, Mass.
Prior to this apology, Tsarni had been telling the international media that “an Armenian convert to Islam had brainwashed” his nephews — Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — the Boston bombers. By linking an Armenian to such a heinous crime, Uncle Tsarni had infuriated Armenians who suspected dubious motives behind his outlandish claim.
Armenians were naturally relieved upon learning that Tsarni had told the Mirror-Spectator: “Armenia has a very strong culture, therefore, I want to stress that his [Misha’s] ethnicity has nothing to do with it. I wish I had never said it. I felt for you [Armenians] and wish I had never done it.” He went on to apologize for linking the Armenian community “to this evil event.”
While this apology was a good start, it was inadequate compared to the magnitude of the damage Tsarni had caused to the good name of Armenians worldwide. Merely apologizing to an Armenian newspaper could not undo that harm, unless he repeated it on CNN or other TV networks.
I contacted Tsarni asking him if he would issue a similar apology on national television. He responded affirmatively since he regretted dragging the Armenian name into “this sad episode.” Tsarni stressed that he did not “speak about all Armenians, just one man of Armenian descent. I never had the intention of harming Armenians or anyone else. I feel sorry that the name of the Armenian people was used. I feel somehow guilty. I would like to apologize. No one likes to be brushed with an act like this.” Tsarni asked me to report that he felt terrible about mentioning Armenians in his TV interviews.
Given his willingness to make a new public statement, I offered to assist him in drafting the text of an apology for a possible future network appearance. He first welcomed the idea, but later informed me that he would neither accept my suggestion nor issue his own statement, claiming that his earlier remarks were accurate, since Misha was of Armenian descent, overlooking the fact that Misha Allakhverdov, born in Azerbaijan, was of mixed Armenian and Ukrainian parentage. Tsarni further advised that he never meant to refer to “the entire [Armenian] ethnicity. It was a simple technical characteristic of the person whose name I did not know at the time. Had I known his name was Misha, he would be Misha, not an Armenian or anyone else.” He justified the use of the phrase ‘a new convert to Islam of Armenian descent,’ by claiming that his intent was “to help the media, reporters, and law enforcement agencies to locate that person.” He, therefore, decided not to issue an apology on television, as he had promised.
Furthermore, he disputed Mirror-Spectator’s report of his apology, by claiming that he was “misquoted.” He asserted: “I never said, ‘I wish I never said it.’ I said that I had no intention to have the name of Armenians used in association with the bombing. I spoke about the certain individual who I was told about and that information was confirmed as true information.” Despite Tsarny’s belated denial, the Mirror-Spectator stands by its story and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of its report!
I reminded Tsarni of his unfulfilled commitment to appear on national TV and set the record straight on his allegation about ‘the Armenian’ Misha. He has yet to respond, as he has been busy making funeral arrangements for his nephew, Tamerlan.
There are many unanswered questions about Tsarni. Although the internet is replete with all sorts of allegations about his background, we prefer to concentrate on questions of more immediate interest to the Armenian community:
— Why did Tsarni apologize to the Armenian Mirror-Spectator and then turn around and claim that he was misquoted? Could it be that he had felt sorry for his earlier statements to the media, and then backtracked after being advised by ‘unknown interests’ that he should not apologize to the Armenians?
— Why did he make a personal commitment to me to appear on major TV networks to apologize for maligning Armenians, and then refuse to do so?
With these unanswered questions, one can only wonder about Uncle Tsarni’s mysterious motives and enigmatic connections.
Because the SOB was probably involved in things that he was not suppose too. I say send him back to hell hole he came from.
Uncle Tsarni, is well known to CIA and FBI for his anti-Armenian activities in Muslim Turkey and Turkic tribes around Caucasus!! I won’t be surprised after few months he will be called to Baku and Ankara, for a nice hero welcome. After all he will make money out of those “losers” who bombed Boston Marathon!!
The turks ex father-in-law graham fuller,was a cia man in jerky turkey…You think he was blinking,when that turkish garbage,and nephews, sneaked in this country.He also works for haliburton,who stole millions from the U.S.A. Nice line-up.He knew about his nephew…You know,the turks are the biggest LIARS.
Given the kind of money the corrupt to the core Azeris and Turks splash around for any bit of propaganda Tsarni’s motives might be less mysterious than you think. On the other hand given that the entire Boston bombing wreaks of a false flag operation this might be telegraphing one new planned angel they’ll want to play out…Christian converts to Islam…or “right wingers” cooperating with Muslims…lol….It’s all getting quite laughable. After all there has to always be some new fake enemy population to be exploited and victimized, and to be used to justify shredding the constitution, so that those whose bread and butter is “defending” and “protecting” us from enemies mostly invented can continue to pull people, blond blue eyed Americans out of their homes at gun point without warrants while, because they could be terrorists. And of course all of this can’t be done without the propaganda mouth pieces at CNN planting in the minds of the dumbed down masses all of the new angels that they’ll later want to potentially play out . For example, right after the bombing the “right winger” angel also got thrown out by several of the talking heads without a single shred of evidence.
That “uncle” seemed very dubious right from the start. I couldn’t touch him with a barge pole!
We are making more out of this than it is worth. “Misha” has already been cleared by the FBI. No one is talking about him any longer. We do not need to beat the drum until others start noticing. The case is over and mute. No intelligent person, whether private or in government, will take the account of one Armenian person and use it to target the entire race.
I refuse to believe that all we have achieved and cultivated in the past 50 years can be erased by this one isolated case. It is very naive (and scare) if one believes that we will be thrown under the bus at a moments notice by our supports and friends. If that is the case, we have bigger problems than this uncle’s mere mention of the word Armenian.
As I had suspected, the uncle most likely described “Misha” as being Armenian to help the authorities locate him. Remember, initially no one knew who “Misha’ was, not even the local mosque. Aside from having a bold head and a long reddish beard, being a Muslim Armenian was his other most outstanding characteristic. In any case, at this point no one is talking about him except us.
Now that the purpose behind the mention of ‘Armenian’ has been established, we are still trying to look for other conspiracy theories. We now want to know why he refuses to apologize and who is directing him?….Give me a break….for once let’s can the conspiracy theories. We’re giving this character to much credit. It is silly to beat this drum any longer. We will lose more credibility if we continue with this nonsense than the damage we think the uncle caused.
Hratch, I humbly disagree. As Mr. Sassounian has previously described your likes, you are fulfilling a genocide victims role. Why always be the one who retreats when dealing with savage beasts from the Caucasus? What did that get us in 1915? These guys use all tactics–violence, politics, lies, subserviency, bribes, slander, fake apologies, massacres, and others–to weaken and belittle us. We shouldn’t let the issue go just because it didn’t work. If someone kidnapped a loved one to rape them but failed to have an erection and the victim got away, would u not press charges?
In that part of the world, you have to battle any offense to prevent another offense.
I think what Mr. Sassounian is doing by playing this thing out as long as he has is called victimization and complex of inferiority. Instead of creating positive waives, we’re swimming in a lake of endless suspicion and conspiracy theories. This will get us no where, we will look weak for trying to capitalize on something so irrelevant in the scheme of things.
A scumbag to boot. A wastrel to be thrown into a garbage heap. He should be cornered and quartered by legal officials. Let him spend a good portion if his time in court.