Armenian Prime Minister Margarian Buried In Yerevan

ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER MARGARIAN BURIED IN YEREVAN

The Associated Press
Published: March 28, 2007

YEREVAN, Armenia: Tens of thousands of Armenians on Wednesday paid
their respects to Prime Minister Andranik Margarian, who died Sunday
of a heart attack aged 55.

Margarian’s coffin was pulled on an artillery caisson to the Spendiarov
Opera Theater, where it lay in state and crowds filed in to view it
for three hours. The body then was taken for interment at the Komitas
Parthenon, where many prominent Armenian artistic and public figures
are buried.

Parliament Speaker Tigran Torosian, in his elegy, said that Margarian
often joked "that the people would remember him for what he left
undone, but in reality he will remain in the people’s memory because
of his achievements."

Under the Armenian political system, the prime minister has mostly
executive powers and is a much less powerful figure than the president.

Margarian, educated as a computer specialist, became active in
opposition to the Soviet Union in the 1970s and was imprisoned for two
years in that decade for espousing Armenian independence, according
to his official biography.

Margarian is survived by a wife, two daughters and a son.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS