Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

COLLEGE OF ST. ELIZABETH IS HOSTING SERIES ON HOLOCAUST AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

16:35, 20 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

In a continuing series, the College of St. Elizabeth’s Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Education will sponsor several events in April
and May that are free and open to the public, all on the campus of
the college at 2 Convent Station Road, off Madison Avenue in the
Convent Station section of Morris Township. Some of the events will
provide professional development hours for teachers, the New Jersey
Hills reports.

* A day-long symposium, “Rescuers during the Holocaust: Acts of Courage
in Challenging Times,” will be held Tuesday, April 21, for teachers,
students and the general public in the Dolan Performance Hall. The
event will begin at 8 a.m. with registration and breakfast and end at 3
p.m. The event is co-sponsored with the N.J. Commission on Holocaust
Education and the American Society for Yad Vashem and is free to
all. Advance registration is required at

The keynote speaker will be Suzanne Vromen, professor emeritus of
sociology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and author
of 2010’s “Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and their
Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis.”

The symposium’s workshops will address Jewish and non-Jewish
rescuers, the New Jersey state mandate about Holocaust education,
global perspectives on Holocaust education, and how to use archival
documents in Holocaust education.

The 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide will be marked with
a program beginning at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 30, in the Dolan
Performance Hall. An introduction will be provided by Garabed “Chuck”
Haytaian, who was the Speaker of the state Assembly 1n 1991 when New
Jersey passed its law to mandate Holocaust and genocide education in
the schools. The event’s co-sponsors are St. Mary’s Armenian Church
in Livingston and the N.J. Commission on Holocaust Education.

Following remarks by College of St. Elizabeth President Helen J.

Streubert, the film “Aghet” will be shown, surveying the history of
Armenia with a focus on the Armenian genocide in 1915. Poetry and
music of Armenia and a selection of traditional Armenian foods will
be offered.

At 7:30 p.m. the college will premiere the film “Testimonies of
Armenian Genocide Survivors,” introduced by Roy Stepanian, and followed
by a question-and-answer session with children and grandchildren of
survivors. The keynote speaker will be Herand M.

Markarian, whose topic will be “The Impact of the Armenian Genocide:
100 Years Later.”

The event is free and open to the public. Teachers who attend
will receive curriculum materials for teaching about the Armenian
genocide as well as certificates for professional development
hours. For teachers, advance registration is required at

>From 4 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7, a free teacher-training event,
“Echoes and Reflections,” will be held in the college’s Annunciation
Center. The session will prepare educators to teach students the
complex history of the Holocaust in ways that stimulate engagement,
critical thinking and personal understanding.

Participants will receive a teachers’ resource guide, supplementary
multimedia assets and other supportive tools for educators. The
session will engage teachers with the multimedia curriculum “Echoes
and Reflections,” developed jointly by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official
Holocaust memorial, museum and education center; the University of
Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation, and the Anti-Defamation
League.

The topics for discussion will include: Studying the Holocaust,
anti-Semitism, Nazi Germany, the Jewish Ghetto, the “Final Solution,”
Jewish resistance, rescuers and non-Jewish resistance, survivors
and liberators, perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders; and the
children of the Holocaust.

From: Baghdasarian

8 FONTAINES SERONT INSTALLEES AU MEMORIAL DU GENOCIDE A EREVAN POUR LE 24 AVRIL

GENOCIDE DES ARMENIENS-100 ANS

8 fontaines seront installees sur l’esplanade du memorial du genocide
des Armenien de Dzidzenagapert (Erevan). Ces fontaines a eau seront
offertes par la societe > (eaux d’Erevan) selon son
responsable de la communication Mourad Sarkissian. Les travaux ont
debute et seront prets pour le 24 avril, jour de la commemoration du
100ème anniversaire du genocide des Armeniens. Elles permettront aux
enfants et adultes qui se recueilleront sur le site du memorial, de se
desalterer. Jadis le site de Dzidzenagapert disposait de 2 fontaines.

Mais par manque de pression d’eau suffisante sur cette colline
qui domine Erevan, ces fontaines ne fonctionnaient plus depuis de
nombreuses annees. > dit M. Sarkissian. Rappelons que
> qui est le fournisseur exclusif de la capitale
armenienne (de 2006 a 2015) est une filiale de la societe francaise
Veolia Generale des Eaux.

Krikor Amirzayan

vendredi 20 mars 2015, Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

NAGORNO-KARABAKH ACCUSES AZERBAIJAN OF KILLING THREE SOLDIERS

Big News Network, Australia
March 19 2015

RFE Thursday 19th March, 2015

Officials in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh accuse
Azerbaijan of attacks that have left three ethnic Armenian soldiers
dead.

The Nagorno-Karabakh de-facto Defense Ministry said Azerbaijani
commandos attacked its soldiers’ position on March 19, killing three
soldiers and wounding four.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry accused separatists of
triggering the confrontation and said 20 Armenian soldiers had been
killed or wounded.

Armenia warned Azerbaijan it would not stand by if Nagorno-Karabakh
was attacked.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for nearly 25 years.

Armenia-backed separatists seized the mainly ethnic Armenian-populated
region during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people.

International diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict have brought
little progress.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIA: WITH FRIENDS LIKE RUSSIA, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES…

EurasiaNet.org
March 19 2015

March 19, 2015 – 1:36pm, by Giorgi Lomsadze

Armenia considers Russia to be its strategic ally. But it appears
that such feelings of loyalty are not mutual: officials in Yerevan
are far from thrilled to find out that Russia is by far the largest
arms supplier to Azerbaijan, Armenia’s neighbor and sworn enemy.

Russia’s double-dealing prompted Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to
grouse at a March 18 media forum in Yerevan. “Armenian soldiers at the
front know that they [Azerbaijani troops] are trying to kill them using
Russian weapons,” Sargsyan said, referring to the ongoing struggle
between the two countries over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Although
a ceasefire has been in effect for more than two decades, skirmishes
between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are almost a daily occurrence.

Flush with cash from energy exports, and eager to reverse territorial
loses at the hands of Armenian forces during the 1988-1994 hot phase of
the Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan has been on an arms procurement binge
in recent years. Russia seems only too happy to serve as Azerbaijan’s
chief purveyor of the machinery of death. Azerbaijan obtains 85
percent of its weaponry from Russia, according to a recent report.

Russian arms sales to Baku have long been a source of concern for
Yerevan, which, lacking the same kind of lucrative revenue streams
that its foes possess, has trouble keeping pace in the arms race
with Azerbaijan. At the same time, Armenia’s Russia-reliant economy
means that President Sargsyan must choose his words carefully when
he chides the Kremlin.

Before delivering his March 18 criticism of Russian arms sales,
Sargsyan emphasized that no other country has been given “even 1
percent of the support” that Armenia has received from Russia since
the Soviet collapse in 1991.

Russia maintains a military base in Armenia, a geopolitical fact that
limits the chances that Baku would use all its Russian-bought military
hardware to renew the Karabakh war and try to forcibly reclaim its
lost territory.

It is believed that Russia used its considerable economic and political
influence in 2014 to pressure Armenia into joining the Kremlin-led
Eurasian Economic Union, while rejecting an association agreement
with the European Union.

Armenian officials now seem wary of the pitfalls of near-total reliance
on Moscow. Thus, they are probing possibilities for establishing some
sort of political and economic relationship with the EU. Brussels
seems keen to lend Armenia a helping hand and dispatched Expansion
Commissioner Johannes to Hahn to Yerevan for talks. The visiting
commissioner said that Brussels looks forward to formulating a
new agenda with Yerevan that is compatible with “Armenia’s other
obligations.”

From: Baghdasarian

SYRIAN MOTHERS ON THEIR OWN: “WE ARE ALL THE SAME, CONFRONTING DEATH AND OUR DESTINY”

The Women’s International Perspective
March 19 2015

by Riham Alkousaa
-Germany-

Fadia Al-Khatib, a mother of five, came to Germany by herself. The
44-year-old Syrian woman and her husband decided that she would seek
asylum first and then apply to bring her family over. Hundreds of
Syrian women are making similar decisions, risking their lives for a
chance at a new life. According to an Amnesty International report
issued in December 2014, Germany and Sweden together have received
96,500 new Syrian asylum applications in the last three years,
representing 64 percent of all such applications in the EU.

Fadia Al-Khatib, mother of five, travelled to Germany by herself.

Photograph courtesy of German photographer Corinna Mehl.

“A quarter of the newcomers from Syria and Iraq are women who came
on their own,” estimates Hacub Sahinian, a Syrian Armenian priest who
spends hours each day helping Syrian families at the refugee transit
camp in Friedland, Germany. “Men have to stay with the kids because
they can protect them more.”

“Syrian women, especially Muslim women,” Hacub Sahinian notes,
“do not travel alone.” But circumstances are changing traditions
and Hacub has met women who have left their children with friends or
relatives and travelled to Germany alone after their husbands were
killed or arrested.

“I was the one who had to leave,” Fadia explains. “We lost our house
in Harasta, outside of Damascus. I lost my job as a teacher and if
my husband left we would have had no means of supporting our family.”

Fadia’s husband works as an electrician for the equivalent of $150
USD a month, which, Fadia adds, “is hardly enough to support six
family members in Damascus.”

When I hear Syrian women’s stories, I realize how lucky I am. For
me the trip was easy. I had a regular visa to join a journalistic
fellowship with the Goethe-Institut, a German cultural institute that
encourages inter cultural exchange. But, it is not that easy for most
Syrian women.

The Syrian refugees who make it to Germany and Sweden are the
minority. In total, more than 10 million Syrians, or 45 percent of
the country’s population, are estimated to have been forced from
their homes due to the conflict. Of those, 6.5 million are displaced
within Syria and approximately 4 million people have sought refuge in
other countries. According to a November 2014 report released by the
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(UNOCHA), 3.8 million Syrians – or 95 percent – are now in just five
host countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

Fadia arrived in Germany in August 2014 after her visa for Spain
expired. She had gone to Spain to join her brother, a Spanish citizen,
but could not find work because she could not speak Spanish. Since
refugees in Spain are not offered the same support starting out as
in Germany and Sweden, she applied for humanitarian asylum status at
the Friedland camp.

“It’s been seven months since I saw my kids. I know that this will
come to a good end, but I miss them so much.” Fadia’s eyes fill with
tears as she talks about her family. She spends more than three hours
a day on the Internet with them and is learning German and taking
the required steps to bring her family over to Germany.

It generally takes six months to bring ones family over to Germany
after receiving formal refugee status. The procedure includes two
interviews with the Auslanderbehorde, the Foreigners’ Registration
Office.

During the three months May AboAnaaj, 34, waited at Bramche camp in
lower Saxony for her first Auslanderbehorde interview she could hardly
walk. Carrying her groceries was a daily struggle. May’s back problems
stem from her kidnapping in 2012 while taking a taxi from the market to
her home in Damascus. Her kidnappers beat her and demanded her husband
pay 1 million Syrian pounds, the equivalent of $9,000 USD, for her
release. May was unable to identify her kidnappers or to which party
they were affiliated. She cannot speak openly about what happened. Her
husband borrowed money from family and friends to get her out.

After May’s husband paid the kidnappers, she fled with him and
their two children to Jordan. But May, a Palestinian Syrian, was
not permitted to enter Jordan with her family. According to Human
Rights Watch, Jordanian authorities began denying entry to Palestinian
Syrians in April 2012, and officially declared a non-admittance policy
in January of 2013. In declaring the policy, Jordanian Prime Minister
Abdullah Ensour argued that Palestinians from Syria should be allowed
to return to their places of origin in Israel and Palestine and that
“Jordan is not a place to solve Israel’s problems.”

Instead May went to Egypt by herself. She tells me, “After two years
of loneliness in Cairo, I decided to make the risky trip from the
Egyptian coast to Italy. I went on a boat from Alexandria to Milano
and we were lucky enough to reach land after eight days at sea.” When
her husband sends photos or voice clips of Marwan, now five, May
collapses. Her baby girl, now three, only knows her mother as green
name on Whatsapp, a free, mobile messaging tool.

Travelling alone was a challenge for May’s flat mate, a mother of three
who asks to remain anonymous. The 40-year-old Kurdish woman from Afrin,
near Aleppo, walked from Turkey through Bulgaria, Serbia, and Austria
to reach Munich where she applied for asylum. The trip took 15 days
and she was the only women in her group travelling by foot.

“I saw men crying of cold and thirst and I stood still. We have kept
in contact with each other, and they always tell me that I inspired
them to continue on the path.” Walking so long and in such conditions
led to her losing her toenails, which took three months to grow back.

She explains that she chose this route to immigrate because of its
cost, only EURO 500 for this trek (equivalent to about $565 USD). This
is very cheap compared to how much other Syrians are paying to be
smuggled into Europe.

Depending on the way one makes the journey, it costs between $4,000
USD for passage on a boat crossing the Mediterranean to $12,000 USD
for a forged visa and a plane ride to a European airport, 24-year-old
Nour Bouhasan tells me. Prices are not negotiable with the smugglers
since demand so far exceeds supply. Nour travelled from Greece to
Hamburg via plane.

Nearly 3000 people were shipwrecked in the Mediterranean in 2014,
according to an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report.

In May’s words, “At sea it doesn’t matter if a refugee is a woman or
a man. We are all the same, confronting death and our destiny.”

For these women on their own in a totally different country, society,
and culture, these experiences are much more than a trip to Europe. “I
don’t feel that I need to tell my husband every detail about my life
as I used to do,” Fadia says. “I am more independent now.” Fadia
is not just learning German but also trying to extend her network
with the German society, attending social events and lectures to
integrate the refugees in to German life. For May, the long distance
relationship between her and her husband makes them “like new lovers
talking to each other all day. When you lose someone you start to
feel his importance and this is happening with us.”

Over the past three months getting to know these women, I have heard
many more stories than I can write about. Each woman has a different
story and a different way of arriving here. But they all share the hope
of building a better life in Germany, building a future that will not
be demolished easily by war. All of the women have learned what it
means to be an independent woman in a Western country. Some women’s
stories come to a close with three years of residency. Other women
are waiting. I too am waiting. Will I be able to bring my family here?

About the Author: Riham Alkousaa is 24-year-old Palestinian Syrian
Journalist based in Berlin, Germany. She holds a BA in Faculty of Media
from Damascus University. She was previously employed at Sham FM Radio
in Damascus, Syria; Syria Today Magazine, and by the online magazine
Aliqtisadi. Riham has been published on the website Huna Sotak and
the print publication Assafire. Her current focus is cultural events
and issues in higher education in the Middle East.

Visit Riham’s blog rihamkousa.wordpress.com where she writes about
herself, her dreams, and her daily life. Riham tells The WIP, “I have
two homes that I lost; my Palestine in 1948 and my Yarmouk Camp (south
of Damascus) in 2012. I dream of a better Syria, a new Syria where
everyone can have his/her own fair share. I dream of going back home.”

From: Baghdasarian

LA TURQUIE COMMEMORE LA BATAILLE DES DARDANELLES DE 1915

TURQUIE

Canakkale (Turquie) – La Turquie a commemore mercredi la bataille des
Dardanelles (Canakkale, nord-ouest), il y a cent ans, et la victoire
des forces ottomanes sur les allies, l’une des plus sanglantes
campagnes de la Première guerre mondiale (1914-1918).

Après neuf mois d’une campagne sterile entre le 18 mars 1915 et
janvier 1916, les allies – britanniques, australiens, neo-zelandais
et francais – font demi-tour.

Leur objectif lors d’une bataille navale puis terrestre etait
de s’emparer du detroit des Dardanelles pour acceder a la mer de
Marmara et faire tomber Istanbul, alors Constantinople, la capitale
de l’empire ottoman entre en guerre aux côtes de l’Allemagne et de
l’Autriche-Hongrie, afin d’ouvrir un accès pour soutenir les Russes
a l’est.

Cette campagne est l’une des plus celèbres victoires de l’armee
turque de la Grande guerre et revet une importance particulière dans
la construction nationale de la Turquie.

Lors d’un discours aux accents nationalistes prononce a Canakkale,
le Premier ministre turc, Ahmet Davutoglu, a declare que lheritage
des soldats ottomans qui se sont sacrifies serait a jamais porte par
la Turquie toute entière.

Il a aussi indique que cette bataille avait faconne l’avenir des
nations qui y ont pris part.

Plus de quarante delegations nationales ont ete invitees pour honorer
la memoire de leurs combattants tombes sur la peninsule de Gallipoli
et dans les eaux avoisinantes.

Cette campagne a consacre aussi le rôle militaire du jeune
lieutenant-colonel Mustafa Kemal qui a repousse avec genie, un des
assauts terrestre des allies et qui sera plus tard le heros de la
guerre d’independance et le père fondateur de la Turquie moderne,
en 1923.

Cependant les Allemands et les Ottomans n’ont pas pour autant gagne
la guerre et n’ont pas reussi après la fin des hostilites, en 1918,
a prevenir une occupation de Constantinople par les forces alliees.

Cette bataille lointaine est devenue une date primordiale de l’histoire
de l’Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zelande. Ces deux pays ont fait du
25 avril, date du desastreux debarquement du Corps arme australien et
neo-zelandais (Anzac) sur Gallipoli une journee nationale et viennent
se recueillir sur place chaque annee.

Aujourd’hui, 120.000 morts des deux camps sont enterres dans les
cimetières et fosses communes dispersees sur toute l’etendue de
la peninsule.

Cette annee, dans le but d’attenuer les reactions et les passions
autour du genocide armenien de 1915-1917 qui en est egalement a
son centenaire, le regime d’Ankara organise le 24 avril, date très
symbolique des premières deportations d’Armeniens sous l’empire
ottoman, de grandes commemorations internationales pour la bataille
des Dardanelles.

Le president armenien Serge Sarkissian, invite, a refuse de participer.

L’Armenie et la Turquie voisines restent crispes sur la lecture des
evenements de 1915. Deportation par mesure de securite pour les Turcs,
genocide et 1,5 millions de morts pour les Armeniens.

((c)AFP / 18 mars 2015 14h32)

jeudi 19 mars 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

BBC RADIO 4 TO MARK THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

16:19, 19 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

A special edition of BBC RADIO 4 will be marking the 100th anniversary
of the Armenian genocide on Easter Sunday, April 5.

Presenter, Caroline Wyatt, will explore the story of how, in 1915,
hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced to leave their homes
in the Ottoman Empire. Many were killed or died from starvation or
disease during the deportation.

The Armenian Apostolic Church plans to mark the centenary by canonizing
one and a half million victims of the genocide.

On Easter Day in 1870 the Holy Trinity Armenian Church of Manchester
opened its doors for the first time. The authors of the program visit
this community to reflect on the anniversary and its legacy.

From: Baghdasarian

100 YEARS OF DENIAL – HUFFINGTON POST

11:00 * 19.03.15

By Stephan Pechdimaldji

Grandson to survivors of the Armenian Genocide and first generation
Armenian-American

Just one week before he prepared to attack Poland in the summer of
1939 and embark on his quixotic campaign to take over the world, Adolf
Hitler addressed his military commanders in Obersalzberg and referred
to the Armenian Genocide by concluding his speech by saying, “Who,
after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler saw
what happened nearly twenty-five years earlier and thought he could
emulate what the Ottoman Turks did to ethnic Armenians living in
Asia Minor and use it as a blueprint for his own sadistic ambitions
without anyone noticing. Today we remember this dark period with
somber and reverence, and honor those who suffered during the Nazi’s
reign of terror. Since then the world has tried to bleach out this
stain in history by learning from the past and vowing that this type
of crime must never happen again. The healing process began with
Germany taking responsibility for the actions of their predecessors
and trying to make amends with the victims of the Holocaust and their
families. Laws have even been codified that make it illegal to deny
that the Holocaust ever happened. Watchdog organizations like the
Anti-Defamation League were created to monitor anti-Semitism. But what
if none of this happened? Imagine a world where governments didn’t
recognize the Holocaust and called for an historical commission to
study the facts surrounding the event to determine whether or not
a crime had been committed? This type of world does in fact exist
today for Armenian-Americans who continue to grapple with the United
State’s refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide and side with
Turkey’s ongoing contention that genocide never took place.

The Armenian Genocide is an historical fact. To say otherwise is a
lie. As the first genocide of the 20th century, more than 1.5 million
Armenians were systematically killed through wholesale massacres and
deportations carried out by the Turks during World War I and the last
days of the Ottoman Empire. Eye-witness accounts including dispatches
from Henry Morgenthau, American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire,
photographs taken from German military media Armin T. Wegner and
articles from the New York Times all chronicle the mass slaughter
of Armenians during this period. Eerily similar to the Holocaust,
Armenians were uprooted from their homes as part of a “relocation”
effort to control the minority population. Instead, thousands were
sent to their deaths by mass burnings, death marches in the Syrian
Desert and primitive gas chambers where victims were forced into
caves and asphyxiated in one fell swoop by the toxic airs lit from
fires in front of the passage ways. Years later, Raphael Lemkin,
a law professor responsible for coining the word genocide in 1943
did so with the fate of the Armenians in mind. Given this body of
historical evidence, Turkey continues to deny any responsibility
in orchestrating genocide. Turkey claims that the killings were
not calculated and were an unfortunate result of war and that the
deportations were justified because Armenians posed a threat due to
their sympathetic feelings towards the Russians.

This issue is further complicated by Turkey’s ongoing campaign to
pressure and influence U.S. foreign policy. Sensitive to not offend
Turkey for geopolitical purposes, the U.S. has yet to hold Turkey
responsible for these atrocities. For years, the U.S. claimed that
it was not in our foreign interests to do so because Turkey was a
NATO ally and strategically valuable due to its close proximity to
the Soviet Union. When the Cold War ended, the argument turned to
Turkey’s importance as a free and democratic society in a sea of
Islamic fundamentalists. Countries like Yemen, Iraq and Iran could
learn from Turkey’s example, the line of reasoning would go. This flies
in the face of our core values. How can the leader of the free world,
a champion of equality and universal civil liberties be complicit in
such an egregious violation of basic human rights?

Sadly, this issue has become a political football in our country where
politicians like President George W. Bush and Barack Obama looking for
votes and money promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide and then bow
to pressure once in office. Political expediency should play no role
in this debate when the facts overwhelmingly support what many scholars
and students of history recognize as the 20th century’s first genocide.

I grew up hearing stories of how my grandparents survived the Armenian
Genocide. Of how my grandfather hid in a haystack for more than forty
days while his father and brother were taken away, never to be seen
or heard from again. Of his harrowing escape from the tiny village of
Yozgat to Aleppo, Syria, where many survivors gathered and of how he
worked as a welder to make enough money to eventually settle in Egypt.

These stories had a profound impact on me and I could never fully
comprehend what it must have been like to go through such a tumultuous
ordeal. And as a child I remember going to Times Square every April
24th — the official day of remembrance — to commemorate the Armenian
Genocide and listen to civic leaders and politicians excoriate Turkey
and pledge recognition.

Since then, I’ve written countless letters to news publications on
this topic and have urged friends, colleagues and even strangers
to take up this cause. Some say why does this matter? How is the
relevant to their daily lives or something that the government should
get involved with? This is significant because denial is often the
last phase of genocide. What’s more, the U.S. can send a message
to despotic states like The Sudan that genocide on any grounds is
unacceptable and any attempt to obfuscate responsibility will be met
with staunch opposition. Much like the Holocaust, we owe recognition
of the Armenian Genocide to the victims and their families as well
as to the intrepid guardians of human rights both here and abroad.

While Turkey continues to uphold this policy of denial, there have
been folks likeOrhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist and Nobel-prize
winning author, who made statements regarding the Armenian Genocide
who subsequently was charged with violating Article 301 of the Turkish
penal code that prohibits and bans insulting Turkey. And then there’s
Hrant Dink, an editor of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper whose life
was cut short by an assassin’s bullet for his views on Turkey’s
denial of the Armenian Genocide. These actions do not reflect a
government that supports free speech and divergent points of view —
all vital components of a democratic society. Distorting historical
facts surrounding the Armenian Genocide is just another example of
Turkish subterfuge in trying to burnish its image with the West.

Admitting past mistakes is not uncommon for the United States. In
fact it’s in our blood. Apologizing for the mistreatment of African
Americans for slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans into
camps during World War II are just some examples. President Clinton
even went so far to make amends for not doing enough to stop genocide
in Rwanda in the mid 1990s. And time and again we see the U.S. condemn
countries like Iran for denying the Holocaust, yet continue to turn
a blind eye to the Armenian Genocide. Why are Armenians any different?

Is an Armenian life no more valuable than a Jewish or Rwandan or
Cambodian? As we approach the 100th anniversary this April, the United
States still has time to set the record straight. Time will tell if
they decide to be on the right or wrong side of history.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIAN PROTESTERS TRAP TURKISH AMBASSADOR IN BEIRUT THEATER

10:57, 19 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Turkey’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Suleiman Inan Oz Yildiz, was
temporarily trapped inside a Beirut movie theater, as Armenian
demonstrators held a protest outside, reported the Lebanese Daily
Star newspaper.

Approximately 60 members of the Armenian Youth Federation of Lebanon
and the Zavarian Student Association held a demonstration at the
entrance of ABC Grand Cinema in Ashrafieh, where Yildiz was attending
a screening of “Son Mektup.”

The film, a Turkish love story, is set during the Battle of Gallipoli,
and tells the story of the Ottoman Empire’s first pilot, Salih Ekrem.

According to the report, protestors yelled out slogans such as
“Genocide,” “Truth will triumph” and “We remember,” and held banners
reading “Recognize the crime of the century.” Security forces were
brought in to block the entrance of the theater to prevent patrons
from clashing with protesters.

The protest was organized as a result of Turkey’s efforts to sway
public attention away from the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
by focusing on the Battle of Gallipoli.

“Here we are in Beirut today witnessing a new Turkish opportunist
bid through the showing of a propaganda film in Lebanese movie
theaters,” the Armenian Youth Federation said in a statement,
according toNaharnet.

The film “narrates a bloody and oppressive phase of the Ottoman
history,” the statement said.

It also slammed the employees of the “ominous Turkish embassy and
those who work in its ‘black rooms’.”

“The step might seem innocent on the surface but its core and
objectives are full of inherent Turkish malevolence.”

From: Baghdasarian

OUVERTURE DE CARREFOUR EN ARMENIE

REVUE DE PRESSE

Le premier magasin Carrefour a ouvrir en Armenie a ete inaugure
officiellement mercredi 11 mars a Erevan, dans le centre commercial
Yerevan Mall, en presence du President de la Republique d’Armenie,
Serge Sarkissian, du Maire d’Erevan, Taron Margarian, du Vice-Ministre
de l’Economie Gareguin Melkonian, de representants de l’Ambassade
de France, et sous la conduite du directeur de Carrefour Armenie,
Christian De Nale.

L’Ambassade de France en Armenie souhaite plein succès au developpement
de Carrefour en Armenie, au benefice du consommateur armenien.

Le service de presse de l’ambassade de France en Armenie

jeudi 19 mars 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian