PARLIAMENT HILL CROWD MARKS PAINFUL ANNIVERSARY
Edmonton Journal
April 25, 2012 Wednesday
GRAPHIC: Julie Oliver, Postmedia News; Archbishop Khajag Hagopian of
the Armenian Prelacy of Canada sits among the hundreds who turned out
on Parliament Hill Tuesday for an event marking the 97th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide. Speakers included federal Immigration Minister
Jason Kenney.;
THOUSANDS OF ARMENIANS MARK GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY
Agence France Presse
April 24, 2012 Tuesday 9:41 AM GMT
Thousands of Armenians staged a procession to a hilltop memorial above
the capital on Tuesday to mark the 97th anniversary of the genocide
of their kin by Ottoman Turks during World War I.
>From early morning, crowds of people joined the annual procession,
carrying candles and flowers to lay at the eternal flame at the centre
of the monument commemorating the mass killings.
“Today we, just as many, many others all over the world, bow to the
memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian genocide,” President
Serzh Sarkisian, who led top officials laying wreaths at the monument,
said in a statement.
“This day is one of those moments when the entire nation rallies
around the unification of our homeland,” he said.
Among the mourners was 75-year-old Tsovinar Tumasian, who said that
her father had fought to save women and children from Turkish attacks.
She urged other countries to pressure Turkey to accept that the
killings were genocide.
“If they are not forced to do so, they will not recognise the genocide
as fact. They think that with time, everyone will forget about it,”
Tumasian told AFP as her relatives helped her make her way up the
hill towards the monument.
The procession was broadcast throughout the day on all Armenia’s
national television channels, accompanied by sombre music, documentary
footage about the massacres and eyewitness accounts from survivors.
The night before the commemoration, more than 8,000 people led by the
youth wing of the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party held a torch-lit
march through central Yerevan, where a group of activists staged
their now-traditional burning of a Turkish flag.
“Our action is a protest, a cry of indignation,” one of the marchers,
student Hamayak Serobian, told AFP, demanding that Turks accept
“the brutality of their ancestors”.
Turkey strongly denies the genocide allegations and the annual
commemoration comes after the dispute between the neighbours was
reignited by an attempt by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to bring
in a law criminalising denial of the mass killings as genocide.
After a diplomatic row with Turkey erupted, France’s top court struck
down the law in February on the grounds that it infringed freedom
of expression.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during World War I
as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, a claim supported by several
other countries.
Turkey argues 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks
died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman
rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
POLITICS – ARAM I: I CALL UPON OUR PEOPLE TO DEMAND THEIR STOLEN RIGHTS FROM TURKEY
National News Agency Lebanon (NNA)
April 24, 2012 Tuesday
NNA – 24/4/2012 – Following is the summary of the message of
His Holiness Aram I delivered on April 24th, 2012 in Antelias to
thousands of Armenian people who were gathered to commemorate the
Armenian Genocide.
“We are gathered today in front of the Martyrs Chapel, where the
remains of some of the victims of the Armenian Genocide were buried
in 1935 when the Catholicosate of Cilicia finally settled in Antelias.
We are here to recommit ourselves to the legacy we inherited from our
martyrs, irrespective of the changing political conditions around us.
Our martyrs also want us to make our voice heard by the leadership
in the Arab world and Europe.
Turkey is seeking to expand its political and economic influence
in the Arab World, Europe and Africa. Claiming to be a defender of
minorities and a champion of democratic principles and human rights,
Turkey is presenting itself as a peace-builder in the Arab World.
Can a nation that fills its prisons with human rights advocates and
journalists lecture others on the imperative to champion democratic
principles and human rights? Can a nation that systematically killed a
million and a half members of one of its minority peoples and today
denies that act demand that others defend their minorities? The
Prime Minister of Turkey has cynically stated that if there really
was a genocide we should be able to show them where the graves of the
victims are. We can tell them that the graves are in places that the
Turks have renamed in order to attempt to erase historical memories:
the Turkish towns and villages in Western Armenia, Cilicia and in
Der Zor, the Syrian Desert.
In a cynical attempt to appear reasonable, Turkish authorities suggest
that historians should sit down together and attempt to determine what
really happened in Turkey in 1915. Neutral historians have long ago
determined what happened by having read the internationally accepted
and verified Western Diplomatic, Armenian and Turkish sources that
document the horrors that the Turkish government foisted upon the
Armenians in 1915.
We hold the present Republic of Turkey, in its capacity as the
legitimate successor of the Ottoman Empire, accountable for its
crimes against our people. We demand our rights to compensation for
the confiscated Church, community and individually owned properties
not only since 1936, as the August 2011 decision stipulated, but also
those confiscated from1915 to 1920.
During the international conference that we organized last February,
here in Antelias, we said that recognition and compensation are
inseparable. Therefore, and in consultation with the government of
Armenia, the Catholicosate of Cilicia will work together with the
Armenian Catholic and Evangelical communities to obtain the legal
rights to confiscated properties.
On the eve of our 100th anniversary, I call upon our people in Armenia,
Karabagh and the Diaspora to renew their commitment to the legacy of
the martyrs of the 1915 Genocide.”
SCHEPISI STATEMENT ON COMMEMORATION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Targeted News Service
April 24, 2012 Tuesday 6:05 AM EST
The New Jersey Assembly Republicans issued the following news release:
Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, R-Bergen and Passaic, issued the
following statement today in observance of the Armenian Genocide
which commemorates the beginning of the systemic killing of 1.5
million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 by the Ottoman Empire:
“The planned extermination of Armenians was a crime against humanity
and was one of the most infamous tragedies of the 20th century. The
Armenian Genocide is undeniable and must never be forgotten.
Throughout history there are many cases of one culture that seeks
to destroy another because of hate, jealousy or ignorance. The
offenses committed against the Armenians between 1915 and 1923 are a
sobering reminder of the atrocities which man is capable of. Today,
we remember those innocent lives that were lost, those who survived
and the devastating impact it had on so many families.”
According to the Armenian National Institute, on the night of April
24, 1915, the Ottoman Empire placed over 200 Armenian community
leaders under arrest in modern day Istanbul (formerly known as
Constantinople). All were sent to prison where most were executed.
Contact: Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, 201/666-0881
L.A. MARCH MARKS ARMENIAN DEATHS
OCRegister (Orange County)
April 26 2012
CA
LOS ANGELES – Several thousand members of Southern California’s
Armenian community marched through Los Angeles on Tuesday to remember
the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire.
The annual march at midday was to be followed by an afternoon protest
in front of the Turkish Consulate.
Armenians and most historians say the killings that began in 1915
were a genocide, but Turkey rejects that term. Turkish leaders say
that the figures are inflated and that there were deaths on both
sides as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Lest We Remember
By ANDREW FINKEL
New York Times
April 26 2012
ISTANBUL – The other day Taraf, a Turkish language newspaper for
which I write, ran a quarter-page ad depicting a pomegranate with a
deep slash and the legend: “Some wounds do not heal with time.” The
pomegranate is a symbol of the Armenian people, and in fine print you
could make out the endorsement of many prominent Turkish Armenians
for a gathering in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The ad didn’t bother
to explain the purpose of the assembly, leaving the date and time –
April 24, 19:15 – to speak for itself.
On Tuesday at the anointed hour, about 3,000 Armenian Turks and others
sympathetic to their pain met to commemorate events from 97 years ago.
Back then, another group of eminent Armenians was also rounded up
in Istanbul, and that incident is remembered around the world as the
start of a plan to eradicate the Armenian presence in Anatolia.
Unlike their diaspora cousins, most Armenians in Turkey do not demand
that the killings of 1915 be officially recognized as a genocide.
Wisely, they only ask that the Turkish government begin to undo
a poisonous legacy of denial, which remains a barrier to Turkey’s
democratic progress.
On Wednesday, another large gathering was held to commemorate blood
that was also spilled in 1915. This one occurred at dawn on the
Gallipoli Peninsula, in western Turkey, where during a nine-month
campaign troops from France, Britain and their colonies tried and
failed to knock the Ottoman Empire out of World War I. Over 130,000
soldiers were killed.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia addressed the crowd of
foreign visitors and Turkish dignitaries who had come on this annual
pilgrimage. She had only deep praise for her Turkish hosts. The
defeated soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac)
“did not begrudge the victory of their enemy, which was hard fought
for and deserved,” she said. “The Turkish honored our fallen and
embraced them as their own sons.”
The ceremony occurred among the gravestones and memorials of the
Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries and in the shadow of
Turkey’s own war memorial: four massive columns topped by a concrete
slab visible to the ships passing through the Dardanelle Straits. If
the Commonwealth graves honor individual sacrifice, the Turkish
monument looks as though its architects took literally an instruction
to design a cornerstone of the Turkish state.
The defense of Gallipoli and the part played in it by Turkey’s founding
father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – he famously ordering the men under his
command “not to fight but to die” – is celebrated here as the birth of
proto-nationalism in Turkey. In Australia and New Zealand, the Anzac
graves also symbolize the birth of a nation but a birth marked by the
loss of both life and innocence; World War I was those two countries’
first foray into great-power politics. Still, there and in Turkey
today the encounter at Gallipoli is seen as something of a fair fight.
This leaves some Turkish officials to wonder out loud why the Armenians
can’t be more like the Antipodeans. The answer, of course, is that
in 1915 the Armenians were not an invading army but subjects of the
Ottoman Empire. They were butchered or deported in the hundreds of
thousands with the connivance of their own government.
The Armenians still have no public memorial in this country. In eastern
Turkey, facing the future has meant overlooking the past, developing
amnesia over trauma and shame. A huge statue of two figures poised to
shake hands was supposed to be erected outside the city of Kars, on
the Turkish-Armenian border. Intended as a gesture of reconciliation,
the Monument to Humanity was dismantled on aesthetic grounds last
year by order of the Turkish prime minister.
“Lest we forget” is the refrain in the “Ode of Remembrance” that the
Commonwealth recites in memory of its dead on April 25. For Turkey,
the mantra seems to be “Lest we remember,” as though oblivion, even
about one’s own suffering, were the safer course.
Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over
20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. He
is the author of the book “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know.”
YEREVAN STUDENTS CONTINUE PROTESTS
Elen Chilingaryan
26.04.2012
Armenia – Students of Yerevan State Linguistic University demonstrate
outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Yerevan, 26 Apr 2012.
About a hundred students of a state-run university in Yerevan boycotted
classes on Thursday in continuing protests against the controversial
dismissal of their rector Suren Zolian.
The protesting students rallied outside Yerevan State Linguistic
University and then marched to the main government building. They
said they boycott will continue until Zolian is reinstated.
Zolian, who has run the university since 1997, was sacked last week
in a bitter dispute with Education Minister Armen Ashotian. He is
refusing to comply with Ashotian’s decision and planning to challenge
it in court.
The decision sparked last week angry protests by hundreds of students.
Some of them opted for the boycott after one of Ashotian’s deputies
introduced a new acting rector to the university staff on Wednesday.
“We decided yesterday to stage a boycott because our rights were
violated,” one female student told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am).
Some university professors urged the protesters to end the defiant
action. “Go to classes and then do what you want,” one of them said.
Zolian, who continues to occupy his office and consider himself rector,
emerged from the university building to make a similar appeal to the
protesting students. But they ignored the call.
“That’s his obligation as rector,” one of the boycott organizers said.
“We respect the request but we have a job to do among students.”
Gayane Gasparian, the acting rector appointed by Ashotian, downplayed
the extraordinary action, saying that only a small minority of the
students are involved in it. “I don’t consider that a boycott,” she
told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “Classes are going on
as usual.”
Hasmik Apian, chairwoman of the university’s student council, also
disapproved of the boycott. “The student council did not take part in
the protest because rallies and demonstrations don’t solve issues,”
she said. “There are more civilized options.”
THE ATMOSPHERE OF FEAR IS APPARENT ESPECIALLY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
17:37 . 26/04
The Democratic Party of Armenia has entered into the election fight
realizing that the state must be responsible before every citizen.
The party considers creating state enterprises and solving the social
issues a priority. MP candidates nominated by the party’s voting list
Anahit Grigoryan and Irina Gasparyan positively assess the campaign.
They are also satisfied with the coverage in the media. Their only
concern is the pressures exerted by the ruling parties. According
to them, the atmosphere of fear is especially apparent in the rural
communities. Assyrian MP candidate Irina Gasparyan witnessed it in
Verin Dvin, where the Assyrian community is large.
“For example, the director of Dvin’s school yesterday spoke to the
teachers and said if they don’t cast a vote for the Republican Party
they will lose their jobs. But they are Assyrians and very much want
to support us, as I am included in the list,” Irina Gasparyan said.
ARMENIAN MAY BE ADDED TO OFFICIAL TRANSLATION LIST FOR L.A. ELECTION BALLOTS
armradio.am
26.04.2012 17:48
The Los Angeles city council may soon consider including the Armenian
language in election ballots in order to service the nearly 30,000
registered voters of Armenian descent in L.A, Southern California
Public Radio reports.
Paul Krekorian, the first Armenian-American on the L.A. City Council,
submitted the motion along with Council President Herb Wesson. The
move was made now to coincide with this week’s anniversary of the
Armenian genocide.
They’re asking for the city’s election materials and ballots to be
translated into Armenian in time for the 2013 elections.
The city of Glendale, which has a proportionately larger Armenian
population, already does this.
In accordance with the Voting Rights Act, ballots are already being
translated into six languages – Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean,
Chinese and Japanese. Based on Census numbers revealed last year,
Hindi and Thai will soon be added to that list.
ARMENIAN CURRENCY MORE INCLINED TO STRENGTHEN
news.am
April 26, 2012 | 16:45
YEREVAN. – Considerable exchange rate fluctuations are not recorded so
far this week at NASDAQ OMX Armenia stock exchange, and the Armenian
dram (AMD) is more inclined to gain value.
The US dollar’s average exchange rate against the dram comprised AMD
392.50/$1 at the stock exchange on Thursday; this is a 0.03-percent-or
a 0.11-point-drop from the previous trading session on Wednesday.
The total sales were $2.45 million.
At Armenia’s cash foreign currency market, the dollar’s exchange rate
stabilized at the AMD 391-393/$1 range.
A transaction of shares was likewise conducted at the stock exchange
on Thursday.