Author: Kajoyan Gevork

UNE VEILLEE DES JEUNES REUSSIE AVANT LE GRAND RASSEMBLEMENT D’AUJOURD’HUI

Paris

“Ca y est, 23 avril 2015, nous y sommes” : Eve-Anne prend la parole sur
une estrade dressee sur la place de la Republique. Derrière elle, les
lettres “justice et reparation” ont ete tagguees a la peinture rouge en
bas de la statue de la Republique, devenue symbole de memoire. Avec un
badge “Je me bats pour la justice / 100 ans” epingle sur son tailleur,
elle prend la parole au nom de toute la jeunesse armenienne venue,
comme chaque annee depuis 10 ans, se rassembler a la veille de la
grande manifestation devant la statue du Père Komitas.

Dix associations ont fusionne pour organiser l’evenement : AYO,
COPEA, DA-COnnexion, Homenetmen France, la JAF Paris, Naregatsi,
Nazarpek Jeunesse Hentchakian, FRA Nor Seround, UCJA et l’UGAB Jeunes.

Anaïd, benevole pour l’organisation de la veillee de la jeunesse
armenienne.

Un siècle après le debut du genocide des Armeniens, des centaines
de personnes sont venues se souvenir ensemble. Drapeau rouge, bleu
et orange sur le dos, Arthur explique que “pour nous, petit-fils de
genocides, le devoir de memoire est important. Mais il ne faut pas
oublier qu’on est la aussi pour les autres genocides”.

La pianiste Varduhi Yeritsyan, qui a commence le programme musical
avec Komitas.

La programmation musicale le rappelle. Après les emouvantes prestations
de la pianiste Varduhi Yeritsyan – qui a elle-meme contacter les jeunes
pour etre la – et du joueur de doudouk Levon Khozian, ce sont deux
anciens talents de The Voice qui viennent chanter sur scène. Pour le
souriant Alvy Zalme, congolais de la 4e saison du tele-crochet, “c’est
important d’etre ici pour la paix, pour l’humain avant tout. La musique
est federatrice et doit defendre certaine cause juste. Aujourd’hui,
ce sont les Armeniens qui mettent en avant leur histoire longtemps
oubliee, demain ce sera peut-etre mon pays, le Congo”.

Alvy Zalme, avant de monter sur la scène de la place de la Republique.

Le >, composee de panneaux explicatifs sur
l’Armenie et les genocides dans le monde, est regarde par des milliers
de personnes, Armeniens ou simple passant intrigue. Anna, 12 ans,
montre du doigt une carte en demandant des explications a son père.

Une demarche de transmission importante pour David Yegavian, venu
avec sa femme Emilie qui a epouse la cause armenienne en meme temps
que son mari. “Nos enfants apprendront notre histoire : il ne faut
jamais oublier ca, affirme celui qui a accroche un drapeau armenien
sur son haut. C’est pour ca qu’il est important que les Armeniens de
France, mais aussi les Francais de France, se reunissent”.

David, d’origine armenienne, et Emilie, sa femme, qui a appris a
connaître la cause armenienne par son mari.

Entre une conference de Gaïdz Minassian et Tro Momajian sur “la
question armenienne dans les relations internationales”, des prises
de parole et des concerts, cette veillee des jeunes a ete une vraie
reussite. En attendant le grand rendez-vous en presence du Premier
ministre, Manuel Valls, et la maire de Paris, Anne Hidalgo, ce soir
devant la statue Komitas.

Plus de 500 personnes etaient presents.

vendredi 24 avril 2015, Claire (c)armenews.com

________________________________

Claire Barbuti

FRANCE INTER : GEOPOLITIQUE – “LA TURQUIE FACE AU CENTENAIRE DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN”

Publie le : 24-04-2015

Info Collectif VAN – – “La Turquie n’a, bien
sûr, qu’a s’en prendre a elle-meme. Si elle sortait enfin du deni,
si elle avait anticipe ce centenaire du genocide armenien pour
se preparer a reconnaître ce qui fut, elle ne se trouverait pas,
aujourd’hui, dans un embarras de plus. Elle ne l’a pas fait. Elle
denonce au contraire, et sans retenue, tous ceux qui se sont associes,
comme le pape, a la douleur armenienne et la voila partout montree du
doigt ou suscitant, au moins, la gene de ceux, comme les Etats-Unis,
qui ne veulent malgre tout pas se brouiller avec elle.” Le Collectif
VAN vous invite a ecouter l’emission “Geopolitique” du 23 avril 2015
mise en ligne sur le site France Inter.

France Inter

“Geopolitique” par Bernard Guetta

L’emission du jeudi 23 avril 2015

La Turquie face au centenaire du genocide armenien

(Re)Ecouter cette emission

Geopolitique : “Les quatre revers de la Turquie” by franceinter

La Turquie n’a, bien sûr, qu’a s’en prendre a elle-meme. Si elle
sortait enfin du deni, si elle avait anticipe ce centenaire du
genocide armenien pour se preparer a reconnaître ce qui fut, elle ne
se trouverait pas, aujourd’hui, dans un embarras de plus. Elle ne l’a
pas fait. Elle denonce au contraire, et sans retenue, tous ceux qui
se sont associes, comme le pape, a la douleur armenienne et la voila
partout montree du doigt ou suscitant, au moins, la gene de ceux, comme
les Etats-Unis, qui ne veulent malgre tout pas se brouiller avec elle.

La Turquie s’inflige un nouveau revers sur la scène internationale
alors qu’elle ne cesse plus de les accumuler. Elle etait, hier,
devenue un modèle politique car ses islamistes avaient su renier toute
violence et tout fanatisme pour parvenir au pouvoir par les elections
et se faire reelire sans discontinuer depuis 2002 en respectant la
democratie et favorisant un formidable essor economique.

Convertis a

GENOCIDE OBSCENELY SPECULATED FOR POLITICAL INTERESTS – SERBIAN PRESIDENT

14:12 * 24.04.15

The Serbian president condemned the international attempts to speculate
upon the Armenian Genocide issue, considering such policies foul
and unjustified.

Tomislav Nikolic, who is one of the fourt state leaders attending
the centenary commemorations in Yerevan, said in his speech at
the ceremony that his country too, experienced heavy ordeals during
World War I, suffering the greatest number of losses that made up 28%
of its population.

“In this era, when the term ‘genocide’ is being obscenely abused
for political interests, when legal acts are implemented based on
double standards, when all that turns into something absurd, with
the victims of even the pogroms and genocides being characterized
as perpetrators, how can we, the Serbian people who suffered so many
losses, fail to be present here and betray the millions of victims’
memory?” he said, highlighting the importance of being world citizens
and uniting efforts in the fight against genocides.

GENOCIDE EVENT IN TURKEY CANCELED AMID SECURITY CONCERNS

By MassisPost
Updated: April 23, 2015

ANKARA – Due to security concerns, the Armenian Genocide Commemoration
Ceremony organized by the Armenian Council of Europe (ACE) at Beyazit
Square in Istanbul on April 24 at 10 a.m. has been canceled.

The decision was imposed on ACE by Turkish authorities citing that
“there will be no guarantee for security measures for the event.” By
traveling to Turkey, ACE desired to disseminate its message of truth
from the heart of Turkey – Beyazit Square, a symbolic place not
only for the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, but for the Armenian
nation and Diapsora. It is on this site, where gallows were mounted
to decapitate an entire people during the Genocide.

ACE issued the following statement: To avoid any misconduct or any
pretext of misconduct that may negatively disrupt or jeopardize
numerous events organized by other organizations for the Centennial
of the Armenian Genocide, we regretfully announce the cancellation
of the commemoration in Beyazit Square on April 24, 2015 at 10 am.

We urge everyone to join our friends and the Association of Human
Rights – Istanbul at Sultanahmet Square at 11 am and all the other
events scheduled in Istanbul for the commemoration of the Armenian
Genocide.

PACE URGES TURKEY TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

(c) East News/ Yvan TRAVERT
EUROPE
17:47 24.04.2015(updated 17:54 24.04.2015) Get short URL
900
About 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman government
during the World War I, according to Yerevan.

(c) REUTERS/ DAVID MDZINARISHVILI
‘Remember and Demand’: Centenary of 1915 Armenian Genocide MOSCOW
(Sputnik) — Turkey should recognize the Armenian genocide and accept
historical facts, chairman of Parliament Assembly of the Council
of Europe’s (PACE) monitoring committee Stefan Schennach told SNA
Radio Friday.

“Turkish government should accept the fact that the world has accepted
long ago – it was the first genocide of the 20th century,” Schennach
said, adding that the mass killings of Armenians had been proven by
historical facts.

Schennach said that Austria recognized its wartime crimes during
the Third Reich period. The parliamentarian added that Turkey must
acknowledge the Ottoman Empire’s wartime atrocities.

(c) AP PHOTO/ MICHAEL SOHN German President Calls 1915 Atrocities
Against Armenians ‘Genocide’ On Friday, Armenia is hosting events in
commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide
by the Ottoman Empire.

Yerevan says that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the
Ottoman government during the World War I.

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to
recognize the Armenian genocide. Ankara argues that thousands of
Turks also died when Ottoman forces battled the Russian empire over
the Anatolia territories.

The Armenian genocide has been recognized by 24 countries, including
Russia.

Read more:

FRIDAY MARKS CENTENNIAL OF ARMENIAN MASS KILLINGS DURING WORLD WAR I

WFAE 90.7
April 22 2015

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Even as the Obama White House announced its observance of the
centennial, its press release spoke of atrocities and avoided the
use of the word genocide – that, despite President Obama having run
on the issue that what happened to the Armenians should be spoken of
as genocide. Well, the American writer Peter Balakian has studied our
country’s response to those events a hundred years ago. Back in 2003,
he wrote “The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide And America’s
Response.” He joins us from Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y.,
where he’s a professor of English. Welcome to the program.

PETER BALAKIAN: Thank you.

SIEGEL: First, a vocabulary lesson, please. The word genocide was
coined in 1944 to describe the Nazis’ extermination campaign against
the Jews. That’s about 30 years after the slaughter of the Armenians.

Is the case for using it to describe what happened to the Armenians
ironclad?

BALAKIAN: Yes, well, Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish legal scholar
who developed the term genocide and who is the father of the U.N.

Genocide Convention of 1948 – his thinking about genocide begins with
the Armenian massacres of 1915, and he writes about that at length.

It’s Lemkin who first coined the term Armenian genocide around
mid-1940s. And you see him on CBS News in February of 1949 talking very
precisely about the Armenian genocide. So it’s Lemkin’s conceptual
notion, I think, that the Armenian genocide is the cornerstone of
the concept of genocide in the modern era.

SIEGEL: One complication here is there actually were mass murderers –
massacres against Armenians dating back to the 1890s in the Ottoman
Empire, and those are not called the Armenian genocide.

BALAKIAN: Well, you know, I think that one could conceptualize the
history of the mass killing of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as
something that evolves along what the sociologist Ervin Staub calls a
continuum of destruction. The Armenian massacres of the 1890s, which
were putative – they were punishments for Armenian progressive reform
movement. They weren’t designed to exterminate the entire population
or rid the Ottoman Empire of its Armenian population, but they begin
a very important process of devaluing and dehumanizing this ethnic
minority group.

SIEGEL: What’s different by 1950 – and you’ve reported on the documents
that show it – was the planning, the policy, the bureaucracy that
went into the mass murder of Armenians.

BALAKIAN: I think that the Ottoman government’s final solution for
the Armenian people of Turkey represented a shift in organized,
state-planned mass killing. The Ottoman government was able to
expedite its mass killing of a targeted minority population in a
concentrated period of time. So it’s important to realize that the
Ottoman government murdered more than a million Armenians between
1915 and 1916 alone – perhaps 1.2 million is the number you come to
by the end of the summer of 1916.

SIEGEL: You wrote about the American response to what was happening to
the Armenians starting in the 1890s. There’s really a seminal moment
for an American conscience about what’s going on in the world and the
abuses of human rights. You would say this really is the beginning
of our concern about other people in the world.

BALAKIAN: That’s right. I mean, I think what’s interesting here
is that there was a grassroots movement among ordinary Americans
who were giving money for rescue and relief during their church and
synagogue collection plates on Saturdays and Sundays. And there was
also a movement among elites, among intellectuals – and of course this
is an important context for understanding American relief projects
for the Armenians during the genocide period. For the first time,
Americans go overseas to do relief and rescue work. And this happened
under the auspices of Clara Barton, the director of the Red Cross,
who, for the first time, would take her teams 8,000 miles away to
the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire to do rescue and relief
work. And that is really a milestone moment. And I think this is the
beginning of a kind of new internationalism in American culture.

SIEGEL: Professor Balakian, thanks for talking with us today.

BALAKIAN: Thanks for having me.

SIEGEL: Peter Balakian is the author of “The Burning Tigris:
The Armenian Genocide And America’s Response.” The book’s Turkish
translation will be published later this year. Transcript provided
by NPR, Copyright NPR.

100 ANS DEPUIS LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : MANIFESTE POUR LA MEMOIRE ET LA JUSTICE

FIDH

La FIDH (Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme) et
ses organisations membres en Armenie, CSI (Civil Society Institute), et
en Turquie, IHD (Insan Haklari Dernegi), HRFT (Human Rights Foundation
of Turkey), s’inclinent, en ce jour centenaire, qui a marque le debut
du genocide armenien, le premier du 20ème siècle, devant la memoire
des victimes. Dans la continuite de declarations finales adoptees a
l’issue des Congrès de la FIDH a Erevan (2010) et a Istanbul (2013),
et a l’occasion du centenaire de la commemoration du genocide armenien,
nos organisations adoptent le manifeste suivant [1].

Preambule

Rappelant les principes de la Declaration universelle des droits
de l’homme, les dispositions du Pacte international relatif aux
droits civils et politiques et la Convention pour la prevention et
la repression du crime de genocide ;

Considerant que les crimes de genocide atteignent l’humanite dans son
essence meme. Ils defient l’imagination et heurtent profondement la
conscience humaine ;

Affirmant que dans le cas des crimes les plus atroces la conscience
demeure affectee et le traumatisme mieux analyse avec le temps ; que
les crimes de genocide et crimes contre l’humanite sont une menace a
l’ordre public international et touchent l’ensemble de la communaute
internationale ; qu’on ne concoit pas d’application de la loi de qui ont sauve des vies armeniennes
pendant le genocide ;

3. Appellent solennellement la Turquie a reconnaître officiellement sa
responsabilite dans le crime de genocide des populations armeniennes
organise et perpetre par le gouvernement jeune turc de l’Empire
Ottoman ;

4. Appellent la Turquie a cesser sa politique officielle de deni,
et a assumer les reparations dues pour les dommages subis et les
souffrances endurees par les victimes, leurs descendants et la
communaute armenienne dans son ensemble ;

5. Affirment que seule cette reconnaissance, essentielle au travail de
memoire, permettra a l’Armenie et a la Turquie de retablir une relation
de confiance et de s’engager dans un processus de reconciliation entre
les deux Etats ; processus que les societes civiles ont deja engage ;

6. Demandent a la Turquie de travailler a la normalisation de ses
relations avec l’Armenie, sans conditions prealables, en particulier
en ouvrant les frontières communes ;

7. Demandent au gouvernement turc de mettre fin aux discours de haine
et de stigmatisation des Armeniens, que sa politique negationniste
du genocide contribue a alimenter ;

8. Considèrent que la realisation pleine et entière des droits
humains, notamment la protection des droits et libertes politiques,
est essentielle pour briser les tabous et favoriser le dialogue et
l’echange ; et appellent la societe civile en Armenie et Turquie
a s’engager dans une campagne en faveur de la prise en compte des
doleances et de la construction et promotion des relations entre les
deux societes ;

9. Appellent la Turquie et l’Armenie a ratifier le Statut de la Cour
penale internationale, et a incorporer ses dispositions dans leur
droit interne, ce qui serait un signe fort de la volonte de lutter
contre l’impunite des crimes internationaux et de garantir la paix
et la securite regionale et internationale ;

10. Rappellent aux gouvernements du monde entier, aux membres du
Conseil de securite des Nations unies ainsi qu’aux pays-membres
de l’Union Europeenne et du Conseil de l’Europe, que la meilleure
prevention de nouveaux crimes repose dans la lutte contre l’impunite
des crimes passes ; a cette fin, demandent a la communaute
internationale de soutenir ce manifeste et d’intervenir auprès des
gouvernements turc et armenien pour que des mecanismes ad hoc soient
mis en place pour satisfaire au besoin de verite, justice et reparation
du genocide commis contre les Armeniens.

vendredi 24 avril 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

CNN: 8 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE MASS KILLINGS OF ARMENIANS 100 YEARS AGO

20:24, 24 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

As Armenians worldwide mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, the CNN presents eight facts that should be known about
the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

What preceded the mass killings of Armenians that began 100 years ago?

The Ottoman Turks, having recently entered World War I on the side of
Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were worried that Armenians
living in the Ottoman Empire would offer wartime assistance to Russia.

Russia had long coveted control of Constantinople (now Istanbul),
which controlled access to the Black Sea — and therefore access to
Russia’s only year-round seaports.

How many Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire at the start of the
mass killings?

Many historians agree that the number was about 2 million. However,
victims of the mass killings also included some of the 1.8 million
Armenians living in the Caucasus under Russian rule, some of whom
were massacred by Ottoman forces in 1918 as they marched through East
Armenia and Azerbaijan.

How did the mass killings start?

By 1914, Ottoman authorities were already portraying Armenians as a
threat to the empire’s security. Then, on the night of April 23-24,
1915, the authorities in Constantinople, the empire’s capital, rounded
up about 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. Many of
them ended up deported or assassinated.

April 24, known as Red Sunday, is commemorated as Genocide Remembrance
Day by Armenians around the world. Friday is the 100th anniversary
of that day.

How many Armenians were killed?

This is a major point of contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2
million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in
the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates — including one of 800,000
between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves —
fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million.

Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians
living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922.

How did they die?

Almost any way one can imagine.

While the death toll is in dispute, photographs from the era document
some mass killings. Some show Ottoman soldiers posing with severed
heads, others with them standing amid skulls in the dirt.

The victims are reported to have died in mass burnings and by
drowning, torture, gas, poison, disease and starvation. Children were
reported to have been loaded into boats, taken out to sea and thrown
overboard. Rape, too, was frequently reported.

In addition, according to the website armenian-genocide.org, “The great
bulk of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from Armenia and
Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority was sent into the desert
to die of thirst and hunger.”

Was genocide a crime at the time of the killings?

No. Genocide was not even a word at the time, much less a legally
defined crime.

The word “genocide” was invented in 1944 by a Polish lawyer named
Raphael Lemkin to describe the Nazis’ systematic attempt to eradicate
Jews from Europe. He formed the word by combining the Greek word for
race with the Latin word for killing.

Pope Francis recently referred to the killings of Armenians as a
“genocide,” a move that upset Turkey.

Genocide became a crime in 1948, when the United Nations approved the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The definition included acts meant “to destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Who calls the mass killings of Armenians a genocide?

Armenia, the Vatican, the European Parliament, France, Russia and
Canada. Germany is expected to join that group on Friday, the 100th
anniversary of the start of the killings.

Who does not call the mass killings a genocide?

Turkey, the United States, the European Commission, the United Kingdom
and the United Nations.

A U.N. subcommittee called the killings genocide in 1985, but current
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declines to use the word.

REMARKS BY NEW YORK MAYOR ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL

21:55, 24 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

The Mayor of New York Bill De Blasio has issued a statement on the
occasion of the Centennial of theArmenian Genocide:

“Today, we commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor those who perished
in the Armenian genocide 100 years ago in one of the worst atrocities
of the 20th century, when over a million Armenians were subjected to
state-sanctioned murder, rape and massive forced deportations.

For many Armenians in New York City and around the world, this
historical trauma is compounded by Turkey’s refusal to recognize the
devastation inflicted upon the Armenian people as an act of genocide.

Pope Francis spoke of this in a recent sermon, and it bears repeating
on this painful anniversary: There cannot be closure on an atrocity
of this magnitude if we do not call it by its name.

The bravery of a new generation of Turks – who are challenging those
in their country who deny this tragedy – is an encouraging step toward
long overdue justice and reconciliation. Against today’s background
of rising religious intolerance, we must take this solemn occasion
to reflect on the past – and to directly confront the discrimination
of the present.”

NRANYAN: EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO EXPAND FRONTIERS OF NATIONAL ECONOMIES

YEREVAN, April 24. /ARKA/. The Eurasian Economic Union makes it
possible to expand frontiers of national economies and to create
single rules and standards for all the participants of its market,
Ara Nranyan, a member (minister) of the Eurasian Economic Commission,
said Wednesday at the third East Forum in Berlin.

Some 250 officials and business people from 25 countries attended
the event. Nranyan stressed that analysis of processes over the
union shows insufficient awareness and not unbiased assessment of
the real significance of the union either for its members or for the
global economy.

he said.

The world countries and integration unions’ significant interest in
establishment of closer trade ties with the union shows the project’s
potential.

He said geography of the cooperation is wide – from Latin America to
South-East Asia. Armenia formally joined the Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU) of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on October 10 after President
Serzh Sargsyan signed a corresponding accession treaty with Russian
president Vladimir Putin and presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus at a summit of the
Russian-led bloc held in Minsk.

The treaty came into force on January 1, 2015. —0—-