Author: Kanayan Tamar

TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION IN SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETI: PARTICIPANTS CALL ON GEORGIAN AUTHORITIES TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

12:05 24/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

A torchlight procession to mark April 24, the Armenian Genocide
Remembrance Day, took place in Akhaltsikhe, the administrative center
of the Armenian populated district of Georgia, Samtskhe-Javakheti,
on April 23, jnews.org reports.

The participants of the procession marched towards the Georgian church
with posters condemning the Armenian Genocide, Armenian and Georgian
flags, and exclaiming “Recognition, condemnation, reparation.” At
Georgian church, they handed a letter to the Metropolitan bishop.

The procession ended at the Akhalkalaki Fortress where the participants
burnt the flag of Turkey. Armen Grigoryan, a member of the Youth
Center, read out the demands of the procession participants calling
on the Georgian authorities to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

CHICAGO TRIBUTE: AND 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS WERE KILLED

14:33 – 24 / 04 / 2015

Armenian Genocide victims are commemorated in Istanbul President
Sargsyan delivers toast at state dinner at the Presidential Palace
President of Cyprus: Both Armenia and Cyprus are victims of impunity
Paris-based Turkish NGOs to commemorate Armenian Genocide

At the origins of commemoration: April 24 as a day of mourning and
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide

Chicago Tribune published an article by columnist John Kass about the
story of an Armenian-American judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan and the fact
that people allow their memories to be washed. The article reads:

Pope Francis set off a diplomatic furor recently when he said what
historians and most diplomats have been saying for almost a century
now:

That Turkey participated in the first genocide of the 20th century
by slaughtering 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.

Friday, April 24, marks the 100th anniversary of the genocide that is
still not officially recognized here in the United States as genocide.

And so I sat down at breakfast with U.S. District Judge Samuel
Der-Yeghiayan, America’s first immigrant of Armenian descent to be
named federal judge.

“The pope acknowledged, as have historians since the beginning of this,
that it was a genocide,” Der-Yeghiayan said. “It was unspeakable. But
still, we speak of it, to remember.”

The Turkish government denies genocide and says the deaths were the
result of civil war. It withdrew its ambassador from the Vatican.

President Barack Obama wrung his hands.

“That’s politics,” said the judge. “But whatever they call it, it
was genocide. It wasn’t an accident.”

The U.S. ambassador of the time, Henry Morgenthau described the
Turkish policy as one of systematic, “wholesale slaughter.”

I’d call it a Muslim cleansing of Christians, with fire and sword.

Armenians weren’t the only ones. Thousands of Greeks and Assyrian
Orthodox were also killed by the Turkish army and its surrogates.

And 1.5 million Armenians were killed.

Think of it as low-tech killing. The Armenians were slaughtered in
their villages. They were chopped to pieces and thrown into rivers.

They were raped and shot and sabered by cavalry as they ran with
their children on their backs.

The fine actor, Russell Crowe, has directed a controversial movie
coming out Friday called “The Water Diviner,” about Turkey of that
troubled era.

I can’t wait to see it. I’ve read that in his film, Turks are
sympathetic figures. It is the Christians — notably the Greeks —
who are the savages.

But just Google “Armenian Genocide” and check “images.” And you will
see how brutality becomes viral.

One photo I just can’t shake depicts Armenian girls who’ve been
crucified by Turks.

The girls are naked. Their long, black hair covers their faces. The
crosses are set on the side of a dusty road. It demands vengeance.

“My great-grandfather was an Orthodox priest,” Der-Yeghiayan said.

“The Turks rounded up the family, his sons and daughters, his wife.

They gathered them. Then they dishonored him.

“First they cut off his beard. They laughed. They told him to deny
Christ. He refused. And when he refused, they chopped off his hands.

They chopped off his feet. They threw him in the river.”

I saw an old family photo. There was a tiny, 5-foot-tall woman,
a great-aunt in the back row. She was the only survivor.

The Turks had killed her infant daughter. She jumped in the river
to die.

“She told me from her own mouth,” Der-Yeghiayan said. “The river was
called the River of Blood. She became lost in all the bodies.

Downstream she was fished out, saved by a kind Turkish family. And
there were kind Turkish people too.”

I liked visiting Turkey. I liked the culture and the people very much.

That’s what makes writing this column so difficult. But the dead
compel me.

Americans forget too easily. We allow our memories to be washed,
from generation to generation, in the interests of commerce. Yet the
dead can’t be coerced by capitalism.

Der-Yeghiayan’s grandfather, who had been living in the U.S. working
in a steel plant, went back in 1919 to find those who were left.

“He never smiled,” said the judge. “As a boy, late at night, I would
hear him from the other room, on his knees, praying for all their
souls. But I never saw him smile once. My grandmother never smiled.

All the Armenian people of the time, they lived, they survived,
they raised families.

“But they never smiled. Ever.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES DECLINES TO RUN TURKISH AD ON 1915

By MassisPost
Updated: April 23, 2015

New York Times has refused to run a pro-peace and reconciliation
advertisement over the 1915 Armenian atrocities because it did not
recognize the Armenian Genocide, an e-mail correspondence between the
newspaper’s advertising department and the Turkish-American Steering
Committee revealed yesterday, according to Daily Sabah.

The ad, which was published by the Washington Post today instead,
is written as an open letter addressing President Barack Obama and
members of Congress, informing them that the Turkish-American community
would march through downtown D.C. on April 24, beginning at the White
House and ending in front of the Turkish Embassy to commemorate the
100th anniversary of the 1915 atrocities. “Our most sincere hope is
that Armenian Americans will join us on this walk. We will walk to
pay our respects to the lives lost from all ethnicities and creeds,
and to kindle a spark for what we believe should be our shared future”
the letter reads.

However the e-mails obtained by Daily Sabah revealed that The New
York Times asked the Steering Committee that represents over 145
Turkish-American associations to remove three out of five paragraphs of
the letter, which depicts the 1915 incidents as a civilian tragedy that
cost the lives of millions of Ottoman citizens including Armenians,
Turks, Kurds and Arabs. The targeted paragraphs underline the fact
that there is no academic consensus on the incidents by referencing
substantial number of international scholars who declined to label
the atrocities as genocide.

The targeted paragraphs underline the fact that there is no academic
consensus on the incidents by referencing substantial number of
international scholars who declined to label the atrocities as
genocide. “My legal team crossed out the first three paragraphs that do
not pass acceptability,” wrote Michael Hayden, the officer responsible
for Advocacy Advertising at The New York Times. Hayden also said in the
email that the legal team had wanted to exclude the slogan “Unite Us,
Not Divide us,” and this sentence in the fifth paragraph: “One hundred
years ago, a brutal war started neither by Turks nor Armenians cost the
Ottoman Armenians, the Ottoman Turks and many other groups so dearly.”

The newspaper made it clear that the letter must be changed before it
could be published. Subsequently, emails from the Steering Committee
asking for an explanation, Mr. Hayden had explained that as a matter
of policy, they do not accept ads that deny great historical events
that are generally accepted as facts, including the Armenian Genocide,
the Holocaust, and the World Trade Center bombing.

PAIN NEVER SHARED: TURKEY OFFERS CONDOLENCES TO ARMENIANS WITHOUT SINCERITY

APRIL 24TH, 2015

Instead of condoling, Davutoglu could have offered his sincere
apologies to the handful of survivors, like Aaron Manoukian

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permanently

By Aram Ananyan

AARON Manoukian, one of two dozen Armenian genocide survivors living
in Armenia, celebrated his 101st birthday on March 20, a month before
Davutoglu’s statement offering condolences to the grandchildren of the
Ottoman Armenians, who survived systematic murders and death marches
a century ago. Aaron’s eyes reveal the qualities of his character,
as a look at his hands tells a lifelong story full of turbulence
and hardships. Aaron’s passport indicates Turkey as his birthplace,
but what he calls home was the American orphanage in Armenia.

Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, following his boss Erdogan,
with almost a year’s interval, made quite a predictable statement ahead
of the Genocide Remembrance day, and on April 20 offered condolences
to the descendants of the Ottoman Armenians, who had suffered all the
horrors of the Armenian genocide in 1915. These condolences come right
after Pope Francis boldly called the 1915 massacres a ‘genocide’,
the European parliament called Turkey to face its troubled history,
and Germany and Austria, once World War I allies of Turkey, moved
closer to the full recognition of this crime against humanity.

In reality, it is a misleading indication of Ankara’s readiness for
dialogue, and for those who are well aware of this issue, Turkey’s
statement runs as another attempt to swap the necessity of recognition
of the Armenian genocide from the most important historical, political
and legal domains to a debate based on emotional manipulations.

In around 450 words, Davutoglu advocates to follow his lead, “to
relieve the pain of the past century and rebuild our humanitarian
bond”. Furthermore, Turkey’s chief diplomat proclaims, that this
year, on April 24 a divine liturgy will be organised by the Armenian
Patriarchate of Istanbul, to commemorate the tragic events. He fails
to mention that this is the first time ever that Armenians in Turkey
will do so – fast enough, since the corpses of hundreds of thousands
Armenians were left unburied in Asia Minor and the Syrian deserts
100 years ago. In this regard, Turkey’s condolences lacked sincerity
and honesty, and were aimed at trivialising the crime to an own
interpretation of history. In fact, when talking about the Armenian
genocide, Turkey uses an interchangeable vocabulary, depending on
the consumers and the occasion. For instance, on one day Turkish
officials threaten the Pope and on the next day they talk about the
human duties of remembrance.

Davutoglu recaps what Erdogan said a year ago, that it could be
meaningful for Turkey and Armenia to commemorate the events. What he
avoids to mention is the following: Erdogan received an invitation
to be in Armenia on April 24, along with the other heads of state,
to commemorate together, but instead, on the exact Remembrance day,
he preferred to orchestrate a pompous celebration of the Gallipoli
battle on that date.

The cause is always more important than the effect and reconciliation
in the future takes much bigger effort rather than manipulating with
the consequences. Davutoglu offers not to politicise the history,
but does the opposite, by supporting the century-long denial of Turkey.

Genocide scholars agree that the Armenian genocide was a masterminded
act to solve a number of issues. The Ottoman leadership exterminated
the Armenian political, economic and intellectual elites; deported
the Armenians from their ancestral homeland, with a reason not only
to avoid implementing Ottoman international obligations, but also
the comprehensive political and social reforms to protect universal
and core human rights and values that Christian minorities were
undelivered but deserved in the Ottoman Empire; and, eradicated the
Armenian issue by annihilating the Armenian people.

Instead of condoling, Davutoglu could have offered more reasonable
steps, first of all sincere apologies to the handful of survivors,
like Aaron Manoukian, who felt the inhumane atrocities right on their
skin. And there is the dark side of the reality that the Prime Minister
of Turkey wants to avoid when he refers to pain that has never been
shared by the absolute majority of the Turkish elite. In moral terms,
this approach seems rather cynical, because it equates the suffered
pain of the victim with the un-suffered of the perpetrator.

The author, Aram Ananyan, is a historian and Director General of
Armenpress News Agency

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : L’HISTOIRE, LES FAITS, LES VERSIONS ( AFP – REPERES) – PHOTOS

Turquie-Armenie-genocide-anniversaire

Erevan (AFP) – Les Armeniens a travers le monde commemorent vendredi
le centenaire des massacres de leurs ancetres, perpetres par les Turcs
ottomans lors de la Première guerre mondiale, une tragedie qualifiee de
genocide par l’Armenie alors que la Turquie rejette fermement ce terme.

Voici les faits principaux sur ces massacres et deportations,
commis entre 1915 et 1917 et qui enveniment toujours les relations
turco-armeniennes :

– Historique du conflit –

Après des siècles de domination persane et byzantine, le territoire
de l’Armenie historique est partage au milieu du XIXe siècle entre
les empires russe et ottoman. Entre 1,7 et 2,3 millions d’Armeniens
vivent dans l’Empire ottoman vers 1915, selon les estimations des
historiens occidentaux.

Les autorites ottomanes soupconnent les sujets armeniens de manquer
de loyaute a l’egard de l’Empire depuis la naissance, a la fin du
XIXe siècle, d’un mouvement nationaliste reclamant l’autonomie des
Armeniens.

Entre 100.000 et 300.000 Armeniens auraient ainsi ete massacres en
1895-1896, sous le règne du sultan Abdul Hamid II.

En octobre 1914, l’Empire ottoman entre dans la Première guerre
mondiale, aux côtes de l’Allemagne et de l’Autriche-Hongrie. Lorsque
l’Empire essuie de lourdes pertes dans les combats affectant les
provinces armeniennes, les autorites en rejettent la responsabilite
sur les Armeniens et lancent une campagne de propagande les qualifiant
d'”ennemi interieur”.

Le 24 avril 1915, des milliers d’Armeniens, soupconnes de sentiments
nationaux hostiles au gouvernement central sont arretes. La plupart
d’entre eux sont ensuite executes ou deportes et le 24 avril devient
dès lors, pour tous les Armeniens du monde, la Journee commemorative
du genocide armenien.

– Chaîne des evenements –

Le 26 mai 1915, une loi speciale autorise la deportation des Armeniens
“pour des raisons de securite interieure”, suivie le 13 septembre
d’une loi ordonnant la confiscation de leurs biens.

La population armenienne d’Anatolie et de Cilicie est alors contrainte
a l’exode vers les deserts de Mesopotamie. Un grand nombre d’Armeniens
sont tues en chemin ou dans des camps.

Beaucoup sont brûles vifs, noyes, empoisonnes ou victimes du typhus,
selon des rapports des diplomates etrangers et des agents de
renseignement de l’epoque.

L’ambassadeur americain dans l’Empire ottoman, Henry Morgenteau,
decrit dans un câble diplomatique au Departement d’Etat une “campagne
d’extermination raciale sous couvert de repression de la rebellion”.

Le 30 octobre 1918, l’Empire ottoman se rend aux forces de la Triple
Entente (Grande-Bretagne, Russie et France). Un accord sur l’armistice
permet alors aux Armeniens deportes de revenir dans leurs maisons.

En fevrier 1919, un tribunal militaire a Constantinople reconnait
plusieurs hauts responsables ottomans coupables de crimes de guerre,
y compris contre les Armeniens, et les condamne a mort.

– Versions contradictoires –

Les Armeniens estiment que 1,5 million des leurs ont ete tues de
manière systematique a la fin de l’empire ottoman.

La Turquie evoque pour sa part une guerre civile en Anatolie, doublee
d’une famine, dans laquelle 300 a 500.000 Armeniens et autant de
Turcs ont trouve la mort.

En avril 2014, le president actuel Recep Tayyip Erdogan, alors
Premier ministre, avait fait un pas en avant inedit en presentant des
condoleances pour les victimes armeniennes de 1915, sans pour autant
cesser de contester toute volonte d’extermination.

“Ce gouvernement a fait plus que tous ses predecesseurs pour faire
tomber les tabous de la fondation de la Republique, mais il s’est
malheureusement arrete en cours de route”, estime Cengiz Aktar,
professeur de sciences politiques a l’universite privee Sabanci
d’Istanbul.

En 2000, 126 chercheurs, parmi lesquels le laureat du prix Nobel Elie
Wiesel, l’historien Yehuda Bauer et le sociologue Irving Horowitz,
affirment dans un communique publie par The New York Times que “le
genocide armenien lors de la Première guerre mondiale est un fait
historique incontestable”.

“La deportation armenienne est une vraie tragedie”, reconnaît Ilber
Ortayli, professeur d’histoire a l’universite Galatasaray d’Istanbul,
en appelant les historiens des deux pays a “se saisir de cette
question” et a “etudier point par point” cette periode de l’histoire
turco-armenienne pour “aller au fond de choses”.

A ce jour, une vingtaine de pays reconnaissent le genocide armenien,
parmi lesquels la France et la Russie. Le Parlement europeen a fait
la meme demarche.

En 2008, lors de sa campagne electorale Barack Obama avait promis
de reconnaître le genocide armenien. Cependant, une fois elu, le
president americain n’a jamais employe ce terme.

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

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE BURDEN OF SHAME

Heidi Boghosian Become a fan

New York City Attorney

Posted: 04/24/2015 10:43 am EDT Updated: 3 minutes ago

A part of me cringed each time I uttered my last name in grade school.

For just as soon as I said it, I was asked: “What kind of name is
that?” Blank stares and silence usually followed when I said Armenian.

I felt embarrassed by who I was because I couldn’t explain it to
my classmates. All I knew was that something unspeakable, something
secret, had happened to the Armenian people. The only public reference
I had was friends’ parents cautioning fussy eaters to “remember the
starving Armenians.”

Every week I overheard my father speaking Armenian on the phone
with his sister Hasmig and mother Baidzar, the sounds of hard Ks,
Vs and Zs, punctuating their incomprehensible conversation. Over time
some of the words became familiar to me but the fact that I couldn’t
understand their language underscored how little I knew of my family
history. Kept in the dark, how could I embrace my heritage?

In the 1970s my father would proudly point out the occasional famous
Armenian in popular culture–the actor Mike Connors (born Krekor
Ohanian) of the television show Mannix, or Cher (born Cherilyn
Sarkisian). He told me that there weren’t many Armenians left in the
world, alluding vaguely to the 1915 massacre of the Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks.

It was my mother, who was Irish, who explained–when we were
alone–that as a teenager my grandmother had seen her family
slaughtered on the steps of a church. She was taken as a slave into a
Turkish household where for she served the woman of the household by
day, then was forced to service the male by night. After three years,
my grandmother and another Armenian girl from a few doors down were
able to escape in the middle of the night. They ultimately made their
way to an orphanage in Corinth. My grandfather Mesrop, who had fled
to the United States during the genocide, paid for her passage from
Greece. They married and moved to New Britain, Connecticut to work
in the hardware factories.

I was slow to learn about Armenian culture, one of the oldest settled
societies in the world. Nonetheless, living with an Armenian father,
I grew to understand key elements of that culture: tradition, modesty,
personal reserve and propriety about the way certain things are done.

Those traits help inform the reluctance of some Armenians to talk
about the genocide, especially the details of how girls like my
grandmother were abused.

Armenians lived in the Caucasus region of Eurasia for approximately
3,000 years. Theirs was the first nation to adopt Christianity as its
official religion in 301 AD. In the 15th century, part of Armenia was
absorbed into the Ottoman Turkish Empire, ruled by Muslims. There,
Armenians were viewed as Christian “infidels,” and treated unequally
and unjustly.

As the Ottoman Empire crumbled in the late 1800s, Turkish leaders were
angered by Armenian efforts to secure civil rights. A state sanctioned
program to suppress Armenian civil rights brought protests by Armenians
and then massacres by Turkish officials. When the post-Ottoman Young
Turks assumed power, their “Turkification” campaign deemed Christian
non-Turks a threat to the new state. Turkish leaders sought to create
a Pan-Turkic and Pan-Islamic empire consisting of Turkish-speaking
Muslim regions in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

On April 24, 1915, the Armenian genocide began with the Turkish
government’s arrest and execution of several hundred Armenian
intellectuals, clergy, artists, poets, and others. Armenians were
sent on death marches, often stripped naked, through the Mesopotamian
desert without food or water, until they dropped dead. “Butcher
battalions”–violent criminals released from prison specifically
for this purpose–carried out drownings, crucifixions, bayoneting,
live burnings, and throwing off cliffs. By 1923, fewer than 100,000
Armenians remained in the Ottoman Empire.

Many Armenian women genocide survivors were raped or forced into
harems. Later, they were ashamed to talk about what they had
experienced. The Turkish nationalist party’s multi-pronged plan
to render Armenians extinct included taking attractive Armenian
brides and virgins into Turkish harems where many gave birth to
children fathered by their masters. In Armenian Golgotha, Grigoris
Balakian–an intellectual who was arrested in the earliest phase of
the genocide–wrote: “The young brides and virgins were yanked from
the embrace of their crying mothers and taken to Turkish harems;
even ten-year-old girls were subjected to all manner of savage,
unbearable Turkish debauchery.”

These practices, and other unconscionable acts, help explain why
parents often spoke in Turkish or Assyrian instead of English or
Armenian when discussing the crimes they experienced. They did not
want their children to understand. Children of survivors describe
the topic as secret or forbidden.

Such absence of talk, and mystery about the genocide, contributed
to perpetuating a sense of shame. Observers to the worst crimes of
humanity–some burned alive, others poisoned by Turkish physicians
and pharmacists or drowned, starved to death, or left to perish from
disease–how could surviving witnesses not be haunted for the rest
of their lives?

On the centennial of the genocide, to help dispel the shame that some
Armenians feel, it is time to talk openly about the genocide. This
chapter in history–secreted away for a century–does not belong just
to Turks and Armenians. It belongs in the moral consciences of all
citizens of the world.

The talking so necessary to help dispel the shame has started. On
April 12, 2015 Pope Francis reaffirmed the Vatican’s past position
that Turkey committed the first genocide of the 20th century. In words
that angered Turkey enough to recall its ambassador to the Holy See,
the Pope said: “It seems that the human family has refused to learn
from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today, too,
there are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few,
and with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by.”

While many around the world hoped that President Obama would
acknowledge the Armenian genocide by its 100th anniversary, it
will be still be a victory if global awareness increases. Formal
acknowledgement should follow after the shame is shared.

Follow Heidi Boghosian on Twitter:

DIX ANS APRES, ” LES REVERBERES DE LA MEMOIRE ” N’ONT TOUJOURS PAS TROUVE LEUR PLACE A GENEVE

REVUE DE PRESSE
Le mémorial fantôme du génocide arménien

Cette année, on commémore a la fois le centenaire du génocide
arménien et les 10â~@~Ians de blocage du projet de monument du
souvenir a Genève.

Allez demander dans quel camp se trouve la balle maintenant :
le Conseil d’Etat vous renverra vers la Ville de Genève, qui vous
renverra vers la communauté arménienne, qui vous renverra vers les
autorités. Récit d’une décennie d’imbroglios.

Tout commence en avril 2005. Le Conseil administratif genevois se
déclare favorable a la pose d’une statue commémorant le génocide des
Arméniens, dans le cimetière des Rois. Cet emplacement est refusé
par les porteurs de l’idée : ” C’était un malentendu. Il n’a jamais
été question d’un monument funéraire ”, explique Stefan Kristensen,
membre actif de la communauté arménienne et coordinateur du projet.

Une décision politique

En décembre 2007, une motion de Gérard Deshusses renouvelle la
demande sous un aspect légèrement différent : un monument ” a
la mémoire commune des Genevois et des Arméniens ”. Près d’un
an après, le Conseil administratif charge alors le Fonds d’art
contemporain de la Ville de Genève (FMAC) d’organiser un concours
d’idées. A l’époque, trois lieux sont proposés aux participants :
le square Pradier, le square Chantepoulet et le bastion Saint-Antoine.

Le projet de l’artiste francais Melik Ohanian, Les réverbères de la
mémoire, est retenu a l’unanimité par le jury d’experts. Il s’agit
d’une sculpture en bronze en forme de candélabre de 8â~@~Imètres. Son
coÔt : un demi-million de francs, dont 105â~@~J000â~@~Ifrancs
financés par le FMAC et 400â~@~J000 par la communauté arménienne. Il
est alors prévu de l’installer au bastion Saint-Antoine en avril
2013. Mais la Commission des monuments, de la nature et des sites
(CMNS) émet un préavis négatif. ” Elle explique que cet emplacement
est situé sur un patrimoine classé et protégé et que l’histoire
des Arméniens n’a rien a voir avec l’histoire genevoise, résume
Michèle Freiburghaus, directrice du FMAC. On nous a conseillé de
prendre exemple sur la Chaise cassée de l’artiste suisse Daniel
Berset, a la place des Nations, et de viser ce périmètre qui ferait
plus de sens. ”

Attention, voisinage sensible

Ironie du sort, c’est justement le choix de cette zone qui va
déclencher les problèmes les plus sérieux. Le monument est envisagé
dans le parc de l’Ariana, aux abords immédiats du Palais des Nations.

L’Office des Nations Unies a Genève ne prend aucune position
officielle et estime que la décision sur l’emplacement revient
aux autorités locales. Une lettre du Con­seil d’Etat a la Ville,
en juin 2014, affirme que le gouvernement ” est favorable, sur le
principe, au monument (…) malgré les diverses pressions ” mais
souhaite préserver ” la neutralité la plus absolue de la Genève
internationale ” dans les abords du Palais des Nations. Il demande
de transmettre ” un autre projet d’implantation ”.

Une deuxième lettre du Conseil d’Etat au Département fédéral des
affaires étrangères fait mention d’une ” série d’interventions
tout a fait inhabituelles, et parfois au plus haut niveau diplomatique.

Plusieurs ambassadeurs ou représentants officiels, notamment
arméniens ou turcs, ont intercédé de manière très insistante
auprès de nous. ” Des interventions ” souvent accompagnées de
menaces a peine voilées de représailles sur le plan diplomatique,
économique ou politique ”. Le gouvernement sollicite alors la
détermination du conseiller fédéral Didier Burkhalter.

Celui-ci répond en décembre dernier que l’installation du monument
a cet endroit risquerait de ” fortement perturber cette nécessaire
sérénité et impartialité de l’espace multilatéral a Genève. Elle
aurait des conséquences négatives au niveau international et
pourrait gravement porter atteinte a la réputation et a l’image de
la Suisse. ” Il recommande de refuser l’octroi d’une autorisation
de construire a cet emplacement, ” au vu des spécificités du lieu
”. A la suite de cette immixtion, une motion déposée en février
2015 par le député Guy Mettan demande d’autoriser au plus vite le
projet en passant outre aux pressions. La motion est soutenue par la
gauche et le PDC, mais combattue par le MCG, l’UDC et le PLR. Elle
est refusée… a une voix près !

Pourquoi la communauté arménienne n’a-t-elle toujours pas proposé
de lieux alternatifs depuis ? ” C’est une question de dignité,
répond Stefan Kristensen. Le Conseil d’Etat a cédé aux pressions de
la Turquie négationniste, appuyée par le chef du DFAE. Imaginez-vous
que la communauté juive propose d’elle-même de déplacer un monument
dédié au souvenir de la Shoah parce que des milieux nazis font
pression ?

Les Arméniens se sont fait massacrer, et ils devraient encore
devancer les souhaits des héritiers de leurs bourreaux ?! On est
victimes d’une manÃ…”uvre politique malhonnête du gouvernement. ”

” Le Conseil d’Etat genevois a reconnu unanimement le génocide
arménien, ce qu’aucun autre Canton n’a fait avant lui, rappelle son
président, Francois Longchamp. Nous nous sommes engagés a délivrer
une autorisation de construire très rapidement dès qu’un nouveau
lieu aura été choisi. ”

La communauté arménienne formulera des propositions prochainement. Le
parc Trembley et le parc Beaulieu lui ont été proposés.

” Ca donne encore plus de signification a cette Ã…”uvre de rencontrer
autant de difficultés, estime Michèle Freiburghaus. Plus c’est
problématique, plus elle s’enrichit. ”

La renaissance italienne

A défaut de trouver leur place a Genève, Les réverbères de la
mémoire retrouvent vie en Italie. A l’issue de la messe historique
présidée par le pape Francois, dimanche 12 avril dans la basilique
Saint-Pierre de Rome – messe pendant laquelle il a prononcé pour
la première fois le terme de génocide -, le souverain pontife
a en effet recu une version miniature de l’Ã…”uvre. Par ailleurs,
l’installation grandeur nature sera exposée dans le cadre de la
Biennale de Venise du 9 mai au 22 novembre prochain. (24 heures)

vendredi 24 avril 2015, Stéphane ©armenews.com

FLAGS OF FRANCE AND ARMENIA SPOTTED ON HOLLANDE’S PLANE (VIDEO)

14:22 | April 24,2015 | Politics

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Yerevan yesterday evening,
while President of France Francois Hollande came early in the morning.

Both men were received at Zvartnots airport by their Armenian
counterpart Serzh Sargsyan.

The flags of France and Armenia were seen hoisted on the French plane
when it landed at Zvartnots airport.

GLOBAL FORUM’S DECLARATION READ DURING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNTIAL COMMEMORATION

17:32 24/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

Rwandan Genocide survivor Esther Mujawayo read out the Global
Forum’s Declaration in the official ceremony of the Armenian Genocide
Centennial Commemoration on Friday.

“Your Excellencies, Your Beatitudes, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am Esther Mujawayo, survivor of the Genocide against Tutsis
in Rwanda in 1994. I have an honour to partake in this historic
Centennial commemoration of the Armenian Genocide which has attracted
the attention of the entire international community.

It is very important that we stand by our Armenian sisters and brothers
sharing their pain, their struggle, and of course their rebirth.

As one of the participants of the Global Forum Against the Crime
of Genocide, held in Yerevan over the last two days, I would like
to extend our gratitude to the government and people of Armenia for
furthering prevention agenda and raising public awareness to combat the
crime of genocide and reach the noble goal of its complete exclusion.

We hope that Armenia would successfully continue this initiative
aimed at our collective duty to protect our children, our societies
from the scourge of the crime of crimes- the genocide.

It is my privilege to present to your attention the Yerevan Declaration
of the Global Forum.

Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide

23 April 2015 The Global Forum

Paying tribute to the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian
Genocide, the genocide of Greeks and Assyrians, Holocaust, the
genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Darfur and other crimes against
humanity,

Recalling the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide,

Being concerned about the recurring cases of genocides and crimes
against humanity, despite the existing appropriate international
prevention mechanisms,

Being also concerned about recent alarming outspread of violence,
extremism and terrorism in different regions of the world directly
threatening the ethnic and religious minorities,

Bearing in mind the emergence and the evolution of the international
criminalization of genocide in the international law, Having discussed
the issues of impunity, individual and state accountability for the
crime of genocide, the appropriate means of addressing the consequences
of this crime,

Noting the importance of the global struggle against genocides and
crimes against humanity,

Emphasizing the role that various governments, parliaments,
international organizations and civil society have in the prevention
of genocide and their contribution to fostering prevention mechanisms,

– Acknowledges that genocide is the ultimate crime with irreversible
consequences, and calls upon all states to bring their utmost
contribution to the strengthening of genocide prevention mechanisms,

– Reaffirms that the primary genocide prevention mechanisms remain
the ones existing in the framework of the United Nations and welcomes
the adoption of UN Human Rights Council resolution on March 27,
2015 entitled “Prevention of Genocide”,

– Stresses that genocide prevention depends on the efficiency of
human rights protection, the strength of the culture of tolerance
and non-discrimination,

– Recognizes that denial, in particular on a state level, is
unacceptable and underlines that timely condemnation of genocides
and efficiently addressing their consequences may serve as important
tools for prevention and reconciliation,

– Calls upon the international community on the eve of the Centennial
commemorations of the Armenian Genocide to support the continuous
efforts aimed at its worldwide recognition.

Thank you!

RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN PEOPLE’S TRAGEDY, A NECESSARY SIGNAL FOR ELIMINATING HATRED, INTOLERANCE, RACISM, XENOPHOBIA – ROMANIAN PRESIDENT

17:02 * 24.04.15

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Friday sent a message on the
occasion of the commemoration of 100 years since the Armenians’
historical tragedy, in which he says that the recognition of this
tragedy is an important and necessary signal to get rid of hatred,
intolerance, racism and xenophobia.

“One century after the tragic events of 1915, I bring a pious homage
to the victims of the Armenian people, who resisted over decades
the history’s ups and downs and the hardships from the beginning
of the last century. Hundreds of thousands of innocent souls have
perished then in a terrible crime that overshadowed humanity and
compels us today to recognition and reconciliation,” Iohannis said
in his message, the Romanian national news agency Agerpres reports,
citing the Presidential Administration.

The president added that the commemoration and the awareness of the
drama the Armenian people has passed through are today mandatory
approaches for our world to learn the lesson of the past.

“The respect for the victims forces us to turn our mind to the
disappeared and pray for them in silence. May the memory of the victims
stay eternally in our hearts!” says Iohannis in the above-mentioned
message.