Author: Kanayan Tamar

COMMEMORATIONS FOR ARMENIAN MASSACRE VICTIMS HELD IN TURKEY

Human rights groups and activists gather in Istanbul to mark centenary
of the start of mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks

Turkish and Armenian activists hold pictures of victims during
a commemoration for the victims of mass killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks at the Haydarpasa train station in Istanbul. Photograph:
Stringer/Reuters

Constanze Letsch Friday 24 April 2015 16.03 BST

More than 100 people gathered in front of the Islamic Arts museum in
Istanbul on Friday to commemorate the massacre of Armenians during
the last days of the Ottoman empire.

One hundred years ago the building – today a popular tourist attraction
– served as the Ottoman police headquarters and was the site where
the first 250 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up and incarcerated
prior to their deportation on 24 April 1915.

The commemoration, organised by Turkish and international human rights
organisations, was one of a series of events taking place in Istanbul
to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide during which over 1.5
million Armenians were killed, according to historians’ estimates.

Analysis The Armenian genocide – the Guardian briefing

Turkey has never accepted the term genocide, even though historians
have demolished its denial of responsibility for up to 1.5 million
deaths

Turkey insists the toll has been inflated and rejects that those killed
were victims of genocide, arguing that the Armenians died as a result
of civil war and general unrest during the first world war. On the
eve of the centennial, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
reiterated his view that the nation’s ancestors never committed
genocide.

But at the commemoration in front of the museum, participants did
not shy away from the use of the g-word.

“This is the first time I have the opportunity to attend the
memorials”, said university student Mustafa Polat, 25, a Kurd from
Diyarbakir. “I wanted to be here to remind the world of this genocide.

The truth is clear, this was a crime against humanity that Kurds were
also a part of.

“One doesn’t need to be Armenian, or politically educated to recognise
this genocide, it’s enough to have a conscience.”

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On the “Walk to Remember” through the district of Sultanahmet the
group almost vanished between the throngs of tourists and groups of
Anzac Day visitors looking for their buses to Gallipoli.

Only a few shyly carried folded posters that read “Recognise the
Genocide”, some held red carnations or violet crocuses, a stand-in
for the purple forget-me-nots that symbolise the centenary elsewhere.

There were no slogans and no chants. Riot police accompanied the
hurried march to the shore of the Golden Horn, where a boat took
the delegations to the Haydarpasa train station, from where Istanbul
Armenians were deported and sent to their deaths.

Ali Rabis, 58, an unemployed shoemaker from Istanbul, said he has
attended each public commemoration since 2010, when groups first
came together on Istanbul’s central Taksim Square to remember the
1915 genocide.

“I am Turkish, which is why I come”, he said. “One cannot be aware
of such horrible killings and pretend they have never happened.” He
added that he hoped the commemorations would send a strong message:
“If the genocide had not happened in 1915, maybe world war two would
not have been as horrible, maybe the Holocaust would never have
happened. I want that such things never happen again.”

Benjamin Abtan, president of the European Grassroots Antiracist
Movement (Egam) that has been part of the commemorations since 2011,
said that despite the modest numbers of participants, the atmosphere
in Turkey has changed.

Centenary of the Armenian genocide: descendants tell their family’s
stories

“Very different people are now taking part in the commemorations: more
young people, more women, more religious Muslims, and more Armenians
from Turkey. The Turkish media are more openly referring to the term
genocide. There is more confidence”, he said, adding that the movement
had also become more international. “When I came the first time in
2011, I was the only person who was not a Turkish national. Today
there are delegations from over 15 countries, including from Armenia.”

On Friday morning, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the
French president, Francois Hollande, joined other state leaders at
the genocide memorial complex in the Armenian capital Yerevan. After
a flower-laying ceremony, Armenia’s President Serge Sarkisian told the
guests: “I am grateful to all those who are here to once again confirm
your commitment to human values, to say that nothing is forgotten,
that after 100 years we remember.”

In an angry reaction earlier this month, Turkey recalled its
ambassadors to the Vatican and to the Austrian capital Vienna after
both countries recognised the Armenian massacres as genocide. A
non-binding resolution passed by the European parliament to commemorate
the centenary of the genocide prompted a similarly furious reply,
with Erdogan saying that “such a decision would go in one ear and
out the other”.

However, the tone of his message read during the memorial service
in honour of the killed Armenians held on Friday at the Armenian
Patriarchate in Istanbul was softer.

“We share the Armenians’ pain with sincerity,” his message read. “The
doors of our hearts are open to the deceased Ottoman Armenians’
grandchildren.”

The Turkish president underlined that Armenians had made important
economic and cultural contributions to the Ottoman empire, while
insisting Armenians were only one of “millions of people from every
nation living in the Ottoman empire’s borders” who also died during
the first world war.

For the first time in the history of the Turkish republic, a Turkish
state official attended the church service. Volkan Bozkir, minister
in charge of Turkey’s EU relations, said he was honoured to be able
to attend the service, and added: “We respect the pain felt by our
Armenian brothers”.

Later on Friday a rally of Turkish and international human rights
groups and others is planned in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Sarkisian
lauded the attendants as “strong people who are rendering an important
service to their country”.

ARMENIA MARKS CENTENARY OF MASS KILLINGS BY OTTOMAN TURKS

1 hour ago
24/05/15

Ceremonies are being held in Armenia and around the world to mark the
centenary of the start of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

The presidents of France and Russia joined other leaders for the
memorial in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million people died, a figure disputed by
Turkey.

Turkey strongly objects to the use of the term genocide to describe
the killings and the issue has soured relations between the nations.

Turkey accepts that atrocities were committed but argues there was no
systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people. Turkey
says many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.

A memorial service was held in Turkey on Friday and its prime
minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said the country would “share the pain”
of Armenians. But he reiterated Turkey’s stance that the killings
were not genocide.

Jump media player Media player help Out of media player. Press enter
to return or tab to continue.

Media captionFergal Keane recorded the voices of some of the remaining
survivors of the Armenian massacre

Turkey is on Friday also hosting ceremonies to mark the 100th
anniversary of the start of the Battle of Gallipoli.

However, the actual fighting there began on 25 April, and Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan has accused Turkey of “trying to divert
world attention” from the Yerevan commemorations.

‘Never Again’

After a flower-laying ceremony in Yerevan, Mr Sargsyan addressed
the guests, saying: “I am grateful to all those who are here to once
again confirm your commitment to human values, to say that nothing
is forgotten, that after 100 years we remember.”

In his address, French President Francois Hollande said: “We will
never forget the tragedies that your people have endured.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “There cannot be any
justification for mass murder of people. Today we mourn together with
the Armenian people.”

Elsewhere:

In Lebanon – home to one of the largest Armenian diasporas – tens of
thousands of people took part in a march and a commemoration service
in the capital Beirut In Jerusalem, Armenian priests held a two-hour
mass in the Old City.

Posters were hung outside the church calling on Turkey to recognise the
mass killings as genocide And in Tehran, hundreds of Armenian-Iranians
attended a rally which began at an Armenian church and ended outside
the Turkish Embassy

At the scene: BBC’s Rayhan Demytrie in Yerevan

The purple forget-me-not is the symbol of the centenary. It can be
seen everywhere in Yerevan: from window shops and windscreen stickers,
to lapel pins that many are proudly wearing.

There is also a centenary slogan which reads “I remember and demand”.

But what is it that the Armenians are demanding? I asked some of the
people in Yerevan’s Mashtotz Avenue.

“We demand fairness from the world community, that’s it,” said Sergey
Martirossyan, “but for me personally it won’t make any difference.

What we actually need in Armenia is for the government to take serious
steps towards economic growth.”

‘I remember and demand’

Friday marks the 100th anniversary of the day the Ottoman Turkey
authorities arrested several hundred Armenian intellectuals in
Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, most of whom were later killed.

Armenians regard this as the beginning of the Ottoman policy of mass
extermination of Christian Armenians suspected of supporting Russia,
the Ottoman Empire’s World War One enemy.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese-Armenians marked the centenary with a
march in BeirutCeremonies were held at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial
in YerevanFrance, represented by Francois Hollande, has been a strong
advocate of recognising the killings as genocide

US President Barack Obama issued a carefully worded statement for
the anniversary, referring to “one of the worst atrocities of the
20th Century”, without using the term genocide.

During his 2008 presidential election campaign, then senator Obama had
vowed to “recognise the Armenian genocide” and in his new statement
said: “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915,
and my view has not changed.”

However, his phrasing has angered Armenian Americans.

Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America,
said in a statement: “President Obama’s exercise in linguistic
gymnastics on the Armenian genocide is unbecoming of the standard he
himself set and that of a world leader today.”

President Vladimir Putin also attended and addressed the
guestsArmenians around the world, like here in Jerusalem, insist the
killings were genocide

German MPs are meanwhile debating a non-binding motion on the genocide
issue, a day after President Joachim Gauck used the word to describe
the killings.

This month, Turkey recalled its envoy to the Vatican after Pope
Francis also used the word genocide in a reference during a Mass.

France has been a strong advocate of recognising the killings as
genocide and President Hollande has pushed for a law to punish
genocide denial.

In Turkey on Friday, the media largely focused on Gallipoli, but one
of Turkey’s oldest newspapers, Cumhuriyet, carried a surprise headline
in Armenian – “Never Again”.

“The wounds caused by the events which took place during the Ottoman
Empire are still fresh. It is time to face up to this pain which
paralyses the human mind, the feeling of justice and the conscience,”
it said.

Jump media player Media player help Out of media player. Press enter
to return or tab to continue.

Media captionArmenia’s mass killings – explained in 60 seconds

What happened in 1915?

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915 at the hands of the
Ottoman Turks, whose empire was disintegrating.

Many of the victims were civilians deported to barren desert regions
where they died of starvation and thirst. Thousands also died in
massacres.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million people were killed. Turkey says the
number of deaths was much smaller.

Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide – as
do more than 20 states, including France, Germany, Canada and Russia,
and various international bodies including the European Parliament.

Turkey rejects the term genocide, maintaining that many of the dead
were killed in clashes during World War One, and that many ethnic
Turks also suffered in the conflict.

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!

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:

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.

ARMENIA’S GENOCIDE AND OBAMA’S SHAME

Asia Times Online
April 23 2015

Author: David P. Goldman April 22, 2015 2 Comments

Spengler

Despite a 2008 campaign promise “to recognize the Armenian genocide,”
President Obama refuses to follow Pope Francis’ example and call the
murder of 1.5 million Armenian civilians by its right name. Of all
the despicable things this administration has done, this one stands
out for vile hypocrisy. CNN reports:

President Barack Obama, wary of damaging relations with Turkey amid
growing unrest in the Middle East, won’t use the 100th anniversary
of the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire to declare the
brutal episode a genocide.

Despite Obama’s campaign promise in 2008 to “recognize the Armenian
Genocide” as president, the White House on Tuesday issued a carefully
worded statement on a high-level administration meeting with Armenian
groups that avoided using the term “genocide.”

An administration official said Obama, who will mark the centennial
this Friday, would similarly avoid using the word. The term angers
Ankara, which denies that Ottoman Turks carried out a genocide.

“President Obama’s surrender to Turkey represents a national disgrace.

It is, very simply, a betrayal of truth, a betrayal of trust,” said Ken
Hachikian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America.

Despite the threat of retaliation against Turkey’s small and
defenseless Christian community-the remnant of what once was a fifth
of the Turkish population-the Vatican has had the courage to use the
word genocide, and first did so in 2000. Not Obama, whose concern
for Muslim sensibilities outweighs every other consideration.

If you don’t think telling the truth matters, think again: The world’s
disgusting indifference to the Armenian genocide is what convinced
Adolf Hitler that he could get away with genocide, too. This is what
Hitler said about the matter in 1939:

My decision to attack Poland was arrived at last spring. Originally,
I feared that the political constellation would compel me to strike
simultaneously at England, Russia, France, and Poland. Even this risk
would have had to be taken….Our strength consists in our speed and
in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to
slaughter — with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in
him solely the founder of a state. It’s a matter of indifference to
me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.

I have issued the command — and I’ll have anybody who utters but
one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war
aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical
destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head
formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with
orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion,
men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only
thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum)which we need. Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

43 countries-including Russia, Italyk, France, Sweden Poland and the
Netherlands-recognize the Armenian genocide. Not the United States
of America. It is a shame and disgrace.

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.

THE ‘CULTURAL GENOCIDE’ OF THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE ISN’T OVER YET, DESCENDANTS ARGUE

Huffington Post
April 24 2015

Religion News Service | By Tania Karas

YUKARI BAKRACLI, Turkey (RNS) This tiny Kurdish village outside the
city of Van in Turkey’s southeast is home to the ruins of a once-famous
11th-century Armenian Christian monastery.

Known to Armenians as Varagavank, it thrived as a place of worship
until Turkish forces looted it and murdered parishioners in the mass
killing sprees of 1915.

Today, the roof is collapsing. Toppled stone columns lie nearby. And
with no signage, there is no acknowledgment it was once a celebrated
church for Armenians.

Varagavank is one of hundreds of disappearing physical reminders
of a community whose history in present-day Turkey goes back more
than 2,000 years. Over the past century, the Turkish government,
in writing its own narrative of what Armenians call genocide, has
destroyed many Armenian churches, homes, schools and cemeteries or
allowed them to fall into ruins. They are sites other countries might
consider valuable antiquities.

“The term we use for this is ‘cultural genocide,'” said Vahram
Ter-Matevosyan, a historian at the American University of Armenia
in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. “We consider what is happening to
many churches a continuation of the genocide which started at the
beginning of the 20th century. It is painful, utterly painful.”

Historians and visitors have noted holes in the ground of Armenian
historical sites throughout Turkey, evidence of widespread rumors
that Armenians buried their riches before fleeing.

Hermine Sayan, an Armenian who lives in Istanbul, said her heart was
broken when she visited what remained of a destroyed church in Malatya,
a city in eastern Turkey, a few years ago.

“We stood together saying our prayers, and we were crying,” said Sayan,
whose grandparents survived the genocide.

On Friday (April 24), Armenians worldwide will commemorate 100 years
since almost 1.5 million of their ancestors died in the last days
of the Ottoman Empire, in massacres, by starvation or during forced
death marches into the Syrian desert.

The date marks a century of fierce disagreement between Armenia
and Turkey over what happened that spring. Armenians and their
supporters — including many historians, Pope Francis and the European
Parliament — say the murders constitute a systemic elimination of
their population from eastern Anatolia in present-day Turkey.

But Turkey rejects the genocide label, saying hundreds of thousands
of both Turks and Armenians died in battles between Ottoman and
Russian forces in World War I. In a move that disappointed Armenians,
the White House on Tuesday (April 21) announced that President Barack
Obama would not use the word “genocide” to describe the deaths despite
his 2008 presidential campaign promise to do so.

Preservation and respect of Armenian history, culture and monuments
in Turkey is a critical step toward Turkish-Armenian reconciliation,
said George Aghjayan, an Armenian-American from Westminster, Mass.,
who studies Armenian demographics in Turkey and its environs.

“We have a right to our presence on this land,” said Aghjayan, who
plans to visit former Armenian villages and ruined sites in Van this
weekend. “It’s where our people were born, and it shouldn’t be devoid
of any evidence of their presence.”

Van, located on Lake Van’s picturesque shores, was once the capital
of Vaspurakan, the first and biggest kingdom of greater Armenia. Van
was also where, in 1915, Armenians saved thousands of their own when
they held back the Ottoman army from city walls for a month. Resistance
leaders who survived the siege founded the Armenian republic.

The Van Museum, however, offers a different take on regional history.

One exhibit shows the “massacre (of Turks) undertaken by the Armenians
during the occupation of Van in 1915 by the Russian troops,” according
to the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s website. (The museum
was damaged in a 2011 earthquake and is being rebuilt.)

Present-day Van is part of unofficial Turkish Kurdistan. No Armenians
are left; Turkey’s 60,000 remaining Armenians mainly live in Istanbul.

But Van and nearby villages contain what are known as Turkey’s
“hidden Armenians,” descendants of women and children who converted to
Islam after they were adopted by sympathetic neighbors or forced into
marriage. Some are upfront about their origins, said Ferzan Demirtas,
a tour guide in Van. But others stay silent, still fearful after a
century of living as Kurds or Turks.

Cengiz Aktar, a scholar of Armenian-Turkish relations with the
Istanbul Policy Center, argues that the Turkish attitude toward its
Armenian minority is shifting. Aktar studies the politics of memory,
or the influence of politics in how collective remembrances take shape.

“The real memories are undertaken by Turkish society,” Aktar said,
adding that Turkish citizens are increasingly exploring the truth
behind what they learned in school.

Turkey’s attempt to rewrite history is evident in Yemislik, another
village outside Van, where Turkish officials replaced a former Armenian
monastery with a mosque. But Van is perhaps best known for the Armenian
Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island in Lake Van.

It is one of the only Armenian churches restored by the Turkish
government, though it operates as a state museum.

On the eve of its reopening in 2007 after nearly a century of disuse,
Turkish officials balked at placing a cross on the church’s dome. They
relented after a few years.

So far, Turkish promises to restore other sites have gone unfulfilled,
leaving some to ponder whether Armenians of the diaspora should pitch
in. Aghjayan, however, questions the logic of asking Armenians to pay
for restoration of churches and villages from which their ancestors
were displaced.

“What kind of justice is that?” he asked.

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