Author: Kanayan Tamar

Our Windsor. Canada
April 19 2015

100-year shadow cast over Armenians’ lives

They remember nothing of the massacre they were born into, but the
void has followed two Armenian centenarians their entire lives

By Olivia Ward

Up to 60,000 people of Armenian descent are in Canada, the end of a
long and painful exodus stretching across generations. Most of those
still alive after the “great catastrophe” are now silent forever. But
the Star interviewed two extraordinary survivors living in the Toronto
area.

Sirvard Kurdian and Eugenie Kokorian Yerganian — silver-haired and
frail, and speaking through translators — were in the Scarborough
apartment of Yerganian’s son and daughter-in-law, Jerry and Claire
Kokorian. These are their stories.

EUGENIE YERGANIAN

When she opened her eyes as an infant, there was a black hole where
her family had been. Now, at 100 years of age, Eugenie Yerganian (born
Papazian) has lived a century of enforced amnesia.

She never knew her father, or how he met his death. What she knows —
from memories of a long-lost uncle — is that her mother fought for her
at birth, during the death-dealing horror of the deportations. Over
the protest of other captives, who saw a baby as a burden, she refused
to abandon her.

Death of children was common in those desperate times. Eyewitness
Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer, wrote in his memoir of
servants of a local khan tossing the body of an infant, “as one might
throw out a mouse,” saying the child of an Armenian woman who had
“lagged behind,” too sick to nourish the child.

In the final stage of pregnancy, Yerganian’s mother survived the
terrible trek from her family’s home in the Black Sea port town of
Samson, where some men had tried to defend against the Turkish troops,
but eventually fell. Women and children were deported. After Eugenie’s
birth her mother, exhausted, died in a place her daughter would never
know.

Eugenie’s first years are an enigma. For three years, her maternal
grandmother struggled to look after her, then gave her to an orphanage
when she was no longer able to feed her.

So began her painful odyssey through three children’s homes in Greece,
where an American relief organization had arranged the placement of
Armenians in 13 orphanages. Eugenie tries not to remember what
happened there.

An Armenian couple took her to Egypt, and she spent her early teens in
Cairo, where she met her husband, Garabed Kokorian, at a dance. He was
a shoemaker in his 20s.

Eugenie was 15, an age now considered too young for marriage. But at a
time of trauma and insecurity, many young girls looked to it as a
refuge. The main objection came from the community of orphans to which
she belonged: they had picked out one of their own boys for the
pretty, dark-haired teen, and Kokorian was an “outsider.”

The couple lived in Alexandria and Cairo, raising five children. It
was not until the 1980s, when Eugenie met her mother’s brother, then
living in France, that she learned sketchy details of her early life.

Widowed in her early 40s, she remarried and was widowed a second time
in 1997. Now, living in Toronto near her children, nine grandchildren
and 11 great-grandchildren, she is the matriarch of a thriving clan.
What remains of the past is a great void that will never be filled.

“I never saw my mother or father,” she says. “I was cut off from my roots.”

SIRVARD KURDIAN

Sirvard Kurdian remembers nothing of her birth land, or the terrible
events that destroyed her home and her past.

Now 102, born Sirvard Kirishjian, she was the youngest of six children
of a middle-class textile merchant and a seamstress in the Ottoman
Empire’s western Armenian city of Erzerum. Three of her siblings died
in childhood.

Sirvard was only 2 when the men and boys in her town, including her
father, were rounded up and slaughtered by Turkish forces, during
massacres and deportations that began in the spring of 1915.

For the next six months, her mother and other women and children were
exiled and forced to walk toward Iraq, suffering exhaustion,
starvation and dehydration: part of a master plan to cleanse the
country of Armenians.

“Corpses were lying in great numbers on both sides of the road,” wrote
eyewitness Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer. “We were deluged
by the number of corpses, mostly children’s bodies.”

Kurdian’s mother “put the children (in saddle bags) on both sides of
an ox,” she later learned. Her brother, about 5 years old, walked,
pleading for water. But Kurdian’s mother told her that, “every time we
stopped at a spring, the guards would urinate in it.” She had to pay
for clean water and even so the little boy died.

When the family reached Mosul, in what is now Iraq, they were taken in
by Arab residents. Soon the women were sewing dresses for a living,
hand delivering their creations for handouts of food. They moved on to
Aleppo in Syria, where more than 100,000 Armenian survivors settled,
including orphans.

There, Sirvard attended school and rose to the top of her class,
enthusiastically reading and reciting poetry. At 15, she met and
married a young orphaned Armenian man, Khatchik Kurdian. His dream was
to start a new life in briefly independent Armenia, declared in 1918
and swallowed by the Soviet Union two years later.

He never fulfilled that dream. But before he died, in 1974, he and his
wife visited Soviet Armenia. She immigrated to Canada in 1991. She
looks back on the struggle of her life and recites, in a strong voice,
the poem she has always lived by. The mantra that helped her survive.

Patience is what helps us

Overcome any challenge.

He who is patient is wise.

His land and home prosper.

God Himself guards the home

Of him who is patient.

Toronto Star

Zaman, Turkey
April 19 2015

An elegy to Meds Yeghern

GÃ`NAL KURÅ?UN
April 19, 2015, Sunday

I will leave a discussion of whether or not the events were genocide
to my next column on April 24, but, in this article, I would like to
discuss the dissolution of culture that took place during the Armenian
deportations 100 years ago.

A section of eastern Anatolia was part of the ancestral homeland of
Armenians, whose culture and heritage were targeted by the Ottoman
government. The Union and Progress Party (Ä°ttihad ve Terakki Partisi)
confiscated or demolished at least 2,000 churches and monasteries
before 1915. In my opinion, this shame alone is enough to tarnish our
relations with Armenians.

There was a law justifying this confiscation. The law of Emval-i
Metruke (Law of Abandoned Properties) dealt with the properties the
Armenians left. Most were given to Muslim migrants or asylum seekers
who had fled their homelands in the Balkans and migrated to Anatolia
during, or after, the Balkan Wars. This law prescribed or gave
authority to governors to confiscate abandoned houses and buildings
and offer them to the newcomers. Some of these properties were also
turned into military barracks, schools, prisons and hospitals.

Today, the biggest obstacle to an official recognition of genocide,
which would require compensation, is this policy of confiscation. This
explains the government’s policy of denial and the stubbornness of the
public. The question of what will happen to the confiscated,
Muslim-owned properties remains unanswered.

It is a known fact that there is an economic component to every
genocide, and this was no exception. It was a relay of capital, from
Armenian hands to Turkish and Kurdish hands. However, I still believe
that the economic issue it is a small part of the problem, to which
international institutions such as the United Nations, the European
Union, the United States, Russia and other countries can contribute
possible solutions.

The biggest devastation is on the cultural front, presenting losses
that can never be compensated by money. Hagop Baronian, Atom Yarjanian
(Siamanto), Vahan Tekeyan, Levon Shant, Krikor Zohrab, Sargis
Mubayeajian (Atrpet) and Rupen Zartarian are some of the poets,
writers, lawyers and activists who lost lives, suffered or migrated.
The identity of architecture in Turkey changed, thanks to the
contribution of many Armenian architects. Music, painting and theater
in Turkey would be unrecognizable without Armenian contribution. Not
only did Armenians read Armeno-Turkish, but so did the Turkish elite.

The Armenian script was used alongside the Arabic script on official
documents of the Ottoman Empire. The first novel produced in the
Ottoman Empire was Vartan Pasha’s 1851 `Akabi Hikayesi,’ written in
the Armenian script. The Armenian alphabet was also used for books
written in the Kurdish language of the Ottoman Empire from the end of
the 19th-century. As of today, renowned polymath Sevan NiÃ…?anyan has
estimated that around 3,600 Armenian names of geographical locations
or place names have been changed.

These are all examples of the biggest cultural losses. It was also a
self-mutilation of culture on the part of the Ottomans, from which we
still suffer today.

Are we really sure that we want to establish a life on the ashes of
our neighbor? Is it really the only solution? Did our collective
conscience die? Can we not see what we have lost by deporting a whole
nation? I remember thousands of Turkish people shouting, `All of us
are Armenians, all of us are Hrant Dink’ during Dink’s funeral.
Really, can’t we realize that we Turks are somehow Armenians as well,
and that we killed a part of ourselves in 1915?

An Armenian song `Arakil” (Stork) says, `I am not homeless, or a
foreigner; I have a haven, I have an asylum.’ A century has passed,
and the time has come for every stork to find an honest and fair way
to rest. It is the Turkish responsibility to show them the righteous
path they deserve.

US Official News
April 16, 2015 Thursday

Washington: SPEECH OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY IN THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2015

Washington

The Library of Congress, The Government of USA has issued the following Speech:

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, genocide is the most terrible
crime a people can undergo, or another people can commit. It must
never be forgotten–to forget it would be to dull our consciences and
diminish our own humanity. It must never be denied, but fully
acknowledged–otherwise any meaningful attempt at reconciliation will
be thwarted.

Last weekend I was present as Brookdale College, the Center for
Holocaust, Human Rights, and Genocide Education presented two exhibits
and launched a book on the Armenian genocide. The exhibit A Journey to
Life: Armenia teaches the history of the Armenian Genocide through the
lives of local Armenian Genocide Survivors who settled in Monmouth
County, while Illuminating Images: A Hundred Year Remembrance is an
art exhibit created by middle school, high school and college students
from across the county and beyond. The book released last weekend was
Hundred-Year Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide: Celebrating the
Lives of Armenian Genocide Survivors in Our Community, which features
the personal histories of 54 Survivors who lived in Monmouth County.
Everyone who contributed to these exhibits and this book has performed
a great service to New Jersey–not only to Armenian-Americans, but to
everyone, including those who deny the genocide. They opened paths to
the truth, and therefore to a better future.

In September 2000 I chaired a hearing on the Armenian Genocide and
co-sponsored legislation to finally put the United States on record
officially acknowledging it. It was a four-hour hearing, the first
hearing the House of Representatives ever held on the Armenian
Genocide. The testimony I heard that day, and accounts of the
atrocities I have read in the articles and books over the years have
shocked me deeply. The resolution H. Res. 398–vigorously opposed by
the Clinton Administration–never got a vote.

But just as shocking then is what we still see today: a completely
political and callous campaign to deny the Armenian genocide.

In 1915, there were about 2 million Armenians living in what was then
the Ottoman Empire. They were living in a region that they inhabited
for 2,500 years. By 1923, well over 90 percent of these Armenians had
disappeared. Most of them, as many as 1.5 million, were dead. The
remainder had been forced into exile.

There is no lack of historical record. In fact, we only have to listen
to the words of the US Ambassador to Turkey at the time, Henry
Morgenthau, who called it a “campaign of race extermination.”

We only have to listen to the British, French, and Russian governments
who said the Young Turks committed a “crime against humanity,” the
first time in history that charge was ever made by one state against
another.

And we only have to listen to the government of Turkey itself, which
tried and convicted a number of high-ranking Young Turk officials for
their role in what the Turkish government’s indictment called, “the
massacre and destruction of the Armenians.”

When the term genocide was invented in 1944 to describe the systematic
destruction of an entire people, its author Raphael Lemkin explained
the term by saying it was “the sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews
and the Turks did to the Armenians.”

The campaign to deny this genocide–often driven by the Turkish
government–is repulsive. It is a slap in the face to Armenians
everywhere. It is this denial that keeps the Armenian genocide a
burning issue and prevents much needed healing of old wounds.
Armenians are unfortunately not alone in suffering the hurt and pain
that stems from the denial of truth. The international community
failed the victims of the Holocaust, China, the Soviet Union, Eastern
Europe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Bosnia, DRC, Darfur, Syria to name a few.

That means that we here in the United States, and that means not only
the Congress but also the President, have the responsibility to speak
truthfully and to speak boldly about the past in order to secure our
future. We must write and speak the truth so that generations to come
will not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Only 20 nations around the world have recognized the Armenian
Genocide. That includes Canada as well as eleven EU countries
including France, Germany Italy, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Greece and Cypress. Conspicuously absent
from the list of nations that have officially recognized the Armenian
Genocide is the United States of America.

When political leaders fail to lead or denounce violence, the void is
not only demoralizing to the victims but silence actually enables the
wrongdoing. Silence by elected officials in particular conveys
approval–or at least acquiescence–and can contribute to a climate of
fear and a sense of vulnerability.

History has taught us that silence is not an option. We must do more.

WGME – CBS
April 19 2015

Observing 100 years since mass killings

PORTLAND (WGME) — A century ago nearly 1.5 million Armenians were
massacred during what some call genocide. It happened in what’s now
Turkey and the country’s leaders refuse to describe it as genocide.

On April 24, Armenians worldwide will observe what happened. On
Saturday, Armenian-Americans in Portland remembered the victims at a
ceremony.

Gerard Kiladjian is the Armenian Cultural Association of Maine
President. He said, “They killed the men, women and the children by
just marching them into the desert to their death.”

“The Turks killed my grandmother and grandfather over there,” said
Portland resident, John Malconian.

Historians say there were mass killings starting in 1915 of Armenians
living in what’s now turkey by leaders of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish
officials claim the deaths were the result of civil war and famine.

“The Armenian genocide was never recognized by the government of
Turkey. They’ve continued to deny for many, many years,” said
Kiladjian.

The debate is now political. In his first presidential campaign,
President Obama said the genocide was a matter of fact, he’d formally
recognize it if elected and use the word genocide to describe it. Six
years later that hasn’t happened. Turkey previously warned the United
States recognition would affect the relationship between the two
countries.

“It upsets me that he doesn’t recognize what’s true history,” said Malconian.

Meanwhile, last Sunday Pope Francis did refer to the killings as
genocide. Kiladjian attended the mass where the Pope spoke about what
happened. He said, “We’re very proud of his stepping forward.”

Now Armenians want more people to follow in his footsteps.

Crikey, Australia
April 16, 2015 Thursday 12:59 PM GMT

The Right really do not want to open the Anzac can of worms

by Guy Rundle

ABSTRACT

Insisting that Turkey hold a truth and reconciliation commission into
the slaughter of Armenians around the time of the Gallipoli landing
will raise some very uncomfortable questions about Australia’s own
behaviour.

FULL TEXT

As Anzac Day approaches, the World War I wars have started up again!
About ten years ago, WWI ceased to be a futile struggle and became a
struggle against German militarism. The reason was obvious: as the
Iraq War bogged down, the usual historical argument for war – the
failure of “appeasing” Hitler – stopped working. We needed the example
of a meaningful quagmire, and so WWI was it, the revision starting
almost to the day that the last living witnesses of the conflict died.

But Turkey has always been a problem in this – there was nothing to
pin on the rather torpid empire, which was attacked purely as a way to
cut through to central Europe and open a second front (and then carve
up its provinces into colonies). That problem has become especially
acute now that we are attempting to turn Gallipoli into something
other than meaningless slaughter.

Cue Paul Monk’s article in The Age and TheSydney Morning Herald
demanding that the Turkish government hold a truth and reconciliation
commission for the Armenian genocide, which began in 1915, the day
after the Gallipoli landings, and was in part sparked by them (the
Turks feared the Christian Armenians would be established as an
independent state by the Allies). Yeah, right, because we’ve already
had truth and reconciliation commissions for the Belgian Congo
genocide, the market-caused famines in British India in the 1890s, the
Bengal famine that occurred under Allied command in the ’40s, the
genocidal assault on Vietnam, and the destruction of neutral Cambodia.
Don’t recall them? Better call Paul, he’ll fill you in. About time
these Muslims owned up to their crimes, as we don’t.

The sole reason for this push is to propagandise for the current
attacks on Islamic State, which enjoyed some Turkish support a few
years ago, and to legitimise continued Western presence in the region.
The article is subtle compared to the accompanying cartoon by John
Spooner – which suggests that the Gallipoli landings were staged to
prevent the genocide, and which has hit a peak of asininity that the
Spoon only managed to achieve during the Iraq War. It is, needless to
say, complete bullshit. The cartoon distills the need to give
Gallipoli a retrospective meaning at its most infantilised and
pathetic.

The fact is, had the Allies left the Ottoman empire alone, the
Armenians, Greeks and other nationalities within its borders would
have fared far better. War supercharged the push towards nation-state
status and licensed mass murder, as wars usually do. Prior to that,
the Ottoman empire was a reasonably multicultural society at a time
when the Western empires had become obsessed with virulent eugenic
racism; the war gave its “Young Turk” rulers a chance to put Western
ideas of racial and national purity into action.

The deeper you go in, the less the Right is going to like the truth of
this period – such as the influence of Zionism on Turkish ethnic
cleansing, with both Herzl and Jabotinsky having acted as advisers to
the Young Turks, suggesting that the Young Turks adopt the Zionist
model of statehood – and grant the Jews a Zionist state as an enclave
within it. To this day, the one state that goes out of its way to say
officially that there was no Armenian genocide is … Israel. In 1948,
the Zionist insurgents would use the Turkish model to create their own
state through violent ethnic cleansing. Still waiting for the truth
and reconciliation commission on that. Oi, oi, oi.

Meanwhile, there’s probably at least one truth and reconciliation
commission that Australians should be more interested in, and that’s
to do with a war closer to home – the frontier massacres of
Aborigines, which continued right up to and beyond WWI, and which
shaped the attitudes of many of the country kids who became the
Diggers. There’s a link there, too. The larrikin image of the Anzacs
that we celebrate may have come from an irreverence to authority in
the face of British disdain, but much of that disdain came from the
fact that some, perhaps many, Australian troops were far more willing
to kill Arab civilians than British soldiers were, and Australian
troops were notorious for it. Why? Because they’d already become
comfortable and relaxed about killing brown people at home, and Arabs
were just a different shade. If pompous propagandists like Monk want
to advise Turkey about ways of handling their past, what do they
imagine Turkey might suggest to us?

Good God, the Right, and their capacity for delusion and
mythologisation, especially around the doings of white people. As
their project becomes ever more chaotic, its justifications become
ever more absurd. That mix of incuriosity, lack of self-reflection,
and clueless self-satisfaction. Someone should find a way to bottle
it. Though I doubt it will be in short supply in the weeks and months
to come.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
April 19 2015

To use or not use the G-word

NURAY MERT

The pope’s use of the G-word and then the European Parliament’s vote
to urge Turkey to recognize the `Armenian Genocide’ angered not only
the president and the government, but also the nationalist opposition
and a majority of Turks.

President Recep Tayyip ErdoÃ?Â?an first condemned Pope Francis and then
described the EU vote as an act of `enmity toward Turkey.’ Although we
leftist/democrat intellectuals are inclined to recognize the Armenian
massacre as a `genocide,’ and many of us have been using the G-word
for some time, we should admit that the nationalists of Turkey have a
point.

The point is that international condemnations of genocides, other
massacres and mass sufferings are indeed politically motivated in most
of the cases. Many can object to what the pope said when he defined
the Armenian Genocide as `the first genocide of the 20th century,’ but
he did not dare mention the 19th-century genocidal mass murders of the
colonial powers. It can be considered timely for the European
Parliament to more strongly note the Armenian suffering in its
centenary. Nonetheless, turning a blind eye to so many other
historical crimes almost justifies the minor powers’ objections that
the big powers are using history to intimidate them. It is true that
the powerful nations of the Western world are inclined to be more
self-critical, but their self-criticisms sound more like expressions
of benevolence and noble-mindedness than of shame.

On one hand, these objections should be taken into consideration. On
the other, however, minor powers like Turkey never seem to comprehend
the importance of self-criticism concerning their past; that is why
they miss all chances to acknowledge their share of responsibility in
the terrible events and moments of human history. Turkey and the
Armenian massacre is one of the best examples. Turkey’s denial of
genocide or of even the true extent of the Armenian massacres is
always based on the accusation of treason ` that Ottoman Armenians
sided with the imperial powers, implying that they deserved what they
got.

Nevertheless, Turks never think that, in the end, Ottomans allied with
other (German) imperialists in World War I to save their own empire.
Besides, Turkey does not want to admit that it was not only the
Armenians who revolted and/or joined the Russian army, but the whole
civil population suffered from deportations and massacres. As for many
Armenian politicians, they supported the Second Constitutional regime
hoping for autonomy, and most became alienated from Ottoman rule only
afterward. By the way, the Arabs also allied with the `imperialists’
and staged the Arab revolt against the Ottomans, but Turks never
considered collectively punishing their Arab co-religionists (Thank
God). There are many other historical issues that we have to discuss
honesty, but we never recognize the fact that no matter who urges us,
we should use the opportunity to acknowledge the truths of our
troubled past to move forward.

Instead, Turkey has done everything to run away from the ghosts of the
past. Now, Turkey is insisting that historical matters should not be
politicized and should be left in the hands of historians.
Nevertheless, the Turkish state was more than happy when Western
powers and indeed historians turned a blind eye to Armenian suffering
in order to foster good relations after the foundation of the new
republic. There was also political motivation behind the courtesy of
Western powers in the wake of World War II. Then, after Turkey became
a staunch Western ally during the hot years of the Cold War, the big
powers avoided angering Turkey by raising the Armenian issue. At the
time, Turkey even managed to get away with the so-called `Conquest of
Cyprus.’ Therefore, Turkey seems to be all too happy at playing
political power games, together with `Western hypocrisy’ as far as it
suits its interests.

Finally, the most important aspect of acknowledging and apologizing
for the past is the show of willingness to avoid similar crimes or
responses in the face of current challenges. All nations and
societies, Turkey among them, need to use historical testimony to
avoid possible future misdeeds. But we first need to be honest enough
to be able to complain about the pope’s, the EP’s or others’ hypocrisy
or injustice.

April/20/2015

States News Service
April 16, 2015 Thursday

HELSINKI COMMISSION TO HOLD HEARING ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

WASHINGTON

The following information was released by the Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission):

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as
the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing:

A Century of Denial: The Armenian Genocide and the Ongoing Quest for Justice

Thursday, April 23

2:00PM

Rayburn House Office Building

Room 2175

On the 100th anniversary of the first genocide of the modern era,
Armenians are still fighting for recognition of the genocidal nature
of the massacres that began in 1915 and resulted in the death of as
many as 1.5 million people. The government of Turkey continues to deny
the genocide and actively punishes those who recognize it.

The hearing will examine denialism by the Government of Turkey and the
decades-long effort to seek accountability. The hearing will also
provide an opportunity to assess potential countercurrents in Turkish
society that could move the Government of Turkey toward recognition,
and explore what the United States and other countries can do to help
bring about recognition and eventually, reconciliation.

The following witnesses are scheduled to testify:

Dr. Taner Akam, Professor of History, Robert Aram, Marianne Kaloosdian
and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies, Clark
University

Mr. Kenneth V. Hachikian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America

Mr. Van Z. Krikorian, Co-Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Armenian
Assembly of America

Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou, Visiting Associate Professor of Conflict
Resolution, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Additional witnesses may be added.

Media Contact: Stacy Hope

202.225.1901

Metro News, Canada
April 19 2015

How Canada recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2004

By Staff

Sarkis Assadourian took his seat in Parliament with a purpose: as
Canada’s first MP of Armenian descent, he wanted Ottawa to recognize
the 1915 slaughter of Armenians as a genocide.

Assadourian, a child of survivors and Liberal MP from 1993 to 2004,
knew he would have a fight on his hands. Several motions had been
tabled for genocide recognition. All failed for the same reasons as
they have in other countries.

“First there was the NATO alliance with Turkey,” he says. “Then Canada
didn’t want to be the odd man out in its relations with a NATO ally.
And there were threats from Turkey that it would be bad for economic
relations.”

There was also the 1982 assassination of a Turkish military attaché in
Ottawa — a murder that an Armenian group claimed responsibility for,
but a crime that was never solved.

But in April 2004, Bill M-380 passed by a margin of 153-68. It was
introduced by Bloc Québécois MP Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral and seconded
by Assadourian, the NDP’s Alexa McDonough and Tory Jason Kenney.

The bill’s passage was the end of a rocky road that bumped over
interparty disputes, foreign policy fears, procedural wrangling — and,
Assadourian says, tense closed-door talks with the Turkish
authorities.

“The Turkish ambassador had clear arguments against the bill. One,
that we’d suffer economically — Turkey wouldn’t buy Candu reactors or
Canadian-made trains. Second, the threat of violence (against the
Turkish Embassy) by Armenian extremists. Third, that Armenians would
make claims against Turkey for confiscated land.”

The Liberal government of then prime minister Paul Martin was worried.
As reassurance, Assadourian was asked to make a personal — and
symbolic — declaration that he had no territorial claim against the
Turkish government.

“I thought if I didn’t sign this now, I’d never have the chance to
pass the motion,” he says. “I signed.”

For 67-year-old Assadourian, who grew up in Syria and immigrated to
Canada in the 1960s, it was mission accomplished. “I’m glad to have
played a role in that historic change,” he says.

One of his goals as an MP, however, is still unfulfilled. “I wanted to
see a Canadian Embassy open in (the Armenian capital) Yerevan. That
doesn’t look likely right now, but who knows? There is always time.”

Buenos Aires Herald, Argentina
April 19 2015

‘Turkey will eventually have to reconcile with its own history’

Carlos Manoukian, Armenian Centre Culture Affairs Representative

Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic row with Turkey this past week when
he called the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians 100 years ago
“the first genocide of the 20th century.” They were words though that
were celebrated among Argentina’s 130,000-strong Armenian community
that is hosting a series of events to mark the 100th anniversary of
the mass killings. From his office on Armenia street in the heart of
Palermo, The Armenian Centre Cultural Affairs representative Carlos
Manoukian spoke passionately about the Armenian genocide, what he
described as efforts by the Turkish government to cover it up, and how
Armenian-Argentines have been able to hold on to their roots.

How was your family affected by the Armenian Genocide?

My paternal grandparents lost 70 percent of their family, my mother’s
side was able to flee Turkey. The genocide actually began before the
official 1915 date, which is when the killings became systematic, as
they seized and killed 250 Armenian intellectuals in one night and
then attacked the civilian population. However, the Turks claim it was
a civil war.

Why was the massacre carried out?

They wanted a Turkish state, for Turks. The Turks are Muslim, the
Armenians are Christian. A Christian enclave that was hated. They took
the Armenians out of their homes and occupied them

How many Armenians died in Turkey?

Three-quarters of the Armenian population was assassinated, 1.5
million killed and 500.000 exiled. Now there are only around 30,000
left. They wanted to make them disappear. All the documentation proves
this, diplomatic telegrams and newspaper articles throughout the
world.

Although Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes
with Ottoman soldiers, it continues to deny it amounted to a genocide.
Why?

One of these reasons is that, if it were to accept genocide, it would
launch legal claims to compensate for the Armenian property that was
taken.

But, they weren’t a state then…

Yes, but the land was occupied by Armenians that were part of the
Ottoman empire at the time. The Armenian Church lands were immense for
example. There were cities with more than a thousand churches. Imagine
what this would mean for Turkey to give back this land. In the long
term, they will have to give it back.

So do you think current Turkish leaders understand that genocide was
perpetrated but are doing this for political reasons?

Yes, to avoid paying and having to confront history. If they
recognized the truth they would have to realize, for example that the
Turkish founding father Mustafa Kemal was also one of the people who
organized this genocide. How do you reconcile this? It’d be like
acknowledging that José de San Martín was a mass murderer.

Are there Turks who support acknowledging the genocide?

Yes, many academics such as Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize winner in
literature, have acknowledged it but they are persecuted by the
Turkish government for their views.

Why isn’t there more international pressure on the Turkish government
to recognize the genocide?

Because it’s very important geopolitically–a key land mass connecting
Europe with Asia and the Middle East. It has an important and sizeable
army. It’s too important an ally to many states for them to risk their
relationship over this issue.

After Pope Francis publicly acknowledged the Armenian genocide, do you
think more countries will follow suit?

Yes, they eventually will be forced to do so. Israel and the US could
even change in the future. Israel uses it as a bargaining tool with
Turkey while Barack Obama promised before he was elected that he would
recognize it, although he has yet to do so. Turkey will eventually
have to reconcile with its own history.

Is there still racism against Armenians in Turkey?

Yes, absolutely.

How will the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide be commemorated here?

There are several activities planned. On April 24 there will be a
religious ceremony and the City Legislature will award a medal to the
community. On April 25 there will be a remembrance ceremony at the
Rural Society and there will also be a march to the Turkish
ambassador’s residence on the 28th. And on April 29 we will hold an
event at the Luna Park theatre. There will also be numerous events
throughout the year.

Is President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government supportive of
the Armenian community?

Yes, the president met with us (last week).

But isn’t it true that the state-run news agency Télam recently
removed an article from its system about the Armenian genocide because
of pressure from Azerbaijan?

Yes, this journalist wrote an investigative piece on how a
historically Armenian region was given to Azerbaijan by Joseph Stalin.
And the journalist visited the region, wrote an article and received
pressure from Turkey and Azerbaijan to remove it.

Doesn’t that concern you?

My views are one thing and the institutional views another. It’s a
mistake, but we must understand that Télam is the national news
agency.

But if the state recognizes the genocide but backs off from an
article, doesn’t that mean there is pressure…

It certainly isn’t a good thing but you can separate it into two
different issues. The land conflict with Azerbaijan is one thing and
the Armenian Genocide is another.

Do you think it was racist for the Volkan Bozkir, Turkey’s minister
for European affairs to say that “the Armenian diaspora controls the
media and business” in Argentina?

It was so disrespectful, they even threatened the Pope. They are just
brutish. They are completely wrong, I wouldn’t say they are fascists
but they can’t take criticisms.

The same minister said Argentina was a country that welcomed “Nazi
torturers with open arms.”

I didn’t really understand that statement because Turkey was allied to
Germany in both wars. Its significance is hard to understand, you
would have to ask them. But they wanted to insult the pope for being
Argentine.

A recent Turkish soap opera that has garnered huge ratings here has
been criticized by the Armenian community that said it was being aired
to cover up the anniversary of the genocide, do you see it that way?

I don’t criticize people for liking it but it’s too much of a coincidence.

Ted Cruz Calls For Recognition of Armenian Genocide

By Contributor on April 19, 2015 in Headline, News //

Cruz: “The Massacre of the Armenian, Assyrian, and other Christian
People Should be Called what it is: Genocide”

WASHINGTON–Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) on April 18 marked the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide
with a statement calling for the proper recognition of the massacre of
Armenian, Assyrian, and other Christian peoples as genocide, reported
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Cruz’s statement, addressed to the Armenian Church of Austin, was read
on the south steps of the Texas State Capitol, during the Austin Peace
March and Rally, an observance attended by thousands and organized by
the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Texas.

“Senator Cruz got it right,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram
Hamparian. “As Americans, we cannot be silent. We must speak the
truth. His remarks highlight the Armenian Genocide gag-rule that
Ankara continues to enforce on the U.S. government, and spotlight the
stark choice facing President [Barack] Obama this April 24: to reject
or enforce Turkey’s veto on our nation’s Armenian Genocide policy.”

Prior to his election to the oval office, Obama was clear and
unequivocal in his pledge to properly characterize the murder of over
1.5 million Armenian men, women and children from 1915-23 by the
Ottoman Turkish government as genocide. “The facts are undeniable. An
official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical
facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage
of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as
President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” stated then Senator
Obama in a Jan. 19, 2008, statement. The full text of that statement
is available at here.

Since his election in 2008, Obama has yet to honor that pledge. A
complete record of Senator Obama’s statements on the Armenian Genocide
prior to his election to the White House is availablehere.

The full text of Senator Cruz’s statement is provided below.

***

Senator Ted Cruz

United States Senate

April 18, 2015

Armenian Church of Austin

In Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

One hundred years ago, the world was too silent as the Armenian people
suffered a horrific genocide. Today, we commemorate more than a
million souls who were extinguished by the Ottoman Government. Let the
terrors of those events awaken in us the courage to always stand for
freedom against evil forces. As Pope Francis rightly said, “Concealing
or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without
bandaging it.”

The massacre of the Armenian, Assyrian and other Christian people
should be called what it is: genocide.

Sadly, many today are still unaware of this 20th century atrocity. We
cannot neglect the brutality carried out on these innocent souls
because we cannot leave any room for them to occur again. If we forget
the annals of history, we will not honor those who suffered in the
death camps of the Holocaust, Soviet Union, Cambodia, and many others.
That is a tragedy we can and should prevent.

As the Russian novelist and Soviet prisoner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
reflected, “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within
us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it,
and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.”

I commend your efforts to illuminate the past, and to prevent such
injustice from occurring again, whether in your homeland or in any
country around the globe. Thank you for your commitment to speaking
the truth in love.

May God bless the Armenian people, and may he continue to bless America.

Sincerely,
Ted Cruz
United States Senator