Category: News

The New York Times
Jackson and His Legal Team Part Ways
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 26, 2004
LOS ANGELES, April 25 – Michael Jackson has replaced his legal team just
days before he is scheduled to be arraigned on child molesting charges, the
departing lawyers said Sunday.
One of the lawyers, Benjamin Brafman, a New York criminal defense lawyer
hired by Mr. Jackson shortly after felony child molesting charges were
announced in December, said in an interview on Sunday that serious conflicts
had been brewing for weeks between Mr. Jackson’s legal team and a large
group of family members and others advising him.
“This is a decision that was unavoidable under the circumstances,” Mr.
Brafman said. “Mark Geragos and I are stepping down – or as the Jackson camp
is suggesting, being replaced. The fact is, this point was coming to a head
over a number of complicated legal and practical issues that it would be
inappropriate to discuss at this time.”
Mr. Geragos confirmed that he would no longer represent Mr. Jackson. He is
the lead defense lawyer in another prominent case, the murder prosecution of
Scott Peterson of Modesto, Calif. Mr. Peterson is accused of killing his
pregnant wife, Laci, in late 2002.
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Jackson’s defense would now be led by
Thomas Mesereau Jr., a Los Angeles lawyer whose best-known recent client was
the actor Robert Blake, who is charged with murdering his wife, Bonny Lee
Bakley, three years ago.
In February, Mr. Blake dismissed Mr. Mesereau, the third lawyer who has
represented him in the case.
In an interview on Sunday with The Associated Press, Mr. Mesereau declined
to answer questions. “I’ll have no comment on the developments until I
appear in court Friday,” he said, referring to a pretrial hearing where Mr.
Jackson is expected to be arraigned.
The indictment against Mr. Jackson is under seal until his arraignment, and
he is free on $3 million bail.
Mr. Mesereau, whose clients have also included the former heavyweight boxing
champion Mike Tyson, has reportedly been meeting with Mr. Jackson at a
compound in the Orlando, Fla., area, where the singer is staying with his
children.
The changes in Mr. Jackson’s legal lineup come just four days after a grand
jury in Santa Barbara, Calif., indicted him on charges of child molesting.
Members of his previous legal team had said late last week that they were
preparing to challenge the grand jury indictment on legal and procedural
grounds.
The authorities in Santa Barbara County charged Mr. Jackson in December with
seven counts of child molesting and two counts of administering alcohol to a
minor. The charges involve a then-13-year-old boy who was an overnight guest
at Mr. Jackson’s Neverland Ranch outside of Santa Barbara on several
occasions early last year.
The Santa Barbara grand jury handed up a sealed indictment of Mr. Jackson
last week after 13 days of closed-door testimony. At the Friday hearing, a
judge is expected to set a schedule for trial.
Mr. Brafman said that despite differences with Mr. Jackson and his camp over
legal strategy, he wished the singer well.
“I hope with all my heart that at then end of this ordeal he is in fact
exonerated,” Mr. Brafman said.
Mr. Jackson, 45, has long been surrounded by family members, including his
parents and his brothers, with whom he performed as a child as a member of
the Jackson 5 before starting his successful solo career. He has also, more
recently, been advised by leaders of the Nation of Islam and others who have
advocated a more aggressive response to the current allegations.

PRESS RELEASE
HAMAZKAYIN & DocuDays
113-7222 Beirut – Lebanon
Fax: 961-1-352256
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
Beirut, Lebanon
April 22, 2004
Arevag; Festival of Armenian Filmmakers.
An unprecedented film event organized by Docudays and Hamazkayin
Armenian Cultural and Education Organization of Lebanon and the central
committee, will take place in Beirut, presenting a collection of films
made by Karekin Zakoyan (Armenian), Garine Torossian (Canada), Serge
Avedikian , Stephane Elmadjian(France) and Nigol Bezjian (Lebanon).
The festival kicks off on April 26th and will continue for the next five
days ending it on April 30,2004.
Each filmmaker is given a night to showcase his/her films to Lebanese
public.
All are welcomed
Entry is free and open to all.
For more details of program, location and the filmmakers please visit

Armenian National Committee of America
888 17th St. NW Suite 904
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 775-1918
Fax: (202) 775-5648
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet:
PRESS RELEASE
April 24, 2004
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918
PRESIDENT BUSH FAILS TO HONOR PLEDGE TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
FOR THE FOURTH TIME
WASHINGTON, DC – President Bush, ignoring calls from over 190
U.S. legislators, failed, once again, to honor his campaign pledge to
properly characterize the Armenian Genocide as “genocide,” reported
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
In a statement issued today, on April 24th, the annual day of
remembrance for the Armenian Genocide, the President again resorted to
the use of evasive and euphemistic terminology to obscure the reality
of Turkey’s Genocide against the Armenian people between 1915-1923.
This year’s statement praised the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation
Commission (TARC,) the failed State Department funded initiative
devised to derail progress toward international recognition of the
Armenian Genocide. The effort was universally rejected by Armenians
in the U.S., Armenia and around the world.
“We do appreciate that President Bush has, once again, taken the time
to mark April 24th as a day of remembrance. Armenian Americans,
however, remain deeply troubled that for the fourth year in a row,
despite his repeated calls for ‘moral clarity’ in the conduct of our
international affairs, he has allowed pressure by a foreign government
to reduce the President of the United States to using evasive and
euphemistic terminology to avoid properly identifying the Armenian
Genocide – an important chapter in America’s emergence as an
international humanitarian power – as what is was: a genocide,” said
ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “The President’s failure to
honor his campaign promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide is
compounded by the fact that, in this statement, he commends the
thoroughly discredited Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission, a
transparent partnership between the U.S. State Department and the
Turkish government to block the growing international recognition of
and justice for Turkey’s crime against the Armenian nation.”
“It is also plainly disingenuous for the President to ‘call on both
Armenia and Turkey to restore their economic, political, and cultural
ties,’ when it is the Turkish government that has illegally imposed a
decade-long blockade of Armenia, and it has been Armenia that has
called for the normalization of bilateral relations without
preconditions. This formulation suggests either a lack of
understanding of the region or a deliberate effort to artificially
play down Turkey’s belligerent posture while simultaneously devaluing
Armenia’s very meaningful contributions to regional stability.”
The Bush Administration is formally on record in opposition to
Congressional legislation recognizing the Armenian Genocide. For the
position of the Democratic Presidential hopeful John Kerry regarding
Armenian Genocide recognition, please visit
The text of the President’s remarks are provided below.
———————————————————-
The full text of the statement by President George W. Bush
———————————————– ———–
The White House
Washington
April 24, 2004
On this day, we pause in remembrance of one of the
most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the
annihilation of as many as 1.5 million Armenians
through forced exile and murder at the end of the
Ottoman Empire. This terrible event remains a source
of pain for people in Armenia and Turkey and for all
those who believe in freedom, tolerance, and the
dignity of every human life. I join with my fellow
Americans and the Armenian community in the United
States and around the world in mourning this loss of
life.
The United States is proud of the strong ties we share
with Armenia. From the end of World War I and again
since the reemergence of an independent Armenian state
in 1991, our country has sought a partnership with
Armenia that promotes democracy, security cooperation,
and free markets. Today, our Nation remains committed
to a peace settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
and is grateful for Armenia’s continuing cooperation
in the war on terror. By advancing understanding and
goodwill, free nations can help build a brighter
future for the world. Our country seeks to help
Armenia expand its strategic relations with the United
States and our European allies.
Generations of Armenian Americans have also
strengthened our communities and enriched our Nation’s
character. By preserving their heritage, faith, and
traditions, Armenian Americans enhance the diversity
that makes America great.
I commend individuals in Armenia and Turkey who have
worked to support peace and reconciliation, including
through the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation
Commission, and call on Armenia and Turkey to restore
their economic, political, and cultural ties. I also
send warm wishes and expressions of solidarity to the
Armenian people on this solemn day of remembrance.
GEORGE W. BUSH
#####

A1 Plus | 16:31:30 | 24-04-2004 | Official |
ROBERT KOCHARYAN LEAVING FOR FRANCE
President Robert Kocharyan will depart for Paris on April 25. Armenian
Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Economic Development are in the
delegation headed by Kocharyan.
Armenian President will meet President Jacques Chirac in Paris. Robert and
Bella Kocharyans will be present for the concert of famous songster Charles
Aznavour.
On April 27 the Armenian delegation will leave for Warsaw to partake in the
European Economic Forum activity. Kocharyan will take part in the sitting on
“Caucasus”. In Warsaw he will meet Poland President Alexander Kwasniewski
and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Toronto Star
April 25 2004
Turkish historians facing Armenian facts
Scholars tearing away at Turkey’s `curtain of silence’ Most experts
agree 1915 killings were a case of genocide
BELINDA COOPER
NEW YORK TIMES
MINNEAPOLIS – Taner Akcam doesn’t seem like either a hero or a traitor,
though he has been called both.
Akcam, a Turkish sociologist and historian currently teaching at the
University of Minnesota, writes about events that happened nearly a
century ago in an empire that no longer exists: the mass killings of
Armenians in the Ottoman empire during World War I.
But in a world where history and identity are closely intertwined,
where the past infects today’s politics, his work, along with that of
like-minded Turkish scholars, is breaking new ground.
A slight, soft-spoken man who chooses his words with care, Akcam, 50,
is challenging his homeland’s insistent declarations that the
organized slaughter of Armenians did not occur.
And he was the first Turkish specialist to use the word “genocide”
publicly in this context – a radical step, when one considers that
Turkey has threatened to sever relations with countries over this
single word.
In 2000, for example, Ankara derailed a U.S. congressional resolution
calling the 1915 killings “genocide” by threatening to cut access to
military bases in Turkey.
“We accept that tragic events occurred at the time involving all the
subjects of the Ottoman Empire,” explains Tuluy Tanc,
minister-counsellor at the Turkish embassy in Washington, “But it is
the firm Turkish belief that there was no genocide but self-defence
of the Ottoman Empire.”
Scholars like Akcam call this a misrepresentation that must be
confronted.
Most experts outside Turkey agree the killings are among the first
20th-century examples of what the 1948 Genocide Convention defined as
acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
During World War I, the government of the disintegrating Ottoman
Empire, fearing nationalist activity, organized mass deportations of
Armenians from its eastern territories.
In what some consider the model for the Holocaust, Armenian men,
women and children were sent into the desert to starve, herded into
barns and churches that were set afire, tortured to death or drowned.
The number of deaths is disputed: Armenians say it was 1.5 million;
some Turks insist it was more like 300,000.
In the official Turkish story, the Armenians were casualties of a
civil conflict they instigated by allying themselves with Russian
forces working to break up the Ottoman Empire.
In any case, atrocities were documented in contemporary press
reports, survivor testimony and dispatches by European diplomats,
missionaries and military officers.
Abortive trials of Ottoman leaders after World War I left an
extensive record and some confessions of responsibility.
A legal analysis commissioned last year by the International Center
for Transitional Justice in New York concluded that sufficient
evidence exists to term the killings “genocide” under international
law.
Yet unlike Germany in the decades since the Holocaust, Turkey has
consistently denied that the killings were intended or that the
government had any moral or legal responsibility.
In the years since its founding in 1923, the Turkish Republic has
drawn what Turkish historian Halil Berktay calls a “curtain of
silence” around this history at home and used its influence as a Cold
War ally to pressure Western governments to suppress opposing views.
—————————————————————-
`It is the firm Turkish belief that there was no genocide but
self-defence of the Ottoman Empire’
Tuluy Tanc, Turkish diplomat
—————————————————————-
Turks fear to acknowledge the crimes of the past, Akcam says, because
admitting that the founders of modern Turkey, revered today as
heroes, were complicit in evil calls into question the country’s very
legitimacy.
“If you start questioning, you have to question the foundations of
the republic,” he says, speaking intensely over glasses of Turkish
tea in the book-lined living room of his Minneapolis home as his
12-year-old daughter works on her homework in the next room.
Akcam and others like him insist that coming to terms with the past
serves Turkey’s best interests.
Their views echo the experience of countries in Latin America,
Eastern Europe and Africa that have struggled with similar questions
as they emerge from periods of repressive rule or violent conflict.
Reflecting a widespread belief that nations can ensure a democratic
future only through acknowledging past wrongs, these countries have
opened archives, held trials and created truth commissions.
Akcam thinks some headway is being made, particularly since the
election of a moderate government in 2002 and continuing Turkish
efforts to join the European Union.
And he is convinced the state’s resistance to historical dialogue is
“not the position of the majority of people in Turkey.”
He cites a recent survey conducted by scholars that appeared in a
Turkish newspaper showing that 61 per cent of Turks believe it is
time for public discussion of what the survey called the “accusations
of genocide.”
But his views and those of like-minded scholars remain anathema to
the nationalist forces that still exercise influence in Turkey.
Akcam has been building bridges since 1995, when he met Greg
Sarkissian, founder of the Zoryan Institute in Toronto, a research
centre devoted to Armenian history.
In what both men describe as an emotional encounter, they lit candles
together at an Armenian church for Sarkissian’s murdered relatives
and for Haji Halil, a Turkish man who rescued Sarkissian’s
grandmother and her children.
Akcam and Sarkissian say Halil, the “righteous Turk,” symbolizes the
possibility of a more constructive relationship between the two
peoples.
But like most Armenians, Sarkissian says Turkey must acknowledge
historical responsibility before reconciliation is possible.
“If they do,” he says, “it will start the healing process, and then
Armenians won’t talk about genocide any more.
“We will talk about Haji Halil.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 25 2004
Armenian, French leaders to discuss Karabakh settlement

YEREVAN, April 25 (Itar-Tass) – Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
leaves on Sunday for France, where the problem of the mostly Armenian
populated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is expected to be
in the focus of attention.
On Monday, the visiting Armenian president will meet with French
President Jacques Chirac, the press service of the Armenian president
reported on Saturday.
Although the agenda of the working visit has not been announced yet,
Tass has learnt that the Karabakh settlement will be one of the main
issues to be discussed. France, Russia and the USA are co-chairmen of
the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh.
The two presidents will also discuss bilateral political relations
and economic ties.
Late on Sunday, the Armenian president and his wife will attend a
concert of Charles Aznavour. The famous French singer of Armenian
origin will give a concert on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
On April 27, the Armenian delegation led by Robert Kocharyan will fly
from Paris to Warsaw to take part in a world economic forum. The
Armenian leader will attend a working session on the Caucasus and
will meet the executive chairman of the forum, Klaus Schwab.
He will also meet within the framework of the forum with Polish
President Alexander Kwasniewski and Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
April 25 2004
Deputy commander of US forces in Europe goes to Armenia

YEREVAN, April 25 (Itar-Tass) – The deputy commander of U.S. forces
in Europe, Charles Wald, arrives in Armenia on Sunday for the second
time since November 2003.
The agenda of talks with the American general has not yet been
announced, but it is expected that the talks will focus on Armenia’s
cooperation with NATO within the framework of the partnership program
as well as on bilateral military ties.
Sources from the information department of the Armenian Defence
Ministry told Tass that Charles Wald will meet with Armenia’s Defence
Minister Serzh Sarkisyan and Chief of General Staff of Armenian Armed
Forces, Mikhail Arutyunyan.
The top guest is expected to meet with Armenian graduates from the
George Marshall European Centre for Security Studies, which the USA
set up in Germany.

Washington Times, DC
April 25 2004
By utilizing utilities, Russia retains power
By Steve Gutterman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TBILISI, Georgia – Several miles from the stately palace where the
czar’s envoy once governed Georgia is a nondescript office building
in a grimy industrial district.
Drab it may be, but for some Georgians, it symbolizes new Russian
power in their country, a land that spent nearly two centuries under
Moscow’s rule before becoming independent with the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
The building is the headquarters of Telasi, a Russian-owned
company that provides this city of 1.3 million people with
electricity – a precious commodity in a country where blackouts are a
part of daily life.
It’s just one of the tendrils of Russian economic influence that
reach across Georgia and the rest of the former Soviet Union.
Using pipelines and power lines instead of tanks and troops,
President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is seeking to strengthen its
influence over former Soviet republics at a time when the United
States and European Union are extending their presence eastward to
places that until recently were Moscow’s domain.
That change is highlighted by the entry of the three formerly
Soviet Baltic states into NATO and the European Union.
“Russia did not want, does not want and never will want to lose
its influence in the post-Soviet space,” said Ramaz Sakvarelidze, a
political analyst in Georgia, where Moscow has promised to close two
Soviet-era military bases.
“And now that its economy has not only gotten on its feet, but is
able to act outside its borders, Russia is replacing its military
levers of influence with economic structures.”
Telasi is a case in point, he said.
Russia’s state electricity monopoly, Unified Energy Systems
(UES), bought a controlling stake in the Tbilisi utility last year
from the U.S. power company AES.
Georgian politicians protested the deal would give Russia a
powerful political lever over their country. Russia already
controlled nearly all natural-gas supplies to Georgia, where steam
heating delivered to entire city neighborhoods is only a memory and
many people rely on gas-fired heaters to warm homes in winter.
Georgia hopes a U.S.-supported natural-gas pipeline from the
Caspian Sea to Turkey will ease its dependence on Russia, but it’s
not expected to be built before 2006.
UES chief Anatoly Chubais flew to Georgia last August and sought
to reassure authorities over the Telasi purchase, saying the company
had no political goals and Georgia’s electricity supplies would be
secure.
But critics questioned the company’s motives for buying a utility
whose chances of making a profit are diminished by decrepit
equipment, corruption, poverty and what U.S. Ambassador Richard Miles
called “an innate dislike on the part of Georgians to pay for
energy.”
Mr. Miles said the American company decided to sell because it
couldn’t afford “the hemorrhaging of money.” But he said the issue of
why UES bought Telasi was “a good question.”
UES is clearly trying to expand its presence in former Soviet
republics, a campaign Mr. Miles said may be motivated by the simple
desire to grow and by the hope of future profits. “What other
political motives there might be, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Mr.
Putin and Mr. Chubais about that,” he said.
Yevgeny Volk, head of the Moscow office of the Heritage
Foundation, said there is no secret to UES’s activities abroad.
“It’s practically part of the state apparatus, and naturally, the
policy it pursues is state policy – and that is to strengthen
Russia’s position in the zone traditionally considered its sphere of
interest,” he said.
UES, which exports power to countries from Norway to China, says
its foreign business is coordinated with the government and conducted
in the interests of its shareholders, the largest of which is the
state. It says company experts even advise the Foreign Ministry on
policy.
Mr. Volk said UES and other Russian companies with close ties to
the government are trying to acquire property in former Soviet
republics “and then use that property as a political lever to
influence the situation in those countries to Russia’s benefit.”
Mr. Sakvarelidze and other analysts said that will allow Moscow
to influence personnel and policy decisions in those countries,
shaping their future in line with its own interests.
In February, Russia’s state-connected Gazprom briefly halted
natural-gas supplies to Belarus during a dispute over Russian efforts
to gain control of Belarusian industrial enterprises, including the
pipeline company that relays Russian gas to Europe.
In December, the Russian state-owned oil pipeline monopoly,
Transneft, stopped deliveries to the Baltic Sea port of Ventspils,
Latvia. Latvian officials said Moscow was arm-twisting as part of an
effort to buy the Latvian government’s stake in the company that
loads oil onto ships bound for the West.
Also last year, Armenia ceded control over its only nuclear-power
plant to UES in a bid to escape debts to Russian energy suppliers.
Mr. Volk said Russia’s activity is a reaction to increasing U.S.
and European influence in the region.
“There’s no question of returning these countries to Russia or to
some sort of Soviet Union. Everyone understands that’s impossible
politically,” he said. “But to bind them more closely to Russia and
provide Russia with advantages in this economic space … this is a
completely realistic policy.”

Lowell Sun, MA
April 25 2004
Their horror remembered, their culture celebrated
Local Armenians honor the 1.5 million killed in genocide
By STEPHANIE COYNE, Sun Correspondent
LOWELL Thomas Magarian was an infant when his mom and dad were
murdered.
He lost four of his eight brothers and sisters when they were killed
along with his parents.
Luckily he doesn’t have any recollection of those horrible days, when
1.5 million Armenians were murdered some eight decades ago.
What he does remember is growing up in an orphanage in Beirut.
He smiles as he recalls a beautiful tree growing over a spectacular
Armenian church next to the home for children whose parents died in
the Armenian genocide.
Magarian is one of the few remaining survivors of the killings that
began on April 24, 1915, and lasted until 1923.
Yesterday, families of the victims gathered alongside Magarian, of
Tyngsboro, and another survivor, Bedros Shamshoyian of Lowell, to
remember Armenian Martyrs’ Day, the beginning of a period when the
Armenians were either killed or forced into exile from their
homeland.
Nearly 100 people attended the event, which began with a parade down
Merrimack Street to the steps of City Hall.
Tom Vartabedian emceed the ceremony, which paid tribute to the lives
lost and declared continued efforts to persuade the world to
recognize the Armenian genocide as a crime against humanity by the
Turkish government.
“We observe this anniversary not because it will bring back the dead
or restore our desecrated church and not because our people were
violated and dehumanized,” said Vartabedian, of Haverhill. “But
because we cling to the hope that maybe through education and
understanding, similar atrocities can be avoided.”
Many families with ancestors from the Armenian genocide attended
yesterday’s event to show commitment to keeping their history alive
and pay respect to the lives that were lost.
Sona Gevorkian and her husband Allen brought along their two
children, Datev, 2, and Tsoline, 1, to show their support in getting
the genocide recognized by the world. Turkey continues to deny any
involvement.
“My grandparents were survivors and I grew up hearing my
grandmother’s stories about the genocide,” said Sona, of Bedford.
“We’re trying to get it recognized for me it’s a personal thing as
well as a national thing.”
Angele Dulgarian of Chelmsford felt the same way.
She lost both grandparents and an uncle during those years of death
and destruction.
Dulgarian has attended the annual event honoring the Armenian victims
for the past 17 years and said she will continue to do so as long as
possible.
“We want to memorialize what happened,” she said. “We don’t want to
forget and we want future generations to know their history.”
Dro Gregorian, president of the Armenian Youth Federation through
Saint Gregory’s Armenian Church in North Andover, reaffirmed that
statement.
“The survivors of the genocide have rebuilt their communities and
churches and have kept their culture alive,” said Dro, of Chelmsford.
“As young grandchildren of survivors we vow to continue to keep our
rich history, religion and culture alive.”

Las Vegas Sun, NV
April 25 2004
Unhappy remembrance
Survivor recalls horror of Armenian genocide
By Ed Koch

LAS VEGAS SUN
Commemoration ceremony
What: Armenian Genocide Commemoration Ceremony, sponsored by the
Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas.
When: 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Where: West Sahara Library, 9600 W. Sahara Ave.
Who: Keynote speaker John Kasbarian, lecturer, activist and former
editor of the Armenian Weekly.
The passing of several decades has not dimmed the memory of the
horror Malvine Papazian Handjian witnessed as a 10-year-old Armenian
refugee on the streets of Izmir, Turkey, during the first genocide of
the 20th century.
Speaking in half-Armenian and half-English, the longtime Las Vegas
resident vividly recalled watching Turkish soldiers during a 1922
raid pull an Armenian priest by his long beard from his burning
church and laugh as they drove nails through the soles of his shoes
and into his feet.
Handjian wept recalling how Turkish soldiers carried off teenage
girls during the chaos to rape and kill them. She still sees the
terror in the eyes of young Armenian men who, to escape Turkish
bayonets, dove into the harbor and swam for foreign-flagged ships
only to be turned away and then drown.
“We must never forget — never forget,” said Handjian, 91. “I saw
these things with my own eyes. And I will never forget.”
Today marks the 89th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian
genocide in Turkey, which lasted eight years. On Sunday the
Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas will hold a
commemoration ceremony at the West Sahara Library to thank those who
have kept alive the memory of one of the world’s worst atrocities.
On April 24, 1915, the genocide began when about 200 Armenian
intellectual and political leaders were arrested in what is now
Istanbul and publicly executed. What followed was the systematic
slaying of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children. Many,
including Handjian, were taken on long death marches, where a number
of them succumbed to hunger and thirst.
“Perhaps if we had done more to remember the plight of the Armenians,
we would not have seen repeats of genocide in the 20th century,” said
John Dadaian, coordinator of the Las Vegas ceremony, Handjian’s
son-in-law and local spokesman for the Armenian National Committee of
America.
“Perhaps the Holocaust of World War II could have been prevented, as
well as the killing fields of Cambodia, the tribal slayings in Rwanda
and the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.”
Dadaian said, however, because the United States has long been an
ally of Turkey and benefits from its oil production, many American
leaders have been hesitant to put pressure on Turkey to admit to the
genocide, which it steadfastly denies happened.
“Turkish officials spend million of dollars lobbying Congress,
pushing an agenda of revisionist history that the genocide never
happened,” Dadaian said.
But, he said, many Nevada officials have not bought into the Turks’
denials. One is Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who at Sunday’s ceremony
will be honored as the Armenian National Committee’s Western Region
Man of the Year.
Last year Ensign, along with Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., introduced a
Senate resolution reaffirming there indeed was a genocide of
Armenians. Ensign said the measure “represents a renewal of America’s
commitment to preventing future genocides.”
Also, Gov. Kenny Guinn has issued this year a strongly worded
proclamation confirming Nevada’s position on “the genocide of the
Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.” In that document Guinn calls
Turkey’s actions a “systematic and deliberate massacre of the
Armenian people.”
Some experts believe the Turks’ failure to admit and atone for the
actions of their ancestors has hampered Turkey’s attempts to gain
admission into the European Union despite its growing economy.
Supporters of Turkey’s position say claims that a genocide occurred
are part of efforts to drive a wedge between Muslims, including the
Turkish people, and Christians, including Armenians.
“Armenian-Americans have attempted to extricate and isolate their
history from the complex circumstances in which their ancestors were
embroiled,” reads turkishembassy.org, the Turkish Embassy’s Web site.
“In so doing, they describe a world populated only by white-hatted
heroes and black-hatted villains. The heroes are always Christian and
the villains are always Muslim.”
The Turkish Web site further claims that the numbers of Armenians
living throughout the Ottoman Empire in 1915 were fewer than 1.5
million, and thus the numbers of the dead have been inflated; that
many Armenian victims were casualties of World War I and disease; and
that the Armenian losses were “few in comparison to the over 2.5
million Muslim dead from the same period.”
But opponents of the use of the term “Armenian genocide” cannot
easily shrug off the accounts shared by the traumatized Armenian
survivors, including Handjian.
In 1917 her father, a dentist, was abducted and put on a train
supposedly bound for battlefields to treat wounded Turkish soldiers.
News later came back to the family he died in a hospital far from a
war zone, she said.
A Turkish dentist who was in partnership with Handjian’s father then
took her family’s home and property, leaving Handjian, her mother,
two sisters and her brother homeless, she said. Hanjian went to live
in a suburb of Izmir with a family friend, Mari Yerganian, who became
her surrogate mother.
In 1922, during a post World War I Greek-Turkish conflict, Yerganian
and Handjian found themselves on the streets of Izmir, then called
Smyrna, in western Turkey, as Armenian-owned homes were burned by the
forces of future President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after they had
routed the Greek army.
Handjian said Yerganian protected her on their long march to
abandoned army barracks, where hundreds of Armenians were starved as
they awaited execution. Once, she said, Yerganian took a gold coin
she had sewn into her dress and gave it to a Turkish soldier who in
turn gave Handjian a sip of water.
“The day before we were to be slaughtered, a miracle happened when
the American Relief Society came and rescued us,” said Handjian,
referring to the BibleLands Missions Aid Society, which today is
known simply as BibleLands. “They got us on a ship to Greece. I could
never thank the Americans enough.”
In Greece, at age 15, Malvine married fellow Armenian genocide
survivor Kourken Handjian. They moved to France in 1929, where
Malvine became a volunteer with the Armenian Blue Cross, helping
other Armenian refugees. They moved to the United States in 1958,
where she became a volunteer with the Armenian Relief Society in Los
Angeles. They moved to Las Vegas in 1990.
The Handjians had three children, eight grandchildren and 13
great-grandchildren. Kourken, a retired candy maker, died in 2002 at
age 95.
The Handjians were the subject of the 2002 documentary film “The
Handjian Story: A Road Less Traveled,” produced and directed by their
granddaughter Denise Gentilini.
At last year’s Moondance International Film Festival in Denver, the
film won best feature documentary. Handjian joined her granddaughter
onstage at the awards ceremony and received a standing ovation.
Handjian said she is proud that her great-grandchildren today show
the film in their classrooms so that new generations from all ethnic
backgrounds will learn the truth about the brutal murders of her
people and perhaps remember.
Dadaian said his ancestors’ plight sends a foreboding message from
which the world can benefit. He recalled a London Times story of Nov.
24, 1945, which reported chilling words from Adolf Hitler that
perhaps best exemplify why the Armenian genocide should never be
forgotten.
“Speaking to his generals before Nazi troops invaded Poland, Hitler
assured them that they need not worry what the world would think of
their actions,” Dadaian said. ” ‘After all,’ said Hitler, ‘Who
remembers the Armenians?’ “