GERMANS OF JEWISH DESCENT PROTEST FAKED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Author: J.Shakhverdiyev

TREND Info, Azerbaijan
April 24 2006

On April 23 political movement Azerbaijan’s Way together with Turkish
community arranged a action of protest against fake Armenian genocide;
the action took place in Ujun, Germany, Trend reports quoting Asli
Khalilgyzy, foreign relations coordinator with aforesaid movement.

Khalilgyzy said the action had been supported by Turkish youth and
other movements of Germany; next action will be held May 2 in town
of Feirbacj, then in Izmir, Stockholm and Oslo.

Khalilgyzy said, quoting Guldana Rzayeva, Azerbaijan Way’s
representative to Germany, the movement is going to arrange one more
protest action today in the same city. This action, alongside Turkish
people, will be supported by Jewish residents.

She also said the reason for support Jewish communities granted to
this action are the documents provided to these communities, which
list the names of 87 Jews murdered by Armenians in 1918 in Guba.

LET’S DO AWAY WITH FALSEHOODS OF BOTH TURKS AND ARMENIANS
Recep Guvelioglu

New Anatolian, Turkey
April 24 2006

Today is the day some Armenians claim as “the commemoration day of
the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians during 1915-23.” The date
has been chosen deliberately. On the night of April 24, 1915 the
Ottoman government arrested 200 leaders of the Armenian community in
Istanbul. They and some others were sent to Anatolian prisons.

According to the Armenian scholars’ claim, after that imprisonment
the Ottoman government started to implement its plans to liquidate
Armenians all over Turkey.

I don’t want to go into details of the atrocities committed by
Turks and Armenians in history. It was a bloody and disgusting part
of history. I personally spent quite a long time (some 20 years)
studying this issue. It would take almost a whole book to explain or
discuss the events and claims one by one.

What bothers me is some lies both sides use to present their thesis.

For example: The Armenian side always claims that “1.5 million
Armenians died in 1915-23.” There are two falsehoods in that sentence.

The first is the number. Some could argue that the number isn’t
important. Of course killing 10 or 10,000 doesn’t make any difference,
if the act is aimed at extinguishing a nation. But why say this
lie? Why do they exaggerate the number?

….Optional……….

I can give some records about the Armenian population and losses in
the 1900s:

“The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before World War I amounted to
between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000. The Armenian Patriarchate gave the
figure as 1,845,450. Of these about 250,000 managed to escape to
Russia … Of the remaining 1,600,000 about 1,000,000 were killed
… Of the surviving 600,000 about 200,000 were forcibly Islamised …”

(Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation,
New York, second ed. 1990, p. 230; available online at
). The statistic given by Tournebize in
1900 of the Armenian population in Turkey is 1,300,000 (Tournebize F.,
Histoire Politique et Religieuse de L’Armenie, Paris 1916).

According to 1917 English Yearbook, the total Armenian population in
Turkey was 1,056,000.

The French yellow book 1893-1897 (Paris 1897, p. 2-8) says that
the Armenian population in Turkey is 1,475,011 According to Ottoman
statistics, the Armenian population in 1914 was 1,294,851.

I can supply more such figures.

Now, how they came up with this figure of 1.5 million I don’t
understand.

…End Opt ………….

The second thing that bothers me is the historical period in the
sentence “1.5 million Armenians died in 1915-23.” Why do they include
the period of the Turkish War of Independence in the so called-genocide
claim?

The famous pro-Armenian writer Christopher J. Walker explains that a
“figure between 50,000 and 100,000 were killed off during the Turkish
invasion of the Caucasus in May-September 1918” (Walker, Armenia:
The Survival of a Nation, p. 230). He mentions the Turco-Armenian
war of 1918-1920.

Have you ever heard such a claim anywhere? This historian adds the
number of people who died in war to the number of what they call
“the number of genocide victims.” Besides, the new Armenian republic
started the war for revenge. It was not the Turks’ fault.

On the Turkish side there are also many falsehoods.

First of all, we are trying to deny the massacres perpetrated in
1915, as if the Armenians died due to disease. Another lie is that
the Turkish government has opened the Ottoman archives up the public.

We have not done so. No catalog has been properly published yet for
the Emniyet-i umumiye (General Security Administration) or Birinci Sube
(bureau of political crimes) archives of the Ottoman Empire.

Personally, I’m not afraid of the Ottoman archive records.

I don’t understand why the Archives Administration doesn’t release
them. There are a lot of falsehoods, as I said in the beginning, in
both sides’ claims. Like the Andonian documents on the Armenian side,
or some Turks’ claim that in history there was never an Armenian state.

If we erase the lies from our thesis, the picture will at least be more
realistic. Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II last week urged both sides to
get rid of narrow understandings based on racism. I cordially support
him. That should be the way.

Whatever the U.S. public network PBS says in their documentary on the
Armenian case isn’t important. Instead of ill-fated attempts to deal
with the Armenian diaspora, the Turkish government should deal with
the Armenian Republic even if its Constitution claims “genocide.” Our
government should try to solve the problems faced by Armenian
foundations in Turkey. In truth, there are good signs in both cases.

This is the warm atmosphere we need.

As for what happened in 1915, I would like to conclude today’s column
with the words of Ahmet Refik Altinay. Whoever let those inhuman,
brutal crimes occur in 1915 “upon them is God’s curse, and the curse
of angels and of mankind” (Ahmet Refik, Iki Komite Iki Kital. Kebikec
yayinlari, Ankara 1994).

ARMENIANS MARK ‘GENOCIDE’ AT TURKISH EMBASSY IN TBILISI

Civil Georgia, Georgia
April 24, 2006

Dozens of representatives of the Armenian community in Georgia
gathered on April 24 outside the Turkish Embassy in Tbilisi to demand
recognition of slaughter estimated 1,5 million Armenians in 1915-1923
as genocide.

Armenians throughout the world are marking April 24 as a launch of
Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turkish government. But Turkey insists
that the number of those killed is inflated and the Armenians were
victims of World War I and not of genocide.

ARMENIAN MILITARY FORCES BREAK CEASE-FIRE AGAIN
Author: E.Javadova

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

On April 23 Armenian military forces broke cease-fire again, Trend
reports with reference to press service of Azeri Ministry of Defense.

On April 23, at 20:25 till 20:30, Armenian forces opened fire from
positions 0.8 km south of Mazamli village of Kazakh area; from 22:30
till 22:45 Armenian forces fired from their positions at Voskevan
and Shavarshan villages of Noyamberan area.

The enemy was neutralized with a back strike.

REMEMBERBING THE ARMENIANS
Amy Lee / The Detroit News

Detroit News, MI
April 24, 2006

Service marks 1915-23 genocide

Photo: The Rev. Daron Stepanian prepares to enter the ceremony,
which was attended by 600 people. The genocide claimed more than 1.5
million lives. See full image

Photo: Allan Foord of Garden City attends the service to learn more
about the genocide. See full image

Photo: Souren Aprahamian, from left, Simon Tashjian, Sarkis Demirjian
and Olive Mooradian are some of the 10 survivors of the Armenian
genocide in Metro Detroit at the Sunday ceremony at St. John’s Armenian
Church Hall in Southfield.

Spiritual reflection mixed with calls for recognition during a
somber ceremony marked the 91st anniversary of Armenian genocide,
an eight-year campaign by Turkey’s Ottoman Empire that killed 1.5
million people of Armenian descent.

On today’s date 91 years ago, members of the Ottoman Turkish
government arrested and executed 200 Armenian community leaders in
Constantinople, marking the beginning of an extermination program
that eventually claimed more than 1.5 million lives between 1915 and
1923. The Turkish government denies that the mass murders were part
of a government-backed campaign.

About 600 people, including 10 survivors who live in Metro Detroit,
reflected with prayers and by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and
“Mer Hayrenik,” the national anthem of Armenia, during a service at
St. John’s Armenian Church Hall in Southfield on Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, was the keynote
speaker; Knollenberg co-chairs the Armenian Congressional Caucus.

There are about 40,000 people of Armenian descent in Michigan and
1 million nationwide, according to a study issued last year by the
Armenian Research Center/University of Michigan-Dearborn.

The group mourned the victims and underscored the need to educate
the world about the genocide and its aftermath.

“Historically, there hasn’t been enough recognition that it really
happened, so they’re very dependent on the oral history from people
who were actually there,” said Gloria Baykian, whose mother, Rose,
fled Armenia as a child in 1909 when the clampdown on Armenians was
picking up steam.

Baykian and 26 others were honored on a list of survivors at St.

John’s. The 10 survivors at the ceremony received a standing ovation
from the congregation during the commemoration, said Christopher
Korkoian, co-master of the ceremony.

The present-day Republic of Turkey denies that a genocide took place,
and the United States has thus far refused to recognize the actions
as a genocide. France, Argentina, Greece and Russia, however, have
officially recognized the campaign against Armenians.

“This is one of the most important days for our culture and our
history. They were martyrs,” Korkoian said. “Our ancestors fought for
survival, but their numbers are getting smaller as time passes. Now
we’re fighting to make sure no one forgets or denies that anything
even happened. It’s something we are never going to forget.”

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RUSSIAN TEEN DETAINED FOR RACE MURDER

TVNZ, New Zealand
April 24, 2006

Police have arrested a schoolboy for the murder of a young Armenian in
what was widely seen as a racist killing, prosecutors said on Monday.

Witnesses to the Saturday murder said Vagan Abramyants, a 17-year-old,
was part of a group on its way to an Easter service when young men
with black jackets, boots and shaved heads jumped off a metro train
and attacked them.

The attackers, described by Russian media as skinheads, fled the scene,
leaving Abramyants dead with a knife wound to the chest.

“A young man who was born in 1989 has been detained, and has
already confessed,” a spokesman for the prosecutors told Russian
news agencies. Interfax said the arrested teenager was studying at
a Moscow school.

Racist assaults have become common in Russia, where young men are
increasingly prone to neo-fascist beliefs despite the country being
proud of its role defeating Nazi Germany.

African and Asian students are frequently targeted, along with
darker-skinned immigrants from Russia’s former colonies in the South
Caucasus and Central Asia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

U.S. MUST DEMAND TURKEY ADMIT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Vahe Tazian

Detroit News, MI
April 24, 2006

A rmenians worldwide today will commemorate the 91st anniversary of
the Armenian genocide. This year’s remembrance of the massacre of
more than 1 million Armenians by the Young Turk government of the
Ottoman Empire carries particular significance.

With Turkey’s desire for European Union membership looming,
international pressure has never been stronger on Turkey to address
its own history. And Ankara’s political elites have never been so
steadfast in furthering the myths used to explain the crime.

There is no better opportunity than now to hold Turkey accountable
for the crimes of its culture’s past. In December 2005, the ghost of
the 1915 Armenian genocide appeared on the European Union scene when
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier announced that Turkey would
be expected to recognize the event during EU accession negotiations.

“This is an issue that we will raise during the negotiation process,”
he said. “We will have about 10 years to do so and the Turks will
have about 10 years to ponder their answer.”

Perhaps Turkey already has its answer: Blame the victim and employ
tactics to confuse and divert attention from the truth.

Turkey has accused Armenians of rebelling during the war, helping
the Russians and killing Turks. But no credible evidence supports
this contention, and historians, academics and survivors agree what
happened to the Armenians in 1915 amounts to genocide.

Recently, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said the accusations
of genocide are baseless and “upset and hurt the feelings of the
Turkish nation,” adding, “It is wrong for our European friends to
press Turkey on this issue.”

Efforts to silence those who speak of the atrocity indicate Turkey’s
denial campaign. The best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was
prosecuted last year for “insulting Turkish identity” by referring
to the Armenian genocide in a Swiss newspaper interview.

“One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands
and nobody but me dares talk about it,” Pamuk said.

The charges against Pamuk — for a crime punishable by up to three
years in prison — were dropped in February after considerable
international protest.

Any event relating to the genocide — film, conference, memorial,
publication — is fought by Turkish embassies, including, in some
instances, by mobilizing Turkish immigrant communities.

Such determined efforts by the Turkish government are partly the
reason why the Armenian genocide is barely known and has not been
formally recognized by so many countries, including the United States.

For too long, the United States has caved to politics, failing to
pressure Turkey for fear of upsetting an ally. Yet, its National
Archives are filled with thousands of pages documenting the
premeditated extermination of Armenians.

Thirty-six states, including California, New York and Michigan,
have formally recognized the genocide and more than 170 members of
Congress are co-sponsors of the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

Continuing to ignore the occurrence of this human tragedy is
acquiescing in Turkey’s denial. U.S. lawmakers and the international
community should join members of the European Union, demanding Turkey
finally recognize the murder of the Armenians as genocide.

The silence that has greeted calls for Armenian Genocide remembrance
must be replaced with a global outcry, as was echoed by Henry
Morgenthau, U.S. ambassador to Turkey during the genocide.

“My failure to stop the destruction of the Armenians made Turkey for
me a place of horror,” he said, “and I found intolerable my further
daily association with men who … were still reeking with the blood
of nearly a million human beings.”

Vahe Tazian is a lawyer who resides in Beverly Hills. Fax letters to
(313) 222-6417 and send e-mail to [email protected].

photo: The Armenian community in France and elsewhere held masses,
marches and memorials last year to mark the 90th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

COALITION OF STUDENTS RALLIES FOR RECOGNITION OF GENOCIDE
By Jed Levine
Daily Bruin Contributor
[email protected]

The UCLA Daily Bruin, CA
April 24, 2006

Members, allies of Armenian community take steps to gain formal
acknowledgment of event.

UCLA students, along with Armenian students from across Southern
California, came together with the Armenian community Saturday
night for “Blinded by Injustice: Rally Against Denial” to remember
those who were killed in the 1915 Armenian Genocide and campaign for
international recognition.

Today marks the day of remembrance for the genocide that began 91
years ago and lasted for eight years, killing an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey.

While bodies like the California Congress, the European Union and
other nations have officially acknowledged the genocide, both the
United States and Turkish governments have not.

For Haig Hovesepian, a pharmacology graduate student who was the
UCLA representative coordinator of the event, the rally called to
support involvement in the democratic process, something he believes
is crucial to gaining formal recognition of the genocide.

“It’s not just enough to be aware and feel something about the issue,
but also to do something about the issue,” said Hovesepian.

“(We) have to continually knock on the doors of their representatives
and tell them this is important to you,” he added.

Saturday’s rally in Glendale, the hub of the Armenian community in
the U.S., was coordinated by the All Armenian Student Association
Confederation, a coalition of Armenian Student Associations from 12
universities in the Southern California area.

More than 200 members and allies of the Armenian community were in
attendance, including Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, a longtime
supporter of the Armenian effort for genocide recognition.

Schiff spoke to the crowd about his current efforts to pass
HConRes195, which would be an official recognition of the genocide
by the U.S. Congress and would urge Turkey to seek resolution with
the Armenian people.

He questioned why Congress voted to acknowledge a genocide in Darfur
and not the Armenian genocide.

“(The U.S. is) a greater country than that, and I think it’s
tremendously important that we lead by example and that we call
genocide for what it is,” said Schiff after his speech.

A series of events last week, including Saturday’s rally and
a benefit concert held last night, have led up to a march to the
Turkish Consulate this afternoon.

Nareeneh Sohbatian, a fourth-year international development studies
and political science student, is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha,
the Armenian sorority at UCLA, which collected over a dozen sandwich
boards from other campus groups and covered them with black paper
and information about the genocide, placing them along Bruin Walk.

“It’s about continuing to educate the Armenian community and educating
the community at large,” Sohbatian said of the various events being
held around the day of remembrance.

The issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide came to a head at
UCLA in 1997, when the Turkish government offered $1 million to endow
a Turkish studies chair.

The offer came with multiple preconditions including that the chair
would need to “maintain close and cordial relations with academic
circles in Turkey,” provisions which raised red flags among the
Armenian students of UCLA.

The current stance of the Turkish government and Turkish academics
is that a genocide did not occur and that the deaths were the result
of quelling civil unrest and fallout from World War I.

Arbi Ohanian was a fourth-year at UCLA at the time, and took part
in the campaign against the donation that resulted in a vote by the
UCLA Department of History in which the money was turned down due to
possible conflicts in academic integrity.

“It’s still a contemporary issue. It’s not just something that happened
91 years ago, as evidenced by the Turkish Study Chair (incident),”
said Ohanian while attending the rally. “It’s continued denial that’s
occurring.”

In years past, students have organized vigils on their campuses to
remember the genocide, however, this year the main event was moved
to Glendale.

Coordinators also changed the event from a vigil to a rally, as it
has evolved in placing more emphasis on politics and the democratic
process than in previous years.

“In recent years the vigil looked less like a vigil and more like a
rally. This is more like a call to action,” said Christopher Minassian,
chairman of the Genocide Recognition Committee, of the evolution of
the event.

Hovesepian said the importance of events like the “Rally Against
Denial” is that they help to keep the issues of the genocide in
people’s minds and in the public eye.

“There are individuals out there who would like to see these types
of issues dropped because they’re inconvenient,” Hovesepian said.

“So when you have individuals such as ourselves become complacent,
it gives these individuals the opportunity to erase these things like
genocide from our collective conscience. It’s not just our community
but a lesson for other communities,” he added.

Many of the people in attendance Saturday night also felt that
continued awareness was important for the Armenian community.

“I don’t think there’s a difference between April 24 and any other
day,” said Maral Karagozian, a recent UCLA graduate and former member
of the ASA.

“It should always be in our minds that (the Armenian Genocide) is a
part of us.”

CONSULTATIONS WITH AZERI, ARMENIAN FMS IN MOSCOW WERE SUBSTANTIAL – US AMB AT OSCE MG
Author: E.Huseynov

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

The consultations held with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers in Moscow were very substantial, Russian Ambassador Yuriy
Merzlyakov, the OSCE Minsk Group told Trend. He was commenting on a
meeting held last week between the Foreign Ministers of Armenian and
Azerbaijan, Vardan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov within the framework
of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers.

“We mulled the details of further discussions (under the negotiation
process – Trend). So, the next round of talks will start shortly,”
Merzlyakov announced, hinting at the next round of talks on the level
of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers.

According to Merzlyakov, the meeting is to be held in May, while the
term and place of talks are still to be defined. Upon the completion of
the meeting of the ministers the diplomats will mull the opportunities
for organization of a dialogue of the Presidents.

Merzlyakov noted that in the beginning of May the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs will set up consultations in Moscow, and after tour the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region.

TURKEY TO ADDRESS UNESCO WITH COMPLAINT AT FRANCE REGARDING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIALS
Author: R. Abdullayev

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

Turkey is going to address UNSECO with a complaint at France regarding
so-called Armenian genocide memorials, Trend reports with reference
to Turkish media.

The ground for the complaint was erection of monuments in memory of
so-called Armenian genocide in Paris and Lion. Both the monuments
are erected on grounds on the list of “world’s cultural heritage”
by UNSECO.

For instance, Lion’s monument is located on historical square
Antonin-Ponchet that was claimed the part of “world’s cultural
heritage” in 1998.

The message says also Syria has addressed UNESCO accusing Paris of
demolishing historical fortress Yejjad.