MARGARIAN: IF TURKEY WANTS TO JOIN EU, IT SHOULD ADMIT ITS GUILT
Yerkir
25.04.2006 11:47
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – “For the Armenian people the April 24 is not only
a day of commemoration but also a day of struggle since by paying
homage to the memory of the innocent victims we also express our
protest to the Turkish government,” Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(ARF) Bureau representative Hrant Margarian said when visiting the
Armenian Genocide Memorial on April 24.
“The stronger Armenia becomes the closer we’ll get to the admission
of the Armenian genocide by Turkey.” He added that the recognition,
however, “is not our only goal, we should also demand our rights.”
“Armenians’ rights to live, survive and develop were violated by the
Genocide, and by the recognition of the Genocide, we will restore
those rights,” Margarian said.
When asked would Turkey be accepted to the European Union without
the recognition of the Genocide, Margarian answered, “If Turkey has
decided to join the EU, it should be able to admit its guilt and thus
gain the right to join it.
To be a part of Europe, Turkey should become Europeanized itself.”

1,000 JOIN SOAD RALLY URGING TURKEY TO END ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL
Yerkir
25.04.2006 15:18
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Armenian Americans from across the United States
joined today with System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan
at a Washington, DC “Rally for Justice,” urging the Turkish Government
to end its worldwide campaign of Armenian Genocide denial.
Organized by the Armenian National Committee of Greater Washington
(ANC-GW) and the Armenian Youth Federation Washington Chapter,
the protest attracted over 1,000 activists to the Turkish Embassy,
as Armenians worldwide marked the 91st anniversary of this crime
against humanity. Among the participants was DC United star player
Alecko Eskandarian, who was MLS Cup Champion and MVP in 2004.
Tankian and Dolmayan are in Washington, DC as part of a three-day
advocacy tour in support of Congressional recognition of the Armenian
Genocide.
Following participation in the rally on Monday, the band members will
be meeting with Members of Congress and the media urging passage
of legislation in the Senate and House that would recognize the
Armenian Genocide. On Tuesday evening, Tankian and Dolmayan will host
a screening of excerpts of “Screamers,” a powerful film by Carla
Garapedian about System of a Down’s international anti-genocide
advocacy efforts.
On Wednesday evening, they will be honored for their vocal pursuit
of justice for the Armenian Genocide at the annual Armenian Genocide
observance on Capitol Hill.
The inter-generational “Rally for Justice” brought together young
and old in their call for the Turkish Government to end its campaign
of Genocide denial. Activists were met by a smaller group of Turkish
and Azerbaijani counter-protesters, who were apparently organized by
the Turkish Embassy staff and its paid lobbyists.
Following the demonstration, attendees walked to the Embassy
of the Republic of Armenia for a short service and wreath-laying
ceremony. Members of local Armenian organizations placed wreaths and
flowers in front of the Khatchkar (stone cross).
The ceremony was led by Ambassador Tatoul Markarian and featured
remarks by Nagorno Karabagh representative Vardan Barseghyan, and
the participation of the Washington Homenetmen Armenian Scouting troop.

EVENTS TO COMMEMORATE VICTIMS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ARE BEING HELD THROUGHOUT RUSSIA
Regnum, Russia
April 24 2006
On April 24, Armenians of the whole world commemorate the tragic date –
Memorial Day of Genocide of Victims in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
Mourning events take place both in Armenia and abroad, where there
are Armenian Diasporas, including Russia.
According to schedule of the Armenian Consulate General in South
Federal District, civil actions in memory of victims of tragic events
in 1915 take place; wreaths and flowers were placed to monuments to
victims, innocently killed during the tragedy. Officials in Novosibirsk
will lay flowers on Armenian Khachkar grave in Pervomaysky Park
erected at the expense of the Armenian community in Novosibirsk in
memory of victims. Members of the State Duma, Novosibirsk regional
and city Councils will take part in the event.
About 100 representatives of Armenian Diaspora in Transbaikalia placed
wreaths to Glory Memorial in Chita, and lighted funeral candles at
Church of Kazan Icon of the Blessed Virgin. Funeral meeting will
finish the mourning events. At Stroitel Palace of National Cultures
in Tyumen, evening, devoted to Memorial Day of Genocide Victims,
will take place, as well as exhibition, devoted to national heroes;
patriotic songs will be sang, poems of Armenian poets will be read,
and historical events of 1915 will be described.
Also, mourning meeting took place in Izhevsk (Udmurtia) near Peoples
Friendship Monument.

MOSCOW POLICE ARREST TEENAGER IN CONNECTION WITH FATAL STABBING OF ARMENIAN STUDENT
PRAVDA, Russia
April 24 2006
Police arrested a teenager in connection with the fatal stabbing of
an Armenian student on a Moscow subway platform over the weekend,
a city prosecutor’s official said.
The killing was the latest in a wave of attacks against dark-skinned
immigrants from the southern Caucasus regions and former Soviet
Central Asia.
Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for Moscow prosecutor’s office, said
in televised comments that a 17-year-old boy was detained Monday and
had confessed to the Saturday evening killing.
Russian news agencies said investigators had classified the attack
as simple murder, but were considering classifying the killing as a
hate crime.
The ITAR-Tass news agency said the victim – a 17-year-old Armenian
native and Moscow university student – was standing with a group of
acquaintances when seven people got off a train and attacked them,
stabbing him once in the chest. The victim died on the spot.
The incident prompted sharp criticism from the Union of Russian
Armenians, a civic organization in Moscow.
“It’s not important what nationality the killed person is. This
concerns everyone. This is a problem for all of Russia,” union chief
Ara Abramian said on Ekho Moskvy radio. “If we have extremism and
nationalism, we should call these things exactly what they are and
then maybe these incidents won’t be repeated.”
Law enforcement authorities often classify attacks on minorities as
simple “hooliganism” with no racial motivation, fueling the anger of
Kremlin critics who say the government does little to stem hate crimes.
Several attacks on foreigners and ethnic minorities have occurred in
Russia in the past few weeks, and the country has seen a marked rise
in xenophobia and racism in recent years, with rights groups accusing
the government of inaction.
Assailants, often young skinheads or other nationalists, have committed
hundreds of attacks on foreigners from Africa, Asia and Latin America,
dark-skinned immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and the
Caucasus Mountains region, and Jews. Dozens have died.
Rights activists say hate groups are emboldened by what they believe
is the authorities’ mild approach to prosecuting hate crimes, and
complain that neo-Nazi and other extremist literature and propaganda
is widely available on the streets and on the Internet.
Also Monday, Russian news agencies reported that a 25-year-old Tajik
man was killed and another 25-year-old Tajik was wounded after being
attacked in Moscow on Sunday. Prosecutors were investigating the
crime as a possible racial attack, the AP says.

ARMENIANS’ STATEMENTS ON GENOCIDE HARM ARMENIA ITSELF – KLO
Author: S.Ilhamgizi
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24 2006
“Interpretation of events occurred in Osman Empire in 1915, by
Armenians, as ‘Armenian genocide’ is full ungrounded as worldwide
recognition of genocide requires facts on destruction of one nation
alone. However, facts on genocide against namely Armenians in Turkey
do not exist”, – reportedly said historian Akif Nagi, chirman of
Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO).
He said Armenians’ statements on so-called genocide that aim at
worldwide recognition of this ‘genocide’, are harming Armenia itself,
and there are some people in Armenia that realize this fact. “Head of
“AOD” movement, former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan also
claimed the necessity in leaving these statements”, – Nagi outlined.

BALANCED PORTRAYAL AN EXTREMIST’S WORST NIGHTMARE: PBS DOCUMENTARY “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
Elizabeth Frierson
Cincinnati Enquirer, OH
April 24 2006
A remarkable new documentary, “The Armenian Genocide,” was broadcast
nationwide on PBS last Monday – except in Los Angeles. This controversy
is at heart, behind all the bloviating rhetoric, over freedom of
speech and freedom of inquiry, basic human rights that KCET quashed –
in the United States of America – by suppressing this documentary. Our
local affiliates did not buckle under the pressure.
Why did this documentary upset extremists on both sides of this
history?
Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew Goldberg tells as big a story
as possible, showing not just what happened, but why, not just two
sides with their own versions of events, but multiple victims and
perpetrators with differing points of view. In other words, this
balanced portrayal is an extremist’s worst nightmare.
Viewers see starving Muslim refugees from Christian atrocities in
the Balkans before WWI. This complicates the idea that Muslims were
always the aggressors and Christians always the victims in ethnic
conflict. The documentary also shows Armenian guerrilla fighters
attacking Turks. Neither Christian atrocities nor Armenian resistance
justified genocide. Still, these stories are often downplayed, as
if people today couldn’t make those distinctions, and need to be fed
simple lies in order to be horrified by atrocities.
Second, the film shows ordinary Turkish citizens telling family
stories of atrocities against Armenians, expressing their grief and
disgust over what happened. This shows that ordinary Turks – despite
the government’s denials of genocide – today are ready to acknowledge
and mourn this tragedy. This upsets extremists on both sides.
Third, we meet scholars and writers who are, even as you read this
paper, on trial in Turkey just for using the term “genocide” to
describe what happened. These courageous Turks do research and publish
results knowing that they put their lives and livelihoods at risk by
doing so. They are actively supported by Armenian colleagues who are
equally sickened by easy answers to messy questions on the Armenian
side. This kind of cooperation across boundaries is what frightens
extremists on both sides most of all, precisely because it threatens
to break boundaries of hatred that make life simpler than truth and
reconciliation would require. It is ironic that Turkish journalists on
trial were rendered invisible by intimidated broadcasters in the U.S.
Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Bosnia, WWII Europe – it’s a long and filthy list,
and to many an incomprehensible, and therefore unstoppable, part of
“human nature.” It is neither incomprehensible nor unstoppable, as
long as we are free to see the whole picture, including its shades
of grey. Messy truth may be hard to take, but that’s precisely why,
in this country, censorship is illegal. Except, apparently, in L.A.
Elizabeth B. Frierson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, History of the
Middle East and North Africa, University of Cincinnati, and editor
of The Turkish Studies Association Journal. She was among the experts
interviewed for “The Armenian Genocide.”
/article?AID=/20060424/EDIT02/604240341/1090

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.