PRESS RELEASE
Armenian National Committee of the South Bay Cities
2222 Lomita Blvd. – Lomita, CA 90717
Contact: Lori Khajadourian
Tel: 310-541-2610
Email: [email protected]

2005-04-21

SOUTH BAY CITIES AND ARMENIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY MARK 90TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Torrance, CA – The City Councils of three South Bay Cities have joined
other California cities and Armenians around the world in
commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The
Cities of Lawndale, Rolling Hills Estates and Lomita have passed or
will be passing proclamations to remember the atrocities committed
against the Armenians and honor the memory of the victims of the
Armenian Genocide.

On the evening of Tuesday, April 12, 2005 the Mayor of the City of
Rolling Hills Estates read a proclamation declaring April 24, 2005 as
a `Day of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1925.’ The
Mayor presented the proclamation to Councilmember Frank Zerunyan whose
grandparents survived the genocide. Councilman Zerunyan was also one
of the featured speakers at a commemorative event organized by the
Torrance chapter of the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) that took
place Friday, April 22nd at the Armenian Community Center in Lomita.

The City of Lawndale followed suit on the evening of Monday, April
18th passing a similar proclamation as the City of Lomita will be
doing during its City Council meeting on Monday, May 2nd. `It is a
great thing to witness our civic leaders recognizing an issue that is
so important to members of our community both young and old’ said
chairperson of the South Bay ANC chapter Khajik Khajadourian `By
working together the South Bay’s ANC and AYF chapters hope that next
year more South Bay cities will join the growing number of California
cities joining our community in commemorating the Armenian Genocide.’

The South Bay cities are located in the south end of the Santa Monica
Bay and are bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and by
the City of Los Angeles on the north and east. The diverse South Bay
Cities are famous for their quality of life, beautiful beaches and
thriving industries. The Armenian-American community in the South Bay
includes active chapters of the Armenian Relief Society, which
operates a weekly Armenian language school, Armenian National
Committee, Homenetmen Armenian General Athletic Union and `Potorig’
Armenian Youth Federation.

The South Bay ANC is part of the largest and most influential Armenian
American grassroots political organization. Working coordination with
a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the United
States and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCA
actively advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a
broad range of issues.

#####

The White House
President George W. Bush

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 24, 2005
Statement by the President

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
On Armenian Remembrance Day, we remember the forced exile and mass killings
of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman
Empire. This terrible event is what many Armenian people have come to call
the “Great Calamity.” I join my fellow Americans and Armenian people around
the world in expressing my deepest condolences for this horrible loss of
life. Today, as we commemorate the 90th anniversary of this human tragedy
and reflect on the suffering of the Armenian people, we also look toward a
promising future for an independent Armenian state. The United States is
grateful for Armenia’s contributions to the war on terror and to efforts to
build a democratic and peaceful Iraq. We remain committed to supporting the
historic reforms Armenia has pursued for over a decade. We call on the
Government of Armenia to advance democratic freedoms that will further
advance the aspirations of the Armenian people. We remain committed to a
lasting and peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We also
seek a deeper partnership with Armenia that includes security cooperation
and is rooted in the shared values of democratic and market economic
freedoms. I applaud individuals in Armenia and Turkey who have sought to
examine the historical events of the early 20th century with honesty and
sensitivity. The recent analysis by the International Center for
Transitional Justice did not provide the final word, yet marked a
significant step toward reconciliation and restoration of the spirit of
tolerance and cultural richness that has connected the people of the
Caucasus and Anatolia for centuries. We look to a future of freedom, peace,
and prosperity in Armenia and Turkey and hope that Prime Minister Erdogan’s
recent proposal for a joint Turkish-Armenian commission can help advance
these processes. Millions of Americans proudly trace their ancestry to
Armenia. Their faith, traditions, and patriotism enrich the cultural,
political, and economic life of the United States. I appreciate all
individuals who work to promote peace, tolerance, and reconciliation. On
this solemn day of remembrance, I send my best wishes and expressions of
solidarity to Armenian people around the world.
Return to this article at:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity, while
the dead go uncounted

By Patrick Cockburn

The Independent/UK
24 April 2005

An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing
furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in
central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop
in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into
its engine.

The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not
survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be
accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a
potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their
lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.

“We should end the immunity of US soldiers here,” says Dr Mahmoud
Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to
prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the
reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits,
however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US
attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.

Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops
for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by
regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose
burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq.

A member of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi’s party, was
passing through an American checkpoint last year when a single shot
rang out from a sniper. No US soldier was hit, but the troops at the
checkpoint hosed down the area with fire, wounding the INC member and
killing his driver.

The rector of Al-Nahrain University in south Baghdad was travelling to
a degree ceremony on the other side of the city when white men in a
four-wheel drive suddenly opened fire, hitting him in the
stomach. Presumably they thought he was on a suicide mission.

It was obvious to many American officers from an early stage in the
conflict that the Pentagon’s claim that it did not count civilian
casualties was seen by many Iraqis as proof that the US did not care
about how many of them were killed. The failure to take Iraqi civilian
dead into account was particularly foolish in a culture where
relatives of the slain are obligated by custom to seek revenge.

The secrecy surrounding the numbers of civilians killed reveals
another important facet of the war. The White House was always more
interested in the impact of events in Iraq on the American voter than
it was in the effect on Iraqis. From the beginning of the conflict the
US and British armies had difficulty in working out who in Iraq really
was a civilian.

Marla Ruzicka, the American humanitarian worker who was buried
yesterday in California, had established in her last weeks in Iraq
that figures were kept based on after-action reports. Officially, she
found, 29 civilians were killed in fire fights between US forces and
insurgents between 28 February and 5 April. But these figures are
likely to be gross underestimates.

US soldiers are notorious in Iraq for departing immediately after a
skirmish, taking their own casualties but sometimes leaving damaged
vehicles. They would not have time to find out how many Iraqis were
killed or injured.

The Health Ministry in Baghdad did produce figures and then stopped
doing so, saying they had not been properly collated. Iraqi Body
Count, a group monitoring casualties by looking at media sources, puts
the total at 17,384. But most Iraqis die obscurely; it is dangerous
for reporters, Iraqi or foreign, to try to find out who is being
killed. Much of Iraq is a bandit-ridden no-man’s land.

Even in Baghdad it is evident from the hundreds of bodies arriving at
the mortuary that this has become one of the most violent societies on
earth. The Iraqi Body Count figure is probably much too low, because
US military tactics ensure high civilian losses – a bizarre aspect of
the war is that US commanders often do not understand the damage done
by their weapons in Iraq’s close-packed cities.

US firepower, designed to combat the Soviet army, cannot be used in
built up areas without killing or injuring civilians. Nevertheless, a
study published in the Lancet saying that 100,000 civilians have died
in Iraq appears to be too high. But the lack of definitive figures
continues to dehumanise the uncounted Iraqi dead. As Dr Richard
Garfield, a professor of nursing at Columbia University and an author
of the Lancet report, wrote: “We are still fighting to record the
Armenian genocide. Until people have names and are counted they don’t
exist in a policy sense.”

The immunity of US troops means that there is nothing to inhibit them
opening fire in what for them is a terrifying situation. For all their
modern armament they are vulnerable to suicide bombers and roadside
bombs. In the first case the attacker is already dead and in the
second the man who detonates the bomb is probably several hundred
yards away and in cover. With nobody else to shoot at it is the
civilians who pay the price.

Family tree tied to forgotten genocide

By Terri Jo Ryan Tribune-Herald staff writer

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The images are almost iconic:

Naked corpses piled high. Starving children with their skins hanging
on skeletal frames. Grinning executioners with grisly “trophies” of
human body parts.

But the photographic evidence of crimes against humanity are not from
the liberations of the Third Reich death camps – but from a much
lesser known mass murder called the Armenian Genocide.

The extermination attempt on the Armenian people – which was launched
90 years ago today with the slaughter of thousands in Constantinople –
is family history for Baylor University graduate student Art Tonoyan.

Tonoyan, 29, born in Soviet Armenia, is the grandson of two genocide
survivors. It was his late grandfather Grigor Tonoyan’s tales of the
terrors of 1915 that colored his decision to use his life studying
genocide in the hopes of preventing it.

Grigor was 8 years old in 1915 when Turkish soldiers burst into his
family’s home in an Armenian village. They slashed his father’s
throat, raped his mother and older sister in front of him before
killing them and an older brother. The assailants deliberately left
him alive, they told the young shell-shocked witness, “so you can see
what we are capable of.”

Others in the village were herded into a church and burned alive.
Missionaries found Grigor wandering a road and took him in, Tonoyan
said.

The woman who would become Art Tonoyan’s grandmother, Almast
Yeghiazarian, had no memory of the carnage that destroyed her family
because she was only 3 when it happened.

“She was too young to be scarred. All she could remember was growing
up in the orphanage,” Tonoyan said. “She was brought in with a sister,
and they somehow got separated for more than 40 years.”

Grigor and Almast grew to adulthood in an American-run orphanage.They
married and settled into what was then known as Soviet Armenia.

“Our family tree was obliterated by the genocide,” said Tonoyan.
“That’s where our family begins.”

– – Backdrop to tragedy – –

Armenia was the first nation-state to declare its state religion to be
Christianity, in 301 A.D. Its location at the nexus of the Anatolian
peninsula, bridging Europe, Asia and what is now called the Middle
East, meant it was overrun in ensuing centuries by a variety of
conquerors, eventually including the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

For several centuries, Armenians were a tolerated minority within the
empire, said Tonoyan, who is studying for his doctorate in religion,
politics and society. But the empire began to crumble in the early
19th century with many of its subjugated people – Albanians,
Bulgarians and Greeks – seeking independence.

Tonoyan, who came to Baylor in August after five years in America,
said that Ottoman Armenians weren’t seeking full independence, just
better treatment and more autonomy in their region. The area saw
recurring violence and turmoil throughout the 1800s.

Meanwhile, a Turkish intellectual movement began at the turn of the
20th century. A group calling itself the Committee of Union and
Progress, also known as The Young Turks, sought the “homogenization”
of the empire by cleansing it of religious and ethnic minorities. They
seized power in 1908 and deposed the last Sultan, Tonoyan said.

The declaration of World War I in August 1914 plunged Europe into
warfare, and provided cover for the systematic elimination of the
Armenian people, he said. First, the Armenian men and teenagers who
had been conscripted into the army were disarmed, placed into forced
labor camps and then worked to death or executed, he said.

On April 24, 1915, on orders of Talat Pasha, interior minister of the
Young Turks regime, some 300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and
professionals in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) were arrested
and killed. Also on that day in Constantinople, about 3,000
defenseless Armenian citizens were killed on the streets or in their
homes.

Finally, the remaining Armenians – women, children and the elderly –
were rounded up, told they would be “removed from the theatre of war”
and then marched off to concentration camps in the Syrian desert,
where they eventually died of starvation or thirst. Along the way, the
army shot those who could not keep up and raped the women and girls.

“Kurdish brigands kidnapped children and the pretty women for their
harems” and the boys as slaves, Tonoyan said. Some 60,000 Armenians
were drowned in the Black Sea, on barges the authorities ordered
loaded and sunk.

The world took some notice. Humanitarian agencies and religious groups
raised $100 million (about $3 billion in today’s dollars) to rebuild
villages, resettle survivors, transport others into exile and help
raise the thousands of orphans created by the ethnic strife.

But it was the lack of lasting international repercussions against the
perpetrators that later gave a certain Austrian corporal with
delusions of grandeur the courage to target his own despised minority.

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Adolph Hitler reportedly quipped to his military commanders a week
before his invasion of Poland that launched World War II.

Despite the horrific precedent it set for mass murders to come, George
Gawrych, a military historian and Middle East specialist at Baylor,
says “the Armenian case is a bit more complicated” than most genocide
scholars report. Gawrych, who taught for 20 years at the Combat
Studies Institute of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, studies the waning last century of the
Ottoman Empire.

He struggles with the term “genocide” (race-murder) to describe what
happened to the Armenians. He said he prefers “massacre,” which he
considers a more powerful term, to describe the conditions that
allowed for violence without repercussions.

“We need better terms,” Gawrych said. ” With ‘ethnic cleansing,’ you
don’t feel the human agony, do you?”

The Ottomans were fighting the growth of nationalistic fervor among
its peoples, not just the Armenians, said Gawrych.

An Armenian guerilla movement was fighting for statehood, and
massacres happened on both sides: Armenian insurgents killing soldiers
and wiping out Muslim villages, and soldiers killing Armenians and
wiping out their villages. Gawrych said it was hard to sift through
the carnage.

But was an extermination of Armenians ordered? Gawrych said the
official Ottoman position was that no such order existed, and that the
bloodshed was just a series of unfortunate massacres in reaction to
nationalistic fervor and ethnic tensions.

“But too many women and children died. Too many old people. There was
some government involvement,” he said, at least in creating the
atmosphere of lawlessness that allowed the worst to happen.

– – Ugly lessons unlearned – –

“Brutalization is a part of history,” Gawrych said. “If we believe we
are all created equal, or all made in the image of God, genocide would
be an unthinkable crime. A Holocaust is possible because there are
better means to accomplish systematic slaughter.”

The painful lesson about genocide is that the United States itself is
not immune from the kind of fear that grips a government or society
that feels threatened. A nation can start turning against its own
people and oppressing minorities when it thinks survival is at stake,
he said.

Americans “shouldn’t be smugly complacent that it can’t happen here”
because it has, Gawrych said, with the massacres and forced migrations
of Native Americans. “I don’t think humanity has learned much at all
about genocide; it keeps happening – often under the term ‘ethnic
cleansing’,” said Truett Seminary theology professor Roger E. Olson.
“The only effective means of stopping it would be an international
force trained and equipped to swoop into any country where it is
taking place and stop it immediately.”

However, this is unlikely as long as various countries continue to
undermine the United Nations, Olson added.

Baylor University religion department chairman Randall O’Brien shares
that harsh assessment.

“The cold, hard truth is that America has been fast with rhetoric, but
slow with real measures to stop genocide,” he said.

“American policy-makers will change American policies when we citizens
demand change, and not until then,” O’Brien said. The U.S., the
world’s only remaining superpower, cannot possibly police the entire
planet alone, he added.

“The United Nations, NATO, and others must work with us to combat
global evil. In the face of genocide, indifference and ‘neutrality’
are themselves forms of evil. Nor will rhetoric alone stop ethnic
cleansing. The eyes of the world must fall on the murderer,” he said.

Jerry Smith, a Baptist minister in Clifton, said the “human depravity”
of such mass murders has left scars on some survivors and their
offspring that breeds “a hatred that sometimes is unthinkable.” “On
any given day you can take your pick of places and peoples in the
world that need help,” Smith said. “Decisions have to be made to help
those that we can and hope and pray someone else helps those that we
can’t.”

– – A family begins – –

The boy left alive by Turkish soldiers in 1915, nurtured by
missionaries when his family was cut down, started the Tonoyan family
tree anew.

The genocide scholar now studying at Baylor was born in 1975 to
Grigor’s son and daughter-in-law in the Soviet Union. Art Tonoyan and
his wife, Lydia, have a 17-month-old daughter, Ani, born in the United
States.

But the endless sorrow of his family’s history still tugs at his
conscience, Tonoyan said.

“I will never forget my grandfather’s eyes,” he said. “He was a very
sad person. I rarely remember him smiling. He never got over seeing
his family murdered.”

The Armenian massacres, a stain on the world’s soul 60 years before he
was born, has colored Tonoyan’s entire life, he said. He hopes to work
for a think tank that detects genocidal situations and raises an
international alarm.

“I want people to see it and understand it as a lesson. If a full
account had been made and action taken when it happened,” he said,
“maybe Hitler would have thought twice before thinking he could get
away with the Holocaust.”

Like the boy left alive, the grandson “can see what we are capable of.”

Edicom, Suisse
April 24 2005

Génocide arménien: recueillement à Erevan, 90 ans après

EREVAN – Des dizaines de milliers d’Arméniens se sont recueillis à
Erevan devant le monument aux victimes du génocide de 1915. Un
million et demi de personnes devaient défiler dans la journée pour le
90e anniversaire des massacres perpétrés par les Turcs.
En pleurs ou en silence, ils ont déposé des fleurs devant le monument
aux victimes, sur la colline Tsitsernakaberda, comme le président
Robert Kotcharian, alors qu’une prière était récitée par le
catholicos Karékine II, chef de l’Eglise apostolique arménienne.
Symboliquement, le nombre de participants à la grande marche de
dimanche devait égaler celui d’Arméniens tués, soit 1,5 million selon
Erevan, au cours des massacres de 1915.
Cette année-là, en pleine Première guerre mondiale, les autorités
turques avaient arrêté le 24 avril 200 leaders de la communauté
arménienne, donnant le signal de ce que l’Arménie considère comme le
début d’un génocide planifié pour éliminer la minorité arménienne de
l’Empire ottoman.
Il y a 90 ans de cela, «a été commis un crime sans précédent dans
l’Histoire de notre peuple et de toute l’Humanité», a déclaré le
président Kotcharian dans une adresse à la Nation.
Il a cependant fait un geste en direction de la Turquie en assurant
que l’Arménie était «prête à construire des relations naturelles avec
la Turquie», avec laquelle Erevan n’a toujours pas établi de
relations diplomatiques.
De son côté Ankara rejette catégoriquement la thèse d’un génocide. La
Turquie estime qu’il s’agissait d’une répression dans un contexte de
guerre civile où les Arméniens se sont alliés aux troupes russes qui
avaient envahi la Turquie. Elle limite son estimation du nombre de
victimes arméniennes à entre 300 000 et 500 000 morts.
Le 90e anniversaire du génocide arménien intervient dans un contexte
de pressions accentuées pour que la Turquie reconnaisse le génocide:
le Parlement polonais, à l’instar de 15 autres pays, notamment
européens, vient de qualifier le massacre de génocide et un débat a
été ouvert au Parlement allemand.
Le président du parti de centre-droit français UDF François Bayrou,
présent à Erevan pour les cérémonies, a annoncé le dépôt d’une
résolution devant le Parlement européen pour que soit reconnu le
terme de «génocide arménien». Il a évoqué sa reconnaissance par la
Turquie comme une condition à son éventuelle entrée dans l’Union
européenne.

Edicom, Suisse
April 24 2005

L’Arménie marque le 90e anniversaire du génocide
par Avet Demourian

EREVAN, Arménie (AP) – L’Arménie marque ce dimanche le 90e
anniversaire du début des massacres perpétrés par l’Empire ottoman
avec une cérémonie au mémorial du génocide à Dzidzernagapert, près
d’Erevan.
La Turquie refuse toujours de reconnaître le génocide qui a coûté la
vie à 1,5 million d’Arméniens entre 1915 et 1917. Elle affirme que
les victimes sont moins nombreuses et qu’elles ont été tuées ou
déplacées dans un contexte de guerre civile qui a accompagné la chute
de l’Empire ottoman.
Samedi, à la veille de la commémoration, des milliers d’étudiants
arméniens se sont réunis dans le centre d’Erevan et ont gravi la
colline en haut de laquelle s’élève le monument aux morts du
génocide. Des couronnes de fleurs y ont été déposées.
Des messes commémoratives sont célébrées ce dimanche dans toute
l’Arménie et dans une centaine de pays où vit aujourd’hui la diaspora
arménienne.
A 19h00 (14h00 GMT), une minute de silence doit être observée à
travers toute l’Arménie. Les habitants d’Erevan sont invités, à la
tombée de la nuit, à placer des bougies à leurs fenêtres en mémoire
des victimes du génocide.
La France et la Russie ont reconnu le génocide arménien de 1915-1917,
le Parlement polonais fait de même mardi, ce qu’Ankara a condamné dès
le lendemain. La communauté arménienne fait pression sur le Congrès
américain pour que les Etats-Unis reconnaissent eux aussi le
génocide.
La Turquie, qui n’entretient pas de relations diplomatiques avec
l’Arménie, a proposé ce mois-ci une enquête conjointe des deux pays
sur les massacres de 1915-1917. Mais le ministre arménien des
Affaires étrangères Vardan Oskanyan a déclaré en février qu’Erevan
n’avait nullement l’intention de conduire de nouvelles recherches sur
un événement qui est, à ses yeux, un fait historique avéré.
L’année dernière, le président français Jacques Chirac a averti que
la Turquie devait reconnaître le génocide arménien pour pouvoir
adhérer à l’Union européenne comme elle le souhaite. AP

Edicom, Suisse
Dimanche 24 Avril 2005

L’Arménie commémore les 90 ans du génocide

EREVAN – Plus d’un million et demi de personnes s’apprêtaient à
commémorer dimanche à Erevan les 90 ans des massacres d’Arméniens par
les ttomans, avec des cérémonies d’une ampleur inédite. Erevan
appelle Ankara à reconnaître le génocide.
Après une marche aux flambeaux samedi soir suivie par 10 000
personnes réclamant la reconnaissance d’Ankara, un million et demi
d’Arméniens doivent défiler dimanche devant le monument érigé à
Erevan à la mémoire des victimes tuées entre 1915 et 1917.
Le nombre de participants à la grande marche de dimanche doit
symboliser le nombre d’Arméniens tués – 1,5 million selon Erevan – au
cours des massacres de masse organisés par le pouvoir ottoman.
Le président Robert Kotcharian a fait samedi un geste de bonne
volonté en excluant de demander des compensations matérielles à
Ankara en échange de sa reconnaissance du génocide.
Messe
Une messe sera célébrée en fin de journée à Erevan dans la cathédrale
Saint-Grégoire, où seront présents des représentants de la plupart
des communautés chrétiennes d’Orient et d’Occident. Des services
religieux seront organisés dans toutes les églises d’Arménie. A 19h00
(16h00 suisse), une minute de silence sera observée à travers tout le
pays.
Des milliers de membres de l’importante diaspora arménienne ont
afflué dans ce pays du Caucase pour participer aux cérémonies, qui
doivent être suivies par des représentants de quinze pays.
C’était la guerre
La Turquie rejette catégoriquement la thèse d’un génocide. Elle
estime qu’il s’agissait d’une répression dans un contexte de guerre
civile où les Arméniens se sont alliés aux troupes russes qui avaient
envahi la Turquie.
Ankara objecte souvent que des milliers de Turcs ont également été
tués par des Arméniens entre 1915 et 1917 et limite son acceptation
du nombre de victimes arméniennes à entre 300 000 et 500 000 morts.
A quelques mois du début des négociations d’adhésion de la Turquie à
l’Union européenne, prévu en octobre prochain, l’Arménie considère
que la conjoncture n’a jamais été aussi favorable à une
reconnaissance par Ankara du génocide.

Hamburger Abendblatt

Politik
22.0 4.2005

Die Türken wollten sie ausrotten
Völkermord: Auch 90 Jahre nach der planmäßigen Vernichtung der
Armenier regieren Angst und Vertuschung Ankaras Handeln.

Von Thomas Frankenfeld und Stefan Fuhr

Hamburg/Frankfurt a. M. – “Wer redet denn heute noch von der
Vernichtung der Armenier?” Der kleine schnauzbärtige Herr, der diese
Frage am 22. August 1939 vor hohen Wehrmachtsoffizieren und
Kommandeuren von SS-Sondereinheiten spöttisch in den Raum warf, war
seiner Sache sicher. Er war davon überzeugt, daß man über den
Völkermord an den Juden in späteren Jahrzehnten kaum reden werde, da
man auch die Vernichtung der Armenier längst vergessen habe.

Adolf Hitler hat sich gründlich geirrt; allerdings widmet die
Weltöffentlichkeit dem Leiden des armenischen Volkes zu Beginn des 20.
Jahrhunderts in der Tat noch immer beschämend wenig Aufmerksamkeit. Am
Sonntag jährt sich der Beginn des Genozids zum 90. Mal.

Seriöse Schätzungen sprechen von bis zu 1,5 Millionen Todesopfern
durch türkische Todesmärsche und Massaker ab 1915. Daß diese Greueltat
nicht im öffentlichen Bewußtsein steht wie die Shoa oder der
kambodschanische Holocaust, liegt vor allem daran, daß die Türkei seit
Jahrzehnten mit allen Mitteln das Ausmaß der Massaker und die Rolle
der türkischen Armee dabei zu verschleiern versucht. Wer in der Türkei
offen von einem Völkermord spricht, muß mit strafrechtlicher
Verfolgung rechnen. Der Hamburger Schriftsteller Ralph Giordano
spricht von einer “Industrie der Leugnung”.

Der türkische Nationalstolz fürchtet ein peinliches
Schuldeingeständnis, die Regierung in Ankara armenische
Schadenersatzansprüche. Für den Türkei-Experten Jan Cremer vom
Deutschen Orient-Institut in Hamburg ist das “Verhältnis türkischer
Offiziere und auch vieler Bürger zu ihrer Nation gemessen an
westeuropäischen Verhältnissen neurotisch.” Dabei hatte Großwesir
Damad Ferid Pascha am 11. Juni 1919 die Verbrechen der Armee
öffentlich eingestanden. Und im Erlaß des damaligen Innenministers
Talaat Pascha hieß es, die Regierung des Osmanischen Reiches habe
beschlossen, “alle Armenier, die in der Türkei wohnen, gänzlich
auszurotten.”

Das mürbe Osmanische Reich fürchtete damals den sich längst
abzeichnenden Zerfall und strebte einen ethnisch reinen Nationalstaat
an. Zwischen 1894 und 1896 hatte der türkische Sultan Abdülhamid
bereits bis zu 200 000 Armenier ermorden lassen. Und 1909 starben bei
Pogromen im Raum Adana noch einmal mehr als 20 000 Armenier.

Doch das Schlimmste stand den Armeniern noch bevor. Im Sommer 1915
schreibt der deutsche Botschafter in Konstantinopel, Hans Freiherr von
Wangenheim, an Reichskanzler Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg: “Die
Austreibung der armenischen Bevölkerung aus ihren Wohnsitzen in den
ostanatolischen Provinzen (…) wird schonungslos durchgeführt.” Wenig
später formuliert der Diplomat: “Die Art, wie die Umsiedlung
durchgeführt wird, zeigt, daß die Regierung tatsächlich den Zweck
verfolgt, die armenische Rasse im türkischen Reiche zu vernichten.”

Die deutschen Konsulate im Osmanischen Reich telegrafierten ständig
grausame Berichte über “Metzeleien”, “Massenabschlachtungen” und
Hunger-Märsche an das Auswärtige Amt.

Am 24. April 1915 hatte der eigentliche Genozid mit der Vernichtung
der gesamten armenischen Führungsschicht in Konstantinopel – rund 2350
Männer – begonnen. In den folgenden Monaten trieben türkische
Gendarmen und Soldaten eigens dafür aufgestellter Sondereinheiten fast
alle Armenier des Reiches in Sammellagern zusammen.

Wer nicht gleich einem der vielen Massaker zum Opfer fiel, wurde auf
Todesmärschen Richtung Aleppo nach Süden geschickt, direkt in die
leere Wüste. Es gab den ausdrücklichen Befehl, möglichst wenige
Überlebende ankommen zu lassen. Der Name des Wüsten-Todeslagers Deir
es Zor hat für die Armenier eine ähnliche Bedeutung wie Auschwitz für
die Juden.

Immer wieder überfielen halbreguläre Milizen – rekrutiert aus
amnestierten Schwerverbrechern – die Vertriebenen, raubten ihnen ihre
letzte Habe, um sie anschließend zu ermorden. Bis zu eine Million
Menschen starben nach Schätzungen allein auf den Todesmärschen. “Die
armenische Frage ist erledigt”, erklärte Innenminister Pascha kalt
gegenüber deutschen Diplomaten.

Talaat gehörte der politischen Bewegung der “Jungtürken” an, die in
der Revolution 1909 gegen das alte Regime an die Macht gekommen war –
neben Kriegsminister Enver Pascha gilt er als Hauptverantwortlicher
des Genozids. Die “Jungtürken” träumten von der Vereinigung aller
turkstämmigen Völker in einem Großreich “Turan”. Einem Reich, in dem
die Armenier keinen Platz mehr haben sollten. (HA/epd)

Hamburger Abendblatt

23.04.2005

“Über die Verbrechen spricht niemand”
Armenische Familie kam Ende der 60er Jahre nach Hamburg. Ihre
Vergangenheit läßt sie nicht los.

Von Anne Klesse

Ein türkischer Arbeitskollege in Hamburg erzählte Oskian Karabulut
(65) einmal von den “Heldentaten” seines Onkels in der Türkei. Der
habe 1915 während der Todesmärsche Armenier gezwungen, auf einem Feld
ein großes Loch zu graben. “Sie wurden zu fünft zusammengebunden”,
erinnerte der Kollege. Dann hätten die türkischen Soldaten
losgeschossen. Fiel einer aus der Gruppe getroffen ins Grab, riß er
die anderen mit. Zum Pausenbrot brüstete sich der Kollege: “Mein Onkel
hat die meisten Armenier getötet in seiner Kompanie.” Zum Dank gab es
einen Füllfederhalter vom Offizier.

“Der Kollege wußte nicht, daß ich Armenier bin”, sagt Oskian
Karabulut. Keiner merkt auf Anhieb, daß die Familie aus Jenfeld
armenischer Abstammung ist. Die Eltern von Oskian Karabult hießen
eigentlich Maraslian. Doch dann kamen Regierungsbeamte in ihr Haus und
zwangen ihnen einen türkischen Nachnamen auf. “Mein Vater entschied
sich für Karabulut. Das bedeutet ,Dunkle Wolke’.”

Oskians Vater, Mesrop Karabulut, lebte ein friedliches Landleben in
einem Dorf nahe der Stadt Sivas, im Osten der heutigen Türkei. Eines
Tages im Sommer 1915 kamen Soldaten und befahlen allen armenischen
Familien umzusiedeln. “Die Regierung habe einen entsprechenden Erlaß
unterzeichnet, hieß es.” Ihre Pferde durften die armenischen Bauern
nicht mitnehmen, nur Esel und Ochsen, auf denen sie nicht flüchten
konnten. Den Großvater von Oskian Karabulut zitierten die Soldaten zu
sich. “Er war Pfarrer, etwa 40 Jahre alt.” Die Soldaten wollten
wissen, wo Kirchenschätze waren und folterten ihn. Er verriet nichts,
aber er bezahlte mit dem Leben: “Die Soldaten klemmten seinen Kopf
zwischen die Räder eines Ochsenwagens und trieben die Tiere zum
Galopp.” Der achtjährige Sohn, Oskian Karabuluts Vater, mußte mit
ansehen, wie sein Vater starb.

Mehr als eine Million Armenier wurden im Osmanischen Reich in den
Jahren 1915 und 1916 umgebracht. Zeugen berichten von Todesmärschen in
die syrische Wüste. Armenische Mädchen und Frauen seien wie Sklavinnen
als Dienstmädchen oder Ehefrau ausgesucht und abgeführt wurden.
Verantwortlich war das Komitee für Einheit und Fortschritt um
Kriegsminister Enver Pascha und Innenminister Talaat Pascha – der
sich, vom türkischen Gericht nach Kriegsende zum Tode verurteilt, nach
Berlin absetzte, wo ihn 1921 ein armenischer Student erschoß.

Das damals verbündete Deutsche Reich schwieg. Die Türkei leugnet den
Genozid noch heute. “Nach dem Mord an meinem Großvater töteten die
Soldaten weitere Männer”, erzählt Oskian Karabulut. “Sie hatten
Bajonette, Säbel und Gewehre.” Sein Vater hatte Glück. “Ein
befreundeter türkischer Großbauer bestach die Wachen. Meine
Großmutter, Vater, zwei Brüder und eine Schwester konnten fliehen.”
Eine zweite Schwester sah Mesrop Karabulut sah nie wieder. Eineinhalb
Jahre versteckte sich die Familie auf dem Gutshof des Großbauern.
Immer wieder kamen Soldaten. Einmal nahmen sie einen der Brüder mit.
Er blieb verschwunden.

Als die Karabuluts 1917 endlich in ihr altes Dorf zurückkehren
konnten, war nichts wie vorher: Türken wohnten in ihren Häusern.
Alles, was ihnen lieb gewesen war, war weg, die Kirche eine Ruine. Die
direkte Gefahr war vorüber, aber Anfeindungen blieben. Oskian
Karabulut wurde geboren im Nachbardorf von Seyranus Atilmis, ebenfalls
Armenierin. Später heirateten die beiden und wanderten Ende der 60er
Jahre nach Hamburg aus.

Hier sitzen die beiden Rentner nun in ihrem zitronengelb gestrichenen
Wohnzimmer. Sie essen Kuchen, trinken Kaffee. In der Vitrine steht ein
Osterhase neben Familienfotos und Porzellan. Es wird türkisch
gesprochen. Trotzdem: “Wir sind Armenier, unser Herz gehört unserem
Volk, das ist uns wichtig.” Ihren Glauben haben die Karabuluts sich
bewahrt. Sie blieben armenisch-orthodoxe Christen, trotz vieler
Zwangskonvertierungen. Sie sagen, was sie denken, und stehen damit
weitgehend allein. “Egal ob in der Türkei oder in Deutschland – wenige
Türken sprechen über die damaligen Verbrechen”, sagt Oskian Karabuluts
Tochter Kristin (37). “Dabei vermeiden alle das Wort ,Genozid'”. Wer
es doch tut, wird angefeindet – wie der türkische Schriftsteller Orhan
Pamuk.

18.htm
ABC Australia
Monday, April 25, 2005. 6:32am (AEST)

Armenians remember 90-year-old killings

Hundreds of thousands of people clutching tulips, carnations and
daffodils climbed a hill in Armenia’s capital on Sunday to lay wreaths
and remember the 1.5 million they say were killed 90 years ago in
Ottoman Turkey.

>From the top the crowds could see the heights of Mount Ararat, now in
eastern Turkey, the region where Armenia says its people were
slaughtered in a deliberate genocide during the chaos surrounding the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

The mountain is a potent symbol for the Christian nation but it lies
out of reach across a fortified frontier.

Local families mixed with members of Armenia’s diaspora, who had flown
from Europe and the United States to remember friends and relatives
who had died between 1915 and 1923.

“I am happy that I, my husband and my two sons are here in Yerevan
today. A large part of my husband’s family died in the genocide,” said
Rubina Peroomian, a 66-year-old teacher from Los Angeles.

Armenia wants Turkey and the world to admit that what happened was
genocide.

Turkey denies this, saying Armenians were among many victims of a
partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives.

Turkey’s October 3 start date for European Union entry talks has
ratcheted the argument up the political agenda.

France in particular, home to an influential, 400,000-strong Armenian
community, has promised to seek a Turkish admission of genocide.
Torches

In Istanbul, a 30-year-old Turkish engineer Bulent Aktug said: “I
think it is wrong to describe what happened in 1915 as a
genocide. There was a lot of killing by both sides at that time.”

The commemorations in Yerevan began on Saturday night when thousands
of people held a torchlight vigil at the hilltop memorial, a granite
obelisk where a flame has burned since 1965.

The organisers have said they expect 1.5 million people, equivalent to
half the ex-Soviet republic’s population, to join Sunday’s
demonstrations.

“Today we bow our heads in remembrance of those who died, filled with
grief, but also in the certainty that the Government of Armenia is a
guarantee of the safety and eternal nature of Armenians,” said a
statement from Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, who laid a wreath
on Sunday morning.

Armenia believes a Turkish admission of genocide is important not only
from a moral point of view but also to guarantee regional security.

The two states have no diplomatic relations. Turkey shut the border in
1993 out of solidarity with Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan during its war
with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

-Reuters