Armenia marks 15th anniversary of Baku pogroms

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
19 Jan 05

[Presenter] A march to mark the 15th anniversary of the Baku pogroms
of 1990 took place at 1200 [0800 gmt] today at the Tsitsernakaberd
memorial of the genocide victims. Our correspondent Gayane Davtyan is
also in Tsitsernakaberd.

[Correspondent from Tsitsernakaberd] Many politicians and people are
here today to commemorate the victims. The prime minister’s advisor
Granush Kharatyan is also here.

Ms Kharatyan, do you think it is high time to remind the international
community about what took place 15 years ago and what is being done in
Armenia today in this direction?

[Granush Kharatyan, captioned] This is our everyday pain and this is a
good opportunity to call on the international community and people all
over the world to be watchful, because this is not only our pain, this
is everybody’s pain. If you keep silent it means that you are joining
the evil, if you keep silent then you do not see what is happening
around you to people, monuments, history, memory, and humanity in
general.

We want to tell the whole world once again that this is not the best
way to remind you. But we, a group of people, wanted to remind you in
this way [as heard]. This cannot be allowed to continue. I am sure
that humanity did not understand what had happened.

[Presenter] Gayane, I would like to ask Ms Kharatyan what does she
think about the mourning ceremony which will take place in Baku
tomorrow [20 January]? Can these two mourning ceremonies be accepted
as equal by the international community?

[Granush Kharatyan] Unfortunately, I think that the forthcoming event
in Azerbaijan is an organized campaign by the government. I regret
that the Armenian and Azerbaijani youth could not and cannot tell the
truth about the reality. I talked to many young people here
today. They did not say that they hate Azeris. They say that they do
not want what happened in the 20th century to be repeated in the 21st
century. Today’s motto is into the 21st century without genocide. They
did not come here today to say that unfortunately, the Azeris ended
the 20th century with genocide. It is very painful that the Armenian
people started and finished their 20th century really with
genocide. We want the world and people not to see what the Armenian
people saw in the 20th century.

[Correspondent] Thank you very much.