San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
April 12 2005

Strides toward forgiveness
Rotarian chairs conference for Armenians, Turks

By Shirley Hsu , Staff Writer

Garbis Der Yeghian speaks candidly about the horrors of the past
without bitterness in his voice.

Ninety years ago, 40 of his ancestors were among those killed by
Ottoman Turkish troops in a massacre the Turkish government refuses
to call a genocide, Der Yeghian said.

His great-grandfather, a Christian priest, was maimed and left to
drown.

Two soldiers chopped off both his arms and tossed him alive into the
Euphrates River, Der Yeghian said.

“It’s not humanly possible to forget this,’ said Yeghian. “But it is
humanly possible to forgive.’

Der Yeghian, 53, is trying to honor his great-grandfather by
resolving the bitterness between Turks and Armenians and by promoting
peace in the young states of the Southern Caucasus region.

The La Verne resident recently co-chaired a Rotary International
peace conference in Ankara, Turkey, inviting officials and Rotarians
from Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

It was the first time officials from those countries had come
together to discuss peace, Der Yeghian said.

“It was a historic moment when we got together under the same roof,’
he said. “We were very concerned that there would be obstacles’ (to
keep representatives from attending), he said.

“But they all attended,’ he said, recalling that some Armenians
traveled for three days to bypass closed borders between Turkey and
Armenia.

On April 24, millions of Armenians will mark the 90th anniversary of
the beginning of the Armenian massacres that took place during and
after World War I. Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were
slaughtered by Ottoman Turks in a state-sponsored genocide between
1915 and 1923. The Turkish government maintains that a much lower
number of Armenians died, mostly of famine and disease during forced
deportations for aiding Russian invaders.

The United States does not officially recognize the event as a
“genocide,’ although France does.

The conference called for Rotarians to form a multinational committee
to organize cooperation between Rotary clubs in the region, and to
make the peace conference an annual tradition.

Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, Der Yeghian began teaching
elementary school and high school mathematics at 18. By the age of
22, he was the principal of a Lebanese high school.

After moving to the United States, he earned a Ph.D. in International
Relations from Northwestern University, and a second doctorate in
educational management from the University of La Verne.

He joined the Rotary Club of La Verne about 24 years ago. In 1999, he
became the first Armenian American in Rotarian history to serve as a
district governor. He is now president of Mashdots College in
Glendale.

It was on a recent trip that he was inspired to hold a peace
conference.

On his way to visit the Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia, to pay
respects to his great-grandfather, he was approached by a gentleman
who exclaimed, “I know you!’ and pointed to the Rotary pin on his
lapel, Der Yeghian recalled.

The stranger was Erhan Ciftcioglu, a fellow Rotarian and governor of
a district in Turkey. He had concealed his identity, afraid it
wouldn’t look right for a prominent Turkish community member to visit
the museum.

“He hugged me, and we were like brothers,’ he said.

The two men visited the monument and paid their respects to the
victims.

“That’s when we decided to hold a peace conference,’ Der Yeghian
recalled.

In 1990, the La Verne Rotary Club established the first Rotary Club
in the former Soviet Union, in Yerevan. Since then, about 60 clubs
have been established in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

“Rotarians can succeed where governments cannot,’ he said.