Moscow Times, Russia
April 25 2005
Armenia Remembers Victims of Genocide
YEREVAN, Armenia — 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.
At the memorial, 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 the world — and Turkey — to admit that what happened
was genocide. Ottoman authorities began rounding up intellectuals and
other influential Armenians in Istanbul on April 24, 1915, as
violence and unrest grew, particularly in the eastern parts of the
country.
Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says
Armenians were among many victims of a partisan war that also claimed
Turkish lives. Ankara earlier this month called for the two countries
to jointly research the killings.
Turkey’s Oct. 3 start date for European Union entry talks has brought
attention to the issue. France, home to 400,000 Armenians, promised
to seek a Turkish admission of genocide. France, Russia and many
other countries have already declared the killings were genocide.
In Istanbul, Bulent Aktug, a Turkish engineer, 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 massive, hilltop memorial,
where a flame has burned since 1965. Yerevan residents planned to
place candles on their windowsills in memory of the victims.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people, waving flags and carrying
flowers, streamed through Yerevan toward the memorial to hear
speeches and prayers. Weeping mourners filed into the circular block
memorial, laying carnations on a flat surface surrounding a burning
flame. A choir in black sang hymns as the crowd filed past.
The organizers said they expected 1.5 million people, equivalent to
half the country’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.
Photo: High school students preparing to release 90 doves at the
Armenian Apostolic Church in northern Moscow on Sunday during
commemorations for the 1.5 million people that Armenia says were
killed 90 years ago in Ottoman Turkey. More than 1,000 people
attended the ceremony.