The Hellenic Radio (ERA)
April 24 2005
Events of Remembrance
By Betty Savourdou
Ninety years today, Sunday, since the genocide of Armenians living
within the borders of the then Ottoman Empire, and on Sunday night
10,000 people took to the streets of Yerevan holding lit candles and
calling Turkey to recognize the massacres as genocide. Wreaths will
be laid at the monument of the fallen men on Sunday afternoon, while
at the end of the day Mass will be held in Yerevan and a one-minute
silence will be observed around the country. In a televised
interview, Armenian President Robert Kocharian excluded the
possibility of asking Ankara for financial compensation in exchange
to recognize the killings as genocide. He also added: “Today
Armenians marched not only in commemoration and in mourning. They
also marched to voice their demand for the restoration of human
rights infringed by Turkey too many years ago, and are calling this
country to admit the mass killings amounted to genocide.”
Turkey: “Merely WWI Casualties”
Ninety years after the massacres, the anniversary unites the
Armenians of the Diaspora, who exceed 9,000,000, that is three times
more than the actual population of Armenia.
On this day in 1915 Ottoman Turkey started executing Armenians. Over
the next two years nearly 1.5 million Armenians were reportedly
killed or died during deportations from Turkey and now Armenia urges
the European Union to take the past into consideration, before
opening negotiation talks with Turkey.
Ankara continues to refer to the 1915 victims as mere casualties of
WWI. The only indication of retreat is the suggestion to form a
common Armenian-Turkish committee to look into the past.
Events in Athens Too
Events to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide
were held in Athens too.
A central cinema of the Greek capital showed archive material issued
by the Armenian national committee, while government and other
political representatives addressed salutations.
After the event, there was a march towards Syntagma Square and
wreaths were laid at the monument of the unknown soldier.
Minister for the Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos represented the
government and underlined in his speech that “the matter in the
troubled world we are living in, is that we cannot be certain there
will never be such incidents again, if we don’t decide not to ever
tolerate those who actually triggered them, since they haven’t taken
their responsibilities and haven’t evaluated relevant experiences
based on the past.”
“Such anniversaries concern us all. They concern all counties, they
concern all nations. Because the establishment of human value, the
implementation of International Law in its total, the establishment
of the principles that correspond to our times, are lessons that we
all need to always remember,” stressed the minister.
Regarding the recognition of the Genocide, which is the main demand
of this year’s events, all speakers referred to the fact that an
increasing number of governments are already doing so, most recent
among them being Poland and Germany.
Translated by Sofia Soulioti