Armenians commemorate genocide
ANP
April 25, 2005
YEREVAN (ANP, AP, Reuters) – More than a million people in the Armenian
capital Yerevan commemorated that ninety years ago the massacres on
Armenians took place. This happened to the dissatisfaction of Turkey, which
does not recognize the murders as genocide.
The commemoration was opened by the Armenian president Robert Kocharian who
layed a wreath at the monument for the victims. After laying the wreath,
hundreds of thousands of Armenians, among whom many Armenians from the U.S.,
France and Russia, with flags and flowers, marched up the hill where the
memorial stands.
The head of the Armenian Christian Church led an emotional service. At 7
o’clock in the evening a minute of silence was observed throughout all of
Armenia.
On April 24, 1915, officials of the Ottoman Empire, predecessor of modern
Turkey, ordered the arrest of Armenian leaders. They had apparently rebelled
against Turkish domination and were considered traitors.
This formed the instigation of a period of organized massacres. Men were
killed and women and children forced to walk under wretched conditions from
West-Turkey to the desert in Syria. Many died of exhaustion or were killed
on their way.
According to historians almost one and a half million Armenians died from
the systematic attempts to drive them away. Turkey, which does not recognize
the murders as genocide, says 300 thousand victims. Ankara also emphasizes
that many Turkish victims fell in those years.
Various European countries, including France and Russia, consider the
killings as genocide. They have urged the Turkish government to give the
murders a place in their own history. Continuing the denial could decrease
Turkey’s chances for accession to the European Union.
In the Netherlands approximately five-hundred Armenians commemorated the
massacre with flowers and speeches. This took place near the Armenian
memorial in cemetery De Boskamp in Assen. In 2001, the unveiling of the
memorial caused much anger among Turks in the Netherlands.