North Shore Times (Wed) (Australia)
May 11, 2005 Wednesday
MP tells Parliament of massacre
GLADYS Berejiklian remembered the 90th anniversary of Armenia’s
genocide in a speech to Parliament last week but tensions over the
massacre still remain.
The State Liberal Member for Willoughby and granddaughter of genocide
survivors reminded her colleagues that similar atrocities will sadly
continue to happen around the world.
“No greater evidence exists than the absolute trail of human misery
during the twentieth century caused by the heinous crime of genocide
– the Jewish Holocaust, Eritrea, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia,
Rwanda and, as we speak, Dharfur in the Sudan,” Ms Berejiklian said.
More than 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives to the ancestors of
modern Turkey when “the brutality started on 24 April 1915 and most
Armenian political, religious and cultural leaders were arrested and
murdered,” she said.
“The remaining population of the elderly, women and children were
rounded up by special organisational death squads and were forced to
either renounce their Christianity or be raped and massacred.
“If such crimes against humanity are not redressed ‘genocidist’
states have a license to commit these crimes again and again.”
On a related matter, Ryde City Council erected a plaque at Memorial
Park in Meadowbank to commemorate the anniversary but soon after
vandals uprooted and stole the structure.
Council also passed a resolution condemning the genocide and it plans
to replace the plaque.
“No one will intimidate council in this way,” Councillor Sarkis
Yedelian said.