OUR DEAD HAVE NAMES WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY

Yerkir
17.04.2006 12:36

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – A number of representatives of the Armenian
Diaspora addressed 9 million Armenians worldwide to start Our Dead
Have Names campaign.

The call specifically says, “On April 24, 2006, the Armenian community
will commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915 which was perpetrated
by the Young Turk government of Ottoman Empire. This will be the 91st
commemoration. 90 too many! Historical revisionism by the State,
which has overstepped its boundaries since 2005 (when the Republic
of Turkey began negotiations for entry in the European Union), is
drowning us out and thereby prolonging Armenocide.

In turn, our sons and daughters should not have to struggle to make
the Turkish State recognize the ignominy of the Genocide inflicted on
our people. Their future should be normal and happy within a society
that has made peace with itself. This is why we are making a solemn
call to the whole community so that every one of its members can
witness the drama that has affected them personally on 1915.

We are asking men and women from all continents to stand vigilant,
as the memory of the Martyrs is decried, as unprecedented violence
is being inflicted on the sons and daughters of the survivors of
the Armenian Genocide, and as the very existence of our identity,
symbolized by the vestiges of our culture, is being willfully wiped
out. Today, Armenians are the target of the denial of the crime
of which their parents were innocent victims. Scorned, bruised,
exasperated, but nevertheless Armenian, we have to tell the world, once
and for all, that the time for geopolitical procrastination has passed.

We are not claiming to be victims, but protesters for simple
justice. The first of these is to allow us to pay respect to our
graveless parents’ remains. We will do this on April 24, as we
have done every year since 1916. In the absence of burial sites,
enables every one of us to write in the names of
those who lost their lives on our ancestral soil.

Once this has been done, another task will be invoked: to insure the
permanent recognition of the Genocide of the Armenian people and
the inevitable consequences of recognition. Just like a petition,
the recording of the names of the victims will become a recognized
document render to the United Nations, the only institution whose
competence in this area is acknowledged by Turkey.”