L.A. MAYOR SAYS TO ‘NEVER FORGET’ ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
San Diego Union Tribune, CA
April 26 2007
LOS ANGELES – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Tuesday for Americans
to "never forget" the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the
end of the Ottoman empire, an event widely considered by scholars to
be the first genocide of the 20th Century.
"As mayor of America’s pre-eminent Armenian community, I urge all
Angelenos to reflect not only on the vast scale and ruthlessness of
the genocide, but on the horror of the global silence under which it
took place," Villaraigosa said in a statement.
"Today, I urge Angelenos to simply never forget," he said.
Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1919 in what is now eastern
Turkey. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying that
the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.
Demonstrators marking the anniversary of the killings marched through
Hollywood and a rally was held later at the Turkish Consulate on
Wilshire Boulevard.
Both protests were peaceful, police said.