Los Angeles Times
April 25, 2009 Saturday
Home Edition

California;
Marking Armenian genocide, many feel snubbed by Obama

Teresa Watanabe and Christi Parsons

As Southern California Armenian Americans laid wreaths at memorials
and marched in memory of ancestors slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire
nearly a century ago, their enormous hopes that President Obama would
at last give official U.S. recognition to the genocide were bitterly
dashed Friday.

During his campaign last year, Obama called the genocide "a widely
documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of evidence,"
pledged he would officially recognize it and criticized the Bush
administration for not doing so. Such outspoken positions sparked
overwhelming support from Armenian Americans, who expected he would be
the first U.S. president to acknowledge the genocide on the April 24
memorial day.

On Friday, however, news that he had failed to fulfill his pledges
provoked despair, disappointment and some anger that the century-long
Armenian quest for recognition had once more been thwarted.

"Everybody’s upset because he got all of our hopes up that he would
recognize the genocide," said Adreneh Krikorian, a Van Nuys High
School senior who joined thousands of others at a somber service and
memorial ceremony at the Armenian Martyrs Memorial Monument in
Montebello.

Some Armenian American activists said they were as annoyed at Armenia
as they were with Obama over the failure to push the genocide
issue. As Turkey and Armenia announced an agreement this week on a
framework to normalize relations, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
told the Wall Street Journal that he did not want the genocide issue
to obstruct the talks and was not pushing for U.S. recognition.

"Almost all Armenians in the world are very passionately concerned
about genocide recognition, and there is despondency targeted at what
appears to be Armenia playing along" with attempts to minimize the
issue, said Andrew Kzirian, executive director of the Armenian
National Committee of America’s western regional office in Glendale.

Obama’s statement Friday pointed only to his previous remarks, while
avoiding the term many Turks find offensive. The Armenian genocide
began in 1915 and claimed more than 1 million Armenian lives under the
Ottoman Empire, which became the modern republic of Turkey. The
Turkish government disputes that a genocide took place.

"I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and
my view of that history has not changed," Obama said in his
statement. "My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and
just acknowledgment of the facts."

His words provoked a range of emotions at memorial events that
included a Los Angeles City Council commemoration, a march down
Hollywood Boulevard to Little Armenia, the Montebello event, a protest
at the Turkish Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard and a memorial concert
in West Hollywood.

At the Turkish Consulate, thousands of protesters waved signs that
said "Obama Keep the Promise" and "Shame on Turkey," while chanting
"1915, never again!"

Arek Santikian, 21, a UCLA economics major who helped organize the
protest for the Armenian Youth Federation, said he worked for a year
on Obama’s campaign and was devastated that the president skirted the
genocide issue.

"When we are promised something this meaningful and it doesn’t happen,
it leaves us without hope," Santikian said. "And that was not his
message."

As he leaned against a tree at the consulate, Zorik Mooradian, 52,
held up a large canvas splashed with the Armenian flag colors of red,
orange and blue and the words, "Obama . .. Keep the Promise."

"The founding fathers did not envision that we would compromise truth
for politics," said the disappointed Mooradian, who has been coming to
the protests for three decades.

The scene was more somber in Montebello, where clergy with the
Armenian Apostolic, Catholic and evangelical churches held a service
with incense, hymns and an Armenian-language liturgy. Rows of Armenian
youths in youth-group uniforms lined a path for participants to walk
as they laid roses, carnations, lilies and other flowers at the base
of a genocide monument.

There, several people expressed disappointment at Obama but also
political pragmatism and a renewed effort to work for recognition.

"Obviously we’re disappointed but what can you do?" asked Artak
Arakelian, 22, a USC student who was working at a table selling
remembrance paraphernalia. "It just makes us work harder to make sure
he fulfills his promise the next time."

Arshak Nazarian, a 48-year-old Glendale sculptor, views the issue as a
matter of semantics and said it was far more important that Obama
recognized and lamented the massacres. "If you say everything about
genocide, what difference does it make if you don’t use the word?" he
asked. "As far as I’m concerned he has kept his promises."

Meanwhile, the Turkish Coalition of America applauded Obama for
"deferring to historians" on the question.

"President Obama has sent a clear message to America and the world,"
said Lincoln McCurdy, coalition president. "His administration will
not sacrifice long-term strategic allies for short-term political
gains."

Obama’s administration has a lot riding on U.S. relations with
Turkey. Offending Ankara could put U.S. supply routes to Iraq and
Afghanistan in danger and complicate other critical issues on the
Obama agenda, including Middle East peace and Iran.

In his statement, Obama used the words "meds yeghern," the Armenian
phrase for great calamity.

"Ninety-four years ago, one of the great atrocities of the 20th
century began," the president wrote. "Each year, we pause to remember
the 1.5-million Armenians who were subsequently massacred or marched
to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. The meds
yeghern must live on in our memories, just as it lives on in the
hearts of the Armenian people."