Armenians anxious over Turkish plan
Armenians in Lebanon have protested
over a proposed agreement between their country and Turkey.

As the BBC’s Jim Muir reports, they want Turkey recognise as genocide
the killing of some 1.5m Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War
I before any deal is signed.

Waving the red, blue and orange Armenian flag, chanting slogans and
brandishing banners condemning the proposed agreement with Turkey,
thousands of Lebanese Armenians converged on a luxury hotel in the
suburbs of East Beirut to leave President Serzh Sarkisian in no doubt
about their feelings.

Many came here on foot from the suburb of Burj Hammoud and other
nearby areas where Armenian survivors settled after fleeing Turkey 90
years ago.

Those survivors established now-thriving communities in bustling
streets where most of the shop signs and advertisements are now in
Armenian.

President Sarkisian flew to Lebanon on the latest leg of a mission to
the diaspora which had earlier taken him to Paris, New York and Los
Angeles.

He is trying to persuade anxious Armenian exiles that peace with
Turkey does not mean forgetting what they call a genocide in which 1.5
million perished.

` All around the world, we Armenians are one, and we are
against this protocol ‘
Mher Krikorian
In Lebanon, he will face an uphill task in talks with community leaders.

All the major political parties – which wield considerable influence
in the intricate and delicate Lebanese political system – are against
the proposed accord with Turkey.

So too are all the religious leaderships.

Lebanon’s 150,000 or so Armenians are virtually all descended from
survivors.

Most trekked overland through Syria, while a few arrived directly by
boat.

Generations may have passed since then, but the Armenian community is
tight-knit, memories are long and vivid, and feelings intense even
among the young for whom Turkey is a terrible myth.

"I was born and bred here, but I still feel very, very Armenian," said
Ani Didanian, who is 44.

"My great-grandfather walked to Lebanon. Two of his aunts froze to
death in the snow, an uncle was massacred, and his father and mother
were lost – they never found them.

"We’re here because we want to say no to the agreement. It is not
fair. You can’t just negate the past, and go on.

"The Turks should pay the price for all the stolen land, and the one
and a half million victims that died."

Fear of forgetting
Mher Krikorian, a 21-year-old student, said that Armenians of the
diaspora were worried that the horrors of the past would be glossed
over and forgotten.

"Our Armenian history is full of blood, and with this protocol they
will forget it. We want our culture, our history to be known around
the world.

"And we still have lands over there, inside Turkey. All around the
world, we Armenians are one, and we are against this protocol."

This was not just a demonstration by angry young men. There were angry
old ladies too.

"My grandfather was one of seven brothers in the same family, but the
other six were all hanged and only he escaped," said 70-year-old Sosi
Azadourian.

"My grandmother hanged herself, because they were raping all the
women."

Lucy Srabian, a 42-year-old journalist, said her grandparents made
their way to Lebanon as the only survivors from a family of 60 souls.

"When President Sarkisian says ‘We’re not going to forget the
genocide’, what is he going to do not to forget it?" she asked.

"If he is going to have a friendly relationship with Turkey, then
where does the genocide stand? We don’t know, and that bothers us
all."

"It’s the moral compensation we need, the recognition. We cannot deal
with it if they don’t admit they’ve done something wrong, and we feel
that they feel with us.

"Of course there is the issue of compensation, but we have to be
realistic. We must see in this world if we can live together. But we
don’t want to be fooled."

Unlike most of those demonstrating here against
the protocol, Rubina Markosian has a foot in both camps.

One of her parents was born in the diaspora in Lebanon, the other in
Armenia itself when it was part of the Soviet Union.

She has just returned to Lebanon with a different perspective after
living and working for the past 10 years in Armenia, where almost all
the political parties support the agreement.

"They [the diaspora demonstrators] want to stay hostile towards
Turkey, because they don’t know what their next step would be," she
said.

"I personally think Armenians have come to a dead end. We cannot claim
our land [in Turkey] back, and we’re demanding recognition which I
don’t know is going to satisfy us in the end.

"But the Armenian diaspora survives on the genocide, and there are a
lot of worries about what’s going to happen once the genocide is
recognised.

"Is the diaspora going to survive? It gives them a cause and an
identity, and they will lose both."

Story from BBC NEWS:
_east/8293896.stm