Armenia Solidarity Press Release
eilian@talktalk.net
c/o The Temple of Peace, Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales

Baroness Kinnock, for the UK government, does not deny the UK
government’s 1915 position on the Genocide, but rejects an invitation to
the Genocide Monument in Cardiff

At the Armenia debate in the House of Lords yesterday, Baroness Kinnock,
for the government said
"At the outset, I reaffirm that the Government deeply regret the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were either killed by Ottoman
troops or died from starvation or disease at the beginning of the
previous century. We share the view expressed today that the victims of
such suffering should not be forgotten" while at the same time refused
to send a representative to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Cardiff in
April:
"I was aware last year that noble Lords had raised the issue of a
memorial. Sending a government representative might suggest recognition,
so, despite our sympathies for the tragedy, we do not intend to send a
representative"

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She also said." The fate of ethnic Armenians and smaller Christian minorities,
including the Assyrians, living in the Ottoman Empire at the time was
roundly and robustly condemned by the British Government", referring of
course to the government response on 21st October 1915by Lord Robert
Cecil(Under Secretary of State):
"I think it may be said,without the least fear of exaggeration,
that no more horrible crime has been committed in the history of the
world….. This is a premeditive crime determined on long ago. It is
part of the deliberate policy… it was a long-considered, deliberate
policy to destroy and wipe out of existance the Armenians in Turkey. It
was systematically carried out . It was ordered from above , and when,
as happened on one or two ocassions, the local governors were anxious to
spare some of the children, or mitigate in some degree the horrors of
the operation, they were sternly ordered to go on with the work….
Not only was this premeditated. There was no provocation whatsoever…..
There was no insurrection, no riot… The crime was a deliberate one ,
not to punish insurrection but to destroy the Armenian race."