WORLD COMMUNITY COMMEMORATES 95TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ArmInfo
2010-04-24 11:01:00

ArmInfo. The world community is commemorating the 95th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide, one of the most horrible crimes in human
history, massacre resulting in annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1923.

Commemoration events are taking place in the United States, Canada,
Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, France, Ukraine, Lebanon,
China and many other countries.

On Apr 24 95 years ago the Young Turk rulers ordered to gather
all Armenian intellectuals of Istanbul and to deport them. Many of
those people were killed on that very day. Apr 24 1915 the Turks
started arresting the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and
political elite. As a result, they annihilated a whole generation
of outstanding Armenians. The Istanbul arrests were a signal for
massacres all over Turkey. The goal of the Young Turks was to behead
the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire and to leave them no
chance to protect themselves from total annihilation.

"I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no
such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of
the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings
of the Armenian race in 1915," then US Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire Henry Morgenthau wrote in his memoirs.

The blow the Armenian nation received from the Young Turks in the
spring-summer 1915 was really devastating. Hundreds of thousands of
Armenians lost their homeland and were scattered all over the world.

The Armenian Genocide is the first genocide of the 20th century. It
has been recognized and condemned by many countries and influential
international organizations.