ARMENIAN COMMUNITY COMMEMORATE GENOCIDE
ABC Online
April 21 2008
Australia
Around 1,000 people from Australia’s Armenian community gathered in
Sydney’s north last night to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of the
Armenian genocide.
The genocide refers to the massacres and forced deportations of
Armenians under the Turkish Ottoman Empire during and after World
War I.
Last night’s guest speaker, visiting US professor Peter Balakian,
said the lessons from the early part of the 20th century were still
relevant today.
"We can’t understand the Holocaust, or the Cambodian genocide or the
Rwandan genocide without understanding the template for all genocide
in the modern period," he said.
The Turkish Government continues to dispute the use of the word
"genocide" to describe the events.