Daily Star – Lebanon
June 16 2005
Armenians protest as Erdogan arrives in Beirut
Demonstrators demand Turkey acknowledge and apologize for Ottoman-era genocide
By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff
Thursday, June 16, 2005
BEIRUT: Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians waved Armenian flags and
burned Turkish flags to send a message to visiting Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.”
“Animals are not welcome,” read one demonstrator’s sign under a
picture of the visiting Turkish premier. The protestors gathered
in Bourj Hammoud, an Armenian suburb of Beirut, and shouted slogans
condemning the 1915 Ottoman massacre of the Armenians.
The demonstration, organized by the Armenian Tashnag Party, was
not a protest against the actual visit, “as diplomatic relations
are respected,” said a Tashnag Party spokesperson, but rather was
intended as a “reminder” to the Turkish and the Lebanese governments
about the genocide that reportedly killed 1.5 million Armenians.
“By Turkey ignoring what happened … it is like a painful continuation
of the genocide,” said the spokesperson.
Hratch Balekijan, one of the protestors, came carrying a poster of
Erdogan depicted as Pinocchio.
Balekijan said: “Turkey keeps lying about what happened and Lebanon
keeps ignoring our voices.”
Balekijan, like the rest of the demonstrators, is frustrated at how,
after 100 years of demonstrations over the killings, some countries
like Lebanon have not yet officially acknowledged the massacre as
genocide.
Lebanon is home to the Arab world’s largest Armenian community, made
up of descendants of survivors of the 1915-1917 massacres in Turkey.
There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese Armenians, half as many as
before the 1975-1990 civil war.
While waiting in the airport for the Turkish prime minister’s arrival,
Turkish Ambassador Irfan Acar told The Daily Star: “We have been
saying that since the genocide remains a controversial issue, we are
inviting historians from both sides, Turkish and Armenian, to meet
and come and view our archives and reach a final conclusion.”
“Instead of burning flags and going to the streets, there is a more
civilized way of dealing with this issue like organizing a formal
commission and sending it to Turkey,” said Acar.
Erdogan is expected to stay for two days, during which he will hold
talks with Lebanese officials and participate in the Arab Economic
Forum.
The Armenian slaughter remains a controversial issue. Several countries
like France have recognized the massacres as genocide – a term Turkey
fiercely rejects – and Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past
and expand freedom of speech.
But Ankara last month squelched a landmark conference that was to
have been held at Istanbul’s prestigious Bogazici University and
would have questioned the official line on the mass killings.