ARMENIANS RALLY AGAINST TURKISH UNIFIL FORCE
Monday Morning, Lebanon
Oct 16 2006
As troops from various countries were traveling or preparing to travel
to join the reinforced UNIFIL, thousands of Lebanon’s Armenians
rallied in Beirut against Turkish troops taking part in the force,
on the same day France moved to make denial of the "Ottoman genocide
of Armenians" a crime.
Armenian political and religious leaders attended the demonstration,
which came just two days after the first contingent of Turkish
peacekeepers arrived.
The rally took place on Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, which honors six
Lebanese nationalists who were hanged by the Ottomans during World
War I.
The crowd, drawn from an Armenian community of about 140,000 people,
held high banners denouncing the presence of Turkish troops as "an
insult to the collective memory of the Armenian people", while waving
Armenian, Lebanese and French flags.
Overriding widespread opposition, the Turkish Parliament approved a
government motion on September 5 to contribute troops to UNIFIL.
In total, Turkey is to deploy some 700 soldiers in Lebanon, including
troops aboard naval ships. Those who landed last Tuesday were the
first Muslim peacekeepers to arrive in the country.
Turkey contests the term "genocide" and strongly opposed the French
bill. It says 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in
civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided
with invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart during
World War I.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were slaughtered
in orchestrated killings, which they maintain can only be seen as
genocide.
The French bill must now go to the Senate, or upper house of
Parliament, for another vote.