"SCREAMERS" SERJ TANKIAN AND CARLA GARAPEDIAN DENOUNCE CANCELLATION OF UN GENOCIDE EXHIBITION MENTIONING ARMENIANS
Business Wire
Published: Apr 10, 2007
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Following the UN Secretary General’s request to remove a sentence
referring to a million Armenians being murdered during the Ottoman
Empire from the Aegis Trust exhibition "Lessons from Rwanda," and
the exhibition’s subsequent cancellation, Serj Tankian and Carla
Garapedian have issued the following statement:
"We are very shocked by this decision by the Secretary General
to remove mention of a historical event which is well-documented
by thousands of official records of the United States and nations
around the world, including Turkey’s wartime allies, Germany, Austria
and Hungary; by Ottoman court martial records; and by eyewitness
accounts of missionaries, diplomats and survivors; as well as decades
of historical scholarship. In the U.S., President Bush has called
the events the ‘forced exile and annihilation of approximately 1.5
million Armenians.’
"Elie Wiesel says denial is the last stage of genocide – this act
of censorship by the Secretary General is effectively an act of
appeasement to the very forces in Turkey that led to the recent
death of Hrant Dink and the prosecution of Nobel Prize winner Orhan
Pamuk. Other writers and artists in Turkey are facing prison sentences
today under Article 301 for wanting to speak openly about this
issue. What message does this send to them? The reason why genocides
have continued in the last century – from the Armenian genocide, to
the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, to the genocide going
on now in Darfur – is because the international community has not
intervened to stop them.
Sadly, the Secretary General’s decision to stop any mention of the
antecedents to the Rwanda genocide is a blow to those who want to
stop genocide now."
Serj Tankian, songwriter, singer, poet, activist and lead singer of
System of a Down, appears in the film "Screamers," which traces the
history of genocide in the last century, from the Armenian genocide,
to the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. He was invited
by the Aegis Trust to meet the Secretary General on Monday, along with
"Screamers" director, Carla Garapedian.
Aegis is co-sponsoring a screening of "Screamers" in the British
Parliament, following its theatrical run in the U.S. and screening
in the U.S. Library of Congress.
James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust, wrote to Tankian and
Garapedian explaining why Aegis wouldn’t submit to the Secretary
General’s request, which followed a protest from the Turkish
government. The sentence in dispute: "Following World War 1, during
which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer
Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of
barbarity as international crimes."
"Had we been asked to remove reference of atrocities to Jews because
Germany objected, we would have been equally resistant," said
Smith. "We can’t apply one rule to some and not to others because
the political wind in the UN is blowing against the Armenians," he
said. Removing the sentence would amount to a "denial of elementary
facts."
Garapedian added, "Perhaps the Secretary General should visit the
Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, where another sentence is engraved
on the wall – ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’ That was Hitler’s
answer to why he could get away with murdering the Jews. Hitler
used the Armenian genocide as a blueprint for the Holocaust. The
Secretary General should also visit the Kigali Memorial Centre in
Rwanda, which has become the focal point for national remembrance and
education about the 1994 genocide. There, too, the Armenian genocide
is commemorated. No one there is trying to bury the truth."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
