Author: Andres-Papazian

CATALAN NEWSPAPER EL PERIODICO: THERE IS NO ARMENIAN FAMILY THAT HAS NOT FACED GENOCIDE

[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]

19:27 21/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

Several articles covering the Armenian Genocide have been published
on the website of the Catalan newspaper El Periodico. Ernest Alos,
the author of one of the articles writes about the book of a Catalan
journalist and writer Xavier Moret – “The Memory of Ararat. A
Trip to Find the Roots of Armenia.” In his book, Moret writes
that it is impossible to travel to Armenia without facing the memory
of 1.5 million Armenians who died of hunger, thirst, were killed on
the gallows and of shootings in 1915-1923, or the million Armenians
who made up the Diaspora.

“I am sure that there is no other nation in the world that has
got such a strong sense of affection toward its land. The Armenians
of the Diaspora, too, despite living far from their homeland, in
their way remain faithful to the idealized Armenia with the memory
about Ararat as a supreme symbol. As William Saroyan, one of the
great Armenian writers, has it, ‘…when two of them
[Armenians] meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create
a New Armenia,’” Moret writes in his book.

According to the article, Moret first got to know Armenia through
William Saroyan’ books, Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon,
Charles Aznavour’s songs, Atom Egoyan’s films, as well
as the Armenians he met in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Bolivia and Europe.

Moret flew to Armenia in a plane where tears ran from the eyes of
many passengers as soon as Ararat showed being now on the territory of
Turkey. This is the mountain where Noah’s Ark landed, Noah being
the ancestor of Hayk, the mythic forefather of “Hayastan”
(Armenia), as the Armenian legends have it.

According to the article, presenting the Armenian history, Moret writes
about the persecutions of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1896
(200,000 deceased) and in 1915 by the order of the government of the
Young Turks. Moret also visited ancient churches, the depositiry of
historical manuscripts, Maternadaran, which maintains the memory of
the nation, as well as the monument to the Genocide victims on the
hill Tsitsernakaberd which carries the names of the 2,000 settlements
where massacres of the Armenians took place.

“Though the pain of the Genocide may seem to be alleviating
with time, it is still present for the Armenians. They reject to
forget it and get angry that the Turkish leadership goes on denying
the Genocide,” Moret writes.

In a separate article, Xavier Moret himself writes about the operation
Nemesis (1919) – the Armenians’ revenge of those responsible
for the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Another article in El Periodico
presents the book by Franz Werfel – “The Forty Days of Musa
Dagh,” which was translated into Catalan by Ramon Monton and
published in 1984. According to the article, Werfel saw many Armenian
refugees, including many children and mutilated people, during his
trip to the Middle East in 1929. He learnt about the horrors of
the deportation of thousands of people. Coming back, he thoroughly
documented materials about the Genocide and decided to write a novel
about the confrontation of the inhabitants of 6 Armenian villages on
the Mountain Musa Dagh (Moses Mountain) by the Mediterranean in 1915
against the Turkish troops.

Moret writes that “Werfel’s novel is the fruit of another
epoch, still it was able to pass the ultimate test: it retains
its interest after 80 years since it appeared.” Really, the
confrontation on the mountain Musa Dagh went on for 53 days until a
French ship saved the Armenian refugees and took them to Egypt.

However, the author decided to reduce the days to a “more
biblical number” – 40.

“Books like that of Werfel’s serve for the persistence of
the memory of a forgotten Genocide, of a Genocide that after 100 years,
incredible as it may seem, has been recognized only by 22 states of
the world,” Xavier Moret writes.

Another author, Xavier Triana, in his article touched upon the topic
of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Pope Francis and the
reaction of the descendant of the Ottoman Empire – Turkey. Citing
the book of the Professor of the Autonomous University of Barcelona,
Francisco Veiga, Triana writes that the Chief of Staff of Ottoman
empire, Enver Pasha, issued a directive on April 24, 1915 about the
deportation of the Armenian civilians from six vilayets. The aim
of the deportation was that the Armenians should not surpass the 10
per cent of the Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian population in those
six provinces.

“There is no Armenian family that has not lost members during
the massacres,” Narine Nikoghosyan, a young Armenian from
Italy, said.

Though Erdogan expressed his condolences in 2014 to the families of
those affected, he never apologized. “And the wound between
those two neighbors remains open,” the author writes.

Related:

Chilean parliament once again condemns Armenian Genocide and expresses
solidarity with Armenian people

Armenian Genocide: Turkey to convert Hagia Sofia Basilica into mosque
to spite Pope Francis

Armenian family in Turkey deprived of income after Pope’s
Armenian Genocide remarks

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From: A. Papazian

LOS ANGELES TIMES: AS CENTENARY OF ARMENIAN MASSACRE NEARS, ‘GENOCIDE’ DISPUTE SHARPENS

3:05 21/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

By Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times

The Turkish government on Monday offered condolences to descendants
of Armenians killed in 1915, when the Ottoman Empire embarked on a
campaign of terror and atrocity that many in the Western world have
deemed the 20th century’s first genocide.

As Armenians the world over prepare to mark the anniversary of the
beginning of the massacre that historians say took as many as 1.5
million lives, Turkey holds fast to its rejection of the label that
entered the lexicon of inhumanity only three decades later.

Genocide — from the Greek and Latin root words for race and killing
— was a term first used by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in his 1944
report on “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,” which included proposals
for redress of the crime defined as “the destruction of a nation or
an ethnic group.” Lemkin used the word in reference to the Holocaust
but said the Armenian atrocities also came to mind.

Broader definitions of “genocide” suggest that such annihilations
are deliberate attempts to wipe out a population, the point where
modern-day Turkish leaders depart from the growing consensus that
their Ottoman forebears targeted Armenians for extermination. Ankara
officials have acknowledged that atrocities were committed in the
early years of World War I but contend that the Armenian death toll
has been grossly inflated and that most of those who died succumbed
to the brutalities of war and dislocation.

“We once again respectfully remember Ottoman Armenians who lost their
lives during the deportation of 1915 and share the pain of their
children and grandchildren,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
said in his message of condolence Monday.

But he criticized what he cast as an Armenian lobby to brand the
wartime tragedies a concerted campaign of “genocide” for which today’s
Turkish leaders should take responsibility and make amends.

“To reduce everything to a single word, to load all of the
responsibility on the Turkish nation … and to combine this with a
discourse of hatred is legally and morally problematic,” Davutoglu
said.

As Christians in a predominantly Muslim empire, the Ottoman
Armenians were suspected of collaborating with pre-revolutionary
Russia when World War I broke out, provoking German-allied and
ultranationalist Ottoman leaders to declare them enemies of the
state. Savage village-by-village mass killings followed, as did the
forcible expulsion of the Armenian population from eastern Anatolia
that pushed hundreds of thousands into death marches into the Syrian
desert, where they died for lack of food, water or shelter.

Diplomatic records from embassies in Syria a century ago noted the
discovery of corpses strewn along desert paths from eastern Anatolia
and of the arrival of starved, sun-scorched and dehydrated stragglers
who survived what the Turkish government refers to as “resettlement.”

Pope Francis stirred the decades-old controversy with his reference
last week to the Armenian slaughter having been “the first genocide
of the 20th century.” Ankara recalled its ambassador from the Holy
See in protest of the pontiff’s description of the atrocities that
began April 24, 1915.

Twenty-three countries and 43 U.S. states have acknowledged the
Armenian massacre as a genocide, and the approaching centennial has
stirred indications that others, including European powerhouse Germany,
will follow suit before Friday’s memorial observances.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said Monday that the
Berlin government would support a parliamentary resolution planned
Friday declaring that the slaughter of Armenians constituted genocide.

Most European states have already applied that term and condemned the
Ottoman crimes. Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Slovakia have made it
a crime to deny that genocide occurred against the Armenians.

As a candidate in the 2008 election, President Obama called for
recognizing the Armenian genocide but has refrained from applying the
term on behalf of the United States, in a bow to the sensitivities of
Turks who are key allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
in the fight against Islamic extremism. But after the shifts indicated
by the Vatican and Berlin, analysts have predicted, Obama may yet refer
to genocide when remembrances for the victims get underway Friday.

From: A. Papazian

CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL IN OTTAWA TO MARK ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL

11:00, 21 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Holocaust survivors, Ambassadors and human rights organizations will
gather at the Ottawa Human Rights Monument for a candle light vigil
on the occasion of the Armenian Genocide centennial, the Armenian
Youth Federation of Canada reports.

To mark the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, human rights
activists from Ottawa and across Canada will gather on Thursday,
April 23 to hold a vigil in memory of the victims of all genocides
that have taken place throughout the past century.

Holocaust survivor Dr. Raoul Korngold and Rwandan Genocide survivor
Alice Musabende will share their stories of survival and perseverance
– outlining the gruesome realities of genocide and the transcending
effects it has on future generations.

Hundreds are expected to be in attendance starting at 7:00pm at the
Canadian Tribute to Human Rights.

Several diplomats including the Ambassador of Russia, Armenia, Uruguay
and Argentina along with a representative from the Embassy of Italy
will be present.

In organizing the vigil, the Armenian Youth Federation of Canada
has partnered with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Student
Federation of the University of Ottawa, Jewish Federation of Ottawa,
Hillel Ottawa, Canadian Association of Rwandan Youth Ottawa, Humura
Ottawa – Canadian Association of Rwanda Tutsi Genocide Survivors,
uOttawa – Amnesty International, Carleton Student Association and
AEEDCO (Association des etudiants et etudiantes en droit civil de
l’Outaouais.

Representatives of the Armenian Youth Federation, Armenian Genocide
Centennial Committee, Rabbi Steven from Jewish Federation of Ottawa
and the President of the Student Federation of the University of
Ottawa will be amongst those addressing the audience

The participants will present a collective voice against genocide
and denial and together make a pledge for “Never Again” as they stand
for justice and truth.

The Armenian Genocide, which began on April 24, 1915, was the
planned extermination of a million and half Armenians at the hands of
Ottoman Turkey. More than two million Armenians were forcibly taken
from their homes and villages, men drafted into and murdered in the
Ottoman Turkish army, and women, children and the elderly driven into
the Syrian deserts where they were starved, beaten, raped, drowned,
or burnt alive. Survivors ended up in orphanages and refugee camps
across the Middle East and the West. 150 of the genocide orphans were
brought to Canada starting in 1923 in what became known as Canada’s
Noble Experiment.

From: A. Papazian

NORWEGIAN MISSIONARY’S GRANDSON DONATES GRANDMOTHER’S MANUSCRIPTS TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM-INSTITUTE

21:11, 21 April, 2015

YEREVAN, 21 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. Jussi Biørn, grandson of Bodil Katharine
Biørn, who was a missionary and saved numerous Armenian women and
children during the Armenian Genocide, has donated his grandmother’s
exclusive manuscripts to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. This
is what Jussi Biørn told journalists during the opening of the new
exhibition of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, as “Armenpress”
reports. Jussi Biørn, who presented himself as Bodil Katharine
Biørn’s grandson, mentioned that he accidentally found them in his
attic. “These were at my house. I lived with my grandmother for 15
years. I found these materials and contacted the Armenian Genocide
Museum-Institute,” Biørn said, mentioning that he has filmed a
documentary devoted to his grandmother.

According to Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Hayk
Demoyan, Jussi Biørn had previously provided the museum with the
missionary’s items, including photos, as well as other manuscripts.

Demoyan added that the manuscripts would be translated into Armenian
and English.

From: A. Papazian

COMMEMORATION DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN A TORONTO – PHOTOS

CANADA

Des milliers d’Ontariens d’origine armenienne se sont rassembles
dimanche devant Queen’s Park a Toronto avant d’entamer une marche
pour le centième anniversaire du genocide armenien de 1915.

Plus d’un million et demi d’Armeniens ont ete massacres par l’Empire
ottoman qui est aujourd’hui la Turquie.

Les organisateurs de la manifestation demandent notamment au
gouvernement d’Ankara de reconnaître le genocide, parce que les plaies
ne se sont toujours pas cicatrisees dans cette communaute.

Comme beaucoup de ses compatriotes, Garen Megerditchian est issu de
la diaspora dont les ancetres ont trouve refuge dans le monde entier
après 1915. Cet Armenien originaire du Liban croit que la Turquie
doit reconnaître le genocide qu’elle a perpetre contre les siens.

>, affirme-t-il.

Il y a 50 000 armeniens au Canada.

lundi 20 avril 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

From: A. Papazian

SAINTHOOD FOR ARMENIANS WHO DIED 100 YEARS AGO

Orlando Sentinel, FL
April 19 2015

By Jeff Kunerth

They prayed for the lost and the forgotten. They prayed for the
martyrs and the survivors. They prayed for those who died and whose
deaths have been denied.

On Sunday, the congregation of the Soorp Haroutiun Armenian Church
near Windermere held a requiem for the estimated 1.5 million Armenians
killed between 1915 and 1923. It marks the 100th anniversary of what
the Armenians call genocide.

The disappearance of two-thirds of the Christian Armenian population
from Muslim Turkey is explained by the Turks as both an exaggeration
and a voluntary exodus brought on by World War I. If atrocities
occurred, Turkish officials say, it was the byproduct of war. But
they insist there was no systematic plan to annihilate the Armenian
population — the definition of genocide.

Members of Soorp Haroutiun church, though, remember it differently.

The survivors carried with them stories not unlike the Jews and Poles
and other victims of ethnic cleansing.

Anna Tabirian’s grandmother was 6 years old when she, her three
siblings, and mother were forced from their home in Turkey. Her two
youngest sisters died of thirst and starvation in the desert of Syria.

Turks found her mother and took her away. The grandmother and her
11-year-old sister became the property of a Turkish family, who used
them as servants.

Years later, her grandmother’s father who was away on business,
paid the Turkish family for his daughters’ release.

“Every time she would tell this story, she would cry and say in her
words, ‘Until the day I die, if grass grows over my heart, I will never
forget that,’ ” said Tabirian, 50, a member of the church’s council.

Lucine Harvey, a founding member of the Soorp Haroutiun church in 1985,
tells the story of her mother, who was 12 when she was shot by a Turk.

“He left her for dead, but before he did that my mother had a niece
five years old, and he took the little girl, threw her into the creek,
and made my mom watch her drown,” said Harvey, 75, of Windermere.

Last week, Pope Francis acknowledged the systemic murder of Armenians
as the first genocide of the 20th century. The United States and
Israel are not among the 22 countries in the world that recognize
what happened to the Armenians as genocide.

But inside the Armenian church, there was no debate. In the social
hall, there was a banner that said “100 Years of Remembrance 1915-2015
The Armenian Genocide.” A Christmas tree was reconfigured into a
“martyr tree” decorated with 3-by-5 index cards containing the names
of relatives who survived or lost their lives.

In his Sunday sermon, visiting priest Father Daniel Findikyan talked
about the upcoming event on Friday, April 24, when the Armenian Church
will officially recognize the those who died as martyrs and saints.

“For the first time in centuries, the entire Armenian church will
come together and canonize those Christians who were massacred in
the event of the genocide as saints of the church,” Findikyan told
the congregation of about 70 people.

Findikyan preached that it didn’t matter when, if ever, Turkey
acknowledges what happened to its Christian population 100 years ago.

Those who died because of their religious beliefs did so with the
martyr’s belief that God was there with them, he said.

“As we battle these conflicting feelings — sadness over the loss of
ancestors, anger at the injustice and the denial of truth — there is
also some sense of hope that God is with us,” he said. “It has taken
100 years, but the Armenian people can see in that disaster glimmers
of God’s presence.”

From: A. Papazian

POPE FRANCIS AND THE ORIGINAL GENOCIDE

Aleteia
April 20 2015

The tragic history of the coining of a word

Pope Francis created an international stir when he described the
1915 massacre of the Christian Armenian people as “genocide.” It
would be wrong to debate that description in any great detail, as the
term so perfectly fitted the event. Outside the bizarre intellectual
bubble that is Turkey, few competent historians would challenge the
description. What is there left to discuss?

What is startling, though, is that so few commentators noted the
obvious irony involved in asking “Did this violence qualify as
genocide?” In fact, the Armenian murders contributed overwhelmingly
to creating the original concept of genocide, and ultimately of the
word itself. The events of 1915 were not just an instance of genocide,
but rather the prototypical act of that behavior.

The story goes back to the immediate aftermath of the First World War.

Seeking revenge for the massacres, militant Armenian death squads
assassinated former Ottoman leaders and collaborators, including
leaders of the country’s wartime junta. One of these actions would
have a powerful aftermath, when in Berlin in 1921 an Armenian named
Soghomon Tehlirian killed Talaat Pasha, reputed mastermind of the
genocide. Tehlirian’s supporters turned his subsequent trial into
a sensational expose of the genocide, in effect putting the former
Ottoman regime in the dock. They succeeded so powerfully in stating
their case that the German court actually freed Tehlirian on the
basis of the horrors he had undergone. (He eventually died in Fresno,
California, in 1960).

The case attracted international attention, and it particularly
intrigued a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. Why,
he wondered, did courts try a man for a single murder while no
institutions existed to punish the murderers of millions? In the
absence of international institutions to combat such massacres,
he noted, surviving victims were forced to resort to vigilante justice.

That paradox continued to trouble him until, in 1933, new massacres
of Assyrian Christians in Iraq forced him to define his ideas still
further. Using the case of the Assyrians, and of the Armenians
before them, he argued for a new legal category to be called crimes
of barbarity, primarily “acts of extermination directed against
the ethnic, religious or social collectivities whatever the motive
(political, religious, etc).” Such crimes, he argued, should be an
offense against international law that demanded to be punished by a
special court or tribunal.

In 1943, Lemkin coined a new word for this atrocious behavior–namely,
“genocide.” For many years, he was the most vigorous and visible
campaigner to secure global recognition for the new concept, and
finally, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. However familiar
the notion of genocide might be today, it originated at a specific
(and quite recent) historical moment, and was largely formulated by
one man, who must be remembered as one of the greatest humanitarian
thinkers of the twentieth century.

Moreover, the concept of genocide as a uniquely horrible act demanding
international sanctions has its roots in the thoroughly successful
movements to eradicate Middle Eastern Christians, and above all,
the Armenians. When Pope Francis denounced the Armenian massacres
as “the first genocide of the 20th century,” he was speaking a
self-evident truth.

Philip Jenkins is a Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor
University and author of The Great and Holy War: How World War I
Became a Religious Crusade.

From: A. Papazian

GENOCIDE AGAINST THE WORLD — AND ARMENIANS, 100 YEARS LATER

Newbritainherald
April 19 2015

By Harry Mazadoorian

When historians speak of the many genocides committed during the
course of history, the genocide is invariably identified by the name
of those victimized. Certainly, this has been the case of the Armenian
Genocide of 1915, where genocide scholars tell us that some one and
one half million men, women and children died in mass deportation,
starvation and unthinkably brutal savagery and murder.

2015 will witness the 100th commemoration of that terrible time of
butchery and inhumanity, which lasted from 1915 to 1923.

Clearly the Armenian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, as well as other
minorities, were the direct and immediate victims of those heinous
crimes. But in a broader sense, the world itself was the victim.

The failure of the international community to truly recognize and
condemn the unspeakable crimes of that time — the first genocide of
the twentieth century — put in play a mindset of impunity from laws
of basic decency and humanity which proliferated throughout the rest
of the century and into the next.

The most commonly cited example was that of Adolph Hitler who, when
challenged that the world would not tolerate what he was planning
to do, stated “Who today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of
the Armenians?’

Henry Morganthau, US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time
of the 1915 Genocide, was eyewitness to the killing fields and
deserts of the Ottoman Empire and, like his colleague Leslie Davis,
United States Counsel in Harput, found himself helpless as he tried
to enlist assistance from the United States and the world community
to intervene. Davis’ descriptions of what has become known as the
“slaughterhouse province” and Morganthau’s personal reports were
widely reported in the international press.

Recently, the cost of failing to recognize and condemn genocide was
eloquently pointed out by Robert Morganthau, grandson of Ambassador
Henry Morganthau.

Robert Morganthau earned worldwide respect as a public servant and
defender of human rights during his unparalleled career as district
attorney in Manhattan from 1975 to 2009. Last month he commented on
the genocide by pointing out that it was a great tragedy not only
for the Armenians who died and suffered but for the whole world.

“The world has paid a heavy price for not paying attention to the
Armenian genocide,” he said.

He was further quoted as saying that “If there had been a greater
outcry and condemnation of the Armenian genocide, perhaps Hitler would
not have proceeded with his plans to kill the Poles and the Jews in
the land that he intended to occupy.” And of course the unimaginable
atrocities which followed.

His words echoed the thoughts of former President Theodore Roosevelt
who said at the time of the genocide that the killings were the
“greatest crime of the war” and that failure to act against the
perpetrators is “to condone it; and further that “failure to deal
radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing
the future peace of the word is mischievous nonsense.”

What followed in the remainder of the century, of course, is known to
all: Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq, Bosnia and on and on. Ethnic cleansing,
crimes against minorities, brutal killings. All flowing seamlessly
despite what had gone before. Perhaps because of what had gone before
and not challenged on a timely basis.

But even some who are moved by the enormity of the past crimes against
humanity acknowledge that they took place but wonder why it need be
a concern today. In the case of the Armenian genocide, some ask, what
possible difference can it make today? It was so long ago … now 100
years ago. And so far away. We can’t live in the past, they tell us.

What difference does it make — can it make — if we now recognize
that long-ago genocide?

One need only stand on the hilltop of history and look backward to
see the answer clearly. It makes a difference because without that
recognition, the unthinkable of the past will certainly become once
again the even greater unthinkable of the future.

It makes a difference because it was wrong.

It makes a difference because a civilized world must understand that
indifference and looking away from these past crimes does more than
simply ignoring them. It encourages them. It assures their repetition.

This young century in which we live has already shown us that.

Condemning past genocides may seem to be a small symbolic step, but it
has powerful implications. It states that there is an international
moral conscience and that the one thing that unites all people is a
respect for basic human life and human rights.

There can be no genocide against only one ethnic group. Any genocide
is a genocide against humanity, a genocide against all the world.

One hundred years is too long to look the other way in the face of
the uncontroverted and overwhelming evidence of the atrocities which
took place in 1915.

But finally, after a full century of worldwide ambivalence, indications
are that the tide is turning.

The momentous and courageous declaration of Pope Francis declaring the
atrocities a genocide was a powerful message. So too, a recognition by
the European Parliament and countries such as France, Germany, Italy,
Poland and Switzerland. Recognition from intellectual and humanitarian
leaders within Turkey itself, although not from the government, is
another encouraging sign. And perhaps, just perhaps, President Obama
— who recognized the killings as genocide while a senator and during
his campaign for the presidency, but backed down to Turkish lobbying
once in office — will reconsider his position this year..

The Armenian genocide — and all genocides, no matter against whom —
must be recognized and loudly condemned.

Anything less portends a dark future for minorities all over the world.

From: A. Papazian

FRANCE24/REPORTERS : LES ARMENIENS CACHES DE TURQUIE

Publie le : 20-04-2015

Info Collectif VAN – – A l’occasion du centenaire
du genocide armenien, France 24 diffuse jusqu’au 25 avril, le reportage
d’Achren Verdian et Johan Bodin : , un sujet dont on parle peu, et
plein d’espoir sur une possible reconciliation de la Turquie avec son
historie, a suivre dans Reporters. Pour les commemorations du genocide
armenien, France 24 mettra en place une programmation speciale pour
couvrir les differents evenements entre Paris et Erevan. Le Collectif
VAN vous propose de (re)voir ce reportage d’Achren Verdian et Johan
Bodin.

France 24

REPORTERS

Les Armeniens caches de Turquie en quete d’identite

Presentateur : Antoine Cormery

Reporters: Achren Verdian et Johan Bodin

Pour visionner le grand reportage cliquez ici

Dernière modification : 18/04/2015

À une semaine de la commemoration du centenaire du genocide des
Armeniens, les journalistes de France 24, Achren Verdian et Johan
Bodin ont accompagne les descendants de ceux qui ont survecu :
les Armeniens caches de Turquie. Des montagnes d’Anatolie jusqu’aux
rives du Bosphore, combien sont-il aujourd’hui a s’interroger sur
les silences d’un parent, en quete de leur identite ? Ils brisent
aujourd’hui le mensonge dans lequel leurs aines ont ete enfermes.

Ce fut le premier genocide du XXe siècle. En 1915, environ 1,5
million d’Armeniens de l’Empire ottoman sont extermines au nom de
l’homogeneite ethnique et religieuse de la Turquie. Mais parmi eux,
entre 100 000 et 200 000 femmes et enfants seront sauves par des
familles turques et kurdes, puis islamises.

“J’ai toujours su que j’etais armenien, mais j’ai ressenti l’envie et
le desir de vivre pleinement mon armenite il y a quatre ou cinq ans
seulement”, confie Armenak Sarica, turc du Dersim d’origine armenienne.

Comme lui, pour retrouver leur passe, les Armeniens caches tentent de
renouer avec leur histoire, leur culture. Certains envisagent meme
de se convertir a la religion de leurs aïeuls : le christianisme. À
une semaine de la commemoration du centenaire de ce genocide, nos
reporters ont accompagne ces descendants d’Armeniens caches en quete
de leur identite.

Un grand reportage realise avec l’aide du photographe Antoine
Agoudjian, auteur de “Le cri du silence – Traces d’une memoire
armenienne” aux editions Flammarion.

Par Achren VERDIAN , Johan BODIN

————————————————————————————

Jours et horaires de diffusion

le 19/04 a 18h10 le 20/04 a 2h40 et 12h40 le 21/04 a 16h45 le 23/04
a 2h15 et 10h10 le 24/04 a 11h15 le 25/04 a 14h10

> le reportage en anglais

> le temoignage d’Achren Verdian en plateau

Pour les commemorations du genocide armenien, France 24 mettra en
place une programmation speciale pour couvrir les differents evenements
entre Paris et Erevan.

——————————————-

Lire aussi:

France24 : les A
caches de Turquie dans Reporters

Source/Lien : France 24

From: A. Papazian

24 AVRIL : 100EME TRISTE ANNIVERSAIRE DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN

1915-2015

Les Turcs ottomans, afin qu’existe “une patrie”, devaient
exterminer tous les chrétiens, les Grecs, héritiers historiques et
revendicateurs de l’Asie Mineure, les Arméniens et les Assyriens. Il
fallait qu’ils soient abattus ou déplacés. Les Arméniens furent
exterminés lors du génocide de 1915. En effet, entre 1914 et 1923,
un véritable nettoyage ethnique a été opéré. ( Génocide des
Arméniens, des Grecs du Pont-Euxin, de Smyrne, des Assyriens, …).

En conclusion, plus de 3 500 000 victimes

Comment peut-on oublier… ?

ΠÏ~IÏ~B μÏ~@οÏ~AοÏ~Mμε να ξεÏ~GάÏ~CοÏ…με… !

1914 : Phocée Centième anniversaire du massacre des Grecs de Phocée
(Cliquez ici) La ville de Phocée comptait 15 000 habitants.Le premier
exode eut lieu le 29 mai 1914 ; ces derniers furent massacrés et
d’autres chassés. Les réfugiés sont retournés, en 1919, chez eux
où ils furent a nouveau massacrés et chassés.

1915 : Arménie, premier génocide du XXème siècle Le samedi 24 avril
1915, a Istanbul (Constantinople), capitale de l’empire ottoman, 600
notables arméniens sont assassinés sur ordre du gouvernement. C’est
le début d’un génocide , le premier du XXème siècle. Il y aura
environ 1 500 000 victimes dans la population arménienne de l’empire
turc. Le gouvernement turc a décidé d’exterminer tous les Arméniens
résidant en Turquie. Il fallait mettre fin a leur existence, aussi
criminelles que soient les mesures a prendre et ne tenir compte ni
de l’âge, ni du sexe.

ÃŽ~UÏ~@ιÏ~DέΔοÏ…Ï~B Ï~DοÏ…Ï~B ξεÏ~AιζÏ~NÏ~Cαμε… Enfin,
nous avons réussi a les déraciner… (ÃŽ~ZεμάΔ
ÃŽ’Ï~DαÏ~DοÏ~MÏ~Aκ, 13 ÃŽ’Ï…γοÏ~MÏ~CÏ~DοÏ… 1923) – (Kémal
Ataturk 13 aoÔt 1923)

1919 : Génocide du Pont-Euxin Génocide du Pont-Euxin (Cliquez ici)
Le 19 mai 1919, débute le massacre au Pont-Euxin ; 353 000 Grecs
sur 700 000 qui y vivaient depuis le XIème siècle av. J.-C. furent
exterminés.

1922 : Génocide de Smyrne Génocide de Smyrne (Cliquez ici) Le samedi
9 septembre 1922, entre 10 et 11 heures , la cavalerie turque entra
a Smyrne. Beaucoup de cavaliers portaient des rameaux d’olivier en
criant “KORMA” (n’ayez pas peur). C’était la tactique adoptée par
les Turcs avant le massacre. Le massacre débuta dans le quartier
arménien, suivi du massacre des Grecs. Le dimanche 10 septembre,
entre 16 et 17 heures, les Turcs capturèrent Mgr Chrisostomos,
Archevêque métropolitain de Smyrne. Suite au génocide de Smyrne,
on dénombra 850 000 a 1 000 000 de victimes sur une population de
2 000 000 d’habitants.

1915- 1922 : Génocide des Assyriens Le génocide assyrien a eu lieu
durant la même période et dans le même contexte que le génocide
arménien et celui des Grecs. Les estimations sur le nombre total de
morts varient. Certains rapports citent le nombre de 270 000 morts,
bien que les estimations récentes aient révisé ce chiffre au nombre
plus réaliste de 500 000 a 750 000 morts, représentant environ 70 %
de la population assyrienne de l’époque.

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lundi 20 avril 2015, Jean Eckian ©armenews.com

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From: A. Papazian