DIGNITARIES MARK CENTENNIAL
The presidents of Russia and France joined other leaders Friday at ceremonies commemorating the massacre of Armenians a century ago by Ottoman Turks, an event which still stirs bitter feelings as both sides argue over whether to call it genocide.
The annual April 24 commemorations mark the day when some 250 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up in what is regarded as the first step of the massacre. An estimated 1.5 million died in the slaughters, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 as Ottoman officials worried that the Christian Armenians would side with Russia, its enemy in First World War.
The event is widely viewed by historians as genocide but modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently rejects the charge. It says that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. On the eve of the centennial, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that his nation’s ancestors never committed genocide.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande and other dignitaries assembled at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in the capital, Yerevan.
Each leader walked along the memorial with a single yellow rose and put it into the centre of a wreath resembling a forget-me-not.
“We will never forget the tragedy that your people went through,” Hollande said.
France is home to a sizable Armenian community. Among the French Armenians at Yerevan was 90-year-old singer Charles Aznavour, who was born in Paris to a family of massacre survivors.
On Parliament Hill, Defence and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney told Armenian Canadians gathered Friday that the memory of their homeland’s genocide will never be forgotten in this country. Kenney dramatically affirmed that controversial position to hundreds gathered on the east section of the Hill lawn, separated by barricades from hundreds of Turkish Canadian protesters gathered on the lawn’s west side. Immigration Minister Chris Alexander was among the dignitaries in Armenia to lay a wreath at the commemoration ceremony.
For many Armenians, the massacre anniversary is not only a moment of grief but also a reminder of the resilience of the nation.
“We feel a big pain today, historic pain but at the same time we feel a big historic strength,” Nadezhda Antonyan, a teacher from Yerevan said on the sidelines of the ceremony.
Putin used his speech to warn of the dangers of nationalism as well as “Russophobia” in a clear dig at the West-leaning government in Ukraine.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan criticized Putin’s participation, saying “They should look at their own past first ... the cruelties, the massacres, the genocides they have committed against their own people.”
Earlier this month, Turkey recalled its ambassadors to Vienna and the Vatican after Austria and Pope Francis described the killings as genocide. The European Parliament has also triggered Turkey’s ire by passing a non-binding resolution to commemorate “the centenary of the Armenian genocide.”
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian expressed hope that recent steps to recognize the massacre as genocide will help “dispel the darkness of 100 years of denial.”