 "Photo: Varughan Chapanian | Valley Star")
 "Photo: Varughan Chapnian | Valley Star")
The ceremony was a solemn and reverent affair; applause was not allowed out of respect for the dead, but occasional claps would escape after a speech or performance moved the crowd of close to 100 people. A folding table draped with a black tablecloth sat below Monarch Stage and held white tea candles arranged into the shape of a flickering Christian cross, while single red and white carnations lined the front of the stage. The haunting sounds of the duduk, a traditional Armenian wind instrument, played gently and sadly in the background.
This was the annual commemoration service for the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide presented by the Associated Student Union and the Armenian Student Body in Monarch Hall last week.
"My ancestors have died from the Armenian Genocide, 1.5 million people," said Armenian Club Vice President Katya Harutyunyan.
The candles, cross and carnations are symbolic of the Armenian Christians who were massacred and forced on death marches into the desert by the "Young Turk" and nationalist governments of Ottoman Turkey 95 years ago in present day Turkey. Other victims were sent to concentration camps, children were injected with typhoid and gassed in buildings.
Throughout the world, commemorations occur on April 24 – the day that more than 200 Armenian intellectuals were arrested, deported and murdered; and 5,000 Armenians were butchered in Constantinople (present day Istanbul). April 24, 1915 is the day that the Armenian Genocide officially began, lasting until 1923.
Valley students Harutyunyan and Marine Juharyan stated the goal of the commemoration was to pay respect to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
"They will live forever," said Juharyan, referring to the victims of genocide, "as long as there are people to remember them."
Reverend Avetis of the Armenian Apostolic Church recited the Lord's Prayer and asked for mercy on the Armenian martyrs and victims of genocide everywhere.
A slide show called "Never Again" portrayed genocides around the world. Two dancers performed, and three Armenian poems were read.
The other goal of the commemoration was to call attention to Turkey's denial of the genocide.
Shame on Obama, who pretended to fight for justice, promising millions of Armenians recognition of the genocide …," said Harutyunyan.
Milena Malyan of the Unified Young Armenians spoke about a commemoration in Glendale on April 23 and another rally in Little Armenia on April 24 to protest the ongoing denial of the Turkish regime.
"… (We) will remind President Obama that American leadership should not be caving in to the Turkish pressures," read a flyer from the Unified Young Armenians.
ASU Commissioner Ani Kolangian presented a segment from CNN's "60 Minutes" called "Battle Over History," an example of the controversy and politics behind Turkey's official stance against applying the term genocide to the events of 1915-1923.
The "60 Minutes" segment opens by saying, "Wars are fought … rarely over history … but that's what Turkey and Armenia are still fighting over – what to label the mass deportation and subsequent massacre of more than a million Christian Armenians from Ottoman Turkey during the First World War."
According to the segment, "Armenians and an overwhelming number of historians say that Turkey's rulers committed genocide … the Turks, meanwhile, say their ancestors never carried out such crimes ..."
The deserts of Deir ez-Zoir contain the bones of an estimated 450,000 Armenians.
"The Turkish Empire tried to wipe out Armenians, but as we can see from this gathering, they failed," said Kolangian.
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The differences between Japanese Immigration in WWII with the Armenian Immigration in WWI:
1)The Ottoman did not have the understanding of a ‘superior race’ unlike the Americans
The Armenians were relocated not because they belonged to another race; because of military and political reasons. Moreover, the Armenians of the big cities like Istanbul, Izmir, Aleppo, where there were a great population of Armenians lived were exempted. Additionally, Katholic and Protestan Armenians were also exempted.2)The major difference was that the Japanese had not rebelled and they were unarmed.The Armenians performed hundreds of revolts (24 revolts only in September to December 1895) against the Ottomans, being organized by Armenian committees Hınchak and Dashnak and inflicted horrible massacres upon the Turks and Muslims, beginning by late 19.century. In 1905, the Armenians killed all the Turks and Muslims who lived in Susha in Azarbaijan (5). Armenian Soviet historian A.A.Lalayan stated that the Dashnaks displayed extreme courage to massacre Turkish women, children and ill and old people (6). V.A. Gurko-Kryajin declared that the Muslim folk around Yerivan and Kars were eradicated and the districts Shuragel, Kağızman, Karakurt, Sarıkamış, Surmali were fired and destroyed so that the folk were forced to escape, in his book entitled 'Neareast and the States'
Armenian Boghos Noubar Pasha, said: ‘150 000 Armenian volunteers in Russian Army were the only forces against Turks’ (7) . 527 000 Turks were slayed by Armenian volunteers in the Russian Army. Hamparsum Boyaciyan, a former Ottoman parliamentarian who led Armenian guerilla forces, ravaging Turkish villages behind the lines, 1914 (8).
What would the Armenians do if the Japanese on their territory rebelled against the Americans, and cooperated with the occupying powers, and if the American army become between two fires because of these Japanese cooperators.Therefore, Mr Obama would be expected to acknowledge another devastating chapter of American history and be sensitive to keep the memories of the Japanese who were misbehaved and murdered by the Americans, alive, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past, much before the Armenians.
If the order dated 24 April 1915 to close the agencies of the Armenian Committees Dashnaks and Hınchaks, and arrest of their leaders is a genocide, or if relocation of the Armenians is equal to a genocide it is reasonable to ask why February 19, 1942, the date when the executive order 9066 was issued by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to relocate the Japanese Americans from their homes in the Pacific Coast in the US Relocation Centers, Assembly Centers and Justice Department Internment Camps is not accepted as an Japanese genocide inflicted by the Americans.
At that time, 126 947 Japanese people were living in the main continent, 62.7% having been born in the USA; 157 905 people in Hawaii and 263 in Alaska.
2260 Japanese were detained in these Justice Ddepartment Internal Camps, since they were considered dangerous. Some of these Japanese Americans were brought to these camps from Latin American countries. 1800 Japanese from Peru were brought to these camps in order that they would be used during Exchange of hostiges and 1400 of them were not set free, even after the war ended.
De Witt who was assigned to substantiate this order stated: ‘Racist relations can not be removed by migration. The Japanese race is an ‘enemy race’ and the second and third generation Japanese have not lost their race characters, even though they were born on Americal territory and had Americanized’. De Witt also defined the Japanese as 112 000 potential enemies and said that a Japanese is Japanese.Missisippi Congressman John Rankin said: ‘The civilization of the White Man had become in confliction with the Japanese barbarianism and either of them should be annihilated’ (1-4).
Later on, some of those who were sent to Çankiri were set free; some of them were sent to Ankara-Ayas, and some to Zor Region. Only one of them died due to natural reasons (age) and two were murdered by two people who did not have any association with the Ottoman State. Essentially, these two people were arrested by the Ottoman State and were executed.What kind of genocide is it? It is clear that it is a big mistake to define these events as ‘genocide’However the Etchmiasin Patriarch, a priest named Kevork, sent the following cable to the United States President upon this move on April 24:Mr. President, according to the latest news received from the Turkish Armenia, a massacre started there and an organised terror has put the Armenian lives in danger. In this precarious moment, I am addressing to the noble sentiments of the great American nation and ask you to intervene immediately through your Great Republic’s diplomatic representation for protecting my people left to the mercy of the violence of Turkish fanaticism, on behalf of humanity and Christian belief.
Kevorg, Ecumenic Patriarch of all Armenians. This cable was followed by the Washington contacts of the Russian Ambassador.The incident here was merely the banning of Armenian committees and the arrest of the culprits. Yet, the Armenians endeavoured to display it as a massacre and to rally the United States and Russia into their ranks.
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