Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Sydney: 90th Anniversary Armenian Genocide Commemoration

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Sydney: 90th Anniversary Armenian Genocide Commemoration

    ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATIVE COMMITTEE
    259 Penshurst Street
    Willoughby NSW 2068
    Email: [email protected]
    Contact: Dr Tro Kortian 0412197364


    90th ANNIVERSARY ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION - Sydney, Australia


    Sydney, AUSTRALIA: On Sunday 24 April 2005 - on the eve of the 90th
    Anniversary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli - members of Sydney's
    Armenian-Australian Community joined millions of Armenians dispersed
    around the world, in a solemn commemoration marking the 90th
    Anniversary of the Genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the
    Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.

    The 90th Anniversary Armenian Genocide Commemoration in Sydney was
    organised by the Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee of
    Australia, under the auspices of the Armenian Council of Australia,
    and under the primateship of His Eminence Archbishop Aghan Baliozian,
    Primate of the Diocese of Australia and New Zealand.

    A crowd in excess of 1100 packed the Willoughby Town Hall in Sydney
    for the Commemoration. Also in attendance were several federal, state
    and local politicians, other public figures, representatives of
    various ethnic communities and five genocide survivors with their
    family members. All being present both to honour the memory of the 1.5
    million Armenian men, women and children who fell victim to the
    Genocide that commenced on 24 April 1915, as well as to reaffirm their
    vigilance against such crimes against humanity and any attempts to
    deny, obfuscate or demean the historical truth surrounding such crimes

    International Guest Speaker for the evening was Mrs Hilda Tchoboian,
    President of the Armenian European Federation for Justice and
    Democracy (EAFJD) ` the influential Brussels-based advocacy body of
    the Armenian-European Community.

    In her moving key-note address to the audience, delivered in both
    English and Armenian, Mrs Tchoboian paid homage not only to the
    victims of the Genocide but also `to the men, women and children who
    were destined to be dehumanised by the criminal designs of the Turkish
    government, but who survived ` your parents, our parents ` and who
    succeeded in achieving a miracle of humanity: that of building, after
    so much horror and suffering, a society of responsible men and women
    who knew to preserve and transfer to future generations love, moral
    fibre and human values.'

    Commenting on the current state of affairs, Mrs Tchoboian observed `
    ¦ Ninety years later, modern Turkey is in a panic realising that
    the International Community will not forget this Crime which it has
    tried so hard to eliminate from the memory of the human race.'

    She went on to note `With the denial of Genocide, Turkey is itself
    complicit in the guilt of the organisers of the Genocide. It has a
    moral responsibility, for which the International Community must hold
    Turkey accountable' as well as a political responsibility `¦since
    the Turkish nation-state was constructed on the cadavers of the
    Armenian people; Turkey built itself with confiscated assets and the
    nationalised inheritance of the murdered Armenians, which were
    integrated into the Turkish national treasury.'

    In her concluding comments, Mrs Tchoboian added: `Today's Turkey is
    responsible for the Genocide of the Armenians. Today's Turkey must
    recognise the crime and must bear the full legal consequences
    emanating from such recognition. There can be no compromise on this
    fundamental obligation.'

    During the Commemoration, statements and messages of support was
    conveyed to the audience by several federal and state politicians.
    These included: The Hon Joe Hockey MP, Minister for Human Services,
    representing the Prime Minister of Australia, The Hon John Howard; Mr
    Tony Burke MP. Representing The Hon. Kim Beazley, Leader of the
    Federal Opposition; The Hon John Watkins MP, Minister for Transport,
    representing the Premier of New South Wales, The Hon Bob Carr, and The
    Hon John Brogden MP, Leader of Opposition in New South Wales. A
    video-taped message from the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon. Bob
    Carr marking the occasion of the 90th Anniversary of the Genocide was
    also broadcast to the Commemoration.

    The Commemoration concluded with a closing address and prayer by His
    Eminence Archbishop Aghan Baliozian.

    * * * * *

    90th ANNIVERSARY ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION:
    Statements and Messages of Support

    Sydney, AUSTRALIA: At the 90th Anniversary Armenian Genocide
    Commemoration in Sydney held on Sunday 24 April 2005, several federal
    and state politicians conveyed statements and messages of support to
    the audience.

    Below is the text of some of these messages of support:


    Message from the Premier of New South Wales, The Hon. Bob Carr MP


    MESSAGE FROM PREMIER BOB CARR 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE


    The twentieth century was the century of genocide.

    And the slaughter of the Armenians was its horrific beginning. Because
    the world chose to forget and in many places still chooses to
    forget. It taught a chilling lesson:

    - that you can get away with genocide;

    - an attempt to obliterate a whole people off the face of the earth
    may not be stopped by any earthly power.

    Hitler himself is witness to this startling proposition.

    `Who after all remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?' he said,
    and calmly proceeded to murder six million Jews.

    Pol Pot followed. And Bosnia. And Rwanda. And now, even after all
    these lessons, Darfur.

    But the Armenian genocide is the original, horrible attempted
    extermination of a whole people under the guise of war, in a gruesome
    coincidence with the Anzac landings happening a few hundred kilometres
    away.

    To those who would deny the Armenian genocide, it is worth remembering
    Australian prisoners-of-war are among the witnesses.

    One soldier wrote about how he saw:

    `a hundred human wolves plunge in among about ten times as many
    defenceless human beings, tearing them to pieces with bayonets. The
    Armenians were unable to run away. They were tied together four by
    four and utterly exhausted. The assassins simply nailed them to the
    ground.'

    In such ways were 1.5 million men, women and children put to death,
    killed simply for being Armenian, and ninety years later their voices
    still call down the decades for justice and for remembrance.

    As the late Pope John Paul II said at the memorial in Yerevan:

    Listen, oh Lord, to the lament that rises from this place, to the cry
    of innocent blood that pleads like the blood of Abel, like Rachel
    weeping for her children because they are no more.

    We have heard their cries. We will remember them always.

    ********


    The Hon. Kim Beazley MP, Leader of the Federal Opposition


    MESSAGE FOR THE 90TH ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION


    On behalf of the Federal Australian Labor Party I would like to extend
    my very best wishes to the Armenian Community of Sydney and to
    acknowledge with respect all members of the Armenian community
    attending today's ceremony commemorating the untimely deaths of so
    many of their country men, women and children during World War 1.

    The 20th Century was witness to the Armenian Genocide, which will be
    remembered in history as one of the most horrific events the world has
    seen, and today is dedicated to the memory of the Armenian people who
    suffered so terribly during those dark days and years. As Armenians
    all over the world gather together to honour the memory of the
    innocent lives that were lost, this commemoration ceremony reminds us
    all that we all share a duty to protect the religious, racial and
    political rights of all humanity.

    Armenia is a small but an ancient civilization with a rich culture and
    heritage. Australia has welcomed Armenian settlers since the days of
    the gold rush in the 1850s. Today the 30,000 strong Australian
    Armenian community includes people born in 43 countries who make an
    important contribution to our culture and diversity and who are an
    integral part of our splendid cohesive and proud multicultural
    society. The annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in World
    War I is an opportunity for all Australians to reflect on the values
    of peace and coexistence and the need be ever vigilant against the
    abuse of human and civil rights..

    Today's ceremony symbolises the great courage and spirit of the
    Armenian people and I know it will be a fitting commemoration for
    those who died in the genocide

    *******

    The Hon John Brogden MP, Leader of Opposition in New South Wales

    `A farmer God created man,

    The soil to dress and till; Cursed be the hand whose wicked art

    Has taught him blood to spill!'



    As many of you will recognise, those are the ringing words of the
    great Armenian poet Catholicos Khrimian `Hayrig':

    This month of April is overloaded with melancholic anniversaries:

    · tonight we mark the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

    · the sun will shortly rise on the pilgrims assembled on the beaches
    and the killing fields of Gallipoli also ninety years on from the day
    that sacred place entered the Australian soul

    · sixty years ago this month the death camps of Nazi Germany were
    liberated

    · thirty years ago the monstrous Khmer Rouge swept across Cambodia and
    sent its own people to their terrible killing fields.

    The lives of men and women, of people and nations, are linked in one
    great almost impenetrable web ` the web of our common humanity. Ninety
    years ago two great tragedies occurred on Turkish soil: the events
    known to all history as the Armenian Genocide and the landings on
    Gallipoli.

    The one event, an assault upon the very existence of an ancient
    nation; the other the coming of age of a new one.The Twentieth Century
    itself could well be described as the Century of Genocides:



    · first the Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans

    · then the Jews and gypsies at the hands of the Nazis

    · next the Cambodians at the hands of their own mad despots

    · followed by the Serbs and Muslims at the hands of their once
    neighbours

    · more recently the Tutsis of Rwanda at the hands of another ethnic
    tribe

    · and even today the people of Dhafur in the Sudan at the hands of
    their racial and religious overlords.

    To our everlasting shame we have all too often remained silent, even
    in the light of the clearest evidence of genocide.

    The continuing denial of the Armenian Genocide has provided a license
    for other Genocidist states to continue to perpetrate these crimes
    against humanity.

    It is indeed correct that the sins of silence created their own evil.

    Winston Churchill lamented after peace was made between Turkey and the
    great powers that:

    `history will search in vain for the word Armenia'.

    Churchill was wrong.

    Mount Ararat still stands.

    The people of Armenia have withstood the Turks, war, earthquakes and
    strife.

    They are a living embodiment of these words of scripture - "From this
    faith none can shake us, neither angels, nor men, neither sword, fire
    or water, nor any bitter torturers."

    The people of Armenia endure.

    In remembering the suffering and the slaughter of the Armenian people,
    we must keep foremost in our minds ` now and forever the simple
    promise ` `never again!'.



    Genocides, wherever they occur ` in time or in place ` share two
    prerequisites:

    · they are fuelled by hate, prejudice and ignorance, and

    · their aim is nothing less than an extermination of a people, their
    language and their culture.

    They arise in the black pits of a warped human psyche and they seek to
    consign their victims to a black pit of contemporary and historic
    oblivion.

    Genocides are defeated both by force of arms in the hands of the
    righteous and by the light which shines from the recognition of our
    common humanity.

    You ` the inheritors and guardians of the culture, the history, the
    language, the faith and the memory of the Armenian people and the
    Armenian nation have a responsibility, as grave as any cast upon
    people today:

    · to remember ` to serve the honoured memory of your ancestral people
    and your nation, to guard its very essence and transmit it to future
    generations.

    Alongside this grave responsibility I know that those with Armenian
    ancestry in the four corners of the globe make an enormous
    contribution in the nations that have become their new homes.

    The facts of the Armenian Genocide are too clear, too unambiguous, too
    well attested and too recent to be ignored or denied.

    There can only be forgiveness and reconciliation if there is
    recognition and regret

    In the same spirit that the German Chancellor has acknowledged the
    truth of the Holocaust and made a national apology, so there remains
    an imperative that the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide
    recognise, regret and repent.

    Mikayel Nalbandian in his epic poem `Liberty' warns that for those of
    us who are committed to freedom, justice, peace and truth

    `The path is thorny all the way

    And many trials wait for thee¦'

    Together, here, tonight, and in common with all members of the
    Armenian diaspora wherever they gather to mark today and to remember,
    we know that we can travel that thorny path and overcome those many
    trials.

    As we move closer to a century of denial we must maintain our resolve
    that those who committed the heinous crimes against the Armenian
    people during those dark, dark days in April 1915 and ensuing months
    are made to accept responsibility for their heinous crimes.

    I would like to leave you with the words of the famous Pullitzer prize
    winning American author William Saroyan which I think captures the
    essence of the Armenian spirit and makes it easy to understand why we
    must honour the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide:

    Saroyan wrote:

    `I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this
    small tribe of unimportant people whose wars have all been fought and
    lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is
    unheard and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia.
    See it if you can do it. Send them to the desert without bread or
    water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not
    laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the
    world, see if they will not create a new Armenia.
Working...
X