News > Lebanese Armenians > Genocide commemoration in Lebanon 2008

Lebanese Armenians mark 'Genocide Day'

Thousands attend vigil to remember massacres

By Anthony Elghossain
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: "History has not yet witnessed a more terrible crime - a crime against humanity - than that of genocide," the Tashnak Party said Thursday in a statement issued to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of "Genocide Day," which marks the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during World War I.

Nerses Bedros XIX, the Armenian Catholic patriarch, in a ceremony held at an Achrafieh cemetery for victims of the massacre, said that "we are here today to plead the conscience of the global community in hopes of bringing wider recognition of the massacre of Armenians."

The patriarch emphasized "our commitment to the Armenian struggle and to the active role we have played in the Christian struggle in Lebanon and the world."

The Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church in Lebanon held a Wednesday-evening gathering in the mountain town of Bikfaya to remember the victims of the killings and reflect upon the meaning of those events on the Armenian community today.

Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, sought to convey the need for remembrance and unity in the Armenian Lebanese experience, touching upon memory, the assertion of rights and unity as a source of force.

"Memory is one of the more important facets of human existence - indeed, human beings live in memory," the Catholicos said. "The Armenian genocide, organized and executed by the Ottoman state, will forever remain etched in the Armenian memory."
 
Referring to divisions that have plagued the Armenian community and stressing the need for communal unity, Aram I urged Armenians in Lebanon to unite around their "national struggle," saying that "a people can only grow strong through the unification of its sons and placing common cause above all differences."

He also linked the Armenian and Lebanese "struggles" to one another, stressing that "while Turkey oppressed the Armenian people, Lebanon embraced [them] ... Turks butchered Armenians, but in Lebanon we found a nation of renaissance, life, and continuity."

Despite an intensifying political standoff, both the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement issued statements "on this painful commemoration" condemning the "massacre of the Armenian people."

During World War I, beginning in 1915, Ottoman Turks executed over 1.5 million Armenians in present-day Turkey, and prompted thousands of others to flee to neighboring areas in the region, including Lebanon.

Several states recognize the killings as genocide, but Turkey neither recognizes the killings as genocide nor assumes legal responsibility for their execution.

Source: "The Daily Star", 25 April 2008 (adjusted)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=91433 (subscription)

Photo: Armenians commemorating Genocide in the Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral, Catholicosate of Cilicia, Antelias, Beirut.