Armenian genocide survivor recalls horror 82 years ago

Nichole Davis

Monday, April 21, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Ninety-year-old Kourken Handjian was one of the estimated 600,000 Armenians who survived the first genocide of the 20th century 82 years ago.

He still dreams about the violence he witnessed during the four years he was dragged by troops through the Turkish desert.

"I lost my whole family. I grew up in the street," he said through a translator. "I still have nightmares."

Handjian was one of nearly 100 local survivors and descendants who gathered Sunday at the Summerlin Library to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the genocide, which was characterized as the defining moment in Armenian history.

Despite vehement denials by the Turkish government, historical records indicate that on April 24, 1915, the "Young Turk" regime began killing 1.5 million Armenians living inside the Ottoman Empire. That represented roughly 90 percent of the Armenians living in that country.

Towns were razed. Women were raped and tortured, and the dead were buried in unmarked mass graves, according to witnesses.

The survivors, including Handjian, were marched out in exile caravans destined for nowhere. The group consisted mainly of orphaned children, who were scattered throughout Europe by the Allied forces at the end of World War I.

The most difficult part of the healing process has been the persistent denials of tragedy by the Turkish government, Washington lobbyist Mourad Topalian said.

He said Turkey spent $8.5 million lobbying U.S. officials on Capitol Hill last year. It has paid for chairs of Turkish culture at some top universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Indiana State.

It has even convinced U.S. and European oil companies -- who have signed $20 billion worth of contracts in the area within the last five years -- to turn the other cheek to continuing violence, he said.

"By them having that kind of resource," Topalian said, "the oil companies are willing to overlook an awful lot that's going on now."

Ironically, the lands themselves have no special value, Armenian activists said. They are not oil rich, nor do they contain a sizable amount of valuable minerals.

So why the continued denials? Why won't Turkey just acknowledge the event and move forward?

"The Turks don't want to recognize the massacre, because they know they will have to pay us. They know they are sitting on top of our ancestral lands," local activist Jackie Dadaian said.

So the 7.5 million survivors and their descendants are fighting back from their new homes. Brazil, Australia and the United States are just three of the countries from which Armenians are putting diplomatic pressure on Turkey and getting results.

U.S. lobbying efforts and an unfavorable political climate resulted in the slashing of aid to Turkey from $450 million three years ago to $22 million in 1996, Topalian said.

And their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Three Washington Post articles have accused U.S. Armenian lobbyists of having undue influence on Capital Hill, a charge which Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., and Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., addressed in remarks Sunday.

"It is important for us to understand, appreciate and acknowledge what happened to the Armenian society 82 years ago," Bryan said. "I think it's important for us to hear these sorts of things."

Ensign, who admitted that lobbyists first informed him about the massacre, agreed.

"Lobbying in its purest form is education," he said. "We need issues, especially like this, to be brought to our attention."