Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Committed to remember

WEEKEND EDITION

April 23 - 24, 2005

These are events planned for The 90th Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration Ceremony on Sunday, sponsored by the Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas:

Kegham Tashjian, pastor of the Armenian Evangelical Fellowship of Las Vegas, will be among 150 people marching Sunday to mourn the killing of 1.5 million Armenians during the first genocide of the 20th century and honor their fortitude.

"We will declare to Las Vegas and to the world that they will not be forgotten and signify that there was a victory for the Armenian people -- a victory that we did not lose our identity, our independence or our Christian faith."

Local Armenian-Americans and others are expected at the two-mile protest march at 11:30 a.m. Sunday starting at the Elks Lodge on West Charleston Boulevard to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the start of the eight-year genocide suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

On April 24, 1915, the genocide began when about 200 Armenian intellectual and political leaders were arrested in what is now Istanbul and publicly executed.

An estimated 20,000 people of Armenian descent today live in Southern Nevada. Generally, people whose last name ends in "ian," "jian" or "yan" are of Armenian descent.

Tashjian, 62, lost the entire side of his mother's family, including his grandfather, in the slayings at Tarsus, Turkey, birthplace of the Apostle Paul. His parents and other family members escaped to Latakia, which now is Syria.

"Professor James Russell of Boston University said his research found that there were so many bodies of Armenians thrown into the Euphrates River that it changed the river's course," Tashjian said of the extent of the genocide.

The genocide was so widespread in Turkey it is rare to find an Armenian-American today who did not lose an ancestor in the slayings, many during deportation death marches in which they starved or died of thirst.

Las Vegas attorney Ara Shirinian, 48, says he will march Sunday to remember the deaths of his ancestors who were killed in Van in Eastern Turkey.

"A census showed that about 100,000 Armenians lived in Van in 1914, but after World War I there were virtually none," said Shirinian, the grandson of a priest who escaped to Bulgaria after several other family members were killed.

John Dadaian, coordinator of the Las Vegas march and afternoon remembrance ceremony at the West Charleston Library and local spokesman for the Armenian National Committee of America, knows a witness to the genocide -- his mother-in-law Malvine Handjian.

Handjian watched the horror unfold as a 10-year-old refugee on the streets of Izmir, Turkey, in 1922. That included witnessing Turks drive nails through the soles of the feet of an Armenian priest and watching Turkish soldiers burn Armenian homes and carry off teenage girls to rape and kill them.

Handjian was the subject of the 2002 Armenian genocide documentary film "The Handjian Story: A Road Less Traveled," which won best feature documentary at the 2003 Moondance International Film Festival in Denver. She is 92 and lives in Las Vegas, where she also was the subject of an April 2004 story in the Sun.

Dadaian, noting that Handjian survived a death march, says marching is symbolic and appropriate for this milestone commemoration.

"We are marching here and in other cities to get the U.S. government to put pressure on the Turkish government to finally get it to recognize and take responsibility for its actions so we can all move on," said Dadaian, who also is a member of the Armenian-American Cultural Society of Las Vegas.

Sunday's remembrance march will be led by three local Armenian religious leaders -- Tashjian, Pastor Asbed Balian of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Las Vegas and the Rev. Vrouyr Demirjian, the Armenian Apostolic Church of America's assistant to the prelate.

They are scheduled to be joined at the front of the procession by the Armenian Scouts of Las Vegas carrying the flags of Nevada, the United States and Armenia and the banners of the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

Armenian-born U.S. citizen Rafael Oganesyan, a junior at UNLV and president of the Armenian Student Association, says he will march Sunday in hopes that the world finally will get the message of "never again."

"It is important that with the survivors of the Armenian Genocide now almost gone that we students demonstrate that we will not let them or those who were killed be forgotten," Oganesyan, 20, said, estimating that 30 students from the organization will march Sunday.

"It's a shame that the world has not gotten the message of never again and that the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan genocides have followed the Armenian Genocide."

Dadaian said one reason the United States has not been enthusiastic about holding Turkey's feet to the fire on the genocide issue is because Americans benefit from oil produced in Turkey.

Tashjian echoed that sentiment.

"Turkey is an ally of the United States and so the United States has not made this (accountability) an issue with them," he said. "Why admit to something if you are not being held accountable for it?

"Turkey long was a strategic point from which the United States kept an eye on the Soviet Union. But, since the fall of the Soviet Union and Turkey's position becoming less strategically important, it baffles me why the United States has not taken a more reasoned position on this issue."

Shirinian says from a legal standpoint, the Turks fear having to pay millions of dollars in reparations to survivors and descendants, especially for the loss of ancestral lands in Turkey. But, he said, there is much more to it than that.

"For 90 years, Turkish students have been taught something very different in their schools," he said. "For their government to take responsibility will be akin to saying 'we've been lying to you all of these years.' "

While the U.S. government has skirted the issue of the Armenian genocide, many of its leaders from the federal government to state officials to city mayors have recognized as fact what the Turks continually deny.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, in his proclamation for Sunday's ceremony, calls the 1915-23 incidents a "crime against humanity. ... (a) systematic and deliberate massacre of the Armenian people."

The Turkish government maintains that both the Armenians and Turks suffered great loss of life during the war, but not because of a genocide.

Supporters of Turkey's position say claims of a genocide are part of efforts to drive a wedge between the Turks, who are Muslims, and Armenians, who have had Christianity as their state religion since 301.

The Turkish government Web site, turkishembassy.org, says the numbers of Armenians killed have been inflated because fewer than 1.5 million Armenians were living in Turkey in 1915. The Web site says more than 2.5 million Muslims died during the same period, which encompasses World War I.

But Armenian-Americans say there are volumes of proof that a genocide occurred, including not only eyewitness accounts but also transcripts from Ottoman court-martial proceedings held at the time to find scapegoats for the killings -- documents that in effect admit atrocities were committed by soldiers.

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