Voices recounting tragic tales and staggering death tolls projected over a loudspeaker from Meyerhoff Park on Tuesday as speakers from several human rights groups promoted the Armenian Student Association’s Genocide Awareness Month, taking place all of April.
Speakers talked about five different conflicts: the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, which the U.S. government has called a genocide.
The Turkish government denies the deaths collectively called the Armenian Genocide constitute a genocide because it maintains they resulted from the effects of World War I and not an extermination of the Armenians. Currently, the U.S. government does not officially recognize the Armenian Genocide either, though a majority of the international community acknowledges the situation as a genocide.
One of the event’s organizers, Babken DerGrigorian, said Tuesday’s event was intended to educate people on multiple genocides.
“All genocides are connected through the cycle of genocide, which begins with massacres, but ends with denial,” DerGrigorian said.
He explained the group decided to designate April as Genocide Awareness Month because April 24 is generally the designated Genocide Remembrance Day for Armenians, Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 15th, and Darfur is also commemorated in April.
“This is the first time we’re doing this, but we hope to do it every year from now on,” DerGrigorian said.
He explained the group decided to begin the month by reviewing all genocides, then honing in on Armenia specifically.
“We kind of took an inverted pyramid approach (to the month’s events), where we start with as many genocides as possible, then focus more on Armenian Genocide as we approach the end of April,” he said.
The month is sponsored by eight human rights groups. The next event, focusing on America’s response to genocide, is to take place on April 17.
Then, on April 23, events will specifically address the Armenian Genocide, he said. The group will hold a rally in Bruin Plaza and host speakers for a lecture in Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
“One of the most important speakers who will be coming is actually a Turkish professor, Taner Akcam,” DerGrigorian said. “He was a professor in Turkey who spoke out against the Armenian Genocide, and was prosecuted under the same code as Huran Dink.”
Unlike Dink, however, Akcam survived this prosecution, and is now a professor at the University of Michigan.
One of the ASA’s reasons for educating students about the Armenian Genocide is to work toward gaining U.S. recognition of the genocide, said Gabriyel Mamikonyan, ASA secretary and third-year economics student.
Peter Cowe, a Near Eastern language and culture professor, pointed out though the genocide is not fully recognized in the U.S., it is widely recognized elsewhere.
“So many other countries, so many other states in the U.S. have indeed accepted that the term genocide, albeit coined much later, applies to the Armenian situation,” Cowe said.
DerGrigorian said he believes the U.S. does not recognize it formally in order to preserve relations with Turkey.
Mamikonyan expressed his belief in the importance of gaining recognition.
“(The U.S.) stresses human rights and justice,” he said. “By not recognizing the Armenian Genocide they are not setting a good example for the rest of the world.”
Mamikonyan said the group is promoting House Resolution 106, and encouraging others to support it by writing to their congressmen.
According to the U.S. Government Printing Office’s Web site, the resolution requests that U.S. foreign policy acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.
Cowe stressed the importance of genocide awareness for preventing future tragedies, as well as providing closure for descendants of Armenian Genocide victims.
“They feel they have been denied the justice that applies to their forefathers. As a result this is a psychological wound which is open to this whole community,” he said.