Latvia recognises Armenian genocide
Armenians mark the anniversary of the genocide. / AP
Latvia has recognized the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, drawing an angry response from Turkey.
The Baltic nation’s parliament passed a resolution on May 6 condemning and recognising the tragedy with 58 of 100 lawmakers voting for the measure.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry slammed the decision as a null and void attempt to rewrite history for political motives .
National governments and parliaments in some 30 countries – including Lithuania – have formally recognised the Armenian Genocide.
US President Joe Biden did so in a statement released on April 24 – Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
USA TODAY
On April 24, President Joe Biden formally recognized the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 as an act of genocide, a long-sought declaration among Armenian-Americans that could further strain U.S.-Turkey relations. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination, Biden said in a statement on Saturday, marking Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. He emphasized the need to recognize and remember such atrocities so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history.
“Imaginings of Occupied Artsakh” exhibition launched on April 19
GLENDALE Glendale Library Arts & Culture and ReflectSpace Gallery present “Sites of Fracture: Diasporic Imaginings of Occupied Artsakh,” a virtual exhibition that brings together diasporan Armenian artists from the United States, Canada, and Germany to build collective counter-narratives to the forces of occupation and cultural erasure in the Republic of Artsakh. The exhibition launched on April 19.
In September 2020, the autocratic state of Azerbaijan invaded the Republic of Artsakh and initiated an campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting its Indigenous Armenian population. With a vastly out-financed military and direct support from Turkey, Azerbaijan succeeded in occupying large swaths of Artsakh. In the process, thousands lost their lives and 100,000 Armenians were displaced from their ancestral homes.
(Jacana 2013) and Darwin’s Hunch (Jacana 2016). She is a Research Associate at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research).
US President Joe Biden made a statement on 24 April that officially recognised the Armenian Genocide. Between 1915 and 1917, over a million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and another million were forced into exile.
“Of those who survived,” Biden said, “most were forced to find new homes and new lives around the world, including in the United States. With strength and resilience, the Armenian people survived and rebuilt their community.”
Biden’s statement on the 106th anniversary of the start of the genocide had great meaning for me personally. I grew up in Watertown, Massachusetts, which is a major centre of the Armenian diaspora in the United States. Watertown is home to the Armenian Library and Museum of America, as well as Armenian churches, grocery stores and bakeries and several Armenian newspapers.