Many personalities were present on Friday, April 21 at the Cheneviers room of the MJC Jean Moulin in Bourg-Lès-Valence, at the debate of the cultural association “Armenia” on “Can a new genocide of the Armenians be repeated?

Friday evening among the personalities present let us note the presence of the pastor Luder Nassanian of the Maranatha church who is going to leave the region and return to Cyprus for a well deserved retirement, as well as the pastor Hagop Koujikian of the Armenian Evangelical Church of Bourg-Lès-Valence and the father Krikor Mikaélian of the Armenian Catholic Church of Valencia. Also present were eminent members of the government of Western Armenia, with its President Armenag Aprahamian and its members Lydia Margossian the head of diplomacy. Without forgetting Georges Eretzian president of the ACFOA (the French Veterans of Drôme-Ardèche), Khosrof Iliozer president of the Amicale of Malatia and Idje-Val, Jean-Marc Abattu ex-president of the Office of Sports of Valentinois and great friend of Armenia, and Alain Euksuzian, vice-president of “Armenia” and of the association “La Route de Sarkis”.

Before starting the debate, Krikor Amirzayan, the president of “Armenia” reminded the appointments of April 24 is the Day of commemoration of the 108th anniversary of the Genocide of Armenians.

He also reminded that in Privas, capital of the Ardeche, on Sunday, April 23 at 14:00, the mayor of Privas, Michal Valla will inaugurate an Armenian khatchkar, the first memorial of the Armenian Genocide in the city. The ceremony will take place in the presence of the Prefect of the Ardèche. The event will be followed by a concert of young Armenians at 3:30 pm in the church of Saint-Thomas and then a reception in the town hall of Privas after the concert.

The president “Armenia” recalled the elements of the theme of the evening: “Can a new Armenian genocide happen again?

A theme of burning topicality on the eve of the commemoration of the 108th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, on April 24. With Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) living under the Azeri blockade imposed since December 12, depriving the 120,000 inhabitants -including 30,000 children- of any link with the outside world. The only road linking Artsakh to Armenia and the outside world, the Latchine corridor, is under blockade by Azerbaijan.

Two facts: during the 44-day war in Artsakh, Erdogan, the Turkish dictator, referring to the Armenians who resisted as best he could, called these Armenians “remnants of the sword”, a pejorative and vexatious term that identifies the surviving Armenians of the genocide. Erdogan promised to finish the work of the genocide against the Armenians by eliminating them, these “remnants of the sword”.

On his side, the Azeri president Ilham Aliev, during the Artsakh war, said that he wanted to hunt the Armenians like dogs, which is also a clear will to finish the genocide.

The president of “Armenia” recalled that more than a century ago, the French writer Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize of Literature in 1915, wrote in a text dedicated to the murdered peoples: “It was the premeditated murder, executed in cold blood, of a whole people. There was not a government in Europe that did not know it, that did not expect it… And yet, none, for political reasons, tried anything, did not want to do anything to prevent it. And not one voice in our great press was raised to condemn them.

I see then certain men who were screaming at the crime for Dreyfus, delirious of sincere pain and fury, and at the same time, to be deaf when one spoke to them about Armenia “. For the president of “Armenia”, this text of Romain Rolland, one has the strange impression that it is written today in 2023. This deaf silence of the international community in front of the drama which is played in Armenia and Artsakh!

At a time when Armenians are calling on the international community to react more forcefully, in particular by sending UN peacekeepers or means of defense to the border of the attacked Armenia, at a time when the population of Artsakh is living under the Turkish-Azeri blockade, how can we not think of a second genocide of Armenians, with the same actors as in 1915, namely Turkey reinforced by a newcomer with the same genocidal spirit, Azerbaijan? And Krikor Amirzayan reminds us that “just this week the dictator Aliev declared that the Armenians of Artsakh, if they want to stay in the territory, must take Azeri nationality…or leave!

The debate gave rise to many interventions. First of all, Armenag Aprahamian (President of Western Armenia) shared a number of elements and affirmed that “the genocide of the Armenians, because it is necessary to affirm the genocide of the Armenians and not the Armenian genocide, which began in 1894…continues even today. The genocide started by Sultan Abdulhamid II and continued by the Young Turks. There is a real genocidal plan established which aims at eliminating the Armenians from their secular territory of Armenia”.

Sarkis Jamakordzian, Georges Eretzian, Khosrof Iliozer, Simon Melkonyan and Alain Euksuzian also spoke, confirming that the Armenians, a people in danger of extinction, are in a continuous genocidal phase.

“But they are resisting and will continue to resist (…) they have been on their territory for more than 8,000 years and they have a mental strength formed during these millennia, with a certain view of things, wisdom and strength” intervened Armenag Aprahamian.

Lydia Margossian intervened to present the set of legal actions with international organizations to defend the rights of the Armenian nation.

Pastor Luder Nassanian, before the debate, took the floor to congratulate the action of the association “Armenia” and its members and its president to make the Armenian cause known by spreading the information. Armenag Aprahamian and Lydia Margossian presented identity cards of Western Armenia to several members of the “Armenia” Association. Then the medal of the “National Order of Merit of Western Armenia, Boghos Nubar Medal” to Krikor Amirzayan for his contribution to the Armenian information and the Armenian cause for decades.

Next meeting of “Armenia” on Friday, May 26 (Cheneviers room, MJC Jean Moulin in Bourg-Lès-Valence with a round-table discussion on the theme: Armenians, people of the past or of the future?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkmKO1fYziU