LA mayor says to "never forget" Armenian genocide

04/24/07
Fresno Bee

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Tuesday for Americans to "never forget" the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the end of the Ottoman empire, an event widely considered by scholars to be the first genocide of the 20th Century.

"As mayor of America's pre-eminent Armenian community, I urge all Angelenos to reflect not only on the vast scale and ruthlessness of the genocide, but on the horror of the global silence under which it took place," Villaraigosa said in a statement.

"Today, I urge Angelenos to simply never forget," he said.

Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1919 in what is now eastern Turkey. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying that the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Demonstrators marking the anniversary of the killings marched through Hollywood and a rally was held later at the Turkish Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard.

Both protests were peaceful, police said.


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