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Baroness Kinnock declines invitation to Genocide Monument in Cardiff

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  • Baroness Kinnock declines invitation to Genocide Monument in Cardiff

    Armenia Solidarity Press Release
    [email protected]
    c/o The Temple of Peace, Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales

    Baroness Kinnock, for the UK government, does not deny the UK
    government's 1915 position on the Genocide, but rejects an invitation to
    the Genocide Monument in Cardiff

    At the Armenia debate in the House of Lords yesterday, Baroness Kinnock,
    for the government said
    "At the outset, I reaffirm that the Government deeply regret the deaths
    of hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were either killed by Ottoman
    troops or died from starvation or disease at the beginning of the
    previous century. We share the view expressed today that the victims of
    such suffering should not be forgotten" while at the same time refused
    to send a representative to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Cardiff in
    April:
    "I was aware last year that noble Lords had raised the issue of a
    memorial. Sending a government representative might suggest recognition,
    so, despite our sympathies for the tragedy, we do not intend to send a
    representative"

    -------------------------- --------------------------------------

    She also said." The fate of ethnic Armenians and smaller Christian minorities,
    including the Assyrians, living in the Ottoman Empire at the time was
    roundly and robustly condemned by the British Government", referring of
    course to the government response on 21st October 1915by Lord Robert
    Cecil(Under Secretary of State):
    "I think it may be said,without the least fear of exaggeration,
    that no more horrible crime has been committed in the history of the
    world..... This is a premeditive crime determined on long ago. It is
    part of the deliberate policy... it was a long-considered, deliberate
    policy to destroy and wipe out of existance the Armenians in Turkey. It
    was systematically carried out . It was ordered from above , and when,
    as happened on one or two ocassions, the local governors were anxious to
    spare some of the children, or mitigate in some degree the horrors of
    the operation, they were sternly ordered to go on with the work....
    Not only was this premeditated. There was no provocation whatsoever.....
    There was no insurrection, no riot... The crime was a deliberate one ,
    not to punish insurrection but to destroy the Armenian race."
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