ARMENIANS WANT GENOCIDE RECOGNITION MARCH TODAY TO MARK DEATHS.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

GLENDALE - The day after appearing in a Turkish court for printing a book on the Armenian genocide, Ragip Zarakolu was in an Armenian church in Glendale explaining why he dares to anger his government.

Sitting behind a table and talking to a small group of Armenian-Americans, the soft-spoken writer said he published works about the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire by researching human-rights abuses in Turkey.

"After my research, I saw that the Armenian genocide was the beginning of (extremist) government policies."

In Turkey, making those kinds of statements about the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915-1923 can earn rebuke from fellow Turks or government prosecutors.

But for many Armenians, for whom the violent deaths are woven into family history, the genocide is a wound not to be ignored. And today, the date when the genocide is commemorated, Armenians will march through "Little Armenia" in Hollywood and protest in front of the Turkish consulate, demanding that country recognize the genocide.

At 101 years old, Hripsime Khachikian would have trouble getting out to a march or demonstration. But the Glendale resident knows too well what younger generations of Armenians are protesting. Two of her uncles were hanged and a brother died of hunger in the genocide.

"How can I forget? I never forget," Khachikian said.

Khachikian's first 10 years of life were peaceful. Her father caught fish and gathered firewood to support his family in a part of the Ottoman Empire that is now in Turkey near Syria.

Then war broke out, and everything changed for her and the rest of the minority Armenian community.

"From everywhere - from every village - they came, collected us and then they said get out," she said. "They took our houses. They came and they took over."

Then came a death march, one that Khachikian survived but that claimed the lives of other deportees.

"They killed them, they killed them in front of us. I saw so many of them (die)."

The Turkish government maintains there was no genocide and that any deaths can be attributed to World War I and conflicts in the empire.

"Of course terrible things did happen, but there was no intention of genocide so it wasn't genocide," said Engin Ansay, consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles.

He also said the number of Armenian deaths has been over-estimated. "There is no way, even if there were 1.5 million Armenians (living in the Ottoman Empire), there is no way that more than 500,000 could have died."

To filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, whose film "The Armenian Genocide" was shown on PBS stations across most of the country last week, Turkey is hiding the truth from its own people.

"This is a state-sponsored and state-controlled policy of active denial," he said. "Many Turkish people know the story, but they are afraid to tell the truth because Turkey has now made it illegal."

About 1,300 people saw Goldberg's film April 17 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The Turkish government slammed the film; many Armenian-Americans said it was accurate.

Yet Armenian groups were irked by the decision of about 65 percent of Public Broadcasting Service stations to air, after the film, a panel discussion between four professors, two of whom denied that the deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was a genocide.

Some Armenian-Americans feared the discussion would just muddy the waters, especially since the U.S. government has not officially recognized the genocide.

In Turkey, which is far from recognizing the genocide, scholars Zarakolu, the Istanbul-based publisher, and other scholars who use the word genocide are a clear minority.

Zarakolu faces several years in prison in Turkey if he is convicted in connection with his publications on the Armenian Genocide.

"To discuss the Armenian question," he said in Glendale,"is always a problem of freedom of expression in Turkey."

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Serpouhi Tichkian performs a song during the service in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide on Wednesday at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer