APRIL 24 – DAY OF SOLIDARITY OF ALL ARMENIANS

On April 24, the whole Armenian nation, both in Armenia and Diaspora, will commemorate the victims of Genocide and show the world its solidarity and unity in reinstating the rights of the Armenians who fell prey to this heinous crime.
This is a sacred day for all the Armenians, a day when we forget all kinds of small and great disagreements, when we forget our being a pro-Government or a pro-opposition representative, as well as any kind of social, political and religious differences and controversies, and act as a single unity, as the descendents of the Armenian people.
The same approach is shared by the foreign guests who visit the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial every year on April 24. They come to Armenia to express their solidarity to the Armenian people in their struggle for justice and reinstatement of human rights.
As a day of national mourning, April the 24th is not an appropriate moment for reopening the old disputes and paying off the old scores.
Some people’s desire for using that day as an occasion for protesting against the foreign tyranny (following the example of the 1988 or 1989 national-liberation struggle for Karabakh) is not only unconceivable but also strange. The April 22 statement released by the “Pan-National Movement Center” or, in other words, the supporters of L. Ter-Petrosyan, explicitly expresses their intention of changing the April 24 mourning ceremony into a struggle against the authorities. And such intention is supported by the following “argument”: “The presidential elections and the subsequent events separated rather than split our society. Our society is not split. It has consolidated in an exceptional manner; it has become demarcated.”
It appears that both now and during the 1988 tragic events of Sumgayit, our people were united in one camp “Declared as a day of commemorating the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide since 1988, April 24 also symbolizes the start of the pan-national struggle for freedom and justice.”
It turns out from the statement that the political forces supporting the authorities and the major part of the people who follow them do not form part of our society. Either they have joined the “national-liberation movement” or simply, they are not Armenians. Moreover, the statement makes it clear that we all are not Armenians who usually become united and consolidated on April 24; we are rather participants of the “pan-national movement” or just, separated people: a nation unknown to history.
It also turns out that on April 24, 15.00 p.m., the “new nation” will go to Tsistsernakaberd not for commemorating the victims of the Armenian Genocide, but rather, for “continuing their struggle against the criminal administration” and “demonstrating their belief and determination in winning”.
At this point, there emerge several questions:
First: Who has given the alleged members of the “Pan-National Movement Center” the right to act on behalf of all Armenians and introduce themselves as some new “nation of separated people?”
Second: By virtue of what rights are the “separated people” going to impose the ridicule of vilifying the national mourning on all the Armenians who have a traditional approach towards April 24 and consider the day as an occasion for consolidating the whole nation?”
Third: What about those who are Armenians but have not joined the so-called “pan-national movement” - the group of individuals who have declared themselves as separated people and ignore the mourning of April 24? Do they have the right to demand the members of the newly-formed sect to remember, at least once a year, about their Armenian origins and join the national mourning ceremony with the words “Armenians, unite!”, a slogan they advertised so much in 1988.
April 24 is a day of commemorating all the massacred Armenians; it’s a day of uprising and consolidation, and all those who are going to chant their own goals of acceding to power and cast a shadow on the national mourning ceremonies, do not have the right to be called Armenians.
“HAYOTS ASHKHARH”

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APRIL 24 – DAY OF SOLIDARITY OF ALL ARMENIANS
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