Glendale News-Press - 06/28/2006

Group marches for life
United Armenian Students walk to protest genocide. Trip will end in Washington, D.C.

By Jonathan Frochtzwajg, Special to the News-Press and Leader

GLENDALE-- A procession of about 20 people marched from Los Angeles City Hall to La Cañada Flintridge Tuesday in the first leg of a journey to Washington, D.C., to protest genocide and raise awareness of the problem.

The Journey for Humanity is a 3,000-mile coast-to-coast march that the nonprofit group, United Armenian Students organized to recognize past genocides, honor their victims and hopefully prevent future crimes against humanity.

"We're trying to show to our society that genocide is the greatest crime against humanity," the march's project director, 30-year-old Vahe Abovian, said when he and fellow students stopped for lunch at Verdugo Park Tuesday as they marched through Glendale.

United Armenian Students began when a group of students organized a march in Hollywood's Little Armenia district to demand that the Turkish government recognize the Armenian Genocide it perpetrated. Anyone may join the group, but to serve on the board members must be college students under the age of 31.

Two years of research and planning went into the Journey for Humanity, said Abovian, a Glendale resident. The Western and Eastern Dioceses of the Armenian Church of America and the Armenian Assembly of America worked with United Armenian Students on the project.

Although all the participants so far are Armenian, Abovian stressed that the journey is to raise awareness of all genocide, not only the 1915 Armenian Genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman-Turks.

"We're going to do everything to involve non-Armenians," he said.

For the next five months, walkers will proceed across America, addressing schools, leading rallies and sending letters to politicians urging them to pass a variety of resolutions addressing genocide.

Once in Washington, D.C., they will meet with various dignitaries and appear before Congress. Abovian is hoping marchers will be able to meet with President George W. Bush.

"The United States has a lot to do with global peacemaking, and we could do a lot for Darfur today," Abovian said, referencing the ongoing genocide in western Sudan.

"It's not enough to worry about people dying in Darfur, we have to take steps to stop that genocide."

Marchers included Glendale resident Ruzanna Avetisyan, 28, who has been a member of United Armenian Students for more than three years.

"I strongly believe that in order to make a difference, each person has to feel within and take action," she said.

"I hope that [the march] achieves the purpose for humanity to not experience something like a genocide."

While the Armenian genocide was the catalyst for the formation of the group, its members hope to fight all such crimes against humanity.

"For 91 years now, we have this pain in our heart that Armenians experienced genocide at the beginning of the century," Abovian said.

"Then, the world was silent. Today, as Armenians, we don't want to be at the same place."

For more information about Journey for Humanity, visit http://www.journeyforhumanity.com.

Lilit and Sona Shinyan and Zarzand Papiryan marched with Journey for Humanity Tuesday from Glendale to Montrose in order to raise awareness genocide worldwide. Several members of the group plan to march to Washington D.C. this summer.

From: Glendale News-Press