(AINA) -- On April 24, 2007, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks worldwide will commemorate and remember the sufferings of hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the first Genocide act of the 20th century, the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek Genocide of 1915.

There is very little doubt that the world indifference to the mass killings of our Christian population during World War I became the precedent and the precursor to the horrific Jewish Holocaust, which resulted in the extermination of over six million Jews. Regrettably, even half century after the world first vowed "Never again," genocide had not disappeared.

Throughout the 20th century, we witnessed with horror, yet once again in silence the massacres of half-a-million Chinese and Communists in Indonesia, the slaughter by the Tutsi army of 200,000 Hutu in Burundi, the deaths by beating, starving or torture of a million and a half Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, and more recently, the acts of Genocide in Rwanda and Darfur.

Today, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks confront 92 years of denial by the same world powers with a renewed determination for the just and rightful recognition of the systematic killings and atrocities and the Genocide that resulted in near annihilation of our people at the hands of the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire, present day Turkey.

Milan Kundera has written that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Indeed, the world must not forget.

In an effort to further educate our communities on this dark history of our nation and the first Genocide act of the 20th century, Dr. David Gaunt, Professor of History at Södertörn University College, Stockholm, Sweden, will give a series of lectures in California entitled "Massacres and Resistance: The Genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians Based on New Evidence from the Archives" from May 3 through 11, 2007.

These lectures will be based on findings from Dr. Gaunt's recently published book Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I (Gorgias Press, 2006), which will be on sale and available for signing by the author at each of the lectures.

A brief description of the book is as follows:

"This is a pioneering historical investigation of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syrian Christian minorities during World War I, who suffered the same fate as the Armenians. Ethnic cleansing and large-scale massacres occurred throughout northern Mesopotamia and parts of Ottoman-occupied Iran. Based on primary sources from official Russian, Turkish, and West European archives, as well as hitherto unused manuscript sources and oral histories published here for the first time, this book attempts to give a full picture of the events of 1915. Concentration is on the Assyrians of Urmia and Hakkari and on the Syrians of Diyarbekir province, particularly in Tur Abdin."

The lectures will be co-sponsored by the Assyrian American National Federation (AANF) and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and in conjunction with a number of Assyrian and Armenian academic and community groups (listed below).

The schedule of the lectures is as follows:

• Thursday, May 3, 7:30 p.m.: Stanford University, Tresidder Union, Cypress Rm., 2nd floor, 459 Lagunita Drive, Stanford, CA
• Friday, May 4, 7:00 p.m.: University of California, Berkeley, Dwinelle Hall, Room 219, Berkeley, CA
• Sunday, May 6, 4:00 p.m.: California State University, Stanislaus, Demergasso-Bava Hall, Room 166, 801 West Monte Vista Ave, Turlock, CA
• Tuesday, May 8, 7:30 p.m.: California State University, Fresno, University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, Rm. 191, Fresno, CA
• Wednesday, May 9, 7:30 p.m.: Assyrian American Association of Southern California Hall, 5901 Cahuenga Blvd., North Hollywood, CA
• Thursday, May 10, 7:00 p.m.: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Moore Hall, Room 100, Los Angeles, CA
• Friday, May 11, 7:30 p.m.: Merdinian Armenian Christian School, 13330 Riverside Drive, Sherman Oaks, CA

In addition to the primary-organizing sponsors, the Assyrian American National Federation and National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, the lectures are being presented through an unprecedented collaboration with the following Assyrian and Armenian organizations: (Listed in alphabetical order)

• Advancement of Education Foundation
• Analysis Research and Planning for Armenia (ARPA Institute)
• Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA
• Armenian Student Association at UCLA
• Armenian Student Association at Stanford University
• Armenian Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley
• Armenian Studies Program, California State University, Fresno
• Assyrian Academic Society -- Bay Area Chapter
• Assyrian Aid Society of America -- Central Valley Chapter
• Assyrian Aid Society of America--Southern California Chapter
• Assyrian American Association of Modesto
• Assyrian American Association of Southern California
• Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock
• Assyrian Foundation of America
• Assyrian Student Alliance at UC Berkeley
• Assyrian Student Association at UCLA
• Mesopotamian Museum
• Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies at UCLA
• Zinda Magazine

Jackie Bejan
Director of Public Relations
Assyrian American National Federation