By Jhr. mr. Alexander W. Beelaerts van Blokland, Justice (Judge) in the Court of Appeal and honorary Special Advisor International Affairs of the City of The Hague
In the month of April 2015 several countries commemorated in The Hague tragedies in their national history and I was present there in all cases, being impressed by the intensity of all of them.
On Monday April 20th, the ‘Grote Kerk’ (Big Church) in the centre of the city was the place where several hundreds of Armenians and other people commemorated the fact that a hundred years ago the Ottomans started killing about one million Armenians during only two years, 1915 and 1916. After a speech by the Ambassador of Armenia H.E. Ms Dziounik Aghadjanian a number of Armenian musicians played serene chamber music from several Armenian composers.
On April 25, 1915 – a hundred years ago – Australia and New Zealand entered via the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) World War One in Europe on the Ottoman peninsula Galipoli. It became one of the worst tragedies of The Great War with about 10.000 deaths at the Australian and New Zealand side only in just several weeks time. Every year on April 25th at 8 am. this tragedy has been commemorated as ANZAC Day ever since at the Commonwealth War Graves Section of the Westduin Cemetery in the south of The Hague. And so it happened on Saturday morning 25th, for the 100th time, now led by Father Sjaak de Boer of the Church of Our Behaviour, with speeches by the Ambassador of New Zealand H.E. Ms Janet Lowe as well as the Ambassador of Turkey H.E. Mr Sadik Arslan and laying of wreaths by the Ambassadors of all countries involved.
Much more recently than the abovementioned tragedies is the killing in Rwanda of almost one million Tutsi’s by Hutu’s in only about a hundred days time in 1994. The Rwandans also commemorate (‘Kwibuka’) this enormous tragedy every year in The Hague, this time on Saturday April 11th, in the Carlton Ambassador Hotel. Very impressing was the speech by a 34 year old lady who told in great detail her horrible story about how she survived as a thirteen years old pupil the killings at her school in Rwanda. Every one present was immensely impressed by her, as the Ambassador of Rwanda H.E. Mr Jean Pierre Karabanga expressed at the end of the ceremony.
