Author: Harut Sassounian

On May 7, I attended a very impressive benefit gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the USC Shoah Foundation which archives the testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian, Cambodian and Rwandan genocides, and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

Internationally acclaimed Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, after filming Schindler’s List, established the Shoah Foundation to collect and preserve the personal accounts of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. In 2006, the Shoah Foundation became part of the University of Southern California and currently holds 52,000 video testimonies in 34 languages, representing 58 countries. It is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

The gala was attended by Pres. Obama who received the “Ambassador for Humanity” award. Also in attendance were Samuel Jackson, Octavia Spencer, Barbra Streisand, Liam Neeson, and Bruce Springsteen who performed two of his poignant songs, “Promised Land,” and “Dancing in the Dark.”

In 2010, the Armenian Film Foundation and J. Michael Hagopian signed a historic agreement with the Shoah Foundation to digitize, preserve, and disseminate filmed interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Armenian Genocide. Last month, 400 digitized copies of the Armenian testimonies were delivered to USC Shoah Foundation’s Institute for Visual History and Education. By the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2015, the Armenian testimonies, after they are translated, subtitled, and indexed, will be made available along with eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust and other genocides to 50 institutions (including the US Holocaust Museum) in 30 countries.

Nearly 100 Armenian-Americans attended the May 7 gala, raising over $100,000 for the Armenian collection at Shoah. During the evening’s program, several speakers made references to the Armenian Genocide. Spielberg was the first to announce that the Armenian Genocide testimonies were to be included in the Shoah archives. A video shown to the attendees featured several photographs of J. Michael Hagopian, genocide survivor Paul Andonian, and Armenian deportees on a death march. Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith also spoke about the Armenian Genocide, acknowledging the presence of Yevnige Salibian, a 104-year-old genocide survivor from Aintab. Banquet host comedian Conan O’Brien, after acknowledging Mrs. Salibian’s presence from the podium, walked over to her table when the gala ended and had a picture taken with her.

As an honored guest, Salibian was seated next to TV celebrity Kim Kardashian. The following day, Kardashian posted on social media her photograph with Salibian, adding the following message: “Honored to be at the USC Shoah Foundation event to support Armenian Genocide testimonies. I’m sitting next to the most inspiring 100-year-old Armenian Genocide survivor.” Within few days, her posting received close to 400,000 ‘likes’ and almost 5,000 comments on Instagram, and 110,000 ‘likes’ on her facebook page.

Despite repeated references to the Armenian Genocide from the podium, Pres. Obama did not make any direct references to Armenians or the Armenian Genocide in his 18-minute speech — nor was he expected to do so! However, the President made indirect references to genocides other than the Holocaust, without specifying them:

— “I want to say a special word to the survivors who are with us this evening, not just of the Holocaust, but as Steven [Spielberg] noted, survivors of other unimaginable crimes.”
— “If the memories of the Shoah survivors teach us anything, it is that silence is evil’s greatest co-conspirator. And it’s up to us — each of us, every one of us — to forcefully condemn any denial of the Holocaust.”
— “You [Spielberg] …documented the experience not only of the Holocaust, but of atrocities before and since…. To you and everybody at the Shoah Foundation, and for all that you’ve done, for setting a light, an eternal flame of testimony, that can’t be extinguished and cannot be denied, we express our deepest gratitude.”

Armenians do not need to press Pres. Obama to explicitly refer to the Armenian Genocide. Another US President, Ronald Reagan, has already acknowledged it in his Presidential Proclamation of April 22, 1981. It is unnecessary to insist that every US President make the same acknowledgment year after year. Pres. Obama may consider using the term Armenian Genocide not for the sake of Armenians, but to uphold his own integrity by keeping the solemn pledge he made as a presidential candidate. Only then could he fully qualify as an “Ambassador for Humanity.”

Within days of releasing a shrewdly-worded statement on April 23, misleading some into thinking that he was acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan reversed course on a major American TV program, claiming that the 1915 mass killings of Armenians was not genocide.

When asked by veteran reporter Charlie Rose if it would be possible for the Turkish Prime Minister to characterize these killings as genocide, Erdogan became the laughing stock of TV viewers worldwide by declaring: “It would not be possible, because if such a genocide occurred, would there have been any Armenians living in this country [Turkey]?”

It is greatly embarrassing that the leader of a major country like Turkey is clueless about the universally-accepted definition of genocide. Foreign Minister Davutoglu (a former professor) and other learned Turks must have cringed watching their Prime Minister expose his ignorance before millions of TV viewers!

Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

One does not have to be a genocide scholar to comprehend that it is not necessary to wipe out every single member of a particular group to be accused of committing genocide. Did Hitler manage to kill all German Jews? Would Erdogan dare to go on American Television and make a similarly outrageous remark about the Jewish Holocaust, claiming that it is not genocide because some Jews are living in Germany today? In a fitting response to Erdogan, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian urged him to follow Germany’s example of Holocaust acknowledgment through “recognition, condemnation, and apology.” Nalbandian should have also added ‘restitution’ — an imperative demand — without which the rest are hollow words.

Erdogan should be reminded that only a few days earlier he had called for a joint commission to study the ‘historical facts’. What is the point of asking for a study, if he has already concluded that there was no genocide? The Prime Minister cannot be serious and he definitely is not sincere!

At the end of his interview with Charlie Rose, Erdogan made additional contradictory statements, shifting the blame for the genocide to the Ottomans: “This is not something that happened during the Republic of Turkey. This was during the Ottoman Empire…. If the documents show that our ancestors made a mistake…if the historians can show that, then we would pay whatever consequence of that is.”

While no one in Armenia and Diaspora was fooled by Erdogan’s deceptive statements, the reaction of some Armenians in Turkey was understandably more accommodating. Archbishop Aram Ateshian, Vicar General of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul, rushed to Ankara with his entourage for a ‘pleasant’ chat with the Turkish Prime Minister and a congenial lunch with Foreign Minister Davutoglu. Abp. Ateshian thanked the Turkish leaders for their expression of “shared pain” in reference to Armenians and Turks who died during World War I.

Such laudatory words are not surprising, given the Armenians’ status in Turkey as hostages of an authoritarian and brutal regime, as journalist Hrant Dink found out by paying with his life for bearing witness to the truth of the Genocide. Some Turkish Armenians, however, have learned to manipulate the country’s oligarchic system for their personal gain. They are willing to go along with Turkish genocide denialism to enrich themselves through covert business deals with government officials and/or secure their leadership positions in the local Armenian community. Indeed, several prominent Turkish-Armenians have suggested that Erdogan be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his April 23rd statement! Two Armenian businessmen have even placed self-deprecating ads in Turkish newspapers thanking the Prime Minister and offering apologies for the Turkish ‘deaths’ during World War One!

At the end of the day, it matters not what Erdogan’s statement or Davutoglu’s op-ed in The Guardian say or don’t say about the Armenian Genocide. The more fundamental question is: are Turkish officials willing to atone for the crimes committed by their ancestors against the Armenian people? What matters most for Armenians is restitution and justice, not empty rhetoric! Erdogan’s words are too little and too late. His statement is simply a clever ploy at damage control given the growing sentiments and calls worldwide to accept responsibility for the Armenian Genocide, and to deflect attention away from the scandals swirling around Turkey and its Prime Minister.

Thecaliforniacourier.com

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s statement on the ‘events of 1915’ released in nine languages last week was a major propaganda coup for Turkey, generating worldwide publicity. The announcement was so cleverly crafted that it fooled many in the international community — and regrettably, some Armenians — into believing that he came close to recognizing the Armenian Genocide or at least took ‘an historic’ step in the right direction.

In reality, Erdogan’s statement was nothing more than rephrased denial or old wine in a new bottle. Carefully avoiding the term ‘Armenian Genocide,” he conveniently borrowed Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s deceptive terminology of ‘shared pain’ and ‘just memory,’ words that sound conciliatory, but actually equate the murderers with the victims. The Turkish Prime Minister’s reference to millions of Turks and others who also died during World War I is an insult to the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide. Millions of Germans also perished in World War II, but no one in their right mind and good conscience would equate their deaths with the extermination of six million Jews!

Erdogan’s call for a “joint historical commission to study the events of 1915” is another worn out and shrewd delay tactic. If Turkish officials are sincere in wanting to learn the facts of the Armenian Genocide, all they have to do is review the extensive documentation available in their own archives as well as studies conducted by countless historians and genocide scholars around the world. Why did the Turkish government wait for almost 100 years to show an interest in researching this topic? Why are some of the most sensitive Ottoman archives still kept under lock and key, not to mention those that were shredded long ago?

I have written many times for several years that:

1) Despite Turkish denials, the Armenian Genocide is a recognized fact by the international community and there is no need to wait for Pres. Obama, Prime Minister Erdogan or anyone else to acknowledge it.
2) Genocide recognition cannot right the wrongs committed by uprooting and decimating the Armenian people. A more appropriate objective would be to seek justice through legal channels, demanding restitution, both financial and territorial.
3) The Turkish offer for ‘reconciliation’ is nothing but a sinister ploy to bury the past with a meaningless acknowledgment and apology. True reconciliation is achieved by undoing the enormous damage inflicted on the Armenian nation.

It is imperative that Armenians remain vigilant and not be deceived by fake Turkish offers of reconciliation. Between now and April 24, 2015, the Turkish government will probably announce many more publicity stunts to win over the sympathy of the international community and minimize the damage to Turkey’s already tarnished reputation by accusations of genocide.

One such Turkish plan is Davutoglu’s cynical statement that the Armenian Diaspora is also Turkey’s Diaspora! There have been media reports that the Turkish government is preparing to grant citizenship to the descendants of former Ottoman subjects, including Armenians. Surprisingly, some naïve Armenians are fooled into thinking that this is a positive step! Just imagine settling in one of the towns of Turkish-occupied Western Armenia or Cilicia as a citizen of Turkey, and having your sons drafted into the Turkish military to ‘defend the Turkish nation’ and take part in the invasion of Kessab or Aleppo or even Armenia! How about being jailed, under article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, because you made the mistake of speaking about the Armenian Genocide to one of your Turkish neighbors!

Erdogan’s real intent in issuing his April 23, 2014 statement is to undermine the worldwide Armenian efforts to seek justice as they prepare for the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

The fact that the State Department and some European officials reacted positively to Erdogan’s statement is an indication that this was a coordinated attempt to provide cover for the Obama administration and European countries not to deal with the Armenian demands on the genocide issue, using the excuse that Turkey’s leaders are in the process of reconciling with Armenians.

Armenians should resist the pressures by third parties to abandon the pursuit of their historic claims. The views of the US government or the EU on Armenian demands from Turkey should be irrelevant. Armenians should be the masters of their own fate and not allow other nations to dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable to them in the pursuit of their national interest.

Every time that the Armenian Genocide is mentioned anywhere in the world, Turkish officials protest hysterically like children caught with the hand in the cookie jar!

The Turkish leaders’ psychotic behavior could be explained by their guilty conscience, despite public protestations of innocence, knowing full well that their ancestors did indeed commit one of the most heinous crimes in the annals of history — genocide!

Last week, the world witnessed yet another manifestation of Turkish temper tantrums when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite heavy-handed pressure from the Ankara regime and its highly compensated lobbying firms, adopted Resolution 410 on the Armenian Genocide with a 12 to 5 vote. This is the first time in a quarter century that this body has approved such a Resolution.

Even though the Turkish government is amid all sorts of turmoil at home and abroad, officials in Ankara made the Senate Genocide Resolution their top priority. For a few days, Prime Minister Erdogan set aside his despotic moves against facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to hide his and several ministers’ multi-million dollar money laundering and bribery schemes. He also ignored revelations of secretly taped conversations during which Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and other high ranking officials were plotting to orchestrate attacks on Turkey from across the border, which would then be used as a pretext to attack Syria in support of jihadist terrorists who are unsuccessfully battling the Assad regime.

The Turkish diatribe against the Senate action included Davutoglu’s warning that “Turkey would not remain silent” if the Armenian Genocide Resolution goes from Committee to the full Senate. The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued an even harsher reaction, accusing the Committee of “exceeding its authority and responsibility.” Davutoglu rushed to call Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to prevent passage of the Resolution.

Also getting into the act was Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek, calling the Armenian issue a “burden” in American-Turkish relations. A commentator for the widely circulated Hurriyet newspaper noted that the Genocide Resolution would raise the blood pressure in Ankara! Former Turkish Ambassador Omer Engin Lutem chimed in acknowledging that Turkey is “forced to expand a great deal of effort in order to prevent the passing of such Resolutions,” not to mention the millions of dollars spent on lobbying firms each year!

Pro-Erdogan newspapers even resorted to publishing falsehoods about the Genocide Resolution by claiming that the measure is no longer valid since it was not adopted by the full Senate before April 24 or that the Resolution was meaningless because House Speaker John Boehner announced in Ankara that he would not allow the House version to come to the floor. Of course, both these claims are false, as the House and Senate versions are not part of a joint Resolution and can be adopted separately by either chamber later in the year.

Armenian-American voters should do everything possible to prevent the re-election of Cong. Boehner in November. Similarly, the Armenian community should oppose those Senators who shamefully voted against this Resolution, even after Sen. Menendez removed several clauses to accommodate the opponents. The five Republican Senators who voted against are: John Barrasso (WY), Bob Corker (TN), Jeff Flake (AZ), Ron Johnson (WI), and James Risch (ID). On the other hand, Armenian-Americans should strongly support the 12 Senators who voted in favor of the Armenian Genocide Resolution: Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Edward Markey (D-MA), John McCain (R-AZ), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Tom Udall (D-NM).

One of the unexpected consequences of the Resolution was the deepening rift between two formidable forces in Turkey — Prime Minister Erdogan and the influential Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan accused Gulen supporters of siding with “the Armenian lobby” by contributing close to $10,000 to Sen. Menendez’s campaign. The Turkic American Alliance (TAA) refuted Erdogan’s accusations, stating that the group has “always expressed its displeasure to Menendez over resolutions that upset Turks and Azerbaijanis.” TAA officials promised to sue Turkish journalists for claiming that their organization supported the Armenian Resolution.

A final thought: contrary to public impression, the primary objective of introducing Armenian Genocide resolutions is not to attain genocide recognition which has already been accomplished several times: US government’s official report to the World Court in 1951, Pres. Reagan’s 1981 Proclamation, and House Resolutions in 1975 and 1984. These Resolutions simply serve as a convenient tool to keep the Armenian Genocide a burning issue and focus media attention on the Armenian Cause. Furthermore, the Resolutions routinely create total panic in Ankara due to Turkish officials’ hysterical reaction. The Turkish government also wastes tens of millions of dollars each year to counter Resolutions which merely express the “sense of Congress.”

Armenian efforts to pass such Resolutions are a form of retribution against successive Turkish governments for not coming to terms with the skeletons in their closet.

 Harut Sassounian

Pulitzer-prize winning American journalist Seymour Hersh, in a sensational article “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” published in the London Review of Books, discloses that the Turkish government had secretly orchestrated the August 21, 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria, killing hundreds of civilians. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan had hoped that the Syrian regime would be blamed for that chemical attack, leading to a retaliatory US strike on Syria, since Pres. Obama had warned Syrian leaders that using chemical weapons against rebel fighters would cross a ‘red line.’

Erdogan’s plot almost worked! In the aftermath of the sarin attack, Pres. Obama began planning a massive US strike on dozens of Syrian targets, even though British intelligence had informed the US joint chiefs of staff that samples of the sarin gas obtained from the site of the attack did not match the chemical weapons in Syria’s possession. A former US intelligence official told Hersh that “Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups.” Hersh revealed that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had issued “a highly classified” document on June 20, 2013, confirming that “Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria.”

Last May, several members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in Turkey with two kilograms of sarin. A Turkish court accused the group of planning to acquire other related materials to launch a chemical attack in Syria. Five of the arrestees were freed shortly, while the rest were released pending trial. They were not seen again!

After a special UN mission went to Syria to investigate two earlier chemical attacks in Spring 2013, a person with close knowledge of UN’s activity told Hersh that “there was evidence linking the Syrian opposition to the first gas attack, on March 19 in Khan al-Assal, a village near Aleppo…. It was clear that the rebels used the gas.”

Just before launching the joint US, British, and French attack on Syria in September 2013, Pres. Obama suddenly decided to postpone the strike, using the excuse that he needed congressional approval. The real reason for the delay was the President’s discovery that he was being set up by Turkey for an ‘unjustified’ attack on Syria, but did not want to publicly acknowledge his near blunder with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire Middle East. Ironically, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was the one who rescued Pres. Obama from embarrassment by securing Syria’s agreement to hand over its chemical stockpile, thus providing the President a cover for canceling his threatened attack.

Investigative journalist Hersh further revealed that the chemical weapons had reached the Syrian rebels through a CIA operation code named ‘rat line’ — a secret Turkish-US agreement in 2012 to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya to Syria through Turkey. After the terrorist attack on its consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the hub of this clandestine activity, the US pulled out of this covert arrangement, yet Turkey continued to supply Libyan weapons to the Syrian rebels.

By the end of 2012, as the rebels were losing the battle against the Assad regime, a former US intelligence official told Hersh that “Erdogan was pissed,” leading him to concoct a scheme to have the rebels use sarin gas and falsely blame the Syrian government, thus instigating an attack by the United States on Syria.

To personally plead his case for a US attack on Syria to save the rebels from defeat, Turkey’s Prime Minister flew to Washington. On May 16, 2013, Erdogan, along with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and head of intelligence Hakan Fidan, had a working dinner at the White House, with Pres. Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. Infuriated by Obama’s unwillingness to take military action against Syria, Erdogan “fucking waved his finger at the president inside the White House,” Donilon recounted the shocking episode to a foreign policy expert who reported it to Hersh. “The American decision to end CIA support of the weapons shipments into Syria left Erdogan exposed politically and militarily,” Hersh explained. “Without US military support for the rebels, the former intelligence official said, ‘Erdogan’s dream of having a client state in Syria is evaporating and he thinks we’re the reason why. When Syria wins the war, he knows the rebels are just as likely to turn on him — where else can they go? So now he will have thousands of radicals in his backyard.’”

After the August  2013 sarin attack near Damascus, a former intelligence official told Hersh: “We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdogan’s people to push Obama over the red line…. The deal was to do something spectacular…. The sarin was supplied through Turkey.” Another indication of Turkish officials’ complicity was Hersh’s report that phone calls intercepted by the US revealed their joy with the success of their orchestrated chemical attack!

Hersh concludes his exposé by relaying a most worrisome observation from a former US intelligence official: “I asked my colleagues if there was any way to stop Erdogan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong, the answer was: ‘We’re screwed.’ We could go public if it was somebody other than Erdogan, but Turkey is a special case. They are a NATO ally. The Turks don’t trust the West. They can’t live with us if we take any active role against Turkish interests. If we went public with what we know about Erdogan’s role with the gas, it’d be disastrous. The Turks would say: ‘We hate you for telling us what we can and can’t do.’”

For almost a century, successive US governments have failed to understand a fundamental geostrategic truth — Turkey needs the US much more than the United States will ever need Turkey. There is indeed something terribly wrong when the tail wags the dog!