Category: Harut Sassounian

While it is not surprising to learn that Turkey and the United States have coordinated their official declarations on the Armenian Genocide, recent revelations have confirmed their shameful behind-the-scenes schemes.

In a speech delivered in Australia late last year, former US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans revealed for the first time that the State Department regularly conferred with the Turkish Embassy in Washington on the content of the US President’s annual April 24 statement on the Armenian Genocide.

This clearly reflects the degree of collaboration between Turkey and the United States on the genocide issue, and even more appalling, American officials’ succumbing to the gag rule imposed by a denialist regime!

The American-Turkish collusion on the Armenian Genocide issue was recently corroborated by Deniz Kahraman in the Aydinlik Turkish newspaper, revealing that the two governments jointly drafted the statement that Prime Minister Erdogan issued on April 23, 2014. He offered condolences to Armenians, Turks, and others who died from various causes during World War I, thus equating the deaths of Turkish soldiers with Armenian Genocide victims.

Basing his information on unnamed diplomatic sources, Kahraman wrote that the White House had been fully aware of the content of Erdogan’s statement in advance of its release. In fact, the Turkish Prime Minister’s text was prepared with U.S. input and finalized by officials in both countries. It appears that the initial text was prepared by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, after which the White House made some modifications, “based on U.S. sensitivities” on this issue. On April 21, the Turkish Foreign Ministry forwarded the final text to Prime Minister Erdogan’s office which released it to the public on April 23.

Kahraman also revealed that in return for accepting U.S. modifications of Erdogan’s statement, Washington offered to block the pending Armenian Genocide resolution in the Senate, after its adoption by the Foreign Relations Committee in early April.

Aydinlik reported that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has personally followed since last year the Armenian Diaspora’s preparations for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Turkey is reportedly evaluating its countermoves, which include convincing the Armenian government to revive the comatose Armenian-Turkish protocols, while simultaneously energizing the mediating efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the Karabagh (Artsakh) conflict through public diplomacy.

According to Aydinlik, Ankara is evaluating its plans on how best to counter Armenians who are pursuing their demands from Turkey through three separate channels: “legal, political, and public opinion.” Kahraman reported that a serious political rift emerged last June between Turkey and the US, after which Washington started pressuring Turkey to take more resolute steps on the Armenian Genocide issue and normalize relations with Israel. To appease the United States, the Turkish Prime Minister issued a statement on April 23, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Aydinlik also reported that the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in favor of Turkish denialist Dogu Perincek had strengthened Ankara’s hand in international circles. However, Washington wanted Turkey to be more accommodating on the Armenian Genocide issue. That is why Turkish and US officials orchestrated the release of a public statement by Erdogan on April 23, right before Pres. Obama’s own statement on April 24.

It is therefore not surprising that State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki had high praise for Erdogan’s April 23 statement, describing it as a positive step that would pave the way for improved relations between Armenia and Turkey. Unbeknownst to the public, the State Department was in fact praising a statement that it had helped draft.

While Turkey and the United States are playing a dishonest game of publicly supporting each other’s privately orchestrated statements on the Armenian Genocide, Foreign Minister Davutoglu let the cat out of the bag by announcing in Parliament that Erdogan’s April 23 message of condolences was part of the Turkish campaign to undermine Armenian efforts to commemorate the Centennial of the Genocide.

Finally, I wish to remind all those who have wrongly claimed that Erdogan’s April 23 message was an unprecedented pronouncement by a Turkish leader, almost 90 years ago, on June 22, 1926, Pres. Kemal Ataturk made a truly bold statement in an interview with the Los Angeles Examiner: “These leftovers of the Young Turk Party who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred….”

Two important conferences took place in Yerevan last week in preparation for next year’s Armenian Genocide Centennial.

Participating in the first meeting, held on May 26, were representatives of Centennial Committees from 40 countries who reported on their plans for April 24, 2015. On this occasion, the emblem and motto for the Centennial were unveiled — “I remember and demand….” The conference was a unique opportunity for the attendees to exchange contact information and discuss collaborative joint efforts.

The second meeting, held on May 27, brought together State Centennial Committee members, with representatives of the regional committees, and dozens of Armenian diplomats and high-ranking clergy from around the world. The State Committee consists of the leadership of Armenia and Artsakh (Karabagh), and heads of major Armenian organizations worldwide.

In a daring move, Pres. Sargsyan announced that he had invited the President of Turkey to visit Yerevan on April 24, 2015, in order to face the truth of the Armenian Genocide. Caught by surprise, Turkish officials have yet to respond to this challenging invitation. The Armenian President also informed the conference participants that he had invited several other heads of state to Yerevan on that date. French President Francois Hollande has already confirmed that he plans to be in Yerevan on the Genocide’s Centennial.

After presentations by State Committee members, representatives from Argentina, France, Lebanon, Russia, and the United States were given the opportunity to address the conference. I was also asked to speak in my capacity as Co-Chair of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of the Western United States.

I began by explaining that Armenians around the world should not be obsessed with the expectation that Pres. Obama would include the word genocide in his ‘memorial’ statement of April 24, 2015. Contrary to popular misconception, the United States government has repeatedly recognized the Armenian Genocide, starting in 1951 with an official document submitted to the World Court; House of Representatives resolutions in 1975 and 1984; and Pres. Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Proclamation of April 22, 1981. Consequently, there is no crucial need to insist that Pres. Obama also acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, save for the purpose of fulfilling his promise and sustaining his integrity.

In my talk I also suggested that since the Armenian Genocide lasted from 1915 to 1923, the planned Centennial activities should extend from 2015 to 2023. This would be a true nightmare for the Turkish government, having to confront not one, but eight years of Centennial events.

Since the Centennial is a historic milestone, I urged Armenian communities around the world to organize unique events which have a mass appeal and the potential of generating nationwide or worldwide publicity for Armenians’ just demands from Turkey. The same old annual events should not be repeated on the occasion of the Centennial. However, before initiating any project, it is incumbent on all Armenian communities to first agree on the objectives to be accomplished and decide whether the planned activities meet those goals.

I proceeded to read to the conference participants the mission statement of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Western United States:

“The 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide signifies a global demand for justice by Armenians worldwide and all people of good will.
The Centennial marks one of the 20th century’s greatest crimes against humanity. In 1915, the Turkish Government began a premeditated and systematic campaign to uproot the Armenian population from its ancestral homeland and slaughter 1.5 million defenseless men, women and children.
Turkey must finally acknowledge its responsibility for the Genocide and make appropriate moral, financial, and territorial restitution, as mandated by the fundamental norms of international law and civilized society.”

I concluded my remarks by suggesting that Armenians worldwide coordinate their Centennial activities so that the same message is delivered to friend and foe alike. I also proposed that the motto chosen by the State Committee be modified from “I remember and demand” to “We remember and demand justice!”

While this gathering should have been held much earlier, it was most useful in terms of coordinating the planned Centennial activities. Not surprisingly, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced last week that his government was closely monitoring the Centennial Committee’s Yerevan meetings. Fortunately, the organizers in Armenia were cautious not to make public the Centennial plans to keep Turkish officials in the dark, giving them as little time as possible to counter the Armenian initiatives!

(Part II)

This is the second and final part of a column I wrote last month, analyzing why the Young Turks were able to exterminate the Armenians, but could not carry out their simultaneous plan to eliminate the Jewish settlers of Palestine.

On May 9, 1917, Reuters disseminated the following news report by settler Aaron Aaronsohn: “an order was given to deport all Jews from Tel Aviv, including citizens of the Central Powers [Germany and Austria-Hungary], within 48 hours. A week before, 300 Jews were expelled from Jerusalem. Jamal Pasha declared that their fate would be that of the Armenians. The 8,000 deportees from Tel Aviv were not allowed to take any provisions with them, and after the expulsion their houses were looted by Bedouin mobs.”

Shortly thereafter, Oskar Cohen, a Jewish socialist member of the German Parliament, asked the Chancellor to press the Turkish government “to vigorously prevent the recurrence in Palestine of atrocities” against Jews similar to the ones committed against the Armenians.

On June 8, Aaronsohn wrote in his diary: “The cry we raised was effective. The Turks and the Germans were quick to realize that one cannot get away with slaughtering the Jews like the Armenians. German financing of the war might have suffered because of the Jews. Therefore they ceased the new deportations.”

Palestine, the official journal of the British Zionist movement, described the significant difference between the lobbying capabilities of Jews and Armenians: “The German government knows that the Jews do not compare to the Armenians in terms of their world power, and that the weight of the Jews in Germany is therefore different from that of the Armenians.”

Mordecai Ben-Hillel Hacohen, a prominent chronicler of Jewish history in Palestine, wrote in his diary of March 30, 1917: “the Turkish government has been stained in the eyes of the whole country because of its crime against the Armenians, and perhaps the government will reconsider its thoughts of doing thus to the Jews as well….”

Moshe Smilansky, a leader of the Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine, after relating reports of the terrible massacres of Armenians, concluded: “The testimony of the eye witnesses aroused fear and panic in the Jewish audience. Who knows what would have been our fate were it not for Morgenthau, the American representative in Constantinople, and the fear of the world press which is ‘controlled’ by the Jews.”

Yair Auron reported in his book that Meir Dizengoff, a leader of the Jewish refugees in Palestine throughout World War I, “worked in close cooperation with the Zionist delegation in Constantinople, which was pro-German and pro-Turkish. According to Dizengoff, there were also excellent relations with the German consul in Palestine…. The consul served as a conduit for transferring funds to the Yishuv [Jewish community], on orders from the German Ambassador in Constantinople.” Dizengoff also stated that the Germans were the ones who assisted and saved the Yishuv. “The fact that Jamal Pasha became more sympathetic to the Jews was due to Germany.” Dizengoff recalled Jamal and Enver Pashas’ threats to the Jews: “Zionists beware! If you oppose us, we will do to you what we have done to the Armenians.”

In October 1917, when the Turkish authorities uncovered the Jewish Nili spy ring, a new threat loomed over the Jewish settlers in Palestine, giving yet another excuse for the Turks to oppress them. They feared that such anti-Turkish efforts would result in harsh counter-measures as practiced against Armenians. The Turkish Governor of Haifa met with Jewish leaders of the village of Zichron Yaakov on October 4, 1917, and threatened that unless they cooperated with his demands, he would do to them what he did to Armenians. He told them that he “barehandedly killed several Armenians, and his soldiers killed thousands of them.” Chaim Margalit-Kalvarisky, the representative of the Jewish Colonization Association in Galilee, wrote the following note in his diary: “I received word from a fairly dependable source that the [Turkish] high command was very angry at the Jewish settlement, and they were consulting about the possibility of a general deportation of all the Jews of Palestine to the furthest provinces of the Empire [Eastern Anatolia].” Kalvarisky recorded Jamal Pasha’s ominous words after a heated exchange with him: “Heaven help the people whose sons are those cursed spies. We taught the Armenian people a lesson about such deeds, and we will not hesitate to take the same steps in this case.”

Having witnessed the brutality of the Turks against Armenians who were accused of insubordination and rebellion, the Jewish settlers decided to be completely submissive and not challenge the Turkish authorities. Prof. Auron observed that “there was not a single attack by a Jewish settler on a Turkish soldier.” What ultimately saved the Jews was the occupation of Palestine by the British forces, precluding further brutalities and massacres by the Turkish authorities.

At the end, 1.5 million Armenians were wiped out, whereas the Jewish settlers of Palestine suffered relatively minor losses. During the war years, the Jewish population of Palestine was reduced from 86,000 to 55,000. Despite the fact that Armenians had also their advocates in Europe and the United States, the Jewish settlers enjoyed the double protection of powerful countries on both sides of the war: the Western countries, including the United States, and Germany, Turkey’s military ally. Vahakn Dadrian, in his book, “The History of the Armenian Genocide,” relates that Hans Wangenheim, the German Ambassador to Turkey, told US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau: “I will help the Zionists… but I shall do nothing for the Armenians.”

While Germany saved the Jewish settlers of Palestine, it assisted the Young Turk regime to exterminate the Armenians.

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.