Category: Main Issues

European Union – Recognition of the Armenian Genocide and International Law

conference

European Union – Recognition of the Armenian Genocide and International Law Friday 21^st may 2010 Faculty of History and Geography – Madrid organised by the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy and the Co-operative of Spanish Armenian associations: The conference comes in the scope of actions which aim at the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Spanish Parliament. Among others, will take the floor: – Mr. Alfred de Zayas, historian, jurist and American writer – Mr. Gonzalo Hernández Guarch, author – Mr. José Antonio Gurriaran, journalist and writer, President of « International Press Club » – Mr Juan Merelo-Barberà y Gabriel, lawyer at the International Court of Justice – Mrs Hilda Tchoboian, President of the European Armenian Federation If you would like to participate to the conference, please contact the European Armenian Federation at this phone number : 0032 732 70 27 or via email [email protected]

You receive this Press Release from : European Armenian Federation
for Justice & Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
Brussels, 1000 The European Armenian Federation is the biggest and most influential Armenian grassroots organisation in Europe

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DIKKAT?????? bu adamlar kendilerine o kadar cok guveniyorlarki Beynelmilel Hukuk devreye girmeye basladi (bence Ilk defa!!)
Haluk

May 4, 2010

Do we have to defend the actions of the Committee of Union and Progress?

AN ARTICLE LOVED BY ARMENIANS —

for Original comments from Armenians see

ordudan kovulan bu yazar hakkindabasinda cikanlar :

Ümit Kardaş*

In January 1913, the Committee of Union and Progress overthrew the government and started to implement a policy to homogenize the population through a planned ethnic cleansing and destruction and forced relocation.

The term “genocide,” defined as the “crime of crimes” in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rwanda decision, was first coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer from Poland.

He was particularly known for his efforts to draft the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which cast genocide as an international crime in 1948.Dealing with the case of Talat Paşa being murdered by an Armenian youth in Berlin in 1921, Lemkin started to compile a file about what happened in the Ottoman Empire in connection with the case. As he discussed the case with his professor, he learned that there was no international law provision that would entail the prosecution of Talat Paşa for his actions, and he was profoundly shocked when his professor likened the case of Talat Paşa to a farmer who would not be held responsible for killing the chickens in his poultry house.

In 1933, Lemkin used the term “crime against international law” as a precursor of the concept of genocide during the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid. After Nazi-led German forces devastated Europe and invaded Poland in 1939, Lemkin was enlisted in the army, but upon the defeat of Polish forces, he fled to the US, leaving his parents behind. Later, while working as an adviser during the Nuremberg trials, he would learn that his parents had died in the Nazi concentration camps.

In his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,” published in 1944, he defined genocide as atrocities and massacre intended to destroy a nation or an ethnic group. Coining the term from the Greek genos, meaning race or ancestry, and the Latin cide, meaning killing, Lemkin argued that genocide does not have to mean direct destruction of a nation. In 1946, the UN General Assembly issued a declaration on genocide and unanimously accepted that genocide is a crime under international law, noting that it eliminates the right of existence of a specific group and shocks the collective conscience of humanity. However, Lemkin wished that in addition, a convention should be drafted on preventing and punishing the crime of genocide. This wish was fulfilled with the signature of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. Lemkin died in a hotel room in New York in a state of poverty at the age of 59 in 1959. Although they left this idealist defender of humanity alone, people were gentle enough to write, “The Father of the Genocide Convention,” as an epitaph on his grave.

1843-1908 period

In 1843, Bedirhan Bey, who commanded the Kurds who were assigned with the duty of massacring the people of Aşita (Hoşud), connected to the sanjak of Hakkari, where the population was predominantly Armenian and Nestorian, persuaded the Armenians and Nestorians who had fled to the mountains to return and hand in their weapons, and then, the people who were massacred were largely thrown in the Zap River. The majority of their women and children were sold as slaves. It is reported that at least 10,000 Armenians and Nestorians were killed in this massacre. In 1877, the Ottoman Army and the Russian Army started to fight again, and availing of this opportunity, Armenia once again became a battlefield, and the soldiers shouted, “Kill the disbelievers.” Circassians and Kurds slaughtered 165 Christian families, including women and children, in Beyazıt. In 1892, Sultan Abdülhamit II summoned the Kurdish tribal chiefs to İstanbul and gave them military uniforms and weapons, thereby establishing the Hamidiye cavalry regiment with some 22,500 members. In this way, Abdülhamit II played with the foreign policy equilibrium between the UK and Russia and organized a specific ethnic/religious group against another ethnic/religious group based on a Muslim vs. non-Muslim dichotomy. The Ottoman administration appointed the worst enemies of Armenians as their watchdogs, thereby creating a force that could crush them even in peacetime. The persecution of Armenians peaked in the Sason massacre in September 1894. Abdülhamit II declared resisting Armenians rebels and ordered that they should be eradicated.

1908-1914 period

Europe and America extensively supported the Young Turks, who were seeking legitimacy. When the Movement Army threatened to launch a campaign against İstanbul, Abdülhamit II declared a constitutional monarchy on July 24, 1908. Without using any discretion, ordinary people were both amazed and pleased. Moved by slogans calling for equality, freedom and brotherhood, Armenians, too, welcomed with joy the government backed and controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

Britain and France made loans available to the new regime and sent consultants for the treasury and the navy in support. To alleviate the consequences of the massacres of 1895 and 1896, European countries increased their humanitarian assistance. Orphaned children of Christian families were placed in care centers, and schools were opened in eastern Anatolia. The introduction of the second constitutional monarchy was seen as an assurance of the creation of equality among all races and religions. However, on April 14, 1909, a new wave of slaughter started against Christians in Adana. The CUP’s close alliance with the Armenian Dashnak Party was a major reason for the rekindling of these massacres. For the first time, these attacks did not discriminate between Armenians and eastern Christians. Thus, Orthodox Syriacs, Catholic Syriacs and Chaldeans were also killed. Apparently, Armenians had stood apart with their penchant for trade, banking, brokerage as well as for pharmacy, medicine and consulting and other professions; they constituted a wealthy portion of the population. As a result, this and their identity as non-Muslims made Armenians a clear target. As a commercial and agricultural factor, Armenians also served as an obstacle to the Germanification of Anatolia.

After the Adana massacre of 1909, there was a period of good faith that lasted until 1913. Meanwhile, the CUP improved its ties with the militant Dashnak Party. After transforming into a democratic party, this party was represented with three deputies in the Assembly of Deputies (Meclis-i Mebusan) that was renewed in 1912. This assembly also had six independent Armenians members. In 1876, the Assembly of Deputies had 67 Muslim and 48 non-Muslim deputies. However, in January 1913, following the defeat in the first Balkan War, the CUP overthrew the government (known as the Raid of Bab-ı Ali) and started to implement a policy to homogenize the population through a planned ethnic cleansing and destruction and forced relocation.

Talat Paşa prepared plans for homogenizing the population by relocating ethnic groups to places other than their homeland. According to the plan, Kurds, Armenians and Arabs would be forced to migrate from their homeland, and Bosnians, Circassians and other Muslim immigrants would be settled in their places. The displaced ethnic groups would not be allowed to comprise more than 10 percent of the population in their destinations. Moreover, these groups would be quickly assimilated. The Greeks had already been relocated from the western coasts of the country in 1914.

In addition to the regular army, Enver Paşa believed that there must be special forces that would conduct undercover operations. Thus, he transformed the Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa), which he had established as a secret organization before the Balkan War, into an official organization. This organization had intelligence officers, spies, saboteurs and contract killers among its members. It also had a militia comprised of Kurdish tribes. Former criminals worked as volunteers for this organization. Talat Paşa created the main body of the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa from gangs of former criminals whom he arranged to be released from prisons. In Anatolia, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa worked at the disposal of the 3rd Army.

Forced relocations of 1915-1916

The German-backed pan-Islamist policy implied a fatal solution for non-Muslims living within the borders of the empire. The conditions for the forced relocation campaign launched in 1915 were different from previous ones. The two-month campaign covered not only Armenians but also all Christians in eastern Anatolia. These relocations could not be considered a resettlement because the specified destinations were not inhabitable and only very few could make it there. Many people were immediately killed either inside or outside the settlements where they were born or living, and others were murdered on the roads on which they were forced to walk on foot.

Most of those who were immediately killed were men. Women and children formed the largest portion of the groups banished toward the southern deserts. There were continual attacks on these processions, accompanied by rapes of women and kidnappings of children. Provincial officials did not take any measures to provide the convoys with food, water and shelter. Rather, high-level officials and local politicians mobilized death squads against them. These squads would confiscate the goods of the relocated people, sending some of them to the Interior Ministry and embezzling the rest.

Eventually, the forced relocation campaign turned into a series of atrocities which even bothered the Germans. The ongoing campaign was never a population exchange. As noted by British social historian David Gaunt, the purpose of these forced relocation campaigns was to remove a specific population from a specific location. Because it was intended to be performed quickly, this added to the intimidation, violence and cruelty involved. As resettlement was not intended, neither the administration nor the army cared about where the deported population was going or whether they would survive physically. The high degree of the culture and civilization exhibited by Armenians made the atrocities against them all the worse in the eyes of the world. Talat Paşa mistakenly made his last conclusion: “There is no longer an Armenian problem.”

Conclusion and suggestions

The foregoing account cannot duly express what really happened in its scope, dimension and weight. These atrocities and massacres were not only regularly reported on in European and US newspapers, but were also evidenced in the official documents of Britain and the US and even Germany and Austria, which were allies of the Ottoman Empire, and in the minutes of the Ottoman Court Martial (Divan-ı Harbi), the descriptions of diplomats and missionaries, in commission reports and in the memoirs of those who survived them.

No justification, even the fact that some Armenian groups revolted with certain claims and collaborated with foreign countries, can be offered for this human tragedy. It is misleading to discuss what happened with reference to genocide, which is merely a legal and technical term. No technical term is vast enough to contain these incidents, which are therefore indescribable. Atrocities and massacres are incompatible with human values. It is more degrading to be regarded as a criminal in the collective conscience of humanity than to be tried on charges of genocide.

A regime that hinges upon concealing and denying the truth will make the state and the society sick and decadent. The politicians, academics, journalists, historians and clerical officials in Turkey should try to ensure that the society can face the truth. To face the truth is to become free. We can derive no honor or dignity from defending our ancestors who were responsible for these tragedies. It is not a humane or ethical stance to support and defend the actions of Abdülhamit II and senior CUP members and their affiliated groups, gangs and marauders. Turkey should declare to the world that it accepts said atrocities and massacres and that in connection with this, it advocates the highest human values of truth, justice and humanism while condemning the mentality and actions of those who committed them in the past.

After this is done, it should invite all Armenians living in the diaspora to become citizens of the Turkish Republic. As the Armenians of the diaspora return to the geography where their ancestors lived for thousands of years before being forced to abandon it, leaving behind their property, memories and past, this may serve to abate their sorrow, which has now translated into anger. The common border with Armenia should be opened without putting forward any condition. This is what conscience, humanity and reason direct us to do. Turkey will become free by getting rid of its fears, complexes and worries by soothing the sorrows of Armenians.

*Dr. Ümit Kardaş is a retired military judge.

02 May 2010, Sunday

May 4, 2010

Is Turkey’s Consul Unhappy that not All Armenians were Slaughtered like Sheep?

By Harut Sassounian

Publisher, The California Courier

Hakan Tekin, the young and inexperienced Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles, is trying hard to earn brownie points with his bosses in Ankara by countering any reference to Armenians in the U.S. media. He went overboard last week by sending an offensive letter to the Los Angeles Times.

Tekin was displeased with Patt Morrison’s interview with me published by the Times in its op-ed page on April 24. The article was titled, “Harut Sassounian: True to the Past.”

In his brief letter, Consul General Tekin made several misjudgments. The first was to criticize the L.A. Times’ Pulitzer-Prize winning veteran journalist Patt Morrison, alleging that there were “many misleading elements” in her interview, without naming a single one.

Judging from the text of the Consul General’s letter, it was probably drafted by one of the many American public relations firms hired by the Turkish government at great cost. While the words may have been written by Americans, the thoughts are definitely those of a Turkish denialit! P.R. firms don’t really care how silly their letters sound, as long as their employer is satisfied and compensates them handsomely. Here is a piece of free advice that the Turkish government and the Consul General should keep in mind before taking on again the free press in a free country: “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

Tekin is behaving as if he is still in Turkey, where the media is routinely suppressed by such fascist tactics as throwing journalists in jail or physically eliminating them. He is vainly trying to import Turkey’s undemocratic “gag rule” into the United States by trying to silence the L.A. Times!

The Consul General goes on to attack me for the photograph that accompanies the L.A. Times article, in which I am holding the picture of my grandmother “garlanded with a bandolier of bullets.” I am very proud of grandma Gadar, because at a time when more than a million Armenians were being marched to their deaths by the genocidal rulers of Tekin’s ancestors, she and her fellow Zeitountsis — men, women and children — defended themselves valiantly and refused to be slaughtered like sheep. Had she not fought to save her life, I would not have existed today, which may have made the Consul General happier! Is Tekin upset that the Turkish government was unable to finish the job of exterminating every last Armenian?

Consul General Tekin then criticizes me for my “relentless opposition” to the infamous Armenia-Turkey Protocols. He has no one else to blame than his own government for not ratifying these Protocols which have been collecting dust in the Turkish Parliament for more than six months. Armenians are indeed fortunate that Turkey’s leaders have inadvertently protected Armenia’s national interests by not ratifying the Protocols, so that they could extract more concessions from the Armenian government!

Incredibly, Tekin ends his pathetic letter by admonishing me to be more like William Saroyan, who he claims was “compassionate” toward Turks! May I remind the Turkish Consul of Saroyan’s well-known statement castigating the Turks for having destroyed Armenia and its people. Here is the original version of that quotation, as it was published in Inhale & Exhale, New York: Random House, 1936: “Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.”

Could it be that the Turkish Consul General is trying to denigrate me, because I have rejected his repeated invitations to get together, and his persistent attempts to co-opt me? If it is any consolation for this novice diplomat, I have not been tricked by his superiors either, who are far more experienced than him in the art of fishing for Armenian collaborators!

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Harut Sassounian: True to the past

The Armenian American is a high-profile figure on the genocide.

April 23, 2010|Patt Morrison

Today isn’t so much a red-letter day on the Armenian calendar as a black-letter one: the commemoration of the Armenian genocide in Turkey.

The Armenian American names Saroyan and Deukmejian, California writer and governor, respectively, might ring a bell. Here’s one that sounds a klaxon: Harut Sassounian, one of the most visible Armenian Americans in a dozen time zones. As president of a major charity, he has delivered above half a billion dollars in medical supplies, computers and vital equipment to Armenia. As publisher and columnist of the weekly California Courier, he presses for full, official acknowledgement of the 1915 massacre as genocide, a knifepoint balancing act for the U.S., which counts Turkey as a major strategic ally.

He comes, he says, from a family of warriors — including his grandmother, garlanded with a bandolier of bullets in a 1920s photograph made in Syria, where he was born. His weapons are words and paper; speaking for and to a sometimes fractious Armenian community, he quotes an old line: “Bring two Armenians together, and they will form three political parties.”

April 24, 95 years ago, was the beginning of the genocide. What happened?

Every important Armenian leader in Istanbul — writers, poets, intellectuals, scholars, you name it — [the Turks] arrested them and killed them. The Turks were thinking, “Once we kill off the leaders, the rest are sheep without the shepherd.”

The California Courier has been around since 1958 — and when you arrived in 1983, you changed it.

The paper was started in Fresno by two gentlemen; one was an Armenian by the name of George Mason. There were a handful of Armenian-language papers at the time but not a single newspaper in English. It caught like wildfire. It was a social newspaper; it wasn’t political at all. So it went for 25 years. Then Mason hired me.

The first week, I wrote that the Turkish ambassador [to the United States] should be expelled as persona non grata for the Armenian genocide. Mason got tons of complaints — who is this radical terrorist you hired? The column created such a reaction — initially a negative reaction. They asked Mason to fire me immediately.

Why?

[Readers] were used to babies being born, vacations….. Many were cultural Armenians, not political Armenians. Their Armenianism was lifestyle Armenianism.

What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, but Armenians are also a nation [with] a long history and culture, and genocide was committed against them. The newcomers, it matters to them. They want to right the wrong; they feel strongly about this injustice. If somebody wants to leave their history behind, that’s their choice. But if somebody wants to struggle to regain what we lost in the old country, he also has that right. You can protest, you can petition your congressman, the president.

There’s a current news story about a bone marrow drive for a little girl in Glendale who’s a quarter Armenian. The search focuses on Armenians because they have a distinctive genetic makeup, being less likely to marry outside their ethnic group. Why is that?

If you know what Armenians have been through, then you start appreciating why. Armenians are an ancient people with an ancient civilization. At one point basically every Armenian lost just about everything — their grandparents, their language and culture. I cannot go back and fight the genocide — I cannot bring back those people. I cannot declare war against Turkey. So the only thing I can do is to hang on to whatever little is left of the culture, as my way of getting back at those who tried to wipe it out.

Armenians abroad dreamed of a free Armenia — and it happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We thought we wouldn’t see it in our lifetime. But all of a sudden we woke up and behold, there’s a free Armenia. So part of our dream is realized, but that’s not the full dream. The land west of current Armenia, where Mt. Ararat [stands, along with] thousands of churches and monuments, that’s where the real Armenian homeland is. Now we have 10% of what was Armenia historically. We’re looking forward to 90%.

There’s a very powerful Armenian brain trust here and around the world. Would it help the Republic of Armenia for those people to go back?

Some Armenians have gone back. But there are very practical considerations. The country is so destitute, there basically are no jobs. So unless you’re financially independent, you’re going to be a burden. It takes a very hardened person to really go there and live. Secondly, people have their lives, their families here. It really is a hardship to pull up your roots.

Even if all Armenians want to move there, that’s not necessarily a good thing. [The diaspora has] turned the tragedy of the genocide inadvertently into a blessing because when the homeland needs something, Armenians have contacts in terms of trade, import-export, neighbors and colleagues. If it wasn’t for the Armenian Americans lobbying Congress, Congress would be allocating much less aid to Armenia. It would be worse off.

Armenia and Turkey are doing unprecedented work to normalize relations. Why would Armenians abroad take a harder line toward Turkey than the Armenian government does?

Running a country is different than being an individual in the diaspora. If I were the president of Armenia, I would be making decisions based on certain constraints that I don’t have sitting in Glendale right now. As an individual I can take a very hard line.

In some instances, Armenia’s leadership would like to take a position on something but they know it would have negative repercussions if they became a little more demanding. The diaspora is much freer to make such demands, so we make those demands. Sometimes, us taking a hard line is very helpful to Armenia, because they look much more accommodating.

You once told The Times’ editorial board you wouldn’t talk to Turkish officials, but you would talk to Turks.

What I said was, I do not speak with Turkish officials who deny the genocide. There’s no point in arguing with them. They’re going to deny it, no matter what I say. But regular Turks — I talk to them, we communicate. Someone in Turkey now who’s 30, 40, even 70, 80 years old, they have not committed any crime. I have no hatred or animosity against the Turkish population at large. These people have not done anything against me or my people. The Turks who did the crime are dead. What is really sad and unhelpful is today’s Turkish leaders denying such an event took place, sort of linking themselves to the earlier crime by covering it up.

[Recently] on Turkish CNN, four prominent scholars [said they were] for the recognition of the Armenian genocide. One line was just a killer line: “In Turkey, we have Armenians desperately trying to prove to the world that they were killed, and Kurds desperately trying to prove that they’re alive, that they exist.”

What are the misconceptions about Armenians here?

[That] they’re clannish and don’t integrate into the larger society. In Glendale there’s always a dispute which goes like this: Why do you have to speak Armenian to each other? This is America — speak English. You hang around each other; it’s like a little Armenian clique.

By all means we should be fluent in English, we should participate in the Lions Club, we should go to football games and partake in everything American. But if somebody chooses to speak only Armenian, go to an Armenian grocery store and go to Armenian barber, that’s his business; no one should force him. If [anyone] doesn’t want to speak English, and he has a life he can live just knowing Spanish or Armenian or Hebrew, that’s his business.

There are a lot of Armenians who are integrated into society — many of them change their names; you can’t even go by the “ian” at the end.

Gov. George Deukmejian didn’t change his name to “George Duke.”

The governor is a very unusual person. Not only is he fully integrated into American society and mainstream politics, but he kept his long Armenian name. A lot of people advised him [not to].

What is Armenian Americans’ sense of President Obama now?

It’s a very sad situation. We passionately supported his candidacy because he’s not the typical politician — he comes from a minority background, he knows what it is to be suffering, so we identified with him right away. When he was a senator, he spoke fervently in defense of the Armenian cause, in defense of recognition of genocide. He even gave a speech when he was a candidate [and] said: “America deserves a president who will tell the truth about the Armenian genocide. I intend to be that president.” So we all believed in him. And the minute he becomes president, he does not say genocide, he finds a euphemism the way Bush and Condoleezza Rice did. He even went so far as to use an Armenian word to describe [it], which was really ridiculous. He’s done everything that he said he would not do.

[email protected]

This interview is edited and excerpted from a longer taped transcript. An archive of Morrison’s interviews is online at latimes.com/pattasks.

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SAYIN RIZA HAKAN TEKIN , LOS ANGELES BASKONSOLOSU

BU SAYFADA POST ETMEK ICIN:

SAYIN HAKAN BEYIN LA TIMES’A VERDIGI YAZININ KOPYASINI LUTFEN DR. KAYAALP BUYUKATAMANA ILETIN AT [email protected] ….. COK TESEKKUR EDERIZ … TF

May 4, 2010
How A Court Case Was Won In France Against A Dashnak

Maxime Gauin
Paris, May 2, 2010

“We live in fact for some moments, intense and special; the rest of the time, we wait these moments.”

Edgar Faure (1908-1988), French lawyer and statesman.

On April 27, the Lyon’s tribunal declared Movsès Nissanian, municipal counselor of Villeurbanne (biggest city of Lyon’s suburb) member of Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF-Dashnak), guilty of “public insult against an individual” (me) and sentenced him. As a preliminary information, I have to say the following:

— Lyon is comparable to Boston in USA for the influence of Armenian nationalism, and the ambiance in Villeurbanne could be compared, by some aspects, with New Jersey’s ambiance. The mayor and former MP, Jean-Paul Bret, has some common points with US Senator Robert J. Menendez.

— I received no support from Lyon’s Turkish associations for the costs, or any other aspects, of my court case.

— As a MA student in history, I sued Mr. Nissanian to defend my dignity and the freedom of speech, against the political misuse of history.

I) Background: the facts, the procedure, the collateral incidents

.

February 15, 2008. During a meeting about the Sirma Oran affair, Movsès Nissanian says that I am exactly like “those who sent Jews to Auschwitz” during the WWII. He says that because I wrote an article, published on the Web, criticizing the mayor of Villeurbanne (who harassed Sirma Oran by his questions about the so-called “genocide”) and the ARF (for his crimes of the past, including terrorism and massacres of Muslims and Jews). I signed the article by initials only, to remain quiet, but my name was revealed on the free-access forum of armenews.com, first French-Armenian Web site. His editor-in-chief is Ara Toranian, former spokesman of ASALA (1976-1983) then of dissident group ASALA-RM (1983-1985).

May 15, 2008. I file a complaint in Lyon’s tribunal.

June 2008. The Lyon’s prosecutor opens a criminal investigation.

October 21, 2008. I file a complaint in the police station of my Parisian district, against vitriolic messages who insult and defame me, on the forum of armenews.com. I sent before several e-mails to Mr. Toranian, but he did not respond, so I take my promise to complaint. Less than seven hours after that, Mr. Toranian destroys for ever his dear free-access forum. Even some of his friends asked to him, before my complaint, to close this forum, because it was full of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual messages, several with direct incitation to physical violence, including murder.

December 2008 (I do not remember the precise date). I give to the chief of Lyon’s investigative magistrates, in charge of my complaint, the record of Mr. Nissanian’s statements during the meeting of February (Jean-Patrick Martz, husband of Sirma Oran, was in the room and recorded the speeches). The record is later authenticated by an expert, because a demand of Mr. Nissanian.

July 31, 2009. The procedure is completely finished. Both the chief of investigative magistrates and the deputy prosecutor ask that Mr. Nissanian be sent in front of Lyon’s tribunal for “public insult against an individual”.

September 9, 2009. The trial is fixed to November 3.

End of October 2009. Mr. Nissanian’s lawyer, Xavier Vahramian, files his written conclusions: 18 pages, plus 33 pieces, mostly about the so-called “genocide”; Mr. Nissanian lawyer argues that since I “denied the genocide”, I am guilty of “provocation”, as defined by law, and that, as a result, Mr. Nissanian must be not sentenced. He adds that “ARF did never use terrorism” and even that “ARF has always condemned terrorism”. The defense lawyer filed nothing during more than one year of investigation. It is now too late to make an appropriate response. Me and my lawyer ask that the trial be postponed; the tribunal accepts and fixes the date to January 5.

One can notice that the accusations of war crimes against Muslim and Jewish civilians, perpetrated by ARF members from 1914 to 1922, were never challenged, or even mentioned, by Mr. Nissanian or his lawyer, during the whole procedure.

November 3, 2009. Oran vs. Bret trial. The ambiance is terrible. I am scolded upset when I am leaving the tribunal’s room, by fanatic young Dashnaks (it is fair to add that few others young Dashnaks were unaggressive and expressed their disapprobation to such an aggressive attitude). I prevent insult and assault only in asking: “Do you want take the place of Mr. Nissanian?” I file a “main courante” (complaint without legal consequence) in the police station of my Parisian district, in coming back to my home.

November-December 2009. In French National Library, I search extensively in the archives of Haïastan, official newspaper of young Dashnaks and France-Arménie, monthly edited by Dashnaks of Lyon; I photocopy many articles supporting stridently terrorism. During the same time, I write a draft of response, about Dashnak crimes (terrorism of 1890’s and 1900’s years; terrorism of interwar period; collaboration with Nazism; terrorism of 1970’s and 1980’s; celebration of terrorism until today) and about the allegations of “genocide”, using writings of Feridun Ata, Donald Bloxham, Gwynne Dyer, Edward J. Erickson, Yusuf Halaçog(lu, Hilmar Kaiser, Guenter Lewy, S,inasi Orel and Sürreya Yuca, Stanford J. Shaw, Philip H. Stoddard, Malcom E. Yapp and others. My lawyer makes with this draft two appendixes for the revised version of his written conclusions (the first was established in October 2009). Written statements of Türkkaya Ataöv, Mumtaz Soysal and Norman Stone are also filed. I would like express my thanks to these professors.

January 4, 2010. Ara Toranian publishes on his site armenews.com a defamatory article against me, saying that Movsès Nissanian was right in saying that I have the same mentality of those who sent Jews to Auschwitz. Immediately, I sent an e-mail to him, threatening to make a new court case. Less than one half-hour, he answers that to prevent any misunderstanding about his intentions, he is deleting the article (and keeps his promise).

II) The trial of January 5, 2010, and its consequences

The trial happens in front of the same tribunal than for Oran vs. Bret case. However, the ambiance is much more quiet for this trial that on November 3. Not a single young Dashnak, and less activists in general. All are calm — excepted one, expelled by the president in the beginning of my statement. I speak about terrorism: nobody screams. I say that Mr. Toranian was president of the “National Armenian Movement for ASALA” (I say that because Mr. Nissanian used one of his articles for his defense); Mr. Toranian is three or four meters behind me; he says absolutely nothing. The president asked to everybody to be short, so I say almost nothing about “genocide” claims, just quoting Hilmar Kaiser’s praising of Yusuf Halaçog(lu.

Movsès Nissanian’s lawyer asks few question to me, but no one about history. My lawyer asks to his colleague of defense: “You asserted in your written conclusions that ‘ARF has always condemned terrorism’; did you file a single piece proving that?” No reply. My lawyers asks then to Mr. Nissanian if he regrets to have used such words against me. The defendant answers that yes.

Later during the trial, the president says: “the tribunal has not to decide between historical thesis”.

As usual in French procedure, the last word is for the defendant. In his short final declaration, Mr. Nissanian says: “I reprove these acts of terrorism” used by ARF and ASALA.

Mid-January 2010. Clash in the staff of France-Arménie, which published my account of trial on its Web site. Readers are chocked by what Mr. Nissanian said about terrorism, and call him a “coward”, a “shame” for ARF. Both my account and the comments are finally deleted, and the editor-in-chief, the passionately anti-Turkish racist Laurent Leylekian is furious because this incident.

III) The judgment: some commentaries

It is pronounced on April 27. The full text is available here:

Even more quiet ambiance than on January 5. No one Armenian media announced the date of the judgment. The tribunal rejects the excuse of provocation, arguing that such an excuse needs to be a direct and personal attack against the person who insult, and must be made few time before that the insult happens. No allusion to “genocide” claims in the discussion of the excuse of provocation. Mr. Nissanian is declared guilty of insult against an individual and sentenced. The president found a judgment of the Cour de cassation (French Supreme court) of April 1908 (!), saying that there is a difference between a “fault” of victim (excessive imprudence in the expression), which decreases the sentence, and the excuse of provocation, which prevents a sentence. In this case, the tribunal argues that it is an unneeded strident formulation to quote Gaïdz Minassian’s critical analysis about Dashnak terrorism (ARF “elevated terrorism until a saint method”, he writes in his book “Guerre et terrorisme arméniens”) in a context which concerns not ARF, but its Villeurbanne’s chapter, not involved in terrorism or in glorification of terrorism. I wanted not to libel this section, but to show the contrast between the repeated ask to Sirma Oran about “genocide” recognition (asks made by the Villeurbanne’s mayor) and the complete absence of ask of “recognition” about crimes perpetrated by ARF; but I did not insist of this point, before and during the tribunal, because I did not know the decision of 1908, and because my lawyer did not think to it.

So, Mr. Nissanian is sentenced, but to slight punishment: 300 € of suspended fine; 90 € as costs of judgment’s registration; 500 € for me. The president says that “it is a warning” to him.

Despite the slightness of the sentence, this judgment is terrible for ARF. The “genocide” claims are not accepted, not even discussed; the tribunal confirms by this way that he does not want “decide between historical thesis”.

The basic accusation of terrorism against ARF is validated; the judgment says that I mentioned “the acts attributable to ARF”, referring, among others, to terrorism. Even the use of jurisprudential notion of “fault” is terrible for ARF: the fundamental contradiction between the Dashnak terrorism on one side, the Dashnak desire of respectability, not the say the Dashnak arrogance in pretending to say what is good, on the other side. Mr. Nissanian escaped to a severe sentence only in substantiating his claims to be not favorable to terrorism, i.e. in saying “I reprove these acts of terrorism”; so, he broken ties with a considerable part of Dashnak activists. But the worst is perhaps that this defeat happened in front of the same tribunal than Mr. Bret’s success against S?rma Oran.

When I am writing this text, not a single Armenian Web site or forum has been mentioned the judgment; so, even is the sentence is slight, it seems sufficient for a strong symbolic effect.

As a result of two years of I renounce to nothing and regret nothing; I express my thanks to the thirty persons who I did not know before the judgment, and who sent to me their congratulations for the success in front of Lyon’s tribunal.

Many other people could make a successful court case, in France as well as in other countries of Western Europe, against Armenian nationalists who use insult or defamation as a political instrument — frequently with more viciousness and perseverance than Mr. Nissanian; one can hope, at least, that I will not remain alone to do that for a long time.

Maxime Gauin
Paris, May 2, 2010

Google Translation Of Maxime gauin’s Article in

The Theodor Mommsen Villeurbanne
A misunderstood genius: Jean-Paul Bret
By Mr. G, lundi11 February 2008

“Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue. “

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims.

The mayor of Villeurbanne, Mr. Bret is an extraordinary perspicacity. He decided to joint list with the Greens. He asked one of the candidates nominated by the party to “recognize the genocide of Armenia. This person has a Turkish name, she would have called Jeannine Smith, the same question he asked was, no doubt. This person runs. It is not enough for Mr. Bret: he asks her to repeat the “Armenian community” of Villeurbanne. She runs again. It is still not enough for Mr. Bret, which then requires a “recognition” writing.

Hunting “revisionist”

For Mr. Bret, anyone denying that the plight of Armenians in 1915-1916 could be a genocide, he said, “Holocaust denier” – even if this dispute does not affect the individual suffering and the magnitude of various crimes. The slightest suspicion that subject can cause the most severe sanctions, the most exemplary. Mr. Guenter Lewy, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, who fled Nazi Germany as a teenager with his family in 1939, is “revisionist”.

“The three pillars of the Armenian claims, to classify the losses suffered during the First World War as genocide fail to substantiate the charge that the Young Turk regime organized the massacres. Other alleged evidence of a plan of annihilation are no better.

Apply or not the term genocide to events which occurred here nearly a century may seem unimportant to many historians, but this application – or not – keeps a great political importance. The Armenians and their supporters, such as Turkish nationalists have made claims and defended their cause at the cost of simplification of historical reality, complex, and by ignoring crucial evidence that would lead to a more nuanced view of the past. Scholars have based their professional position on previous work, often ignoring dishonest interpretations of primary sources as they behaved. Against the backdrop of major policy issues, both sides have sought to silence opponents of their views, and to prevent a confrontation of all arguments in this case [1]. “

Historians specializing in Ottoman history, and whose fame is international, so all are “deniers”, including MM. Bernard Lewis (Jewish), Stanford Jay Shaw (of the Jewish faith), and Gilles Veinstein (born in 1945 in Paris, in a Jewish family).

“During the rest of the [First World War], much of the Armenian population was killed or fled. […] The Armenians say that these deaths are the result of a policy of genocide implemented by the Ottoman government. […] The minutes of the council of ministers did not confirm this, rather they show great willingness to investigate and improve a situation where six million people (Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Armenians, Jews and others) were killed by a combination of rebellions, attacks by bandits, killings and massacres-cons, famine and diseases, compounded by sudden foreign invasions, in which all peoples of the empire, Muslim and non-Muslims, have counted the victims and criminals. […] After the Revolution [Russian], a truce was signed between the Republic and the Ottoman Empire, but the Armenian units then began a massacre of Turkish peasants generalized still resident in the South Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, where were more than 600,000 refugees, in addition to 2,295,705 Turks living in the provinces of Erzurum, Erzincan, Trabzon, Van and Bitlis after the war [2]. “

“1) There was no hate campaign aimed directly at the Armenians, no demonizing comparable to European anti-Semitism.

2) The deportation of the Armenians, although widespread, was not total, and in particular it did not apply to the two main cities of Istanbul and Izmir.

3) The Turkish actions against Armenians, although disproportionate, were not born from nothing. The fear of a Russian advance into the eastern Ottoman provinces, knowing that many Armenians viewed the Russians as liberators against the Turkish regime and awareness of Armenian revolutionary activities against the Ottoman State, all contributed to create an atmosphere of anxiety and suspicion, aggravated by the situation becoming more desperate by the Empire and the neuroses – oh – usual time of war. In 1914, the Russians formed four large Armenian volunteer units and three others in 1915. These units accounted for many Ottoman Armenians, including some well-known public figures.

4) The deportation for criminal reasons, strategic or otherwise, had been practiced for centuries in the Ottoman Empire [3]. “

“Second point: there were also many casualties among Muslims throughout the war, the fighting but also by actions against them by Armenians, in a context of ethnic and national rivalry. If there are victims forgotten, are those, and the Turks of today are right to denounce the bias of Western opinion in this regard. Is it because there were only Muslims that are neglected, or because they implicitly consider that the ultimate success of their peers deprives them of the status of martyrs? What view would carry us so on the same facts, if things had turned out differently, if the Armenians were eventually based on the rubble Ottoman state in Anatolia sustainable?

But the last point is crucial, debate, its legal and political implications, is whether the massacres perpetrated against the Armenians were the order of the Young Turk government, if the transfers have been a lure for systematic extermination company, implemented in different ways, but decided, planned, RC governmental level, or if the Young Turks were only guilty of recklessly triggered movements which ended in bloodshed. Merely asking the question may seem absurd and outrageous. It is true that state involvement is a prerequisite for the complete application to the Armenian tragedy of the term genocide, as it was coined in 1944 and defined by the Nuremberg Trials and the United Nations Convention of 1948.

It must however admit that one has so far no evidence that government involvement [4]. “

Similarly, are counted among the “deniers”, Professor Eberhard Jäckel, one of the leading names of Nazi [5], the UK government [6], the German government [7], the Spanish government, Israeli Parliament [8], the Bulgarian Parliament [9] and the Nobel Peace Shimon Peres. [10]

Some disgruntled say that Mr. Bret has led a miserable political operation, whose methods disturbingly reminiscent of inquisitorial trials: the repentant heretic in public, and is excluded from the community if it persists in the heresy. Daring to proclaim the truth loud and clear: Mr. Bret is a genius – a misunderstood genius. Although he never made a study of history (like many other “specialists” self-appointed Ottoman history, such as Yves Ternon surgeon), he managed to unmask the “denial,” where is: in scientific research, recognized as such, and the governments of key allies of France. This genius can not be praised enough.

Dear friends of Mr Bret

Think! He is already struggling Turkish hydra, but it must also be wary of his friends. Mr. Bret indeed maintains the best relations with the local Armenian Revolutionary Federation (USA-Dashnaktsutiun). For, as amazing as it sounds, this foreign party (or to be absolutely correct its youth branch) has a section villeurbannaise, and also a section of Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, and another in Décines, situated, as Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon. If a reader knows a European Turkey section of the PS in the suburbs of Munich, Milan, and Edinburgh, he would write to the association, which will transmit.

The heroic and visionary Mr. Bret managed a tour de force: to remain an impeccable democrat, while the friend of the local members of the FRA. Indeed, the FRA has “elevated to the rank of terrorism sacrosanct practice [11]. The list of major terrorist acts in the ARF include:

the first hostage of the contemporary era, which took place at the Ottoman Bank (Istanbul), August 26, 1896, the stated purpose (and succeeded, unfortunately, beyond all hope) promote violence antiarméniennes, a pretext for intervention further increased the great powers in the Ottoman Empire [12];

the failed assassination attempt against Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1905, which killed the founder of the Dashnaktsutyun, Christapor Mikaelian, who died while handling a bomb he was preparing [13];

the assassination of Bedros Kapamaciyan Mayor Armenian Van, 10 December 1912 [14];

the massacre of many Muslim civilians between 1914 and 1922 [15];

the assassination of Archbishop Leon Tourian, head of the Armenian Church in the Americas, New York, December 24, 1933 [16];

a series of attacks between 1973 and 1985, including the suicide bombing of Lisbon, July 27, 1983, commemorated each year by the FRA [17];

the twin bombings of August 1, 1993, against Viktor Polianitchko (Russian officer) and General Ossetian Safonov [18] who won, the FRA to be prohibited in Armenia until the election of Mr. Kocharian, a of his friends, as President of the Republic [19].

The long record of party Dashnak not limited to these terrorist activities, it also includes the pro-Nazi activism of some of its most prominent members, never disavowed activism, but rather glorified, until today, by the direction of FRA. Hairenik, party organ Dashnak United States, has shown its unwavering support and full support to Nazi ideology. The edition of September 17, 1936 states as follows:

“Then came Adolf Hitler, after fighting worthy of Hercules. He spoke of race in the pulsing heart of the Germans, making the fountain spring of the national genius. “

A month earlier, on August 19 exactly Hairenik not hesitate to write:

“It is sometimes difficult to eradicate these harmful [Jews], when they have contaminated up to the root like a chronic illness, and when it becomes necessary for one people [in this case the Germans, or rather Nazis] to eliminate an uncommon method these attempts are regarded as revolutionary. During such surgery, it is natural that the blood flows. Under such conditions, a dictator emerges as a savior. “

Other members of the FRA are not content to support the Third Reich by words: they gave him the gift of their person. Thus General Ganayan (or Kanayan, according to a transcript of the Armenian alphabet in Latin script), better known by his nickname, Dro, he formed and led the 812th battalion of the Armenian Wehrmacht, the main fact of weapon was the roundup of Jews in occupied Soviet Union [20]. Dro is in the mausoleum since 2000, inaugurated by President Kocharian [21]. In an editorial in April 2001, General Dro Hairenik ranks among the “heroes” of the Armenian people [22], thereby demonstrating his perfect continuity with the line of the 1930 pro-Nazi. Mr. Vahan Hovhannesian, candidate of the ARF in the presidential elections in Armenia, also believes Dro as a “hero” [23].

It goes without saying that Mr. Bret has asked all his friends from the USA to recognize and condemn, orally then in writing, all of his crimes. It goes without saying that Mr. Bret is necessarily also “committed” to the “recognition” of the “Armenian genocide” as “recognition” of numerous crimes of the FRA, the 1890s to today.

How? You have not read, heard or seen it in the media, but then not at all? This may be an omission on their part. Just think, a genius like Mr. Bret can not ignore such acts.

[1] Guenter Lewy, “Revisiting the Armenian Genocide,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005.

[2] Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaw Jay Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, New York / London, Cambridge University Press, Volume II, revised edition, 1978, pp. 315-325 (according to Ottoman documents).

[3] “The explanation of Bernard Lewis,” The World, 1 January 1994.

[4] Gilles Veinstein, “Three questions about a massacre,” The History, April 1995.

[5] “But if we take into account the fact that Turks and Kurds have also deplored the heavy loss, and certainly more than combat due to illness, approximately one third of British soldiers Indians and taken prisoner by the Turks in 1916 have died, all this strongly suggests that no genocidal intent existed. “Eberhard Jäckel,” Genozid oder nicht? “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 22, 2006.

[6] “The evidence is insufficient evidence to convince us that the events should be classified as genocide under the terms of the UN Convention on Genocide of 1948 which, anyway, is not to retroactive application. The interpretation of events in Eastern Anatolia in 1915-1916 is still the subject of genuine debate among historians. “Lady Scott (Foreign Office), statement on behalf of the British Government in the House of Lords, 2001.

[7] “The federal government believes that consideration of massacres in 1915-1916 can not be by definition a matter of history and that it therefore applies only to historical research and both countries are interested in ascertaining the Turkey and Armenia. Response from the German Minister of Foreign Affairs to a parliamentary question in March 2001.

[8] “Israeli Parliament Rejects Alleged Genocide Bill”, Turkish Daily News, March 16, 2007.

[9] “Bulgarian Lawmakers reject Armenian” genocide “claims”, Turkish Daily News, January 18, 2008.

[10] “We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing comparable to the Holocaust has taken place. What the Armenians suffered a tragedy but not a genocide. Shimon Peres interview with the Turkish Daily News, April 10, 2001.

[Eleven] Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2002, p. 262.

[12] Francis Georgeon, Abdulhamid II, Sultan Caliph, Paris, Fayard, 2003, pp. 299-300, Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaw Jay Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, op. cit., pp. 203-205.

[13] Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. cit., p. 2.

[14] Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, Ömer Cemalettin TASKIRAN and Turan, The Armenian Rebellion at Van, Salt Lake City, Utah University Press, 2006, pp. 164-165.

[15] Justin McCarthy et al, The Armenian Rebellion at Van, op. cit., pp. 233-251.

[16] Michael M. Gunter, “Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People. A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1986, p. 55.

[17] Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. cit., pp. 21-114, especially pp. 88-93 on the attack in Lisbon.

[18] “A representative of Boris Yeltsin killed in the North Caucasus”, Le Monde, August 3, 1993; Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. cit., p. 262. It is true that the two victims have not breached the global humanism, is the least we can write, but they deserved a trial, not an ambush.

[19] The ban was also motivated by the relations between the USA and part of the Russian extreme right, one led by Mr. Zhirinovsky: Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. cit., p. 241.

[20] Sedat Laçiner, “The Second World War: Armenian-Nazi Collaboration? “The Journal of Turkish Weekly, May 21, 2005. id = 1133

[21] “Dro, became pro-Nazi hero,” L’Humanite, 19 April 1999. See also the official website of the FRA:

[22]

[23]
URL for this article: http://www.turquieeuropeenne.org/article2455.html

© 2004 European Turkey. All rights reserved

May 3, 2010
Historian wins court case against ‘Armenian genocide’

29Apr10

‘French Researcher Maxime Gauin’s letter as a response to the Washington Post article by Prof. Henry Barkey; ‘The Armenian genocide resolution is a farce all around’.

Fransa’da önemli bir hukuk savaşı kazanıldı.

28 Nisan 2010 Çarşamba

Ermeni tezleri çizgisi dışında 1915 olayları hakkında değişik düşüncelerin konuşulmasına ve tartışılmasına “gizli 301” ile pek müsaade etmeyen Fransa’da önemli bir hukuk savaşı kazanıldı.

Türk kelimesine bile tahammül edemeyen ve 30 seneyi aşkın süredir istediğini söyleyen, 1915 olaylarını 2. dünya savaşında Yahudilerin yaşadıkları soykırım ile karşılaştırabilen Ermeni diasporası bu sefer sert kayaya çarptı.

23 yaşındaki Fransız genç tarihçi Maxime Gauin’a bir internet sitesinde 1915 olaylarında gerçekleri anlatmak için yazdığı yazı yüzünden “nazi”, “Yahudileri ölüm kamplarına göndermek için toplayan Fransız milisi” ve gene sadece Yahudi soykırımı için kullanılabilen ve Fransız hukukuna göre suç sayılan “inkarcı” benzetmesini yapan Fransa’nın Lyon şehri Villeurbanne banliyösü belediye meclis üyesi ve Villeurbanne Daşnaksutyun ile Federation revolutionnaire Arménienne (Ermeni devrimci federasyonu) bölge yöneticisi Movses Nişanyan, yaptığı benzetme ve hakaretler yüzünden Lyon mahkemesi tarafından 500 euro para cezasına çarptırıldı.

Genç tarihçi Maxime Gauin, Movses Nişanyan’a Lyon ceza mahkemesi nezninde hakaret davası açmıştı. Ancak ilk duruşma kararı verilirken teknik bir hatayı gerekçe olarak kullanarak Movses Nişanyan’a bir ceza vermek istemeyen mahkeme heyeti, buna benzer bir konuda daha önce mahkemeler tarafından karar verildiği yolunda yapılan ikazlar sonucu karar aşamasını bugüne bırakmıştı.

Fransa’da geçerli olan kanunlar ışığında, Lyon ceza mahkemesi Movses Nişanyan’ı Maxime Gauin’a 500 euro tazminat vermeye mahkum etti.

Verilen bu tarihi karar Fransa’da bir “ilk” oluşturuyor, çok kolay bir şekilde Türklere nazi benzetmesi yapan Ermeni diasporası ilk defa bu benzetmeleri yüzünden mahkum edildi, bu sayede Fransa’da bulunan Türk derneklerine de, “inkarcı”, “nazi” gibi hakarete uğramaları durumunda mahkemede dava etme yolu açılmış oldu.

Engin Akgürbüz/ LYON, (DHA)

=======================================================================

‘French Researcher Maxime Gauin’s letter as a response to the Washington Post article by Prof. Henry Barkey; ‘The Armenian genocide resolution is a farce all around’.

“Mister Barkey,

Your article “The Armenian Genocide Resolution is a Farce all Around” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030202375.html?waporef=obinsite) is an interesting and iconoclast analysis; unfortunately, among the pertinent remarks, there is this big error:

“To be clear, the overwhelming historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was genocide.”

1. Many respectable historians criticize the “genocide” label, including Roderic H. Davison, Gwynne Dyer, Edward J. Erickson, Michael M. Gunter, Paul B. Henze, J. C. Hurewitz, Yitzchak Kerem, Bernard Lewis, Guenter Lewy, Heath Lowry, Justin McCarthy, Andrew Mango, Robert Mantran, Jeremy Salt, Stanford J. Shaw, Norman Stone, Gilles Veinstein and Robert F. Zeidner.

2. There is simply no evidence of a genocide intent.

— Gwynne Dyer demonstrated as early as 1973 that Mevlanzade Rifat’s book is a crude falsification, and even Yves Ternon, strongly favorable to Armenian nationalists, considers this work as more than dubtious.

— The “Andonian documents” were proved to be forgeries, more than twenty-five years ago: Christopher Walker, who believed in 1980 to the authenticity of “Andonian documents” suppressed almost all references to this material in the second edition of his book (Armenia. The Survival of a Nation, London, Routledge, 1990), then wrote in an article that “doubt must remain until and unless the documents or similar ones themselves resurface and are published in a critical edition” (“World War I and the Armenian Genocide”, in Richard G. Hovannisian, [ed.], The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Time, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1997, p. 247). Absolutely no effort in this sense was made since 1997: it is perhaps the best evidence that Andonian material is nothing but a forgery.

— The “Ten Commandments” are a another forgery. As early as 1973 Gwynne Dyer demonstrated that the authenticity is highly questionable. More recently, even the strongly pro-Armenian historian Donald Bloxham noticed (“Donald Bloxham replies”, History Today, July 2005, Vol. 55, Issue 7) : “Most serious historians accept that this document is dubious at best, and probably a fake. It was the subject of controversy some twenty years before Dadrian rediscovered it for publication in 1993. The document’s donor originally offered it for sale to the British authorities in February 1919, a time when numerous fraudulent documents were in circulation.”

The late Stanford J. Shaw, former professor of Turkish history at Harvard, University of California-Los Angeles and Bilkent noticed: “The British and French authorities to who they had been handed pointed out that they were at complete variance with Ottoman style and vocabulary and were obvious forgeries, as a result never using them in courts of law” (From Empire to Republic. The Turkish War of National Liberation. 1918-1923, Ankara, 2000, tome I, p. 316). Similarly, British historian Jeremy Salt, considers that the text is “certainly a fake” ().

— Ambassador Morgenthau’s story, which was not considered as a reliable source by actual American specialists like George Abel Schreiner and Horace C. Peterson, is refuted even by the personal archives of Morgenthau himself. See Ralph Elliot Cook, The United States and the Armenian Question, 1894-1924, Ph.D. dissertation, Flertcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1957, p. 129; Heath Lowry, The Story Behind “Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story”, Istanbul, The Isis Press, 1990 (available online: http://www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=en&Page=YayinIcerik&SayiNo=19) and Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 2005, pp. 140-142.

— The Special Organization was accused by Arthur Beylerian, V. Dadrian and Taner Akçam to be a key of “racial extermination”, but only in using falsified quotations and in neglecting the archival material of this organization, as demonstrated by Guenter Lewy and Edward J. Erickson: https://www.meforum.org/748/revisiting-the-armenian-genocide https://www.meforum.org/991/armenian-massacres-new-records-undercut-old-blame

— The Turkish martial-courts of 1919-1920 violated all the basic rights of defense, and all their original material is lost, as explained by Guenter Lewy in his article and his mentioned before. See also Ferudun Ata, İşgal İstanbul’unda Tehcir Yargılamaları (“The Istanbul Trials of Relocation”), Ankara, TTK, 2005.

3. It is not true that Western sources support mostly the “genocide” allegations.

US journalist George Abel Schreiner, who traveled extensively in Anatolia, wrote that “Turkish ineptness, more than intentional brutality, was responsible for the hardships the Armenian subjected to” (The Craft Sinister: A Diplomatic History of the Great War and Its Causes, New York, G. Albert, 1920, pp. 124-125).

Swedish journalist G. H. Pravitz published an account of his trip in Eastern Anatolia then in Arab provinces, in his newspaper Nya Dagligt Allehanda, April 23, 1917. He concluded that there was no campaign of extermination and that all the allegations of massacres which he checked were false (http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/swedish-eyewitness.htm).

Heinrich Bergfeld, German consul in Trebizond, who served eight years in Turkey and spoke Turkish, checked rumors of “massacre” in his region, together with the US consul Oscar Heizer, on July 17, 1915: they concluded that the rumors were baseless; in other occasions, Bergfeld denounced crimes against other convoys of displaced Armenian, who indeed occurred this time (Guenter Lewy, op. cit., pp. 145-146).

William Peet, the American head of international Armenian relief effort in Istanbul, recalled that Talat Pasha “gave prompt attention to my requests, frequently greeting me as I called upon him in his office with the introductory remark: ‘We are partners, what can I do for you today?’” (Louise Jenison Peet, No Less Honor: The Biography of William Wheelock Peet, Chattanooga, E. A. Andrews, 1939, p. 170).

H. Philips, diplomat serving in US embassy of Istanbul, sent on September 1^st, 1916, a report concluding that atrocities were committed by local officials, without orders from central government (Guenter Lewy, op. cit., p. 231).

Otto Liman von Sanders, chief of German military mission in Ottoman Empire, and not exactly a Turkophile, explained that “In the execution of expulsions many of the terrible and damnable cases of ruthlessness may unquestionably be ascribed to the minor official whose personal hatred and rapacity gave the measures ordered from above enhancement of harshness that was not intended [by Ottoman government]” (Five Years in Turkey, Annapolis, U.S. Naval Institute, 1927, p. 157; translated from German by Carl Reichmann).

The report of General Harbord, approved by US Senate in 1920, does not mention any “extermination campaign” but war crimes from both sides (see the full text online: https://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/04/2813-conditions-in-near-east-report-of.html). The report of Emory Niles and Arthur Sutherland supports the same conclusion, with more details ().

Moreover, the compilation of German documents published by Johannes Lepsius in 1919 was proved to be not only selective, but also full of dishonest ellipses and even containing pure and simple manipulations of texts, as a systematic comparison between the originals of German archives and the published version demonstrates (Cem Özgönül, Der Mythos Eines Völkermordes, Cologne, Önel Verlag, 2005).

4. The “genocide recognitions” forget the crimes committed by Armenian nationalists.

— The crimes committed against the Armenian population herself.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Hunchakian Party killed many decent Armenians, who were loyal to Ottoman Empire, or at least, denounced the methods of gangsters used by revolutionary committees, including the Armenian chief of Ottoman police in Bitlis, assassinated in 1898, and the mayor of Van Bedros Kapamajian, assassinated in 1912 (see, among others: Kapriel S. Papazian, Patriotism Perverted, Boston, Baikar Press, 1934, pp. 13-18 and pp. 68-73; Justin McCarthy, “The Armenian Uprising and the Ottomans”, Review of Armenian Studies, 7-8, 2005).

The Armenian revolutionary committees claimed their responsibility in the massacres of Armenians of WWI, explaining that they organized insurrections and recruitment of volunteers for Russian an French army in guessing perfectly the tragic consequence (Gareguine Pasdermadjian, Why Armenia Should Be Free, Boston, Hairenik Press, 1918, p. 43; Aram Turabian, Les Volontaires arméniens sous les drapeaux français, Marseille, Imprimerie nouvelle, 1917, pp. 41-42).

— Then, the great massacres of Muslim and Jewish civilians.

Haig Shiroyan, an Ottoman Armenian who became an US citizens, wrote in his Memories: “The Russian victorious armies, reinforced by Armenian volunteers, had slaughtered every Turk they could find, destroyed every house they penetrated” (Smiling Through the Tears, New York, 1954, p. 186). Niles and Sutherland, in their report mentioned before, noticed: “Armenians massacred Musulmans on a large scale with many refinements of cruelties” and that “Armenians are responsible for most of the destruction done to towns and villages”.

Ottoman archives are full of first-hand accounts about atrocities committed by Armenian volunteers, including burning of babies, cutting of women’s breast, etc.; many documents were translated into Western languages: https://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents2.pdf https://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/turcs_et_armeniens.pdf Archeological excavations, carried out in Eastern Anatolia thanks to documents and very old survivors, discovered several thousands of skeletons, from 1986 to 2003, identified thanks to specific clothes, small Korans, bullets, and, for the last mass graves, thanks to DNA tests.

— Finally, the Armenian terrorism which supported the “recognition movement” — and was supported by ARF, Hunchak and some personalities of Ramkavar/AGBU. Armenian terrorists killed at least 70 persons, wounded more than 500, and perpetrating 160 attacks by explosives.

One of the Armenian terrorist groups was simply a branch of ARF (Francis P. Hyland, Armenian Terrorism: the Past, the Present, the Prospects, Boulder-San Francisco-Oxford, Westview Press, 1991, pp. 61-62; Gaïdz Minassian, Guerre et terrorisme arméniens, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2002, pp. 28-37 and 106-109; Yves Ternon, La Cause arménienne, Paris, Le Seuil, 1983, pp. 218-224). ARF of Californian and elsewhere celebrates the racist murderer Hampig Sassounian, sentenced to life by Californian justice, currently in a Californian jail (among many other examples: www.asbarez.com/45716/sassounian-thanks-community-for-continued-support/ www.asbarez.com/46446/more-than-70-000-raised-for-hampig-sassounian-defense-effort/ www.fra-france.com/print_article.php?id=56).

Mourad Topalian, one of the most active Armenian American lobbyists, former president of Armenian National Committee of America, was sentenced in 2001 to 37 months of jail for illegal storing of war weapons and explosives, linked to a terrorist organization. Vicken Hovsepian, principal leader of ARF in USA, was sentenced in 1984 to six years of jail for participation to an attempt of bombing.

Who recalled the terrorist past activities of these peoples during the debate about “genocide” resolution?

In hoping to read more balanced accounts of WWI and Armenian terrorism in your articles,

Regards,

Maxime Gauin,

Paris”

_______________________________________________________

WASHINGTON POST

The Armenian genocide resolution is a farce all around

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030202375.html?waporef=obinsite

_______________________________________

May 2, 2010
ROBERT FISK, KEN HACHIKIAN JOIN CANADIAN ARMENIANS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATIONS

Asbarez
Apr 29th, 2010

TORONTO, ON – In commemoration of the 95th Anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, over one thousand members of the Canadian-Armenian community
of Toronto, joined by a number of prominent political and community
guests gathered at the Armenian Youth Centre on Sunday, April 25th.

Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism The Hon.

Jason Kenney conveyed the message of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition delivered his
message to the community. Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic
Party of Canada was unable to attend but sent a message.

Keynote speaker Robert Fisk addresses the audience.The evening’s
keynote speaker was Middle Eastern Correspondent for The Independent,
Robert Fisk, who discussed Turkey’s denial campaign and stressed
the importance of worldwide recognition of the Armenian Holocaust,
as it is referred to in The Independent.

Fisk holds more British and International journalism awards than any
other foreign correspondent. In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt
Prize for “outstanding contributions towards the clarification of
political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding”
for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide. To watch Robert
Fisk’s televised interview on CTV on April 24th please visit
.

Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Chairman Ken Hachikian
was also a guest speaker at the event and discussed the current
state of House Resolution 252, the status of the Protocols as well
as President Obama’s statement regarding the Armenian Genocide and
Turkey’s continuous denial of this crime against humanity.

“For let there be no mistake, denial of the Armenian Genocide is
the denial of security to the Armenian nation. Armenia cannot,
today, be safe while the Turkish Republic remains on her border as
an unrepentant, antagonistic, and over-armed denier state.” stated
Hachikian.

Jivan Gasparyan Jr., famed Duduk player and grandson of the legendary
musician Jivan Gasparyan, performed a set of songs dedicated to the
one and a half million Armenians who were annihilated in 1915.

Additional dignitaries in attendance included David Caplan, Member of
Provincial Parliament for Don Valley East delivered a message from
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Frank Klees, Member of Provincial
Parliament for Newmarket-Aurora brought greetings from Progressive
Conservative Party of Ontario leader Tim Hudak. Michael Prue, Member
of Provincial Parliament for Beaches East York delivered the message
of the Ontario New Democratic Party and its leader Andrea Horwath.

Toronto Councilor Shelley Carroll, Ward 33 delivered Toronto Mayor
David Miller’s message. Jack Heath, Deputy Mayor of Markham brought a
message from Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti. Toronto District School
Board Chairman Bruce Davis delivered a message on the importance of
genocide education.

Guest speaker, ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian addresses the audience.

Also, in attendance were members of various levels of government
including: Senator Consiglio Di Nino (Ontario); Jim Karygiannis, MP
(Scarborough Agincourt); John McKay, MP (Scarborough-Guildwood); John
Cannis, MP (Scarborough Centre); Derek Lee, MP (Scarborough Rouge
River); Rob Oliphant, MP (Don Valley West); Borys Wrzesnewskyj, MP
(Etobicoke Centre); Paul Calandra, MP (Oak Ridges-Markham); Lois Brown,
MP (Newmarket-Aurora); Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Eric
Hoskins, MPP; Chair of Cabinet and Minister Responsible for Seniors
Gerry Phillips, MPP; Helena Jaczek, MPP (Oak Ridges-Markham); Toronto
City Councillors Adam Giambrone (Ward 18), Chin Lee (Ward 41), Mike Del
Grande (Ward 39) and Norm Kelly (Ward 40); York Regional Councillor
Gordon Landon (Town of Markham); Markham Councillor Logan Kanapathi
(Ward 7); Toronto District School Board Trustees Soo Wong (Ward 20)
and Michael Couteau (Ward 17).

Additionally, Toronto Mayoral candidates George Smitherman, Rocco
Rossi and Sarah Thomson attended.

The event was organized by the United Committee of Toronto for the
95th Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, consisting of A.R.F
Soghoman Tehlirian Gomideh, S.D. Hnchagian Party Paramaz Chapter and
A.D.L. (Ramgavar) Yesayi Yaghoubian Chapter.

The Armenian National Committee of Toronto is a chapter of the
Armenian National Committee of Canada, a grassroots organization that
was founded in 1965 to address the concerns of the Canadian Armenian
community on a broad range of issues.

———–

Awards

In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob’s Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War.^[24] He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. In 1999 Fisk won the Orwell Prize for journalism.^[25] He received the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its “Reporter of the Year” award.^[26] In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for “outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding” for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915.^[27] In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.^[28]

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.^[29]

Fisk gave the 2005 Edward Said Memorial lecture at Adelaide University.^[30]

April 30, 2010