Turkish Forum

Category: Main Issues

  • US genocide resolution is an ignorant stunt

    US genocide resolution is an ignorant stunt

    Definitions of genocide are difficult but one thing is clear: the US Congress has no business ruling on the Armenian claim

    Marcel Berlins

    So the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives has passed a resolution (by 23 votes to 22) that the Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide. What business is it of theirs? I’m not judging whether their decision was right; I don’t know enough to do that. My concern is that such ham-fisted intervention, and the publicity it received, demeans a crime which should be treated as the worst in the annals of human behaviour, and turns it into a political event played out by largely ignorant legislators responding to a campaign by a well-funded political lobby.

    Thankfully, their presumptuous decision will not find its way into the statute book. President Obama doesn’t want it to, just as an identical decision by the House of Representatives in 2007 did not become law because President Bush didn’t find it politically expedient.

    The word genocide and its original definition were crafted by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, in 1944. In 1948 the UN adopted the convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which defines it as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. (The defendants in the main Nuremberg trials in 1946 were not charged with genocide as such but a statement outlining their alleged war crimes accuses them of “deliberate systematic genocide – viz, the extermination of racial and national groups – against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories, in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others”.)

    The 1948 UN definition has come under critical scrutiny (for instance, can you intend to destroy “in part”?) with many experts offering different versions. But the gist remains the same.

    Recent atrocities in Darfur have added further confusion. Last month an appeal committee of the international criminal court (ICC) in the Hague recommended the court consider indicting Sudan’s president, Omar Al-Bashir, on a charge of genocide; this overturned a previous ruling by another arm of the ICC.

    It seems to me, following the generally agreed ingredients of most definitions, there were two clear cases of genocide last century – the Holocaust and the Rwandan massacre. Whether or not the Ottoman empire in 1915 was guilty is more open to debate. It’s not a question of the numbers who died, or in what appalling circumstances. What matters is the intention to exterminate, and a systematic attempt to do so. I am equally uncertain about Darfur and Srebrenica. There are many words for the horrifying conduct of some leaders and their troops, but genocide may not be one of them.

    What I am sure of is the decision to use that solemn word should be a matter for courts, helped by witnesses and historians, and not for politicians of dubious moral authority.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/mar/08/marcel-berlins-us-genocide-ruling, 8 March 2010

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

    Marcel Berlins (born 1941)[1] is a lawyer,[2] legal commentator, broadcaster, and columnist. He writes for British newspapers The Guardian and The Times, and presented BBC Radio 4’s legal programme Law in Action for 15 years.[3]

    He was born in Marseille,[4] France, but moved with his parents to South Africa as a teenager and stayed there till early adulthood.[5] He remains a French citizen, and voted in the 2007 French presidential election.[6]

    Berlins writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and regularly reviews crime fiction for The Times.[2] Berlins began presenting BBC Radio 4’s legal affairs programme Law in Action in 1988, and won two Legal Broadcaster of the Year awards before retiring from the programme in 2004.[3] He is a contestant in the 2009 series of Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz.[7] He is also a visiting professor in media law at City University, London.[8]

    [edit] Bibliography

    • 1979 – Ramesh Maharaj, barrister behind bars
    • 1982 – Living Together (with Clare Dyer)
    • 1986 – The Law Machine (with Clare Dyer) – the last edition was published in 2004

    [edit] References

    1. ^ 15px PD icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress (retrieved on 15 September 2009).
    2. ^ a b Marcel Berlins biography, The Guardian
    3. ^ a b About Law in Action, BBC website, retrieved 26 August 2009
    4. ^ Marcel Berlins (2006-08-30). “”Ségolène Royal is the left’s best bet to be the next leader of France. But the socialist elephants are out to stop her””. The Guardian. . Retrieved 2008-04-25.
    5. ^ Marcel Berlins (2005-12-14). “”I lived in a South Africa ruled by apartheid. Now I return to find that freedom has plunged the country into the real, hard world””. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/14/southafrica.comment. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
    6. ^ Marcel Berlins (2007-04-25). “”Yes, I backed the wrong horse in the French election, but at least I had some fun voting””. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/apr/25/comment.france. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
    7. ^ Round Britain Quiz website: “meet the teams”
    8. ^ Marcel Berlins City University London website

    [edit] External links

    • Marcel Berlins’ Guardian columns at Comment is free
    • “Marcel Berlins introduces The 50 Greatest Crime Writers list”, The Times, April 17, 2008
    • “Marcel Berlins reviews the latest crime fiction “, The Times, July 4, 2009
  • Turkey threatens ‘serious consequences’

    Turkey threatens ‘serious consequences’

    after US vote on Armenian genocide

    Strategic partnership at risk despite Barack Obama’s attempts to stop Congress resolution

    • Robert Tait in Istanbul and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
    • guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 March 2010 21.34 GMT
    Ahmet DavutogluForeign minister Ahmet Davutoglu says describing the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide is an insult to Turkey’s ‘honour’. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images

    Turkey has threatened to downgrade its strategic relationship with the US amid nationalist anger over a vote in the US Congress that defined the mass killings of Armenians during the first world war as genocide.

    Barack Obama‘s administration, which regards Turkey as an important ally, was today desperately seeking to defuse the row. It expressed its frustration with the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee, which voted 23-22 yesterday in favour of a resolution labelling the 1915 massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians a “genocide”.

    A furious Turkey may now deny the US access to the Incirlik air base, a staging post for Iraq, as it did at the time of the 2003 invasion, or withdraw its sizeable troop contribution to the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

    On the diplomatic front, the US needs the support of Turkey, which has a seat on the UN security council, in the push for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. Turkey is also helpful to the US on a host of other diplomatic issues in the Middle East and central Asia.

    The White House and state department began work today to try to prevent the controversial issue making its way to the floor of the house for a full vote.

    In Turkey, Suat Kiniklioglu, the influential deputy chairman for external affairs in the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), warned of “major consequences” if the resolution was accepted by the full House of Representatives.

    “If they choose to bring this to the floor they will have to face the fact that the consequences would be serious – the relationship would be downgraded at every level,” he said. “Everything from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq to the Middle East process would be affected.

    “There would be major disruption to the relationship between Turkey and the US.”

    His comments reflected deep-seated anger throughout Turkish society, as well as an official determination to press the Obama administration into making sure the resolution progresses no further.

    Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Washington for urgent “consultations” immediately after the vote, which was screened live on nationwide television.

    Its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, appeared to blame the outcome on the White House, and said that describing the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide was an insult to Turkey’s “honour”. France and Canada have both classified the killings as genocide, unlike Britain.

    “The picture shows that the US administration did not put enough weight behind the issue,” Davutoglu told a news conference. “We are seriously disturbed by the result.”

    The mass killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians has long been a highly sensitive subject in Turkey. While the issue is now more openly debated than in the past, Turkish officials insist that to describe it as genocide equates it with the Nazi Holocaust.

    Turkey admits that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died, but disputes suggestions that it was part of a programme to eliminate the population, insisting instead that many died of disease. It has also suggested that the numbers have been inflated, and pointed out that many Turks died at the hands of Armenians.

    Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who is on a visit to South America, stressed that both she and Obama opposed the house vote and wanted to see it go no further. She said any action by Congress was not appropriate. “We do not believe that the full Congress will, or should, act upon that resolution, and we have made that clear to all the parties involved.”

    Asked how she squared her support for the Armenian campaign on the election campaign trail with her new position, she said circumstances had changed, with the Turkish and Armenian governments engaged in talks on normalisation and a historical commission established to look at past events.

    “I do not think it is for any other country to determine how two countries resolve matters between them, to the extent that actions that the United States might take could disrupt this process,” she said.

    The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, Ken Hachikian, who led the lobbying campaign to get the house committee to back the resolution, today dismissed the Turkish threat of reprisals. “This is part of a Turkish pattern or huffing and puffing. With the other 20 countries that have passed similar resolutions, they made similar threats and then it was business as usual,” he said.

    Hachikian, who is based in Washington, said he hoped the vote would go to the full house before 24 April, Armenian genocide commemoration day. He accused Obama and Clinton of hypocrisy in trying to block a vote, saying they had supported the Armenian campaign during the presidential election.

    He said the Turkish government had spent $1m during the past few months lobbying members of Congress. His committee had spent only $75,000, which included adverts in media outlets read by members of Congress and their staff.

    Although Hachikian claimed to have the votes needed, and 215 members of the 435-member house have publicly backed the resolution, the chances of a full vote are small, given the opposition from the White House and state department.

    The vote came as attempts at rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia – which have no diplomatic ties – had already run aground. A protocol signed in Geneva last October promising to restore relations has yet to be ratified by the parliament of either country.

    Both Turkish and Armenian analysts voiced fears that the protocols may now be doomed.

  • GRIM HISTORY OF ARMENIANS IN TURKEY THAT LED TO ACCUSATIONS OF GENOCIDE

    GRIM HISTORY OF ARMENIANS IN TURKEY THAT LED TO ACCUSATIONS OF GENOCIDE

    Mark Tran

    guardian.co.uk

    Friday 5 March 2010 12.11 GMT

    Repression of 2.5 million people in Ottoman empire dates back to
    autonomy movement in late 19th century
    Ottoman soldiers pose with hanged Armenians
    Ottoman soldiers posing in front of hanged Armenians in 1915. A US
    congressional committee yesterday voted to label the Ottoman empire’s
    actions as genocide. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

    Armenia believes Turkey committed genocide in the deaths of at least
    1 million Armenians when they were deported from Turkish Armenia in
    1915, and welcomes the non-binding resolution passed by the US house
    foreign affairs committee.

    Repression of the 2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman empire dates
    back to 1894-96 under Sultan Abdulhamid, when Armenians in the eastern
    provinces, encouraged by Russia, began agitating for autonomy.

    Abdulhamid cracked down on separatist sentiment by encouraging
    nationalistic feelings against Armenians among neighbouring Kurdish
    tribesmen.

    A combination of Kurdish persecution and a rise in taxes led to an
    Armenian uprising that was brutally suppressed by Turkish troops
    and Kurdish tribesmen in 1894. Thousands of Armenians were killed
    and their villages burned. Two years later, another revolt broke
    out when Armenian rebels seized the Ottoman bank in Istanbul. More
    than 50,000 Armenians were killed by mobs apparently co-ordinated by
    government troops.

    Those death tolls were dwarfed by the killings during the first world
    war, when Armenians from the Caucasus formed volunteer battalions
    to help the Russian army against the Turks. Early in 1915, these
    battalions organised the recruiting of Turkish Armenians from behind
    Turkish lines.

    The Young Turk government reacted by ordering the deportation of the
    Armenian population to Syria and Palestine. About 1 million died from
    starvation or were killed by Arab or Kurdish tribes along the route.

    Many survivors fled to Russian Armenia where, in 1918, an independent
    Armenian republic was established. Armenia won independence when the
    Soviet Union fractured in 1991.

    Turkey accepts that atrocities took place but argues that there was
    no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenians. It puts the
    number of deaths during 1915 at around 300,000 and says many innocent
    Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.

    The legal definition of genocide is found in the 1948 UN convention
    on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

    Article two of this convention defines genocide as “any of the
    following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
    a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing
    members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
    of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
    calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
    part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

    Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
    International Peace in Washington DC, said that “the overwhelming
    historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was
    genocide”. He nevertheless opposes the US ruling as a needless
    political manoeuvre.

    Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among
    more than 20 countries which have formally recognised genocide against
    the Armenians. The European parliament and the UN sub-commission on
    prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities have also
    done so.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/05/history-armenia-turkey-genocide

    __,_._,___

  • US EMBASSY: WE WOULD NOT WANT DISCUSSIONS IN CONGRESS TO IMPACT US RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN

    US EMBASSY: WE WOULD NOT WANT DISCUSSIONS IN CONGRESS TO IMPACT US RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN

    BAKU / 06.03.10 / TURAN:

    US

    In response to questions of Turan about the U.S. position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee vote, U.S. Embassy spokesman Terry Davidson said:”We certainly would not want this discussion within the U.S. Congress to impact our relations with Azerbaijan. We are strategic partners, and there is much we are doing together that benefits both nations.”We are aware of Azerbaijan’s concern about the debate over this resolution in the U.S. Congress, and both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have made clear their desire that the U.S. Congress not be forum for debates about what happened in 1915. As they have stated, we believe the people of Turkey and Armenia – their societies, their historians – are the ones who should review this history and put it into perspective. “To that end, the United States has supported efforts to bring about rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, an opening that would include the creation of an ongoing dialogue about the tragic events of 1915. Secretary Clinton said last week that she hopes the full Congress will not take further action on this resolution, as we believe it to be unhelpful in the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia. That normalization would help bring long-term stability, peace and progress to the region.” -0-

    Turan Information Agency
  • Great Britain for open Armenian-Turkish border

    Great Britain for open Armenian-Turkish border

    CharlesLonsdaleGreat Britain wants the South Caucasus countries to establish friendly relations with each other, as well as with their neighbors, British Ambassador to Armenia Charles Lonsdale told NEWS.am. He pointed out that Great Britain is for both the Armenian-Turkish protocols and reopening of the Armenian-Turkish border. The past must by no means be forgotten, but good neighborly relations must be established and maintained, the Ambassador said. Mr. Lonsdale pointed out that Armenia and Great Britain are both interested in the Armenian-Turkish border being reopened.

    Ambassador Lonsdale refused to comment on the approval of the Armenian Genocide resolution by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He said that it us up to the U.S. Congress to make a decision.

    T.P.

    , 05/03/2010

  • Armenian Jewish Coalition Garners Support for Genocide Recognition

    Armenian Jewish Coalition Garners Support for Genocide Recognition

    By Andy Turpin
    Mirror-Spectator Staff

    LEXINGTON, Mass. — In anticipation of the House of Representatives’ Res. 252 to recognize the Armenian Genocide, members of the greater Boston Armenian and Jewish communities have formed an Armenian Jewish Coalition (AJC) and presented an online petition to garner support for the immediate passage of the resolution.

    Lexington resident and Armenian National Committee (ANCA) member Laura Boghosian is the co-chair of the AJC alongside Rabbi Howard L. Jaffe of Lexington’s Temple Isaiah.

    “It started with Rabbi Jaffe and myself and I brought in Dikran Kaligian [ANCA Eastern Region chairman] and we began a Steering Committee,” Boghosian said. “Most of the members who are from the Jewish community are from Temple Isaiah but crucial to helping us are Senior Rabbi Ronne Friedman and Rabbi Elaine Zecher of Temple Israel of Boston.”

    She explained, “From the Armenian community I wanted to cast a wide net. Involved in the coalition right now are Ruth Tomassian [executive director] from Project SAVE, Marc A. Mamigonian [director of programs and publications] from NAASR [the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research] and Sona Petrossian from the Newton Human Rights Commission.”

    “It started with a dialogue group and we had a series of three meetings where we broke into discussion groups. Most of the Jewish community members thought there was not enough education about the Armenian Genocide and not enough known about its history amongst the Jewish community,” she added.

    As for the coalition’s timeline she noted, “We started in the spring of 2008 and the meetings went through November. The outcome was that we should have some kind of Action Committee to come out of the group. The dialogue group itself was a reaction to the 2007 controversy of the Anti-Defamation League’s denial of the Armenian Genocide in its ‘No Place for Hate’ program school curriculums.”

    Boghosian prasied Jaffe’s staunch support for the coalition, adding, “He felt that recognizing the Armenian Genocide was the right thing to do and I really appreciated that because he was motivated to act on his principles.”

    She added that, “In May of 2008 during their Shoah [Holocaust] commemoration ceremony, they invited the Armenian community and Armenian historian Richard Hovanissian to speak about the parallels between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, after which [Prof.] Henry Theriault spoke to the temple’s men’s group about the impact of denial.”

    Boghosian said the AJC’s petition is the first of the groups actions to be publicly undertaken. “The coalition is important because it demonstrates there’s a grassroots effort in the Jewish community to recognize the Armenian Genocide and a core belief by both sides that human rights, not political expediency, need to govern US foreign policy,” she said.

    Another AJC member, Herman Purutyan of the Armenian Assembly of America, said of his involvement in the group, “I see this collaboration not ending here but continuing to raise awareness of the denial going on and I think other efforts will come forth in the future from this after the petition.

    “I think I personally bring into the conversation the Armenian Assembly’s participation through my own relations with that group. Although the Assembly is not a formal participant in the coalition, they have formally endorsed the petition,” he added.

    Jaffe stated that in 2007 he was largely unaware of the complexities and far-reaching scope of the denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey and the events’ power over aspects of various geo-political relations, noting, “I had no idea of the entrenchment of this issue in the politics of Jewish organizations.”

    He explained that to his surprise, “I actually found out through mutual friends that my remarks in favor of the ADL were offensive to those in the Armenian community and Laura Boghosian and others in the Armenian community helped educate me more on the subject. It was a very important encounter on both sides.”

    Speaking about Temple Isaiah’s inclusion of members of the Armenian community into its 2008 Shoah commemoration, Jaffe said that, “as a result of that relationship we brought in Richard Hovannissian to speak about the history and dynamics of the Armenian Genocide and its denial. That was unprecedented for us since most of our speakers on that occasion and in the
    Temple are exclusively Shoah related, and he spoke beautifully. A substantial number from the local Armenian community around Lexington attended the commemoration as well.”

    Jaffe went on to say that the Armenian Genocide recognition and education issue, “was very important to me and continues to be and there’s still an active amount of healing that needs to be done between the local Armenian and Jewish communities after the events of the ADL and the ‘No Place for Hate’ separation.”

    As for the next steps to be taken by the AJC in their grassroots campaign to further the cause of Armenian Genocide recognition Jaffe stated, “Future efforts are indefinite at this point. We in the Jewish community are taking our cues from those activists in the Armenian community that really are more educated on the issues of what needs to be done next.”

    He added, “We’ve been officially ignored by the mainstream Jewish organizations, many of which continue to deny the Armenian Genocide. This is unfortunate because the larger organizations need to take on this issue, especially because there are those in the Jewish community to which it really matters.”