Robert Fisk: Living proof of the Armenian genocide

"It's only a small grave, a rectangle of cheap concrete marking it out, blessed by a flourish of wild yellow lilies. Inside are the powdered bones and skulls and bits of femur of up to 300 children, Armenian orphans of the great 1915 genocide who died of cholera and starvation as the Turkish authorities tried to "Turkify" them in a converted Catholic college high above Beirut. But for once, it is the almost unknown story of the surviving 1,200 children – between three and 15 years old – who lived in the crowded dormitory of this ironically beautiful cut-stone school that proves that the Turks did indeed commit genocide against the Armenians in 1915."

"Barack Obama and his pliant Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton – who are now campaigning so pitifully to prevent the US Congress acknowledging that the Ottoman Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians was a genocide – should come here to this Lebanese hilltop village and hang their heads in shame. For this is a tragic, appalling tale of brutality against small and defenceless children whose families had already been murdered by Turkish forces at the height of the First World War, some of whom were to recall how they were forced to grind up and eat the skeletons of their dead fellow child orphans in order to survive starvation."

David Miller on the Armenian Genocide denial in the UK

David Miller, the former British ambassador to Armenia, was one of the distinguished speakers at the London School of Economics screening of "The Blue Book", a British documentary about the ongoing Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide. The film and discussion drew an audience of over 100 students and staff. Mr Miller was clearly disturbed by the documentary by Gagik Karageuzian and the levels at which denial still runs deep in modern day Turkey. He engaged the Blue Book issue (a 1916 British parliamentary publication which the Turkish government falsely calls a forgery) and summarised Turkish tactics on Armenian issues, including the Turkish stance on the recently signed Protocols between Yerevan and Ankara, as bullying.

Miller went on to state that he did not think the British Foreign Office would recognise the Armenian Genocide on its own initiative. This was not due to a lack of evidence because, as he suggested, the Foreign Office knew very well about the Armenian Genocide from its own archives. He saw the British non-recognition as part of the sad fact that Great Britain had a record of appeasing dictatorships and powerful states in its national interests.

Miller then gave an example of what he meant. In 1940 over 20,000 Polish prisoners of war and civilians were murdered in cold blood at Katyn forest by Soviet troops on the orders of Joseph Stalin. The Soviets hid these killings, and then blamed the Germans who discovered the corpses in 1943. The British (and Americans), who knew the truth about the Katyn massacre as early as 1940, remained silent about it. It was not until 1990, when the Russian government itself recognised these mass executions by Soviet troops that the British Foreign Office also spoke up. 

So, when did the speaker think the Foreign Office might recognise the Armenian Genocide? Only "when Turkey recognises it" was the response. 

The screening of "The Blue Book" at the London School of Economics was organised by the LSE SU Armenian Society. The speakers were Lord Avebury, David Miller and Ara Sarafian.

Robert Fisk: Someone remembers this atrocity at last – to Obama's dismay

Once more we have to forget the Armenian Holocaust – the first of the 20th century – in order to appease the Turks. Bill Clinton did it. 

George W Bush spinelessly caved in to the Turkish generals. And now our favourite Nobel prize winner – another brave president who promised to acknowledge the Armenian genocide if he was elected and then declined to do so – went whinging and whining to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington and pleaded with them not to tell the truth about the savage rape and murder of 1.5 million Armenian civilians by the Turks in 1915. Good for the committee that it did not give in. But it will do no good. 

Sure, the Turkish ambassador has been recalled from Washington in a huff. But equally certain is that there will be no vote on the genocide by the full House of Representatives. And if there is, there'll never be a vote in the Senate. Obama will help see to that. The man who wanted change doesn't want change on the little matter of a genocide that led directly to the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews. 

The events in Washington prove a few things. The Armenian American community have a more powerful and wealthier lobby than ever before. More seriously – for the Turks – is that this year Turkey did not have the Israeli lobby behind it. In the past, Israel, which disgracefully claims that the Armenian Holocaust was not a genocide, has supported its close ally Turkey. But this year, Israel and Turkey have fallen out and the Israelis are still miffed at Turkey's condemnation of the bloodbath in Gaza. 

The Turks sent their generals to bully Bush last time round. This time, the Turkish Foreign Minister warned that "Turkish-US ties are going through a very important phase in which they need strategic co-operation at the highest level in their history." The message is simple. Acknowledge the genocide, and the US will lose its airbases in Turkey and the Turkish roads its military convoys use into Iraq. 

The fact, unfortunately, is that these roads are the very highways down which the Armenians were sent on their death marches in 1915. That's not mentioned, of course. Our faithful Turkish ally might even pack up its support for the US in Afghanistan, where they are helping fight "Obama's war". But Robert Gates is still in Washington to remind congressmen what he said last year; that America needed "those roads and so on". Well, let's just hope the American troops don't halt their convoys and dig in the fields around those roads in the coming years. The skeletons are still there in their tens of thousands. 

One wonders what would happen if Germany suddenly decided that the Nazi Holocaust was not a genocide. Would Chancellor Merkel get away with it? Would Obama lobby that Germany should be allowed to get away with such an obscenity? Perhaps it's worth remembering that in 1939, Hitler asked his generals – before setting off into Poland to murder the millions of Jews in eastern Europe – a simple question: "Who now remembers the Armenians?" Well, Hitler got the answer he would have wanted from Obama this week.

Israel can no longer ignore the existence of the first Holocaust (Robert Fisk)

Recognition of the Armenian genocide is a paramount moral and educational act. While Israelis commemorated the second Holocaust of the 20th century this week, I was in the Gulbenkian library in Jerusalem, holding the printed and handwritten records of the victims of the century's first Holocaust. It was a strange sensation. The Armenians were not participating in Israel's official ceremonies to remember the six million Jewish dead, murdered by the Germans between 1939 and 1945, perhaps because Israel officially refuses to acknowledge that Armenia's million and a half dead of 1915-1923 were victims of a Turkish Holocaust. Israeli-Turkish diplomatic and military relations are more important than genocide. Or were.

First Minister of Wales Recognises the Armenian Genocide

Yesterday, exactly two years after the desecration of the Armenian Genocide Monument in Cardiff, was an historic day for the Welsh and Armenian nations. The road to Genocide recognition, which began on 24th April 2001, when Rhodri Morgan (then First Minister), laid flowers in memory of the 1915 Genocide victims, was completed in Cardiff with an explicit recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the new First Minister, Mr Carwyn Jones. The National Holocaust Day event was supported by the Welsh Assembly Government and the Cardiff City Council. The Genocide was also recognised at the event by guest speaker Rabbi Aron Hier from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Los Angeles. The Armenians were mentioned in the poem 'Night and Fog' recited by Peter Finch, Chair of Academia. The persistent diplomacy of Mr. John Torosyan and the moving spirit of the Welsh Armenian community was an important factor in this historic achievement.

The Blue Book: Witnessing History at the Royal Holloway, University of London

The Blue Book: Witnessing History by Gagik Karageuzian (Anisounds)

Royal Holloway College (University of London), Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, 7:00 pm, room MX001

This is a contemporary film about the continuing efforts of Turkish Parliamentarians to deny the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The film starts with a petition to the British Parliament calling the Armenian Genocide a British wartime fabrication and subsequently moves to Istanbul, Ankara and locations where thousands of Armenians were murdered in 1915. Sponsored by the Politics and International Relations Society and The School of Modern Languages, Literature and Culture.

Remembering Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink Day was marked in London with a solemn gathering outside the Turkish Embassy at 1p.m. and a three hour sequence of well attended meetings in The House of Commons and the House of Lords, where "Friends of Belge" was launched. Sponsors of the events were Nia Griffith MP, Dr. Bob Spink MP and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff. Speakers included the Istanbul publisher Ragip Zarakolu, the genocide scholar Desmond Fernandes, Ruth Barnett from the Holocaust Educational Trust, Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian, the historian Vardan Tadevossian, Kasim Agpak from FEDBIR - the Kurdish Federation, Haci Ozdemir from the International Committee Against Disappearances (British Section) and Saad Tokatly from Iraqi Christians in the UK.

Ragip Zarokulu spoke about Hrant: "We had dreams together for a different Turkey, we had dreams together for a different world". He went on to describe the philosophy underpinning the Turkish 'deep state', in which the 'minorities' are viewed as interior enemies and a permanent threat to national security. This idea is described in the National Security Document, referred to as the "Red Book", which goes on to state that it is the army's responsibility to fight against this "threat". This concept of the minorities being interior enemies has deep roots in Turkey going back to 1915. Ragip emphasised the manner in which "the Turkish State has a double structure, the open structure of the state apparatus and the 'deep structure' which is hidden. The 'deep' part in 1915 comprised the special committees who organised the mass killings during the Genocide. Hrant was open about the reality of the Genocide, and encouraged Armenians in Turkey, for the first time since the founding of the Republic, to speak openly about their Armenian identity. He wanted to show Armenian identity to Turkish society as a base for peaceful co-existence. [But] even though the Turkish State well knew that Hrant's life became endangered from the time that" he was placed "on a 'black-list', they made no effort to prevent his murder. By killing Hrant, they were killing themselves. Nothing can be the same again after Hrant's murder. Turkey has to change or face ending in a much worse situation".

Ruth Barnett from the Holocaust Educational Trust presented a moving account of "The shared Jewish and Armenian experience". Desmond Fernandes observed the manner in which "it is clear that there is a crisis in Turkey as far as human rights are concerned – human rights, here, in an individual and collective sense as far as 'Others' – 'Armenians', 'Kurds', 'Assyrians', 'Greeks', 'Roma', 'Turkish or Kurdish Alevi' or 'Christian Others', 'human rights campaigners', 'people from the targeted left', 'trade unionist and student Others asking for collective bargaining rights', 'publishers and journalists working on topics relating to the deep state and/or the plight and acknowledged identity of the Other in Turkey' - are concerned. One can, unfortunately, observe that the spectre - and the reality - of genocide remains, as defined by Raphael Lemkin, the UN Genocide Convention and by several distinguished genocide scholars". He also detailed specific genocidal concerns that had been raised by Abdullah Ocalan, Theoharis Kekis and KCK Executive Council members Bozan Tekin and Cemil Bayik, and the frightening dimensions of lynch campaigns against targeted 'Others' as well as the 'Cage Operation Action Plan' which "was supposedly worked out as a coup plan by the Naval Forces, targeting non-Muslims" (Onderoglu). Disturbingly, he noted that several state initiatives seem to have been designed to politically derail any lasting or meaningful peace processes with the KCK(Koma Civaken Kurdistan)-PKK (which had initiated a cease-fire and peace process), or with the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the mass based pro-Kurdish party which was constitutionally closed down in December 2009, with criminal proceedings initiated against its sitting members of parliament. People even from the newly formed but mass based pro-Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), as well as sitting and former Kurdish mayors and human rights campaigners were being targeted in a scandalous manner.

Kasim Agpak spoke powerfully about the nature of state terror in Turkey and the murder and significance of Hrant Dink's assassination. Vardan Tadevossian's presentation emphasised the nature of the ongoing genocide of Armenians and the extent of destruction of Armenia's heritage. Saad Tokatly examined the "Consequences of the Genocide for Assyrians in Turkey and Iraq" and "The current problems of Assyrians and other Middle East Christians".

With the launch of 'Friends of Belge', Ragip Zarakolu explained the context in which publishers like Belge - together with writers and journalists - were still being subject to criminalisation, targeting and intimidation. In answering questions from the floor, it became all too evident that Article 301 was - and is - still being used to curb freedom of expression, despite denials by certain Turkish officials in this matter. Haci Ozdemir from the International Committee Against Disappearances (British Section) detailed the extensive manner in which ongoing Turkish state terror and criminalisation of writers, journalists and publishers is evident. He also explained the relevance of holding the International Committee Against Disappearances' international conference in London in May this year.

Thousands in Istanbul Mark Third Anniversary of Dink’s Murder

"Thousands gathered Tuesday at the site in Istanbul where Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered three years ago, a slaying that caused a national outcry for both Turks and Armenians. The crowd, numbering around 2,000 to 3,000 according to police, braved snowfall to gather outside the offices of the Agos newspaper where Dink was editor-in-chief, chanting “The murderer state has to account for this!”, “We know the murderers, we want justice!” “As long as light is not shed on this murder, we will be here, we will not give up,” said one of the many people who addressed the crowd from the window of the Agos office from which hung a picture of the slain journalist. Several people left carnations and candles at the place where then 52-year-old Dink was killed on January 19, 2007. This year’s slogan during the commemoration was “We know the killer, we want justice.” “I am eminently enraged,” retired teacher Semra Tugcu said as she stood in the crowd. She said she was not hopeful about Dink’s murder case. “I am a Turk, but this does not mean that I am not a minority in this country,” she said. “I feel like a minority, too.”

French Turkish Politician Convicted of denying Armenian Genocide In France

"ISTANBUL (Hurriyet)–A French citizen of Turkish origin was sentenced to pay 1,500 euros after she sued a party official for discrimination regarding the official’s question on whether she recognized the Armenian Genocide. Sirma Oran was a candidate from the Green Party in France for local elections but removed herself from candidacy after Villeurbanne Mayor Jean-Paul Bret asked her whether she accepted as genocide the annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey. Oran, the daughter of Professor Baskin Oran, a liberal who campaigns in Turkey for reconciliation with Armenians, said then that the question was not asked to other candidates and that she was discriminated against because of her origin. Oran sued Bret for discrimination, in a case closely followed by the Turkish and Armenian communities in France. The court of Lyon recently rejected Oran’s plea and fined her 1,500 euros and another 350 euros for court expenses. “French law recognizes the genocide,” the court stated in its decision. “Bret has the right to ask this question to Sirma Oran.”