Armenian Genocide Information Centre (UK)

Cameron's Despicable Toadying To Turkey (Eurasia Review)

2010-07-30T09:29:00.000+01:00

"It is sadly unsurprising that Prime Minister Cameron's highly publicized trip to Turkey went with no mention of that country's continued denial of the Armenian Genocide, and its suppression of Kurdish and Armenian minorities. Indeed when Turkish leader Erdogan discussed his threats of ethnically cleansing Armenians in the UK, Gordon Brown made no more comment on the matter than if Erdogan had been discussing his favorite television programs."

AGHET: German documentary on the Armenian Genocide (with English subtitles)

2010-07-20T20:12:00.002+01:00

The Armenian Genocide and the Turks (Spiegel)

2010-07-13T09:02:00.000+01:00

The month of April marks the 95th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide. An unusual television documentary shows what motivated the murderers and why Germany, and other countries, remained silent.

Tigranui Asartyan will be 100 this week. She put away her knives and forks two years ago, when she lost her sense of taste, and last year she stopped wearing glasses, having lost her sight. She lives on the seventh floor of a high-rise building in the Armenian capital Yerevan, and she hasn't left her room in months. She shivers as the cold penetrates the gray wool blanket on her lap. "I'm waiting to die," she says.

Ninety-two years ago, she was waiting in a village in on the Turkish side of today's border, hiding in the cellar of a house. The body of an Armenian boy who had been beaten to death lay on the street. Women were being raped in the house next door, and the eight-year-old girl could hear them screaming. "There are good and bad Turks," she says. The bad Turks beat the boy to death, while the good Turks helped her and her family to flee behind withdrawing Russian troops.

Avadis Demirci, a farmer, is 97. If anyone in his country keeps records on such things, he is probably the last Armenian in Turkey who survived the genocide. Demirci looks out the window at the village of Vakifli, where oleander bushes and tangerine trees are in full bloom. The Mediterranean is visible down the mountain and in the distance.

In July 1915, Turkish police units marched up to the village. "My father strapped me to his back when we fled," says Demirci. "At least that's what my parents told me." Armed with hunting rifles and pistols, the people from his and six other villages dug themselves in on Musa Dagh, or Moses Mountain. Eighteen years later, Austrian writer Franz Werfel described the villagers' armed resistance against the advancing soldiers in his novel "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh."

Read more at www.spiegel.de

The Betrayed: Armenian Genocide (BBC)

2010-04-25T08:56:00.002+01:00

Baroness Cox: British Government should recognise Armenian Genocide

2010-03-26T07:09:00.000Z

Baroness Cox writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her oral question on the Armenian Genocide

I am asking HMG whether it will reconsider its position on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide – sadly, without any hope of a change in the British government's consistent policy of refusal to acknowledge the truth.
However, the question is timely for three reasons:

1. The recent recognition by the Swedish Parliament of the state-organised massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish authorities, beginning in 1915, as genocide – the latest in a long line of Parliaments and other official bodies, such as the Vatican, to do so.

2. The publication last October of 'Was there an Armenian Genocide? Geoffrey Robertson QC's opinion with reference to Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents which show how British ministers, Parliament and people have been misled'.

3. This year marks the 95th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide and recognition is long overdue. Every genocide which remains unrecognised is, in effect, condoned – and can serve as an encouragement to other potential perpetrators of subsequent genocides. This was most infamously illustrated by Hitler's reference to the Armenian Genocide before he embarked on the extension of the Holocaust in Poland: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Robert Fisk: Living proof of the Armenian genocide

2010-03-10T12:10:00.002Z

"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

2010-03-09T12:50:00.000Z

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

2010-03-06T21:37:00.000Z

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)

2010-02-02T10:14:00.004Z

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

2010-01-28T10:49:00.001Z

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

2010-01-27T11:35:00.000Z

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

2010-01-22T09:36:00.000Z

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

2010-01-20T07:14:00.002Z

"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

2010-01-08T09:41:00.000Z

"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.”

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day bill introduced in the Commons

2010-01-07T12:35:00.000Z

"Mr. Andrew Dismore, supported by Ms Karen Buck, Clive Efford, John Austin and Rob Marris, presented a Bill to introduce a national day to learn about and remember the Armenian genocide. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 30 April, and to be printed."

Armenian Genocide 2010 petition launched

2009-12-29T14:53:00.000Z

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to officially and publicly condemn the Armenian Genocide as such.

"Times change, but as other civilised nations recognise, the universal crimes of genocide and torture have no statute of limitations. Judge Balthazar Garzon, in opening his investigation of the crimes of the Franco era, declared that their perpetrators should have no posthumous impunity: the same might be said of the authors of the Armenian Genocide." - Geoffrey Robertson QC, Legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide, October 2009.

Please sign the petition online at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/genocide2010/

Robert Fisk on Geoffrey Robertson QC's legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide

2009-12-22T15:32:00.000Z

"But while we're on the subject of Holocausts, let's turn to the unmentionable one, the Armenian Holocaust – yes, also a capital "H" – which our Foreign Office still claims to believe doesn't qualify as a genocide. A million and a half Armenian Christians were murdered or sent on death marches in 1915 by the Muslim Ottoman Turks, but the British Government doesn't want to upset the present-day Turks.

Denis MacShane, to his great credit, has long demanded an independent international commission to inquire into the massacres. Documents unearthed by Geoffrey Robertson QC under the Freedom of Information Act, however, show not only the hypocrisy and cynicism of the Foreign Office – cutting Armenians out of Holocaust Memorial Day and denying that there is "unequivocal evidence" of genocide (which of course there is), but admitting that "HMG is open to criticism in terms of the ethical question (sic)" in denying the Armenian Holocaust but should do so "given the importance of our relations (political, strategic and commercial) with Turkey...".

For the correspondence between "researcher analysts", "draftpersons" and ministers also betrays what I believe is a growing and hateful practice: sloppy grammar and spelling in emails. For some reason, we would never accept such a practice in a typewritten note. But here's a classic example of a letter to a minister which includes not only political dishonesty but also an inability even to reread and correct a printed communication.

The note, dated 21 January last year, refers to the Foreign Office's habit of dredging up three of Turkey's favourite historians – who, needless, to say, deny the Armenian Holocaust – and of the public's demand for a full list of historians consulted by the FO's "researchers". I leave it to readers to groan at the inadequacy of the text, let alone the mistakes of FO "draftsperson" Sofka Brown:

"We've had a response (which has taken its time getting round to u)s which very specifically requests a detailed list of all the evidence looked at wich leads us to believe that the evidence is not sufficiently unequivocal. We do not propose to provide a list is reply..."

The misplaced closing of brackets, the mis-spelling of "which" (as "wich") and "in" (as "is") would be regarded as poor English at an average school. But what are we to make of it when it's contained in a Foreign Office note to a minister?

I guess HMG's civil servant was just patrolling fertile zones of convergence at genre borders between Armenia and Turkey. I apologise for "any" offence caused to Sofka Brown."

New Statesman: "Genocide denied", Geoffrey Robertson QC

2009-12-10T12:11:00.001Z

"There are few genocides more clearly established than that suffered by the Armenians in 1915-16, when half the race was extinguished in massacres and deportations directed by the Young Turk government. Today you can be prosecuted in France and other European countries for denying the slaughter. But the world's most influential genocide denier - other than Turkey itself - is the British government, which has repeatedly asserted that there is insufficient evidence that what it terms a "tragedy" amounted to genocide. Now, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we learn that (in the words of Foreign Office memos) commercial and political relations with Turkey have required abandoning "the ethical dimension".

For the past ten years, various Foreign Office ministers, from Geoff Hoon to Mark Malloch Brown, have told parliament that "neither this government nor previous governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide, as defined by the 1948 convention". This would have come as a shock to the architects of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (for whom the Armenian genocide was second only to the Holocaust), as well as to the wartime British government, which accused the Turks of proceeding "systematically to exterminate a whole race out of their domain". (Winston Churchill described it as "an administrative holocaust . . . there is no reasonable doubt that this crime was executed for political reasons.)"

Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum

2009-12-01T20:20:00.000Z

“There are thousands of khatchkars (cross-stones) here. Each khatchkar could very easily become a rare exhibit in any of the most famous European museums… If all of Europe’s millionaires were to enter the old Djulfa forest of khatchkars and come out bankrupt, the forest would not be endangered in any way.” – A European scholar on the Djulfa cemetery before the destruction

“A medieval cemetery regarded as one of the wonders of the Caucasus has been erased from the Earth in an act of cultural vandalism likened to the Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.” - The Times, London

The Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum is dedicated to documenting and raising awareness about the intentional destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery – located in Djulfa (Jugha) – and the entire Armenian cultural heritage in the region of Nakhichevan, Republic of Azerbaijan.

Visit the Museum online at www.djulfa.com

Bob Spink MP calls for an independent inquiry into the Armenian Genocide

2009-11-30T19:25:00.000Z

Following publication of Geoffrey Robertson QC's legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide, Bob Spink MP introduced EDM 247 calling for an independent inquiry into the Armenian Genocide:

"That this House supports Turkey's application for membership of the EU; but is concerned about the welfare of thousands of Crypto-Armenians in Turkey; notes the substance of Geoffrey Robertson QC's legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide; calls for an independent inquiry into the revelations of that opinion; and urges the Government to acknowledge that the events which befell the Armenians and Assyrians of Turkey of 1915 amounted to genocide."

Former IAGS Presidents Consider Historical Commission an Attempt to Deny Armenian Genocide

2009-11-20T21:14:00.000Z

The former presidents of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) sent the following letter to the Turkish Prime Minister:

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

The recent signing of protocols by the governments of Armenia and Turkey that was brokered by leading states of the international community marks the beginning of a process that would lead to establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Constituencies in both countries find some or all of the protocols problematic. We the former presidents of the International Association of Genocide Scholars write to you to express our concern about one of them: the establishment of a historical commission to study the fate of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

We are sending you this amended version of the Open Letter we wrote you in June 2005 to reiterate our objection to your insistence that there be a historical commission, in which Turkey would be involved. Because Turkey has denied the Armenian Genocide for the past nine decades, and currently under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, public affirmation of the Genocide is a crime, it would seem impossible for Turkey to be part of a process that would assess whether or not Turkey committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915.

Outside of your government, there is no doubt about the facts of the Armenian Genocide, therefore our concern is that your demand for a historical commission is political sleight of hand designed to deny those facts. Turkey has, in fact, shown no willingness to accept impartial judgments made by outside commissions. Five years ago, the Turkish members of the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission pulled out of the commission after the arbitrator, the International Center for Transitional Justice, rendered an assessment that the events of 1915 were genocide.

And, Prime Minister Erdogan, you have repeatedly stated that even if a historical commission found that the Armenian case is genocide, Turkey would ignore the finding.

As William Schabas, the current president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, said in his letter to you and President Sarkisian, “acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point of any ‘impartial historical commission,’ not one of its possible conclusions.”

Our previous letter, which was unanimously approved by the members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, lays out the consensus among historians as to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide. We believe the integrity of scholarship and the ethics of historical memory are at stake.

HELEN FEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF GENOCIDE

ROGER W. SMITH, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF GOVERNMENT, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY IN VIRGINIA

FRANK CHALK, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL, AND CO-DIRECTOR OF THE MONTREAL INSTITUTE FOR GENOCIDE STUDIES

JOYCE APSEL, PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL STUDIES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

ROBERT MELSON, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, PURDUE UNIVERSITY, AND PROFESSOR OF HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES, CLARK UNIVERSITY

ISRAEL W. CHARNY, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PSYCHOLOGY, HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM, AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE ON THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE

GREGORY STANTON, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS, MARY WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA, and PRESIDENT, GENOCIDE WATCH

Geoffrey Robertson QC's legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide

2009-11-03T20:03:00.006Z

"The result of my examination of the advice provided by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to Her Majesty's Government, and reproduced by ministers in parliamentary answers drafted over the past decade by the FCO, is that this advice reflects neither the law of genocide nor the demonstrable facts of the massacres in 1915 - 16, and has been calculated to mislead parliament into believing that there has been an assessment of evidence and an exercise of judgment on that evidence."

"The truth is that throughout the life of the present Labour government and (so the FCO admits) throughout previous governments, there has been no proper or candid appraisal of 1915 events condemned by HMG at the time and immediately afterwards in terms that anticipate the modern definition of genocide and which were referred to by the drafters of the Genocide Convention as a prime example of the kind of atrocity that would be covered by this new international crime. HMG has consistently (at least until 2007) wrongly maintained both that the decision is one for historians and that historians are divided on the subject, ignoring the fact that the decision is one for legal judgment and no reputable historian could possibly deny the central facts of the deportations and the racial and religious motivations behind the deaths of a significant proportion of the Armenian people. HMG has also maintained the fiction that it is somehow contrary to legal practice to apply the description “genocide” to events that occurred prior to 1948. This and other mistaken or illogical arguments have been made, so the internal policy memoranda reveal, in a hitherto successful effort not to upset the “neuralgic” Turkish government. The dubious ethics involved in this approach have been acknowledged (once, back in 1999) but there appears to be no interest in establishing the truth of the matter or re-asserting the position that HMG took at the time, or in understanding (let alone applying) the modern law of genocide as it has emerged from decisions of the ICJ, the ICTY and the ICTR. There is no recognition at all of the importance of nations acknowledging their past crimes against humanity, or of supporting the decendents of victims who still, almost a century later, have to live with the consequences."

"I consider that parliament has been routinely misinformed, by ministers who have recited FCO briefs without questioning their accuracy. HMG’s real and only policy has been to evade truthful answers to questions about the Armenian Genocide, because the truth would discomfort the Turkish government. It can be predicted that any future question on the subject will be met with the same meaningless formula about “insufficiently unequivocal evidence,” disguising the simple fact that HMG will not now come to terms with an issue on which it was once so volubly certain, namely that the Armenian massacres were a “crime against humanity” which should never be forgiven or forgotten. Times change, but as other civilised nations recognise, the universal crimes of genocide and torture have no statute of limitations. Judge Balthazar Garzon, in opening his investigation of the crimes of the Franco era, declared that their perpetrators should have no posthumous impunity: the same might be said of the authors of the Armenian genocide."

Geoffrey Robertson QC is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers. He is a 'distinguished jurist' member of the United Nations Justice Council, having served as the first President of the Special Court in Sierra Leone. He has argued many landmark cases in media, constitutional and criminal law in the European Court of Human Rights, the House of Lords, the Privy Council and Commonwealth courts. He has recently appeared in the Court of Final Appeal for Hong Kong, the Supreme Court of Malaysia, the Fiji Court of Appeal, the High Court of Australia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

To download the full text of the legal opinion please click here.

A German Officer during the Armenian Genocide: A Biography

2009-03-27T19:01:00.000Z

BOOK REVIEW

by Gregory Topalian, historian

A German Officer during the Armenian Genocide: A Biography of Max von Scheubner-Richter, translated by Alasdair Lean with a preface by Jorge Vartparonian and a historical introduction by Hilmar Kaiser, (Gomidas Institute), 2009, CXXX + 153 pp., map, photos, index, ISBN 978-1-903656-81-5. Pb. UK£17.00 / US$25.00 plus shipping. For more information please visit www.gomidas.org or write to info@gomidas.org.

This is a fascinating study of a man who is one of the most enigmatic links between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Scheubner-Richter was a founding father of the Nazi Party and one of Hitler’s closest colleagues, deemed irreplaceable by the leader of the Party. The preface by Jorge Vartparonian offers a succinct and potted biography of the man, whilst Hilmar Kaiser’s analysis of Scheubner-Richter’s time in the Ottoman Empire and specifically Erzerum is highly detailed and utterly riveting. Kaiser’s account is so incredibly well researched so as to be able to dismiss some previous studies as lacking in rigour. This book is therefore perhaps the most detailed account of a figure who has remained in the shadows that bridge the gap between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.

Scheubner-Richter was both an ambitious man and a career pragmatist, yet he also displayed a sense of moral outrage regarding the massacres he witnessed in both Erzerum and Bitlis where he served as the German Vice-Consul at the height of the Genocide.

Kaiser explains how in 1914, the Armenians were caught between a rock and a hard place due to the presence of Armenians on both sides of the Russo-Turkish border. Consequently, Armenian loyalty to the Ottoman state was brought into question by some, though not by Scheubner-Richter it must be noted. Turkish Armenians of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation committed themselves to defending the Ottoman Empire but could not guarantee the same of their Russian counterparts. Further meetings took place but the ARF were at odds with Talaat (CUP), and this could well have been a contributing factor in the events that unfolded in 1915. Certainly after this series of meetings, Armenians began to redouble their own efforts at self-defence.

Kaiser illustrates through Scheubner-Richter’s writings, that the signs of what were coming were already visible in the early months of 1915 and how he felt that Armenian concerns were justified.

Throughout, Scheubner-Richter suggested there was no threat of an Armenian uprising (and the Ottoman Government’s asserted motive for the ‘deportations’), since all the men had been sent to labour batallions, and he did his utmost to help calm the situation. As things progressed he even took upon himself to personally deliver supplies to the starving Armenians.

On hearing of the decision to deport Armenians to Der Zor, Scheubner-Richter grimly suggested that half of those travelling would not survive the journey, which was something of a conservative estimate. Kaiser also explains how, as far as Scheubner-Richter was concerned, the deportations were based on “racial hatred” and little else.

What makes Scheubner-Richter such an important commentator on the Armenian Genocide is his oft voiced frustration at how the internal butchery taking place was damaging the German war effort, and yet rather than being an impassioned observer, he went further than he need to in his bid to save Armenians.

His horror at the massacres is voiced in his disgust at being an ally of the Ottoman Government when he writes that, “As officers we are compelled to shut our eyes to these things, but as men, the alliance with these people is unbearable”

The euphemisms that the Ottoman authorities used, like those that were a later feature of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, are alluded to when he points out that the word ‘deportation’ is synonymous with ‘extermination’.

On his immediate return to Germany, Scheubner-Richter offered to help Johannes Lepsius save some of these people, who according to the former, no longer looked “human.” However, but by 1922 his sympathy had evaporated, perhaps under the influence of the men with whom he was formulating a manifesto that would bestow a similar fate on the Jews.

Perhaps the most interesting suggestion by Dr. Kaiser here is regarding Armenian property. It would appear that there was no arrangement in place to deal with the property left behind by Armenians, which is suggestive that for the Young Turks, this was a functionalist genocide as opposed to a long standing intentionalist crime.

In Hilmar Kaiser’s piece there is much to suggest that Scheubner-Richter was a pragmatic careerist, but something of a maverick who despite his pursuit of rank could not fully ignore the horrors he witnessed in 1915.

The second part of the book is a biography of Scheubner-Richter translated from German, first published in 1938 and written by Paul Leverkuehn, a friend and colleague.

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Concert - 15 April 2009

2009-03-14T17:02:00.002Z

The annual Armenian Genocide Remembrance Concert at the Wigmore Hall, Wigmore St, London, will take place on 15 April 2009.

The Morgenthau Story: a documentary

2009-02-28T18:34:00.002Z

A film by Apo Torosyan. “If the world had reacted to the Genocide of Armenians, Hitler would have been reluctant to go out and kill Jews in a wholesale fashion.” Robert Morgenthau

From 1913 to 1916, Henry Morgenthau served as U.S. Ambassador in Constantinople (today Istanbul in Turkey). During the Armenian Genocide, which started in April 1915, he appealed to the Turkish Ottoman leaders to stop the killings, without success. He quit his post in 1916, and returned to the United States. From the reports he received and forwarded to the U.S. Government, there are over 30,000 documents still existing in the Library of Congress. He was also the Chair of the Greek Resettlement Commission under the League of Nations in 1923. He ended up with great success with this post, resettling 1,250,000 displaced immigrants in Greece.