30 tet 2007

The Armenian Genocide - Denial of History


My father, Armen Bagdasarian

Every year April 24 marks the anniversary of the Armenian genocide. On that day, in 1915, under the pretext of WW I, the orders were given by the leaders of the Ottoman Turkish government to commence their genocide against the Armenian people living within the Ottoman Empire. The Turks made no particular attempt to conceal that plan. At the time, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morganthau, was convinced that “the whole history of the human race contained no such horrible episode as this”. He believed that “the great massacres and persecutions of the past seemed almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915”. He also said that “when the Turkish authorities gave the orders for Armenian deportations to the deserts in northern Syria, they were merely giving the death warrant to all Armenians within their empire”. Talat Pasha, one of the Ottoman Turkish leaders, admitted to his German ally that Turkey is taking advantage of the war to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes (i.e., the Armenians). It was the first full scale major genocide of the 20th century. Decades have passed and the Armenian people are still waiting for justice and recognition of the genocide.

To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the genocide even though documentation abounds with this sad historical fact. Witness accounts given by Henry Morganthau as well as writings by David Marshall Lang, Christopher Walker, Franz Werfel, Richard Hovannisian, Peter Balakian, Vahakn Dadrian, et al. Were those Turkish politicians and generals who authorized and administered the effort to completely annihilate the Armenian people successful in extending their theory of genocide into modern times? It was documented during the Nuremburg trials that in1939 Adolph Hitler, while persuading his associates that a planned Jewish holocaust would be tolerated by the west stated, “Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” The Armenian genocide proved to the civilized world that man’s inhumanity to man can be implemented with little, if any, world concern or condemnation. This heinous crime was carried out with such zeal that within three years, over 80 percent of the Armenians living within Turkey were massacred. Close to two million Armenians were killed, fled their homeland to safe countries or deported to the deserts of northern Syria. As Hitler planned for the Jews, The Ottoman government sought to eliminate a whole race of people.

Why?

The Armenians were the last Christian nation within the Empire seeking reforms or independence on the soil that they occupied since 1000 B.C. During the past century, the Turks had lost Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania and would not accept an independent nation on its eastern flank, no less a Christian nation. Prior to WWI, England, France and Russia had all agreed that Armenia should exist as a nation or at least convince the Ottoman government that reforms affecting the Armenians should be implemented within their empire. These proposed reforms consisted of equality before the courts, equal taxation, freedom of Armenians to practice their religion, protection from Turkish and Kurdish brigands and equality in holding property. No reforms were forthcoming and the Turks blamed the Armenians for the European meddling and implemented their planned genocide. There would be an Armenia without Armenians.

Today, in present day eastern Turkey, the traditional homeland of the Armenians, very few traces of Armenians exist. Churches have been converted to barns and others reduced to rubble. After the war Armenia, known as the “little ally” of the west, eventually formed a small nation in the Caucuses and was an independent republic until 1921 when the Soviet Union invaded it and subverted the country to a Soviet Republic. That Armenian Republic was only 15% of the Armenian homeland. I am a descendant of survivors of that genocide. There isn’t a person of Armenian heritage living anywhere on this earth today who didn’t have a relative killed in those atrocities. Yet the current Turkish government denies that the previous regime of the Ottoman Turkish government committed such a heinous crime. That denial of historical fact makes the current government of Turkey as culpable as the previous regime. Although many nations and historians have acknowledged this tragedy, the current government of Turkey refuses to accept this disastrous event as genocide.

On May 16, 1978, President Jimmy Carter at a White House ceremony said, “It is not generally known in the world that, in the years preceding 1916, there was a concerted effort made to eliminate all the Armenian people, probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren’t any Nuremberg trials”.

It is hoped that the Turkish government will have enough courage to admit to this crime and to be bold enough to seek justice and make reparations as originally agreed to under the Treaty of Sevres. The martyrdom suffered by the Armenians in that tragedy will never be forgotten, not by this generation or those generations of Armenians to follow. The voices of the Armenian people will never be silenced on this crime. The hour may be late but there is a morning yet to come. Will Turkey ever admit to this historical tragedy?