The truth should be proclaimed loudly

Nouvelles d'Arménie, France
March 17 2007

Robert Fisk : The truth should be proclaimed loudly


samedi 17 mars 2007, Stéphane/armenews

When has any publisher ever tried to avoid publicity for his book ?

Published : 17 March 2007

Stand by for a quotation to take your breath away. It's from a letter
from my Istanbul publishers, who are chickening out of publishing the
Turkish-language edition of my book The Great War for Civilisation.
The reason, of course, is a chapter entitled "The First Holocaust",
which records the genocide of one and a half million Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks in 1915, a crime against humanity that even Lord Blair
of Kut al-Amara tried to hide by initially refusing to invite
Armenian survivors to his Holocaust Day in London.

It is, I hasten to add, only one chapter in my book about the Middle
East, but the fears of my Turkish friends were being expressed even
before the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was so cruelly
murdered outside his Istanbul office in January. And when you read
the following, from their message to my London publishers
HarperCollins, remember it is written by the citizen of a country
that seriously wishes to enter the European Community. Since I do not
speak Turkish, I am in no position to criticise the occasional lapses
in Mr Osman's otherwise excellent English.

"We would like to denote that the political situation in Turkey
concerning several issues such as Armenian and Kurdish Problems,
Cyprus issue, European Union etc do not improve, conversely getting
worser and worser due to the escalating nationalist upheaval that has
reached its apex with the Nobel Prize of Orhan Pamuk and the
political disagreements with the EU. Most probably, this political
atmosphere will be effective until the coming presidency elections of
April 2007... Therefore we would like to undertake the publication
quietly, which means there will be no press campaign for Mr Fisk's
book. Thus, our request from [for] Mr Fisk is to show his support to
us if any trial [is] ... held against his book. We hope that Mr Fisk
and HarperCollins can understand our reservations."

Well indeedydoody, I can. Here is a publisher in a country
negotiating for EU membership for whom Armenian history, the Kurds,
Cyprus (unmentioned in my book) - even Turkey's bid to join the EU,
for heaven's sake - is reason enough to try to sneak my book out in
silence. When in the history of bookselling, I ask myself, has any
publisher tried to avoid publicity for his book ? Well, I can give
you an example. When Taner Akcam's magnificent A Shameful Act : The
Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility was
first published in Turkish - it uses Ottoman Turkish state documents
and contemporary Turkish statements to prove that the genocide was a
terrifying historical fact - the Turkish historian experienced an
almost identical reaction. His work was published "quietly" in Turkey
- and without a single book review.

Now I'm not entirely unsympathetic with my Turkish publishers. It is
one thing for me to rage and roar about their pusillanimity. But I
live in Beirut, not in Istanbul. And after Hrant Dink's foul murder,
I'm in no position to lecture my colleagues in Turkey to stand up to
the racism that killed Dink. While I'm sipping my morning coffee on
the Beirut Corniche, Mr Osman could be assaulted in the former
capital of the Ottoman empire. But there's a problem nonetheless.

Some months earlier, my Turkish publishers said that their lawyers
thought that the notorious Law 301 would be brought against them - it
is used to punish writers for being "unTurkish" - in which case they
wanted to know if I, as a foreigner (who cannot be charged under
301), would apply to the court to stand trial with them. I wrote that
I would be honoured to stand in a Turkish court and talk about the
genocide. Now, it seems, my Turkish publishers want to bring my book
out like illicit pornography - but still have me standing with them
in the dock if right-wing lawyers bring charges under 301 !

I understand, as they write in their own letter, that they do not
want to have to take political sides in the "nonsensical collision
between nationalists and neo-liberals", but I fear that the roots of
this problem go deeper than this. The sinister photograph of the
Turkish police guards standing proudly next to Dink's alleged
murderer after his arrest shows just what we are up against here. Yet
still our own Western reporters won't come clean about the Ottoman
empire's foul actions in 1915. When, for example, Reuters sent a
reporter, Gareth Jones, off to the Turkish city of Trabzon - where
Dink's supposed killer lived - he quoted the city's governor as
saying that Dink's murder was related to "social problems linked to
fast urbanisation". A "strong gun culture and the fiery character of
the people" might be to blame.

Ho hum. I wonder why Reuters didn't mention a much more direct and
terrible link between Trabzon and the Armenians. For in 1915, the
Turkish authorities of the city herded thousands of Armenian women
and children on to boats, set off into the Black Sea - the details
are contained in an original Ottoman document unearthed by Akcam -
"and thrown off to drown". Historians may like to know that the man
in charge of these murder boats was called Niyazi Effendi. No doubt
he had a "fiery character".

Yet still this denial goes on. The Associated Press this week ran a
story from Ankara in which its reporter, Selcan Hacaoglu, repeated
the same old mantra about there being a "bitter dispute" between
Armenia and Turkey over the 1915 slaughter, in which Turkey
"vehemently denies that the killings were genocide". When will the
Associated Press wake up and cut this cowardly nonsense from its
reports ? Would the AP insert in all its references to the equally
real and horrific murder of six million European Jews that right-wing
Holocaust negationists "vehemently deny" that there was a genocide ?
No, they would not.

But real history will win. Last October, according to local newspaper
reports, villagers of Kuru in eastern Turkey were digging a grave for
one of their relatives when they came across a cave containing the
skulls and bones of around 40 people - almost certainly the remains
of 150 Armenians from the town of Oguz who were murdered in Kuru on
14 June 1915. The local Turkish gendarmerie turned up to examine the
cave last year, sealed its entrance and ordered villagers not to
speak of what they found. But there are hundreds of other Kurus in
Turkey and their bones, too, will return to haunt us all. Publishing
books "quietly" will not save us.

http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?id_article=30416

Armenian Genocide At The Berlin Film Festival

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL
By Wolfgang Hobel and Alexander Smoltczyk

Der Spiegel Online, Germany
Feb 14 2007

'The Lark Farm' Wakens Turkish Ghosts

The film "The Lark Farm" is sure to stir up controversy at this year's
Berlin Film Festival. It takes a close look at Turkey's most sensitive
taboo -- the 1915 genocide against the Armenians. Extra security has
been brought in for the Wednesday evening premiere.

All that was missing at the Festival Palace was the wave cheer, given
the level of enthusiasm with which Dieter Kosslick, the festival's
director, staged the opening gala of the 57th Berlin International
Film Festival last Thursday. Once again, Kosslick has managed to
position the German capital as a world-class film city, and this
year's Berlinale again vies with past festivals in its relentless
determination to deliver euphoria.

Photo Gallery: Controversial Film at the Berlin Film Festival Click
on a picture to launch the image gallery (3 Photos) The French film
"La Vie en rose," the first film on the festival's schedule, matched
the effusive mood of the event. In the film, director Olivier Dahan
tells the life story of singer Edith Piaf, sumptuously portraying
her descent into drug addiction and disastrous love affairs. The
president of the festival's jury Paul Schrader -- himself a writer,
director and film critic -- has said he sees film as a kind of museum,
or cultural memory bank. It's an interpretation that clearly applies
to this year's festival.

Steven Soderbergh's black-and-white drama "The Good German," provides
a good example. George Clooney portrays an American reporter in
post-World War II Germany who is tragically in love with a beautiful
but mysterious woman (Cate Blanchett). The American thriller "The Good
Shepherd," starring Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon and Alec Baldwin and
directed by Robert De Niro, is a story about the early days of the
CIA. In the historical drama "Die Falscher" ("The Counterfeiters"),
Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky describes how inmates at the
Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen were forced to print British
pound notes in a counterfeiting workshop.

Taboo in Turkey

But there is one film that will encounter little competition for
being the most important and stirring contribution to the culture of
reminiscence. It deals with the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, a
topic that is still considered taboo in Turkey. Indeed, sentiments on
the issue are so strong that representatives of the Turkish government
are still trying to convince others to avoid the topic as well. Last
week, for example, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul made it
clear that relations between his country and the United States could
be seriously jeopardized by a resolution proposed in the US Congress
that would officially condemn the 1915 genocide committed by the Turks.

"If this resolution is approved," Gul threatened representatives of
the Bush administration, which is seeking a strategic partnership
with Turkey, "why should we continue to support one another?"

FROM THE MAGAZINE Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL
article in your publication. Close to a century after the Armenian
genocide, the issue remains explosive. When Turkish novelist and Nobel
laureate Orhan Pamuk had the courage to write about the genocide, he
was promptly taken to court by ultra-nationalists. After the murder
of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, Pamuk, fearing for his
own life, fled abroad.

The Armenian genocide is sure to become a hot-button issue in Berlin
-- home to about 250,000 Turks -- where legendary directors Paolo
and Vittoria Taviani will premiere their new film "The Lark Farm"
on Wednesday evening. It is a shocking film about the genocide and
the film's distributor is nervous. The festival management, fearing
riots, has hired additional security.

Bundles of flesh

It is a film filled with vivid images and meaningful gestures. In one
scene, a Turkish soldier stands awkwardly next to an opulently set
table. He carefully picks up the soup bowl, lifts it into the air,
pauses for a moment, and then slowly pours the soup over the damask
tablecloth. The horror begins with the insignificant, setting the
stage for the unimaginable in the most polite of ways.

In another scene, Turkish servants suddenly refuse to unload the
truck belonging to their Armenian masters, saying that it's too
late in the day for work. A short time later, the masters, already
earmarked for slaughter as enemies of the people, have been reduced
to sobbing bundles of flesh as they beg for their lives. Such is how
genocide begins.

In their past masterpieces, "Padre Padrone" (1977) and "Notte di
San Lorenzo" ("The Night of San Lorenzo") (1982), Italian directors
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, both well into their seventies, dealt with
the human effects of persecution and political violence -- and with
the desire to rebel against fate. While "The Night of San Lorenzo,"
an episode from the Italian resistance movement against Mussolini's
fascist militia, managed to describe the senselessness of violence
with the tools of absurdist comedy, "The Lark Farm" is a deeply
dark melodrama.

In the political inferno the film portrays, Moritz Bleibtreu and Paz
Vega are perfectly cast as tragic lovers. "It is not a film against
Turkey, on the contrary," they say, and rightfully so. But the editors
who published the Danish cartoons that so inflamed the Muslim world
were also in the right. "The Lark Farm" could well become the political
scandal at this year's Berlinale.

Obedience, cowardice, expediencey and vileness

The screenplay, based on a novel by Antonia Arslan -- a literature
professor who now lives in Padua -- deals with the history of Arslan's
family. The novel portrays the Avakians, a respected middle-class
Armenian family that lives in a provincial city, hoping that things
will not take a turn for the worse. The film begins with intimate
scenes of beautiful faces and women wearing long dresses, filmed
in the light of a Vermeer painting. The family patriarch has died,
and even the Turkish Colonel Arkan (Andre Dussollier) bows to pay
his respects to the deceased.

NEWSLETTER Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the
best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in
your In- Box everyday.

But then Arkan receives his orders from Istanbul, orders he promptly
obeys. In only a few scenes, the directors depict the mixture of
obedience and cowardice, of expediency and vileness that has always
made ethnic cleansing and pogroms possible.

The men and boys are crucified, castrated and hacked to pieces, and
the women are sent on a starvation march into the deserts of eastern
Anatolia. Nazim, a beggar (played by Palestinian filmmaker Mohammed
Bakri), betrays his masters but then regrets it and attempts to at
least help the women. Youssuf (Moritz Bleibtreu), a Turkish soldier,
is drawn to the family's proud surviving daughter (Paz Vega) and falls
in love with her. In an attempt to flee, Nunik sacrifices herself
to enable her nieces to escape. When Youssuf receives his orders --
"Throw them into the fire first, then cut off their heads" -- he
decapitates Nunik to save her from being burned alive.

The outstanding performances -- and the sheer incomprehensibility
of the events -- keep the film from descending into sentimentality,
despite the costumes and the over-abundance of stage blood. The
Tavianis have managed to produce images the film's viewers will regret
having seen, because these are the kinds of images one has trouble
forgetting. This is both the film's achievement and its curse.

Watching the film is almost unbearable. According to some eyewitnesses,
soldiers gave Armenian mothers the option of killing their newborn
boys themselves. Others say that women were forced to place their
babies in a rucksack and stand back-to-back with another woman,
their arms interlocked and... One doesn't want to know or see what
actually happened.

A muffled silence

This is what Vittorio Taviani has to say about it: "The murder of
the innocent has been a part of theater history since the Greeks,
since Shakespeare. Three years ago we discovered the Armenian tragedy,
almost by accident, when we read the book by Antonia Arslan. We wanted
to tell it with the means at our disposal."

Arsinee Khanjian, a Canadian of Armenian heritage who lost part of
her own family, plays the role of Armineh Avakian. In one scene the
severed head of her husband is thrown into her lap. "She was adamant
about acting in our film. She felt that it was a sort of obligation
to her murdered great-grandparents. We promised her that we would
only shoot this scene once, and without rehearsal," says Paolo
Taviani. "According to the script, she was supposed to scream. But
all that came out was a muffled silence. We left it that way."

The Armenians were Christians, often educated and affluent. As such,
they made for the ideal fifth column when the Ottoman Empire attacked
Russia. But the Ottomans lost the war. According to the official
version in Ankara, the Armenians had to be resettled during the war,
and most of them died as a result of disease and at the hands of
Kurdish tribes. But many contest that version.

"One million Armenians were murdered. This is something hardly anyone
dares to say," said Orhan Pamuk prior to his winning the Nobel Prize in
Literature. His words immediately made Pamuk the victim of nationalist,
hate-mongering propaganda. The persecution and murder of the Armenian
minority remains the foremost trauma of the founding of modern Turkey.

It was, in fact, the "young Turks," those who were eager to found a
new and modern state, who issued the orders which led to the deaths
of the Armenians. Recognizing the genocide as such would be tantamount
to admitting that the spiritual founders of modern Turkey were men who
today would be easily convicted of war crimes by the International War
Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. And yet the majority of officers charged
with crimes against the Armenians were promptly released after the war.

Efforts in vain

For the past 70 years, Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has had
plans to film the Armenian epic "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," by
Czech-born poet, playwright and novelist Franz Werfel. And Sylvester
Stallone has likewise recently indicated he would be interested
in making the movie. But the project was repeatedly shelved for
political reasons. Keeping NATO's eastern flank happy was apparently
more important that bringing justice to a minority that had already
been heavily decimated.

Even today the European Union avoids using the word "genocide,"
anxious not to cast a shadow on the negotiations over Turkey's bid
for EU membership.

The film is an Italian-French-Bulgarian-Spanish co-production.

Turkey's delegate to the European film fund Eurimage attempted to
put a stop to the Taviani project. But this time Turkey's efforts
were in vain.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,466427,00.html 

Does UN act in Turkey's favor?

---

Does UN act in Turkey's favor?

---

PanARMENIAN.Net

Does UN act in Turkey's favor?
 
Does it really make any difference how many people
were killed - one and a half million, six, or even if
only one person? Genocide is genocide, arithmetic is 
not needed here.
31.01.2007 GMT+04:00
   
On January 25 the UN General Assembly adopted a
Resolution condemning the denial of the Holocaust as
of a historical fact. The Document was supported by
103 countries out of the 192 Member States, no voting 
was held. The Resolution was submitted for
consideration on Tuesday by the US representative, it
contains a call to all the UN Member States for the
absolute denial of any doubts of the indisputability
of the Holocaust. 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ No definite country was mentioned in
the document, however it was mentioned that `ignoring
the denial of the historical fact of the terrible
Holocaust runs the risk of its repetition'. The date 
was chosen in honor of the liberation day of the
prisoners of the largest concentration camp Oswiecim,
January 27, 1945. Laws banning the Holocaust denial
are applied in 9 EU Member States - Austria, Belgium, 
Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, the Slovak
Republic, France, and the Czech Republic. 

The adopted Resolution causes embarrassment. On the
one hand everything is quite obvious - genocide, in
its any kind of manifestation must be recognized and 
condemned. On the other hand it is a double standard
policy, which by the way shows its worth in its most
obnoxious form. The slaughter and deportation of 2
million Armenians in the Ottoman Turkey, which was
 placed on a national basis, is considered only `tragic
events of 1915'. Bewilderment is caused by another
article of the Resolution, which says that `ignoring
the historical fact of the terrible Holocaust runs the 
larger risk of its repetition'. This is what Armenia
has just been talking about for so long, mentioning
that if in due time the League of Nations had
recognized `the events of 1915' as a Genocide, it 
could have helped to avoid the Holocaust, or at least
the later wouldn't be on such a large scale. However
it did not, and thus impunity of the murders on racial
grounds followed one another. Nevertheless Hitler's 
famous phrase, which is denied by the Turkish
historians, was uttered. One very essential detail
should be mentioned here; according to some sources,
the slaughter of the Armenians, was `provoked' by
Germany, which was Turkey's ally in the First World 
War. The German advisors of course didn't call the
Turks to exterminate the Armenians, but they didn't
display great efforts to stop them from doing it
either. In 1915 the German Ambassador to Istanbul, 
Wangenheim was asked to stop the deportation, for he
was able to do that. But he didn't, grounding on the
absence of the instructions from Berlin. By the way,
according to some sources in 1915 Wangenheim died from 
cardiac rupture. It is said, he couldn't endure the
stories about the horror in Western Armenia. But all
this is already in the past, and we are more concerned
with the present, which is full of anti-Armenian 
propaganda disseminated by the Turkish Government.
`Historical indisputability of the Holocaust is
nothing but reality, and it must be condemned, but the
denial of the Armenian Genocide, which is still
continuing on a rather large scale, is of more vital 
importance than any case of the Holocaust denial. Here
the real point is that the Armenian Genocide must not
be disregarded. The Armenian Genocide was the first in
the XX Century and is immediately linked with the 
Holocaust, dated later. One should not put any
difference between them, as the denial of the Armenian
Genocide is the denial of the Holocaust. Besides, the
hypocrisy is obvious - even today Genocides are
committed in Darfur, Rwanda and the international 
community does very little to stop them', says expert
Richard Giragosyan. Another question that comes to
mind is; what are the politicians guided by while
adopting such Resolutions? Maybe by the number of the 
victims? Does it really make any difference how many
people were killed - - one and a half million, six, or
even if only one person? Genocide is genocide,
arithmetic is not needed here. Or else once again the 
Armenians become victims for the Turkey's sake, whose
turning its back to the West is completely undesired.

P

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AN ISSUE IN SWEDEN

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AN ISSUE IN SWEDEN
by Afram Barryakoub

Spero News
Nov 29 2006

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has received an interpellation
from parliament demanding an investigation into finding of human
remains of genocide.

The finding of a mass grave in south eastern Turkey, believed to date
from the 1915 genocide of Assyrians and Armenians, and the Turkish
government's silence regarding the finding has prompted a debate in
the Swedish parliament on the matter.

It was on October 17 this year that villagers from Xirabebaba (Kuru)
in southeastern Turkey came across a mass grave when digging a grave
for one of their deceased. The villagers took pictures of the skulls
and bones in the mass grave before Turkish military came and blocked
the site.

The villagers were certain that they had found remains of victims of
the 1915 genocide. The military personnel forbade the villagers to
tell anyone about the site and then closed it. Some of the villagers
chose not to follow the orders of the military and told the story to
a local newspaper who followed up on the story.

As soon as the military learned that someone has leaked this
information to the press, they pressed the villagers to give the
names of those responsible for this. Since then journalists trying
to get near the mass grave have been denied access by the military.

Turkey still denies that its Christian population of Assyrians (also
called Chaldeans and Syriacs), Greeks and Armenians were subjected
to genocides. That could explain why the Turkish state and most of
the Turkish media has remained silent about the finding.

But now one of Turkey's most popular weekly magazines, Nokta,
has highlighted the mass grave finding with a cover story in the
latest issue with the main heading "Again acting the three monkeys -
a mass grave was found one month ago in Nusaybin and the jurisdiction,
execution and legislation bodies as well as the media are silent."

The writer, Talin Suciyan, accuses the Turkish state of turning a
deaf ear to the mass grave finding. "None of the three 'powers' of
our democracy, legislation, jurisdiction or execution made a move to
deal with the issue. And when the fourth power - the media - swept
the bones under the carpet (the Turkish) public remained completely
unaware of the issue." she writes.

In fact, the only Turkish group that has reacted to the finding is
the Turkish Human Rights Association who sent an open letter to the
ministry of interior calling for an investigation into the matter.

The mass grave finding has yet to enter Turkish politics but in Sweden
the matter has stirred up a debate on the highest levels, much due
to the efforts of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Association (ACSA).

The news about the mass finding was distributed by Tidningarnas
Telegrambyrå (TT), Sweden's top news agency and was thereafter
published in several Swedish media, including the two leading morning
papers Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (Svd).

As a result of the above the mass grave issue has now entered Swedish
politics as MP Hans Linde from the left party recently submitted an
interpellation to the Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, asking
for an independent commission of scientists and historians to examine
the findings.

The foreign minister must now ask the foreign ministry to launch an
investigation into the matter before he can respond to MP Hans Linde.

The response of the foreign minister on this issue is due to be
presented on the 12 of December before parliament.

Turkey's 'New' Approaches In Armenian Genocide Issue

---

TURKEY'S 'NEW' APPROACHES IN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE
By Kiro Manoyan

Yerkir, Armenia
Nov 27 2006

The "exciting" announcements that Turkey makes about applying new
tactics when dealing with the Armenian Genocide issue are nothing
more than a new packaging for the old tactics.

The aim is the same as before: to dispute the facts of the
Armenian Genocide for years with a goal to derail the process of
the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. In other
words, this "new" tactics pursues the same goal as Turkish Prime
Minister Erdogan's 2005 proposal to set up a "bilateral commission of
historians," and by transforming the issue into a historical dispute,
remove it from the political agenda.

Speaking two days ago at a meeting that was discussing his ministry's
budget for the next year, Turkish Foreign Minister Gul said the
Armenian Genocide will be among the key issues for Turkey's foreign
policy in the coming ten years because it stands in the way of Turkey's
relations with many countries. He also said they were seeking advice
of Turkish and foreign lawyers for possibilities to take the case to
the "international court."

The Turkish foreign minister's vague description of the "international
court" was immediately explained by Turkish retired diplomats Sukru
Elekdag and Gunduz Aktan. Aktan, who was also a member of the infamous
Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission, spoke about it at a recent
lecturing tour to Canada.

It turned out that the "international court" is not the International
Court of Justice but the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Though both
courts operate in the same building in the Hague, their missions and
authorities are quite different as their names show.

Apparently, the Turkish diplomatic circles are trying to first of
all make a propaganda move. Aktan told Milliyet newspaper, "Though
the trial process may take 5-10 years, but it ensures us a moral
advantage now. If Armenia or France refuse to appear in the court,
they will be embarrassed in the world."

According to Aktan, the process of passing the Armenian Genocide to
the international law assumes: 1.Set up a commission to check the
reality of the documents kept in the archives of Turkey, Armenian
Patriarchate of Constantinople, Boston chapter of ARF, Russia, USA,
Germany, England and France; 2.Carry out statistical work to study the
ethnic changes of the population; 3.Study military movements and the
activities of the Armenian armed groups; 4.Find out the causes of the
deaths during the deportation; 5.Study the registration books of the
hospital for the period in question; 6.Though a forensic examination
determine the ethnicity of those buried in common graves.

The Turkish diplomats are trying to accomplish the goal that was
supposed to be reached by the failed "bilateral commission of
historians."

But the thing is that Article 9 of the 1948 Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide clearly
states: "Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the
interpretation, application or fulfillment of the present Convention,
including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide
or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted
to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the
parties to the dispute."

In other words, the Turkish diplomats, violating the rules of the
Convention, plan to take the issue to another direction, knowing well
that Armenia has not signed under the 1899 and 1907 Hague conventions
that have set up the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

If the Turkish diplomacy really wants to take the problems between
Armenia and Turkey - of which the Armenian Genocide is just one part
- to the international law, the issues should first of all include
issues such: 1.Restoration of Turkey's eastern border as determined by
US President Wilson under the Sevres Treaty of August 10, 1920; 2.The
issue of non-validity of the December 2, 1920 Treaty of Alexandrapol;
3.The non-validity of the treaties signed on March 16, 1921 in Kars,
and on October 23, 1921 in Moscow; 4.Violation by Turkey since 1991
of the main principles set in the Kars Treaty; 5.The illegality of
replacing the 1920 Severs Treaty with the July 24, 1923 Lausanne
Treaty.

However, if Turkey wishes to determine its responsibility in the
Armenian Genocide through an international court, it should turn to
the International Court of Justice.

It is important to reveal the real goals and efficiency of this new
Turkish fraud for the international public opinion.

Bible verses

Revelation 6:9-11 (New International Version)

9When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" 11Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

Psalm 13

1. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2. How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3. Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
4. my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5. But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6. I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

Psalm 42

9. I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10. My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11. Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Lamentations 5

1. Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us;
look, and see our disgrace.
2. Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens,
our homes to foreigners.
3. We have become orphans and fatherless,
our mothers like widows.
4. We must buy the water we drink;
our wood can be had only at a price.
5. Those who pursue us are at our heels;
we are weary and find no rest.

Remember The Armenian Genocide (link)

This report is a collection of research articles offered as evidence of the veracity of the Genocide inflicted on the Armenian peoples by the Ottoman Empire, to justifiably qualify for inclusion in the commemoration of holocausts perpetrated throughout history.

http://www.rememberarmenia.co.uk/

Turkey can one day destroy the celebration of Christmas

 Christmas was once celebrated in Constantinople, today,s Istanbul this was once the center of the Christian world, but you would never know it today.

St Sophia Christianities, oldest Vassilica built one thousand years before St. Peters in Rome is now surrounded by Minnerets
and it's big cross has been replaced by a crescent.

St Sophia was spared the wrecking ball thanks to former US president Carter who intervened on behalf of the Christian community in the US, at the very last moment.

The seminary in Halki remains closed and the Ecumenical patriarchate can't even use his title , all this by a country which claims to be European and ready to join our society.

The reality is Turkey has virtualy cleansed all Christian Europeans from what was once their ancesteral homelands. The number should be over 5,000,000 European Christians instead of just a few thousand ironically this was the very same land that Turkey uses to claim European identity.

What should be further evidence is Northern EU Cyprus where since the Turkish invasion of the island since 1974 over 200,000 Christian Cypriots have been force off their homes and land and their monesteries, and churches have virtually all been looted and destroyed.

To ignore the horror of the Armenian Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing of the Christian communities in Asia Minor and Constantinople without so much as an apology is a crime by weak incompetent EU leaders who are paving the way for the destruction of Europe.

Additional proof came when EU leaders came together to finalize the draft of the EU constitution when Turkish leaders who aren't even members showd up and demanded that that Classical Greece and Roman law be strcken from the original draft as the foundation of Europe. A EU without it's European heritage is what Turkey wants.

Turkey claims secular but has managed to cleanse virtually all Christianity from it's path.

Merry Christmas

Genocide Acknowledgment: A Dead End?

Genocide Acknowledgment: A Dead End?

[April 24, 2005]

Worldwide Armenian political demands on Turkey have always included land, restitution, and Genocide acknowledgment. Over time, however, the demand for acknowledgment has eclipsed the other demands.

In view of the obvious obstacles the land and restitution issues have faced, that's understandable.

Genocide acknowledgment is different. Armenians, and many non-Armenians, have readily rallied around such a straightforward and relatively non-aggressive demand. Moreover, a Turkish confession - apparently a mere sentence or two - has seemed achievable.

Suppose, therefore, that Turkey 's Prime Minister announced today that " Turkey acknowledges that 90 years ago, during a time in which both Turks and Armenians were murdered, some individuals in the Ottoman regime committed genocide against Armenians. Let us and Armenia now begin a new era."

Dead End

Would that really heal our collective psyche? Would it be sincere and signify a genuine shift in Turkish attitudes? Would Turkish organizations and individuals cease their Genocide denial? Would the remaining survivors and their descendants receive restitution/reparations?

Would Armenia 's security be measurably enhanced? Would Turkey open its border with Armenia ? Would it end its pan-Turkic thrust - similar to the one that spawned the Genocide - into the Caucasus and Central Asia ? Could Armenians resettle in Anatolia/Western Armenia? Would Armenia recover even small amounts of that territory?

That the likely answer to each question is "No" should cause us to rethink our emphasis on acknowledgment. Among the political scientists doing that are Dr. Simon Payaslian, Nicolas Tavitian MS, and Dr. Khatchik Der Ghougassian (Armenian Forum, Vol. 2, No. 3, Gomidas.org).

Rethinking Acknowledgment

The "essential component" of "historic Armenian lands," says Payaslian, has been "redefined as, or totally replaced by, recognition." Western countries' "commemorative statements that ignore the territorial issue should be rejected."

He lists four goals of acknowledgment: territory, emotional healing, restitution, and enhanced international standing for Armenia . Only the last, Payaslian concludes, is realistically achievable through acknowledgment.

He is troubled by "the lack of public debate" on the "purposes and problems" of "Genocide recognition."

So is Tavitian: "Striving for genocide recognition has long been a reflex rather than an action toward a goal ... Armenians should rethink their approach."

However, acknowledgment could be a "security guarantee" for Armenia if it can "transform Turkey [and] the West's understanding of Armenia 's security."

The quest for acknowledgment, Der Ghougassian believes, maintains "vigilance against the Turkish threat." Acknowledgment might be a "first step" towards "normalization of relations." Nevertheless, "A response to the Genocide must deprive Turkey " of the land it took in the genocide.

Clearly, then, we need to rethink the pursuit of acknowledgment. If not, we may regret it.

Land and Restitution

The European Union (EU), which Turkey aspires to join, is asking Turkey to recognize the Genocide. Suppose Turkey complies.

The EU and the US would likely conclude, since the land and restitution issues are not now prominently on the table, that Armenians had received everything they had asked for. For Armenians to subsequently try to drag those two issues into the spotlight would be difficult. And, as argued above, acknowledgment alone is unlikely to benefit Armenia much anyway.

Worse, an educated guess is that the West would accept a sham acknowledgment, such as " Turkey regrets the wrongful murder of Armenians in 1915 by the old Ottoman regime."

Frankly, acknowledgment, in the absence of the restoration of Armenian rights, may be undesirable. The pursuit of acknowledgment, rather than acknowledgment itself, helps to maintain a strong defensive posture against Turkey and is a valuable tool to keep Armenia 's foe off balance.

Placing restitution and territory near the front of our agenda, therefore, serves two purposes. First, Turkey is unlikely to issue an acknowledgment at all, for fear of the consequences. Second, if an acknowledgment does come, Turkey and the West would less able to close the book on the Armenian case.

In the meantime, efforts are underway to undermine the restitution and land issues.

State Department Trap

John Evans, the US Ambassador to Armenia , and David L. Phillips, a State Department consultant and moderator of the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), recently toured the US gleefully claiming that Armenians cannot ask for restitution or land from Turkey .

They cite a 2003 "report" sponsored by TARC. The report affirmed the factuality of the genocide, but deviously asserted that the UN's1948 Genocide Treaty cannot be applied retroactively to 1915 and that "legal, financial, or territorial" claims are invalid.

Indeed, Phillips hints that four years ago it was he who arranged for President Robert Kocharian to tell Turkish TV that Armenia will not press for restitution or territory.

This, then, is the trap being laid for us: the US, and possibly Turkey , may someday issue a Genocide "acknowledgment", but Armenians must abandon all claims, particularly territorial ones, against Turkey .

Why is America worried about Turkish territory? Because the State Department, not to mention Europe and Israel , regards eastern Turkey as a vital path to the Caspian Sea region's oil and gas. By disposing of Genocide acknowledgment and trashing Armenian land claims, the State Department hopes to both protect eastern Turkey and more easily penetrate the Caucasus .

The Future

Genocide acknowledgment is a vital, and perhaps permanent, weapon in Armenia and the Diaspora's arsenals. It must not be dealt away cheaply.

Armenia and the traditional Diasporan political parties should immediately place land and restitution alongside, or close to, the acknowledgment demand.

Realistically, of course, Armenia cannot recover territory anytime soon. Still, that territory is vital for long-term security. For example, Armenia requires a secure path to the Black Sea and, therefore, to Europe and Russia . Needless to say, to attain that goal, Armenia must become much stronger. (See "The Armenian Land Question: Misunderstood Terrain," Horizon Weekly, September 6, 2004.)

Recovering territory and obtaining material restitution someday will heal our wounds more than all the Turkish acknowledgments in the world. Notice, for example, that as Armenians now control Karabagh and the surrounding territory, the repression and massacres that Azerbaijan inflicted on Armenians in the last 100 years take a back seat.

Winning, therefore, is the best revenge, though we will always honor those who perished and suffered in the Genocide.

Lastly, we need to better educate ourselves about land and restitution. Genocide related commemorations, lectures, and conferences should emphasize the ongoing geopolitical consequences of 1915: loss of historic lands and individual and historical property, and an adversary that remains committed to a dangerous, pan-Turkic philosophy. Younger generations, particularly - by nature action-oriented - crave such meaty political issues.

And if Turkey never acknowledges the Genocide? Security, and the restoration of rights and the Armenian homeland are more important.

David B. Boyajian

The author is an Armenian American freelance writer  

Prove Hitler wrong

Prove Hitler wrong

Remember Ottoman Turkey's slaughter of Armenian Christians

WORLD Magazine
October 23, 2004
Page 52

By Marvin Olasky

Editor's warning: This article contains graphic material.

VAN, Turkey -- As Turkey moves toward eventual membership in the
European Union (see Madisonian Turkey from this week's issue), this
Muslim nation should also come to grips with a terrible crime that has
gone largely unpunished.

Armenians, many of them Christian, lived in this area of what is now
eastern Turkey for about 2,000 years. Despite suffering massacres in
1894 and 1895 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, they still numbered
well over 1 million in 1914. Ten years later only scattered handfuls
were left.

Adolf Hitler used what is now called the Armenian holocaust as his model
for an even greater holocaust. Ottoman Turks developed techniques later
used by the Nazis, such as piling 90 people into a train car with a
capacity of 36, and leaving them locked in for days, terrified,
starving, and often dead.

Hitler was even more impressed with how the Turks got away with
genocide. When Hitler on Aug. 22, 1939, explained that his plans to
invade Poland included the formation of death squads that would
exterminate men, women, and children, he asked, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

In recent years some have. Books such as Peter Balakian's The Burning
Tigris (HarperCollins, 2003) tell of the Armenian tragedy in a way that
also helps us to understand radical Islam. That's because the key
incitement to massacre came on Nov. 14, 1914, when Mustafa Hayri Bey,
the Ottoman Empire's leading Sunni authority, urged his followers to
commence a jihad: One pamphlet declared, "He who kills even one
unbeliever . . . shall be rewarded by Allah."

The jihad proclamation received wide dissemination. When a priest asked
a Muslim army officer how he could participate in killing several
thousand Armenian women, Captain Shukri's answer was simple: It was
jihad time, and after the murders he could "spread out my prayer rug and
pray, giving glory to Allah and the Prophet who made me worthy of
personally participating in the holy jihad in these days of my old age."

The Ottoman Turk government set up and paid special killing squads. The
Ministry of the Interior gave instructions to "exterminate all males
under 50, priests and teachers, leave girls and children to be
Islamized." Historians and journalists have estimated that Turks killed
800,000 to 1 million Armenians in 1915 alone, and an additional 200,000
to 500,000 over the next seven years.

Here in Van 89 years ago, provincial governor Jevdet Bey gained the
nickname "the horseshoe master" because he nailed horseshoes to the feet
of Armenians. Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador to Turkey,
described in 1918 testimony of torture he had heard: "The gendarmes
would nail hands and feet to pieces of wood--evidently in imitation of
the Crucifixion, and then while the sufferer writhes in his agony, they
would cry, 'Now let your Christ come help you.'"

Aurora Mardiganian, the only member of her family to survive, told of
killing squads that planted their swords in the ground, blade up, at
intervals of several yards. Killers on horseback each grabbed a girl,
rode their horses at a controlled gallop, and tried to throw the girl so
she would be impaled on a sword: "If the killer missed and the girl was
only injured, she would be scooped up again until she was impaled on the
protruding blade."

The silent film Ravished Armenia, based on Aurora Mardiganian's account,
caused a U.S. sensation--but British officials demanded before showtime
in London the deletion of a scene of Armenian women being crucified.
Miss Mardiganian agreed that the scene, which showed the women being
crucified on large crosses with their long hair covering their nude
bodies, was inauthentic.

The scene was inaccurate, she said, because the crosses in the film were
large, but in reality they were little and pointed: "They took the
clothes off the girls. They made them bend down. And after raping them,
they made them sit on the pointed wood, through . . ." Americans, she
said, "can't show such terrible things" (and I can't write about them in
full detail).

After the World War ended in 1918 several Turks, including "the
horseshoe master," were executed for war crimes. Hundreds of
perpetrators went free, and to this day Turkish textbooks cover up the
slaughter of Armenians, as they also cover up the slaughter of Greek
Christians in western Turkey during that same era.
Prove Hitler wrong. Governments are to wield the sword to bring justice,
so remember Armenian and other victims of governments that killed their
own people, and thank God that the United States has worked to protect
innocent people in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan.

http://www.worldmag.com/displayarticle.cfm?id=9808