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Exclusive: Why Does a Close U.S. Ally Deny Its Genocide? (Part One of Three)
Author: Adrian Morgan
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: October 15, 2007
Why does predominately Muslim Turkey insist that their genocide of
Christian Armenians not be identified as such? Why is America’s
reaction split along party lines? FSM Contributing Editor Adrian
Morgan reveals why in this fascinating account…and what it may mean
for the Iraq War.
Why Does a Close U.S. Ally Deny Its Genocide?
(Part One of Three)
By Adrian Morgan
The Current Political Conflict
On Wednesday, October 10, the House of Congress’ House Foreign Affairs
Committee voted by 27 votes to 21 to pass a non-binding resolution to
classify actions which took place in Turkey in 1915 as "genocide". The
full text of the resolution includes the statements: "The House of
Representatives finds the following: (1) The Armenian Genocide was
conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923,
resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom
1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were
expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of
the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.
(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia,
jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever
another government of committing `a crime against humanity’.
(3) This joint statement stated `the Allied Governments announce
publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally
responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as
well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres’.
(4) The post-World War I Turkish Government indicted the top leaders
involved in the ‘organization and execution’ of the Armenian Genocide
and in the `massacre and destruction of the Armenians’. "
The day before the resolution was put to a vote, President George W.
Bush warned against the passing of the resolution, saying: "This
resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings."
Turkey, whose current government is led by Islamists of the AKP
(Justice & Development Party), reacted angrily to the initial vote,
which is expected to be presented before the entire House of Congress.
Abdullah Gül, who recently became the first Islamist President since
modern Turkey was officially established in 1923, said the vote was
"unacceptable". He claimed that some US politicians had "sought to
sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games". Turkey
withdrew Nabi Sensoy, its ambassador from Washington, as soon as the
vote was passed. The president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, supported
the committee’s vote and said he hoped it would lead to full US
recognition of the genocide.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s decision on the vote had split
mostly along party lines, with democrats supporting it and Republicans
opposing it. On the floor of Congress, the bill had the sponsorship of
226 representatives, mostly democrats. One of the co-sponsors of the
bill, Luis Fortuno of Puerto Rico, changed his committee vote
following direct lobbying by the US president. It will now be the
decision of Nancy Pelosi to introduce the resolution to the vote of
the Full House of Congress (where Fortuno will not be able to vote).
Democrat Tom Lantos, the only US politician to have survived the
Holocaust, is chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He opened
discussions by saying: "We have to weigh the desire to express our
solidarity with the Armenian people… against the risk that it could
cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed
services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying."
Lantos, told AFP news agency that he would introduce a resolution
praising US-Turkish friendship this week.
The United States, along with the efficiency of its military
operations in Iraq, certainly stands to lose from deteriorating
relations with Turkey. The US military employs Incirlik Air Base near
Adana in southeastern Turkey to fly most of its supplies to its troops
in Iraq.
A senior legislator in Turkey’s ruling AKP, Egemen Bagis, visited
Capitol Hill on Tuesday to warn that the bill would threaten military
cooperation. He told Reuters: "This resolution will put your troops in
harm’s way. We will not be able to extend the current cooperation we
are providing to you. If our allies are insulting us with crimes we
have not committed, we will start questioning the merits of that
endeavor."
President Abdullah Gül sent a letter to George W. Bush before the
vote was taken, to thank him for his personal attempts to urge members
to vote down the resolution. The US administration is now trying to
limit damage. On Friday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke
to Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and also foreign
minister Ali Babacan. She said: "They were dismayed."
Two US officials went to Turkey on Saturday to bolster relations
between the two nations and prevent possible restrictions on US
military operations in Turkey. Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to
Turkey, and Dan Fried arrived in Ankara, the capital, and met Ertugrul
Apakan, a Turkish minister in the foreign ministry.
The Armenian prime minister, Serge Sarkisian will be arriving in
Washington on Wednesday October 17, a move guaranteed to add to
US/Turkish tensions. His visit had been planned months previously.
While US and Turkish politicians were fretting about the outcome of
the resolution, another development was taking place. Turkey was
planning to mount its own independent military incursion into Kurdish
Northern Iraq, the least unstable region within Iraq. There are fears
that such an invasion could destabilize all Iraqi regions. Concerns
about this invasion force led crude oil to reach a record high of $84
per barrel on Friday. Most Iraqi oil production is in the south, but a
key crude oil pipeline runs from Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia to
the port of Ceyhan in southeastern Turkey, where it is then placed on
tankers. The political fallout from an invasion could lead to problems
with distribution at the Turkish end.
The US has tried to urge Turkey not to mount its independent incursion
into northern Iraq, but the mood in Turkey is not compromising.
Already prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on Saturday that
he did not need permission to enter northern Iraq. The reason for the
proposed incursion is that members of the Kurdish separatist party,
PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan), have recently mounted a series of
attacks in southeastern Turkey. Thirty people have been killed over
the past month. The PKK fighters have fled across the border into
northern Iraq.
PKK terrorists warned on Friday that they would be returning to
Turkey from their enclaves in northern Iraq, to mount terror strikes
on police. This is unlikely to stop Turkey’s administration from
requesting its parliament this week for approval for its venture. On
Wednesday last week, prime minister Erdogan claimed that his party
wanted a year-long authorization for mounting possible attacks against
PKK bases in northern Iraq. He suggested such incursions would not
necessarily start immediately.
Kartet, a private company in Turkey, supplies electricity to Iraq. On
Thursday, the Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet announced that a senior
official from the Energy Ministry said that Kartet would no longer be
supplying power to Iraq, due to Turkey’s own power needs. He did not
state whether this action was part of a sanctions package against
Iraq, connected with logistical support and refuge to PKK terrorists
being provided in northern Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice has said that she would want to stop the submission
of the resolution on Armenian genocide to the full House of Congress,
but admitted that it would be "tough". Such a resolution could hardly
come at a worse time for the current US administration, but there is
no "right time" to discuss the issue, when it involves a matter of
historical truth. The fault ultimately lies with Turkey, for being so
intransigent in its denial of documented fact. If Turkey can blackmail
and threaten the safety of US troops as a direct result of the recent
resolution, then the US should seriously question the worth of
maintaining deep trust in such an "ally".
Turkey’s Denial of the Armenian Genocide
The UN Convention on Genocide took place in December 1948. Article
Two of its declaration describes genocide as the implementation of
acts designed "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group."
Turkey admits that large numbers of Armenians died in 1915, but says
that they died as a by-product of forced deportation and because some
Armenians took up arms against the ailing Ottoman Empire. It refuses
to acknowledge that there was a "genocide". Turkey claims that during
World War I, no more than 300,000 Armenians died, though overwhelming
evidence suggests that between 1915 and 1917, 1.5 million Armenians
died. If Turkey had been more mature about its history, as Germany has
been concerning the Nazi genocide of 6.5 million Jews, the issue would
have been laid to rest long ago.
As the situation now stands, Turkey has no diplomatic relations with
its small neighbor Armenia, as a result of its obstinate denial of the
truth. In 1993, the border with Armenia was closed by the Turks. There
were tentative moves towards a thawing of the diplomatic frostiness in
April 2005, but these came to nothing. The stumbling blocks again
concerned issues of the Armenian genocide.
In May 2005, Turkey’s justice minister Cemil Cicek blocked a
conference of Turkish academics who wanted to discuss critically the
historical facts of the deaths of Armenians. In September 2005, just
10 days before Turkey was to begin talks about its possible accession
to the European Union, a second attempt to hold this conference was
banned by a court order. The legal move had been instigated by a group
of nationalist lawyers.
The denials of what took place particularly in 1915 are upheld by the
Islamists in Turkey, and also the secularists. The AKP party is the
first Islamist party to rule Turkey. Previous attempts to form an
Islamist government were suppressed with coups mounted by the
pro-secular military. The last elected Islamist government was
dissolved by the military in 1996.
Within Turkey, anyone who denies the official version of "history"
runs the risk of falling foul of Article 301 of the penal code. This
outlaws any "insult against Turkey or Turkishness". The maximum
penalty for breaching Article 301 is a three-year jail term. Article
301 had been rewritten in June 2005 in a package of amendments to the
existing penal code. The penal code had been altered to make Turkey
eligible to join talks on membership of the European Union. No one in
the EU appeared to notice that Article 301, in both its original and
revised state, contravened Article 19 of the 1948 International
Declaration of Human Rights – the right to freedom of speech.
Orhan Pamuk is Turkey’s most famous novelist, whose novel "Snow" has
been has been acclaimed as a modern "classic". In 2006, Pamuk was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In February 2005, Pamuk had
given an interview to a Swiss newspaper. In this interview, he
referred to the killings of Armenians, but he did not mention the term
"genocide". He said that in the 20th century "a million Armenians and
30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands [Turkey],"but few spoke of
this. His statement contradicted the "official version" of the truth,
and on December 16, 2005, Pamuk appeared in court, charged with
breaching Article 301.
Pamuk’s impending trial had drawn international criticism of Turkey,
but prime minister Erdogan claimed that foreign critics were putting
pressure on Turkey’s judiciary. He said: "I find that a little
controversial to the principle of respecting the rule of law… I
don’t think the way they act is very proper in this case."
On the first day of Pamuk’s trial at Sisli district criminal court in
Istanbul, Judge Metin Aydin adjourned the case to February. He was
unsure if the case was to be brought under the original penal code,
instituted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, or under the revised penal code.
If the trial was made under the old conditions of the penal code, the
justice minister (then Cemil Cicek) would have to issue a ruling.
Pamuk’s appearance at the court was greeted by angry crowds. Most of
these were militant nationalists, sometimes called "Kemalists". As he
entered the courtroom, a woman hit him with a folder. As he was driven
away, his car was pelted with eggs.
On January 23, 2006, it was announced that Turkey had dropped its
case against Pamuk. The novelist was luckier than Turkish Armenian
Hrant Dink.
On August 28, 2005, a court in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa
initiated proceedings against Hrant Dink, on charges of breaching
Article 301. Mr Dink was the owner and editor of a bilingual magazine
called Agos. The Sanliurfa trial had concerned comments that Dink had
made at a 2002 conference, where he had referred to a verse that must
be memorized by all students. This verse starts with the words: "I am
a Turk, I am honest and hardworking." Dink had told the conference
that he was honest and hardworking, but he was not a Turk. He was an
Armenian. That trial was never completed, for reasons I will explain
below.
On October 7, 2005, Dink was sentenced by the Sisli Court of Second
Instance at Istanbul at the culmination of another trial where he had
been accused of breaching Article 301 by "insulting Turkish identity".
All Dink had done to "insult Turkish identity" was to publish a series
of articles extolling the virtues of "Armenian identity" and to write
of the way that the Armenian genocide still impacted on modern Turkish
life. Dink was given a suspended six month jail term. He appealed
against this conviction in 2006, but the decision against him was
upheld.
Dink’s trials and subsequent tribulations, as well as the
international brouhaha stirred up by US politicians mentioning a
genuine historical event, point to an affliction in the heart of
Turkey’s national identity. Quasi-fascistic Turkish nationalism is the
infectious and suppurating byproduct of the unhealed wounds of Turkish
history. And in the background, not acknowledged by predominantly
Muslim Turkey, and never mentioned in the Western media, is another
dimension to the case of the Armenian genocide. The Armenians are
Christian.
The deportations of Armenians in 1915 is acknowledged by Turkey. What
is not acknowledged is that they were deported precisely because they
were Christian, and had their own cultural identity and language.
Ethnic cleansing is the handmaiden of genocide, and Turkey in 1915 was
openly practicing ethnic cleansing, a practice that had started at the
end of the 19th century. In the 21st century, only scoundrels can make
political capital from defending the indefensible.
Because of Turkey’s obstinate denials, other countries have made
official rulings attesting that the Armenian genocide took place. In
1982, Cyprus’ House of Representatives passed a resolution. The
European Parliament passed a resolution in 1987. This move did stop
Turkey attempting to join the European Union, a factor which should
hearten US Republicans and administrative officials who fear a House
of Congress vote. After all, there are 1.5 million US citizens of
Armenian descent, many of whom had ancestors directly affected by the
Armenian genocide. Their opinions should count far more than the hurt
pride of a temperamental NATO ally that is currently threatening to
throw its toys out of the baby carriage because it doesn’t like the
truth.
Greece made a resolution in 1996 and even established an Armenian
Genocide Day. Switzerland’s National Council passed a resolution in
2003 and Canada’s House of Commons passed a resolution in 2004.
Slovakia’s National Assembly made a resolution in 2004. Argentina
passed a law in 2006, and Chile’s Senate passed a resolution in 2007.
In France, where 500,000 Armenians live, a resolution was passed in
2001, but on October 12, 2006 a bill was passed which made denial of
the Armenian genocide a crime, potentially punishable by a one-year
prison sentence and a $60,000 fine. The move was carried in the French
National Assembly by 106 votes to 19. Before the French vote took
place, Islamist prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it a
"systematic lie machine" but claimed Turkey would not engage in
"tit-for-tat" reprisals.
The day before the French vote, a judicial committee had debated two
moves to introduce laws to parliament which would have described
France’s actions in its war with its former colony of Algeria as
"genocide". A third draft bill was discussed by the justice
commission, which would have made anyone who claimed that there was an
Armenian genocide would be jailed. Article 301 already allows for such
punishment. All three draft bills were rejected. However, Ankara
warned that French companies would be banned from major economic
projects in Turkey should the French bill become law, an obvious
"tit-for-tat" reprisal.
Hrant Dink opposed the punitive aspects of the French law. He said to
a newspaper: "This is idiocy. It only shows that those who restrict
freedom of expression in Turkey and those who try to restrict it in
France are of the same mentality." On TV, he said: "I am standing
trial in Turkey for saying it was genocide. If this bill is adopted, I
will go to France and, in spite of my conviction, I will say it was
not genocide. The two countries can then compete to see who throws me
in jail first."
Hrant Dink was born on September 15, 1954 in Malatya, the town in
central Turkey where three Christians were tortured and killed on
April 18 this year. He founded the magazine Agos on April 5, 1996. The
intention of this publication was to foster understandings between the
Turkish and Armenian communities in Turkey. Dink believed that the
Armenian community lived in too much isolation. The attention drawn to
him by his high-profile trials brought his life under threat.
Agos had its offices in central Istanbul. On January 19, 2007 Hrant
Dink was leaving his offices when a teenager wearing a white Muslim
skullcap approached him. The youth fired three shots into the 53-year
old editor’s head and neck. Dink slumped down dead on the spot. His
teenaged killer shouted out "I shot the infidel" before running off.
Hrant Dink was aware of death threats which had been made against him
for daring to speak of the Armenian genocide. One threat he received
by email seemed so serious he turned it over to the Sisli prosecutor’s
office, but his complaint was ignored. In his last article for Agos,
Dink wrote: "How real or unreal are these threats? To be honest, it is
of course impossible for me to know for sure. What is truly
threatening and unbearable for me is the psychological torture I
personally place myself in. "Now what are these people thinking about
me?" is the question that really bugs me. It is unfortunate that I am
now better known than I once was and I feel much more the people
throwing me that glance of "Oh, look, isn’t he that Armenian guy?"
And I reflexively start torturing myself. One aspect of this torture
is curiosity, the other unease. One aspect is attention, the other
apprehension. I am just like a pigeon… Obsessed just as much what
goes on my left, right, front, back. My head is just as mobile… and
just as fast enough to turn right away.
After his death, his son Arat Dink took over the editing of Agos.
When Arat Dink decided to reproduce one of his father’s 2006 articles
which mentioned the Armenian genocide, he too was hauled before the
courts, charged under Article 301 for "insulting Turkish identity".
Only last week, while Turkey officially fulminated at the US mention
of its genocide, Arat Dink was sentenced. On Thursday October 11,
2007, he and a colleague from the magazine were both given suspended
jail terms of one year.
Tomorrow, in Part Two, I will outline the cultural and historical
background of the first massacres against the Armenians in Turkey.
These would lead inevitably to the genocide which took place in the
First World War. Genocides never happen in a vacuum as isolated
events. Often, as in the case of Russian pogroms against peasants,
there are campaigns of deliberate starvation. In the case of the
Armenian genocide, starvation was used as a weapon (see picture at top
of page).
Without incidents such as the German attacks on Jewish shops that
took place on "Crystalnacht", there would not have been a climate that
later allowed the Nazis to conduct mass exterminations of Jews.
Similarly, in the case of the Armenian genocide, the events of 1915 to
1917 were preceded by deliberate and politically-motivated attacks and
killings at least from 1896 onwards.