COMMONS SENSE LEADS SWEDISH PARLIAMENT’S REFUSAL TO DEFINE ARMENIAN CASE AS GENOCIDE
Turkish Press
June 16 2008
ATAA – On June 12, 2008, the Swedish parliament, with an overwhelming
vote of 245 – 37 rejected to a resolution that characterized the 1915
Armenian case as genocide. The decision of the Swedish Parliament
followed long deliberations.
The resolution was rejected because: (1) the United Nations has
never accepted the Armenian case as genocide; (2) the United Nations
Genocide Convention does not apply retroactively to events before 1948;
(3) there is substantial disagreement between experts regarding the
events of 1915; (4) there is concern by experts about broadening
the definition of genocide and overlapping with other crimes; and,
(5) a legislature should not intervene in foreign affairs and disturb
the Turkish domestic process.
ATAA President-Elect Gunay Evinch and 1991-93 Fulbright Scholar on
the Armenian issue, commented that that in 1986 the United Nations
considered the Whitaker Report on the Crime of Genocide, which
attempted to slip in the Armenian case in a footnote: "That caused
a substantial debate, the result of which was the UN’s decision to
‘receive’ rather than ‘accept’ the report. Receiving is a diplomatic
way of rejecting."
Evinch also reminded that in 1917, Sweden lead the formation of
the Scandinavian Commission of Inquiry into allegations of Armenian
massacres, and reports regarding that the Armenians had engaged in a
massive revolt to assist the Russian invasion of March 1915. Similarly,
in 1919 the India Muslim Commission of Inquiry was formed to report
on the atrocities committed by the Armenian Revolt against Muslims
in eastern Anatolia 1880-1919. Both Commissions were discouraged and
closed by the British Empire.
The vast majority of experts on the Ottoman Empire reject the Armenian
case as genocide — Bernard Lewis, Guenther Lewy, Andrew Mango,
Avigdor, Levy, Stanford Shaw, Masaki Kakiszaki, David Fromkin,
Norman Stone, Edward Erickson, Heath Lowry, and Justin McCarthy,
to list a few notables.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress