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GOMIDAS INSTITUTE TAKES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DEBATE TO ANKARA
Compiled by Roland Mnatsakanyan (Gomidas Institute, London)
21 June 2009
On October 12, 2005, Lord Archer of Sandwell QC, Lord Biffen and Lord
Avebury organised a meeting in Westminster for British
parliamentarians to respond to a petition sent to members of the
British Houses of Parliament by the Turkish Grand National Assembly
(TGNA) contesting the veracity of the 1916 British Parliamentary Blue
Book, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16.
According to the TGNA, the 1916 Blue Book was a wartime fabrication
which harmed Turkish interests during World War I and continues to do
so today. The central thesis of the Blue Book was the argument that
starting in 1915 Armenians were subject to a policy of mass
annihilation in the Ottoman Empire. The petition claimed that the Blue
Book was the source of allegations that the massacres and deaths of
Armenians during the forced deportations of 1915-16 constituted a
genocide, which the petition said was untrue. The petition asserted
that: (1) the 1916 report had no supporting documentation; (2) the
report was contrived in essence; and (3) the main compiler and editor
of the report admitted that the Blue Book was simply a propaganda tool
fabricated against Ottoman Turkey and its German ally.
The petition insisted that the core of the Blue Book was a set of
eyewitness accounts which were unreliable, and that the work was
composed in such a way as to conceal the flawed character of these key
reports. It maintained that withholding the names of some informants
and locations, supposedly to safeguard sources still in the Ottoman
Empire, was in reality, to conceal the weaknesses of the reports
themselves.
However, a group of British MPs concluded from their own knowledge of
the Blue Book and many contemporaneous accounts by eyewitnesses which
have since been published, as well as a detailed report from the
Gomidas Institute, that:
1. the Blue Book was compiled from first-hand testimonies which were
scrupulously reported by the distinguished editor, Arnold Toynbee;
2. the supporting documentation has been readily accessible, a point
overlooked in the letter from the TGNA;
3. Arnold Toynbee did not say that the Blue Book was flawed as claimed
by the petition;
4. the petition wrongly asserted that the War Propaganda Bureau was
the sole source for all information regarding the situation in the
Ottoman Empire – there were hundreds of neutral consular officials and
missionaries;
5. the reports by neutrals have been reinforced and corroborated by
other United States and German consular reports, now in the public
domain, and by numerous accounts in the diaries and letters of
survivors;
6. the sources of the 150 eyewitness accounts published in the Blue
Book were not discovered recently in a War Propaganda Bureau document
as claimed by the TGNA, but have been known and published for many years.
British MPs judged that the TGNA was not properly informed about the
Blue Book. Consequently, on 27 January 2006, 33 MPs responded to the
TGNA petition with a letter to the Speaker of the TGNA Bülent Arinç,
inviting members of the TGNA to a face to face meeting with their
British colleagues to discuss the Blue Book. Since there was no
response to that letter a second email communication was sent on 1
September 2006 to all individual members of the TGNA, inviting them to
a face to face meeting. Again there was no response.
The British MPs finally concluded that most TBMM members were not
aware of the actual content of the 1916 Blue Book, nor the archival
trail associated with it. In order to facilitate better understanding
and reflection, it was suggested that the Gomidas Institute should
undertake the Turkish translation of their uncensored edition of the
Blue Book, which was replete with discussion and full archival
references. The Gomidas Institute was able to undertake such a major
project with the help of the AGBU so that a whole new Turkish
readership-not just members of the TGNA-could appraise the Blue Book
issue in an informed and balanced manner.
The Turkish edition of the Blue Book will be released in Ankara by
Lord Avebury and Ara Sarafian this Friday, 26 June 2009. The event is
sponsored by the Turkish Human Rights Association (Ankara) and the
Freedom of Thought Association. For more information please contact
[email protected]
ENGLISH: James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of
Fallodon by Viscount Bryce [Uncensored Edition], edited and with an
introduction by Ara Sarafian
TURKISH: James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, Osmanlý Ýmparatorluðu’nda
Ermenilere Yapýlan Muamele, 1915-1916 Vikont Bryce’ýn Fallodon Vikontu
Grey’e Sunduðu Belgeler [Sansürsüz Basým], Gomidas Institute: London
and Istanbul, 2009, 654 pp. Yayýna hazýrlayan Ara Sarafian. Özel önsöz
Lord Avebury.