The contrast of the images are striking to me still. One bulletin board in my sixth-grade Armenian school classroom in Los Angeles was festooned with colorful construction-paper Easter bunnies and eggs, and glitter-and-foil-covered cardboard crosses and well wishes to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The other bulletin board had only grainy black-and-white photocopied pictures of emaciated orphans, pyramids of skulls guarded by Turkish gendarmes, long winding caravans of women and children marching in rags with their tiny bundles through the desert.
April, the month of Easter, was also when we commemorated the Armenian Genocide, the mass extermination of 1.5 million people in the region — 75 percent of our population — at the hands of the Turkish government. I would stare deeply into the photographs to see if one of those children could have been my grandfather, orphaned in Diyarbakir when he was 5, before missionaries whisked him off to Lebanon.
We’re now at the 106th anniversary of this crime, for which the word “genocide” was first invented, and it’s been nearly as long that Armenian survivors and their descendants, strewn around the world in dozens of diaspora communities, have fought to have it formally recognized as a genocide in world capitals. There you will have found us, as soon our grandparents could take a first breath of newfound security — from France to Brazil, from Australia to the Vatican, from Egypt to Canada — pleading our case to legislatures to stand with humanity and condemn this brutal crime, and cheering when they did. There you find us still, pleading with President Biden to make good on the promise he made, and that so many prior presidents have broken, to formally say the words, “the Armenian genocide.”
Apraham Haroutunian, the author’s grandfather, on right, with a friend, at Armenian orphanage in Lebanon.SARAH LEAH WHITSON
Why, you might ask, have global Armenian communities invested so much time and effort, and so many resources, to persuade others to recognize the wrong done to our people? What difference does it make to our forebears, whose scattered bones have long settled in the banks of the Euphrates, or calcified in the mass graves of Syria’s Deir Zor desert, where the deportation caravans terminated? We still raise our children with the memory not just of the wrong done to our people, but also the wrong that continues with each year that the Turkish government denies it ever happened. Scholars learn more each year about the science behind generational trauma; we and our children continue to live it, with a deep, ingrained sense of injustice and an almost unexplainable, collective drive to resist the erasure the genocide intended. The need for recognition by the international community is a quest for at least a fraction of accountability: affirming the truth of what happened. One hundred six years later, that quest has only gotten stronger, no doubt fueled by Turkey’s own stubborn refusal to come to terms with its past.
’d like to think the Armenian people’s dedication to accountability, against the political odds that favor acquiescing to the power, wealth, and influence of the Turkish government, is an important contribution to the noble mission of global justice and what comes with it: the preservation of our humanity. After the Shoah, the world joined together to bring some of the key perpetrators to justice, to honor the dead, to compensate the living victims, and to vow “never again.” It was a critical moment for the world in establishing that we still share some modicum of a universal language of rights and wrongs, of truth and justice.
There has been no similar reckoning in the case of the Armenian genodice, a reckoning that would help strengthen the rule of law worldwide and provide some consolation and perhaps closure to the Armenian people. Coming to terms with the past is no less a favor for the people of Turkey, stuck as they are with a government whose denials give them no quarter to learn about or resolve all that transpired at the hands of their own forebears, and entangles them in perplexing global scorn.
This past year has been a particularly devastating and painful one for Armenian communities around the world, faced with the loss of territory to Azerbaijan from the republic of Karabakh in a war that took the lives of over 5,000 Azeri and Armenian young soldiers amid the coronavirus pandemic. A military defeat would have been sufficiently wounding, but what was most terrifying was the decisive participation of Turkey in the war, replete not only with advanced, lethal drones and Syrian mercenaries, but also propaganda in Turkish media that they would “finish off” what they started in 1915. Many Armenians were truly convinced that Turkish forces would attempt to slaughter the population of Armenia as well, making a politically negotiated solution all the harder for the now beleaguered Armenian prime minister, Robert Kocharyan.
Biden faces complicated conflicts and multiple competing priorities in the Middle East, for which the United States needs the cooperation of the Turkish government, or at least to prevent it from acting as a spoiler in the region. He must, however, remove the issue of the Armenian genocide from the negotiating table, because the recognition of our collective human history should never be used as a bargaining chip. With both houses of Congress having reaffirmed their recognition of the genocide last year, Biden has ample backing to make the American government’s position clear for the record. He will bolster his legacy and credibility as a president who meant it when he said human rights would be a priority for his administration. He can help lead the international community to place a wreath on this stain of history, and have hope that a better future may come.
Sarah Leah Whitson is the executive director of DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now).
16:05,
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Members of the National Assembly (Parliament) of Bulgaria have discussed the topic of the Armenian Genocide during the plenary session on April 23.
MP Arman Babikyan has announced that back in 1975 the lower house of the US legislative body has recognized the Armenian Genocide. “The citizens of Bulgaria have known the truth and have send us for protecting it. Parliamentary group “Rise Up! Thugs Out! calls the murders of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Thousands of Armenians wait for that grateful step. We should be grateful to the Bulgarian people who hosted the forebears of Armenians who have survived”, he said.
Tsetska Bachkova from the Democratic Bulgaria group has made a statement on behalf of the coalition about the tragic incidents that happened in the Ottoman Empire. “Bulgarians have demonstrated generosity and compassion by opening their doors before refugees. Thousands of Armenian refugees have received the hospitality of the Bulgarians and decided to stay here. They became a part of the Bulgarian people within the course of the time”, she said, adding that their faction supports replacing the term “mass killings of Armenians” with the term “genocide” in the Bulgarian documents.
“Bulgaria, which speaks about murders, must recognize the Genocide with a decision or a statement of the National Assembly, as it has been done by dozens of states”, the “Rise Up! Thugs Out! parliamentary group said.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
By CBSLA Staff at 9:50 pm
“For the Armenian people, the genocide is not something that began and ended in 1915 and 1923,” Alex Galitsky, spokesperson for the Armenian National Committee of America — Western Region, said.
During those years, Turkish troops killed 1.5 million Armenians. Armenians say it was mass murder, orchestrated by the government, and deny the claim that the victims were simply casualties of World War I.
“While genocide recognition is an important, a commendable, momentous first step towards justice, it is just the first step,” Galitsky said.
But it’s a step Armenian Americans have been marching for decades in hopes of accomplishing, and one that is seemingly closer than ever with both the House and the Senate last year passing resolutions to formally recognize the genocide and Biden poised to do the same — making the U.S. the latest country to do so.
And while it has been widely reported that the president is expected to make his announcement on the 106th anniversary, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki would not reveal any details.
“Certainly understand the question, and there’s a great deal of interest in this particular topic, but I’m not going to get ahead of the president, and I also don’t have anything else to provide from the podium today,” she said Thursday.
The Los Angeles Turkish Consulate declined the opportunity for an interview about the potential recognition of the genocide, instead releasing a statement that said, in part:
“Turkey rejects the categorization of the events of 1915 as genocide. Furthermore, there is no judgment of a competent international court, which classifies the events of 1915 as genocide.”
The consul general also said that “biased portrayal of this historical period undermines reconciliation and dialogue by creating a confrontational atmosphere.”
But that continued denial is what USC Professor Stephen Smith, who specializes in genocide studies, called the “third act of genocide.”
“First of all, there is the pre-genocide when there is ideology that attacks a person, a group of people,” Smith, who is also the executive director of the Shoa Foundation of Visual History and Education, said. “Then there’s the actual genocide, the physical killing of that group of people, and then there is the denial of it, and we have been party to the denial of the Armenian genocide for a hundred years right now.”
As for the Armenian National Committee, the group said it did not entertain any denial of this well-known historic fact.
And tonight in Southern California, home to more people of Armenian descent than anywhere outside of Armenia, the reaction to the news was positive.
“I’m so glad that someone finally in America is acknowledging the fact that it happened,” a girl in Glendale said. “Because stuff like the Holocaust happened, and they acknowledge that.”Smith said the recognition is about the court of history and the dignity that comes when history is finally being acknowledged.
During his lifetime, Taniel Tufenkjian resided in several countries. As a young adult, he moved from his native Syria to Lebanon, then to France and finally to the United States about 20 years ago.
But no matter where he lived, one thing remained the same: on April 24, Tufenkjian gathered with his family to commemorate the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenians, including his grandfather, in Turkey about a century ago.
So far, only a handful of countries — and the U.S. is not one of them — have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
As the world is about to mark the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, Tufenkjian — just like many other Armenian-Americans — hope President Joe Biden’s term will bring change.
“He’s an honest man and I believe he calls everything by its proper name,” Tufenkjian, 77, said. “The genocide should be called the genocide.”
Several major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Associated Press, reported on Wednesday, April 21, that Biden is planning to acknowledge the genocide on or before the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which falls on Saturday this year.
But the president could still change his mind, according to the AP.
Lawmakers and Armenian-American activists are firecely lobbying Biden. One possibility is that the president would include the acknowledgement of genocide in the annual remembrance day proclamation typically issued by presidents. Biden’s predecessors have avoided using “genocide” in the proclamation commemorating the dark moment in history.
President Joe Biden .(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
A bipartisan group of more than 100 House members on Wednesday signed a letter to Biden calling on him to become the first U.S. president to formally recognize the World War I-era atrocities as genocide. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California spearheaded the letter.
“The shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to follow through on your commitments, and speak the truth.”
Turkey’s foreign minister has warned the Biden administration that recognition would “harm” U.S.-Turkey ties.
From 1894 and 1924, Turkey prosecuted, displaced, and assassinated millions of Armenians along with other Christians, including Greeks and Assyrians. As a result, many of their descendants were dispersed across the world. Some landed in Los Angeles, which became home to one of the largest populations of Armenians living outside their native country.
Turkey doesn’t deny that Armenians were killed in clashes with the Ottoman army during World War I but it disputes the death toll and the characterization of the mass killing.
For decades, U.S. predecessors have avoided calling the killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces genocide amid intense lobby by the Turkish government.
“In the past, the arm twisting from Turkey was, ’Well we’re such a good friend that you should remain solid with us on this,’” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, whose members have started a campaign to encourage Biden to recognize the genocide. “But they’re proving to be not such a good friend.”
President Barack Obama said during his presidential campaign that he would define the 1915 mass slaughter but stopped short of declaring it genocide, drawing criticism from the Armenian-American diaspora.
Hamparian said he’s hopeful that Biden, unlike Obama, will take the historic public step. He noted that the sting of Obama’s failure to follow through still lingers for many.
In 2019, The U.S. Senate passed a non-binding resolution formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide, raising objections from the Trump administration which feared damaging Turkish-American ties.
Just like Obama, Biden made a pledge during his presidential campaign.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, recently wrote an open letter to Biden, reminding him of his campaign promise.
“Mr. President, we must not resort to euphemisms or half-truths. The murder of 1.5 million Armenians was an atrocity – that is surely true – but it was more than that. The act of seeking to destroy people and culture is a different kind of evil, and it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” that we had a word to describe it,” he added.
Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge, said Biden has already witnessed his predecessor making a promise but failing to follow through.
“I don’t think politically it would be very smart to do that again,” he said. “That strikes me as something that would really alienate Armenian-Americans.”
Turkey, meanwhile, has already singled the recognition would harm relations between the NATO allies.And since the U.S.-Turkey relationship is already strained, he added, recognizing genocide wouldn’t make a big difference.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week that any attempt by the Biden administration to acknowledge the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman forces would worsen the ties with the U.S, according to Reuters.
Vahram Shemmassian, head of CSUN’s Armenian Studies Program, said he “wouldn’t be surprised if Biden doesn’t keep his word although many Armenians are very helpful.”
He was “guardedly optimistic,” he added, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t keep his word and I won’t be shocked or disappointed because it’s been going for decades now.”
The reason it’s important for the U.S. to recognize the genocide, he said, is because with its support “the loop around Turkey’s neck would get tighter.”
France, Germany, and the Vatican are among the countries that recognized the Armenian genocide.
Pasadena-based comedian Mary Basmadjian said she’s hopeful that Biden would acknowledge the killings of millions of Armenians but she was more preoccupied with what happened last fall between her native country and Azerbaijan over the ethnic-Armenian majority enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Two of my cousins lost several childhood friends to the war,” she said. “That’s very unfortunate.”
She used her social media that lists more than 51,000 followers to share with her non-Armenian friends about what’s currently happening in her country.
“I came to the conclusion that we don’t need validation from the Western world because we know that it happened,” she said.
Taniel Tufenkjian and his wife Adriana stand in front of a painting of an Armenian church .(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)
Tufenkjian keeps a faded image of his grandfather in his Simi Valley home taken just 18 months before he was assassinated in front of his family by soldiers in Konya, a city in south-central Turkey.
Tufenkjian said his family has a “typical destiny of an Armenian family” who were forced from their ancestor’s land.
“We have five members in my house and none of us is born in the same place,” he said. “We’re the nation of nomads because we suffered from the genocide. We’re descendants of the genocide generation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
17:35,
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. According to Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev wants to step back from the agreements and continue the policy of blockading Armenia by his statements showing aspirations towards the territory of Armenia, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan said in a consultation in Syunik Province of Armenia.
”Following the 44-day war, we have some transformations over the security atmosphere in Syunik and this situation grows more concerning in the light of the provocative, irregular and controversial statements made by the Azerbaijani leadership. I want to draw your attention on the fact that those statements contradict one another. On the one hand the Azerbaijani leadership announces that it has no territorial demands from Armenia, on the other hand they announce about creating a Zangezur corridor by force”, Pashinyan said.
The PM noted that those announcements are provocative and they need to be properly reacted, including through the diplomatic missions of Armenia in international arenas.
”There are no remarks over ”Zangezur”, ”Syunik” or ”corridor” in the November 9 declaration. There are remarks about unblocking regional infrastructures and in the January 11 statement in Moscow we clearly recorded that regional communications must be opened. If Azerbaijan is speaking about Zangezur corridor, Armenia can speak about Nakhichevan corridor, north-Azerbaijani corridor, because Azerbaijan can only get a ”corridor” that will be an equivalent to the ”corridor” that Armenia will get from the Azerbaijani territory, including through the territory of Nakhichevan”, the PM said.
Pashinyan added that the Azerbaijani leadership simply wants to stand back from the agreements by making such statements, tensioning the situation in the region for continuing the policy of blockading Armenia.
On April 20 the Azerbaijani president gave an interview to an Azerbaijani TV channel, where he made threats of using force against Armenia.
Vagram Bagdasaryan / Photolure / TASS
Armenia said Wednesday it will seek to expand the presence of Russian troops on its soil in a move that would further strengthen Moscow’s role as the tiny Caucasus country’s security guarantor.
Russia helped broker a peace deal between Armenia and its arch-foe Azerbaijan in November which ended six weeks of fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region that claimed the lives of some 6,000 people.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territories to Azerbaijan in the disputed enclave as well as surrounding areas it had controlled since a war in the 1990s, as well as allowing the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the area.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday that his government was in “talks with Russian partners on setting up a foothold of Russia’s 102nd military base” in Armenia’s Syunik region that borders Azerbaijan and Iran.
“The Armenian-Russian military alliance is pivotal for ensuring Armenia’s security,” he said in parliament, stressing the “critical importance” of the “joint Russian-Armenian military alignment and of the joint air defense system.”
“We are discussing the possibility of expanding the capabilities of Russia’s military base.”
Armenia is part of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance that also includes Belarus and three ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia.
Under the treaty, Russia has an obligation to defend Armenia in the event that the small landlocked nation comes under attack from a foreign power.
Armenia hosts a 3,000-troops-strong Russian military base in its second-largest city of Gyumri and Russian border guards are deployed along Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran.
Armenia and Turkey have been at loggerheads since Armenia gained independence following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 and their shared border has remained closed ever since.
Turkey’s backing of Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over Karabakh — and Armenia’s bid to get World War I-era massacres of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire recognized as genocide — have soured relations between the two countries.
04/14/2021 Armenia (International Christian Concern) – Armenian historians have submitted a request for the United States’ recognition of the Armenian Genocide via an open letter to President Biden. Few countries officially recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the United States included, due to attempts to preserve good relations with Turkey. In December 2019, the United States Congress passed resolutions to recognize the genocide, though at the international level does little in condemning Turkey’s role.
Turkey long denies that the 1915 events were genocide, despite the systematic ethnic cleansing of around 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. The genocide and its expulsion of Armenian Christians and their identities began what is the ongoing pan-Turkism rhetoric. By officially recognizing the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the United States and other countries can take stronger action against Turkey and Azerbaijan for the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and further attempts to cleanse the region of ethnic Armenians. For more background on the Nagorno-Karabakh War, read ICC’s report here.
The open letter to President Biden by Armenian historians is as follows:
April 14, 2021
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
JOSEPH ROBINETTE BIDEN
Dear Mr. President,
This appeal from historians of Armenia does not intend to prove the obvious facts of the Armenian Genocide. These incontrovertible facts have long been known to the civilized world, including the American scientific community. Our sole concern today on the eve of April 24 is the persistent and baseless denials by the Turkish Government that provides a carte blanche for perpetrating new genocidal actions. The most recent such episode was committed with the extensive participation of international terrorist groups against the peaceful Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkey, a NATO member state with advanced powerful weapons and terrorism links, behaves as a serial killer in Nagorno-Karabakh since it has not been held accountable for its previous crimes against humanity and civilization. Turkey’s sinister actions, combining western technology with medieval manslaughter methodology used by terrorists, remind us that the accusations brought by the three Entente Powers — Great Britain, France and Russia — in their statement of May 24, 1915 condemning the Turkish State for its crimes against humanity and civilization, are still relevant to our days. Therefore, the serious accusations against Turkey by the Entente Powers, later joined by the United States during WWI led by Pres. Woodrow Wilson of blessed memory, remains unclear and unimplemented from a legal point of view thus serving grounds for new atrocities.
Turkey, the perpetrator of the still unpunished mass crime of the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, deceitfully maneuvers among the world powers for one hundred years to avoid responsibility for genocidal acts committed not only against Armenians, but also targeting Greeks and Assyrians. Moreover, the Turkish leaders, outside of the international community’s control and suffering from arrogance, just like leaders of Nazi Germany, constitute a threat not only for Armenia, but also its neighbors and the entire civilized world.
The Turkish phenomenon of an unpunished criminal currently is being manifested also through the annihilation of cultural and religious centers of its victims and systematic substitution of historical memory of the region’s nations by exploiting its gigantic propagandistic state machine, spreading falsehoods in a massive scale reminiscent of Goebbels’s propaganda.
In recent years, we as historians of Armenia have written many books describing the Machiavellian schemes of Turkey attempting through all means to mislead the international community and prevent using the term “Genocide” in your forthcoming annual proclamation on the occasion of April 24. The latest example of such falsehoods concerns the groundless statement that no judicial rulings recognizing the Armenian Genocide exist and distorted interpretations of the Genocide Convention adopted in 1948. The truth is that the Armenian Genocide was first recognized by the Ottoman courts in their rulings during 1919-1920. Moreover, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide although adopted in 1948, a few years after the Holocaust, nevertheless Raphael Lemkin included in the definition of the genocidal acts not only the crimes committed during the Holocaust, but also the crimes fixed in item ‘e’ of Article 2 of the Convention, i.e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, which did not take place during the Jewish Holocaust. This is a criminal act unique to the Armenian Genocide, i.e., the definition of the Convention of December 9, 1948 includes a crime element committed solely during the Armenian Genocide, therefore it cannot omit this historical fact that it served as a foundation just like it cannot omit the Holocaust just because it was committed before 1948.
The two biggest crimes perpetrated against humanity and civilization during WWI and WWII — the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust — have set up clear red lines for peaceful co-existence on the planet in the 20th century constituting an inseparable part of mankind’s legal conscience. Their protection and prevention of new genocides first of all depends on the guarantor of freedom and human rights across the world — the will and determination of the United States of America.
The decisive condition for preventing new genocidal aspirations by Turkey, a state that committed bloody crimes against its neighbors in the vast region stretching from the Balkans to the Armenian Highlands, and enforcing the honoring of its international obligations lie in overcoming the Turkish phenomenon of impunity for the Armenian atrocities based on Hitler’s cynical words: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” and recognition of the Armenian Genocide in an unrestricted and definitive manner. Only through calling that crime by its clear legal term — genocide — it will be possible to stop ignoring Erdogan’s genocidal aspirations by other irresponsible representatives of the international community and even encouraging a Munich Agreement style politics. All approaches other than the facing off of the criminal with his victims as well as a real reconciliation will contribute to further encouraging and expanding the dangerous ambitions of Erdogan who has become the Middle East’s new Hitler through systematic concealing of truth and justice.
In this historical moment, the souls of innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide as well as other millions who experienced a similar pattern of violence and sufferings are praying to hear from you the term GENOCIDE in your annual proclamation on the occasion of April 24.
Most respectfully,
The Historians Association of Armenia
Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences
The Department of History, Yerevan State University
Institute of Armenian Studies, Yerevan State University
The Department of History, Armenian State Pedagogical University
There is huge Armenian cultural heritage in the Artsakh territories occupied by Azerbaijan during the recent war, Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Ara Khzmalyan told a news conference on Friday.
“The matter concerns around 1,500 historical and cultural values,” the deputy minister said.
He noted that they discuss the further steps with their colleagues from the Foreign Ministry on an almost daily basis, responding urgently to all challenges and new realities.
“We have a task to pursue a coordinated policy. An action plan has been developed within the framework of the UNESCO National Commission, and we are implementing it step by step,” he said.
In Khzmalyan’s words, new challenges have emerged, which concern not only the Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh, but also the public attitude towards historical monuments and values inside Armenia.
He noted that all interested parties of the sphere will comprehensively discuss the issue at a conference to be hosted by Matenadaran on April 27.