THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DID NOT START, NOR DID IT END, IN 1915
11:41, April 23, 2013
Dear and distinguished guests,
At this stage, the factual veracity of the Armenian Genocide is no
longer a real issue.
It is therefore time to take the subject to another level, and to
start reflecting upon the effects, implications and consequences of
this duly established Crime against Humanity.
By virtue of all principles of Law and Justice, there cannot be a
crime, without consequences. Such a concept is simply inexistent.
Those consequences present two main components: punishment and compensation.
The punishment is based on two considerations: justice and deterrence.
Justice is the way the crime is condemned and the victim rightfully
vindicated, while the deterrence factor aims at preventing recidivism,
the repetition of similar crimes.
As for the notion of compensation, it is an additional obligation
incumbent upon the party which bears the responsibility of the crime,
aimed at reversing and rectifying, as much as possible, the prejudice,
damages and loss inflicted upon the victim.
The subject of the Armenian Genocide has to be addressed on the basis
of these legal and moral foundations.
The actual crime at hand, in its most active phase, is not limited to
the genocidal events of 1915, but it has started at least in 1895, and
it does continue up until this date.
After five centuries of less direct methods, the first period of the
campaign of physical annihilation of Armenians on their native and
historic lands, in its most direct, violent and bloody stage, started
with the atrocities of Sultan Hamid II, in 1895 and 1896, in Western
Armenia; the second period: under the regime of the Ittihad Movement,
in 1909 – in Cilicia – and in 1915 in Western Armenia; the third
period: from 1918 to 1920, in the Armenian Caucasus, which includes
notably the territories of the current Republics of Armenia and
Artsakh, where the invading Turks attempted to pursue and complete
their genocidal plans; the fourth period : from 1988 to 1992, in Bakou
and in Artsakh, where the Turks of Azerbaidjan reactivated the
genocidal campaign against the Armenians; as for the fifth period, it
is still ongoing, to this date….
The ideological and state continuity between Ottoman Turkey and
current Turkey is not only obvious and apparent considering the
similarity of their flags, but is goes much deeper, indeed.
Furthermore, the implementation of the Armenian Genocide did not start
nor did it end in 1915, but it continued after that date under the
regime of the various subsequent Turkish governments, and it still
continues, it is still actually in process, by so-called “modern”
Turkey.
This situation can be clearly demonstrated and proven by the
following, undeniable and objective facts, realities and events.
. When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (father of the Turks) came to power in
Turkey, one of his first actions was to put an end to the judicial
prosecution of some of the main perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.
. The subsequent Turkish governments officially transported to Turkey,
with all due honors, the remains of those same murderers of a whole
nation on its ancestral lands.
. It is in 1943 that Adolf Hitler remitted to Inonu, the immediate
successor of Mustapha Kemal, the remains of Mehmed Talaat, the main
designer of the Armenian Genocide.
These “relics” are solemnly conserved in a magnificent marble
mausoleum situated in beautiful Istanbul, as a monument of official
Turkish pride and glory; it is visited up until this date by
ill-informed tourists, who take nice pictures of it, to post them on
their Facebook pages.
. One of the main boulevards of the current capital of Turkey, Ankara,
bears the glorious name of that same Mehmed Talaat, up until this
date.
. It is in 1996 that the remains of another high ranking planner and
executioner of the Armenian Genocide, Enver Pasha, made the trip from
Central Asia to Turkey, to be officially buried there, with all due
honors.
. Up until this date, in those lands and territories which constitute
the ancestral homeland of Armenians, all traces of Armenian presence,
existence and rights continue to be deliberately destroyed and
annihilated, on all levels : material, abstract, spiritual,
psychological, physical, incorporeal, factual, legal, moral, cultural,
religious, historic, linguistic, etc. etc.
The Armenian Genocide is still ongoing.
. Up until this date, Armenians remaining in Turkey are subjected to
continuous persecution, criminal pressures, gross violation of rights;
as evidenced notably with the cold-blooded murder, on a sidewalk of
Istanbul, of Hrant Dink, despite the fact that this journalist, this
totally pacifist intellectual, considered himself as a true and
faithful citizen of Turkey, and was aspiring to some kind of a
reconciliation between Turks and Armenians. If they assassinated even
such a person, let us imagine what they want to do to an Armenian who
would have any minimal claims of justice.
. Up until this date, there is a massive population in Western
Armenia, on the Turkish side of the current border with the rest of
Armenia, who is hiding its Armenian origins, who is hiding its
Christian religion, by fear and terror.
. Turkey has encouraged, supported and collaborated with the numerous
genocidal crimes committed by the Azeri Turks, from 1988 to 1992,
against the Armenian population of the Caucasus: Baku, Soumgait,
Kirovabad, Kedashen…;
. In 2005, in Nakhitchevan, this region of Armenia fully and directly
bordering current Turkey, the Azeri Turks, not satisfied enough with
the forceful evacuation of the totality of the Armenian population,
directed their genocidal rage and hatred towards the tombstones of an
ancient Armenian cemetery, destroying and throwing them all in the
Arax river.
. In the past 22 years, the fundamental position of Turkey against the
Republic of Armenia is expressed not only by political aggression but
also by military plans and actions, as a direct continuation of the
plan of extermination of all Armenians and any Armenia.
. Regarding the military actions, we are not referring only to the
actual invasion, projected by Turkey around 1990, at the wake of the
reestablishment of the Independence of the Republic of Armenia, and
which would have been the direct continuation of what Mustapha Kemal
had attempted in 1918.
Beyond that project, on a real and practical, military level, there
was an invasion of Armenia by Azeri/Turkish soldiers, in 1992, in
Itchevan, a region situated at the North-East of the Republic of
Armenia.
Up until this date, on the same border, the region of Tavoush is under
almost daily attacks by Azeri Turks, including deadly sniper fire.
And we are not talking yet about the actual Artsakh front. Itchevan
and Tavoush, currently under Turkish fire power, are officially part
of the Republic of Armenia.
. On the Artsakh front, during the past 12 months only, there has been
an average of at least 500 violations of the so-called ceasefire, each
week. That makes, yes, an average of 26000 acts of military
aggression, per year;
Specifically, as merely an example, from April 7 to April 13, 2013,
the Azeri Turks have fired over 1500 shots from various caliber
weapons towards Armenian positions.
Each and every one of those shots is linked to the project of
annihilation of Armenians and any Armenia.
Each and every one of those 1500 shots, in one week only, constitutes
the continuation of the Armenian Genocide.
. The blockade inflicted by Turkey upon Armenia, for the past 20 years
– and counting -, being expressly and directly related to the war in
Artsakh, is an act of aggression of military nature. And since its
purpose is to crash the resurgence of any Armenia and thus any future
for Armenians, that blockade is also a way to continue and complete
the Armenian Genocide.
. During the past decade and today, the pride and nostalgia of Turkey
towards its past has reached a maximal level, being implemented within
the explicit and official state ideology and actual state policy.
The doctrine of Mustapha Kemal aimed at least to camouflage the
reality under some cosmetic changes.
Current Turkey does not want to even fake it, anymore. Its islamist
regime openly and proudly declares itself as the legitimate and worthy
successor of Ottoman Turkey.
. Today’s Turkey has established and is currently implementing,
openly, at the state level, a systematic campaign and policy of denial
of the Armenian Genocide.
The official organism in charge of this campaign is named Talaat
Pasha, the main designer of the Armenian Genocide during the period
from 1909 to 1915.
Up until this date, starting from all the state structures and with
the active participation of numerous civil bodies and organisations,
including notably academic circles, deploying immeasurable means,
efforts and resources, on a priority basis, today’s Turkey is
conducting this campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide.
By doing so, today’s Turkey is establishing its current and ongoing
complicity with this universal Crime initially perpetrated by Sultan
Hamid II and the Ittihad party and perpetuated by all the subsequent
Turkish governments, up until this date.
But it is not just a matter of complicity after the fact.
On moral, political, legal and factual levels, these current actions
by Turkey, aimed at denying the Armenian Genocide, constitute a direct
participation to the genocide itself.
It has been duly established by all experts that the denial of
genocide is an integral part, an essential component of the genocide
itself.
It constitutes the continuation, the perpetuation of the Crime.
After the physical and material destruction – which is the initial
phase of the Genocide -, it is an ongoing and permanent effort to
annihilate even the memory of the victims – which is the final stage,
the finishing touch, of the Genocide – .
This denial is also a current and immediate aggression against the
survivors of the Genocide, since it claims that they are simply liars,
and that the unspeakable suffering they witnessed and endured is
imaginary.
It is also an actual, present and continuous attack against the
descendants of the victims, since it makes a mockery of their pain, it
qualifies their mourning as false, it insults them in their grief and
deprives them from any closure.
Finally, it is an attempt to evade any consequence whatsoever of the
Crime, thus, basically, to “get away with it”, while providing a
magnificent example and encouragement to all the future perpetrators
of genocides.
Genocide becomes the perfect Crime, with its ultimate stage of
perpetration : genocide-denial.
Consequently, by virtue of all principles, today’s Turkey bears the
responsibility of the Armenian Genocide. And this responsibility is
based not only on the well-established notion of State Continuity, but
it is generated, activated and aggravated by current and ongoing
policies, plans and actions.
If this Genocide remains unpunished, and if its effects, as much as
possible, are not reversed and/or compensated for, then it will create
a notion which does not exist in the modern civilized world : a crime
without any consequences.
How can it be possible to allow a party responsible of a crime to keep
the direct proceeds of its crime, to enjoy them, to benefit from them.
How can it be conceivable to generate a precedent where a crime is
rewarded; a precedent that establishes that crime does pay.
Here again, the problem is certainly not limited to past genocidal crimes.
If such a precedent is established, it will be a green light for all
future genocides.
Turkey will serve as an ultimate model for any other State considering
to commit a genocide, a reassurance, an encouragement to just go ahead
with it.
In light of all these observations, we realize that the Armenian
Genocide is not, unfortunately, just a distant, abstract and
historical subject, but is a current and immediate issue, and a clear
and present danger, in the highly delicate, complicated and explosive
region of the South Caucasus.
We are therefore gathered today not to commemorate some ancient and
distant historical fact, the 98th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, but to denounce the continuation of that Crime against
Humanity, and to reaffirm our determination to put an end to it, and
to reverse all its reversible consequences.
Armenians not only have the right to seek and pursue Justice for the
Armenian Genocide, but that is also their duty and obligation.
Considering that one of the essential purposes and objectives of
demanding justice for a Crime against Humanity is to prevent and to
forbid its repetition, anywhere, anytime, and against any
collectivity, anyone who does not pursue the Armenian Cause up until
its ultimate completion shall be responsible for any future genocides
and crimes against humanity.
And this crucial burden is also on the shoulders of the Armenians
themselves, generation after generation.
Considering the universal dimension of our struggle, our duty to
pursue it fully and perpetually is not only towards our martyrs, but
it is also towards entire Humanity.
We do have to govern ourselves accordingly.
Haytoug Chamlian
April 21, 2013
http://hetq.am/eng/news/25787/the-armenian-genocide-did-not-start-nor-did-it-end-in-1915.html