MKHITAR GOSH MEDAL TO THE PRESIDENT OF CARNEGIE CORPORATION
armradio.am
25.04.2012 15:06
President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree on awarding a Mkhitar
Gosh Medal to Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation
of New York, for his significant contribution to the reinforcement
of Motherland-Diaspora ties and his long pro-Armenian activity,
President’s Press Office reported.
DEMOORJIAN: HISTORICAL FACTS REVEAL ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
Martin Demoorjian
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Apr 25, 2012 @ 09:10 AM
MARLBOROUGH – There was an article by Gwynne Dyer (Jan. 24, 2012)
about the French legislative effort to criminalize denial of the
Armenian Genocide with fines and imprisonment. In it, he espouses
Turkey’s denialist rhetoric and incorporates Jewish and Holocaust
references and comparisons, and chastises free speech in France. The
Bill went through additional steps to possibly become law. There is
a threat that under the same stigma of free speech, rejection of the
Bill could open the door to questioning a law that penalizes denial
of the Holocaust. All yet to be seen.
France recognizes the Armenian Genocide as such and this legislation
has probably attracted more international attention for the Genocide
than the bill.
While this bill raised Turkey’s ire as such always does, since 2005,
there is a law in Turkey, Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code,
which makes it a crime to insult Turkishness and criminal to discuss
the 1915 Armenian Massacres/Genocide and it too garners prison time.
At last report there are 97 members of Turkey’s media, journalists,
publishers and distributors who are jailed under Penal Code 301, human
rights groups say this number exceeds those detained in China. This
should question free speech if democracy exists in Turkey.
Perhaps inspired by the 1915 Armenian Massacres, the French Legislation
does not specifically cite the Armenian Genocide or Turkey, so Turkey’s
familiar knee jerk reactions might well prove guilt.
Gwynne Dyer’s assertion that Armenians were not victims of genocide
attempts to re-write history. He writes, ‘~Qgenocide is a deliberate
attempt to wipe out much or all of a specific ethnic, linguistic or
religious group.’~R While he does not dispute the tragedy Armenians
endured, he gives it his spin with a distorted perspective that
echoes Turkey’s denialist campaign that obfuscates the 1915 Armenian
Massacres/Genocide. An honest examination of the issue proves genocide
as correspondence from Talaat to Jemal Bey dated February 28, 1915,
conveys in the following.
“Jemiyet (Committee of Union and Progress, the Young Turks Movement)
has decided to free the fatherland (Turkey) from the covetousness
of the accursed race (Armenians) and to bear upon its shoulders the
stigma that might malign Ottoman history.”
“Unable to forget the disgrace and bitterness of the past (Young Turks
earlier attempt to overthrow the Sultan), Jemiyet, hopeful about its
future, has decided to exterminate all Armenians living in Turkey,
without allowing a single one to remain alive…”
“The Government shall give all necessary instructions to the governors
(of provinces) and the commanders of the Army for the arrangements
concerning massacres.”
There was an article by Gwynne Dyer (Jan. 24, 2012) about the French
legislative effort to criminalize denial of the Armenian Genocide with
fines and imprisonment. In it, he espouses Turkey’s denialist rhetoric
and incorporates Jewish and Holocaust references and comparisons, and
chastises free speech in France. The Bill went through additional steps
to possibly become law. There is a threat that under the same stigma of
free speech, rejection of the Bill could open the door to questioning
a law that penalizes denial of the Holocaust. All yet to be seen.
France recognizes the Armenian Genocide as such and this legislation
has probably attracted more international attention for the Genocide
than the bill.
While this bill raised Turkey’s ire as such always does, since 2005,
there is a law in Turkey, Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code,
which makes it a crime to insult Turkishness and criminal to discuss
the 1915 Armenian Massacres/Genocide and it too garners prison time.
At last report there are 97 members of Turkey’s media, journalists,
publishers and distributors who are jailed under Penal Code 301, human
rights groups say this number exceeds those detained in China. This
should question free speech if democracy exists in Turkey.
Perhaps inspired by the 1915 Armenian Massacres, the French Legislation
does not specifically cite the Armenian Genocide or Turkey, so Turkey’s
familiar knee jerk reactions might well prove guilt.
Gwynne Dyer’s assertion that Armenians were not victims of genocide
attempts to re-write history. He writes, ‘~Qgenocide is a deliberate
attempt to wipe out much or all of a specific ethnic, linguistic or
religious group.’~R While he does not dispute the tragedy Armenians
endured, he gives it his spin with a distorted perspective that
echoes Turkey’s denialist campaign that obfuscates the 1915 Armenian
Massacres/Genocide. An honest examination of the issue proves genocide
as correspondence from Talaat to Jemal Bey dated February 28, 1915,
conveys in the following.
“Jemiyet (Committee of Union and Progress, the Young Turks Movement)
has decided to free the fatherland (Turkey) from the covetousness
of the accursed race (Armenians) and to bear upon its shoulders the
stigma that might malign Ottoman history.”
“Unable to forget the disgrace and bitterness of the past (Young Turks
earlier attempt to overthrow the Sultan), Jemiyet, hopeful about its
future, has decided to exterminate all Armenians living in Turkey,
without allowing a single one to remain alive…”
“The Government shall give all necessary instructions to the governors
(of provinces) and the commanders of the Army for the arrangements
concerning massacres.”
– Minister of the Interior, Talaat
With this reference, the 1915 Armenian Massacres was obviously a
deliberate and planned Turkish policy to eradicate the Armenians who
were systematically rounded up and forced to march into the Syrian
desert, the few who survived their misery gave harrowing stories and
are miracles in their own right.
Among many inaccuracies in Gwynne Dyer’s article he writes,
‘~RBut Armenian civilians living in the cities of western Turkey
were not massacred or deported in 1915.’~R He omits the fact that
250 Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders were rounded up in
Constantinople/Istanbul on April 24, 1915, and slaughtered. This was
an Armenian’s Kristallnacht and the beginning of the 1915 Armenian
Massacres. He ignores that in Trebizon and Sepastia where Armenians
were a minority there were no deportation orders but outright massacres
of civilians.
In 1911, when Salonika was part of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks
held a party meeting there. Britain’s Foreign Ministry learned of this
and it was documented by Arnold Toynbee. The meeting was infiltrated by
spies from Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, and Great Britain,
an intriguing combination in a time frame with a war yet to begin. At
this meeting the Young Turks came up with a plan to annihilate the
Armenian population through death marches as opposed to the prior
massacres of 1894-1896 and 1908. Since the Young Turks’ plan called
for annihilation, under modern international law it is genocide.
There is a plethora of documents about the burgeoning Young Turks’
intentions to exterminate the Armenians in which diplomats and private
citizens attest as stated to them by Turkish officials. Imperial
Germany was an ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Only
German diplomats and military officials were allowed to enter the
areas where the Armenian massacres were taking place. These Germans
and their informants from charitable missions or employees of the
Baghdad Railway were the most important non-Armenian eyewitnesses of
the atrocities. There are many telegrams, letters, and reports from
German consular officials in the Ottoman Empire to the Foreign Office
in Berlin describing the genocide of the Armenians. Some of these
reports are presented in the award-winning 2010 documentary film AGHET.
Learning of the 1911 plan in Salonika, the Armenians became wary of
forthcoming trouble and planned to defend themselves like most would
and as we see in modern day politics in the Middle East. When Russia
invaded Turkey, Armenians may have sided with them most likely because
historical actions proved that Turks would readily kill Armenians.
They could not bet on the Turks after the Hamidian Massacres of
1894-1896, which killed 300,000 Armenians including some of my family.
This greatly impacted the Armenian population as such pogroms are
meant to do and was the greatest example of man’s inhumanity to man
up to that time. This was followed 20 years later by the Armenian
Massacres of 1915 with 1,500,000 Armenians perishing and was again
up to that time regarded as the greatest example of man’s inhumanity
to man. The 1915 Armenian Massacres was the first effort of United
States foreign aid that started as Near East Relief.
Before the 1915 Massacres, Armenians sought independence from Ottoman
Turkish rule. This was encouraged by the Triumvirate of Talaat, Enver
and Jemal Pashas that turned the tables on them and started what has
become so controversial nearly one hundred years later. The Armenians
wanted their independence the same as Kurds now do in Turkey. It is
reported that Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without
a country. I doubt anyone reading this would any too willingly want
live under the yoke of another.
In both the Armenian Genocide and Holocaust there is a commonality
of hate by their oppressors. Germans wanted to eliminate Jews and
Turks wanted to annihilate their Christian subjects, both primarily
because of their respective religions. Although, the Turks did not
bother Armenians if they converted to Moslem.
The Armenian Genocide is a well-documented historical fact. It is
the second most studied genocide and is recognized by eleven NATO
allies and the European Union and one of the crimes upon which the
United Nations Genocide Convention was predicated. The majority of
reputable scholars conclude it was genocide with a growing number of
them Turkish.
There was no court verdict to characterize the Armenian Massacres as
genocide because at the time the word was unknown but the principle of
annihilation existed and proven by earlier pogroms. The 1915 Armenian
Massacres was described as the ‘~Qmurder of a nation,’~R by the United
States Ambassador to Turkey.
While there is strong Turkish opposition to the Armenians’ claim of
genocide, Turkey can prove this by opening their archives to the many
international scholars who would welcome the opportunity to examine
the records and not only those who promote Turkey’s strong denialist
campaign reinforced by Gwynne Dyer’s article.
For those who want to qualify the Turkish position, it could be
worthwhile to provide evidence of the time that supports their
assertions. As there are many articles in major newspapers of the
time about the Armenian Massacres, it would be useful to corroborate
Turkey’s stance with like articles of the period to validate their
claims that cite Armenians killing Turks to a comparable degree.
Raphael Lemkin coined the term ‘~Rgenocide.’~R He worked with
extraordinary dedication toward the adoption of the United Nations
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
and invoked the Armenian Massacres as a prime example of genocide.
The point of my writing is to emphasize the 1915 Armenian Massacres,
a Genocide, happened and that compromising the truth, as articles
like Gwynne Dyer’s along with Turkey’s denialist campaign, degrades
human life.
– Minister of the Interior, Talaat
With this reference, the 1915 Armenian Massacres was obviously a
deliberate and planned Turkish policy to eradicate the Armenians who
were systematically rounded up and forced to march into the Syrian
desert, the few who survived their misery gave harrowing stories and
are miracles in their own right.
Among many inaccuracies in Gwynne Dyer’s article he writes,
‘~RBut Armenian civilians living in the cities of western Turkey
were not massacred or deported in 1915.’~R He omits the fact that
250 Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders were rounded up in
Constantinople/Istanbul on April 24, 1915, and slaughtered. This was
an Armenian’s Kristallnacht and the beginning of the 1915 Armenian
Massacres. He ignores that in Trebizon and Sepastia where Armenians
were a minority there were no deportation orders but outright massacres
of civilians.
In 1911, when Salonika was part of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks
held a party meeting there. Britain’s Foreign Ministry learned of this
and it was documented by Arnold Toynbee. The meeting was infiltrated by
spies from Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, and Great Britain,
an intriguing combination in a time frame with a war yet to begin. At
this meeting the Young Turks came up with a plan to annihilate the
Armenian population through death marches as opposed to the prior
massacres of 1894-1896 and 1908. Since the Young Turks’ plan called
for annihilation, under modern international law it is genocide.
There is a plethora of documents about the burgeoning Young Turks’
intentions to exterminate the Armenians in which diplomats and private
citizens attest as stated to them by Turkish officials. Imperial
Germany was an ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Only
German diplomats and military officials were allowed to enter the
areas where the Armenian massacres were taking place. These Germans
and their informants from charitable missions or employees of the
Baghdad Railway were the most important non-Armenian eyewitnesses of
the atrocities. There are many telegrams, letters, and reports from
German consular officials in the Ottoman Empire to the Foreign Office
in Berlin describing the genocide of the Armenians. Some of these
reports are presented in the award-winning 2010 documentary film AGHET.
Learning of the 1911 plan in Salonika, the Armenians became wary of
forthcoming trouble and planned to defend themselves like most would
and as we see in modern day politics in the Middle East. When Russia
invaded Turkey, Armenians may have sided with them most likely because
historical actions proved that Turks would readily kill Armenians.
They could not bet on the Turks after the Hamidian Massacres of
1894-1896, which killed 300,000 Armenians including some of my family.
This greatly impacted the Armenian population as such pogroms are
meant to do and was the greatest example of man’s inhumanity to man
up to that time. This was followed 20 years later by the Armenian
Massacres of 1915 with 1,500,000 Armenians perishing and was again
up to that time regarded as the greatest example of man’s inhumanity
to man. The 1915 Armenian Massacres was the first effort of United
States foreign aid that started as Near East Relief.
Martin Demoorjian lives in Marlborough.
TURKEY ‘DEEPLY REGRETS’ OBAMA’S ARMENIAN ADDRESS
25.04.2012
U.S. — President Barack Obama (R) and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan shake hands in New York, 20 Sep 2011
Turkey accused U.S. President Barack Obama late on Tuesday of
“distorting historical facts” in his statement on the 97th anniversary
of the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire.
In that statement, Obama said 1.5 million Armenians were “brutally
massacred or marched to their deaths” by the Ottoman Turks in
“one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.” In an apparent
appeal to modern-day Turkey, he called for a “full, frank, and just
acknowledgement of the facts.”
Still, Obama again avoided describing the massacres as genocide, using
instead the Armenian phrase Meds Yeghern (Great Calamity). He at the
same time made clear that he stands by his past public recognitions
of the genocide.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized the statement as “one-sided.”
“We find the statement that distorts historical facts as very
problematic in every respect and deeply regret it,” the ministry said
in a written statement cited by the AFP news agency.
“We expect an important ally like the United States not to deepen the
problem by adopting an approach harming Turkish-Armenian relations,
but to contribute to a solution in a constructive manner,” added
the statement.
Successive Turkish governments have claimed that Armenians died in much
smaller numbers and not as a result of a premeditated government policy
of extermination. They have also justified the forcible displacement
of a key Christian minority in the crumbling Ottoman Empire, saying
that it sided with invading Russian troops during World War One.
Obama’s April 24 statement was also criticized on Tuesday by the
leading Armenian advocacy groups in the United States. They said he
again broke his 2008 campaign pledge to reaffirm Armenian genocide
recognition if elected president.
There has been no official reaction to the annual statement from
Armenia’s government.
RA PRESIDENT SIGNS A DECREE ON SPRING CONSCRIPTION AND DEMOBILIZATION
armradio.am
25.04.2012 15:22
President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree on 2011 spring conscription
and demobilization, President’s Press Office reported.
According to the decree, during May-July, 2012 those male citizens
who turn 18 before the draft day, as well as those who lost the
deferment right will be called up for compulsory military and
alternative service.
During May-July, 2012 those who completed the compulsory military
service, will be demobilized.
The President has instructed the Government to adopt a corresponding
decision within a fortnight to guarantee the implementation of the
given decree.
ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF BELIEVES IRAN WON’T MAKE A BOMB
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 25, 2012 – 13:23 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – If Iran goes nuclear it will have negative dimensions
for the world, for the region, for the freedom of action Iran will
permit itself, Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said
As Gantz told Haaretz in an Independence Day interview, “there’s also
the potential for an existential threat.”
“If they have a bomb, we are the only country in the world that someone
calls for its destruction and also builds devices with which to bomb
us. But despair not. We are a temperate state. The State of Israel
is the strongest in the region and will remain so. Decisions can and
must be made carefully, out of historic responsibility but without
hysteria,” Gantz said.
Asked whether 2012 is also decisive for Iran, Gantz shies from the
term. “Clearly, the more the Iranians progress the worse the situation
is. This is a critical year, but not necessarily ‘go, no-go.’ The
problem doesn’t necessarily stop on December 31, 2012. We’re in
a period when something must happen: Either Iran takes its nuclear
program to a civilian footing only or the world, perhaps we too, will
have to do something. We’re closer to the end of the discussions than
the middle.”
Gantz says the international pressure on Iran, in the form of
diplomatic and economic sanctions, is beginning to bear fruit.
Iran, Gantz says, “is going step by step to the place where it will
be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t
yet decided whether to go the extra mile.”
As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, Gantz says,”the program
is too vulnerable, in Iran’s view.”
“If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will
advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision
must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is
invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous
mistake, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile. I think
the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree
that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at
particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous,”
he says.
97TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATED IN BRUSSELS
armradio.am
25.04.2012 14:55
A religious service was offered at the Armenian Apostolic Church
of Saint Marie-Madeleine in Brussels on the 97th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide.
The participants marched to the cross-stone dedicated to the memory
of the Armenian Genocide victims. After a requiem mass speeches were
delivered by Chairman of the Armenian Committee of Belgium Michel
Mamuryan and Armenian Ambassador to Belgium Avet Adonts.
Also in attendance were the Vice President of the Belgian Senate Armand
de Decker, Vice-President of the European Parliament Isabelle Durant,
representatives of the Belgian Government, outstanding politicians
and public figures, intellectuals and journalists.
The same day the Armenian community of Belgium held an act of protest
in front of the Turkish Embassy.
24 AVRIL EN FRANCE : UN EVENEMENT HISTORIQUE
Ara
armenews.com
mercredi 25 avril 2012
Il y aura un avant et un après 24 avril 2012. Avec Nicolas Sarkozy,
pour la première fois, un chef d’Etat non armenien a commemore,
es-qualite, le genocide de 1915. Pour la première fois, la Republique,
avec tout son protocole, les coeurs de l’Armee francaise, la Garde
Republicaine, s’est officiellement associee a ce jour de celebration
mondiale de la memoire des 1500 000 Armeniens assassines pendant
l’entreprise d’extermination. Pour la première, le president d’un
pays, ce jour-la, s’est adresse de vive voix a la Turquie pour lui
demander d’affronter son passe et de reconnaître son crime.
Il s’agit la d’une première, qui aura des suites. Au niveau mondial
tout d’abord. A trois ans du centième anniversaire du genocide, cette
initiative de la France constitue a la fois un precedent et un exemple
pour les autres Etats. Elle peut, elle doit representer une planche
d’appel pour des engagements de ce type sur la scène internationale.
Elle renforce non seulement l’inscription de la tragedie si longtemps
occultee de 1915 dans l’agenda francais des grandes ceremonies de
memoire, mais elle lui donne de fait une dimension qui depasse ses
frontières, car la France, quatrième puissance de la planète, est un
pays qui compte politiquement dans le monde.
Il n’echappera a personne, et certainement pas aux dirigeants
negationnistes turcs, que tous les efforts qu’ils ont deployes pour
faire reculer la Republique, s’ils ont dans une certaine mesure paye
en aboutissant in fine a l’invalidation de la loi Boyer, n’ont pas
ebranle ses valeurs fondamentales. Car tant le president que Francois
Hollande, son principal opposant, ont lance le meme jour, depuis la
meme tribune, le meme message a leur endroit : Reconnaissez le genocide
! Et l’un comme l’autre, dans une forme d’unanimite nationale rarement
atteinte dans les periodes de clivages que constituent les elections,
se sont engages a proposer un nouveau texte susceptible de penaliser
le negationnisme du genocide armenien.
Il va de soi que ces prises de position fortes relancent la
mobilisation autour de cet objectif central pour la memoire des
victimes et la dignite humaine. Il est clair que plus jamais en France
les manifestations du 24 avril n’auront le meme visage. Et on peut
raisonnablement esperer que cette reussite, qui est a mettre a l’actif
de l’unite armenienne et du CCAF, pose un jalon politique important
dans ce long combat pour la justice et la verite qui atteindra son
apogee avec le grand rendez-vous de 2015.
ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF BELARUS COMMEMORATES GENOCIDE VICTIMS
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 24, 2012 – 22:24 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – On April 24, Armenian organizations in Belarus
jointly with the embassy of Armenia organized a Genocide commemoration
event near the khachkar erected in Minsk’s Military Cemetery.
Representatives of various national communities attended the event.
Armenian Ambassador to Belarus Armen Khachatryan and heads of the
Armenian organizations gave speeches following the wreath-laying
ceremony.
ARMENIAN YOUTH FEDERATION HOLDS GENOCIDE COMMEMORATIVE MARCH
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 25, 2012 – 00:23 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Thousands of people marched through the streets
of Hollywood today, April 24 to observe the 97th anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide as part of a call for the Turkish government
to take responsibility for the deaths of about 1.5 million people,
Contra Costa Times reports.
The march, organized by the Armenian Youth Federation, included
thousands of protesters, some carrying flags or banners as they walked
along Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. Another protest is scheduled
later this afternoon in front of the Turkish Consulate.
Among those taking part in today’s march was Rep. Adam Schiff, D-
Pasadena, who penned a resolution calling on President Barack Obama
to officially recognize the events of 1915 as a Genocide.
“Denial of genocide is the final chapter of genocide, it’s like
a double killing,” Schiff said. “It’s an additional trauma to the
victims of genocide to deny that it ever took place. We don’t want
to be complicit in that.”
U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN: ACKNOWLEDGING GENOCIDE WILL HELP HEAL THE PAIN
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 24, 2012 – 23:58 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – U.S. Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (CA-39) released
the following statement in recognition of Armenian Genocide Remembrance
Day:
“Today, we solemnly mark the 97th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
by remembering the 1.5 million Armenians who were murdered in the
waning years of the Ottoman Empire. I hope that acknowledging this
atrocity will help heal the pain caused by the horrendous events
in 1915.
“As a proud co-sponsor of H. Res. 304 which calls on the President to
officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, I believe it is incredibly
important to acknowledge the atrocities. It is my sincere hope that
this recognition will help the Turkish and Armenian governments foster
a peaceful, mutually beneficial relationship. I would like to express
my sympathy to all descendants of Armenian Genocide victims and hope
we can all take time to reflect on this solemn day.”