Author: Kanayan Tamar

CONFRONTING THE 1938 DERSIM MASSACRE
ORHAN KEMAL CENGÄ°Z

TODAYSZAMAN.COM

July 26, 2011
Turkey

When I see some of our politicians arguing and quarreling, I cannot
help but think about American wrestling. You should know it; the
wrestling games where huge guys wrestle with their opponents on stage.

You might think that a real fight is happening but nothing ever
happens to the wrestlers because it is of course a fake struggle. It
is a show put on for children and for those who still feel like a
child. Just as the wrestlers, the Turkish politicians also engage in
fake struggles. One of their scraps is all about facing the past.

A brutal massacre was committed in Dersim, Turkey in 1938. Even though
history refers to the massacre as a campaign of slaughter targeting
the Kurds and the Alevis, it is really about the 1915 massacres.

Dersim was one of the areas where the Armenians fleeing the 1915
massacre took refuge. The Dersim massacre is not the first or the last
bloodshed in the history of Turkey. Kemal Kılıcdaroglu, leader of the
main opposition Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP), is from Dersim. In
an effort to push Kılıcdaroglu into the corner, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes frequent references to the Dersim massacre.

Just like American wrestlers, Erdogan and Kılıcdaroglu stage a fake
fight over the Dersim massacre. Erdogan invites Kılıcdaroglu to
face up to history, whereas Kılıcdaroglu makes a call for Erdogan
to open the archives. In reality, nobody wants to do anything. The
political struggle is an imagined wrestling game staged before the
Turkish people who have remained childlike because of their failure
to face up the past. What we are seeing is a show. Erdogan does not
intend to reveal the truth; he is aware of the historical chains bound
to his political rival’s feet and he is challenging him; that’s all.

Kılıcdaroglu, born in Dersim, is of course aware of the meaning of
Dersim and of what happened there in 1938. However, he is also aware
that facing up to the past and the truth would force him to analyze
and question the roots of his party as well, given that the orders for
bombing Dersim were given by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the CHP.

Erdogan’s eagerness to deal with the past is limited to the CHP’s
history. He does not want to know or see that the Dersim massacre took
place in 1938 because of the mentality of the people who committed
the 1915 massacres. Otherwise, confrontation with the 1938 would be
easier since its history goes back to 1915.

This is how the political leaders act. Is the case any different for
their supporters? Do you think that the conservatives, the Alevis and
the concerned moderns are at all confronting anything? I heard from
a friend of mine that the Alevis had printed a calendar marking the
days bearing importance for them and that in this calendar, Dersim
was said to have taken place in 1939. This pathetic effort to present
the massacre as something that took place after the demise of Ataturk
(November 1938) makes me sad.

The situation of our conservatives who, by supporting the Ergenekon
investigation, believe that they are confronting the past is no
different. The motion filed by CHP members in the assembly of the
Ä°stanbul Municipality requesting that Ergenekon Street be changed
to Hrant Dink Street did not go through because the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) voted against it. So positions can change when
roles are different. We have a serious problem with confrontation. We
are unable to face our truth and past. We cannot properly appreciate
our victimization, our brutality; thank God, we have begun talking
about the Armenian issue over the last 5-6 years. The Ergenekon case
has shed some light on Turkey’s dark near past. But the ways in which
the issue is being dealt with is still superficial. We are trying to
understand the past from a limited perspective and by blaming the
others. For instance, the Alevis fail to see the role of the state
in the massacres they have been subjected to, whereas the Sunnis seek
to put the whole blame on the state to stop their suffering. Reality
is painful and we are not mature enough to confront it.

What we call confrontation is not something that we could do by relying
on superficial reasoning. We could deal with the past by opening
up our hearts to the stories of others, feeling the pain and agony
of these stories and witnessing the destruction of what we thought
was true. Hrant Dink tried to do this, but was murdered because he
invited us to confront our past. Dink has always been a target, but
whenever he attempted to speak about the Armenian tragedy connected
to the story of an orphan girl, the Dersim massacre and the linkage
between the two, he became a number one target. Dink claimed Sabiha
Gökcen (adopted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) who bombed Dersim was an
Armenian orphan. With this statement, he touched upon our hearts;
he reached out to the deepest depths of our minds. Try to feel what
it is like being an Armenian orphan who dropped bombs on Dersim. When
I think about it, I suddenly recall the final remarks by Sayyid Reza
during his execution in Dersim:

“We are descendants of Kerbela. We are innocent. It is a dishonor. A
cruelty. A murder; this is exactly what the Dersim massacre is.”

PLAYERS OF ARMENIAN NATIONAL CHESS TEAM ARE HEROES-GRANDMASTER

news.am
July 26, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – Players of the Armenian national chess team are heroes,
Deputy Head of Chess Federation of Armenia Smbat Lputyan told Armenian
News-NEWS.am.

“Armenia twice became Olympic champion, world champion, but our team
never won world team chess championship. It was very difficult to
win the world’s strongest teams so brilliantly and confidently. It
proves the Armenian chess team is one of the best in the world,”
Lputyan noted.

“I am just proud Armenia is considered a powerful chess nation,”
Lputyan emphasized, adding almost all the teams were strong and had
equal chances to win the championship. “But our team was able to win
a brilliant victory due to its solidarity and spirit,” Lputyan noted.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier, the Armenian team won
the World Chess Team Championship for the first time. Armenian and
Ukrainian teams ended in a draw 2:2 at the last round in Ningbo team
championship. All chess games registered draws.

Armenia tops the standings with 14 points in nine rounds. It is
ahead of Ukraine with two points. Armenia won bronze at previous
three championships.

TURKISH PM TO VISIT AZERBAIJAN WITH HOT AGENDA
Sevil Kucukkosum

Hurriyet
July 26, 2011
Turkey

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to visit Azerbaijan
on Wednesday as Nabucco pipeline project, mutual visa exemptions,
facilities for businessmen and Nagorno-Karabakh issues placed on the
agenda. This will be his second trip abroad since the parliamentary
elections in July.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Nabucco pipeline project, mutual visa exemptions, facilities
for businessmen and the Nagorno-Karabakh talks are expected to top
Turkey’s agenda as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan prepares to
visit Azerbaijan on Wednesday.

Erdogan, who is making his second visit abroad since forming a
new government after the June 12 elections, will discuss bilateral
relations and regional issues with Azerbaijani President Ä°lham Aliyev,
a senior Turkish diplomat told the Hurriyet Daily News on Tuesday.

The Nabucco pipeline, a multi-billion-dollar project to export
natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, is among those issues,
the diplomat said.

Azerbaijan and Turkey are at odds over the project, leaving Azerbaijan
the only project partner absent when the legal framework for Nabucco
was signed June 8 in Turkey’s Kayseri province between Nabucco Gas
Pipeline International GmbH and the responsible ministries of the
five transit countries, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey.

An obligatory bilateral transit agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkey
was almost signed in May 2010, “but some minor and some important
things prevented the two parties from agreeing and finalizing it,”
Elshad Nasirov, the vice president of the State Oil Company of
Azerbaijan, or SOCAR, told the Daily News in a recent interview. Talks
between two countries over the transit of Shah Deniz II gas supplies
were also suspended in May because of Turkey’s parliamentary elections
in June.

The issue of facilities for the two countries’ businessmen will also
be discussed in the meetings, as will the long-standing bilateral visa
exemption issue, which has been at a standstill due to Azerbaijan’s
insistence that if Baku lifts visa requirements for Turkish citizens
it would have to do the same for those from Iran. “Talks are ongoing
on visa exemption, yet have not resulted in an agreement,” the Turkish
diplomat said.

Along with bilateral issues, giving momentum to the Karabakh talks
will be on Erdogan and Aliyev’s agenda for discussion. Azerbaijan and
Armenia’s failure in June to come to an agreement over the contested
territory has led to disappointment in the international arena.

A flashpoint of the Caucasus, the region known as Nagorno-Karabakh
is a constituent part of Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenia
since the end of 1994. While internationally recognized as Azerbaijani
territory, the enclave has declared itself an independent republic
but is administered as a de facto part of Armenia.

Another controversial subject is the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation
process that has been blocked by Baku, which indirectly threatened
Turkey that it would stop supplying natural gas and give Russia
preference as its main energy partner.

A set of confidence-building measures are planned between Turkey and
Armenia as part of efforts to keep the momentum of the reconciliation
process alive. One of these is the idea of starting direct flights
from Yerevan to Turkey’s Van, a destination for many Armenians who
wish to visit an ancient Armenian church on Akdamar Island in Lake
Van. The proposal, though, drew a negative reaction from Azerbaijan.

“We do not interfere with the affairs of two [other] countries but
we still reserve the right to respond in case of the infringement of
the national interests of Azerbaijan,” Elman Abdullayev, the first
secretary of Azerbaijan’s MFA press service, told the Trend news
agency in response to the Yerevan-Van flight plan.

OPPOSITIONAL ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS TO DECIDE ON PEACE OR CONFRONTATION IN FALL

news.am
July 26, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – The priority requirement of the oppositional Armenian
National Congress (ANC) to hold snap presidential elections in
Armenia in October 2011 is conditioned by the necessity to create a
favorable atmosphere for further free and fair parliamentary elections,
Coordinator of the ANC office Levon Zurabyan told reporters.

Zurabyan stressed the possibility to meet the ANC requirements on
early elections are as likely as Armenia’s further progress. However,
Zurabyan failed to give a clear answer why the ANC is holding talks
with the authorities, if it considers them illegitimate.

“If we hold a dialogue with the authorities, it does not mean we
consider them legitimate. We are just seeking ways to resolve the
current situation peacefully. If we fail to do so, we will go on
confrontation, Zurabyan noted.

According to him, the coalition representatives promised to consider
the facts, presented by the ANC on police intervention in the
ANC-launched rallies and the inefficiency of transport.

ARMENIA’S CAPITAL TO HOST FLASHMOB “WOMAN = MAN”

news.am
July 26, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – “Society without violence” NGO invites Armenian citizens
to flashmob “Woman-Man” in Yerevan on July 27.

Activists from the “Society without violence”, as well as participants
from Kapan city of Syunik region and Yerevan will take part in
the event.

Participants will hand in balloons, booklets with articles on the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION AND AUTHORITIES LAUNCHED SECOND ROUND OF TALKS

news.am
July 26, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – The second round of talks between oppositional Armenian
National Congress (ANC) and authorities launched on Tuesday, Armenian
News-NEWS.am reports.

The talks are run behind closed doors. No information is available
except the delegation members will talk to journalists after the
meeting. As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, according to the
head of the coalition delegation Davit Harutyunyan, there are no new
issues on the current agenda to discuss.

The first meeting between the ANC and ruling coalition took place on
July 18. After the first meeting Harutyunyan said that approaches of
both parties were presented for further dialogue. As it is the base
to set civilized relations and start possible collaboration. However,
this does not mean that political contradictions disappear between
both parties.

WIKILEAKS RELEASES CABLE ON TURKISH DOCUMENTS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Tert.am
26.07.11

The Wikileaks has released cable 04ISTANBUL1074 by the US Consulate
in Istanbul of July 12, 2004. The cable contains Turkish and foreign
historians comments on the Turkish government’s policy of denying the
Armenian Genocide, the Lebanon-based Al Joumhouria newspaper reports.

According to the cable, the admission of the Armenian Genocide by
Turkey is a major obstacle to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation.

The Armenian Diaspora has numerous documents corroborating the Turkish
government’s plans to destroy over 1,000,000 Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire in 1915-16.

Armenians and foreign historians point out the Turkish government’s
policy of denying access to archives thereby concealing the convincing
evidence of Turkey’s involvement in the Genocide.

Armenian and other researchers have reasonable doubts over the
preservation of archives. Prof Halil Berktay reported at least two
attempts to clear the archives of the documents on crimes against
Armenians.

Back in 1991, a number of high-ranking Turkish military officials
reported an attempted stealing of a number of important documents in
1918, before the allies occupied Istanbul.

Prof. Berktay believes that the second attempt was made when Turgut
Ozal, then president of Turkey, announced his intention to open the
archives. According to the historian, the action was planned by a
group of retired diplomats and generals headed by the former Turkish
ambassador to Iraq.

Some historians believes that the archive is being constantly cleared
of documents on the Armenian Issue, the cable says.

REVUE DE PRESSE N°2 – 25/07/11 – COLLECTIF VAN

Collectifvan.org
25-07-2011

Info Collectif VAN – – Le Collectif VAN [Vigilance
Arménienne contre le Négationnisme] vous propose une revue de presse
des informations parues dans la presse francophone, sur les thèmes
concernant la Turquie, le génocide arménien, la Shoah, le génocide
des Tutsi, le Darfour, le négationnisme, l’Union européenne, Chypre,
etc… Nous vous suggérons également de prendre le temps de lire ou
de relire les informations et traductions mises en ligne dans notre
rubrique

Par ailleurs, certains articles en anglais, allemand, turc, etc,
ne sont disponibles que dans la newsletter Word que nous générons
chaque jour. Pour la recevoir, abonnez-vous a la Veille-Média :
c’est gratuit ! Vous recevrez le document du lundi au vendredi dans
votre boîte email. Bonne lecture.

Collectif VAN : l’éphéméride du 25 juillet 2011 Info Collectif VAN –
– La rubrique “Ephéméride” du Collectif VAN a
été lancée le 6 décembre 2010. Elle recense la liste d’événements
survenus a une date donnée, a différentes époques de l’Histoire, sur
les thématiques que l’association suit au quotidien. L’éphéméride
du Collectif VAN repose sur des informations en ligne sur de nombreux
sites (les sources sont spécifiées sous chaque entrée). “25
juillet 2011 — Turquie: le principal suspect dans l’assassinat en
2007 du journaliste Hrant Dink a été condamné ce lundi a une peine
de 23 ans de prison par un tribunal d’Istanbul, rapporte l’agence
anatolienne de presse. Hrant Dink, militant de la reconnaissance
du génocide arménien de 1915, dirigeait l’hebdomadaire Agos,
publication bilingue en turc et en arménien. Il a été abattu en
plein jour alors qu’il quittait son bureau a Istanbul.”

L’info vue par la TRT (1) Le Collectif VAN vous propose cet article
publié sur la TRT (Télévision & Radio de Turquie). Les articles
de ce site ne sont pas commentés de notre part. Ils peuvent contenir
des propos négationnistes envers le génocide arménien ou d’autres
informations a prendre sous toute réserve. “Le Premier ministre Recep
Tayyip Erdogan amorcera, mercredi, sa seconde visite a l’étranger
depuis les législatives en Azerbaïdjan.”

Turquie: 23 ans de prison pour l’assassin du journaliste Hrant Dink
Le principal suspect dans l’assassinat en 2007 du journaliste Hrant
Dink a été condamné ce lundi a une peine de 23 ans de prison par
un tribunal d’Istanbul, rapporte l’agence anatolienne de presse.

Paris honore le couturier anglo-turc Hussein Chalayan Le Musée des
arts décoratifs ose une présentation difficile. L’homme se veut a
la fois couturier, designer et vidéaste. La presse francaise crie
au génie.

Erdogan prêt a se rendre a Gaza Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip
Erdogan continue d’exiger des excuses de l’Etat hébreu, sans quoi,
prévient-il, il se rendra a Gaza, a indiqué le quotidien turc
Hurriyet, mercredi.

Chypre : Recep Tayyip Erdogan passe a l’offensive et met l’Union
européenne sous pression Lors de sa récente visite en République
Turque de Chypre du Nord (RTCN), les 19 et 20 juillet, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan a lancé un véritable ultimatum a l’Union Européenne : la
Turquie n’acceptera pas de négocier sa candidature avec la République
de Chypre (grecque), lorsque celle-ci prendra la présidence tournante
de l’Union Européenne, en juillet 2012.

Hadzic pour la première fois devant ses juges Goran Hadzic,
l’ex-responsable des Serbes de Croatie, comparaît pour la première
fois devant le Tribunal pénal international pour l’ex-Yougoslavie
a La Haye. Il doit répondre de crimes contre l’humanité et crimes
de guerre.

Sarkissian répond a Medvedev au sujet du Karabakh Le président Serge
Sarkissian a officiellement répondu a son homologue russe Dmitry
Medvedev pour mettre fin a l’impasse actuelle sur le processus de
paix de Nagorno-Karabakh.

Serbie : Goran Hazic a été arrêté Le dernier fugitif serbe,
Goran Hazic, a été interpellé hier a 150 kilomètres de
Belgrade. Il est accusé de crimes contre l’humanité par le TPI
pour l’ex-Yougoslavie. Il ne manquait plus que lui. Goran Hazic,
arrêté hier en Serbie, était le dernier fugitif réclamé par le
Tribunal pénal international (TPI) pour l’ex-Yougoslavie. Deux mois
après l’interpellation de Ratko Mladic, il était le dernier haut
responsable serbe encore libre, malgré sa mise en cause dans des
massacres et des crimes de guerre commis entre 1991 et 1995.

Retour a la rubrique

DINK’S HITMAN SENTENCED TO ALMOST 23 YEARS IN PRISON

Anadolu Agency
July 25, 2011
Turkey

ISTANBUL – A juvenile court in Istanbul has sentenced Ogun Samast,
the gunman in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
to nearly 23 years in prison.

The court ruled Monday that Samast shall be sent to prison for 22
years 10 months on charges of “premeditated murder” and “possession
of an unregistered weapon”.

Dink, the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly
Agos, was shot dead outside the newspaper’s offices in Istanbul’s
Sisli neighborhood on January 19, 2007.

Police arrested the gunman Ogun Samast a day after the murder, and
since then, Samast was being tried at a juvenile court as he had been
a minor at the time of the crime.

Last month, Colonel Ali Oz, the then provincial gendarmerie commander
in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, and Captain Metin Yildiz, chief
of intelligence unit of provincial gendarmerie command in Trabzon,
were sentenced to 6 months in jail for “misconduct” in Hrant Dink case.

TURKISH COURT GIVES DINK ASSASSIN 23 YEARS
Simon Cameron-Moore

The Daily Star

July 26, 2011
Lebanon

ISTANBUL: An Istanbul court sentenced the assassin of Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink to nearly 23 years in prison Monday. Editor
of bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and Turkey’s best known
Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot in broad daylight as he left
his Istanbul office in January 2007.

His killer Ogun Samast was 17 and unemployed when the killing took
place. He was sentenced by a juvenile court to 22 years and 10 months.

Dink had angered nationalists with articles referring to a Turkish
“genocide” of Christian Armenians in 1915.

Another court is hearing the cases against two other main suspects
in the conspiracy and a handful of others accused of being linked to
the plot.

Reacting to Samast’s sentencing, Eyten Mahcupyan, a Turkish Armenian
columnist who took over editorship of Agos after Dink’s death,
praised the court for opting for a severe jail term.

“The court was courageous enough to go with the evidence, and not go
down an ideological path in terms of nationalism,” Mahcupyan, who is
now a columnist for pro-government Zaman newspaper, told Reuters.

He said it would set an example to another court hearing the Dink
conspiracy cases, a point echoed by a lawyer for Dink’s family.

“Ogun Samast and other suspects were not expecting this sentence. This
could ruin their hope of being freed soon,” lawyer Fethiye Cetin told
Reuters. “This is very important to deter this sort of crime.”

Dink was frequently criticized by Turkish nationalists, including top
politicians and prosecutors, for saying the mass killing of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks during World War I was genocide. The government says
both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in large numbers as
the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Two years before he was killed, Dink received a suspended six-month
jail term for “insulting Turkey’s identity” in an article.

Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkish
authorities to pay 100,000 euros to Dink’s family in compensation,
saying authorities had failed to adequately protect Dink even though
they knew ultra-nationalists were plotting to kill him.

The Dink case was closely followed by the European Union as it
underlined concerns over EU-candidate Turkey’s human rights record
and democratic credentials.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily
Star on July 26, 2011, on page 9.

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