Author: Nalchajian Markos

ARMENIANS WORKING TO SHORE UP SUPPORT ON GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
By Kevin Bogardus and Jackie Kucinich

The Hill, DC
Oct 18 2007

Drawing parallels to the plight in Sudan, Armenian-American groups
have begun to push back to regain support in Congress for a genocide
resolution as cracks have appeared in their once-solid coalition.

Advocates are appealing to House lawmakers’ consciences to vote for the
resolution, which recognizes the killing of 1.5 million Armenians from
1915 to 1923 by the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Groups are turning
back to their phone banks and petitions to keep the resolution’s
support intact.

"If we can’t speak with moral clarity on genocide overall, like the
one in Armenia, how can we speak with moral authority in condemning
the genocide in Sudan?" said Elizabeth Chouldjian, communications
director for the Armenian National Committee of America.

Momentum has clearly shifted against the bill. Since its introduction
in January, 21 co-sponsors have dropped their support of the
resolution, with 11 lawmakers reversing their backing this week. A
substantial number of members – 214 – remain as co-sponsors of the
bill, but the total number does not comprise a majority of the House.

On Wednesday, five House Democrats, including a powerful ally of
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.),
asked their leadership not to bring the resolution to the floor.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee said
55 to 60 Democrats would vote against the resolution if it came to
the floor Wednesday.

"If it came to the floor today, it would not pass," Murtha said.

Murtha said Democratic leadership had miscalculated support for the
resolution within the caucus. He added that many members were not
clear as to what they were signing when they co-sponsored the measure,
which is why over a dozen have since pulled their endorsement.

"As with almost all legislation in Congress, there are many members
who are not listed as co-sponsors of the resolution but support
the measure," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the resolution’s
main sponsor.

Turkey’s opposition to the non-binding resolution has been
aggressive. U.S. defense officials have warned that Turkey could
block access to a critical air base that the U.S. military uses to
supply troops in Iraq. Turkey has already recalled its ambassador to
the United States after the resolution survived a tough vote in the
House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Heeding Turkey’s warnings, Murtha cautioned that the resolution
could jeopardize the United States’ relationship with one of its few
supporters in the Middle East.

"We don’t have any damn allies. That’s the problem," he said.

Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America,
said the threats by Turkey to withdraw support for the Iraq war
amounted to "blackmail."

"You can’t ignore history. We’re not going away," said Ardouny.

Both Ardouny and Chouldjian intend to rely on their groups’ large
memberships in contacting Congress as grassroots efforts continue
through phone calls, letters and e-mails to offices on Capitol Hill.

Ardouny’s group has 10,000 members, while Chouldjian said she has a
roll of 100,000 activists across the country.

In addition, Chouldjian is organizing a screening of "Screamers" –
a documentary that speaks about the killings in Armenia and Sudan as
told through the eyes of Armenian-American rock band System of a Down
– on Thursday night in the House Judiciary Committee room. Schiff is
an honorary co-host of the event.

Comparisons to the events in Sudan have been a common tactic by
Armenian interests in Washington. Ardouny’s group has supported
legislation in the past calling for divesture from Sudan and is a
member of the Save Darfur Coalition.

"It’s important that members of Congress push back on denial" in all
cases, said Ardouny.

He also criticized Turkey’s expensive lobbying effort. One firm
representing Turkey, the Livingston Group, earned more than $970,000
for their work in 2007, according to Justice Department records –
close to half of the $2.28 million that Ardouny’s group has spent on
lobbying since 1998, according to disclosure records filed with Senate.

In years past, resolutions recognizing the massacre of Armenians as
genocide passed committee but never made it to a floor vote. For
example, in 2000, then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) took
the measure off the voting schedule after being asked by President
Bill Clinton to do so.

But Pelosi is resolved to bringing the measure to a vote, according
to Murtha.

"She feels very strongly about this," he said.

s-working-to-shore-up-support-on-genocide-resoluti on-2007-10-18.html

STUDENTS DISAGREE WITH U.S. HOUSE RESOLUTION
By Jeffery D. Hooten

UT The Daily Texan, TX
Oniversity of Texas
Oct 17 2007

Washington Post correspondent speaks on potential decision

A U.S. House committee’s recent approval of a resolution to recognize
as genocide the death of thousands of Armenians more than 90 years
ago, in what is now the Republic of Turkey, has resulted in opposition
from some UT students.

Though Resolution 106, also titled Affirmation of the United States
Record on the Armenian Genocide, is not the first such resolution to
appear in the House over the years, it may be the first to make it
to a vote on the House floor.

Many Turks are upset by what they see as a condemnation of modern-day
Turkey for events that took place while the area was still part of
the Ottoman Empire.

Ozgur Erciyes, a Turkish University Students Association representative
and history graduate student, said members of the association do not
think the designation of the massacres as genocide is relevant today.

"We think these are mostly political maneuvers to gain more votes,"
he said. "We don’t think this will promote more peace between Armenians
and Turkey."

Erciyes said it is difficult to classify the massacres as genocide
because they took place in the context of what amounted to a civil
war. He said that the term "genocide" ignores the thousands of Turkish
Muslims who were also killed.

"I don’t care if it was a genocide or a series of massacres.

Independent of the title, I feel sorry for each and every Armenian that
was killed," Erciyes said. "The same is not shown for the Muslims."

Taleen Asadourian, a program chair for the UT chapter of the White
Rose Society and a Plan II, economics and government senior, said
she believes most authorities on genocide do not have as much trouble
making the distinction.

"All the genocide scholars, aside from those in Turkey who are
officially prohibited from referring to it as ‘genocide,’ accept that
it was genocide," Asadourian said.

Asadourian said that a Turkish law titled Article 301 prevents Turkish
citizens from making statements that "insult Turkishness."

She said such statements could include referring to the death of
thousands of Armenians in the early 20th century as genocide.

"It’s just an indication as to how vehemently opposed they are to
looking at their history if there’s any stain on their history,"
Asadourian said.

She said that though Turkey may not have been responsible for the
Armenian deaths, modern Turkey is still culpable for Armenians today
feeling like second-class citizens, because the Turkish government
has taken extensive steps to cover up the massacre.

Glenn Kessler, a foreign policy correspondent for the Washington Post
who was on campus Tuesday promoting his new book, said the momentum
of the resolution is largely due to the support of Speaker of the
House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi’s push for the resolution is due partially to her large Armenian
constituency, Kessler said.

Kessler said that though similar resolutions have made it through
the Foreign Affairs Committee in the past, the fact that it seems
bound for the House floor made the vote much closer than previous
committee decisions.

"I think it’s going to be a very close vote in full House," Kessler
said.

om/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/10/17/Universi ty/Students.Disagree.With.U.s.House.Resolution-303 7491.shtml

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Armenian Eyes, Ears on US Genocide Vote

By AVET DEMOURIAN – 7 hours ago

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – The chatter these days in Yerevan’s Anahit
Deluxe beauty salon isn’t only about hairstyles, celebrity gossip or
the coming winter – it’s also about whether the U.S. Congress will
agree that the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
was genocide.

"If it passes, I’ll treat all my girlfriends and customers that day to
candy," said the salon’s owner, Anait Gezalian.

Thousands of miles from Washington, U.S. House Resolution No. 106 is
the talk of the town for Yerevan and the rest of this landlocked
former Soviet republic of rugged highlands and grinding poverty.

If Congress recognizes the killings as genocide, it could be a
cathartic moment for Armenians. They have striven for decades to gain
wide international recognition for their view of the long-ago
bloodshed, creating a dispute that has poisoned relations with modern
Turkey.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Scholars view it as the
first genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey says that the toll has
been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and
unrest.

Jubilation followed the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s approval of
the resolution Oct. 10, with Armenian lawmakers giving a standing
ovation to their American counterparts and a pro-government newspaper
declaring in a headline: "Historical Justice is Restored."

Sentiments have sobered since, as the fate of the resolution is now in
question.

Turkey, a U.S. ally and NATO member, recalled its ambassador from
Washington for consultations in protest, warning the U.S. of serious
damage to relations and complications for the U.S. military operation
in Iraq. The Bush administration opposes the resolution, and House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that prospects for a House vote
were now uncertain.

In Yerevan, where a slow construction boom is bringing Western stores,
flashy nightclubs and upscale restaurants to a run-down city,
Armenians are closely watching events unfold – through television and
newspaper reports, on the Internet and with the help of the more than
1 million-strong diaspora in the United States.

"The Fate of the Resolution is Uncertain," one newspaper declared.
"Congressmen regret that they voted for the resolution," another
reported. Another publishes a running tally of U.S. lawmakers, pro and
con.

"How much longer can Turkey … blackmail Washington, plot demarche,
threaten worse relations, frighten and so on?" asked Karen
Vartazarian, a 28-year-old Web designer.

"We’re convinced that the House of Representatives will make the right
decision and will not abandon the democratic values the United States
was founded on," said Arpi Vartanian, regional director of the
Armenian Assembly of America, an advocacy group.

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian went to Washington on Thursday for
World Bank and other meetings. He also met with Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, though Gates told reporters later that the genocide
resolution was not discussed.

Some Armenians fear the resolution could cause trouble for Armenians
living in Turkey, or the thousands who try to make a living by going
there to buy goods for resale back home.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during a war between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, a Muslim ally of the Turks, and maintains a
virtual blockade that has all but crippled Armenia’s economy, which
relies heavily on investment and support from Armenians abroad.

After years of disappointment, suffering and isolation, many Armenians
are not counting on a vote by Congress.

"So many times has recognition of the genocide been promised and so
many times (the promise) hasn’t been fulfilled. (But) one can live
through this," said Artem Yerkanian, a commentator on the state-run
channel Shant.

Copyright (c) 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BUSH: WHO YOU CALLING LAME?
Irene Tsikitas

The Gate – National Journal, DC
Oct 17 2007

Vowing to "sprint to the finish" during his remaining 15 months
in office, President Bush went before the White House press corps
this morning armed with a laundry list of complaints about Congress’
performance on domestic matters. Reporters, on the other hand, came
armed with a flood of questions focused mainly on the president’s
own foreign policy agenda.

"There’s little time left in the year," Bush warned in his opening
statement. "And Congress has little to show for all the time that has
gone by." He listed eight areas where Congress has either failed to
act or compromise with the White House: health care, intelligence,
the budget, education, housing, trade, veterans care and the judiciary.

Specifically, Bush urged the Democratic leadership to compromise with
the White House on two contentious bills — the expansion of the
State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the authorization of
a controversial wiretapping program. The former has already earned
a presidential veto, and the White House issued a fresh veto threat
for the latter yesterday. Technorati Profile

The president also pressed lawmakers to expedite appropriations
bills to fund the government’s day-to-day operations and the
Department of Veterans Affairs. "We have our differences on the
appropriations bills," Bush said, "but the veterans bill is where
we agree." In addition to VA funding, Bush asked Congress to approve
the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala commission [PDF], which was
formed to investigate problems with care for wounded soldiers in the
wake of the Walter Reed scandal.

Bush also cited the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, a housing
bill to help homeowners struggling with their mortgages and a slew
of pending trade agreements and judicial appointments. "With all
these pressing responsibilities," he said in conclusion, "one thing
Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of
the Ottoman Empire."

The president reiterated his objection to a proposed resolution in
the House that would rebuke Turkey for the 1915-17 Armenian genocide.

This morning, several news outlets reported that support for the
measure, which started out strong, has been waning as more lawmakers
hear the concerns of U.S. security and foreign policy officials,
who fear the measure will damage relations between the U.S. and one
of its most critical allies in the Mideast.

The reporters gathered before the president, however, were less
jazzed about discussing that resolution or any of the other bills
Bush mentioned. Instead, their questions focused heavily on the day’s
headlines concerning Russia and Iran, Iraq and the Dalai Lama’s visit
to Washington.

When asked about Turkey’s proposal to begin cross-border operations
against Kurdish rebels in Iraq (which parliament approved as Bush
was speaking) and Iran’s plans to expand its nuclear program, Bush
had the same answer: It’s not in their interests to proceed. On
Iraq, he struck a deferential tone, saying he was optimistic that a
"tripartite arrangement" among Iraq, Turkey and the United States could
be achieved. He expressed similar hope for next month’s conference in
Annapolis on finding a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
crisis. The meeting will seek a "comprehensive peace" and will be
"serious and substantive," Bush said, noting Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice’s current visit to shore up support among the key
players in the region.

Bush was also asked to comment on all the friendly photos of Russian
President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
gracing the front pages of today’s newspapers. The president downplayed
the "pretty pictures" and said he had yet to be debriefed on the
summit of Caspian Sea nations, but that he was looking forward to
discussing the matter with Putin, particularly his thoughts on Iran’s
nuclear program.

As for the Dalai Lama, Bush shrugged off China’s objections to today’s
Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony. He said he informed Chinese
President Hu Jintao of his intentions to attend the ceremony and
reiterated his support for religious freedom. "I admire the Dalai
Lama," Bush said, adding that it would be in China’s interests to
welcome the exiled Buddhist leader back into the country.

"I’m surprised I haven’t been asked about SCHIP yet," Bush said
toward the end of his lengthy session with reporters. He claimed
that "when people hear the facts" about the Democrats’ proposal to
expand the program, "they begin to understand the rationale behind
the veto." But he also expressed willingness to compromise and said
he was disappointed that he wasn’t "dialed in" to the process earlier.

Wrapping up the presser with another push on domestic issues,
Bush said he intended to use the "bully pulpit" to force action
from lawmakers. When asked if he had anything to do with the lack
of movement and compromise on certain bills thus far, Bush took no
blame. "I’m not a member of the legislative branch," he said somewhat
proudly. "I’d probably make a bad legislator." But he also brushed
aside one reporter’s suggestion that his lame duck status has made him
"irrelevant" in Washington.

"Quite to the contrary," Bush replied. "I’ve never felt more engaged."

/2007/10/post_26.php

Genocide resolution’s support is fading

Some House sponsors, while agreeing with Armenians on history, think
the international implications are risky.

By Richard Simon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – A controversial measure to officially recognize the
Armenian genocide, which only days ago appeared headed for approval in
the House, has begun to lose support. The change comes in the face of
furious protests by the Turkish government and warnings of possible
repercussions for U.S. military operations in Iraq.

Seven representatives withdrew as cosponsors on Monday, followed by at
least four more Tuesday. Since Jan. 30, when the resolution was
introduced, at least 21 representatives have pulled their names,
leaving 215 cosponsors — short of a majority of the House.

"Now is not the appropriate time for us to stick our finger in the eye
of an important ally," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), who removed
himself as a cosponsor on Monday.

The House resolution poses a quandary for Democratic supporters,
particularly Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who has promised
to bring it to the floor

Armenian Americans, an important constituency in California, have
pushed for years to get Congress to declare the early 20th century
killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide. But some Democrats
have grown increasingly uneasy about voting for a resolution that
could be seen as harming national security or jeopardizing U.S. troops
in Iraq.

President Bush telephoned Pelosi on Tuesday to urge her not to bring
up the resolution, which calls on the president to "accurately
characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000
Armenians as genocide." Pelosi said on national television Sunday that
she had never heard from the president on the issue. Nine of the 11
lawmakers who withdrew their support this week are Democrats, and one
of Pelosi’s closest allies — Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of
the House Defense Appropriations Committee — is working to defeat the
measure. The House leadership has yet to set a date for a vote but has
been aiming to hold it before Thanksgiving.

Although the number of cosponsors is not necessarily an indication of
a measure’s fate — some lawmakers have signaled their support for the
resolution even though they are not cosponsors — supporters believed
the measure had its best chance in years to pass after more than half
of the House members signed on.

The sudden drop in support comes less than week after the resolution
cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

That vote angered Turkey, which could disrupt military operations in
Iraq by denying the U.S. access to Incirlik — a crucial air base used
to supply troops. At the same time, the Turkish prime minister is
weighing a raid into northern Iraq to hit Kurdish rebels. That could
destabilize the safest region in Iraq.

Supporters and opponents of the genocide resolution now believe that
the vote could be tight, and both sides have stepped up their
lobbying.

Gordon Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman, said that
top administration officials have been on the phone to House members.
"We continue to urge the House not to take up the measure," Johndroe
said. "Calls have been made at all levels, up to the president."

Supporters noted that several members of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee back the resolution, even though they were not cosponsors.
"We have got to go on the counterattack," said Rep. Brad Sherman
(D-Sherman Oaks). "If we had the vote today, it would be close."

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the bill’s chief sponsor,
acknowledged that it would not be an easy fight. "When you think about
what we have against us — the president, a foreign policy
establishment that has condoned this campaign of denial, the Turkish
lobby," he said, "against that you have the truth, which is a powerful
thing but doesn’t always win out."

Trent Wisecup, an aide to Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.), co-chairman
of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, called on Pelosi to
throw around her political weight. "Time to step up, Madame Speaker,"
he said. Pelosi has said that she will not seek to pressure
colleagues, calling it a vote of conscience.

A number of the resolution’s supporters said they were still hopeful
it would pass. "The support continues to be strong, and it continues
to be bipartisan," said Elizabeth S. Chouldjian of the Armenian
National Committee of America.

"Some congressional offices have told us, ‘I’m with you but I’m not
going to put my name on a piece of paper so that I become a target of
the Gephardts and Livingstons of the world,’ " she added. She was
referring to the Turkish government’s heavyweight lobbyists: Richard
Gephardt, a former House Democratic leader, and Robert Livingston, a
Republican who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Several lawmakers who have backed away from the resolution said that
they had become convinced that the situation in the Middle East was
too volatile to support a symbolic resolution that jeopardized the
relationship the U.S. has with a critical Muslim ally.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), one of those who pulled her
name as a cosponsor, said: "I do not condone the genocide. I just
think the timing is bad."

Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) said he withdrew as a cosponsor after Army
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, warned him
during a recent trip to Baghdad that the resolution could harm U.S.
security interests.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who also withdrew as a cosponsor, said
that he had "no doubt that the Armenian people endured unspeakable
suffering and loss at the hand of the Ottoman Empire." But he said, "I
am not willing to place our military forces at risk or upset a
delicate diplomatic situation on the northern border of Iraq."

The Bush administration has warned that House passage of the
resolution could lead Turkey to restrict U.S. use of its land, ports
and airspace to supply troops in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Carter F. Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said the United States was pressing Turkey to continue to allow
supplies to go through its territory, but could find other access
routes.

"We’re confident that we’ll find ways to be able to do that," he said.

Some of the House members who withdrew their support for the
resolution acknowledged that they had been unaware of the
ramifications it could have. "Had I known when I signed the resolution
that it would develop into this huge of an issue, I would have
refrained from signing," said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.).

Rep. Wally Herger (R-Chico), who also pulled his name as a cosponsor,
said, "Currently, the United States is dealing with the grave and
ongoing threat posed by worldwide radical jihadists and we simply
cannot allow the grievances of the past — as real as they may be —
to in any way derail our efforts to prevent further atrocities for
future history books."

[email protected]

Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes and Paul Richter contributed to
this report.

Source: la-na-genocide17oct17,1,6732163.story?ctrack=6&amp ;cset=true

TURKEY: ARMENIAN GHOSTS REFUSE TO GO AWAY
Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas

IPS, Italy
Oct 16 2007

ANKARA, Oct 16 (IPS) – The decision last week by the U.S. House
Committee on Foreign Relations to adopt a resolution recognising as
genocide the massive killings of Armenians in 1915 and 1916 by Ottoman
military forces in eastern Anatolia has marked a decisive turn in
the relationship between the legislative of the United States and
the Turkish government.

The sign has been on the wall for some time, as U.S. Armenians have
been trying for the last two decades to get an official condemnation
of Ottoman Turks for the atrocities perpetrated nine decades ago.

Armenians, a Christian minority community which together with the
Greeks and Jews formed the economic backbone of the Ottoman Empire
for many centuries, were from time to time subject to pogroms, often
encouraged by the state. Persecution became systematic towards the
end of the 19th century, and large-scale massacres took place in
1894-1896 and in 1909.

Following his defeat January 1915 by the Russians in a World War
I battle at Sarikemish, Ottoman minister of war Enver Pasha blamed
the Armenians for "fifth column" activities that had advantaged the
enemy. In that battle in the Caucasian plateau, 85 percent of the
100,000 strong Ottoman force perished, chiefly because of Pasha’s
inexperience as military commander.

But it is also true that, as Russian forces were advancing into Turkey
from the East, Armenian factions had supported them, hoping to gain
independence for their ethnic group after the war.

In spring 1915, Enver and minister of interior Talaat Pasha rolled
out a programme to deter Armenian villages from collaborating with
the Allies. The Ottoman Empire fought World War I on the side of the
Germans and Austro-Hungarians.

On April 24 of that year, 250 Armenian intellectuals and community
leaders were rounded up, jailed and executed. In May, a deportation law
was passed, authorising massive displacements of Armenian populations
and confiscation of their property. Conscripts, serving in the Ottoman
army, were summarily dismissed and used as hamals, low-ranking manual
labour in worker battalions. Most of those who survived mistreatment
and famine were executed or disappeared.

Atrocities against Armenians in the countryside, particularly the
east, continued through the following year. Reports from the dozens
of British, German and U.S. consulates and missions spread throughout
Turkey at that time alerted the West about the violence taking place.

Henry Morgenthau Sr., U.S. ambassador to Constantinople, capital of the
Ottoman Empire, today’s Istanbul, reported extensively to Washington
on the situation and pleaded to Enver and Talaat to use restraint,
to no avail. The United States remained neutral in the war until 1917.

Meanwhile, adventurer and author Gertrude Bell, on mission in the
region for the British intelligence services, persuaded the British
and their allies to protest to the Turkish government.

Morgenthau’s and Bell’s claims have been used by Western historians
to assess the extent of the massacre, and it seems they have been
corroborated by records of German diplomats and senior military staff
posted in the Middle East during the Great War.

According to Western historians, up to 1.5 million Armenians,
representing the majority of the ethnic group’s population at the
time, were driven to a long march through Mesopotamia in extremely
harsh conditions.

A large number, the exact magnitude of which has never been
established, died. Survivors escaped to neighbouring countries and
to the West. Kurdish tribes, enrolled as special gendarmes by the
Ottomans, were at the forefront in raping, torturing and slaughtering
the deportees.

The Turkish version of the events differs widely from that of the
foreign historians and the descendants of the Armenian diaspora.

Ankara has consistently minimised the gravity and size of the events,
describing them as an "Armenian incident". The number of victims has
periodically been revised downwards now to around 300,000. Turkey
considers that this number is practically equal to that of Muslims
who died during the same period as a result of intercultural clashes
in that part of the country.

It is a fact that Armenians too stained their hands with enemy
blood during the 1918 riots at Baku in Azerbaijan, following earlier
massacres of Armenians by the Azeri population, which was allied to
the Turkish cause in World War I. Scholars of the Great War period
in the east tend to agree that the conflict brought out the worst of
human behaviour in all factions.

To minimise the damage to the image formed by international public
opinion, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has in recent years played
a realpolitik card, admitting that atrocities, even massacres, were
perpetrated under Ottoman rule, but that they were no longer relevant.

In a pre-emptive move, following repeated attempts in 2000 and 2005
by the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution using the term genocide,
it has proposed that a mixed panel of Turkish and international
academics search official records and jointly present their findings.

"It is a matter for historians, not politicians," is the official view.

Foreign historians have not been forthcoming, as it is known that
the Ottoman administration was frugal in keeping meaningful records
of population displacements or measures affecting religious minorities.

The U.S. has been hesitant over the past 90 years to take a firm
position on the issue. Forty of the states in the U.S. have already
passed legislation or proclamations qualifying the events as genocide,
but only two presidents, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, have used
this term in public. All U.S. presidents, including now George Bush,
have, however, used the Armenian-proposed figure of 1.5 million as
the toll in victims.

Twenty countries and transnational organisations, including the
European Parliament and the European Council, have acknowledged
the genocide. The term was coined in 1943 by Prof. Raphael Lemkin,
who was motivated by the slaughters of Assyrians by Iraqis in 1933,
the Armenian massacres of World War I, and the Nazi extermination of
European Jews during World War II.

Retaliation by the Turkish government has been selective. Canadian
and Italian companies enjoy good business from the public sector,
although their respective countries have recognised the genocide.

France and Switzerland, on the other hand, have frequently been
excluded from such dealings because of their parliaments’ decisions
on the subject.

In 2006, French products were boycotted after legislators passed a law
forbidding denial of the Armenian genocide. France hosts the second
largest Armenian community after the U.S. It is estimated that there
are eight to 10 million Armenians living outside of their country.

At the same time, reference to the Armenian genocide in Turkey is
taboo, and can lead to legal prosecution. Nobel Prize novelist Orhan
Pamuk and editor-in-chief Hrank Dink were brought to trial and faced
jail sentences for doing so. The latter was shot dead last year by
a Turkish nationalist.

The World War I killings encouraged the Allies to grant Armenians
their own land in 1918. The young Democratic Republic of Armenia
(DRA) had a short existence. Turkish troops invaded a large part of
the country in 1920, but a swift attack by the Bolsheviks from Russia
threw them back. In 1922 the DRA joined the Soviet Union until 1991,
when it recovered its independence from Moscow.

Armenia staged a protracted war against the Azeris in the 1990s and
occupied the Nagorno Karabakh province, home to 150,000 Armenians. In
retaliation Turkey closed its border with Armenia, a diplomatic status
still in effect. Isolation from its western flank has, however, not
affected Armenian trade. The country’s gross domestic product per
capita is 4,250 dollars, behind Turkey’s (5,400 dollars) but not all
that bad by regional standards.

It is estimated that 40,000 to 70,000 Armenians live in Turkey today.

Many are clandestine workers. Proposals by Turkish politicians after
the U.S. House Committee resolution include expelling such individuals.

It seems that in the Middle East region old ghosts neither die nor
fade away.

8

ONLY TURKEY CAN RESOLVE 1915 ‘GENOCIDE’ ISSUES
By Brian Mello

Allentown Morning Call, PA
Oct 16 2007

On Oct. 10, the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee voted on a
measure that would officially recognize the 1915-era deportations,
mass killings, and overall destruction of the Armenian population
within the Ottoman Empire as genocide. The result has been a rekindled
debate about balancing the interests of the Armenian community in
America against the interests of Turkey, a critical American ally in
an incredibly hostile region.

Yet, the question of whether to recognize an Armenian genocide involves
more than weighing the power of the Armenian lobby against the national
security interests that could be affected by alienating the Turkish
government. An accurate understanding of the events in question has
moral and political significance for the broader goal of identifying
and preventing similar tragedies.

Those who advocate calling the tragedy that befell the Ottoman
Armenians genocide have argued that this was the first genocide
of the 20th century, and that the Ottoman answer to the Armenian
question served as an example for Hitler’s final solution to the
Jewish question. For advocates of the label Armenian genocide, the
forced relocation of close to 1.5 million people, the evidence of mass
killings and the targeting of civilian populations, and the seeming
coordination of these by political and military elites in Istanbul
and in what is today eastern Turkey cannot but be seen as genocide.

At the same time, two interpretations of the events have predominated
in Turkish historiography and public opinion. One seeks to place the
blame for the events on Armenians themselves, and the other seeks
to subsume the events under the catch-phrase "war is hell." The
essential logic of both boils down to the argument that although
many Armenians died between 1915 and 1917, the Ottoman state can
hardly be held responsible for genocide. Rather, these deaths were
the sad consequences of war — a war, the Turkish story goes —
that was fomented by Armenian nationalism and the armed challenge
this posed to the survival of the Ottoman Empire. For those who have
sought to counter accusations of genocide, the explanation for the
deaths and depopulation of Ottoman Armenians lies therefore in the
exigencies of war. People died, but they died from famine, disease,
localized violence beyond the control of the central state and due
to the normal course of warfare, and not because of a coordinated
and directed program of genocide.

The persistence of this debate lies in the lack of definitive
historical evidence. Scholars have either been unable to find, or
have been prevented from searching for, evidence of direct orders for
carrying out genocide. Most of the evidence in the historical record
comes from foreign observers whose motives for characterizing the
Ottoman state have been questioned. And, some evidence seems to have
been the result of sheer fabrication. Still, although historians and
political scientists lack consensus on the use of the term genocide,
there is consensus that the Ottoman state was ultimately culpable
for the destruction of the Armenian community within its borders.

However, the government of Turkey, not the Armenian community, and
not the U.S. government, holds the key to this story. Indeed, while
we can construct historical interpretations through resolutions like
those adopted last week (and which have been adopted in a number of
other countries), this will bring us no closer to a full awareness
about the Ottoman state’s ultimate intention for deporting its
Armenian population or about its ultimate role in mass killings —
not to mention the deaths from disease and starvation that coincided
with this policy of deportation.

In considering this important subject, we cannot excuse the Ottoman
state from responsibility, nor can we deny the seriousness of these
events. They were more than simply the inevitable loss of life during
times of war. But, even if the full House and Senate ultimately
decide to recognize the Armenian genocide, we shouldn’t give up on
the effort to discover the true nature of these events. Moreover,
we should be extremely careful not to use the debate over the term
genocide to further constitute stereotypes about the current government
of Turkey or the Turkish people.

In the end, we must accept the political, historical, and moral project
of seeking to identify, explain, and learn from the destruction of
the Armenian community during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire
as we strive to prevent history from repeating itself.

Brian Mello, Ph.D., is assistant professor of political science at
Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

herview/all-left_col-a.6092065oct16,0,3033200.stor y

Turkey’s War on the Truth

Washington Post
By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, October 16, 2007; A19

It goes without saying that the House resolution condemning Turkey for
the "genocide" of Armenians from 1915 to 1923 will serve no earthly
purpose and that it will, to say the least, complicate if not severely
strain U.S.-Turkey relations. It goes without saying, also, that the
Turks are extremely sensitive on the topic and, since they are helpful
in the war in Iraq and are a friend to Israel, that their feelings
ought to be taken into account. All of this is true, but I would feel
a lot better about condemning this resolution if the argument wasn’t
so much about how we need Turkey and not at all about the truthfulness
of the matter.

Of even that, I have some doubt. The congressional resolution
repeatedly employs the word "genocide," a term used by many scholars.
But Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish emigre who coined the term in
1943, clearly had in mind what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. If
that is the standard — and it need not be — then what happened in
the collapsing Ottoman Empire was something short of genocide. It was
plenty bad — maybe as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished, many of
them outright murdered — but not all Armenians everywhere in what was
then Turkey were as calamitously affected. The substantial Armenian
communities in Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo were largely spared.
No German city could make that statement about its Jews.

Still, by any name, what was begun in 1915 is unforgivable and, one
hopes, unforgettable. Yet it was done by a government that no longer
exists — the so-called Sublime Porte of the Ottomans, with its
sultan, concubines, eunuchs and the rest. Even in 1915, it was an
anachronism, no longer able to administer its vast territory — much
of the Middle East and the Balkans. The empire was crumbling. The
so-called Sick Man of Europe was breathing its last. Its troops were
starving, and, both in Europe and the Middle East, indigenous peoples
were declaring their independence and rising in rebellion. Among them
were the Armenians, an ancient people who had been among the first to
adopt Christianity. By the end of the 19th century, they were engaged
in guerrilla activity. By World War I, they were aiding Turkey’s
enemy, Russia. Within Turkey, Armenians were feared as a fifth column.

So contemporary Turkey is entitled to insist that things are not so
simple. If you use the word genocide, it suggests the Holocaust — and
that is not what happened in the Ottoman Empire. But Turkey has gone
beyond mere quibbling with a word. It has taken issue with the facts
and in ways that cannot be condoned. Its most famous writer, the Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, was arrested in 2005 for
acknowledging the mass killing of Armenians. The charges were
subsequently dropped, and although Turkish law has been modified in
some ways, it nevertheless remains dangerous business for a Turk to
talk openly and candidly about what happened in 1915.

It just so happens that I am an admirer of Turkey. Its modern leaders,
beginning with the truly remarkable Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, have done a
Herculean job of bringing the country from medievalism to modernity
without, it should be noted, the usual bloodbath. (The Russians, for
instance, did not manage that feat.) Furthermore, I can appreciate
Turkey’s palpable desire to embrace both modernity and Islam and to
show that such a combination is not oxymoronic. (Ironically, having a
dose of genocide in your past — the United States and the Indians,
Germany and the Jews, etc. — is hardly "not Western.") And I think,
furthermore, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have spiked the
House resolution in deference to Turkey’s immense strategic importance
to the United States. She’s the speaker now, for crying out loud, not
just another House member.

But for too long the Turks have been accustomed to muscling the truth,
insisting either through threats or punishment that they and they
alone will write the history of what happened in 1915. They are
continuing along this path now, with much of official Ankara
threatening this or that — crossing into Iraqi Kurdistan, for
instance — if the House resolution is not killed. But it may yet
occur to someone in the government that Turkey’s tantrums have turned
an obscure — nonbinding! — congressional resolution into yet another
round of tutorials on the Armenian tragedy of 1915. Call it genocide
or call it something else, but there is only one thing to call
Turkey’s insistence that it and its power will determine the truth:
unacceptable.

[email protected]

Source: le/2007/10/15/AR2007101501323.html?sub=AR

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
October 11, 2007 Thursday
0 South Pinellas Edition

DEATHS IN WWI ERA EMBROIL CONGRESS

by WES ALLISON, Times Staff Writer

A finding of genocide could seriously affect U.S. interests today.

You probably haven’t spent much time pondering the massacre of
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago, and
whether it was really genocide.

But the question has Congress tied in knots.

After a four-hour hearing Wednesday, pro-Armenian forces in the House
won the Foreign Affairs Committee’s approval of a resolution that
would brand the Turks’ violence against their Armenian neighbors
during World War I as genocide.

The resolution is expected to reach the full House later this fall,
forcing a long-delayed showdown between Turkey and its U.S. allies,
including the White House, and the Democrat-led Congress, which these
days has eyes for the Armenians.

The question of whether the Armenians were victims of an organized
extermination campaign has been bitterly disputed for decades by
Turkey, which contends the Armenians were simply collateral damage in
a brutal war.

But the battle over the distinction in the House serves as a classic
example of how a seemingly parochial matter can roil Washington, and
how even symbolic actions – the resolution has no binding effect – by
Congress can affect U.S. interests halfway across the globe.

-Turkey, a crucial U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, has hired
former Democratic House leader Dick Gephardt and former prominent
House Republican Bob Livingston to lobby.

-The relatively small but impassioned Armenian-American community has
bombarded members of Congress with phone calls and e-mails, and the
leading Armenian advocacy group has put a three-minute video about
the massacres on YouTube.

-The Bush administration is begging Congress to back off, for fear of
alienating a crucial Muslim ally. In a letter to Congress, all eight
living former secretaries of state concurred with the
administration’s concerns.

Documented history

What most of the world now regards as the Armenian genocide traces
its beginning to 1914, in World War I, when Armenian guerillas
attacked Turkish supply lines as the Ottomans invaded Russia’s
frontier.

Armenian battalions also fought with the Russian army against the
Turks. After an Armenian uprising in the town of Van in 1915, the
Turks were convinced that the Armenians living among them constituted
a major threat. They moved to neutralize it.

Before the war, Armenians within the Ottoman Empire numbered
2-million. By 1922, the population was nearly nil. As many as
1.5-million were killed outright or died en route to camps in Syria,
and 500,000 were exiled, making the Armenians one of the world’s most
displaced peoples. (The Turkish government disputes the death toll,
saying it was closer to 500,000.)

France, Sweden, Italy, Argentina, Canada and other nations have
officially condemned the "Armenian genocide." In a recent letter to
Congress, the International Association of Genocide Scholars says the
genocide was "unambiguous and documented by overwhelming evidence."

In 2005, the Turkish government called for the creation of a joint
Turkish-Armenian commission to research the historical record and
determine, once and for all, what happened. It promised to open its
documents to scrutiny and invited outside scholars to join.

But the Armenians showed no interest. For them, there was nothing
more to discuss.

Old issue in Congress

Congress has been wrestling with this for three decades. Various
forms of a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide have been
proposed since the 1980s, but relations with Turkey have always won
out.

The resolution came up most recently two years ago, passing the House
Foreign Affairs Committee easily. But with Republicans in control and
President Bush opposed, there was no intention to bring it to the
floor.

That changed when Democrats regained control of Congress in January
and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a longtime supporter of condemning
the Armenian genocide, became speaker of the House.

Full House to debate

Bryan Ardouny and his group, the Armenian Assembly of America, had
been laying the groundwork for Wednesday’s vote for years. They had
worked with 53 other nonprofit and human rights groups to build
support in Congress.

By the start of Wednesday’s hearing, 226 members of the House had
signed onto the resolution as co-sponsors – more than half the entire
House.

"Members of Congress know, and certainly the ones we work with year
in and year out know, how important this is to the Armenian
community, and we make sure our constituents are weighing in and
making their voices heard," Ardouny said.

But the Armenians’ passion is matched by Turkey’s. Turkey agreed to
pay DLA Piper, Gephardt’s lobbying firm, $100,000 a month to fight
the resolution.

Gephardt recently arranged meetings for the Turkish ambassador to
Washington, Nabi Sensoy, with Pelosi and other top Democrats. He and
Livingston also worked members of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, which Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., described as a
"ferocious lobbying effort."

In the end, even committee members who opposed the resolution
stridently agreed that, yes indeed, a genocide occurred. But, they
argued, America’s relationship with Turkey is just too important to
risk for the sake of condemning what happened more than 90 years ago
at the hands of a government that no longer exists.

"We have to look at the here and the now," said Rep. David Scott,
D-Ga.

The resolution’s supporters, however, prevailed by arguing that
America’s allegiance to Turkey was no excuse. At least three members,
including Sherman, recalled Adolf Hitler, who told his staff that the
world would tolerate Germany’s extermination of the Jews because "who
today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Wednesday’s bipartisan 27-21 vote essentially guarantees a vote by
the full House, probably next month, a spokesman for Pelosi said. An
identical resolution has been filed in the Senate as well.

"Let us do this and be done with it," Sherman said. "We’ll get a few
angry words out of Ankara for a couple days, then it will be over."

Sensoy, the Turkish ambassador, was sitting in a reserved seat in the
second row of the audience. He considered Sherman’s remarks and said,
"I hope he would see that he is wrong."

Sportinglife.co.za
Oct 13 2007

Armenia 0 Serbia 0

Serbia’s chances of reaching Euro 2008 were dented on Saturday in a
goalless draw on the road as Armenia continued their recent good
form.

It is the third time in as many Group A matches the Armenians have
taken points off one of the fancied teams in the group with a win
over Poland and a draw in Portugal in their last two fixtures.

The home side started the match the brighter and Samvel Melkonyan had
the first real chance as he found his way into the box, cut inside
his man and hit a good shot that found the side netting.

Marco Pantelic then had an effort well saved by Roman Berezovsky at
the other end as both sides played a fairly open game.

The chances continued to come and Melkonyan was involved again for
Armenia as he ran down the right hand side and crossed for Artavazd
Karamyan but he shot wide from eight yards.

Serbia then went on the attack with Pantelic supplying a beautiful
through ball from the edge of the box to Dejan Stankovic but he put
his shot wide.

Zdravko Kuzmanovic had another good chance for the Serbs in an
increasingly open game as he beat two men on a mazy run and drilled a
shot from the edge of the box which Berezovsky was equal to.

It was his counterpart Vladimir Stojkovic who was called into action
next although he didn’t know much about it as he kept his team level.

Karamyan made a surging run down the left and put in a low cross
which Levon Pachajyan looked certain to bury from six yards but his
shot hit the keeper in the face and went to safety.

The home side had two golden opportunities to claim the win in the
last 10 minutes as first Karamyan skewed an effort over the bar at
full stretch from six yards after Sargis Hovsepyan had supplied a low
cross.

And just three minutes later Pachajyan put in a similar cross which
substitute Aram Hakobyan met six yards out but he scuffed his effort
past the post.