TURKEY CAN TAKE A STEP FORWARD BY CONFRONTING ITS PAST
The Times
March 10, 2010
UK
The only way forward for a civilised nation is to accept that it was
responsible for bad things rather than ignore or deny them
(Adem Al Tania) Protesters, holding Turkish flags, shout slogans during
a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara March 5, 2010.
Sir, I find Norman Stone’s apparent view (Opinion, Mar 8), that bad
things are best forgotten in the interest of economics and politics,
totally unacceptable, as I am sure do the survivors and relations of
family members who were the victims of the first ethnic cleansing of
the 20th century.
Professor Stone is correct to emphasise that our history is tainted
by many bad things that happened at the end of empires. However, I
am sure most would agree that the only way forward for a civilised
nation is to accept that it was responsible for bad things (as the
Turks undoubtedly were) rather than ignore or deny them, so that a
true reconciliation can happen. This is what happened with Germany and
the Holocaust, white South Africa and apartheid and other appalling
acts by aggressors through the ages.
Michael Marcar Cranleigh, Surrey
Sir, The UN Genocide Convention (1951) defines genocide as acts
"committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnic, racial or religious group".
The Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 came into this
category. Even the ambassador from Germany, one of Turkey’s First
World War allies, reported to Berlin that the Ottoman Government was
attempting "to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire".
On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler told his troops of his
intention to exterminate European Jewry, asking: "Who speaks today
of the annihilation of the Armenians?" His question is inscribed on
a wall of the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC.
Modern Turkey remains in denial over the scale, even the fact, of the
genocide committed under its Ottoman predecessors. With negotiations
towards Turkey’s EU membership grinding on, recognition now of the
reality of the Armenian genocide would signal Turkey’s coming of age as
a European democracy confident enough to come to terms with its past.
David Rudnick Harrow, Middx
Sir, Norman Stone’s selective view of the Armenian genocide
conveniently ignores the part played by religion. What he and other
apologists for Turkey consistently ignore is that Pontic Greeks
and Assyrians were killed in large numbers at the same time. These
communities were never nationalist groupings taking part in an
uprising against Ottoman Turkey and were not, therefore, killed in
the fog of war.
Stone’s comments on Cyprus were particularly insensitive because its
well-integrated Armenian community, having fled the Ottoman persecution
to British Cyprus, were then forcibly expelled again from their homes
in the north of the island after Turkey’s invasion in 1974.
Like the US Congress, the European Parliament believes that the mass
killings in Armenia constituted genocide, as we now define it. Turkey
would be far better off by confronting its past and making peace with
Armenia by reopening its border with its neighbour and re-establishing
diplomatic relations rather than waging a constant campaign of denial.
Dr Charles Tannock, MEP UK Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman
Sir, Turks and Armenians participating in the Turkish-Armenian
Reconciliation Commission, which I chaired, requested a legal analysis
on "the applicability of the Genocide Convention to Events during
the early Twentieth Century." The legal analysis employed a far more
rigorous definition than Norman Stone who simply defines genocide as
"the sort of thing Hitler did."
The crime of genocide has four elements – 1, The perpetrator killed
one or more persons. 2, Such person or persons belonged to a particular
national, racial or religious group.
3, The perpetrator intended to destroy in whole or in part that group,
as such, and 4, The conduct took place as part of a manifest pattern
of conduct. Since some Ottoman leaders knew that the deportation
of Armenians from eastern Anatolia would result in many deaths, the
legal analysis concluded that the perpetrators possessed the requisite
genocidal intent and thus the events include all the elements of the
crime of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention.
The legal analysis also concluded that the Genocide Convention
contains no provision mandating its retroactive application. It
was, in fact, intended to impose prospective obligations to its
signatories. Therefore, no legal, financial or territorial claims
arising out of the events could successfully be made under the
convention.
The outcome was a win-win. It validated the suffering of Armenians
as genocide and freed Turkey from liability. Opponents of genocide
recognition may muddy the facts, but they should not distort the
legal definition of genocide embodied in the convention.
David L. Phillips Director, Programme on Conflict Prevention and
Peacebuilding, American University, Washington