Wednesday,
U.S. House Recognizes Armenian Genocide
• Emil Danielyan
U.S. – Capitol Building dome detail with US flag waving.
After decades of lobbying by the Armenian community in the United States, the
U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Tuesday evening a
landmark resolution recognizing the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey.
The resolution adopted by 405 votes to 11 calls on the U.S. government to
“commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and
remembrance” and to “reject” Turkish efforts to deny it. It says the government
should also “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the
Armenian Genocide” and their “relevance to modern-day crimes against humanity.”
The resolution was introduced by several pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers, including
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, in April. It reached the
House floor after being backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer. They both reaffirmed their support during an hour-long debate on
the bill that preceded the vote.
“It’s a great day for the Congress,” Pelosi said, urging a “strong vote” for
acknowledging “one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.”
“This was genocide and it is important that we call this crime what it was,”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he presented the
resolution to fellow legislators. He called on them to finally “set the record
straight.”
U.S. -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam
Schiff, D-CA, speak during a press conference in the House Studio of the US
Capitol in Washington, October 2, 2019
More than a dozen other lawmakers, most of them Democrats representing
constituencies with large numbers of Armenian Americans, spoke during the
ensuing debate. They all made a case for recognizing the World War One-era
slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
“This is a vote which I have waited for 19 years to cast,” declared a visibly
emotional Schiff.
"We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity are convenient to
speak out against,” said the prominent Democrat from California. “What we must
do is to state the fact that the Ottoman Empire committed this grotesque crime
against the Armenians."
“Genocides, whenever and wherever they occur, cannot be ignored,” said Gus
Bilirakis, a Florida Republican and a co-sponsor of the resolution.
Another Republican congressman, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, blasted Turkey
for its “well-funded aggressive campaign of genocide denial”
The two leading Armenian-American lobby groups swiftly hailed the passage of
the resolution. Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly
of America, said it “reflects the best of America.”
“Today’s watershed vote for human rights represents the culmination of decades
of tireless work by members of Congress, the Armenian Assembly of America and
the Armenian American community from across the country,” Ardouny told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) likewise praised the U.S.
House for ending “Ankara’s gag-rule against American remembrance of the
Armenian Genocide.”
The Assembly and the ANCA have spent decades campaigning for such a measure.
Genocide resolutions drafted by pro-Armenian lawmakers have been repeatedly
approved by congressional committees in the past. But they never reached the
House or Senate floor because of opposition from former U.S. administrations
worried about their impact on U.S.-Turkish relations.
U.S. -- Demonstrators commemorating the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian
genocide rally outside the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles. April 24, 2018.
Like his predecessors, U.S. President Donald Trump avoided using the word
genocide in his annual statements on the mass killings and deportations of
Armenians. But Trump, whose relationship with the Democratic leadership of the
House is very strained, appears to have made no attempts to thwart the passage
of the latest genocide bill.
Successive Turkish governments have vehemently denied a deliberate Ottoman
government effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.
The Turkish ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kilic, sent last week letters to
House members warning that the resolution will “considerably poison the
political environment between the United States and Turkey.” Ankara was quick
to condemn its adoption as a “meaningless political step” and “grave mistake.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said that it will damage U.S. interests in
the region. “On the other hand, it is also noted that the attitude of the U.S.
Administration on 1915 events remains the same,” it added in a statement.
Predictably, Armenia welcomed the U.S. recognition of the genocide, with Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian describing it as “historic.” “Resolution 296 is a bold
step towards serving truth and historical justice that also offers comfort to
millions of descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors,” Pashinian wrote on
Twitter early on Wednesday.
“Thank you, U.S. Congress,” Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian tweeted for
his part. The U.S. lawmakers have sent a “massive message” against Turkish
denial of the genocide, he said.
The resolution made rapid progress in the Congress following Turkey’s military
incursion into northern Syria largely controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.
The operation was strongly condemned by many Democratic and Republican
lawmakers.
Immediately after passing the Armenian bill, the House voted overwhelmingly for
a resolution calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey.
U.S. House Recognizes Armenian Genocide
• Emil Danielyan
U.S. – Capitol Building dome detail with US flag waving.
After decades of lobbying by the Armenian community in the United States, the
U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Tuesday evening a
landmark resolution recognizing the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey.
The resolution adopted by 405 votes to 11 calls on the U.S. government to
“commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and
remembrance” and to “reject” Turkish efforts to deny it. It says the government
should also “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the
Armenian Genocide” and their “relevance to modern-day crimes against humanity.”
The resolution was introduced by several pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers, including
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, in April. It reached the
House floor after being backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer. They both reaffirmed their support during an hour-long debate on
the bill that preceded the vote.
“It’s a great day for the Congress,” Pelosi said, urging a “strong vote” for
acknowledging “one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.”
“This was genocide and it is important that we call this crime what it was,”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he presented the
resolution to fellow legislators. He called on them to finally “set the record
straight.”
U.S. -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam
Schiff, D-CA, speak during a press conference in the House Studio of the US
Capitol in Washington, October 2, 2019
More than a dozen other lawmakers, most of them Democrats representing
constituencies with large numbers of Armenian Americans, spoke during the
ensuing debate. They all made a case for recognizing the World War One-era
slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
“This is a vote which I have waited for 19 years to cast,” declared a visibly
emotional Schiff.
"We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity are convenient to
speak out against,” said the prominent Democrat from California. “What we must
do is to state the fact that the Ottoman Empire committed this grotesque crime
against the Armenians."
“Genocides, whenever and wherever they occur, cannot be ignored,” said Gus
Bilirakis, a Florida Republican and a co-sponsor of the resolution.
Another Republican congressman, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, blasted Turkey
for its “well-funded aggressive campaign of genocide denial”
The two leading Armenian-American lobby groups swiftly hailed the passage of
the resolution. Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly
of America, said it “reflects the best of America.”
“Today’s watershed vote for human rights represents the culmination of decades
of tireless work by members of Congress, the Armenian Assembly of America and
the Armenian American community from across the country,” Ardouny told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) likewise praised the U.S.
House for ending “Ankara’s gag-rule against American remembrance of the
Armenian Genocide.”
The Assembly and the ANCA have spent decades campaigning for such a measure.
Genocide resolutions drafted by pro-Armenian lawmakers have been repeatedly
approved by congressional committees in the past. But they never reached the
House or Senate floor because of opposition from former U.S. administrations
worried about their impact on U.S.-Turkish relations.
U.S. -- Demonstrators commemorating the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian
genocide rally outside the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles. April 24, 2018.
Like his predecessors, U.S. President Donald Trump avoided using the word
genocide in his annual statements on the mass killings and deportations of
Armenians. But Trump, whose relationship with the Democratic leadership of the
House is very strained, appears to have made no attempts to thwart the passage
of the latest genocide bill.
Successive Turkish governments have vehemently denied a deliberate Ottoman
government effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.
The Turkish ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kilic, sent last week letters to
House members warning that the resolution will “considerably poison the
political environment between the United States and Turkey.” Ankara was quick
to condemn its adoption as a “meaningless political step” and “grave mistake.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said that it will damage U.S. interests in
the region. “On the other hand, it is also noted that the attitude of the U.S.
Administration on 1915 events remains the same,” it added in a statement.
Predictably, Armenia welcomed the U.S. recognition of the genocide, with Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian describing it as “historic.” “Resolution 296 is a bold
step towards serving truth and historical justice that also offers comfort to
millions of descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors,” Pashinian wrote on
Twitter early on Wednesday.
“Thank you, U.S. Congress,” Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian tweeted for
his part. The U.S. lawmakers have sent a “massive message” against Turkish
denial of the genocide, he said.
The resolution made rapid progress in the Congress following Turkey’s military
incursion into northern Syria largely controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.
The operation was strongly condemned by many Democratic and Republican
lawmakers.
Immediately after passing the Armenian bill, the House voted overwhelmingly for
a resolution calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” reports that the Armenian government is planning to increase
budgetary funding for the national police by 500 million drams (over $1
million) next year. The paper welcomes this intention, saying that the state
must “financially motivate” the police. “This is certainly not the most
decisive thing in the important task of reforming the [law-enforcement]
system,” it says. “But it is one of the important things and starting points of
the reform.”
“Hraparak” predicts that controversial decisions made by Armenian
law-enforcement authorities in their high-profile investigations into current
and former state officials will eventually be overturned by the European Court
of Human Rights (ECHR) and cost Armenia millions of dollars in damages. “Every
case that is investigated by the Special Investigative Service, the National
Security Service and the Investigative Committee will come back in the form of
a slap in our face after reaching Strasbourg,” claims the paper.
“Aravot” says that voicing baseless allegations against the incumbent
authorities has been the norm for various Armenian opposition forces for the
last 27 years. For instance, the paper says, political opponents of the current
authorities deliberately mislead the public about a European convention on
violence against women in an effort to discredit Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian. It says that Pashinian himself attacked Armenia’s former government
with similarly unfounded claims when he was in opposition. “Politics is like
this all over the world,” writes the newspaper editor.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” defends Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian against strong
domestic criticism of his interview with the BBC which touched upon the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, among other issues. The pro-government paper
dismisses claims by former government officials and their supporters that the
current Armenian leaders’ harsh criticism of their predecessors is now
exploited abroad to the detriment of the official Armenian position on the
conflict.
(Tatevik Lazarian)
Top Investigator Coy About Indicting Constitutional Court Head
• Ruzanna Stepanian
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia -- The head of the Special Investigation Service, Sasun Khachatrian,
holds a press conference in Yerevan, September 11, 2018.
The head of Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) declined to say on
Wednesday whether it will bring criminal charges against Constitutional Court
Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian recommended by another law-enforcement body.
“This is a legal dispute, a legal issue, and I will not talk about it now,”
Sasun Khachatrian told reporters.
The Investigative Committee on Tuesday claimed to have collected sufficient
evidence that Tovmasian abused his powers when he served justice minister from
2010-2013. The latter denied the allegations through his lawyers.
The committee stopped short of indicting him, saying that it has sent the case
to the SIS for further investigation. Crimes allegedly committed by senior
state officials are normally investigated by the SIS.
“We received the criminal case yesterday and are still examining it,” said
Khachatrian. “I won’t make any comments on this case at the moment.”
The SIS already launched a separate inquiry into Tovmasian on October 17 two
days after the Constitutional Court dismissed a parliamentary resolution
demanding his ouster. Five days later, the law-enforcement body effectively
declared illegal Tovmasian’s appointment as court chairman in March 2018,
saying that it amounted to a “usurpation of power” by former state officials.
One of them, former parliament speaker Ara Babloyan, was indicted on Monday.
Babloyan was not arrested, unlike Arsen Babayan, a former senior parliament
staffer facing the same coup charges leveled last week. The SIS says that
Babayan illegally backdated in March 2018 an official document to enable the
former Armenian parliament to install Tovmasian as court chairman before the
entry into force of sweeping constitutional amendments.
The amendments introduced a six-year term in office for the head of Armenia’s
highest court. Tovmasian, 49, took up the post under previous constitutional
provisions allowing him to run the court until the age of 70.
Both indicted men flatly deny the accusations of forgery and “usurpation of
power.” Critics of the Armenian government say Babayan’s arrest is part of its
efforts to force Tovmasian to resign.
Armenia -- Arsen Babayan, the deputy chief of the parliament staff, April 6,
2018.
Khachatrian dismissed suggestions that Babayan would not have been arrested had
the Constitutional Court chairman bowed to the government pressure. “Hrayr
Tovmasian’s resigning or not resigning does not matter for the criminal case,”
said the SIS chief. “Again, the Special Investigative Service does not engage
in politics.”
Senior parliamentarians from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s My Step alliance
have also denied any political motives behind the criminal proceedings.
It emerged on Wednesday that a prominent Armenian human rights campaigner,
Avetik Ishkhanian, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Artak
Beglarian, have appealed for Babayan’s release from pre-trial custody. In a
petition sent to relevant authorities, they said that they can guarantee the
“proper conduct” of the former official if he is set free.
Ishkhanian has been very critical of the high-profile cases, saying that they
are politically motivated.
One of Babayan’s lawyers, Yervand Varosian, insisted, meanwhile, that his
client should not have been arrested and prosecuted in the first place.
Varosian claimed that a judge in Yerevan failed to present any legal grounds
when he sanctioned Babayan’s arrest on October 24.
Babayan was detained on October 21 and initially suspected of only forgery, a
crime covered by a general amnesty declared by the Armenian parliament last
year. His lawyers protested against what they see as an illegal detention
before the SIS leveled the more serious coup charge against the former deputy
chief of the parliament staff.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” comments on concerns voiced by Gianni Buquicchio, the president of
the Venice Commission, about the Armenian government’s standoff with the
Constitutional Court. The paper says that Buquicchio used diplomatic language
to say that the Armenian parliament has a bigger role to play in reforming the
country than the court’s chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, and his supporters. “It is
evident that Armenia’s new leadership does not need an ‘open conflict’ with the
Council of Europe,” it says. “Having disagreements with the Venice Commission
would effectively mean a conflict with the Council of Europe.” The question is,
the paper goes on, whether Tovmasian’s resignation is so vital for the
government that it is ready to risk being censured by the Council of Europe.
Alvina Gyulumian, a member of the Constitutional Court, tells “Haykakan
Zhamanak” that government allegations that the court is hampering political
reforms in Armenia are “attempts to manipulate the public.” Gyulumian says she
and her colleagues will resign only if the authorities abolish the
Constitutional Court through constitutional changes approved by Armenians in a
referendum. “After all, we work for the public,” she says. “But nobody will
resign from this court if that is demanded by ten or a hundred persons who feel
offended for some reason and think this court has not protected their
interests.”
“Hraparak” reports on unfolding parliamentary discussions of the Armenia’s
state budget for next year drafted by the government. The paper quotes Finance
Minister Atom Janjughazian as saying that the spending bill is significantly
better than previous Armenian budgets. “But this does not mean that we will be
starting to build a country from scratch,” Janjughazian says. Both the current
and former governments have strived for macroeconomic stability in the country,
he says.
(Anush Mkrtchian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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