Category: 2021

Vahram Shemmassian, head of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Northridge, explores the history of Armenian resistance in the Musa Dagh region of the Ottoman Empire in his latest book, reported CSUN Today.

Book cover for Musa Dagh: From Obscurity to Genocide Resistance and Fame 1840-1915
“The Armenians of Musa Dagh: From Obscurity to Genocide Resistance and Fame 1840-1915” is the second book by the Armenian scholar that chronicles the lives of the Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire, as well as their resistance during the Armenian genocide. His first book in the series was “The Musa Dagh Armenians: A Socioeconomic and Cultural History, 1919-1939.”

Shemmassian said he sees parallels between what happened 100 years ago to what is happening today in the region, with the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh sandwiched between the two states.

“Turkey has been providing Azerbaijan with arms, and terrorists from Syria to help dispose of Armenians and, more specifically, to ethnically cleanse the country in order to obtain land,” he said. “The same resistance against tyranny and extermination that happened in the past is occurring again now, as an attempt to fully dispose of Armenian culture and the people apart of it.”

“The Armenians of Musa Dagh” is a comprehensive history of the people of Musa Dagh, who rose to prominence with their resistance to the genocide in 1915. Shemmassian presents a thorough analysis of the social, economic, religious, educational, and political history of the six villages that constituted Armenian Musa Dagh. He focuses on the important period of the mid-19th to the early 20th century, offering new insights into the people whose courage and persistence ultimately led to their successful self-defense.

The last (and longest) chapter of his book details the Armenian resistance to genocide, he said.
“We are all angry about what’s happening with Armenia and Azerbaijan, because they are finishing what Turkey started during World War I,” Shemmassian said. “Many war crimes were committed against Armenia last year, almost identical to the genocide that was happening a century ago.

In addition to his work, Shemmassian pointed to “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, ” a novel by Franz Werfel that tells the struggles the Armenian community faced, as a work that can help people understand, on a more intimate level, what happened to the Armenian people during the genocide.

The publication of “The Armenians of Musa Dagh” comes on the heels of an anonymous $3 million gift to CSUN’s Armenian Studies Program, to support research and scholarships for students.

Shemmassian said he hopes his books provide a historical context for what is happening in Armenia today, as the past continues to influence Armenians.
“The final product, the publication of my books, is the most fulfilling feeling that one can have,” he said. “They are a legacy. At some point, we all die. I’m glad that I’m leaving something behind for future generations to read and learn.”

Artsakh Foreign Minister Davit Babayan sent letters to the specialized agencies of the United Nations and the Council of Europe, as well as the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Tuesday highlighting the current dire situation faced by Armenian servicemen and civilians who are illegally held captive in Azerbaijan.

The letters states that Azerbaijan, by violating the November 9, 2020 trilateral statement signed by the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan, has attacked and occupied Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher villages of Artsakh’s Hadrut region in December 2020 and captured 64 servicemen of the Artsakh Defense Army. Then, the Azerbaijani authorities have announced their intention to launch criminal cases against the Armenian prisoners of war, which, Babayan said, is a gross violation of the international humanitarian law.

The letters also reference that per international humanitarian law, in particular, the Geneva Conventions, continue to apply after the signing of the statement on ceasefire, therefore, the captured servicemen are prisoners of war according to the Article 4th of the Geneva Convention (III) on Prisoners of War, and they should be repatriated after the end of the military operations. Criminal prosecution against the POWs by Azerbaijan only for their participation to the military operations is a gross violation of the Third Geneva Convention.

In the letters, Babayan also says that Azerbaijan is delaying the return of other servicemen and civilians who have been captured on September 27, 2020 during the armed aggression launched by Azerbaijan against Artsakh and after that. He stressed that such a stance by Azerbaijan contradicts its commitments to fulfill the trilateral statement completely, which would help heal the wounds of the bloody conflict.

The Artsakh Foreign Minister has called on the international bodies to take urgent measures to ensure Azerbaijan’s implementation of the Geneva Conventions and to require official Baku to fulfill its obligations to guarantee all of the rights afforded to both prisoners of war and civilians, being kept in detention by Azerbaijan.

ANCA, Hellenic American Leadership Council, In Defense of Christians to Work with Incoming Biden Administration to Safeguard Rights of Indigenous and Minority Populations

WASHINGTON—In its final hours, the Trump Administration signed a disastrous bilateral U.S.-Turkey Memorandum of Understanding granting Turkey legal rights over the vast religious-cultural heritage of the region’s indigenous peoples and other minority populations, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

The agreement comes in response to a request by the Government of Turkey, submitted over a year ago – a move strongly opposed by the ANCA, Hellenic American Leadership Council, and In Defense of Christians (IDC) and a host of cultural rights and museum groups including the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), the Committee for Cultural Policy (CCP), the Global Heritage Alliance (GHA), and the International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN), among others.

“The Trump Administration – in its final hours – gifted Turkey the legal rights to claim the vast religious and cultural heritage of the region’s indigenous peoples and minority populations – among them Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, Jews and Kurds,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “This reckless and irresponsible move was done over the protests of the ANCA, the Hellenic American Leadership Council, and In Defense of Christians by an Administration well aware that Turkey has openly, unapologetically, and systematically spent the past two centuries destroying minorities, desecrating their holy sites, and erasing even their memory from the landscape of their ancient, indigenous homelands.”

Hellenic American Leadership Council Executive Director Endy Zemenides concurred. “In his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken correctly identified Turkey as a ‘so-called strategic partner’ of the United States.  The fact that the present State Department ignored both the divergence in strategic interest and, most importantly, democratic values and signed a cultural agreement with a Turkey that has demonstrated the intent to wipe out its Christian minorities and their heritage is a travesty.  Those that participated in the signing of this agreement are potentially complicit in the continuation of Turkey’s oppression of its Christians.  We will work with the incoming Secretary and Administration to ensure that this agreement is indeed effectuated in such a way that actually protects Christian heritage in Turkey,“ stated Zemenides.

IDC President Toufic Baaklini explained, “This MOU is a shameful stamp of American approval on the destruction of Christian cultural heritage in Turkey. We will work with the incoming Biden Administration to ensure U.S. policy towards Turkey will be much stronger moving forward.”

Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou, who served on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2004-2012 and lectures at Tufts University Fletcher School, called the agreement “a surreal moment in U.S. foreign policy.”  Prodromou explained, “well-documented and extensive evidence by cultural heritage experts leaves no doubt that the state of Turkey is the single greatest threat to that country’s cultural heritage. The Trump Administration has now put the United States in the position of enabler to Turkey’s weaponization of cultural heritage policy, used for a century as a cudgel to erase the country’s vulnerable religious minorities, including Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians, and Jews. The incoming Biden administration will face one more challenge in trying to restore U.S. leadership in the protection of human rights and religious freedom, as Washington tries to ensure that Turkey does not hide beyond the MOU in order to commit ‘memoricide’ against its Christian and Jewish minority communities.”

The cultural property agreement with Turkey was negotiated by the State Department under the U.S. law implementing the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.  U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey David Satterfield and Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Ersoy signed the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding.

While the final memorandum text has not been made public, Turkey’s request called for U.S. import restrictions on virtually all art originating in their territory, spanning all periods in history from the prehistoric up to the modern era.

U.S. law requires that four conditions be satisfied before signing an agreement:

1. The cultural property of the requesting country [and on the designated list] is in jeopardy from pillage.

2. Turkey has taken measures consistent with the 1970 UNESCO Convention to protect its cultural patrimony.

3. The application of import restrictions, if applied in concert with similar restrictions implemented, or to be implemented within a reasonable amount of time by those nations individually having a significant import trade in such material, would be of substantial benefit in deterring a serious situation of pillage, and remedies less drastic than import restrictions are unavailable.

4. The application of import restrictions is consistent with the international community’s interest in the interchange of cultural property.

Opponents of the agreement argued that none of the key criteria had been met.

In testimony submitted on January 21, 2020, to the State Department Cultural Property Advisory Committee which recommended the signing of the agreement, the Association of Art Museum Directors argued, “While all of the facts are important, perhaps the most troubling is Turkey’s failure to take measures to protect its cultural patrimony. Instead, it is taking affirmative steps to eradicate some of the country’s most important heritage—particularly that of its minority cultures and religions—through state-sanctioned destruction of cultural patrimony. Nobody should condone this conduct. But that is exactly what the Committee will do if it concludes that Turkey qualifies for import restrictions and recommends the MOU.”

Joint testimony submitted by the Committee for Cultural Policy and the Global Heritage Alliance opposing the agreement went further, noting, “By encouraging an MOU with Turkey, the State Department is not only ignoring common sense and the balanced cultural policy set by Congress decades before – it is directly harming important U.S. constituencies such as the Armenian, Greek, Cypriot, Syriac, and Kurdish communities founded by minorities who suffered under Turkish persecution in the 20th century. […] A MOU approving Turkey’s cultural heritage policies will strengthen Erdoğan’s nationalist and anti-Semitic program, which already threatens to deprive Jewish and Christian communities of rights to community property and their most precious religious artifacts.”

Following the signing of the agreement, the State Department Bureau of Education and Cultural Heritage will work with Turkey’s Embassy and archaeologists to build a comprehensive “designated list” of items prohibited from import. Similar lists, developed as part of memoranda with other countries, have included virtually all objects, unless they can be proved to U.S. Customs’ satisfaction to have been out of country for more than ten years. Agreements are usually valid for five years, though legislative oversight is generally lax, and memoranda with other countries have been renewed for decades, often with no measurable benefit for the preservation of antiquities.