Category: News

The German Bundestag’s historic vote earlier today officially recognizing the Armenian Genocide shines a global spotlight on U.S. President Barack Obama’s continued complicity in Turkey’s denial of this still unpunished crime, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

“The Bundestag’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide—made all the more powerful by its honest reckoning with Germany’s own role in this still unpunished crime—further isolates Turkey, while shining a global spotlight on the Obama Administration as the leading international enabler of Ankara’s campaign of genocide denial,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “There is still time for President Obama to follow Germany’s lead, reject Turkey’s gag-rule, and speak honestly about the Armenian Genocide.”

Prior to his election, President Obama was clear and unequivocal in promising to properly characterize Ottoman Turkey’s murder of more than 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children between 1915 and 1923 as genocide. In a Jan. 19, 2008, statement he wrote: “The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.”

President Obama has broken that pledge in annual Armenian Remembrance Day statements issued on or near April 24th, the international day of commemoration of this crime.

The U.S. first recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1951 through a filing which was included in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Report titled: “Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The specific reference to the Armenian Genocide appears on page 25 of the ICJ Report: “The Genocide Convention resulted from the inhuman and barbarous practices which prevailed in certain countries prior to and during World War II, when entire religious, racial and national minority groups were threatened with and subjected to deliberate extermination. The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human history. The Roman persecution of the Christians, the Turkish massacres of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of genocide.”

President Ronald Reagan reaffirmed the Armenian Genocide in 1981. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted legislation on the Armenian Genocide in 1975, 1984 and 1996.  This year, West Virginia became the 44th U.S. state to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Under Congressional mandate, the U.S., between 1915 and 1930, embarked on an unprecedented humanitarian campaign providing the equivalent of over $2 billion in today’s dollars to help save Armenian Genocide survivors.

German lawmakers’ planned vote on a resolution that recognises the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, will test the “friendship” between Berlin and Ankara, Turkey said Thursday, reports.

The resolution “will amount to a real test of the friendship” between the two nations, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

“Some nations that we consider friends, when they are experiencing trouble in domestic policy attempt to divert attention from it,” he said at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). “This resolution is an example of that.”

He stopped short of threatening Germany with political and economic retaliation, but added “3.5 million Turks live in Germany and actively contribute to the economy.”

German lawmakers are preparing to pass a resolution Thursday that recognises the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, despite stark warnings from Turkey that the vote could hurt ties.

Put forward by the ruling left-right coalition and the opposition Greens, the resolution entitled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916” also carries the contentious word throughout the text.

From June 13 to July 2, 2016, the entire Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (ACCEA) in Yerevan will be subsumed with ethnographic photography and documentation touching upon the little known world of diaspora Armenians during their ‘great’ repatriation to Soviet Armenia after World War II to the early 1970s in an exhibition entitled, Stream of Light. Equally, viewers of the ACCEA will have an opportunity to learn about one of the oldest settlements of Armenians in the diaspora: Mexico from 1632 to 1950s, in a side exhibition entitled, Armenians of Mexico. The opening reception will be held on Friday, June 17 at 18:00, with a special film screening at 19:30.

Armenians of Mexico

While the numbers are not many, Armenians traveling or doing business in Colonial Mexico (New Spain) has a history of over three hundred years ago. By the nineteenth century, some Armenians became well known in Mexican society, such as Jacobo Harootian, who was the first Armenian to be given status as a General in the army. The vast majority of Armenians who settled in Mexico were not there to search for adventure, but were victims of persecution, stemming from the genocide.

Over the years, the Armenians in Mexico failed to create the necessary institutions to preserve their identity, but some members of community kept their dreams of returning to their homeland very much alive. They considered their displacement in Mexico to be temporary and maintained strong bonds to other Armenian communities, especially in the United States. Today, the assimilated Armenian community has re-started a connection with their past and their identity. This exhibition is part of their process to maintain their memory and reconstruct their connection to their Armenian identity.

Major sponsorship for Armenians of Mexico comes from the Chitjian Foundation, the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Mexico, and CIESAS.

Stream of Light: Post-WWII Repatriation to Soviet Armenia

The post-WWII repatriation to Soviet Armenia indelibly changed the lives of those Armenians from the diaspora who entered the communist country in 1946 to 1949. As a young child I never fully understood my place within this anthropological phenomenon, born in Soviet Armenia to an American-Armenian father and a French-Armenian mother at the height of the cold war. This exhibition documents the historic and ethnographic path of Armenians in the Diaspora from the 1940s to the early 1970s with photographs from surviving repatriates and documents from national archives.

At great cost, the collective cultural and economic contribution of the repatriates illuminated a country placed in darkness during the Stalin years. Based on research of survivors, including interviews, and the collection of documents and photographs, the exhibition aims to enlighten those unaware of the sacrifices made, the lives shortened, and the lies endured in what was essentially a life-altering decision to ‘go home’ and live at the foot of Mount Ararat. Major sponsorship for Stream of Light: Post WWII-Repatriation to Soviet Armenia comes from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

About Carlos Antaramían

After studying International Affairs at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), Carlos Antaramián got an M.A. (2001) and a PhD (2006) in Social Anthropology from El Colegio de Michoacán (México). His research interests focus on migration and transnational communities, genocides, Armenian communities and the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. He has published the book From Ararat to Popocatepetl. Armenians in Mexico (2011), and a documentary related to the settlement of Armenians in Mexico City after the genocide The Armenians in La Merced (2012). He was the curator of the Exhibition Armenia, an Open Wound in Museo Memoria and Tolerancia in Mexico City (2015) and at the Brand Library in Glendale (2016).

About Hazel Antaramian Hofman

With a background in both the sciences and arts, Hazel Antaramian Hofman has a M.Sc. in Environmental Policy and Planning (1994) and an M.A. in Art and Design (2011). She is an adjunct art instructor at Fresno City College, an independent scholar, and an artist with Fig Tree Gallery in Fresno, California. Her current independent project encompasses a six-year ethnographic project on the post-WWII repatriation to Soviet Armenia. She has presented her illustrated lectures on the topic nationally and internationally, and published work on the repatriation in the Paris publication, Nouvelles d’Arménie. Her latest article on the topic was published in a special edition of the Spanish publication, ISTOR, Armenia Una Historia.

More recently, Antaramian Hofman has been working with other visual artists as a videographer in documenting the making and philosophy of their art. She was a contributing art writer to the art catalogue, Body/Land: A 25-Year Retrospective of Anne Scheid (2016); the photograph catalogue of Saroyan: His Heart in the Highlands (2008), and the Fresno Art Museum art catalogue, Vostanik Adoian: aka Arshile Gorky (2006). She is a board member of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research and the College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State University.

Germany has broad and strong relations with Turkey despite differences on some issues, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday after lawmakers passed a resolution describing the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman forces as “genocid,” Reuters reports.

Turkey, which rejects the description, has recalled its ambassador to Germany in response.

“There is a lot that binds Germany to Turkey and even if we have a difference of opinion on an individual matter, the breadth of our links, our friendship, our strategic ties, is great,” Merkel said at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

She added that Germany supported dialogue between Turkey and Armenia and sought good relations with Ankara.

Ankara called back its ambassador to Berlin in protest after German MPs voted through a resolution to call the killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a genocide on Thursday.

The Turkish government has described the Bundestag’s approval of the Armenian genocide bill “null and void,” the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“The fact that the German Parliament approved distorted and baseless claims as genocide is a historic mistake. The German Parliament’s approval of this bill is not a decision in line with friendly relations between Turkey and Germany. This decision is null and void for Turkey,” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said.

“This is an issue that scientists and historians need to reach a conclusion on, not politicians or parliaments. As Turkey, we will surely give the necessary response to this decision in all platforms,” he added.

Meanwhile, Turkish Ambassador to Berlin Hüseyin Avni Karslıoglu has been recalled toAnkara for consultations over the decision.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavuşoglu took to Twitter to criticize the vote.

“The way to close dark pages in [Germany’s] own history is not to defame the history of other countries with irresponsible and baseless parliament decisions,” Cavuşoğlu tweeted.

Congressman Adam Schiff has commended the overwhelming vote by the German Bundestag to recognize the ‎Armenian Genocide‬.

“With this acknowledgement of the facts of the genocide, Germany joins a host of other European countries in recognizing and condemning the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923,” Rep. Schiff said.

“The German vote is particularly courageous as it comes in the midst of negotiations with Turkey regarding the flow of refugees and migrants into Europe. It sends a clear message that the truth of genocide cannot be silenced and that temporary expediency can never justify complicity in genocide denial,” he added.

“Our own Congress should demonstrate the same willingness to defy Turkish threats, and the same moral integrity and commitment to principle by following Germany’s example,” Adam Schiff said.

Dozens of people gathered outside the German parliament in Berlin on Thursday to celebrate the decision by German lawmakers to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The resolution recognizing the 1915-1916 genocide by the Ottoman Empirewas passed by a landslide vote with only one lawmaker opposing.

A dagger entombed alongside the mummy of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun was made with iron that came from a meteorite, researchers say, the BBC reports.

The weapon was one of a pair of daggers discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1925 within the burial wrappings of the teenaged king.

The origin of its unrusted iron blade has baffled scientists because such metalwork was rare in ancient Egypt.

Tutankhamun was mummified more than 3,300 years ago.

Italian and Egyptian researchers used “a non-invasive X-ray technique” to confirm the composition of the iron without damaging it, according to a study published in the journal of Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

Armenia welcomes the adoption of the resolution by the German Bundestag  on recognition of the Genocide committed against Armenians and other Christian peoples.

“German President Joachim Gauck’s statement on the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, along with this Bundestag resolution, is a valuable contribution not only to the process of international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide but also to the fight for prevention of genocides and crimes against humanity,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.

“Germany and Austria, two former allies of the Ottoman Empire acknowledge their share of responsibility in the perpetration of the Armenian Genocide, while the Turkish authorities keep denying the obvious fact of the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire,” Minister Nalbandian said.

“The international community has been waiting for Turkey to face its history for 101 years,” the Foreign Minister said.