BAKU: Armenian Armed Forces Violate Cease-Fire In Gazakh Front

ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES VIOLATE CEASE-FIRE IN GAZAKH FRONT

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

Armenian side keeps on breaking the cease-fire. Azerbaijan’s Defense
Ministry informed APA that the companies of the Armenian armed forces
from their positions in 0.8 km south of Mazam village of Azerbaijan’s
region of Gazakh fired on the opposite positions of the Azerbaijani
armed forces from 20.25 till 20.30 on 23 April.

The enemy forces from their positions in Vozkevan and Shavarshavan
villages of Noyemberyan region, Armenia, again fired on the opposite
positions of Azerbaijani forces and Gushchu Ayrim village from 22.30
till 22.45. Armenian forces from their positions located in the
north-east of Aznakar mountain, Noyemberyan, fired on the positions
of the Azerbaijani forces in Gushchu Ayrim, Gazakh, with submachine
and machine guns from 23.35 till 23.45.

The enemy was silenced by response fire. No casualties were
reported.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Moscow High School Student Detained In Alleged Race Hate Killing

MOSCOW HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT DETAINED IN ALLEGED RACE HATE KILLING

RIA Novosti, Russia
April 24, 2006

MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – Police officers have detained a high
school student in connection with the killing of an Armenian teenager
in the Moscow subway at the weekend, prosecutors said Monday.

“A 17-year-old student from a Moscow high school has been detained in
connection with the killing of an Armenian committed last Saturday,”
a spokesman for the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office said, adding that the
teenager had admitted his involvement in the incident.

Vagan Abramyants, a 17-year-old student at the Moscow Academy of
Management was attacked and stabbed to death on the platform of
Pushkinskaya metro station in the center of the capital at about 5
p.m. on Saturday.

Prosecutors launched a criminal case into the killing, which they
said could be racially motivated.

But a source close to investigation said the suspect, who has been
identified as a soccer fan, claimed that the victim had insulted his
girlfriend in a subway train and he stabbed the man to get even.

“We can now say with certainty that the slaying occurred after a
common argument and was not racially motivated,” the source said,
adding that a group of soccer fans was presumably heading to watch
a game played by their favorite club.

Nevertheless, it is the latest of a series of attacks across
the country that have affected foreigners and people with a dark
complexion.

In St. Petersburg, an African student was shot dead with a rifle marked
with a swastika on April 7, while two Mongolian students were beaten
up in the city’s subway a week later. A Chinese student was attacked
outside her apartment block this month, while a nine-year-old girl of
mixed Russian and African origin was hospitalized after being stabbed
near her apartment building March 25.

Four Chinese students, studying at Kostroma State University in
central Russia, were attacked last Friday afternoon outside a school.

These incidents have prompted Russian and foreign human-rights groups
to raise concerns over the alarming spread of racist and xenophobic
attitudes in the country.

Armenian Genocide Debate Continues

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DEBATE CONTINUES
By: Matthew Watkins

Texas A&M The Battalion, TX
April 24, 2006

Adan Peña, Robert Saucedo, Wade Barker – THE BATTALION. Susan Gordone
discusses photos of her relatives who experienced the Armenian genocide
that started in 1915.

Very few would doubt that Armenian-American Susan Gordone’s family
has suffered. However, what to call the cause of their suffering is
a ninety year-old debate.

In 1913, Gordone’s grandmother, Rose, was asked by her pregnant
mother to help deliver her younger sister. At the time, her whole
family lived in Turkey.

“Rose was eight years old. The baby, with its afterbirth, slipped
through her hands and died. Three days later, her mother died,” said
Gordone, who lives in College Station and is a former worker for the
Texas A&M theater arts and English departments. “A week later when
her father returned, he told the remaining members of the family that
they must leave immediately, pack into a wagon or be killed.”

Seven years after the death of her mother and sister, Rose traveled
to America to escape the danger in her home country.

“But in those seven years, she, along with my Uncle John and Aunt
Tervanda, would persevere in the death caravans, watching other family
members die along the way before arriving in Ellis Island in 1920,”
Gordone said.

On Monday, Gordone, along with the Armenian community, will observe
the 91st anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which some estimates
indicate took the lives of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. However,
others, including the Turkish Government, contend that the Armenian
genocide never happened.

The events of the Armenian genocide occurred when the Young Turks, who
had power over Turkey at the time, relocated or deported the country’s
Armenian population during World War I. Most of the Armenians were
relocated on foot causing many to die of exhaustion or starvation. Most
Armenians and many scholars contend that the deaths were genocide.

The Turkish government acknowledges the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians between 1915 and 1917, but says the deaths were the
result of a civil war and starvation that affected all members of
the Turkish population.

The debate about the events has become so heated that it has sometimes
prevented Armenians and Turks from becoming friends at A&M, said Yaman
Evrenoglu, a Turkish graduate student in electrical engineering. He
said he remembers at least five times when a personal friendship
between an Armenian and Turk was halted when the pair’s nationality
was revealed.

The most recent shake up in the controversy was an hour-long
documentary, “The Armenian Genocide,” which aired on PBS and told
the story of the genocide. The film featured many scholars, some
of whom were Turkish, telling the story of death marches in which
Armenians were pushed off cliffs, drowned, starved and exhausted. A
25-minute panel discussion about the Turkish involvement in these
deaths followed the documentary.

“(The documentary) provides a blatantly one-sided perspective of a
tragic and unresolved period of world history,” Turkish ambassador
to the United States Nabi ?ensoy said in a statement after the
documentary’s airing. “Its premise is rejected not only by my
government, but also by many eminent scholars who have studied the
period in question.”

Armenians and the myriad of scholars who contend that the genocide
is a historical fact said the panel legitimized a view that hatefully
refused to acknowledge the genocide.

“Turkish denials of the genocide are part of a state-sponsored policy
of propaganda that serves only the interests of Turkey. The historical
truth of the Armenian genocide has been established beyond reasonable
doubt by abundant documentary and eye-witness evidence from thousands
of sources,” Vako Nicolian said in an online petition he authored
and sent the vice president of programming at PBS.

As of Sunday, the petition has gathered 22,195 signees.

Gordone said she had no problem with the airing of the panel
discussion, which featured two scholars on each side of the issue,
because it simply revealed the lack of depth to the Turkish
government’s claims.

“If we are going to pretend that a stateless Christian minority
population, unarmed, is somehow in a capacity to kill people in an
aggressive way that is tantamount to war, or civil war, we’re living
in the realm of the absurd,” said Peter Balakian, a professor at
Colgate University in the debate.

Evrenosoglu said he was more upset about the debate than the
documentary.

“The documentary was much more moderate compared to ones that I
have witnessed,” he said. “It was too biased for us of course, but
at least they presented the Turkish government and the Turkish point
of view. The debate was a complete disaster because the theme of the
debate was not about discussion of the Armenian genocide but why the
Turkish government is rejecting it.”

7/news/2006/04/24/News/Armenian.Genocide.Debate.Co ntinues-1867136.shtml?norewrite200604241732&so urcedomain=

–Boundary_(ID_1Q2JEUg ClZLbxBHxGkw/yQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

http://www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper65
www.thebatt.com

BAKU: Reps Of Turkish, Azeri Diasporas Rally In Defense To Ankara’sP

REPS OF TURKISH, AZERI DIASPORAS RALLY IN DEFENSE TO ANKARA’S POSITION ON ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’
Author: R.Abdullayev

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

Representatives of the Turkish and Azerbaijani Diasporas of the United
States held a rally in Washington in defense to Ankara’s position on
the ‘Armenian genocide’ in Osman Empire, Trend reports citing the
Turkish media. Over 250 people participated in the rally staged in
front of the Turkish embassy.

Participants in the action held flags of Turkey and Azerbaijan,
scanning ‘Go away from Turkey’, ‘Enough Armenian lies,” etc.

Meanwhile, the Turkish embassy in the United States set up
consultations with members of the US Senate with respect to remove
from agenda three documents on the so-called ‘Armenian genocide’
of 1915. A resolution by the speaker of the senate is required to
remove any issue from the agenda.

One of the similar documents had been submitted former US President
Bill Clinton, who is refused to ratify it.

The Turkish authorities on behalf of Prime Minister Erdogan had sounded
a proposal on the necessity of study of the events developing upon
the collapse of the Osman Empire by the Armenian-Turkish scientific
commission, whilst Yerevan came out against it.

BAKU: Armistice Breach Anew Fixed In Armenian-Azerbaijani Frontline

ARMISTICE BREACH ANEW FIXED IN ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI FRONTLINE
Author: E.Javadova

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

On 23 April the units of the Armenian armed forces dislocated in
0.8km south of Mazamli village of Gazakh District fired from 22:30pm
to 22:45pm the positions of the Azerbaijan National Army placed in
the opposite, Defense Ministry told Trend.

The same day the Armenian armed forces placed in Voskevan and
Shavarshan of Noyamberian District fired the Azerbaijani positions
dislocated in Gushchu Ayrim village of Kazakh District. From 23:35
to 23:45 the Armenian troops in the northwest of Aznakar mountain in
the territory of Noyamberian District from guns and machine-guns the
Azerbaijani positions near Gushchu Ayrim village of Kazakh District.

Reply fire was opened. No causalities were reported.

A Solemn Anniversary

A SOLEMN ANNIVERSARY
By Jessica Scarpati / Daily News Correspondent

Daily News Tribune, MA
April 24, 2006

BOSTON- Shoushan Kalaydjian is left speechless by people who say
Turkish attacks against World War I-era Armenians do not constitute
genocide.

“My father’s side lost all six members of his family, including
his parents,” said Kalaydjian, 70, of Waltham. “There is no single
Armenian family you can talk to that hasn’t lost someone.”

After rumor spread that Germans would poison the soup in the Turkish
orphanage where her father lived, Kalaydjian said he fled to Iraq.

“He was 7 years old,” she said after a State House remembrance service
on Friday. “He slept on a carpet in a mosque in the middle of Baghdad
and one of the imams took care of him.”

Kalaydjian and her husband Ara, 68, attend the Beacon Hill ceremony
each year.

“What happened to the Armenian people and our ancestors shouldn’t
happen again,” said Kalaydjian, an Israeli native. “We don’t pray
for ourselves only. We pray for all.”

Over 300 Bay State Armenians, politicians and survivors gathered in
the House chamber to honor the 1.5 million lost 91 years ago and to
condemn attempts to deny the genocide took place.

“The denial of genocide . has allowed genocide actions to be
perpetrated decade after decade,” said Rep. Peter Koutoujian,
D-Waltham. “Keeping the memory alive is a method for protecting our
and others’ futures.”

Koutoujian said he would file a bill today (Monday) to forbid the
state from investing in countries where genocide occurs, such as Sudan.

“Even if this itself does not stop genocide, it is a way of making
our voice heard,” he said.

The state Board of Education, defended by attorney general and
gubernatorial candidate Tom Reilly, is locked in a federal lawsuit
against Turkish interest groups and a Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High
School student and teacher.

The coalition has accused Massachusetts schools of censoring statewide
history curriculum by only using “genocide” to define the Armenian
experience in the Ottoman Empire.

Lincoln-Sudbury High School senior Ted Griswold and history teacher
Bill Schechter joined plaintiffs this October in alleging that the
removal of dissenting views over the massacres from curricula violated
free speech.

The Legislature passed a law in 1998 requiring high schools to teach
genocide and human rights topics, specifically naming the Armenian
genocide.

“The case should be dismissed because the state has a right to
teach its students what it wants to, especially when that is the
truth,” Arnold Rosenfeld, a lawyer on the case, told a rally after
the ceremony.

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler used
public ignorance of the Armenians’ strife to justify killing six
million Jews during World War II.

“There are those who will deny the Armenian genocide just as there
are those who will deny the Nazi Holocaust,” Markey said.

Gesturing to a group of three elderly women from Belmont and Andover
who huddled silently next to the podium during the two-hour service,
state Rep. Rachel Kaprielian, D-Watertown, struggled to keep her
voice steady.

The genocide survivors-Naomi Armen, Eva Loosigian and Alice
Shnorhokian-had fled to the Syrian desert as children under Turkish
persecution.

“Mrs. Loosigian apologized to me for not being able to focus because
she had lye poured into her eye by a Turkish soldier,” Kaprielian said,
her voice cracking.

The women, along with Areka DerKazarian of Watertown, who was not
present, were recognized by Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.

“You stand as living proof of a dark chapter world history and you
cannot be denied,” Healey said, proclaiming April 24 as Armenian
Martyrs Day in Massachusetts.

Following the ceremony, coalition group “kNOw Genocide” announced
its mission to fight denial Armenian and other genocides.

“Whenever we read or hear that people deny our genocide, it is as
if we are being killed again, slowly,” said Jean Nganji, a Rwandan
refugee who lost his entire family to genocide in 1994.

State police moved three protestors who shouted, “Don’t forget the
Palestinians!” over televised speeches.

With his face obscured by sunglasses, a Red Sox baseball hat and a
bandana around his nose and mouth, one protestor waved a sign that
read, “Defend Sudan from Zionist UN.”

Interrupted by the heckling, Brookline rabbi Moshe Waldoks said the
world should “create a culture of life.”

“And precisely, there are people here who support the culture of
death,” said Waldoks, an author and board member of Jewish Community
Relations Council, as police moved protestors from the State House
steps.

“We’re not here to teach that we’re victims. We’re here to teach that
there should be no more victims,” Waldoks said.

Turkey Finally Hears Its Past

TURKEY FINALLY HEARS ITS PAST
By Henry Morgenthau III

Boston Globe, MA
April 24, 2006

“AMBASSADOR Morgenthau’s Story,” my grandfather’s account of the
killings of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, was published just before
World War I ended in November 1918. A personal chronicle of his service
as the US ambassador to Ottoman Turkey for 26 months, the book was
published last month for the first time in Turkish, a milestone in
informing the Turkish people of what happened in their country more
than 90 years ago.

The term genocide had not yet been invented when my grandfather wrote
his book. Thus, Morgenthau refers to “the destruction of the Armenian
race” as “the murder of a nation.” It was Henry Morgenthau’s lonely
voice that alerted the world to the premeditated atrocities of the
Young Turk leaders and the complicity of their German allies.

Why Morgenthau chose to speak out on behalf of the Armenians is a more
complex question than how he did so. Almost from the time he arrived
in New York as a 10-year-old German Jewish immigrant, he envisioned
public service as his ultimate calling. When the opportunity arose,
he attached himself to Woodrow Wilson’s rising star and was appointed
US ambassador to Turkey.

At the end of 1914, Morgenthau noted a pattern: Palestinian Jews were
conscripted into the Turkish army, then promptly disarmed and placed
in labor battalions. This was a tactic the Turks used against Greeks
and other minorities, and, most ominously, against the Armenians.

Fearing reprisals against Jews in Turkish territories, Morgenthau
warned international Zionist leaders to contain their indignation.

Then he took it upon himself to call on the US Navy for help. In
January 1915, the USS Tennessee was ordered to Alexandria, Egypt,
ostensibly to protect US citizens. In fact, it made possible the
evacuation of impoverished Jewish refugees, including David Ben-Gurion
and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who became respectively Israel’s first prime
minister and second president.

Morgenthau was never able to carry out a rescue of the Armenians with
the effectiveness he achieved in saving Jews, though certainly not
for want of trying. There were fundamental differences between the
Armenian and Jewish situations. The Armenians were a minority located
within the borders of Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia. The Jews, on
the other hand, were widely dispersed throughout Eastern and Western
Europe and the United States, and to a much lesser extent in the Near
East, including the Holy Land. In Western Europe and the United States,
Jews had risen to positions of power and had learned how to network
internationally. The diaspora Armenians had not yet achieved such
status and so could not mobilize support for their persecuted kinsmen.

When Morgenthau appealed to Enver Pasha, the Turkish minister
of war, to permit US missionaries to feed starving Armenians, the
response was coldly cynical. “We don’t want the Americans to feed the
Armenians. . . . That is one of the worst things that could happen
to them. . . . It is their belief that they have friends in other
countries which leads them to oppose the government and so bring down
upon them all their miseries.” The Turkish minister of the interior,
Talaat Pasha, was equally callous: “The hatred between the Turks and
the Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish them. If
we don’t, they will plan their revenge.”

The memoirs of my grandfather factually chronicle an important
period of history. Yet, 91 years later, the Turkish state insists
the genocide of the Armenians did not happen. Why does Turkey protect
the murderers of the past? That is a question that needs to be asked
over and over again until the truth is acknowledged. As Turkey seeks
membership in the European Union, it is being challenged to open up
its society and adopt free speech.

But its penal code has resulted in several Turkish writers being
brought before their own courts for speaking out about the Armenian
genocide. Surely a modern country like Turkey needs to treat its
citizens with more respect. Free speech cannot be denied, especially in
a country seeking to join the EU. Whatever may have motivated Turkish
officials to deny the genocide for more than 90 years, there now
appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. The US government,
which had knuckled under in support of the Turkish policy of denial,
is now urging all parties to accept the realities of history.

At this critical moment, the publication of the Turkish edition of
“Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story” is an important step for the citizens
of Turkey. It is their right to know their own history, good and
bad, without interference from the state. A crime denied is a crime
repeated. Great nations in history have acknowledged the misdeeds of
their earlier governments. It is time for Turkey to join the ranks
of those great nations.

Henry Morgenthau III, who lives in Cambridge, is the author of a
family history, “Mostly Morgenthaus.”

itorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/24/turkey_fi nally_hears_its_past/

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed

BAKU: Our Youth Public Union Holds Conference On “Armenian Genocide”

OUR YOUTH PUBLIC UNION HOLDS CONFERENCE ON “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”

Today, Azerbaijan
April 24, 2006

Our Youth Public Union organized conference-“The so-called Armenian
genocide-historic truths and facts” in the Ataturk Center.

As APA reports, the conference brought together representatives of
youth organizations and parliament members. Head of the Union Shamsi
Akhundov addressing the meeting said that youths need to be informed
about alleged facts such as “Armenian genocide” in order to arouse
patriotism spirit in them.

“All Turk world should protest against Armenians claims on the
so-called “genocide of Armenians,” Akhundov stressed.

Historians talked about the troubles Armenians caused for Turk. Film
on genocide of Azerbaijanis committed by Armenians was displayed in
the end of the conference.

URL:

http://www.today.az/news/society/25449.html

Farewell Amid Cry For Justice

FAREWELL AMID CRY FOR JUSTICE

Calcutta Telegraph, India
April 24, 2006

A crowd looks on as the hearse with Prashant’s body heads for the
crematorium. A Telegraph picture Siliguri, April 23: The body of
Prashant Anchali, a medical student, arrived here today, three days
after his mysterious death in Armenia.

Two senior students – including one from Siliguri – of Yerevan State
University accompanied the body on its last journey. The body had
been embalmed and dressed in a spotless black suit.

Prashant died on April 20 after a fall from the sixth floor of a
building at the university. Indian embassy officials in Armenia had
said the third-year student had committed suicide.

Prashant’s family is, however, not ready to accept this. They suspect
he was murdered.

A crowd had gathered at the Anchali home soon after the coffin arrived
at 12.15 pm. An hour or so later, it was taken for cremation.

“When everything was over, the truth finally sank in and I realised
with a heavy heart that my younger brother was no more,” said a
grieving Pankaj, Prashant’s elder brother, in the evening. Family
members said a post-mortem had been conducted in Armenia. But the
report is yet to come.

The Anchalis have already written to the President, the Prime Minister
and the Lok Sabha Speaker to help them find out what exactly had
happened in Armenia.

Pankaj said the family has decided to request the university through
the embassy to investigate into the matter. “We have also planned to
go to the human rights commission for justice,” he said.

Puja Goyel, one of the two students and a resident of Siliguri, who
had accompanied the body, told The Telegraph that though she was in
class when the incident occurred, she firmly believed that Prashant
had not committed suicide. “He wasn’t that kind of person. I spoke
to him the previous evening and he was quite normal. Most probably,
it was an accident. However, the Armenian police have started an
investigation and the truth would hopefully come to light soon.”

According to Puja, except for the dean of the university, Anna
Sargsayn, all others including the non-Indian students, were very
cooperative. “The students lodged a complaint against the dean and
she has been suspended,” the fourth-year student said.

Abhishek of Patna, the other student who had accompanied the body
from Armenia, said: “Prashant was a nice and kind-hearted fellow and
also a brilliant chap. He was quite popular among the students and
also liked by the teachers. The vice-president of Armenia was present
during his farewell from the university,” he added.

Abhishek too was not ready to accept that Prashant had committed
suicide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Two Books Examine Armenian Genocide Issue (Lewy & Bloxham)

TWO BOOKS EXAMINE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE (LEWY & BLOXHAM)
Alex van Oss

EurasiaNet, NY
April 24, 2006

A EurasiaNet Book Review

The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide,
by Guenter Lewy (2005 The University of Utah Press) ISBN:
978-0-87480-849-0

The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the
Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians, by Donald Bloxham (2005 Oxford
University Press) ISBN: 0-19-927-356-1

April 24 is a day of commemoration for Armenians, a day of controversy
for Turks. Both nations continue to argue over the tragic chain of
events that began in 1915, leaving up to 1.5 million Armenians in
Ottoman Turkey dead.

Armenians today assert that the systematic slaughter of Armenians in
1915 constituted the first genocide of the 20th century. Meanwhile,
Turkish leaders deny the genocide claim, saying the mass deaths were
mainly caused by civil strife that accompanied World War I and its
aftermath. Historians continue to struggle between doubt and certainty
over what transpired and why, and the debate has become so polarized
that researchers risk being pilloried for not cleaving to one or
another position, or for not using words just so.

Two recently published books attempt tackle the complex subject:
The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: a Disputed Genocide strives
to demonstrate how elusive history can be when scrutinized closely;
The Great Game of Genocide explores the causes and legacies of the
1915 massacres in an international context.

Guenter Lewy, professor emeritus of political science at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has a reputation for debunking
stereotypes. He has written respected (and hotly criticized) works
about the Vietnam War; and also the relationship between the Nazis and
Gypsies, and the Catholic Church. The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, too, has been both praised and condemned
for its attempt to take a dispassionate look at the issue.

Readers with strong prior convictions about the subject will surely
find much to disagree with in the pages of The Armenian Massacres;
but those who are intrigued by history, and by the labor of trying to
capture the texture of times past stand to be well-rewarded. This book,
though clearly written, requires careful evaluation and reference
to footnotes. Lewy dissects and teases out convoluted strands of
historical evidence and counter-evidence, and analyzes the sources,
methodologies, rhetoric, and conclusions of “pro-Armenian” and
“pro-Turkish” researchers.

Lewy asserts that scholars on both sides of the debate have used
data selectively. It should be noted that similar accusations have
been leveled at him: in 2005 Lewy published articles summarizing his
Armenian massacre findings in the Middle East Quarterly and in the
journal Commentary-findings for which he was taken to task by the
eminent Armenian genocide scholar Vahakn Dadrian [,
Oct. 18, 2005]. Dadrian accused Lewy, who does not speak Turkish or
Armenian, or read Ottoman Turkish, of being out of his depth; Lewy
riposted; and the scholarly “chewing” goes on.

Ottoman Turkey was being subjected to extreme pressure in 1915, from
foreign invaders, namely British, French Anzac and Russian forces,
and from rebellious ethnic groups inside the collapsing empire. It
was a time of government crackdowns, reprisals, and paranoia about the
“enemy within.” Lewy demonstrates the difficulty of nailing down hard
data about this period. Indeed, The Armenian Massacres may be viewed
as a work of deconstruction, and one that possibly sets the marker of
historical proof too high. The book delves into subjects not often
covered, such as the appalling conditions in the Ottoman army and
the depravations from typhus among Turkish soldiers and displaced
persons of every nationality. The reader will learn about the often
ambiguous complicity in the Armenian massacres of non-Turkish groups,
including Kurds and Circassians; and also about the complicated matter
of determining the population and demographics of pre-1915 Anatolia
(which is important to know so that one can estimate the number of war,
or massacre, victims).

Lewy’s digressions help color in that turbulent period: [p.57]
“If the Turkish authorities were unable or unwilling to provide
adequate clothing, decent hygienic conditions, and appropriate
medical attention for their Muslim soldiers, why should one expect
them to be concerned about the fate of the Armenian deportees, whom
they regarded as a fifth column?” And: [p.61] “…A government as
callous about the suffering of its own population as was the Young
Turk regime could hardly be expected to be very concerned about the
terrible human misery that would rise from deporting its Armenian
population, rightly or wrongly suspected of treason.”

The Armenian Massacres covers 19th century Anatolian history,
including the various Armenian revolutionary movements, sundry
Ottoman reprisals and repressions, and the rise to power of the Young
Turks. This is followed by a detailed comparison of what Lewy terms
“two rival historiographies.” Perhaps most valuable is a section on
“historical reconstruction: what we know and what we do not know.”

Ottoman Turkey in 1915, Lewy concludes, was a ravaged state, with
an incompetent government that panicked and made horrific decisions,
the aftermath of which lingers to this day.

In The Great Game of Genocide, Donald Bloxham (a lecturer in 20th
century history at the University of Edinburgh) shows how the “clean
sweep” of 1915 was, in a sense, the culmination of a series of tragic
events. Bloxham points to the fact that Ottoman Turks massacred masses
of Armenians not once but several times: throughout the empire in
1894-96, and in Cilicia in 1909. By this time, 19th century Armenian
communities had gained exposure to western education and philosophical
trends-such as nationalism-and had grown increasingly restive under
Ottoman rule. Nor was 1915 the end to violence: Turks and Armenians
(and by this time Azerbaijanis, too) continued to commit atrocities
against each other for the next few years, with no group enjoying a
monopoly on suffering.

The Great Game of Genocide examines the international context of the
Armenian tragedy, and the response (or non-response) by other countries
to what was looming as an ethnic disaster of unprecedented scale:
[P.5] “…Great power involvement in Ottoman internal affairs was a key
element in exacerbating the Ottoman-Armenian dynamic towards genocide
while Turkish sensitivity about external intervention on behalf of the
Armenians-whether directed towards reforms before 1914 or independence
after 1918-was a vital contributory factor to the emergence of denial.”

Both Bloxham and Lewy dwell at length on genocide denial, and the
appropriateness of genocide as a term. “Genocide,” says Bloxham,
is a 1940s word being applied as a “retrospective projection”
upon historical events of decades before: [p.95] “…the killing
did constitute a genocide-every aspect of the United Nations’
definition of the crime is applicable-but recognizing that fact
should be a by-product of the historian’s work, not its ultimate aim
or underpinning.” The sticking point is the perpetrator’s intent:
without intent there cannot be genocide. But intent need not be a
clear-cut, one time manifestation: it can develop, grow, and feed
upon itself and events. Hence, says Bloxham: “[p.96]…Pinpointing
the precise time within that period of radicalization at which a
state framework that is demonstrably permissive of murder and atrocity
becomes explicitly genocidal is extremely difficult and unlikely ever
to be achieved definitively.”

Meanwhile, Lewy finds little tangible evidence of premeditated mass
homicide (i.e. genocide), of Armenians. Perhaps this evidence will
be found, he allows, but it is not there yet. Apparently, crucial
archival documents have gone missing, or have been destroyed, or have
not been made available by Turkish authorities (even now, possibly
due to archival disorganization). In addition, documentation might
have been deemed spurious to begin with, or was used selectively for
political purposes (e.g. to deflect blame for Armenian massacres,
or, on the other hand, to build a case for creating an Armenian
state in eastern Anatolia, or for keeping land and property out
of Armenian hands after the collapse of the Ottoman empire). Lewy
concludes that there is plenty of testimony and documentation that
atrocities and massacres occurred, but, he cautions, premeditation
has yet be ascertained.

Lewy analyzes what he calls the “politicization of history” regarding
Ottomans and Armenians, and believes both sides are stuck in a semantic
bind. He says that the legalistic definition of “genocide” has been
conflated with the common use of the word as a term of opprobrium,
and proposes that separating these two meanings just might provide
the basis for more productive discussions between Turks and Armenians
today. This is a point worth pondering, while not forgetting that the
1948 UN definition of genocide was based on writings by jurist Raphael
Lemkin-who had precisely the Armenian, and other, massacres in mind.

Lewy and Bloxham’s histories inspire compassion for all Anatolians
of a century ago. Whether or not one agrees with the authors, their
work will surely should inspire readers to pursue further and deeper
investigations.

Editor’s Note: Alex van Oss is the Chair of Caucasus Advanced Area
Studies at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC.

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