Genocide Related Articles -- Posted By ArmoArmeN

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS

President: Robert Melson (USA)

Vice-President: Israel Charny (Israel)

Secretary-Treasurer: Steven Jacobs (USA)

Respond to: Robert Melson, Professor of Political Science Purdue

University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA

April 6, 2005

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

TC Easbakanlik

Bakanlikir

Ankara, Turkey

FAX: 90 312 417 0476

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

We are writing you this open letter in response to your call for an

"impartial study by historians" concerning the fate of the Armenian

people in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

We represent the major body of scholars who study genocide in North

America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for an impartial

study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware of the extent

of the scholarly and intellectual record on the Armenian Genocide and

how this event conforms to the definition of the United Nations

Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that it is not just

Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is hundreds of

independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and

whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of

decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:

On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk

government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its

Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority population. More

than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing,

starvation, torture, and forced death marches. Another million fled

into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from

its homeland of 2,500 years.

The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue of its

time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the United States

and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by thousands

of official records of the United States and nations around the world

including Turkey's wartime allies Germany, Austria and Hungary, by

Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness accounts of missionaries

and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by decades of

historical scholarship.

The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the international scholarly,

legal, and human rights community:

1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in

1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi

extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by

genocide.

2) The killings of the Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948

United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

of Genocide.

3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars, an

organization of the world's foremost experts on genocide, unanimously

passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide.

4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust including Elie Wiesel and

Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000

declaring the "incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide" and

urging western democracies to acknowledge it.

5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem), the

Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed the historical

fact of the Armenian Genocide.

6) Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as William

A. Schabas's Genocide in International Law (Cambridge University

Press, 2000) cite the Armenian Genocide as a precursor to the Holocaust

and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity.

We note that there may be differing interpretations of genocide - how

and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its factual and

moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in

propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims,

and erase the ethical meaning of this history.

We would also note that scholars who advise your government and who are

affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled institutions are

not impartial. Such so-called "scholars" work to serve the agenda

of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the

Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide.

We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the Turkish people and

their future as a proud and equal participant in international,

democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous

government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just as the German

government and people have done in the case of the Holocaust.

Sincerely,

[signed]

Robert Melson

Professor of Political Science

President, International Association of Genocide Scholars

[signed]

Israel Charny

Vice President, International Association of Genocide Scholars

Editor in Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide

[signed]

Peter Balakian

Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities

Colgate University

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Tax Notes International Magazine

September 5, 2005

WORLDWIDE TAX OVERVIEW

by Cathy Phillips, editor of Tax Notes International

The voluntary tax systems of the United States and many other countries

aren't perfect, but they sure beat the heck out of the alternative.

Consider, for example, life under a regime where tax rates aren't made

public, assessments are arrived at in secret, and failure-to-comply

penalties include banishment to forced labor camps.

This week we present a fascinating article by DAVID JOULFAIAN on a

wealth tax adopted by Turkey in 1942 that included all of the above

unpleasantries. In the midst of World War II, Turkish citizens also

were

victims of a monstrous tax system that they were powerless to change.

Joulfaian describes the discriminatory nature of the wealth tax, a

lopsided levy shouldered by the minority Christian and Jewish

populations in the predominately Muslim nation, and the misguided

fiscal

policies that allowed the tax to take root in the first place (p. 915).

...

THE ULTIMATE DEATH TAX (page 915)

Wealth taxes are common in many countries, and represent one of the

oldest forms of taxation. Local governments in the United States, for

instance, levy annual property taxes. Annual wealth taxes are levied in

several European countries as well. The estate tax is the only wealth

tax levied by the U.S. government and applies to wealth held at death.

The wealthy are at times also taxed at progressive tax rates on their

earnings in addition to being exposed to wealth taxes. Governments levy

those taxes to diversify their sources of revenues, augment and protect

the income tax base, and regulate the distribution of income and the

concentration of wealth. Governments may resort to additional taxes in

times of national emergency.

A general guiding principle for any tax system is that it should be

sufficiently transparent to enable a taxpayer to construct the size of

wealth or income subject to tax, as well as the ensuing tax liability.

For local property taxes, for instance, cities inform property owners

of

the assessed value of their real estate and the amount of tax they owe.

For income and estate taxes, taxpayers report the amount of income

received and the size of terminal wealth to the government. Once the

taxable amount is established, a tax rate schedule is applied to

determine the tax liability. Taxpayers are able to appeal assessments

and are given adequate time to prepare their documents and make

provisions for paying the amounts owed.

A student of taxation may encounter many fascinating features of the

various taxes levied throughout history, dating back to ancient Egypt

and the Roman Empire. Yet no tax system rivals the peculiarities of a

tax employed in the middle of the 20th century. On the morning of

November 12, 1942, the citizens of Turkey woke up to the most draconian

wealth tax ever envisaged. While the tax in theory applied to the

entire

predominantly Muslim nation, in practice much of its burden rested with

the minority Christian and Jewish communities who primarily resided in

Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople. Neither the rate of

taxation

nor the taxable base and its derivation were made public. Tax

assessments were arrived at in secret, and individuals were directed to

settle their government assessed liabilities within two weeks, without

any appeal provisions in place. The penalty for Christians and Jews who

failed to do so within a month was deportation to forced labor camps in

eastern Turkey in addition to having their property confiscated. The

tax

was initially also extended to Christian and Jewish schools, as well as

to churches and synagogues, but not to Muslim institutions, because

they

were owned or funded by the government. As documented by Faik Okte, the

Turkish Ministry of Finance official in charge of implementing the tax,

assessments were determined arbitrarily because the authorities lacked

information on the income and properties of the minority groups./1/

Table 1: Statutory Tax Rates

Provision Applied to Applied to

Rate on wartime profit Muslim Turks Non-Muslims

12.5 percent 50.0 percent

Additional tax zero Up to 50 percent of personal

wealth

Source: Faik Okte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax.

Description of the Tax

The Turkish National Assembly passed the tax on November 11, 1942

(Law 4305/12.11.1942), and its decision to levy the tax was published

the next day in the government official newspaper, Resmi Gazete. The

details of the structure and inner workings of the tax were kept secret

by the government. The details, however, were revealed and made public

some five years after its enactment in a book authored in 1947 by Okte.

In that book Okte also traced the architects of the tax and named all

the governmental agencies and personnel engaged in administering the

tax.

In an otherwise officially secular state, taxpayers were classified

as Muslim and non-Muslim, denoted with the letters M and G,

respectively./2/ The latter included Jews and Christians, including

Armenians and Greeks. Assyrian Orthodox Christians also fell in that

class. An additional class of taxpayers were the Donme, denoted by D.

The Donme were Jews whose ancestors had converted to Islam in the 17th

century./3/ Like the Jews and Christians, the Donme were taxed at rates

higher than those that applied to Muslims. Foreigners were taxed at the

same rate as Muslim Turks.

During that period, Greeks were the largest minority group in

Turkey,

and represented the heirs to Byzantium with Constantinople as its

capital. The Armenians originated from western Armenia or the eastern

half of Turkey, and represented the descendants of the first Christian

nation. The presence of the Jews also predates that of the Turks, whose

ranks had been augmented by Ladino Jews from Spain during the

Inquisition. The Assyrians are originally from southern Turkey and

modern-day Syria and Iraq; their presence also predates the arrival of

the Turks from central Asia. Combined, those non-Muslim groups made up

less than 1 percent of Turkey's population of 18 million in 1942.

The tax was initially envisaged as a tax on capital or wealth. It

was

to apply to businesses and real estate (immovable property). By the

time

it was enacted, it had expanded to include a tax on wages as well that

effectively applied only to non-Muslims in Istanbul. Taxpayers were

classified according to business type and property earnings. Within the

Ministry of Finance, once the size of income, wealth, and type of

enterprise were established internally, local assessment boards

secretly

determined the amount owed by the taxpayer.

The Finance Ministry was responsible for setting the tax rates to be

used in computing tax assessments. Minorities were generally to be

taxed

at 5 to 10 times the amount applied to Muslims with similar wealth.

Specifically, Muslims were to be taxed at the rate of 12.5 percent of

profits or earnings. In contrast, non-Muslims were to be statutorily

taxed at the rate of 50 percent of earnings plus an additional tax of

up

to 50 percent of their wealth (Table 1)./4/ The reach of the tax also

extended to hospitals and educational institutions. The tax did not

extend to Muslim institutions, because they were owned or funded by the

government.

While internal "guidelines" set minimum and maximum limits, the

local

boards at the Finance Ministry were free to choose any amount in

between. Indeed, they had complete discretion in setting assessments.

Information on income and wealth were obtained from Turkish national

banks, the Republican People's Party, and the Security Directorate,

which is equivalent to the U.S. FBI. Despite the lack of information on

the sources of wealth and income, taxpayer records were not requested

or

considered when setting assessments.

Table 2: Initial Assessments in Istanbul (Constantinople)

Group Number of Taxpayers Amount (TRL

millions)

Extraordinary Rich

Muslims 460 17.3

Non-Muslims 2,563 190.0

Those With Earnings Statements

Muslims 924 3.1

Non-Muslims 1,259 10.4

Profit Tax on Gross Earnings

Muslims 2,589 4.0

Non-Muslims 24,151 72.8

Wage Earners

Muslims -- --

Non-Muslims 10,991 6.9

Subtotal 42,937 304.5

Muslims 3,973 24.4

Non-Muslims 38,964 280.1

Source: Faik Okte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax.

The assessed tax was due in cash within 15 days from its published

date of December 17, 1942. Payments could be postponed for another 15

days, but would face a charge of up to 2 percent interest. If the tax

due was not fully settled within 30 days of assessment, the taxpayer's

property was to be confiscated. Furthermore, the taxpayer was to be

sent

to a labor camp until his debt was discharged, under Regulation

21/19288

approved on January 12, 1943.

The Taxpayers

By August 1943 the tax assessments stood at some TRL 335 million in

Istanbul alone, or about one-half the entire currency in circulation.

Indeed, those assessments represented as much as the entire budget

revenues of TRL 394.3 million for 1942 before enactment of the tax.

Table 2 provides a summary of the number of taxpayers assessed and the

amount of assessments in Istanbul. Some 42,937 taxpayers were assessed

a

total of TRL 305 million, as shown in Table 2./5/ Of those, only 3,973

were Muslims, who were assessed a total of TRL 24.4 million. In other

words, minorities who made up less than 1 percent of the population

were

assessed 93 percent of the liability. Table 3 further provides

assessments for churches, synagogues, and schools./6/

In a survey of foreign chambers of commerce at the time, C.L.

Sulzberger, writing for The New York Times in 1943, documented the

discriminatory nature of the tax./7/ As illustrated in Table 4, the

effective rates of assessments that merchants faced varied considerably

from a low of under 5 percent for Muslims to over 150 percent for

Christian Greeks and Jews, to well over 200 percent for Christian

Armenians. Similarly, in one large enterprise, only 1.2 percent of the

Muslim employees were assessed compared with 96.1 percent for minority

citizens.

As illustrated by the head of the Finance Ministry and the person in

charge of implementing the tax, Faik Okte, assessments were determined

in arbitrary manners because the authorities lacked information on the

income and properties of the minority groups./8/ The arbitrary nature

of

the tax is best illustrated in the treatment of the "extraordinary

rich." According to Okte, Mr. Bezmenler, whose ancestors converted from

Judaism to Islam in the 17th century and who was classified as a Donme,

was assessed TRL 1 million. In contrast, Dr. Cudi Birtek, an

extraordinarily wealthy Muslim, was assessed only TRL 25,000, a mere

fraction of the amount applied to the Donme./9/ In yet another example,

Osman Sakar, K.S. was originally assessed TRL 120,000. When Mr. Sakar

proved that he was a "pure Turk" or a Muslim, his tax liability was

adjusted downward to TRL 12,000 -- just 10 percent of the originally

published amount./10/ Those mistakes were not uncommon because all

citizens were forced to adopt Turkish-sounding surnames in 1935 and

because Turks have come to resemble more the Caucasians they conquered

and less their Asiatic ancestors from central Asia.

Table 3: Tax Assessments of Minority Institutions

Christian and Jewish Institutions/*/ Number Assessment (TRL)

Schools 88 227,550

Churches and Synagogues 27 119,200

Hospitals 7 86,750

/*/ Zero assessment for Muslim institutions, which numbered in the

thousands.

Source: Faik Okte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax.

The discriminatory and confiscatory nature of this tax is also

evident in the treatment of non-Muslim institutions. According to

Sulzberger, a poorly equipped Armenian hospital in Istanbul, for

instance, was assessed TRL 39,000 compared with an assessment of TRL

2,500 for a modern and thriving American hospital. Muslim institutions

avoided taxation altogether./11/

Tax assessments were seriously flawed in particular because they

failed to consider any documents from the taxpayer. The tax due from a

Christian Armenian timber merchant, for instance, was three times his

entire fortune. The tax administrator informed him that his deportation

to the labor camp could not be prevented, even after all his wealth had

been confiscated./12/ At times the tax burden widely diverged in its

arbitrariness. A Jewish taxpayer had his tax assessment increased

simply

because he argued with an assessor. In another example, a Christian

Armenian "was taxed excessively at the rate of TRL 400,000," reflecting

"the false allegation that he was the leader of the Armenian Tashnag

Society, an old member of the Union and Progress Party," better known

in

the West as the Young Turk regime that governed Ottoman Turkey from

1909

through the end of World War I./13/ At the other extreme, another

Armenian was exempted from the labor camp because he had written

"favorable articles promoting Turkish interests in the French

press."/14/

The punitive nature of the tax was at times also extended to

foreigners. While foreigners were supposed to be taxed at the same low

rate as Muslims, many in fact were taxed at the higher rates that

applied to minority citizens. According to Faik Okte, the principal

administrator of the tax, that treatment was deliberate. He reports

that

tax administrators were instructed to deny the foreigners' "privilege"

to Jews from the Axis states./15/ In addition, and under "the pretext

of

the poor registration system," the property of Greeks and Armenians who

had acquired foreign citizenship was immediately auctioned off./16/

Of the first 45 deportees to labor camps, 21 were Jews, 13 were

Greeks, and 11 were Armenian. After the first deportation, it was

decided that the "elderly, women, the sick, foreign residents . . .

would not be exempted from the forced labor obligations."/17/ However,

there are no records of any women or foreigners ever sent to labor

camps.

Table 4: Effective Tax Rates by Religious and Ethnic Affiliations

Merchants by Affiliation Tax Rates (percent)

Muslim 4.94

Greek Orthodox 156.00

Jewish 179.00

Christian Armenian 232.00

Source: C.L. Sulzberger, "Turkish Tax Kills Foreign Business,"

The New York Times, Sept. 11, 1943.

Concluding Comment

Shortly after the government published its declaration to levy the

wealth tax, a Turkish professor contacted the Finance Ministry to

inquire about the details of the new tax. "Have you all gone mad?" was

his response after confirming that the new law did not provide for

appeals nor did it indicate rate of taxation./18/ Despite its insanity,

the tax shook the economy to its foundations.

Many Muslims were enriched by acquiring non-Muslim property at

bargain prices. However, those fire sales, or outright "confiscation"

by

state-owned enterprises, often hindered economic growth and

entrepreneurship. Consider the case of the Banzilar and Benjamen

Company, a shipping company owned by two Jews that was forced to turn

over all of its five ships to the state-owned Maritime Lines in lieu of

taxes totaling TRL 1.6 million. Despite the rising value of ships and

Turkey's vast needs, those ships, which were productively employed by

their previous owners, remained idle at port./19/ In another example,

the majority of textile factory owners at the time were either Jewish

or

Donme converts from Judaism. Yet, after World War II and repeal of the

tax, non-Muslim textile start-ups came to a screeching halt./20/

The Turkish wealth tax was advanced as part of a strategy to control

prices during the inflationary early years of World War II. The

thinking

was that the forced sale of property and inventory within a fortnight

of

the assessments would depress prices. Yet not only did that misguided

strategy fail to depress prices, the discriminatory nature of the tax

and the taxation of an entrepreneurial group to certain bankruptcy led

to a serious loss of confidence in the state and rattled financial

markets for years to come.

FOOTNOTES

/1/ Faik Okte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax, translated

from the Turkish Varlik Vergisi Faciasi by Geoffrey Cox, Croom Helm,

1987.

/2/ G denotes Gayrimuslim, or "other than Muslim" in Turkish,

borrowed from the Arabic ghayr Muslim.

/3/ The Donme, which means "apostates" in Turkish, are the followers

of the mystic Shabbetai Tzvi who converted to Islam on September 16,

1666. Tzvi was arrested in Constantinople on December 30, 1665, after

he

announced that he would seize the crown of the Ottoman sultan and

reestablish the kingdom of Israel.

/4/ Okte, supra note 1, at 43. The wage tax was set at TRL 500 for

those with monthly wages under TRL 100, TRL 750 for those with wages of

TRL 101 to TRL 500, and so on.

/5/ Plus another TRL 30 million when taxpayers with omitted

affiliation are considered. See Okte, supra note 1, at 48.

/6/ Okte, supra note 1, at 60.

/7/ C.L. Sulzberger, "Turkish Tax Kills Foreign Business," The New

York Times, Sept. 11, 1943, p. 7, column 1.

/8/ Okte, supra note 1, at 33.

/9/ Id. at 47.

/10/ Id. at 62.

/11/ Sulzberger, supra note 7.

/12/ Okte, supra note 1, at 69.

/13/ Id. at 47.

/14/ Id. at 74.

/15/ Id. at 37.

/16/ Id. at 57.

/17/ Id. at 72.

/18/ Id. at 29.

/19/ Id. at 95.

/20/ See Edward C. Clark, "The Emergence of Textile Manufacturing

Entrepreneurs in Turkey: 1804-1968" (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton

University, 1969).

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COURT TO CONSIDER INFRINGEMENT OF PROPERTY

RIGHTS OF ARMENIANS IN TURKEY

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 15. ARMINFO. The European Court of Human Rights is

expected to announce a decision next week on the property rights of

minority foundations. Specifically, the Court will adjudicate two

cases filed by the Soorp Purgich Armenian Hospital Foundation and the

Fener Greek Boys High School Foundation against Turkey.

In both cases, property gifted to the Armenian and Greek foundations

were seized as the Turkish courts upheld orders declaring that the

bequest violated a decree disallowing non-Moslems from donating real

estate. If the court rules in favor of the foundations, hundreds of

buildings seized in the past may be returned.

Earlier this year, Armenian Assembly Board Member and former Board of

Directors Chairman Van Krikorian testified before the Helsinki

Commission on freedom of religion in Turkey with respect to the

Armenian Church and community. During his testimony Krikorian noted

that "for centuries, Armenians paid and in many places still pay a

high price for their Christianity," and that seizure and destruction

of Armenian Church property was commonplace. Krikorian noted that in

1914, in Turkey, there were approximately 5,000 Armenian Churches,

seminaries and schools registered by the Patriarchate and that today,

90 years after the Armenian Genocide, there are less than 50 Armenian

Churches.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)

October 5, 2005 Wednesday

History lesson Turkey and genocide

THE NEXT time a reluctant student or clueless adult says that history

doesn't matter, it's time to talk Turkey. As in Turkey the somewhat

democratic country that's located mostly in what used to be called

Asia Minor.

Over there, a long-festering political sore has broken open. It seems

that some of the country's professors are insisting that their

countrymen face up to Turkey's dark past, aka the Armenian genocide.

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have been

systematically massacred by the Turks between 1915 to 1923.

It's a touchy subject in Turkey, where national pride in the old

Ottoman Empire still runs strong. To accuse the old regime of

practicing genocide is an accusation still so offensive that

participants arriving at the conference on the subject were pelted by

fresh eggs and rotten tomatoes.

It seems the history of events now almost a century old still

reverberates. Turkey is up for membership in the European Union, and

the Union has objected to the difficulties organizers encountered in

setting up such a conference on Turkish soil. The conference had to

be canceled twice, once by Turkey's minister of "justice" and a

second time by a Turkish court. The minister accused those organizing

the conference of "stabbing the people in the back." The court

demanded to know the academic qualifications of those who would speak

at the conference. Free speech this isn't.

The meeting did finally get off the ground, but the European Union

still has questions about just how free its newest candidate for

membership may be. The consequences of trying to censor an ugly past

aren't just emotional. It turns out they're economic and political,

too.

The excuses for refusing to deal with the past are all too familiar

by now. What's the point, the apologists ask. It's all ancient

history. Those living today-at least most of them-aren't responsible.

They didn't participate in those crimes. But the simplest excuse of

all is the falsest: It never happened. The Turkish version of denial

goes like this: Yes, some Armenians may have died back in the bad old

days. But not as many as the critics claim, and lots of Turks also

died in the unrest that came with the First World War and the

collapse of Ottoman rule.

Such denial is common in Japan, too. That society has yet to fully

face its crimes against humanity during the Second World War and the

runup to it. The Rape of Nanking is an especially horrific example.

In what some Japanese textbooks now call an "incident," Japanese

troops systematically slaughtered the Chinese residents of Nanking in

a six-month orgy of violence in 1937-38. An estimated 150,000 to

300,000 died. The Japanese may downplay it, but the Chinese aren't

about to forget. Neither should the rest of the world. Incident,

indeed.Compare the way the Japanese have played down their past with

Germany's response to the Holocaust. Bitter as it had to be, the

German government accepted that nation's responsibility for the

Holocaust. That doesn't change what happened, but it provides an

opportunity for conciliation and even redemption. Facing the past is

the first step toward freeing ourselves of its iron grip. It is

truth, not denial, that sets us free.

Turkey has a long way to go. But this conference in Istanbul shows

that at least a few Turks are willing to look at the past. That way

lies a better future.

This article was published 10/5/2005

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Statement by 126 Holocaust Scholars, Holders of Academic Chairs, and

Directors of Holocaust Research and Studies Centers

126 HOLOCAUST SCHOLARS AFFIRM THE INCONTESTABLE FACT OF THE ARMENIAN

GENOCIDE AND URGE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES TO OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZE IT

At the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Scholar's Conference on the

Holocaust and the Churches Convening at St. Joseph University,

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 3-7, 2000, one hundred twenty-six

Holocaust Scholars, holders of Academic Chairs and Directors of

Holocaust Research and Studies Centers, participants of the Conference,

signed a statement affirming that the World War I Armenian Genocide is

an incontestable historical fact and accordingly urge the governments

of Western democracies to likewise recognize it as such. The

petitioners, among whom is Nobel Laureate for Peace Elie Wiesel, who

was the keynote speaker at the conference, also asked the Western

Democracies to urge the Government and Parliament of Turkey to finally

come to terms with a dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to

recognize the Armenian Genocide. This would provide an invaluable

impetus to the process of the democratization of Turkey.

Below is a partial list of the signatories:

Prof. Yehuda Bauer

Distinguished Professor

Hebrew University

Director, The International Institute of Holocaust Research

Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

Prof. Israel Charny, Director

Institute of the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem

Professor at the Hebrew University,

Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Genocide

Prof. Ward Churchill

Ethnic Studies

The University of Colorado, Boulder

Prof. Stephen Feinstein, Director

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

University of Minnesota

Prof. Saul Friedman, Director

Holocaust and Jewish Studies

Youngston State University, Ohio

Prof. Edward Gaffney

Valparaiso University Law School

Prof. Zev Garber

Los Angeles Valley College

Prof. Dorota Glowacka

University of King's Collage

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Dr. Irving Greenberg, President

Jewish Life Network

Prof. Herbert Hirsch

Virginia Commonwealth University

Prof. Irving L. Horowitz

Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor

Rutgers University, NJ

Rabbi Dr. Steve Jacobs

Temple Sinai Shalom

Huntsville, Alabama

Associate Editor of The Encyclopedia of Genocide

Prof. Steven Katz

Distinguish Professor

Director, Center for Judaic Studies

Boston University

Prof. Richard Libowitz

Temple University

Dr. Marcia Littell

Stockton College

Exec. Director, Scholars' Conference

On the Holocaust and the Churches

Franklin Littell

Emeritus Professor

Temple University

Prof. Hubert G. Locke

Washington University

Co-founder of the Annual Scholar's Conference

On the Holocaust and the Churches

Dr. Elizabeth Maxwell

Executive Director of the International Scholarly

Conference on the Holocaust, London, England

Prof. Erik Markusen

Southwest State University, MN

Prof. Saul Mendlowitz

Dag Hammerskjold Distinguished Professor

of International Law

Rutgers University

Prof. Jack Needle, Director

Center for Holocaust Studies

Brookdale Community College

Lincroft, NJ

Dr. Philip Rosen, Director

Holocaust Education Center of the Delaware Valley

Prof. Alan S, Rosenbaum

Dept. of Philosophy

Cleveland State University

William L. Shulman, President

Association of Holocaust Organizations City University of New York

Prof. Samuel Totten

The University of Arkansas

Assoc. Editor of The Encyclopedia of Genocide

Prof. Elie Wiesel

Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities

Boston University

Founding Chairman of the United States

Holocaust Memorial Council

Nobel Laureate for Peace

I hereby declare that the originals of these one hundred and

twenty-six signatories are on file in my office. All affiliations

supplied are for identification purposes only.

Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director,

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

University of Minnesota

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

ARMENIAN CHURCH AKHTAMAR IN TURKEY RESTORED BY METHODS INADMISSIBLE

FOR IT

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 10. ARMINFO. The Armenian Church "Surb Khach" (St.

Cross) on Akhtamar peninsula (territory of present day Turkey) is

restored with materials inadmissible for restoration.

Members of a public organization engaged in study of Armenian

architecture visited the peninsula on August 14 2005. They told

ARMINFO that restoration is in process, and the territory is

fenced. The unique monument of Middle Age architecture, the Cross

dated 915-921 (architect Manuel) are covered with tar and mazut,

frescos are replaced with stones made from "khachkars." To note

Akhtamar peninsula was the residence of Armenian Kings of Artsruny

Dynasty (the 10-11th centuries). The monument's belonging to he

Armenian culture is not mentioned, just a placard says in Turkish and

English and that church belongs to the Armenian period. Besides,

architect Manuel was presented a archimandrite, specialists say. The

church is restored without participation of the Armenian party or

independent experts of UNESCO that initiated the restoration. The

members of the organization say that local Kurds survived from

massacres by Turks continue destroying the churches and houses of

Armenians.

Anti-Armenian propaganda is widely practiced at the Museum of the

ancient Armenian town of Van, wherein a Turk-guide presents the piles

of skulls as the Turk victims of the genocide by Armenians in the

beginning of the 20th century.

According to data of UNESCO dated 1974, of 913 Armenian historical

monuments 464 were fully destroyed, 252 were ruined, and 197 need

immediate restoration.

################################################################

###############################################################

http://www.virtualani.freeserve.co.uk/hist...estorations.htm

[sEE PICTURES INSIDE]

THE RAPE OF ANI

The Turkish Restorations

The Destruction

of the City Walls

In 1995 extensive excavations were started along the length of the

outer walls of the city, on both sides of the Lion Gate. The centuries

of debris that had accumulated at the base of the walls was cleared

away - in some parts this was over 3½ metres deep. This was not an

attempt to make an archaeological excavation. No archaeologists were

present and there was no inspection made of the removed material: it

was simply dumped into tipper trucks and taken away. Most of the

excavating was done using heavy machinery including bulldozers and

shovel excavators.

This work was done as a prelude to a "restoration" of the walls,

organised and paid for by the Turkish Ministry of Culture.

Restoration in Turkey often simply means destruction followed by a

crude rebuilding - many historic monuments have been irreparably ruined

by such "restorations" and the walls of Ani were not to be an

exception, as these photographs reveal. In 1998 work on the walls had

stopped after (it is said) some condemnation of the end results.

However, local building contractors and politicians (who are often the

same people) were making a great deal of money from the "restorations".

In 1999 the process of destruction was resumed on an even bigger scale

and the workers now had an on-site stone cutting factory. The walls of

this factory were built entirely from stone looted from the ruins!

These "restorations" have nothing to do with preserving the buildings

or encouraging tourism, and their appalling results have nothing to do

with just bad planning or a lack of knowledge of what should be done.

There was never any valid archaeological reason to start the work

because the work went against every established practice of modern

archaeological conservation.

The truth is that the surviving monuments at Ani are being exploited

rather like an open-cast mine for the extraction of money. As long as

Ani can be used by Ankara politicians as a conduit to distribute State

money into the pockets of their local political and business allies in

Kars (Professor Karamagarali has reportedly called them a "Mafia")

then the "restorations" will continue until everything in Ani is

destroyed.

Local opposition to the restorations is minimal, confined mostly to the

few people in Kars who make a living from tourism. Within much of

Turkish society there is a lack of understanding of the concept of an

historic monument as understood elsewhere in the world. This must be

partially connected to the unimportance given to historical truth in

Turkey today. If no value is given to an accurate understanding of the

past then objects related to that past have no value. Also, in Turkey,

to criticise the powerful is a dangerous thing to do - it is too much

to expect just for some old buildings that are not even Turkish.

Outside pressure is also unlikely. From foreign historians and

archaeologists the silence has been total. There is no change here -

they have been silent for decades, fearful of even mentioning the word

"Armenia" lest Turkish officials get to hear of it and deny them their

precious research permits for Turkey. Foreign tourists to Ani mostly

don't care, would not be in the position to know what has been lost

(unless they had visited this website), and are too few in number to

matter anyway. The restorations at Ani are politely ignored by most

guidebooks (along with the similarly disastrous restorations of nearby

places such as the Ishak***** palace and Sumela monastery).

Armenian groups are uninterested in doing anything practical. Many of

these groups actually continue to present the lame old reasoning that

nothing should be done towards pressuring the Turks on the issue of

preserving Armenian monuments because it would only hasten the

destruction of the remaining monuments. What has this pathetic policy

of inactivity led to during the last few decades - has it saved a

single building or has it just provided them with an easy excuse for

doing nothing?

1. Archaeological excavations in 1995 - Turkish Ministry of Culture

style - click for a larger photo

2. Untrained labourers work unsupervised

3. The Lion Gate before the "restoration" started

4. The Lion Gate after the "restoration"

5. The new stone is very badly worked and is different in colour and

texture to the original stone

6. Inside the factory where the new stone is cut: the walls are built

from masonry looted from Ani

7. The destruction of the walls continues

Historical texts say simply that the walls of Ani were built during

10th century, but the physical remains shows they were added to many

times over the following centuries. Walls were thickened by additional

masonry facings - in some places four different faces are revealed by

subsequent damage (like the layers of an onion) and earlier

crenellations are often "fossilised" within later masonry. The

"restorations" have destroyed all of this historical evidence,

including building inscriptions.

Also destroyed forever is the "patina" of history that these walls once

proudly wore - their outlines softened after centuries of weathering;

the marks of thousands of arrowheads inflicted in long forgotten

sieges; the glow of the orange stone in the setting sun - all this is

now gone. Ten years ago sheep grazed at the base of these walls, on

grass covered slopes amid a tumble of fallen masonry - now there is

nothing but a sterile wilderness of cement dust and stone chippings.

The Destruction of

the Merchant's Palace

In 1999, a "restoration" began on the Merchant's Palace, again

organised and paid for by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. The work

continued into the following year.

It ended in the near total destruction of this monument. There is now

far more new stone than original stone in the palace, to the extent

that the locals have nicknamed it "the prison" because of its

appearance.

There is no archaeological or documentary evidence to show that the

walls as rebuilt originally looked like this, and the new building work

resulted in the destruction of large sections of original masonry. Also

destroyed was most of the evidence, in the form of beam holes, of the

palace's timber upper floors and outbuildings.

In the year 2000 a "restoration" started on the mosque of Minuchihr and

the destructive restoration of the city walls had reached the Kars

Gate. In 2001 the "restoration" of the city walls was extended easward

to the Chequerboard Gate. In 2002 the "restoration" moved on to the

walls to the east and south of that gate.

8. A photograph of the palace from the 19th century

9. The palace during its destructive restoration

10. Nothing that can be seen here is older that 1999!

12. The palace gateway just before its "restoration"

11. Try to spot any original stonework inside!

13. The palace gateway after its "restoration"

14. The tiles before the restoration

Take a careful look at what the "restoration" has done to the palace's

entrance. Notice that all of the original decorative tiles have been

removed. A few have been put back, but they are in different positions!

The tile pattern has been altered: it has moved downwards by half a

star. Half of the surviving block in the doorway arch has been hacked

away, and a large section of the top of the rectangular frame has also

vanished.

15. The tiles after the restoration

16. Question - what happens when

you pile a lot of new stone onto

old and fragile foundations?

17. Answer - the whole structure

gets heavier, and heavier, and

weaker, and weaker...

18. ...until everything collapses - which means you can get more money

for rebuilding it all again!

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

ARMINFO, August 11, 2005

The President of the Swiss Senate foreign-affairs committee Peter

Briner denies his ever saying that Turkey's massacre of Armenians would

not be debated in the chamber. In a talk with ARMINFO correspondent

he says that the mentioned statement is based on a false citation or

a misunderstanding respectively.

To remind, at the beginning of August a number of Turkish media as

well as Swissinfo reported Briner as saying: "Turkey's massacre of

Armenians in 1915 will never be an issue for the Swiss Senate. Other

countries had no business pointing the finger at Turkey 90 years

after the disputed events, and the Senate foreign-affairs committee

agreed with the government that it was not parliament's job to decide

whether the killings constituted genocide."

Briner deeply regrets that his words have been distorted. This was

just a matter of procedure: what he did say was that at the time

when the Swiss House of Representatives forwarded an intervention

recognizing the genocide this had not been a issue in the Senate

and so would require a change of rules of procedure on the Plenary

Session agenda. However the statement was by no means about the future

possibility of lobbying of the issue in the Swiss Senate. Briner says

that the policy of the Swiss government and his committee is that the

mentioned terrible events should be investigated by the two countries

involved, i.e. Turkey and Armenia with a committee of historians of

both sides.

Meanwhile, the editor of California Courier Harut Sassounian has sent

a letter to Journal of Turkish Weekly, one of the media distorting

Briner's statement. Sassounyan says that every piece of JTW's news was

"nothing but a pack of lies." "I will be happy to give you one free

lesson in journalism: there is no such thing as Armenian or Turkish

journalism. There is only one kind of universal journalism, which is

reporting the truth," says Sassounian in his letter.

In response JTW has accused Sassounian of "extremist Armenian

approach." The media says that its editors will use all the legal

rights regarding the insults and will start a legal action in

California against the "offender".

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

VATICAN REACTS TO ARMENIAN MONASTERY DESECRATION

Printed from: http://www.financialmirror.com/more_news.php?id=1880

06/09/2005

A decision by the Turkish occupation regime to grant a "license" to

operate a recreation centre in the Armenian Monastery of Surb Makar

(Saint Makarios) in the Halefka area, north of the Turkish occupied

village of Kythrea, has spurred a strong reaction by the Vatican.

Cypriot Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said today that

the government totally agreed with the Vatican's reaction, noting

that it was after moves by the government that the desecration of

the monastery had come to the attention of the Vatican.

The Spokesman noted that "various protests were made and there has

been a reaction on behalf of the Vatican, which says and stresses

in its verbal note that the attention of the competent Turkish

authorities has been drawn to the specific case, as well as other

lamentable incidences."

Chrysostomides added that this was "a severe response, which is not

customary on behalf of the Vatican, and the language used is also

stern against the occupation authorities."

"We totally agree and it is after actions by the government that the

desecration of the monastery has come to the attention of the Vatican,"

the Spokesman pointed out.

www.financialmirror.com

############################################################

#############################################################

WHERE THE TURK GOES NO GREEN GRASS GROWS

----------------

VATICAN REACTS TO ARMENIAN MONASTERY DESECRATION

Cyprus News Agency, Cyprus

Sept 6 2005

Nicosia, Sep 6 (CNA) - A decision by the Turkish occupation regime to

grant a "license" to operate a recreation centre in the Armenian

Monastery of Surb Makar (Saint Makarios) in the Halefka area, north

of the Turkish occupied village of Kythrea, has spurred a strong

reaction by the Vatican.

Cypriot Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said today that

the government totally agreed with the Vatican's reaction, noting

that it was after moves by the government that the desecration of the

monastery had come to the attention of the Vatican.

#############################################################

VATICAN REACTS TO ARMENIAN MONASTERY DESECRATION

Financial Mirror, Cyprus

Sept 6 2005

A decision by the Turkish occupation regime to grant a "license" to

operate a recreation centre in the Armenian Monastery of Surb Makar

(Saint Makarios) in the Halefka area, north of the Turkish occupied

village of Kythrea, has spurred a strong reaction by the Vatican.

Cypriot Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said today that

the government totally agreed with the Vatican's reaction, noting

that it was after moves by the government that the desecration of

the monastery had come to the attention of the Vatican.

The Spokesman noted that "various protests were made and there has

been a reaction on behalf of the Vatican, which says and stresses

in its verbal note that the attention of the competent Turkish

authorities has been drawn to the specific case, as well as other

lamentable incidences."

Chrysostomides added that this was "a severe response, which is not

customary on behalf of the Vatican, and the language used is also

stern against the occupation authorities."

"We totally agree and it is after actions by the government that the

desecration of the monastery has come to the attention of the Vatican,"

the Spokesman pointed out.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

IN SEARCH FOR ISLAMISED ARMENIAN ORPHANS

According to a BBC message published in Armenian Mirror Spectator

weekly, a Turkish documentary filmmaker Berke Bas left for his

birthplace of Ordu at the Black Sea to look for Armenian orphans to

shoot a documentary about them. Speaking to her relatives there, she

found out that her parents once adopted at least 5 Armenian children.

No one has so far taken up the story of Armenian children spared by the

Armenian Genocide and converted into Islam. Discussions of the Armenian

Genocide issue incited by Turkey's furious efforts to join the European

Union were apparently the cause for removing the taboo from these

issues.

"I'm sure it will be difficult. People are unwilling to respond to my

initiative and ask why I dig the past", Bas confessed, noting that many

Turkish families refuse that they once had Armenians in their families.

"But we know that there were many such families to the extent that the

Ottoman authorities issued a secret order to punish all those saving

Armenian children by hiding them in their families", Prof. Selim

Deringil of Bosphorus University of Istanbul assures.

"Those Islamised Christians fear to speak about their past. If a Turk

says that his parents were Armenians, he will be labeled "gyavur"

(unfaithful) and classified as an outcast", editor of Akos newspaper

Hrant Dink said during the talk with Bas.

By Hakob Tsulikian

###############################################################

SONS OF THE ARMENIAN NATION WHO "TURNED INTO" KURDS AND TURKS

It was a taboo till recently to write of the Armenians who were

forcibly turned into Turks and Kurds during the Ottoman reign. Most of

them, living today in Western Europe, Western Armenia and Cilicia

(modern-day Turkey), are going through a revival of national

identification. After the Armenians of Hamshen, those from Sassoon,

Mush and Taron, who were forcibly converted into Islam, are especially

easy to talk with about their past and present. They try to return to

the bosom of their nation by overcoming their "guise", the names and

surnames, and to fight for their rights and to recover the historic

legacy of their forefathers massacred by the Turks.

One can meet those Armenians returning to their roots in Germany as

well as in Armenia especially after the war in Iraq and the vents at

the Turkish border. Some "Kurdish" Armenians fought in the ranks of the

PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) and got disappointed after Ojalan's

capture and left for Germany where they could find a wide field for

political and national activity. They settled in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden,

Stuttgart, Mainz and elsewhere.

"I was born in Karmir Khach (Kzl Akhach) village of Taron. We shunned

the Armenian Genocide as we accepted Islam feigningly and were

Kurdish-speaking. My father and brother enrolled in the PKK to fight

against Turkish fascism, they were imprisoned and tortured numerous

times. I've been studying and working here in Germany for a long time

and am in touch with the Armenian community and the progressive forces.

But in Western Armenia, especially in originally Armenian Vardo town,

which was stricken by an earthquake in 60s and where my relatives live,

human rights violations are rampant", Simon Kostanian (Sardet Kosdun),

who regained his Armenian identity today, tells.

Razmik Hakobian (Nureddin Yagub) from one of Cilicia villages was a PKK

warrior but was arrested and jailed in one of Ankara's horrific

prisons. He is a writer and a film director who is planning to shoot a

film about the life of Diaspora Armenians.

"My parents concealed our identity particularly because being an

Armenian was an unforgettable affront in Adiamani where I am coming

from. Despite this, many "Kurdish" and "Turkish" Armenians were called

"gyavur". The film I am trying to shoot is about an Armenian outcast

and also is an odyssey of a Western Armenians who survived the

Genocide. I shall realize my plans if I find necessary support in

Armenia and by the help of our confederates in Western Europe", Razmik

tells.

The number of Armenians, who only now discover their identity, above

all in Sassoon and Mush, amounts to thousands.

"There are around 1000 Armenians in Mush. The Turkish government has

forgotten us for a while, as there are the Kurds to deal with. The sons

of the Kurdish people say sorry for their fathers' deeds who were

killing Armenians together with the Turks", Armen from Mush says.

By Hamo Moskofian in Wiesbaden-Marseilles

##############################################################

###############################################################

The Economist

April 7th 2005

DIYARBAKIR -- ZEKAI YILMAZ, a Kurdish health worker, was 12 when he

found out that his grandmother was Armenian. "She was speaking in

a funny language with our Armenian neighbour," he recalled. "When

they saw me they immediately switched to Kurdish." Pressed for

an explanation, his grandmother revealed an enormous scar on

her back. At 13 she had been stabbed and left for dead together

with hundreds of fellow Armenians in a field outside Diyarbakir.

Mr Yilmaz's grandfather found her, rescued her, converted her to

Islam and married her. "But in her heart she remained an Armenian

and I sort of feel Armenian too," said Mr Yilmaz.

Similar accounts abound in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-eastern

provinces. The region was home to a thriving community of Armenian

Christians until the first world war; traces of their culture are

evident in the beautifully carved stone churches that lie in ruins

or have been converted into mosques.

But the first world war was when, according to the Armenians, 1.5

million of their people were systematically murdered in a genocide

perpetrated by Ottoman Turks, a massacre that went on even when the

war was over. Millions of Armenians worldwide are set to commemorate

the 90th anniversary of the start of the violence on April 24th.

The Turks deny there was genocide. Though they admit that several

hundred thousand Armenians perished -- the figures vary from one

official to the next -- they insist that it was from hunger and

disease during the mass deportation to Syria (then also Ottoman)

of Armenians who had collaborated with the invading Russian forces

in eastern Turkey.

Some Kurds dispute this version saying that their forefathers had

joined in the slaughter after being promised Armenian lands -- and a

place in heaven for killing infidels -- by the Young Turks who ruled

Turkey at the time. "You [Kurds] are having us for breakfast, they

[Turks] will have you for lunch," an Armenian proverb born in those

days, was "eerily prescient" says a Kurdish journalist, referring to

the violence between Turkish forces and separatist Kurds that later

racked the south-east.

Until recently such talk would have landed these Kurds in jail on

charges of threatening the integrity of the Turkish state. But as

Turkey seeks membership of the European Union, its repressive laws

are being replaced by ones that allow freer speech. Calls are mounting

within Europe, and much more encouragingly among some Turks themselves,

for the country to face up to its past. As a result, unprecedented

debate of the Armenian issue has erupted in intellectual and political

circles and the mainstream Turkish press.

Some of the reaction has been ugly. Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's best-known

contemporary novelist, received death threats when he told a Swiss

newspaper that "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed

in Turkey." One over-zealous official in a rural backwater went

so far as to issue a circular calling for all of Mr Pamuk's books

to be destroyed -- only to find there were none in his town. His

actions were applauded by a vocal and potentially violent group of

ultra-nationalists, who claim that the Europeans are using Armenians,

Kurds and other minorities to dismember Turkey.

Yet there are hopeful signs that the Turks are willing to listen to

other opinions as well. Halil Berktay, a respected Ottoman historian

long ostracised for his unconventional views, survived telling the

pro-establishment daily Milliyet recently that the Armenians were

victims of "ethnic cleansing". After decades of wavering, Fethiye

Cetin, a Turkish lawyer, roused the courage to publish the story of

her grandmother, another "secret Armenian" rescued by a Turk. Published

in November, the book is already into its fifth edition.

In Istanbul members of a newly formed ethnic Armenian women's platform

have vowed to shatter negative stereotypes by publicising the works

of their successful sisters. "We are fed up with Turkish movies that

portray us as hairy, morally promiscuous and money-grubbing creatures,"

explained one.

In a groundbreaking if modest gesture, Turkey's mildly Islamist prime

minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a joint call last month with

the main opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, for an impartial study

by historians from both sides of the genocide debate. His reason,

he said, was that he did not want "future generations to live under

the shadow of continued hatred and resentment." He believes that the

findings will show there was no genocide.

The move has been shrugged off by Armenia as a ploy to quash attempts

in various EU quarters to link Turkey's membership with recognition

of the genocide, as well as deterring America's Congress from a

possible resolution mentioning "genocide". Turkish officials retort

that the prime minister's call marks the first time any Turkish leader

has invited international debate of Turkey's past, albeit a purely

academic one. If the government were insincere, they ask, why did

the Turkish parliament ask a pair of ethnic Armenian intellectuals

to brief it on April 5th?

Hrant Dink, the publisher of Agos, a weekly read by Turkey's

60,000-member Armenian community, was one of the questioned

intellectuals. He offered plenty of sensible advice. He says that

Turkey, rather than getting bogged down in endless wrangles over

statistics and terminology, needs to normalise its relations with

neighbouring Armenia. As a first step, it should unconditionally open

its borders with the tiny, landlocked former Soviet republic. These

were sealed in 1993 after Armenia occupied large chunks of ethnically

Turkic Azerbaijan in a bloody conflict over the Nagorno-Artsax

enclave.

Make friends with Armenia, first

Not only would Turkey score valuable credit with the EU and the United

States, but mutual trade would blunt the influence of the hawkish

Armenian diaspora. A recent survey carried out jointly by a Turkish

and Armenian think-tank showed 51% of Turkish respondents and 63%

of Armenians in favour of opening the borders.

Even so, mutual hostility prevails. Among the Armenians, 93% said

it would be "bad" if their son married a Turkish girl, while 64%

of Turks said the same of an Armenian bride. This does not worry

the irrepressibly optimistic Mr Dink. "Let's first get to know one

another," he declares. "Love will follow."

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Death Threats Stalks Turkish Author of April 24 Article in Nevada

Acknowledging 1915 Genocide

By Serge L. Samoniantz

California Courier Editor

LAS VEGAS - Selcuk Tezgul, a native of Turkey residing in Las Vegas, is

now living under the shadow of death threats from fellow Turks after

authoring an article in the April 24 issue of the Las Vegas

Review-Journal, where he decried the Turkish government's silence over

the 1915 genocide, and called for an official acknowledgment of their

ancestor's biggest crime ever. Tezgul told The California Courier that

he wished to make a favor to the Armenian people by writing the

truthful article, and was not expecting this flood of negative reaction

from some of his closest friends and associates. A storm of phone

calls, some originating from Turkey itself, have threatened to burn

down his house, and get rid of him. His own business partner, he said,

swore at him on the phone and threatened to kill him with his own bare

hands for writing such an article. They are reluctant to acknowledge

reality, Tezgul surmised. The souls of 1.5 million Armenian victims

are, after 81 years, still longing for acknowledgment and an apology

from Turkey, his April 24 article begins. After describing an encounter

with an Armenian elderly couple at his Las Vegas shop where I felt

shame and pain because of my Turkish identity, Tezgul goes on to

explain that he is not one of the 60 million Turks who was cheated for

decades by his own government's chauvinistic, illogical, unfair and

nonsensical official state ideology and history. On the contrary...I am

one of the handful of Turks who is aware of that horrible genocide and

acknowledges too, Tezgul readily admits. I've never trusted and

believed in the official history and ideology of my country, he adds,

and when I researched and studied the reliable and honest foreign

historians, I came face to face with the blood-chilling truth. In

addition, I've listened to the chilling details of the massacres from

the mouths of the living Turkish witnesses, he continued. And today,

I'm still hated by my own relatives and friends because of my

acknowledgment of the genocide. Unfortunately, their brains are washed

by the lies and suppression of the truth by the Turkish government and

army. Tezgul writes that the agriculturist Armenians had settled in

Asia Minor almost two millennia before the Turks invaded the region.

The Armenians' home country is still occupied by the Turks today, he

wrote. Observing that the agriculturist Armenians had built a rather

advanced civilization, especially famous for accomplishments in

architecture and art. They were an honest, lovely, noble, humanistic,

and peaceful people, Tezgul write flatteringly. On the other side, the

Turks were a pastoralist, nomadic, quarrelsome, totalitarian people,

without artistic and architectural talents like the other nomadic

tribes of Central Asia, the Turkish author harshly notes. He goes on to

explain that the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I,

but not before it had blamed its Eastern Front defeats on the Armenians

and began its genocide. It was planned entirely by Turkish statesmen

and leaders and was carried out by Turkish soldiers -- sadly even by

the Armenians' Turkish neighbors, Tezgul wrote. That horrible genocide

has never been forgotten, must never be forgotten, and will never be

forgotten, he asserts. Alas, still today the Turkish government and its

leaders are deaf and dumb, and they remain silent about their country's

bloody past. They are still denying history's clear and solid truths.

Its 60 million people are still not completely aware of the genocide

committed by their ancestors, because of the official state policy to

suppress history. Of course, grandchildren should not be judged

responsible for their grandparents' crimes, but the grandchildren

should not endorse their ancestors' brutality either. History is

waiting for that honest, dignified, fair and noble Turkish leader who

will acknowledge his ancestors' biggest crime ever, who will apologize

to the Armenian people, and who will do his best to indemnify them,

materially and morally, in the eyes of the entire world. Besides the

threatening phone calls which brand him a traitor, Tezgul said, his own

close friends have now shunned him because of the lengthy article. This

is disturbing me emotionally, he frankly acknowledged. A graduate of

Istanbul's Bosphorus University, Tezgul came to the United States 15

months ago on a B-2 visa. Seeking freedom and new opportunities in

these shores, he invested $50,000 - his life savings - in a gift shop

in Las Vegas, which he operates jointly with a partner, Nevzet Baguis.

That investment is in jeopardy now, because of the article he wrote, he

said. Furthermore, his visa is due for renewal because of the nature of

the business investment. But, now with his life in danger, he does not

dare to go to the store, where his wife works. In addition, his legal

status in the U.S. is at risk, unless his visa is renewed or upgraded.

Extremely reluctant to talk to The Courier, Tezgul, in a very subdued

voice, nonetheless asked that this story not be taken further, and

wished that the matter would settle down quickly. I am sure the Turkish

authorities in the United States have already faxed these details to

Ankara, he said. I will probably need a new identity and new passport

if I wish to return to Turkey, he said, understandably not too thrilled

at the prospect. As of May 6, he had not yet notified the FBI about the

nature of the phone calls and threats he had received, but the federal

agency was aware of the reason for Tezgul's distress. Plans were not

yet in place to begin an investigation, according to Las Vegas FBI

office spokesperson Debbie Calhoun. She suggested that Tezgul contact

the local authorities and tell them of his concerns. Tezgul told The

Courier he had received sympathetic calls from Las Vegas Armenians

congratulating him for his courage, but he was more interested in

putting this matter behind him, and resume a normal life.

Unfortunately, history shows us that honest, dignified, fair and noble

Turks are not given much rest by their own. The novelty of speaking the

truth -- even if it exposes one's own myths -- is still equated in too

many cultures as comforting the enemy, rather than freeing future

generations of Armenians and Turks of the burden of the past. On a

personal level, Tezgul's attempt to make a favor to the Armenians has

perhaps backfired. But, whether the Turks like it or not, in the long

run, his is the shot heard round the world.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

IMAM OF KARS DOES NOT ALLOW ARMENIAN TOURISTS TO LIGHT CANDLES IN

CHURCH TURNED INTO MOSQUE

KARS, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. A number of Turkish

newspapers ("Hurriet", "Milliet" and some others) reported on August

15 that the imam of the city of Kars did not allow a group of tourists

from Armenia to light candles and hold a religious ceremony at the

Church of Twelve Apostles turned into a mosque. The Armenian Apostolic

Church was turned into a mosque in 1998 and called Qumpet Chamii. Imam

Mehmed Altun prohibited the Armenian tourists from lighting candles or

singing in the former church. According to the imam, such ceremonies

are not allowed in a mosque, the newapaper "Marmara" wrote. Later the

tourists intended to light candles in the garden of the former church,

but this time some locals intervened, preventing them from doing

so. The Armenian tourists had to interrupt their ceremony and leave.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

"FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS" TO BE PRESENTED IN WHOLE JAPAN

YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. Presentations of

the work "Fogotten Genocide of Armenians or Research on Prevention and

Panishment of Genocide" by Professor Hiroyoshi Segawa will be organized

in different cities of Japan starting with autumn. The presentations

will be accompanied by movable exhibitions. As Mushegh Sargsian, the

Director on Import of the Armenian Agency for Development informed

the Noyan Tapan correspondent, the book was first presented on June

7, at the Armenian pavilion of the EXPO 2005 "Natures Wisdom" world

exhibition organized in the city of Aichi. M.Sargsian informed that

for being involved in the movable exhibition, H.Segawa turned to the

Armenian party with a request to give materials concerning Armenian

culture, history and mythology presented at the Aichi exhibition to

be closed in September. M.Sargsian mentioned that the idea of the

Japanese scientist was approved by RA Prime Minister Andranik Margarian

who promised to assist its implementation. To recap, Hiroyoshi Segawa

was rewarded with the title of the RA NAS Honoured Doctor this May.

Arpa · October 10, 2005

Are we powerful enough to show that imam to show him the (im)proper use of that candle? I.e. up his ... nose?

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Are we powerful enough to show that imam to show him the (im)proper use of that candle? I.e. up his ... nose?

I know the europeans are.

SWISSINFO

Oct. 9, 2005

Dominique Boillat, a spokesman for the Federal Migration Office, said

on Sunday that the decision by the justice ministry backed up an

earlier decision by immigration officials.

"Imams who work in Switzerland must defend our values or at least not

be against them," said Boillat.

Hani Ramadan, the director of the centre who had sought to hire the

imam, has in the past publicly defended the stoning of adulterers and

has also said that Aids was a form of divine retribution against

sinners.

Last year, the Swiss immigration authorities denied the Turkish imam

and his Senegalese aide a residence and work permit. Ramadan, the

institute's director, subsequently appealed against the decision.

The authorities can deny citizens from outside the European Union the

right to work and live in Switzerland. According to new Swiss

immigration guidelines immigrants must show readiness to integrate and

respect the Swiss legal system.

Controversial

According to Sunday's edition of the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, about

500 mostly Turkish- and Arabic-speaking Muslims regularly visit the

Islamic Centre in Geneva.

After his suspension from work as a public-school French teacher, Hani

Ramadan told Swiss media that Muslims living in Europe had a duty to

speak about their beliefs even if they offended others.

The courts have since ruled in Ramadan's favour, saying that his

dismissal was unfair and demanding that Geneva's cantonal government

recognise his status as a public servant and resume paying his salary.

Hani Ramadan is the brother of Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan. The pair,

both Swiss citizens, are grandsons of the founder of the Muslim

Brotherhood, Egypt's now banned fundamentalist party.

Tariq Ramadan has been barred from entering the United States. He has

been criticised for alleged links - which he denies - to Islamic

militants. Last year the US authorities revoked his visa to teach at

Notre Dame University.

He has since joined a British government task force aimed at preventing

Islamic extremism.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Turkey extends ban on alluding to genocide

By Nicholas Birch in Istanbul

Irish Times

May 05, 2005

Turkey Turkey's new criminal code was supposed to be a crucial part

of its efforts to bring itself in line with European norms. Instead,

it stumbles from one controversy to another.

Last autumn, voices were raised over plans to criminalise adultery.

The centre of attention now is an article that looks as if it sets

the courts loose on anyone describing the 1915 mass expulsion of

Ottoman Armenians as a "genocide".

Article 305's prescription of between three and 10-year prison

sentences for individuals acting "against fundamental national

interests" originally only affected Turkish citizens. Late on Tuesday,

though, hours before a revised draft of the criminal code was due to

be presented to Turkey's parliament, three MPs succeeded in extending

its remit to include "foreigners in Turkey". "According to the legal

changes we have made, those materially benefiting from claims that

there was a genocide can be punished," Hasan Kara, one of the MPs

tabling the motion, told reporters.

Heavily criticised for its vagueness, the draft article was originally

published last autumn with notes explaining its possible uses. These

included "making propaganda for the withdrawal of Turkish troops

from Cyprus", or arguing "contrary to historical truths, that the

Armenians suffered a genocide after the first World War".

The Armenian genocide issue usually drops off Turkey's agenda

immediately after April 24th, the date that has come to mark the start

of the 1915 massacres. That it is still there this year is largely due

to the decision of a Swiss court last week to open an investigation

into a Turkish historian accused of denying the Armenian genocide.

The case caused outrage in Turkey, even among the very few who openly

describe 1915 as a genocide. Tuesday's last-minute legal changes are

widely thought to have been an act of retaliation.

The historian in question, head of the government-funded Turkish

Historical Foundation Yusuf Halacoglu, is a staunch defender

of Turkey's official position on the events of 1915. Expelling

Anatolian Armenians, he has argued, was a necessary response to their

co-operation with enemies of the Ottoman Empire. And while most

historians of the period estimate between 800,000 and one million

people died, he insisted recently the total death toll could not have

exceeded 100,000.

Punishing those who oppose the official line is not new in Turkey.

The novelist Orhan Pamuk, who told a Swiss newspaper in February that

"one million Armenians were killed in Turkey", is currently facing

three separate charges under a notorious section of the old criminal

code. Article 312 makes "provoking the people to hatred and animosity

through the media" a criminal offence. The article was removed from

the new code.

It remains to be seen whether Turkey's parliament will cave in now

to internal and international pressure as it did over the adultery

clause. If not, the perceptible broadening of freedom of speech in

Turkey looks set to dwindle.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/fede...ide/bureau_of...

National Archives of the United States

Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel

(RECORD GROUP 24)

1798-1991

(bulk 1798-1956)

24.10 MOTION PICTURES (GENERAL)

1917-27

World War I naval operations and activities, including anti- submarine

patrols, minelaying, convoy and escort duty, submarine maneuvers, and

training; ship launching and maintenance; torpedo production and

firing;

Liberty Loan promotions and patriotic celebrations; Armistice

celebrations;

captured German equipment; U.S. and foreign political and military

leaders;

foreign naval vessels; President Woodrow Wilson's second inauguration;

the

airship Los Angeles (ZRS-3) over New York; and lighter-than-air craft

rescuing fishermen, 1917-18 (44 reels). Naval activities after World

War I,

including aerial mapping techniques, rescue of Armenian refugees from

Turkey, evacuation of personnel from grounded and burning ships, escort

duty, and training, 1918-27 (57 reels).

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

DESTRUCTION OF DOCUMENTS IMPORTANT PART OF TURKISH CULTURE

TANER AKCHAM: "PURGE OF ARCHIVES IS QUITE IMPORTANT ADMINISTRATIVE

CULTURE" IN TURKEY"

The destruction of documents is

"an important part of our culture," historian Taner Akcham, a

representative of the progressive Turkish intelligentsia, writes in

his large article concerning the purge of the Turkish archives. The

article was published by the "Radical" newspaper in its Sunday

appendix. In his article Akcham, at first, mentions the "Sabah"

newspaper's publication from November 7 1918, where it is said that

the government looked for the documents testifying about the massacre

against the Armenians but couldn't find them. The newspaper's

indicated article writes "Taleat ***** and his company, probably,

before leaving authority, ordered to destruct all the documents

witnessing about their giving directions on the massacre. Akcham

emphasizes that it was right, as the indictment against "the Young

Turks", which was heard in the Istanbul Court Martial of the State of

Siege in May 1919, writes that the documents concerning the

administrative center of the "Ittihat" party and so-called Teshkilat

Mahsuse organization were "stolen". In this connection the Prosecutor

said that Aziz Bei, the Chief of Security of the region, took away

with himself a lot of documents before Taleat *****'s resignation and

didn't return them. Then Taner Akcham cites numerous examples

concerning the stealing and destruction of the documents and notices

that during the "Ittihat's" power the following was written under all

the instructions and documents concerning massacres: "Read and

destruct after reading." Akcham mentions the self-defense of different

officials in the courts, they reported that "they destructed the

documents as they received such an order." In particular, Akcham sets

as an example the 1919 action against Osman Nuri Effendi, the Deputy

Director of the Chatalcha post office, who said: "I burned down all

the documents in accordance with the received order. My chiefs ordered

me to burn down the documents concerning the period of their power

from such-and-such to such-and-such date and I did it.." The author of

the article also sets other examples. According to the "Marmara" daily

newspaper of Istanbul, at the end of the article the Turk historian

notices: "As seen the destruction of documents is quite an important

"administrative culture". For that reason some persons talk profusely

with the quiet of those who know that the documents have already been

destructed, that "nothing had happened with the Armenians, and all the

documents are in their places." Perhaps, people of my generation will

find some documents about their greats and promulgate them, arguing

that beside those considering the destruction of documents as success,

there are also such people that want to discover truth".

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

TURKEY MUST FACE THE TRUTH

The Baltic Times [Riga, Latvia]

15.12.2004

The debate over whether to include Turkey in the European Union

crystallizes the essence of what it means to be "European." Not

surprisingly, the range of answers is broad, often diametrically

opposite. Geography, history, religion, economics and even mentality

have been cited as reasons why or why not to invite the Muslim country

to the world's biggest economic bloc. Simple "expansion-fatigue" within

the 25-nation (and soon to be 27-nation) union is another.

One thing you can't take away from Turkey: the country truly longs to

be

a EU member. Both its political leaders and the public, any the

religious and the secular segments of society, want to build their

future as part of Europe. They have had this desire for decades now,

even throughout the multiple political changes and economic pitfalls

the

country has undergone.

As a result, on Dec. 17 EU leaders are likely to give the green light

to

begin accession talks - e.g., to designate Turkey a candidate country

for membership - at their summit in Brussels. This will entail 10 - 15

years of accession negotiations before the country is formally granted

member status, and there are likely to be a number of stop signs and

roadblocks along the way. But even on this score the debate is heated,

with pro-Turkey advocates arguing that accession criteria for the

70-million-plus country should be no different than for, say, miniscule

Malta.

But they should. The choice of accepting an ant or an elephant into the

family has radically different implications for the household, and

those

who are blind to that are likely to be the first to complain when

something goes wrong later.

Regarding Turkish membership, the real issue is not about size. It is

about mentality. Specifically, the country has refused to acknowledge

the genocide of 1915, when over 1 million Armenians were led to their

death in the Syrian deserts or just slaughtered. The incident has been

well documented and includes thousands of eyewitness accounts. Yet

Turkey continues to deny it, saying a lot of people died at the time,

including Turks (an argument Russia employs in regards to WWII, as

Balts

are well aware). The country has closed its archives and even banned

use

of the word genocide. Is this the behavior of someone ready for Europe?

Imagine how different Europe would be today if for the past 60 years

Germany had denied the Holocaust. Now transfer that image onto the

Anatolian peninsula and you will see what is taking place today -

Turks,

Kurds and Armenians living side by side and in a state of deep

animosity

and suspicion.

Thankfully, France has taken the lead in putting the genocide issue on

the accession table. (France is one of the only countries that has

recognized the 1915 Genocide. The United States hasn't.) Foreign

Minister Michel Barnier said last week that France wants Turkey to

recognize the genocide as part of its membership requirements. "This is

an issue that we will raise during the negotiation process. We will

have

about 10 years to do so, and the Turks will have about 10 years to

ponder their answer," he said.

It was the first time someone has tried to link EU membership with the

Ottoman atrocities. As expected, the reaction from Ankara was swift and

unequivocal, with one official saying that Turkey would never recognize

the "so-called genocide."

If that is the case, then the door to the EU should be closed. As a

Polish poet once wrote, "How frightening is the past that awaits us."

If

a country cannot come to terms with its past - as Germany has - then

the

future will have precious little to offer it. In Europe, truth and

reconciliation must come first.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

WAITING FOR THE DENIAL TO END

Ha'aretz, Israel

April 17 2005

By Dalia Shehori

How long will Turkey continue to deny the Armenian genocide, and why

is Israel helping it?

Next week marks the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in

Turkey. On April 24, 1915, some 300 Armenian leaders - authors,

intellectuals and professionals - were arrested in Constantinople,

deported and eventually exterminated. On that day, 5,000 more

Armenians were murdered in the capital of the Ottoman empire. In the

following years, 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Armenians living in

Turkey were liquidated.

Although the Turkish prime minister acknowledged recently the need to

reexamine the issue, Turkey's official stand has not changed. It

persists in stating that there was no genocide.

The denial angers the Armenians. Not only is it not true, they argue,

but it does not enable them to grieve for the extermination of their

people. As long as the Turks deny it, the Armenians say, we must

devote all our resources to convince the world that genocide did take

place in the years 1915-1918, and the Ottoman Empire and its heir,

the Turkish government, bear the blame.

Every year, as April 24 approaches, the Turkish government tensely

checks various parliaments in the world for resolutions recognizing

the Armenian genocide. If such a decision is made, Turkey exerts

steamroller pressure on the adopting state to change it.

Two years ago a member of the Armenian community in Israel, Naomi

Nalbandian, was chosen to light a torch on Mount Herzl on Memorial

Day as the representative of the rehabilitation ward of Hadassah

Hospital on Mount Scopus. She was forced - following the Turkish

government's insistent demand to the Foreign Ministry - to change the

text she intended to read at the ceremony. Instead of "third

generation of survivors of the Armenian holocaust, which took place

in 1915" in the original text, Nalbandian presented herself as

"daughter of the long-suffering Armenian nation." Incidentally, the

use of the word "holocaust" in the Armenian context raises objections

in another quarter - Yad Vashem and other Jewish organizations object

to it, wishing to preserve the Holocaust as a unique term to mark the

Nazi liquidation of the Jews.

Expulsion and murder

The Turks' denial of the genocide is the focal point of a study day

entitled "Genocide in the 20th century - 90 years to the Armenian

genocide," held at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute 10 days ago with

the participation of Israeli and Armenian historians. One of the

participants was Dr. Ara Sarafian, head of the Gomidas Institute in

London, which promotes and disseminates research, scholarship and

analysis of the modern Armenian experience. Sarafian brought books

published last year at the institute's initiative about the Armenian

genocide, including "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," based on the

diaries of Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador to Turkey from

1913-1916. Another book was the memoirs of Abram I. Elkus, who

succeeded Morgenthau in the years 1916 and 1917.

"Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" was first published in 1918, but

Sarafian says, "We find ourselves having to prove that the genocide

took place, so we published again a series of documents and memoirs.

Quoting archival material is not enough. The denial will persist.

Therefore it is necessary to publish memoirs, diaries, letters and

documents systematically."

Sarafian preferred to focus on American documents because they are in

English and accessible to all. The United States was not involved in

World War II until April 1917; consequently Americans - consuls,

missionaries and citizens - were present at various places where

Armenians were murdered and briefed the State Department regularly.

At the end of 1915 they served as the only authorized source of

information in the Western world on the Armenian genocide.

Sarafian cites, for example, the reports of American consul Leslie

Davis on the gathering, deportation and extermination of Armenians -

men, women and children - in the Harput area in central Turkey. He

says these deportations were systematic. "The state officials had a

list of names. They would read out your name, put you in a caravan

and deport you. Then came the reports about the murder of these

people. Consul Davis personally investigated a few places where the

murder was committed and reported to the State Department ... he

described the valleys where the deportees were taken and murdered. He

talks of thousands of people and says things like: `I knew there were

several caravans in a certain valley, because the corpses were in

various stages of rot.'"

Sarafian says that although all the murder victims' personal effects

had been taken from them before their murder, Davis knew they were

Armenian because their personal papers were found at the murder site.

Ambassador Morgenthau "was the first person to notice that what

happened at Harput was happening in other places throughout the

empire...if you read his diaries after April 1915, you will see that

the word `Armenian' becomes the most commonly used noun. He was

obsessive about this issue. As he related in a private letter to his

son, Henry Morgenthau Jr., `Ottoman Armenians were like the people of

Israel in captivity, though they did not have a Moses to lead them

out of their predicament.' This is very moving. There is a place in

our heart for Morgenthau as a righteous non-Armenian, who did much to

save Armenians."

Morgenthau also wrote his son that the Turkish government was using

the fact that there was a state of war to wipe out the Armenian

people.

Together with the diaries of the American diplomats, Sarafian says

there is no substitute for the testimonies of Armenian survivors

"because they were there, they were the victims, and they are very

articulate."

These testimonies are written in Armenian, and it is necessary to

publish at least some of them in English to answer the skeptics who

ask how Morgenthau could have known what was happening, if he was

based in Constantinople. We must publish everything possible, says

Sarafian, for "if we give the Turks a chance to get away not merely

with the slaughter but with the denial - it would serve as a

precedent for future denials ... it's very troubling that a state

with a population of 60 million refuses to confront history and make

the required concession to solve this issue once and for all."

Israel is still denying

Professor Yair Auon of the Open University, author of the recently

published "The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide,"

expressed disappointment that Israel, as a state that represents the

Holocaust survivors and is supposed to be more sensitive than other

countries to the suffering of other nations, does not recognize the

Armenian genocide.

"Israel's approach to other nations' genocide, and especially the

Armenian genocide, harms our struggle to make the Holocaust part of

the collective memory of human society. While we help Turkey deny the

genocide - and Israel has regrettably become Turkey's staunchest aide

in its denial policy - we are in fact desecrating the Holocaust's

memory," he says.

Auron and Yona Weitz, a Hebrew University anthropologist, quoted

Shimon Peres' statements about the Armenian genocide. In 2001, when

he was foreign minister, Peres told Turkish Daily News that, "It is a

tragedy what the Armenians went through, but not a genocide." Auron

said Peres' position reflects Israel's official stand today as well.

He added that the Education Ministry has been saying since 1994 that

the Armenian genocide would be taught in schools "this year or next

year" but in the schoolbooks it is referred to as a "tragedy,"

"pogroms," "slaughter" - and not a genocide. Even university students

hardly know anything about the Armenian genocide.

Auron spoke of Yossi Sarid's abortive effort to legitimize the

Armenian genocide when he was education minister. Five years ago, on

the 85th anniversary of the genocide, Sarid was invited to speak in

the Armenian church in the Old City. Sarid affirmed the genocide and

concluded his statement with a promise to include the Armenian

genocide in Israel's secondary school history curriculum. But Ehud

Barak's government hastened to express reservations about his

statement and explain to the Turks that Sarid was merely expressing

his own opinion.

Auron also criticized Israeli academia, noting that senior members of

it deny that a genocide took place and even doubt the reliability of

Morgenthau's diaries. "They use the Turkish denial literature as

though it were the only literature dealing with the Armenian

genocide, and on that basis they claim there is no evidence that

Morgenthau's diaries are not forged," he said.

One of the Armenian genocide's prominent deniers is Islam researcher

Professor Bernard Lewis. Lewis says the Armenians suffered terrible

massacres, but these were not committed as a result of a deliberate,

preconceived decision of the Ottoman government. In an interview with

the American Web site Book TV, Lewis said about three years ago:

"What happened to the Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian

armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before war broke

out, and continued on a larger scale. Great numbers of Armenians,

including members of the armed forces, deserted, crossed the frontier

and joined the Russian forces invading Turkey. Armenian rebels

actually seized the city of Van and held it for a while, intending to

hand it over to the invaders. There was guerrilla warfare all over

Anatolia."

He says there is proof that the Turkish government planned to deport

the Armenians from the sensitive areas but "no evidence of a decision

to massacre." On the contrary, there is evidence of an unsuccessful

attempt to prevent it. He says appalling massacres were committed by

irregular soldiers and local villagers, who were reacting to what had

been done to them. Claiming that the numbers of Armenian dead are

uncertain, he acknowledged that 1 million deaths were likely.

Historian Dr. Claude Mutafian of the University of Paris said Turkey

is not willing to recognize the Armenian genocide because it was

based on ethnic cleansing, not only of the Armenians, but also of

other groups. Therefore it has been trying to rewrite history since

Ataturk's days and claim that only Turks have lived in Turkey since

the beginning of time. Today Turkey is fighting for this more

intensely than ever because it wants to join the European Union, "and

this provides us with a new weapon to force the Turks to accept

history the way it was."

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Israel Hasbara Committee, NY

May 5 2005

By Mayaan Jaffe

One-and-a-half million innocent individuals were killed. Women were

raped and children were tortured. The survivors are few, the pain is

great. But even ninety years after the Armenian Genocide, in which

Armenians were systematically murdered at the hands of the Ottoman

Turks, many ignore or deny the tragedy; many, but not all...

On 2 May 2005, the Hebrew University Armenian Studies Program, under

the auspices of Professor Michael E. Stone, brought the massacre

to the forefront of the thoughts of Israelis in a commemorative

evening, one week after the 24 April official day of remembrance

of the genocide. There was laughter, there were tears, and despite

the pain of the speakers (who presented materials in English, Hebrew,

Armenian and Russian), they offered sentiments of empowerment, outlooks

of hope. His Beatitude Patriarch Torkom II, the Armenian Patriarch

of Jerusalem, was present. Steven Kaplan, Dean of the Department of

Humanities at the Hebrew University, attended as well. Mr. Tsolag

Momjian, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Armenia, inspired the

crowd with his personal story. And leading scholars in the field

of genocide, including keynote speaker Professor Israel Charney

and Armenian Studies Program Director Professor Michael E. Stone,

offered educational and inspirational lectures.

The evening was not a small feat for the Hebrew University. Despite

an Armenian-Israeli population of 25,000 and aside from scattered

Israeli politicians who support genocide commemoration and study,

the Jewish state has refused to recognize the Armenian massacre. The

country's reasons are twofold. First of all, Israel has few allies

and is afraid to harm its relations with Turkey, a perpetrator who

has still not taken responsibility for its crime. Second of all, there

is a hesitation among Jews to give credence to other genocides so as

not to detract from the world's focus on the Nazi Holocaust, in which

some six million Jews were murdered. While the former may be a viable

reason for Israel's stance, according to Monday's keynote speaker

Professor Israel Charney, the second reason is totally unfounded.

Said Charney, "We have an absolute moral responsibility to recognize

the Armenian Genocide... Respecting and honoring the memory and history

of each and every genocide is the first essential step towards creating

new means of preventing genocide to all people in the future."

And there might be some truth to Charney's statement. The Armenian

Holocaust of 1915 occurred less than half-a-century before the

Jewish Holocaust. Adolf Hitler was aware of how the world almost

instantaneously 'forgot' about the Armenians. In one of Hitler's

many speeches he recognized the Armenian Genocide, drew comparisons

between it and the acts he plotted to carry out, and used it as a means

to encourage his followers. He said, "I have issued the command - and

I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a

firing squad - that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain

lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly,

I have placed my death-head formations in readiness ... with orders

for them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men,

women and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall

we gain the living space ... we need. Who after all speaks today of

the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Making the connection then

As the statement by Hitler alludes, there is a deep connection between

the Armenians and the Jews. But the histories of the two peoples

connect more extensively than one might imagine. Senior lecturer at

the Open University of Israel and the Kibbutzim College of Education,

Professor Yair Auron has dedicated himself to bringing to light the

connection Armenians and Jews, their trials and tribulations. In his

book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide

(Transaction Books, 2000), which was published this year in Hebrew

in honor of the 90th anniversary, he writes: "At the time of the

Armenian genocide, the possibility of its extension to include the

Ottoman Jews was just barely avoided. One cannot help but be reminded

that between the two world wars, when the fate of the Armenians became

the forgotten genocide, European Jewry failed to heed the clear early

warnings of Hitler's final solution."

Auron devotes the major portion of his study to the fate of the

Armenians and the Jews under Turkish rule during the twilight of the

Ottoman Empire, from the beginning of the twentieth century, to the

rebalancing of world power in the Middle East after World War I.

He proves that the Jews of the Yishuv were well aware they were

next in line for a Turkish genocide. Indeed, during the spring of

1916 the order for expulsion of the Jews from Jaffa was a distinct

possibility. The intervention of the U.S. and German consuls with the

Turkish government in Jerusalem proved to be decisive in helping the

Jews avoid the fate that befell the Armenians.

Ironically, it was Henry Morgenthau, a Jew and the American ambassador

to Turkey during World War I, who became the first whistleblower

in what he described as the murder of a nation. In September 1915

Morgenthau requested emergency aid from his government, and in the same

year the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR)

was established. In 1916, assistance efforts under the auspices

of Congress were reorganized as the Near East Relief (NER), which

collected and distributed substantial sums from private and government

sources. Through these projects, tens of thousands of Armenians were

saved. However, more were murdered than saved; according to Professor

M.E. Stone, head of the Hebrew University Armenian Studies Program,

the number of Armenians murdered by the Ottoman Empire totaled more

than 1.5 million, virtually wiping out the Turkish-Armenian population.

Ambassador Morgenthau was also effective in rescuing Jews, saving

leaders such as David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Tzvi, later prime

minister and president of Israel, respectively. Both men were avidly

pro-Turkish. Indeed Ben Gurion had tried to organize a Jewish corps in

support of the Ottomans, but when his name appeared on a Zionist list

he was jailed and charged with treason. On arriving in Alexandria he

was jailed again by the British, and then evacuated to New York. In

both instances, he was saved thanks to the intervention of Ambassador

Morgenthau.

Auron argues that Ben Gurion knew of the murders and what the Turks

capable of doing. Auron writes, "Whatever Ben Gurion's strategy may

have been, he wrote privately to his father in 1919 that 'Jamal *****

[then Turkish military ruler in Palestine] planned from the outset

to destroy the entire Hebrew settlement in Eretz Yisrael, exactly as

they did the Armenians in Armenia.'"

The murder of the Armenian political, cultural and business leadership

in Constantinople in April 1915 marked the beginning of full-scale

genocide. One month prior, Ambassador Morgenthau made arrangements

through his friend Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, to have

the USS Tennessee evacuate a number of Jews from Palestine to refugee

camps in Alexandria, Egypt. On the eve of World War I, there were some

85,000 Jews out of a population of 700,000 in the area of Palestine

west of the Jordan River [modern day Israel]. Half of the Jews were

part of the "Old Yishuv" and half were part of the "New Yishuv,"

immigrants who had arrived at the end of the nineteenth century and

the beginning of the twentieth.

As noted, evidence suggests the Jews knew what was happening to the

Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

"The Yishuv knew about the fate of the Armenians and feared a similar

fate," Auron writes.

Interestingly, it was Mordecai Ben-Hillel HaCohen, a Jewish journalist

in the Yishuv and uncle of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin,

who became the first publicist to report the chain of events affecting

the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. This was as early as 1916.

Likewise, the first book to document the plight of the Armenians,

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh: Symbol and Parable, was also written by a

Jew, Franz Werfel, and published in Germany in 1933. Translated into

Yiddish and Hebrew, Franz Werfel's novel influenced Zionist youth

movements in Palestine in the 1930s and the resistance movements to

the Nazis throughout occupied Europe.

When Hitler's plans began to come to fruition, it was Morgenthau's

son, Henry Morgenthau II, the treasury secretary under President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who became the only member of the American

government during World War II to campaign for the creation of a

World Refugee Board to save the remnants of European Jewry. He was

always quoting the cables sent from his father, which warned of the

Armenian genocide during his time.

Making the connection now

One might assume these parallels, especially those between the tragic

events themselves, would lead the Jewish people to both identify

with and recognize the Armenian Genocide. This is especially since

the Armenian community has been in Jerusalem and the Holy Land since

the fourth century (more than 1,700 years). However, this is not

the case; as mentioned, Israel does not officially recognize the

Armenian Genocide. But it is also not accurate to say the facts have

gone unnoticed by everyone. Five years ago, for example, then-Israeli

Minister of Education Yossi Sarid became one of the first Israelis

to take a stance against denial of the Armenian Genocide when he

participated in that year's memorial event. During his speech he

said, "The Armenian Memorial Day should be a day of reflection and

introspection for all of us, a day of soul-searching. On this day,

we as Jews, victims of the Shoah [Holocaust], should examine our

relationship to the pain of others. The massacre, which was carried

out by the Turks against the Armenians in 1915 and 1916, was one of

the most horrible acts in modern times..."

Sarid even recommended the state implement a new history curriculum

that would include a central chapter on genocide, and within it,

an open reference to the Armenian genocide. (Since Limor Livnat took

over as education minister, this idea has been dismissed.)

While few other politicians have followed Sarid's lead, educated

historians and professors such as Auron have for a long time taken

a stand. As Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide

in Jerusalem, Charney lectures regularly about the significance of

Jewish recognition of other people's tragedies.

"Denying that there was an Armenian genocide, or any other genocide,

is the same as someone saying there was no Holocaust of the Jewish

people," he said.

During the aforementioned 2 May memorial event, Charney noted that

there has been decisive progress against denials, but that there is

still much work to be done.

Stone also has extensively written and lectured about the similarities

between the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Ottomans

and those committed against the Jews by the Nazis. He said, "In

my view they are the same sort of event. The Holocaust was simply

'bigger and better' because the Nazis had a much more organized

state and much more advanced technology."

But Stone has taken it all a step further. It is through his work that

the Armenian Studies Program has come alive in the last ten years;

Stone plays a critical role in the education of Israel about the

genocide, but also Armenian history, culture and art.

"It is vital that we not only focus on the horrible effect of genocide

or the one-third of the Armenian people that were wiped out," said

Stone, "but also focus on rejuvenating the culture and history that

the Ottomans attempted to eradicate."

In his short but poignant remarks last Monday, Stone declared that

his work in general, and the memorial event in particular, are not

solely about remembering those needlessly murdered, but serve the

purpose of creating positive results from evils that have occurred.

Echoing the Jewish message that as terrible as the pain could be, the

happiness can be even greater, Stone said, "From evil, make good."

And that is what the Armenians plan to do...

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Telegram Sent

Department of State, Washington

May 29, 1915

Amembassy [American Embassy],

Constantinople.

French Foreign Office requests following notice be given Turkish

Government. Quote. May 24th

For about a month the Kurd and Turkish populations of Armenia has been

massacring Armenians with the connivance and often assistance of

Ottoman authorities. Such massacres took place in middle April(new

style) at Erzerum, Dertchun, Eguine, Akn, Bitlis, Mush, Sassun, Zeitun,

and throughout Cilicia. Inhabitants of about on hundred villages near

Van were all murdered. In that city Armenian quarter is besieged by

Kurds. At the same time in Constantionple Ottoman Government ill-treats

inoffensive Armenian population. In view of those new crimes of Turkey

against humanity and civilization, the Allied governments announce

publicly to the Sublime-Porte that they will hold personally

responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman government

and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.

Unquote.

R.G. 59,867.4016/67

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Ottawa Citizen

April 15, 2005 Friday

Final Edition

Hitler was wrong -- Armenian genocide is not forgotten: Ninety years

later, the descendants of those who suffered the atrocities of mass

murder and expulsion are still haunted by their heritage of memory,

Patricia Sherlock reports.

by Patricia Sherlock, The Ottawa Citizen

Nearly a century after his grandmother's death, Tony Boghossian is

plagued by a gruesome image. The day after his father and aunt, both

then children of seven and nine, buried the body, they returned to

the site only to find coyotes had dug it up.

For Mr. Boghossian, that's not the kind of experience any child

should ever endure. But it was exactly that kind of experience that

millions of Armenians did endure. In September of 1915, newspapers

around the world ran headlines proclaiming "The Death of Armenia" and

"Terrible Tales of Turkish Atrocities." Historians estimate massacres

and forced dislocations -- the Armenian genocides, as it is now

called -- resulted in the deaths more than one million Armenians.

Those deaths will be remembered today at 7:30 p.m. in Notre Dame

Cathedral in a multi-faith service commemorating the 90th anniversary

of the genocide of all but 200,000 of the Armenian population. The

Most Rev. Bagrat Galstanian, the primate of Canada's Armenian Holy

Apostolic Church, says both Canadian houses of Parliament have

described the 1915 events as genocide, but the Canadian cabinet has

refused to do so. Bishop Galstanian calls it "a cause for concern

that the Canadian government will not change its policy accordingly."

Turkey maintains Armenians lost their lives as a consequence of their

attempt to get more land from a collapsing Ottoman Empire, and the

Turks had to fight back.

Among those who survived were Mr. Boghossian's father and aunt,

Movses and Yeghart Boghossian. The two children lost their mother

during the forced dislocation of their Black Sea village. She

probably died of hunger and disease, says Tony Boghossian. Their

father was also likely a victim of Turkish authorities. His father,

he said, remembered his own father leaving home in a soldier's

uniform, never to be seen again.

Mr. Boghossian believes his grandfather was one of about 10,000

Armenians conscripted into the Turkish army and placed in labour

battalions to work on Turkish railway and construction projects. Many

died of the harsh conditions and others were murdered.

The journey of Yeghart and Movses lasted for about three years during

which they were moved from one place to another, sometimes staying

six or seven months before being forced to move again, never knowing

where they were going.

Along the way, they sometimes received help from ordinary Turks. Mr.

Boghossian remembers his father telling him as an old man of his

great joy when a Turkish police officer gave him coupons to buy

bread.

At some point, says Mr. Boghossian, Movses and Yeghart went back to

their village, but everything had been destroyed. Even the window

frames and doors had been removed for firewood. Relatives were unable

to care for them and placed them in orphanages in Istanbul.

Moses went through a series of orphanages moving from Istanbul to

Corfu, then Cyprus, and finally, at 18, to Beirut. As a young man he

moved to Aleppo, Syria, where he joined an existing Armenian

community, as well as Armenian survivors who had been forced to march

across the Syrian desert without food or water. His sister, who had

been at a girl's orphanage in Istanbul, went to Bulgaria and he never

saw her again.

Mr. Boghossian's father came to Canada under a foreign affairs

mandate that required entrants to be healthy young people. He didn't

talk about the loss of his parents and homeland until he reached old

age.

Today, the Armenian community in Ottawa, and around the world, will

mark the 90th anniversary of the execution of Armenian leaders and

intellectuals in Istanbul, which they consider to be the beginning of

the genocide.

Ottawa-Centre MP Ed Broadbent will deliver the keynote speech and 25

spiritual leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and

Hindu faiths will participate. "We (will be) joined with friends and

interfaith groups, and we want to show our solidarity against any

atrocities to anybody and to pray for the souls of the departed,"

said Primate Galstanian. The Armenian genocide set a precedent for

other genocides that followed in the 20th century, he said, recalling

a statement made by Nazi Germany's dictator, Adolf Hitler, that no

one remembers the Armenians.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Gervais describes the Armenian

genocide as "ethnic cleansing at its worst." He emphasized the

importance of remembering the atrocities, to prevent it from

"happening to anyone, anywhere."

Today, according to Mr. Boghossian, the Turkish people are okay, and

even his father said nothing against them. But he does want the

Turkish government to stop denying the genocide and admit that what

happened under the Ottoman Empire was the systematic killing of

Armenians.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Age, Australia

April 28 2005

Turkey's wilful forgetting

April 29, 2005

If Turkey wants to be part of the EU it must be prepared to face up

to its history.

'Who remembers today the Armenians?" Adolf Hitler is reputed to have

said as he prepared to invade Poland. Ninety years after the killing

of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I

many people do still remember - most of all the descendants of those

who were murdered. In April 1915 Turkish soldiers arrested hundreds

of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople,

then tortured and executed them. The Ottoman authorities then ordered

the mass expulsion of Armenians from eastern Anatolia, where they

were suspected of working with Russia to create a separate state. The

slaughter of Armenians continued over the next several years.

Terrible atrocities were carried out, even against children. This has

become known as the first genocide of the 20th century. What has kept

bitterness alive is Turkey's insistence that no genocide ever took

place, although it admits many thousands of people died as a result

of "civil strife".

Now the Armenians are seeking international recognition

that their people were victims of a deliberate campaign of

extermination. One thing gives hope they might achieve this: Turkey's

desire to become part of the European Union. France, which is one of

15 countries to recognise the Armenian genocide, has called on Turkey

to set the record straight before it can join the EU. The Turkish

Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has recently proposed a joint

Turkish and Armenian commission to investigate the genocide claims.

The proposal is welcome, even though its critics say most of the

incriminating evidence has been expunged from the Turkish archives.

Turkey has been guilty of wilful amnesia. Germany has managed to

reinstate itself as a responsible international citizen because of

its recognition of, and contrition for, its Nazi past. Japan is

belatedly realising the importance of properly apologising for its

wartime atrocities. Turkey wants to be seen as moderate and

progressive, fit to be part of Europe, and to that end it has

instituted significant social and human rights reforms. But if it is

to be permitted to join the EU it must be prepared to own up to its

past. As history shows, victims do not forget, and forgiveness is not

possible before an acknowledgement of the wrongs committed.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

Detroit Free Press, MI

April 29 2005

Genocide against Armenians can't be ignored or

forgotten

April 29, 2005

BY DAVID BONIOR

Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz -- we recognize these names, these

locations, because they are synonymous with murder, atrocity, and,

yes, genocide. They stand as universal symbols of crimes against

humanity, acknowledged and remembered, so that they will never be

repeated.

Not so recognizable, however, are Kharpert, Shabin Karahisar, and Der

Zor. The first two locations housed once-thriving Armenian

communities that were ethnically cleansed. The third is a desert in

which thousands upon thousands of Armenians perished on death

marches. These are places where the world also witnessed similar

crimes against humanity -- yes, genocide.

Before Nazi death camps of World War II brought the horrors of

genocide to international consciousness, the world experienced its

first modern introduction to the crime decades earlier. It was at the

time of World War I, when Ottoman Turkey carried out one of the

largest genocides in world history, murdering and deporting vast

numbers of its minority Armenian population in its stated aim to

eradicate the Armenian presence. This spring marks the 90th

anniversary of that campaign of death.

About 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed. That number

does not include the hundreds of thousands more who died in

subsequent campaigns in 1918, 1920 and 1923 as the Turkish government

extended the genocide beyond the Ottoman Empire into neighboring

territories.

In some respects, that campaign may have set the stage for similar

programs of genocide in the next war. It's no secret that Adolf

Hitler felt quite comfortable about pursuing his agenda, recognizing

that the international community had done nothing in terms of direct

action concerning Armenia. Whether it was based on hatred and twisted

ideology, or the greed of a concerted land grab, the result and the

act are one and the same. What happened in Armenia 90 years ago was

genocide.

Despite international outrage and condemnation at the time --

including widespread reports on the massacres by the New York Times

and other top media -- Turkey never took responsibility, nor even

acknowledged the true nature of the mass slayings. To this day, the

Turkish government still refuses to recognize and accept its role in

the genocide of the Armenian people.

Adding insult to injury, nation-states such as the United States

today refer to the genocide as merely "alleged." Falling victim to

alliances and politics -- first during the Cold War and now during

the War on Terror -- the United States has gone soft on Turkey, and

the truth has become an acceptable casualty of necessity.

But there are those who will not forget or overlook -- especially

among Armenians. Remembrance helps to heal the wounds of genocide

because, despite the systematic attempt to erase their culture and

very existence, the Armenian people have survived. In addition to the

Armenian republic established since the fall of the Soviet Union,

Armenian culture and enclaves flourish throughout the world -- most

notably, in America.

During the past 90 years, Armenians from throughout the world have

continued to tell their story, in hopes that their pain, suffering

and losses may be recognized, acknowledged and accounted for.

This is why thousands of Armenian-Americans congregated Sunday in New

York City, in an international day of remembrance. Only in this

context can the survival and flourishing of this proud people be

truly understood and appreciated. Only then can those who perpetrate

such heinous crimes realize that there will be a day of reckoning.

From Ottoman Turkey to Nazi Germany, from Rwanda to Darfur, the

international community must recognize and address genocide at every

corner of this earth -- and those responsible must account for their

actions. Official acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide is

important, because acknowledgement and remembrance are the first true

steps towards prevention.

DAVID BONIOR, who was a Michigan congressman for 26 years, serves as

executive director of American Rights at Work, a Washington,

D.C.-based human rights organization. Write to him in care of the

Free Press Editorial Page, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit, MI 48226.

Aratta-Kingdom · October 10, 2005

http://www.word-power.co.uk/catalogue/1842775278

Author Akcam, Taner

Publisher Zed Books

ISBN 1842775278

Binding PB

List Price ?16.95

Discount Price ?14.41 (15% off!)

Categories History, Human Rights, Politics

buy this book

* 'Taner Ak?am is one of the new generation of scholars from

Turkey

developing a new understanding of Turkish history, and who are trying

to

explore the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic. In

Turkey, this subject has been made taboo politically and in official

historical writing, and efforts at seeking historical truth and justice

are full of personal risks. We hope that his example of courage and

intellectual honesty will contribute to a better understanding between

peoples in the region.' - Yair Auron, The Open University of Israel

* 'This book is original, discriminating, and confronts profound

issues. It should be accessible to a wide audience, not scholars alone.

From Empire to Republic is a book that could have a large impact on

how

both Turkish history and the Armenian Genocide are understood' - Roger

W. Smith, Professor Emeritus, Department of Government, College of

William and Mary

* 'Taner Ak?am's approach to the analysis of the lingering

Turkish-Armenian conflict is as novel as it is phenomenal. He proposes

a

new kind of scholarly dialogue that is based on non-partisan, authentic

official documents and upon scholars, both Turkish and Armenian, whose

commitment to unadulterated truth is optimal' - Vahakn N. Dadrian,

Director of Genocide Research, Zoryan Institute

* 'Dr. Ak?am has been working tirelessly, and against tremendous

odds,to overcome prejudices and biases in order to initiate

dialoguebetween the Turks and the Armenians. He has diligently delved

into primary sources to understand, illuminate and analyze some of the

darker aspects of human behavior in general and the Armenian tragedy in

particular. His critical focus on this particular silence in Turkish

history is bound to bolster the democratic forces in that society. Dr.

Ak?am's scholarship is meticulous, his perspectives illuminating, and

his moral fortitude inspiring. In all, what is most remarkable is not

only his perseverance, but also his genuine sense of optimism' - Fatma

M?ge G??ek, Sociology Department, University of Michigan-Ann

Arbor

Taner Ak?am is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and

discuss openly the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman-Turkish

government in 1915. This book discusses western political policies

towards the region generally, and represents the first serious

scholarly

attempt to understand the Genocide from a perpetrator rather than

victim

perspective, and to contextualize those events within Turkey's

political

history. By refusing to acknowledge the fact of genocide, successive

Turkish governments not only perpetuate massive historical injustice,

but also pose a fundamental obstacle to Turkey's democratization today.

Contents

Preface Introduction

1. What Are Turkey's Fundamental Problems? A Model for Understanding

Turkey Today 2. A Theoretical Approach to Understanding Turkish

National

Identity

3. Some Aspects of Turkish National Identity and the Armenian Genocide

4. The Homogenizing and Ethnic Cleansing of Anatolia

5. The Decision for Genocide in Light of Ottoman-Turkish Documents

6. The Treaties of S?vres and Lausanne: An Alternative Perspective

7. The Causes and Effects of Making Turkish History "Taboo"

8. The Genocide and Turkey 9. Some Theoretical Thoughts on the

Obstacles

to Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation

Taner Ak?am is Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota,

Twin

Cities.

Sign In

Genocide Related Articles -- Posted By ArmoArmeN

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Join the conversation