Sacramento Bee, CA
April 17 2005
Suit eases anguish of Armenians
By Stephen Magagnini — Bee Staff Writer
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For years after his death, Setrak Cheytanian’s life insurance policy
was stashed away in a shoe box in a storage locker in Irvine.
Cheytanian, a minor civil servant in eastern Turkey, bought the
policy from an enterprising New York Life Insurance agent in 1910,
along with several thousand other Armenians who feared they would be
killed by the Turks.
Cheytanian, then 35, insured himself for 3,000 French francs, then
gave the policy to his sister-in-law, who was bound for America, for
safekeeping.
His fears were realized: In June 1915, Cheytanian was killed. He
died along with hundreds of thousands of Turkish Armenians who either
were butchered by the Ottoman Turks or sent on death marches into the
Syrian desert between 1915 and 1923.
But his four-page life insurance policy, embossed with an impressive
gold seal and a currency-green border, has culminated in a $20
million settlement for thousands of Armenians whose ancestors took
out policies that never were paid.
Today, a week before the 90th anniversary of Armenian Martyrs Day,
Cheytanian’s yellowed parchment legacy shines fresh light on the
Armenian genocide, an event never fully recognized by Turkey, nor
even the U.S. government.
Many historians agree Armenians were victims of genocide, legally
defined as the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group.
California – home to more than half the nation’s 900,000 Armenians –
long has called the slaughter a genocide. But U.S. presidents and
Congress have refused to back a law acknowledging the genocide for
fear of angering Turkey, a key American ally in the volatile Middle
East.
The federal government’s reluctance has deeply wounded Armenians, who
feel denying the genocide is like denying the Jewish Holocaust.
The $20 million settlement with New York Life Insurance, certified by
a federal judge, represents a huge – if largely symbolic – victory
for the world’s Armenians. Many have fought bitterly to prove their
ancestors were victims of the first genocide of the 20th century, and
see the settlement as official acknowledgment.
“This isn’t a big issue in the Armenian community -it is the issue,”
said Brian Kabateck, one of several Armenian American attorneys in
Southern California who worked on the case. “After 90 years of
denials, there’s recognition by judges, by large corporations in this
country, by public officials and the international community that the
genocide exists.”
The tale of the landmark settlement is part history, part mystery,
spanning two continents and nearly half a century.
The case never would have gotten off the ground if not for Martin
Marootian, a retired pharmacist from La Cañada in Los Angeles County.
Marootian, 89, was born in 1915, the year Armenians recognize as the
start of the genocide. His uncle, Setrak Cheytanian, was one of about
3,600 Armenians who bought life insurance policies in Turkey between
1890 and 1915.
A New York Life agent in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire,
hired a team of Armenian salesmen to sell policies from village to
village and then collect the premiums each month, Kabateck said.
Cheytanian insured his life for the 3,000 francs, worth about $600 in
1910 (but more than $50,000 today). In 1914, he gave the policy to
his sister, who was going to America to join her husband, a tailor in
Staten Island.
“My uncle thought since she was coming to New York, and the policy
was New York Life, it would be safe and it would be honored,”
Marootian said. “He had a sneaking suspicion something (bad) was
going to happen.”
Turkey had been a precarious place for Armenians since the late 19th
century.
The Armenians, as Christians, were considered infidels by many
Turkish Muslims, who also resented the Armenians’ success in
business. The killings began after Armenians began agitating for an
independent state, and escalated after the Turkish government accused
Armenians of conspiring with Turkey’s archenemy, Russia.
After disarming Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army and banishing
them to slave labor camps, on April 24, 1915, the Turkish government
arrested several hundred Armenian leaders and intellectuals in
Istanbul. Most were executed.
In the ensuing years, thousands of Armenian men were tortured and
beheaded, and their wives and children sent on forced marches into
the desert. “My grandmother made it alone to Syria, but her
2-year-old daughter starved to death begging for food and water,”
said Father Yeghia Hairabedian of Sacramento’s St. James Armenian
Church.
Marootian said his entire family in the city of Kharpert, in eastern
Turkey, was killed, including his uncle. “Several thousand Armenians
there were massacred,” Marootian said. “One Armenian historian claims
they were taken to a nearby lake and shot and dumped into the lake.”
In 1923, Marootian said his mother went to the New York Life office
in Manhattan and tried to collect on her slain brother’s policy, “But
they wanted proof she was an heir.” Over the years, the family made
several attempts to collect on the policy, only to be rebuffed,
Marootian said.
New York Life remembers it differently. The company said after the
genocide, it hired an Armenian attorney who tracked down a third of
the policyholders’ heirs and made good on those policies. But the
attorney couldn’t track down the heirs of the other 2,400
policyholders who died.
A New York Life spokesman said the company advised potential heirs to
contact the Armenian Church in Turkey “to have them certify for us
that this person is the rightful heir and this is what happened.”
But Marootian said it took more than 30 years to get a certificate
from the church, “and New York Life still stonewalled us.”
New York Life stored the unpaid policies in a New Jersey warehouse,
where they might have remained if not for an attorney and historian
from Glendale named Vartkes Yeghiayan.
Like virtually every other Armenian American, Yeghiayan, 68, says he
has a personal stake in the genocide: The only person on his father’s
side who survived was his father, then a 9-year-old boy. “He wandered
through the desert for four years as an orphan,” Yeghiayan said. “He
was saved by Arab nomads, and eventually made it to an Armenian
church in Syria.”
But very few survived the journey across the scorching sands.
Yeghiayan’s father never spoke of what he’d witnessed, except to
other survivors, but Yeghiayan resolved to uncover the truth. He was
reading the memoirs of the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire when
he learned of the life insurance policies.
In 1995, he ran an ad in Armenian newspapers looking for potential
beneficiaries. Several hundred people responded, but the only one who
actually had a slain relative’s policy was Marootian’s older sister,
Alice Asoian of Irvine.
Adrenaline coursed through Yeghiayan as he studied the colorful
document. He proposed that Asoian, then 84, become lead plaintiff in
a class action lawsuit against New York Life.
“I remember the look on her face. She said, ‘You go ahead and do it.
I was wondering why the good Lord kept me alive all these years.'”
But Asoian died before the suit was filed, and her relatives stashed
the policy in a shoe box for years. They were about to throw it out
when Marootian noticed the document, and called Yeghiayan. In 1998,
Marootian agreed to be lead plaintiff in the suit, which was filed in
California on behalf of Armenians worldwide.
At first, New York Life argued the statute of limitations had
expired, but in 2000 the California Legislature passed the Armenian
Genocide Victims Act, which erased time limits on such claims.
Both sides dug in for a battle. New York Life hired a high-powered
defense firm, and Yeghiayan recruited Kabateck, who had experience in
class action suits against insurance companies.
In 2001, Kabateck reached a $14.5 million settlement with New York
Life, but Marootian and the other plaintiffs rejected it, saying it
wasn’t enough.
The case remained deadlocked for two years until Kabateck and his
partners asked California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi to
mediate.
Garamendi said he phoned Sy Steinberg, chairman and CEO of New York
Life. “I said, ‘This isn’t going well, let’s get it done’,” Garamendi
said. “He said, ‘I can’t.’
“I said, ‘I think you can. You’ve got a choice … I’m perfectly
capable of raising hell and giving insurance companies millions of
dollars in bad press. Or, you have the opportunity to be a leader and
get good publicity.'”
Early last year, New York Life agreed to a $20 million settlement. It
includes $3 million for Armenian American humanitarian organizations
that helped those displaced by the genocide; $250,000 for Marootian;
and $11 million to be divided among the heirs of the other 2,400
unpaid policies. New York Life also took the unprecedented step of
listing each of the 2,400 policyholders on a Web site.
By last month’s deadline, about 3,000 Armenians from 30 countries had
filed claims with the settlement board, which will determine the
rightful heirs and could start making payments within a year,
Garamendi said.
One of the board’s three members, Burbank attorney Paul Krekorian,
said the settlement is not intended to provide justice for victims of
the genocide. “No amount of money could do that. But it is historic
that a U.S. District Court has acknowledged an injustice that
happened 90 years ago, and it gives those whose voices were lost a
chance to be heard now.”
Krekorian said one of those long-silent voices was his great-uncle, a
math professor in Kharpert whose tongue was cut out by the Turks
before he was killed.
Marootian and his wife, Seda, said some Armenians have accused them
of settling too cheaply – each of the unpaid policies is worth an
average of $5,000.
But Marootian said the case wasn’t about money.
“We call it the forgotten genocide – we wanted the world to know this
really did happen,” he said. “I’m glad it’s over and I’m very happy
to see the day that some Armenians can benefit from this because it’s
been a long, long time.”
Armenians, Turks vie over truth of genocide
For nearly a century, Armenians have fought for international
recognition of the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at
the hands of Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.
Turkey, to this day, doesn’t recognize the killings as genocide,
legally defined as the orchestrated intent to destroy, in whole or
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
The number of deaths also is in dispute: Armenians say at least 1.5
million died, while Turkey says it’s closer to 300,000.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica takes a middle ground, saying the wave
of killings began in 1894 after Armenians began agitating for their
own territory and protesting high taxes. “In response to Russia’s use
of Armenian troops against the Ottomans in World War I (1914-18), the
(Turkish) government deported 1.75 million Armenians south to Syria
and Mesopotamia … 600,000 Armenians were killed or died of
starvation.”
Britannica doesn’t use the word “genocide.”
U.S. presidents, fearful of angering Turkey, a key ally in the Middle
East, generally have steered clear of the term. But the genocide is
widely recognized in California, home to 500,000 Armenian Americans.
For more than 30 years, the Legislature has passed an annual
resolution in remembrance of the genocide.
– Stephen Magagnini