AZG Armenian Daily #072, 22/04/2005

Armenian Genocide

TEN YEARS LATER

Levon Ter-Petrosian: The Armenian Genocide Was a Mere Political
Program Dictated by Concrete Interests of the Ottoman Empire

Robert Kocharian: We Became Victims of World War I

“Ultimate Crime, Ultimate Challenges. Human Rights and Genocide”
international conference opened in Yerevan, on April 20. Robert
Kocharian, RA President, opened the conference. “We became victims
of World War I even though we were not the initiators of that war,”
Mr. Kocharian said.

Kocharian strongly emphasized the importance of “condemnation of the
genocides committed in the past”. “Countries are more determined in
responding to a threat or attempt to commit genocide in any part of
the world. However, all this did not protect the humanity from new
genocides. Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor, Sumgait – in all these
places once again innocent people were slaughtered.”

“The Armenian people, due to the genocide, were displaced, became a
refugee people and were scattered across the globe. International
recognition of the Armenian Genocide and necessity of restoration
of historic injustice were sacrificed to the grand politics. Most
of the criminals who planned and implemented the genocide escaped
the punishment. Moreover, the remains of Taleat pasha who was
assassinated in Berlin, were returned to Turkey and buried with honors
in Istanbul. It was a sad evidence of carrying on the baton in relay
race of impunity. The humanity pays a tremendously high price for
forgetting such crimes,” Mr. Kocharian said.

He emphasized the importance of the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide for prevention of future possible genocides. He added that
recognition is important for Armenian-Turkish relations, since it could
give answers to many questions that exist between our two peoples,
it would allow to look ahead.

“We remember the past with pain, but without hatred. For us it is
difficult to comprehend the response of the Turkish side, which
is represented not only by the denial of the past, but also by the
blockade of nowadays Armenia. We have come across a paradox that still
needs to be apprehended. The perpetrator, not the victim is furious
with the past. We are confident that international recognition of
the Genocide will help Turkey to come to the terms with its own past
and to overcome the complex which is inherited from generation to
generation and which creates additional complexities in the relations
of our neighboring nations,” RA President said.

The International Conference dedicated to the Commemoration of 80th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide took place ten years ago. Levon
Ter-Petrosian represented his approaches to the Armenian Genocide
in 7 points, two of which referred ARF Dashnaktsiutiun. In fact, a
political meaning was imparted to that conference, it was imparted an
inner political meaning, as ARF Dashnaktsiutiun was also condemned in
the Armenian Genocide. The activities of ARF Dashnaktsiutiun were
stopped in Armenia few months before that, the newspapers of the
party were closed, a part of the party’s leaders were in the prison.

In the first point of his speech, Ter-Petrosian found it groundless
to explain the Armenian Genocide with the religious, ethnic and racial
antagonism. A number of scholars objected this idea at the conference.

“The Armenian nation lost the last opportunity to avoid the disastrous
consequences of the genocide in 1914, when by the decree of 8th
Congress of ARF Dashnaktsiutiun held in Erzroum, the Armenian people
undertook the commitment of participating in the general recruitment
in the Ottoman Empire,” Levon Ter-Petrosian said. Besides, in 1920,
“the authorities of Armenia failed to estimate in the right way the
new situation created as a result of the strengthening of Russian
and Turkey. That’s why they lost both the independence of Armenia
and the greater part of its territories.”

“Today, Armenia and Turkey, as neighboring countries, should establish
naturally beneficial trade economic relations and friendly relations
and gradually overcome the historical contradictions and restore the
mutual trust between the Armenian and the Turkish peoples. In order
to achieve this goal, the sides should have political will and moral
position”, Ter-Petrosian said ten years ago.

By Tatoul Hakobian