PRESS RELEASE
The Aegis Trust
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Retford, NOTTS, DN22 8DF UK
Contact: David Brown
Tell: +44 (0)1623 836627
Email: david.brown@aegistrust.org

Call for UK Government to recognise Armenian Genocide – 90 years on

23 April 2005

The Aegis Trust today sent a letter to the Prime Minister Tony Blair
and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw calling on the Government to
recognise the Armenian Genocide and encourage Turkey to do likewise.

The letter has been sent to coincide with worldwide commemorations
this weekend marking the 90th anniversary of the start of the
genocide on 24 April 1915, in which Turkey wiped out its Armenian
population.

Turkey, a candidate country to the European Union, strongly
maintains a policy of denial regarding the Armenian Genocide, a
policy condemned by ten EU states.

Most recently, Germany went a step further on Thursday (21 April) by
stating “partly through approval and through failure to take
effective preventive measures there was a German co-responsibility
for this genocide” (Gernot Erler, the Social Democratic (SPD)
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister).

“We understand that Turkey is an important ally within NATO. However,
the time is long overdue for the British Government to encourage
Turkey to come to terms with its past, and to join other European
states in giving the Armenian Genocide the recognition it deserves,’
states James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust. `We should
do so both out of respect for the victims and survivors, and for the
sake of the future. We have to recognise the reality of history in
order to learn from it – and unless we learn from it, we are doomed
to repeat its mistakes.’

END
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Letter to Tony Blair and Jack Straw, 23rd April 2005

Re: 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

On Thursday this week, Gernot Erler, the Social Democratic (SPD)
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, with the support of opposition
parties, took the unprecedented and historic step of accepting that
“partly through approval and through failure to take effective
preventive measures there was a German co-responsibility for this
[the Armenian] genocide”.

On 19 April 2005, Poland became the 9th European Union State to
recognise the Armenian Genocide, following resolutions in Cyprus,
Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, France, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
This is alongside numerous resolutions passed since 1987 by the
European Parliament. This recognition of history contrasts
unfortunately from the British Government’s policy on the events of
1915-18.

April 24th 2005 marks the 90th anniversary of this tragedy. It was
on that night in 1915 that the first wave of intellectuals, political
leaders, clergymen, teachers, poets and artists were rounded up by the
Ottoman Government of Turkey, to be dispatched to the Turkish interior
and ultimately to their deaths. This fate was shared during the rest
of 1915 and 1916 by over a million men women and children because of
their race.

Since 1965, no UK government has been willing to recognise the
genocidal intent of the Armenian massacres. It has been the policy to
place greater value upon a strategic relationship with one of our NATO
allies.

Instead of asking Turkey – as Germany has done with the Holocaust and
Armenian Genocide – to seek an honest retrospection, we have remained
silent regarding the suppression of free expression on this subject in
Turkey. We have remained silent over the arrest of teachers for
questioning policies that require all schoolchildren in Turkey to
prepare essays that deny the Armenian genocide. We have remained
silent on clauses within the new Turkish Penal Code that identify
affirmation of the Armenian genocide as a crime against the state.
We have remained silent over the Turkish Government’s indifference to
death threats against writers and historians that articulate an
opposing view within Turkey.

Rather, it has been this Government’s view that in the case of the
Armenians, “the past is best dealt with by ceasing to rake it up
incessantly” (Foreign Office Minister Dennis MacShane, 12 October
2004).

For the children of survivors, this is about truth and recognition
that should have happened decades ago, not about raking up history.
We should be mindful that the fate of the Armenians helped to shape
the UN Genocide Convention. The only way to protect people in the
future is to learn from the past.

The Turkish Government has been listening carefully to our official
indifference. So much so that it has this week sent a letter to all
members of the British Parliament, calling on you to debunk our own
historical and diplomatic record of the genocide which describes the
“race extermination” that was taking place.

It is disappointing, and increasingly troubling, that in spite of
many European and non-European countries heeding calls from genocide
and holocaust scholars that governments should recognise the Armenian
Genocide, the British Government is willing to adopt a policy that
actually emboldens Turkey’s policy of suppression and revision.

Your Government has done much to be proud of in the field of genocide
prevention and human rights, having been amongst the original
signatories to the Stockholm Declaration on the Holocaust in 2000,
initiating the UK’s national Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001, and
signing the Stockholm Declaration of 2004 on genocide prevention.
Your appeasement of Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide is a sad
blemish on this record.

Germany has the largest European Turkish population, and also has
strong ties with the Government of Turkey, including support for its
candidature to the European Union. Yet as a friend and ally it feels
that Turkey should end its state sponsored genocide denial and oppressive
policies in relation to free speech on the Armenian Genocide.

The German Government has also gone further and become the first
government to accept responsibility for the Genocide as a WWI ally to the
Ottoman Empire, apologising to the Armenian people – something that they
have waited two generations to see. How long will they have to wait for
a British Government to affirm its own historical record and recognise
the reality of the genocide they experienced?

Yours sincerely,

Dr James Smith, Chief Executive
Director, Aegis Trust