Los Angeles Times
Sept 25 2005
Forum on Armenian massacre defies ban
By Amberin Zaman
ISTANBUL, Turkey – A controversial conference on the mass killings of
ethnic Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire opened
here amid heavy security Saturday in defiance of a court ban.
The forum was hailed by participants and Western observers as a
groundbreaking event where Turkish academics for the first time
publicly could challenge their country’s official version of the
events leading to the Armenian tragedy.
Hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags pelted the arriving
panelists with eggs and rotten tomatoes, expressing the fury felt by
many Turks over efforts to open their country’s painful past to
debate.
“The aim (of the conference) … is to declare Turkey guilty of
genocide,” said Erkan Onsel, head of the local branch of the small,
left-wing Turkey’s Workers’ Party.
The conference was canceled twice before, most recently on Thursday,
when an Istanbul court ruled in favor of a group of lawyers who
opposed the gathering on procedural grounds.
Turkey’s reformist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, harshly
condemned the ruling, saying it was timed to undermine the country’s
efforts to join the European Union.
Turkey is scheduled to open long-awaited membership talks with the EU
on Oct. 3.
“I want to live in a Turkey where freedoms are enjoyed in their
broadest sense,” Erdogan told reporters Saturday.
His words were echoed by Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who sent a
letter of support to the conference.
He earlier termed the cancellation a further example of how “Turks
are so good at shooting themselves in the foot.”
Emotions ran high among a packed audience of academics, journalists
and diplomats as panelists deconstructed Turkey’s official
explanation of how the country’s once-thriving Armenian population,
estimated at more than 1 million in the early 20th century, was
reduced to its current level of 80,000.
Armenians say more than 1 million of their people systematically were
killed in a genocide campaign launched by Ottoman forces from 1915 to
1923.
Turkey says several hundred thousand Armenians did die but of
exposure, disease and attacks from brigands as they journeyed south
to Syria after being deported for collaborating with invading Russian
troops.
Most speakers took a cautious tone, saying the purpose of the
conference was not to deliver a verdict on whether the killings
constituted genocide or not.
“We cannot allow debate to be trapped between these two conflicting
points of view. We need to try and understand what happened in 1915,”
said Halil Berktay, a prominent Ottoman historian. He noted
nonetheless that Ottoman officials had declared “an open season to
hunt Armenians” at the start of World War I.
One of the speakers stated outright that the killings constituted
genocide.
“That is my view,” said Fikret Adanir, a Turkish historian.
“What about the Muslims who were killed, why won’t you mention them?”
demanded audience member Mustafa Budak, deputy director of the
state-run Ottoman archive, during a heated question-and-answer
session.
Turkey recently opened the archive to the public, but critics say
incriminating documents have been purged.
Budak denied the claim in an interview and added that “the
conference’s credibility would have been vastly enhanced had other
academics (supporting the official line) been invited to speak as
well.”
A European diplomat observing the panel said its significance went
beyond free debate of the Armenian issue. “It proves that Turkey is
maturing into a Western-style democracy, where all opinions, no
matter how contentious, can be freely expressed.”