WAS IT GENOCIDE?
By Guenter Lewy

Jerusalem Post
May 14 2006

Armenians call the calamitous events of 1915-16 in the Ottoman Empire
the first genocide of the 20th century. Most Turks refer to the episode
as a wartime relocation made necessary by the treasonous conduct of
their Armenian minority.

The debate over what actually happened has been going on for almost
100 years; it crops up periodically in various parts of the world
when members of the Armenian diaspora push for recognition of the
Armenian genocide by their respective parliaments, and the Turkish
government warn of retaliation.

On September 29, 2005 the European Parliament in Strasbourg adopted a
resolution demanding that, as a condition of admission to the European
Union, Turkey acknowledge the killing of its Armenians during World
War I as an instance of genocide.

According to the Genocide Convention of 1948, intent is a necessary
condition of genocide, and most other definitions of this crime of
crimes similarly insist upon the centrality of malicious intent.

Hence the crucial question in this controversy is not the huge loss
of life in and by itself but rather whether the Young Turk regime
intentionally sought the deaths we know to have occurred.

Both sides agree that several hundred thousand men, women and children
were forced from their homes, and that during a harrowing trek over
mountains and through deserts, uncounted multitudes died of starvation
and disease, or were murdered.

To the victims it makes no difference whether they met their deaths
as a result of a carefully planned scheme of annihilation, in
consequence of a panicky reaction to a misjudged threat, or for any
other reason. It does, however, make a difference for the accuracy of
the historical record, not to mention the future of Turkish-Armenian
relations.

ARMENIANS and their supporters concede the absence of Turkish
documentary evidence to prove the responsibility of the Ottoman
government for the massacres, but cite the reports of foreign diplomats
and missionaries on the scene. Given the large number of deaths and
the observed complicity of local officials in the murders, it is not
surprising that many of these witnesses concluded the high death toll
was an intended outcome of the deportation process.

Still, well-informed as many foreign observers were about the events
unfolding before their eyes, their insight into the mind-set and real
intentions of the government in Istanbul was necessarily limited.

Indeed, to this day the inner workings of the Young Turk regime, and
especially the role of the triumvirate of Enver, Talaat and Djemal,
are understood only very inadequately.

Most Turks, too, misread the historical record. Quasi-official
historians speak of “so-called massacres,” or blame the deaths on
starvation and disease that are said to have afflicted a far larger
numbers of Turks.

And yet there exists an important difference between lives lost as
a result of natural causes such as famine and epidemics – blows of
fortune that afflicted Muslims and Christians alike – and deaths due
to deliberate killing.

It is undeniable that thousands of Armenians died at the hands of
their corrupt escorts and the Kurdish tribesmen who occupied their
route southward to Ottoman Syria.

CURRENTLY both sides in this controversy make their case by simplifying
a complex historical reality and ignoring crucial evidence that would
yield a more nuanced picture. Both parties also use heavy-handed
tactics to advance their cause and silence a full debate of the issues.

The Turkish government has applied diplomatic pressure and threats
and has harassed dissenting Turkish authors; Armenians accuse all
those who do not call the massacres a case of genocide of seeking to
appease the Turkish government.

In 1994 Armenians in France took the well-known Middle East scholar
Bernard Lewis to court and charged him with causing “grievous prejudice
to truthful memory” because he denied the accusation of genocide. The
court found against Lewis and imposed a token fine.

It is doubtful that contested historical questions are the legitimate
province of courts of law or parliaments. Armenians should recognize
that distinguished scholars of Ottoman history have questioned the
appropriateness of the genocide label for the tragic events of this
period, and should cease calling all those who question the Armenian
version of these occurrences “denialists” on a par with deniers of
the Holocaust. Turks must acknowledge the misdeeds of some of their
compatriots during World War I.

With so much that is unknown, both sides should step back from the
sterile was-it-genocide-or-not debate and instead seek a common pool
of reliable historical knowledge.

The writer is a professor emeritus of political science at the
University of Massachusetts and author most recently of The Armenian
Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide.

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