Armenian Genocide Denial by a Few Candidates May Upset Dutch Election

PanARMENIAN.Net
06.10.2006 17:28 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Dutch MP candidates had clearly stated in the past
that, in their view, the Genocide of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 had
not taken place.

This view is contrary to the official policy of the Dutch government
and of the parties themselves, stated columnist RadioNetherlands
Andy Clark, the Federation of Armenian Communities of Holland
told PanARMENIAN.Net. "It might seem a little strange but the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 has become an issue in the run up to the
Dutch elections. The two leading parties in the opinion polls have
kicked out prospective MPs because they deny that the Genocide took
place. The candidates, one from the opposition Labour Party and two
from the biggest coalition party – the Christian Democrat CDA – are
Dutch/Turkish politicians. It made the headlines after questions were
raised by the Armenian community in the Netherlands when the names of
the candidates were made public on the party lists for the November
elections, and a heated discussion soon followed," the columnist notes.

He cites Tineke Huizinga from the Christian Union – a small party
in the parliament which introduced an initiative in 2004 saying that
the government has to push for recognition of the genocide in Turkey
as part of the negotiations for Turkey’s desired accession to the
EU. That initiative was unanimously accepted. Ms Huzinga explains
the official Dutch position: "More than one and a half million people
were murdered during the time of World War I by Turkey and this was
a genocide and you can absolutely compare this with the Holocaust."

It was a clash with this position that brought the CDA candidates
Ayhan Tonca, Osman Elamci and Labour Party candidate Erdinc Sacan
into problems with their parties. Ayhan Tonca has constantly denied
the genocide occurred: "The genocide that people talk about never
took place." Although he doesn’t deny that hundreds of thousands of
people died, he argues that there needs to be further investigation
to see if the killings were consciously carried out by the Turkish
government at that time. Deliberate and conscious persecution would
constitute genocide, the Dutch Radio columnist underscored.