TIME TO MOVE FORWARD
By Katia M. Peltekian
5th Dec 06
Aztag/Leb
The time has come for Armenians around the world to move forward. In
the past couple of decades, we have witnessed a surge of research by
independent scholars who have confirmed that what the Armenians were
subjected to – massacres and forced deportations into the desert –
was in fact Genocide. This has of course led to the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide by some governments and parliaments around the
world. Yet, we Armenians await the day when the Turkish government
would admit the crimes their ancestors committed.
Armenians are now stuck in a futile argument with the Turks, especially
with the successive Turkish government. For the time being, the debate
is going nowhere. Armenians confirm it was Genocide, Turks claim it
was not Genocide.
The argument now sounds like the following: "Yes, it was Genocide and
it has been proven by many scholars and researchers." "No it wasn’t
Genocide and our scholars and researchers can prove that." "Yes,
it was." "No, it wasn’t." " Yes." "No."
And it seems Hye Tad is caught in this circular argument, at least
for the time being.
But what else can we do? Isn’t Genocide recognition what we want? At
the same time, does Hye Tad have any plans for the "day after"? What
will we do when Turkey finally utters the word we’ve been waiting
for all our lives? The next logical step is of course demanding our
lands back, and then we will start a new argument that could go on for
ages. "Give us back our lands." "No, they are not your lands." "Yes,
they are." "No, they aren’t."
So it is time that we start focusing on the land issue and open a
new front to get what is rightfully ours. I am aware that most of us
could become skeptic and doubt whether we will ever achieve that:
after all, we’ve been unable to get the Turks to say one word; how
will we ever get them to give our lands back?
Perhaps the following news item that appeared in the Turkish newspaper
Radikal on November 7, 2006 could help us envisage our next struggle.
According to Radikal, more than a year ago (17 August, 2005), in
Turkey, Mr. Nihat Shahin, the Assistant Director of The Land Registry
Office sent a letter to the Turkish National Security Counsel. In
this letter, he asked for advice regarding the question of all
property-registration books, whether or not these documents should
be sent to the administration of the State Archives.
At the time, there was an ongoing program to update and digitalize
the old registry of real property.
Radikal continues saying: The Brigadier General of the National
Security Counsel, Mr. Tayyar Elmas, also the chief of the Department of
Mobilisation and War Planning, replied to this with a letter in which
he said: "The contents of the above-mentioned registry books dated
from the Ottoman era are liable to ethnic and political manipulations
(like the unfounded genocide, the Ottoman Foundation, property claims,
etc.). For the sake of national interests, it is undesirable that
those documents, partially or completely, be multiplied, or delivered
to centers where archival work and research are done. Hence, it is
more desirable that those books stay in the Land Registry Offices
with limited access".
Although the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has been claiming that
the Turkish archives are open, here comes a piece of news from Turkey
itself that some of their archival material is kept out of the reach
of researchers. True, the Turkish archives have been open, but what
those archives contain is questionable. The Turks themselves have
admitted that only about 10-12% of the archival documents are open
to the public.
The Radikal journalist Murat Belge warns Erdogan that before he even
challenges Armenia and the world to open their archives, he should know
exactly what Turkey’s archives contain. The journalist further writes:
"Everybody knows that in the state archives mentioned by Mr. Erdogan
the possibility to discover something new is very small. There is no
smoking gun since there have been no official written orders. Nobody
does this. No one has discovered any written order by Hitler to
exterminate the Jews either. But undoubtedly, it is impossible in a
state mechanism that a deed in this magnitude has not been registered
somewhere in the archives."
The Land Registry Office in Turkey is concealing a crucial part of our
history. These documents give the details and the boundaries of the
lands, the names of the owners, who sold and who bought them. Research
through these documents will prove once and for all who the owners
at the time were and when and in what kind of circumstances changes
in ownership occurred.
To my knowledge, none of the branches of Hye Tad or any other
organization that primarily deals with the Armenian Question has
caught up on this news which apparently surfaced more than a year
ago, perhaps because they lack the human resources who can read and
understand the Turkish language. This needs to be amended as soon as
possible. We need more experts who can read and understand Ottoman
Turkish, who can actually be able to detect any discrepancies in
whatever archival material that is open to the public.
Regardless, the above piece of news should open another door for us.
Armenians have had the chance to sue American and French insurance
companies regarding the life insurances that their grandparents had
acquired more than 90 years ago, and many families have received the
money. But in my view, getting our lands back is much more important
than getting money.
It is time to move forward and get concrete results. We must take
the Turkish government to court and demand our lands back, one small
piece at a time.
The land registration books should contain all the necessary
registrations and any sales that could have taken place. Our
grandparents did not sell their lands before they were killed or
deported. In fact, many of us still keep this sort of documents that
our grandparents carried with them as they were deported. They lived
and died with the hope that one day they would return.
To get what is rightfully our property is not connected to whether
Turkey admits the Genocide or not. The heirs to those lands are alive
and they are now the rightful owners of those lands. We need to move
fast before these land registration documents also vanish in thin air.