To escape justice, genocide perpetrators deny its occurrence

31.01.2007 18:06

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – The Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC)
participated on January 30 in a press conference organized by the
Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) to discuss issues related to the
punishment of war criminals, PanARMENIAN.Net reported. In addition to
the CJC and the ANCC, conference participants included the Friends of
Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, PAGE-Rwanda, and the
Roma Community Centre. Aris Babikian, the Executive Director, Armenian
National Committee of Canada, said during the event, `It is ironic
that at the dawn of a new century and after 92 years of the Armenian
Genocide, we are gathered, as victim nations of Genocide and Holocaust
to remind the international community of its responsibility and
obligation to bring to justice the perpetrators and their
accomplices. Canada and the international community can not sit idly
and watch as a new genocide unfolds in front of our eyes and on our TV
screens. The pledge "never again" should not be a hollow echo of the
past, but it should be our moral and ethical compass to prevent future
Holocausts, Genocides, and ethnic cleansing.

By bringing to justice the architects of such heinous crimes and by
recognizing, commemorating, and banning the denial of these despicable
acts, Canada and the international community can send a clear and
unequivocal message to the despots of the world that that the
international community will not tolerate such vile and inhuman
treatment of our fellow human beings. To cover up their responsibility
and to escape justice the first act of the perpetrators of any
Genocide is to deny its occurrence. We have witnessed this again and
again.

As scholars have demonstrated, the last act of any Genocide is the
denial of the horrendous act. Once the denial machine is set into
motion, the planners and executors of the Holocaust or Genocide get
emboldened and feel that they have gotten away with their original
plan of wiping out a whole race.

They then proceed to blame the victims and the survivors for their
misfortune and plight. It is true that while each genocide has its own
unique circumstances, planning and implementation, the concept of
genocide and the denial are universal and integral for each other. In
all genocides the survivors are subjected to the denial machine one
way or another. The denial can originate in individuals,
organizations or states.

Unlike the historical revisionism and the denial of the Armenian
Genocide by the Turkish Government, Holocaust deniers, such as Ernst
Zundle and Jim Keegstra, constituted the lunatic fringe of
society. But recently-learning from the Turkish Government’s
tactics-certain countries have started implementing the Turkish
Government’s denial strategy to rewrite the Holocaust. Denial of any
mass killing is to deflect justice and to perpetuate the hatred cycle
against the victims.

Denial has another catastrophic impact on nations and civil societies:
Once the guilty part covers up its crime and gets away with it, it
spreads falsehoods in its educational system, to indoctrinate future
generations with hatred and animosity towards the victim nation. The
denialist portrays the victims as the enemy of the state and of the
nation. It injects the US against THEM concept into the mentality of
its own society. The recent assassination of Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink is quintessential expression of this concept.

Here’s the full cycle–from genocide to genocide denial:

· For 92 years the Turkish state denied its responsibility for
the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians

· The Turkish state then proceeded to arouse hostility among
its citizens against Armenians. It did this through the educational
system and trough broad propaganda.

· The Turkish state supported ultra nationalists to incite the
masses against the Armenians.

· The result? A teenage assassin, goaded and armed by
ultranationalists, assassinated an Armenian journalist whose sole
"crime" was writing about the truth of the Armenian Genocide and
promoting friendship between Turks and Armenians.

By suppressing the truth the perpetrators discharges its
responsibility. It also justifies its action as a "righteous crusade"
for the welfare of its own people. With incredible chutzpah Turkey
turned the story of the Armenian Genocide upside down and depicted
itself as the victim! It was the Armenians who had committed genocide
against the Turks, blithely said.

Armenians all over the world believe in accountability and
responsibility. The punishment of the guilty is imperative because it
will help the civil society of the perpetrator to atone for the crimes
of its leaders and to reconcile with the victim nation. As we have
seen, without recognition of the crime and punishment of the guilty
there can be no reconciliation.

The denial of the Holocaust or any other genocide is an encouragement
for its repetition, as it eventually did happen in Turkey against the
Kurds, in Germany against the Romas, in Cambodia and in Rwanda against
the Tutsis and today in Darfur.

We should not allow Hitler’s contemptuous remark:" Who remembers
nowadays the Armenians?" haunt us forever.

We call on the Canadian Government to take the lead and ask the UN to
amend its UN Charter on the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of the Genocide by adding an article on denial
of the Holocaust and all Genocide,’ reports the ANCC.