CounterCurrents.org, India
Oct 13 2007
Genocide Commission And Genocide Denial By Armenian Genocide-Denying
US, Turkey And Israel
By Dr Gideon Polya
13 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A great victory for truth over repugnant Genocide Denial has just
been achieved in Washington – with a vote of 27 to 21, the US
Congress House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has
adopted House of Representative Resolution 106, the Armenian Genocide
Resolution that acknowledges the World War 1 Armenian Holocaust as an
Armenian Genocide. This was achieved in the face of intense lobbying
by the Bush Administration, Apartheid Israel, the Racist Zionist (RZ)
Lobby and the Turkish Government (see:
50 ).
Now decent people hope that the Resolution will survive the intense
lobbying of the genocide-denying Racist Bush-ites, Racist Zionists
and Turkish lobbyists to be passed by the House of Representatives.
There is much semantic confusion about the term `genocide’ that can
be simply dispelled by considering the International Law legal
definition accepted by all countries of the world and as set out by
the UN Genocide Convention (see:
e/convention.html ),
QUOTE: `Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of
the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a)
Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental
harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births
within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group.’
Under this definition the Armenian Holocaust (1.0-1.5 million dead)
was clearly a genocide, an Armenian Genocide – notwithstanding the
spin, falsehood and Genocide-Denial of Bush US Administration and the
Turkish and Israeli Governments.
However we can also get second opinions on the actuality of the
Armenian Genocide from scholars in the area of genocide studies.
Thus Australian genocide scholar Professor Colin Tatz who headed up a
Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Sydney’s Macquarie
University was unequivocal in his condemnation of Turkish denial of
the Armenian Genocide (see:
/main_genocide.htm ),
QUOTE: "The Turkish denial [of the Armenian Genocide] is probably the
foremost example of historical perversion. With a mix of academic
sophistication and diplomatic thuggery — of which we at Macquarie
University have been targets — the Turks have put both memory and
history into reverse gear."
A classic book on genocide is that by Frank Chalk. and Kurt Jonassohn
(1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case
Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven). The authors state
unequivocally in their preface to the chapter of the Armenian
Genocide that, QUOTE : `The genocide of the Armenians in 1915 was the
first of the modern ideologically-motivated genocides’.
I recently published a huge analysis of avoidable mortality
(avoidable death, excess mortality, excess death, deaths that should
not have happened) entitled `Body Count. Global avoidable mortality
since 1950′ (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007) (see:
and
) from which I have
obtained (p60) the following relevant snippets about Armenia: `8th
century BC, Armenian settlement; 6th-4th century BC, Persian
tributary; 330BC, conquered by Alexander; subsequently part of
Seleucid Syria; 190BC, Roman conquest of Syria; Armenian
independence; 69-67BC, Roman conquest; 1st century, Christian
conversion (the oldest Christian state) … 1405, Ottoman Turks
invaded; 16th century, under Turkish rule; 1828, Russia took Eastern
Armenia from Persia; 1894, Turkish massacres; 1915, commencement of
the Armenian Genocide, coinciding with the Anglo-French Dardanelles
invasion at Gallipoli; 1 million Armenians were killed or died from
deportation (still denied by Turkey); 1921, Russo-Turkish Treaty;
Armenia part of USSR; 1988, devastating earthquake; 1988, fighting in
Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian region of Azerbaijan; 1991, Armenian
independence; continuing Turkish and Azerbaijan blockades.’
Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial are utterly repugnant – indeed
they are so repugnant that Denial of the Jewish Holocaust (6 million
victims) is punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment in Austria and by
lengthy prison terms in some other Western European countries. Indeed
France and Belgium have recently extended holocaust denial
criminalization to include denial of the Armenian Genocide and
Germany has proposed that the EU criminalize denial and minimization
of any recent genocides and holocausts (see:
).
Even more repugnant is Holocaust Commission and Genocide Commission
occurring concomitant with Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial – but
that is precisely what the Armenian Genocide-denying Bush US, Turkey
and Apartheid Israel are currently engaged in. The post-invasion
excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian , Iraqi and Afghan
Territories now total 0.3 million, 2.0 million and 3.2 million,
respectively, and the refugees total 7 million, 4 million and 3.7
million, respectively – a Palestinian Holocaust, a Palestinian
Genocide, an Iraqi Holocaust, an Iraqi Genocide and an Afghan
Holocaust, and an Afghan Genocide by any sensible comparative measure
(see: ). Turkey has had a
sustained program of linguistic, cultural and physical repression of
its Kurdish minority as well as being involved in the US-inflicted,
continuing Iraqi Genocide.
History denied yields history repeated. Genocide denied yields
genocide repeated. The World must stand up and resolutely oppose both
Genocide Commission and Genocide Denial.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific
career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text
"Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor
& Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published `Body
Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950′ (G.M. Polya, Melbourne,
2007: ).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress