US HOUSE MUST UPHOLD TRUTH AND JUSTICE WITH ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
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Fr iday, November 09, 2007
Frank V. Zerunyan, Esq. [Chairman, Board of Governors of the Armenian
Bar Association; Mayor Pro Tem, City of Rolling Hills Estates]:
"The People’s House of the United States of America must follow its
tradition and uphold the truth above all else. The speaker of the
House of Representatives must bring HR106 to a floor vote because
the resolution is morally, intellectually, historically and legally
consistent with our American values. We Americans must insist that
our leaders promote truth, justice and the rule of law. We have a
long tradition of accepting human dignity as an inalienable right
and as the basis of our jurisprudence. No one could have described
it better than Alexander Hamilton when he said "The sacred rights
of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among the old parchments,
or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole
volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never
be erased or obstructed by mortal power."
"Never again" to Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans, Darfurians
is not just a slogan in the context of the human rights debate in
the world; it is a call to meaningful action to eradicate genocide
from the world.
Experts and scholars confirm that each perpetrator has used previous
crimes against humanity with impunity. Indeed Adolph Hitler himself
in 1939, before the invasion of Poland, reminded his commanding
officers in a passionate speech "who still talks now days of the
extermination of the Armenians?" Denial is part of and a completion
of this crime against humanity. Our values simply do not permit us
to be co-conspirators to the commission of or to the completion of
the crime of genocide.
At stake today in Washington DC, of course, is the question of
whether the United States House of Representatives should offend
Turkey by voting on a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide
of 1915. All actors in this debate are playing the roles they have
played for decades. Turkish generals and ministers are threatening
our military ties, the closure of our bases, air space and logistics
routes. Ironically however, even before any word of this resolution,
those routes were already closed to our sons and daughters when our
nation went to war to liberate Iraq. There is also a new threat by our
own government; "radical Islam". Most if not all credible experts will
agree that this threat is simply not credible as the Republic of Turkey
will never chose this form of a regime over the great and overwhelming
legacy of its founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Moreover, such
a threat completely undermines contemporary Turkish identity.
While the Republic of Turkey may react negatively in the short term
(I think to their own detriment), recognition of the Armenian genocide
is warranted for several reasons. First, the HR106 declares the truth;
a truth that 23 other countries, 40 American States and countless
Counties and Cities have already recognized. Second, no one discusses
or even mentions our influence and the basis of our influence over
the Republic of Turkey. The truth is that we brought Turkey into
the NATO Alliance without which Turkey’s security could not be
guaranteed. We support Turkey’s membership into the European Union;
an economic "must" for the survival of Turkey into the 21st Century
and beyond. We granted Turkey a most favored nation trading status
resulting in more than $7 billion in annual trade and $2 billion in
US investments in Turkey. Only Israel and Egypt outrank Turkey as
recipients of US Foreign assistance. Third, it is inconceivable that
even back in the days when the US prized West Germany as a buffer and
deterrent against the Soviet Union, we Americans would have refrained
from condemning The Shoah (the Holocaust) at Germany’s behest.
Finally and more importantly to this American of Armenian decent,
it brings finality and closure, bringing back human dignity to
humanity lost almost a century ago. I assume most of you know the
eternal resting grounds of your great grand fathers and grand mothers;
I don’t. My ancestors formed the first Christian nation in the world
(301 A.D.) only to become the invisible Christians in unmarked graves
in the early stages of the 2oth Century.
I am the great-grand son of a victim and the grand son of a survivor.
Ironically, I live today as the direct result of the kindness of a
Turkish gentleman (Effendi) who had the humanity to shelter my grand
father. I applaud his humanity and encourage our leaders to follow
in his footsteps."
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