INTEGRITY DEMANDS WE CONFRONT TURKEY
By Christine Debrabander

The News Journal, DELAWARE
Nov 29 2007

A letter published on Nov. 19 suggested that Turkey does not need to
acknowledge and apologize for the genocide of Armenians in 1915. It
went on to say "how much better it would be if the world’s peoples
focused their energies on solving current problems by taking lessons
from the past to keep the same thing from happening again."

The lesson we could learn from history is that Turkey exterminated
more than a million Armenians in government-organized massacres and
got away with it.

In fact, Hitler said he took this lesson from Turkey. He said the
following at an August 1939 military conference prior to the invasion
of Poland:

"I have issued the command — and I’ll have anybody who utters but one
word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does
not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction
of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in
readiness … with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and
without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and
language. Only thus shall we gain the living space which we need. Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Today we acknowledge the atrocities that happened under the rule
of Hitler. If Germany today were ruled by a government that denied
that the Holocaust happened and made it a crime for anyone in that
country to publicly say it had happened, wouldn’t Americans find this
very disturbing? I would hope for quick legislation condemning those
actions and urging that government to take proper measures to restore
freedom of speech.

I would hope we’d want to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflected
understanding and sensitivity to human rights.

Yet Turkey today denies its own genocide against the Armenian people,
and we here behave as if it doesn’t matter.

Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code took effect in 2005, and has
been used over the past two years to bring charges against citizens
in Turkey who dare to say that the Armenian genocide occurred, and
was wrong.

This past January Hrant Dink, editor in chief of a bilingual
Turkish-Armenian newspaper and an advocate for Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation, human and minority rights, was assassinated. In
response, U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden introduced legislation condemning
the assassination and honoring Dink’s legacy of tolerance and peaceful
change.

Senate Resolution 65 urges Turkey to take appropriate action to
protect freedom of speech by repealing Article 301, which criminalizes
public discussion of the Armenian genocide. It also calls on Turkey
to re-establish full diplomatic, political and economic relations
with Armenia.

Twenty-two other countries have already adopted resolutions
acknowledging the Armenian genocide as a historic event. But Turkey
bullied us into pretending it doesn’t matter. Turkey recalled its
U.S. ambassador and conducted attacks against Kurds on the border
with Iraq.

We put ourselves in this position of weakness with our foreign
policy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for the defeat of
congressional measures recognizing the genocide in order to protect
American military base rights in Turkey. The rest of the world watched
and thought once again that Americans have no integrity.

We say America is good and decent and a supporter of human rights,
but our actions do not support our words.

Christine deBrabander lives in Hockessin.

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