IAGS OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES ASSYRIAN, GREEK GENOCIDES
armradio.am
18.12.2007 12:27
In a groundbreaking move, the International Association of Genocide
Scholars (IAGS) has voted overwhelmingly to recognize the genocides
inflicted on Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire
between 1914 and 1923, independent French journalist Jean Eckian
informed.
The resolution passed with the support of fully 83 percent of IAGS
members who voted. The resolution declares that "it is the conviction
of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman
campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and
1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian
and Anatolian Greeks."
It "calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides
against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take
prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution."
In 1997, the IAGS officially recognized the Armenian genocide. The
current resolution notes that while activist and scholarly efforts
have resulted in widespread acceptance of the Armenian genocide, there
has been "little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides
against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire." Assyrians,
along with Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, were killed on a scale
equivalent in per capita terms to the catastrophe inflicted on the
Armenian population of the empire – and by much the same methods,
including mass executions, death marches, and starvation.
IAGS member Adam Jones drafted the resolution, and lobbied for it along
with fellow member Thea Halo, whose mother Sano survived the Pontian
Greek genocide. In an address to the membership at the IAGS conference
in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in July 2007, Jones paid tribute to the efforts of
"representatives of the Greek and Assyrian communities … to publicize
and call on the present Turkish government to acknowledge the genocides
inflicted on their populations," which had made Asia Minor their
home for millennia. The umbrella term "Assyrians" includes Chaldeans,
Nestorians, Syriacs, Aramaens, Eastern Orthodox Syrians, and Jacobites.
"The overwhelming backing given to this resolution by the world’s
leading genocide scholars organization will help to raise consciousness
about the Assyrian and Greek genocides," Jones said on December
15. "It will also act as a powerful counter to those, especially in
present-day Turkey, who still ignore or deny outright the genocides
of the Ottoman Christian minorities."
The resolution stated that "the denial of genocide is widely
recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the
perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future
genocides." The Assyrian population of Iraq, for example, remains
highly vulnerable to genocidal attack. Since 2003, Iraqi Assyrians
have been exposed to severe persecution and "ethnic cleansing"; it is
believed that up to half the Assyrian population has fled the country.