IN WASHINGTON AND TURKEY, DENIAL OF GENOCIDE GOES ON
Fresno Bee (California)
June 19, 2008 Thursday
Nominee for ambassador to Armenia faces a Senate grilling today.
Marie Yovanovitch, the latest nominee for the post of American
ambassador to Armenia, won’t be speaking the words many Armenian
Americans want most to hear — "Armenian genocide" — at her Senate
confirmation hearing today. Yovanovitch’s boss at the State Department
made that clear on Wednesday.
"The United States and the president have never denied any of the
events [but] we do not use the term genocide to describe them,"
Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.
So the rhetorical denial continues in Washington and Turkey. The Turks
are hypersensitive to the use of the word "genocide" to describe the
murder of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children during and
following World War I. The crimes were carried out by the Ottoman
Turks, predecessors of modern Turkey’s government.
U.S. administrations from both parties have kowtowed to Turkish
pressure on the issue for decades, fearful of upsetting a nation
regarded as an important American ally.
The policy might have made some sense during the Cold War, when
Turkey offered a strategic location on the southern border of the
Soviet Union. It makes much less sense today.
And Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union are threatened by its
intransigence on the genocide issue. European nations are, for the most
part, much less accommodating than the U.S. when it comes to genocide.
The post is open because the last person to serve in the role had
the integrity to call the genocide what it was. In 2006, John Evans
told audiences in Fresno and elsewhere that the events of 1915-1923
were a case of genocide. He lost his job.
The Senate, stiffening its spine a little, refused to confirm the
first nominee to replace Evans, Richard Hoagland, when he hewed to
the official State Department policy of denial.
The issue is a serious one for Armenian Americans, many of whom
remember the stories of brutality and death told by their elders who
survived the starvation, forced marches and massacres. But it isn’t
only Armenian Americans who care. Their anger and determination are
shared by others who believe that history and diplomacy should reflect
an honest view of events.
As Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, wrote in a letter to Yovanovitch earlier
this year, "Denying a traumatic event such as genocide, one cannot
create, nor implement, honest and effective diplomacy." Costa is
still waiting for a reply. And we’re still waiting for an American
administration and an American Congress to do the right thing:
Recognize the genocide.