KALIGIAN TO SARKISIAN: HOW CAN YOU ACCEPT THESE SEVERE CONCESSIONS?
By Dikran Kaligian
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October 10, 2009
Below is the text of the comments made by Dr. Dikran Kaligian during
the Oct. 3 meeting with President Serge Sarkisian in New York.
Mr. President, I am here representing the Armenian National Committee
of the Eastern U.S., but I am also a historian. As a historian, one
of the most disturbing parts of these protocols is the establishment
of a historical commission. The text of the protocols calls for
an "impartial scientific examination of historical records and
archives." This implies that decades of research on the genocide by
Armenian and non-Armenian scholars was not impartial or scientific
and undermines its credibility. And, as genocide scholar Roger
Smith wrote in an open letter to you, this call for a historical
commission is offensive to all genocide scholars and especially to
those non-Armenian scholars who have spent their lives documenting
the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide.
In spite of anything that Armenian members of such a commission may
or may not do, the mere existence of a historical commission will be
exploited by the Turkish government to discredit the scholarship of
Dadrian and Hovannisian, Charney and Smith, and all the others who
have written on the subject. Turkey will exploit it to undermine
the campaign for international genocide recognition and to dismiss
the consensus among all genocide scholars that the events of 1915
constitute genocide. In your opening remarks, you spoke of the need
to educate the population of Turkey. Yet the Turkish government will
use the protocols to sabotage the process of educating the Turkish
people about the Armenian Genocide that has been started by a few brave
Turkish scholars-they will be discredited and endangered. This is an
extremely harmful proposal and should be dropped from the protocols.
A second disturbing feature regards Artsakh [Karabagh]. We know
from press reports that Turkey has consulted with the government of
Azerbaijan throughout the negotiation of the protocols. The lack
of an Azeri outcry when the protocols were announced, as opposed
to what happened in April, shows that they are certain that their
demands regarding Artsakh will be satisfied-there is no other way to
interpret it.
The protocols are flawed in that they not only speak of a
general principle of territorial integrity without mentioning
self-determination, but go much farther by including a mutual
recognition of existing borders.
This shows that Azerbaijan is right: the protocols threaten the
independence and self-determination of Artsakh. Not only that, but a
mutual recognition of borders strips the Armenian people of our rights
to the return of our Western Armenian lands. This is a dangerous and
foolhardy concession to Turkey.
We in the diaspora have been confronting Turkey for generations. We
understand the Turkish government’s tactics and we have succeeded
in putting Turkey on the defensive around the world-they cannot
appear anywhere without being confronted by the Armenian demand for
justice-and now this is being signed away.
We saw how, when Turkey’s entry into the European Union was being made
contingent on its recognition of the genocide, the State Department
and Turkey created the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission to
give the semblance of dialogue and reconciliation. Thus the European
Commission was conned into dropping all mention of the Armenian
Genocide. Mr. President, how are these protocols any different? Are
they not just another con game cooked up by the State Department?
Mr. President, I do not understand how you can accept the severe
concessions contained in these protocols. I do not understand how
you can place the future of Artsakh in jeopardy.
I do not understand how you can deprive the Armenians of the diaspora
of their rights. I do not understand how you can adopt protocols that
will have such a terrible impact on the diaspora without giving the
diaspora any voice, until now, at the eleventh hour, when we are told
that they are to be signed in a week and changes cannot be made.
I do not understand how these protocols provide any benefit whatsoever,
to Armenia or to the Armenian people. Mr. President, I truly do
not understand.