NEWS JUNKIE POST
March 5 2010
House Foreign Affairs Committee Recognizes Armenian Genocide
By Ole Ole Olson
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Mar 5, 2010 at 12:20 am
In a razor thing vote of 23-22, the US House House Foreign Affairs
Committee formally recognized the genocide of ethnic Armenians at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago. Turkey recalled it’s
ambassador for consultation. The measure may be brought before the
full House floor in a matter of weeks.
This issue has been highly contentious for decades, with swift
condemnations from the Turkish government every time is has been
brought up in the past. The Foreign Affairs Committee approved another
genocide measure in 2007 with the new Democratic Congress, prompting
Turkey to recall its ambassador as well. Worried that diplomatic
reprisals such as denying US access to Turkish air bases used in Iraqi
operations could follow, President Bush put immense pressure on House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who capitulated and refused to bring the measure
for a full vote on the House floor.
Despite pledging to recognize the Armenian deaths as a genocide during
the campaign, President Obama has discouraged the resolution as well,
claiming that it has the potential to hurt relations not only between
the US and Turkey, but between Turkey and Armenia itself. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton was also against the measure, instead supporting
a Swiss effort to resolve the historical dispute.
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) agreed, `I do not minimize the horror that took
place, [but] now is not the time for this committee of the American
Congress to take up the measure that is now before us.’
Edward Nalbandian , Armenia’s foreign minister, disagreed. `This is
another proof of the devotion of the American people to universal
human values and is an important step toward the prevention of the
crimes against humanity.’
The Armenian National Committee of America added `Turkey doesn’t get a
vote or a veto in the U.S. Congress.’
Wikipedia states: [the Armenian Genocide] was the deliberate and
systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the
Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized
by the use of massacres, and the use of deportations involving forced
marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the
deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to
have been between one and one-and-a-half million. Other ethnic groups
were similarly attacked by the Empire during this period, including
Assyrians and Greeks, and some scholars consider those events to be
part of the same policy of extermination.
An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915-1923.
Many historians contend that the lack of world outrage at the actions
of the Ottoman Turks in and after WWI towards ethnic minorities,
particularly the Armenians paved the way for the Jewish Holocaust in
WWII.
`Who remembers the Armenian genocide today?’
-Adolf Hitler
The Armenians remember. Every April 24, Armenians worldwide observe a
day for those killed.
The House vote took place in front of several Armenian Genocide
Survivors, including Charlotte Kechejian (98 years old), Yeretzgeen
Sirarpi Khoyan (105), and Onorik Eminian (97), as well as leaders in
the Armenian international community.
HOUSE RESOLUTION 252
The full text of the resolution of HR252 as read by House Foreign
Affairs committee chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) is:
Turkey is a vital and, in most respects, a loyal ally of the United
States in a volatile region. We have also been a loyal ally to Turkey,
and should continue to be so. Be that as it may, nothing justifies
Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the reality of the Armenian Genocide.
It is regrettable, for example, that Turkey’s Nobel-Prize-winning
novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was essentially hounded out of his native
country for speaking out on this subject. Now I don’t pretend to be a
professional historian. I haven’t scoured the archives in Istanbul
looking for original documents.
But the vast majority of experts ` the vast majority ` academics,
authorities in international law, and others who have looked at this
issue for years, agree that the tragic massacres of the Armenians
constitute genocide.
In a letter to members of congress two years ago, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars stated the following, and I quote:
`The historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous and
documented by overwhelming evidence. It is proven by foreign office
records of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and
perhaps most importantly, of Turkey’s World War I allies, Germany and
Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman
Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of scholarship.’
`As crimes of genocide continue to plague the world, Turkey’s policy
of denying the Armenian Genocide gives license to those who perpetrate
genocide everywhere.’
The Genocide Scholars urged the House to pass a resolution
acknowledging the Armenian Genocide because, they said, it would
constitute ` and I quote again ‘ `recognition of a historical turning
point in the twentieth century, the event that inaugurated the era of
modern genocide. In spite of its importance, the Armenian Genocide has
gone unrecognized until recently, and warrants a symbolic act of moral
commemoration.’
Professor Yehuda Bauer, a highly respected scholar at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, has written that the Armenian Genocide is, in
his words, `the closest parallel to the Holocaust.’
In a 1985 report, a subcommission of the UN Commission on Human Rights
found that the massacres of the Armenians qualified as genocide.
And Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the word `genocide’
and drafted the international genocide convention, told an interviewer
that, quote `I became interested in genocide because it happened to
the Armenians.’
Nearly two dozen other countries ` including France, Canada, Russia,
Switzerland and Chile ` have formally recognized the Armenian
Genocide. So has the European Parliament.
As the world leader in promoting human rights, the United States has a
moral responsibility to join them.
The Turks say passing this resolution could have terrible consequences
for our bilateral relationship, and indeed perhaps there will be some
consequences. But I believe that Turkey values its relations with the
United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey.
And I believe the Turks, however deep their dismay today,
fundamentally agree that the U.S.-Turkish alliance is simply too
important to get sidetracked by a non-binding resolution passed by the
House of Representatives.
At some point, every nation must come to terms with its own history.
And that is all we ask of Turkey.
Germany has accepted responsibility for the Holocaust. South Africa
set up a Truth Commission to look at Apartheid. And here at home, we
continue to grapple with the legacies of slavery and our horrendous
treatment of Native Americans.
It is now time for Turkey to accept the reality of the Armenian Genocide.
This will most likely be a difficult and painful process for the
Turkish people, but at the end of the day, it will strengthen Turkish
democracy and put the U.S.-Turkey relationship on a better footing.
I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.
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