OF SIOUX AND ARMENIANS

Hurriyet
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.c om/n.php?n=yusuf-kanli-2010-03-07
March 7 2010
Turkey

What if the Turkish Parliament convened and passed a decision
recommending President Abdullah Gul make a statement on the anniversary
of the Nov. 5, 1862, Minnesota court-martialing of 303 Santee Sioux,
who were denied the right to defense, had no attorneys or witnesses
and were summarily "sentenced" to death by hanging to condemn the
brutal American genocide of the Sioux people?

Or, what if not the day they were sentenced to death, but the
anniversary of the Dec. 26, 1862, Abraham Lincoln-ordered hangings of
38 Santee Sioux were decided by the Turkish Parliament to be marked
as the "Men’s Worst Brutality to Men Day"?

With some work, many such heinous anniversary dates can be found
if the Turkish Parliament is to serve like a history commission
to commemorate the sad events in the history of the "white men"
in the Americas, or the French in Algeria, or the British, Dutch,
Portuguese, Spaniards, Germans in some corners of the world or as a
court to condemn those nations what happened in previous centuries.

What purpose such "creative" and "revanchist" and rather officious
undertakings will serve other than spoiling Turkey’s relations with
those countries? Will such a move by the Turkish Parliament help
diffuse the sorrow those tragedies created several centuries ago or
add fresh pains to old wounds?

The mockery at the American House of Representatives Foreign
Relations Committee will of course have some long-term repercussions
on Turkish-American relations not just because the committee has
accused the Ottoman Turkey of undertaking genocide against its Armenian
population, but more so because of the farcical attitude of committee
chairman Howard Benson who stretched to the maximum his powers as
committee chairman, worked like an activist and garnered a sufficient
number of representatives to adopt the genocide draft.

No one can deny the immense sufferings the Armenian, as well as
the Arab, Kurdish and Turkish peoples of this land suffered in
the dissolution period of the Ottoman Empire. No one can deny the
atmosphere of civil war in the decaying empire between ethnic groups,
the vandalism of armed gangs on settlements belonging to other
ethnicities. The forced resettlement decision of the then-Ottoman
government of the Armenian population collaborating with the enemy
Russian forces produced some very sad unforeseen consequences producing
immense human suffering.

Identifying who killed more, or who was more brutal toward the others
will not help soothe the immense pain the people of Anatolia were
subjected to during those terrible years. Will political exploitation
of history with one-sided and mostly unverified claims that accuse
the Turkish nation of undertaking a genocide against the Armenian
population of Anatolia help any cause other than scratching old
wounds and creating fresh enmities that are definitely not conducive
to efforts aimed normalizing relations between Ankara and Yerevan?

Naturally, the government and the opposition in Turkey are crying of
foul play, that Turkey is subjected to an unacceptable accusation and
that Turkey will not bow to pressure. Listen but don’t believe. That
has been the nature of Turkish-American relations.

Whenever the U.S. wants Turkey to deliver some services, this country
comes under some pressure and most of the time eventually agrees to
deliver whatever Washington demands. There are some exceptions like
the March 1, 2003, parliamentary refusal to allow the U.S. to open
a second front in the Iraq War through Turkish territory, but this
country has paid the price of that refusal in many ways since then.

Turkey’s importance for the U.S. designs in Iraq, Afghanistan, or in
the Caucasus or as regards to energy lines has not diminished but been
enhanced. Now, Ankara will come under intense pressure to deliver in
many areas to the U.S. so that the draft doesn’t go to the House floor,
or even if it does go there, that it isn’t adopted. For example, it
is likely that the U.S. administration will start telling tomorrow
that it should get the protocols with Armenia approved by Parliament
and the border gates with Armenia opened.

Turkey should make a thorough assessment of where its interests
indeed are. Should we scrap the Armenian protocols or go through the
processing of the Armenian protocols, block a genocide resolution
adopted by the House and force Washington to use its leverage on
Yerevan to get out of Nogorno-Karabakh? Which is more rational and
best serves Turkey’s interests?