Pope uses word ‘genocide’ to describe Armenian killings

11:50 * 12.04.15

Pope Francis used the word “genocide” on Sunday to describe the mass
murder of Armenians in a move likely to severely strain diplomatic
ties with Turkey, news.yahoo.com reports.

“In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies,” he said during a solemn mass in Saint
Peter’s Basilica to mark the centenary of the Ottoman Turk killings of
Armenians.

“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th
century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, citing a
statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2001.

While many historians describe the killings as the 20th century’s
first genocide, Turkey hotly denies the accusation.

While Francis did not use his own words to describe the murders as
genocide, John Paul II’s use of the term provoked a sharp reaction
from Turkey at the time, and citing the beloved former pope will do
more than ruffle feathers.

“We recall the centenary of that tragic event, that immense and
senseless slaughter whose cruelty your forebears had to endure,”
Francis said.

“It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for
whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester,” he
added.

The 78-year-old head of the Roman Catholic Church had been under
pressure to use the term publicly to describe the murders despite the
risk of alienating an important ally in the fight against radical
Islam.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915
and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and have long sought
to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.

But Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000
Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose
up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian
troops.

Francis said the other two genocides of the 20th century were
“perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism.”

“And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in
Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is
incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood,” he
added.

From: A. Papazian