WAR OF WORDS RAGES AS ARMENIANS BATTLE FOR GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
The China Post
April 17 2015
By Mariam Harutyunyan ,AFP
April 18, 2015, 12:00 am TWN
YEREVAN, Armenia — Mass killings? Mutual bloodletting? Genocide? The
hundreds of thousands of dead have been silent for a century, but
generations on, Armenians are still battling to get the World War I
slaying of their ancestors recognized as a genocide.
As Armenians around the world gear up to mark 100 years since the start
of the slaughter on April 24, the struggle to get the world — and
above all Turkey — to use the term “genocide” remains deeply divisive.
To Armenians the word represents definitive proof of their ancestors’
horrific suffering at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World
War I, but for Ankara the violence was perpetrated by all sides and
describing the events as “genocide” is a red line it cannot cross.
Trapped somewhere in the middle is an international community, notably
the United States, under pressure from Armenia’s large diaspora but
worried about upsetting a rising Turkey.
“For Armenians the word ‘genocide’ encapsulates what happened to their
forefathers in 1915 and also elevates the Armenian experience to the
level of that of the Holocaust,” said Thomas De Waal, an expert on the
region at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“Precisely for the same reason, official Turkey has always rejected the
term, on the grounds that it equates the behavior of their grandparents
with the Nazis and also out of paranoia that the application of the
word could lead to legal claims against Turkey.”
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically
killed between 1915 and 1917 by Ottoman authorities as their empire —
the precursor to modern Turkey — crumbled.
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.
Rise of a Movement
For some 30 years after the killings no one thought of calling the
massacres of Armenians a genocide — because the term itself did
not exist.
Up until then, Armenians referred to the tragedy simply as the “Great
Catastrophe” — or Medz Yeghern in Armenian.
Coined only in 1944 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the word
“genocide” became codified in law in the 1948 United Nations Genocide
Convention, which defined it as “acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The start of the clamor for recognition came later in 1965 as Armenians
around the world marked the 50th anniversary of the killings.
In Armenia itself — then a republic of the Soviet Union —
discussing any official acceptance of the genocide was a taboo but
an unprecedented protest that saw some 100,000 take to the streets
forced the Kremlin to start reevaluating its position.
“It was like a genie was let out of the bottle,” Rolan Manucharyan,
a physics professor who took part in the 1965 demonstration in downtown
Yerevan, told AFP.
The 1980s then saw a surge in the international movement for
recognition, mainly fueled by the Armenian community in the U.S.,
with outbursts of violence as radical groups killed Turkish officials.
So far, Armenia says 22 countries — prominently France, with its
large Armenian community — have recognized the genocide.
Last Sunday Pope Francis became the latest international figure to
wade into the controversy as he used the term “genocide” to describe
the killings, sparking a furious reaction from Turkey.
For American presidents the issue has always been a thorny one.
Ronald Reagan used the term in the early 1980s but since then the
commanders-in-chief in Washington have shied away.
Barack Obama — who pledged before he won the presidency to recognize
the genocide — has sidestepped the contentious term by using the
Armenian term Medz Yeghern.
Return of Land?
The fallout from the massacres still shapes the region with official
ties between Turkey and Armenia frozen.
Part of the fear in Ankara over the push for genocide recognition is
that it could see Armenians lay claim to land in eastern Turkey.
“The term ‘genocide’ is not just an academic concept but also a
legal one. It means that a crime was committed and suggests that
there should be punishment and compensation,” said Ruben Safrastyan,
the director of Yerevan’s Institute of Oriental Studies.
At present Armenia has no official territorial claims against Turkey
but in 2013 prosecutor general Aghvan Hovsepyan sparked fury in Ankara
by saying Armenians should have their “lost territories” returned.
But despite the dreams of some Armenians to reclaim their land,
analysts said few outside the community seriously think there will
be any move to retake the land.
“It would be very difficult for any Armenian political leader to say
that Armenia has no territorial claims to Turkey,” Svante Cornell
from the Washington-based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute told AFP.
“But Western politicians don’t take seriously” the possibility of a
land dispute.
As the 100th anniversary of the killings approaches, the struggle
for official recognition is as intense as ever.
And the burden of what happened — and getting recognition for it —
still weighs heavily over Armenia and Armenians around the world.
“The pain forces us to constantly look back into the past,” said
Armenian author Ruben Hovsepyan, whose mother fled the killings as
a child.
“It does not allow us to fully build our future as we use up so
much national energy and potential on forcing Turkey to recognize
the genocide.”
From: A. Papazian