U.S. RECOGNIZED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Harut Sassounian
KarabakhOpen
12-06-2008 15:53:07
In 1951, World Court Document Reveals
While President Bush and several of his predecessors have avoided
characterizing the organized mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as
genocide, it has recently come to light that 57 years ago the United
States government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in
a document submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ),
also known as the World Court.
This half a century old reference to the Armenian Genocide was
discovered by Prof. William A. Schabas who posted it on the website
"PhD Studies in Human Rights," on June 4, 2008. Prof. Schabas, a
world renown expert on genocide and international law, is director
of The Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of
Ireland, Galway.
This document, filed by the Government of the United States with ICJ,
is included in the May 28, 1951 ICJ Report titled: "Reservations to the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
The specific reference to the Armenian Genocide appears on page 25
of the ICJ Report: "The Genocide Convention resulted from the inhuman
and barbarous practices which prevailed in certain countries prior to
and during World War II, when entire religious, racial and national
minority groups were threatened with and subjected to deliberate
extermination. The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human
history. The Roman persecution of the Christians, the Turkish massacres
of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the
Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of genocide."
This is a very significant statement as it was made by the
American government of that time with the sole intent of telling
the truth, without taking into account any political or other
considerations. Neither Armenians nor Turks had lobbied for or against
the U.S. statement. In other words, it was simply made on the basis
of historical facts.
How different is the situation today when the White House readily
caves in to threats and pressures from the Turkish government to
prevent the House of Representatives from passing a commemorative
resolution on the Armenian Genocide!
Now that this critical filing by the United States government before
the International Court of Justice has been discovered, it is no
longer necessary to exert excessive efforts to try and reaffirm the
facts of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. Congress, particularly
since the House of Representatives adopted Resolutions 247 and 148
in 1975 and 1984 respectively, to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
Furthermore, there is no particular reason to insist that the next
President of the United States acknowledge the Armenian Genocide since
President Ronald Reagan, back on April 22, 1981, issued Presidential
Proclamation Number 4838 which stated: "Like the genocide of the
Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed
it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other
peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten."