Author: Anna Tamamian

JAM News

Wicked Local, MA

May 6 2021

The Swampscott Board of Selectmen put the town’s name among Bay State communities that have issued official proclamations commemorating the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide of 1915.

The Ottoman Empire’s systemic and mass execution and displacement of 1.5 million Armenians began on April 24,1915, largely marching them out into the Syrian desert without food and water. 

“Armenian-Americans have been talking about this for the last century, and it’s really important for us to reflect and remember the atrocities that occurred,” Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald told selectmen before they issued the proclamation on May. 3.  “One of the hardest things is when [genocides] are denied, and justice is denied.”    

When he was the Essex County Advisory Board's budget analyst, Fitzgerald worked with former Peabody mayor Peter Torigian, whom Armenian-genocide survivors raised, for close to 15 years. 

“To hear the stories of the displacement and absolute inhumanity continues to chill my thoughts about how awful folks can be,” Fitzgerald told selectmen. “It also reminds me of how fortunate we are to live in a society where our freedoms are protected, and our rights are protected.”   

He added, “It's important that we hold the past to account in spite of all those who choose to ignore the facts and the realities.”   

Swampscott's proclamation endeavors to "protect historical memory, ensure similar atrocities do not occur again and remain vigilant against hatred, persecution and tyranny." 

What happened  106 years ago is widely recognized by the world as a genocide, but it remains a point of deep contention for the Republic of Turkey. The country's leaders deny genocide occurred, and they contend that both Ottomans and Armenians are responsible for the bloodshed.  

Armenian genocide, in the eyes of the executive branch, in the company of others  from the killing of the 6 million Jews by the Nazis to the killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge. 

“We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history,” Biden said. “We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.” 

Over the decades, Biden said the tragic history brought the genocide’s survivors to the United States shores.   

“Of those who survived, most were forced to find new homes and new lives around the world,” said Biden said on April 24. “With strength and resilience, the Armenian people survived and rebuilt their community.”   

Selectman Peter Spellios underscored Biden’s formal recognition as the right thing to do.  

“There is a lot of importance [in Swampscott issuing this proclamation] especially given what President Biden did recently,” Spellios said. “His accurate reference of this as genocide, his accurate reflection of history. That we don’t want to whitewash history, and we don’t downplay this.”   

Biden’s recognition follows resolutions passed in the U.S. Congress in 2019, formally acknowledging the Armenian genocide.  Presidents and federal lawmakers' reticence to ascribe the genocide label lies in the fact that many saw Turkey as too strategic an ally for the United States geopolitical and militarily to lose.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been at the forefront of the Armenian-genocide-recognition movement. She praised Biden’s acknowledgement, saying its “long overdue.” 

“I commend President Biden's decision to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide. Calling this atrocity what it was — genocide — we must recognize the horrors of the past if we hope to avoid repeating them in the future. This is an important human rights moment,” Warren said. “President Biden pledged to put human rights back at the core of U.S. foreign policy, and I applaud this affirmation.” 

Swampscott’s proclamation falls in line with Massachusetts’ storied history as a sanctuary for Armenians and for its recognition of what happened in 1915.  Massachusetts elected officials, both on local and state levels, pinned the word “genocide” to the horrific events as early as 1965.  

Today, the Bay State claims the second-largest Armenian population in the country after California.  Worcester is home to the nation’s first Armenian church,  and the Armenian Library and Museum of American resides in Watertown

Since the mid-to-late 19th century and the turn of the 20th century, Armenians fled Ottoman persecution and oppression, finding refuge in Massachusetts – especially Greater Boston, Worcester and Watertown.   

“In the years following the genocide, thousands more arrived," reads an article on Massachusetts’ ethnic-Armenian population posted on Boston College’s Boston Global archive website.  “By 1930, there were more than 3,500 Armenians living in Watertown—nearly ten percent of the population.”  

The article goes on to read:  “In subsequent years, the town would become a major center of Armenian culture and heritage, even as later generations dispersed to surrounding suburbs.”  

 

Telegram & Gazette, Worcester

Victoria News, Canada

• ASSOCIATED PRESS
• Apr. 25, 2021 7:50 a.m

The systematic killing and deportation of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide,” the United States formally declared on Saturday, as President Joe Biden used that precise word after the White House had avoided it for decades for fear of alienating ally Turkey.

Turkey reacted with furor, with the foreign minister saying his country “will not be given lessons on our history from anyone.” A grateful Armenia said it appreciated Biden’s “principled position” as a step toward “the restoration of truth and historical justice.”

Biden was following through on a campaign promise he made a year ago Saturday — the annual commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day — to recognize that the events that began in 1915 were a deliberate effort to wipe out Armenians.

While previous presidents have offered sombre reflections of the dark moment in history, they have studiously avoided using the term genocide out of concern that it would complicate relations with Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East.

But Biden campaigned on a promise to make human rights a central guidepost of his foreign policy. He argued last year that failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported — 1.5 million of whom were killed in the events known as Metz Yeghern.

“The American people honour all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said in a statement. “We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a letter to Biden that recognition of the genocide “is important not only in terms of respecting the memory of 1.5 million innocent victims, but also in preventing the repetition of such crimes.”

Turkish officials struck back immediately.

“We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement of the President of the US regarding the events of 1915 made under the pressure of radical Armenian circles and anti-Turkey groups,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that “words cannot change history or rewrite it” and Turkey “completely rejected” Biden’s statement.

Minutes before Biden’s announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling for not allowing “the culture of coexistence” of the Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians to be forgotten. He said the issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country.”

The U.S. Embassy and consulates in Turkey issued a demonstration alert, and announced their offices would be closed for routine services on Monday and Tuesday as a “precautionary measure.” They cautioned Americans to avoid areas around U.S. government buildings and exercise caution in locations where foreigners gather.

During a telephone call Friday, Biden had informed Erdogan of his plan to issue the statement, said a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. and Turkish governments, in separate statements following Biden and Erdogan’s call, made no mention of the American plan to recognize the Armenian genocide. But the White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries’ relationship and find “effective management of disagreements.” The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June.

In Armenia on Saturday, people streamed to the hilltop complex in Yerevan, the capital, that memorializes the victims. Many laid flowers around the eternal flame, creating a wall of blooms two meters (seven feet) high.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Avet Adonts, speaking at the memorial before Biden issued his statement, said a U.S. president using the term genocide would “serve as an example for the rest of the civilized world.”

Biden’s call with Erdogan was his first since taking office more than three months ago. The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden.

Erdogan reiterated his long-running claims that the U.S. is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. The PKK has led an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in Turkey and in northern Iraq and against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist organization but has argued with Turkey over the group’s ties to the Syrian Kurds.

Biden, during the campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after an interview with The New York Times in which he spoke about supporting Turkey’s opposition against “autocrat” Erdogan. In 2019, Biden accused Trump of betraying U.S. allies, following Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which paved the way for a Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish group. In 2014, when he was vice-president, Biden apologized to Erdogan after suggesting in a speech that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State group by allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border with Syria.

Lawmakers and Armenian American activists had lobbied Biden to make the genocide announcement on or before remembrance day. The closest that a U.S. president had come to recognizing the World War I-era atrocities as genocide was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan uttered the words “Armenian genocide” during a Holocaust Remembrance Day event. But he did not make it U.S. policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, lamented that “the truth of these heinous crimes has too often been denied, its monstrosity minimized.”

“History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated,” she added.

Rep. Adam Schiff, also a California Democrat, praised Biden for following through on the pledge.

“For Armenian-Americans and everyone who believes in human rights and the truth, today marks an historic milestone: President Biden has defied Turkish threats and recognized the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians for what it was — the first genocide of the 20th Century,” Schiff said in a statement.

California is home to large concentrations of Armenian Americans.

Salpi Ghazarian, director of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies, said the recognition of genocide would resonate beyond Armenia and show Biden’s seriousness about respect for human rights as a central principle in his foreign policy.

“Within the United States and outside the United States, the American commitment to basic human values has been questioned now for decades,” she said. “It is very important for people in the world to continue to have the hope and the faith that America’s aspirational values are still relevant, and that we can in fact do several things at once. We can in fact carry on trade and other relations with countries while also calling out the fact that a government cannot get away with murdering its own citizens.”

___

Lee reported from Washington and Bilginsoy from Istanbul. Associated Press writer Avet Demourian in Yerevan, Armenia, contributed to this report.

Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee And Zeynep Bilginsoy, The Associated Press

Al-Monitor

April 22 2021